In 30 days we have only been to the grocery store, the dog daycare drop-off, and the pizza place for carryout. We drove across town for my niece’s birthday drive-by, and I went to my parents’ house. Thassit. In 30 days. We haven’t even been to a gas station because we’re not driving. The last time I filled my tank, more than a month ago, the world was still in the Before.
Yesterday was A Day. Everyone’s fine now, but my big little dog barfed all over…well, everything, pretty much first thing in the morning. I’ll spare you further details but the cleanup operation more or less derailed my morning and the dogs continued to be gross and needy and I had to take two work calls holed up in our bedroom and I worked until about 7:30 pm and my husband was still working. At some point, he texted me from the third floor to say sorry he was taking so long and I just told him to take his time. What is time anyway? Why not work until 8 pm or later! There is nowhere to be but here, anyway.
I think a lot of people are reaching – maybe not a breaking point, but a point at which they are reckoning with the fact that we are no longer so much buckling down and muddling through something as recalibrating our entire idea of normalcy. And this reckoning sucks! Last night my husband spoke to his brother on the phone while my nieces, four and one, wailed in the background. This is the atmosphere in which he and my sister-in-law must do their jobs. They are “lucky” to have jobs they can do from home, but now they are also running a preschool and a daycare in addition to doing high-level finance work.
How is anybody doing anything? Accomplishing anything?
Early on, ages ago, I read an article about how people in Wuhan were dealing with the lockdown situation there. The author mentioned that although internet access helped to quell boredom and keep people connected to friends and family, it also led to people making “poor choices.” They didn’t elaborate but you can easily imagine the kinds of things people might resort to. (In my case this means buying hippie sinus-clearing body butter from an Instagram ad.)
One thing I find difficult is remembering to do normal stuff. It’s a good thing all of our utility bills are set up for automatic payment because I absolutely would have let those due dates slip by this month. Every single morning I tell myself I’m going to sign our tax forms so the accountant can file them, and every night I realize I’ve forgotten, again, to do it. It’s because there’s no orientation to time and date. Taxes aren’t even due on April 15! We are completely through the looking glass.
Today I have the day “off,” which means I will be sewing masks and doing some freelance work. We’re getting a pizza tonight (I haven’t really cooked since Monday!!!) and that will be a normal Friday thing. Maybe my internal calendar will be reset by a large Marotta’s half pepperoni, half plain.