I roll my eyes at the weather app on my phone. The mercury rises above 110 degrees for the fiftieth day this year, obliterating the previous record and taunting Arizonans like some rival home-run king smacking grand slams at will. I press my palm to my face to hide my frustration, only to feel a sweaty film forming across my brow.
Below my third floor perch, an apparition walks its equally ghostly dog. With its face concealed by a mesquite tree, the creature could be man or woman, old or young. I listen for a bark, a howl, even the sounds of children playing, but all I hear is the gentle whir of the ceiling fan and the jet-like sweeps of traffic on Southern Avenue.
Anxious for the weekend, I close the lid on my work computer and migrate downstairs to escape my home office. What used to be my earthly paradise, my escape from it all, has become a prison.
I plop into the leather couch. Our cat, Jane, comes up to nudge me. She might be the only creature in this world glad that I have been home almost 24 hours a day since March. I begin my ritual scroll through shows on Amazon Prime and Hulu. Never before have humans had so much instant access to entertainment, and yet, never before have we been so bored by it all.
The summer of hobbies and low-interest financing
In March, I told a friend Amazon, GrubHub, and Netflix would be our saviors during this pandemic. One glance at my credit card statements proves my prediction.
I smile at my new Fender Stratocaster. The cobra blue electric guitar cost more than anything I own, save for my house and my car, but throughout this ordeal, it has been my saving grace, my one pride and joy. Plus, nothing will motivate one to practice like spending two grand on an instrument.
Truthfully, though every day is a never-ending nightmare for someone as extroverted as myself, COVID-19 has been relatively kind to me. Despite being in the high risk group, I have not been sick. Traffic to and from my frequent medical appointments has been non-existent. I haven’t been laid off, and the few weeks in April my team spent on part-time were a welcome relief from the 50-hour work weeks.
I shave three-hundred dollars from our mortgage payment by taking advantage of low-interest rates to refinance our condo. And I happily obliged car dealers desperate for customers by trading in my expiring lease for an electric-blue Hyundai Elantra Sport.
Perhaps one day I will even look back and see this year as a blessing. But right now, despite those positives, as it has for most of us, 2020 has stretched the limits of my sanity.
Endless summer stretches the limits of my sanity
What started as a spring so silent that Rachel Carson’s classic now reads like the musings of a whiny birdwatcher has turned into an Orwellian summer without an end. Words like social, connotating closeness, have been combined with veritable antonyms like distance, implying far away. Activists obsessed with skin color are being called “anti-racists.”
Masks that may or may not work, depending on which study you cite, are required to go literally anywhere. Police are being asked to shame or imprison those who refuse to comply. Schools all over the country have been canceled, delayed, or gone virtual.
Like an emperor at gladiatorial games, Arizona’s executive branch holds the fate of local restaurants, bars, and gyms in its hands. Thumbs up, you may re-open. Thumbs down, brace yourself for the sun-heated steel of the governor’s sword on your neck.
Our other cat, Bert, curls reposed at my feet. Like most animals, he lives for routine: breakfast the minute one of us rises from our bed, nap most of the afternoon, dinner shortly after he wakes. Lather, rinse, repeat. Same shit, different day. Groundhog Day may be our nightmare, but it is his ideal.
Like a schoolchild awaiting news from Punxsutawney Phil, I cling to the weather app and local news websites. Did Arizona’s health czarina see her shadow today? Will she let my gym reopen? Will we have six more weeks of this infernal summer?