Thursday, March 26, 2020
Global Status: 529,614
Active Cases: 384,446
Recovered Cases: 121,454
Fatal Cases: 23,714
Everyone likes to say “flatten the curve” 5,000 times a day and it’s intensely annoying. Like “moving forward” and “let’s circle back” and “there’s no I in team”. STOP IT. Find another way to express the message. You’re Driving Me Up the Wall. You’re making me space out for the rest of the monologue because You’re Triple Driving Me Up the Wall and I can’t take it. Good God. Make It Stop.
3.3 million people filed for unemployment in one week.
30% unemployment rate will be reached soon.
A two trillion dollar government bill was passed that has money for individuals and businesses and everybody gets this amount or that amount and the numbers are staggering and drowning us all and there are so many, many numbers. And who knows what it all means anyway?
A thousand people died while I was asleep last night. And Chicago now has a $500 fine for defying social distancing guidelines. Walmart is out of hand sanitizer, just like everyone else, but they told me they won’t get another shipment for a month. And I don’t have any left and I heard the Walmart 45 miles from here had some yesterday and I’m actually tempted to go.
People stand in line to get into Trader Joe’s and only X# of people can go in at a time and they are lined up six feet apart outside. Waiting. To buy apples and tofu and organic who-knows-what. Waiting to see what’s left once they get in there. Hoping they get the last thing of hummus. The last tofurkey dog. The last bag of Snap Pea Crisps.
The military is setting up tent hospitals in New York City and hospitals are considering a blanket Do Not Resuscitate order.
I bought three yards of pink fleece with little snowflakes on it so Mom can make more masks for the hospital. She’s cheery and happy to see me and I am completely clean and still wash my hands before I give her a 20 second hug.
I stay for two hours and we talk about friends who are in the hospital and loved ones can’t go see them because of hospital guidelines regarding the virus. How scared they must be. How scared everyone is.
And the numbers are unmanageable for my poor little brain.
But somehow there’s comfort in them too. A solid feeling. A knowing in a completely unknown world.
A way to count and count and count until I am separated from the whole thing.
Counting and counting and Feeling Nothing At All.