Eggs! Get your eggs here.

It's 2020.03.01 on the lunar calendar today.

How's everyone faring at home? Despite many things being canceled, I've been swamped, leaving little time to step out. I'm accustomed to staying put; in fact, when I used to live at I-House, a dorm for grad students in NYC, I'd sometimes go for days at a time hunched over work in my 8'x11' rooftop room until I'd start feeling like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and finally step outside.

The reality of our situation didn't click until I heard news of a current resident at I-House passing away due to complications from the virus. It has been a reverberating shock to learn that someone in my extended community has become a casualty of the outbreak and I feel myself grieving. We need to act in service of public health, to mitigate the consequences of these times.

Make art.

Pictured are Joseph and his brothers, a dozen almonds I drew on in one of my frequent visits to see family in a cancer ward in Korea. Doodling stuff like this and making frivolous things like 

fingers with hair

 helped me pass the time in a season of anxiety and tragedy. I brought back the almonds in a clear sleeve as souvenirs for my mom and she still has them, though more shriveled and darker now.  

What was the occasion pictured above? This was after some days on a ship on the Rio Negro in the Amazon, where there was a real dearth of food that I was willing to eat (my friends partook more politely than I did from the gracious villagers that hosted us along the way and took turns getting sick). My friend's mom had tucked away this loaf of chocolate cake to pull out at a critical time to help us kids aka young adults get through the trip and as you can tell by the hands inching toward the cake, we were all very excited for it. (Notice there are multiple people taking photos of this otherwise unremarkable snack. It was definitely an occasion.) 

Seeing empty shelves—no rice?! no soba noodles! no water?—at stores made me think of this moment from a decade ago, even though our current scarcity of food seems to be largely artificial, a result of people hoarding. What's not in short supply is technology and virtual face-to-face meetings. I realized that everyone staying home means that it doesn't matter if my friend is in a far-away city or ten minutes away. Like on Sunday, I was able to "go to church" with a best friend in DC and I actually see my sisters more throughout the day than usual, using a

fun albeit glitchy video-chatting app

. Seeing my baby sis's face and her routine has been bringing me many laughs.

I understand that some people have been unable to get eggs at the grocery store due to the shortage so I offer you the below, as promised.

Fresh and white eggs are here!

Here are eggs and egglettes on a cover of one of my favorite children's songs, the 

Egg Song

, which I've uploaded to my new toy piano channel, Poytiano. I'm also making educational songs like the 

Solfege Song

 below for my little students who I don't get to see anymore—could be useful for anyone trying to teach kids from home 🤓   

I was going to correct some unfortunate copy errors from the last newsletter but it seems meaningless now. I hope you stay healthy and stay home. Be well!