Self-Isolation Day 23: How to Do a Jigsaw Puzzle During COVID-19

Step 1: Choose a puzzle from the stack your mom gave you the last time you went to see her. Feel a little guilty because you probably shouldn't have seen her at all, but you have to balance emotional support with physical precautions right now. It's a delicate balance, but neither of you is showing symptoms, you are both cautious in the outside world, and your town has very low numbers so far, so you should be okay.

Step 2: If the box has been previously unopened, slit the edges very carefully with a knife or pair of scissors. Now is not the time for an emergency trip to the hospital! Remove the lid and start to get a little excited about all the tiny coloured bits contained therein.

Step 3: In all likelihood, the pieces are contained in a clear plastic bag. Follow the instructions above re: opening the bag. Make sure you get every piece out, remembering that time you were missing a piece and it ended up still being in the plastic bag in the garbage can. When dude reminds you to check the bag, scoff at him because what kind of dingdong are you that you don't learn from your mistakes? Miss a single piece anyway.

Step 4: Separate the edge pieces from the rest of the puzzle pieces. This means physically touching each of the 1000 pieces (or, if you are lucky, 1500, because, let's face it, 1000-piece puzzles are no match for your superior puzzling skills). This process is an effective introduction to the kind of pieces you will be dealing with. Are they regularly shaped pieces with the kind of edges that line up? Or are they "bits and pieces," the kind with fucked up little shapes that don't look like they should go together at all? Is this the kind of puzzle with pieces that have straight lines that look like they could be border pieces but aren't? Shit's getting exciting!

Step 5: Put together the border. Depending on the puzzle, separate the edge pieces by shape (pieces with innies on both ends, pieces with outies on both ends, and pieces with one innie and one outie) or colour, whatever makes it easiest to accomplish this task. You will inevitably have missed identifying at least one border piece while completing Step 4. Make no mistake, this is a moral failure on your part. You had one fucking job, find the border pieces, and you couldn't even do that properly. Jesus Christ.

Step 6: Allow the border to remain incomplete. Someone will find that piece eventually (unless it's still in the plastic bag, now buried under banana peels and moldy bread crusts in the garbage can).

Step 7: Start with the easy parts, words and small uniquely-coloured sections. Dude will probably get to these before you can, because he's like that. Accept this fact and start hoarding pieces for larger uniquely-coloured sections before he can get to them. Anything that runs the length of the puzzle is another good place to start (the top of a mountain range, a fence, a roofline, the water's edge). Although more challenging than the small parts, a similar sense of accomplishment can be achieved by connecting pieces from one end to the other.

Step 8: Once the fun parts are done, do the rest of the goddamn puzzle. Unless this puzzle is of the pick-it-and-stick-it* variety, completing the remainder of the puzzle is more of a chore than entertainment. 

*The kind of puzzle where you pick up a random piece, find its placement using the picture on the box, and stick it where it belongs. This kind of puzzle takes, like, 4 hours max. Although certainly less fun, non-pick-it-and-stick-its (landscapes with lots of trees and an inordinate amount of sky with few clouds, possibly some reflections, or puzzles in only black and white) will take significantly longer to complete, and isn't that why you're doing jigsaw puzzles in the first place, as a way to kill time until you can meet your friends for lunch again? Alternating a pick-it-and-stick-it with a non-pick-it-and-stick-it is a good strategy to maintain your sanity during this difficult puzzling (both senses) time.

Step 9: You will eventually run into the crap part of the puzzle where the most effective strategy is to arrange the pieces by shape. So what are you waiting for? Arrange those pieces by shape already. (Honestly, you love this part. Your house is so organized already that this process brings you great joy. Creating order from chaos is infinitely rewarding, even if it is only puzzle pieces.) Once you do this, you will have to systematically try each piece of a certain shape into each remaining hole in the puzzle. This is admittedly kind of a drag, but the feeling of joy when you find one is unrivalled.

Step 10: When you are down to the last remaining piece (assuming it isn't still in the plastic bag or somewhere on the floor, in which case see Step 10B), put a single finger on it. Get dude to also place a single finger on the piece. Together, gently slide the piece into place, thereby completing the tableau.

