The midnight clear

We didn't get the worst of the winter storm that roared through the country yesterday, but it was bad enough. The temperature plunged almost fifty degrees over the course of the day and the winds were keening like a banshee.

Not that I'm going anywhere. I've yet to test negative, and though my cough and congestion are mostly gone, so is my energy. I'm definitely better—I keep reminding myself that a week ago I was in the emergency room listening to my fellow patients check in and doing my own version of snarky mental triage. (“Surgery yesterday, popped stitches, bleeding profusely? Oh, all right, you can go ahead of me.”)

I know I'm better because when I'm lounging on my bed reading or watching TV I'm no longer thinking about how crappy and tired I feel; I just don't feel up to doing anything else. (Yet.) My sense of taste is slowly coming back. Coffee unfortunately still just tastes bitter, and the only thing I can taste in the matzoh soup I had delivered yesterday is celery. But I can taste orange juice and the potato pierogies I ordered with the soup and most importantly, chocolate, so I will have a Christmas dinner of sorts tomorrow. And I do feel celebratory despite it all, with much to be grateful for: surviving two and a half years of grad school and ten days of Covid, all of my friends and colleagues, my wonderful, wonderful students, Instacart, Fresh Direct, Netflix and the Kindle, vaccines and antivirals.

Dispatch from Plague Central

When I ended the last post with a comment that crowds still make me uncomfortable, I didn't yet realize that in those particular crowds on that day, I was the threat. I started to feel sick the following afternoon, and tested positive that night.

I probably fall within the range of what medical professionals consider a “mild” illness since I wasn't hospitalized (though I did have to go to the emergency room), but what I've had does not fit any reasonable person's definition of mild. Or mine. I've had:

1. Non-stop vomiting
2. Non-stop coughing
3. 1 and 2 at the same time
4. Five days of fever
5. Headache, bodyaches, chills
6. Excessive upper respiratory gunk in all the usual varieties and possibly a few new ones

I started on antivirals on Thursday and they quickly made a noticeable difference in the cough and gunk symptoms. I still had to have an IV on Saturday because I was severely dehydrated and couldn't really eat or drink. Sunday I finally felt up to eating and heated up a bowl of soup only to discover symptom 7. Loss of sense of smell and taste.

I hadn't noticed because I was eating so little and honestly had other things on my mind. But that did explain why the Gatorade tasted so awful, apart from the fact that it's, you know, Gatorade. But it did make me laugh, and that's a good thing.

I picked the first pretty picture I saw in the blog folder—this was taken by the windmill in Golden Gate Park last spring. That was a perfect day and it cheers me up to remember it.

Calle 37

This is the street where my AirBnB was located, a pleasant residential block, and the scene of one of my more amusing introductions to Tico culture.

I woke up one day with a mild case of the sniffles, and though the Covid test was negative, I stayed home to be on the safe side. I didn't have any food in the house, so I decided to try Uber Eats.

We'd all been using Uber a lot—it was easy and cheap. (For example, it was a thirty-five minute walk to the language school from my house. Ubers generally arrived in a couple of minutes; the ride took not much more than that, and cost around three dollars.) Although San José has both a convoluted street grid and a really peculiar system of identifying addresses, where you don't really give a house number, you give directions in reference to the nearest landmark (“It's next to the church on the corner” “It's across the street from the San Pedro Mall”) the Uber drivers never had a problem finding me.

The Uber Eats system turned out to be a little different. After I placed the order, I got a message that my food would arrive around 12:15, but they didn't provide minute by minute updates the way the ride app does, and they didn't show me a map of my location. I happened to glance at my phone shortly after noon, and saw a message that my delivery was outside, the driver couldn't find me, and the order would be cancelled in seven minutes if I didn't go get it.

