JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

I have lived in the same apartment for half my life, and I’ve never really paid attention to its spaces. I’ve treated it like a hotel, three-star at best, to sleep and bathe in, and from which to launch myself into my daily life. At best I am a boarder; the real residents are my books, clothes, and cats. And I always assumed that I would live in another country or travel constantly, so I’ve never furnished it properly.

The furniture consists of cheap finds plus odds and ends discarded by friends. A formerly elegant writing table, now in need of varnish after the ministrations of my cats. A filing cabinet, life-changing, which holds reams of documents and drafts that used to be shoved in tote bags scattered all over the house, many of which were peed on by my late, bonkers cat Saffy and thrown away. Two large and ugly bookshelves that will never merit the adjectives “vintage” or “antique”, whose horizontal surfaces are mercifully invisible under layers of books. Three metal bookshelves that I proudly assembled myself. Two wooden Thailand-made shelves that I got on sale. Two chipboard shelves from the warehouse supermarket, and a rolling bookshelf that was in my friend’s house in the red light district. A thin shelf that was in the office of our short-lived magazine. Five massive plastic boxes full of books.

There’s a dining table for six, its chairs screaming for re-upholstering (Thank you, cats), a refrigerator, a mattress, two shoe racks, a wooden chest just big enough to hold the Lost Ark, and four less massive plastic boxes of notebooks. The closets and kitchen cabinets come with the house. Not surprisingly I don’t invite people in, it would be like entertaining in a storage unit.

For some years I slept on a large mauve couch like Mulder in The X-Files. When my back began to complain I transferred to a foam rubber mattress ten inches thick. When both couch and mattress had been thoroughly eviscerated by the cats, I paid the janitor to take them away. I remember my sadness as I watched those wretched furnishings leave my house. Ridiculous to feel sentimental about junk, but they had served me well. (I also give my computers names.) I had to apologize to my ancient 24-inch Sony TV when I disposed of it—replacing the busted picture tube would’ve cost more than a new TV.

The last five weeks have been the longest unbroken stretch I’ve ever spent in my apartment, and with no deadlines to meet I have gotten to know it at last. Apart from the repairs I should attend to, it’s actually not bad. I have a view I never look at because I work with my back to the window. On the other side the cats have a view of the roof, which occasionally hosts birds and stray cats. Why do I work at the dining table when I have a proper desk? Before I knew it I was cleaning and polishing the desk, I, who make every excuse to avoid housework. Truly these are weird times. Next I may be regrouting the bathroom.

It is so hot my brains are melting and leaking out of my ears. I cannot string two thoughts together and will thus be unable to join the race to discover a Covid-19 vaccine. Declared value of saving humanity: ten million pesos. Presumably it’s a token, since saving the world is, as the credit card put it, priceless. Also there is no mention in superhero movies of how much they charge for, say, rescuing Asgard from Hela or Los Angeles from Lex Luthor.

“Hero” is a term much bandied about in this pandemic. As supermarket employee Karleigh Frisbie Brogan wrote in a piece seething with righteous anger, Calling Me a Hero Only Makes You Feel Better. The best way we can show respect to the supermarket frontliners, she pointed out, is to not show up. Avoid going to the grocery unless you have to, and make a paper list so you don’t forget anything. Go in and get out.

Oh look, “Reopen” protests in America. “Legalize the Constitution” says a sign. That’s so funny, I forgot to laugh.