Things I've Learned in Quarantine
I’ve been thinking a lot about what to say in a quarantine blog. Not because I thought it was important but because, being in quarantine, I literally only have time to think about what to write in a quarantine blog.
At first I was going to write a bunch of things that make me happy - which I think is great, but I also recognize that this whole situation sucks, and I didn’t want to come off as Pollyanna playing fiddle while the world burns.
The second idea was to write a navel-gazing blog about being in a moment in history and meditating on how grateful I am for all the wonderful things to celebrate in this time of government-enforced reflection. And I have a lot to be grateful for, but I, once again, didn’t want to be Pollyanna telling people “A little ice never hurt anybody!” on board the Titanic right after hitting the iceberg.
What I believed would merge all of this together into one post was a reflection on what I’ve learned in quarantine. Because the lessons learned in 20 days locked in your house are a lot different than lessons learned at any other time in human existence. What other time in my life will I have a weekend where I’ll literally play Crash Bandicoot on PlayStation for almost 8 hours?
Never. Not gonna happen again.
Likewise, when will I cook bags and bags of Aldi frozen tilapia over the course of 3 weeks because it was the only meat left in the store and I thought I’d never get to eat meat again?
Never.
So, without further ado, (I know you’re frothing with anticipation), I present the top things I’ve learned since being in quarantine.
Crash Bandicoot is an anxiety-inducing fever dream. As part of one of my bored-impulse-buying sprees, I purchased the remake of the first 3 Crash Bandicoot games. My goodness gracious. I have had stress nightmares about jumping on turtles to get across bridges. How did I not have a heart attack when I was 12 years-old playing these games? They are literally impossible. I feel like the platform-jumping experience in Crash is akin to working on a bomb squad. After some levels I’m covered in sweat, my hands shaking because I had to jump across twenty moving blocks while dodging lasers, warthogs, and acid pools. But it’s also like the most addictive substance on earth? I usually go to bed at 10:30 but have stayed up until 1 am multiple nights trying to get gems. GEMS. DIGITAL CRASH BANDICOOT GEMS WHICH MEAN NOTHING.
Literally any kind of spice makes anything better. In my tilapia cooking marathon, I have learned that dumping anything from our spice rack onto said fish is better than regular tilapia. If you think that Ernesto and I have an abundance of spices, you’d be wrong. I’m talking like dumping some very suspect spice called “Pub Chicken Spice” on $5 fish will make you feel like you splurged and went to Red Lobster. At this point I may just start dumping Pub Chicken Spice on everything. God bless it.
Having more time makes working out way worse. When I’m on my normal schedule, I get up at 5:30 or 6, go to the gym, make breakfast, and get to work by 8:30. EASY! I love getting up early! Now that I almost have infinite time to work out, I would rather die than do a single crunch. No idea why this is. Maybe because if I work out it has to be in our basement bedroom with sad, pink elastic bands. I don’t know. I purchased a 2012 Beach Body collection of DVDs because the workouts are 25 mins. I did it for a week and am now like “Well… it has a warmup, so it’s like 28 mins… soooooo… can I commit to that? Crash Bandicoot needs me.”
Muriel’s Wedding is a super weird movie. I’ve had a buddy tell me to watch this flick for almost a decade now. You look at the cover art and it seems like a “feel good” fun time of a movie. Buuuuttt…. Well… I mean… there are laughs? But also a lot of tragedy and sobbing? I honestly don’t know how to categorize this movie – the main character is unlikeable, the plot twists are insane, and it’s that awkward funny where you just don’t know if you’re supposed to laugh. If you want to watch a movie and have no idea what genre it is, this is the movie for you. Also it has a hot guy in it. So, bonus!
Puzzles, to me, are the death of fun. I called my mom this week, and she commented that she saw Ernesto and I did a puzzle this past weekend. Her response: “Oh, yeah, Dave and I haven’t been nearly desperate enough to puzzle.” First off, “to puzzle” is an amazing infinitive. Second, she’s very correct. I know a lot of people love puzzling, but for me it is the last station on the I’m Bored Express. I want to put 1000 pieces together to form a picture that’s… fine, not even like pretty… only to rip the whole thing apart immediately after. What even is that activity?
Fitbit is the support I need right now. I received a Fitbit when I worked for PayPal, which I was hoping to sell on Facebook, but no one wanted it (you’re welcome for that story – it will most likely be the premise for my next writing project) – anyhoo, I opened it up because I realized that I was logging about 300 steps a day sitting in my house during the ‘tine. I hoped that the Fitbit would inspire me to do more steps and be more active. The really nice thing about setting it up in a quarantine, though, is the Fitbit has a really low bar for my success. At one point last week I walked for 30 mins and I got an email – “You did it, Tedd! Your most active hour yet!” I got a second pat on the back for hitting 5,000 steps one day when my previous high was like 3800. I even got a badge for some reason! I’M AMAZING! I realize I am, in fact, a dead-weight slug who sits on a couch for 8 hours a day on a computer, but in the world of Fitbit, I am legend.
Sometimes you just need to intake garbage culture. I meditate a lot on the question “What is art?” I won’t bore you with my conclusions here, but I never thought that the cultural cause I’d champion during quarantine is The Tiger King. I mean, when the world was falling apart, I wasn’t going to the classics, popping open Dostoevsky, or turning on Citizen Kane – I was watching a methed out tiger dealer marry straight men, try to kill people, and go toe-to-toe with the his nemesis, who most likely is a golddigging murderer as well. There is a time and place for the classics, but at certain points, you just need to enter a surreal world and turn off your brain. Bless Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin.
I’m 100% an introvert. For a while I was thinking I was an “omnivert” – a person who can get energy from people or from being alone – but I like being isolated. As we came to the second week of quarantine, I was more stressed about all the nothing I needed to do before quarantine was lifted – cleaning, sorting old clothes, reading books, playing video games, watching movies, working on writing projects. The question was: Would I accomplish enough nothing in the time I had left? I honestly am going to struggle socializing when things go back to normal. Even joining Zoom calls with friends now, I kind of treat it like a podcast and don’t really engage. What will happen when I have to sit with people and actually be human?
Overall, I’d say it’s been a pretty interesting 4 weeks. Not like, action-movie interesting, but more in the line of, pensive-drama-you-never-want-to-watch-again interesting. I guess my biggest win in this is that on the other side of the ‘tine I still will have the glorious comfort of Pub Chicken Spice and the support of my Fitbit. I also finished a draft of my latest book, which you can read here – Shakespeare it ain’t, but it may at least be garbage you can peruse through after you’ve been through the glorious refuse of The Tiger King.
If you do want to Zoom with someone during this crisis, just know I’m here. And have no desire to. Please message your extrovert friends and give them a break from their constant Instagram Live stories - I’ll be busy helping Crash Bandicoot save the world.