A long time between readings

Eighteen months.

The last time I went out to an event of any sort was Saturday, February 22, 2020. That was the final edition of the Writers' Showcase, held at the Olde Brick Theatre (a.k.a. the Diva Theater) in Scranton, PA. It was an unusual event, to say the least: the founder and co-host of the event was not there; neither, apparently, were the owners/operators of the venue, since the doors were locked and the lights were out. But the other host was there, as were the readers, and a small audience. So we held the event anyway, in the back parking lot of the theater, lit by a sodium vapor light and the stars glowing in a clear, crisp Winter sky, including a recently-dimmed Betelgeuse. (Betelgeuse, an irregularly variable star, had plunged to a dimness never before observed, leading some to speculate that it was about to undergo the supernova explosion waiting at the end of its life. We didn't realize it at the time, but Betelgeuse was already brightening that night; analysis suggests that the dimming was caused by the alignment of an orbiting dust cloud.) The night was cold, the crowd was small, and the threat of the incursion of the COVID-19 virus, which at that point had been spreading rapidly through New York City and Philadelphia and major port cities on the West coast, hung over us - had anyone been to New York or Philadelphia lately? But it was a successful and very enjoyable event.

Eighteen months. One election, one insurrection, over 600,000 people in the U.S. dead of COVID-19 later.

The Blackwatch Cafe was supposed to open before the pandemic hit, but COVID-19 has had a way of messing up everybody's plans. Instead it opened in late April 2021. It is on the grounds of Nay Aug Park in Scranton, in a beautiful stone structure that looks like it might once have served as a guard house of some sort - but was in fact originally the women's lavatory. The poetry reading was conceived just a few weeks before it was held there, after a chance visit to the new coffee shop by poets Michael Czarnecki and Tamar Samuel-Siegel.

Michael and Tamar were the featured poets, and nine additional poets read as well. The event was held on June 19, 2021 - Juneteenth, the first officially recognized Juneteenth in the United States. But it also happened to be the last day of Spring. I read "Springtime by the Numbers," which I had originally written (and read) on the last day of Spring in 2013.

 

Michael Czarnecki

Tamar Samuel-Siegel

Event flyer

In contrast to the February 22, 2020 event - cold, possibly below freezing, though no one seemed particularly uncomfortable during the hour-and-change that we all stood outside under the stars - the weather for the June 19, 2021 event was absolutely beautiful, with lots of sunshine and cool breezes, some possibly brought on by the helicopter which flew over us several times and landed in the park about a hundred yards away. After the event was over but while a few stragglers were still hanging out at the now-closed coffeeshop, a gentle rain began to fall.

It was the first reading at the Blackwatch Cafe, but perhaps just the first of many more to come. Gradually, other venues will reopen and re-establish their regular readings and open mics. 

The last Writers' Showcase in the parking lot of the
Olde Brick Theatre, Scranton, February 22, 2020

**************

New cases of COVID-19 in the United States continue to fall. They have actually fallen to such a level that a linear y-axis is becoming less and less useful. Switching to a logarithmic scale for the y-axis makes the current downward trend more visible. Cases are now at a level not seen since the fourth week of March 2020.

The Writers' Showcase event mentioned above took place on February 22, 2020 - a date that doesn't even show up on the graphs here, which I have chosen to start on March 1, 2020. At that point the disease was spreading rapidly, but the mass dying hadn't started yet. Things would get very bad very quickly, and then get worse, and worse, and worse. 

The Pandemic: Year One

Yellow crocus at cemetery, March 13, 2021

One year. One lost year.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been going on for longer than that. The dying started in late 2019. The early epicenter was Wuhan, China. By the time the world knew what was happening, it was too late to stop it from spreading across the world, and probably had been for some time.

COVID-19 is unusual. Highly contagious, yes, as any good virus should be. Kills quite a few of the people who get it and develop symptoms - not ideal for a virus, but acceptable as long as infected individuals do their job of spreading the virus before they die. Asymptomatic spread is a hallmark of COVID-19, and that's unusual. 

