Wednesday. I’m developing CoronaBody. I realized only when preparing for my recent video job interview, during which I wore pants other than jeans or sweats for the first time in three weeks.
I didn’t need to wear pants at all. But I decided to adopt a variation of Robert Caro’s dress code, which sees the author of the five-volume, four-decades-in-the-making, magisterial biography of Lyndon Baynes Johnson donning a coat and tie on days when he is likely to see no one but his wife.
“It's very easy to fool yourself that you're working when you're really not working very hard,” Caro told NPR in 2012. “I mean, I'm very lazy. I would always have an excuse, you know, to go — quit early, go to a museum. So I do everything I can to make myself remember this is a job.”
Those who know me would agree that I am lazier than Robert Caro. I wear no coat or tie on days I write this blog. But I decided to do everything I could to make myself remember this was a job interview. Things went fine, other than my pants were hard to button.
I’ve been mildly sick. Not as sick as The Girlfriend, now fighting a Covid-19-induced slog into its third week. She felt better this morning, worse this afternoon (listlessness, what she calls “cloudy” congestion). My energy has been low, along with tight chest, low-grade body and headaches. I have half-days when I feel normal, then get draggy and achy. I’ve walked every day, haven’t wanted to run.
I’ve never been much of an exerciser. For a few years my main activity has been tennis. One afternoon last week I felt good enough to walk to the nearby playground with a handball court, which doubles as a racket-sport practice wall. I hadn’t picked up my racket since fall, had almost forgotten the pleasure of whacking a tennis ball: easy enough to generate pleasure, hard enough to require focus, block thought. The city had closed the swing sets and monkey bars but left open the gate to the basketball and handball courts. Two kids (13? 14?) listened to rap, played haphazard hoops (neither had a left hand); they sweetly moved their bikes from the handball court when I showed up. A woman on the other side of the wall practiced squash; her gym had closed, she was thrilled to have an outlet. The practice helped my right-arm tendonitis, developing from uninterrupted laptop hours. My body afterward ached pleasantly. It felt almost normal.
The next morning, the city chained the gate to the courts. So much for tennis.
“Have you been outside in the last 72 hours?” I ask The Kid by phone.
“On the advice of counsel, I invoke my Fifth Amendment rights.”
“I’ll take that as a No.”
“You can’t do that! That’s exactly what the Fifth Amendment is supposed to prevent!”
“We’re not in court. You need to get outside, Rabbit.”
“Mama says I’m losing weight. It’s because I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to eat because I’m never hungry.”
“And you’re never hungry because you’re staring at books and screens all day. You have to move your body.”
“Meh.”
The Kid’s roller derby practice moved online this week. “But we’re not putting on skates. It’s only aerobic training. Boring.”
“What about if I brought your skates to Mama’s house? Would you use them?”
“Maybe!” It’s the phone call’s first note of enthusiasm.
“I’ll try to drive them over today.”
The Girlfriend usually runs a few times a week. She did gymnastics in high school, rowed crew in college, keeps a hard-core fitness attitude. “I’ve done it all my life; at this point, it’s easier to do it than not do it.” She hasn’t run in three weeks, had another day yesterday when she didn’t leave the apartment. I’d never seen her depressed until the lockdown.
“I’m so tired of being sick,” she says. “I hate CoronaWorld.”
Someone online asks people for five activities keeping them sane this month. I come up with three: walking, writing, and cooking. The last two have the virtue of creating a discrete product, which either works or doesn’t. In CoronaWorld, I’m desperate for structure.
My Central Valley Friend texts me (in a group chat with My Connecticut Friend): “Seems like you’re baking a lot (brownies, gooey butter cake)—I approve whole-heartedly. I haven’t baked more mostly because I’m conserving my last bag of flour. I am attempting baguettes this morning, however. Your posts made me remember one thing I’ve always appreciated about you: unlike some, you’re not afraid to eat dessert.”
Me: “I trust no one afraid to eat dessert.”
A few days later I text a picture of Melissa Clark’s pantry cake (orange zest, grated apple).
Connecticut Friend: “I made mine with lemon zest and blueberries (heavy on the cardamom). I’ve had to fight the temptation to make it again. And again.”
Central Valley Friend: “Mmmm. I made banana bread yesterday.”
Conn.: “Me too! But a couple days ago.”
Me: “Another bread helped by zest (lemon, I usually add).”
Conn.: “I’m becoming the Johnny Appleseed of sourdough in our region.”
Valley: “I was rationing my flour until my sister-in-law texted me she found some at Target. I literally ran down the stairs to the car.”
Me: “If we start a web show, we can call it The Carb Kings.”
A few days later, Valley: “My weekend carb bake consisted of buttermilk biscuits, blueberry scones, wheat bread, and bagels. How about you all?”
Me: “Slowed down. Ate the crumb cake and made cornbread with bacon grease. Maybe too much bacon grease. Chocolate chip cookies on tap for tomorrow.”
Conn.: “We’ve been jonesing for a bagel recipe. Send yours, please. I made more Indian potatoes, this time with cauliflower and another batch of sourdough, blender chocolate mousse (which is a great recipe) and cheat puff pastry for beef pot pie (out of left over brisket).”
Two nights later, Conn.: “Did you use non-diastatic malt powder?”
Valley: “No, brown sugar. Thought about ordering it but didn’t want to wait. So between various bagel recipes and the baguettes I made recently, I learned about diastatic and non-diastatic malt powder, and barley malt syrup. All help with browning, I think. The bagels were a bit pale.”
Conn.: “I’ve never heard of it. I have enough shit.”
Valley: “Agreed. I keep buying things I’ll only use once.”
Conn.: “If you have any need for urad dal, for instance, I have two pounds of it.”
Valley: “Indian ingredient?”
Conn.: “Yes. A bean. I had to buy a huge bag and used literally a tablespoon in a carrot salad (which was delicious). I have yet to find another use for it. I guess dried beans last a while.”
Valley: “Just keep making that salad.”
Conn.: “I would have fantastic eyesight.”
My chocolate chip cookies turn out decent. But The Girlfriend eats too few; I have to bring some over to The Kid, along with her skates. I’m not going to stop baking, but I'd prefer not to surrender to CoronaBody.
(New York state numbers as of Wednesday: 149,316 diagnosed with Covid-19, up 7.5 percent; 6,268 dead, up 14.2 percent. Overall U.S. deaths: 14,610, up 15 percent.)
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