storybook
This month we are blurring the line between fact and fiction. The sanctity of truth in the things we see on the internet has been dead for a long time. The news is constantly under fire for being fabricated, instagram profiles sell the allure of genuine perfection when in reality it is a perfectly edited fantasy, reality TV gives scripted drama where directors call the shots and the audience believes the lie, and our favorite YouTubers film videos on a set that merely look like a living room sharing an honest lifestyle that turns out to be nothing more than yet another scripted personality. With the world melting into chaos, sometimes these breaks from reality can be nice. It can be pleasant scrolling through instagram seeing perfect fantasies, but at the same time it can hurt. It can hurt to be tricked into believing that the scripted and filtered life in front of you is real. This month, we don't hope to trick you, we just hope to tell stories that are loosely tied into reality. We hope that you can escape into this space we create, the fine line between truth and falsehood, where some things are what they seen, and others are purely our imagination. This storybook won't be damaging, only entertaining, and hopefully helpful in dealing with life as we know it.
the quarantine diaries
by g
I'll now have officially been gone from work for a month. First it was a week long quarantine because a coworker got sick, and I lived through that. But now, as I'm walking out the door for my first day back, my roommate reads her results from her random covid test. Its positive. An absolutely inconvenient surprise. Covid has changed the way I think about a lot of things, and now it has ruined suspense and suprise. I no longer want to be kept waiting for anything. My patience has run out. I am at the end of my line. I need instant gratification and instant results or I may die. I text my boss with a :( at the end of my text, announcing that I will be missing 2 more weeks of work, and then the week of thanksgiving because school will be closed, resulting in an entire month of being gone from work. I lie in bed thinking about how my group of elementary school kids, the ones I work with after school, might not like me when they see me again. This thought pains me deeply and I can say no more.
Annoyingly, one of the few people I feel close to is my boyfriend, and when the news came that there were 2 long weeks ahead of me in which I would not see him I cried in bed for 2 hours, paused to drink some gatorade, and then continued crying. I sent a mass email to all my professors letting them know that I would not be turning in any work whatsoever because I was quarantined. And while I may not have symptoms, the crushing weight of sadness and loneliness is enough of an excuse to not take any tests or write any stupid papers about stupid Shakespeare. My english professor tried to make things interesting by having us a read a poem by a woman who got small pox. She was absolutely beside herself because she could not longer go to the opera or flirt with men and smallpox had made her ugly. I related to it, but also the more I think about this pandemic the more I realize that we are very snotty for comparing it to smallpox or the black plague. My opinion on covid changes on the daily. Some days I lie in bed, scared of the imminent death that awaits us all. I read stories on the news of people who can't breathe, who will never taste or smell again, who have their toes cut off, who die. And then on other days I contact my friends who tested positive and who were out of work for 10 days because they had a runny nose for 2 days, tested positive, and are now completely fine. My roommate, who is perfect, has no symptoms. The girls I saw on Halloween who all tested positive are running and flipping and getting fully dressed and doing their makeup. My roommate's friend lost her sense of taste for 2 days but has now regained it completely, and was only sick for one day. I bounce back between believing that covid will be the death of us all, and believing that it is nothing more than a mild flu. On the days when I believe it is nothing to be so scared about I think, how dare we compare our suffering to those who had smallpox. Those who had their faces marred by boils and scars, who died and suffered and watched the world actually suffer and die around them. How can we compare to the plague victims who dropped thousands per day, buried in mass graves, wailing in the streets, with no modern medicine to aid them, the only cure some sick tortuous process. How can we, living with our phones in our comfortable beds and warm houses, who can online shop and order fancy groceries and get paid reimbursement from work, who have a stuffy nose for 2 days and then return to living, compare ourselves to the people of old who lived through the plague? Those are all my thoughts for today, and I told my English teacher so in the discussion post I submitted to him.
