I know I probably shouldn't freak out about it, I'm an old man now, but I'm growing increasingly absent-minded. It is becoming increasingly common for me to walk into a room and completely forget why I did that. I am well aware that this is not a unique-to-me problem. It even has a cute name: The Doorway Effect (which really should be the name of a romcom paring a star-crossed Fuller Brush Man and Avon Lady).

The popular theory is that memory storage is tied to the mental picture of your surroundings, and the change of environment cleans the slate for new memory. Studies seem to indicate that the natural aging process does not correlate to an increase in incidence, so what gives? Why am I experiencing it more often now?

Of course, it could be a perception bias. At the very least, I might be paying more attention for when it happens. If A) I know I'm getting older, and B) I believe older people have more memory problems, then C) I believe I have more memory problems. We're all trapped in a hell of our own making, but I don't think that my memory will get better if I just shrug off why I'm standing in the den holding a toilet plunger.

Science suggests the most common detriments to memory function are drugs, sleep, diet/exercise, and stress. Yeah, I could sleep more and eat better, but what am I supposed to do about stress? The sky falls a little more each day, and the only viable solution appears to be to drink more. That might not help much, as A) alcohol is a drug, and B) the most famous off-label use of alcohol is as an anti-memory aid. It's a feature, not a bug!

I'll have to continue paying attention to this memory situation and see how it goes. I could start recording notes to myself on my phone before I change rooms. Or maybe I should just stop leaving my den altogether. In any event, I've got to figure out where this plunger goes.

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My toilet wasn't filling well, so I bought a new fill valve. Then I pulled the old one out and put the new one in. It all went smoothly. I didn't break anything or hurt myself. That's it. Sorry, there's no entertaining story when everything goes right.

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I haven't mentioned my horoscope calendar since February, but it has spent the entire year hanging on a nail over my toilet, giving me such great advice as

August 26: It's a weekday, but many Librans in love might get engaged or married. If you're already married, in-laws might be difficult and look for ways to stir up trouble.

September 28: You might decide to quit your job under tonight's Third Quarter Moon. On the other hand, it is a good day to stay late and finish a project at work.

October 31: It is a favorable day to take a trip with your sweetheart or family. If you are in town, you might have out of town guests.

November 25: Happy Thanksgiving! Invite relatives and friends over to celebrate the holiday. It's also a favorable day to break bread at the home of a friend.

Go! Stay! Love! Hate! The stars say there is something for everyone!

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I am now fully vaccinated (2 shots + 2 weeks), which, according to the CDC, means that I can resume my life as "normal" before COVID-19 reached American shores. But what if I don't want to?

I *could* drive to my friends' houses, assuming that I can find gasoline (which is not in short supply but is suffering distribution issues after too many of my fellow Americans succumbed to panic following news reports of possible problems and bought up all the available toilet paper gasoline). But I've never been enthusiastic about leaving the house, and I find I am even less so now, even to spend time with people who I theoretically enjoy spending time with.

I *could* attend a movie, as I used to do before the entertainment world ground to a halt. But my favorite theater couldn't survive the economic downturn and is now boarded up. Besides, what's playing? The number one movie in America is Wrath of Man, and I get to see plenty of that on the evening news for free.

I *could* go to a sporting event, such as a minor league baseball game. But the thought of being surrounded by a crowd of people has always made me anxious, and that was back when the odds were low that the people sitting on either side of me could kill me with their breath. Football season doesn't start for months yet. I've paid for season tickets; will I be comfortable enough to venture forth by then?

Or I *could* stay under the covers in my bed in my basement, where the world can't reach me. I think I like that option best.

POSTSCRIPT: I just waded through many, many, many websites worth of evidence supporting — but, as they are quick to point out, not conclusively proving (because the Chinese government has been so thoroughly opposed to any investigation) — the theory that COVID-19 is a human creation that escaped a lab in true Michael Crichton-fashion. All the more reason to stay indoors, I think, where those mad scientists can't reach me.

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For Christmas, my aunt gave me a Libra 2021 Calendar ("Personalized Daily Horoscope Presented by The International Astrological Alliance, a Leading Resource on Astrology and The Zodiac").

Personally, I have never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything. But maybe that's because I've never been exposed to someone who really understood it all. Reading the back of the calendar, it says that "Libra can be possessive, smothering, insulting and sarcastic." If that wasn't written for me, I don't know what was.

Yesterday, on the first day of the year, my horoscope recommended that I should hang out with friends so that I could meet "someone who brags about every little thing." That doesn't sound like fun, but hey, maybe because I now know about it, I can avoid it, right? Thanks, horoscope.

On the other hand, today's entry reads:

Wedding bells may ring for many Librans in love. Others might get engaged. You can also meet interesting people at the wedding reception of a friend.

