3/20/2020. My C-19 (Day) #4—since I didn’t isolate until Tuesday. We’ll each deal with this particular foe a little differently but, for me at least, figuring out a “normal” weekly plan feels important. Perhaps all will be well in a few weeks, perhaps a few months. Waking up a 5am to check the number of new coronavirus cases in New Mexico is not the way to get through whatever time it takes! What is the way though? What’s my new normal?

How many times have I declared myself a writer with too little time to actually write? Many, many. Now there is time. Saying ‘Just do it then’ to myself isn’t quite pushing me toward my desk however. It’s not exactly depression keeping me away, not exactly the last season of “Homeland,” not exactly fear or loneliness for the ‘old days’ before C-19. For now let’s say it’s confusion about how to live in forced semi-isolation as opposed to choosing to be a brilliant but moody (perhaps alcoholic) writer in a remote cabin in the deep dark forest (waiting for Kathy Bates to appear with a sledgehammer…).

A plan then…I must have a plan. Like Elizabeth I am never short of plans, so what this really means is living according to one or more of them.

Morning Plan:

• Get up whenever sleep has left the building.
• Coffee perked or heated/poured.
• Couch, Surfy on my lap, go immediately to Word. DO NOT under any circumstances check into any news or social media site. DO NOT.
• Make a blog post. Dear Diary…today is Day #900 of C-19 lockdown; it’s been seven weeks since my last shower but I feel fine. Wearing my voodoo mask has made me feel ever so secure but the stray dogs I keep inviting in for leftover ramen are fearful. The tree-plant I purchased just before this all started is overflowing the dining area but fortunately the trunk is now substantial enough to use for firewood this winter. And so forth. To Post or Not to Post…that is…
• Eat yogurt, drink more coffee, check out social media, numbers of new bad things, make bed, do first plank.
• SIT DOWN AT DESK AND WRITE NEXT CHAPTER OF BOOK. (Book is now 12,000 pages long and the world has run out of paper and words…and people who can read words are fewer and fewer but …

So there you have it…mornings all planned.

Sun is creeping up over the Sandias. Isn’t the hope that warm weather will kill off Covid-19 like it does with other flu viruses? In which case I’ll welcome the glaring New Mexican sun. But if that’s true, why is the virus just now beginning to blossom on the continent of Africa where in the far south it’s preparing for winter and along the equator temps change little year round?

Time for the noontime plan to be designed.