5/6

This is going to get tedious real quickly. As far as I can tell, this is just going o be me coming on here and sayin' that I'm readin' and that's about it.

So this might be the last post for a minute until I can think of something.

Oh wait.

So, you are going to be reading a lot of articles, if you haven't already, about the damage done to the restaurant industry and while many of those writers will make some fine and salient points and all of that, the perspective will universally be one of loss and one of "if only you took us seriously" and all of that and I just want to state, for the "record" that things weren't better "back then", ie a week ago here in NYC.

Simply put, I have less anxiety thinking about - the pandemic and the possibility of friends, loved ones and myself getting sick, the economy and the possibility of a massive depression that throws millions of lives off course for a decade to come, and, of course, what will proabably be one of the shittiest and most-depressing elections of my lifetime (and I was alive in both 1980 and 2004) - than I do waiting tables. I actually feel better!

Except when I leave the house to get canned soup. That's a bit nerve-wracking. There is no social distance in a bodega, but at least there's only three or four people there. The grocery stores, from the outside, seem much worse. So, minestrone again.

For real, though...

I do feel a little ludicrous staying here, though I don't know what a better option would be. It does feel a bit as if some giant wave is about to crash and I'm sort of just waiting for it. Since we, as a nation, are not, as far as I can tell, testing for the virus at anywhere near the level we should be, I have no idea if things are objectively worse here in NYC. It could just be that we know more about what's going on here than in many other places, and it could be that we are just a bit ahead of the curve, and that by leaving, I'd just be somehow delaying the inevitable.

I hope everyone is doing as well as possible.