Plugged In or Unplugged

I was so excited to continue my honeymoon today after work, having made a plan to pick up my friends' bikes and bring them back to my house before taking them to the bike shop tomorrow. Such an ambitious plan was brought to a grinding halt when my car would not start, making an awful grinding noise itself.

I had taken my CR-V out for a couple short trips this week to the post office and U-Haul, but maybe not frequently enough during Coronatime to keep it charged well. I attempted to use a charging unit my dad bought me years ago from Sears (his favorite store, may it rest in peace). I hooked up the unit to the battery terminals and tried starting the car. Nothing. The exterior and interior lights worked. The radio worked. The engine would not turn over and the dashboard indicators looked like bad strobe lights at a dance party. I looked at the instructions again for the charging unit and realized I was connecting the negative cable to the wrong place. Correcting that error didn't help, either. My neighbor and landlord graciously came over with a gadget that slowly charges the car overnight. Maybe it's the battery? Maybe it's the starter? Plugged in. Slowly recharging. Will the light turn from red to green overnight? Time will tell.

Waiting for the green light.

Nine times out of ten when I talk to my father or my grandfather, they will ask me, "How is your car," as if it's some extension of my person or a friend of mine. Today, my car, currently hooked up to life support, seems like a good metaphor for what's going on with me. My internal battery feels a bit drained from living in a two-dimensional, pixelated world, from sitting in my home office for eight hours a day answering an endless stream of emails and having Teams video conferences with my coworkers on the spur of the moment. A Facebook friend posted the other day that she didn't have any Zoom meetings (on a weekday, no less), and I found myself slightly jealous. Staying home is exhausting. Going out is exhausting, too. Thinking about reopening the state wearies and worries me.

Won't some kind person come over with a battery pack and connect me to it for a while? I'll let you know when the light goes green.