Syllabus #158

I'm very good at Wordle

 

I write to you as a free woman.  Yesterday, I finally tested negative twice, in the morning and afternoon, after 12 miserable days in covid isolation.  

I fully realize what an ignorant child I have been for complaining so much, but damn it was awful.  The symptoms were not the problem - I had a fever, headache, and general body aches for less than 24 hours, after which it felt like a very average cold that wouldn't have even kept me home from work back in Precedented Times.  I did completely lose my sense of smell for a few days, and it is still around maybe 30% for most odors.  My ability to taste was severely muted for a few days, but that wasn't really as disturbing as losing my sense of smell.  I think I might generally be a non-taster, but this past week I could have gargled Tabasco without breaking a sweat (as opposed to doing it like a champ but maybe wanting some milkies afterwards).  

The worst part was the isolation.  Yes, we are fortunate to have enough space that I could stay away from Andy and not infect him.  But being enclosed in one room for 9 days, save for solitary walks outside, and eating every meal on the floor, was really dehumanizing.  Yea, I read a lot of books and watched a couple good shows I wouldn't have otherwise ever bothered to watch (for free.99, thanks Hulu trial), but I can see how people might quickly go insane in a solitary confinement situation.

When I finally emerged and got to sit at a table, I felt like Borat:

You better believe now I'm in full on Rumspringa mode with my temporary immunity.  Licking subway poles.  Going to raves.  Going to Broadway.  All of it.

Watching:

I tried watching a couple episodes of Hulu's Mormon No More and the people in it were just too normal.  I was vibing with their story, but it was just like, wow you are relatable humans who are having a real human experience and I'm glad you're sharing your story with people who might need to hear it, but I came here for salaciousness and scandal and you just aren't delivering.

I then treated myself to an episode of Conversations with Friends at each of my solitary floor meals.  There are a lot of boobies in this show.  It does feel quite faithful to the novel, and Ireland looks lovely.  I'm salivating over their public transit, but also feeling sorry for the fact that part of the story takes place in the summer and everyone in Dublin is wearing pants and jackets.  You mean it can be summer in a place and you don't get slapped with a wet towel when you step outside, and not everyone walks around with a permanent sweatstache from late May until mid-October?

Analog Reading:

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys.  I started it at night and read the rest the following day.  Her books are fast reads, mostly because she straddles the line between YA and adult fiction, and so they aren't overly complex.  She just tells a really good, compelling story.  This book was set at the tail end of the Romanian dictatorship that fell in a spectacular, violent uprising at Christmas, 1989, when the Ceaușescus were executed by firing squad after a 2 hour trial.  I enjoyed the bit of character crossover from her previous novel, Fountains of Silence, set in 1950s Madrid under Franco.  The diplomat's son who befriends the main character in that book is now a diplomat himself, and his son befriends the main character in this book.  Neat/time is a flat circle/etc.

The Idiot by Elif Batuman - I can't shake the feeling that I've read this book before.  I have almost certainly read this book before.   But, I have no idea how long ago, it's entertaining, and it's getting to be slim pickins up in here, so I did finish it before I taking my Kindle out of airplane mode to sync the couple of new library books I just downloaded.

Partway through Douglas Stuart's new novel, Young Mungo.  I loved and was heartbroken by Shuggie Bain, and this one is just as beautifully sad.  The Glaswegian dialect takes a bit of getting used to, but the book just wouldn't be the same without it.  It's funny, I almost forgot the characters were actually meant to be speaking English, and there's a scene where Mungo is helping his sister study for French class and he's struggling with the idea that something like a spoon can have a gender in another language, and I thought "yea, that's funny, I feel that way about speaking English and learning Spanish" and then I remembered, oh, this bloke actually is speaking some very particular type of English.

Still reading Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris.  I like to dole out his books in small morsels, like I'm some kind of rat waiting on a pellet to drop in my Skinner box.  Which is an apt description of my life in covid isolation.  It was an exercise in restraint not to engulf an entire book in one sitting.