Three Times a Maybe

“Two negative COVID tests. Doctors are convinced though that it is COVID so they did a third test,” she wrote on social media. The third test came back positive for coronavirus.

Broadway star Nick Cordero, who has tested positive for coronavirus, is continuing to fight for his life in the hospital.

The second of these above is the headline from an article in People Magazine as posted by MSN news. The first being a direct quote from his wife, Amanda Kloots.

Nick is struggling with a major health crisis and I’m hoping for a recovery … I really am. It’s not looking good. His family does not need to be going through this. According to the writer, Maria Pasquini, the original concern was pneumonia and respiratory distress – Nick had been sick for a while but doctors were still confirming the cause of his health crisis.

Two tests came back negative for Covid. Ok. They had to do a third? Why not be ok with pneumonia and keep trying – as they were – to save Nick’s life? There is no cure for Covid anyway, right? What was the point … if not to pad the numbers in favor of +1 to the coronavirus column?

All that aside, Nick was diagnosed positive – eventually. I do understand this. Again, I wish this wasn’t so. He’s a talented person and needs to be on stage, not fighting for his life.

Here’s my concern. It seems suspicious to me – with a shortage of tests in our country to begin with – that a team of doctors were, maybe, urged to get the diagnosis of Covid. Struck me as odd, that’s all. Maybe nothing to it. Hope not, but if even “some” hospitals are biased toward this type of over-testing to achieve pre-determined outcome, we may not be getting the whole picture.

How many tests? How many times are doctors, over the past weeks / months being pushed to do more tests to make sure there’s a diagnosis of Covid without checking the box? For the safety of all, I guess we need to know who has what … again, I guess. There are smarter minds than mine working over midnight candles, scratching theorems into weeks old data-filled tablets.

There must be respiratory distress problems still going on in our country? These didn’t stop just because a bat-disease flew its way into our collective lungs. Pulmonary diseases, heart problems, cancers, diabetes, … all the, sorry to say, “normal” “ughs” that everyday humans have to push through can develop into breathing problems. I grant testing once for Covid in the midst of this pandemic. “Maybe” twice if the situation warrants it … but three times?

Did we do this for the average seasonal flu? SARS? Swine Flu? Yes, I know we don’t have a natural immunity to this and no vaccine. An unkown and tricky bugger this Covid is. I will still Social Distance – try my level best to remain patient and calm. As with any virus, I want my loved ones, and all of society to be safe and healthy to the best of our ability … simply because I don’t know what I don’t know.

The numbers are still way below any viral flu in the past. Credit given to whatever or whoever. I’m slow to give credit or blame to anyone due to facts flying around like rabid bats from far away lands.

I’ll also be extraordinarily sensitive to anyone, anywhere who lost a loved one to this virus. It’s relentless and horrible to those susceptible to its nastiness.

Doctors are doing a marvelous job. I want them by my side. This is not an indictment of their job saving lives or heroic efforts on the front lines of this crazy, god-awful battle. It’s the system they work under. Test once. If it comes back negative, keep going with the absolute best treatment available. We need some controls here. Maybe twice if the situation warrants it. Again, I’m as close to being a doctor as I am a 7-foot professional basketball player, so take my Spalding and dunk it over my non-qualified, so-un-medical head.

Still, over-testing to achieve a biased result could be happening more than we know. Nick’s case is probably not unique. I have no facts to support my claim. It’s just a hunch.

Before you throw me under that approaching bus, remember who’s driving the bus: it’s a system having the same hunches, but is allowed to keep re-testing until they find what they’re looking for.

Until all of us are tested, this isn’t going away anytime soon, anyway.

This is who I am

This day requires a response and I didn’t know what to say. Until now.

An Easter miracle has been hoped for by my Christian friends for weeks. I’m not seeing the magic. Coronavirus numbers are climbing. Deaths are still happening. People are getting cancer. Someone is dying of congestive heart failure and, tonight, a wife will be telling her husband she doesn’t love him anymore.

Again, I’m not seeing the magic. My Christian friends will certainly respond one of two main ways. Either I am not looking in the right places, or I am, but not seeing with the right “heart”. This isn’t a sleight on their sincerity or wanting of my happiness. It is an indictment of a religious belief that all will work out in the eyes of a God, regardless of what happens. I knew, heading into today, there was to be the story of a resurrected Jesus – as there has been throughout the ages. Especially today, in the midst of a massive pandemic shutting down the world.

I also knew none of this was going to be the fault of a God, Jesus’ presumed father, who is in control of all this. Or, is He? Those so willing to turn over their hopes and dreams of a miraculous end to a virus never give him an atta-boy for allowing it in the first place. Either this God’s fault, or it isn’t.