Step 10B: Find the missing piece. It's probably still in the bag, because you are an overly confident dingdong.

Step 11: High five.

Step 12. Take a photograph as evidence of all the time you've wasted when you could have been doing something more valuable for the world, but then remember that this is doing something valuable for the world because you aren't outside spreading COVID-19.

Step 13. Leave the finished puzzle on the table for a couple of days. Relish your accomplishment. Fondly remember finding the piece with the cat's face (although dude probably found it before you).

Step 14: Grudgingly take the puzzle apart, making a half-assed effort to separate the pieces for the person who does it after you.

Step 15: Repeat Steps 1 through 14.

Step 16: Stay safe, and riot on. 

Self-Isolation Day 17: Broken Thumbnails

I receive daily email updates from my dude's mother telling me she's doing okay, which are themselves an indicator that she is not doing okay. I respond in a timely manner with reassuring exes and ohs, which is all I can do.

Last Friday I broke my dry COVID-19 with a bottle of red wine and a video conference call with friends from Boston, Seattle, New York, Portland, and Australia. It was lovely to see their faces and hear their voices. (Last Saturday I had a hangover.)

Dude's brother accidentally cut off the tip of his middle finger while working in his garage workshop. (He has COPD.) A friend's wife tripped over their cat and sprained her ankle. (She has diabetes and her husband recently finished cancer treatment.)

Another friend's kid hit a homerun through their glass patio doors on the day that hardware stores were deemed non-essential services. 

I had a partially-used tube of pink hair dye leftover from a number of years ago, so I coloured my hair, even though there is no one but the internet to see it.

I zoomed with my girlfriends instead of meeting for lunch, as was our custom. We exchanged stories about our new routines and strategies to keep depression at bay. (Wearing pants is a good start.) Only one of us had washed her hair that day and no one was wearing makeup. Everyone looked beautiful anyway. 

I baked chocolate chip cookies, even though I prefer cooking to baking. Dude astutely pointed out that baking is a way of taking control of something when so much is out of our control, which might explain the shortage of flour and sugar at the grocery stores right now. Careful adherence to directions (two level cups of flour, a teaspoon of baking soda, a 375 degree oven) leads to a positive result (warm chocolate chip cookies). There is a lesson here: careful adherence to directions leads to a positive result. (Take note, spring breakers.)

In lieu of my traditional drinking and dancing on Sunday, I poured myself a gin and tonic, curled up on the couch with the laptop and a blanket, and watched a DJ friend do a livestream of 80s songs while chatting online with my girl gang and the other bar regulars. Even this little bit of interaction and (sort of) normalcy was infinitely rewarding.

I got my clean hands dirty pulling weeds in the backyard (another act of control).

Last night I dreamt that I had broken my thumbnail down to the quick and the broken nail was still attached, torn and ragged and painful, but hanging in there. We are all broken thumbnails right now.

We Could Be Heroes (not COVID-19 related)

For the past few weeks, a small grey tabby cat has visited our backyard at night. Not every night, but regularly enough that we watch for him. He's quite friendly, if a tad on the frisky side, and, although skinny, rarely eats what we put out for him, so we assumed he had a home somewhere, possibly with a cat door as he is out at night. He doesn't have a collar, but neither does Harlowe, and she goes out at night all the time.

Harlowe is not a fan. She growls and hisses through the glass when he shows up, which is a good way of alerting us to his presence.

Ryan was checking the neighbourhood facebook page yesterday and discovered a posting for a missing cat, a small grey tabby named Roberto. Aha! he thought. If the cat shows up again, we will try to catch him and return him to his owners. We could be heroes.

Ryan got the person's phone number and street address (near our old house, quite a few streets away), and they told him to call any time.

So tonight we had just finished watching The Descent, which is quite a tense film, when lo and behold, here was our little cat friend at the patio door! We had brought the cat carrier outside earlier in the afternoon in case he showed up.

I threw Harlowe into our bedroom and we let the cat inside, luring him with food he didn't really want. He seemed content to explore, rolling around happily on the carpet, purring. He scratched our furniture twice, a sure sign of a family, and wandered around checking things out.

