EDLM diary entry
12 May 2020
I’m finding it difficult to say a whole lot about today specifically, because so much of most days of the last two months is the same. April 2020 is behind us at last; it was a long decade. Today I awoke at 10:09 a.m. for lack of any reason to get up earlier[1]. I did not change out of my pajamas until 11:48. (There is not always good reason not to wear pajamas all day, other than walking the dog, although I make it a practice to change into street clothes for at least a few of the daylight hours for the sake of my mental health. It’s the little things.) It is Tuesday (I had to check the calendar) and I don’t think I’ve showered since Saturday, although I did shave yesterday because I ventured out into a public place (more about that anon).
Today was apparently a big fundraising day for my alma mater, as evidenced by the slew of emails from them awaiting me in my inbox, and bombarding me throughout the day. I’d prefer not to reveal my school’s name, but I have significant philosophical differences with one of their signature policies, which I believe to be discriminatory, and I have made it abundantly clear that I am reluctant to donate to them until such time as they rectify that situation, so I find these fundraiser days especially vexing. But not enough to ruin my day.
Also, the season is once again upon us when half of Muncie constantly drives around in beat-up pickup trucks bearing lawnmowers in the bed, mowing the lawns of the other half of Muncie. The carbureted thrum of these lawnmowers is nearly constant, along with the higher-pitched whine of weed-trimmers and leaf-blowers, making concentration difficult. This, I tell myself, is why we have earbuds and ambient music.
Still, I find it nearly impossible to keep this diary and live simultaneously, and there’s a limited timeframe each day during which the words flow; so much of this entry, as always, is reconstructed and reconstituted from hasty jottings hours later.
So, a précis of what’s happened since my last entry (which was only some three weeks ago, but still): I am slowly but steadily recovering from my bout of viral pneumonia; most of my garden is in, though it has been unseasonably cold this past week, so my tomatoes, scallions, and eggplants are still under the grow lights inside; I’ve been reading a lot of contemporary French literary fiction (Emmanuel Carrère and Jean Echenoz, mostly). The state of the world economy and public health are increasingly perilous, but you undoubtedly know that.
Our expensive, high-end dishwashing machine[2] decided to start leaking water, so after spending a day trying to fix it myself and realizing it was something only a licensed repairman can fix (nearest licensed repairman being 30 miles away), and conferring with my wife about the health risks involved in letting said repairman into our home, we decided to put off fixing it for the duration and hand-wash our dishes. This has resulted in some consciousness-raising. Without this commonplace convenience, we (or at least I, since I’m the chief cook and bottle washer) have become much more aware of how many plates, cups, and utensils we habitually use just once between washings. I’ve had to force myself to economize on the number of pots and pans I use when I cook. And I’ve become more aware of hot water usage. These seem like boring, perhaps inconsequential, things to concern oneself with, but I’ve never been one to let an opportunity for greater mindfulness slip by untaken.
And of course, there is a new discipline to my meal-planning. Quick, relatively frequent trips to the supermarket are a thing of the past. Since my last entry, many new cases of covid-19 have blossomed at meat-processing plants across the country, which effectively means we are transitioning into functional vegetarianism. Tonight’s menu: stir-fried tofu, broccoli, and shiitake mushrooms with brown rice. Weary of talking about the news and other grim subjects over dinner, my wife and I pivot to pleasanter topics, such as the regularity of the dog’s bowel movements.
And that brings me to yesterday’s foray into the public sphere: my trip to the supermarket.[3] Thus far during the stay-at-home order—which permits such visits to buy food or medicine—we have used curbside pickup services, where a picker (either a supermarket employee or a contract freelancer working for a service such as Instacart or Shipt) selects your grocery items from a list you compile and brings them to your vehicle at a predetermined time. We have found this method unsatisfactory for a number of reasons, which are too tedious to enumerate here. Since the last time I ventured out to buy supplies myself was nearly two months ago, I wasn’t sure what to expect as far as how the store and other shoppers would be protecting themselves and others. Naturally, I was wearing a mask and nitrile gloves, and my wife anxiously reviewed safety protocols with me before I left. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a solid majority of shoppers were also wearing masks, and many were wearing gloves. The store, for its part, was doing a good job of maintaining a safe environment as well. I was able to find what I needed—mostly perishables such as fresh fruit and vegetables; pet supplies; frozen fish[4] (but no poultry or meat, of course); snacks; and staple items we were running low on. There were quantity limits on many staples, but nothing too onerous. I was able to get my shopping done in short order and make a side trip to drop off a package at UPS and get home with minimal contact with other humans.
