Life during Covid-19

Last night, Dr. Skull made pizza for my (belated and socially distant) birthday party.



There was also carrot cake.

I stopped at the liquor store to buy wine on my way home from our daily walk at the park by the river. They were open, with a sign on the door asking all customers to stay six feet apart. Everyone was complying, which was difficult, since I've never seen so many people in that store.

We had a fine celebration. Dr. Skull makes the best pizza, and his carrot cake, with fig preserves as its filling, was excellent.

Carrot Cake with Fig Filling and cream cheese icing

One week into the pandemic, here is what I have noticed so far:

This is not what I expected a pandemic to be like. First, everything moves so much more slowly than it does in books and movies. We're a week into this semi-quarantine, and still no one I know is sick, no one can say how long schools and non-essential stores will have to be closed, no one is sure how bad it will get, or even how bad it is.

Second, being shut up in my house, with nowhere to go, previously my dream of a perfect life, is strangely exhausting. I mean, aside from how I never go to campus to teach, this is essentially exactly the life I was leading a week ago. But somehow it seems more oppressive. I guess those days I was spending on campus were more vital to my mental health than I thought they were.

Third, the depth of depravity among MAGA Americans has become clearer then ever. When most of America is responding with the humor and charity I outlined above, MAGA Americans continue to spread hate and lies -- one common and repeated claim I've seen among that crowd is the pandemic isn't real. (No one is actually sick! they crow. It's all the LYING MEDIA!!1!)

Why is the USA shutting down schools and shops and theaters and restaurants if the pandemic isn't real? Why, it's a plot by the SOCIALIST DEMOCRATS, clearly. We just want to destroy Trump. (As if he wasn't doing that all on his own.)

Since the pandemic is only a plot, according to these losers, we should all deliberately violate the rule against social distancing. They post pictures of themselves taking their children to crowded restaurants, or tweets about the crowded bar they're hanging out in. Spreading the virus to own the libs.

Or, like Rod Dreher, they spread panic and lies out of their own cowardice. This sort of MAGA American is terrified of everything. Their terror finds an outlet in xenophobia, bigotry, and racism, and so they find a way -- some way, any way at all -- to blame what's happening on foreigners, gay people, progressives, or any people except white Conservative Christian Americans.


Finally, though, most people are responding not with panic and hate but with charity, with humor, with zest.

Example: I ran out of coffee on Thursday, and posted about it on FB. Half my feed offered to send me some via a local coffee delivery service, or to bring me some, or to send a friend of theirs who lives close to be over with some. My classics professor from graduate school comment: "No coffee? That's grounds for panic!"

Other examples: People on Twitter are writing poems about their experiences, or sending pictures of their cats; publishers are making their e-books free; scientists are offering to explain science concepts via video chats to kids stuck at home; Geico has promised not to cancel anyone's coverage for non-payment during the pandemic; people are posting gifs and videos and pictures of their cats and dogs, showing how their pets (and they themselves) are reacting to the quarantine.

Among most people, that is the sentiment. This is awful, and scary, and disruptive. But we'll help each other through it. And hey, here's something hilarious my cat did yesterday!

Be like the final group. Not like the MAGA bigots. It's the best chance we have.

Meanwhile, have a comic!