I’m Thinking About . . .

putting up a nerf ball basket in my living room.

teaching myself how to juggle.

whether we’ll all wind up conditioning ourselves to wash our hands whenever we sing happy birthday, as opposed to the other way around.

whether there’s any reason to check my mail.

whether I should represent my neighborhood in the upcoming Hunger Games, senior edition.

calling people I don’t even like.

how many people will get infected carrying the Olympic Torch.

pretending it’s all only a movie, which reminds me that it’s time to look for the closest drive-in theater.

whether I should trust the guy selling coronavirus test kits out of the back of his van across the street.

using old socks as gloves.

starting to bet on the weather, the only action Las Vegas is still hosting.

rewriting the lyrics to South Park’s Blame Canada to Blame China.

throwing out everything I own, except what I need for juggling, so that I don’t have to worry about disinfecting it.

setting my alarm clock for June.

Am I the only one who . . .

feels like he’s in an escape room game that he can’t figure out?

is leaving bread out to grow mold in the hope of discovering a treatment?

has heard enough news about Tom Brady?

would sink to watching a live curling tournament if it were available?

is keeping track of how many times in a row he doesn’t get an error message when extracting the flash drive from his laptop? (It’s the little things.)

wonders how long it will take for our first made-for-tv coronavirus movie? Production studios are shut down, but next year’s Oscars may have to add a category for home movies.

has hit the limit (mine was apparently 100) on phone numbers he can block?

wonders whether there is now a market for fake IDs for people in their 50s who want to pass for 60?

never liked shaking hands in the first place? “The history of the handshake dates back to the 5th century B.C. in Greece. It was a symbol of peace, showing that neither person was carrying a weapon.”  I guess concealed carry wasn’t allowed back then.

flosses before using Zoom video?

had to look up the word for fear of crowds (which we now all have)? – enochlophobia

has eliminated running with the bulls from his bucket list and replaced it with having a meal with friends?

Random Thoughts

If this were an episode of Star Trek Voyager, the crew would be put into stasis while the holographic doctor worked on, and of course found, a cure, in under an hour.

Does social distancing signal the end of car-pool lanes and the use of anatomically-correct inflatable dummies placed in the passenger seat to fool the car-pool police? And how about dummies as automatic pilots in airplanes?

If every city follows the lead of Hoboken and restricts restaurant business to take-out and delivery, that should free up a lot of indoor space to house inmates to help address the issue of social distancing in overcrowded prisons, where it’s known as solitary confinement.

While stepping outside for some fresh air, while we’re still allowed to do so, I noticed that everyone else was walking a dog, which led me to wonder whether dogs chase balls we throw only to make us feel better about picking up their poop. And are people hoarding those little plastic bags just like they’re hoarding toilet paper?

While walking, I noticed a sign on Dave & Buster’s saying that you must be 18 or over to enter the premises. I wonder whether establishments will start restricting entrance to those under the age of 60, which would result in the largest class action lawsuit in history if anyone 60 or older actually wanted to enter a Dave & Buster’s.

Most of us seem to have gotten past shaking hands, and good riddance, but other more practical-oriented habits, like touching door handles, pushing elevator buttons, and breathing when around people, may be tougher to break, especially the last one.

Words and Terms of 2020

Social Distancing – staying at least six feet away from other people. Formerly called being antisocial when used for people who were way ahead of their times.

Videochatting – talking to your television out of loneliness or the fear that you may have forgotten how to talk because of social distancing. Replaced talking to yourself, which some saw as a sign of mental instability. See Sheldon Cooper’s morning vocal test.

Postpone – put off a decision in the hope that, when the time comes, it will be someone else’s responsibility.

Cancel – what an organization does to a scheduled event after being embarrassed by other groups taking quicker action.

Take a cruise – the way teenagers used to aimlessly drive around the neighborhood looking for friends who were similarly driving around, with the hope that someone would suggest going for chocolate ice cream, or, in rougher neighborhoods, Rocky Road. Now, it just means to act stupidly.

Bear Market – something that “financial experts” predict every chance they get so that eventually they’ll be correct.

Quarantine – a word derived from a seventeenth-century Venetian variant of the Italian quaranta giorni, meaning “forty days”, the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague epidemic. While there is no apparent connection to Noah, 40 days sure does seem like a big coincidence and Rule 39 for Gibbs on NCIS is that there are no coincidences. Moreover, artificial refrigeration didn’t begin until the mid-1750s, so that’s a lot of jerky.

