The Only Way Out Is Through
It’s a bizarre combination of boring and stressful. The CDC said yesterday that we should all be wearing masks in public to prevent asymptomatic infected from spreading the virus. Using terms like “asymptomatic infected” without irony and without writing about a zombie apocalypse seems…so so weird, just like everything else these days.
This is a typical workday for me just now:
- wake up and realize that yes, this is really happening
- get up, do what one usually does when one first gets up in the morning
- wash hands for the first time that day
- get dressed, go downstairs, let dogs out
- wash hands (because I’ve touched the dogs and the doorknob)
- usual morning ablutions, put makeup on (not sure why I’m still doing this but it makes me feel more “normal”)
- make dogs’ breakfast, wash dog bowls
- wash hands
- make tea to take to work, grab whatever breakfast I will have, spray kitchen surfaces, tap, sink etc. with bleach
- leave for work
- arrive at work, put mask on, Lysol wipe anything and everything
- wash hands
- do usual but abbreviated workday but with no clients in the building, wearing a mask, staying 6′ apart from co-workers and washing hands every five minutes it seems like
- I’ve taken a big cut in hours to help us make ends meet
- come home, take off shoes at the door, go upstairs, take off scrubs and put right into hamper in closet, wash hands, change into “in the house” clothes, wash hands
- eat lunch
- go back upstairs, change into “out of the house” clothes, walk dogs
- come home, shoes off at door, straight upstairs, take off “out of the house” clothes (which are kept in a separate room so I don’t have to wash them every single day), wash hands, change BACK into “in the house” clothes
- do whatever for the rest of the afternoon (clean, video games, cook, eat dinner, watch “Time Team” or something equally absorbing but comforting)
- go to bed, try to sleep, lather rinse repeat
I wash my hands somewhere between 15-50 times a day.
One of the Time Team episodes we watched this week was them digging a part of London that had been bombed badly in the Blitz. They were bombed EVERY NIGHT for 57 night. FIFTY SEVEN NIGHTS IN A ROW. More civilians died in the Blitz than soldiers died in the war. That put this into perspective a bit. All we have to do is stay home and deal with whatever the fallout of this is. We’re not getting bombed EVERY NIGHT FOR FIFTY SEVEN NIGHTS. Holy shit. Keep calm and carry on indeed.
People are nicer in general, although tempers and nerves are frayed. We wave and say hi out in the world from 6′ away. I had to go to Tops this past week, I wore a mask, and it was still really scary and stressful. Every allergy cough from post nasal drip gives me anxiety. It’s just such a bizarre time. The environment will thank us though.