Note: I’m still not back to the point I can really write. I’m feeling better than I have in a long time, but I’m still not totally out of the fog yet. I tried to add stuff to the memoir and came up with nothing. So, I guess I’ll just keep writing less-than-my-best blogs until I’m back to where I was before college happened. They seem to dislodge the writer’s block more and more each time I write them. 

I never thought this day would come. But, it did. Now, the whole world can relate to what I’ve been living through my entire life. People are paranoid and scared, which causes them to act in the weirdest ways. Every time I go outside, people will go out of their way to avoid me, as I go out of my way to avoid them. During one of my walks, I sneezed due to spring allergies, and everyone in the tennis courts to my right and in the soccer field to my left briefly stopped what they were doing to stare at me, like a herd of deer watching a lone coyote. Sneezing isn’t even on the list of common covid-19 symptoms, yet everyone is afraid of anyone who makes even the slightest noise that hints at some sort of illness. Just like how I’ve always been. 

I’ve been remarkably calm despite the fear and tension in the air. I think it’s because, in a way, I’ve returned to normality after Trikafta took that away from me. Sure, I still prefer the life Trikafta granted to me over the one I had before it, and I can’t wait for this pandemic to be over so I don’t have to brainstorm alternatives to toilet paper when we inevitably run out. But, I haven’t had an anxiety attack in over a week, and I haven’t had any bad dreams either. 

I’m simply wired to survive in a dangerous world, and when that danger is taken away, I get stressed out because there’s no known danger to avoid. Since there’s no known danger, my mind freaks itself out with countless “what-if” scenarios, which right now (since my logical brain has finally kicked in more than my lizard brain) seem ludicrous. But, as soon as this pandemic passes, and life returns to normal, I know I’m gonna struggle with severe, irrational anxiety again when there’s no known danger to react to. Some may call this “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”, but I call it “I’d Be Dead Right Now If I Wasn’t So Paranoid About Getting Sick”.  

But, before this pandemic slows to a stop, we all have a lot of free time on our hands. We’re stuck at home, ordered to stay at least six feet away from others who are not in your immediate household, and to self-quarantine for at least two weeks if we have any reason to believe we might have somehow gotten exposed to the new coronavirus. People are freaking out over this because they are afraid they’ll lose their sanity if they’re forced to distance themselves from others. Maybe I’m a rare breed or already lost my marbles years ago (I know I have a screw or two loose. I won’t get offended if you point that out). If not, I’m living proof one can live in isolation for months and even years on end, and still be completely sane. At least, for the most part. 

So, just what do I do to entertain myself for weeks and months on end without interacting with another soul?

Well, I certainly do a lot of sleeping. I know that seems boring as hell to many of you, but sometimes sleeping is the greatest thing ever, especially when it’s cold and I have nothing else to do. My bedroom is in the basement, and there’s one crappy vent in a far corner above my desk to heat the whole room. I also have a lot of windows, including a large egress window we got installed last fall, that suck all the warm air out of my bedroom before it even has a chance to leave the ceiling. So yeah, it’s cold. But, I love it, and I sleep really well when it’s cold. 

The only things I don’t like about having the basement to myself are the spiders. Just tonight alone, I’ve killed three wolf spiders no smaller than a quarter, and I’m sure I’ll kill more before going to bed. No matter how much we spray for spiders or how clean we keep the house, they just keep appearing. All I can do is stomp on the spiders with my boots until they stop moving, and then use a piece of paper to throw them away, which is easier said than done. At least they keep things interesting. As long as there are giant, fanged wolf spiders skittering across the carpet at mach speed, I’ll never get too bored at home. 

Besides sleeping like a winter bear and becoming a professional spider hunter when I’m stuck at home, I turn to video games to escape reality when I’m too lazy to go for a walk outside or work towards my goal of 200 pushups and 500 situps a day, but too wound up to curl up in a little ball on my bed and watch movies and Youtube videos. I don’t like fiction, unless it’s a video game. Since I’m gonna be hiding from the coronavirus for the foreseeable future, I’m gonna rekindle my addiction to World of Warcraft, Garry’s Mod, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto Five, and many others. In fact, I spent all of last night from midnight to seven in the morning playing World of Warcraft. So, I'm pretty a damn good job getting addicted to video games already!

