About a week and a half ago I told my therapist that I was surprised that I wasn’t freaking out about the coronavirus. That was March 5th.
On Saturday March 7th, I had a birthday party. It was more of a day of events, really. One of the reasons I have a birthday party every year is to get my married friend with kids to come see me in the city. Josh is one of them. He lives in Westchester, a couple of towns over from New Rochelle where that lawyer became the patient zero of the New York City coronavirus. He texted me that morning, “Is it still on?”
Of course!
“I guess you just aren’t scared in Brooklyn. We’re freaking out. Everything is getting cancelled.” I thought that was a drag, but I remained unconcerned. Aware but unconcerned. I had looked for hand sanitizer the previous week and found none anywhere, but it was cool. Soap works.
The day of my party consisted of breakfast in a crowded restaurant with a bunch of friends. Then drinks at a soccer bar in which we all shook hands in greeting. Then a trip to a place to play pool (this place right outside the 7th Avenue Q stop, I’d seen it for years but never went in, it was cool) where we used cues that were not wiped down with any disinfectant. Then I had people over to my house for drinks and cake. I don’t mean to brag but there were more than 10 people there. My friend Pat, another married father of two, brought a sixer of Corona because he’s a wiseass. On March 7th, that was funny (sorta).
All of that is unthinkable now.
On Sunday I had my storytelling show. It was attended by a lot of people in an enclosed space and many of us touched the same microphone. We all bumped elbows instead of shaking hands. Again, unconcerned but aware.
Monday March 9th felt normal to me. It was just another beginning of a work week. The virus was in the news but I listened to the CDC guidelines. That’s all I could do.
Something shifted on Tuesday March 10th. The tone changed in the news and in person. Mandatory working from home was starting to happen. Josh texted me, “You seem uncharacteristically relaxed about this whole thing… I guess all the running is keeping you grounded?”
I texted, “Actually, the hive mind has me freaking out.”
“Ah, that’s better,” he said.
My actual birthday was Wednesday March 11th. That was the day the WHO declared this a pandemic.
That day I went and saw a friend, who happens to be in her seventies. After I left, I thought, “People over seventy are the most vulnerable, what if I’m, like, a carrier? What if I have it and don’t have symptoms but i just gave it to her? Yeah, we only touched elbows but still. I mean, I might be achey. Am I achey right now? Christ how do you know if you’re sick? I took my temperature but the last reading said 95 point something which google said is hypothermia, so I don’t think that’s a good indicator of whether or not I’m okay…”
That was my first real freak out.
I decided to do my improv show that night. Two members of the team didn’t think it was a good idea to come out to the show, not until they had a handle on what was going on.
We were up in the late slot and I met up with my team at Walter’s, the bar around the corner from the Magnet Theater. I quickly drank beers both because people bought them for me for my birthday and I needed to calm my nerves.
The show was fun. It was also the last one we will be doing, at least together in person, for a while.
Here’s a thing: to date, I have done improv in the aftermath of 9/11, during the summer I cleaned out my dead parents’ home in Rochester, NY, and during a pandemic. It’s not running that keeps me grounded. It’s improv.
On Thursday March 12th, I fell for that Emma Bloomberg hoax that ended with “get groceries now!” That precipitated my second real freak out. That’s how I found myself in my therapist’s office with two bags from Target containing a bag of Tostitos, a bag of Cheddar Chex Mix, Tide, two six packs of Reese’s Eggs, toilet paper (shut up), and 8 cans of beans (black and kidney). If you can get better, healthier stuff at Target, I’m all ears. And for those of you keeping score, this was the same place that a week prior, I declared, “I’m not that worried about the coronavirus.”
I stopped by two more grocery stores that evening: Whole Foods, which was damn near empty, and Associated on 5th Ave. in Park Slope where the shelves still happened to be full of pasta and assorted goods that I had thought were gone until the development of a vaccine.
I honestly had no idea if there would be food. And I’m ashamed to admit this in a time of actual crisis but what was I honestly thinking? How many bags of pita chips am I going to need? I can live without vegetables, protein, and vitamins. When I stare at my cupboards and there’s only one thing left, I want it to be pita chips. I know that’s some Marie Antoinette shit but it’s what I was thinking.
I went on Amazon and ordered a computer monitor to go along with my work laptop because I knew I’d need it for working from home for the long haul.
On Friday the 13th, I worked from home for the first time in earnest. On that day, I had a slice of chocolate cake for lunch and, after work was done, I stayed up watching movies while getting drunk on leftover birthday party beer and making chili. I’m also pretty sure I mopped my floors at, like, 3:00AM.
Here’s a thing: a day later a friend of mine asked if I was getting cabin fever and I, knowing full well how I had spent that evening, answered, “No.”
On Saturday I did a whole lot of napping but also managed to get in my long run for the week because I’m still training for the Brooklyn Half Marathon because on some days I’m an optimist.
On Sunday I had a writer’s meeting over google hangouts. That was my first virtual meeting. I know it won’t be my last. My friend Bryan put on a storytelling show on Facebook and Twitch and Zoom. I don’t know how he did it, I can ask if you want. I wasn’t sure it would be the same but even that, just seeing people tell stories made me feel better.
My new monitor arrived and the past two days I’ve worked from home and felt productive. A big part of that is the fact that I have put on pants. I know you all are enjoying the underwear and sweatpants thing. I get it. But it wears off. Watching the sunset in your underwear without having left your apartment or spoken to another human starts to eat away at your soul after a while.
Christ, I’m depressed just knowing that I’ve truly earned that knowledge.
I’m not that worried for myself. If I get it, the data points to me surviving. But I am worried about being part of the problem, of unwittingly passing it and perpetuating it. I have no problem staying inside. I’m also incredibly fortunate that my income doesn’t depend on any of the things that have closed.
Today is Tuesday March 17th, a week since – pardon the expression – shit got real. It’s St. Patrick’s Day and all the bars are closed because they need to be. I went out for a run tonight because I still can. By the time I hit publish, Bill de Blasio may have already ordered us to shelter in place.
That was one week.