My epidemiologist friend at [Public Research I University], ordinarily an upbeat and optimistic person, struck a despairing chord in her last social media update. The Republican governor of the state in which [Public Research I University] is located has ordered a halt to all covid-19 modeling research being done there. Their stay-at-home order will end Friday (though effectively it’s tomorrow, when gyms and pools can reopen). This is, of course, utter insanity. In a neighboring state, a restaurant flouted the stay-at-home order to open for business on Sunday, May 10, which was Mother’s Day. The place was packed, as recorded on video, and almost no one was wearing a mask. It is no longer possible to have anything other than a pessimistic outlook about this situation. It seems likely that we’ll top 100,000 confirmed U.S. deaths by the end of the month. There’s a sardonic/fatalistic turn of phrase that’s been popular on social media since early in the Trump regime: “[a gross violation of any given previously sacrosanct norm or rule] happened today, because nothing matters.” This joke has remained popular but lost its savor lately, become more bitter, less funny, because really—truly—it seems nothing matters anymore. I imagine if you’re reading this at some far future date, it’s because something does in fact matter, but that’s not how it feels right now.
Not a great deal new to report from the realm of the subconscious, either. I have lost the ability to distinguish my dreams one from another, their discrete quanta of mystic symbolism having congealed into one vast, oneiric Gestaltberg of simmering dread. For a time I feared that I was the only person experiencing such bizarre, troubled dreams, but it seems to have become a well-recognized, widespread phenomenon since the pandemic began. As for the rest of it—the flattening, or compression, or homogenization—I don’t know, but I have a hypothesis.
About a year ago, I read a fascinating essay by neuroscientist Erik Hoel[5] that posited that the necessary biological function of REM sleep—i.e., of dreaming—is to run narrative-based simulations of possible real-life scenarios:
Dreaming…isn’t about integrating new memories or processing the day’s events; it’s rather a necessary technique for ensuring a healthy waking consciousness, one that can navigate possible experiences. And it’s the banality and self-sameness of an animal’s days that evolved the inner fabulist—here originates our need for novelty, and, for some, novels.
Hoel further speculates that we moderns have partially outsourced that function of dreaming onto what the author calls the supersensorium of modern screen life: TV, films, games, and so on. The trouble is that so much of what we consume on screens is itself banal and derivative—entertainments—which leads to an inner flatness and dulling of the imaginative faculty. The solution to this problem, he says, is not to opt out of screen-time altogether, which is unrealistic, but to partake as much as one can in works that bear some originality and freshness—what was once considered art, in opposition to mere entertainment. I’m not a television watcher or gamer, in general; what little I do consume of TV and film is typically considered art. I don’t mean to seem snobbish when I say that; it’s more that what Hoel hypothesizes resonates with me because for whatever reason, I have a low tolerance for the rote and predictable. It’s an almost physical discomfort I feel after watching most television,[6] and after binge-watching even the good stuff. Which is all to say that my dreams are beginning to feel like a binge-watch, and I don’t know what that means.
Well, that’s all for Tuesday, May 12, 2020. I’ll keep washing my paws; sweet dreams.
[1] Peak daily power grid usage nationwide has shifted from 7-8 a.m. to 8-10 a.m. because, it is believed, more people are sleeping in under the stay-at-home order.
[2] It came with the house.
[3] Whence came the broccoli and shiitake mushrooms.
[4] Yes, fish: we haven’t depleted the oceans quite yet.
[5] Hoel, Erik. “Enter the Supersensorium.” The Baffler, No. 45, May 2019.
[6] I credit the film studies course I took as an undergraduate with ruining television for me.