My boyfriend's roommate tested positive and now he too is in quarantine for 2 weeks. My roommates and I, whose boyfriends and other companions are also in some sort of isolation, have reconciled our loneliness by coming up with the excuse that if someone is already in quarantine because they've been exposed, then it can't hurt to interact with them. This is probably stupid and selfish reasoning, but their are bigger things-like our mental health-at stake here. I will suffer a runny nose because if I have to stay in my room for the next 2 weeks I will surely die by my own hand. (Kidding!) I was unreasonably motivated today and checked out 5 books from the library and read one all in one night and then wrote 3 chapters in a book I am writing myself. I have a deep moral crisis each time I leave the house, for even though I do not feel sick I may still be contagious. However, I cannot figure out how to order anything online. I know I can pick up books from the library by placing a hold and then planning a pick-up with the library staff over the phone. However, that task is too daunting and confusing. Instead, I dump an entire bottle of hand sanitzer on my hands, wear two masks, and run like a crazy person through the library, taking extremely drastic measure to stay very far away from everyone. An old lady with an oxygen tank stands next to me in the aisle and I feel bad because I could compromise her whole health situation, and so I turn around and lollygag in another section until she leaves, but she just follows me to the new section I'm at. So I leave again. I pre-covid days this would likely be considered rude and I would be very self-conscious of possibly letting on that I was trying to avoid this old lady. But truly her life was in my hands and I had to do what I needed to do. My roommates and I decided it was best to order groceries, so I let them figure that out and agreed to pay whatever I needed to and then sent one of them off to go pick it up. She returned two hours later vowing to never order anything from a store for pick up because they couldn't get their shit together. For shopping addicts, living during covid is an especially stressful time.
I downloaded depop as a way to soothe my shopping anxiety. But I realized that the thrill of shopping comes from immediately spending money and then receiving an item in return. When you have to wait 7 days for the thing you bought to get here everything just becomes underwhelming. I will update more when I receive my packages, maybe opening a gift-like object will be just as satisfying. Quarantine has given me lots of opportunities to think very deeply about my style. In my head I have it all figured out. My closet is also full of very adorable clothes that I am very excited to wear. However, I truly have nowhere to wear them too, which is very disappointing. But it is fun to imagine outfits in my head. I saw my boyfriend for the first time in almost a week today. It was okay. I realized that I enjoy being alone.
I despise being alone. After a week of not seeing each other and finally we see each other again my boyfriend said he doesn't want to hang out tonight because he is feeling 'bummed out'. I am now too bummed out to do anything for the entire rest of the evening.
We bought a cat. It has come to this. Our quarantine loneliness could not be satisfied any other way. I am happy we got a new pet because now I have something new to stress and complain about. Now, instead of laying awake thinking about dying or being alone, I can worry about the cat attacking my poor sweet rabbit. Although they seem to be getting along quite well, so now I don't even have that to worry about. I've found that actually my mind isn't often fixated on covid related things. Covid has made me hate waiting, and has also made me completely numb to most of the distressing things happening in my life. It has also given me the opportunity to think wildly and deeply about a lot of things, such as authentic representation of minorities in fiction and why diversity is important and how we as a society can move to be truly anti-racist. When emotions are taken out of the mix, life's big questions become surprisingly easy to think about and answer. I won't tell you my thoughts on race and diversity because they are extremely complicated and long and I can't even really remember most of them accept for the ones I write down. The other way I know I am becoming numb to negative emotions is this: my closest friend is not in quarantine and is constantly going out to see people who are also not in quarantine. Typically, this type of thing would have me bedridden and sobbing for hours if not days, but now I can normally go about my business even though I am being pointedly left out of things. I know I'm not really being left out because I'm in a state mandated quarantine, and that thought soothes me only slightly. I've come accustomed to responding to things with nothing more than a shrug and a comment about how "thats just the way things are right now", and it is helping me cope but also helping me slip into a state of nonchalance that I know will come back to bite me later.
I tried to do my makeup and I look like a cheap hooker. Deeply upset about this, but at least I have nowhere to go where people can be mean to me. However, the silent judging stares from my roommates-the only people who do see me-likely thinking I have reached my wits end are slightly upsetting. Another positive thing to come out of quarantine is that I have had plenty of time to invest in a new beauty routine. I use cold cream, like Marilyn Monroe, a dark spot corrector, and then another dark spot corrector. I have not noticed any significant changes, making me believe even more that the entire beauty industry is a farce and there really is nothing we can use to make our skin better. But I won't dwell on that. It is nice to have a morning and evening routine to rely on.
