Pandemic freewrite

Ghosted, we were lost. A splash of blue on the canvas of the sky. The birds took to the air, the raiments of spring, so much relentless beauty in the midst of all this darkness.

We clung to our sanity in any way we could. We took to our minds. Our inner sanctum. Our inside worlds flourished in a hostile world where the faceless enemy waited, ambush at every encounter. 

Despite everything, I needed to take care of Sam. I was rich in responsibility for his safety, my care provider job knew no other boundaries, and so we persevered. 

Which saved us was ourselves, alone. The psyche explored new boundaries and took no hostages, only ourselves. The floor of darkness waged with open borders, we were refugees all.

Life during a time of COVID

We all erred on the side of caution from this unknown disease that arrived from a distant shore. We were unschooled astronauts suiting up to face an invisible foe shining in the dark. We relied upon caution, where every encounter could prove to be fatal. We experienced stranger danger and friendly fire. Suddenly ordinary actions were potentially lethal. We could not see the enemy, it was unnamed and faceless. We saw danger everywhere. The gas pump, doorhandles, cardboard boxes, even the mail was suspect. We hunkered down and hoarded toilet paper. We came to selfish blows over our own asinine priorities. The fear was palpable, it was like the time Chernobyl blew, and we all hid indoors. Only that danger could not be avoided. The late April rains brought lethal isotopes to our doors, and as we watched the rain fall, we knew that the eaves of our houses or the metal roofs of our car offered no protection from the invisible fallout. Then, there was the nightmare of Fukushima. But despite everything, we survived, though we couldn’t see the enemy glowing from within the cellular walls. During Covid, we didn’t know the face of the enemy. It too was nameless, though it had an acronym and a number. We also learned that the enemy was us. I knew it would be a long time before the world as we know it would be safe to return to, some semblance of normality was beyond reach. It was a long wait. During the barrage, we turned inward. We examined the star charts etched on the cave walls. We didn’t realize that the tools of resilience were embedded within us, and as we explored the unplumbed depths of our collective psyche, we arose like singed phoenixes, and then we turned our dark isolated realms into global villages, and the airwaves created an electronic renaissance studded with starlight. We thrived in that limelight, despite everything.

5/10/23 Write On! With Susie Terence

The idea of strangers

1. What misconception is the host planning to clear up for once and for all? I wrote: who is the host? What is the misconception? We are all imperfect receivers, each interpreting, and navigating reality as best we can. There’s so much to choose from. Where do you even begin? Racial injustice?

But on this day of Passover, it’s clear that every single group of people and cultures has been oppressed by, or has oppressed another. Take the idea of naming people by their nationalities. The Welsh, for example, an exogamic name given by outsiders. Why would anyone want to self-identify as strangers or foreigners? That’s what the word means.

The name tells us that the Welsh were named by outsiders in their own land, and the land they lost to outsiders and they were being oppressed, denied their own name for themselves, Cymru. This holds true for native tribes of the Americas as well. The word Anasazi, meaning stranger in Navajo or enemy and so on.

2. What does the host admit was hard to overcome? We live in an us versus them culture, where every stranger represents danger from the outside. No one single culture is exempt from this practice. Sure, we can sing, all we are saying is give peace, a chance, but, bottom line, when threatened, we close our doors quickly at the first sign of danger.

Look at what happened during the pandemic. It was worldwide free for all. Everyone was out for themselves. And look where that got us. Hoarding toilet paper and massive shortages of disinfectants and other oddities as people locked down and hunkered in, and not their neighbors. In a just world this should never have happened, but it did. And no one is willing to admit that no one is in charge, and we’re all at fault. We’re all to blame, for a moment we let go of our humanity.

3. Every group, every culture has been subjugated with pressure from the outside, whether by war, or assignation. Every group has put labels on strangers defining them as enemies. This is the way of things. It’s hard to admit, but there you have it in a nutshell.

The prefix, wall, as in walnut, wall, and even the name Walsh means, foreigner or stranger. The Welsh would not have named themselves, thusly.

We need to begin by not holding onto the past, or our heritage. There is always one grudge or another to bury us unto the next century. Look at Nagasaki. Something is always at the ready to distract us and derail us.

If only we all knew that, then the world would be a much better place. But even the pandemic didn’t help, we witnessed that from the ground up.

4/6/23

TheNarrativeMethod.com prompt

Retro clothing

I read an article, Adventures in my Wardrobe, about how we all have gobs of clothes hiding out in our closet as if they were in a witness protection program (or is it a witless protection program)—clothes that we never wear, and yet we hold onto for dear life. Because, memory. 

The author, Anne-Marie Hoeve, decided go on an archaeological dig in the back of her closet, and daylight all those old clothes she never wears. Her experience with her old clothes was like opening up a time capsule. The paradigm shift of memory and nostalgia head-butting with time present, made for a lively tale. 

