day 60

It’s the sixtieth day of solitude for some of us and if we look at Twitter we see that people in other countries are suffering. One person spoke of the dark dog whilst another expressed distress. A third expresses another emotion. Around the world we see people suffering and trying to cope in their own unique ways.

I went for my daily walk but I wasn’t fully motivated so it was a relatively short circuit. Just 7.65 kilometres according to my SUUNTO Spartan HR Sports Wrist, Black. It’s the watch I’ve been using for at least three or four years by now. I am no longer tracking with the Apple watch as I was tired of deleting duplicates.

There is a cruel irony in society going from soft lockdown to rebooting in safe mode because our consumerist habits can return and crowds are re-emerging but as single people living alone we are stil not allowed within two meters of others unless there is plexiglass or we’re on a video call.

I saw a large crowd of people all standing together. I write this as a joke. The “crowd” was a cluster of toddlers at a kindergarten. They were going out of their classroom to play on the swings outside. I didn’t linger as I saw this as I was starting my walk.

During most of this walk I felt warm enough to open two layers of clothing. In theory I would have been happy in a t-shirt while I was sheltered from the rain. I wasn’t rained on but the wind was active so when I was exposed to it I closed my layers.

I passed over the motorway and it’s back to pre-pandemic levels. People are once again using their cars as much as before. It’s a shame that despite the short re-starting of society the use of the car is so quick to grow in amplitude.

In the US the pandemic is affecting farmers. According to the New York Times meat plant closures mean pigs are gassed or shot instead. Some slaughterhouses are closed so there is no one to process the meat in some cases and in other cases the animals have become too big for the slaughterhouses to deal with them. Plenty of animals are dying needlessly as a result.

On the lighter side of the news people are experiencing flute solos at Stuttgart Airport. It’s interesting that they would choose to do this. It reminds me of an industry, although only theoretically.

The Economist wrote a column titled Casual sex is out, companionship is in but this column is boring because it looks mainly at dating apps and the cardinal sin of dating apps is that it forces lonely people to know who is interested for exorbitant amounts of money. They speak about video dating but the best app I played with was Seesmic back in the day. I’m still in contact with many of those people. Seesmic was as effective as Twitter for creating new friendships and relationships, back in the day.

The closest we have to online flirting in an open society is Tik Tok. On Tik Tok you see that we can play, flirt, and collaborate together in a way that is similar to what we did on Seesmic back in the day. During this pandemic Tik Tok may be the only place for us to have fun. Last night I did a planking duet, and I see a few more duets that tempt me. We will see if I get round to them.

I really need to play and laugh. Tik Tok made me laugh out loud several times yesterday. It is an oasis of companionship in a sea of solitude. As I mentioned at the start of this post, plenty of people are unhappy and struggling to cope during this pandemic so we must do what we can to endure it, and to come out ofthe other side in a good mental state.

I’ll leave you with a video about cooking Lasagna and cake in a van for a change of ideas.

A Demain.