Date: April 20, 2020
Time of post: 8:45PM
Quarantine Day: 36
Last Song I Listened To: “Only the Brave” by Louis
Tomlinson
Last Person I Communicated With: one of the many GTA
GroupMe chats (we have so many!)
Last Thing I Ate: spaghetti and meatballs with alfredo
Last Thing I Read: a study guide of History of the
Book terms
Current Mood: headache-y
One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: almost setting my
kitchen on fire and shattering a glass bowl
One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: figure out why
my email is down
One Reason I’m Stressed Today: Toothless got out today
(immediately following my “accomplishment”) and took like 10 years off my life
One Reason I’m Happy Today: I think I’m
presenting at the Lit Track Symposium next week—but my email crashed before I
could read the whole thing; it said “pleased,” so that usually means good news
Dear Apocalypsers,
I’m tired today. My head hurts. Hopefully this entry
will be short and I can have a relaxing evening.
Today has been an adventure, to say the least.
It was a pretty chill day. I woke up earlier than
normal (at 10AM instead of noon). I actually did some dishes and picked up my
apartment a little. I took my History of the Book Quiz—which was awful—and talked
to my best friend for a while. Then I called my mom, who was on the phone with me
for the rest of my “adventure.”
Then I made the mistake of wanting to make dinner. You’d
think that everything was fine, considering that I cook for myself every day,
and that, not 4 days, I was whipping up a coffee cake like Jacob Kowalski from Fantastic
Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016).
I’m definitely more of a baker than a chef,
apparently.
 |
| Me a few days ago proudly sharing my baked goods with you. |
I decided to make spaghetti. I bought spinach and kale
and alfredo sauce and wanted to make like a “primavera” type thing. So I put
some water in a pot, turn the stove on, and head back to my room to put some laundry
away, because I know it’ll take several minutes to heat up, and “a watched pot
never boils,” right?
When I step into the hallway, I can see “steam.”
“Great, the water’s almost ready,” I
think.
Nope.
That was smoke.
 |
| Me, today, standing in my kitchen. |
I turned on the wrong burner, and, of my four burners, I turned on the only one that could have caused any problems. I turned on the “back right” burner instead of the “front right” burner, and of course my glass fruit bowl with a bag of halo oranges, a spaghetti squash and a set of measuring cups was sitting on that one.
I think it was the netting on the halo bag that was smoking, so I utter my favorite 4-letter-word (it rhymes with “luck,” of which I had none today), turn the vent on, move the bag of oranges to the stove top, and cut the burner off.
 |
| This is what "melted measuring cup" looks like. |
Then I made another mistake. I moved the glass bowl to
a different burner—and it, for lack of a better word, exploded. So now I have
smoke and broken glass everywhere.
And my mother understood why I used a 4-letter-word.
 |
| The aftermath |
I finally get to make my spaghetti, and that, thankfully, goes off without a problem.
Before I sit down to eat, I decide to close the
sliding door, because the blinds are open, and the sun is shining right in my
eyes.
And, of course, I can’t catch a break. The sliding
door comes off its track, and, as I’m trying to fix it, Toothless, runs onto my
balcony and immediately onto my neighbor’s adjoining one. He doesn’t come when
I call—no, beg—him to come back. Instead, he jumps down into the parking
lot. (I live on the second floor, but the buildings are split-level, so the
first floor is almost underground, and my second-floor balcony is probably only
4 feet off the ground.) I literally sprint out of my apartment building to find
Toothless under our balcony with his tail all puffed up. Naturally, he tried to
run from me…until he realized it was me, and then he just meowed like, “MOM,
GUESS WHAT I ACTUALLY HATE THIS A LOT.”
Long story short, I scoop him up, come back inside,
eat my now-cold spaghetti, and sit down to write this.
I think I need wine.
And, because I’m an English graduate who’s been cooped
up for far too long, I started thinking: I survived that catastrophe. And while
it’s a small-scale personal catastrophe compared to the large-scale global
catastrophe that’s going on right now, the process is similar. I kept my head
when things were literally on fire; I did what I had to do. Even my mother, who
witnessed the whole thing, was impressed with how calm I was. (And she’s been
dealing with my dramatics for 24 years now!) And I think that if I keep approaching
this pandemic in the same way, that I’ll make it out okay. That doesn’t mean
that things won’t be scary. I mean, I almost set my kitchen on fire while
trying to boil water—that’s terrifying—and I could have easily lost my
cat, whom I love beyond belief, if I hadn’t noticed that he slipped out—that’s
almost scarier. This pandemic is scary; it’s uncertain and stressful and
all-around scary, but if we buckle down and do what the experts say—and call
our moms and Zoom with our friends and tell people we love them and wash our
hands and wash our hands and wash our hands—I think we’ll make it out of this.
 |
| Here's Toothless the Escape Artist |
 |
| Here's Minnie the Very Good Girl |
And, idk, maybe salvage the second half of 2020.
I could compare this to all the protagonists of apocalyptic
literature. I want to make a rally corny Katniss as the “girl on fire” joke. I
want to dig through my Twitter and find an appropriate Justice quote. But, like
I opened with, I’m tired, this is definitely one of those “let go” moments. So
I might just go get that wine and try again tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s a new day, hopefully with less fire and
smoke—both literally and figuratively.
So here’s to tomorrow.
May the odds be ever in our favor,
Katie
