Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 22
April 14, 2020
Spring happens
The weather is warming up in Arcata — which means it was 48 instead of 44 when I left to go on my morning walk with Zelda, and that it might hit 62 this afternoon. I am not complaining, though, because I know how hot it is in Florida and how miserable we would be if we were living there in the van while it was 95 degrees.
Zelda actually really loves this weather. She’s always eager to walk. I keep threatening her with a harness because she wants to run and I don’t like being dragged. Yes, my 18-pound, 15-year old dog is dragging me down the street. That’s good news.
I have no other news. I’m social-isolating like a good pandemic survivor, but Arcata in general seems to be starting to relax. Maybe it’s the weather; maybe it’s that there’ve been no new cases in Humboldt County for the past six days. I’m judging the relaxation by the number of people wandering by the van during the day and the number of people I see out when I’m walking the dog. I passed seven people on my walk yesterday, feeling guilty every time for having forgotten to wear the mask that Carol kindly sent me. Masks are running about 50/50, I think.
Yesterday, I made the Washington Post’s maple-mustard chicken thighs with cabbage. The day before it was gluten-free pizza, made with pesto & goat cheese instead of tomato sauce. On Saturday, we had cornmeal-crusted rockfish with jalapeño tartar sauce. On Friday, I made meatloaf with sautéed mushrooms as the binding agent, and roasted sweet potatoes. The common ingredient? Mostly the oven. I don’t think an oven is an essential kitchen tool — I can survive without one — but I’ve been enjoying having it. (The rockfish was pan-fried, though.)
Suzanne and I are also planning lots of house projects. Her kitchen currently has multiple splotches of yellow paint on the walls, and I’m fairly sure we’ve selected the winner. Next step, primer. Tomorrow the electrician comes to update the electricity in the Tiniest of Tiny Houses, and we’ve been browsing electric wall heaters online. Also mattresses and beds. It feels weird in the midst of the worldwide pandemic to be nesting, but maybe that’s exactly the right time to be nesting.
In writing, I seem to be working on Cici 2 again, although not very efficiently. Departing the planet feels like the right choice, though. I’d like to get back into my other story, but it’s just so hard to drown out my own pandemic knowledge in order to let my characters have fun at Disney World. I’ve written some snippets, too, while trying to find a story. Here’s one I wrote last week, funnily enough several days before Jenny Crusie posted a chicken snippet on her blog. Do pandemics put chickens on the mind? Maybe…
I like chickens.
They’re such honest animals. They’re out for whatever they can get. They’re not nice, they’re not friendly, they don’t need to be.Their survival is their highest priority.
People use their name like it’s an insult. “You chicken.” It means you’re a coward, right? But it should mean that you’re a survivor, willing to do whatever it takes — peck, claw, screech — to get yours.
Okay, sure, they’re kinda stupid. Slight problem there. But still, when my brother called me a chicken, I just narrowed my eyes and glared at him. I’m not stupid like a chicken, I don’t need to fall for that.
“Go on, Kylie. You can do it.” He shoved my shoulder blade, just a little. Not such a hard shove that it was gonna knock me down or anything, but enough that if our mom had been watching — if our mom cared anymore — I could have complained and gotten him in trouble.
But our mom wasn’t watching. She was sitting on the couch, staring at the television, her face as blank and dead as a zombie in one of the movies we weren’t supposed to watch. You could tell she couldn’t really see what she looking at. It was all just noise and flickering light to her. Maybe not even that.
“I’m not going down there.” The open door was like a black hole, a portal to a netherworld of nightmare.
“We need more beans. The beans are in the basement. Someone’s gotta get them and I gotta stir the eggs or they’ll burn.”
“I can stir the eggs,” I suggested.
“You’re not supposed to touch the stove.”
I folded my arms across my chest, mutinous.
“Go on,” Bradley snapped again. “Go on or you ain’t eating tonight.” He waved his wooden spatula at me threateningly, like maybe he was going to hit my head with it.
I pointed at him. “Touch me with that and I will peck your eyeballs out.”
He rolled the eyeballs in question. “Go. Get one of the bags of beans. And maybe a jar of peaches if there’s still a couple on the shelf.”
I dropped my arms. Peaches? I liked peaches. A lot more than beans.
And if I was a chicken — not the coward kind, but the survivor kind — I’d be willing to do a lot for peaches. I eyed the door again.
