— चार हजार सात सौ छब्बीस —

I'm not going to lie, my weekend had some moments of melancholy. The state of the world right now is such that these feelings are inevitable, I think. And I should probably clarify: when I say "moments," I really mean that. Most of the time I'm fine, emotionally, all things considered. I can't imagine what people who already had depression and anxiety issues are going through. Hell, just this morning I had already been working a couple of hours from home, Shobhit left to go to work himself, leaving me alone for the rest of the work day. And I suddenly thought about all the people who are stuck at home the same as I am, but don't have a job to keep them busy like I do. I would probably be in a much worse state if I had not only the loneliness and isolation, but joblessness and a lack of financial security to contend with.

Which is to say, I really did have a pretty nice weekend, at least within the confines of life's current limitations. I had two Zoom Meetup evenings in a row, and yesterday I went on a long walk.

I have to admit there was something very bittersweet about the Zoom Family Meetup for Sherri's birthday on Friday, though. First of all, none of the grandkids on Sherri's side of the family joined this time—the only one of my nieces or nephews to do so on this call was Tristen, from Wallace, Idaho. I suspect that's mostly because his life never had a lot going on in it even before this, and these Zoom video chats give him something to do.

All four of us kids were present for the call, though: Angel and Gina in Olympia; Christopher in Wallace; me in Seattle. There was a pretty big issue in my mind with Angel and Gina, though: they were not calling from their homes. They had gone over to Dad and Sherri's fucking backyard! Are they trying to kill our parents?

Okay, okay. Sure, that's hyperbole. I'm using extreme language. It's not that unnecessary for me to do so, however. Angel called out from her chair several feet away: "We're social distancing!" I was talking to Gabriel the next day, though, and he's a science teacher. He told me about how the whole "six feet" thing was just an arbitrary figure someone came up with literally a century ago, and the standard never changed. We have to come up with some standard for people to follow, of course, and six feet might as well be it. But, there has also been a lot of information out lately about how the six-foot rule is far from foolproof, and people leave "a slipstream" (the phrase Gabriel used) out of their mouths in their wake, which you can easily walk into and catch a virus from even if the other person has already walked out of the way and you were never less than six feet away from them. This is of particular concern in places like grocery stores (and exactly why we are all being advised to wear masks out in public, to protect others from you), but it's not necessarily better to be outside. Being outside means this can carry in the air a lot easier.

My point is this. First of all, no one in Dad and Sherri's backyard was wearing a mask. Secondly, it may very well be that chances are low that Gina, or Beth, or Angel, are carrying COVID-19. But! If one of them were infected, a) it could be two weeks before they showed any symptoms, during which they would be contagious; and b) in that scenario, even while so-called "social distancing," they could infect every other person there! And Dad and Sherri, both of them in their sixties, need this least of all.

I even said this out loud, finally, trying my best to be diplomatic: "I have to say I have really mixed feelings about this. I feel like what you're doing is dangerous." Sherri, making it pretty clear how little she was taking this seriously, responded with a bit of a joke: "Well you know I always lived on the edge." The problem is that this kind of attitude is itself contagious; people hear others talk like that, and they adopt the same attitude. And guess what? The virus spreads faster.

Having so many people over at Dad and Sherri's caused other, technical issues unrelated to the aforementioned concerns—but they did have the effect of exacerbating the aforementioned concerns. When everyone is separated and in their own homes, using their own wifi systems, every single wifi signal is stronger. In this scenario, we had Beth, Sherri, Gina, and Angel all attempting to use their own devices, which overloaded Dad and Sherri's wifi. Beth, being the host, was the only one in Olympia with consistent strength, and even hers was worse than usual; Gina, Angel and Sherri all tried to connect on their own devices and could never stay connected. So, Dad and/or Sherri would stand behind Beth so she could see the screen on her device; we did this long enough for us all to sing "Happy Birthday" (which is hard to do via Zoom, by the way; I don't think everyone's sound syncs up completely). Sherri was typically closer behind Gina and Beth than she really should be; Dad tended to keep a more comfortable distance away and that had the effect of making it difficult to talk to him. Soon enough, Sherri sat down in the chair next to Beth, and was just like, "I've just given up on the social distancing, haven't I?" Haha, very funny! I'm terrified of them getting sick. Honestly they would probably pull through if they did, but I have heard enough horror stories of how sick people can get, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I was tempted to say "except the morons protesting at State Capitols," but I can't even go that far, because that would cause them to spread it to other people in their orbit who also don't deserve it.

