How to Cook a Blog Post: The Interconnected Slow Cooker of Our Times

I’ve been laying out this blog post since last Sunday, which for those who are keeping track is the day that I usually post my blog posts. But in these pandemic times where every day is like Sunday that schedule has changed a fair bit. It is mainly due to the amount of work I am doing during the week and how when I do have a chance to get away from a screen I try to take it and I am usually too tired to write a post. But as I sat here in my kitchen drinking a coffee and reading a book (yes on my iPad mini, yes a screen but hey these are the times we are in) I realized that for about a minute or so it was actually still and quiet in my house (except for my brain of course) and that moved me to write this blog and get it out so I can stop “cooking” it in the slow cooker.

This blog post is about the realization of interconnectivity even though we are in a time of necessary physical distance. I have honestly had no energy to write this blog post until now. I am not sleeping well and part of it is that my slow cooker brain is always running through the things I need to start or finish in order to support faculty through these times. Everything has seemingly been going well, though the work load is a lot, but I am managing. Maybe I am managing because I am thinking about it and prepping in my head at 3am when I should be sleeping, but whatever the case may be it is working out and that makes me happy.

The other reason I am not sleeping well outside of the late night thought parade is that I have realized after being in this house for 4 weeks today that my house is so so loud. Like loud. And again I understand my privilege that I don’t have children under the age of 6 running around singing stuff from Caillou (do people even watch that anymore?) or Paw Patrol (maybe that’s the more current reference). But my house is really getting to me. My fridge makes a lot of noise when it runs (which is seemingly always), my furnace is probably about a zillion years old ( I don’t know exactly, I rent a unit but this house is old) and it makes all kinds of racket when it runs (to the point that I had to shut it off yesterday when I ran a webinar because I didn’t want the humming in the background), my next door neighbour has this deep bass-baritone voice and he sits in the backyard reading random things to his wife (last week it was Psalms), and my equally deep bass-baritone voice upstairs neighbour calls his partner who is on the other side of the country every night at around the same time and they speak for about 3 hours (fun fact midnight Vancouver is 3am Toronto for those keeping score). All of these things were always here, but you know who was not always here – me. So now it is all kind of really getting to me. The hums and the baritones become the accoutrements of my day. And all of these things become interconnected with my work life which is now my home life.

Whatever others do, whether it is people or appliance, inside or outside, all connect to what I do in my house. They become the roux to my gravy, the trinity to my etouffée. Sure I have not made gravy or etouffée this week but I have done a ton of other things. Yesterday I put in a 15.5hour work day. Like 2 days in one. I did it because it is a long weekend and I wanted to be able to chill and maybe just read some library books and drink coffee and eat ham and not work this weekend. You know live life like there wasn’t a pandemic that has taken over the world and completely changed the modality of higher education. It’s hard to keep up this pace when you sleep maybe 4 to 5 hours a night. So starting today I am going to try going to bed earlier (though to be honest I try to be in bed by 10pm these days) and see what else I can do to get rid of the noise in my life. My mother suggested ear plugs but I don’t think that is wise because I live alone and I want to be able to hear what is going bump in the night if it is not part of a bump I am used to hearing.

So all week I have been cooking this blog post, whenever I would hear a noise, whenever my train of thought was interrupted by whatever random sound in my neighbourhood. Even though we are each in our own little spaces we are still interconnected and affecting each other by what we are doing. Those who don’t stay at home are risking the lives of those who may have been at home for weeks. My neighbour’s Psalms carry about 3 houses each side and I am sure he actually aware of that and really doesn’t care (that’s the kind of guy he is). We are still “in touch” when we cannot be in touch. So now my slow cooker timer has gone off and this post is done and I can stop cooking it. I can put it away and hope for quieter days ahead. This situation is going to highlight things that have always been present in our living spaces and conditions but we ignored or chose to ignore because we were doing other things.  We are going to need to develop strategies to work through or with those things. If any of you have great ideas, I mean besides speaking to the neighbour (I did that once a few summers ago about a different matter, it didn’t work out well for the 2 houses around him for the remainder of the summer), I am all ears.