Month: April 2020

Day I don’t even know of Viral Lockdown 2020.

Of all the lists of “things to do with your time” and articles written by young, plucky coeds with really apparent vocal fry (even through a written article) about “Ways to Stay Positive During Quarantine” and one of my personal faves… “101 Recipes To Try While Waiting to Die!”?

(Ok, that last one was just in my head)

Of all of those things written that seek to be helpful, I’ve found there are some things that they, meaning “the people who seem to know more than the rest of us about how to do this properly”, should be telling us but are not.

1. There’s a definite cycle that you’ll go through every few days, or if you’re lucky, every week or two, that will go like this: Feel despair, sleep too much, wake up and tell yourself it will be ok, read too much news, make some food, feel a tiny bit better, talk on the phone with a friend, feel even better, start thinking maybe being locked in isn’t so bad, start a new project, find that you don’t quite have as much energy for said project, abandon said project, lay awake in bed that night, watch more news than you should, wake up feeling absolute and utter darkness. Rinse and repeat.
2. No wait…All of that sounds way more dramatic that it actually is. Have some sadness, feel better, get sad again, feel better again, get sad again. Your mood will be a see-saw of repeating emotions and not a great crescendo toward the sky before a gut-pulling drop toward sanity. Nope, it will be all back and forth and day and night and happy and sad. You’ll get sick of it. And then you’ll keep doing the see-saw.
3. You will absolutely stop giving a single shit about your diet because you will realize you don’t care to diet on most “normal” days and you sure as fuck don’t feel like stressing yourself out during a pandemic.
4. You’ll do silly things to make yourself feel better and some of it will actually work. You’ll put on a face full of makeup or a tiara and you’ll vacuum the word “shit” into your very expensive and gaudy tapestry rug. You’ll scatter shredded cheese all over the floor and scream “CHEESE RAIN” as your dogs go apeshit at the mess.
5. You’ll do some things thinking it will make you feel better but in all honesty it will just be another thing. It won’t make you happy or sad, it will just be an activity that occupies space on your lockdown timeline. You’ll shave your head and it will look cute. You’ll finally apply for law school and it will buzz in your belly for just a split second. You’ll contemplate going completely the fuck off on a ridiculous asshole online but you’ll think better of it because you haven’t made it to full asshole stage just yet.
6. Speaking of assholes, you will see a LOT of them. They will come in the form of self-absorbed, self-important Queer folks who will actually have the fucking audacity to compare themselves to front line workers because they are “holding space” for someone or because they sent an email to someone. If they are a GIANT asshole, they will actually try to manipulate people into giving them money during all of this merely for a split second of attention or the promise that they are building some amazing new thing “for the community”. Still, there will be other assholes who are just simple-minded narcissists who think that global pandemics are an amazing time to try to garner as much attention for themselves as possible. They won’t even play victim, they will just strait up parade their Daddy issues all over the internet and stop just shy of posting full-blown pictures of their buttholes to get a “like” or a “thumbs up”.
7. Friends will check on you and it will feel like a burst of sunshine right in your marrow.
8. You’ll cry because you cry at fucking everything lately.
9. Other friends will disappear because sometimes that’s what people do when they are stressed out.
10. You’ll keep your head up by writing. Badly. Here and everywhere. And nobody will ever read it. <3

Day 30 of “Hi, you can’t leave your house because you are sick or other people are sick.”

Spotify has paid for itself these past weeks and has supplied me with a never-ending larder of plucky guitars with thoughtful, raspy female voices leaning into their bluegrass roots and powdery-voiced men whistling an accompanying melody to their so obviously heartfelt lyrics.

I’ve danced with myself in the kitchen a few times. Twirled in circles while imagining that my apron was a long broomstick skirt and that maybe my hair was waist length with a crown of daisies plucked fresh from a cow pasture at sunset.

I’ve stared out the window as tears rolled down my face, worrying about my dear Julie who has the virus and is currently laying in a hospital bed while a machine breathes for her. In the background, someone named “Nanci Griffith” sang about “Boots of Spanish Leather” and how she was sailing away in the morning and was there something she could send me from across the sea? Of course I imagined that Julie was somehow telegraphing her messages to me from across the brainwaves and that I, alone, would have to carry out her wishes if she didn’t make it.

Thankfully, I’m just a giant crybaby and she’s still fighting, asleep in a Propofol coma while the whirring and cranking of some manmade machine decides, second by second, that she is alive.

This whole thing has been so surreal and upending, as expected, but the surprising part is that there are moments of real fear. It’s an emotion I don’t quite know what to do with because I’m just not that girl. I know joy. I know rage. I know resolve. But fear? What do you do with that?

I’ve made lists of all the things I should do with my time. I’ve actually done some of those things but I’ve mostly avoided the things that I’ve already avoided when things were “normal” so in case you were wondering, dear reader, tribulation is not a motivator.

Still, I’ve built a few websites and boxed up my winter clothes and sent off some paperwork and done a few good deeds without telling anyone. I’ll still sit here at this desk, wondering what to do with myself more often than I would like but I’m mostly ok. I’m mostly ok. I’ll say it again because it sounds so strange…I’m mostly ok.

A few things have been decided during this lockdown. I won’t ruin my momentum by writing them down here because that’s usually what does it…speak that shit into existence and I’m sure to avoid it. Instead, I’ll keep it close to my heart and just do it because the truth is, my best motivation is when I’ve got a secret. When that secret is close to my chest it’s like a hot little stone sitting right at the base of my throat and it burns there until I swallow or scream.

I’ve swallowed a lot in my life.

But it’s time to scream.

xo