Things I Have Done During A Pandemic

 

Things I Have Done During A Pandemic 

Remember the Simpler Times™️ when outside was open and there was no running back inside for ones mask. Yeah those are the days Before Covid (B.C.) where the air was clean and you could trust your neighbor. When you killed succulents to say you tried to have a green thumb and just went down to the bar to get out of the house. When you let your friends taste your smoothie and went to Primark just to see what was new. These are things of the past. Now we discuss what we have done to not get us down while being quarantined or the risks we have taken when we were told not to. Allow me to tell you my choices so you can decide what is best for you as we enter the most dangerous herbstanfang of our generation. The one where the lockdowns return and this is the end of days. Get your life before it ends!

I did exactly that in late February. A leap year and an extra day made me take advantage of a California adventure just as the pandemic began. Tonald Drump said it was perfectly okay. The Who said we didn't need masks. The CDC said I could fly domestically. All of outside was open and masks were totally optional. Airports, restaurants, bars, theme parks, museums etc. were all the rage. So I took multiple flights between North Carolina, Massachusetts, Denver and California. It was the time of my life until March 1st when it was announced that the first unknown non human to human transmission had occurred in Santa Clara Valley. At this point I had already done it all. I had went to San Francisco, I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, I saw the SFMOMA, I sampled $7 coconut water at a farmers market, I rallied for Bernie Sanders, I engaged in a loud brunch and then sat at the shores of Half Moon Bay. In my opinion, while people were clamoring for toilet tissue and Clorox wipes I could easily go die. I had seen and done it all. Touched the water on both coasts. Had a $15 bloody mary with kimchi and mezcal. And now I was going to smoke legal marijuana in two of the first to legalize states. Yeah, a perfect time to die indeed. And then the world came to a fucking halt...

And in that time when my flights kept getting cancelled and television was all re-runs I did many things. I became a Medium partner. I starting paying my student loans. I planted a vegetable garden. I taught myself how to bake bread. I did marriage counseling via Zoom. But it wasn't the dystopian accomplishments of pandemic life that made me feel alive. It was the dabbling in things that everyone said I couldn't do in the middle of it. It was surviving a trip to Walmart without contracting the virus. It was ordering McDonalds with actual cash money. It was touching the Amazon box with my bare hands and subsequently picking up the dog. And each time when I retraced my steps and my constant anti pandemic actions I felt I had gained a new set of Pokemon balls. Here I was doing all the things they told me I couldn't do. And as long as I took Vitamin D and wore a mask I felt invincible. The true test was flying back to Germany and attempting to do the same without dying. And Mein Gott have I lived on the fucking edge since being back in Köln. And I cannot brag to anyone in America because most of my friends and family are still on state mandated lockdown. I cannot tell them I am exercising my civil liberties every single day because I am far, far from away from the real problem. But here I can tell most anyone how I have been going to the gym and how I have seen "Tenet". Yes this girl did that! In the past 90 days, I have gone to the doctor, the vet, multiple restaurants, bars, shopping malls, movie theaters, on trains, planes, on vacation, to the hair salon, for a pedicure and soon a museum exhibit. Hell, I even went to the ER in a local hospital on a Sunday in fucking Germany! A death wish indeed!

So I am gonna hit you all with an exclusive how to series for all of the above so you can risk death with me. If you are reading this from the States I mean do so at your own risk but over here I think if you follow my steps you can live through this until Angela closes outside again. And personally I wouldn't mind a good ole European quarantine in the dead of gray winter as long as the WLAN is strong. So come on this tour of things you too can do ... lets play Russian roulette in Germany. 

Weiter Mal!