JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Two-thirds of my overlords

I’ve read some inspirational takes on the current situation, equating staying at home to flatten the curve with storming the beaches at Normandy. What a lovely thought—I wouldn’t go that far, but I agree that the situation requires a great sacrifice. We are giving up our social lives, our career prospects, relationships that have just begun, our fitness regimens, our education, our long-planned trips, many of our civil liberties, our sports, our movies, our entertainment, our weddings, funerals, and family gatherings, our financial security, our lives as we know them, in order to slow down the spread of coronavirus so it doesn’t overwhelm our hospitals and more people die. Maybe we’re not heroes, but we’re martyrs for a good cause.
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The Catholic Church has wisely suspended mass during “enhanced community quarantine” in order to observe social distancing. Even after we get out of here, I’m guessing that holding hands while singing the Our Father, shaking hands as a sign of peace, or dipping your fingers in the communal font will not be back soon. The Church’s decision can’t have been easy. Not only is it Lent, peak season for Catholicism, but humanity is being stalked by an unseen evil (just as my religion teacher said) and the faithful need solace. After a week in lockdown I suspect even atheists would be happy to attend mass if it would get them out of the house.
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Speaking of Revelations, here’s William Blake.

Yesterday I received reports of people planning to loot a supermarket, or blocking cars on streetcorners to demand money from the passengers. I took them seriously because they triggered my fear of food riots during enhanced ultramega super community quarantine. Fortunately they turned out to be fake news—like the one about the dolphins in Venetian canals, which I also believed because I wanted it to be true. The likelihood of our believing fake news increases if they confirm our fears, hopes, and prejudices. The question is: Who stands to benefit from frightening people who are already frightened?
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My days have begun to blur into each other: I have to check my phone to see what day is. It’s only been 4 days, 13 percent of our communal sentence.

I remembered an essay about the voyage of Magellan and how scurvy (severe vitamin C deficiency; adjective: scorbutic) not only caused sailors’ bodies to disintegrate in a gross manner, but also came with a morbid heightening of the senses. Which could account for those bizarro tales of mermaids and giants in seafaring chronicles. As I was running low on fruit and vegetables (i.e. zero), I decided to venture out of total lockdown for the first time. The nearest supermarket is in Rockwell, a kilometer and a half away.
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Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, built in the 17th century in gratitude for the end of an outbreak of plague. Photo taken 2015. I hear the water is clearer now.

It was cooler all day yesterday, probably the last gasp of the Siberian winds before summer fully sizzles, and might it have something to do with the absence of cars, buses and people on the streets?

Those of us who have settled in to climb our mountains of tsundoku (books we own and have not read) should give a thought to our extrovert friends who do not know what to do with themselves with the malls, restaurants, bars, entertainment venues shut down. Try not to gloat when you remember how they used to taunt you for staying home.
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Why do I have the compulsion to watch Beavis and Butt-head?

I’m trying to figure out where my day went because it’s almost midnight and I haven’t gotten any writing done. All the time that lockdown was supposed to free up was consumed by the latest round of uncertainty.

My plan had been to go to James’s anniversary lunch (sitting far apart), then stop at the supermarket (because there’s always something I forgot), then walk around in the open air. But I woke up late for the lunch and over my microwaved meal I started wondering if I should go out at all, even if there are usually very few people on my walking route (but several cats whom I help to feed). Mariko, who was going to join me on the walk, agreed that we should stay indoors. News of crowds at the police checkpoints on the borders of Metro Manila—the optimal situation for spreading coronavirus—did not inspire confidence that the pandemic was being contained.
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