March 18, 2020, Wednesday – Day 1 of lock down

Well, they told us to go work from home. So, here I am. At home. I supposed technically I’m not working since I’m writing this, but, I mean, I just thought as a writer I should capture the spirit of this thing. So far, so good.

March 19, 2020, Thursday – Day 2 of lock down

I don’t know why people are making such a big deal out of it. Stay home if you can. Yeah, maybe your odds are low of catching it, or of dying if you do catch it, depending on your age, etc. Just stay home.

I’m actually taking advantage of this time to clean out my den. It’s trashed. I’d take a picture but it’s too embarrassing. So, I’m technically getting paid by my company to clean my house. Lol

March 20, 2020, Friday – Day 3 of lock down

Sat outside and did driveway drinking as usual. Nobody stopped by. Not usual. Probably just as well. Seems weird to be Friday-celebrating. I mean, usually this is like, “Yeah, I’m finally home for the weekend,” but, well, I been home most of the week.

March 22, 2020, Sunday – Day 5

No real difference from a normal weekend. I did hear back about a new book review came in from IndieReader for Something After All, so I’ll post something about that on Facebook.

Lori has been cooking, and I’m making the kids (adult kids for those who don’t know me), eat leftovers. Told everyone—myself included because I admit I don’t like to eat leftovers that are more than 2 days old—that we gotta eat what’s edible, while it’s edible. Being finicky is not an option. Eat it and STFU. Might need those canned foods a month from now.

March 23, 2020, Monday – Day 6

For those who don’t know, my day-job is as a marketing consulting and solutions engineer at a large software company. I specialize in automotive repair marketing. A lot of the auto repair shops we are talking to are laying off staff. Others aren’t, but are super dead. Auto repair has been deemed “essential services,” so they don’t have to close. They are definitely worried, though.

On a more tragic note: I drank all my bottled beer and have now switched to cans, since they stack 30-pack cases to the rafters at Walmart of that, but only stock like two 18-packs of glass bottles, which is how beer is supposed to be consumed. I’m already beginning to sacrifice for this damn virus.

March 25, 2020, Wednesday – Day 8

I just ate 7-day-old leftovers. I don’t know if I have ever done that in my life. Unfortunately, however, I made a big, lecturing deal about not wasting food the other day, so now I have to practice what I preach. Bleh. I hope I don’t die of botulism or something. What a shitty way to die during the coronavirus pandemic.

Dying like that would be like being a member of the Legion of Doom in a big war with the Justice League, and end up getting killed by one of the Wonder Twins. Like, not Jana either; goddamn Zan! He’s all, “Form of … a snow cone!” and then he rams the pointy end into my anus and I bleed out in my colon, ending my villain career. Meanwhile all my Super Villain compatriots are being gut-punched to death by Superman or smashed by Green Lantern’s conjured mallet. Wonder Woman—cleavage all spectacular and probably sweaty from all the battle action—is over there hanging Cheetah or some other Doom fool with her truth rope, but nope, not me. Snow cone up the ass.

But yeah, other than a possible impending death from botulism, that’s where this lock down is for the moment at my house. I’m not getting cabin fever too bad yet, but we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

March 26, 2020, Thursday – Day 9
I think I might be too lazy to be on lockdown. Which seems weird, since, technically, you don’t really have to do much given that you are stuck at home. But I’m probably just going to become fat. More fat. I just weighed myself. The only reason I weighed myself is because I was bored sitting there in the bathroom and saw the scale and thought, why not. I’m not eating fast food anymore for lunch.

I’m not.

I gained 3 pounds. It’s not just that I’m not going to the gym now. It’s that I can’t be bothered to make anything healthy. I’m lazy eating. Like, I just eat cheese all the time now. I mean, it’s just in there, in a handy brick of easy. The only cooking instruments required is a knife. So, slice and eat. It’s like a savory candy bar or something.

Oh, and peanut butter. Dude, that’s like savory ice cream. You get a big fat spoon and just eat it, licking it like an ice cream cone. I love that. I also love being the first one to dig into a brand-new jar. You take the lid off, peel away the papery under garment that seals it in all that moist, salty goodness, and then you plunge your big, fat spoon inside that untouched virgin creaminess like it was the preacher’s daughter! MmmmHmmmm.

Man, I need to get out. Maybe just go for a walk or something.

Anyway, that’s what happened today. I worked. I ate a lot of cheese. And I deflowered a jar of Skippy.

March 28, Saturday – Day 11
Holy crap I’m going to fat as fuk! So in addition to me just drive-by eating cheese and peanut butter all week, now on the weekends my wife is binge cooking . Like, she made breakfast using ingredients. She even sent poor Travis out into the COVID-19 Dreadlands for eggs.

Wife : I need you to go to Safeway and see if there are any eggs. If there aren’t any there, try Bel Air.

Son: <groans>

Me: Both of those stores are in the center of where everyone is catching it.

Wife: He can just get the eggs. <to son> Don’t touch the carts. Just get eggs and nothing else.

Me: If they don’t have eggs, get beer instead, so the risk isn’t wasted.

Son <with sigh of resignation>: I volunteer as tribute.

He did actually find some eggs. Got the last pack of eggs, and likely only because there was one egg in it broken. But hey, these are trying times. All I know is, we are down to risking infection to pay full price for 11/12 of a carton of eggs, and my wife is trying to burn down all our food inventory in one day.

