Dreams in the Time of Corona

I had this dream that I relished
The fray
And the screaming filled my head all day
("Nautical Disaster," The Tragically Hip) 

We're all having crazy dreams, right? I don't usually remember mine, but I've started sleeping in four-hour stretches. If I rouse myself when I wake up at the end of those four hours—if I turn on a light, or check my phone, or try to read—I regret it, because I can rarely get back to sleep after that. But if I keep the lights off and my eyes closed, and count backwards or say prayers or recite song lyrics in my head, I usually do fall back asleep, and that's when the dreams come. 

The dreams these days fall into three categories: 

• Dreams in which I am lost, even in familiar settings, where hallways do not lead to expected destinations or roads peter out
• Dreams in which I am unprepared, such as realizing that my high school senior speech is the next day and I haven't even chosen a topic
• Dreams in which I cannot fix whatever's broken, whether it's a car that won't start or a window that shatters or a washing machine that overflows

Nothing here requires much insight. Who could have prepared for this? Even the doomsday preppers seem unequipped. We have no realistic models to project outcomes. We lack the information we need to make good decisions.

This morning I decided to have an English muffin and an orange for breakfast. I am already second-guessing the lack of protein. I should have put peanut butter on the English muffin. Maybe I'll have eggs for lunch. That's the level of planning I feel capable of right now. 

Yesterday I covered a "virtual roundtable" in the House of Representatives—their rules don't allow hearings that don't take place in person—during which a panelist (not witness, because this wasn't a hearing) said that the stock market is a leading indicator of the economy, showing how investors expect the economy to perform about six months from now. 

My eyes rolled so hard I might have injured my optic nerve. If this were ever true—and I'm not at all sure it was—this is nothing but wishful thinking right now. Right now our stock market is nothing more than a virtual game of Pit. It's about the transactions, and I find it increasingly hard to believe it's tied to any underlying intrinsic value. 

Of course, this might be why I'm not rich.