Within the circles of skeptics, it’s called “counting the hits and not the misses”

I was blind to this for 36 years of my life. There was never a time for doubt or questioning from 1982 through 2018. During those years, any thoughts of walking away from a comfortable belief in a magical Christian ideology was scary, uneasy, and unfamiliar. I would never know the terms Agnostic, Atheist, or Skeptic. Even questioning the most obvious contradiction in the bible was emotionally upsetting. Throw in a dose of after-life eternal bliss, forgiveness of sins at birth, a born-again experience at 19, and I was golden. The luck of the draw placed me in a conservative, western-central PA ‘burg where Christian parents raised three kids to cite the Lord’s prayer, be confirmed, and sing in the children’s choir without questioning,”why”.

Until my seizure the evening of June 30th, 2018. The moment of a re-set in my brain when all electronic-impulses went haywire, for no apparent reason, and the label, “epileptic”, was scarlet-lettered on my soul. A one-time lapse into a brain malfunction black hole spun my person-planet into a brand new orbit. With no more seizures since, I’ve been circling a previously unknown sun ever since.

Worlds collided and I began a journey into a universe of self-exploration. A rich, new, singularity of ideas and words I never knew. Previously hidden from me – but always there – were books, websites, TedTalks, relatives, friends, podcasts, and other resources apart from centuries old, dust laden, tested and certainly unproven ideas written in a book so unclear it took gaggles of scholars to interpret.

There is no proof of a God. I reached that conclusion. Until there is, I am an atheist. I have been since the fall of 2018. This is my day to come out and say it to the world. Well, at least to those who care.

To clear this up, an atheist is one who will believe in the existence of a God once adequate proof is presented. To say there is a God is a magnificent claim requiring magnificent proof. That’s all. You ask, what does that proof look like? I respond honesty, “I don’t know”. If there is a God, it/he/she knows what proof is required to warrant my attention. I asked, earnestly, for over 35 years. In the deepest, and saddest point of my life, this God was silent … completely silent.

Now, please don’t respond with, “His answers are either yes, no, or maybe”, “All in God’s plan”, “Footprints”, “You didn’t pray right.”, or any other special pleading. I know them all. I really do.

Save one very special friend who stayed in touch via text and my family, nothing. There was never a feeling of a God by my side, a “voice”, or a “presence” … any of the things I expected after years of dedication to the “holy one in the word”. I survived with will-power, knowledge, and the science of medicine and doctors … and yes my close friend and family – all of whom I adore. THEY are the ones who sat with me and helped me through. They were my “hits”. Oh, and to say, “God sent them” … please, don’t.

Look, if you detect bitterness, it isn’t intended. I’m not, truly. The Easter miracle today and in the recent past, ironically, is this God opened my eyes to what was possible … almost two years ago.

I am still so full of piano-love … a genuine, spirited, hopeful, graceful, caring human being. Nothing about who I am has changed at all. A Doug hug from me now means the same as ever … well … at least when the stupid shut-down is over, anyway. Can’t really reach you from here.

I’ve been over counting the hits and not the misses for almost two years. “He’s” missed so many times. I promise you, whenever this whole Covid-19 ends, praise will be given to no end with absolutely no mention of fault. Just not from me, obviously. Tell that to the thousands of families who’ve lost family members. Oh, but I guess God had to do that as part of a bigger plan. But, why? I thought he had nothing to do with it in the first place?

Yes, the last paragraph is part sarcasm, however, it highlights the problem with ideas wrapped in traditional Christian thinking. Ideas I gave my life to for 36 years. Ideas that, ultimately, didn’t serve me at all when I absolutely needed them to.

…And isn’t that the whole point of Jesus’ resurrection being “celebrated” today? He died for our sins, I guess. Just not when I need(ed) him the most. What a great plan.

My Pajamas

It’s 4:27 a.m. on a Saturday morning. If you follow these early morning purges at all lately, a quirky – but socially acceptable – pattern of non-sleeping is evident. Tolerated these days due to our governmental, virus-laden, punch-in-the-face complete stop of productivity and industry. I’m caught in it, as all of us are, and my self-employment mind cannot shut off as easily as the illustrious Governor of our Commonwealth thinks it can. “Put up with” because most of the obedient mask-covered constituents of our keystone state are trying our ever-loving best to push through a very difficult time. Agreed to since there seems to be no other choice; Have to, as I so patiently wait for four, yes FOUR, incomplete boxes in my financial life to be checked that should be checked by now.

You want to know my position right now? I’m pissed. Never mind who dropped the challenge in my lap, or under what circumstance it was placed. I’m not happy. The dishes were done by hand 45 minutes ago … that didn’t calm my nerves, so here I am. This, my friends, IS a socially acceptable position to take. And here’s why:

I don’t know who to believe anymore. It’s really that simple.

This shouldn’t surprise even the most astute among us, right? Politicians have been lying since the first T-Rex gnoshed on his first DoDo bird and the media flies around as if it has the virgin wings of Ouranos. Drop in a healthy, pardon me, unhealthy international dose of covid-19 in the middle of a dead bat-infested meat market in China and we have the beginnings of an “UN-believable” pandemic.

