Everybody Was Kung Flu Fighting

My gym closed down today due to the virus. For once, I have a legitimate excuse not to go.

It feels so strange, like I'm in a Stephen King novel or something. Manila is under lockdown. I don't think that's ever happened before. There's an electricity in the air - a restless energy. I believe that if enough people think of the same thing, you can actually feel a change.

To be honest, I'm a little scatter-brained. So I'll just fire away in no order.

Well, work has been reduced to once a week. If I'm not working, I'm not earning. I can't imagine how hard it is for others. No, wait, I don't have to. There's no shortage of secular moralists on social media telling me how this is all the fault of greedy companies, the government, the "chinks", etc. Never let a crisis go to waste and pass up soap-boxing. I don't got the mood and stomach for that right now. It's just a major turnoff.

I don't care if I get the virus. I do care if my loved ones do.

I find it amusing that they're calling it a "community quarantine" in Manila. Not making light of the seriousness of the situation, but do people realize how overpopulated Manila is? I just find calling it a "community" as quaint.

"Social distancing" sounds like a plot point in a telenovela. I can see it now: "Oh Mark, I love you but we have to sit on opposite sides of this park bench. Our love cannot be." "Christina, noooo!"

On the local front, things are slowing down here in Cebu. There's a curfew, though, I doubt if it can be enforced. I think people will quarantine themselves well enough.

With people staying in, they're trying to find things to do. Read a book? Play video games? Watch shows? I've been training all my life for this moment, it seems. Hell, maybe I can start posting on this blog regularly for all my three readers.

Why toilet paper? Haven't people heard of bidets? Maybe they anticipate a collapse and toilet paper becomes the world currency. Imagine buying a piece of bread with five "squares".

If there's any benefit to this whole situation, it's that its a moment to pause and take stock. It's a time to reorient ourselves and think about who we care about and what matters most to us. Ironic that this respiratory virus is giving us a moment to breath.

Stay safe.