I was saving up my money to buy a cheap shotgun to hunt some Nebraska turkeys with (non-resident turkey tags are $130 each plus tax, and cheap shotguns that are actually good are at least $250). Unfortunately, the panic-buyers hit all the gun stores, and hunting season for non-residents has literally been cancelled by the officials running everything to discourage traveling. As a result, I have plenty of money saved up to throw at video games for my laptop. Turkey season may be cancelled this year, but demon season in World of Warcraft has just gotten started! I still prefer real life over video games, but right now, real life outside of my neighborhood has been cancelled. 

When I get sick of video games, I like to watch movies and Youtube videos. I don’t watch TV, and haven’t watched TV in years. We don’t even have cable anymore. But, I love stupid Youtube videos and stupid comedies. My mom loves Netflix and Amazon Prime. I’m not sure what my dad uses to watch his movies, but he’s working on a long list of movies that he wants me to watch while we’re stuck at home. 

We can’t hang out in person right now, but there’s nothing stopping us from calling each other. My dad just has a bad habit of calling me between seven and eight in the morning. My sleep schedule is screwed up due to the quarantine and the puppy, so I’m usually going to bed at 6:30 in the morning and sleeping until the afternoon. I can’t even form a coherent sentence most of the time whenever dad calls. But, he understands me well enough to have a productive conversation with me, even though I’m severely sleep deprived. 

Anyway...

I’m well aware that my taste in comedy probably vastly differs from your taste in comedy. None of y’all seem to be immature enough to find enjoyment in any of the stunts featured on Jackass, or the crude humor featured in Austin Powers. And, that’s okay! Still, you might just find yourselves bored to the point of giving Jackass a chance by the time week three of the pandemic lockdown rolls around. Similarly, maybe I’ll finally sit my ass down in front of my laptop to watch The Thin Man, even though I’m 90% sure it’s not anywhere near my alley. I’m still too young and immature to really appreciate movies like that. 

When I’m feeling a little more creative, I turn to art. Unfortunately, due to shitty mental health issues, I’ve only finished two drawings over the last couple of months. One was of a mountain cougar in a tree, and the other was of a bighorn sheep. I still have a long list of animals I want to draw, but right now, my hands just don’t want to work with my mind. I have a rough sketch of a whitetail deer I want to clean up and color in, but I just can’t right now. Art block is just as bad and annoying as writer's block. But, thankfully, as I slowly return to my old self, my creativity has been slowly returning to me. Pretty soon, I’ll be back to finishing several drawings a day! 

Also, I’ll soon be writing for the memoir again, too. Everyday, it gets a little easier to sit down and work on stuff. Everyday, it gets a little easier to write. And, soon enough, I’ll be back to work on my book. I’m not sure why my mental health took such a massive blow at the beginning of this year. I was feeling pretty low and anxious before I attempted college. But, I know that college was the blow that crippled me. 

School in general was a pretty horrible experience for me up until the last three semesters of high school. But, by the time I got out of the classroom and began working with Eric, the damage had already been done. I felt just confident enough after high school to attempt college when I got most of my other ducks in a row, such as getting my driver’s license and navigating my health insurance. But, as y’all know, that just didn’t work out. My professor was new to the job and had absolutely no idea what he was doing, and admitted that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. He ended every announcement, new syllabus, and email with something like, “Sorry. I’m new to this. Please bear with me.”, which was one of the many red flags that popped up during the ten days I was in college. Still, being the naive student I was, I thought that was normal, and would’ve stayed in the course if the adults in my life who were/are in higher education stepped in and told me to drop the class. 

After I dropped the class, it really left a terrible taste in my mouth. I didn’t know what to think. I grew up being told that college was so much better than school, and I’d fall in love with it. Instead, I ended up with a shitty professor, much like how 80% of my teachers I had growing up really sucked at their jobs, and I had to drop the class unless I wanted to pay $1,000 to fail. I felt deeply ashamed for being a college dropout too. Everyone I knew was cheering me on and reassuring me that I could do it. But, I feared I disappointed everyone when I dropped the class. To this day, only those who are closest to me know that I dropped out. Everyone else still thinks I’m a college student. Needless to say, I’m not looking forward to the question, “So how’s college going?”

