So in light of absolutely nothing improving, absolutely nothing I can do, absolutely no one in charge and a vanishingly small chance of me being able to 100% avoid this thing, I’m just going to steer the old pirate ship toward whatever direction seems most pleasant or interesting right now, and stop worrying about the icebergs, hurricanes and unknown leviathans in the way.

There’s a line of thought right now about keeping safe and secure, locking down, minding your health and your finances and trying to be responsible. That line of thought loves to recite lengthy internal monologues at me at 4am about how bad I am at life skills and how I’ll probably end up bankrupt on a respirator from COVID because I’m financially imprudent and I’ve never managed to lose the 30-40 pounds the world has been on me to lose since I was roughly 10 years old, no matter how little I eat and how much I exercise.

There’s also a line of thought that basically suggests that none of that shit matters in the slightest when tomorrow is only going to be worse than today and by the way, the economy is tanking, you live in a joke of a country run by racists and blowhards and you and your loved ones may very die of Covid even if they follow all the protocols.

Want to guess where I’ve landed?

Am I eating brie for breakfast? Why not? Have I started cocktails at three on weekdays? Sure? How about new dresses, impractical shoes, records, books, flowers, plants, decorative items, art supplies, donations to things I like, gifts, donations to things I care about, takeout, booze, art? Bring it on. Can I afford it? Probably not. Who cares? No one else gives a toss about our hopeless tomorrow? Why should I? Am I gathering rosebuds? By the bucket load. Do I dare eat a goddamn peach? I just ate a bushel. Selfish? Sure. But give me a day and I will seize the shit out of it, because honestly, right now, that feels like the only thing I can do and maybe it’s the only thing worth doing at all.

Because the rest is not happening. The rest is unsafe. The rest feels like the most disappointing and protracted end of the world ever. I can’t even live it up the way I really want because 1) I don’t want to kill anyone by visiting places or doing things and 2) most of the places I’d like to visit are closed or certainly closed to me as an American right now anyway. I can’t have parties. I can’t do anything fantastically new and interesting with my hair. I can’t get massages or hugs or, god help me, any physical contact more satisfying and less family-friendly. I can’t even seem to get to a beach and stare at a large body of water and get high off salt water, waves and wind (because, among other things the place I was maybe going to try to visit closed today because of spikes in infection). Someone today asked how I was going with a long term creative project and I was like “Long-term? Future? What’s that? Have you tried out this new mojito recipe?I’m going to wear a ballgown over a bathing suit have it for lunch with peaches and salted caramel gelato then go spray myself off with a hose so the neighbors can have ‘Is the new girl next door totally losing her mind?’ as a topic at their own depressing, endless dinner table conversations”

It’s not just being stuck. It is being stuck in time with no movement, no help, no improvement, no one marshaling people to do anything to end it. So what? We putter along, hoping the distant shore will miraculously come closer, in an inflatable raft with an ever-expanding leak until we drown?

You do you, but I’m going rosebuds and peaches until (unless?) we’re swimming distance from land. At least if I go down, I’ll smell like flowers and remember what summer tastes like, even if everything else about this summer is, as my friend Sam would say, “a devastating suck.”

Photo today is of me gathering rosebuds (not technically, I know, but work with me here) at last Saturday’s Farmer’s Market.

As of this writing, 7,822,952 people have recovered from Covid.