Boo! The holidays are coming!

 

   Recently, one of my attendants mentioned that Halloween is their favorite holiday (so to speak, although it’s not a day off work). I guess my attendant was thinking about the upcoming holiday season. 

   Yes, ready or not, the holidays are coming up.  Now that it’s late September and Fall is here – already! – the holidays will be here before we know it. 

   When my attendant asked if I like Halloween, I said that I don’t.  Even though Autumn is my favorite season, with the cooling weather, the sharpening light, the leaves turning colors, Halloween is one of my least favorite holidays. 

   When I was a little child, it seemed I was sick a lot on Halloween, not able to wear my costume to school and go out that night and get lots of candy in my bag.  When I was able to go out trick-or-treating, my mom and dad would always fight over who would take me out, and my mom always lost and had to take me out.  The last year I went out, I really liked the costume I came up with – a black blob, a sheet my mom dyed black and put over me – but, when my mom took me out in my wheelchair, the sheet kept snagging in my wheels and ripping. 

   Years later – about twenty years ago, perhaps – I set out candy on a nice, sturdy, wooden chair (answering the door and handing out candy is awkward at the very least and another reason why Halloween isn’t my favorite day). I woke up the next morning to find pieces of the chair strewn up and down the street.  Someone went to considerable effort to do a Halloween prank, but it wasn’t fun or funny to me and really put the quash on the holiday for me. 

   I like Thanksgiving much better, although I now tend to be alone with my attendants.  It is all about relaxing, with good cooking and eating.  Very simple – the way I like it. 

   I love the idea of Christmas – peace and love – and the lights and music, but I don’t like all the rushing around and the pressure to buy, buy, buy.  When I was growing up, Christmas never seemed to be enough, and I’m still trying to not think this way. 

   And, finally, I just don’t like New Year’s.  For one thing, I don’t drink and am not a partier.  Also, I don’t like thinking of a whole new 12 months ahead of me, with resolutions and all that. I’m much more comfortable with one day at a time. 

   Perhaps I can say that I love the season but not the holidays.

Pandemic? What pandemic?

 

   It’s called cognitive dissonance.

   That’s “the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change,” according to Oxford Languages, or “the perception of contradictory information,” according to Wikipedia. It’s holding two or more very different or contradictory ideas, beliefs or worldviews in your head at the same time. 

   Sounds really hard. 

   It is. 

   I’m having a hard time when I read that Patti Smith, along with a bunch of other artists, are back on tour, including as part of large music festivals, “out of traction, back in action” (as the Los Angeles Times story on Smith was headlined with a well-known quote from her after being sidelined with a broken leg years ago). It’s hard to see that concerts are going on here in town – even as, yes, I’m attending them, albeit on the sidelines and masked up – and that students are back in school. It’s seems odd that people are going out to restaurants, movies and football games and that lots of people are flying again. 

   It’s hard to see all this when COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths are rising (although not so much here in Los Angeles County, where there are mask mandates in place), when more and more young people, like those who attend music festivals and schools and colleges, are getting COVID, when health officials warn against raveling and being in crowds. 

   It’s like we’re being told – no, we’re being told – to do one thing – stay home, be safe – and being offered, tempted with, another thing – eat out, go back to school and concerts (finally!), travel. What’s crazy or is making me crazy is that we don’t have to pick one or the other.  It seems we can have both, we can do both. 

   Never mind that these two things – stay home, go out – are opposites, that they contradict each other.  That’s the message that’s out there now, that’s we’re left to go with, hold in our heads. 

   I may not have a headache, but I’m definitely feeling crazy. And no wonder!  It’s worse than being stir-crazy.  At least stir-crazy is one simple idea in your head.          

   I wonder why this is going on.  Maybe it has something to do with this quote that was in an article in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times about crowds returning to college football games.  It’s from Victor Matheson, a sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., who says about letting crowds back into stadiums,   “That’s not good for public health, but it’s good for Texas and Alabama’s bottom line.”    

   You think? 

A pandemic of stupidity

 

 I’m mad. 

   I’m mad that there are governors, like Republican Ron DeSantis of Florida who I wrote about in my last post, who are mandating that students can’t be required to wear masks, while I read in today’s Los Angeles Times that more kids are dying from COVID, especially where states with governors making these mandates.  I’m mad that people have to be begged, bribed and all but forced to get a vaccine that will give some protection from getting and transmitting COVID which has so far, in America alone, killed more than 600,000 people.  I’m mad that, in the name of freedom, people are arguing against masks and vaccines and making the rest of us suffer, prolonging this horrible pandemic. 

   I was mad when I wrote the following column, which appeared in yesterday’s Claremont Courier. 

           SICK OF THE PANDEMIC? NOT IF WE ALL MASK UP

   People really wanted to be there, to get out.  They were just dying to. 

   Literally. 