Thankfully, so long as covid-19 is circulating around the world, I won’t have to worry about having that awkward conversation with distant relatives. I still can’t wait for it to go away, especially since I’m so worried about those I love who are older and/or immunocompromised. But, there is a silver lining to this whole pandemic. And that’s not having to tell people I don’t like that I dropped out of college in the middle of week two. 

Anyway…

Another thing that keeps me sane when I’m stuck at home is music. I’d play the guitar or the piano, but I haven’t had the house to myself in three weeks, and won’t have it to myself for another three months. My social anxiety is so bad, that I won’t even play music in front of my mom and little brother. Maybe I ought to focus on getting over that fear, but right now, I can’t see myself doing that. 

Instead of playing music, I’ll be listening to a lot of music. I like all kinds of music, but the genres I listen to can pretty much be boiled down to country and rock. As far as rock goes, I really enjoy artists and bands such as Reverend Horton Heat, Clutch, Metallica, Dropkick Murphys, Hank Williams III, Street Dogs, Ted Nugent, Legendary Shack Shakers, and many others. As far as country goes, I love artists and bands such as Trampled by Turtles, Greensky Bluegrass, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Alabama, JJ Lawhorn, Walt Gabbard, Chris LeDoux, Hank Williams Jr, Waylon Jennings, Old Crow Medicine Show, and many, many others. I also like my fair share of blues, especially songs by Ray Wylie Hubbard and Scott H Biram. 

As of now, I have almost 5,000 individual songs downloaded to my iPhone. I can download as many songs as I want for $15 a month using the cloud, and have been doing so for years. I don’t use the cloud except for my music, because I don’t trust them with important, irreplaceable shit either. Music, if you haven’t already figured out, is incredibly important to me, though. So, if you feel like it, check out some of the bands and artists I recommended, and if you’d really want, I’d gladly come up with a playlist of my favorite 100 songs for you to check out if you’d like. 

I know my taste in music is bad, but ya know what, I like it! While I’m driving, I’m not afraid to roll down the windows and blast that shit from my radio for the world to hear. Also, if you get bored enough, you should come up with a list of your favorite music, and I’ll be more than happy to figure out if it makes my ears bleed or not. I’m gonna be stuck at home for a bit. Might as well discover new music. 

Of course, while we’re all stuck at home, it’s still important to go outside. We’re not banned from going to parks to hike, fish, and relax on the benches. Just to be safe, I won’t be headed to any parks that have lots of people in them. But, I thankfully live in a neighborhood that has private hiking trails and parks only available to residents. I live on the Ken Caryl Plains, which is just a few minutes east of Ken Caryl Valley in the foothills. Both neighborhoods are part of Ken Caryl Ranch, which means I can drive into the valley, park, and run around on the hiking trails that wind through the red rocks jutting out of the earth. Hopefully, the private hiking trails won’t be nearly as busy as the park across the street from my house, or Clement park which is a few miles northeast from where I live. 

In a couple of weeks, I hope to see my dad and Clarke again. Both guys are self-isolating at home to make sure they don’t have anything. Assuming they remain healthy over the next two weeks, I’ll probably head down to Elizabeth for awhile, if I can convince my mom to take care of the puppy alone. I’ve got a dirtbike to clean up and ride again, and Clarke’s roommates have horses, goats, and dogs for me to hang out with. Also, my dad will likely come down to Elizabeth for a day to work on our jeep. He’s decided instead of taking it off the 12-inch lift, he’ll just put steering stabilizers all over it and hope for the best. I don’t think that’s a good idea, to be honest. Steering stabilizers only do so much. They basically allow the jeep to go 45 miles per hour before death-wobbling instead of just 35 miles per hour before death-wobbling. Not great for on-roading if you ask me. 

Last time I saw my dad, we decided to get the old shitbox running again. The problem was, the battery was completely dead. So, every time we wanted to start it up, we had to hook its battery up to mine. There was a time it almost stalled while we were driving around to see when it death-wobbled. Thankfully, Dad has a lot of experience driving old manual trucks, so we weren’t stranded a mile away from the house. However, the jeep still death-wobbled like crazy. Dad was having an absolute blast. I was sitting stiffly in the passenger seat, holding onto the roll cage with all of my strength, not sure if I should laugh or cry. Looking back, it was actually really fun to rip down the dirt roads in that thing again. But, it was absolutely terrifying in the moment because of just how sketchy the old jeep really is. I still might want it as a daily driver for a few weeks in the summer, however. 

