(Previously in the Captain’s Log)

Apparently War and Peace is having an effect on me, because when I sat down to work on a comic this week, these intrepid gentlemen were all that came to mind. I’m in Book 2 right now, which is a lot of battlefields. #TolstoyTogether is still my favorite part of social distancing, so far.

Today I’m working on positive thinking and stretching my body a little bit, since I spent the past couple of days becoming too freaked out about the seeming randomness of the virus symptoms. I could talk more about this, but for one thing, it’s mainly hypochondria, and for another, I do not wish to spread my own anxious hysteria to others. Let me say instead that all the sunflower seeds I planted are starting to come up, and I am looking forward to the way, in a month or two, they will stand straight and mighty in my garden, their spines swaying in the breeze, their large sunny faces just visible from the window of my studio.

Let me share a couple of things that have been cheering me up (besides friendship, love, the weather, my dog, the spring flowers, the hawks that circle above our neighborhood) in this time of inner sanctum:

• You can stream indie movies via our local cinema The Loft, and the theatre splits profits with the distributor. Saint Frances made me cry, in a nice way. (It’s not quite going to the movies, but it helps me feel like the movies will still be there, and they’re good films!)
• Patrick Stewart made the new Star Trek: Picard series free from now until April 23 with the code GIFT, because he is the Captain we need right now (I mean, coherent government would be nice too, but this is what I have for you)
• Buying books from your local indie bookstore (I put in an order with my beloved Antigone Books here in Tucson): many are doing free or discount shipping, and/or curbside pickup. If you don’t have a bookstore nearby, or can’t go out of your house, you can order via Bookshop.org, which delivers by mail & splits proceeds with your local indies. Here is an example of a book you can buy from them! And another!
• Hug a dog
• Hug a person who is already in your house and therefore stuck with you
• Lie down on the ground outside and let the sun warm your wretched human body; slowly remember that the earth is alive and you are a part of it, that space as we know it is infinite and expanding, that you are meaningless but in a nice way, that time is a construct, that the sun, that same sun, feels so nice on your skin.