The memories Hoeve experienced while wearing old clothing made for an intriguing anthropological study, as the association of clothes and memory is profound, if not downright irrational at times.

Like the odor of violets, old clothes can invoke the memories of the dead. It’s like hearing old music again. Loving Spoonful’s Happy Together telescopes me back to my 2nd corridor locker at Drake High School. Every time. I like my men young and and my clothing old—I used to joke that I only wore clothing of the dead, so as to keep their memories alive. There’s more than a little truth to that.

Every few years I go through my really old clothes and wear them again, after an extended sabbatical, they seem like new again, so I’m hesitant to toss the old stuff out. I hate to part with my retro clothes. OK, so call them antique clothing. But they give me joy. That crazy OCD minimalist organizer and delclutterist guru who arranges books by color, Marie Kondo, would not approve.

Something I haven’t worn in five or ten years, is dragged out of the giveaway bag, and becomes a new favorite again. Especially with summer clothes. That old mirrored rayon top with the over-dyed embroidery from the $5 box at Tienda Ho on Telegraph Avenue in 1999 that hasn’t seen daylight in decades, suddenly became a new favorite during the heat wave, despite my cousin‘s dismissive sniffing.

Or a recent score of string pants from Savers totally matches that sparkly plaid Victoria’s Secret nightshirt dress and completes it—as if it’s been waiting all these years for the stars to align to this particular moment in time. Ok, so they’re too big. Maybe the black leggings are a better match. I look less like a plaid oversized Easter bunny terrorizing the neighborhood.

And the sea foam green cashmere poncho, a street find (some dead lady’s stuff), perfectly matches the new GV jeans I bought during an impulsive pre-COVID-19 moment after I had finally left my abusive partner of 20 years. I had stuffed them into the giveaway bag because the memory association was too painful. But the sweet cashmere poncho reclaimed them for me. You bet I will wear them now, come sweet May again.

The world as we knew it

It’s hard to fathom that yet another year has rolled by. Here we are, still in sequestration, more or less, as the latest variant of Covid rolls through us. We no longer get the news as to how many people have died worldwide. But at least 800,000 US deaths related to Covid have been recorded during the past two years. I have been vaccinated three times since a year ago, January, and the last booster shot will not protect us from the workarounds of the latest version of the virus. When this all began in March 2020, I saw the writing on the wall, that darkness, the world, as we knew it, will never return again.

1/5/22

Post Moderna writing

Three days after my Moderna booster shot I am finally ready to get out of bed. I slept the dreamless fugue of Lazarus during most of the first and second days, and I slept late today. I never sleep in. And every old injury awoke to remind me of its halcyon days, including my knee and back. My hands ached and every old injury joined in on the choral litany of pain. The night sweats were like an atmospheric river. I was drenched, couldn’t move my right arm, and the shot, a large angry welt. Getting out of bed required extreme balancing acts. I got dressed, navigating an errant foot through the leg of my knickers took finesse, like threading a needle, as I had pulled my lower back again, this time, the left side, while digging ditches for the coming storm, but I managed, and ventured downstairs for my morning coffee. Only by now it’s late afternoon. I will pay for that late cuppa tonight when I cannot sleep. But when one is in the throes of a boostershot altered state, all time bets are off. And so is time itself, for today is the solstice, the shortest day of the year. My first activity of domestic violence was to vacuum a portion of the carpet where I had spilled my morning oatmeal and perhaps a little brown sugar as well. But that act left me deaf and breathless, as did navigating the stairs, and making the coffee and all the myriad errands it entailed. So, before I even had a sip, I was done and spun for the day. Listening to Billy Collins read Christmas Sparrow I am moved back in time to when my grandmother said to let a bird into the house was to let death enter. In Irish tradition, a wild bird was a harbinger of death. That traitorous wren. Only in Billy‘s case, the cat did it. And it was a house sparrow. And today is the death of the old year. So, letting that small feathered poem in, and then letting it go again, was an act of releasing the old year, with a sliver of a chance for renewal. I am amazed by how short his poem is. There’s something about when a poet reads, how time suspends itself on a meat hook, in the hurt locker, where all manner of things are hidden, and yet are only alluded to in poetry. Ex tenebris lux. The dark and the light together as one thing. Is it because I had the vaccine, and because I knew I would have some downtime? I bought expensive desserts, tiramisu, and macarons for my coffee. Not macaroons but macarons, the French ones, as expensive as a box of See’s Candy. They are small meringue dreams that melt on the tongue like sweet clouds. I am having trouble remembering sequentially. So everything I do requires retraced steps and I am in and out of breath, piffing like a steam train, which only exacerbates the memory problem. Today is not a good day for multitasking. I can’t even remember what it was that I forgot to remember. I have to retrace my steps, making sure I don’t trip and reinjure my back, to find those orphaned trains of thought. They lazily float about the rooms like ghosts cobwebs. Today is a fresh pajama day. Time to shed my clothes and greet my pillow once more. At least the bedsheets are clean. It could be worse. 