I ran outside, but the street was empty. I was frantically typing a message to the driver when a man approached me. He asked me if I was Kathleen and if I had ordered food. When I said yes, he let out a piercing whistle, and yelled “Aqui! Aqui!” Another man at the bottom of the hill also started shouting “Aqui!” and a woman who was standing in front of the green house started waving her arms over her head and ran down the road out of my sight. After a minute, a motorbike appeared around the corner and climbed the hill and the driver gave me my lunch. And all of the neighbors disappeared back into their houses, having solved the mystery of Kathleen y su comida.

Life in quarantine

This picture is actually from last winter, but since we got our first real snowfall last night, it's appropriate. And since I'm in quarantine, I can't go out and take any pictures of this storm—a concept that, apparently, some people have a hard time understanding.

I'm in Publix, this lady in front of me has a cart full of stuff. The cashier casually asks her "are you stocking up on groceries to stay safe". The lady responds "I actually tested positive 3 days ago. I'm in quarantine now"

My face: pic.twitter.com/GxFF0ZnMCJ

— You ever seen a baby pigeon? (@Real_JRoe) January 7, 2022

Well, damn

So Christmas weekend I got to have that lovely adventure on the fire escape. And New Year's weekend, I tested positive for Covid.

No, I don't know how I got it; I wasn't anywhere except the supermarket and the laundry room during the estimated incubation period, and never without a mask. Apparently omicron really is as insanely contagious as we've been told.

Fortunately, I seem to be having the typical experience of the fully vaxed; it's like coming down with a bad cold, with a little less snot and a lot more brain fog.

I went for a PCR test today just to confirm, though now I'm not really sure why I bothered. The labs are overwhelmed so I won't get the results for at least 5 days, at which point I'll probably be symptom-free and out of quarantine. And getting the test meant standing in line for three hours in sub-freezing temperatures with an upper respiratory infection, not exactly best medical practice. I came home, took a hot shower, and went to bed, where I intend to remain until, oh, maybe Thursday.

Life in the time of coronavirus

Three Covid testing booths in a row on 42nd Street this afternoon. (There was actually a fourth, farther up the block, but I couldn't get it into the picture.)

I was walking back from my own test appointment, a prerequisite for the colonoscopy I was supposed to be having next week. It turned out that I couldn't get the test, because although I had been told to make the appointment one week before the procedure, the allowable window was actually three to five days and getting a test today wouldn't have cleared me. And since it is almost impossible to get testing appointments right now, that meant I had to cancel everything.

Which was a relief, honestly, and something I might have ended up doing anyway. Our test positivity rate in Manhattan, which had been around 1% for so long, suddenly tripled. And then tripled again. And was at a terrifying 19.4% yesterday. It may no longer be possible to avoid getting infected with this damn variant, but I'm going to do my best.

On a break

Last class attended, last paper turned in, and I'm on break until the end of January. Yesterday I caught up on chores; today I took advantage of brilliantly clear, cold weather and went up to Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan.

It's only a fifteen minute drive up the Henry Hudson Parkway if there isn't much traffic, and there's free parking, so it's become one of my favorite quick getaways during the week when the car and I both need some exercise. The Cloisters, the medieval art collection of the Metropolitan Museum, is there, but I'm not going inside any museums while omicron is running rampant through the city. (Our positivity rate has gone from a steady 1-1.5% for months to almost 10%, and given that vaccinated people who get this variant may not even realize they have it, the true numbers are probably much higher.)

But it's a pretty park apart from the museum and fairly empty on weekdays, with tree-lined paths on ramparts overlooking the river. I actually prefer how it looks in winter, those warm browns against the gray stone, although the wind off the river can take your breath away even on a nice day.

Saturday reflections

Sidewalk scaffolding, seen through the window of a drugstore on 57th Street, with a reflected overlay of some quite utilitarian lighting.

I took this picture when I went for my second Covid vaccination in April; I got my booster today so it seems appropriate.

