I reckon it’s time I wrote something about Joyce again. She hasn’t been getting covered too much in the blog lately.
That’s partly because she’s not doing too much…and it’s starting to get on her nerves. She’s been in her house and going out almost not at all since she’s very worried about COVID-19. She finally explained why: she’s got high blood pressure, which is one of those conditions that can make it very bad if you get the virus. She’s also been real worried about me getting it, especially now that so many people of my generation have started acting like total jerkoffs by not wearing masks and not paying attention to social distancing. Joyce is afraid that I’m gonna get like that, although she felt better when I told her about how me, Keaton and Lucas were being super careful on July 4th.
And then there are those two COVID tests I took at Dodger Stadium, both of which came back negative. I talked Keaton into coming with me the second time to Dodger Stadium to keep me company while I was in line and to get tested himself. He’s negative too. As for Joyce, she got tested by her job – they actually had them go into the office for that – and then got tested again two weeks later when they pulled her name out of a hat. Her tests came back negative as well. So we’re all negative, which is great news. Joyce decided that, because of that, we could relax the social distancing we’ve been practicing since the crisis hit.
So we’re back to having…normal relations. I spent the night at Joyce’s for the first time in months…and, yeah, it felt good. I’ve seen plenty of Joyce since the virus crisis started – I was over there at least once a week…but she was always insisting that we keep 6’ between ourselves…and wear masks a lot of the time. Now that we’re past that, let me officially say that that sucked. Having a girlfriend and not being able to do everything you’re used to doing with your girlfriend is super super annoyingass. What can I say? It’s no fun being a frustrated horndog.
I know that I could have turned to other chicks if Joyce was going to be the way she was being, but that’s not how I roll. Besides, I’d be putting myself in danger…and then putting Keaton, Joyce, Lucas…and, even worse, Noah and Cody in danger too. So it would have been irresponsible…and I gotta admit that having a steady girlfriend like Joyce for as long as we’ve been together (we’ve officially been an item in my mind for two years now) has made me less interested in other chicks. It’s not that I don’t notice them, but I’m less interested in getting them into bed these days.
So ‘cheating’ on Joyce wasn’t an option. That meant waiting for Joyce…and finally the wait is over. And it was worth the wait. Joyce had to tell me to chill a couple times…but I’m a 27 year old who hasn’t been intimate with his girlfriend since March.
The good part was that we didn’t have to worry about being ready for work. I’m still on unemployment and waiting for that call from Mr. Balsam and Joyce didn’t have anything to do before a Zoom meeting at 11. So…well…we went back to bed after breakfast. It was good seeing my baseball mug again and having some of Joyce’s really good coffee…but it was pretty dang awesome being able to go back to bed after that. If you’ve never tried it, you should. The coffee helps after a long night lol.
So me and Joyce are back on the same page and it feels great. I’ve just had to promise to be super careful, although I’ve been being super careful all along. Still, she gave me a box of gloves to wear when I got to the market and stuff, along with a big bottle of something called IN-SIDE, which is a disinfectant you use for doorknobs and “high-touch surfaces” (as she put it.) I’m supposed to clean those 4 times a day and wash my hands every time I come in from the outside, and every 2 hours even if I’m just inside. That’s on top of the masks and the social distancing.
I think Joyce finally just had enough of our staying 6’ apart. She could have made all these rules back when the crisis hit, but I don’t think that she thought the crisis would go on for as long as it has. But now we’re back to normal, even if we’re taking precautions. Honestly, they’re precautions I would take anyway. And that sanitizer stuff Joyce gave me is good for the baseball equipment I use with Lucas, Cody and Noah.
I gotta admit that it pisses me the fuck off when I saw on the TV the people my age having pool parties shoulder-to-shoulder and without masks over the holiday weekend. That’s so fuckin stupid, I don’t know where to start. Ok, maybe the virus isn’t usually so bad if you get it when you’re in your 20s, but it can also be very bad whatever age you are. And, if you do get it and it’s not a bad case (or even if you’re asymptomatic – which I think is what Joyce was most worried about me being), you can spread it to someone who will get real sick. And those jerkoffs at the pool parties are exactly the kind of people who give people of my generation a bad name.
If things with me and Joyce are back to normal at last, she’s having trouble with her job. She’s been working from home since mid-March, and she says she still isn’t used to Zoom. She says she fuckin hates it. She even used that word, and it’s not a word she uses very often. I haven’t used Zoom except for a couple meetings with Mr. Balsam all the laid-off employees from the hotel, and I thought it was, well, meh. But Joyce can’t stand it. She says you spend all your time looking at the picture of yourself…and that makes her extremely self-conscious. Joyce can get like that. I try to tell her that she must look looks awesome, even on her webcam, but sometimes she’s hard to convince.
She’s also frustrated because she’s having trouble with her job situation. I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I think I told y’all about a promotion she got that involved managing a bunch of people she didn’t want to manage. Still, it was a promotion, and she got used to it. Now, with COVID, they’ve laid off some of the people who were working under her…and she’s got to do their jobs. So she’s kind of gotten demoted and is what she calls “working 10 years below her level”. I don’t know what to tell her about that, but it’s got her down. She’s still getting paid what she was getting paid to manage the people whose job she’s now doing, but she’s working harder and longer. I keep thinking she’s gonna get used to having meetings like that on her computer…but it’s not happening. On the other hand, it doesn’t look like going back to the office is gonna happen any time soon either.
So I reckon not everything’s back to normal with Joyce…but at least some of it is, and I can tell she’s real happy about that.
So am I.
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