Exposure

I started writing this entry back in May but haven't touched it since May 17th. If this country was lurching uneasily into the future before May, by summer everything had definitely gone sideways. And my frustration has definitely morphed into paralysis.

At that time, I was still working from home. My wife, a teacher, was still working from home. My older son had just finished his sophmore college year from home. My younger son had just graduated from high school with classes from home but an actual ceremony at the Pensacola Civic Center.

It was the first time I had seen the inside of the Civic Center since February when the building housed the Vendor Floor and Artist Alley for Pensacon. Even on February 29th I was still nervous about being in large crowds, but nobody was physically distant at the time, and wearing masks was absolutely out of the question since we were told the masks were in short supply and any masks we bought and used were masks that were unavailable to nurses and doctors. And it would still be a month before the April Fool's Day when I joked in the morning that Governor Ron DeSantis was finally taking the pandemic seriously and in the afternoon he actually accounced limited statewide restrictions to slow the spread of Covid-19.

So while the unemployment rate reaches 14.7% and millions have lost their income, the number of people under this roof with jobs has increased by one. The younger son has started working at a business that didn't exist before coronovirus swept this nation. He is working at a drive-in theater that didn't exist in April. The operation is built around two inflatable screens and hastily spraypainted lines on the ground. My son is directing traffic, connecting speakers and delivering food orders at the Pensacola Fairground. All the workers wear masks, but I still fear that he will contract the virus. But he's also getting exposure by meeting entertainment professionals in the area that are also working at the drive in. He'll have references and connections for future theatrical opportunities. He's learning about wages and paychecks and banking and routing numbers. He's discovering that he enjoys the hand-on work of electrical systems and he's really good at it. He was also exposed on his last day working there to a rave, including some unexpected nudity, recreational drug use, and even an overdose as the ambulance was called to the Fairgrounds to respond to an emergency. He was shaken by what he saw but horrors exist in the world and nobody can pretend them out of existence.

But I still think about what "exposure" means. So much of this universe is unknown to humanity. Just over five years ago we did not know that the planet Pluto had a "heart" waiting to be discovered. Much of America had not experienced the prevalence of violence directed and Black people until the brutality was exposed in a series of videos that kept coming starting in early May with the revelation of the video showing the death of Ahmaud Aubrey and escalating with two disgusting videos over Memorial Day weekend. Exposure means the introduction of the novel and potentially unexpected to a given audience.

Some exposure, like to a deadly virus, is harmful. Some exposure, like to entertainment professsionals that appreciate your enthusiasm and creativity, is beneficial. And some exposure, like police reliance on tear gas and rubber bullets to attack protestors and reporters, is hopefully leading to changes in how cops interact with citizens.

Regardless, exposure means everything changes after that point.

COVID19

Note: This was the first blog post I wrote on April 6th at 0230 Central because I couldn't sleep. I had just started working from home and Florida had only recently closed the beaches. It felt like everything was spinning out of control. Reading back, I changed nothing from what I wrote that night. It ends abruptly probably because exhaustion finally caught up to me. But I wanted to share it since the raw text captures where I was over a month ago.

I'm writing this blog because I can neither sleep nor relax. I'm filling my days with food and games and other ephemera that will mean nothing after I die.

I worry because I have health problems that make my death more likely if I fall sick. But here in Florida, so many people are acting like this disease cannot touch them. I don't envy their sense of invulnerability because if I were similarly reckless, I would be sick in short order.

Only weeks ago I was attending Pensacon with huge crowds to see "Weird" Al Yankovic and the cast of TRON and visit the dealer floor packed full of people. I drove to Mobile, Alabama to participate in a card game tournament and did rather well. I visited Arety's Angels because it had looked closed when I had driven by weeks ago. I considered going to see "Onward" the day before the cinemas closed entirely. Hell, I almost drove over to New Orleans and Mardi Gras only a few hours away. The whole time, in the back of my head I knew that the virus was spreading across the globe. But it was in China and in Italy and on a few cruise ships. I believed that the technological and scientific prowess of this nation would soon be targetting this threat and keeping us safe. Because we're America and we can do the impossible.

Other nations showed us very quickly that ignoring the threat was deadly. Testing and tracking the virus needed to be done early and often to prevent spread by asymptomatic carriers. Asking people to please stay home was worthless; they had to be ordered home and every possible public distraction shuttered. But without an immediate danger, this country failed to act. Our country responded similar to a teenager who thinks about saving money for the future. There is no penalty in failing to act today. Only later does the teenager realize that they cannot save what they need in the time they have left. By the time the future arrives, it is too late.

