I’m Back!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. Life ACV (After CoronaVirus) sapped my creative spirit and silence my muse. Hell, it not only silenced my muse but beat the living shit out of it. Frankly. ruminating about my mantra, “I Never Knew Eight Hours Could Last So Long,” seemed downright laughable. I now realize that God, or a Supreme Being, or a Higher Power, or a Cosmic Life Force, or Fate, has a wicked sense of humor. Now I actually look wistfully back at my dismal efforts to fill eight hours, now that I face the daunting task of filling 18 empty hours each day.

So my new plan is to use my ACV experiences to demonstrate that I’m not unexpectedly any better at finding personal interests ACV as I was BCV (Before CoronaVirus). Maybe every once in a while I’ll revisit my missteps BCV as a contrast to the present. In fact, maybe they’ll be a game plan for FWCV (Future Without CoronaVirus) as distant and unreachable as such a time may seem.

Please don’t think that I am taking any of this lightly. I understand the enormity of all we face. If these posts help me cope, even a little, then they’re worth my time. (As if I was too busy BCV!) If they help you cope, even a little, it’s gravy on my mashed potatoes, chocolate frosting on my cake. (Jesus! Those are bad metaphors, given that my lack of cooking skills and general malaise has limited my diet to daily doses of frozen food.)

Now to one of my earliest ACV observations. To those to whom I’ve already mentioned this, my apologies. But I’ve only got so many of these, so . . .

I assume many of us saw television as one way to alleviate our boredom and provide us with a little escape from the jarring reality we faced. I found, though, that 15 or 20 minutes into a program I realize that I have no idea of the plot because I’ve been yelling at the characters to maintain a distance of six feet from each other. Sometimes I wonder the kind of place they’re in, with tables filled and people eating a meal. Then I curse them for reminding me what life was like BCV. Moving on, I try to figure out which them may be an unwitting CV carrier, shedding little tiny virus particles everywhere. If someone coughs, I hide my head under one of my couch pillows. Finally, I whisper to them that they don’t know how good they have it and to prepare themselves for what is to come. My daughter’s cat Bean, whom I’ve been taking care of since my daughter, Lydia, went away to college in 2012, has been giving me that cat stare since the program began. She does that cat stretch, which always unnerves me a little, and walks from the room.

Exhausted, I take a nap.