#Day3 of Khalid Shawwa and my self-imposed isolation. I have decided to return to Facebook while the Corona curve ramps up and post (probably more inane, useless musings to join the turd maelstrom that is social media today) as I feel we are in part social experiment, part apocalypse movie, part sitcom.
So, things I have learnt so far: 1.) Instead of doing less work, I am now chained to my PC (and new video conference software!) and my bottom is taking the shape of our, as it turns out, wildly uncomfortable dining room/ work station chairs.
2.) Our “attic in the sky” above London Bridge has obviously shrunk slightly each day and I feel a new sense of kinship with Harry Potter’s cupboard-below-the-stairs (except he got to go to school occasionally and found space for an owl).
3.) Because we are stationed next to the kitchen it seems that I keep “waking up” to find that I have once again been standing with my head inserted into the fridge or cupboards. If i am on the phone it can happen more than once – on the same call. Some basic cognitive malfunctioning here seems to have induced a kind of “food Alzheimers”, where I forget that I have just snacked on something 4.) Based on item 3 above, and the loss of my daily gym, I fear that I shall become a pink blancmange 5.) My plans to do gym workouts on the lounge floor have remained plans.
6.) It’s also a little scary. I have had headaches and every time I feel a bit crap (which has been a few times in the last days) I recount all this information to try and work out if this is “it”. I want to fight my inbuilt hypochondria; can I not just have a sore throat without my mind running amok? 7.) But I also don’t want to be the one that somehow infected us both, and what will this look like if it gets serious? The streets below us are slowly emptying each day, and I can see that in a week or two we will be repeating the scenes of our lock-down in the London terrorist attack; staring out at an empty Borough Market, with fluttering yellow police cordons the only movement.
I know there are signs ahead that many people are going to be blindsided by the financial, emotional and physical costs that we are careening towards on a wet slippery slide of unknown duration and depth. #flattenthecurve #holdontohumour #isolatedtogether
Update: I have been accused of being a gay Anne Frank. I am hoping there are no Hazmat suits knocking on the door below, with the crowd baying, “she’s in the attic!”