In the past, asymptomatic carriers of disease (like "Typhoid Mary") were unusual enough to make their way into the history books and national lore. Now the standard operating procedure for COVID-19 is: an individual gets infected by breathing in virus particles that an infected person has breathed out, the virus infects them, they spend about two weeks being contagious without showing any symptoms, and then they develop symptoms while continuing to be contagious. Some of the people who develop symptoms die. Some recover completely. Some recover and suffer lifetime consequences. 

And the symptoms! The consequences! Roll the dice, see what you get: lungs that look like frosted glass on an X-ray, "COVID toes," intense generalized pain, chronic cough,  difficulty breathing, loss of smell and taste, hair loss, and lots more. Maybe you'll get some. Maybe you'll get only a few. Maybe you'll die in just a few days. Maybe you'll hang in for weeks, months even, and then you'll recover. Or die.

In the first year, over 2.6 million people have died of COVID-19 worldwide, more than 530,000 in the United States alone.* The United States had an increase in deaths of 15%. in 2020 compared to previous years. In some countries, the rate of "excess deaths" for 2020, the number of deaths in excess of what would be expected based on past data, exceeds 50%.

And there are people who will dispute every one of these things. They will tell you that COVID is "just the flu." They will tell you that masks don't work. That no one has actually died of COVID. That it's the vaccines that are actually killing people.

Oh, we have vaccines now. Two, by Pfizer and Moderna, were developed during the Trump administration, though Pfizer was developed independently of the Federal government. The Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine was approved just a few weeks ago, and teachers began receiving it this week. There are other vaccines in use throughout the world. Mass vaccination programs are taking place worldwide.

We also have a plan now. A plan passed without a single Republican vote. During the Trump occupation, Trump pitted states against each other in competition for critical resources. Chaos was the order of the day. That day is over.

Joe Biden pledged to get 100 million shots into arms in his first 100 days as President. He got us there in his first 50.

We're not done yet. We can still snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. The "new cases" graph may** reflect certain societal movements: the final campaign rally push in September through early November 2020, Thanksgiving gatherings in late November, Christmas in late December. It's undeniable that since mid-January 2021, new cases have dropped dramatically, though the rate of decline has leveled out since mid-February. The CDC is advising a cautious approach, maintaining the rules of masking and social distancing, avoiding crowds and indoor events. Texas and Missisippi have essentially ended all COVID-related restrictions - and the Texas Attorney General is threatening legal action against cities like Austin that have chosen to adhere to CDC guidelines. St. Patrick's Day weekend is upon us. Spring is coming, and Summer is not far behind. The same people who demanded "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! REOPEN NOW!" a year ago are making that same demand again, after nearly one on every 600 Americans has died of COVID-19. New variations of COVID-19 have emerged. Small but significant portions of the population are rejecting vaccination, while larger numbers of people are trying to get vaccinated and cannot, either because they do not yet qualify in their state or they qualify but there are not enough vaccines available for everyone.*** 

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Or will things once again get worse before they get better? Time will tell.

*Last Spring, a friend who was involved in COVID response predicted 500,000 U.S. deaths by the end of 2020. His prediction was off by about seven weeks. My post-election prediction of 400,000 U.S deaths by Inauguration Day was almost exactly correct.

**Europe shows similar increases in the final months of 2020, without Presidential elections or Thanksgiving gatherings, so who the hell knows.

***My mom received her second Moderna shot on March 4, 2021. I received mine on March 6. My brother's entire family has already received both shots, some of Pfizer, some of Moderna. A librarian at a local school district, who also teaches classes and qualifies as an educator, received her Johnson & Johnson shot on Friday, while a librarian at the local library does not yet qualify. My sister, who lives in another state and has multiple health conditions, does not yest qualify for a shot, and other friends who live in the same state as me and who qualify are unable to sign up because of availability.

2020: A brief review

We knew it was coming.

I wish I had saved the tweet. That tweet that someone posted from when the news was just starting to leak out of China in December or early January, news about a highly contagious respiratory disease, a sort of superflu with deadly consequences, rapidly spreading beyond the major city (and international airline hub) of Wuhan. Someone wrote "THERE. That's it. THAT'S what was missing."

