March 15, 2020

Everyone in the house is talking about death, and I’ve never been happier. Atéha, Zach, and I talked in the kitchen about what could become of us as COVID-19 continues to unfurl and fester throughout the United States of America. People are already hoarding supplies, and the grocery stores show it. When Lulu and I went to the grocery store a few days ago, there was still plenty of food stacked along the aisles, but as you walked down them suddenly there would be yards of empty and yawning shelves where panicked stockers and doomsday prepping libtards had snatched up all available reserves of pasta, rice, beans, lentils, spinach, bananas, mandarins, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper. Times are strange, I thought as I gathered a dozen pounds of assorted nuts from the bulk aisle, I watched a mealy-mouthed teenager dancing with a Winco sign, advertising “Purified Water.” She did not work for Winco.

I helped Lulu pack up her apartment today. She bought a ticket from PDX to JFK that leaves at 7 o’clock tomorrow morning. Reed College has moved all of its classes online indefinitely, and is asking the on-campus housing to be cleared out by March 27th, less than two weeks from now.