I went outside to get the carrier and bring it in, but he almost dashed out again, so I slammed the patio door shut as Ryan tried to coax him away from the door. We managed to get the carrier in the house without the cat escaping.

Ordinary cat food didn't really interest him, but I got out the Greenies and tossed a couple into the carrier. He wasn't fooled until I threw the whole bag in, and then he happily stepped in. I slammed the door shut and yelled at Ryan to help me because I was panicking and couldn't close the door.

While I was following the cat around, Ryan tried calling the people, who didn't pick up. It was around 12:30 a.m., but there's a quarantine and nobody should be out of the goddamn house, so we knew they had to be home. Plus, they had said call any time.

Ryan didn't have the exact address, but he had seen their backyard, and since it was in our old neighbourhood, he felt pretty confident that he could find where the cat lived.

Cat carrier safely stowed in the backseat, off Ryan drove to return the little fella to his home. (I was in my pajamas.) We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves.

When he returned home, I asked him excitedly what happened, imagining a teary reunion, much gratitude.

Turns out it wasn't Roberto.

Ryan let the cat out of the carrier once he and not-Roberto got back to our house, and off he bounded across the street to chase a rabbit or something. God only knows what the poor thing thinks of his adventures, but he probably won't be visiting our backyard again anytime soon.

So yeah, we could have been heroes. Instead we kidnapped someone's cat and took him for a drive. Riot on.

Self-Isolation Day 12

It is the first day of April. Outside, spring continues to manifest herself. The grass is visibly greener. Fat robins hop on the lawn. The trees are still bare, but buds are visible if you look closely.

I was out for a walk one sunny day, saying hello to the people I passed, all of us safely on our own sides of the sidewalk but still sharing some camaraderie. The understanding that the world is currently fucked acknowledged with a nod and a smile. (Funny how the things you learn when you are young stay with you. I have never crossed a street without first looking both ways, even if the street is one-way, and I always move to the right side of hallways and sidewalks if someone else is approaching.) A woman was walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk, talking on her cell phone, so she didn't notice me at first. Rather than play a game of pedestrian chicken, I moved to the left side of the sidewalk. When she finally did glance up, she averted her eyes and pulled her scarf up around her face. She was not the first person to avoid direct eye contact, as if the virus is spread by a glance. I bet a scientific study would prove that people who avoid eye contact also currently possess an overabundance of Lysol wipes and rolls of toilet paper.

I went to the grocery store for the first time in over two weeks. An employee stood at the front with a row of freshly sanitized carts. The deli, butcher, and fresh fish sections were closed. There was toilet paper, but they were out of 1% milk and canned tomatoes. Small round signs with the words "Good Neighbour: Limit 1" decreed purchase restrictions and reminders to not be an asshole. I watched a man open plastic containers of strawberries and pick through them, transferring berries to his container with his bare hands. I did not say anything. I just walked past, astonished. Footstep stickers on the floor indicated how far apart we should stand while waiting in line, and a plexiglass partition separated me from the cashier. We exchanged pleasantries like the world hadn't gone mad, and I thanked her and wished her a good day, as I usually do. I realized how much we take for granted living here. I trust that I can zip to the store and pick up a loaf of bread or a quart of milk or a stick of butter when I need one. This is not true for much of the world. It's a good practical lesson to learn.   

Yesterday I was watching the news, listening to the prime minister and reading the global updates and recent death tolls on the ticker at the bottom of the screen, when tears began streaming down my face. There was no thickness in my chest, no sobs wracked my body, just a sudden steady flow of tears. It seems my body had sprung an emotional leak.

Journalists criticize leaders for not giving people a stronger timeline. I understand the desire for a resolution, but we do not know when this will end. (The not knowing is perhaps the hardest thing of all.) We have to accept that and change society and our own behaviours and attitudes accordingly. This is easy for me to say. I live in a house that is paid for with a partner who still has a job. We have a pantry full of food and the means of getting more should we run out. I do not have elderly family members in retirement homes, or a pre-existing medical condition, or children. Still, I do have a well-developed sense of empathy. Hence, perhaps, the tears.     

