There’s the other part, though.

I talked to my Dear-Old-Dad on the phone yesterday. Among the things we are is long-time lunch companions. If there is a bar with a good variety of beers and some interesting food, my Dad and I are interested in visiting that place.

This of course is no longer possible these days.

I think it was two Saturdays ago when this coronavirus stuff was just starting to creep into our consciousness, and we were discussing our lunch plans, and he said, maybe we’ll just be safe and I’ll bring Amiel’s over to your place for a movie. And that’s what we did, and we watched American Animals. And we thought this was safe.

As we began to learn more about this thing, its potential lethality, its powerfully contagious nature, its mystery to science, and not to mention the Trump’s pathetic failure to lead on this catastrophic development; as we learned more, it became obvious that a visit like that isn’t safe, him over here, me over there, it just isn’t. There are five people who regularly reside in his realm over there, and every one of them is high risk. And I don’t think this thing would suit me very well, either.

I asked him about it on the phone, if he thought I was being silly not even entertaining a quick visit with everyone. And, if you know my Dad, you know that he’s often more liable to say the phrase “fuck it” than he is to ever say the phrase “well, maybe that’s not such a good idea.” It is one of his best qualities. This is why I asked. I was trying to gauge if I was being weird about this and maybe aw, fuck it, come on over and have a dinner. Plus, I do miss these people.

My Dad did not say “fuck it.” He said he thinks this is what we need to do, that social distancing means social fucking distancing. I am paraphrasing. That this is bleakly serious enough that I need to keep my as-of-yet untested schnoz over here, and they should keep theirs over there.

I do spend too much time steeping in the news of all of this. I can’t not. I am a newshound down to my brain stem, and this is the news now. So when I wake up I watch the Andrew Cuomo Entertainment Hour, then I might keep the news on or listen to some talk radio, then I sit down to do my job, probably with some news on in the background, and I vacillate about whether or not to listen to the Giant Orange Head stand up at his podium while himself ignoring the very dictates of social distancing and lies about the urgency of the problem, and talks up treatments that do not exist, and attacks the reporters who are just trying to access information for the American people, and as he just makes it all up as he goes along with his stupid hair.

And I do, usually. I do usually end up at least listening.

I wish I could say I think this preznit’s shitty performance in this tied-to-the-mast moment is enough to sink his electoral chances, but I think it’s more like Geraldo in Al Capone’s vault, a dismal, humiliating failure followed by a weirdly promising and lucrative career anyway. We thought we had Dubya in 2004 with John Kerry, didn’t we? Thought we had him. Were sure we had him. Dubya will be a one-termer just like his daddy.

HAH.

Trump said he hopes the virus will miraculously go away. He said this in February. All his opponent should have to do should be to play this clip on national television over and over and over and over and over again, and his opponent should win. Actually, all that should need to happen is that we should have to live through this under the shitty poopy lack of leadership that Fat Phlegmy Orange Dicknozzle is providing, as we all have lived through it. By any normal measure, Trump should see a landslide so huge in November that it actually literally buries him.

But I don’t think this universe supports such input any longer. I just don’t.

Anyway, to summarize, I miss my people, but I don’t want to get nor give sickness.

And Donald Trump is a feckless dick.

I am finding that I am rather well-equipped for self-imposed solitude. I live alone and do not mind being at home. I’m not one who craves a time out on the town, never really was one of those and now, in my 50s, I am relaxing more into my general disposition of “homebody.” My creature comforts in this small apartment are many and adequate. I have Internet. I have podcasts and books and films to catch up with. And, I am so far blessed to be able to continue my job from home.

It is astonishing how seamless a work-at-home gig can be. My team uses Slack, Google Hangout, and our many other online tools to maintain a collaborative effort, which is essential for what we do. I am grateful to get to keep working for now, though I do not pretend this will continue indefinitely. This economy is about to become a black hole. I hope my job will prevail. I am certainly grateful to have the opportunity to keep working for now.

