Back From Outer Space Only To Arrive On A Foreign Planet

After six months on the island, I’m finally back in Cambridge. Six months is the longest that I have ever been on the island without leaving for as much as a jaunt into Hyannis. The bulk of my time on the island, when not at work, was spent in the staff house. With the pandemic kicking hard, I just didn’t feel comfortable. I really only bounced between staff house, work, and the grocery store. By the end, I was starting to lose my mind a little. I think it was kind of the combination of knowing I was trapped, the lack of Asian groceries, and the… particular clientele that I was catering towards.

What made it infinitely better, if not easier, was the crew that I was a part of. Honestly, I don’t think that I have ever worked with a more complete crew. Everyone gave a shit. Everyone embraced the grind. Everyone laughed. Everyone threw up their hands in resignation to bizarre requests.

Finding a way off the island wasn’t the easiest task either. We finished the season on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and for the two weeks before, I contacted anyone I thought might be able to pick me up in Hyannis. See, there was only one bus that went from Hyannis to Boston, and it leaves at six in the morning, far too early to catch a boat the same day. In addition, I had so much crap that I really did need a car to pick me up.

Many of my friends said they could pick me up, but they couldn’t get to Hyannis until Saturday, which, though nice, was far too late for me. I knew that the longer that I sat around staff house with nothing to do, the crazier I would go. One guy left the day after the last service. The next day left the following day… along with the television.

Eventually, the other person in the staff house and I hatched a plan to leave on Wednesday after she finished putting the bar to bed. She would rent a car and we would just drive back to Boston. It was far better than waiting until Saturday. I really was already going stir crazy by the time Wednesday rolled around.

Once we locked down the plan to rent a car, there were a few touch and go moments where we weren’t sure if we would be able to rent the car, but it all worked out. An hour on the boat, 2 hours in the car, a stop at a buddy’s joint to pick up home made pho, another stop to pick up noodles and bubble tea in Chinatown, and I was finally home.

It’s crazy how much of a shit show your apartment can look like after 6 months of being away, even if you thought you cleaned before you left. My friend was staying for a few nights, and I was kind of embarrassed about how much of a shit show my apartment seemed. However, it wasn’t easy to clean up with company, so I had to wait. I think it took me a good two days after my friend left to figure out how I wanted to put everything away. It didn’t help that everything that typically lives on my balcony was forced inside because of some renovations to the exterior of my building. In addition, I had to pull down some of my artwork that had been hanging up high on my walls, in case the renovation shook the building enough to shake down the artwork.

Since I have gotten back, I haven’t left my apartment much. I left once to go get a haircut and to go to the Chinese grocery store, and another time to get a COVID test and go to H-Mart. It surprises me. Some of it has to do with the fact that it’s cold. Today, it didn’t get above 32F (0C) degrees. When I went to get my covid test yesterday, it was cold enough that there was so much condensation on my glasses that, it wasn’t just foggy, but there were massive drops of water collecting, as if I had been standing in the rain. I had even put anti-fog coating on them.

The other reason I haven’t left my apartment much is because of the virus. I don’t know who has it, and I didn’t know if I had it. Over the past week, the island, which has a fairly small population (typically, 11,000 year round residents), confirmed a hundred and fifty six new cases. When I had gotten to the island in June, there were only 14 total cases reported. Over the course of the season, I saw that number jump and jump over again. Now they’re well over three hundred confirmed cases.

To be honest, my time on the boat was kind of scary. There were far more people on the boat that I expected, and they sat far closer to me than I was comfortable with. One person directly behind me, and one person directly in front of me. And they were annoying as hell too. They watched things on their phone with the volume all of the way up and kept changing their ringtones. It’s these types of inconsiderate people, that I just assume are running around acquiring and spreading the virus. They were really the people that made me want to go get the covid test.

I got my results back this afternoon and found out that I am, in fact, covid free, or at the least a symptom free false negative.

As I walked around for each of my trips, I was really struck by what I saw. Some places like Charlie’s Kitchen in Harvard Square had little plastic huts for people to eat in. Shojo just had picnic benches out in the middle of the street. All of it was completely unsustainable. I saw that my favorite hot pot place in Chinatown had put up all sorts of plastic curtaining to separate tables and dining groups. It was weird.

On the island, there was a lot of outdoor dining, but I didn’t really see any indoor barriers being built. I also expected there to be less people going without masks here on the mainland than I saw on the island, but that wasn’t the case. I was shocked to see people without masks riding the subway. It kind of made me want to vomit in my mask. What on earth could these people be thinking? It’s one thing to be outside or in an airy environment, but in an enclosed subway car? Not into it.

Part of me wants to see all of my friends, but another part of me thinks that with the numbers rising, I should stay at home and just try to figure out how I can make money from home.

I have been thinking about this a lot. I have been thinking about meal prepping for people, or having people pick up meals from me. Today, I actually played around with a black bean spare rib recipe.

It has been nice having Asian groceries available to me for the first time in months. I actually bought too much Chinese broccoli, because I was just so excited to see it. I think it may be difficult to explain to the general population of America what that may be like, because we live in such a eurocentric society, that unless an American goes way out deep into the bush, like the jungles of the Amazon, or some random island in the south pacific, and force them to live there for an extended period of time, where they wouldn’t have access to things like…. cheese, dried pasta, or canned tomatoes, they couldn’t really understand the longing for such groceries.

Anyhow, it has been nice being back in my apartment. My bed is just as amazing as I remember it being. My sink and stove are clean and well functioning. I have reignited my relationship with my wok. For an unemployed guy, it could be a lot worse. I’m sure that after the holidays, I’ll start feeling a crush to actually be active, and that I’ll need to build some structure into my life. What that structure looks like? I’m not sure. I have been trying to limit how much the TV has been on, and attempting to make sure all of my cleaning is done for the day before I even think about turning it on. I’ll make coffee, and the French press will last me most of the afternoon. For now I’m happy doing some R&D in my own kitchen, doing some writing at a desk that is newly cleaned off and functional, and listening to music.