Some people continue to be ignorant, selfish jerks. Many more people are proving that humanity is better than those jerks. Should I encounter a man picking through strawberries in the future, I will say something.

Self-Isolation Day 5

Here we are in the early afternoon of the fifth day of my quarantine. As I type this, I am looking out the window to the woods behind my house. Spring has officially arrived, but the trees are still bare, the grass is still yellow, dead leaves still blanket the earth. The occasional robin pecks at the lawn.

People walk singly or in pairs through the woods from time to time, with dogs or strollers.

I removed the chipped polish from my toenails when my quarantine began, leaving only the big toes intact. Perhaps today I will paint the rest to match and make something complete.

There are two enemies beyond these walls. The first is the virus, invisible, insidious. Like the pod people or the shape-shifting thing that attacked the men at their research base in Antarctica, it invades. We are hosts without knowing, until the first dry cough, the fever, the gasping, laboured breath. At this point, we will live or die, depending on our body's resilience and the availability of a ventilator. Sometimes we are hosts with no signs at all.

The second enemy, and arguably the worst, is humanity itself. In any zombie movie, there is an inevitable shift from the common enemy, the zombie, to the human enemy, the selfish, greedy individual who prioritizes something other than the survival of the species. Resources, maybe, or power, or scientific knowledge, or money. His own life at the cost of so many others. This individual will get his comeuppance, make no mistake. In a movie, this character is stabbed, shot, bitten, beheaded. In real life, he will lose his job, be unfriended, become the object of derision and shame. Hoarders and politicians, take note.

There is a great weight in doing the mundane things I used to do unthinkingly. Maybe time is the third enemy. I feel like I am actively trying to kill time, but for what purpose? Until I can go out for dinner again? See that band at that club? Die? 

I like being alone. Even before the quarantine, I spent a lot of time in the house by myself, but maybe I am a more social human being than I realized. It is certainly true that I throw more parties, plan more dinners and lunches and game nights, than I am invited to. This might explain my feeling of emptiness: I have lost my role as the instigator of social gatherings since social gatherings are now forbidden.

And thus, having identified the source of my despair, I can move forward and finally finish painting my toenails.   

Self-Isolation Day One

Friday, March 20, 2020: First official day of self-isolation

I feel a vague sense of shame at not having completely isolated myself until now. Last weekend we celebrated a friend's birthday one night and hosted a dinner party the following night. Interactions: 8, plus the guy at the fish counter whom I forced to murder three lobsters, breaking his lobster-killing cherry, and the cashier, whom I told to be nice to the fish guy because I had just made him commit murder. Amendment: interactions: 10. 

On Wednesday night I finally decided to cancel all students until school restarted. Half of them had already cancelled anyway.

On Thursday I went to my chiropractor appointment. They sprayed my hands with mint disinfectant and kept us a few feet away from each other. Interactions: 3. Then I went to my mom's for a visit. We sat at opposite ends of the couch and elbow-bumped goodbye. Interactions: 1. Next I stopped at Walmart to pick up photographs, avoiding other shoppers, of whom there were few. Total interactions: 1 (the guy who handed me my photographs). A brief stop at the grocery store to buy chicken (there was nary a breast nor a thigh nor a wing to be found), tin foil and cling wrap, and fresh fruit. I used the self-check-out station. Total interactions on Thursday: 5.

As an aside, Dude is an obvious exception to the interaction total. Since we regularly share air space, a bed, door handles, food, and bodily fluids, he is exempt as a given. 

Which brings us to today, my first official day of self-isolation.

I have had a mild cough with a slightly sore throat for a couple of weeks but have tried not to show it. I felt like I was keeping a horrible secret, like a well-read copy of Mein Kampf or a penchant for cannibalism. Perhaps I was/am. There is no way to tell, as we are not given tests unless we are in the medical field or have severe symptoms and have been out of the country or been in contact with someone who has recently been out of the country. Even then, we are told to just stay home and self-monitor. For what purpose is anyone's guess. A significant worsening of symptoms? An unofficial probable COVID-19 case count when this is all over? At this point, given my symptoms, I'd diagnose myself as a solid maybe-but-unlikely. Hence the vague sense of guilt.