I have nearly finished my first week working from home, plus a few days. I have ventured out once, Monday, for wine. Priorities. Granted, I was in the liquor store in the morning, so perhaps it is always so barren and buttoned-up that time of day.

I doubt it.

SARS-CoV-2 is what it’s called, and it’s quite a character. A virus. Little shitty particles that are currently really fucking the world up. Get one inside you and it may or may not reek havoc on your lungs to the point where you will require a invasive respiratory assistance and therapy, including intubation and a running respirator. Or you might get a tickle and a chill. Fucking thing is a tease.

So the lucky thing is that I seem to be all set for this “social distancing” lifestyle. I reside in a comfortable apartment (can you imagine me having to do this when I lived in my small stupid studio downtown, oh, I would have leapt from the window); I have good Internet; I can procure good food; and I am not averse to long periods alone.

Perhaps those of us who grew up as onlies will have an advantage in all of this.

However: The pantry has gotten to a pathetic point. I intend to venture to the grocery in the morning.

Wish me luck.

Meanwhile. It’s time to watch Ken Burns’ Jazz again. Oh yes.

This is the biggest blunder in presidential history (Washington Post)

The kid really did want that hooch for “medicinal purposes.”

I spotted him walking up and down the aisles, until he finally settled on a nice cheap bottle of vodka and another bottle that I think was gin. I myself had no wine to go with my planned repast tonight of one DiGiorno’s pizza, so my only errand necessary at this time, when we are being encouraged to be hermits due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was a quick trip to the local booze store. The kid, who in another multiverse likely cruises with his crime-sleuthing pals and talking dog hunting down ghosts and goblins, told the cashier specifically that he was buying the hooch because he couldn’t score a bottle of sanitizer anywhere.

The cashier assured our young Shaggy that no amount of Skol vodka one would apply, externally nor internally, would be useful in countering this particular corona virus. Tito’s said so.

As I ventured into the parking lot with my box of Franzia Cabernet (nothing bet the best for this connoisseur) I observed the kid loading up his Magic Machine. He was stacking his new medicine into a box, and I also saw loaded in his truck several gallon bottles of water. No lie. The kid was getting ready.

This was my second observation of peoples’ prep plans for this emergency. Friday night’s lunch break at work was a quick trip across the road to Top’s supermarket. I needed some hand lotion, as I get this weird seasonal eczema that craves that stinky aloe and menthol cure from the green bottle, and I was running out. That’s all I needed, well, that and a carton of grapefruit juice. Look, I’m a single dude living alone. I get to go on weird grocery runs.

That place was a madhouse. People were stacking their carts higher than they stood. And Tops was out of bread, and they were especially out of toilet paper. They were so out of toilet paper that the store put up signs in that aisle that said WE ARE OUT OF TOILET PAPER. I got in the lightest line I could find and paid for my skin lotion and my citrus juice. That, I think, was my first inkling about how much this pandemic was fixing to hit everyone’s lives.

And now, somewhere, some kid who looks exactly like Norville Rogers (yes, Shaggy had a real name) is somehow applying booze as a topical in the hopes of defeating a particle that can survive in the air for several hours an aerosol.

I have lived through a good many emergencies in my day. I have experienced an active shooter situation (long before they were called that). I have hunkered down during hurricanes. I had to dodge and weave as I pumped gas while two maniacal snipers terrorized Washington D.C. I saw the Pentagon’s smoke as I walked home from downtown D.C. to Arlington on September Eleventh. And I was trying to think if any of those events caused me to wish I had gone on a panic shopping spree. I can think of only one: Snowmageddon, Washington, D.C., 2010.

I grew up in the Cleveland metropolitan area. So I know from snow. But I have never in my life ever seen snow like this. And neither have you. I couldn’t walk to the car for several days, to the car. I was stuck inside. Literally. Fortunately, my housemates were better prepared than I was, and I bummed off of them.

Aside from that, hoarding isn’t useful. Nor, according to the local booze cashier, is washing in vodka.

I hope that kid has a bunch of orange juice.