That's the whole problem here. Being careless about this is to be reckless. And don’t get me wrong, Dad and Sherri are retired, they don't have work-from-home jobs to keep them busy, it was Sherri's birthday and they were treating it like a special occasion. But understanding why they did it still doesn't make me think it was right. We still don't even have widespread testing, and this kind of shit scares the hell out of me.

And beyond all that, the appeal of these family Zoom meetups is clearly waning among the extended family. I think the idea of them happening weekly is falling by the wayside: this one was a birthday occasion and it was still the least-attended yet. For the first time not even Nikki and TJ joined. The first two were two Wednesdays in a row and it seemed like it would be every Wednesday, but I think I maybe threw that out of what by requesting another one the next Sunday for Easter. I'm sure glad I did, though; it made a big difference for helping keep the holiday feeling at least slightly special. Of course, that was when Angel admitted to going to Brandi's to meet her baby. She has a compromised immune system, she should not be visiting people.

All right, I've purged all this and how I feel about it. I'm basically over it now. I will so not be over it, though, if one of these people gets sick. It will be crystal clear why it happened.

Even Gabriel conceded, "At some point, society is going to break," in terms of how long we can handle being ordered to stay at home. This is true. But, people have endured far greater hardships for a lot longer. A few months, maybe. But it's been, like, five weeks. This is not actually the end of the world, and I think people—especially the more privileged people—can handle following the recommendations of scientists and epidemiologists for a while longer.

— चार हजार सात सौ छब्बीस —

— चार हजार सात सौ छब्बीस —

The Zoom meeting on Friday lasted all of about half an hour. Not enough separate devices could be used, and people felt like we ran out of stuff to talk about quickly.

The time I spent on Zoom Saturday night was the opposite, being the longest Zoom call I had been on yet: it was fully four hours, from 8 p.m. until just after midnight. And it was another birthday party, this one for Gabriel, who actually turned 43 yesterday. Lea texted a bunch of people, including me, Saturday afternoon shortly after 1 p.m. to say she had previously planned an ax throwing event. That clearly wasn't possible, so she organized a Zoom party for him.

And, in this case, it was also the largest social event I have yet attended on Zoom—although far from the largest Zoom meeting, as none of my social events will ever surpass the 100 or so people on the "Town Hall" Zoom meeting I had for work a couple of weeks ago. In this case, we had a total of nine video feeds, featuring up to 27 people. Let's number them by video feeds:

1. Gabriel and Lea
2. Me
3. Stephanie and Tess
4. Janine
5. Garret, Katie and Leighton
6. Marcus and his wife whose name I forget
7. Mandy and David
8. Darren and Josh
9. Kara and her husband whose name I forget

Early on, Garret and Katie also had a toddler on the couch with them, so I suppose that could being the total number of people on the Zoom call up to 18, except that kid never did say anything, and I think Katie must have put him (or her?) to bed shortly after the call started.

I think the party was a bit of a surprise for Gabriel. He had been hanging out on the rooftop he likes to spend time on, and when Lea brought him back inside and he saw their TV screen he laughed and was like, "Heyyy!"

The only new person most of us were meeting was Kara, who apparently works as a teacher at the middle school Gabriel teaches at. Oh right, we did see one of her children briefly too. I think he even said one or two things. That makes 19!

I actually haven't seen Janine—Gabriel's mom—in person in several years. It was nice to see her again, although we spent some time pretty much all of us kind of dunking on her for continuing to work in an office where not only does she apparently do work on making COVID-19 test kits, but four other people in her department have tested positive! She insists her employer says she's an "essential worker" who cannot work from home. None of the rest of us understand this, especially in light of Janine being in a more vulnerable category.

Other than that, though, it was a pretty good time. I'd say for close to three quarters of the call, we were all just hanging out, either being introduced to everyone else or catching up with each other and chatting. When we first got on, my virtual background of my Deviled Eggs from Easter was still on, which amused them all; I quickly found a photo to change it to, and if you look closely you can see that for the rest of the call my backdrop was the so-called "album cover" photo I took of him and myself at the fountain in Cal Anderson Park in 2016.

