The Virus Years 3: The Fear Centre

The tension builds within me. I feel compelled to expand my boundaries, take a trip into town. But I'm profoundly, even existentially conflicted. The reality of covid is uncertain: I don't know how safe it is, though the numbers speak one way my heart speaks the language of, currently, fear (curse my ventricles).

Then I feel bad for giving in to fear. But weighing up the pros and cons for what will ultimately be a quick visit to town at full bus fare (and that will almost certainly increase in the coming months) it just isn't worth it. That doesn't make me feel better either. This situation is irreconcilable it seems.

I also need a hair cut, if fashion is any concern (it isn't). Seriously though, I do. Very seriously. Oddly the barbers weren't accepting card payments, only cash. I didn't have any. They also wanted me to sign in. I guess that's going to be the case for any place like this I visit. This is of course for tracking and tracing purposes, so it's good to see them taking it seriously. But it made me very uncomfortable. I did not get my hair cut. I will have to, probably with another hairdresser anyway. I'm not a fan of blokey barber shops, but having to sign in - which will be the case everywhere I should think - caught me off guard. I'm not saying it's a bad idea at all, but I do not like paper trails and this just hit me. I will simply have to put on my big boy pants though because this is the new normal. 

The world changes in little ways. 

And so my focus returns to next Monday's Work Focused Interview. A phone call that makes no sense to me. What services are operating at this time? I can't imagine many and given my current travelphobia is ti reasonable to expect people to take the chance? Given how empty the buses look these days, clearly I'm not alone. What questions will I face regarding my own efforts; can they really expect much from us given the last 4 months? My appointment with the Asperger people has been postponed indefinitely, that isn't going to change. What else can I do? I have no idea when I'll be called in for another WCA. Normally this period would be when, as that's what it was last year (despite them taking two years and behaving irresponsibly throughout), UI don't even know if and when my benefits will migrate to Universal Credit.

Sure I can, and am, looking on the DWP Find A Job website. But there is nothing on there anyway, except a strange (though explicable, see yesterday) preponderance of experienced medical jobs. Lots of care work, if you have the transport. Not much of anything else. I don't see that situation improving. 

So the prospect of a potential DWP interrogation (it could go either way) doesn't inspire confidence given how little there is to talk about. But that's how it is with them, they aren't exactly intelligent about this, but they just have to keep checkging on you. They call it help. It isn't.