Seeing my boyfriend was extremely pleasant today. Sometimes I love him and other times he irks me deeply. Today it was very nice to see him, and it made me believe that in this life we only need a few people. That is a thought I've been upset over for a while. I am torn between feeling like I only want 1 friend and like I want 50. Being in quarantine made me appreciate the 3 friends I do have. I hope, hope, hope that I keep feeling that way once all of this is over, if this is ever over.
School is a joke. Let this record remain that school is a joke. Online school s a joke and should not be taken seriously. I am beginning to think that even real school is a joke and shouldn't be taken seriously either. Covid might also be a joke because it has almost been 2 weeks and I have no symptoms and there is NO WAY that me and everyone around me who has been exposed is asymptomatic. I can write no more because maybe even this too is a joke.
Annoyingly, one of the few people I feel close to is my boyfriend, and when the news came that there were 2 long weeks ahead of me in which I would not see him I cried in bed for 2 hours, paused to drink some gatorade, and then continued crying. I sent a mass email to all my professors letting them know that I would not be turning in any work whatsoever because I was quarantined. And while I may not have symptoms, the crushing weight of sadness and loneliness is enough of an excuse to not take any tests or write any stupid papers about stupid Shakespeare. My english professor tried to make things interesting by having us a read a poem by a woman who got small pox. She was absolutely beside herself because she could not longer go to the opera or flirt with men and smallpox had made her ugly. I related to it, but also the more I think about this pandemic the more I realize that we are very snotty for comparing it to smallpox or the black plague. My opinion on covid changes on the daily. Some days I lie in bed, scared of the imminent death that awaits us all. I read stories on the news of people who can't breathe, who will never taste or smell again, who have their toes cut off, who die. And then on other days I contact my friends who tested positive and who were out of work for 10 days because they had a runny nose for 2 days, tested positive, and are now completely fine. My roommate, who is perfect, has no symptoms. The girls I saw on Halloween who all tested positive are running and flipping and getting fully dressed and doing their makeup. My roommate's friend lost her sense of taste for 2 days but has now regained it completely, and was only sick for one day. I bounce back between believing that covid will be the death of us all, and believing that it is nothing more than a mild flu. On the days when I believe it is nothing to be so scared about I think, how dare we compare our suffering to those who had smallpox. Those who had their faces marred by boils and scars, who died and suffered and watched the world actually suffer and die around them. How can we compare to the plague victims who dropped thousands per day, buried in mass graves, wailing in the streets, with no modern medicine to aid them, the only cure some sick tortuous process. How can we, living with our phones in our comfortable beds and warm houses, who can online shop and order fancy groceries and get paid reimbursement from work, who have a stuffy nose for 2 days and then return to living, compare ourselves to the people of old who lived through the plague? Those are all my thoughts for today, and I told my English teacher so in the discussion post I submitted to him.
My boyfriend's roommate tested positive and now he too is in quarantine for 2 weeks. My roommates and I, whose boyfriends and other companions are also in some sort of isolation, have reconciled our loneliness by coming up with the excuse that if someone is already in quarantine because they've been exposed, then it can't hurt to interact with them. This is probably stupid and selfish reasoning, but their are bigger things-like our mental health-at stake here. I will suffer a runny nose because if I have to stay in my room for the next 2 weeks I will surely die by my own hand. (Kidding!) I was unreasonably motivated today and checked out 5 books from the library and read one all in one night and then wrote 3 chapters in a book I am writing myself. I have a deep moral crisis each time I leave the house, for even though I do not feel sick I may still be contagious. However, I cannot figure out how to order anything online. I know I can pick up books from the library by placing a hold and then planning a pick-up with the library staff over the phone. However, that task is too daunting and confusing. Instead, I dump an entire bottle of hand sanitzer on my hands, wear two masks, and run like a crazy person through the library, taking extremely drastic measure to stay very far away from everyone. An old lady with an oxygen tank stands next to me in the aisle and I feel bad because I could compromise her whole health situation, and so I turn around and lollygag in another section until she leaves, but she just follows me to the new section I'm at. So I leave again. I pre-covid days this would likely be considered rude and I would be very self-conscious of possibly letting on that I was trying to avoid this old lady. But truly her life was in my hands and I had to do what I needed to do. My roommates and I decided it was best to order groceries, so I let them figure that out and agreed to pay whatever I needed to and then sent one of them off to go pick it up. She returned two hours later vowing to never order anything from a store for pick up because they couldn't get their shit together. For shopping addicts, living during covid is an especially stressful time.
