From an early proponent of social distancing

Every writer can see the time coming when all he or she wants to read is what he or she has written, at least every writer I know.

I, however, am a different kind of writer: I see the the time coming when I won't want to read anything anymore, when the words that once held me in their power have become meaningless.

It's not an altogether bad feeling, this meaninglessness, it frees up a lot of my time, which I am now devoting to an in-depth re-consideration of Claude Levi-Strauss' breakthrough anthropological insight into the differences between "raw" and "cooked" cultures.

Things I've learned since I've stopped reading:

1) When you come across something beautiful, don't touch your face..

2) Two lives will eventually diverge into a wood.

3) Man cannot live on toilet paper alone.

4) I like talking to myself, for I more or less trust the source.

There's a presidential candidate(s) debate this evening (5pm PST) and I'm almost out of popcorn. It seems silly to go to the store just for popcorn, even if I can walk there. I can't see myself standing in line just with popcorn--the only thing worse I can think of would be to stand in line with a roll of toilet paper. I know this is stinky thinking, like something a graduate of Trump University might ponder, but then again we're all more or less graduates of Trump University now.

From the Sketchbook of Self-Quarantined Pity, photo by author, 2020.