These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Lazy morning, giving myself a lie in after a mad few weeks. Finishing off Crime and Punishment while herself sleeps. Hard to appreciate older books and movies without context. I’ll spend some time reading up on Dostoevsky this eve.
2
The health minister here in Indonesia was confident that prayer would keep us safe from coronavirus. No surprise: that didn’t work. Two confirmed cases in Jakarta today. Hopefully now they’ll get their finger out and start taking it seriously.
3
Finished up my finance report for February: $6484 in affiliate income for the month, a new high. Skewed a bit by late payments, but I’m averaging about $3800 in affiliate income the past four months. Tis coming along nicely.
4
Spent a few hours this morning doing research for a future home base. We’ve narrowed it down to two European cities. Lots of factors to consider, but a big one is taxes. The difference between living in one city versus the other for three years could be as much as €50,000.
5
Said I wasn’t going to focus on video but ended up scripting, shooting and editing a 10-minute video today. It’s fairly rough but it’ll do. Probably far more people will see that than all the written content it’s based on.
6
This pandemic scare reminds me how little we appreciate normal times. Like, you know, four months ago. We had it good then, didn’t we? Someday soon we might have epic climate change shit to deal with, too. Today’s problems might seem tame by comparison.
7
Who is the most memorable person you met briefly and never heard of again? I think we’ve all encountered people like that. I’ll always remember that old man doing magic tricks in a Venezuelan bus station. And that macho masseur who spun me around a wet slab in Istanbul.
8
Still no confirmed cases of coronavirus here in Bali. Good chance it’s here and spreading but they simply don’t have the means to test and detect it properly. The streets are emptier than they used to be. We’re due to leave at the end of the month.
9
Scratch that. We leave on Thursday. Good chance we’ll be stuck here if we stay another three weeks, and methinks it’s not the best place to be stuck. Decided not to head home in case I’m carrying. Booked a flight to Tbilisi, Georgia instead.
10
I’m hearing people saying coronavirus is just another flu, that you have more chance of dying in a car crash, etc. This is stupid, shallow thinking. We’re dealing with a different beast here. China shut down its entire economy to stop this thing. That should tell us all we need to know.
11
Pushing close to my edge trying to get everything ready for us to leave tomorrow. It’s been a mad few days, busy and stressful, not good for my immune system. Which makes me more likely to get sick. Which could leave me stuck here.
12
In a taxi on my way to the airport. A lady died from coronavirus in Bali yesterday. She’d been in hospital a week but they had to send her sample to Jakarta to get tested. Give it another week and I expect there will be many more cases here. Glad I’m almost gone.
13
Flying over Iran, one of the hardest-hit countries right now. I see lots of barren land, small towns in the mountains, snow on a few peaks. Read a report earlier that they’ve been digging mass graves down there for victims of the virus. What world is this?
14
Holed up in this Airbnb in Tbilisi, alternating between Netflix marathons and watching the world burn. Okay, so it’s not that bad, but it feels like the news gets worse by the hour. More dead, more infected, more restrictions, more fear, more confusion.
15
2:30am, on the way to the airport to meet my lady. She’ll be here just in time. Tomorrow Russia will shut borders with Georgia and Belarus. Slowly but surely, every door is being closed. It’s one of those rare times when you realize you’re living in history.