My motivation for continuing to go about my day without informing people of my cough is unclear to me. I certainly don't want to pass the virus on to anyone else. A not-entirely-subconscious denial? A stubborn unwillingness to follow orders? Whatever the reason, it's moot now, as I am determined to see nobody but Dude for the next two weeks. (I may break that vow to visit my mother again. I feel an odd combination of protectiveness and the desire to be comforted by my mommy.)

Today I had breakfast (scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and jam, juice), ran in place on the elliptical for 20 minutes and did my 98-pound-weakling weight routine, and then showered and swapped my night pajamas for day pajamas (a bra and panties are the only real difference).

I did not wash my hair. I did not apply antiperspirant or makeup. I did apply eye cream and moisturizer. I took my B12 and zinc. I made a list of all frozen and perishable foods currently in the house and came up with a dinner menu plan for the next two weeks. I counted out 7 toilet paper squares when I sat down to pee.

I checked facebook and my email, did some reading, made dinner, watched netflix, stroked the cat, ran the dishwasher, started a new jigsaw puzzle, listened to music. I scanned the Halloween photos from 2003.

None of these activities was unusual (except for the toilet paper square counting), but they had a distinct air of unreality nonetheless. There is a sense of waiting, of emptiness. Of pause. An undercurrent of fear.

And this is only Day One.

Pandemic

I work on vocabulary with most of my students. On one particular list, we learn the words "endemic," "epidemic," and "pandemic." All three of those words are usually unfamiliar. I can probably leave "endemic" on there, but I will definitely take those last two off the list and replace them with something else. No one is going to need to learn those words. 

It's weird to experience history in this active, conscious way. It's sort of how I imagine it must have felt to live in Berlin during the early days of World War II, where every day new shit kept happening and things escalated from no bicycles and a curfew to all your Jewish neighbours have been shipped off to god knows where in no time at all and you're left standing there wondering what the fuck just happened.

The range of human reactions to this crisis is interesting: denial, humour, panic, despair. The sharers of memes and the sharers of information. The optimists and the doomsday prophets. (It's easy to judge others based on how divergent their reactions are from your own, but remember that some people are more equipped to deal with trauma than others. Some people can't do hospitals, some people don't cry at funerals. Now is the time to be understanding.) 

It sickens me to hear stories of opportunistic people profiting from the suffering of others, and it saddens me to see how selfish some people have become. 

I worry for all the people who will lose their incomes and am glad to see governments around the world stepping up and breaking the rules so that people can survive. 

I think about how the crematoriums in Italy must be working overtime.

I think about the student who missed lessons for a couple weeks in a row because he had a bad cough, and the one who went to China for Christmas vacation to visit her family. I wonder if I should cancel classes or just continue to make them wash their hands when they arrive. 

I wonder about my own cough. 

I think about the doctors and nurses and technicians and scientists doing everything they can to combat this virus and take care of the sick and the dying. 

I think about how many people I came in contact with last weekend (a lifetime ago) when we went shopping and out for dinner and to a bar to see a friend do his first DJ set, before the shit really hit the fan. 

I take echinacea and oil of oregano and B12 and a couple of gummie multivitamins. I fill the car up with gas. I buy a new tube of polysporin.

I call my mother to check in. I think about my friends and my family. I hope they are safe. (Some of you are so very far away.) 

I am grateful for the moments of solidarity and generosity that renew my faith in our inherent goodness. The toilet paper sharers, the balcony singers, the free babysitters, the employers that allow people to work from home. I am impressed by people's ingenuity, their creativity, their compassion.

There are moments when I forget that the world's gone mad. Slicing beets for soup, doing the dishes, sitting at the table doing a jigsaw puzzle, letting the cat out (and letting her in again). And then I check the news and the health ministers are looking even more exhausted and more events are cancelled or postponed and fewer stores are open. 

 

I think about how this will change how we live when it's all over. We might buy a couple extra cans of soup when it's on sale from now on, just to be safe. We might get that gun license. We might say I love you more often.  

I think about how many more people will die before this thing has run its course. 

I think about our global responsibility to each other. 

I can't sleep, so I sit on the couch in the dark and feel like crying.