Day 363…
I started to laugh this morning as I made the bed.
The action of pulling up the covers and smoothing them out has been repeated so many times this year that the sheer repetition of it suddenly seemed absurd. I tossed the pillows that I stacked on the rocking chair last night back onto the bed knowing full well that in just a few hours that I will toss them back on the rocker.
Small, Dark and Furry, as we sometimes refer to the cat, was sitting by the bedroom door and batted at my leg as I walked past him with such a complete lack of any interest or intent, that I had to laugh again. Even he knows that there is almost nothing that will break up the routine of the day. No food is due to come his way for hours.
Barring some disaster, it does look like our unemployment payments will continue until September. The Stimulus bill passed through the Senate on Saturday and then went back to the House to get some changes to it approved. It is not expected that any of those will fail to pass.
After that, the bill will head to the President for signing in a few days and payments should, in theory, then keep coming uninterrupted. The final Congressional vote could happen later tonight but it’s more likely that it will happen tomorrow.
The CDC announced its new vaccination guidelines yesterday, saying that fully vaccinated people should be able to finally meet up with other fully vaccinated people without masks and distancing, but in small groups. Fully vaccinated people will also be allowed to meet up with a single small unit of unvaccinated people, either friends or family, in private as well.
To be clear, those meetings will all need to happen inside homes and not just out in the crowded world. The CDC defines fully vaccinated as being two weeks after your final shot. Michael and I will be considered fully vaccinated by the middle of next month.
Maybe what’s making everything seem lighter is that, for the first time in months, today looks as if it is going to be warm enough for me not to need to wear a coat. The rest of the week is forecast to get even warmer.
This morning, I have offered to talk with a student in a theatre program taught by a friend of mine. In order to look presentable, I grabbed a shirt from the laundry pile in the bedroom to put on over my pajamas. I won’t wear the shirt again today when I go out, but for a zoom call it at least makes me look as if I didn’t just wake up.
I don’t need to shave now that I have a beard and my hair is always messy anyway. Getting ready for virtual work these days really only requires a shirt that looks somewhat presentable on camera.
I feel like after all this time, that I have actually passed through all of the stages of grief in regard to this shutdown and I have now, more or less, arrived at acceptance. We aren’t through all of this by any means, but I can, at least now see options ahead.
The official first day of Spring is also the day that I am scheduled to get my second shot - March 20. Despite that, it feels like Spring has already begun.
This time, of course, is when we are going to need to be the most vigilant in regard to the virus. Cracking the door open a bit doesn’t mean that we can all just rush out together at the same time. Given how badly some groups have followed the guidelines thus far, it is almost guaranteed that those groups will do everything too quickly and that we will see another spike. Health experts like Dr. Fauci are already warning against it.
Going back in time to the Spanish flu a hundred years ago, a final spike is exactly what happened then, too. It also happened at exactly this time of year, when people, desperate for the end of winter and the shutdown, tried to get back to some sort of normal too soon.
In 1919, the third wave started at the end of that winter and the beginning of spring, and then ultimately subsided during the summer. After that there were periodic annual outbreaks that were all very much smaller and isolated. The Spanish flu never fully went away. It still recurs sometimes during regular flu seasons, but it has never raged through the population again the way that it did.
So far, COVID-19 has pretty much followed the Spanish flu’s trajectory beat for beat. If we are lucky, it will continue to do so. That we could have avoided much of this journey seems clear but that will be endlessly debated by historians in the future. For now, though, it doesn’t look like we did any better or any worse than our ancestors did a century ago. A shame, really. We should have learned something from 1918.
I sincerely hope that I will not need to keep getting unemployment checks into September. It is comforting to know, however, that, if all goes well in Washington, that if I still need them in September that they will be there.
So, what to do?
There are still very few tourists, if any, in the city these days.
As the weather has gotten better, there have been more people out in the street. They are shopping and walking and eating out in restaurants.
With so many people working from home, the steady deluge of commuters has dwindled down to a fine trickle. More and more people are returning to the subways, but still at nowhere near pre-pandemic levels. I have yet to see anyone run to catch a train or a bus.
There are no squads of grey-suited men and women out on the streets in midtown on their way to business lunches or meetings.
The entire theatre district becomes dead silent and still every day at just the point that it should be at its busiest and most chaotic.
Based purely on what they are all wearing, the people who are commuting seem to be working in stores or hospitals and not in offices. The offices that are open are only open a day or two each week, from what I’ve heard, and even then, they are operating with a much-reduced staff. If not to their jobs, people who are out, appear to be on their way to personal appointments and meetings, rather than to business ones.
The city feels more crowded now but not yet anywhere near the levels it once was. There are still plenty of moments, even in Times Square, when you can walk out into the street without there being any traffic coming at you at all.
I can tell how anxiety-provoking living under the last Administration really was, by how much lower my anxiety level currently is. There are extremely serious issues facing us as a country, but we aren’t being led by a dangerous lunatic. That makes a difference to my heart rate. There have always been extremely serious issues facing us as a country. We just finally have a team in place that is trying to address them rather than merely ignoring and adding to them.
I see a picture of the ex-President and, on some level, I can’t believe that we all went through that. Randy Rainbow posted a new video this morning about getting vaccinated. During it, he dozes off a couple of times as he mock-interviews President Biden. He cuts to a shot of the ex-President and my heart clutches.
I’ll take boring. What a remarkable gift not having to listen to the ex-President every day is.
Meghan and Harry’s interview is getting a truly absurd amount of press coverage, simply because there isn’t anything else exciting to focus on. They didn’t get this much coverage last year when they decided to withdraw from the Royal family in the first place. I just watched a couple of pundits try to dissect a short statement about the interview from the palace word by word. I changed the channel.
In terms of non-news programming, Michael and I are now in the middle of Money Heist, a Spanish television series somewhat in the Ocean’s 11 vein but grittier. It’s just as implausible but fantastic.
I have two and a half seasons left of Supernatural which, I have to say, seems almost as endless as this pandemic. Whatever happens, once I’m through the rest of them, my daily schedule is going to change. Supernatural has been the perfect show to pay ¾ attention to while I am ¼ onto something else.
We are beginning to start up again. Obstacles and setbacks ahead? Absolutely.
In two days, if things continue as they are, I will write post 365. After that, my schedule will change a bit because what I will be doing will be somewhat different.
It looks as if I will, indeed, be able to put these posts together, albeit condensed, into book form and get them published.
There’s a lot to go through between now and then, but on Friday I will begin the process by going back to the beginning and seeing what is actually there. As I said, I will keep these posts going occasionally, but on the days that I don’t post I will be editing. As they are, just putting these together would make a 3-volume tome. I want to take them apart a bit and try and see what the journey of this last year has really been.
Editing takes up a completely different part of my brain and I am looking forward to seeing how that effects what my days are like.
In the meantime, Breakfast is close to being served and I’ve promised to get out of the house again so Michael can film yet another audition. The bongo player across the way has started up which is going to drive him insane.
There are still several hours ahead before I have to take the pillows back off the bed and stack them on the rocking chair, turn down the covers and get ready to go back to sleep.
It looks pretty glorious outside.
I can't wait to be out and about and in the middle of it all.
❤️weather report.....glorious!!!
Loved the Money Heist- watched it months ago- heard there is a 2nd season!
Next month after you’re both complete with vaccinations, I’ll invite you over for a “party”!! Can’t wait