Life continues. Kind of.
I have a place to go as of this end of this month, although I still have no idea how the fuck to move my stuff during Plague Times. I don't own that much, but I also don't have a car. I am tempted to not bother moving the mattress, but I am very much afraid that if I don't I will literally never manage to own a comfortable bed ever again. Being someone who discombobulates joints on a regular basis, not being in extra pain every time I wake up is kind of important for my quality of life. I could eventually figure out how to replace the futon I use as a topper, but a futon alone is not enough padding -- I've learned the hard way that I can very much feel the hard floor or the hard pipes of a futon frame through one of those things, and it is Not Good for my sleep.
Massachusetts is, as of this writing, continuing with their re-opening plan. We've hit the phase where the dance studio has been cleared for operation, with appropriate procedures. I'm going back. Like millions of other people, I have a job that I cannot properly do without at least some access to specialized work spaces. In my case, dance is also a substitute for physical therapy that is far more expensive and difficult to access than it ought to be. I've kept myself in reasonably good nick over the past four months, but there's a lot that I just can't do. Two of three housemates work from home, both involving teleconferencing, and I can't get to the bathroom or kitchen without going through the common spaces, so I'm more or less stuck in my bedroom during working hours. There's nothing I can use as a barre in here, and not enough room to spin, kick, or use props without whacking something, and I'm not sadistic enough to do anything rambunctious in the kitchen at 2 am.
Not gonna lie, it's reassuring that one of the instructors who opted to come back is actually an MD moonlighting as a dancer. His day job is with Harvard Public Health. Masks are required, but since we've dropped the standard from "filter virus particles" to "try not to breathe too moistly on your fellow man", I've got some I can deal with. (Moisture-wicking t-shirt fabric! The mask eventually gets damp, but it stays away from both other people and my own personal face, which is what you want.) It's not fun but I also didn't pass out during class, so that's something.
Other people are freaking the fuck out. I want it noted that what MA is doing is exactly the thing I have been advocating for months: Giving people the option (but not the requirement) to go out into the world and interact with others, with harm reduction practices. You cannot keep people locked in their houses forever. You can issue the order, but they're not going to do it. Counting on "never go out" to stop the spread of coronavirus is like counting on "never have sex" to stop the spread of HIV. You can try to apply official consequences, and unofficial shaming, but people are going to sneak out and fuck anyway. They just won't tell you. And, as we are now finding out for unrelated reasons, there do not exist enough police officers in the world to make everyone do as you say.
Everyone is aware of the assholes who think the very concept of a mask is an infringement of their human rights, but I find the pathologically cautious almost as upsetting. There is a loud minority who think nothing should re-open at all anywhere until it's "safe". I'm not sure what they think "safe" means. No chance of catching anything ever? That level of safety never existed. You just don't think about measels and MRSA and TB and tularemia and Lyme disease because those are normal risks that have been around all your life. Leprosy continues to be a thing, you know. I went to college on the edge of the Colorado Plateau, where bubonic plague and hantavirus are endemic. I could argue that if you never got a warning letter about mono or meningitis when you were in the dorms, you didn't have the full residential campus experience. Wash your hands, keep your distance, try not to breathe on other people, and realize that you cannot control every single variable in the entire universe. There is a non-zero chance that Fate will kick you in the head every time you get out of bed in the morning. I am a pedestrian in Greater Boston, ffs, I have accepted my own mortality. You can't be "totally safe". You can be "safe enough".
The Late Show is back from hiatus. Colbert is badly in need of a haircut; he slicked it back on the first Monday but opined that the look was a little too "Don Jr" for him, and vowed to come on camera without hairspray after that. Judging from the headbanging a couple nights later, he meant it. He did the first few home tapings in a suit (although, as he demonstrated to camera, no shoes), but then Twitter told him they'd rather see him more casual, so he's been wearing button-ups with the sleeves rolled to the elbow. Gray has started to come in at his temples. I'm sure he could fix that at home if he really wanted to, but he's opted to point it out on camera instead.
He's even more contemptuous of 45 than he was when they were still taping in the theater, which I was not sure was physically possible. Our TV comedians are making stirring speeches about working together whilst our actual President babbles nonsense about dishwashers. I want to ask how this happened but I'm pretty sure I know. People who have no good options have been known to choose the bad option that takes the enemy down with them. Although I feel the need to point out that Joe Exotic also ran for POTUS in 2016. We all started quarantine watching Tiger King on Netflix and the Drumpf debacle on CSPAN -- if we had all voted for the other reality TV idiot, we could potentially have 100% juicier sex scandals and 100% less interference with the CDC right now.
I wonder how Colbert is coping with all this. When he first took over the Late Show, he did a bunch of interviews where he talked about the difficulty of finding a balance between being your authentic self on stage, and still being performative enough to read well to the back of the house and keep the show rolling along. If he made great strides in his first year out of character, quarantine production has sent him into freefall in the same direction. I find it disquietingly relevant to my own life. I'm about to embark on a couple of projects that will mean I have to stay physically and mentally camera-ready, or at least ready to be camera-ready, pretty much all the time for a while, but first I have to figure out what I think camera-ready looks like for me, and how much work I'm willing to put into it.
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