Day 78

I went for a bike ride early Sunday morning. It ended my longest indoor streak yet: five full days. I suppose my area of Brooklyn bustles more than most, but after reading about how everyone staying inside had given major cities the appearance of ghost towns, I expected a lot less activity. And more masks. The CDC’s guidance recently shifted to a recommendation that everyone cover their nose and mouth when going out. It makes… See more →

I live in Philadelphia now. While I was still in Brooklyn, I aspired to get outside every day, but my stretches indoors got longer and longer. My last one was 11 days. I’m getting out much more regularly now, and it feels good, but it’s invariably an exercise in frustration. The latest CDC guidance says that surface transmission, while possible, is much less likely than transmission via respiratory droplets. Nevertheless, at least half of the… See more →

I’m at a low boil pretty much all the time now. I think the past three weeks or so have been a little better, but I’ll still sometimes catch myself snapping at Leah over something impossibly trivial, or throwing my hands up in disgust and falling into a prolonged funk at the slightest annoyance. This week’s Republican National Convention, a substance-averse cult gathering which kept Hatch Act experts busier than ever, didn’t help. With the… See more →

COVID-19 has made much of the U.S. a remote workforce for 28 weeks now, prompting the obvious question, “How does this pandemic stack up against the one depicted in the 2007 horror film 28 Weeks Later?” In the film, a solid sequel to Danny Boyle’s classic 28 Days Later, the world is besieged by the Rage Virus, which launches everyone it infects into a mindless, murderous frenzy. (Some filmgoers might refer to the infected as … See more →

Tomorrow is Election Day. The polls say the path to victory for the incumbent president is a very steep one. But after 2016, no one trusts the polls, no matter how many articles explain how pollsters have adjusted their methods since then. (For the record, 2016’s predicted margins didn’t give me anywhere near the level of confidence in a Democratic win that everyone else seemed to have.) Anyway, anything other than a landslide Election Day… See more →

We passed a quarter million American COVID-19 deaths today. The virus is surging, hospitals are reaching capacity, the mortality rate is ticking back up, and the lockdowns are starting again. In a few days, an order goes into effect here in Philadelphia banning all public and private indoor gatherings until at least the end of the year. Gyms and museums are closing, indoor dining at restaurants and bars is halting. Outdoor gatherings are to have… See more →

Nearly 4,000 Americans died of COVID-19 on January 6th, a new record that was all but completely ignored as our horrified gaze was averted by an even larger number of Americans laying siege to their own United States Capitol, egged on by none other than the president himself. In the week since, as the president has been banned from social media and grudgingly condemned the riot while refusing to accept responsibility for it, as cabinet… See more →

On March 10, 2020, I attended what would be my last indoor public gathering in a long time, a US Air Guitar competition at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn. I was ambivalent about going. We were still holding out hope that the coronavirus situation would be contained, but that hope was feeling more and more naive. “I love you,” I told my friends, “but I’m not touching you.” That seemed responsible. Masks weren’t a thing… See more →

Leah and I have now been fully vaccinated for six weeks. During that time, restrictions around the country have loosened steadily, and even in indoor public spaces, masks are disappearing, as are plexiglass barriers and floor decals encouraging social distancing. We’ve had gatherings of family and friends in our home and attended them in others’ homes. We’ve hugged people. We’ve ridden on buses and trains. I spent a day in New York, my first since… See more →

I’m in chronic funk territory again. Not the the good, George Clinton kind of funk, but the bad, “how can this many people be this reliably disappointing” kind of funk. The Delta variant has been in full bloom for weeks and ICU beds in some areas are reaching capacity again, making June’s steady drumbeat of reopening feel like a naive daydream. Masking indoors in public is back in vogue, not that it was gone for… See more →

A commonly expressed example of American excess is the fact that we constitute just 5 percent of the world’s population but consume a quarter of its resources. We haven’t quite reached that level with our share of the world’s Covid deaths, but our current 15.8 percent stake is still a plenty potent argument for American exceptionalism, though obviously not the sort of argument the exceptionalists prefer to make. Our Covid death toll makes well over… See more →

A few hours after my last post in this series back in May, L tested positive, as have many other friends and family members in the months since. As someone who still has yet to contract Covid, I may now be in the minority among the people I know. Nevertheless, between staying on top of my vaccine regimen and absorbing the zeitgeist, my day-to-day caution is almost back to pre-pandemic levels. I usually carry a… See more →

I’ve stared so intently at so many rapid antigen tests over the last few years, trying to discern if an impossibly faint second line was present, that I was entirely unprepared for how crystal clear my first positive result would be.

Covid-19 finally came for me on December 2, 2023, with aches, severe sinus congestion, and an obnoxious cough fully materializing three days later. Since all this arrived on the heels of a negative test… See more →