Thursday night. It’s curious how nights get progressively more exciting from Wednesday to Saturday, isn’t it? (Except for you, Sunday night. Know your damn place.)

Another day of zero social stimulation, aside from exchanging a couple of words with the landlords. They’re good people, but they’re baseline cable news consumers… The landlady thinks that a vaccine will come out before the US election on November 3 (because her beloved Trump said so) and that the covid cases in Canada are getting better. (That’s because it’s much harder to get a test now.) I tried to gently explain to her that that is not the case. I’m not sure she understood me. So it goes.

I heard through the grapevine that my coworkers, back at my warehouse, are worried about the effects the isolation might be having on me. I’d typically put on an extrovert mask when at work, doing some mild chatter among coworkers’ cubicles, and then relax hard after getting back home. It’s nice to know they’re thinking of me, but they completely misjudged me: I’m actually kind of digging all the alone time. The social interaction I miss is random meetups and dating, not being stuck at work.

A coworker of mine seemed to be nonchalant about covid warnings, to the point of meeting people face to face, going to the gym, etc. Now he’s feeling a bit under the weather. If that turns out to be covid (which is really picking up steam around here), that’ll be all the more encouragement for the rest of us to stay put; a harsh proof that the choices the rest us had made were not for naught.

I guess this is an objective proof that I’ve been far too busy with work lately – I missed a couple of major goalposts. Two weeks ago was my 18-month anniversary of moving to Canada. Last week was the two-month anniversary of my application for permanent residency. That second one isn’t quite as exciting, I know, but it’s big nonetheless. It means I have less than four months to go till I get my PR. That is, of course, if the pre-covid six-month timeline stays stable, etc. It’s entirely possible the whole thing will get delayed by six more months. Still, that’s a milestone.

In covid news, something genuinely funny, for once. The University of Notre Dame notoriously tried to enforce draconian measures against the students who broke social distancing rules. However, its own president, Rev. John Jenkins, appeared at the now-infamous Rose Garden party without a mask, and then tested positive for covid. The university had set up a site for students to snitch on one another for breaking covid guidelines. Instead, they all started reporting Jenkins’s blatant disregard of his own rules. Poetic justice, eh?

But wait, there’s more! According to the New York Times, “The decision not to wear a mask… stemmed not from politics but from a desire to politely blend in, as a guest at a cocktail party might remove a tie upon realizing everyone else was dressed in business casual.” That’s Notre Dame’s official position, and ye gods, you have to try hard to come up with something dumber than that. That’s more or less the polar opposite of the acknowledgement/remorse/restitution formula for a good apology. Nice job comparing the pandemic to social awkwardness, too. Kudos for the students, and I hope they finish the job and get their hypocritical overseer to step down. (With a golden parachute, though, I’m sure.) If that happens, that’ll be a much-needed success story in this weird news world.

Stay safe out there, folks – and hey, you have my permission to skip the gym until this whole thing blows over.