Anyway...

I need my exercise more than ever before. I crave the outdoors too. I’ve decided to challenge myself so I will stay fit and healthy during the pandemic, while I wait for my relatives to self-quarantine for two weeks before seeing me again. I’ve been doing 200 pushups and 500 sit-ups per day (not in one sitting of course), plus going outside for at least an hour everyday, if not more. I understand that there is a pandemic going on, and social distancing is crucial to curb the spread of the virus and stay healthy. But, I’ve been doing the six foot rule with pretty much everyone for as long as I’ve been alive. Covid-19 is also not very resistant to the sun. As long as I keep my distance and don't touch anything other people have touched, I'll be just fine. 

Also, unlike so many nasty people out there, I actually wash my hands frequently, and regularly disinfect the things I touch often. I don’t touch my face with unwashed hands. I carry around hand sanitizer with me wherever I go. And, I was making my own hand sanitizer long before it was cool. So, I’m not super worried about getting covid-19, or any illness for that matter. However, I do worry a lot about everyone else I know who may not be so proactive and/or cautious. I know most people have not grown up having to worry about every single little illness imaginable like I have, so they aren’t exactly the greatest at avoiding illnesses. 

Even with the proper vaccines and medicine, the flu has always posed a huge threat to my health. Lifestyle wise, covid-19 hasn’t really impacted mine. However, it has tremendously impacted everyone else’s, and most people don’t know what to do now that their lives have changed so much.

But, as someone who has lived the “quarantine” lifestyle for ages, I can assure everyone that social distancing doesn’t really mean social distancing. You can still be social during these unprecedented times. You just have to be six feet apart. We use technology all of the time to stay connected with each other. I’ve been more connected with those I love in these past couple of weeks, than I was for all of last year! 

Sure, I can’t really hug or shake hands with anyone right now. But, I’ve never been touchy-feely to begin with, so that’s not hard for me to do. But, for those who are more touchy-feely, if you live with other people, be touchy-feely with them. Nobody is banning you from hugging and sitting close to those who are living under the same roof as you. You just don’t want to share germs with people outside of your home. That’s how diseases spread.

They can’t spread diseases to other people if the entire house is under quarantine. However, diseases can spread from one house to the next if people aren’t mindful about who and what they touch. That’s why we have to physically distance ourselves and stay in our homes as much as possible. We don’t want to get everyone sick at once, and end up like Italy or Spain where the healthcare systems are severely overwhelmed. Let's wait for scientists to develop a few treatments for covid-19 at the very least, before we start living life as normal again. Then, next year, we'll probably have a vaccine for it too! Speaking of which, have you noticed just how quiet the anti-vax movement has been lately?

Also, getting sick in general sucks major ass. I know I’d probably survive covid-19 just fine. Six other people with CF have/had the coronavirus already, and they all pulled through just fine, including those way sicker than me. But, I still don’t want to spend a few miserable days in bed, and risk needing hospital care, so I'm gonna do all that I can to stay healthy. 

The last time I got a viral infection was a little over a year ago. I couldn’t move except to pull myself onto the toilet bowl to puke. I was just stuck on the bathroom floor, with a burning fever but I was still freezing, wrapped in blankets, comforters, and towels I managed to pull out of the towel basket, and surrounded by water, ginger ale, and gatorade, none of which I could keep down for almost an entire day. I felt like I was dying, and it took me three full days to recover completely. I was hit with the illness over the weekend, and I was pissed because I was supposed to do something fun that weekend. Instead, I spent it violently puking for eight hours straight, and spent another couple of days still feeling like utter trash. 

Do you want to get sick with covid-19, or whatever stomach virus I had a year ago? No! So, let’s all stay at home and enjoy our forced vacations for awhile. Getting sick sucks. You’d still be stuck at home. You’d just feel like shit, which would make everything suck more than they already do. So, let’s not pretend nothing is going on and get everyone sick at once. But, don’t panic either. Panicking doesn’t do anyone any good. Wash your hands. Keep your distance. Stay home. Don't pick your nose while you're waiting at a stoplight. And you will be just fine. 

Finally, it’s not the end of the world if you run out of toilet paper. If you’ve got a shower, you’ll make it just fine. I promise. Spend your extra TP money on video games, or art, or books, or whatever the hell you think will keep you entertained so you don’t go crazy over the next few months.