On Sunday, January 26, 2020 I was coming back to Nanticoke from a quick afternoon shopping trip. I decided to come through the newly-reopened new road that runs between Route 29 and Kosciuszko Street. Driving past all the newly-built warehouse distribution centers, I thought about all the low-to-middling-wage jobs that had been brought to the area, and wondered how long we would be able to hold onto them - and what it would take to disrupt them. I got home and was greeted with the news that Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and several others were killed in a helicopter crash. The next day, USA Today ran this on their front page:

Even then, we knew. 

We watched through February as the disease raged through Seattle, and New York, and Los Angeles, and San Francisco. We heard about the special affinity had for nursing homes, chewing its way through the captive resident populations. Prisons, too. We watched the first cases appear in Philadelphia, and then in the counties bordering New Jersey. We knew it was here in Pennsylvania. It would just be a matter of time.

One of the first deaths in the area was a man from Hanover Township - or was it the Hanover section of Nanticoke? - who had just come back from a trip to Italy, where the disease was burning through the highly sociable population. 

Saint Patrick's Day weekend came, and suddenly people realized there was a stark choice to be made:  go out like nothing was wrong, or stay home. A lot of people made one choice, a lot of people chose another. Everybody went back to the office on Monday, one big happy workplace family.

Las Vegas shut down, and we knew things were very serious.

Later that week we had a meeting. We would be leaving the building, going home to await further instructions. As I left the office on that last night, I told my friends we would be seeing each other in two weeks to eighteen months. I whistled "The End of the World" by Bob Geldof as I hobbled out on my slowly-healing stress-fractured leg. 

Two weeks later we were back to pick up our computers and headsets. We would be working from home for the indefinite future.

The Spring ground on, became Summer, all feeling like a unending slog - the Long March, some called it, because the world seemed to be frozen as it was when last we had believed ourselves safe and secure. Racial conflicts arose, fueled by a series of police abuses and outright murders. Protests were met with more abuse of authority, and the use of what could generously be called "irregulars" to supplement official forces. The police and their mercenary allies took particular delight in exercising their abuse against members of the media. News crews were attacked and arrested. A photographer was shot in the eye and blinded with a rubber bullet.  A Navy veteran who approached a line of mercenaries in Police gear to ask them on whose authority they were engaging in their unlawful behavior was beaten and pepper-sprayed for his audacity. An assault rifle-toting teenager who had crossed state lines in the hope of engaging in conflict shot and killed several protesters during a confrontation. Another individual was shot and killed by a private security guard for a media group after he attacked the guard and the reporters.

John Lewis died. Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Over 345,000 Americans died of COVID-19. 

COVID-19 forced a rethinking of how elections would be run. Paper absentee ballots became the norm. But at the same time, Trump appointee Louis DeJoy took steps to destabilize the US Postal Service and reduce its ability to handle mail in a timely manner. Millions of voters took their votes to drop boxes. Hundreds of thousands of votes, perhaps more, were likely lost or delayed in the USPS system and never got where they were going. (DeJoy's trumpery would have long-lasting repercussions: I sent out three packages on December 14. One got to Florida on December 18. One got to Columbia, MD on December 26. And one did not get to Dover, PA until December 30.)

Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by the same electoral margin that Trump had defeated Hillary Clinton. Biden also received the largest number of popular votes in history, and defeated Trump by a margin of over seven million votes. Trump, who had declared his defeat of Clinton to be a "landslide," refused to accept (and still refuses to accept) the results of the election.

...and that's pretty much it. Working from home. Ordering what we need online. Making furtive trips to the grocery store and elsewhere to buy the things we can't get online. Going to church online. Not letting my mom out of the house except for trips to the doctor and visits to the cemetery. My leg got better, since I wasn't hiking from the parking lot to my desk every day anymore, and was able to give it time to heal. 

The dying keeps going on. The Trump administration's response to COVID-19 has been a series of failures and disasters. Trump's failure to provide leadership has turned mask wearing into a political issue. The same people who are denying that COVID-19 is a real disease are also furiously denying that Joe Biden won the Presidential election.