12/21/21

Masks Off Day, watching Dancing to Jerusalema

https://www.facebook.com/111138863712827/videos/3637795652958491/

I love this tiny dancer, I love watching her extraordinary moves. I love how the Jerusalema viral dance challenge swept the globe in 2020. It certainly was a highlight during the beginning days of the Covid lockdown. It also seems like it was so long ago. Watching all these people dance to Jerusalema during those darkest of times, still makes me weep. Nomcebo Zikode’s voice is mesmerizing. During those darkest of days, during the pandemic, we defied the odds, and we danced. Oh, how we danced the darkness and the fear away. Someone said that dancing to Jerusalema was like the song of God expressing itself inside your DNA. From the cradle of civilization, the origins of humankind, Mother Africa brought the world together into one global village—for a moment. When the ego melts, the dance begins. The Dali Lama said, Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength. The resilience of the psyche douring those macabre times was an extraordinary feat. We hardly had the time to mourn our dead. So many fallen. Then the brutality of what followed, as society fell apart at the seams. We were brutally reminded that there is only one race—the human race. For a moment, the song, Jerusalema, brought the world together. For a moment, the world was choreographed. For a moment, we danced and breathed as one. For a moment. Literally the definition of conspiracy, is to breathe together. And yet the breath was also the harbinger of death. We masked up and hoped death would look the other way. I have had exactly five hugs since the pandemic. Three of them this month. Lest we forget, as California officially opens up from the lockdown with “Mask Off” day, the unveiling of the year, and business returns to “normal” think of that journey, how far we’ve come. The depths we’ve plumeted. The heights we’ve risen to. The idea of society returning back to normal. I don’t know If I want that ever again. Let the lessons of 2020 not be solely remembered in hindsight, but also be a vision for our future. What changes of habit will you carry with you from the lockdown? I will watch the children dance. I will remember to live in the moment. I will remember to breathe. I will remember to love. Circular breathing. This breath, this day.

Day 5, post vaccine blues, round 2

Day 5: So far, so good, but then, I’m still lolling in bed. I awoke at 6AM, bummed that I didn’t sleep in. I am both restless and exhausted, a lethal combination. I decided to wait out the side effects of the Moderna vaccine at a friend’s trailer, as I was feeling far too weird to drive home. I’m totally spaced out—like being high—without the munchies. I have no appetite at all, and I’m trippin’ without the Grateful Dead.

I’ve spent the past few days dozing while listening to audiobook CDs in my car; the warm winter sunlight amplified by all those windows is heavenly—I must be morphing into a cat. Barb’s cat is jealous of my new digs, she wants in. At least I'm not snoozing on the hood of my car in front of God and the neighbors who were already craning their necks as it was. 

Yesterday I slept in, which helped enormously. Nothing like a full-night’s sleep to make you right as rain, as my grandmother might say. But when I went to my care giver job, I was easily overwhelmed and distressed by mid-afternoon. Not quite ready to burst into tears, but close, I felt so out of sorts. Thickheaded.

The first few days after the vaccine I was freezing, cold as the morgue, a place I’m actively trying to avoid like the plague. I just couldn’t get warm. The first night I crawled out of bed and took a long hot shower to raise my body core. I was hovering at 97° flat. I was one cranky human popsicle. I took more showers during those first three days than the past month. If only I had access to a hot tub. I began to fantasize using a small horse trough as a hot tub. I even priced them out on Amazon. Totally doable.

It doesn’t help that I was born under the cranky sign. When I was a child, my granny said she couldn’t wait until I was old enough to drink coffee. Yesterday’s weak coffee didn’t help, it was limp-wristed milquetoast. I was still cranky as fuck. I needed a quad latte, only I wasn’t fit to drive over the hill into town. Driving while under the influence of Moderna is a real thing. The thought of double-clutching around wild curves, staying within the double yellow lines and avoiding entitled cyclists was too much. Stop signs and nuns didn’t count.

Multi-tasking was completely out of the question. Even mono-tasking was problematic, so attempting to do my caretaker job was painfully hilarious—especially the laundry. I was ADHD. Oh look, shiny. It took me three different attempts to finish one afternoon’s worth of work. The concept of pacing myself was not working out. I had no stamina, and it seemed as if my brain was having a three-martini lunch elsewhere, say, Victoria’s Station, ca. 1976, without me. Those everyday autopilot tasks were overwhelming as I had to actually think about how to do them. Sequential was not in my daily arsenal. My little gray cells were definitely on strike. For all I knew, they were probably calling their union rep for gross misrepresentation.

For example, I had three simple tasks, to check the laundry, maybe start a new load, and bring in the dry clothes. I managed to accomplish one task at a time, sequentially, replete with three separate trips to the laundry room, forgetting to carry over the new load twice. 

