“Banish the ghost of coronaaaaahhh…” Before my trip to Kenya, I went to Passport Health, a traveler’s clinic for immunizations and fear needling. There, I was handed a terrifying brochure filled with the potential dangers of my destination. Typhoid. Hepatitis. Yellow fever. And a long list of other shit-inducing diseases borne of filth and mosquitoes and the social nature of human existence. It totaled $1500 to completely mitigate the fear of the unknown. I paid $500 to slightly assuage it, which my Kenyan friend found baffling and idiotic. I also paid dearly for taking the live Typhoid pills that made me vomit for hours on end over the course a week. I took off into an exponentially panicked world. When I left one week ago, the novel coronavirus drifted in and out of the public consciousness. It still felt like a somewhat foreign concept. Other people’s problems. A few days after I landed, COVID-19 did too. Blessedly not via the conduit of me. Since then, it feels like the entire world has screeched to a …

“I always know where I am by the way the road looks. Like I just know that I’ve been here before. I just know that I’ve been stuck here. Like this one fucking time before, you know that? Yeah. There’s not another road anywhere that looks like this road. I mean exactly like this road. It’s one kind of place. One of a kind. Like someone’s face. Like a fucked up face.” – River Phoenix, My Own Private Idaho no label – vintage beach dress $5, ReStyle thrift store.

“Do you know how fast you were going?” the state trooper inquired, inching down his aviators. He lay in wait in a mirage-like speed trap on the desert highway. I spotted him too late, then caught him creeping out onto the highway in the rearview. “Fuck.” This vintage white Caddy with the blood red interior must look like a drug dealer’s wet dream. I fluttered my Bambiest of doe eyes. “I actually don’t. This only goes up to 85.” I gestured to the speedometer, that did, in fact, cap off at the age of the grandmas usually behind the wheel of this particular old-school luxury vehicle. A wry grin flashed across his face, turned on as instantaneously as those red and blue lights. When he came back, he gave me a warning, and this cogent piece of advice, “If that needle gets to 85, slow down!” Jessica McClintock maroon(ed) long sleeveless dress – $3.99, ReStyle Thrift Store | ADAY Something Borrowed black traveling button up shirt – $125, thisisADAY.com | Crocs (but the fashion-y kind) black fleece-lined slip-ons – …

On the menu… appetizer: Polish sausage w/ sauerkraut, split in two – J Dawgs (pictured) main: A dozen oysters on the half shell w/ fresh grated wasabi. Arugula salad. French onion soup. – White Horse dessert: J.S. Ondara show – The State Room Ralph Lauren gold & black striped long-sleeved shirt – $2.99, ReStyle | Liz Claiborne black skirt – $3.99, ReStyle | Frye knee-high black leather boots – $75, Bombshell & Blokes “head to boots” fall make-up event Cheep eats

I’m lost. Not, like, literally. I’m not still in Wendell, being gawked at by pumpers at the gas station across the street, as Kim and I pose in our driving clothes in front of the abandoned Ace (one storefront over from the brilliantly-named Grizzly Dairy Wear). What I need is a big phallic tarot card, telling me, in what I assume is a Barry White ASMR voice, “Hey girl, you’re magic. Poof. It’s all in you. Everything you need to do.” And then—like magic, like I’m wand-renewed with a psyche scrubbed clean of the plaque of regret, longing, fear, and inertia—I do everything I am designed to do. Like it’s in the cards. 12 pm by Mon Ami floral print long-sleeved shirt – $2.99, ReStyle Thrift Store | Hot Kiss jean jacket – $5.99, ReStyle Thrift Store | Dizzire black and white print pants – Idaho Youth Ranch, $4.75 | Crocs (but the fashion-y kind) black fleece-lined slip-ons – $20, Crocs.com Note: Every outfit for this trip was recently purchased during one glorious visit to …