Today is Tuesday. Not that it matters. Really makes you think about what an arbitrary construct time is. We’ve all just tacitly agreed to measure our lives in increments of days, hours, minutes. We create meaning for ourselves by assigning these slivers of time importance. By scheduling meetings. Having routine class times. Lunchtime. Dinnertime. Events dividing up the day after day cycle of human existence. Until a pandemic comes and renders that carefully maintained construct meaningless. Or mostly meaningless. I still have to keep track of Wednesdays and Saturdays. Only days for the dump around here.

Perhaps writing about the things in my daily cycle of consciousness will help my life from becoming one giant, blurry, smudge of slow-elapsed time. However, committing to posting my observations  on any kind of structured timeline seems counter to the natural order of things at the moment, so I guess they’ll show up when I feel like writing. Because every day is the same. The exact same amount and quality of time as the next. And the previous. And the one the day after tomorrow.

So here on this 19th Day of Quarantine, here are my current occupations:

The Golden Girls- The Golden Girls have gotten me through many difficult times in my life, but the reason the show holds so much meaning and comfort for me in the first place is that it reminds me of my mom. I grew up watching that show with her, in real time, from when I was 10 until I left for college. The benevolent genius of the Golden Girls is that it is about the abiding power of unconditional friendship and love first, and a story about women we don’t often see in society living their best lives next. Four strong women supporting each other. Four incredible actresses at the peak of their skill. What amazing role models for me during a formative time 🙂 And it is fucking hilarious. The first time, the second time, and the 37th time 🙂

So I just started another Golden Girls marathon (my 3rd in recent memory, 4th sincethe series has lived in its entirety on Hulu). I skipped the very first episode- I find the male cook/housekeeper character jarring and off-putting, and the house doesn’t look right, so I jumped to episode 2. And lo, and behold episode 3! How has it never been mentioned that Miles, Rose’s eventual longtime love for the last third of the series, appears in episode 3 as the first man she sleeps with after Charlie. Which, if you know anything about Rose and Charlie, was a monumental event for her. His name isn’t Miles, though, but Arnie Peterson, from Anderson, New Jersey. So…weird?…interesting?…or maybe it was a mistake. I like to think it is some kind of a cosmic move on the part of the universe. One I can’t quite explain. But it somehow just adds to the incomparable charm of this delight of a show.

Dinner tonight is my second go-around for homemade white pizza. I changed up how I made the sauce- last time it was too runny, which I attributed to the lack of a roux, so this time I used the same recipe, but put an equal amount of flour to melted butter to thicken things up. It may have been the correct ratio to the butter, but not the liquid (in this case, half ‘n half). But I simply dumped in a generous amount more, and overall, the sauce was tasty, and thick enough to stay in place. Perhaps next time, a little looser would be nice, just to add a little more creaminess. I added a topping of sautéed kale underneath the generous covering of mozzarella. Still working on perfecting the art of the crust, and the placement of the dough into the screaming hot, preheated to 500 degrees cast iron skillet. Things are progressing, though more practicing is needed.

Let’s see. Anything else…? Best not to give too much away, lest I have a handy excuse not to write again soon.