You know how when you retrace your steps to the last place you were, in order to retrieve an escaped thought? Well, I had to return to the kitchen three times in order to finish the laundry. I don’t think memory foam shoes with homing pigeon instincts would’ve helped much, I was willing to consider it after my third trip back to the kitchen to remember what I forgot. What is it with the kitchen anyway? Why does it becomes the hot thought spot in the universe of forgotten tasks? Please don’t tell me the answer is 42. That reminds me, I forgot to wash the towels.

The rest of the afternoon followed suit in a similar crazy pattern of random memory breaks. Clearly multi-tasking, something which I am particularly adept at—one might even say I was the reigning champion of multi-tasking—was simply not in my domestic arsenal. 

I was also easily fatigued which exacerbated the problem. And I was restless, niggling about like a homeward horse worried about the state of the barn. I couldn’t seem to rest. An odd combo of adrenaline rush compounded by fatigue and an absence of thought. Finishing sentences and following trains of thought was not on the agenda. I kept thinking, so this is what dementia is like, wanting to apologize to my dead grandmother for not understanding. 

I am rather dogged, and tend to finish my tasks—no matter what. But yesterday was a challenge. I left many things undone. Time was an odd, if fluid concept. I was in a quagmire located in the land of forever, so just to make chicken soup and do the dishes was like being caught up in a domestic Godot walkabout. I dumped the pot of chicken soup I was making on the floor.

Driving home to Sonoma Co. from W. Marin was a more of a challenge than I had anticipated, I just wanted to pull over and sleep by the side of the road. I did pull over by Nicasio Reservoir to gather my wits. It didn’t work. They were off with the fairies. I should’ve just stayed over another night in W. Marin, but I wanted to be in my own bed. It was too difficult to be a guest, in a strange bed not my own—especially when I felt so out of sorts. 

I fell asleep while listening to an audiobook, practically in my dinner plate. At least it was Blue Willow.  I have no idea what audiobook. TG I was already in bed. Dressing for dinner during these Covid times revolves around which flannel nightie to don. So I was battle ready, girding my loins with plaid flannel. But at least I’m vaccinated. If I can make it through the next two weeks, I’ll be home free. No more masks. But now the scuttle is that Covid is morphing ahead of the curve. Hello mask.

• Vaccines and blue horseshoe crab blood
• Post vaccine blues
• Waiting to be Moderna-ized

Second Covid shot

Second Covid shot, so far, so good. Better organized. I was injected within minutes. I medicated with Benadryl & aspirin. Need a nap.

As soon as I got my shot I took aspirin and Benadryl. I was told that same information to not take NSAIDs but I could not verify it, so to play it safe, I followed directions, only to find out it wasn’t even true. I think that sound bite about not taking NSAIDs is left over from the .45 bleach era. There is a lot of misinformation that is still floating around. My nurse practitioner was very clear on the subject. She said it was bullshit. There is no reason why you can’t aspirin or Advil beforehand. Bring a water bottle and aspirin or drug of choice, maybe Benadryl.

Seriously more organized this time around. My appointment was at 11:15 and I was done by 11:30. Then I had to wait till noon. Still no side effects. However Benadryl is probably working as well as the aspirin. I had to go up to my car and take a nap literally for an hour. I feel like I have been drinking for a week. And I don’t drink, not really. What a relief. Now we wait for two weeks before I am immune.

My synapses and my inability to finish thoughts and sentences, are definitely off kilter.  I’m sure much of it is stress, and some of it is Benadryl. I had a glass of wine to celebrate. It tasted so good. My speech did not improve.

I was also nauseous in the middle of the night. I couldn’t even raise my right arm it was so painful. I thought for a moment I was going to visit the porcelain god. Today I have a headache. And my hips hurt something fierce. All my old aches and wounds are lining up and taking turns.

Slept or dozed most of the day.  Still easily tired, fatigue, but at least my brain is back online. No more brain fog. Yesterday I spoke excellent qualude scrabble, almost all vowels. My arm still aches but it’s nowhere near as bad. No aspirin today—so far. Still seeking warmth like a heat-seeking cat. In my car, sort of like a sauna, or a sunporch.

Let’s just say last night was a very long cold night. Watched several episodes of the Queen’s Gambit. I don’t understand chess anyway. I was taking baby aspirin by the handful. I, who rarely take anything. Every old injury chimed in and said remember me? I have been beaten with small sticks, It’s a Thursday, but it isn’t Paris in the rain. Where is Cesar Vallejo when you need him?

Post vaccine blues

Yesterday I awoke with massive headaches, and an unhappy GI tract, but I think I’m through the worst of it. I like to assume that’s my body working hard to produce antibodies. No Covidlike symptoms, not even a fever. Definitely plan for a few low key quiet time out days if you overreact negatively to vaccines the way I do. At least I can raise my arm with effort. It feels like I was bare knuckle slugged by The Hulk. Meanwhile, more mobile morgues have been dispatched to Sonoma County. Scary stuff. Shit’s getting real.

