Well. I got it.

The day I tested, I tested because I felt really weak, and I realized I couldn’t smell the coffee I was making. I haven’t had any other symptoms besides being tired and having no taste. I don’t even feel tired today (except for daylight savings).

I feel like the volume on my sense of taste has been turned way down. It’s not like things have no taste at all, it’s just so muted. Water tastes flat, tea tastes like hot flat water. It’s honestly incredibly disappointing. My husband said I won’t mind if we buy cheap wine now, which is not the lesson I want us to carry forward here.

I’m isolating at home, and since we’re packing everything up, I don’t have a desk anymore. I’m working in the kitchen and this set up is not ergonomic and I’m old enough for that to matter. Also, it’s boring! So, so boring! And nothing tastes good! Maybe my hearing will improve, along with my joy in small things.

I started watching Last of Us, which is good and unnerving. Since I finally got COVID, it seemed like the time to watch a pandemic zombie show. Stop reading if you don’t want some mild spoilers! So the premise is that a specific type of fungi (cordyceps) has leapt from infecting insects to infecting humans, presumably because of global temperatures rising. There really are types of fungi that zombify insects, like ants, and they are as fascinating as they are terrifying (maybe there’s only one – it’s been awhile since I watched Planet Earth). I haven’t done any research or read any articles on the science behind the concept of this leap (because: tired, busy), but it seems like human bodies (with our accompanying inside-skeletons and blood vessels and such) would be poor hosts for this type of fungus. But also, I don’t know if that’s true – maybe we’re great hosts! Maybe the show is warning us more about the extinction filters we may initiate that we can’t predict via global warming, than about this specific thing. Anyway, I’m only three episodes in.

Simultaneously to this, the weather suddenly got very cold – it’s February weather in March. It came in like a lamb, so I guess it’s Lion Time. So at least if I’m stuck in isolation, it’s not like it’s lovely spring weather? The weather hasn’t been terrible here in terms of snowfall, but I understand other parts of the state and the Northeast are getting battered pretty badly, so I am worried about the potential for lots and lots of people to lose electricity.

We can blame the lack of coherence in this post on COVID.