Day 5 of Self Quarantine

Uneventful day, aside from my neighbor’s laundry debacle (see earlier post). The day started out gray, though the trees outside my window (what a luxury eh? 🌳) were still shiny from yesterday’s heavy rain. By 11am the sun came out, so I told myself the shower

can wait while I sat at my desk and scribbled in the sun.

I’ve been on social media a lot more lately. Boredom and lack of human contact makes me want to reach out more, but social media, like any tool, can be a double-edged sword. The fear and uncertainty surrounding what’s now called COVID-19 virus is brewing a lot of fear and othering. And the reporting focuses mostly on its spread and individual and public prevention.

It makes me wonder what the disease is actually like? Symptoms, prognosis, etc. What’s going on now for those 45,000 confirmed cases, and what’s life like for those 5,000 who’ve been discharged?

My best guess? Our lack of understanding is probably pushing them to the edge of society. (People from China/Hubei/Wuhan have already been seriously and quite inhumanly ostracized.)

Out of somewhat morbid curiosity, I started listening to Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphors on Audible. In it she argued that the meaning and judgment we ascribe to illnesses heavily stigmatize the ill. As if it’s a personal failing that this person is now sick, as if illness is somehow deserved.

I’ve said this several times in the past few weeks, IRL and online: No one deserves to be sick. I’ve seen posts saying this group or that group can all die. Or that the people of China brought this on themselves for eating wild animals or general poor hygiene. (None of these sentiments are unique to this epidemic, by the way. Ask Sontag)

I understand that this is a scary time for everyone, and of course there were many mistakes made and many who should be accountable for their incompetence, arrogance, and/or egocentric face-saving, but spare the ill. Please.

We’ve got at least a couple of more months of this to go. We, the people’s, earthling, humans, have got to stick together to get through this. Humans are far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. (Except our backs. My goodness my lower back has been killing me. 33 hit me hard. Why did we become biped anyway?! Overrated.)

Thank you to everyone who’s been reading, liking, and commenting on these posts. You have no idea how much I need the dopamine hits right now 😂 But truly, I am grateful for all of it. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to be useful in a time when I feel like quite literally the best thing I can do is stay home and do nothing, but the internet (for all its ills 😷) has enabled me to do this. And there’s nothing I love more right now then maybe bringing a bit of banality to this madness, and hopefully make a few people giggle while I do it.

Let me know if y’all have any questions about... Stuffs. I’m not an expert in anything but I’ll google/baidu it for you. Yes, I’m that bored.