   Look, I get it.  After nearly a year and a half of lock-down and

isolation, because of COVID, I am more than ready to get out and do stuff.  After months and months and months – has it really been 16 months? – of nothing going on, I was thrilled to see events around town that I could go to. 

   Last year in April or May or so, not too long after the pandemic began and we all had to isolate ourselves and keep apart from each other and everything was shut down, I read about a woman saying she was “tired of Netflix.” I laughed.  How could anyone get tired of Netflix, I thought. 

   But now I get it.  I hear her.  Although it’s amazing what can be watched online, even just on Netflix, it has now, a year and some later, gotten boring to be stuck at home watching television or some other screen.  I have been itching to get out and see some presentations – even a movie – with others. 

   I have been itching to get back to doing things with others, in community. 

   So I was thrilled when I saw that Friday Nights Live in the Village and the Monday Night Concerts in Memorial Park had started up or were starting up again.  Finally!  Live music in Claremont for the first time in a year and a half!  This was going to be great. 

   I felt giddy, like I was going on an adventure, when, on a Friday night a few weeks ago, I went to the Village with my mask on to hear some live music. It was almost like when I went up to Friday Nights Live on my own in my wheelchair for the first time after my spinal surgery, which left me considerably more disabled, four years ago. 

   But I didn’t expect it to be a shocking if not downright scary adventure.  I had seen plenty of people out in recent months not wearing masks as if there wasn’t a pandemic going on, but I was shocked, to say the least, to see this at Friday Nights Live.  I did see a few fellow mask-wearers wander by now and then, but most people weren’t masked up. 

   It was even more of a shock when I went to Memorial Park on the next Monday evening for the first concert in two summers.  I was very eager, hungering for this cherished event, but the crowd was much bigger, bigger than I expected (at least the crowd wasn’t big at Friday Night Live), and, from where I sat, there wasn’t plenty of room to spread out, contrary to one report, and most in the crowd weren’t wearing masks. 

   In Claremont?

   In this town of trees and Ph.D’s, where education and the sciences are so highly valued?     

   Really? 

   Now, maybe I’m paranoid.  These events were outside, and it has been reported that the coronavirus is less likely to be spread outside.  And I understand that many Claremonters have been vaccinated, and it is proven that the vacations prevent serious illness and death. 

   Nevertheless, I sat on the side, away from the crowd, wearing a mask.  Wearing a mask was now, for me, no longer just a matter of signaling that I believe in science, that I care for others.  It was now about the far more contagious Delta variant and the fact that even though the vast majority of the many who have been getting ill and seriously ill have not been vaccinated, a significant number who have been vaccinated are catching and transmitting the virus, which has killed more than 600,000 Americans. True, most of these people aren’t getting seriously ill, but it still freaked me out when a close friend got COVID even though he was vaccinated and super careful about masking, keeping socially distanced and all that. 

   I can understand how it’s easy to hear this and say, “Why bother?  Why bother masking, why bother getting a vaccine, if I’ll get COVID anyway?”

   I just know that I don’t want to get COVID.  I’m not sure if my disability is a underlying condition, as they say, but I don’t want to end up in a hospital crowded with COVID patients where, with my severe disability, I might not be a high or equal priority. I know that such a scenario is now unlikely with all the vaccinations that have been given – although many more have to be given if we want to be out of this nightmare – but, then again, we did think that everything was getting much better in June before the super-contagious and more dangerous Delta variant came along.       

   I know – it’s tough.  Believe me.  I want to go out and enjoy live music.  (I also went to the Ophelia’s Jump production of Twelfth Night at the outdoor Greek Theater on the Pomona College campus last month – it was thrilling to go out to a play – but I felt much safer there with the protocols in place there.) I want to go out and not keep being stuck at home.  But I want to be safe.  I have to be safe.  What is to be done?    

   Wear a damn mask!  What’s so hard about that?  Yes, I know masks are a pain.  I don’t like wearing them.  They get hot, obstruct my vision, make it even harder to understand my impaired speech, keep riding up or down my face, etc.  Yes, masks are an inconvenience, but they are a small inconvenience that has been shown can, besides from vaccinations, have a big part in helping us all put this God-awful pandemic behind us. 

   With students finally going back to in-person school full-time, I’ll note that, when it comes to wearing masks, the kids are alright. When I see children out wearing masks, they appear to be just fine, not whining or pulling at them, contrary to what many adults predicted and to what some Republican governors are still insisting.  They just do what kids always do – wearing masks, unlike many adults who, to say the least, gripe ceaselessly about having to wear them. Perhaps we can learn from our children about being patient and caring for one another. 

   It is jarring that there are now two worlds – one in which people are careful, concerned about COVID and getting and spreading it, and one in which people act like nothing’s wrong, like there wasn’t a pandemic, like it was just a big nuisance or it is over.  

   Something else is jarring.  Although I have enjoyed going back to the movies at the Laemmle Cinema, I’m finding myself angry when movies are coming out “only in theaters.” I now resent it when I can’t watch a new movie at home instead of having to wait for months to do so. 

