Coronavirus shift, in perceptions of careers and my lifetrack.

At the time of my birthday earlier this year, I was reflecting on the paths that I'd travelled, and I was struck when I looked back and saw how my life had been defined by shrinking horizons of opportunity and how narrow my chances actually were of getting set up in a good career that fits my talents, even though I didn't fully realize it at the time.

I had written down different aspects of this on a piece of paper to blog about, but I lost it a few weeks ago, which is just as well.

For one, I had a conversation with a friend who's in law, and I didn't realize quite how f*cked things were in that sector in the 2000s, so my estimations were overoptimistic with that path and there was even less chances for me out there than I thought!

Also, coronavirus has changed everything, and outdated so many of my observations.

It'd be pretty awful to be in an academic job right now, including tenure-track, since you'd be seeing so many budget cuts and workload increases and possibly even position eliminations, and you're just precarious or are just stuck and are having like almost zero job mobility, at most places.

I kind of dodged a bullet with that one, to avoid that nonsense and be in healthcare.

Maybe my life has turned out better than I thought, for the present.

Somehow, though, you just wish that there was more opportunities and you had a little more choice over the direction of your life, like people used to.

Ramadan malaise.

My one (cool) (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker from the resthome is so tired during Ramadan.

I asked her the other night if it was still Ramadan, and she said it still was.

Like towards the end of the shift, then, I asked her how she was doing, and she was like, "I am okay now, I eat, I drink coffee."

Then she confessed to me that she just loves coffee so much, and that after she finally has some, she feels better.

"Can you drink coffee during the day, during Ramadan?", I was like.

"No," she was like, shaking her head.

Health insurance (2 of 2): My allergies.

For like the second year in a row, my seasonal allergies are getting really bad, and are interfering with my ability to work at the worst.

At the end of last year, I finally found a medication that will dry me up, but at the worst of allergy season, it makes me feel woozy in the head, and with my really physical job, that can make it hard to get up and get down when you're on your feet all day.

The other day I didn't get enough sleep, then the subway train ride in made me feel sick, and I finally felt a bit better at work, but then having to wear that mask over my mouth triggered my nausea all over again every time I was close to someone and had to put it on, and finally I couldn't take it anymore and had to leave.

It got better after I caught up on sleep, but you still feel woozy, and that mask makes you feel like shit.

I've been wanting to talk to an allergist to get allergy tested (I haven't done that since I was a teenager), and maybe get allergy shots, but it's so tough and so many weeks and even months to figure out how to even begin that process in the hopes of maybe on day beginning to access care.  It's just very, very frustrating.

This country can be so jacked.

Health insurance (1 of 2): Overview.

What gets me with health insurance now is that it's really, really hard to make sure that insurance companies are doing their jobs.

With my trying to locate an allergist, it took me a while to get to my primary care doctor, get a referral, and then have the referral changed two and now three times because I was misled through outdated information online about who was in network and who maintained a practice in city limits, which only came out relatively late in the process, like right before it was time to make an appointment in one case, and the day before the appointment in another, totalling like 2-3 months of delay and wasted time in all.

Like who at the insurance company is in charge of that, and why is their information so old?

The worst part is the pretense of choice to it all, like I'm supposed to select some plan with the providers I need or some shit like that, when the information that's right at hand is wrong.

Am I supposed to call and verify like all their provider info before purchasing a plan?

What bull crap.

I was googling online, too, and it seems like insurance providers are supposed to provide networks of sufficient depth to not delay care, but what does that mean, and who enforces it?

Some of their providers are well beyond city limits and I don't have a car, so does that count?

What nonsense, and you don't even know who to go to.  I can't believe that between myself and federal subsidies, I'm paying like multiple thousands of dollars a year for this nonsense, before receiving any care at all.

"Engaged."

You don't really think about it, but "engaged" like someone's about to be married, means that someone is preoccupied like in business.

They're taken up, they're busy.

Caregiving exchange: Leftover pasta.

The other week at my one assisted living client's with disabilities, I was checking with her about dinner and about what food to make to leave for her for the next few days.

"How's the pasta?", she called out from her bedroom. "Open it and sniff it and see if it's still good."

"Nothing a little pepper won't fix," I was like right away, to mess with her.

A subway rider, in the time of coronavirus...

...as I went into work the other afternoon:

A (fatter) (younger middle-aged) (black) woman with hand and neck tattoos, in scrubs, no mask, just staring out into space and picking at her teeth with a long fingernail.