Greetings from quarantine! Yes it's true, the virus so nice I've contracted it twice. I feel mostly fine except for the sheer volume of what can only be described as ectoplasm issuing forth from my sinuses. I definitely don't need to call urgent care but I just might call Ghostbusters.
All I can do right now is go for walks, because I am a pariah unfit for entry into public spaces. At least the weather has been nice for February? Anyway, the other day I set out for a long and luxurious Snot Girl Walk (like a Hot Girl Walk, except nasty and infectious). While walking the perimeter of McFerrin Park, I saw a person lying on their back in the grass in kind of a weird location, just a few feet away from the parking area. There are vast expanses of grass where it's probably more pleasant to lie down and relax away from cars, so I didn't immediately clock this body as a sunbather. Also, it's nice for February. It was sunny but still windy and only in the low 60s. If you're gonna lay out in a place like McFerrin Park, sorry but I'mma need to see obvious signifiers that you are sunbathing, please. If I don't see a blanket, snacks, reading material and/or a boombox (or maybe a time machine, because who am I kidding?) I am going to have to ask myself:
Is this person:
a) sunbathing
b) overdosing
c) a dead body dumped in the park
d) astral projecting
I need to contextualize you, person on the ground! I don't want to have to get involved, but I don't want to be the monster who just gawks at a dead or dying human and continues on my merry way like none of my business...
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This interactive story about homelessness in America hits pretty close to home. It includes a lot of coverage of a tent city in Nashville. I kept looking at the photos and wondering if I've ever seen any of the folks around. I make it a habit to keep granola bars in the center console of my car so if I'm ever at an intersection and an unhoused person is looking for help, I can just hand them a bag.
This interview with a sociopath made my skin crawl. But it was also reassuring! I often read descriptions of mental illnesses or neurodiversity and worry, oh god is that me? Do I have that? But I can say with 100% certainty that I am not a sociopath. They don't feel guilt or shame! What a luxury! Can you even imagine the freedom? Sometimes I wonder if there even are other emotions besides gradations of guilt and shame.
My old friend, the Presidential Physical Fitness Test. I am arguably more fit now than I was in high school, but I bet not much has changed for me in this government-mandated shame vehicle. (Am I crazy or did they also used to weigh us in front of the whole class?) The only one of these tests I'd be able to pass, to this day, is the sit and reach. I actually used to get yelled at in gym for being too flexible and showing off. Have never done a pull-up in my life, and surely never will, but you better believe I'm gonna maintain the ability to put my legs behind my head until the day I die. In fact, that's probably how I will die at age 107, and I don't even mind, because I actually just now decided I want an open casket and I want to be embalmed in that position, legs behind head, middle fingers raised to the sky.
Analog Reading:
Finished Die With Zero by Bill Perkins. I get that he wrote this for a specific audience, but it just drips of privilege. I thought it was going to be more practical about how to make your retirement savings last as long as you need it to, while also figuring out how to craft an enjoyable life instead of just scrimping and saving. And it was sort of that, but it was also like, every dollar you don't spend on something epic is a portion of your life energy that you wasted, and also don't be a fatty because that makes your life less enjoyable. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but as I was reading it, I just kept thinking about all the people who don't have the luxury of thinking the way he encourages us all to think about money.
I came and got Come and Get It by Kiley Reid. After attending her author event at Parnassus, and learning how much research and scholarship went into this book that has such depth and nuance but is also just plain fun, I feel like an absolute little piggy snarfing up this entire book in like 3 days. It's like when you toil in the kitchen for days to prepare a Thanksgiving feast and then your guests belly up to the table already filled up on cheese and crackers. Also, they're drunk and finish eating in 15 minutes, and then don't even help you with the dishes. I'm sorry, Kiley. I really enjoyed your book, and I can't wait to see what you do next.
About to finish Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang, another author whose talk we attended at Parnassus when she was on her book tour. I kept putting this one off because I had so many ebook holds flood in all at once, but this little involuntary vacation I'm on has given me an abundance of reading time! This book came out of the author's very strange early covid lockdown experience, but I think it also comes from her own deeply rooted issues with food and, in my unprofessional opinion, disordered eating. I am enjoying the book's darkness and quasi-apocalyptic context, but I also want to be like, has anyone asked this author if she's ok?
Later today, I believe I will start another book that promises to be unbelievably brutal, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.
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