Skip to main content

Changes

Berkley MI
Tuesday

A lot of things have already changed, maybe forever. It’s hard to imagine actually shaking hands again. Or standing in a crowded elevator. Or squeezing body-to-body in the subway.
It’s strange watching TV shows made before the virus (as they all were). Everyone seems so promiscuous with their personal space. They’re less than three feet apart and they don’t seem to care. They might be breathing on each other. To say nothing of the onscreen lovers, with their kissing and hand-holding and other microbe-passing activities. Shouldn’t they be boiling each other first?
Then there are the new routines, the new rituals that stem from what I hesitate to call hardships. They’re not hardships, but they seem to portend hardship.
Who knew that the bottle of rubbing alcohol in our bathroom would become the hero of the household? I now routinely distinguish between modes of disinfectant—the wipes, sprays, bleaches, hand sanitizers, and various liquids you mix yourself and apply, perhaps short-sightedly, with precious paper towels. I now know which of these are okay for my hands, which work best on plastic bags, which need to be in the car for those rare but perilous adventures out into the weird (and getting weirder) world.
Who even heard of an N95 mask before? Let alone been thrilled at the discovery of one in our closet? Part of a survival kit Peggy was given by her firm years ago, in the wake of 9/11. We’re almost embarrassed to have it, but it's now one of our most cherished possessions.
Then there’s the food delivery that is now three days late. While it’s not that big a deal—a stocking-up delivery of no immediate consequence—it is nonetheless a jarring reminder that the action in this movie is getting hotter. That we are growing highly dependent on highly vulnerable people. That they will be coming to our front porch, and we will need to go through the disinfection ritual before moving any food into the house.
Or maybe not. Maybe that food won’t arrive at all. We had resolved to avoid all stores for the duration, but if deliveries stop happening, that could change. Maybe in a week or two I’ll get to have another supermarket moment. Good thing we have that mask.

Comments

  1. The biggest issue in NYC "before" was the banning of single-use plastic bags. Seems eons ago...

    ReplyDelete
  2. We also happened to have a 3/4 full bottle of isopropyl in med cab. Bravo! Now slightly diluted (keep it above 70%, they say) and in two spray bottles.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Decents, Deplorables, and the Conditional Mood

  F or my next trick, I’d like to indulge in a linguistic conceit of sorts. I’d like to use the current political nightmare to speculate about a matter of grammar, of all things, that has long intrigued me: Namely, why do so many languages codify the conditional mood — also known as the conditional tense — in their grammar? Why do we use ‘should,’ ‘could,’ and especially ‘would,’ in so much of our speech? Why do we hedge our conversations this way? Why is it more acceptable to say “I would like a cup of coffee” than “Give me a cup of coffee.” Why is one deferential and the other pushy? Why has history passed down this polite form to multiple language groups, in such a similar way? Why is it bad form to use “I want” in a non-confrontational situation? And why does the MAGA crowd insist on such bad form? I have a speculative answer to these questions, but first let me cavalierly divide the world into two groups of people: Decents and Deplorables . Goods ...

Can the Abortion Issue Slip Any Further Under the Radar?

  One of the many chilling ironies of the war on abortion is that the states most insistent on women having babies, no matter what, are also the ones with the least to offer those babies once they’ve had the bad luck to be born there. And it’s important to understand that these states are getting increasingly insistent on women having babies, no matter what. Goaded and guided by abortion abolitionists in legislatures, law firms, and courtrooms, Republican governments are, one way or another, actively blocking off any avenue that doesn’t lead to a woman of any age getting pregnant, giving birth, then getting pregnant again. Rinse and repeat. If the woman dies in the process, she’s easily replaced. The idea seems to be that women are a sort of production line, whose purpose is to generate usable babies. The way they get pregnant is irrelevant to the discussion. If they were impregnated by, say, an uncle, or a rapist, or a clergyman, the laws of these states ca...

Yet Another Mole in Need of Whacking

  I n a week when Israel attacked Iran, Trump invaded Los Angeles, four million Americans took to the streets, and a Minnesota legislator was assassinated, the news from the arcane world of digital advertising probably didn’t make it to your list of big concerns. By the time I’m done, it probably still won’t. But in this miasma of Trumpish distractions, it’s often hard to figure out what we’re being distracted from . It’s a constant game of whack-a-mole, and last week, we got the first inkling of yet another mole that will require whacking. Warning: This will take a while to explain, and might cause mild-to-severe boredom. Proceed at your own risk: As we’ve seen, the Trump gang has recently extorted large corporate law firms into defending its pet causes, an ongoing story still developing. Now, apparently, they are trying to do something similar with large advertising agencies. The immediate focus is on the approval, or not, of a major merger between two of...