Various tubes, bottles and jars of makeup—once applied with precision before I would venture out of the house—now sit untouched in an organizer. After all, there’s little reason to put on mascara, foundation, etc., if I am stuck at home due to COVID-19 directives. Heretofore, I was reluctant to even be seen in public without makeup, but the pandemic has prompted me to adopt a lackadaisical, no-fuss attitude toward beauty. It's so freeing!! Likewise, my hair is now a fashionable pandemic gray. Prior to the arrival of the coronavirus, I would visit a stylist every three months for color/highlighting and no doubt outlaid enough money over the decades to finance a child's college education. Now, however, I’m off the bottle and embracing, rather than concealing, my silver roots. Gray locks are almost a badge of honor—symbols of courage and strength that boldly emerge from an environment of pain, sorrow and anxiety.
February 4, 2021
At the beginning of the pandemic, i stocked up with a healthy assortment of books from the library, from friends, and from my own collection which I intended to read or re-visit I did get through some of them, but I also fell into the bad habit of doomscrolling the news -- reading the endless parade of articles about politics, shortages, restrictions, deaths, the progression of the disease across the nation -- and finding myself unable to concentrate on books on paper i wish I'd committed to a limit on reading articles online and reserving a space for reading books Looking back, my time was better spent adding to the list of books I've read, instead of the amorphous blur of worrisome thoughts and dire warnings that constituted the daily online onslaught. I understand why I did it, but I'd do it differently today
December 10, 2021