My cat, Roscoe, has been isolating at home.
He doesn’t like snow. Or so he tells me. Not in so many words, but in the way cats typically communicate, by curling up in my favorite easy chair and pretending to be asleep.
I have explained — rather politely, I think — that he has numerous other comfortable locations available, such as his own personal cat bed strategically situated near the heater vent.
He blinks his eyes, sleepily. Smiles. And goes back to his nap.
Naps have become a way of life for many of us, lately. Especially those of us who are struggling to communicate with our pets. So I thought it would be appropriate to assemble a little guide to napping, daydreaming, and other essential activities during a public health crisis.
I am calling this “Isolation for Dummies”. It will be a paperback book someday, if the pandemic continues long enough. Certain people are making a lot of money from the coronavirus — Mr. Pfizer, I’m looking at you — so why shouldn’t I get a piece of the action?
Isolation has some real benefits, so long as you don’t end up feeling isolated. For example, when your friends point out that you’ve totally wasted your life, you can reply, “What did you expect? I was isolated!”
Here are a few sample activities that can make you feel productive during your period of isolation, without actually contributing to the progress of humankind.
Make Popcorn
America has become entirely too accustomed to “pre-popped” popcorn, bought off the shelves at local supermarkets (and, incidentally, produced in various Asian sweatshops using child labor.) When I was a kid, my family always made our own popcorn, which is remarkably easy to do, and satisfying. (And patriotic!) Start by rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. Once the fire is blazing, go back inside and turn on the kitchen stove. (The fire is to sit around while eating the popcorn. To sit around, isolated… by yourself.)
Put about two tablespoons of oil in a tall cooking pot (We recommend cooking oil, but motor oil will work in a pinch.) Toss in a couple of “test kernels” of popcorn while the oil is heating. These “test kernels” are like canaries in a coal mine, except instead of falling over dead, they come flying out of the pot to announce that the oil is the correct temperature. Pour in about 1/2 cup of popcorn, and shake the pot lightly until the corn begins popping. Suddenly notice that you have no lid that fits this particular cooking pot.
Escape from the kitchen until the renegade corn is done popping. Get out your broom and dustpan, and clean up the mess. Feel a sense of satisfaction that no one was injured.
Lint Picking
Most of us pay too little attention to the lint in our houses, and probably don’t even understand where it comes from. But it becomes very obvious, whenever we clean the lint screen in the clothes dryer, that our clothes are absolutely infested with lint.
According to scientists who study household pollution, lint is the juvenile stage of a cotton-like organism that, as it matures, grows into the dust bunnies found under your bed.
The usual treatment for lint is to vacuum regularly, but this doesn’t always get to the heart of the matter. If you are still finding dust bunnies under your bed, be assured that lint is continuing to sprout, and is probably spreading throughout your household.
Harvesting immature lint from your rugs and carpets — commonly known as “lint picking” — will not only keep your dryer lint screen cleaner, but it’s a great way to pass the time during periods of isolation. The collected lint can be used for various craft projects, but most people use it for stuffing pillows. The pillows actually get softer as time goes by, due to the lint growing larger inside the pillow case.
Homemade Pillows
See Lint picking, above.
Become a Rap Artist
This activity might not be for everybody, as it requires the ability to be intensely angry and poetic at the same time. Most people are pretty goddamn angry lately, if not downright suicidal… but not everyone feels confident that they can find cynical rhymes for words like “bail”, “riot”, “Compton”, “pimp”, and “gangsta”?
But you can! For example, “bail” can rhyme with “kale”. Or “braille”.
And with many other words and phrases. “Bulk mail”. “Clydesdale”. “Coffin nail”. “Old wives tale”. “Logarithmic scale”. “California quail”.
You can do this!
Zoom Meeting with Yourself
If you have at least two electronic devices (and who doesn’t?!) you can set up a Zoom meeting with yourself. A Zoom “Basic” account is free, and allows you to hold meetings lasting up to 40 minutes, which ought to give you plenty of time to find out what you’ve been up to. The Basic account also allows up to 100 participants, but as the old saying goes, “One’s company, two’s a crowd.”
Build a Helicopter in Your Living Room
If none of the above suggestions have caused you to perk up your ears… that’s actually a very good thing, because, while many dog breeds can perk up their ears, most humans cannot.
We all prayed the coronavirus would be running out of steam by the end of last summer, and we’d be released from isolation and able to, once again, join our friends at the corner bar and make asses of ourselves, just like the good old days. But it now appears we will be in isolation for many more months, and that means you’ll have time to build that home-made helicopter you’ve always dreamed about. For those on a budget, a two-person helicopter like the AH-1W Super Cobra is much less costly than, say, the much larger UH-60 Black Hawk. (But of course, the Black Hawk can be fitted with optional landing skis, making it more adaptable to our long Colorado winters.)
A few recommendations. Spread out newspapers under your work area, to keep the carpet clean. Consider buying parts locally, so you can easily return them if they don’t fit properly. And make sure you design your helicopter so that it fits through the front door — otherwise, you will only be able to fly it inside the house, which is certainly fun, but somewhat limiting.
Napping
Need we say more?
So, there you have a few of the great ideas that may end up in my future book, Isolation for Dummies. I’m pleased to offer them to Daily Post readers free of charge. If you’ve dreamed up even better ways to spend your isolation, please feel free to contact me in care of this website.
Clearly, isolation offers you a chance to expand your horizons in exciting ways you never would have considered, had you been forced to live your previous boring, mundane, insipid, stuffy — but also pleasurable, profitable, productive, fruitful, enriching, and agreeable — life.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.