The Chronic Malcontent tries to work a program

Last night the power in my apartment went off just after 3 a.m. I woke up when my fan stopped. Dead-of-night silence is inordinately loud. I wandered around in my dark apartment with a flashlight, peered out the window, and soon realized the power was out in the neighborhood. I woke up my phone and looked up a power outage map. Yep. A red square in the center of Tucson for some reason had no power, and me smack dab in it.

Not having power is similar to not having internet. Both feel indispensable when I don’t have them. However, during summer in the desert, you really need power more than you need internet. I went back to bed—or what serves as my bed, call it foam rubber pad on wood platform, bed for short. When I woke up in the morning, I was glad to see my digital clock blinking red. Like magic, the power had been restored.

If I had internet, I would do some sleuthing to discover the cause, just because it would be interesting, just because losing myself in surfing the Web is a delicious distraction from reality. The cause of the power outage was probably some drunk driver downing a utility pole. It happens here a lot. On Saturday nights, drunk drivers crash into all sorts of things—trees, fences, power poles, bicyclists. My friend likened Tucson to a third-world country. I am inclined to agree. We could blame the vortices swirling around the Santa Catalina Mountains. Whatever the cause, the energy in this place on weekends reminds me of being eighteen on a summer night, drunk out of my mind, riding in the car of my handsome boss, also quite drunk, and laughing hysterically as we narrowly avoided ramming a parked car. That’s Tucson. Needless to say, I am not eighteen anymore.

Speaking of distractions, I drove up to Phoenix this week for a visit to IKEA. I thought I might feel anxious about driving. I haven’t done any distance driving since April when I drove the 1,500 miles from Portland to Tucson. However, once I got on the I-10 freeway headed east, I could feel my limbs relax. I was glad to be on my way out of the city, any city. For a few minutes, I daydreamed about what it would be like to have a bedroom, kitchen, living area, and bathroom neatly tucked into the cargo space of my Dodge Grand Caravan. Then I immediately started fretting about how difficult it would be to actually live the van life in the desert southwest. I’ve seen all the videos. The daydream dissolved as reality returned.

IKEA was big and blue, sitting in an enormous flat parking lot under a sizzling sun. Cars nuzzled tightly around the building, leaving the outer reaches empty except for the spaces sheltered by the shade of a few scrawny trees. All taken, of course. I parked in the open so I could find my car again, covered the steering wheel and driver’s seat with my reflectix windshield cover, and hiked to the enormous blue building in 111°F heat. At the entrance, I passed through a veil of water mist, a failed attempt to provide some cooling, and then I was inside.

In the bright atrium, I paused to get my bearings. I pulled out my list. The wide staircase to the showrooms rose in front of me. Should I ascend to dreamland? Not this time. Already overwhelmed, I decided to bypass the showroom and go straight for the crack cocaine, that is to say, the so-called marketplace, hidden behind a generic door under the stairs.

Within two minutes, I was hyperventilating under my facemask. I haven’t shopped like that in many years—I mean, intentional, purposeful hunting and gathering for non-essential items. Shopping frenzies are an artifact of my past. Instead of feeling energized at the endeavor, I felt sapped. Pillows, textiles, bedding, rugs, lamps, argh. Too much. I kept my eyes on my list and navigated the arrows on the floor, keeping my distance from other shoppers, many of whom were maskless.

I used to shop at IKEA once in a while when I lived in Los Angeles. I remember being enchanted with the place, all the myriad décor possibilities, the potential for self-expression everywhere, color, shape, and function, the intersection of everything I loved. As I shuffled around IKEA this time, I wondered what had changed. Was it IKEA or was it me?

Today’s IKEA seemed darker, dustier, smaller, and less enchanting than I remembered. I blame Covid-19. Nothing seems good anymore. The place seemed dingy, dimly lit in some corners. Displays seemed half-hearted, noncommittal. Many shelves were empty. I soldiered onward, finding everything on my list, or reasonable substitutes. I wasn’t all that choosy. A couple rugs, not my preferred color, but good enough. A few bathmats. A little square rug for the closet. A couple cheap floor lamps. A coat rack. A bar stool for my breakfast bar. I didn’t spend much and felt pretty satisfied with my haul. I would have bought more if shelves had been stocked.

Of course, I have changed too in thirty years. I’m wearier, mentally and physically. Plus I’m sort of done with accumulating stuff. I just got done doing some serious downsizing, so buying more stuff seems like a major slip in my downsizing recovery program. Did I tell you, I’m a founding member of Accumulators Anonymous. I’d been doing so well. Sleeping on a foam rubber pad on a wood platform is part of the recovery plan. Beds are so forever. Until they aren’t; then they are so hard to get rid of. Although, now that I think of it, tenants in my apartment building have been dumping mattresses out by the dumpster. Every week, there’s a different mattress, along with the random vacuum cleaner, ripped recliner, and broken big-screen TV. Someone comes and removes them, like elves in the night coming in to do your laundry. Is that a thing? No? Well, we can hope.

Anyway, mattresses. Maybe they aren’t as hard to get rid of as I think. Still, I’m trying to think long and hard before buying more stuff, even cheap plastic stuff. Well, especially cheap plastic stuff, because although cheap is tantalizing, plastic is bad. It’s a depressing thought to realize that the items I purchased from IKEA, and the plastic in which they came packaged, will outlast me by centuries.

Another month to go until internet. Meanwhile, I am enjoying my new IKEA purchases while battling flies in the Bat Cave.

