Shoot. I Have No Indoor Hobbies

I live in a 400-square foot studio in Seattle, a city on lockdown, and man, I have a lot of time on my well-washed hands. This is not a complaint. I’m grateful for the people suffering daily on the frontlines and I feel our collective pain around this. I get it. My job is to stay at home and don’t go near anyone. Pre-pandemic this was a choice whereas now it feels like a sentence. I’m a hobby snob, legit, and all my judgy snark about knitting and jigsaw puzzles is circling back to bite me. Look at those people just wasting time “scrapbooking” or fixing old cars. Know what? The hobby folks are probably doing fine on lockdown and I’m the asshat with nothing to do.

I love being outside, that’s my jam. And when the sun is out so am I, but here’s the thing. I can walk and run for miles but there is no place to pee anymore. I learned this a few weeks ago when I was doing food deliveries for my school. After three hours of driving around north Seattle I needed a bathroom. Nada. Usually I’d run into a Mickey Dee’s or something but everything was shuttered. I stopped at a friend’s house and banged on her door.

“Nope,” she said. I stared at her.

“But I gotta pee!” I pleaded.

“No,” she was clear, “Nobody’s been in this house for three weeks. Sorry.”

Truth? I wanted to go wee in her bushes but I didn’t. Instead as I rushed home I decided that I was just going to respect everyone’s boundaries around this thing. Whatever anyone needs to do to feel safe, I’m going to…