Where\u2019re my shoes at? Today is my 80th day, I think, of not wearing actual Dad-style shoes. Slippers, yes, flip-flops, mostly. Shoot, I don\u2019t even think I\u2019ve worn pants for the last 80 days. Don\u2019t be alarmed, though; to maintain some dignity and decorum, I\u2019ve worn sweats and shorts.<\/p>\n
For 80 days I\u2019ve shaved maybe once a week and left the house on some exotic excursions to the liquor store or pharmacy a couple of times.<\/p>\n
Eighty-one days ago, when Gov. Newsom, the best governor this state has had since Jerry Brown, urged people over 65 to stay home during the pandemic. I jokingly told Melissa, the stalwart yet somehow willowy managing editor of the Post and Business Journal, \u201cLooks like I\u2019ll be writing the \u2018Quarantine Chronicles\u2019 now. Ha, ha…. Ha.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she thought it was a good idea, so off to the desert I went for 80 days and 80 nights\u2014twice as long as the old record.<\/p>\n
I am, some of you will be happy to hear, a new man. For the last quarter of my quarantine, my colleagues and friends at the Post and Business Journal have been coming up with new and exciting projects to get me through the long lonely days.<\/p>\n
So now, not only am I a world-class marine biologist, but I also dabble a bit in baking<\/a>, yoga<\/a>, Spanish<\/a>, listening to records<\/a> with a critical ear, duct-tape wallet<\/a>-making, calligraphy<\/a>, pet-tent repair<\/a>, meditation<\/a>, HTML coding<\/a>, car-buying<\/a>, marijuana edibles<\/a>, painting-by-numbers<\/a>, TikTok videos<\/a> and tiki drinks<\/a>.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to put words in your mouth, but I think \u201cpolymath\u201d is the one you\u2019re searching for. Or, perhaps you prefer \u201crenaissance man.\u201d I don\u2019t know, I can\u2019t read your mind.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve missed showing up at the plant every morning, but I\u2019m a little shaky. I might\u2019ve forgotten how to do journalism.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve written 80 columns in 80 days, and they\u2019ve turned out to be, yes, a chronicle of life trapped in a house for that duration, wrapped up in a cozy cocoon of the internet, social media, Instacart, GrubHub, Postmates, Amazon, Netflix, Kindle books, 2 dogs and 1 daughter.<\/p>\n I feel like a blogger and going back to work after this unprecedented hiatus makes me feel like a new kid that the management team hired, telling me, \u201cHey, we liked your little diary thing. How would you like a job doing real big-boy-pants journalism?\u201d<\/p>\n What, now? With cities burning, the coronavirus still rampant though strangely set aside, Trump threatening to use his military against American cities, economic disaster and impending collapse? What am I going to write about, how to make a box-stitch lanyard?<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry, it\u2019s like riding a bike,\u201d a friend told me, employing the threadbare simile for things you never forget how to do. I was riding a bike once along Palo Verde Avenue when a car went through a stop sign and hit me (I could see the driver was going to go through the stop and I hit my handbrake and the cable chose that very moment to snap) and I went flying, gloriously, through the air. That part was easy, the landing was hard. So, don\u2019t tell me anything is like riding a bike.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s so much more left for me to do here at home: Tie-dye a shirt, check out some yo-yo tricks, learn to play a Jew\u2019s harp, crochet a tea cozy, sit out front in a lawn chair and watch my co-workers parade past, honking, in their cars (yeah, the fact that that never happened stings a bit\u2014they had 80 days!<\/i>), listen to the 73-CD set of all 22 Europe \u201872 concerts by the Grateful Dead, figure out how to make corn liquor, bathtub gin or raisin jack prison hooch. All the skills destined now to go unmastered.<\/p>\n Because it\u2019s back to the old new normal, which means rifling through my closet looking for the style of shoe that you have to tie, a pair of matching socks, some pants with an inseam greater than 10 inches and maybe a tie. No, wait, shoot, I don\u2019t have room for a tie.<\/p>\n And my laptop that I write on when I\u2019m at work. I\u2019d better charge that and maybe hose it down to get rid of the spider webs.<\/p>\n I look forward to seeing (and hearing, Steve Lowery) all the folks at the Post and Biz Journal. Each and every one a gem.<\/p>\n I will miss hanging out with my daughter all day, though I\u2019m sure she\u2019s anxious to take over the house and play that noise you kids call music these days, which is fine, as long as she doesn\u2019t SIT IN MY CHAIR.<\/p>\n And farewell for a while to my 2 ferocious dogs Annie and Jasper, the latter of which is yipping in his sleep right now, dreaming about which sort of $1,000 calamity he can bring upon himself next. He\u2019s already cost me more than a Cadillac in vet\u2019s fees and he\u2019s due to go back on Thursday or Friday.<\/p>\n I hesitate to ask after taking a relaxing 80-day holiday, but is it OK if I take off a little early to drive him to the vet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve written 80 columns in 80 days, and they\u2019ve turned out to be, yes, a chronicle of life trapped in a house for that duration, wrapped up in a cozy cocoon of the internet, social media, Instacart, GrubHub, Postmates, Amazon, Netflix, Kindle books, 2 dogs and a daughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":1061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[62,20],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[22],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-quarantine-chronicles","tag-tim-grobaty","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}