walk the line
We've all adapted in ways never before even contemplated in 2020. We've done it pretty successfully, actually. I can't stop thinking about how the needed changes to our way of life in the face of climate change is always met with skepticism as if it's just not realistic, and look what we've already done in the face of a threat we can't ignore. We really can't ignore climate change either, but somehow we continue to. Even in the face of smoke-clogged cities from wildlife fires, and increasingly horrible hurricanes, and more frequent swings to extreme temperatures, all of that being aside from the overall-average global temperature continuing to rise, which far too many people continue to act like is just no big deal.
Anyway! I had a fairly eventful weekend, with three separate social activities involving four other people. The first was on Friday, the hangout at Volunteer Park with Tracy P from work, postponed from the previous Friday due to that winding up being a rainy day. That said, our time there had to be limited to about two hours, because we did not meet until 5:30 p.m. and, now being past the Autumn Equinox, the days are getting shorter. The official sunset time for Seattle on Friday was 6:45 p.m., and we stayed there until just before it got completely dark, leaving right around 7:30.
I had shorts on that day, which in retrospect may have been a mistake. Not because of the temperature, which was fine—especially since I brought a hoodie to put on once the sun began to set—but because of the mosquitos, particularly during dusk. Holy shit, did I get bit all over the fucking place, especially my legs. It's Monday now and I still have no fewer than seven or eight welts on my legs because I stupidly can't stop scratching the bites. Just call me Buffet Legs.
Tracy and I both brought sandwiches with us, and I brought myself margaritas again, just like I had when I met with Laney last month. I brought a larger thermos so I could have a bit more volume of my drink, and again I brought the margarita salt, and a water spray bottle to wet the rim of my little plastic cup so the salt would stick. Tracy thought that was pretty inventive.
We sure spent a lot of time talking about work stuff. I suppose that's just how it goes when you go out with coworkers after work hours: you can tell each other about other stuff in your lives, but work stuff is still where you have by far the most common ground and therefore the most to discuss. Interestingly, after previous conversations have made her sound a bit insecure about her not-so-new-anymore position at PCC (she started in March), this conversation made it sound like she's found her place a little more successfully, and thus a bit more confidence. She's armed with a lot more information, and a fair amount more of very practical, lived experience, than she had been before. That clearly makes a difference. It made a huge difference in my own evolution in this job.
Saturday was the one day this weekend with no socializing, but that doesn't mean it was uneventful. I watched the documentary Dick Johnson Is Dead on Netflix and actually wrote and posted a B+ review. I cannot for the life of me find any confirmation of whether that movie was ever slated for theatrical release or is eligible for Oscars, which is what I aim to be the criteria for movies I review. But, it did play in two different film festivals with theatrical showings early in the year, so I decided that made it qualify.
In any case, I didn't get the movie started until about 12:30; it's ninety minutes but I had a few interruptions so I did not finish until 2:30. I was able to get the review finished fairly quickly, though, and was sharing the link on social media by about ten after 3:00.
Then, I spent a little over an hour starting at 4:20 watching a virtual comedy show hosted by Doug Benson, and featuring one of my favorites, Amy Miller. It cost me a little over $16 with tax to pay for it, which got Shobhit in a little bit of a tizzy when he found out, because he loves to act like I'm wasting money when I pay for such things. But, first of all, the artists we like can use all the help they can get right now (the show had a feature allowing for people to pay tips as well, but I wouldn't go that far). Secondly, I basically told Shobhit, "Do you realize how much money I've saved in movie tickets alone? Don't come at me with that bullshit." I've paid for the occasional new album; I'm buying new earrings here and there (always spending under $20 or so), getting restaurant take-out on average maybe once every two months, and even less often paying for something like this. The cumulative cost is far, far lower than I was paying (and will later pay) for entertainment on average outside of the pandemic, so he can step off with that shit.