It was dark down in the basement. Dark and smelly. But peaches…
I held out my hand. “Gimme a knife.”
“What? No.” Bradley stuck the spatula back in the eggs and stirred.
“I want a weapon.”
He sighed. “Here.” He grabbed a wooden spoon from the jar next to the stove and handed it to me, shaking his head.
Fingers tight around the handle, I approached the doorway cautiously.
Rereading it, I so want to know what’s waiting in the basement for her. Something must be!
April 8, 2020
A pandemic birthday
I admit, I am one of the obnoxious people using the pandemic to learn a new skill. But if it’s comforting, I’m being terrible about the things I actually should be doing (you know, like marketing the book I released a few months ago or writing a new book). And I’m very much enjoying learning my new skill. It’s probably not quite as soothing as Animal Crossings would be, but it’s not far off.
In actual news, yesterday was my birthday and I managed to have a really nice day, despite the end of the world busily happening. Mostly because Suzanne rocked the “giving your friend a good birthday” skill. Also because R sent me a birthday text which at least reassured me that he was alive. (Does that sound bitter? I don’t mean it that way. My sense of litost has faded and mostly I’m just really sad that he feels the way he feels. But he’s an adult and even if he weren’t, we don’t get to control other people’s feelings.)
Back to the birthday fun: the cupcake store is closed, but is doing special orders, which meant I couldn’t get a single gluten-free cupcake, but I could get a dozen of them. Carpe diem! I’m sharing, but I’ve still eaten three. They’re grasshopper cupcakes, which are chocolate with a chocolate fondant layer, and then mint buttercream icing topped with chocolate chips and an Andes mint. Just writing about them makes me want to go eat a fourth.
But after yesterday’s first cupcake, we went to the beach. An isolated, northern California style beach — the closest we came to other human beings was well within the social distancing 6 feet and probably closer to the realistic 22 feet that airborne pathogens can spread from a cough or sneeze. We brought all three dogs and I let Zelda off leash, which I don’t usually do these days since she a) can’t hear and b) can be quite forgetful, including forgetting that she’s supposed to stay near her people. But it was a big empty beach with plenty of room for her to run around within my line of view. She had a lovely time. She’s so tired today that when I went in the house for lunch today I couldn’t even convince her to raise her head off the bed, much less accompany me, but I’m sure she would say it was worth it.
After a couple hours at the beach, we came back to the house and while I spent some time on the phone, Suzanne went and picked up take-out sushi that we had pre-ordered from a local restaurant. She built a fire in the backyard fire pit and we ate our delicious sushi fireside. Afterwards, I toasted Peeps over the fire and Suzanne toasted marshmallows, having decided after last year’s Peep-toasting that they were too dangerous. Caramelized sugar is hot enough to make for a painful burn.
We sat by the fire and chatted until the sun went down and the colorful solar lanterns lit up and the fire turned to coals, then embers, then ashes. All three dogs stayed close and Tank, the supposedly feral black cat, came and sat in my lap and purred at me for a while. Fortunately, I had my lovely cloth face mask around my neck still (thank you, Carol!) so I put it back on and managed to escape without too much of an allergic reaction.
In between the beach and the fire, I checked my email and I had the loveliest email from a reader about A Precarious Magic. It was such icing on the cake of a nice day. I know I haven’t done a good job of marketing A Precarious Magic — my March goal was to rewrite the blurb, and I didn’t even manage to do that — but the book business in general has been so bad for me in the last year that I’ve really questioned why I bother. But L wrote, “your books never fail to make my days better.” That’s worth writing for. I read Suzanne the entire email and she told me to print it, frame it, and hang it on my wall, and if I had a wall, I actually might. Vans don’t really have a lot of wall space, though. 
April 3, 2020
Spherical success
I’m not going to admit how many of the days since I started my daily drawing project have not included a daily drawing. Too many. Daily drawing has turned out to be more like, “drawing when the moon is right and I’m not traveling and the pandemic news isn’t completely overwhelming and stressful.”
But I’ve persisted, because persisting is something I’m good at, and every day is another chance to start again. And I’m actually so delighted with today’s daily drawing that I wanted to save it. Yes, I made a sphere!
