Items

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  2022-07-02

  Taking Care of My Grandma During COVID

  This is a story of taking care of my grandma during COVID. A lot of the time I was employed as a caretaker for my grandma overlapped with the height of COVID.
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  2021-03-14

  Alex Smith Oral History, 2021/03/14

  Self-description: “I’m an artist, writer, musician, and an off-and-on again activist, lecturer, worshopshop leader. I’m coming out of Philadelphia. My work revolves around concepts relating to Afrofuturism; for lack of a better term: superheroes and the conceptual nature of superheroes and the idea of the vigilante and the people’s champions and heroes can walk among us. I use [aesthetics and the immersive ideas of] from science fiction, cyberpunk, solarpunk, biopunk, and Afrofurturism to empower people of color, queer people and to project us into the future and our ideas and culture into the future as well. I use different mediums to do that, my bands Solarized (a sort of noisy punk rock band) and Rainbow Crimes (indie rock, but a little crazier and noisier than many excursions into that). I have written a short story collection called ARKDUST. And I do collage work and soundscapes and curate events like Laser Life, which was a queer sci-fi reading that me and my friends in a collective that I’m in called Metropolarity put together. That’s my praxis right now: a little bit of everything. I view my work as if I’m creating for 18 or 19 or 20 year old Alex, who probably needed some queer Black sci-fi in his life. So, I’m projecting these aspects of myself back to the past to not just nourish my community, but to nourish myself.” Personal website: alexoteric.com Other biographical details: Vegetarian, experiences depression, Pew Center for the Arts Fellow, during COVID is the first time in his life he’s had Health Insurance. Some of our discussion touched on: Using art to project hope and remaining hopeful during the pandemic. Afrofuturism as a part of the fabric of activism, how it is imbedded in culture and impacts queer and POC culture. How Afrofuturism exceeds an “aesthetic revival” of representation of Black people in the future and the kind of work that needs to be done to ensure those futures. Deciding to cancel a show he was organizing in the early days of the pandemic to protect the presenters and audience members. The everydayness of people dying because they don’t have healthcare access or can’t afford medicine* outside of the times of COVID-19; racism, sexism, and transphobia in the healthcare system.Corporate interests and their influence on policy. The unreasonable imperative that artists take the pandemic as an opportunity for productivity when many are out of work. It is hard to make art without fuel and without food. Witnesses barriers in the healthcare while caring for his partner after a stroke 5 years ago, the importance of medical bureaucratic literacy in a “Kafka-esque system”. Excitement about getting the vaccine. The pandemic in geopolitical context. Isolation in practice: Safety precautions and research prior to traveling for a funeral. Hope for “science married with activism”. Scholars in the humanities and social sciences need to be more visible, speak in lay person’s terms, do advocacy, and get in the streets. “Nothing is safe unless it empowers.” Other cultural references: Netflix, Zombie Movies, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Oprah’s interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, Black Panther, Teenage Bounty Hunter, Elon Musk, GoFundMe. A specific reference is made to the need for his sister’s sickle cell anemia medicine in this interview. She dies a few months later. The GoFundMe to cover funeral expenses can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/memorial-fund-for-elizabeth-graham?utm_campaign=p_cp_url&utm_medium=os&utm_source=customer
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  2020-04-10

  Thanks to Sheltering in Place, Animal Shelters Are Empty

  This article discusses the animal adoption trend in the United States during the pandemic. Some shelters find themselves completely empty, which is a dream come true for animal lovers. On the flip side, there are families in crisis, particularly in large cities, that have been forced to give up their pets. Fortunately, with so many foster and adoptive families on waiting lists, these pets won't be going to shelters for any length of time.
• 
  2020-12-09T17:33

