Random Thoughts

I just read a story on NPR's website about a guy who recently passed away from COVID-19 and his daughter, who wrote the story, said that her late father loved the song "Songbird" by Barbra Streisand. Dad had good taste in music! Say what you want about Barbra, but she can sing her voice is absolutely lovely on "Songbird." I need to break out my Steisand CDs again.

In other news, my attention span has been sufficiently shot and I blame being in lockdown mode due to COVID-19. I can barely sit through anything on TV that lasts for more than an hour and, even then, I often find myself doing other things while I watch TV, like checking my phone or being on my computer. The only time I can kind of pay full attention is when I'm watching something that requires me to read subtitles. I did manage to get through the first season of the Netflix series Dark before I threw in the towel. I signed up for Amazon Prime recently and started watching the series The Americans. I was into it for about three episodes before I lost interest. I just couldn't commit to multiple seasons of this show or even to finish out the first season. I watched the entire first season of Downton Abbey before I bailed on it, but at least I got through one season. I've been forcing myself to turn the TV off and read each night for at least a half hour or an hour just because I know it will take me forever to finish a book if I don't. Back when I used to be a commuter, I could read on the train, but not now. 

When I work from home, I can't have the television on because I can't concentrate on my work and listen to the TV or even a podcast at the same time. I'm fine having music on when I work, preferably something soothing. But television? Forget it. 

I recently watched a movie called The Assistant and I'm still thinking about it. The movie was about a young woman who worked for some bigwig in the movie industry and it just focused on a day in her life at the office and how poorly she was treated at the office. But the part that really annoyed me was when she went to the male HR rep to complain about perceived mistreatment of another female employee, after the HR guy basically dismissed her and her complaint, by the time she got back to her desk her male coworkers and her male boss already knew she had been to HR and everything she had said to the HR rep and berated her for going to HR in the first place. Ugh. So much awfulness all around.