I know this is probably not exciting to anyone else. I should admit that I even cheated by starting with a circle shape using Affinity Photo’s ellipsis tool. I think my next one will have to start with a hand-drawn circle, because I’ve learned that hand-drawn circles are both really hard and a basic skill that artists in training are supposed to practice a lot. But that’s not the point. I’m pleased with my sphere because believe it or not, quite a lot of learning went into creating that shape with its highlights and reflected light and shadow and smudging. Yay, me! Shine on, self.
In other news, Arcata is quiet and peaceful and I’m still feeling very relieved to be safely here. I’m trying to stay mostly isolated — the best physical distancing I can manage! — but Suzanne is essential personnel, so she’s out and about all the time. I think it’ll be a few more days before I’m 100% sure that I didn’t bring her any germs, but so far there’s no sign I gave her anything. She’s fairly gloomy about her chance of escaping entirely, though, because Humboldt County is up to 39 cases, with definite community spread, and some of her co-workers have been sick. Still, the longer she stays healthy, the better. I’m doing my part by including lots of vegetables in our meals. I can’t do much about my general feeling of helplessness, but broccoli and brussels sprouts have to help, right?
On her day off, we went to CostCo and stocked up. The freezer is full! So I’ve been cooking a lot, which I like. Last night, I sautéed sous vide pork chops, topped them with a lemon-mint pan sauce and garnished them with slices of lemon and tiny leaves of mint. They tasted great and looked quite pretty. Alas, I didn’t think to take a picture. The night before it was cod and pea pods in a spicy sauce over noodles made with brown rice and millet. The day before that it was baked cod filets sprinkled with parmesan, plus roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli. I’m pretty sure I could actually bake rocks for Suzanne and she would just add some chili-garlic sauce and say they were delicious, but I’ve been finding it very comforting to be cooking. Tonight it’s going to be, I hope, baked chicken thighs with lemon, olives, brussels sprouts, tomatoes, and goat cheese. And probably some rice to soak up the sauce, which I expect to be delicious.
First, though, I should write some more words. I suspect every writer in the middle of a project is having the same problem I’m having: how does the pandemic affect the characters? Do I pretend it never happened? Does my story take place in a pre-pandemic world? Or an alternate universe with no pandemic? I haven’t figured out my answer yet, but I suspect it’s got to be one of the latter two, because my characters are in Disney World and it’s going to be a long time before any of us view Disney with equanimity. But actually, if Akira and Zane got together in 2011, Baby Helen would have been born in 2012, so the year in this story should actually be 2013. Simpler times, and my problem is solved! Which doesn’t mean that it’s going to get any easier to write, I suppose, but at least it means I can let go of that one issue… so onward I go.
Stay safe and wash your hands!
March 31, 2020
Best of March 2020
Today is the day I would usually write a best of the month post. Eight states, multiple places, plenty of pretty pictures. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am just not feeling it.
Although, really, the middle of a pandemic is probably a good time to focus on the good stuff. Yes, I feel overwhelmed, anxious, stressed, worried, and frustrated… but on March 7th, I made dinner for my dad and stepmom. Steak, tiny potatoes, and a salad of tomato, basil, avocado, and strips of mozzarella on mixed greens with oil and vinegar. It was delicious, and the company was wonderful. That’s an evening worth remembering.
And on March 2nd, I went to Blue Springs State Park and saw the manatees with Christina, Greg, Max, and the dogs. Max and I played Pokemon, and later that day we played SongPop and laughed a lot. Maybe not that day but definitely that week, all of us played Ticket to Ride and laughed a lot. That’s worth remembering, too.
Plus, that same week, I finally made such good friends with the next door chickens that the golden ones — named Butterscotch One, Butterscotch Two, and Not Butterscotch by me — started to come running every time I opened the van door. They made me smile at a time when I was otherwise mostly feeling sad and hurt.
On March 10th, I appreciated trees, specifically the beautiful shades of green and the way the colors changed as I moved into different climates. Florida was many shades of green from spring, but Mississippi was still winter browns and yellows and reds.
And sometime in the middle of March, I had delicious spice gum drops from HEB, seriously the world’s best spice gum drops. Well, maybe not the world’s — I can’t say I’ve tried them all — but the best I’ve ever had. So spicy!
And last week I had avocado toast for breakfast. Yum. And definitely a best, especially because Suzanne delivered it to my van, first thing in the morning, while I was still in isolation. Not only did I get to be fed delicious food, I got to feel taken care of, which is always lovely, but especially so when you’ve been spending most of your time feeling sad, scared, and exhausted.
