Good News from the Resistance: You’d think that someone who writes a blog called Good News would have a helluva time coming up with content the week she panic-bought frozen spinach, honey peanut butter, and green curry paste, and went to three stores in search of out-of-stock toilet paper. Yes, I wake up most mornings with a feeling of dread. Yes, before I get out of bed I check the New York Times to see if the world has come to an end, or if Mitch is feeling feverish. But then something happens: I read my Facebook feed, and I’m reminded how friggin’ clever my “Friends” are. My will to face another day of lockdown returns.
What did you do Week 1 of the Acknowledged Apocalypse?
My highlights: 1) Whispered in my dog’s ear that mummy and daddy have been vegetarian for 30 years, therefore it is highly unlikely that we’ll eat her if the food system completely crumbles and we run out of tofu and beans, 2) bought an iRobot Roomba and followed it around the house for an hour, giving it helpful feedback like, “bitch, you missed that corner!,” 3) got all judgey with my husband when, after teaching his first on-line class he opened a bottle of wine at 4 p.m. — then soon after I read a stranger’s Facebook post confessing she’d been starting at 3:15, which prompted a generous pour and apologetic bottoms up!, 4) practiced making dinner using only frozen food and canned items (I had a refrigerator full of fresh produce), just to see if I could do it, then spiraled into a self-loathing depression when I cheated and added fresh parsley. I’m fine. Really.
We’ve been training for this for decades. Remember all the moaning we did about the evils of the Internet and social media? Take it all back! Thanks to a burst of rapid-fire creativity and technical know-how, we can now live our best lives without leaving the house.
Thanks to the Internet and social media, there is a panoply of on-line activities for kids like story time, drawing lessons, home-schooling, and joke books; there are DIY pantry recipes, live-streamed cooking lessons, meditation and yoga classes, opera, too many concerts to keep up with, museum tours, Broadway musicals, and stunning dance performances.
Thanks to the Internet and social media, if you’re locked-down in Italy you can watch Pornhub for free, if you’re sheltering-in-place in the U.S. you can get fresh food delivered more ways than you ever imagined, and if you act quickly, you can get Passover in a Box (Seders will be cancelled because of a plague. Isn’t it ironic?). With more time to cook, we can be inspired any time of the day by Julia Child. Sunflower Farm has shown us the calming power of goats, and it’s reassuring to know how to make a DIY face mask.
Thanks to the Internet and social media, we know that the Field Museum in Chicago let a dinosaur run free, and the aquarium let the penguins out. Already there’s an excellent resource on How to Plague. We know that drive-in movies will be making a comeback, Major League Baseball has a heart, neighborhoods are creating Kindness Committees, Care-Mongering and Mutual Aid Networks, that good samaritans with 3-D printers are making respirator parts and so are glassblowers. People are replacing books with food in their Little Free Libraries, and San Franciscans are signing up to send meals to overworked medical clinicians.
Here’s what I also know: What we’re living through is horrible. And in the 3+ years I’ve been writing Good News, there has never been too much Good News to fit into an issue — until now. The seemingly boundless creativity and kindness of our fellow humans is awe-inspiring. Yes, we can do this.
Now, about Mitch: If he does get sick, I plan to start a campaign urging everyone to mail Get Well (Not!) cards, offering our Thoughts and Prayers. You in?
Yes, there’s lot of FUNNY Good News from the Resistance:
- Cheer for the teachers who are learning how to teach on-line
- Read the first lines of famous poems revised for the Age of Coronavirus
- Watch what happens when Trevor Noah sings from his balcony in NYC
- Listen to the Liberal Redneck’s dispatch from isolation
- Chuckle at the first lines of famous novels that have been rewritten for Social Distancing
- Choose your favorite Quarantine Tweet
- See if you can watch this video and not cry (even if you never liked The Carpenters)
- Give to No Kid Hungry to help get food to kids who normally get it in school. And avoid these items when you are in a food store.
Sign Up. Show Up. Never Give Up.
WE 
SINGING TEACHERS
While college students were sent home, their teachers had to learn how to teach on-line. More than one old dog had to learn a new trick.
WE POETRY THAT MAKES US SMILE
And you will, too.
WE Trevor Noah EMULATING THE ITALIANS
At least he tried.
WE THE LIBERAL REDNECK
(Even if he’s non-PC).
Watch the Liberal Redneck News
WE NOVELS FOR SOCIAL DISTANCING
And now we have more time to read them.
Read the Updated Literary News
WE FUNNY TWEETS
And you can read so many of them so quickly!
WE THIS VIDEO
Full disclosure: It made me cry.
WE FEEDING HUNGRY KIDS
Give to No Kid Hungry to help get food to kids who normally get it in school. And avoid these items when you are in a food store.
I love this! I bookmarked it so that I can keep coming back. The dance link had me swooning. Your feedback to the iRoomba had me laughing so hard that I fell on the floor. Good thing that I don’t have one or else it wouldn’t have known what to do with me. Thank you for this uplift.
I subscribed to the the “Good News” awhile ago, and I admit I never really read it very thoroughly… until today. Damn, am I ever glad I did! I really needed some good news today, and this totally lifted my spirits. Sadly, I need to be reminded that people do care and are capable of doing some pretty amazing things when put under pressure. Thank you!