My So-Called Life

I swear, one flu or whatever and the whole world goes insane. I went down to this nightclub they’ve got in the hotel, and it’s just a goddamn bar now. They’ve got some stupid pop music on speakers, not even a DJ, I needed a mask to get in, and all the waiters are wearing these giant sheets of plastic over their faces like astronaut helmets. They look even worse than the masks. And you can’t even dance. I’d have worn a mask the whole night if they’d just let you dance.

It’s funny how you don’t realize how much you like something until it’s gone. I tried watching The 39 Steps, it’s this movie Phoebe and I’ve seen about ten times, but I barely got twenty minutes in before I was missing Phoebe again. It’s her favourite movie of all time: she’s watched it at least twenty times in total, and she can basically recite it off by heart now. I thought it might help me feel like we were together, but I’ve never watched it without her before and it just felt wrong.

You know what really bugs me? People who don’t have their priorities straight. I can’t talk to my sister because my parents don’t have their goddamn priorities straight. She doesn’t have a phone yet, because she’s too young, but I don’t even know what they’re scared of. Some of her friends got phones when they were seven. I got one when I was twelve, and I’m the only dumb one in my family. Phoebe’s probably twice as smart as I am, and they don’t have any plans to get her a phone yet. What are they worried about? She’s been getting A’s ever since she started school, and she’s not the type to get suckered in by some pervert. But no, she’s too young. So I can’t call or text her or anything, and I can’t give my parents a message because as soon as I say anything they’ll be all over me asking where I’ve been and where I am and telling me to come back right away and I just don’t want to deal with that right now.

Anyways, I’ve just been holed up here all day. Thought maybe I’d look up the Egyptians. Did you know they basically thought cats were gods? I don’t know why anyone would think that. My sister Phoebe had a cat once. It screamed all night, and sometimes it’d roll over on its back and pretend it wanted pats and then jump on you when you touched its belly. And all the idiots on the internet think they’re just these perfect little angels. Fake.

Did I really make a post just to apologize for not posting? God, it makes me feel like one of those big-name “influencers” who have to put stuff out every four hours so they don’t lose their subscribers. You’d think I was on Twitter or something. I’ve always hated Twitter, You can’t say anything that means anything in the characters they give you, and they always make it about followers. I mean, you’ve got people that don’t post anything real at all, they just repost stuff other people’ve said, and they’ve still got thousands of people following them. And you have an address or something, I never did know what it’s called, but you have your name, and then you have this other name that’s completely different, and nobody’ll tell you what it’s for. Mostly I think it’s just there to look fancy, like how fancy restaurants have a bunch of forks and things, but Twitter isn’t fancy.

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been holed up in this crappy hotel for the last two days. I mean, I knew we were in a pandemic or something, but every freaking business in the city wants you to “do your part”. I hate it when they’re always pretending to be happy. I freaking hate it. I mean, apparently people are dying everywhere and everybody’s calling it the end of the world or something, and you’re wasting your time coming up with trashy little rhymes? That’s almost as fake as Trump’s election. Besides, we’re in a green zone. I’m not sitting on a bus or something for four hours with a mask over my face the whole way.