My daily updates on the coronatine have dwindled, dear reader, mostly because one day bleeds into the next. I find myself washing the dishes or emptying the cat boxes and thing "Didn't I just do this?" and yes, dear reader, I just did. Perhaps the strangest thing about nothing to break up the days is how nothing is delineated by place or event. Normally, the things that happen in 24 hours are split up. I get up. I ride the bus. I go to work. I come home. The day is split into defined times. These are all one thing, now, where I roll out of bed at some point, eat breakfast, do some work, eat lunch, do some more different work. Then dinner, then streaming movies, then sleep. Maybe some cleaning in between or a trip to the lobby for packages, taking the trash to the dumpster. I try to vary it by showering when I first get up or right before I go to bed, but it hardly matters much, since I don't really get ready to go anywhere. I am not one to complain, mostly since I really like being home and not having to go out, but it takes some getting used to, this new way of experiencing time.
My sleep schedule, while it sometimes resembles the usual, also gets out of whack, either because I wind up napping at some point in the afternoon, or I go to bed to early, then wake up too early, and need to go back midday. Thus the cycle repeats itself. Today was bright and sunny for once, and I'd been asleep my midnight, so 7:30 I was wide awake. I got up, made an omelette, made coffee, and sat down to draft the poem I had not been able to get to yesterday. I'm already dragging and it's not even 11, so I may crawl back under the blankets for a couple hours. But I'm guessing I should enjoy this freedom because eventually we'll be back to something like normal.
The past few days, the death rate continues to spike, though a downturn is expected. I can't help but think of that first anxious, distressed, weekend where I was already home for good, but others were St Patty's partying and going about business as usual, even though city events had been canceled and schools were closing one after another. Everyone running around like little virus machines. But I can only hope that the curve levels off. It makes me uneasy when I read headlines about the city procuring freezer warehouses to harbor corpses, but things seem less dire than places like NYC where it was all happening too fast. We are nearing up on one month. (at least for me, 3 weeks for the rest of the city.)
Things have to be getting better.
I am still having a bit of trouble caring about things I used to quite as fiercely in this world, but I suppose this is to be expected. I promised myself I would keep producing, even if some things sparkle less than they did before. I'm somewhat motivated to work on library things, mostly because justifying my paycheck depends on it, so I've been busy working on programming, lib guides, grant applications and such that can be done away from the physical collection. Poetry and art are a trickier matter. I've been hammering away on the NAPOWRIMO pieces, but they feel a little bit like doing sit ups or laps around the block. I do it, and it's done, but it doesn't spark the way it used to. I'm digging into new layouts and cover designs for the press nevertheless, so hopefully I can fake it til I make it. It occurs to me I would normally be opening for submissions in May, but since this year is out of whack, I might wait til June and hope by then I've regained some of my passion for poetry things and will be a much kinder reader.