It’s to the point in my, now, sheltered life that if I not-so gracefully slide my left leg into the left pant of my pajamas … I’m not trusting it will reappear out the bottom. Yes, it’s that bad right now. My pajamas could be in a conspiratorial mode against me – plotting its next move should I decide to mistakenly forget to wash them, again, this week. #IsolationIssues. Assuming left is successful, right must then attempt insertion and then both must work together in order for me to have some kind of productive day. In my day pajamas. Doing basically nothing. Since none of my four boxes are checked.

This is a simple, but oh, so accurate analogy, of why I can’t sleep .. or believe anything anymore. Should I say, “anything”? Nah, that’s not fair to me. Let’s replace it with the phrase, “All the Windbag Words that Waste my time”, for the sake of this diary entry today. Yes. That’s perfect.

“I can’t believe all the windbag words that waste my time.”

This is phrased carefully, and purposefully. I did not say everything I hear is useless. The gift of discernment has to exercised, and it’s exhausting to say the least. Filtering out the bad information from the good is truly difficult. Just isn’t the same as pulling a pair of fresh, warm pajamas out of the dryer, holding them up close, and sucking in the sweet heavenly air through a cold nose.

Good Covid numbers vs bad.

Are the hospitals really full, or are we being dupped?
Are people actually dying from the virus as the primary cause, or are there serious underlying issues, but C-19 listed on the death certificate?
Is there a ventilator shortage, or not?
Why do the models keep changing so drastically and the experts get to skate when they, themselves, are the experts upon whom we rely?
Is the President really in charge, or not?
If this is such a pandemic, why are the seasonal flu yearly mortality numbers so much larger in year’s past?
Why do the numbers surrounding the success of Hydroxychloroquine stay basically hidden from coverage?
We have a really low number of cases in our county with, thankfully, no deaths. Why are our numbers so low?
Why no actual cases in North Korea or Yemen, as of April 7th? (ok, so this one, although true, is for some levity)

Facebook isn’t a good filter. I say that because it is from where the original proposition came. With over 1,500 friends, a survey would split them 30% reasonable all-in conservative, probably 40%-ish moderate, and the rest reasonable liberal to the edge… should a survey be done. I’ll never so it, obviously. Don’t want to. Love them all and really don’t care to know their political positions as I would hope mine isn’t of much importance to them, save one, the “proposer” . A few I’ve shared via private messenger or in a string of comments below a post. For the most part, however, kinda silent on the matter.

My theory about what the media and politicians say to us is pretty simple. They hear the same words coming out of their mouths time after time, so they believe what they hear … and expect us to as well. We have to discern and filter out the good from the bad, anymore. “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. Among psychologists something like this known as the “illusion of truth” effect is so important to remember. I don’t know what the truth is about Covid-19. Hell, I can’t even decide what kind of mask to wear.

So, here’s what I want. First, I’m still pissed. Let’s not lose sight of that fact. When I click “Publish”, the couch awaits my tired soul for some hopeful rest.

Second, and more important, the media and politicians need to start putting their informational pajamas on together. First right, then left. Both sides need to work together – getting their stories straight. I kinda wish they’d quit trying to play the gotch-a game with us, stand up like real Americans, pull up their big-boy superhero pajamas and start walking forward for the benefit of all of us … not them.

My position will remain unchanged until they change, but my position in this chair must change because I’m weary from a lack of quality sleep. I have personal boxes to check with no hope of doing so this weekend. Oh, my pajamas are really comfortable and I probably won’t be taking them off at all today. Yeah, coronavirus! The whole thing right now is really unbelievable in so many ways. That you can take to the bank…

…Hey, when you’re there, could you ask about the status of my paperwork? That’s one of my unchecked boxes and I’m pretty sure they don’t want me to call again.

Thanks.

A Rainbow

A Rainbow.

It has been a few days since words have appeared here, and quite a bit longer for a rainbow in the sky hugging Altoona, Pa. . Mr. Roy G. Biv was kind enough to make a visit Tuesday. Don’t know where he’s been and can’t recall the last visit when his magnificent colors broke through an otherwise dreary, overcast day. I don’t need perfect recall. All is forgiven because this visit wiped away any regret from past memories. He was here … time was sparkling, magical, and still…

…and now a few more days have passed. It’s Friday. Those words above were written this past Wednesday, early morning. Time is a funny, goofy idea as I consider these dizzying days during another stupid, … eer, whimsical week of prison, … eer, home holiday happiness.

Since the rainbow, I’ve gone a bit insane. Understandable in some 7-color, multi-hue way. My vibrancy is fading. It’s like I’ve been washed so many times. Put through the ringer – as my depression-worn grandmother would say. Jammed into the rollers like pizza dough, over and over, with coronavirus flour flying everywhere, clogging up my nostrils. I can’t breathe anyway. The heavy, homemade, flannel 10-layer cloth mask I’ve been forced into wearing is choking any life sustaining oxygen not only from my lungs, but also from any viable source within 6 miles of my house. A giant vacuum of Corona-suck, it is. But, it is color-fast. So no worries. Ugh.

