Aspiring bloggers, take note! Sit down. Whip out your Moleskines and disposable fountain pens. I offer you the key to my Blogging Empire.

Write this next part on a fresh page. Memorize it. Eat it, so it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Your enemies surround you, preparing to dance ’round your smoking carcass. Drumbeats are so loud you feel it in your chest; one word from that guy wearing a big, feathery hat and they’ll step off. It’s like totally dramatic, I will not lie. You could have used all this in a story, only you didn’t heed my warning.

FFS, why do I even bother.

READ THIS SO YOU CAN LIVE. Record my words:

1). Fire off a flurry of posts of varying quality in a short space of time, generating interest and gaining followers.

2). Piss off a few months. Totally ignore the goddamn thing like that dusty, wrinkled sock under your bed next to the mechanical pencil you dropped when you fell asleep writing marginalia.

3). Misspend all your time posting political rants on Twitter, articles on Facebook, pictures of rando stuff on Instagram. Use lots of filters, apply vignette to everything.

4). Indulge in self-loathing – really dig in! Sketch out all the ways you’ve failed, opportunities lost and connections missed.

Make them up if you must!

What am I, your secretary?

THINK FOR YOURSELF, FFS!

5). Poke your face in after you’ve lost your old password and have to re-set it, and, THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT, SO CHANGE INK COLOR: promise to do better, then don’t.

6). Order pizza. This is hungry work!

7). Send me money for value provided. My Amazon cart will not buy itself.

Its simplicity is genius. You can, quite literally, pour your Dorito-swollen pandemibody onto the sofa, eat popcorn and binge British crime dramas, and achieve every bit as much as I have. Every. Last. Bit.

I feel waves of admiration radiating. I love you, too, and accept your thanks with open wallet.

Srsly, this last stage of pandemonium has been intellectually frenetic, following that cleansing week I spent off the grid. Over a hundred pages ink-vomited into an ironically optimistic dedicated 2020 journal left me dry heaving and spent. Clarity of mind lasted, oh, a week?

It’s been a trip, innit.

It was the summer of re-reading Faulkner, plowing back through As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury. They ripped out my slimy guts, leaving them throbbing on the floor.

Say it with me: William Faulkner is the single greatest writer produced by the United States. Full stop.

I clawed my fingers into the words, drowned in the depths of their devastating perfection. Analytical skills cultivated from a lifetime passion for reading and writing about reading and extricating allusions and meaning reignited, like a thousand banshees screaming their fury.

It was as if I’d never deserted criticism.

So, yeah. There’s that.

In other news, five years into the divorce my ex-husband and I have begun sharing custody of the family Jack Russell Terrier. I took her in when he found himself in a bind, faced with possible cancellation of vacation plans with his current girlfriend turning him to his last resort – me. I accepted reluctantly. Having a cat who never seemed to play well with others, and a lease stipulating a one-pet limit, I wasn’t thrilled though I love her dearly.

Lo and behold, I felt tearful when he took her home.

At 14, she’s barely slowing down – not that she’s ever exhibited the full-blown JRT personality. Anxiety tempers the in-yo-face exhuberance she doesn’t realize she’s supposed to have, though she Tiggers at walkie time.

Mostly, she sleeps. And at night she grunts and dream woofs, curling up against my back and kicking me randomly. Reminds me an awful lot of marriage, only my ex-husband never peed on my down comforter.

Violet is besotted, rubbing against Lia violently. She stands on tip-toe, takes aim, and heaves herself like it’s a trust exercise at a business seminar. Lia generally takes it well, save two times she literally snapped. On the upside, Lia hasn’t caught her.

I didn’t realize my lard-ass cat could move that fast.

Lia gets me out of the house and walking the neighborhood. Painted lady Victorian-era homes proliferate here; there are hundreds. A sucker for their beauty, I take pictures no matter how stalky it looks. I cannot help myself.

After a summer spent pandemidating, there’s been a sea change in my whole perspective on relationships. Fifteen men met scrutiny, none fit the suit. Visceral nausea, a literal struggle not to projectile vomit through a mask made me realize what I was doing and why it was wrong: I was looking to recreate my last relationship, to reincarnate that specific man. Each one of them had about three minutes to be him. At that point I hoped an anvil would fall on their heads.

My life is so full. I’m finding my joy again, and trying to meet society’s idea of what I should want is useless torture. Plus, toying with the emotions of other people. That’s wrong, saying sorry, but no, over and over.

