I admit to a certain amount of distraction on this morning before the primary....

I know, as the proprietor of a political website, even one focused on the bottom of the ballot, that I am supposed to be fully engaged in the primary, and I will, I promise, get back to it, though I didn't get back to it yesterday as I thought I would.

Instead of engaged, I am confused.

Why are we doing this?

Every other social activity has been curtailed in the last week.

Sure, I understand momentum and money, lots of money, behind the election machinery. But there was a lot of money, much more money in fact, in pro sports, and in the collegiate tournaments. And momentum? The build-up to the NCAA basketball tournaments is more astounding every year. But the tournaments got cancelled anyway.

My youngest son is an assistant baseball coach at Illinois Tech (what we used to call the Illinois Institute of Technology). First, his spring training trip got cancelled. Then, his season. It's a D-III school, so the seniors on his team who were robbed of their final season were spared the discomfiture of crying before prying television cameras, as some local athletes, in higher profile programs, were not. But there were tears, just the same. And now my son is cleaning out his desk at school (he teaches in a south suburban middle school) trying to set his students up to learn from home for the foreseeable future.

My oldest son travels for a living. That went by the boards. For relaxation, he watches sporting events. He was planning on using some miles for a Spring Training trip to Arizona to see the budding White Sox powerhouse. Gone, all gone. With their busy schedules, he and his wife don't cook a lot at home; they dine out regularly.

Yesterday, that was taken away, too.

I could go on, but everyone reading this has their own stories, some far more serious. We are all disrupted. All at sea.

I know these harsh restrictions are imposed as much for my benefit as anyone's. I am in reasonably good health -- coughing and sneezing and dripping off and on since before Christmas, battling congestion and fatigue -- but my grandchildren are young, and they have nothing to give me but their germs. That was funnier a week or two ago. Besides, my wife (a teacher, too) has come home all winter with stories about this family or that one succumbing first to Influenza A, then Influenza B, then strep; at our worst, we were doing better than so many. The point is, I've been largely vertical all winter, able to help out with transport to or from school or doctor or to pick up and deliver sundries.

Now, I'm told, I'm at particular risk. A cancer survivor, I have far less colon than standard issue. But I think the real concern may be that, before I was 30, I had sarcoidosis. It was asymptomatic -- found by accident, really, while a surgeon was rummaging around in my chest looking for something else. This latest plague creates real problems with breathing, inexplicably worse in some than others. As the kid in high school who always finished last in the mile run -- even behind the really fat kid -- and, mind you, I was not a smoker then -- I'm a little concerned about whether my lungs will be equal to the virus when I get it.

So I'm worried about myself. And my kids. And my grandkids. And the economy. How long can people remain on salary 'working from home?' Money is evaporating in the stock market just as fast as if stacks of cash were piled in bushels and burned. Probably faster. And hourly workers in restaurants and bars, and those dependent on tips, are going to be without funds for the foreseeable future. How long must we hide in our homes until this contagion is contained?

And, yet, the election -- and only the election -- must go on.

The one in November, sure. That must happen regardless. But a primary? It could be done in August as easily as March.

But, no, we are told, it must happen, and it must happen tomorrow on schedule.

So... yes, I'm a little distracted this morning. Sorry.