This country also chose inaction. We assumed that our leaders were receiving the most accurate information with the most carefully considered contigencies laid out before them by experts. But leaders didn't want to stop the party. So rather that shouting, "Last call" and sending everyone home, our leaders told us again that the parties and the beaches and the bars were open for business and to live it up. (See Isaiah 22:13)

So I'm recording my thoughts about my life in these months because the world is about to change. It's not just the disease and the death, but that will traumatize every generation alive today. Parents and grandparents and even siblings and progeny will perish alone and afraid. Loved ones will inadequately grieve because there will be no funerals where we can gather to mourn. Will families believe that the departed are truly deceased if they never see the body? That is the emotional landscape that we are pushing humanity into because we trusted leaders and neighbors that failed to overcome selfishness and pride and hubris.

The economic disaster will take at least a decade to unwind. Our next president (or two) will have an unenviable task. That president won't be leading this country or the world to a greater future. That person will be dragging us back to where we were before this catastrophe cratered the financial system and destroyed most of our businesses and industries and jobs.

History

If you are reading this blog contemporaneously, then you know that we are living through history.

If you are reading this blog at some random point in the future, know that the Covid-19 pandemic caught nearly everyone by surprise. Nobody felt like we were living through a momentous event until it was well underway. And, as cliche' as it sounds, it was already too late.

By this time, rumors about the disease have survived long enough to become some facsimile of fact. I am washing my hands regularly, trying to stay two meters from anyone else, and limiting my trips outside the house. I am lucky enough to be working my accounting position with the Credit Union from home. Not a vacation, yet feels entirely different. But yesterday I left the house on one long trip:

• driving across Nine Mile Road to pick up a birthday cake for my son's 20th birthday
• driving west along Nine Mile Road to pick up a pair of glasses ordered weeks ago
• driving further west to the Corporate Office to grab a computer monitor for teleworking
• driving back east on Nine Mile Road to pick up sodas and oatmeal and shampoo
• driving back even more on Nine Mile Road to grab a last minute birthday present
• driving across that parking lot to pick up a family's worth of Chinese takeout for dinner
• driving back across Nine Mile Road to return home

The proprietors at some locations like the optometrist office or the Chinese restaurant had arranged the business to allow completion of my transaction without close contact to any human.

At the two supermarkets, despite my best efforts, people usually began lining in xtremely close, crowding together in the aisles. The staff at the two locations (which I'm not naming) were as conscientious as they could be, but they cannot force the shoppers to adhere to that same level of caution. Taped lines on the floor marked the recommended social distancing margin when approaching the cashier but people would walk between waiting patrons. And that doesn't include the patrons that aren't even trying to stay away, in one case bringing the whole family including their four kids to just saunter around without a worry.

I worry. I have a heart condition, although I am not taking any of the medications that increase my danger of a severe bout of the disease. Coincidentially, I am taking medication that greatly increases the likelihood of death if given hydroxychloroquine, so I guess no "miracle" drug for me. Nonetheless I cannot stop going out altogether.

Like I said earlier, the rumors have lived long enough to coalesce into an ersatz truth, and so now everybody knows that you lose your sense of smell and develop a cough three to five days after catching the virus. A fever will arrive two or three days after that and then the fight really begins. So every time I leave the house and face the outside world, I start the countdown all over again.

This evening, I made three stops:

• drove to the gas station on my block to get gas
• drove west down Nine Mile Road to withdraw $600 at the ATM
• walked across the parking lot to deposit cash at a different ATM
• walked back to my car and drove directly home

None of these stops involved interacting with potential vectors, but I had to touch pumps and buttons and screens that had certainly been touched by others. So the first step upon arriving home was washing my hands with soap and hot water.

Long ago I learned that intelligence agencies have mathematic models that determine how many people will learn a secret within a given amount of time, based on the chance of the clandestine information either being gleaned through research or being delivered interpersonally. For this reason, I have always been reticent to share information, seeing each time I divulge private information as the first link in a path where that information reaches the wrong destination. I was frightened of accidentially giving away too much when waiting for my episode of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" to air, causing the producers of the show to void my winnings. Thankfully my wife was my co-conspirator so I did not have to withhold any portion of my escapade from her, which honestly would have been impossible.

I now think about the spread of coronavirus in a similar manner. Every surface I touch, every person I approach, every journey out for groceries or gas presents another chance to link my web of interactions with the web of a contagious individual.

It feels like it is only a matter of time. The game is to push the inevitable far enough into the future to when scientists develop efficacious treatments or even a vaccine prior to that fateful conjunction.

Because my life, much like history, is a confused jumble of happenstance at this moment but will undoubtably appear fated when viewed retrospectively.