Alone. Alone, alone, alone

Foraging for food has taken on a new tension in this surreal new world order. Never my favorite chore, now going to the grocery store means venturing into an enclosed space that could be swarming with hungry viruses. Certainly, the store is swarming with tense, anxious, fretting, hungry humans, all bent on cornering just slightly more than their fair share of the last box of whatever. Fear and greed make a frightening combination.

Yesterday, I prepared my purple rubber gloves, put a face mask in my pocket just in case I started coughing, and drove to the store, ready for anything. I put the gloves on and trudged to the entrance, keeping a wary distance, thinking to myself, am I six feet from that guy? Does it matter if we are both facing in the same direction, or is it more dangerous if we are facing toward each other? Wait, why is he stopping? Should I stop too, like keeping two car lengths from the guy in front of me?

Oh, no, can I go around this slow guy without getting creamed by cars pulling up to the front door to disgorge a horde of people of all ages who I assume are all part of the same COVID-19 death squad, wait, I mean, family?

I guess if you are all part of one COVID-19 pod, you sink or swim together. That is sort of sweet, in a Three Musketeers kind of way. All for one, one for all, together we die, although we'd have a better chance if we spread out a little. But hey, we're family, and family stick together, right? I wouldn't know. My family has always preferred being far-flung.

Inside the door, the cart arena was almost empty. Most of the carts were apparently out in the parking lot. As I grabbed one of the last carts, praying it didn't have a hitch in its gitalong, I saw the cart wrangler leading a caravan of carts from the hinterlands. Ah, replenishments. Now if only the shelves were equally as replenished.

I donned my purple gloves but left my face mask in my pocket. We don't need the mask unless we are spewing germs, right? I'm not clear on the purpose of the gloves and face mask. Am I trying to keep viruses in or out? This is so confusing. Of course, I don't want to transmit something to someone, especially if I don't know if I'm sick with something gruesome like a killer virus. If I am going to transmit something to someone, it better be for a good reason, you know, because I don't like them and want them to feel as wretched as I do. But I'm not sick. I don't think. At least, before I went to the store, I could say with some certainty that I wasn't sick. But who knows now. I went to the store. Who knows what I touched. All my zucchini and apples could be contaminated with viruses just waiting to jump onto my unprotected hands. From there, it's an easy jump to my mouth. Agh, I rubbed my eyes once or twice yesterday! I washed my hands, multiple times, and I wiped down surfaces inside my car, but did I wash up after transporting the zucchini into the fridge? Oh my god, I'm doomed.

In the store, I observed some shocking behavior, mostly from myself. I drove my shopping cart with purpose, making eye contact sparingly, as if minimizing eye contact equated with minimizing air space. I think I read that the virus needs prolonged contact to make the leap between respiratory tracts, so if I whizz by a shopper in the frozen vegetables aisle, I'm probably okay, right? Especially if I don't make eye contact. I can do this. I quickly filled my cart with all the items on my list. I was especially happy to see there were some boxes of facial tissue on the shelf. Bigger boxes than I would normally buy, but in allergy season, I've been going through tissues like, well, like the virus going through a crowd of drunken teenagers on a Florida beach. I grabbed three boxes because I was running low.

No lollygagging in the produce today, wondering what parsnips taste like. I made it to the checkout line in record time. As I waited my turn, I felt a nudge from behind me. The old guy in line behind me at the checkout, ungloved and unmasked and wiping his dripping nose with a tissue, seemed to be trying to push his cart past me, even though there was no space for two carts.

“Hi, are you okay?” I asked politely, thinking I could get irate, but now is the time for compassion, let's practice your promise of being loving and kind in this challenging new world.

He smiled and mumbled something. I realized English was not his first language. I nodded my head and started putting my vegetables and tissue boxes on the conveyor belt. He backed off.

The customer ahead of me wore a face mask but no gloves. He poked the credit card gizmo with his bare fingers. That strategy was exactly the opposite of my strategy. I wondered if I had got the whole thing wrong, that I should be protecting my lungs rather than my fingers? Oh boy. This apocalypse is confusing.

I did my best to show appreciation to the checker, an older gal who wore her glasses on a string. I wondered if I was old enough to start doing that and if it would help me cope with my trauma.

“I sure do appreciate you being here today,” I said as she started scanning my modest collection of items.

“Essential workers,” she said grimly. “That's what they are calling us.” I got the impression she would rather have been at home. Not much I could say to that.

“Oh, you can only get one paper product per household,” she said after scanning two boxes of tissues. She put two boxes aside. I forlornly bagged the one box that passed the scan, thinking, dang, I hope my allergies will be calm this week or I'll be honking into my fingers over the sink.

When I got home, once again there was no place to park. My neighbors have embraced the shelter-in-place order by taking all the parking spaces. Not only that, they seem to spend all their time doing laundry.

After disinfecting my car, putting away my possibly contaminated apples and zucchini, and washing my hands several times singing the Alphabet Song, I checked my receipt. Of course, I was charged for two boxes of tissue. I now possess a very expensive box of tissue, perhaps the last box of tissue I will ever be allowed to purchase, if the world of paper products implodes along with everything else. I should probably have the box bronzed or encased in resin or something, a testament to a time when we bought expensive products to wipe our noses and then discarded them into the every-growing waste stream that will eventually choke us all to death.

Tonight, as I've been doing for the past two weeks, I'll drive over to my Mom's nursing home, wave at her through the window, note how the pace of her decline seems to be accelerating, and drive home.

Well, on that happy note, I'm signing off from the Love Shack, wallowing in self-isolation, which for me is pretty much no different than the life I normally lead. That is to say, alone again, naturally.