Housework is therapeutic (unless you are a housewife and/or you have to do it for a living). I mopped the floor with a solution of bleach and felt my anxiety dissipating. Then I had a comforting meal of Ligo sardines, rice (ran out of bread and bought plain rice from the canteen next door), and raw lettuce (I save myself the effort of making vegetables attractive to me and just eat them raw). I had a good nap, a phone conversation with a friend whose hypochondria has been cured by the pandemic (Why worry about getting sick when everyone is doing the same thing?), and a writing workshop session on Zoom. I walked 3km inside my apartment. Read the rest of this entry →
I feel like I spent the last two months in an endless cycle of sweeping the floor and washing the dishes.
In quarantine my primary relationship (after the cats) has been with my phone. It kept gloating about our stiflingly close relationship, pointing out my escalating screen time until I turned off that feature. I do not remember my dreams, but I just had a nightmare in which I kissed my phone screen and it cracked. Read the rest of this entry →
Disoriented. Nothing’s changed—I have no intention of going out, and my street is still quiet—but now that the city is waking up from a 60-day coma, I dread returning to reality. Everything was simple in lockdown (ECQ). My only concern was to stay safe and maintain my sanity. The future was conditional—we could not assume that we would stay virus-free and get there. As long as I had food, books, videos, writing materials, and an internet connection (and the cats were well-supplied), I was fine. Read the rest of this entry →
After weeks of microwave sunshine and temperatures high enough to perm your hair, the weather has swung to another extreme: lashing rain and rough winds that set off car alarms. Flooding is expected.
Mike T mentioned that he is looking forward to walking his dog around the block tomorrow, assuming the storm exits the city. Apparently Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine begins tomorrow, and we can go out for exercise. Hmmm. I think I will stay home till June, ponder the meaning of modified-enhanced, and see what happens. The real test is on Monday when people head out for work with limited public transport.
I will continue keeping this journal until Modified-Enhanced is downgraded to Basic.
The police general of Metro Manila, who arrests all who violate quarantine and social distancing rules—including street vendors who need to earn money so they can eat, and volunteers who feed the hungry—was caught having a birthday party. To most of us “birthday party” qualifies as a mass gathering and is therefore banned, but it’s okay because it wasn’t really a birthday party. It was a traditional mañanita with many well-wishers, food, and drink. Spontaneous feasting as opposed to partying, and certainly not “deliberate partying”. The guests just happened to congregate at random in the same area, and the spread suddenly appeared out of nowhere. People are so suspicious. Read the rest of this entry →
The online book club discussion for kids went well, though the moderator was often flustered. I didn’t prepare a system for controlling the flow of the conversation: I was expecting long pauses as people collected their thoughts. In most Q&As with adults, getting people to speak is like squeezing whisky out of a rock. Read the rest of this entry →
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