The best guesses at when things might return to some sort of normal range from July to October. Other countries have been able to wrestle the disease into submission through stopping social transmission, through the use of bubbles and masks and public compliance with scientific guidance. Not the United States. Our spread is out of control. And still millions had no problem going out and partying to see in the New Year.

The dying isn't over. Trump still has nineteen days in office, and can still do some damage. Things won't magically change January 20, any more than they changed January 1. But we have hope.

Sometimes it feels like that's all we have.

Dream: The Poetry Festival

This dream was lost, and then recovered with some effort. It was from last night.


The pandemic was over. People were happy to go "back to normal," but for many, that wasn't enough. We were having blowouts, making up for lost time, doing the things we hadn't been able to do during however long the pandemic had lasted, but doing them bigger.

One of those things was a poetry festival. It had started out as a poetry reading, but that wasn't enough. The members of the poetry community of Northeastern Pennsylvania had set aside their differences long enough to create a big community event: poetry readings, poetry open mics, seminars, workshops, q&a sessions, special events for kids, all of it held in the Hoyt Library in Kingston, PA.

I have been to the Hoyt Library in real life exactly once, on November 18, 2013, for a poetry reading (with open mic to follow.) I went there with a friend whose mother was in the hospital - dying of cancer, though we didn't know that yet. We stopped at the hospital so my friend could see her mom before we went out for the night, and so she could drop off some clothes. It was just going to be a quick visit, unlike the long visits we had been making every other afternoon. Parking outside of the hospital was difficult, so I dropped her off and waited in the car. After a reasonable amount of time had passed - maybe 15 minutes - I began to get antsy. After a few more minutes, I realized we were losing our safety margin for getting to the poetry reading early. Several minutes later, I realized we were losing our safety margin for getting there late. I parked the car and went inside.

I found my friend in her mother's room, recovering from a panic attack. I was able to ease her out of the attack, and then out of the room. I confirmed that she still wanted to go to the reading - it was featuring a poet we both liked and admired, even though it was being hosted by someone who had a well-earned reputation for being a dick. She did. The reading would be starting in less than five minutes. It would take at least twenty-five minutes to navigate out of Scranton, get on the highway, and get to Kingston and the Hoyt Library. Then we would need to find parking, figure out where in the library the reading was, and hope to slip in before the reading was over. If there was time, we might even read at the open mic.

I drove there at ludicrous speed, holding her hand the whole way.

We got there twenty minutes late. Poetry readings always start late. We knew the featured poet had a lot of material he could choose from, and we hoped he went long. When we got to the library we were greeted by their amazing second-hand book area, as well-stocked as many bookstores. We found the reading in a side room, where the excited babble of many people talking at once suggested to us that it hadn't yet started.

It was over. The featured poet had completed his set. There was no open mic. This was the after-chatter. 

We met up with the featured poet and apologized for missing his performance. I told his son how his father was one of the only poets who had made me cry. We made small talk with other people we knew. I approached the host and expressed regret at having missed the reading, and surprise that everything had ended so quickly. True to form, he snubbed me, not only refusing to respond, but refusing to acknowledge that he had even heard me.

After a side trip to Wilkes-Barre, I drove my friend home, getting lost along the way. At least I got a poem out of that night.

Back to the dream. The poetry event was being held throughout the library. I wandered through and saw many people I knew. I planned to take part in the open mic, and a workshop run by someone I knew, and a seminar or two. I walked past a room and saw a poet friend I have't seen in real life in over a year, doing a reading for a crowd of children. They sat cross-legged on the floor and looked up at her in rapt attention.

People were all crowded together. Talking, laughing, hugging. Reading poetry out loud, in person, for an audience. No masks. No lingering fear of COVID-19.

Just a dream, for now.

The last poetry event I was to: The final edition of The Writers' Showcase, held in the parking lot of the Old Brick Theatre, Scranton PA, the night of February 22, 2020, under the stars, and in freezing temperatures.

The mask dream

I had a dream last night that left me feeling edgy and stressed. It was in a dreamscape I call "Dream Scranton" - a nightmarish, broken-down (that is, even more broken-down) version of the real place, always under a jet-black sky. Which is odd, because (as I would later recall) the dream wasn't set in Scranton, nor was it initially set at night. I wanted to remember it, to record it, but upon waking, I quickly began to forget details.

