JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

A stranger called my friend’s landline and started talking about the Bible. No doubt she thought she was giving comfort, and I don’t deny that religion is a source of comfort in dreadful times (especially when religious groups lend their facilities to hospitals and frontliners), but she could have asked before launching into her sermon. Is her church telemarketing? I don’t answer calls from numbers that are not in my directory, unless I feel like yelling at someone. I learned this reply from Ricky: “How did you get this number? Do not call me again. If you call me again, I will report you.” I would say the same if the caller were selling religion.

As our current situation has no precedent and much of the planet has been locked down for over a month, I suppose mystical/magical/woo-woo solutions are in demand. People want certainty, even if it’s from interpreting animal innards or dog farts. Obviously if your horoscope in January and February did not mention a pandemic and quarantine, and promised you parties, social events and travel, you should look elsewhere. If certainty—no, less uncertainty—is what we want, we need mass screening for coronavirus. I don’t think we can go outside until that happens.

In an interview, the former secretary of socioeconomic planning said he resigned because of policy disagreements with the other cabinet members. I gather (please correct me if I’m wrong) he favored a modified quarantine that would allow a gradual restart of the economy. Can’t plan the economy without an economy, but would we feel safe about leaving our houses? The new old presidential spokesperson said he goes jogging in his barangay—this is allowed? Inside some houses, citizens gaze perplexed at the one banana and one egg food relief in a package just big enough to bear the names of the richest person in the country, his spouse the senator, and his child the congressperson.

If it were two eggs and a banana it would be a job for the Movie and TV Review and Classification Board. How well I remember the MTRCB rules governing the showing of flesh onscreen: one breast could be visible, but double breast exposure was verboten. And who can forget that evocative term, “pumping scene”? This was in the era of agribusiness titles like Itlog and Kangkong.

Going back to the woo-woo-ness, I have a pack of tarot cards I’ve never learned to use because going to the manghuhula is more fun. They see possibilities that might never have occurred to you. Obviously I can’t visit Aling Vicky outside Quiapo Church near the anting-anting and the herbal abortifacients, so I’m doing a tarot experiment.

Every day I shuffle the cards 7 times, cut them into three piles, and turn them over. Past, present, future. Then I record the cards. So far everything’s been cheery. My Jung-invoking friend reminded me that all forms of divination are based on finding external manifestations of your inner reality (Synchronicity). As I keep saying, though no one believes me: I’m an optimist.

This just in: Djokovic is an antivaxxer.