Post 69 - May 19, 2020
Day 69…
Day after day
After day after day
After day after day after day
Till the days go by
Till the days go by
Till the days go by
That’s what was in my head when I woke up this morning.
They are lyrics from a song called Not a Day Goes By, from the Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along.
It’s an interesting show because it is written backwards.
It starts with the final scene and works its way back to the first scene.
You know how it ends from the beginning.
The fun of the show is seeing, bit by bit (to quote another musical) how the characters ended up the way that they do.
How interesting it would be to know how all of this will end and then work our way back to where we are now.
Yesterday, we heard that a company named Moderna reported promising results with an experimental COVID-19 vaccine.
The company tested 8 healthy volunteers and the vaccine caused all 8 of them to develop antibodies to the virus without immediate side effects.
Great news!
My immediate reaction was elation that this might actually soon be over.
As the day went by, however, it became clear that while this development might indeed accelerate the speed with which we can all get back to work, that speed is still relative.
The next step for Moderna is to test the vaccine on a larger group of hundreds.
Then, it will need to be tested on an even larger group of thousands to make sure that the vaccine is safe and, of course, effective.
As the vaccine trials move forward, so will the studies that are determining how effective the COVID-19 antibodies actually are in terms of immunizing us.
The test results of all of these trials then need to be analyzed and, if the outcome is still positive, presented to the FDA for approval.
One immunologist on TV yesterday was optimistic that if all went well that the vaccine could be available as soon as the beginning of next year.
That’s great, but that’s still eight months from now.
If it all works.
We have quite a way to go.
As we move along the path of this journey, I’m finding that there are moments where the reality of all of this sinks in.
It’s one thing to know something intellectually, but a completely different thing when you wake up to the reality on a deeper level.
Like everybody, Michael and I have to figure out how we are going to get through the next year.
There is little coming up that we HAVE to do.
It’s one thing to be unemployed and searching for a job, but a completely different thing to be unemployed when what you do isn’t happening.
Anywhere in the world.
There are no jobs to be found.
These next months are only going to be effective for a lot of us who work in businesses that are on hold, if we create things to do ourselves.
I’m finding that because there is so little that I have to do at a certain time, that when I do actually have something, it creates a certain amount of stress.
I have Broadway Barks virtual board meeting on Thursday at 1pm.
Broadway Barks is an organization that I helped start with Bernadette Peters
(Oh, THAT’S why I woke up with that song in my head - BP sings it).
Every year we bring together all of the NYC area’s animal shelters and enlist the stars of Broadway and Off Broadway shows to present the dogs and cats from those shelters to the public.
It’s an unbelievably great, chaotic, messy day in July right in the heart of the theatre district.
Lots of dogs and cats and lots of celebrities.
Bernadette hosts it every year.
It takes about 30 stage managers to pull it off.
At the end of the day, many of the animals are well on their way to finding forever homes.
This year would have been our 20th (21st?) year of doing it.
Of course, we are not going to be able to do it live this year.
Anyway, we have formed a non-profit around Barks and we all have to meet virtually on Thursday.
Whatever day today is, I am fairly certain that it isn’t Thursday.
(I just checked and it’s Tuesday. I would have sworn it was Wednesday.)
There is nothing stressful about meeting with the rest of the board and the facilitators at all.
The meetings are always entertaining.
I’m just stressed about possibly missing it because I have so little else to do.
(Yes, I’ve set alerts and alarms and Bernadette’s Assistant has promised to remind me, but still.)
As this crisis started, the fear and anxiety where overwhelming.
We all just hid.
We have much more information now.
We’ve experienced living this way and we’ve learned to adjust.
The days seem longer now because they aren’t being eaten up by terror.
So, we have to figure out how to live our lives productively over these next few months.
As we move forward, there is going to be a LOT of political noise coming our way.
There’s a big election coming up in November.
During one of his morning addresses, Governor Cuomo had the COVID swab test done on him on camera.
A health care professional, in full PPE came on, stuck the swab in his nose, and left.
That moment did more towards alleviating the fear around this virus than talking about it ever has.
It seemed easy and quick.
A clear and effective presentation of facts.
On the other hand, yesterday, the President announced that he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine to keep from getting the virus for about a week and a half.
Hydroxychloroquine not only has no proven effect on the virus, it also has some incredibly nasty side-effects.
The President latched onto this drug early on when it seemed like it MIGHT help somewhat, but since then, there is nothing that demonstrates that it can help at all.
Hydroxychloroquine is most commonly used as a malaria prophylactic.
I’ve taken it when I’ve traveled to places where there’s malaria - Peru, parts of Africa, maybe Costa Rica.
In me, it can cause headaches and vivid, sometimes, violent dreams.
It can potentially cause a lot of other things in people including heart problems.
It isn’t something to be taken lightly.
A week and a half ago, the point at which the President says he started taking the drug, was when one of his personal valets tested positive for the virus.
The President, a reputed germaphobe, is clearly terrified of getting the virus.
He’s grasping at straws - taking a potentially dangerous drug with no proven application to the virus just because he’s terrified.
That announcement from him only raises the level of fear around this virus.
Over the next months, we are going to get a lot more angry, terrified noise like this coming our way.
Turn it off.
It takes forever to wade through the noise to find out what’s actually being said, and it often just isn’t worth it.
Turn it off.
Maybe it was a result of that clear realization that we have so much more time ahead of us, but yesterday, Michael and I did a massive clean-up in the apartment.
Our cat, Ziggy, has several places in the apartment where he likes to sleep.
These places change randomly over time.
Recently, his favorite places have been under a sideboard kind of thing in the living room, on one of Michael’s backpacks that has been, for the last two months, sitting on an armchair, and on a piece of cloth in the corner of the bedroom.
He curls up in one of those places and after a few days or weeks, a nest-like circle of shed fur forms where he’s been.
Michael and I do the exact same thing.
We’ve established various places in the apartment where each of us like to sit.
In a tight circle around those areas, we’ve each formed our own nests made up of empty coffee cups, pencils, receipts, notepads, half-completed projects, future projects, paper clips, power cords - you name it.
Yesterday, we cleaned.
Vacuumed.
Dusted.
Sorted.
The piece of cloth Ziggy was sleeping on in the bedroom turned out to be one of Michael’s shirts.
We did laundry - clothes, towels, bathmats.
Nests gone.
Clean slate.
Stephen Sondheim, who wrote Merrily We Roll Along also wrote Sunday in the Park with George with James Lapine about the French pointillist painter Gorges Seurat.
It is a musical about the creative process.
It ends with the words:
White.
A blank page or canvas.
His favorite.
So many possibilities.
Our apartment is clean.
Our heads are clear.
We are ready to begin.
I just have to try and remember to go to that meeting on Thursday.