P: Pandemic, Prozac, Panicking, Politics, Protests, Pasta, President

 

Pandemic, Prozac, Panicking, Politics, Protests, Pasta, President

Last year having been a presidential election year, news about politics was everywhere this year. For the first time since 1992, an incumbent president did not win reelection. And was I ever glad for that! Our former president did nothing in the way of the pandemic, one of the scariest words that was heard in 2020. He tried to deny that the pandemic was real. "Trump hating" will be in an upcoming A to Z post.

This was the first major pandemic in more than a century, and the first in the lifetimes of many of us who are alive today. Remove the middle letters of "pandemic" and you get the word "panic," something I did a lot this year, once the virus was discovered and even more when it was declared a pandemic. Going to the store and other essential public places was panic-inducing. 

Despite warnings not to gather in large groups in order to slow the spreading of the virus, murders this past year led people to protest. "Black Lives Matter" became a phrase of the past year. 

Despite what you see in this photo, there were reports of people protesting without masks on. And of course, the protests were large crowds, and no one stayed six feet apart. I panicked at the thought of Covid rates going up because of this. 

One such protest occurred in my hometown, commencing at the high school. I drove by that morning to see people line up. As much as the subject of the protest mattered, I could not put myself at risk by joining, and I couldn't help thinking why others would do just that. People seemed to think that protesting was safe in the middle of a global pandemic, and that Trump rallies were safe as well (more on this in a few days).

And the BLM protests led to food makers removing logos they found to be racist. I get what they were trying to do, but people should have been more worried about the virus. 

And now with recent murders, more BLM protests are being planned, including one in Marina, California. 

Once again, it was panic-inducing when having to go to the store, and in the beginning when store shelves were nearly empty. Along with the needed toilet paper and hand sanitizer, another item that was scarce for the first few weeks of the pandemic was pasta. I like to get the Knorr packets, which include rice and pasta. I had to go without these things for a while during shutdown. Some have said that pasta is a comfort food, hence the reason it was out at the stores. But it wasn't too long before pasta returned to store shelves. I was soon able to make my lemon pasta with chicken and later make the Italian Chicken Penne Pasta recipe. Shortages of items in stores was caused by panic buying. 

This past year marked five years since I began on Prozac. I now had to talk to the telepsychiatrist by phone (more on this to come) and am now taking the stuff at night, something I'm still adjusting to. It was easier to do in the morning. I've

never been ashamed to admit to being on Prozac, and never will be.

 

And on the subject of Prozac, the author of Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel, passed away in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit. She did not get to see her alma mater, Harvard, not open for classes for the first time in its nearly 400-year history. What would she have thought about that, and everything else that happened this year? I can only imagine. She had started writing another memoir, which will likely never come to be. RIP.

I have read all her books and last year reread More, Now, Again, followed by a reread of Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women at the beginning of this year.

I am still hoping to send out my memoir of Prozac again, This was something I lagged on in 2020, too depressed by the events of the year to even think of doing this. I did send it and my other manuscript out in early 2020, pre-pandemic. I will be telling more about this later.

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And that's it for today.