Back to the rainbow. Ah, never mind. So over it.

Let’s see here. Oh, school has been cancelled for the remainder of the year! Yeah for that news (sarcasm)!! I’m a part-time music instructor at the local Montessori school and miss the kids I teach, privately. Instrumental lessons are now on-line with pixilated and delayed piano hands, no 3-D laughs, and difficult riffs, fingerings, and rudiments being taught through air. My “fellow” staff-mates (fellow in quotes … and they know why), are most likely missing the kiddos equally and feel as I do.

🤔What else? Fighting on Facebook with a friend over stupid sh*t. Well, ain’t that just something to be expected? She was upset that I, …wait for it … posted up an article without attaching an opinion to it either way. I must have an opinion, she opined, and railed me for not sourcing the article. I likened it to, well, here’s part of the reply:

I’m quite proud of the vegan dig. Don’t dislike vegans at all. As a matter of principle, I wish I had the discipline to do it. I’d be a lot healthier and happier not eating meat … but I had to make my point, absurd as it was. We made up – olive branched later. Forgave-forgot. If you think I will post up another article without checking the source, you’re right. I will. Need to Facebook fight once in a while. Reminds me people care … even if they’re the crazy ones. Or, did I admit I was earlier? I’m so confused.

Then there’s my FB video with the iguana and the rabbit. We’ll just move on past that room and look for other rainbows.

My dad is finally walking laps outside instead of around the inside of his stuffy two story house … for this I am grateful. He’s worked his way through this isolation and found a mental home that is satisfactory. I call every day. We laugh together. I like these moments with him

Ok. I have to end with the damn rainbow. Here’s my takeaway. A rainbow is like coronavirus news right now. We see only a part of it, but it never ends. It’s all pretty and such – full of hope and hype at the same time. There’s more we don’t see than we do. Both go around the world in one complete circle, quickly, and disappear as fast as they appear …. and we’re on to the next thing.

Not disparaging rainbows in general. Better times might find me looking for pots of gold or leprechauns. Right now, I’d rather be smooshed into rollers with dirty laundry than consider the magic in 7-colored, prismatic pieces of droplets miles in the sky.

I’m not depressed or mad. Just being real at the moment.

If I let a few more days pass, maybe I’d feel differently. Nah. For now, I’m going to continue to eat meat and fight with people on Facebook. Why not, right? My kiddos aren’t practicing, anyway.

The Hearts of Friends

The title above has been used before, I’m sure of it. Can’t say where or when. Not laying claim on originality because in the history of words, those four – in that specific order – must have been printed on the cover of a book, in a movie script, or tearfully penned in the diary of a princess. With this legal disclaimer out of the way, I can proceed with my 1:43 a.m. thoughts on the subject.

I’m up. Again. Having finished off another bowl of chicken tetrazzini and nursing a can of plain seltzer as I write, the time slowly pushes forward into deep night … and I’m awake. Nothing new, since this isolation, stay-at-home mandate, time warp continuum is sucking the daylight out of my life. The sleep/wake cycle I used to ride is tire-lessly lumping along a pedestrian free street to nowhere these days. I see no one as I push my bike up emotional hills day after day.

All of us are adjusting right now, though … Please remind me our collective Tour De’Humane Race is happening and I just can’t see it. The race toward normalcy and community-immunity, right? Heading toward a shared finish line where there is a ribbon of vaccines, reopened businesses, and significantly less political rift.

Well, for now anyway, we’re not there. We’re on our late night / early morning couches bitching about not sleeping enough. I am, for sure. Seems the only cure is to remind myself I have the most awesome friends in the world … and I miss seeing them.

To list all of them wouldn’t be fair to those I’d most assuredly forget to mention. Not bragging here, but I have a lot. They wouldn’t agree on the number, however, because … as I say so often … they are stupid and ugly 🤣. In their minds, I am overbearing, pretentious, full of stupid humor, sarcastic, well-intentioned but ill-informed, stylish with no sense of fashion, and best understood when quiet … Oh, and these are my traits as described by my bestest of friends – the loyal four: Mike, Joel, Jim, and possibly another Jim.

I have so many friends in my inner circle other than the four goofballs mentioned. Friends I can text anytime during the day or night who would show up right now with a warm cup of hot chocolate and listen to my story. Nice, cool, reachable friends who are less stupid and ugly. No offense to my loyal four, btw … wink wink.

Extending outward, the descriptors are less unkind – thankfully. We know, don’t we, that friendships change in quality as distances and times change. They are folks – occasionals – who are so gracefully in and out of our lives when we need them to be. The glances up from avacado strawberry salads … and there they are with a smile and a kind hello. Our days filled with such niceness because they close our circles. They fill our empty hearts with good things when we need it.

