OK, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to stop posting for almost two months during a global pandemic. (May 6, really? Time feels like it doesn’t mean anything anymore.)
Though I have still been active on Mastodon. (Update: I’ve imported some of those posts to the blog since writing this.) And occasionally I’ll share a link on Twitter, or sign on to look at something, get sucked into the vortex, and retweet a dozen posts before I drag myself back out.
But for the most part I haven’t had anything long-form to say, or that hasn’t already been said better by someone else that I could be boosting on social media. Short comments, photos, links, and retweets/boosts. Things that fit better on other sites in the moment, though I’ll probably import some of them here as the site of record.
Anyway, we’re all still here and haven’t caught Covid-19. Yet. The state and county and cities have been slowly re-opening over the past month, except for all the curfews during the first week or so of the Black Lives Matter protests after police killed George Floyd. We haven’t been out ourselves, but we’re listening, and reading, and thinking, and signing petitions, and amplifying other voices, and donating.
Cases are still rising as businesses and gatherings ramp up, though. And it’s been politicized to a ridiculous degree. People are going to die because their neighbors believe politicians telling them what they want to hear instead of experts telling them what they need to know.
We’re still mostly staying at home. Socializing online and on the phone, or from one patio to the next. Shopping online for delivery or store pickup. Working from home, doing school over Zoom video calls. Takeout maybe once a week. I have been going into the grocery store to buy produce and refrigerated items, but I’ve been trying to stretch it out to two weeks when possible.
I still try to get out for a walk in the neighborhood at least once a day, unless I’ve got an errand to run. That way I only need to deal with a mask once.
Sure, masks are a pain to deal with. But they’re better than staying shut down, and they’re better than letting a pandemic spread exponentially because you can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum to protect people around you. (I was appalled at reading how people in Orange County harassed their public health lead out of office for saying they should wear masks. It’s a state mandate now, but FFS people…grow up and accept some of that responsibility you’re always yelling about.)