Flattening the curve – what professors sometimes do in terms of grading, or a visual aid used to try to convince people to social distance and that it’s no one’s fault that our health care system was unprepared. If only we had thought to create a National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense.

You Know Things are Getting Bad When . . .

You have to remove all your injury ice packs from your freezer to make room for food.

Your choices for television you haven’t seen yet are down to The Masked Singer and reruns of videos from your lobby showing the mail person delivering the mail.

The guy in line in front of you at the store pulls out a measuring tape, gives you a dirty look, and makes a chalk line on the floor six feet behind him.

You don’t bother to pick the lima beans out of the vegetable medley you bought because they were out of real food.

You’re training your dog to go to the store for you.

You’re making a collage out of all the CEO messages you’ve received regarding company responses to COVID-19.

You live in a multiunit building and are considering saying hello to your neighbors.

BUT, DON’T PANIC YET – here’s some good news from a couple subscribers.

The 92nd Street Y in New York will live stream Garrick Ohlsson’s piano performance tonight at 7:00 Central time. 

The Berlin Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall is offering a free month of high quality audio and video—including different angles and closeups of the solos. (And the instructions are in English.)

Finally, thanks to all of you from whom I’ve heard about my recent post-apocalyptic posts. If my brain doesn’t give in to cabin fever, I’ll try, with your help, to keep them coming.

Things to Do When There’s Nothing to Do

Change all your passwords, daily at first, more often later if you’re still bored. Then try to memorize all 500 of them.

Remove your spam filters and start reading all your junk email and listening to all the robocalls you get.

Learn a new skill – campanology has a nice ring to it, though it may annoy the neighbors.

Take a free online course from a top university – epidemiology seems like a useful one.

And then watch all the contagion movies. Check out Vulture’s list of The 58 Best Pandemic Movies to Binge in Quarantine.

While you’re at it, there’s a new sequel to the book The Andromeda Strain, The Andromeda Evolution, which I recommend, even though it wasn’t written by Michael Crichton, who, after all, left us in 2008. I wonder how he would feel about the amazingly convoluted Westworld television series, which I don’t recommend.

Shred every shred of paper in your possession – very cathartic.

Write the consensus Great American Novel, thereby eliminating the other pretenders on The Literary Hub list, which, by the way, does not include the Philip Roth book, The Great American Novel, which I, and perhaps a few others, actually have read.

Think about exercising, but don’t actually exercise, as you might hurt yourself, and it’s not a good time to need medical attention.

Start writing a blog. It empties your head, and thereby helps you sleep at night.

Sleep, a lot – not only does it help cleanse the brain of toxins (so that you can pursue all the above activities), it helps preserve toilet paper and hand sanitizer (unless you’re a sleep cleaner), and, who knows, things might be better when you wake up.

The Theory of Nothing

Just because the world has ground to a halt doesn’t mean that I should stop writing, or does it? Have I misinterpreted the signs? Anyway, to help us all pass the time, here are some notes about some of the things I’m not doing.

Speaking of signs, and the stealing thereof, I’m not watching baseball games. I wouldn’t anyway, but my class on the Literature of Baseball at Northwestern’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute will be held online, instead of in person, which means I don’t get to indulge in the delicious home-made brownies that a member of the class, who is a baker, brings each week.

I’m not watching March Madness or running my pool, which is a shame because I concocted some bizarre rules this year in the hope that no one else would understand them. In that vein, in the absence of games, I have declared myself the winner of the pool.

Despite having been the Wizard of Oz in Wicked on Broadway, Joel Grey apparently does not have the power to make everything right and so is not going to the 25th Anniversary Porchlight Music Theatre Icons Gala honoring him and neither is anyone else, including me, at least until it gets rescheduled.

I’m not going to the postponed Newberry Library Associates Night, where I was hoping to cop some free wine and cheese and then sneak out before the staff droned on about research that would have bored me to tears.

I’m not going to the American Writers Museum to listen to Gene Luen Yang talk about his new graphic novel Dragon Hoops, as he cancelled his in-person book tour, and instead, according to his website, is touring as a cartoon.

I’m not going to the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s 100th Anniversary Concert, which was to feature Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, which also was performed at the orchestra’s first-ever concert on March 29, 1920. I missed that one too.