Nothing was worse than the Yellow Fever vaccine I got in the late 1980s. My arm swelled from shoulder to elbow; it was so hot, it was like a furnace—I was laid up for two weeks. When I received a flu shot in 2000, I had a similar reaction. The last tetanus booster did not go well. So I don’t take this vaccination process blithely. But so far, so good. Even the Kaiser travel nurse suggested that I abstain from future booster vaccinations. It was probably the delivery method, not the vaccine. So I sweat it out. Albumen, or egg whites were commonly used as a delivery vehicle. 

I have anaphylaxis to certain foods, specifically hazelnuts. Shellfish has added itself to my list—I can’t take glucosamine for my joints. I’ve experienced anaphylaxis when being tested for cedar and pine pollens at Kaiser. Yep, I know exactly what adrenaline shots feel like, every single muscle simultaneously contracting at once, including scalp muscles! So far, I do not have antibiotic reaction. I read the ingredients for Modena, no albumen, the big culprit is the delivery vehicle, not the drug. The things that may threatening my life may very well save my life.

Waiting to be Moderna-ized

I’m standing in line at the back offices of the Marin Civic Center waiting for my number to be called. Waiting to be Moderna-ized. It took a while to find the place. The Covid vaccination clinic is well hidden behind the back offices of the Civic Center. No signage. Nada. As if they don’t want anyone to know. 

A man in black, looking official walks by, carrying an empty black insulated package, I realize it’s an empty medical transport package. That many more people have been vaccinated. How many doses per package? 

We are greeted by a sprinkling of rain. A chain of lenticular clouds in the sky make an uneasy river, where it leads to, I don’t know—towards the east. I’m hoping to God it doesn’t rain any harder because I do not even have a jacket. This down vest is useless in a downpour. Lord knows we need the rain, but now? Really?

A real cloudburst. I run to the car, and grab my car screen shades for an umbrella, the laundry bag was too small to be of use. Small mercies, they move us to an unused auditorium, out of the rain. My car screen shade is a sensational hit, works better than an umbrella. When in doubt, think outside the box. Survival depends upon it. 

I am amazed by how everyone suddenly forgot to socially distance themselves while trying to squeeze inside the building. Rats entering a sinking ship. We are mostly all dressed in black. A somber purple. Midnight blue. Storm grey dots the crowd. 

We are a mixed mob, mostly older folks. Three nuns from Dominican huddle together. I am strangely comforted by their presence, thinking of the nine cloistered nuns who needlessly died of Covid. I am glad the sisters are proactively seeking protection.

We are now more than an hour behind, one woman with the same time appointment as me says, I’m gonna die of old age. We laugh. Someone quips, at least you won’t die of Covid. We laugh harder yet, what else is the, besides gallows humor? We are waiting in line to avoid a probable death sentence. I think, at least we have escaped the seditious politics of the day for a moment. But the bad news finds us. Armed protestors on the senate floor. The government is in a lockdown. We no longer live in a democracy. 

The guard calls out names for the 11 o’clock crowd. then 11:09. He yells Mary O’Sullivan, I look to see if it’s a relation. IDs out and at the ready, proclaiming our individuality. I realize that we’re all related. 

He yells out Padilla, Ortega, Sondheim, Sung. The guard tries alternate pronunciations hoping someone will recognize their name. He calls Magdalena. Another guard delivers bottles of hand sanitizers. The call guard resorts to first names, that humanizes us. Magdalena, where are you? he asks for the third time. His voice is hoarse. I imagine that he has been yelling out names for days. I hope that she won’t regret not showing up.

I worry that the guards won’t accept my application, and if they do, what if I react to the serum. There is always that risk. My ID is at the ready. I have to trust the process.  It’s well past my call time, but at least it’s dry. We’re up to 11:15, but it’s well past noon. I’d kill for a cuppa coffee. And still we wait. We have the rest of our lives to live, no matter what the outcome, it’s always finite.

Ok, I’m on the paramedic’s special watchlist. Got my shots. Woof! As Sinead Dinsmore says. Feeling a little lightheaded, spacy, but adrenaline is a funny thing. So far, so good. I still feel lightheaded, burping like a tree frog, mostly nerves, but I think I’ll live. Vaguely altered states. One guy is having a bad reaction, but for the most part, it’s pretty uneventful. Took a benadryl just in case. Lower lip is hot and reacting, it could be from the mask. I’m surrounded by paramedics and health care professionals on both sides of the equation. Now I’m getting chills, left (shot) arm is cold. Anxiety is not helping. Otherwise no real symptoms. 

I’m at risk because I have experienced anaphylaxis. Nurses conferred with doctors and paramedics, and had me wait longer than the proscribed time frame. I also had to tell the paramedic in charge that I was on the watchlist, so I had to sit up front where he could keep an eye on me. As it was, he had someone react negatively to the vaccine.

