The Usual

The powerful Princess V., savior, superhero and ruler of the Shopkins in planet TV, with the power of rainbows, wands her magic pencil and writes letters of the alphabet to defeat a monster who wants to devour her people.

I. fulfills his dream of being home-schooled. He does chores to earn more screen time (even if he already has an incredible amount of screen time). On his school's musical weekly journal, he writes, "I learned the first part of Etude no. 6 by Lizst/Paganini on the piano."

D. and I both work from home. 100% of the meals are home-cooked, we spend 100% of our time together. We stay home, conscientious with our optimism, quietly critical about the collective ignorance in politics and social media.

We are locked out from the world, and the world has suddenly changed radically, abruptly. Cities in the world has locked itself out. Within our invisible walls, there's the hungry, the greedy, and many dying by tens of thousands. Global economies are fighting out its collapse.

It's as if we are in the final scene of Melancholia. The warm feeling of being together at a grim end. Except that we will come out of this alive. She's already saved us, our powerful Princess V.

Etude no. 6 by Liszt will be playing as the curtains fall.

Zombies are Other People

We are each other's zombies these days. Haven't we always been? Carriers of tiny, invisible viruses, self-restrained and self- quarantined and holed-up in our homes like ひきこもり (hikikumori). In a war going on in some parts of the world, people are fighting over toilet paper and hoarding face masks. Going viral in 3-camera, 4 camera, 6GB. 12GB  RAM  smartphones. There's the real virus.

But I shouldn't catastrophize. We can't let humanity be wiped out without watching a few more Netfix series, reading a few more books, and loving each other some more. We have got to have a laugh when all this is over. I'm sorry to have thought that. People are dying. 

The gods must be watching.

We must hide. We ourselves must stay sane, make them aware but bear as much burden as we can for our children. Reminding ourselves of what's normal, of brief golden moments:

1. Patiently teaching V. how to write the letters. R for rainbow. T for tutles. V. being incredibly cute, incredibly eloquent at still 3 years old and bossing everyone around.
2. Putting my face against D.'s when we sleep. Hearing her feel fulfilled not only in life, but in a budding new career.
3. Discussing Diogenes and cynicism with the 10-year-old I. Hearing him play the piano and hearing him rap along to lofi hiphop.
4. The look of a student's face when you know they are really learning.
5. Running in good form, tasting freedom in your lungs, strength in your legs until you are tired and it goes away. Then returns for a second wind when you don't give up.
6. Being stuck in phrase while you're reading. Reading something then saying, fuck, I wish I could talk like that.

7. Late night drinks (the beer is local and made with roasted malt ) alone writing about how zombies are other people. A nice bath and a few hours of sleep.