An article in last Sunday's New York Times, on the year of the blur, talks about how social isolation has compromised our emotional condition and our sense of time. The author of this editorial in the New York Times, his name is Alex Williams, argues that we need social interaction in order to do two things. First of all, social interactions give us typical markers that help us define important events that set up milestones in our lives. And secondly, social interaction helps us to maintain a sense of ourselves. As a sociologist, I could not agree more with Alex William's editorial. There was a famous sociology theorist by the name of George Horton Cooley who developed the concept of the looking-glass self and this concept has been very important in a subfield of sociology called social psychology. The notion of the looking-glass self is that we look at other people, we interact with other people and we come to understand how they view us. In other words, other people in our lives are like looking glasses -- looking mirrors -- looking glasses and we see ourselves as they see us. And we incorporate our understandings of what other people tell us about ourselves, into our own self-identity. I can certainly understand how the social isolation that so many of us have experienced over a long time since the global pandemic was declared in mid-march can affect our sense of self.

I want to talk today about unexpected tears. So this virus has brought my emotions, more to the surface, I guess you'd call it. And I wanna talk about two times that I’ve had unexpected tears. The first time was last week Saturday, Halloween. My husband and I in fear of the virus, had sheltered ourselves inside our darkened house, with the doors locked, window shades pulled. We were not gonna hand out candy. Now this is kind of a big deal. We are both teachers, well, retired teachers now. My husband especially has been known for handing out big candy bars to his students, former students. Halloween's a big time. But this year, we're going to hide in our darkened house, not celebrate. So we sat there in the darkened house and around 6:45 the doorbell rings. Don't answer it. It rings again. Don't answer it, don't answer it. Stops ringing, we peek out the window and walking away is one of his former students. I felt so badly. Then about a half an hour later. Same thing. Doorbell goes. Ignore it, ignore it, doorbell goes again. Finally I can't stand it, I put a mask on, I go to the door and there's about ten kids all unmasked with a chaperone, no mask, saying "it's Mr.****[my husband]**** here?" "Sure. I'll go get him." So I get my husband. He puts a mask on. Fortunately, I bought a bag of snack size M&Ms, for our granddaughter, and also thinking this kind of thing might happen, I'd better be prepared. So we did have something to give those ten kids sitting there. But as he’s interacting with them from a distance handing out the little packs with his mask on. I just kind of dissolved into tears thinking, what a loss. This has been such a big deal and the longing for connection with people, and the wanting to be a good neighbor and enjoy this party time, just couldn't do it. Felt so bad.

When is it too early for Christmas things to be out in stores? Do you celebrate Christmas? If so, do you buy presents throughout the year or during the Christmas season? When does Christmas start for you? I suppose Christmas things could be out in stores now, almost, all through November. I know people are like "ah, you're skipping Thanksgiving." But I mean, people can buy Christmas stuff whenever they want. I personally -- we celebrate Christmas in my household. We’re a Catholic Family, Christian family, and so we all celebrate Christmas. I do not buy presents throughout the year. I would buy them during the Christmas season, if I were to buy them, and I don't buy them very often. Christmas for me, season starts, I guess, probably after Thanksgiving. I like listening to Christmas music, pretty much the whole -- all winter long. Yeah, I don't mind them playing Christmas music, I think after Thanks -- Halloween.

Today I want to tell the story of me carving the pumpkin for the first time. I never celebrated Halloween before and this is the first year I actually celebrated Halloween. So my friends all made me carve pumpkins. I've never carved pumpkins before and it was a lot harder than I thought. It was fun if you want to do simple patterns or just faces, but if I want to do something complicated like carving tree branches or clouds, the pumpkin just falls apart. I had so much fun carving pumpkins and we roasted all the pumpkin seeds afterwards. So that was a wonderful Halloween experience. My friends also made me watch the classic Halloween movies. We watched Young Frankenstein, and what's that called -- The Nightmare Before Christmas and Hocus Pocus, so that was supposed to serve as my Halloween education.