Five more minutes. The sun came out, the sky is angry. Ok, 40 minutes, I have left the building. The car is way more tranquil than being inside, people are ignoring social distance, they are huddled around cellphones getting the news. Politically, all hell is breaking loose. Trumpsters have taken the White House. 

I’m trying to stay calm. No anaphylaxis but definitely a small hot hive on my lower lip. Next time, bring a water bottle, and premedicate with both benadryl and aspirin. I need a coffee! Benadryl slowed down the lip hive. It’s no longer hot. I also took off my mask, which may be the source of the problem. Dare I drive Scary times all the way round.

• Day 5, post vaccine blues, round 2
• Vaccines and blue horseshoe crab blood
• Post vaccine blues
• Waiting to be Moderna-ized

Day of Sedition, and Darwin Awards

On the day I stand in line for my first COVID-19 vaccination, is also a Day of Sedition. It will go up in flames and it will go down in infamy. What have we come to, as a nation, that this could even happen? Traitors in our midst. Not from the Left, but from the Right. I grieve, I grieve.  

“Under U.S. federal law, sedition refers to the act of inciting revolt or violence against a lawful authority with the goal of destroying or overthrowing it. Sedition is a felony crime punishable with up to 20 years in prison.”

Stephen Gale wrote: “So I was sad when I heard a rioter died of a "heart attack.”  I was feeling something else today when I learned he was in the process of stealing a portrait of Tip O'Neil, when he accidentally tasered himself in the balls until his heart gave out. You just can't make this stuff up.”

I just snorted my proverbial tea through my nose. I felt guilty, it’s the first time I laughed since the national nightmare began. We are the laughingstock of the world. But the droll screenplay for 2021 is off to a surreal start, replete with real Darwin Awards. Scene two: a woman that got trampled to death had a Don't tread on me flag. Karma has spoken, dripping with irony.

Covid count, the year of the great plague

Someone, frustrated by all the people blatantly ignoring the travel restrictions, wondered if people were that dumb. Panicky, dangerous animals. I answered, Not so much dumb but certainly willful, delusional gamblers and risk takers. Oh, and incredibly selfish.

MS Annals of the Four Masters? on Black plague. Trinity College, 1316/2, p. 36. 1350

Practicing the lucid art of Covid dreaming

Last night I dreamed I was in a darkened hall filled with far too many people that  I cared about, who crowded too close to me, some wanting to hug me, or to converse with me—or perhaps even to say goodbye. They were all there, the old boyfriends, ex lovers, even my former partner. My long-dead grandmother, where was my mother? MIA most of my life. Some thing never change. I’m having personal space boundary issues. No one was keeping social distance, no one was masked. Maybe it no longer mattered. Maybe this was it. The last hurrah, the long goodbye. The hubbub and roar of things left too long unsaid was palpable. No more pretense. To mask, or not to mask, that is no longer the question. We are all unmasked by this disease, and have entered into the third realm. I found myself freaking out, thinking, We’re all going to die. Shouting at my friends, and relatives—Keep your distance. Quarantine, thy name is.... Hold on. Thinking, it’s hopeless. Trying not to breathe. The very thing we need to do right now, is remember to breathe. To focus. How do we circumvent the futility of our dreams? We have entered a new realm—the lucid art of Covid dreaming. Meanwhile, the earth abides. When’s the last time you were hugged? This is a question for those of us who are alone in this madness. The other week, an old friend hugged me. I had all kinds of reactions, it dawned on me that I hadn’t been hugged in nearly a year. I burst into tears. I find myself making drawings of places I’ve never been, a landscape of hope on my bucket list, God willing. We will abide, our hearts will lead us, show us the way home. This what love is.

—for Laura Austin Wiley, who dreams she is being served cake, the final dessert, the endgame. But there’s always a cheese plate. —with love.

Bucket list. Fjaðrárgljúfur Gorge, SE Iceland. Rebecca Schultz went to Iceland and did these fantastic canvases of rock formations, which inspired me, then, and when I saw photos of this gorge with the unpronounceable name, I had to draw it.

Thanksgiving traditions during a time of COVID

This year, because of Covid, my bubble world people are few—my cousin Sinead, and my friend Sam. So, Thanksgiving will be a small gathering in West Marin. But there will be leftovers, so the turkey table will be shared among several friends via care packages.

Tuesday was my birthday and I snagged an unexpected turkey, via the foodbank, a small one one, it’s snoozing in a brinepot in the fridge, awaiting its world debut. I have found brining makes all the difference in the world. No more dry turkey breast.

There will be stuffing, garlic mashers, yams, cranberry sauce, gravy, brussels sprouts with bacon and Gorgonzola cheese, green bean casserole, and a lot of leftovers split three ways. 

As soon as the turkey is roasted, and we’ve eaten, I will debone it, then start in on the soup. And it will be glorious soup. Because the turkey was brined, there’s no need to add salt to the broth, and it takes less time to make. A turkey boxing day of sorts.

