March 9, 2020 - My birthday is on a Monday. News about coronavirus has been swirling for months now but has started escalating in the past few days. Two days from now, it will be declared a pandemic. Four days from now, my workplace will decide to switch to remote work for “two weeks.” The cases in Los Angeles are increasing rapidly. The curve is not flat. There is a sense that the world is about to change, but hasn’t yet. In the evening, I gather with about fifteen other friends at The Semi-Tropic in Echo Park. There’s a full moon. We take over an entire corner of the lounge, claiming the leather booth that lines the wall in a half-square shape. We make sure to wash our hands often and refrain from touching the table. We joke about the recent “handwashing instructions” graphic that’s circulating the internet, and the various memes that people have made of it, including setting it to the lyrics of that song in the recent Reply All episode. One friend scrolls Twitter during the party and announces to the room which events have just been cancelled. Coachella. The LA Times Festival of Books. Within a matter of days, more states will issue “Shelter in Place” orders, and grocery stores will see a run on toilet paper and beans. A few of us stay late for 10pm karaoke. When people leave, some decline to hug. We’ve been breathing in the same crowded room for hours but we open the doors with our elbows. Later, more than one friend will remember this night as their last hurrah before the world changed. In less than a month, it will seem utterly foreign that we ever gathered in bars.

March 9, 2026. My birthday is on a Monday. I gather with my boyfriend and three friends at The Semi-Tropic. I don’t think I’ve set foot inside this bar since March 9, 2020. Some of the friends who were at that party are not my friends anymore. I have had Covid once since that night. Somehow only once. I’ve lost my father. I’ve become an aunt to two nieces. I have four more tattoos, including one I got today— a nasturtium on my bicep. A birthday present to myself. The pandemic isn’t over. I still mask as often as possible - at grocery stores, on public transit, in medical settings, at the theatre, at mutual aid events. My psyche has dissembled and rearranged in the six years that have passed since the last time my birthday was on a Monday, as has the world’s.