And I can’t forget my shower! On Saturday, I got to take my first hot shower in weeks — well, two weeks and a couple days, anyway. But the way to really appreciate a hot shower is not have one for much too long. Feeling clean again was so delightful.
So yeah, March 2020. It was what it was. I would say that I’m glad it’s over but April 2020 is not looking so great, either. Still, it’s going to include hot showers when I need them, plenty of fresh water, lots of cooking, hopefully some actual writing, and time with a good friend. Plus dog walks, isolated early morning beaches, and some Ticket to Ride. I am counting my blessings and there are many of them.
Stay safe!
[image error]I saw some lovely desert sunsets, too. Worth appreciating!
March 26, 2020
The rest of the drive
When our story left off, I was on the road, having driven through Oakland in under ten minutes. That little bonus meant I was making good time: my ETA for arrival in Arcata was still before 9PM, if just barely. It would have been an insanely long driving day — over 800 miles and more than 12 hours behind the wheel, but the thought of a real shower was pushing me onward.
Let’s pause and discuss showers for a minute. I’m going to admit a horrifying truth: because I was worried about spreading germs in public bathrooms & because my propane didn’t work so I had no hot water & then because I didn’t have any water, I haven’t taken a real shower since leaving Florida. Wet washcloth and shower wipes, and that’s it.
To say I’m feeling grimy would be like saying the Titanic was a small boat. Most of it is psychological, really. Shower wipes actually do work quite well and there are people advocating for never washing your hair who have literally gone years without shampoo. I don’t think anyone would look at me (or smell me) and know how long it’s been since I felt clean. Still, psychological grime is still grime. I want a shower!
But when I stopped in Willets for my third tank of gas, I had a text message from Suzanne: the nurse next door wanted us to be safe, so I was going to need to isolate when I got to Arcata. Also, the driveway I was planning to park in, which is under repair, is going to need another month plus before being usable. It would be street parking and no shower for me.
Like that, my motivation to keep driving disappeared in a puff of exhaustion.
But campgrounds are non-essential and all non-essential businesses in California are closed. Hotels are non-essential, too. I spent probably fifteen minutes on the phone with an irrepressibly perky customer service agent who was sure she could find me a room somewhere before saying apologetically, “Um, I think all our hotels are closed.” Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. So no hotel, no shower; no campsite with water and electricity. Also no overnight parking in rest stops. And no overnight parking at Walmarts.
It was not my finest moment of van life.
But there was a BLM campground about 45 minutes back in the direction from which I’d come. Was I happy to be driving 45 minutes in the wrong direction? Nope. Was I even less happy when 30 minutes later I found out Apple Maps was trying to send me down a road heavily signposted with “No exit, no turn around, do not use,” signs? Yes! Am I getting my yeses and noes mixed up? Maybe.
I gazed at the signs for a solid couple of minutes, considering my options. Did I want to take my chances? Answer: no. With a sigh, I pulled up my camping apps again, found the next camping area that seemed like it might be open and started driving again, still in the wrong direction.
In the wrong direction and up the kind of narrow, winding, bumpy road that always makes for an exciting start to an adventure. At least it does at 9AM on a weekend, when you’re going camping with friends and the sun is shining and venturing into the unknown is part of the thrill. At 7:45PM on a cold and rainy night, when the sun is setting and it’s getting dark and you’ve been driving for 12 hours… not so fun. Truly, not so fun.
I drove and I drove, and every possible pull-off spot had a No Camping sign plastered on a nearby tree. By 8:20 PM, when it was full dark, complete blackness, I was driving about five miles per hour because I couldn’t see a thing. The GPS said my potential campground was still 3 miles away. I said, “The hell with it.” I pulled over in a No Camping spot, turned off the van, and crawled into my bed. I think I was asleep by 8:30. At 11:30 I woke up and spent the next two hours imagining my plaintive conversation with the police. Eventually, I fell asleep again and fortunately, no police officers ever showed up to send me on my way.
[image error]
In the morning, I watched two deer delicately stepping their way past the van down the road while I was lying in bed. It was a lovely reminder of the positive sides of van life. And the forest I was surrounded by was quite beautiful. Also cold and foggy, but in an appealingly gothic way.
I considered, very briefly, finding the campground that I’d been looking for and settling in. Alas, I still hadn’t resolved my water problem so any settling in would have been very short-term. Instead I got back on the road, drove a leisurely three or four hours, and made it to Arcata in time for Suzanne to feed me avocado toast, sushi, blackberries and a GF chocolate chip cookie for dinner. From a safe distance, of course.
