My Realm is Room 201
Car
I’m playing a game of my own invention. I am the only player. The goal is to correctly guess whether the next vehicle to appear on the interstate outside my window will be a car or a semi truck. I have to correctly guess ten. My record is 1 minute and 38 seconds, but sometimes my scorekeeping is a little shaky because I lose track in all the excitement.
It is day seven here in room 201, by myself, facing an Illinois interstate, racking up the Hilton Honors points and blowing my nose.
I was on a trip and I got Covid. I had been scheduled to spend 3 days with my brother-in-law, but my sister called from South Carolina (the previous leg of my journey) to tell me she was sick. I Covid-tested myself and the faintest double line appeared, so I slapped on an N95 mask and checked into a hotel to avoid infecting him in his small house with one bathroom.
I’m lucky, I know. I have the resources and time to sit on my butt in a Hilton for a week, and DoorDash is a thing. And my case wasn’t severe, just a few days of fever and coughing, and a very fuzzy, slow-moving brain.
It is weird to think of being isolated as a skill, but I feel like I have become rather adept at it over the past few years, building my ability to pass my days static and solo like a muscle. First the realities of being camped in RV sites far from town with no car, then the long grey slog of Covid-related lockdowns and accommodations. This barely feels like any trouble at all, though I can imagine a time in my life where it would have seemed like a huge, dramatic indignity worth railing at.
There is an endless Below Deck marathon on Bravo right now, so I can watch rich people and lithe post-teens frolic, dine and drink in Croatia and St. Croix on superyachts nestled into sapphire-blue coves. During commercials, I get up and predict what the next vehicle on the interstate will be, again.
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Suebob's Red Stapler 
I’m sorry you’re sick and also that you have a room facing the interstate. Three and half years into this thing and I am still Novid, but only because I went into it germophobic and borderline agoraphobic. I was the only person at Safeway wearing a mask two days ago. This is why I like the Asian grocery; everyone is in a mask and it’s okay to scream at people who get too close to you.
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It somehow seems fitting that I have become Anonymous.
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I was so careful and covid free myself, but then I joined the Y and realized there was no bigger germ factory, so why try anymore?
Being stuck there for 8 days really did suck in a very specific way that I’m not sure I adequately described. But of course I was also grateful that I could afford to do it. I ended up flying home while still testing positive, which wasn’t ideal but also, I found a TON of conflicting advice about. Of course I was masked up. No one else seemed to care. There were probably only 4 masked people on my flight and at least 10 who were coughing, sneezing and snorfling THAT I COULD HEAR FROM WHERE I WAS.
Anyway, home. I have only been to Seattle to see you and to go to 2 dahlia sales in 2 1/2 years, so I’m not exactly exploring the city. Maybe I could take the train up sometime when this long weary covid slog is over.
Onward.
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I hope you have recovered. I am almost the only one around here wearing a mask these days when I go to public places. I wear one because I always have an event coming up that I feel I cannot miss, or I’m about to go visit my elderly relative and don’t want to bring covid to her.
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