JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

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.

Then came the leak of the day, which I got on a rich people Viber group. (I find that level of panic is directly proportional to financial resources; no point in panicking if you have no money to run to the store with.) A leak is always followed by a run on food and meds. These leaks are typically photos of official memos that have not been made public yet, or texts to the officials’ families to start stockpiling. (My friend in Austria says the German word for panic-buying is hamsterkaufen, which means hamster-buying. Why would you stock up on hamsters…)

Presumably the point of the leaks is to give the people “in the know” a headstart. If you are being pursued by zombies, you don’t have to outrun the zombies, you just have to run faster than the other people. When survival is at stake the uglier parts of human nature are on full display, so acts of selflessness are even more amazing. Observe and remember the way the people around you behave these days, because that’s what they really are.

Of course the leakers do not consider that it takes a second to forward the leak to hundreds of people who forward it to hundreds more. That’s what “exponential increase” means, and it also describes how coronavirus spreads.

The drugstore, which usually has five customers in it, had at least six times that. There were red lines taped on the floor to indicate the proper social distance. The distance was observed by everyone but the lady in designer clothes who was standing too close to the lady in front of her. “Social distance, please,” said the latter. Designer fashion lady seemed lost in her thoughts. “Lady, you have to step back,” I said, in the voice that makes waiters call me Sir to my face. She stepped back.

By the time total lockdown was announced we were all exhausted from waiting and overthinking.

I predict that the next round of rom-coms and Wattpad novels will all be set in quarantine. That Thing Called Lockdown. Love in the Time of COVID-19. I’m Coronavirus-Positive, I Love You.

With public transport suspended and the borders closed, my cleaning lady won’t be able to come to work. This weekend I explained that she had to wash her hands constantly and avoid people. The concept of pandemic weirded her out. She’s very hardworking and trustworthy, and if she’d had an education I’d be working for her. Lucky I paid her in advance, as did her other employers, so she has funds for the month. I’ll have to clean the litterbox myself, big deal. Shoveling actual shit is less stressful than reading the shit on social media.