notes from quarantine, no. 1
by Matt McCarthy
Days blend one into another and lines blur. Is this a weekday? I think there used to be a time when I changed clothes every day but that seems crazy now. General hygiene has taken a hit.
I’ve forgotten how to behave. I talk to my cats like they’re people now and plead for answers but they only look away and continue their cool aloofness. They’re plotting against me and my wife may be in cahoots. In fact, she’s the ringleader. I can see it in her eyes, that look of disgust and violence that she’s stopped trying to hide; the way she unloads the dishwasher with blatant disregard for the dish organization system I so meticulously put into place. It’s naked aggression. And I’m fairly certain she’s hidden my iPhone charger.
Sweet Jesus, how she must loathe me.
I find cocktail hour begins a little earlier each day, but then again time is a construct that holds little meaning now. I pay the computer and someone delivers drinks to my door. I wear mask and gloves when I receive my boozy packages and cannot look the delivery person in the eye. I tip too much.
I break down my cardboard before I recycle it and it enrages me when others do not. The whole garbage scene is a hotbed of triggers and anxiety for me. You can’t recycle that. Put your garbage in the garbage not next to the garbage. We’re living in a society here, people, and if you can’t even get your garbage right then, seriously, what hope is there?
Some days taking out the garbage is the only time I leave the house.
I miss people. I mean, not people in general, because they’re the worst, but I miss a few, specific people (you know who you are). It would be nice to see them again in person without sitting six feet away in a mask. They help keep me calibrated as a human and I love them.
I’d like to hug my mom.
Looking at how others have been impacted by this I can’t help but feel fortunate. No one in my immediate family has gotten sick and no one in my extended family or friend group has died from this. So many people have died. Plus, my wife and I still have our jobs. We both work from home, so we’re together a lot (she’s a lucky lady). When you work from home you’re never really one hundred percent at work and you’re never really one hundred percent at home, which is great. So many people have lost their jobs. And I fear there will be a wave of evictions soon in which many will lose their homes. So it’s tough to complain, though I do anyway. I work a lot.
I know that I’m one of the lucky ones. Healthy and employed.
But it’s hard not to feel angry sometimes. Because we had this thing beat back in June. We were doing it. Personally, I had stayed in my apartment, tormenting my wife with my declining hygiene and maniacal rants about recycling, from St. Patrick’s Day through Memorial Day. The curve was flattening. Our sacrifices were paying off.
Then the MAGA idiots started to get their way with their reopen talk. Florida, Texas. California. Georgia, for the love of god. And all those sweaty millennials going to the beaches and the bars and rubbing their germs all over each other … you just couldn’t keep your germs to yourselves, could you?
For those of us who have been doing it right all along, it feels like we’re now being held hostage by a collection of selfish morons who refuse to listen to science or reason, who have no empathy for their fellow citizens, and who are the laughing stocks of the whole world. They’ve put us all at unnecessary risk and prolonged this whole horrible affair with their selfishness and stubborn obstinance.
I do a lot of pushups and situps but it doesn’t help. I think this is just how it’s going to be until January, provided the election unfolds the way we hope.