Then I saw this:

...and it all came flooding back.

The U.S. is reopening. Stores, restaurants, workplaces...the COVID-19 pandemic isn't over, far from it. It's still burning strong. But people have gotten bored, and restless. They want to ignore this problem and get on with their lives, just like we as a society have ignored so many other problems.

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong.

In my dream the Barnes & Noble in Wilkes-Barre Township was reopening. This is actually a pretty heartbreaking situation: Two years ago a tornado tore through the Arena Hub Plaza at closing time. No one was killed, but a lot of stores were badly damaged, and some needed to be demolished. Barnes & Noble was salvageable, despite having the tornado clip the store, but it was closed down for seven months while it was rebuilt, reopening at the end of January 2019. In March 2020, it would be closed down again, this time due to the pandemic. It has not reopened yet. But in my dream, it had.

I took a bus there. I'm not sure why. It's been about thirty years since I've taken a bus anywhere. But I took a bus there, and was thrilled to be back in a store. A store full of people. And books! How I had missed being amongst books. I browsed, half-dazed, opening up books at random, looking at the illustrations, reading passages.

And then I realized I had forgotten a mask.

True story.

I felt absolute terror. How could I put everyone else at risk like this? And then I looked around at all the people in the bookstore with me, and noticed that none of them were wearing masks, either.

Oh, fuck, I have to get out of here, I thought. I had to go home. Get my mask.

Only it was late at night, the buses had stopped running,* and I was twelve miles from home with no mask and no way to get home.

Dozens of people responded to that first tweet above with examples of their own mask dreams. The stress is getting to us. Getting into our dreams. Dreams about forgetting to wear a mask. Dreams about other people not wearing theirs.

The U.S. is starting to reopen, and I'm worried things are about to get a lot worse.

Just wear a damned mask, mmmkay?

*In reality, we started late-night bus service in this area a while back. It's almost 3:00 AM and I just heard one go by.

Poem: keeping watch

keeping watch

(written early in the morning of June 1, 2020)

Less than a week ago we watched a video
for the first time, already viral, already everywhere
of a white police office staring into the camera lens as
he kneels on the neck of a black man
over a matter of a fake twenty dollar bill
(SAY HIS NAME: the black man was Floyd George
the kneeling cop was Derek Chauvan)
the man says the familiar words
made famous by another dying man
a man murdered six years ago for the crime of selling loose cigarettes
(Eric Garner, killed by officer Daniel Pantaleo with an illegal chokehold):
"I can't breathe,"
over and over.

We watched as the cop orders him to stand up
while he continues to kneel on him
Floyd George pleads for his life
cries out to his mother
and dies.

(ALL KNEEL)
(ALL RISE)

We watched as it took days to come,
the rage
the protests
the cries for justice
the opportunists who saw a chance to fuck shit up
the provocateurs who did their jobs in fucking shit up
to create the justification for what would come next

(keep breathing. in, out, through your mask. the trick is to remember to breathe.)
(just don't get the 'vid. wash your hands and say your prayers and stay six feet apart.)

We watched a man knelt upon until he died
and then a few minutes longer for good measure

We watched a reporter arrested for reporting
he told the cops who he was
his camera crew and press badge were hard to miss
"Just following orders," the cops in military gear said
They released him, hours later, after they "confirmed" who he was

We watched local police in full tactical armor
carrying military weapons and driving armored vehicles
no expense spared, as teachers collect box tops for education
try to teach online classes from their own homes
as nurses wear garbage bags and bandannas
and die of COVID-19 anyway

We watched a cop take aim directly at a news crew and fire
rubber bullets, or pepper bullets, no harm done
(just ask Victoria E. Snelgrove
October 29, 1982 - October 21, 2004
she took a pepper bullet to the eye socket and died, horribly,
while celebrating the Red Sox getting into the World Series)

We watched a cop on horseback plow over a protester
another kick a girl in the face as she sat on the ground, weeping
watched cops push down an old man who maybe wasn't moving fast enough for them

We watched a tanker truck barrel down a closed highway
(how did it get on the highway? golly, such a mystery)
aiming for a crowd of protesters
going for the high score
they part before him
his truck stops short of the last few
the cops move in quickly to keep him from harm

We watched marching National Guard fire on
people standing on their own front porch
for the crime of standing on their own front porch

We watched white boys with hammers
white boys smashing the windows of stores
white boys looting them
white boys setting them on fire
black-owned businesses burn in the night

We watched a reporter return to the parking lot where he had left his car
to find that the cops who swarmed the lot had
slashed the tires of his rental
along with the tires of every other car in the lot.