Mary is such a friend. She has a wonderful heart. Yes, being up in the middle of the night is not good and I’m not pleased about the habitual sock shuffling foot fetish I’ve developed. The path from this couch to the kitchen is worn enough with sock lint. Tonight, however, the trip was well worth the effort.

Mary dropped off a large pan of chicken tetrazzini the other day and tonight I just about finished off the last of it. It is so freakin’ delicious. Late, late night snack o’extra-ordinaire if I must say so. Better still is her genuine care and love to bake a casserole, drop it off, and do it without expecting anything in return.

We are co-workers at a local private school and great friends. Outside of school, though, we don’t see each other much save the occasional staff party or run-in at the local convenience store. Especially now, since the COVID-19 “yeah” stuff goings-on, there’s no opportunity to connect. She’s busy with two grand-young-n’s at home and trying to prepare on-line video lessons for school. In the midst of all this, I get a fantastic chicken tetrazzini casserole delivered. Did I say it’s freakin’ delicious!! Because if I didn’t …

The hearts of friends beat wonderful pulse-nalities. I love them all. Whether they want me to stop telling stories that are, in my mind anyway, folded into magical mysteries, or they drop off yummy goodnesses, ….. I Iove them all.

Too many to mention. Even more memories and joys from them to say or write about so I’ll close with the same four unoriginal words: The Hearts Of Friends.

Know yours. Remember them at 1:43 in the morning when you need to be reminded that your finish line may seem far away and your bike burdensome; However, lonely is never far away when friends are helping you push.

Be rest the best way you can.

DOUG

Why All The Plastic Bags?

I ask because it is obvious. On the wall of our kitchen hangs an unused cell phone. From the base of that very phone extends a rubber antenna – approximately 6″ in length – holding, by my guess, 1,455 plastic bags. Tan ones, white & gray ones, foreign & domestic, alien, …shall I go on, or is my sarcasm obvious? These very flexible pains in my a** multiply at a rate faster than bunnies on steroids. And, for clarity, I am responsible. Three more were added today to this ever increasing, bulging clump of pliable sacks.

At some unfortunate point in the future, there will be no more. Oh, just no more room on the the antenna, not plastic bags (they’ll keep coming). I figure there is about one-half inch left – at best – at the top before an end will be reached. Then what? Find another out-of-date phone to hang on the wall and start a sequel? Try, maybe “try”, to smoosh down the already tired bags to make room at the top. Me don’t think so, because I’ve finger-trash compacted the bags so much they’ve begged for pardons numerous times already. The antenna inmates have suffered enough.

My only solution is a bigger plastic bag. A step-up. A dorm room to an efficiency, as it were. Better yet, an individual cell to a common area, since I’m on that string of thought. The better move here is letting all these bags off the hook by dumping them, gently, into another, … err, larger plastic bag. Jeez. Where does it end? I then have a 5-gallon capacity plastic trash bag partially full with 1,455 smaller plastic bags … Good news, I guess for the 2,344 MORE bags I undoubtedly will be toting through the front door in weeks to come. At least the unused phone on the wall can take a breather …

Why all the plastic bags? Again, I ask because it is obvious. Let’s go back to plastic in general with the help of http://www.tecnofer.biz

The “years of plastic” began officially the 11th March 1954, when Giulio Natta, future Nobel Prize for Chemistry (in 1963), wrote in his diary: «Made the polypropylene». The new product, later called “Moplen”, was used for producing everything: from dishes to car components to bowls and toys.

Now, to our little baggie friends: http://www.allaboutbags.ca

Plastic bags were invented as an alternative to paper grocery bags in the late 1970s to protect trees and prevent clear-cutting of our forests. Plastic bags are a by-product of natural gas extraction and provide an environmental solution to the burn off of this gas during the refining process.

Easy, simple summaries because I’m not currently in a Doctoral research program at Harvard and have a ridiculously fantastic Chicken Tetrazzini dinner to consume before it gets cold. I’ve accumulated (all sarcasm aside) probably 25 bags in a week … low estimate. Fifty since the stay-at-home mandate started two weeks ago. Let’s go with a 25/week average for this household x 50 weeks – with two off for no reason = 1,250 bags / year.

This is one household with minimal needs. For argument’s sake, I’ll up the numbers to better represent what I feel America is doing. I’m going to do this first without googling the actual numbers. After thumb-crunching my way through, I will exit out, go to google, and then re-visit this entry.

So here’s my baseline: Average household consumes 50 plastic bags a week between groceries, household needs, and entertainment. Out of the 325 million people, an average household of 3.5 people means there are roughly 90 million households +/-. 50 bags per week is an annual household usage of 2,500 bags. Again, 2 weeks off for no reason.

90,000,000 Households x 2,500 bags = 225,000,000,000 bags per year. That’s 225 Trillion plastic bags PER YEAR.

