This pandemic has become a real annoyance.  Here is a collection of my masks and the hardest thing about wearing them is trying to figure out how to keep my glasses from fogging.  Just when I figure out which mask doesn’t fog up my glasses it begins to do so.  It’s become somewhat of a game for I try and figure out how to put on the mask so it won’t be so cloudy.

All my meetings occur on zoom.  Due to my brain injury, I like them this way.  I don’t have to waste any cognitive energy on driving to the meetings and I can attend any night meeting without trying to get a ride.  Plus there is no outside stimulation which is wonderful for my brain.

(I admit, I get tired of the Hollywood Squares likeness of each meeting. If you are too young to remember the Hollywood Squares gameshow on television, nine celebrities appeared in little boxes – like folks appear on zoom.  The object was to have the celebrity answer a question correctly where you earned an “x.”  like the “Tic Tac Toe” game. If you got three x’s in a row, you won.  It’s hard to explain so you’ll just have to take an older person’s word for the Hollywood Squares analogy! )

One of the issues I don’t like about them is the lighting issue.  My perfectionism and performance issues come into play here.  I want to get the lighting and background just right which is impossible to do in my house.  I’m not the neatest person so I clean up the viewing area a bit before each meeting.  It’s like having someone come over to your house and you throw all the junk in a closet so it can’t be seen!

The other thing I often don’t like is the chat feature.  There’s a little button on the bottom of the screen that says “chat.”  One can write to just one person which is handy or one can write to the whole group.  The problem is, the comment just comes up right in the middle of the folks who are talking which isn’t good for my concentration issues.  I had a two hour zoom meeting this past Saturday with 139 people on the call.  You can imagine how many comments there were.  I finally had to shut my eyes and simply listen to the person talking.

It’s possible there is a setting where I can change this option which I need to look into.  On Saturday, the option to message a specific person was turned off which I found .  I think when a person sets up a zoom meeting; there are a lot of different settings.

The other thing good about zoom meetings is, I don’t have to wear those masks!