Now, if I wrote an opinion piece on COVID-19 and me, well, things are about to get whacky:
At 2am this morning I sleepily jotted thoughts for a potential short story into my diary (creative writing is another avenue I may take in my quest to study a random subject next trimester). I write about Harper, a mathematical genius, and the world that is currently under an outrageous alien invasion - Although, the story is more about Harper and her twitter and engineering boys than the invasion. It shows how big things may be happening in the world, but life still goes on, and if you're deep enough in your bubble, the world really may not affect you at all. Like, I saw a tweet saying "has anyone told the Amish what's going on". Is that not ME?
So, I'd say the moment COVID-19 really touched my otherwise impenetrable life was when I received the email that my entire university timetable will be online for the next 5 months, confirmed. 5 months. 5 MONTHS. FIVE MONTHS? Well, safe to say I was fuming, emotional, sad, mad that I had spent 3 weeks miserably adjusting to a new 2020 routine, 2 weeks having the time of my life, and now THIS? Over-dramatically hyperventilating, I put on my pharmacy uniform, went to work, and burst through the doors talking very very fast. "This is the only socialisation I'm going to get," I sob. My colleague elbow taps me like there-there, even though she's being express shipped back to her home country and will be locked out of Australia for the next 6 months.
That night I post on my social media a video of Bretman Rock putting mentos into a gold-painted booty sculpture. "Today we will be discussing what happens to my booty hole when I eat dairy. This is dairy and this is my booty hole." Like many other annoying people on the internet, I am using social media as a coping mechanism. It's a free for all. Routines are out the window. One of the questions in Man Repeller's article "All the Questions That Ran Through My Head Yesterday" was "Will we wish we never posted anything on social media during this time?" Other things I've recklessly posted include this video of Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining how flattening the curve works, this article on growing anti-Asian sentiment from the New Yorker which I captioned "minor feelings", screenshots of THAT Zoom meeting where my camera was the only one on in a class of 50 people and I was on my phone the entire time, a photo of myself trying to persuade people in Australia to get Twitter while we're in social isolation, and the following tweets (which nobody saw anyway because nobody in Australia has twitter):
"currently peaking in quarantine where nobody can see me. life is unfair."
"would rather be a soft gurl but i think i accidentally picked hard gorl."
"Ok 2020 is officially cancelled and im sad :(("
"anyone else feel like their life was getting real good and then BOOM apocalypse virus :(("
After work I go home, smoke some weed, YouTube 'Mandelbrot's Fractal' and set my alarm for the next morning, planning to test webcam angles and lighting in preparation for my Microsoft Teams group meeting, since my camera clearly won't turn off anyway. Unfortunately my lazy self only manages to wake up 5 minutes before the meeting and I'm sitting there on my bed - no makeup, Adidas track pants, only one with their camera on yet again. I feel like the freaking boss. Wait, can they see what's on my bedside table? I'd better clean it up. I open photobooth on my Mac just to see what they're seeing. Yup. Presentable.
I go to work at the pharmacy again that day and there's a new guy working, and he's kind of cute N95-mask-up, until he takes the mask off and reveals the wonders a respirator can do for catfishing. The boy needs to shave. The other pharmacy boy who I've deemed "Pharmacy Boy" tells me artistically (because he's always telling me things artistically) about how he needs to go to London in May to audition for some prestigious acting school. Is that essential travel? He tells me it definitely is.
That day I post on my social media this cartoon by Maddie Dai:
and tweet "I think Dennis the pharmacist knows I'm suffering so he gave me lots of shifts even tho he knows i can't do shit, just so I have somewhere to socialise <3 luv u dennis."
Wednesday morning comes and I speculate that two classmates are flirting on the Microsoft Teams chat during our online tutorial class. I feel so personally attacked that I dream about it that night. What is happening?
That day my roommate invites 3 boys to our apartment. We eat burgers, visit our old college, and all around make a terrible effort at practicing social distancing. It makes me feel hypocritical because that same day my mother texts me asking if my sister should come home, and I reply that "college is a festering pit of disease about to explode", condemning my sister to live with our parents for the indefinite future. I liked a tweet "If you're under 25 it's time to start accepting some harsh realities. Your extended adolescence where you prance around Brooklyn making fun of your religious family is over. You're moving back in with them. Praise Him." Anyway, I lost my keys that day, so karma got me.
Frustrated at our country's current predicament, I post this infographic by Mona Chalabi, circling South Korea's lovely flat curve saying "shoulda been us":
Thursday, I redownload TikTok, download a dating app because now boys have no other option but to talk to me, tweet "just ate a whole block of Brie and Margot Robbie has the audacity to walk across my tv screen in a bikini. Feels like shit." and repost an Instagram post from Jhene Aiko:
My dad replies "scary thing is there is a small chance that this may be true." to which I have the fleeting thought, "Duh. Aliens are real."
In another condemnable effort to social isolate, I invite a friend over for takeaway brunch where we gossip and film a TikTok. When he leaves, the gossip he shared - reputations, stories, personalities - are swimming through my head and I really must open my diary. Inside I see pages and pages of entries from the past few days, and I write, "social distancing has resulted in too much time for me to overanalyse every little experience and habitually write about it. I guess the next five months are going to be thoroughly documented, hey."
Afterwards my roommate and I are driving alongside the empty shops and the sky is so so blue. The radio has played songs that I've felt like dancing to the entire drive and I say, "You know, this quarantine thing isn't so bad." She replies reminding me that we haven't really been in quarantine.
Walking back from my jog around the park today, the bus to the hospital in the city passes me. It's the bus I would've taken to the placement I was so excited to start as of next week. It's the bus that would've taken me to all my expectations for 2020, but that's all different now. I guess life just takes us in unpredictable directions, and while we don't get what we asked for, often what actually happens is better anyway.
I liked a tweet "a pandemic isn't a writing retreat lol"
Another quarantine question in that Man Repeller article was "What is my password to Wordpress?"
That's my headspace writing this right now.
Love,
M
