But here I am on what I consider Day One of the Flatten the Curve Lockdown. Everything I've been looking forward to has been cancelled. I'm okay with it. I think it's wise, given the level of illness elsewhere around the globe. Minneapolis is closed. My book arts classes postponed. Theatre tickets refunded. I plan to go to my paper making internship because I spend the day in a big studio alone or with the artist who runs the place (if she's not in her other studio.) Just me and paper, paper, paper.
I've recently gotten interested in making zines and very small artist's books. I have plenty of supplies at home and a couple of days ago I discovered that I had distilled my 90,000 word memoir into ten lines that fit in a 10-page book the size of a saltine. There's a zine version too that fits on one side of a single piece of paper. I can write a fuck ton of 10-page books while I'm hanging out here in my beautiful place.
I'm 67 years old. I'm healthy. On no medications. But January of 2019 I got community acquired pneumonia. It was a bitch. I felt like my ribs were broken for a couple of months. I don't want Covid-19, and I don't want anyone I love to get it either.
I eat fresh food and had almost nothing in my pantry, but a couple of weeks ago, I began getting a few of cans of this and that. And I bought 6 bottles of red wine last week. Last night I moseyed over to the neighborhood Trader Joe’s for another round of casual pantry stocking.
But. Wait. There were no canned goods. Except green jackfruit—whatever that is. No eggs, no bread. A meager supply of nuts. Even the produce bins were empty, except for sweet potatoes and a few bags of blood oranges. Shoppers shuffled through the aisles like Stepford wives, staring into the distance or into their phones, texting, Uh…Should I get some cans of green jackfruit?
So tell me, how are you?