He worked until 5 p.m. that day, and the comedy show was just ending when he got home. Doug Benson was doing a virtual hangout / Q&A at that point, which I would have happily stuck around for if I were still home alone, but was fine exiting once the actual hour of prepared comedy was done. Once we had our dinner ready to eat, we sat down and proceeded to watch the final four episodes of Raised by Wolves on once stretch.
So, yesterday, I had two difference socializing events, both of them not super long, but long enough to count.
Sunday was the one day Alexia had available to go for a walk. So, we walked to Volunteer Park and back between 3:00 and 4:00 yesterday afternoon. I had hoped Danielle could come up and hang out at the park for a while, as she had been suggesting we do a socially distanced hangout for a while, and I hadn't seen her in person since the Fourth of July. I had asked if she wanted to do this over the weekend, and she said she was on call on Saturday so Sunday would likely work best. But, in the end, she had to work Saturday so all she hoped to get done at home on Saturday, she needed to do on Sunday. No Danielle this weekend.
Thus, I let Alexia know I was available to walk on Sunday. She wanted to see the Seahawks game first, which was why the walk happened later in the afternoon. Oh, speaking of which, I actually did see Alexia briefly at Volunteer Park on Friday evening—she had gone on a solo walk there that night, and happened to walk by near Tracy and me. She had her mask off and in her hand because she was alone, so it was somewhat jarring to see her whole face in person for the first time since March. God, what a weird time we live in. Anyway, I briefly introduced Tracy and Alexia to each other, and Alexia moved on.
But yesterday, Alexia and I walked together, and were together for roughly an hour. We were outside at all times, and masked, of course—both key components when combined, but the president finally testing positive for COVID after the Rose Garden announcement ceremony proving to be a "super spreader event" last week clearly indicates such things can happen outside, especially when people are flouting mask recommendations. Those people were not only all packed together without masks on, but I've seen clip after clip of unmasked people giving each other hugs, and bringing their faces right in close to each other. What a bunch of fucking morons.
That said, I was a little more conscious than I have been in more recent months about maintaining a fair distance between Alexia and me even as we walked, although it was still difficult to keep a strict 6-foot distance at all times. In all likelihood, we're still okay, specifically because we both always keep masks on when we're walking. That said, I keep thinking about this post that Charlie shared on Facebook over the weekend, which really illustrates how easy it is to delude yourself into thinking you're being safe. "You're okay until you're not." I've heard a fair amount about people creating so-called "COVID bubbles," but have never seriously considered creating one myself. My wildly disparate group of friends make it impractical even to try anyway, and generally speaking my closest friends already have special challenges that make the idea close to impossible: Laney and Karen are both in high-risk groups that make such an idea particularly ill-advised; Danielle already works in a hospital as a nurse, so, a "bubble" couldn't even realistically exist with her; Gabriel is so germ phobic in these times that after the one time Shobhit and I hung out in his backyard, and he got incredibly anxious when I got close touching the outside glass of one of his windows (which I didn't actually touch) and then Shobhit actually did touch the lock latch on the fence gate when we left, I suspect he won't want to see me in person again until maybe 2022.
All that said, even if I did consider creating a so-called "bubble," the graphic in that post illustrates how the existence of any truly safe bubble is really a myth. I'm not nearly as strict as Gabriel is, but I'll stick with hanging out with select friends exclusively outside and socially distanced, with masks on any time we might have to be closer than six to ten feet apart, and to the degree that I can, even then only sparingly. It's true that I have left town a few times, but I do think it's relevant that I have never done so twice within anywhere close to a two-week time span, which allows for symptoms to appear should they happen. I haven't been tested before every trip, but I did get tested before going to Idaho, which was by far the longest distance I traveled, and no one was going to tell me I couldn't do that, considering my mom had just died.
