Quarantine
In The Bold Italic. More on Medium.
Two childhood friends — one in the Bay Area and one in Mexico City— reflect on their differences of citizenship and privilege in quarantine
This side
I’m currently writing this from my house in the East Bay Area. But when Covid-19 hit, I was nearly eight months into living with my family on the other side of the U.S-Mexico border — and I was unsure about returning.
First, some context: Mexico isn’t the paradise or warzone that the U.S. media constantly simplifies it as. It has elements of paradise and warfare, like most nations, but it’s much more complex than what the news regularly portrays. Like most Latin American nations, it contains extreme wealth along with rampant poverty, privilege underpinning political corruption, indigenous traditions balanced by…
When the world slowed down, I discovered who I really was
I remember exactly where I was when I saw the news that the Bay Area was going into the nation’s shelter-in-place order: sitting on my old antique couch in Los Angeles. As I watched the headlines scroll over my TV, I started to cry.
I’m not exactly sure why the tears came, but it was as if In that moment the weight of the pandemic — and the fact that it was going to be worse than we thought—hit me full force. I knew that if San Francisco made such a drastic move, Los Angeles would surely follow close behind…
Because no one went out the way they came in
Our pandemic’s about to hit one year. Wow! Can you believe if you got pregnant right at the beginning of quarantine, your baby would now be learning how to read? (I don’t know anything about infants or their development rates.)
Last March feels both like one day and 16 lifetimes ago, and that’s because, over the course of the pandemic, you’ve likely borne a dozen different identities. Actually, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been 17 different species since you started reading this article, but that’s neither here nor there.
Here’s a list of the 10 people you’ve been this…
I never thought I’d miss people, but holy shit, I actually do
It’s 2021, and the joy of hermit crabbing has finally worn off. I actually miss other humans, and for a deep and truly introverted person, that’s quite startling. I miss them so much, in fact, that this year, I am committed to being a different kind of introvert.
Back in March, all the introverts of the world secretly jigged to their happy dance. I’m not talking about the pseudo-introverts—you know who you are—I’m talking about the purists who absolutely revel in alone time.
The pandemic presented a truly unique situation for all my fellow antisocialists. Suddenly it became acceptable —…
As if the holidays weren’t enough of an excuse to eat sweet homemade treats, now you’re sheltering in place
Here we are again: facing the holiday season, nowhere to go, no one to see. A shelter-in-place mandate, in all its empty-parklet, canceled-festivities glory, is upon us for the second time in 2020. In the beginning of the pandemic, the solution to the doom and gloom was baking, and we say: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This winter, with the rain and cold as a cozy backdrop, perfecting a new batch of recipes by local bakers makes even more sense. Cookies make a wonderful socially distant gift for loved ones, and a freshly baked cake can lift even…
Pandemic Dating Diaries
Of course there was a risk, but for me it was worth it
The Pandemic Dating Diaries is a series from The Bold Italic featuring moments in love, dating, and sex during the Covid-19 pandemic. Have a story you’d like to submit? Email us or DM us on Twitter or Instagram.
I remember the first night I held Anthony in my arms, the first night we had sex. The sex was hot, but more than that, it just felt good to be touched by a human nearly five months into the pandemic. If the consequences are disastrous for a baby who isn’t held and touched, is it really any better for us adults?
…
Pandemic Dating Diaries
My 2020 New Year’s Eve date turned into a pandemic boyfriend. And I’m not so sure it was the right call.
The Pandemic Dating Diaries is a series from The Bold Italic featuring moments in love, dating, and sex during the Covid-19 pandemic. Have a story you’d like to submit? Email us or DM us on Twitter or Instagram.
By Anonymous
I kissed Mark at midnight on New Year’s Eve, when 2019 turned to 2020, and none of us knew what we were in for.
I had met this tall, muscular man — who was also somewhat quirky—through mutual friends the day before. Mark lived in Connecticut and was visiting my friends who lived in Redwood City. (I lived north in…
Love in the age of smizing behind a mask is a wild thing
The Pandemic Dating Diaries is a TBI series that features moments in love, dating, and sex during Covid-19 directly from our readers. Have a story you’d like to submit? Email us or DM us on Twitter or Instagram.
Finding love is a complicated thing these days. First dates over FaceTime, smizing behind a mask, and anxiety-ridden decisions on whether to welcome someone into your bubble. And for those already in relationships, it’s no easier — quarantining, working from home, and ever-mounting anxiety around a global pandemic has put us all to the test.
And what to do about it
The emotional roller coaster that is 2020 is affecting every part of our lives — and it surely extends to our sex lives. Our desires and libido don’t exist in a silo; for us to feel in the mood, we often have to feel balanced, calm, and generally okay. Does that not describe your mental state? Makes sense. Given the current state of our world, our nervous systems are most likely off-kilter — and this can definitely affect our sex drives.
“In an optimal scenario, we would exist in a time and space where our nervous system is balanced,” says…
We may be physically isolating, but we’re completely overindulging in online communication
“We need to get off our screens.” This is the first line I wrote in a journal on a camping trip to Grover Hot Springs in the Eastern Sierra Nevada. The note was scribbled hastily, almost desperately. Isaac Newton invented calculus during a plague, and similarly, I returned from the mountains with this Eureka gemstone. I’ll take my Nobel over Zoom, thanks.
Perhaps the reason this simple thought struck me as a grand epiphany in the moment was that getting off screens wasn’t actually the intention of the trip. This was no digital detox (a term I’ve always despised). …
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