There’s been little happening and much happening, depending on perspective. I don’t venture out many places. Only when absolutely necessary. Agoraphobia is an ever-present threat, the pull of the farmers market on Fridays desirable beyond the produce and freshly-baked bread. I pick up groceries, see my adult kids occasionally.

Forcing faith the world will reopen one day, a 2021 trip to homes of great writers is in the planning stages. Beyond that, possibly the UK in 2022. All the stuff I can do because there’s no need to take anyone else into account in scheduling my life.

It’s going well, two steps forward and one back as the November election looms. Barring civil war, the next milestone is the vaccine.

We’re all taking it day by day, aren’t we.

Exhausting. But hopeful. It springs eternally, as it must.

Friends and exes still stalking me (as I am you, and you still look so pretty when you sleep), I am in a funk – at once bored out of my mind and so irritated the only thing stopping me from clawing my way out of my skin is the mess. Who needs the aggravation of no-contact carpet and upholstery cleaner rental right now?

Not this bish!

I’ve only just mastered grocery pick up, FFS, and even then I hesitate to abuse the term “mastered,” as I discovered today I left three frozen dinners in my trunk, in 90 degree heat, for two days. Particularly annoying when I’m gearing up for a “let’s get off the quarantine weight” initiative, my time-tested method consisting of protein shakes for breakfast and lunch, then strictly calorie-controlled frozen dinners – preferably frozen dinners that will not result in death by e-coli, and, though this would negate the need for future initiatives of any sort, upon further review the judges have turned thumbs down on this idea, in a rare show of a united front.

Is this current mood an improvement over anxiety? It’s a change. I’ve blown past insomnia to wake me and I will bitch-slap you, whore, which my doctor assures me is even worse than not sleeping. Yet, when I was not sleeping she was all furrowed brow and have you tried melatonin, and I was all yeah, but I ran out and I could put it on my grocery list but I’ll probably just leave it to rot in the trunk with my Healthy Choice protein bowls.

Summer heat helps nothing, the charm of my turn 100+ year old apartment tarnished by the lack of forced air. Not sure you’ve noticed, but little annoyances blow up when you’re sweaty and dehydrated. It took about three days of sweating myself into a dessicated pile of dust to jump online and splash out $ 400 for a window unit air conditioner – with remote, thanks very much.

Take my money! Just let me live again!

Impressive how easy the stores make it to spend your money while totally circumventing human interaction. You pay, they email you when your stuff is ready to be picked up, then some guy in a mask heaves it into your trunk like some kind of reverse robbery. It feels illegal, like a parking lot drug deal.

I’m left wondering why on earth I ever voluntarily interacted with another person, and if they’ll continue this even after the pandemic’s over.

Note to self: call Lowe’s Monday.

Where it falls short regarding modern conveniences, building management makes up for in superb maintenance service. Once I had the unit in my trunk, I texted my landlord I needed help putting the thing in my window. An aversion to squashing people having dogged me my whole life, I didn’t want anything disastrous to be my responsibility should the thing slip from my hands. Plus, when I rented the place he’d assured me installing said appliance would be no big whoop.

Two days later the maintenance guy came knocking, masked and carrying something that looked like an industrial-sized auger. Puzzled, I acknowledged I really had no idea what tools a person needed to install an air conditioner, and, obviously, a four-foot long metal spiral was necessary.

He pointed to the bathroom door, saying In there? Having already given my landlord the heads’ up I needed the a/c brought up the stairs because I couldn’t lift it from the trunk, I figured he just hadn’t relayed the message, so I replied, No, in my car trunk, at which point the poor man looked completely confused.

Your toilet is in your trunk?

No, my air conditioner is.

Him: blink.

Me: blink.

I need the window unit a/c installed.

Hilarity ensued, as he realized the clog in my toilet was actually a 50 lb. air conditioner. Ha and ha, the laughter becoming strained when I re-affirmed that, yes, my landlord had volunteered him, the maintenance guy, to not just install the unit but also wrangle the thing up three floors.

It was then the light in his eyes died.

I left him to the installation, having received a positive response to do you think it will fit in the kitchen window. All of fifteen minutes later, it was installed and running. He handed me the remote, even offering to put the box in the attic, to get it out of my way. I tipped him for what I considered over and above normal building maintenance, wishing him a good day and thanks so much.

