What do my friends look like?
Do I still have friends?
Should I move the couch? Again?
Is he still our president?
What else can I spray-paint?
Bangs?
How stupid can my brilliant children be?
It’s good to not wash your hair for a week, right?
What. The. F@#$???
I’ve been fortunate during the pandemic. I work from home. I live far away from everyone. I have a lovely man from whom I don’t need to social distance. I am a hermit by nature.
I love me a pandemic.
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel isolated from the world and from reality. With this much alone time, things occasionally get weird.
How have I filled my days?
There’s not much variety from one to the next. As mentioned, I work – solo. I don’t participate in Zoom meetings. I have a landline that only sort of functions. I don’t have much interaction with other humans, but Elvis the Wonder Corgi and I can now communicate telepathically as we gaze adoringly into each other’s eyes.
We are truly simpatico.
I change my clothes often throughout the day; work clothes (when I open my computer in the living room, not in my bed), exercise attire (to walk to the mailbox), loungewear (for watching reruns of Bewitched), granny flannel (for crawling under my electric blanket at 8 p.m.).
I spent most of 2019 in post-op sweatpants and in February had just gotten back into my jeans vowing to never utter the words “yoga pants” again. And now, well,
Namaste.
My obsession with cults has run rampant: Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Sweat lodges in NM, those people up in Oregon in the pink clothes, and a few closer to home. As I try to figure out why anyone would possibly jump into that controlled world I see, in our isolated, uncontrolled existence, that craving human connection can drive us to really weird places.
Still avoiding any Kool-Aid.
I had a phone appointment with my doctor the other day during which I forced him to stay on the phone telling me every detail of his recent father-son hunting trip. It was either that or I was going to end up inside a sweat lodge with 50 others dressed in pink prairie dresses claiming to be my “authentic self.”
I fantasize about saying, “I’ll take the Eggs Benedict, please,” wearing anything but yoga pants.
I washed my entire rock collection.
I then Modge Podged those rocks.
Yes, it has come to shellacking rocks.
I’ve gotten freakishly maternal about my backyard birds. In the spring, murder and mayhem ruled as the kingbirds fought off tanagers (and I battled a 7-foot snake) to protect their babies. Now the jays are attacking, but I’m not letting my quail go down without a fight.
Ratbastards.
I have become a tea drinker. I don’t like tea. I am a coffee gal. But I’ve discovered that five or six cups a day of weakly flavored hot water deters against boredom eating. It’s working, but now all I do is pee.
The neighbors, Hank and Zoe, often show up, uninvited, for dinner. Hank usually passes out on my living room floor after eating everything in sight and Zoe gives me a quick kiss before running home for second dinner.
They’re dogs.
I walk 200 yards, uphill, to check my mail, thus ticking exercise and mail off the daily to-do list.
I helped some folks change their flat tire so I could converse with someone besides my doctor and the dogs.
I’ve discovered thrifting online. In a big way.
I talk to Alexa. Unfortunately, she usually responds to my musings with, “I don’t know about that.” To which I respond, “Oh F@#!$ off Alexa!”
Then she tells me that my “…language is unnecessary.”
F@#$ off, Alexa.
I paint my finger nails every day. That’s at least 5x more than I bathe.
I have to admit, there’s been a fair amount of screen time as well.
Especially pre-election.
Well…post-election too.
For a while I was so engrossed in social media that I said, “When I was on Facebook…” more often than “Where’s the vodka?” I was also beginning to dislike a whole lot of people that I called friend.
So, I quit Facebook and my computer notified me that my screen time usage went down by 3.5 hours a day.
But I still surf the Net, googling subjects such as:
Is Utah closed to visitors?
Is Utah REALLY closed to visitors???
Why don’t people paint living rooms yellow?
I painted my living room yellow and answered my own question.
UPS tracking results
What’s it like to have a bi-polar meltdown?
USPS tracking results
Why does hand sanitizer smell like tequila?
Fed Ex where’s my package?
Why does herbal tea make me burp?
Rudy Giuliani’s face melt
Stephen Colbert – Rudy Giuliani’s face Melt
What’s a turbo relationship and why is it thriving during the pandemic?
Air Force One facts you never knew
Where was Morning Glory Drive?
Recliner slipcover
Because mine is threadbare after 9 months of Reclining
Netflix – DVD – Queue
Yes, I get red envelopes in my mailbox Opioid vs Narcotic
Michigan Department of Corrections Inmate Search
Alden’s Ice Cream
18 ways going to an all-girls school will change you
Ben and Jerry’s
Can I teach my dog to speak in full sentences?
Chocolate cake for one
Life after 50
NPR election results
Refresh
NPR Election Results
Refresh
Refresh, Refresh, Refresh
Giving up the ghost
Sir, this is a Wendy’s”
Surviving in the desert
20 things that happen when a Jersey Girl leaves Jersey
And in the middle of the night, when I cannot sleep, I’ve gone from watching hours of cake decorating on YouTube, to reading books on relationships that offer insights such as:
“A woman need not be well educated or possess high intelligence to follow a clever man’s discourse. In his pleasure at having himself admired the man seldom notices that his conversation is not understood… If you learn to listen to a man correctly, it doesn’t matter if the subject is interesting or dull”
“How to be attractive, even adorable, when you are angry.”
“Many a girl has transformed a man from an apparently stupid, weak, lazy, cowardly, unrighteous man into a determined, energetic, true and noble one.”
And how does she do that? By admiring his manly characteristics:
“His strength in moving heavy objects and turning screws…The manner in which he rules over you and the children…His beard and mustache – the ultimate displays of male masculinity…His heavy gait, and … acknowledging your own weaknesses: ‘You paint (the fence) with so little effort. I’m afraid it would be very tiring to me.’”
Dear God, let this f@#$ pandemic end soon.
Suzanne Strazza writes from Montezuma County, Colo.