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: 
Say you have 99,999 good cops and 1 bad cop.
But the 99,999 good cops close ranks to protect the 1 bad cop.
How may bad cops do you have?

We watched the lights go out in the White House
its occupant hiding in an underground bunker
(So weit ist es also gekommen?)


We watched until we couldn't watch anymore
and even after we turned it off
it's still there
When will it end?
It's been four hundred and one years
perhaps we're at the halfway mark
keep watching

A white crocus before the storm

Sunday, March 15, 2020. We knew what was coming. We knew what COVID-19 had done in other countries, what it was doing in other parts of our own country. San Francisco had been on lockdown for a while. New York City was about to follow suit, sort of, if it hadn't already. Death was burning its way through nursing homes in Washington and California. The dying had already begun elsewhere, on a scale so small it seems laughable now. Perhaps 150 deaths altogether attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S. by March 15. A far cry from the 100,000 milestone we probably crossed today.

It was St. Patrick's Day weekend. A few days early; the day itself wouldn't be until Tuesday, March 17. But that didn't prevent people from celebrating that weekend, despite the threat posed by the virus, despite the warnings. Some chose to stay home and stay safe, only to find themselves mingling with partygoers when they returned to work on Monday - most workplaces hadn't closed yet. (My own workplace wouldn't close down until March 20.)

I couldn't get a fix on the March 15 data point. By March 18 the U.S. had 189 cumulative deaths attributed to COVID-19.

Governor Wolf hadn't issued the stay-at-home order for Luzerne County yet, and wouldn't for another twelve days. The Bishop of the Diocese of Scranton lifted the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday but did not close the churches; he advised that anyone attending Mass that weekend take appropriate precautions. (I watched the televised Mass held at Saint Peter's Cathedral in Scranton that weekend, and it was obvious that almost no one in attendance was taking appropriate precautions. I imagine the Bishop was as horrified as I was, because he immediately shut down all Catholic churches in the Diocese going forward.) March 15 felt like it might be the last day I could move about freely without concern for an invisible killer lurking in the air. I took my camera and headed out to the cemetery to get photos for my mom, whom I had already been keeping quarantined for a week. To see if the crocuses were blooming.

They were. We had a bumper crop this year: over a dozen purple crocuses, at least one yellow crocus, and a brilliant white crocus that had sprouted up away from all the others. I took numerous photos to share with my mom, to give her a taste of a world she was now locked away from.

The photo at the top of this post is the last photo of that set. The purple and yellow crocuses form a dim background against the granite base of the family tombstone, almost like a tapestry or set painting. The white crocus shines like a brilliant promise of better things to come.

The crocuses are all dead now. The flowering bits, at least. The underground parts are waiting to come back next year. Since that time, nearly 100,000 other Americans have died. Now, without any justification, there's a huge push to reopen, to return to normalcy. "Enough is enough, reopen now!" is the rallying cry. Soon, I fear, the 100,000 dead will seem as quaint and small as the number of deaths on March 15, barely seventy-five days ago.
                                                                     

A dream of reopening in the time of COVID-19

I have been too silent during this time. Now is the time for bloggers to do their damned jobs and write the street-level history of what's happening at whatever phase of this crisis we're in. I've got stuff ready to roll, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to write. Maybe soon.

I had a dream last night that I can remember, and I want to write it down before I forget.

Here in the real world we have adopted what is being called the "new normal": Face masks (usually cloth half-masks covering the mouth and nose) and "social distancing" (maintaining a distance of at least six feet / two meters from other people at all times, far too small by some measures) to avoid transmission of the disease by asymptomatic carriers, people who are sick and contagious but don't know it yet.

