quarantine diary

April 05, 2020

a university student in the spring of 2020

by celia glastris

I go to school in Boston.

I am in love with someone in Chicago.-

Today is April 5th, 2020:

Now I go to college at home, where I am from in Winnetka, Illinois which is a suburb of Chicago. 11 miles away from the person I am in love with.

My mom’s sewing business is making masks for doctors, she has a hard time sleeping at night knowing she’s sending her employees to work. My dad’s restaurant is changing its business plan to cater to online delivery apps. I am writing a research paper. On Tuesday in my Zoom class we will have peer reviews. Every night at 7pm my family has dinner together. It disrupts my workflow and also my sister’s who is in med school. She is very patient with her professors right now because they are busy. Mom and Dad turn 60 on April 16th (yes they have the same birthday).

In Boston, we FaceTimed several times a day. I kept a list of things on my phone we fantasized about doing once I was home. Little things like being aggressively queer together in public.

Ha!

Nothing about our situation has changed except proximity and danger

Meaning sometimes I bargain with myself: --

Bargain—

Wow-- what a sad word.

A google search

:

(Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance).

Is this grief?

Our god hates you and me

It’s hard to assess the situation: when I do-- I feel loss.

Consider for a moment,

the feeling of loss--

it’s absence, taking over your body, so that nothing else may reside.

Instead of thinking, I follow the state’s orders--

It makes life simpler

I write my research paper, and go to my virtual drawing class(?) and stay inside

That’s what the power of control does sometimes, people need to follow rules.

People like me need to be taken control of.

I think I live in manufactured oblivion:

to keep from on one side,

reaching a state of total depression
- One that I may be indulging in as I write this;

and on the other

Mania.
- My mom’s friend Roxanne told her to vacuum the dogs, I think that’s what the sound coming from downstairs is.

In the moments like now that I sober up--

for a moment I feel like I have agency again,

I “could” leave my house to see it.

the bargaining stage

No. I’m supposed to stay away from you.

The same response I came to, with a comfortable numbness that I built for myself the last time I had one of these sober headed moments,

I retreat back into the chosen oblivion.

First I feel----

I-

;

It’s like showering with my clothes on.

Stillness in the ordinary.

Jeans t shirt underwear. Regular.

The water falls onto skin as well as fabric, because that’s how nature and physics work–– obviously.

Oddly the whole world feels like this

Loneliness solitude disbelief, collectively

Still (this time meaning regardless)

I sleep alone, just like all the other nights before the pandemic that I’ve loved you.

Tue

April 14, 2020

i took a break when i finished writing another essay and

went on a walk to the lake

to remember that I was alive

which is sort of a joke but it's not and we all know that

a man was on a walk too

hands in his pockets

looking up at the sky and the trees

is he going to the secret spot

it's paved now

ok I'll give him a moment with the water

let's walk up the ravines

should i cross the street ?

ok

'

"And I've found a pretty good way to put you into my schedule tbh'

Haha react

you're laughing at me

no i think it's funny

that I'm scheduled

wow

i spent so much time here

i can't wait to take you

i should put the mask on

7:23 pm

more people pull up to the secret spot

"Dinner time at 7:30"

you're in pain

i need to interview more artists for another essay

ok

Wed

April 15, 2020

Things I have done in this room:

Played dress up
Played with my barbies
Made friends playing barbies:
- Kenzie
- Alice
- Ella
Became friends with the lesbians in my hometown:
- Kenzie
- Alice
- Ella
Played connect four with Kyle Bertram
Learned Spanish at 2
Learned Spanish at 15
Played on an apple computer one of those blob ones. The apples
Made the dolls scissor
Played I mean wrote a paper on the phonological loop
Doodled with crayons
Doodled while writing a paper on the phonological loop
Procrastinated
Zoom classes
Georgia is in med school studying in here too for the United States Medical Licensing Examination
we are surrounded by dr. Seuss books
My step stool is gay
When I was younger it was rainbow but now I come home and it is gay
There are three stools:
- Celia
- Georgia
- Carina
Those are the stools
The stools say our names
The letters in the names are blocks
You can pull them out
The letters you can pull out are different colors
they are in the shape of a rainbow
\
zoom lectures:
I have to move my screen so you don’t see the gay blocks
I doodle during the zoom lectures
Afterwards I write
I write in this room
That’s something I do in this room
I make up with an old best friend in this room
I cry over her Spotify playlist in this room
I write poetry in this room
I make art in this room
I do the statistics wrong
I flirt
Text
Tinder
Cy
I love cy in this room
We watch cartoons
ask for help from the school
consider pass fail
take statistics quiz
why do I have an A in statistics
took too much Adderall
wrote a paper on techno
therapy session

play dress up
play dress up
play with dolls
play with dolls

Thu

April 16, 2020

i shared my screen with my therapist to explain what i did yesterday

my mind was all over the place

My hair has grown so long. It's ridiculous.

The whole point of this haircut was to look like myself.

It doesn't sit right in any way.

I sort of want to grow it out to see what happens,

but it makes me feel like I'm just waiting.

Like this time isn't valid.

Doesn't count.

It's weird because in some ways I've never felt more like a guy with this untamed hair, and yet for the first time since I was 16 it can be put up into a real ponytail.

On a similar subject, I'm growing my nails out.

We will (we were going to) wait fourteen days. Then when it (was going to be )safe clip (we were going to) clip them off together . Again, another part of myself,

something we choose

to manicure to play a part,

what's the point. I mean it doesn't feel as good for me.

But it doesn't matter. Except I can barely type.

Extraneous body things that grow tell time.

I will return to this after I write another essay.

And when Celia feels up for it.

Tue

April 21, 2020

Tue

April 21, 2020

Took this on Saturday.

I look like the fucking prince from Shrek

Oh my god

tell me to my face you think I look like a girl with this long hair

Thu

April 23, 2020

I've been writing so much I've been so stressed out. I started playing Stardew it helps!

Finally writing the paper on ethics of performance and a call for a reform in its practice and education. I don't like the draft that I wrote so I have to do it again. Here's the best sentence that I wrote: which is sad because it's not that good:

It is tragic and shameful how fitting this event is as an allegory for the current nature of performance art as a medium.

I can't explain what I am talking about because I don't want to disclose personal accounts of art I have seen quite yet without careful consideration, but do you see how that sentence is weirdly structured? It could be edited down,

how fitting this event is as an allegory for the current nature

that could probably be said in like one word

vom

oh writing.

you torture me! :)

Tue

April 29, 2020

Zoom Interview

Artist: Sophia Isidore

University: NYU

Location: Brooklyn

Pronouns: She/her

Zoom Interview

Artist: Alberto Checa

University: Study Abroad

Central Saint Martins

(School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts)

Location: Miami

Pronouns: He/him

so much time passed

update

/i finished the semester

/moved into my new apartment in boston

/people disappointed me

/still can't see the person i am in love with

/sent a pitch to a magazine

-> no response

/tried to understand what is happening in the economic art crisis with the art world

-> art podcasts

-> close social media viewing

/didn't write

/didn't workout

\dread

/George Floyd was murdered

/riots started

/ my dads greek restaurant was spared

/ the tip jar remained untouched

-> i told him its because it said 'tips for our workers'

/he condemns the looters and loves Biden and Amy kobuchar

/optical allyship is wearing me out

why do i write