Journal Entries From Our Self-Quarantine to Be Read By Meryl Streep and Paul Giamatti In a Ken Burns Documentary to Be Produced At a Later Date

Lover roasted a whole chicken last night. It was delicious, made more savory by the prospect of eating the bird in meticulously served portions over the next four days, causing us to excel in taste, cost, waste, and planning. Today he says he wants to make a tuna salad, from canned tuna which is neither immediately perishable nor its brine to my taste. I am dismayed.

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At lunchtime a miscalculated placement of my right leg knocked the magnetic remote off of the top of the air purifier, sending it to the darkest recesses under the couch. I cannot tell what impediments lie there, but they are fuzzy and must contain direst viruses, I am sure. The remote will remain and I will surrender use of the machine.

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Dearest Mother, it is hot out. Or cold out. I know not which. It was raining for days and might rain again soon, or might not. Thank you again for the aromatherapy candle given me, it is my most steadfast olfactory companion.

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Lover and I stretched our legs today with an afternoon walk to the end of the hall and back. It was pleasant and conjured memories of a time 36 hours ago when I could run for twenty minutes altogether if encouraged.

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Lover issued a formidable “toot” today and rounded the blame on me. As I am aware I was not the responsible party. What this bodes, I cannot tell. I fear I am being gaslit.

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Dearest companions, I suggest we read a novel and discuss it in good time on a picto conference this time next week! Or else we make the same plan but with wine and we discuss politics briefly followed by our remembrances of the old travails of Carrie and her disputes regarding Aidan and Mr. Big.

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Tortilla Lime Corn Chips and jar cheese is yet not a meal, but I persist in the attempt.

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Today for seven hours I perused several misspelled and speciously reasoned articles on the internet about ghosts.

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Lover is singing “Werewolves of London” out of the open window. A basil plant has fallen off the sill and onto the ground. We shall never have basil.

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Today I had needs of cheese and cat food. My heart, I walked to the store with my shirt pulled to the top of my ears, my hands shrouded in ski gloves, trousers tucked into my socks and shoes placed inside of overlarge Christmas stockings bound in duct tape. Imagine my curiosity when a young man of carefree aspect following several feet too close for my own comfort, pausing in his produce-aisle stalking of myself to yell over his shoulder, “BABE, WHAT DO WE NEED? BAAAAAAABE?” Afeared, I stood on top of a freezer devoted in its entirety to the keeping of mochi iced creams and bellowed, clapping my hands as one does to fright a bear, and he moved away.

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Lover and I eat tuna fish salad on a bed of roughage as a canned-versus-produce compromise. We sit on the fire escape, and I anticipate with glee the modestly priced Syrah awaiting consumption. Lover is an excellent partner in quarantine, after all, and we can see the sunset if we both crane our necks in an uncomfortable fashion, our eyeline aimed just beyond the post office.