I haven’t done a 10 Things I Love list in forever, but there are a lot of things I’ve discovered, or gotten to enjoy, because of shelter-at-home that I might never have gotten to otherwise so I thought I’d highlight a few of them.
Not everything on this list is COVID-19 adjacent; in some cases the timing is a total coincidence, but these are 10 things that have made plague life a bit more bearable.
1- Melissa Etheridge’s Daily At-Home Concerts
Usually about 20-30 minutes long, the shows feature a mix of her older songs (“Ruins,” OMG) and newer work as well as a lot of covers. Today’s was Piano Day, and she and her daughter Bailey did a cover of Coldplay’s “Fix You.” In my early 20s I was a huge ME fan, and it’s been a long time since I really listened to her, so her little concerts are really taking me back, in a lovely way, to my late 90s feminist rocker and singer-songwriter days.
2 – Patrick Stewart’s Sonnet a Day
Patrick Stewart reading one of Shakespeare’s sonnets every day. That’s it. What more do you need?
3 – Niall Horan’s new album Heartbreak Weather
Not COVID related. I just love the album. My favorite songs on it are “Bend the Rules” and “Put a Little Love on Me,” but this is another one I adore, and the video features an adorable old couple who are…well, deeply weird.
4 – Having a Buzzcut
I already wrote an entire post about this, but just to keep you updated, I still LOVE IT. In fact I might ask my roommate to buzz it off even shorter.
5 – Blogging Again
Who’da thunk it – after a couple of years (maybe longer) of having no desire to blog suddenly I’m a 3x a week updater. What’s next, finishing that werewolf novel?
6 – An Amazon FireStick
For a long time I’ve wanted an Apple TV, the better to bring all my streaming together in one place; our Blu-Ray player runs several apps including Netflix and Prime, but I also wanted to be able to watch Disney+ on the big TV instead of just on my Macbook. It turned out that while Apple TVs start at like $129, I could get a FireStick for $50, and the day I was looking at them there was a coupon for half off that! It’s a much better interface than the one on the Blu-Ray as well, and much faster.
7 – Disney+
Speaking of which, I’m SO enjoying Disney+. Having almost their entire animated feature catalog at my fingertips is amazing (I am a longtime Disney lover, so much so that I very strongly considered trying to become an animator; my hand tremors and general insecurity about my artwork as well as the enormous price tag of CalArts changed my mind). Not only that but all the Star Wars movies, all the Marvel, and a load of Nat Geo documentaries to watch? We just watched a 3 parter on new discoveries made about the tomb of King Tut, and it was so fascinating! Not to mention Frozen 2 is currently my Self-Care Movie, so, being able to watch it over and over whenever I like is delightful.
8 – The mass effort by society to do something good
We’re in the middle of an unprecedented-in-our-time movement by millions of people to help protect not just their own families, but others they don’t even know. Certain authorities and perhaps 0.5% of the population (who will die for their god given right to TGIFridays, I guess) are trying to curtail that effort, but I sincerely doubt the Tangerine Twatwaffle is going to succeed while so many local governments are using actual facts and science instead of egomania and share prices to base decisions upon. Millions of us are staying home, at the risk of our livelihoods and social lives, to reduce the danger to others. We’re seeing a social movement I would not have given us credit for here in America to take care of each other, to reach out virtually and make sure people are getting supplies, and to continue having community even at a distance. We want, en masse, to do the right thing. How often does that happen anymore?
9 – Alton Brown’s Pantry Raid and Quarantine Quitchen videos
My favorite food nerd has taken to YouTube with a series of videos about pantry items and ways to get the most out of your stores; he and his wife (and their dog Scabigail) are also doing a cooking series together. A lot of them involve foods I wouldn’t eat, but they’re still fun.
10 – ChilledCow and ChilloutDeer on YouTube
Turns out I really love chillout, chillstep, and various lofi hiphop grooves. I find them weirdly both motivating for work and relaxing for evenings. ChilloutDeer‘s hourlong mixes in particular please me, but I can put on one of ChilledCow’s streams and just have it on all day while I work. Who doesn’t love finding new kinds of music to enjoy?