March 29, Sunday – Day 12
Dude, she made turkey. We had turkey like it was Thanksgiving. And cookies. Some kind of vanilla chip sugar cookies. She made a billion of them, but I’m going to eat them all. If it wasn’t for the death part, and the crashing economy leading to a depression and the end of times or whatever, I would be down for permanent Coronavirus lockdown.

March 30, Monday – Day 13
They let someone go at work today, which makes me sad. Second person gone in a week and a half. I guess it’s good that the unemployment system is ramped up for the economic casualties of this stupid virus. Now I feel like a dick for making that joke in yesterday’s post about prolonging the stupid lockdown. I was tempted to go back and delete it, but I guess that isn’t in the spirit of this post. Sucks.

March 31, Tuesday – Day 14

Well, what did we learn today?
1. Peanut butter and sour gummy worms do not go well together.

2. They are moving the lockdown date out to May 1st.

3. There is no 3. I learned nothing else. Just that date and the gummy worms/peanut butter thing.

April 1, Wednesday – Day 15

I installed a NERF hoop, except it’s not a Nerf, it’s something else. It’s actually really nice, spring loaded and everything in case I want to slam on people.

What’s sad is that two weeks of eating cheese and peanut butter all day has made it so that I actually get winded chasing that little ass ball around for ten minutes. It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t so terrible at basketball, but that’s not really my point.

May 1st is looking like a really long way off.

April 2, Thursday – Day 16

Someone on Facebook was trying to compare this coronavirus experience to 911. That could not be further from the truth. Everyone, at least for a time, flew American flags, and we all saw each other as fellow Americans. That crisis brought us together.

This crisis is not like that one. This crisis has amplified the divisions that have grown since that time. We are so divided and distrustful, we can’t even agree that there is a crisis.

Divided – Again.

And it’s the same two sides doing it. We didn’t even pick new teams. It’s still the left and the right. Our side and the stupid side. Again.

Half of us are staying home trying to prevent the pandemic from becoming worse. Half of us think the numbers don’t add up, and that it’s not a pandemic at all.

When we come out of this—which we will … most of us, anyway ☹—what is going to happen is that the two sides are each going to credit themselves for the recovery.

The half that stayed inside and self-quarantined, will credit the speedy end of the crisis to their sensibilities. If it weren’t for their efforts, sacrifice, and discipline in doing something to slow the spread and “flatten the curve,” it would have been game over. The only reason it will have been going on so long is because of those idiotic science-deniers on the other side protracting it by insisting they would not just stay home. “Thank god for us, the smart ones,” they will say.

The other half of us, the half that didn’t stay home, the half that kept working, despite orders, the half that was still working and producing and keeping the economy afloat, will point out that, had they all shut down, the country would have imploded. The sputtering economy we all emerge into when COVID-19 fades will not have been salvageable without them. And saving it would have been unnecessary had it not been brought upon us for no reason other than the timorous paranoia of the spineless left. The depression that would have been a decade in the fixing was prevented only thanks to their efforts, sacrifice, and discipline. “Thank god for us, the smart ones!”

Both sides claim essentially the same values for themselves (intelligence, prudence, discipline, self-sacrifice, perseverance, and altruism), and assign the other side the blame. They will blame either Trump or the Fake News for deluding their mindless followers. Not one of them will blame themselves.

Just like we have been doing for well over a decade now.

April 6, Monday or Tuesday… It doesn’t even matter what day
Wow, I’m bored.

I went outside the second it stopped raining. Talked to neighbor Rudy for a while. He’s dumb dog almost got itself eaten by trying to be a hero against a dog 15 times her size (Rudy refuses to use a leash). Helped a grocery delivery gal figure out where her delivery was (she was lost even with Google Maps on her phone). Talked to more neighbors, Mark and Debbie, walking by. They told me to tell you all, “Hi.”

They didn’t, really. They don’t know any of you, but WTF else am I supposed to write? I’m just sitting in my damn house every day and nobody is leaving or coming.

I’ve resorted to rolling all my coins. I have years and years’ worth in jars and bags. That’s what it’s come down to. Eating cheese and rolling pennies.

October 28, 2021

Yes, it’s literally been a year and 6 months since I added anything to this post. I guess I ran out of gas. The infighting between us all, the tedium, etc. For what it’s worth, I had $1,148 in change when I was done. So if anyone ever asks you, how much change would you accumulate in 20 years if you never cashed in your change, now you know.

So what else?

In the last year, I finally finished book 6 of my series, plus I have revised the first book. It had lots of little errors (LOTS!), and the front pages needed updating to show the whole series. I also have a new draft of a different series I’m starting. But I wont go into all of that here. Updates are on the Alien Outcomes page if you are curious.

Oh, I gained 17 pounds since the initial 3. So, I’m basically a cow now. I don’t produce milk, but I could hold my own in a 1 vs 1 tug-of-war with a cow if I needed to.

If anyone cares about vaccinations and stuff, my wife and I have gotten them, my adult kids who still live here have not. So, this house is like a mini United States. I kinda wish they would get them, but I don’t insist. We’re all in this together and if they don’t think my fat, old ass will die if I catch it, and have no issues with possibly bringing it home, then I guess that’s how it is. Unlike our government, I would never force anyone to inject anything into themselves they didn’t want to. Even though I wish they would decide that for themselves, given I pay for their food/shelter/electricity etc. lol. It’s as complicated as it is bewildering and frustrating. And yes, I know, you can still get Covid if you have the shot, and yet it does, at least in theory, reduce viral load and duration of infection… blah blah. I read. It IS complicated. Anyone who thinks it’s as simple as “shots save lives” or “freedom rules” is, well, simple. It’s both.