Alexia and I had not one, but two run-ins with crazies on the street. A clearly inebriated man semi-confronted her on the corner of 15th and John, where the small park is now packed with tents, telling her not to look at him. We both tried to ignore him, and my first instinct was to step away, which I immediately felt terrible for because it was basically a move that made Alexia even more vulnerable than she already was. So within seconds, I stepped back nearer to her, just so it was clear we were together, and eventually the angry drunk man wandered further down the street toward some heap of garbage. That was very close to the start of our walk. On our way back, we walked north along 16th instead of 15th, thinking it would be more peaceful as it's a side street and not an arterial. But we passed this creepy looking guy who was staring into one of those neighborhood book exchange boxes, and after only a few minutes, he started shouting a long, endless stream of obscenities and slurs (including the N word) like someone with Tourette's Syndrome. And it was truly endless, wildly loud shouting as if he were talking to someone he was intending to offend with every offensive word in the English language. The sound of him got progressively louder too, not because he was shouting louder, but because he was clearly gaining on us.
It got rather tense, for both Alexia and me, because we had to be careful not to do anything that he might interpret as an antagonization. I had turned my head to look back when he first started shouting, but did not dare to do so again after that; neither of us wanted to panic and start running either. We basically pretended he wasn't there, in the hopes that we would not draw any attention to ourselves. I have no idea how close he got to us, but it became a sort of race between which of us would reach the end of the block first, and that was where Alexia and I turned to walk over to 15th, where at least there would be more people around. We had no idea what we would do if he also turned and kept following us, and it was a huge relief when the guy just kept going straight, up 16th Avenue, continuing with his epithet-shouting along the way.
Alexia did not have the best luck yesterday with all that shit either. For her there were three guys to shout like that either near or at her yesterday; the ones with me were, for her, the second and third. The first had been a guy when she was walking to Trader Joe's, who had also screamed at her not to look at him.
Capitol Hill is feeling less and less safe lately, particularly for women like Alexia. I honestly feel like the SPD wants the city to get less safe, just so they can use that as justification for the truly miniscule amount they got defunded. Which is bullshit. This city needs to get its shit together. Where is the community organization work we so clearly need around this stuff, anyway? I think I might actually write to the City Council about this. I totally agree that radical changes are needed with the police, but that comes with offering alternate solutions, and I would sure like to see them actually put into practice.
Lastly, for roughly and hour before Shobhit got home from a relatively late shift last night, between around 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., I got on FaceTime with Gabriel and Lea to do our "1999 Movie Draft." I finally have a working understanding of how a draft, and especially a "snake draft," works, especially now that I've done it in practice. We started with some discussion clarifying some rules of the game, and after Gabriel did his randomizer app, the order was chosen: Lea first, then Gabriel, then me. Dammit! Although in the end I was very happy with my list; the only movie I really wanted to choose that got taken by someone else was Being John Malkovich, which Gabriel took out of my first-place running for the "Wildcard" category. I was able to choose The Straight Story for that category though, and I was still happy with that, even though lots of people will have never heard of that one. (Gabriel remembered it, but Lea has never seen it.)
We talked about doing another year sometime soon too, and I'm perfectly happy to. As I said last night, "I can talk movies until I run out of breath." I wrote up each of our separate lists without any of our names attached, created screenshots and texted them to Gabriel and Lea; we are to send them to one outside person and ask them to rank in order of best to worst. Whoever has a list with the most votes or points wins. Gabriel sent his to his friend Andy, who he said is taking this "surprisingly seriously"; Lea sent hers to her brother, who disqualified Gabriel's list merely because it happened to include The Phantom Menace, which is a dumb reason, even if that movie sucks (but is still incredibly representative of cinema in 1999); I sent mine to Laney, without context, and just asked her to rank them. I haven't heard back yet, but it was kind of late last night; she was probably asleep; she would be working right now; and I did tell her there was no rush and it was not hugely important.
They had a movie of their own to watch last night, so not long after that, I was off of FaceTime, Shobhit was home, and we were watching three episodes of season 3 of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
[posted 12:27 pm]