Welcome to Quarantine

Every day we receive a package from Amazon containing 3-4 new books. The Hot Urologist is amassing a Library of Congress sized inventory. He is loving the quarantine. But as he mines the depths of business strategies and personal development, I am slumped over the kitchen table praying for deliverance. He is a better person than I am generally, but in quarantine he is making me look like a Neanderthal.

Even now he is sitting across from me eating a breakfast of over achievement: eggs, a leftover meatball (that he made from scratch) sprinkled with arugula, a coffee into which he has grated cinnamon from an actual stick. It’s exhausting. Oh, and he’s reading while he enjoys his breakfast of champions. I cannot compete with this. The only areas in which I have excelled recently are Peloton riding (with zero enthusiasm at a loser pace), disaster television watching (on a marathon scale), and whining.

It’s amazing to be glued to someone so incredible. It is also a one way trip towards shame town. His motivation is pressuring, and I don’t deal well with pressure. He is encouraging me to write and so I am. Yesterday I took my computer downstairs away from the mission control he has established at our marble kitchen table and began to write. 15 minutes in I was forced to close my eyes and nap, the effort was so great.

In an optimistic bout of euphoria, I pulled out my set of high school math books. A moment of delirium guided me toward the idea that I would ‘achieve’ in quarantine by working my way back through to A. P. Calculus. One afternoon last week I opened the Basic Algebra book to get started. After reading through to page 3, my head hurt so badly I was afraid I had blown an aneurism. I didn’t learn Calculus when I was supposed to during Mr. Dyess’ class senior year. It may be the sort of thing that one never learns. As they say, stay in your lane.

What then is my quarantine lane precisely?

I may order some finger paints.