Give me a few seconds to check out Google. Be right back.

In The United States

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion).
Four out of five grocery bags in the U.S. are now plastic.
The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store.

160,000 plastic bags a second (www.theworldcounts.com)

This year 5 trillion plastic bags will be consumed. That’s 160,000 a second! Put one after another they would go around the world 7 times every hour and cover an area twice the size of France.

OK. So, I was way off. Glad to know my estimates were laughingly off-the charts. Possibly the number of households? … bags per household? Again, not doing Nobel-winning research here. For our sake, thankfully, my numbers are high. Too bad the real numbers are high as well, though.

Back to my kitchen…and the clod. Its gotta go somewhere. I have little patience anymore for the little tip of rubber exposed at the end. WHY all the plastic bags? I am at fault. We have reusable totes that could be reused. Thus, the moniker so forcefully emblazoned on the side! Jimminy Be-Jeepers it isn’t that complicated! Laziness begets more plastic. Ugh.

This is why all the plastic bags. I’m lazy.

Not too lazy, mind you, to spend an hour writing about it. Just too slothful to take a few seconds, when heading out the door for snacks and essentials, and grab a reusable, green tote.

Life is complicated in other areas. This shouldn’t be one of them. I hear my phone – should answer it. Not the one on the wall, though. It is otherwise occupied.

The Luxury of 85 Percent

A very short post today. Not a day for long reads, as most of my energy was spent elsewhere. Sleeping, mainly. It’s exhausting trying to do nothing while expected to do everything. This isolated, mandated, stay-at-home unproductive shifting around the house drains my ever-loving energy. With that in mind, consider the following brief, Nobel committee submission:

Did some thinkin’ today. What else other than “thinkin” is there to do, right?

This is a peaceful, little, calm discussion.

The pandemic of 1917-1919 took 675,000 US lives, according to the CDC’s own numbers. Based upon the estimated population at the time of 104 Million, that number is 0.65%. There are no stats as to what % of those deaths resulted from pre-existing conditions, so let’s assume all of them were directly related to the pandemic.

We are at 325 Million in 2020. With the above % as a base line, we should expect 2.1 Million deaths. Obviously, current projections (models) don’t even come close. We are, hopefully, not going to be even 15% of that number.

The difference is not only information, but also the speed at which our understanding and knowledge travels. Seems so ordinary, everyday to us.

We can differ significantly about who did what, where this went, and what happened when – all good for our national dialogue. Let’s, also, never forget the 85% margin of grace we enjoy that the folks of 100 years ago never had. Our luxury of advanced technology and medical science is a gift.

Let’s not abuse it by arguing too much.

Day X and No Closer to Why

I need experiences with people. Maybe you don’t, but I do. This is why stay-at-home mandates are not good for me.

Following the rules, paying attention, being the good son. I will obey. For now.

We need social contacts. Snuggling up, emotionally, with our commuting counterparts is so vital to an enduring, healthy life. For some inevitable quiet types, this isn’t possible … I understand and respect that space. Others pursue touch, contact, reach-outs, feed-me’s, Google Hangouts, text strings, and coffee mug hugs. I am the latter.

A collector of people. A fun, flexible, flocker of folks. Everything I’ve done in my life spins around the question, “If X is worth doing, the why must be in the gathering of others.” Simple, right? Sure! … Until the anvil of Covid-19 is dropped right in the center of this socially delicious cake and all the sugary people parts projectile out in all directions. Then Mr. Doug Hugs is stuck wiping icing tears from his frown face. This flocker of folks, now, a sad silhouette embracing a new normal.

Am I happy about it? No. I think this is pretty obvious.

Wasn’t really in the mood to write about anything today at all – except when a lady changed my mind, without knowing she did. A walker of walks in a weird wonky way, she was. It upset my emotional apple cart and forced my writer’s hand into action. To be sure, she is happily on her way peeling an onion or tucking a little cherub into bed – I don’t care, none the wiser to her habitual thingy-things at this moment. Her few seconds time interaction with me today was enough to unpeel my onion.

Ya see, she avoided me. Now, before you get all, “What’s the big deal there, Mr. Big Shot Blog Banger…?” on me, it was a sidewalk, passerby sleight. Simple to you – and possibly 99.999% of those considered normal in psychiatric circles – but irritatingly irrational, exceedingly egregious, and somewhat stupefying to me. Defined in my Freudian dictionary, I am currently socially distant from almost everyone who connects me to myself. Unfamiliars and Familiars alike. Today was another Day X and No Closer to Why the following happened:

I was sauntering south, she – in her black knee-length skirt and red sweater vest – heading north. Both of us sharing the sidewalk, kindly so, fifty feet apart. Catching friendly eye-glances of one another (or so I thought), her body language changed as I simply uttered, “Hello.” from a safe distance of what I assumed was at least two parked car lengths. She stuttered in gate, flip-flopped as if I spat-spittered the words, “I HAVE THE BLACK PLAGUE and AM A MUTANT!!”…

Am I over-acting the role? Yes. But, she started it!

