Items

• 
  2021-10-07

  It's just allergies, I swear!

  As someone who has seasonal allergies, I got this look a lot at the beginning of the pandemic.
• 0202-10-15

  Fears of COVID from within the archive

  Yesterday was my first official day as a curator at A Journal of the Plague Year. The only feelings I had were of complete joy and gratitude to be able to have a job, one where I get to do something that interests me, at that. But as the day went on, I began to feel something that many have tweeted about. I started to feel achy and I was coughing. Some have tweeted something like, "is it allergies or COVID?", and while I should have reflected on the fact that I had not taken my crucial allergy medicine in two days (I am severely allergic to dogs, yet I have two of them in my small apartment), I spent a good hour bundled up and lying in bed. By the afternoon, I felt completely fine. It was one thing when I would have these fleeting moments of panic, or see people online posting about their own, in the past. But it seemed to be a particularly interesting moment that right when I start a job at an archive documenting the COVID-19 pandemic, I experience one of the specific anxieties of actually living in that pandemic. I think this short instant shows how the the pandemic is both all-encompassing of everyday life and shows up in particular moments. It is at the same time impersonal and extremely personal. Despite the fact that even the illusion of being an observer is inherently participation, in one moment I went from being an outside observer of the pandemic to being subject to the worries it causes.
• 
  2020-09-18

  When a cough isn't just a cough...

  I suffer from severe allergies pretty much year round... So occasionally I sneeze or cough a few times when the pollen is particularly bad. But now, with the pandemic, anytime anyone sneezes or coughs, everyone gives you 'the look.' I find myself automatically explaining my sneeze, "Allergy Sneeze... nothing to see here," each time, so when I saw this meme on pinterest, it made me chuckle!
• 
  2020-03-31

  Sourdough bread fail

  During the first few weeks of COVID-19, I found myself not wanting to grocery shop and to focus on making do with what we had. However, as I have a number of food allergies, I have to be careful about what I eat. So I attempted to make bread—not in the TikTok viral-trendsetting-sense, but rather as a means to an end. My efforts were shortlived. I tried three recipes. Each was a disaster. Here is the beginnings of a sourdough starter that is vegan and gluten free. I fed it and cared for it gingerly for a week - nursing it along with fresh g-f flour every day, as a ritual to puncuate my day in the way that commuting to work used to do. On the 8th day, mold grew in the bowl and I tossed out the starter.
• 
  2020-04-07

  Buckwheat bread fail

  During the first few weeks of COVID-19, I found myself not wanting to grocery shop and to focus on making do with what we had. However, as I have a number of food allergies, I have to be careful about what I eat. So I attempted to make bread—not in the TikTok viral-trendsetting-sense, but rather as a means to an end. My efforts were shortlived. I tried three recipes. Each was a disaster. Here is buckwheat bread that is vegan and gluten free. It tasted like dirt.
• 
  04/19/2020

  Don Sawyer Oral History, 2020/04/19

  Don is a 57-year-old African American man. He works for a marketing research company and also makes films. He had COVID-19 at the time of the interview and discussed the symptoms he experienced. Don discusses how COVID-19 impacted his job. He talks about how Trump and the federal government handled COVID-19 and governors governed their states throughout COVID-19. He remarks on the shortage of PPE, ventilators, and the lack of COVID-19 tests. Don was unable to get a COVID-19 test unless he was hospitalized due to the shortage.
• 
  2020-03-22

  Oak Tree Pollen on Car, Carrollton Avenue, New Orleans

  The outbreak of the pandemic in New Orleans, LA, coincides with the height of allergy season. Allergies may impact Coronavirus symptoms and many folks are unsure if their symptoms are related to typical allergies or the virus.