We discussed — also from a safe distance — the proper isolating timeline. Many states are requesting people do a 14-day quarantine if they’ve come in from another area. That makes sense to me, but with the exception of my attempt to find water, I’ve already essentially been quarantined for over two weeks. Plus, Suzanne is a postal worker — essential personnel — which means she’s coming into contact with far more people than I am, on a regular basis, from one of the states from which people are being asked to isolate. The general quarantine risk feels even.
On the more specific risk, I’ve already been sick and by the aforementioned CDC guidelines, I shouldn’t need to isolate any more. We settled on another three days without fever for me, which conveniently times the end of my isolation to her first day off. Obviously, if my fever comes back, the timeline changes, but except for a case of the sniffles — allergies, IMO — and the natural tired from some long driving days, I’m feeling okay.
I’m not sure how long it will be sensible for me to camp in her street, though. Driveway camping can be comfortable, but street camping is often tiring. People walking by, cars driving by…it’s slightly below parking lot camping, in my experience. But I’m going to take it one day at a time. Today the sun is shining, the van is warm thanks to my propane heater, my dog is happy, and I have some writing to do.
Stay safe!
March 25, 2020
A Collection of Entirely Random Thoughts Inspired by Too Much Driving During a Pandemic
Thank God for Dairy Queen, La Quinta, and Quality Inn, because otherwise the alphabet game (the one where you find letters on signs and license plates) would be well-nigh impossible. Also much appreciation to all the lawyers who post billboards that start with “Injured?” because that J comes in handy.
Why, after three and a half years of driving around the country, I decided to start playing the alphabet game during this trek, I do not know. But in the past two weeks, I played it for hours and hours and hours, and I would like to never play it again. I did get very good at it, though. My fastest game was about 2 minutes in the San Jose area; my slowest was about 5 hours across the Arizona desert. Pro tip: J & Q are the hard letters, while X and V are surprisingly easy because of Exits and Vehicles.
Next random thought, I prefer positive gratitudes to negative gratitudes. And if our vocabulary had better emotional granularity, we would have two words for the feeling of gratitude, one for the happy, content gratitude inspired by appreciating a cup of coffee or some beautiful flowers — the gratitude of small delights — and another for the resigned gratitude of, “At least this situation isn’t worse.” I’ve had a lot of the latter gratitude in the past week: I’m grateful not to be worrying about feeding six children; I’m grateful not to be in an ICU struggling to breathe, etc. But I highly, highly recommend not living in a van during a pandemic. Just FYI.
On that note, how is it that homeless people aren’t dying of dehydration? And how is that despite my awareness of the importance of water, developed over the past four years, that thought never occurred to me before this week? It speaks to my privilege, I think — and probably all of our privilege — that we just don’t worry about where our clean water is going to come from. Until we’re homeless, I guess, and/or living in a van during a pandemic.
Moving on to some actual story-telling: On Monday morning, I decided I was enough healthier that I should start looking for someone to fix my propane. I thought it would probably take me a few days to get an appointment or I would discover it was impossible, depending on how Arizona was handling non-essential needs. As it happened, the second person I called was willing to take a look that afternoon, if I could meet him in between jobs. I warned him that I’d been sick, but was feeling better, and we agreed to practice excellent social distancing. Then I got off the phone and started packing up the van.
A side note: according to the CDC, people can stop home isolation post-covid-19 after 72 hours fever-free, other symptoms have improved, and at least 7 days after their symptoms started. I don’t have a thermometer, but Friday was the day I started feeling better, which was 8 days after my coughing started, so whether it was a cold or covid, Monday was my CDC-approved day to stop isolating. Obviously, I still practiced my very best social distancing/clean hand obsession throughout the day. I am truly terrible about touching my face, though.
Anyway, about three hours later, the propane was fixed, more or less. The repair guy somewhat strongly suggested I order a replacement emergency cut-off switch from Winnebago so as to have it on hand for the next time my propane fails. I don’t think he was optimistic about the long-term success of his fix. But it’s working for the moment, so I’m not complaining.
