art and love in the time of plague

So much of our plans now hinge on the contingency of other things.  I have a helluva a lot of upcoming stuff in the library that may all be moot if classes get moved to online (the library may still be open for people to use the resources and computers if necessary, but a lot of people will have the option of working from home at that point--not me likely, but some.)  I walk a gauntlet of dangers to even get to the library everyday--public trans, the city streets, my apartment building in the heart of Loyola territory and down to the Columbia campus.   So I've sort of accepted that infection may be inevitable if it hits a good portion of the urban population.  I can wash my hands til the cows come home, but it's no guarantee. I will probably skip a visit in early April to my dad's, because I wouldn't want to get in proximity to anyone over 60 during all this crazy.  So what to do but wait and hope things work out. People seem to either A) be losing their damned minds or B) not worried about it all, so I have no idea where to land.

So meanwhile I dig away at dgp projects and my own writing things and try to think about art and beauty while trying not to panic. It's the social upheaval of something like this, moreso than the insidiousness of the disease. It's a tenuous web--, the economic system, the public environment, the heath care system, infrastructure.  I don't like to think that it's so fragile, but it is.    It doesn't help to have an idiotic government downplaying it all, or a social media-environment turning up the hysteria dial. I kind of just want to avoid both. Writing doesn't seem important in the face of real-life dangers and drama, but it might be the thing that saves my mental health.

Social distancing is easy for my little introvert heart, who would probably just stay in my apartment with the cats forever if you let me.  Outside of working, I don't tend to have a lot of other plans in general that can't be accomplished at home. Lit-wise, I didn't really have fully formed plans  regarding a release for SEX & VIOLENCE, and  it seems the least important thing to be thinking of right now, but maybe I will do some sort of virtual book  release party..maybe instagram videos of me reading or somesuch. We are inching closer and closer to April and I just wish my head were in it all.  I was enormously happy to see they have taken up the grass in the tulip beds along Michigan Ave in some places and the tiny tendrills don't care nothing about pandemics and will still bloom in a few weeks nevertheless.