For me, it’s all about the carcass. Turkey soup after Thanksgiving is over and done with, is sublime. 

Holiday travel

We just blew past a quarter of a million people dead in the US alone, no estimate of total COVID deaths worldwide, those numbers are exponentially growing daily, California broke its own infection and hospitalization record last week. Washington DC numbers are through the roof. That’s almost 1,500 deaths a day.

Yes, it’s a pain that California is back on lockdown curfew in an attempt to slow down the disease vector, it hasn’t even been a year since the pandemic struck, and people are seriously thinking of traveling for the holidays? What is this bizarre mindset, kamakazi lemmings attempting to outfox death?

Someone in the Irish in California group asked, Hi all, quick question. What are your sentiments traveling home for Christmas? Most answers were all for traveling back to Ireland. Even though the pubs are closed. COVID be damned. What kind of mindset is that? One Irish guy said his mother would kill him if he didn’t return home for the holidays. I said you might kill her if you do. Coffin nails.

Geez. My sentiment is that I want to stay alive. I’d stay home, certainly not endanger myself or others. Too many places are disease vectors—especially planes. As Kim Silverman so eloquently said, “Travel is exactly how the pandemic became a pandemic. And it is now more prevalent than ever before.” 

From a friend: “More than 200,000 NEW cases of COVID in the United States today. Only 37 countries in the world have had more than 200,000 cases in TOTAL since the pandemic began. For God's sake, and for the sake of our health workers, and of your loved ones, please be safe. Stay home. This is such a dangerous time.”

“California just surpassed a sobering threshold – one million COVID-19 cases – with no signs of the virus slowing down,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom.

So sad, all of it. There are refrigerator morgues permanently parked outside Kaiser in SF. At first I wondered what they were, then the grim truth hit. Last month, my cousin and I went to visit the shipping container place at the port of Oakland where they customize and trick up shipping containers for you, and there were stacks of refrigerator morgues at the ready. They said the refrigerator morgues were selling like hotcakes. Grim thought.

And the Irish in California host thought I was being too heavy-handed because I shared this information on their page. Someone said, Shouldn’t you be out on a ledge somewhere? So a laissez-faire attitude is the appropriate response? What am I missing here? Death is not reversible. Death is heavy-handed.

Please feel free to rant about it. I’m flummoxed and angry at the gross stupidity of some sectors of humanity—and these people are not from the T.rump sector. I have little time to engage in schadefreude because COVID is relentlessly rolling its way through the upper echelons of the Republican Party. I just want my life back. Pre-COVID. But we have to work on this together. That COVID vaccine is still pie in the sky. And the reality check is not in the mail.

Photos: Shipping containers serving double duty as morgues. This is not something we should get used to seeing.  Stay home. Stay home. Stay home. Wear your mask. It’s the humane thing to do.

My Covid project, scanning old negatives

My crazy scanning set up. I use John Oliver Simon’s cranky 2010 Canon Lide 210 scanner to scan the proofsheets, it rarely wants to actually work so I have to cajole it. Then I load the negatives into the film strip holders for the big Epson 550 scanner (from 2013), processing both proofsheet and images at the same time on my elderly 2010 MacBookPro, which has its challenges (not to mention mine, from multitasking), then I file everything. 

Since the software and technology are a decade old, the process is cranky and slow, if I unplug anything, if I sneeze, fart, or look cross-eyed, things quit working. They all need massaging, ego boosts, and replacing, if not downright retirement, as we are all at least a decade older than dirt naps. I tried using a more modern MacBook Pro, and discovered that there were no drivers that would run the old scanners. So I’m stuck with the Snow Leopard era.I have not tried it with High Sierra, but I suspect it may not work at all.

If I’m lucky, I can scan 10 proof sheets of negatives a day, the average tends to be around six. It takes about an hour to scan, edit/crop, and file each sheet of negatives (about 20-35 images per sheet). Whaddya mean you forgot to flip the negatives upside down and backwards? Rescan.

I am nearly finished with my negatives from when I worked at The Paper into the digital age. Next up, the Slug Fest, and the Russian River Jazz Fest. I have a box of negatives of travel photos and another big box of poet photos on deck—some of which I’ve done scanned, but it’s still a lot of work. The old Epson scanner is challenged by low light imagery and chops people up like Mad Sweeney Todd. I’ve tried scanning the negatives directly but that doesn’t work either. 

I always knew that I’d eventually have to deal with my negatives but after having to pack them up for three evacuations, three boxes weighing at least 30 pounds each (all that silver bromide), I decided that now is the time to do it even if I don’t have the right equipment. I really want the better scanner before I tackle the poets. So many times I took photos of people because I like the way it looked, or the lighting intrigues me, I often didn’t know who they were. I sure have a lot of photos of Norton Buffalo hamming it up.