Post propane-success, I decided it was time to tackle the water issue. I have four gallon jugs for drinking water, plus the tank on the van for water for washing & flushing. Three of the jugs were empty and the tank was down to 1/4 left. I could have (should have!) stopped at the RV Pit Stop in Quartzite before I left to fill up, but at the time I was focused on the propane and it didn’t occur to me. Water didn’t feel like a big deal. Two closed campgrounds and three stores with empty shelves later, with one measly half-gallon jug to show for my labors, it felt rather more important.
With minimal water and campgrounds closed or closing, I was torn: back to Quartzite to restock and practice social distancing with my Facebook friends, or head to Arcata? And if Arcata, how to go? Leisurely, up through Nevada, stopping often, and waiting out the weather if there was snow in the mountains, or the most direct route, which would make me go through the San Francisco Bay Area?
I think the empty shelves in the grocery stores supplied my answer: I understand all the logical reasons why the shelves are both empty now and won’t be empty for long, but that doesn’t mean it’s not anxiety-provoking to see that all the rice except for the arborio is gone, ditto all the Campbell’s canned soup. Only mildly so, as I quite like Arborio rice, and I can’t eat most Campbell’s soup anyway, but still… It felt like a very good time not to be traveling. Straight to Arcata it was.
By 9 PM, I was across the border and settling down for the night at the campground at Chiriaco Summit – Patton Museum. The campground was very basic — no amenities, just a row of nicely spaced out campsites — but also free and for free, it was very appealing.
The museum was, of course, closed, but I got to admire the collection of tanks while walking Z in the morning. She didn’t care about the tanks, but she was extremely bouncy. I think she liked the weather, which was cold enough that I deemed it time to hunt for my eggplant coat.
[image error]Two of the tanks at the War Museum
After our walk, I made some coffee, and by 7:30 AM, I was on the road. I told myself I’d write morning words and check my email at a rest stop. But instead I drove. And drove. And drove.
I was not alone. For plenty of the time, I wondered who all the other people on the road with me were and why they weren’t staying home. All the highway alert signs said something like, “Avoid Travel, Stay At Home to Stop COVID-19” and every time I saw one I felt guilty, but at least I was actually in my home, even if it was moving. When I got to Oakland, though — familiar territory to me, because I used to live there — it became obvious how actually empty the roads were. I think I drove through Oakland-Berkeley in about 10 minutes, never going below 60MPH and that’s just unthinkable. It definitely felt surreal.
More tomorrow!
March 22, 2020
Quartzite, Arizona
On Friday, I backtracked twenty miles or so to Quartzite, Arizona.
[image error]Zelda likes it better here, because she has a very strong preference for peeing on things that resemble grass. She spent a lot of time circling the van at our last site, wondering why I wouldn’t find “outside” for her.
I was mostly doing it to make my brother happy. He was sending me map views of my location from the data in my photographs, linking me to local hospital information, and muttering (as much as one can mutter in a text) about police and wellness checks in the desert. Moving to Quartzite meant meeting up with several members of a Facebook group for solo travelers, ie people to call the ambulance if necessary.
It has not been necessary. Yay!
It feels weird, though. We are practicing excellent social distancing, so apart from one brief hello from about twenty-five feet away, I haven’t actually met my fellow solo travelers. I’d love to ask them questions, hear about their travels, find out more about them — but instead I wave from the van window if I see them moving around outside. So it goes. And I’m good at isolation — I’m an introvert. This whole self-quarantine business must feel like a nightmare for extroverts.
It also feels weird to just be sitting here. I keep trying to remind myself that this is real life. I should be writing a book. I should be… I don’t know, lots of things. Instead, I’m obsessively checking the news and Facebook as if something’s going to be different between this time and the last time I checked. I remind myself to breathe and meditate and listen to music and before I can do anything of the sort, I just have to take one last look at the Washington Post. And then an hour has gone by and I remind myself that I could be meditating, which lasts five minutes before I think maybe a quick glance at Facebook will do something other than annoy me. I’m almost always wrong about that.
A while back I was working on a post-apocalyptic story called “Welcome to tH3-3ND,” where a virus (H3-3ND) decimated the world. I gave up on it, because I felt like I needed to know more about infrastructure to do it justice, but the thing I got very, very wrong (the thing that all apocalyptic stories, IME, except for one, get very wrong) is the tedium of the minute-by-minute indecision. Real life is suspended, but what gets put in its place? I’ve never understood stories with people who leave their shelters in the zombie apocalypse, but now I do.
