Left Jabs

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 an

Berkley, Michigan Saturday Of course, this would have to happen on Trump’s watch. We all knew it would be something big. We all knew we couldn’t possibly make it through the whole four years without stumbling on something he could seriously fuck up. We thought it would be more of a garden-variety disaster — a war, earthquake, wildfire, tsunami, cat-5 hurricane, etc. These we understand. These have media profiles we’ve grown used to. Each is easily imaginable as the kind of challenge Trump and his GOP stooges were born to botch. They’re only in it for the grift, after all. Competence just gets in the way. But they weren’t thinking plague. Way too biblical. Way too low tech. Not to mention low visibility, which Trump thinks is for losers. So it totally blindsided him. He couldn’t see it, so he never saw it coming. Of course, neither did we. We weren’t expecting COVID to be so prodigiously talented at self-promotion (the Donald Trump of microorganisms?). A ninja that sneaks in

Berkley, Michigan Mostly we’re waiting. Mostly we're puttering, trying to achieve some semblance of normal life, despite this insistent background hum of anxiety. So we wait, and we try to figure out what to expect. None of the answers fill us with confidence. Peggy and I are privileged—if that’s the right word—to be able to live at maybe 80 percent of our pre-virus lives. At least for now.  I am acutely aware that this is not true for most people, is completely the opposite for many, and is catastrophic for more than we can bear to think about. I think about people already ill with other things. People either losing or terrified of losing their incomes. People on the front lines of our deplorably meagre medical defenses, who risk their lives with every breath they take in their work environment.  So yes, I am keenly aware of the privilege I enjoy—if that’s the right word. The fact that Peggy and I are in the high-risk category somehow seems a cop-out, but it keeps me here