Jerry Downs tossed a closetfull  of slides... I loved the photo of him in the dumpster under an avalanche of slides but I was also aghast. I replied, well, I’ve been scanning all my old negatives and I’m glad I did, rather than toss them— as I found photos I never printed and in several cases, didn’t even know I had taken photos of—including Robin Williams and Emmylou Harris. But having to evacuate three times with three heavy boxes of negatives, plus several boxes and crates of writing and art nearly killed me as several flights of stairs were involved. I took a few days off from scanning, I’m burned out, but every time someone asks if there’s a fire, I feel the urge to redouble my efforts.

I am still waiting for the perfect refurbished Epson Perfection 850 to be in stock (but they are rare as hen’s teeth), so that I can do a decent job of the poet photos. My budget is a shoestring. I need a GoFundMe. I will need a wet mount easel to scan some of the photos—like with the Robin Williams photos. I am learning as I go. No manuals for this stuff. Some images I will need to rescan. 

At night all I dream about, is editing and filing problem negatives... and finding lost ones. Then there are the pages I didn’t date, thinking I’d remember...like the Forestville Poison Oak Festival, because there are male strippers wearing masks and little else on that roll. Sadly, some of the negatives I was looking for, specifically Brownie Mary, Tony Serra, and Dennis Perón have not turned up, and since I am down to a handful of files, they were probably nicked by the same jerk who took my Ella Fitzgerald photos.

What I’ve learned is that you can’t pick and choose, the only way out is through, begin anywhere, as long as you begin—and there are no shortcuts, I’ve found them all... Ah, but the treasures I am uncovering! So, what is your Covid project?

T.rump-19

COVID-19 update: What do you think about the timing? Don’t you think it’s more than a little suspicious that after the so-called debate debacle, that DT has suddenly has Covid? Convenient?

A friend said she is reciting the rosary for all her initial bad thoughts, another says she will need a an entire novena. I think I just doubled my purgatorial sentence. All the Hail Marys in the world aren’t going to help me now. Michael Ellis asks me what about turning the other cheek, I replied, the other cheek tested negative for sympathy and forgiveness. I seem to have developed a stiff upper neck along with a stiff upper lip.

It’s hard not to feel a little schadenfreude. The mouth-breathing wolf has taught us all so well to be cynical. It was totally on my bingo card. Just saying it was a matter of time. And that time is come today. I do not wish COVID-19 on anyone, but I could certainly see it coming. Here’s hoping he’s not indulging in a Clorox cocktail. That “cure” I would not wish upon anyone.

Fire journal 4, During these COVID times

During these COVID times, much of my writing comes from interacting with friends and strangers on facebook. I never know what will lead to a poem, a prose poem or a memoir. I’ve decided not to worry about what it is and just keep posting.

We’ve an added stress in our lives in California—wildfire, evacuation, etc., so we’re all either living on the run, or are on high alert. Stress factor is through the roof.

Lots of visiting firemen from out of state (Montana and Idaho) camped in our San Geronimo Valley golf course, Because of COVID we can’t even offer them food or goodies.

Guy Fiori has set up a massive kitchen, feeding all the firemen in Sonoma County. Pretty amazing.

We’re grateful Fort Ross didn’t burn, Armstrong Woods is burning, but is controllable. Only the forest floor, not the trees.

Inverness/Pt Reyes fire is still going, keeping us on our toes. But it’s slowly being contained.

Meanwhile we look for solace in a glimpse of blue sky and the cooling fog. One foot in front of the other.

And if we get some good writing from it, that’s even better.

Covid journal, freeway wreck

I’m stuck in a rare traffic jam on 101 outside of Santa Rosa, so I contemplate the mundane roadside attractions, debris, new homesteads in the bushes, in the no-man’s-land between freeway and fence. The traffic jam eventually unveils its ugly secret. A big truck hauling a trailer, someone else’s home, did a 180° turn right off the freeway—facing back the way he came. The trailer crumpled like tinfoil, or a Coke can. The truck, still upright, with a starburst pattern in the windshield from someone’s head. 

Myriad cops circle the scene. I wonder if the couple survived. And I realize that though the driver did 180° turn going back from where he came, he can never go back there again. Was he yet another victim of COVID homelessness? As this pandemic continues on its inexorable path, more and more people are becoming homeless. It too is a pandemic. Seeking shelter wherever they can. During these dark days of summer, it’s not so much of a problem. Pitch a tent, or pitch a tarp. But come winter, then what?

And a jerk in the SUV, seeing a long line of cars, tries to pass me on the freeway shoulder, right in front of the wreck. He is part of the problem. Let’s just say hand gestures were involved all round. 

Some Sunday morning. Our new normal horizon keeps shifting its parameters. What was unthinkable a year ago is now the new normal. But hope is ever present, the Halloween maze corn is growing in the Petaluma field. Waiting for the maze to grow. A bleacher overlooks the green sea of corn. Come October, The Day of the Dead. How many, countless deaths by then?

Indeed, the gates of the Otherworld are open wide, waiting to receive us all.