Anyway, the one exception is an alien invasion story by Andrea Host, called And All the Stars, which has an extended slow part in the middle. It actually serves a really important plot purpose — a vitally important plot purpose — but I nearly stopped reading because the characters are just sitting around doing nothing. They’re in hiding, the world is completely different, and they’re bored. Actually, now that I’m remembering this book, I might go reread it, because one of the great things about it is that most people are good, and most people get right on with working together to do the best they can with the world as it is. I suspect that’s because it’s Australian — most American apocalyptic books have people turning evil really quickly. Alas. We’ll hope that’s not reality!
And I think I’ll go read a book. It’s a better idea than reading the news, that’s for sure!
March 20, 2020
Some clarifying details
So my “middle of nowhere” site in the desert IS in the middle of nowhere, as far I’m concerned. It’s not a real campground and there’s not a building within sight, although there are lights on the horizon at night. But I stayed really close to the road, and cars or trucks drive by at least once per hour during the daylight hours. Plus there are at least half a dozen other RVs or campers within sight, although several hundred feet away. Close enough that I know my nearest neighbors were running their generator at 2AM, which is probably close enough that if I desperately needed help, I could stumble my way to their camper and cough on them. I assume they’d call for help then, because campers are usually pretty nice people.
Although that said, I did spend a while in the dark of the night last night, when my fever was back, wondering whether we were apocalyptic enough that someone finding me delirious in the camper would kick me out to die in the desert before stealing the van. Survival of the fittest, after all, and I’ve never believed that I’d be one of the survivors in any apocalyptic scenario. I lack the killer instinct. I’m not even willing to stock up on toilet paper, lest the next person need it more than I do.
In the bright light of day, however, my fever is gone (again!), and I think I’m getting better (again!). Whatever I have, it’s a weird illness, because it slowly grew worse and now seems to come and go in waves. Some of it is exhaustion: I use up my energy and then I’m just completely depleted, to the level of lie on the bed, cry and feel sorry for myself. Sick enough that I can’t even read because I can’t focus. And then a few hours later, I think I’m on the mend again.
Yesterday, in one of the “lie on the bed, cry and feel sorry for myself” moments, it occurred to me that maybe my son has ignored my attempts to connect with him because he’s really sick himself. Maybe he’s dead, in fact. How would I know? I spiraled into total anxiety, fear, panic — just what a sick person needs — until I learned that he was fine. Not from him, but from a friend who’d talked to him recently.
“Fine,” but in the middle of a pandemic, ignoring my tearful phone call and plaintive email, because I have committed the crimes of being rude and really smart. (Admittedly, my plaintive email also asked him to please stop being a jerk, so, you know… maybe not so plaintive?) Only a Czech could appreciate my then state of mind, which they would define as litost. I learned about litost in a book called How Emotions Are Made, which I highly recommend for an interesting, if seriously dense read. Litost is “said to be untranslatable, but roughly, ‘torment over one’s own misery combined with the desire for revenge.’” I found that such a beautifully apt description of my feelings yesterday that I had to laugh and now I’m working on letting go of those feelings.
It’s not easy. But according to the author of How Emotions Are Made, scientifically, our emotions are just social constructs. We define sensations, label them, and treat them as real, but if we want to change the label, we can. Fear is just excitement without the breath. Sorrow, in this case, is saying good-bye to a future that I thought would be like the past, but that will instead be something new. I don’t know what the new is going to look like yet and it feels pretty scary, but at this exact moment in time, I’m admiring a beautiful sky, there’s a lovely cool breeze, my avocado was perfectly ripe, I can feel the sun, and I can listen to music. My life is good and I’m grateful. Also ready to feel healthy again, but optimistic that it will happen any day now.
March 19, 2020
The middle of nowhere
“Worry: unless worry leads to taking positive action immediately, it is Upper Limit noise, designed to keep us from living our best life. Ask yourself — is this a real possibility and can I take any action right now to make a positive difference in the outcome? When things are going well, you can always bring yourself down by manufacturing worry thoughts. Our worries are just there to make ourselves miserable but our finger is on the button: we can stop worrying.”
That’s a quote from the notes I took about one of the self-help books I read in January. Ha.
I left Guadalupe River on Monday morning with plans to drive as far as I possibly could, aiming to get to my friend’s house in Arcata as soon as I possibly could. First, though, I was obsessive about my germs. I wiped down the faucet, the water spigot, and the electricity post with my precious antiseptic wipes, trying to make sure that every surface I’d even come close to was smothered in bleach. If someone arrived soon after I departed, there might still have been white cleaning suds on the faucet, but the germs would definitely have been dead. Well, as long as they were of the 99.9% killed by antiseptic wipes.
