L ATIMES.COM/TRAVEL WSCE SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2020F5
T ELL US ABOUT IT
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us at [email protected].I
R EMEMBER BEING really
disappointed by the Keira
Knightley and Steve Carell movie
“Seeking a Friend for the End of
the World.” Maybe it was because
I couldn’t buy them as a couple
given their age difference, or
maybe it was her acting (“chin acting,” as
I’ve heard it called). Or maybe it was that
I, an independent college student, had
taken myself to see it alone in 2012and
had to sit in an auditorium of families and
couples and friends, all of us crying over a
movie whose premise is basically: How
not to die alone.
I ran into a friend on a recent morning,
both on our daily (socially distanced)
walk around Echo Park Lake. He re-
marked that it’s hard to wake up every
day and not feel like it’s the end of the
world. I, of course, emphatically agreed.
He then went on to say how the self-
quarantine has been fun overall because
he lives in a big house with four of his best
friends and three of them have girl-
friends, so there’s always like seven of
them just chilling. They’d just enjoyed
this epic meal with homemade ravioli
and Greek salad made by two of the guys
who are Greek, “so it was pretty dope.”
I thought about telling him about my
last meal — homemade tortillas and
vegan walnut taco “meat” with vegan
cashew cheese and some salsa I had
sitting in the back of the fridge.
To be honest, it didn’t feel all that
dope. It felt lonely.
This is the closest it’s ever felt to the
end of the world to me, and I am indeed
living it out alone.
It’s the exact feeling that made me cry
in the theater by myself in 2012. And it’s
the exact feeling that made me cry while
trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle Sat-
urday night. Alone.
I let myself have another little ugly cry
and then immediately called Isobel.
We’ve known each other since kindergar-
ten. We talk almost every day, especially
now, to check in on each other and we
always ask about each other’s parents.
And every time she asks I get to tell
her how well my parents are doing, going
on daily walks and cooking a lot — my
mom has perfected a sesame-ginger stir
fry — and enjoying their cocktails. (Red
wine for my dad, a cosmo for my mom.)
They make 30-plus years of marriage look
pretty great.
If anything, this shelter-in-place pe-
riod just means they get to spend more
time together(except for the part about
my dad working from home and closing
the door to the office, which upsets their
elderly cat, so she meows at the door,
forcing my mom to take her upstairs and
sit with her — all of which I hear about on
the phone regularly). But as for feeling
lonely or isolated, depressed and hope-
less — I haven’t heard either of them
mention anything close to those words.
I haven’t heard anything close to
those words from friends living with
friendsor those in serious relationships.
It’s probably hard to be around the
same people day in and day out. But
what’s so bad about being socially dis-
tanced from everyone except the person
you love? Not being able to be closer than
6 feet from your friends or strangers is
awful, sure. But still being able to touchand be held by and be intimate with your
significant other lessens the blow.
This is a bizarre time to be single.
Isobel described it as being in the prime
of our lives and wasting it sitting on the
couch. That made me cry too. Not out of
vanity or the fact that I’m perhaps wast-
ing my youth — OK, mid-20s — indoors.
But because I’m doing it alone.
Because anyone I was semi-excited
about seeing before coronavirus is a
distant memory. Because I don’t know
when the next time is that I’ll be able to
safely hug someone. Let alone kiss some-
one. Or more.
I fostered a dog last week out of des-
peration, and he seems to already love
me and wants to cuddle. But I can’t hold
a conversation with him. He won’t ask me
out to dinner or hold my hand walking
down the street. And if this is truly the
end, he won’t understand when I whisper,
“I’m really glad I got to know you” in his
ear, a single tear falling down my face, my
chin quivering as the bright light of the
apocalypse slowly consumes us ...
And maybe that’s OK. Because as
much as it does feel like I’m living the
final scene of “Seeking a Friend for the
End of the World,” I know that I’m not.
And as much as it feels like this is
never going to end, I know that it will.
I woke up this morning with thelittle
guy snuggled against my leg. His name is
Mr. Finley. He’s a 10-year-old terrier mutt,
and I’ve already decided there’s no way I
can ever let him go. I can’t say this new
pal is a cure-all (he puked on the rug
yesterday), but he’s my reason to go
beyond just sitting on my couch waiting
for this pandemic to end.
He’s warming my cold, lonely, self-
pitying heart day by day.The author is an actor, currently in
“Motherland: Fort Salem” on Freeform.
She is on Instagram @sarahyarkin.Verónica GrechFor The TimesL.A. AFFAIRSALONE TO THE FINISH?
T
R AVELERS HAVE
myriad things to worry
about because of the co-
ronavirus, but federally
compliant driver’s licenses
and new paperwork that would have
been required to enter more than two
dozen European countries are not
among them for now.
Both have been postponed.
First, the implementation of Real
ID, the federally compliant driver’s
license that was supposed to be re-
quired for boarding a domestic flight
beginning Oct. 1 (if you didn’t use a
passport or some other acceptable
identification)has been postponed
until Oct. 1, 2021.
The desire for a more secure form of
identification is based on legislation
that became law in 2005 on the recom-
mendation of the 9/11 Commission. Its
implementation has been postponed
several times, but an Oct. 1, 2020, dead-
line seemed firm until the coronavirus
outbreak.
Even before then, concerns sur-
faced about the readiness of the flying
public. A study by the U.S. Travel Assn.
released in the fall showed that most
Americans didn’t understand what the
requirement was or didn’t know
whether they had a Real ID.
Other obstacles popped up. Cali-
fornia thought it had the OK to issue
Real ID using an address verification
process similar to one used in Wiscon-
sin. Both states had received permis-
sion from the Department of Home-
land Security. But DHS then changed
its mind late in 2018.
Other bumps along the way to Real
ID included passports that wouldn’t
scan, meaning some residents had to
resort to certified birth certificates. If a
name had changed because of, say, a
marriage, a marriage certificate was
required (or several certificates de-
pending on the number of marriages
and name changes). Long waits for an
appointment at the DMV also became
an issue. In-person appointments are
required for Real ID.
DMV offices closed last week.E TIAS ON HOLD
>Additional paperwork for American
travelers, known as the European
Travel Information and Authorization
System, was to have been required for
26 countries beginning next year, but
that date has been postponed until late
2022.
Although the paperwork is often
referred to as a visa, the European
Commission rejects that descriptor.
U.S. citizens are not required to obtain
a visa to visit Austria, Belgium, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta,
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portu-
gal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
and Switzerland.
The preauthorization, which would
cost about $8, is a security precaution
to help European countries secure
borders.Have a travel problem, question or
dilemma? Write to travel@latimes
.com. We regret we cannot answer
every query.Real ID,
ETIAS are
postponed
BY CATHARINE HAMMON THE SPOTTHERE WAS ONLY ONE WAY TO AVOID MY CORONAVIRUS SPIRAL. BY SARAH YARKIN
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