  First Year of Marriage and the Pandemic

  I got married on May 11, 2019. There were no masks and no need to distance from each other. In July 2019, I got my first job working for my grandma as her caretaker. Since I had graduated ASU, I didn't have much going on, and I needed some way to occupy myself, as well as make money. I did things such as picking the oranges that would fall from the trees in her backyard and trash them so the area would look nicer. I cooked, I cleaned, and I assisted her in computer tasks that she didn't understand how to do. In December of 2019, my grandma had a few unfortunate things happen to her. First, she got pneumonia and had to be taken to the emergency room. She survived, but was weak. Later on, she ended up falling, and was then taken to a care center so that she could regain her strength and do physical therapy. When my grandma came back from the care center in January, I had a new job. Learning from what the physical therapist taught me, I used the exercise recommendations for her and helped her walk better again. It was no easy task, as my grandma can be quite stubborn, but luckily, she was willing to take direction from me in order to move around easier. We have been doing the physical therapy as part of her daily routine ever since. Due to my grandma's worsening condition, my mom and dad decided to move to my grandma's house in January, leaving the apartment mostly to me and my husband. This change was greatly welcomed, and it felt like we could experience married life without my family intervening nearly as much. Overall, January was a pretty good month for me and my husband. One of the biggest events that happened to me before the virus was the death of one of my cousins. On February 11, 2020, he commit suicide. It was a jarring experience. He had lived nearby with his wife and kid and helped install new electrical outlets in the apartment me and my husband were sharing with my parents until a new apartment opened in that same complex. Despite this, we were able to have a normal funeral, which was nice since it gave me some closure. I mostly felt bad for his wife and kid he left behind, since they would now have to figure out how to continue without him. By the time February hit, I was well aware of the virus by this time, but I was sure that majority of the problem was in China. Earlier that month, I had gone to the Dominican Republic to do some volunteer work, as I knew how to speak Spanish. I noticed travel restrictions to and from China at that time, and thought that the travel restrictions could help. This is why I mostly thought the pandemic was mostly China's problem. This idea was quickly changed when March hit. When March 2020 hit and there was a declaration of national emergency, I was very stressed by it. I kept on having images flash in my head of empty grocery aisles that I've seen from social media. Due to the panic that had occurred over the national emergency declaration, the grocery store in my area was completely out of eggs, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer, and the meat aisle was nearly emptied. There were rations on the amount of canned goods you could get. Me and my husband were able to grab a few, some of which my husband said were the "good ones that no one wanted". After that, my anxiety lessened and I felt like I could handle it. I was wrong, as I was not expecting full lockdowns later that month. By the time April came along, the lockdowns felt so severe to me that I couldn't escape anywhere. Bedsides my husband having to comfort me, one of the only things keeping me sane was the job of working for my grandma. I became even more thankful for that job since had I gotten a job in the service industry, or even a basic office job, I would have likely been let go due to being too new. Additionally, I was working full-time for a while, so money wasn't as much of an issue for me as it was before I had gotten the job. April was also when I had one of my worst anxiety attacks, and so to help me, my husband took me out to get some fast food and eat in a parking lot in order to not feel so enclosed. March felt similar to April. The big difference here though was that my brother had to come back from his LDS Church mission six months earlier due to the pandemic, so we ended up having someone new to live with when he got back. One of the nice things my family did, since church services were changed due to the virus, was having by brother bless the sacrament, as he had the authority to do so. By dressing for church and having it at my grandma's home, I was able to feel a bit more normal again, which helped me reduce my anxiety. When May hit, it was me and my husband's one year anniversary. For this special occasion, I booked an Italian restaurant and were able to dine-in for the first time in months. As more places started to open up, I felt my anxiety decrease, as I knew I could enjoy more things again. I am now writing this all in December 2020. The endless monotony of living without as many places to go has made this year feel like both the longest and shortest year that I have experienced. I know that things will change and things will go back to normal, and that is one of the things that is keeping me happy. My anxiety is the worst it has ever been this year due to the restrictions on everyday life, but I've learned that I can live through it, with the help of my husband. This was a trying year for many people's marriages, and to have this experience within the first year of marriage has made me realize how much I depend on my husband, but also that we can get through many tough things together.
• 
  2020-08-15

  Jess with Covid

  It shows that COVID is real and that it is serious. My roommate was infected with the virus and she got really sick. In the picture she was on the bathroom floor and this is because she was very nauseous and if she wasn't in the bathroom, the whole apartment would've been a mess. We checked up on her constantly to ensure she was okay and we would cook for her. She had to quarantine in her room for 2 weeks since she moved in before us so we didn't have to quarantine as long as her but it was still not a fun time. She is seen smiling in the picture but that is just because we tried to lift up her spirits so she wasn't miserable the entire illness.