She made quick work of her planned pedestrian route, eerr, .. shall I say excellent footwork in the alternate path – around, about, and in between any and all inanimate objects – in the overt attempt to avoid my ogre self. The man who could be infected with the dreaded Coronavirus. The man who should be avoided at the cost of saving the whole of human kind.

OK. That last sentence was a bit uber- dramatae. I get it. My psyche can’t handle a lot of this distancing. I’m not built for it. My X inside my brain doesn’t understand the why. My intelligence side does, though. I can read all the articles, study until the particulars prick their way out of my pores, and all’s well in the happy-smart world. Avoid me on an emotional sidewalk, and I become the sloppy, garbage “pale” mess only a late-night blog street sweeper can begin to clean up.

I ask the question, “why?”. I know why. She was afraid of my infected self. I get that. Not clueless here. To understand meant no blog, right? She did avoid me, which is more to the point. A simple smile and nod while quickly knee-jerking her Carl Lewis-ing, hurdle jumping self over two BMW’s at 60 miles-per-hour would have been a socially acceptable, better tea-sipping thing to do. I didn’t require much. Just acknowledging my insecurity at the time would have sufficed.

So that’s my story for today. Didn’t want to write much. Had to, I guess. Don’t know if today’s encounter had any effect on said red-sweater lady’s life, or not. She probably spent her day zig-zagging around ALL the N95 masked monsters in town.

As for me, I feel a bit better knowing there’s a connection here on my virtual huggy blog. An experience with people. Something I need.

At least on this space, you can’t avoid me. Well, you can, however, that defeats the purpose. If you don’t see the irony in that, I think I’ll need to avoid you for a while. At least until this stay-at-home mandate is lifted. When that happens, I know a sidewalk where we can meet.

Maybe a real nice lady in a black skirt will walk by. Do you want to stick your leg out as she goes by, … or, should I?

Plank, not Prank

An April Fool’s Day Plank. No, I didn’t spell it incorrectly. Exactly the way I meant it: P-L-A-N-K.

Prank, the generationally accepted form, is way too tame for today’s messed-up, “screw your opposing political view and accept mine!” world. So much intolerance, anymore. I want to take that very plank they stand on and whack it upside their zealous, arrogant, idea-inebriated, inhabitantly politically pompous heads. Too soon into the ongoing Covid-19 virus debate? I don’t think so?

Happy April Fool’s Day, everyone!

I love the meme going around social media: “April Fool’s jokes are on hold this year. No prank can outdo the shit we’ve been dealing with ..” Oh, I so agree. The virus. The f*cking virus (so sorry for the language, but you’re feeling it too, right?). Worldwide, humans are struggling with a new reality – a new normal as I’ve written so many times before.

Online teaching, Social Distancing, Government mandated-isms & over reaches (if that’s a “thing”), confusion from national leaders and medical experts, flattening curves not advised by Weight Watchers for a change, and shortages of masks, vents, and patience. NYC, Dr. Birx, the Pillow Guy telling us about God, arrests of preachers in Florida, navy ships, … all this … oh, and poor toilet paper is, well, yesterday’s news. These are our realities every day. One massive April Fool’s f*cking joke.

Who’s playing it on us? I have no potato-licking, speed-spitting idea. It’s become one big picnic of off-time recreational joy rides to big box stores, where families of, say, eight or more rug people pile into aisles looking for the latest flannel fashions. No BoGo sales? No problem! They’ll flam their way to the customer service desk to make use of valuable, strongly mandated stay-at-home time. There, I’m confident the over-worked, stressed, drastically under-appreciated gem of a human being will be glad to address and unmask the perfectly articulated complaint put forth by such an upstanding member of our community.

Am I bitter and a bit frustrated? Yes!! Does this show in my words?

Boxing out the big box stores, let’s get back to the four-one-plank problem. THIS is the splinter sticking in my side today. He said, on the right, She said, on the left … or, vice-versa. Doesn’t really matter the sex of either side. Well, unless a wife chooses, then whichever side is correct … of course, but I digress.

Discussion of politics at anytime is Ugh, right? Especially so when emotions are running faster than hearts at a Bon Jovi concert. Like NOW for instance.

Pick a political plank to stand on, and you will be well within the legal 6′ social distance of millions and miles apart from untold others. The space between is vast and getting wider. If you, with your (possibly) virus slopped garment draped over the unshowered three day body you have, dare express an opinion different from the dude/dudette snuffled up against you … good luck staying on that ship! So polarized and sensitive, are the Pirates of political discourse, that General Calm abandoned ship a while ago. He life-boated out once the words, “Do you solemnly swear to uphold the laws of the Constitution …. ” were spoken.