Um, I thought this was supposed to be personalized. Not only does that not sound like me or anyone I know, it also doesn't seem to have anything to do with 2021. Doesn't my horoscope know there's a pandemic on? "May ring"? "Might get engaged"? "Can also meet"? I've read things in cookies that were more definite and useful.

But maybe that's just one bad entry. Rather than throw it out, I've decided to hang the calendar in the most appropriate place I can think of: in my bathroom over my toilet. May the stars continue to be my guide in 2021.

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While we're dealing with the double whammy of toilet paper and beef shortages, it's important to remember that there are still some silver linings to our current situation. For example:

Normally preferring to keep no more than $10 worth in at a time, I fully fill up the gas tank in my Jeep less often than once every half-a-dozen blue moons. But market-crash induced gas prices have been so good lately, I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

What disaster will lead to the Jeep's next full tank? I guess we'll find out when we get there.

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I've been wondering how I will remember these dark days when we come out the other side. Travel restrictions, face masks, food shortages.... Frankly, we probably should have experienced it before now. America has been continuously at war with someone or other since 2001, and the public hasn't experienced any hardships like what happened in previous wars. Would we still be in Afghanistan if Americans had to share rolls of toilet paper in 2002?

Waaaaay back in the first week of March, when it became clear to everyone that this Covid-19 thing was going to be a real problem for neo-isolationist America, I rather naively believed that if everyone hunkered down, it would all blow over within two months. What a sucker I was for assuming everyone in the country was taking the plague very, very seriously. Like, prison solitary confinement seriously. However, I failed to take into account that no one can tell an American that they can't enjoy a Big Mac while test-firing their AR-15 inside the church of their choice. 'Merica!

It's now quite obvious that this thing isn't going to be over any time soon. I'm no president, but even I recognize that we can't start to relax restrictions until we know actually who has and who can spread the disease. Two months in, we've managed to test less than one percent of the country. At the current pace, it will take another sixteen years to test the rest. That speed will inevitably accelerate, but by any metric, we're still many months away from where we need to be for resuming what used to pass as "business as usual."

Personally, I'm still terrified that I'll catch the disease and give it to my family. Last month, I broke my piggy bank to renew my UGA football season tickets, but I cannot imagine that I'd attend any of those games if something doesn't drastically change in the next five months. Given the pace of progress, I'm beginning to suspect those games won't be played at all, at least not with fans in the stadium. I don't know what I'll do without football — specifically college football, that is. If the NFL doesn't play this fall, it may be a good excuse for me to give it up. It's not like the Dolphins have been all that entertaining over the past two decades.

I don't have much of a reputation for "staying positive," but I'm trying. Fewer cars on the road will help with global warming. Families will have time together they otherwise never would have experienced. People can explore new hobbies. For example, I'm now delivering what groceries I can find to my father, who is spending his time writing Trump fan fiction. Such is life in 2020.

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I just had a pollen-induced nose bleed that consumed an inordinate amount of my toilet paper supply. Tick the Doomsday Clock one second closer to midnight.

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Plague Sequestration Update, Stardate 97840.49:

I finally had to replace the roll of toilet paper in my bathroom. That was the first time I had to do that since this COVID-19 sequestration began.

I still have 9 rolls in the closet. By my reckoning, I won't need to plan a heist from my local McDonald's men's room until the first week of August.

The calendar has been marked.

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Jacob stood in the deserted street and looked up at the large, faded sign.

He had been sent to live with his aunt in Wyoming when the outbreak had started. It was for his own safety, his parents had said. What with the riots and looting and hand-sanitizer made by state prisoners, not to mention the virus itself, the city was just too dangerous.

We'll be back for you just as soon as the shelter-in-place order is lifted, said his mother from behind her n-95 respirator mask. His father gave him a comic book, one of the last printed before the country's last comics distributor had shut down. Then his parents had fist-bumped him goodbye and driven away.

His aunt died from the virus two weeks later. (If only they'd tested her!)

Faced with the dreary fate of slowly starving until he was reduced to eating his aunt's massive, unused toilet paper stockpile, Jacob made the only decision he could. He carefully wrapped his few precious possessions in a hobo bindle and set out on foot.

It was a harrowing journey. The wasteland was a wild and unforgiving place filled with roving gangs of self-driving Teslas fighting over solar energy charging stations. At night, Jacob struggled to sleep under a brilliant sky filled with the reflected glow from SpaceX's Starlink satellites.

It took nearly a month and all of Jacob's determination, but he finally made it to a place where he wouldn't have to grow up, a neverland without end. The sign in front of him said it all. "TOYS R US."

Jacob couldn't wait to see what wonders lay behind the darkened windows. He made camp in the lonely parking lot and waited for the first employee of the day to come and unlock paradise.

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