![\"image](\"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/march-2020.jpg\")
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A four-year-old boy is sitting and sobbing on a hospital bed, refusing to have the mask put on his face. It\u2019s 1995, that boy is me, and I\u2019m supposed to go into surgery for my ear. But it\u2019s not possible: I am too scared of a pictogram.<\/p>\n
Even 25 years later, I can see it clearly in front of me: The brochure about inhalation anesthesia, with the drawing of a child with closed eyes, a huge mask covering its face. It honestly looked like the kid was dead, and even though I was only four years old, I knew one thing: I won\u2019t inhale something that\u00a0obviously<\/em>\u00a0would kill\u00a0me!<\/p>\n In the end, I didn\u2019t die, I just fell asleep. Everything went according to plan, and I lost my exorbitant fear of masks and anesthesia. I had to think about this pictogram the other day though, when I read\u00a0Anne Quito\u2019s design critique<\/a>\u00a0on the temperature guns used in public places like airports or on boarders. There are certainly more important things to worry about or focus on right now, but using the interaction design of pointing a gun to one\u2019s head for a protective measure just somehow feels \u2026 a little off?<\/p>\n But I mean \u2013 a lot of things just feel a bit weird right now, right? It\u2019s just a weird time; we\u2019ve been placed in this odd science fiction setting and we all don\u2019t really know how to act, or where to go. Well, the latter is simple: Nowhere. We\u2019re all advised to just stay in, what I\u2019ve been doing for about 10 days by now. And while I really enjoy being at home and by myself, I am surprised how exhausting it becomes after a while. The urge to facetime my whole address book is definitely there, and the magnetism of my sofa\u2014preventing me from doing all the cozy quarantine stuff like baking and drawing and Telegym\u2014is sending extra-strong vibes these days. I might need to find a solution for that. Or maybe not, and just nap. 8-hour-video-calls are exhausting enough; even though we\u2019re all doing them in sweatpants.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n \u2014 Speaking of naps: Here\u2019s a brilliant video by the School of Life, on\u00a0naps and slowness<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Lisa captured the mood of the current situation just perfectly, as\u00a0\u201cI am putting my face on you again in order to perceive a very small thing inside your chest\u201d<\/a>, it\u2019s beautiful.<\/p>\n \u2014 I just bought a bunch of vouchers for the stores, caf\u00e9s and places I would usually visit on a Saturday, but which had to close due to the current situation. In Berlin, you can do that on\u00a0Helfen.berlin<\/a>, and an another inventory of shops that need support can be found via\u00a0Pleasedontclose<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n This probably won\u2019t end anytime soon. It\u2019s the new normal, and we\u2019ll need to find ways to deal with it. Every other day, I have a little meltdown thinking about all of this, and I miss hugs and sitting on crowded trains and falling asleep on a friend\u2019s sofa and celebrating birthdays. Three things that helped me:\u00a0This song<\/a>\u00a0by Barner 16,\u00a0this cartoon<\/a>\u00a0on love during the pandemic,\u00a0this cat on TikTok<\/a>.<\/p>\n I hope you\u2019re alright and safe and healthy. Try to avoid spending too much time reading live blogs, don\u2019t get scared by graphs and pictograms, just stay informed and, last but not least, at home (if you can). I\u2019m sending you virtual hugs and\u00a0awkward handshakes<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n This title\u2019s song has been stuck in my head for weeks now. Works well as a soundtrack for when the pains pf physical distancing kick in extra-hard.\u00a0Dijon \u2013 Skin<\/em>\u00a0(Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Music<\/a>).<\/p>\n If you enjoy writing like this, you should subscribe to my (irregular) monthly newsletter:\u00a0Christel\u2019s Corner.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A four-year-old boy is sitting and sobbing on a hospital bed, refusing to have the mask put on his face. It\u2019s 1995, that boy is me, and I\u2019m supposed to go into surgery for my ear. But it\u2019s not possible: I am too scared of a pictogram. Even 25 years later, I can see it … 022020: Unfurl Like Smoke, We Twist And We Curl<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1206,1200],"tags":[44,41,40,2,43],"class_list":["post-2208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christels-corner","category-gefuehlslagen","tag-christels-corner","tag-english","tag-newsletter","tag-text","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2208"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2212,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions\/2212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}