Take whatever election into consideration, and dump it into the canons of political, public discourse. Add a few pandemics, maybe a very divisive, selfish Congress, a few social media platforms, 24 hours non-stop news, mis-information ad-nauseam, extreme views about everything with no consideration of moderation, and a fascination – albeit fading – with toilet paper … and you have one hell of an April Fool’s Plank.

I don’t care, really, what year. 2020, 1984? (George Orwell-ian would have been nice, though)… 1776? (Ha! Imagine that)… Whenever. Just so happens this is a year of perfect vision – and we ‘ain’t got it. Wait. Allow me to correct that. Oh, some among us have it!! Just ask. Better yet. Look down at the plank upon which they stand.

…and then look across the wide, wide boat and recognize the other side. They’re just as committed. Both perilously walk their plank in opposing directions, destined to drop off into a sea of despair. Once they do, we have the ship to ourselves.

Great. A cruise liner full of moderates crowded around with nothing to do but play April Fool’s jokes on one another. Now what? Here’s one! We can’t dock anywhere now because our whole f*cking ship is probably contaminated with the virus.

Now THAT’S an April Fool’s Prank, yes P-R-A-N-K I can embrace. (But 6′ away, please. I don’t want the shitty virus).

A Pompeii Pal

Snarky around corner, but for a moment…

Italy is in the news. Our brothers and sisters are living through individual and collective stories written by an evil author of viral consequence. They are to be shown every ounce of compassion and support available. So, too, are all the sufferers of ills, depressions, and anxieties as result of this global pandemic. Surreal. Unlike anything our living, breathing earth has seen since 1918, when millions of our ancestral friends grievied the loss of loved ones themselves.

Italy was in the news during the late 16th century as well. Uncovered after centuries, buried under 19 feet of volcanic debris, the ruins of Pompeii were discovered.

Apparently, in 79 CE (Current Era … yeah, it’s a thing), Mount Vesuvius had what amounted to a bad gas day resulting in a quick burial for the unfortunate inhabitants below his bellowing ash hole. Fitting two word phrase seeing as how Mr. V decided to interrupt an otherwise ordinary day with sudden death, despair, and destruction.

Not aside, sarcasm is purposefully inserted here because it was masterfully – and sidewalk artfully – used by a toga wearing wall-writer at the time. More about this dude in a bit.

We have Pompeii. A bustling boulder, semi-metropolis of first century A.D. (C.E. ..?) thinking where grapes, scrolls, and steam baths-o’bacteria ruled the hours. Men of high stature statues lined the lanes and pebbles rumbled under the chariot wheels as horses pulled piles of hay atop peasant wagons.

Scenes of daily struggle were simple, I can suppose in my, now, coronavirus isolation, stay-at-home mandate mind. No electronics, cars, or airplanes flights to miss … or Facebook political opinions to violently tap in my opposition .. then delete before actually posting up.

Toga toddlers spinning about, discovering what was new to them that remained undiscovered by elders stuck in traditional ways of their ancestors. The legacy of what remains in the remains of every generation since. The cycle of cyclical time. Pompeii was just us a thousand-and-a-hundred-or-so years behind.

Enough deep, philosophical pandering to my early morning muse. Sorry ’bout that. She gets me … not in the sense, “She gets me” like “Wow, she understands my inner soul” … more like, “She freakin’ ropes me in with all the deep thinking and won’t untie me ..” kinda gets me.

Anyway. Pompeii.

The walls of Pompeii have an interesting history. According to “Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader, 14th Book” …

“In Pompeii, the walls of every building were used as billboards on which anyone was allowed to write whatever they wanted. When the buried city was excavated, archaeologists found notices of upcoming plays at the theater, the schedule of games at the stadium, the price of goods at the market, and the comments of passersby.

The elections in Pompeii were coming up when the city was destroyed, so thousands of political ads were found, including this one: ‘Vote for Vatia, who is recommended by sneak thieves, the whole company of late drinkers, and everyone who is fast asleep‘ “

Sarcasm nearly 1,900 years ago. Gotta love it. Ironic, too, that we are in an election year as well. Good thing there’s no sarcasm here!! No volcanoes ready to erupt anywhere on social media walls anytime soon, right?? I can’t IMAGINE any of us writing our thoughts anywhere public …. oh, the shame to bear on our toga-less, exposed back-sided opinions these days.

So, back to our ancient spray can dude. He’s the real hero of this tale today. I’d even suggest he is our bare-back rider of a white Fresian horse; This mere peasant is the only hero for all humanity needing a sarcasm-saving champion of the day. I love this dude for one reason … and one reason only.

On the wall, he scrawled:

“Everybody writes on the walls but me”

I’m sure he perished in the massive belch. Good for him. Dying as a sarcastic, real, grape loving toga dude. Live on, bro .. We’ve got ya covered from here.

If only I could find a local steam bath. I’m in the mood for some company. Social Distancing is killing my buzz and I’m out of spray paint.