The disease is still rampant in the U.S. California and Washington did a good job of squashing their early outbreaks. New York City had their outbreak turn into an inferno, but after a few weeks of half-measures followed by many more weeks of hard work and lots of dying, they have finally "bent the curve" so that new cases and deaths are both trending down. The same is not true for much of the rest of the country, where infections and deaths are on the upswing, but at smaller numbers than New York City's. The net effect is a reduction in numbers, but that hides the story of what is going on outside of New York City.

From the Financial Times. U.S. data as of Friday, May 23, 2020.

After nearly two months of varying levels of isolation and quarantine, people are getting antsy. "Enough is enough, reopen now!" is their rallying cry. Many are making the argument that there is an level of death that is acceptable in exchange for being able to go out to restaurants and beauticians and...flea markets.

Having a second wave of COVID-19 run through NEPA because of a prematurely opened flea market would be very on-brand for this area.  

The wearing of masks has become a political issue. The CDC, despite Donald Trump's efforts to muzzle it, has issued guidelines recommending the use of masks or cloth face coverings to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Right-wing pundits are routinely attacking masks as useless, and their followers have picked up on their cry. In truth, any mask that isn't at least as effective as an N-95 respirator will not protect its wearer from the virus. But that's not what the masks are for. They're basically spit guards, intended to keep you from spewing out droplets of moisture from your moth and nose that can carry the virus and infect others. The mask isn't intended to protect its wearer, but rather everyone around its wearer. Individuals lacking in empathy cannot grasp this concept.

Also, it can look pretty cool.

Right-wing pundit and former journalist Brit Hume is questioning whether this is a good look for future President Joe Biden. Current occupant of the White House Donald Trump refuses to wear a mask, even in situations where all present are required to do so. I think Biden's blacker-than-black mask and aviator sunglasses make him look like the character Validator from Marvel Comics.

The use of masks is strongly recommended in any public place, and is required in many private areas like supermarkets. An anti-mask league has appeared of people adamantly refusing to wear masks, causing disruptions when asked to do so (and occasionally murdering anyone who has the temerity to refuse them entry without a mask), and sneering at, ridiculing, and coughing or even spitting on those who are wearing masks. An informal survey by writer and notorious Twitter troublemaker Gail Simone revealed vast regional differences: in some areas old people wear them, but not the young, and in other places it's the opposite; some places have most people wearing masks, while in others mask-wearing is the exception; and in some cases couples are seen where the woman wears a mask while the man does not. (On a recent grocery store trip the only person I saw not wearing a mask was the woman in a couple; her mask was pulled down around her neck.)

Anyway, about that dream...

I had a dream that restaurants in this area had reopened. Social distancing and mask-wearing were still recommended but not required. Several of my friends and I went out to eat at some restaurant that seemed to have a blue-lit underwater cave theme. I realized as we stood in line to be seated that I had forgotten my mask, but then I noticed no one else was wearing one.  I became very anxious and uncomfortable. We moved to select our seats, which seemed to be arranged in two tiers of stadium-style seating around an empty swimming pool, like an arena. (The feeling was that this was a Medieval Times-style restaurant, where the entertainment took place in the pool - an interesting but ultimately very expensive concept.) My friends wanted to sit in a crowded part of the arena, but I asked if we could sit in the one part that was relatively empty. The seats there were upholstered and overstuffed and looked much more comfortable, anyway.

And that's it. That's all I remember now, more than three hours after I awoke.

I wonder what everyone else is dreaming about?

(P.S. I'm seeing ads for face masks with valves built in. Please don't buy those masks. The valves defeat the purpose of the mask.)

Night, April 21, 2020

Sleepless at 4 AM
fistful of glitter in the deep-azure sky
Jupiter and Mars rising in the East
meteor across the heart of the Swan

and I
touch the doorknob to go back inside
touch the doorknob to close the door
lock it against all the bad things out there

make my ablutions at the kitchen sink
age-yellowed Ivory soap and hot water
for your penance say one Our Father (17 seconds)
and one Hail Mary (12 seconds)
pat your hands dry
be clean
and go the hell to bed

Flash fiction in the Time of COVID-19