Both of the Universities I teach at have announced they are going to online classes. I'm not sure how that works for quite a bit of the theatre curriculum.

I'm watching things cancel all around me and wondering if my business will be able to weather it. My entire career is dependent upon groups of people gathering.

MA has declared a State of Emergency -- I notice a lot of states are doing it (it's the new black!) but it's good in the sense that state governments are getting in gear to deal even as the Fed fucks it up.

It seems ultimately ironic to me that the elderly Fox-News-addicted relatives -- likely to be the victims of the novel coronavirus -- are the most likely to be misinformed by their news sources.

There are very tough times ahead. I hope all Buffistas, their loved ones and their livelihoods come through OK.

...And in every cloud has a silver lining news: NILLY!

Re my offspring: I have one stroppy teenager and one brand-new adult - well, on paper at least. He has no clue what to do with his life and is currently spending day and night on front of the computer. Self-isolation seems to be the natural state of affairs for some people.

The start of the new semester was pushed back by 5 weeks yesterday, though we're not supposed to cut back on teaching. I am not entirely sure how this is supposed to work but I expect I will find out soon.

Stay healthy, people.

My colleges are still open, but we are preparing for the worst, like if someone sneaks over the stateline into Massachusetts over spring break. We are all supposed to install Cisco WebEx Meetings so that we can do video conferencing with our students, so I did that, forgetting that I have neither a camera nor a microphone attached to my main machine, which kind of defeats the purpose. (My laptop has a camera at least, but I'll have to remove the piece of tape I stuck over it. Not sure if it has a microphone, but I have a stand-alone mic I can use. It'll work out.)

WebEx has a major annoyance. It assumes you will always have lots of online meetings to attend every single day, so it always loads and presents itself right in the middle of your screen upon startup. There is no in-software option to turn this behavior off. The only option is to remove it from your startup options in the operating system. Who frackin' designs software like this anymore?!?

Worried about you, ND.

My agency is business as usual for now, but the division director told us at a (regularly scheduled) staff meeting yesterday that we should be ready to start teleworking on little or no advance notice. I'm already teleworking 2-3 times a week for medical reasons, and I recently put in a formal request to telework 4 days a week because commuting takes so much out of me.

On the other hand, I've also started the retirement process. I haven't officially committed to any particular day, but it feels momentous.

On the completely not related side, I felt that there are SOME on this board who might be interested in a bat tea set, available in aqua or pink.

Huh. Work just canceled a potluck scheduled for next week out of "an abundance of caution". I am mostly befuddled because I hadn't heard there was one scheduled.

I'm volunteering at the library bookstore today and the new person running things has decided we need two people per shift. Do not want. I enjoy talking to the customers about their books, but I also enjoy the quiet in between customers and the browsing time. I do not want to make small talk for 2 hours.

So, I just found out on Facebook that my old friend's partner's father has died of Covid-19. He was in one of the affected Seattle nursing homes.