“You gotta treat it like Adult Summer Camp.”

That’s what my friend Richard Brendel and I both said, about six times, on our last phone chat. This is our collective approach to The Virus right now. It’s not an uncommon refrain.

Find. Some. Meaning. Make. Yourself. Better. Learn. Something.

I endeavor to plan ahead. I lay on a couch and ponder, each evening. Right about now … right around 6pm … I try to plan how I’m going to spend tomorrow. It makes my brain yawn. I can hear my skull stretch.

If I don’t think of anything “to do,” then I could find myself down a rabbit hole of endless Facebook garbage. Or, worse, a horrifying news cycle.

I have to plan an activity.

Then I think … if the world were still normal …

If the factories were still chugging toxic haze over Beijing to make a kid’s plastic dinosaur, it would be plucked from a shelf of a Toys R Us in Nebraska …

If the Pak Khlong Talat flower markets were still open in Bangkok … for wanna-be-locals like me to stroll … I could sip Vietnamese coffee and admire the orchids …

If the hawkers in Old Delhi were still slinging aloo gobi, while the fishermen still cast their nets off of the Nova Scotian coastline …

If someone were wandering the Cat Street antique shops in Hong Kong, the old men could sell tea and tell fortunes. If the trumpets were peppering Royal Street with sound, tourists would still be sloshing Purple Voodoos in an effort to dance.

Just imagine … if the world were still normal …

The world would tumble us all into our daily lives like a dryer. You’d be pin-balled into the next activity, necessitated by the one before it.

I now need a reason to get up. I miss those Pak Khlong flower markets. I miss Bangkok. I miss Southeast Asia with the ferocity of a breakup.

“I don’t want to break up!” I scream in my head. “I’m still in love with you! We are supposed to be together! Give me back my boyfriend, at least!”

I need activities to keep from feeling like half my life has been cast off a cliff.

Are you with me? How you doing out there? Are you okay?

My Delta Skymiles became as useless as a velvet bikini in Amsterdam, but I picked up a video bat-phone and started calling fools. You know … I’ve weirdly been more connected than ever before.

My friend Jeffrey Morgenthaler and I once talked every day. Back in 2008, we spent hours on the phone every day. We spoke about everything and nothing. I think we’ve started doing that again. This week. Mostly, it’s Corona conversation right now, but I feel a return to something. A deep constant friendship that faded for no other reason than: “We got too busy.”

There is a return to what happened “before corona” for a lot of people. We used to bake or play guitar. We wrote terrible poetry or took an art class or studied a second language.

I’m not sure if it’s a regression to the familiar … a cozying up to what makes us feel younger? Or, if we are finding what mattered before the Internet needs to also matter now? The simple stuff matters now.

Camp mattered. We learned all the shit that the public education system didn’t financially or emotionally find reasonable to teach us. How to start a fire from sticks. How tie knots that wouldn’t break. How to properly roast a marshmallow or jokingly roast a friend. How make a friendship bracelet. How to be a friend. Point blank.

I’m going back to Summer Camp. Back to calling old buddies and catching up. Back to spraying inside jokes across a keyboard when I laugh. I sent out a bunch of cartoon cards this week. I drew each one. It took me three hours today just to make four of them. If you haven’t gotten one yet, don’t worry. You will. They just take me a while, and I’m thankful for that.

Here are some activities that I’ve latched onto in this ridiculous, 6th (7th?!) week of isolation and introspection. Check them out. Then … call your friends. Call those people you used to talk to constantly, about everything and nothing. Lean into that friendship. Talk about nothing at all … in the midst of everything else.

SOME IDEAS …

Facebook has a virtual tour of the Tim Burton Exhibit at the Neon Museum in Las Vegas. I didn’t even know the Neon Museum existed until yesterday morning. It’s on my “must-visit” list now. Who doesn’t love something called The Boneyard, filled with rusting, throwback neon signs?!

Join Saatchi Art.

This free collective of online artists from around the globe is incredible. Everything is for sale––sculpture to photography to paintings––in nearly every genre and medium. When you sign up and start organizing the artists you like, the site will then send you suggestions. You can see each piece on a digital wall, ultra-magnify them and actually make an offer below the listed price. My page is here, in case anyone is curious.

This is a piece I purchased weeks ago from a new favorite photographer. His name is Ernesto Navarro and he lives in Colombia, South America.

Visit the Imaginary Maladies collages by Brian Barker

I found Brian’s Instagram page by accident. I now own a little quirky piece by Barker. It’s leaning on my mantle at the moment, but soon will be hung on my bedroom wall. His collage work is irreverent, twisted, hybrid creatures abound, and often the frames are repurposed.

The one I selected came in a frame made from biscuit tin metal, and says Sunshine Biscuits all around the sides. How lovely.

Take an Art Class

I took a free cartooning class for two hours this morning. I paid $30 and it was a very fun escape.

I learned a few tricks (emotion in cartooning is all in the eyebrows) and also came up with the ideas for a few creatures of my own. Those are currently sketched and in the mail to friends far and wide. If you want to do this too, head to Amazon and order these cards. They are great for watercolors or pen-and-ink sketching. Don’t forget to order stamps too.

Order from SCOUT & CELLAR

This company sources and ships all-natural wines, produced without pesticides or additives in the bottling. Some extremely special humans––my aunt Nancy and my cousin Maggie––turned me on to Scout & Cellar, and then, they sent me the world’s greatest care package. Super excited Amazon didn’t try and hurl this box over the fence.

The rosé was delicious. I cracked open one of the single-serving bottles last night. I threw some ice in there (sue me, it’s already 90 degrees here) and I sat by the pool with my toes in the water. A single serving “wine mini” is kinda the best thing ever.

Get an Astronaut Pet Portrait Made

Does your dog need to be an astronaut? Does my cat? Yes! And yes! This company can make that a reality for you.

Also, my buddy David Carl is doing funny, $50 pet portraits in his spare time, if ya wanna support a more local, out-of-work theater actor. You can check him out here.

Turn Your Vegetables into More Vegetables

“Dude … get this … did you know that you can put a stump of celery into a glass of water and in two weeks, you’ll have more celery?”

This I posed to Jeffrey on the phone earlier

“Nuh uh.”

“Yuh huh. Who knew?! We work in the food industry! How did we not know you could easily just make a bunch of new, free celery?!”

Learn to do that … plus how to make more basil, more mint, more potatoes and more cabbage right here. (Note: This woman is some kind of British, horrible, disembodied robot. Just felt a head’s up was needed.)

Invest in a Mavic Mini Drone and Learn Arial Photography?

I don’t own this, but I want it. Right now, with the state of my finances (a small tumbleweed rolls through the landscape), I can’t see spending $400 on a toy. My aforementioned friend Richard Brendel got himself one, though, and now his arial photos are swoon-worthy. Check them out here.

I might fork over a portion of that government money for a mini drone. If the government $$$ ever arrives.

Or … maybe I’ll just blow it all at House of Hackney. Falling down the rabbit hole of luxury British wallpapers is not an activity. Or, maybe it is? It’s STUPID PRICEY. But it’s all the oh-so-gorgeous things.

Stay safe, stay sane. When all else fails … Gone With the Wind is 40 hours long.