My plans derailed somewhat sooner rather than later, though. I have no way of knowing whether I have covid or a cold — I am not sick enough to require testing nor rich enough to get randomly tested the way all the celebrities seem to be doing — but I was definitely not healthy enough to drive for endless hours. I made it to the New Mexico border, spent a miserable night at a rest stop; made it to Arizona, spent a more pleasant night at Saddle River, a very pretty BLM area; made it to the Arizona/CA border and said, yeah, done. I checked my apps for the closest Bureau of Land Management area, drove into the desert, parked and went to sleep.
I’ve been extremely careful along the way. I used my nitrile gloves and antiseptic wipes at every gas station, and I’m living on the food I have in my fridge. I’ve spoken to no people (except on the phone) in days. But this is definitely not a good time to be living in a van.
Also, not a great time for the propane not to be functioning. It turns out that I won’t be able to plug into electricity in Arcata. Since it’s still dropping into the 30s at night in Arcata, I would need to have heat to be comfortable there, and no propane & no electricity means no heat. Is this ironic, given that I left Florida because it was getting too hot or just an unpleasant coincidence?
It’s also not a great time to be sick, of course, but I do think I’m getting better. Yesterday I was pretty sure I was running a fever and I was coughing a lot, but today I’m coughing much less. Even yesterday, though, I didn’t feel like I was so sick that I would go to a doctor, even if the world was back to normal. I was just sick enough that I needed to stay in bed. So I’m hoping that turns into healthy enough to get back on the road someday soon. Meanwhile, I’m hanging out in the desert. I did not pick my campsite for any reason other than, “a place to park so I can go to sleep at 2 in the afternoon,” so I may wander around a little and look for a nicer place to be, but I may just sit here for a little bit, too. And try to figure out how I can get my propane fixed!
March 15, 2020
Guadalupe River State Park
I started coughing in Houston.
I told myself it was seasonal allergies, but I upped my social distancing as much as possible: I wore disposable gloves at the gas station when pumping gas and using the touch pad, shoved doors open with my feet, used hand sanitizer liberally, stood several feet away from the campground host, and touched literally nothing at the ranger station.
Obviously, all of that was probably the “too little, too late,” that the shutdowns are meant to stop. If I’d known I was going to get sick, I wouldn’t be on the road now, but I am on the road and there’s not a lot I can do about it. I’m so glad I haven’t visited anyone, though.
At the moment, I’m in Guadalupe River State Park. I believe there’s a scenic overlook within easy walking distance, but I haven’t seen it, because easy walking distance is not feeling so easy. Not that I’m that sick — I feel like I’ve got a cold, really, and not a terrible cold, just a typical cold. In normal times, I’d take some cold medicine and make myself some soup and get over it. And in fact, in these non-normal times, I’ll probably do much the same.
It might be just a cold, of course, but I suspect Florida is vastly under-reporting corona virus cases because there are no tests available. Christina wanted to get tested and the doctor told her they were only able to test people sick enough to need to be hospitalized. That’s a fine way to manage a pandemic, don’t you think? In Florida, of all places. So many high-risk people, so many people who travel, and only enough tests for the desperately ill. My friend Lynda’s neighbor came back from Italy two weeks ago, has a severe respiratory infection, and also hasn’t managed to get tested. At the moment I’m writing this, Florida claims 122 cases, but they’ve run only 699 tests.
But I’m not going to dwell on this, because it’s just too scary. I am simply going to do my absolute best to keep my germs to myself. And also to take care of myself. Yesterday, when I was still feeling like maybe I wasn’t sick, maybe I was just allergic, I cooked all the things: rice, quinoa, chicken, steak, salmon. My goal was to make enough food that I could eat quinoa or rice bowls with protein and greens for the next several days and not worry about needing the stove. Today that’s feeling rather convenient.
Also nice: my ample supply of spice gum drops. I didn’t plan on eating them all while I was sitting still (they’re a long driving day treat, supposedly), but I am enjoying them. It’s probably not the healthiest choice to be eating lots of sugar, but carpe diem for spice gum drops. I’m sure the cinnamon ones are good for me.
Stay safe and wash your hands!