I don't need any convincing that we have the stupidest possible health care system in this country, but it took me almost an hour to check in for my free shot because my insurance card kept getting rejected. (Because although the shot is free to the recipient, someone still has to pay.) The pharmacist kept saying that he didn't understand because my insurance was fine when I got the first shots, and I kept explaining that I have since turned 65 and am now on Medicare and so the fact that my old insurance had worked previously was both unsurprising and irrelevant. I wanted to say, “Can't you just pretend I don't have insurance and give me the shot?” Eventually it was resolved and I am now boosted, but I have a headache and I don't think it's from the vaccine.

Urban poetry

There are far too many of these around the city. It's a long road back.

Because it was grassy and wanted wear

One of the trails in the Shawangunk park this morning, looking quite tempting despite the gray skies and threat of rain.

My travels skills do seem to be very rusty, even for such a short distance, even for just a long weekend. Or maybe it has nothing to do with travel, and it's just that this long terrifying pandemic has left me, along with everyone else on the planet, no longer completely sure about how to do anything -- shop, see a doctor, see friends, go to school, go away for a weekend.

But I am finding just being out of the city enjoyable despite it all. We get lost at least once every time we get in the car; since there's nowhere in particular we have to be, arriving a little later, by a longer route, isn't a problem.

Life in the time of coronavirus

A sidewalk in Chelsea on an August day. I was on my way to have the wonderful James undo eighteen months worth of home haircuts, and I'm still not used to being able to go outside whenever I want to.

But, as this man demonstrates, thanks to rising case numbers we're mostly back to masking on the street. I will pull the mask down if I'm on a side street with no one else around, but if there are more than a couple of people in my vicinity, it goes back up. 

I'm glad I got the haircut in while I still could. School starts again next week and one class is scheduled to alternate in-person and online classes. Everyone has to supply proof of vaccination, and masks are required, but I am wondering if in-person classes are possible yet -- at least in places that take the virus seriously.

Life in the time of coronavirus

Also from the New Yorker article. This is comedian Ian Lara: 

What I don’t get is people saying New Yorkers are rude and arrogant. When the pandemic hit, we stood in our little one-bedroom apartments and didn’t go out. We did it for society. It’s funny, I had some road work during the pandemic, and, when I travelled in the cities that have these huge homes with land and pools, they’re, like, “We can’t stay indoors!” New Yorkers sat in one-bedroom apartments for a year and just said, “O.K.” We got hit the hardest, and I kept hearing, “New York is dead.” I was just, like, “Of course New York will bounce back.” This is not like some . . . pop-up city that’s just becoming trendy.

Life in the time of coronavirus

What we call culture is basically the act of sharing air with strangers. Restaurants, theatres, small stores and large ones, concert venues—all are reopening, and, like victims of a traumatic injury relearning the steps that once seemed second nature, we are remembering how to dance.

That's Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker. I'm afraid the dance is going to be called off again in the near future because too many idiots refused to get vaccinated and the Delta variant is steamrolling through our defenses, but I love that description of culture as “the act of sharing air with strangers”--it's a phrase that wouldn't have resonated so deeply a year and a half ago.

Now we know how much we are at the mercy of those strangers with whom we share our breath, and how vulnerable that sharing can make us.

Something really was about to go around the office

I've turned in my final paper, and now I finally have time to do all the chores I've been neglecting since—well, it feels like forever, but it's really only probably since April. Or March.

I got sidetracked by an unread New Yorker from February 2019 that I found mixed in a pile of books. Instead of adding it to the already foot-high pile of unread magazines in my living room, it was obviously more efficient to just lie on my bed and read it so I could toss it in the recycling.

These artifacts from the Before Times always leave me simultaneously shocked and sad. Movie theatres? Restaurants? International travel? What were we thinking? 

And can we please, please have that careless life back?

The Shouts & Murmurs column in this particular issue is called Signs That Something Might Be Going Around the Office. It's simultaneously scarily prescient, and no longer all that funny, except in a dark, shaking-my-head-while-I-laugh, kind of way.

