the bright side of covid

Here are a couple of things about Covid, which occurred to me, during these endless days inside.

The Bright Side of Covid (Part 2)

I have seen various articles that have tried to put a positive spin on the coronavirus era. As I noted last time, a poet has rhapsodized about the wonderful ways she thinks the world will change. (I disagree, but she is entitled to her opinion.) Then there are the articles about personal growth, “things I learned about myself during lockdown,” a sort of grotesque bit of navel-gazing by those of us lucky enough to be safely quarantined while our fellow citizens are out there dying.

So in that spirit, here are the only things I learned about myself during lockdown:

• I like to snack.
• If I was alone in a room with an endless supply of yogurt covered raisins, I would eat them nonstop until I died.
• If I do not get a haircut for many months, I do not look good.

Parks and Rec Returns

The Parks and Recreation coronavirus special made me cry. I was lost the moment it began, and I realized that the credits were unchanged from its network run. I am not sure what made it so tremendously moving. They are not really my friends, after all.

Jared

I really hate Jared Kushner, maybe more than he deserves.

What is bizarrely off-putting is that, unlike Trump or Trump’s sons, Jared is a striver.

He is incompetent, but he wants a portfolio of tasks.

He wants to solve the Middle East problem. (Like my colleague Steven Drachman, and with about the same level of success.)

He volunteers to solve Covid.

He is bad at all of it, sure. But he keeps diving in, obliviously, that weird face filled with wide-eyed eagerness.

Why should this make me hate him so much? I really don’t understand it.

But I do hate him, our Jared.

The Greatest Showman

Throughout Trump’s life, he has never had to do anything more than announce that his most recent failure was a smashing success. No one really paid enough attention to catch on.

He seems, truly, to believe in this. Who should have expected his approach to Covid to be any different?

Weather

I have not seen much written about the weather, but since the Covid crisis began, it has really gotten unseasonably cold. Last week, it even snowed. It’s not just a couple of days of this, but it has been weeks. Anyone have an explanation?

The down side of Covid

The one positive of the Covid lockdown is that the awful guy on the fourth floor fled New York for his country home.

Now he is back. Oh well.

^^^

Alon Preiss is the author of In Love With Alice (2017). Available NOW from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or from ANY BOOKSTORE IN ANY TOWN OR CITY IN AMERICA

Illustration by Enrique Lopez Garre /Pixabay