in 1492, columbus discovered a balcony in his house

I woke up from a late afternoon nap to discover BREAKING NEWS: Our governor has issued a stay-at-home order for the entire state, starting tomorrow. There are exceptions for grocery stores and pharmacies, as well as "essential business or government functions." Does that include my job? Who knows, really; but Melanie says she's going in Monday to get stuff filed. The rest of us will stay bunkered down and continue working from home.

I was actually looking forward to going to work Monday. I'm perfectly happy with the social part of social distancing, but I just want to walk around downtown. I haven't exited my apartment (17 paces up, 17 paces back) since Sunday morning when I went to get my final pokestop of the day. For three days now, the gym has been Mystic; just two pokemon with depleted health, wondering when they'll get to come home.

But in the wake of the stay-at-home order, I remembered: I have a balcony!

(admittedly, I am a moron. but look, I haven't used the balcony since, like...2013. you'd think my memory would've been jogged by all those videos of quarantined Italians on their balconies having impromptu concerts and playing ping-pong, but NOPE)

The balcony is a blocky rectangle (nine paces up, nine paces back) of dirty white concrete and water stains. It's glorious. I wore a sweater, which turned out not to be enough for the wind and the cold; but that was glorious too. I stayed out there walking until I was thoroughly chilled.

I love fresh air. I love my balcony.

I wonder how long the stay-at-home order will last. Even if we are 99.999% clean, it doesn't take much to get the covid ball rolling again. I read an article that a single infected woman in South Korea ("Patient #31") infected thousands by disregarding her illness, refusing testing, and going to church and a buffet. But we can't all stay at home forever, right? Increasingly, I think the "endgame" for Covid-19 is that we will all get infected at some point, and the best-case scenario is that we drag it out long enough (via social distancing) that hospitals can handle the load and minimize casualties.

(HGR points out that if this is really the case, the strategic play is to get infected now, while hospital beds and resources are still available. But he also doesn't think it's the case; he's determined to never get infected. Lockdown suits him. He says he's gone outside twice this year.)

article on Patient #31: https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-CLUSTERS/0100B5G33SB/index.html