Everyone is carrying around a paper towel for touching door handles, and a few employees have started wearing surgical masks. 

Attendance at meetings has dropped to just you. 

Your co-workers are avoiding the drinking fountain and the vending machines. Instead, they’re stockpiling water and food under their desks and defending their stores with surprising force. 

Co-workers keep saying obnoxious stuff, like “I need to get out of the city and go to Long Island to survive,” or “Things are just so much better upstate,” or “The only way to save my family from this plague is to leave New York today.”

 

Saturday reflections

Flags on Park Avenue on a summer afternoon.

I love seeing people on the street again, but the midday sidewalks still aren't nearly as crowded as they were in the Before Times. And I wonder when--or if--they will be. My former employer is reportedly considering allowing work from home for most staff at least a few days a week. It had always been allowed on an ad hoc basis, if deliveries or repairs or a childcare emergency required it, but no one was allowed to have scheduled work from home days on a regular basis. It would impede collaboration, they said. It would mean a loss of collegiality.

But now I suspect they're noticing that having everyone work from home wasn't quite the disaster they'd expected. And that perhaps they could quit paying those exorbitant Midtown rents on a large chunk of their office space if they no longer have to accommodate every employee every single day.

Springsteen on Broadway

Broadway doesn't officially reopen until the fall, but Bruce Springsteen is doing a revival of his show over the summer, and I saw it last night.

It felt too soon for me to be sitting in a theatre with 1700 strangers, even if all of them had provided proof of vaccination. But then, everything feels too soon to me these days. (Until I do it, and then do it again, and do it one more time...) So even though I still regret not seeing this show during the original run, and I am so very very tired of missing things, part of my brain was saying Of course I'm going! while another  part was screaming Absolutely not!  Of course, the rest of my brain was busy chanting Bruuuuuce! and there's simply no arguing with that. I compromised with my anxiety by keeping my mask on for the entire show.

It was wonderful. I may come up with more to say about it later, but his amazing command of language -- supple, wise, funny -- appears to have stripped me of my own. What I can say is that I came out of the theatre understanding that each of our lives is a poem. We don't all learn how to tell them. But maybe we could.

Saturday reflections

Summer in the city.

It doesn't feel anything close to normal, but compared to last summer it's Shangri-La. I went out earlier to the dry cleaner's and the grocery store, and ran into a couple of neighbors I hadn't seen in many months, and we just stood on the sidewalk chatting.

Okay, we were all wearing masks, but those routine encounters, the little bits and pieces that add up to a life, are one of the things I missed most during the long, long lockdown.

Life in the time of coronavirus

This is the picture I should have used for the previous entry, but I forgot I'd taken it: a movie theatre on 42nd Street announcing its reopening a few weeks ago.

I will not be going to the movies any time soon, maybe ever, but I am supposed to go to the theatre in a couple of weeks, a prospect that has me more than a little anxious.

Urban poetry

A typically unlovely West Side street, with a jumble of architecture and those odd beams connecting the fences. But it's hard for me to express how beautiful I found it, walking home from breakfast on a lovely spring morning.

All Covid restrictions have been lifted. Of course I'm still free to take as many precautions as I like, and it will be a long time before the world feels less dangerous to me, so not much is going to change in my life at the moment. 

Still. I just hope the millions of idiots who refuse to get vaccinated don't drag us all down with them.

Urban poetry

It isn't officially summer, but this past weekend was certainly steamy enough to qualify. When I was on the Upper East Side Saturday night, I noticed that suddenly masks were being worn pulled down below the chin. Sure, the CDC said we didn't need to wear masks outside if we're vaccinated, but most people in New York had still been wearing them. 

Then the heat and humidity arrived and suddenly we were all saying, You know, I think I'll just pull the mask down until I have to go inside.

Here's the golden light near sunset on West 43rd Street.