Category: Life in the Time of the Coronavirus Contest

The Coronavirus Pandemic Impact:” Social distancing, On-line dating and Pornhub” By Rachel Ganz  With over a billion people in seclusion because of the world wide Coronavirus Pandemic it’s not surprising that single people are seeking new ways to pass the time and socialize while practicing “social distancing. My question and research over the past 6 weeks have resulted in quite. Few shocking revelations. After the “shut down” there was no traffic anywhere in Los Angeles I drove around on freeways local neighborhoods and everywhere trying to get a feel for…

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By Sandra Gallistl 1. Everyday-Life Discomfort: Work-Life Balance About 2 to 3 weeks ago, I remember worrying about juggling preparing for the California Bar exam this July and working fulltime at a new job at an immigration law firm in Los Angeles. Throwing my habits overboard I got up in the early morning hours to commit to at least three hours of study time before eventually starting my actual workday at 9am. 2. Ignorance: Early Warning Signs When the Corona virus made news in the United States, everyone felt growing…

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By Claude Budin-Juteau This little bug called COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on planet Earth. A small invisible-to-the-human-eye microbe that in just a few weeks has traveled around the globe.  An uninvited guest that has mighty powers. COVID-19. A code name associated with fear, apprehension, gloom and doom. Corona means “crown”, because the virus particle exhibits a crown of spike proteins around its lipid envelope. Hence its royal name, Coronavirus, like some Roman emperor. Nobody knows exactly how it came, some suspect a vampire-like origin, since horseshoe bats have been associated…

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By Megan Bernhard I ate chocolate for breakfast. The days are all the same. Jamie, my college roommate, told me I should make pancakes on Saturday mornings to mark the passage of time. Too late. I made pancakes for lunch yesterday. Most mornings I wake early and stare out my window. The sky is black and changes to purple. Depending on the weather, the purple changes to grey or pinkish-blue. I lie in bed for an hour, watching the sky, mustering thoughts to tire my brain so I can fall…

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By Patricia Bunin When I was five and had to have my tonsils out, I thought it was the worst thing in the world. I counted to almost six and I was asleep. When I awoke, no more tonsils but my mother was sleeping on a cot next to my hospital bed and a bowl of ice cream was on the tray stand.  The worst thing hadn’t happened yet. It would be 70 years later that  I found myself counting the steps from the doorway of my husband’s den to…

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By Allene Symons Today A.J. asked, for the umpteenth time, “Why can’t we go to our restaurant?” meaning his favorite place, which happens to be shuttered. “It’s closed, because of the coronavirus.” “The what?” “The pandemic. Coronavirus. Covid-19.” I repeat all three, hoping one will click. “Most of the nation is staying home, you know.” But that’s a slip-up on my part, because my husband does not know. During the past month, while we’ve been sheltering in place, he has further lost his grip on reality. My husband has dementia.…

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By Felis Stella Monday. 7am. Time to shop for mom and dad. Mask – check. Gloves – check. Sanitizing wipes – check. I open the door to a gorgeous sunny morning, greeted by a choir of birds. It’s springtime – nature is rejoicing for we are staying out of its way… I look up at the sky. In my 30+ years in Los Angeles I’ve never seen a sky so blue. My eyes are burning. Is it the bright sun? Or the lack of smog to protect me from the…

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By Gill Pringle Hello old friend, Hard to believe thirty-some years have passed since we first met as cub reporters in the newsrooms of Britain’s infamous Fleet Street when it was still home to most of the country’s newspapers; a place of intrigue, scandal and career-making, government-toppling scoops. A few years later, you left to launch your career in New York as a foreign correspondent for all our favourite British titles while I did the same in Los Angeles – both of us reporting on the peculiarities of American life.…

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By Karen Ocamb COVID-19 is new, contagious, and fast. Three months ago, the world screamed: “Be afraid of everything — the air, surfaces, people.” As of May 1, the W.H.O. reports nearly 240,000 deaths worldwide, deaths that many believe could have been prevented.  I’ve been here before. In the early 1980s, as an unknown virus killed homosexual men in New York City and California, the Reagan administration expressed no alarm that the HTLV-III virus was a communicable disease. In fact, White House press secretary Larry Speakes repeatedly joked or shrugged…

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By Anita W. Harris Lately, it’s been hard to get out of bed in the mornings. Forced isolation during this pandemic has taken a toll on my motivation. Nothing seems worth doing. So on a recent Saturday, I stayed in bed. There was nowhere to go, no Zoom meetings to attend. It seemed the most sensible thing to do. Or was it? I couldn’t help but wonder, how would I know if I were losing my ability to reason? Most things don’t make sense now, like avoiding my neighbors as…

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