Only once I’d wrapped up my work day did I take time to inspect the job. The little machine that could had restored my will to live, what more did I need to know? I’d sat at my desk all day pointing the remote over my shoulder, turning the air off and on. It most assuredly worked. A little loud, but my place is small and sound carries. No big whoop.

Dinner time rolled around and I was standing in front of the air conditioner, merrily cutting Brussels sprouts to roast. Like my entire apartment, my kitchen is compact. Sub-compact. Like, really, really small. The fact my hip was so close to the vent as to become frost-bit didn’t give me pause.

Until I went to shove the sprouts in the oven.

And the oven door hit the a/c, because there was zero clearance.

Because the sweet maintenance man had not, in assuring the unit would fit the window, taken into account I may actually go crazy and, I don’t know, WANT TO COOK FOOD.

Let’s stop this here while I tell you there are no good options for windows to virtually lose in my apartment. The sofa is in front of the living room window. The kitchen area has three beautiful bay windows I refuse to uglify with a huge appliance. Then there’s the bathroom and bedroom. The bathroom would be ridiculous, even if the window weren’t too small. And the bedroom? My headboard completely blocks it, plus, that window’s over-sized. It would require some sort of extension to fill the gap left by the expandable sides coming out of the air conditioning unit.

The kitchen window is not a good one to lose, but that’s basically it. I have the choice of eating hot food or burning to a crisp in my third floor charmer.

Are you even fucking kidding me.

I did what any sensible person would do. I spent another $ 150 on a combination toaster/convection oven, in which I hope to cook all food I cannot make on the stove top. The convection oven bumped the microwave from its perch, so now my microwave is sitting on the floor, while I studiously avoid thinking any further about any of this.

So. Yeah. I’m a little irritated at the moment.

How’s your pandemic going, month fifty-thousillion?

Do tell.

Takes a pandemic to propel me back to blogging, apparently.

My mind had been on it prior to that, but disaster provides strong motivation to reach out. I’d have posted sooner, like two weeks ago when it began, only the practicalities of turning your life upside down pretty much overnight take one hell of a lot of time and energy.

Finding yourself tired all the time? I’m exhausted. I sleep like an angel at night, but the emotional impact of all this drains every ounce of energy. I don’t doubt you feel that, too.

I’ve been posting semi-regular daily journal entries on Facebook for the consumption of friends and family, then realized that’s not the best medium for more complex thoughts. Bluestalking’s been sitting idle a long while, waiting for me to make up my mind what to do with it. I’d rather it hadn’t taken a global crisis to nudge me back toward writing.

Thanks, but no thanks, COVID-19.

Writer’s block, a thing I’ve rolled my eyes at basically forever, hit me with a vengeance several months ago. I quit reviewing, keeping a journal, even reading. Moving away, in spitting distance of where I’d spent nearly 30 years of my life but far away in terms of culture, provoked such fear and panic and I can’t tell you why. I left the country with less anxiety – TWICE.

I lost touch with myself. It manifested itself in out-sized anxiety I struggled to control, succeeding by virtue of digging my fingernails into the ledge I nearly dropped from. The place I moved is packed with character, the apartment charming as hell, and the diversity of the area far removed from my blindingly white former home.

But I kind of fell apart.

Coming back to writing and reading will, I’m hoping, return me to myself.

I know no one who’s had COVID-19, or even knows anyone who’s fallen victim. Counting myself lucky on that score. Also fortunate my occupation allows me to work from home; I have a regular salary from a company that’s thriving – actually hiring in the midst of this dystopian nightmare, and full benefit of health insurance.

My pantries are so full, if pressed I could stay in place at least a couple of months – though, Christ, I hope it won’t be that long. I lack for nothing, save face to face contact with those I love, though that’s a huge, yawning gap. I’m thankful for video chatting. There’s that.

The State of Illinois has been under a shelter-in-place order a week now, and I abide by that strictly, leaving home only to pick up medication, so far. When I need eventually need groceries, I’ll either order for pick up or have them delivered.

Again, I’m fortunate.

But tired, and struggling to wriggle back into my skin. Pandemics just don’t show up at convenient times, do they?

We are in this together, and what we make of this time will define how future generations judge us, looking back. I, for one, want to be able to look at my future grandchildren and say I more than got through this. Not just “I learned 100 ways to cook beans,” but “I accomplished a thing” – then tell them about it.

We will get through this.