“…lonely planets”

 

*This from October 2021 of the COVID era. 

Omicron and Ukraine didn't happen yet but still I complained. Didn't know when I had it good.

Once upon a time: ...My old radio friend Sharon Martin calls all this, “…the grind of the second plague year.” This is getting to me as it did others a year ago. Being a solitary person it just took longer. It’s the usual,…isolation strange dreams, uncertainty weepy moments rages confusions,…the usual.

That, and a constant weariness.

I follow my rituals day by day by day by month by year by season by season. The only fun I have is cutting my hair,…I’ve got kinda good at. I write much post little. That’s sort of my “job”…writing. I don’t draw anymore. I don’t paint or build anymore either.

I know near half the country has ignored the entire pandemic. They carry on. They get sick, and some die. I no longer am concerned. I’m too tired in my heart. They’ve made their choices we’ve made ours. The Earth Abides.

The days are getting shorter. They pass so quickly. In a moment the sun is setting. I wake, and the day is gone. It’s doing this right now. Every morning I sweep my digs end to end,…every morning. Don’t like vacuum cleaners. Still I’m surprised that there always dust. Every day,…always.

I cut my hair showered cleaned the kitchen. Washed my sheets, and hung them on the fire escape. This as New Yorkers have done for a few centuries now. The laundry no longer enforces all COVID rules. 60k+ died here. I can’t take the risk. Went to market mailed my local ballot sat in the sun.  

Came home sorted through my unbuilt scale model kits. Just as my radio friend Tom Wisker used to. Some may remember him. He passed a few years ago. A brilliant witty kindly soul. I miss him dearly.

When Tom got ill he stopped building. Tho’ he’d tinker writing notes in the instructions even correcting them. Historical accuracy was a thing for him. That was Tom. Now I do the same.

Sat at the computer wrote a few articles edited some stories. Watched a few videos. Put dinner on. Then the sun started to go down. 

That was my day. 

There’s stuff in about, and between all this, but this is my planet. I miss my life our lives. The parks the libraries family friends the subway. The wondrously terrifying Emerald City. Where I’ve lived worked, and loved for centuries. 

That life is like a dream. A long strange dream. Now we’re here in this limbo. All of us alone yet with a vast population around us. Just a wall away, but might as well be on other planets. We’re a crowded city of isolated worlds. 

I’ve lived 578 days on planet Sidney. I begin to question reality.* ( Its well over a Thousand days now. I look back on this crap above as the good old daze.)