I downloaded depop as a way to soothe my shopping anxiety. But I realized that the thrill of shopping comes from immediately spending money and then receiving an item in return. When you have to wait 7 days for the thing you bought to get here everything just becomes underwhelming. I will update more when I receive my packages, maybe opening a gift-like object will be just as satisfying. Quarantine has given me lots of opportunities to think very deeply about my style. In my head I have it all figured out. My closet is also full of very adorable clothes that I am very excited to wear. However, I truly have nowhere to wear them too, which is very disappointing. But it is fun to imagine outfits in my head. I saw my boyfriend for the first time in almost a week today. It was okay. I realized that I enjoy being alone.
I despise being alone. After a week of not seeing each other and finally we see each other again my boyfriend said he doesn't want to hang out tonight because he is feeling 'bummed out'. I am now too bummed out to do anything for the entire rest of the evening.
We bought a cat. It has come to this. Our quarantine loneliness could not be satisfied any other way. I am happy we got a new pet because now I have something new to stress and complain about. Now, instead of laying awake thinking about dying or being alone, I can worry about the cat attacking my poor sweet rabbit. Although they seem to be getting along quite well, so now I don't even have that to worry about. I've found that actually my mind isn't often fixated on covid related things. Covid has made me hate waiting, and has also made me completely numb to most of the distressing things happening in my life. It has also given me the opportunity to think wildly and deeply about a lot of things, such as authentic representation of minorities in fiction and why diversity is important and how we as a society can move to be truly anti-racist. When emotions are taken out of the mix, life's big questions become surprisingly easy to think about and answer. I won't tell you my thoughts on race and diversity because they are extremely complicated and long and I can't even really remember most of them accept for the ones I write down. The other way I know I am becoming numb to negative emotions is this: my closest friend is not in quarantine and is constantly going out to see people who are also not in quarantine. Typically, this type of thing would have me bedridden and sobbing for hours if not days, but now I can normally go about my business even though I am being pointedly left out of things. I know I'm not really being left out because I'm in a state mandated quarantine, and that thought soothes me only slightly. I've come accustomed to responding to things with nothing more than a shrug and a comment about how "thats just the way things are right now", and it is helping me cope but also helping me slip into a state of nonchalance that I know will come back to bite me later.
I tried to do my makeup and I look like a cheap hooker. Deeply upset about this, but at least I have nowhere to go where people can be mean to me. However, the silent judging stares from my roommates-the only people who do see me-likely thinking I have reached my wits end are slightly upsetting. Another positive thing to come out of quarantine is that I have had plenty of time to invest in a new beauty routine. I use cold cream, like Marilyn Monroe, a dark spot corrector, and then another dark spot corrector. I have not noticed any significant changes, making me believe even more that the entire beauty industry is a farce and there really is nothing we can use to make our skin better. But I won't dwell on that. It is nice to have a morning and evening routine to rely on.
Seeing my boyfriend was extremely pleasant today. Sometimes I love him and other times he irks me deeply. Today it was very nice to see him, and it made me believe that in this life we only need a few people. That is a thought I've been upset over for a while. I am torn between feeling like I only want 1 friend and like I want 50. Being in quarantine made me appreciate the 3 friends I do have. I hope, hope, hope that I keep feeling that way once all of this is over, if this is ever over.
School is a joke. Let this record remain that school is a joke. Online school s a joke and should not be taken seriously. I am beginning to think that even real school is a joke and shouldn't be taken seriously either. Covid might also be a joke because it has almost been 2 weeks and I have no symptoms and there is NO WAY that me and everyone around me who has been exposed is asymptomatic. I can write no more because maybe even this too is a joke.