Lake Lewisia #511

All his life, he felt plagued by guilt and the sense that he was always doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Work time felt like it should have been spent with family, family time felt like it should have been spent on exercise, workouts felt like they should have been spent on education, on and on like that. Little did he know then that he had actually been temporally displaced since childhood, and the delicate bones that sensed his balance within timespace had been reacting to his constant time slips with this queasy guilt.

---

LL#511

plague journaling

Resupply run, successful! Witness me!

via GIPHY

All joking aside, it was a weird experience. I haven't done any shopping since the 19th, an hour or so before the shelter order came down in my county. Mum has, much as I wish she wouldn't, and dad's been working through it. I haven't seen any of it yet.

The bulk supply store was out of pretty much all the paper goods and certain cleaning supplies, but it otherwise seemed pretty normal. Like, why would we bother to maintain distance or clean things more than once an hour type normal, which was unfortunate.

The regular grocery store, which dad works at, was...real wild to look at. Line outside just starting to wrap around the building, where we waited in line for our turn--only a certain number of people allowed in at once. Tape lines on the ground outside to keep us six feet apart, the same on the floor inside for queueing up to check out. A wider variety of shortages, though my yogurt brand was back in stock, praise be. More Easter candy than you can shake a stick at, so we'll all survive long enough to die of a sugar overdose, if nothing else.

While waiting in line, several cars went by in the parking lot with the drivers taking photos or video on their phones. One woman had her window rolled down to do so. She got an earful from a man a few places ahead of us in line, with his young daughter in his arms. Go take your pictures somewhere else, he shouted to the driver. After she drove away, he continued to loudly grumble to the rest of us how people are stupid--gawking at something everyone in the world knows is happening and taking pictures to show to all those people. A few minutes later, a man drove by, looking like he was probably shooting video this time. His window was up, though, and he didn't go quite as slowly about it.

There's a part of me that thinks this sort of citizen journalism--to perhaps give it a vastly over-glorious title--is valuable and important. Our ability to document the world around us and share it in realtime has changed life as we know it, and it has often changed for the better. There is at least the possibility of accountability when authorities decide to do something hideous, for example. Fewer unlit corners in the world where no one will look, no one will see.

Another part, though, thinks the man in line has it right. People are just gawking. Taking pictures to prove they were there, souvenirs from the sidelines of real life. There is a point at which posting the eight millionth photo of long lines or empty shelves isn't doing anything useful. Adding to the psychic weight of our anxious new reality, yes, but not really saying anything meaningful. Just making sure you've got your spot in the echo chamber for another day.

Which one of these sides is right, or at least more important? I don't know. I'm the sort who will suffer that sort of annoyance in silence, however much I may seethe internally, so I'm no help at all. Mostly, I found myself selfishly pleased that mum and I were wearing our homemade face masks and so would be largely unidentifiable when photographed in any case. I'm also the sort who is posting daily about my plague experience, so perhaps I haven't a leg to stand on.