Diary of a coronavirus-positive Kiwi in NYC: Day 6

By Simone Nathan

Diary of a coronavirus-positive Kiwi in NYC: Day 6
Simone Nathan, a Kiwi living in New York, documents life in quarantine as she battles symptoms of COVID-19.

Click here if you missed Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 or Day 5.

Day 6:

Among the many things one can take issue with when it comes to America: social inequality, mass incarceration, et al. I believe the fact that their supermarket rotisserie chickens don’t come with stuffing ought to at least be considered for the list. If you have a fowl and it has a cavity, why not fill it with sage and onion? History books of the future will judge us, and judge us harshly on this. 

All of this to say – my groceries arrived today and while opening my Wegmans rotisserie chicken, a fleeting hope flickered in my heart that it might be stuffed, despite knowing full well this was not the world I lived in. It’s like when you’re at somebody else’s house and you glance at their mail to see if maybe, just MAYBE, there’s a little summin summin for you.

Predictably, it was unstuffed and, resigned – I cut a slice of the juicy chook and ate it right there in a ‘take me now’ level act of passion. Suddenly, remarkably, without warning….I tasted something. Barbecuey spices filled my senses for the briefest of moments – as if they’d forgotten they weren’t supposed to be working, and just as quickly, it was over. A cruel trick of the mind or the first signs of a tasteful return?

After this I ate a lot of potatoes. Not important – just a useful setup for a Carrie Bradshaw type transition, if Carrie were experiencing a severe nervous breakdown that left her housebound. Here it is: While my body focussed on digesting complex carbs, my mind was busy replaying every embarrassing moment in my life, something I am wont to do when I haven’t seen a person I know in 480 hours.

At times like these it is so important to find other ways to distract yourself:

  • Become furiously jealous of your boyfriend’s childhood crush even if she is now a lesbian.
  • Create something. I have taken the end of a spring onion and put it in a jar to regrow and am now legally a farmer! When I finally re-enter New Zealand I will be proudly writing this as my occupation on my customs form.
  • Watch a great show. Personally I have been watching Succession like I was employed by Succession to watch Succession.

Though I am grateful for new services like ‘Netflix Party’ that have been popping up to help people separated by distance watch movies together, as someone in a LDR (Long Distance Relationship) one has to wonder where these apps were when we were trying to watch something together by yelling “3…2…..1!!!” and pressing start, only to go “Nope, ad!” when an advert for ‘Russian singles in your area’ inevitably popped up.

I wondered how those Russian singles were doing now and hoped that wherever they were – still in my area or back home in Mother Russia, they were staying safe and staying sane.

Read Day 7 of Simone’s coronavirus diary here.

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