At this point, we have enough fresh food to make it through the weekend.  And though we have several weeks of frozen / shelf-stable food, I’m trying to keep that untouched.  Based on the number of COVID cases reported already at Amazon warehouses, in freight and shipping and delivery companies, and with grocery store clerks, I can easily envision a world in which the food supply chain grinds more or less to a halt here in NYC.

So, while I can, I’m hoping to restock our fridge.  Which, it seems, will necessitate a trip to the grocery store.  At this point, every single grocery delivery option here – Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, FreshDirect, PeaPod, Instacart, Shipt, etc. – is entirely booked, some for the full two weeks ahead that they accept orders.  And, even if they weren’t, I’ve started to feel increasingly unsure about the morality of it all. I’m young and healthy, and I don’t see how I can justify paying someone minimum wage to take on equivalent or greater Coronavirus risk on my behalf.

Fortunately, it appears the Fairway supermarket about 15 blocks off is open 24 hours.  Hence the current plan: head there at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, when I can shop with minimum exposure to the biggest source of risk – other shoppers and employees.  Similarly, while I’ve been cooking up a storm thus far, I’m going to try and streamline my next week or two of dishes, to require fewer separate ingredients.  That should help me get in and back out quickly, touching as little as possible along the way.

At this point, leaving the apartment really does feel like something out of a dystopic sci-fi film.  So, channeling my inner Will Smith, and making it work.

I’ve been thinking of late of the Lenin quote: there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.

Exactly two weeks ago, I was puzzling over whether I should cancel client sessions and work from home. Two days later, when I made the choice to do so, at least half the people I emailed seemed to think it was a ridiculously over-cautious choice. Three days after that, Cuomo closed all the gyms in NY State.

All that felt rather fast and dramatic. But the week and change since has felt anything but. While the COVID-19 numbers here in NYC have continued to double every three days, and hospitals are apparently nearing capacity already, the whole thing still seems rather abstract. While I hear ambulance sirens outside my window all day, this is Manhattan; I hear sirens outside my window all day most days, and it’s hard for me to tell if this is more than the usual.

Instead, Jess and I are sort of just floating along in our tiny life boat of an apartment, one day more or less the same as the next.  There’s a certain timelessness to it all; if you told me we’d already been doing this for months, I’d believe you.  In fact, I’ve already lost track enough to have needed to check my calendar for the timeline of events earlier in this post.

And, looking forward, things seem similarly abstract.  With apologies to the President, I’m pretty sure we won’t be back out by Easter.  But, eventually, we’ll be returning to the world.  Right?  But is that in a month?  Two?  Three?  And how many years from now will that seem?

Fortunately, for the moment, we’re still having a pretty excellent time, all things considered.  I’m getting a bunch of work done, cooking up a storm, getting to spend quality time with Jess.  And despite being cooped up together nearly 24/7 in not a whole lot of space (I don’t know the actual square footage of our apartment, but it’s certainly under 600 square feet), I’ve apparently not yet annoyed her enough to smother me to death with a pillow in my sleep.  Here’s hoping that keeps up.