   This pandemic has screwed things up, some for the good but much, too much for the worse.  Get vaccinated, and wear a damn mask!        

The kids are alright

 

“I have [three] young kids. My wife and I are not going to do the mask with the kids. We never have; we won’t. I want to see my kids smiling. I want them having fun,” he said.

Oh, please!  Give me a break!  The kids are doing just fine with masks, from what I’ve seen.  I would argue that kids wearing masks are smiling and having fun. 

The quote above is from Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida who is seeking reelection next year and has been positioning himself nationally for a possible 2024 presidential bid.

The governor recently barred school districts from requiring students to wear masks.  This means that schools can’t tell students to wear masks, even if they think if safer and even as it has been shown that, other than vaccination, masks are very effective at preventing the spread of COVID. This is critical, as kids under 12 aren’t eligible to be vaccinated and many older than 12 have been slow to get the vaccine and as the Delta variant is super contagious. 

As I’ve written here before, I have seen many kids, including young children, out and about wearing masks.  They aren’t whining or pulling at the masks, unlike with many adults. They are just going along, walking, running, skipping, talking excitedly, skipping, doing whatever they do – with masks on.  It could be that some are making a game of it, as in cosplay.  Whatever the case, they are modeling not making a big deal out of having to wear masks and how to take care of one another. 

Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis and others like him continue to insist that freedom and library, that personal responsibility and not being told what to do are more important than keeping people healthy and not getting terribly sick and dying.  Never mind that one in five U.S COVID cases are now in Florida, that cases there have doubled there in the last week, with hospitals again being swamped with COVID patients. 

Maybe Governor DeSantis should listen to his kids. 

Wear yourself!

 

   I recently gave a friend a pair of way-cool, old, orange tie-dyed bib overalls.  I have dozens of overalls, most of which I’ll never wear since they’re now too hard to put on and take off, and I figured I could let this pair go, as unique and cool as they were, since my friend really liked them.  My friend cut off the legs and ended up with an even cooler pair of shortalls. 

   A few days later, my friend attended a party, which they later told me was “so much fun…dancing with my friends.” I asked my friend if they wore the overalls I gave them.  My friend admitted to not wearing them and to wearing a dark brown pair of bibs instead, “because there were lots of people there, some I didn’t know, and it just felt more comfortable.”

   I don’t say this to put my friend on the spot.  Far from it.  This is just the latest example of something I’ve heard or seen for many years.  And I have to say that I’m so tired of it.  It is so sad.  It breaks my heart. 

   In the last year, there has been endless talk about epidemics.  In addition to the COVID pandemic, we have been hearing about how there’s an epidemic of poverty, an epidemic of healthcare disparity, an epidemic of racism, an epidemic of police brutality and racial injustice.  There has also been talk of an epidemic of anxiety, especially among teens, and an epidemic of loneliness. 

   From what I’ve seen and heard for years, there has been another epidemic.  And epidemic of…I’m not sure.  For now at least, I’ll say it’s an epidemic of body shyness – if not shame.

   In the past, I have let another friend borrow several pairs of overalls to wear at parties and music festivals.  He reported getting lots and lots of compliments, but he wouldn’t wear them anywhere else.  He also owned a pair of bibs, and he did look very good in them, but he very rarely wore them. 

   This friend told me that he doesn’t like being told that he looks good.  He said it makes him feel uncomfortable. 

   A lot of guys have told me something like this.  I have had guys – even at music festivals – tell me they wish they could wear what I wear (actually everyday, not just at music festivals).

   Again, I find this heart-breaking.  When guys say this to me, I want to say, “Then why don’t you?”

   I’m not talking about wearing tie-dyed overalls, if that’s what you’re into, to the office or even a workday Zoom meeting.  I’m talking about being comfortable wearing them on a stroll around the neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon.  Or to the market or Target.

   I know that this issue, this epidemic of body shyness, has been going on for a very long time and is deeply entrenched, at least in American society.  It also occurs to me that my case is quite unique, that I’m very used to people looking, staring at me and that I’ve come to enjoy giving them something interesting and fun to look at with what I wear, etc. I wish there was some way I could help with this, that I could help people feel alright about how they look and with feeling comfortable wearing whatever they want (again, within reason). I’m wondering about creating a website, if it would help to have a space where people can share their experience with body shyness and perhaps encourage each other to feel comfortable wearing what they want. 

   Is there something more I can do with this other than post this? 

   I’m also thinking about the two or three times in the years before the pandemic that I saw guys at the colleges here wearing dresses (I’ve also seen this at annual Quaker gatherings). This wasn’t drag – no make-up, no wigs, no stuffing, no high heels – and I even didn’t sense that these guys were gay.  They were just guys out wearing what they wanted, comfy and, yes, probably having fun wearing light summer dresses on a warm day.  Perhaps things are changing.