It’s week 4 of quarantine. I think. Maybe. Time is sort of relative at this point, no? I know I’ve personally been unable to enter any business that isn’t a grocery store or liquor store in now going on four weeks so that’s how I’m gauging it.

If you scroll through social media or the internet in general you’ll see people clinging to varying degrees of sanity. A lot of folks are blaming this on lack of social interaction or inability to go outside their homes in general as free as they once could. That is probably it, to a large extent. However I don’t think you can rule out the pure and simple fact that we as a society by and large don’t know how to live without a destination/obligations. We simply cease to know how to exist when we have nowhere to be. Just my two cents.

Anyway I reached out to my brethren in blogs and asked them how they were holding up, and got a variety of responses. With that said, enjoy, empathize, and commiserate below.

Red: It’s Week 4 (Week 5?) of the new norm that is social distancing and quarantine SZN. Some are taking it more seriously than others, but as someone who refused to touch the railings on the T before all this, I am taking it quite seriously. Didn’t even bother with a flimsy mask either, straight up ordered a balaclava, which I’m pretty sure you’d only know what that is if you played massive amounts of first person shooters growing up or were in the Spetsnaz. The quarantine is taking its toll though as my office chair officially called it a career and took its own inanimate life last week. So now I’m working from the couch for 8-16 hours a day as the health of my spine is in a race against the clock with Amazon Prime to deliver my new office chair before I develop spinal stenosis. This is fun.

Dom: (Blogger’s Note: Fuck Dom). My quarantine is different in the sense that I’m in Israel and have a balcony that overlooks the Mediterranean. It’s dope, I’m not gonna lie. But that balcony is also the only thing keeping my sanity intact. You can only spend so many hours doing puzzles and listening to audiobooks. I’ve been playing a good amount of The Show with my star 3rd basemen Rusty Weiner and lefty ace Rube Waddell. Oh yeah, I have a mustache now.

Big Z: Last week was bulky waste pick up day in my town. The show must go on, right? It was the most exciting event at my house in weeks. I call it the purge. I threw away a ton of shit, some even left behind by the previous owner of my house. Even better, I got rid of a busted TV. (Don’t buy Westinghouse TVs, friends.) Now, my town was not picking up TVs that day. I lucked out when some young men found this TV in the box, with the stand and remote control included, and took it off my hands. I wonder how disappointed they were when they got it home and realized that it had no picture.

Papa G: I’ve been writing lots of music (varying degrees of quality), reading James Bond novels, busted out Rosetta Stone for about an hour and brushed up on my Spanish 101. A few naps. Lots of anxiety.

Lippa: Pros: Sleeping in, exercising more saving money, started binging this little known show called “The Sopranos” Attempting to prove to my bosses that working from home CAN be effective. Remember these things called jeans? My wardrobe is just a mix of sweatpants and mesh shorts depending on the temperature

Cons: Would love to watch a sports game, I don’t already know the outcome to. We’d be in the middle of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs today (but who’s keeping track) You can only go on so many walks in a day.  Remember bars? I think I’m approaching the end screen of Netflix.

Joey B: I like Red suffered a casualty of war this week as one of my pair of slippers, an integral part of my at-home life, was lost in battle. Up to that point I considered this whole viral episode to be my Shackleton’s Expedition – as long as we (myself and all my possessions) all made it out alive I’d declare it a victory. I think Shackleton and his men survived like, a year and a half living on the Antarctic sea. My slippers made it under four weeks. Other than that I am keeping my wits through a cornucopia of TV, a lack of haircuts, booze, video chats featuring said booze, and Uber Eats. We’ll get through this together.