Last weekend, while out to breakfast at my favorite hole-in-the-wall French cafe, my boyfriend and I simultaneously gasped as a toddler passed by the window in a wagon. “It’s baby Bob Dylan!” I exclaimed at his curly mop of brown hair, over-sized sunglasses, and uniquely rock star demeanor at the tender age of 3. As COVID-19 swept the globe rapidly in the days to follow, baby Bob Dylan seemed an omen that the times, they are a-changin’.
We are officially quarantined. Some of us are comfortable with extensive confinement. Others worry that being out of office for an undetermined amount of time will impact their mental health. I’m a cancer and therefore my astrological proclivity for general homebodiness is intact. That being said, I decided to construct an activity list for my stir crazy readers.
Here are some things you can do while flattening the curve:
- Work your way up to a split. I’ve had this feat of flexibility on my list of new year’s resolutions for the last two years. Where better to scream in agony over your foray into contortion than your living room floor?
- Pick an internet writer and read all their work. You’re working from home, and therefore your boss isn’t over your shoulder disrupting your Pitchfork album review marathon. They snubbed Banks’ The Altar, n’est-ce pas? I like Jia Tolentino of The New Yorker and Haley Nahman of Man Repeller.
- Master a soup. Everyone loves soup. Soup is the undisputed food of home, where you’ll be parked for a long time. Potato leek. Cremini mushroom. Tomato bisque. Pick one and perfect it.
- Start tracking your period in an app like Glow. As a woman (who just so happens to not be on birth control), I love understanding my cycle and the way different hormone levels affect my life. WomanCode is on my reading list. Don’t get your period because of IUD, being a dude, or otherwise? Learn about the menstrual cycle anyway… for feminism.
- Create a mood board Instagram account. I stopped following most influenceresque stuff in favor of creatively stimulating feeds years ago—not because they made me insecure, but because the contrivance got stale. I personally have three different Instagrams because 1.) I have multiple personalities, and 2.) I’m addicted to my phone. Yes, we exist.
- Go on an unfollowing/unfriending spree. Ask yourself, “Does this flat tummy tea pushing airbrushed cyborg spark joy?”
- Order a 48-pack of blank, all occasion greeting cards from Amazon. Turn your loved ones’ names into fun acronyms and send them in the mail while you still can. These will land on my doorstep by 9 PM tonight. Not the sexiest designs, but it’s the message that counts.
- Study Ayurveda. Learn how to balance your doshas for strengthened immune health at this critical time.
- Pickle something. Back where I’m from (read in redneck accent), which is rural and uneventful, people are super into doing shit with their hands—one popular activity being pickling. With all the pasta you’ll be eating in the coming weeks, you’ll have plenty of empty sauce jars on hand for your tangy, fermented vegetables of choice. I dub thee Quarantine Kimchi Queen.
- Give yourself a dermaplane. Dermaplaning, typically performed by a dermatologist or esthetician, involves removing fine hair and dead skin from the face with light strokes of a scalpel. Last year, my best friend put me on to these tiny razors for at-home dermaplaning. It gives you a close exfoliation that makes skin glow and allows products to apply better.
- Have FaceTime sessions with your dating app matches. You can’t go out, so why not weed ‘em out from your bed? I’ve met guys over DMs and apps in the past and wished I would have done this first to save myself the grief. Bonus: it’ll help you step out of your comfort zone.
- Make a playlist for your crush. Even if it’s just the dating app match you just FaceTimed, sharing music exercises intimacy, no mask required.
- Get really good at Jeopardy. It’s on various streaming services. That way, when you come out of hiding, you can impress people at trivia.
- Try on outfits that you wouldn’t typically wear in public. I personally can’t relate to this hesitation because I’m sartorially fearless, but this is a good time to draw inspiration from that mood board Instagram account you just made and test the waters in your mirror. I want to see you angels in something other than leather/denim jackets, black jeans, and these this spring. No shade. Just do it for me if nothing else.
- Practice orgasm expert Betty Dodson’s masturbation method featured on The Goop Lab.
- Read Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Then proceed to plot your long distance hike departure from conventional life. Might I recommend dabbling in Take A Hike podcast for added inspo.
- Start a Game Pigeon tournament with your friends. Anagrams and Word Hunt are favorites among my people. Make team names, brackets, etc. to suppress the sadness of a cancelled NCAA tournament. Because ball is life or whatever.
- Watch hours of choreography videos on YouTube and Instagram, like this one from Julian DeGuzman or this one from Alexander Chung. Schedule time to let yourself cry that these dancers are significantly younger than you and can move their bodies with unattainable artistic finesse. Will I ever be that good at anything in my lifetime? I’m not so sure I want the answer.
- Order the necessary supplies to start making pour over coffee. I’m guilty of buying coffee out every single day, but have toyed with the idea of making pour over for a while. Like some of the aforementioned activities, now is a great time to begin more intentional daily practices. And what a fun juxtaposition of Amazon Priming the tools (instant gratification) and making the pour over itself (delayed gratification)! Use this perfecting guide from Stumptown.
- Learn a language. Spray paint little apartment details (e.g. picture or mirror frames) gold. Make a voodoo doll of your dumb ass ex. Give yourself an enema. Bake THC-infused snickerdoodles. Do YouTube yoga. Start a gratitude journal. Take a selfie in a face mask. Clean your makeup brushes. Have a dance party to nothing but KAYTRANADA and bLAck pARty. Print some free coloring pages. Buy a La Perla set and live in it. Cut your own bangs. Call your grandma. Donate to a nonprofit. Watch ASMR and mukbang videos. Start a blog or podcast. Teach yourself to lucid dream. Write poetry. Make beats and SoundCloud mixes. Microdose. Rearrange your apartment.
Remember, we’re all in this together. The most important thing you can do is surrender to uncertainty and protect our immunocompromised. And if you ever feel alone, shoot me an email or DM. Much love.