The COVID-19 Pandemic, Day 4

So many rumors flying around, it is hard to know what to believe.

I'm holed up in my father-in-laws basement in the suburbs of Chicago, avoiding the stress of setting up for the party. Yes. A party. For my brother-in-law and his fiancée. Folks are flying in for it. My wife and I are unhappy that the party wasn't called off, are unhappy that we didn't have the nerve to cancel ourselves, are unhappy that we're still here and without our own mode of transportation.

My excitement and hope from just two days ago has been tempered by the cresting tidal wave of deaths, quarantines, and misinformation. Spain is on lockdown now. Grocery shelves are empty. Travel bans are happening. A supposed case of someone getting re-infected in Japan or something. The first death in New York. I'm trying to not read about it all but it keeps seeping in.

I started writing a long-form bio for this website today. Perhaps a foolish coping mechanism in the face my own death. Some type of mini-immortality project. I was never important enough to have a Wikipedia page, so I suppose I can make my own little history here, yeah? Will anyone be around to read it? How long before the GitHub servers go dark forever?

To be clear, I don't actually believe this will be the end of us... given what we know now. Last night I contemplated the supposed re-infection case. Is it true? If so, was due to a mutation in the virus? If the virus can mutate, what if it gets stronger? What if we're hit with wave after wave of increasingly resilient strains until we're all gone?

I'm flying to Los Angeles tomorrow via ORD to LAX. I am not happy about that either. But Sage and I are commuter spouses. Our home is there. And our cats. If I must be on quarantine, I want to be with her and not alone in my Chicago studio.