There was a moment when Gabriel and Lea's internet went out, and their video feed disappeared. More than one person said to me, "Matthew you're the host now!" I honestly though they were joking, just because the removal of Gabriel and Lea's feed moved mine to the top-middle. But, apparently the system literally defaulted to me as the host; why it chose me, I have no idea. And, it stayed as me even after Gabriel and Lea finally got back online and returned, which really didn't take that long. But, I didn't really have to change anything and Lea found that they still had all the permissions they needed once they got back.

Gabriel suggested we all play this thing called "Jackbox," which has a few different games—he later told me he and Lea have run the gamut of all games three or four times on other Zoom calls already, so they're getting tired of it. It was my first time, though, and the "Rap Battle" game was especially fun; I literally cried so hard I was crying, which means it was the most I had laughed since all this pandemic crap began. So that was nice. Also, I got a nice compliment from Gabriel, who said more than once that I was the best at playing the Rap Battle game, in which you have to come up with rhymes in very short bursts of time. I could never "freestyle rap," but I did fairly well for having about thirty seconds each time to come up with a line that rhymed. My first one used both the words "queef" and "farts" in effective ways, so I felt pretty productive. Gabriel said, "You're definitely a writer!"

Several people left the call before the gaming started, so for the games we had just Gabriel and Lea (who played separately), Mandy and David (who played separately), Marcus (who played on his own), Garret (who played on his own), Kara (who played on her own), and me. I think we all played three separate games.

When that was done, and the party was clearly winding down, my screen froze for a minute, and I could only hear bits and pieces of people talking. I didn't realize it was probably goodbyes being said, and once my screen un-froze, it was just me left, with Gabriel and Lea. I wound up talking to Gabriel pretty much one-on-one for another ten minutes at least, which was nice; he even made sure we stayed on until just after midnight, so it would officially be his birthday. This was when he talked to me a bit more about some of the research on COVID-19 that he knows about, which has prompted him to go pretty extreme in the other direction: he never (or rarely, perhaps) goes into stores to grocery shop now, and only orders delivery; he even washes produce and lets it sit a couple of days before eating it. Shobhit and I aren't being quite that cautious, although I wash my hands every time I come back home from anywhere, always for twenty seconds—I sure wish Shobhit would do the same. He does wash his hands every time he gets home from work, but it's never for twenty seconds, in which case as far as contamination is concerned he might as well not wash his hands at all. This morning when I got out of bed he had rolled over to my pillow and had his face right on it. He and I have no kissed each other on the mouth since all this began, and even seeing his face on my pillow kind of gave me the heebie jeebies. Granted, if he gets it at all, it's pretty likely that I will catch it regardless.

Anyway, although I felt kind of bad that it meant I could not spend any of the evening with Shobhit (who did not bother to get on the Zoom call at all, and stayed out in the living room watching TV—it would have been hard for us to stay effectively on together anyway, given my desk setup), it was nice to have that interaction for the bulk of the evening Saturday night.

— चार हजार सात सौ छब्बीस —

Shobhit worked shifts at Big 5 both Saturday and yesterday, and I killed time pretty easily during the day on Saturday, first by riding my bike to the office to swap out receiving paperwork, and then in the afternoon watching Tremors, of all things, on Netflix. I would have scoffed openly at the very idea of watching it under any other circumstance, and in fact I think Shobhit even watched it on his own a few weeks ago. But, a Twitter exchange with Karen, a former coworker at PCC, finally convinced me to watch it. The movie is dumb as shit, but also somewhat self-aware about it and a lot funnier than I expected it to be. It was exactly the kind of mindless, unchallenging entertainment I've been looking for lately, and was in perfect company with other Netflix and HBO movies I've watched lately, like True Lies and Deep Impact, or even The Matrix.

I spent even more time outside yesterday while Shobhit was at work than I did on Saturday, finally doing something I had been thinking about doing for a few weeks now: I walked due east on Pine Street straight over to Lake Washington, listening to the new Fiona Apple album along the way. I thought it would take me an hour and it only took me about forty minutes, often crossing the street along the way just so I wouldn't be close to people I was passing. It's roughly the same distance as it is to the waterfront to the west, but going west takes longer as going through downtown has a hell of a lot more obstacles like stoplights.

Anyway, I first went to Howell Park, which I already knew was a local, largely secluded nude beach. I naively thought I might still get the park to myself, but I was surprised how many people were there—and actually nude sunbathing! Only in Seattle will you find nude sunbathers even when it's barely 60° outside. I wasn't interested in getting naked in that weather, sunshine or not, and did not want to be the conspicuous person who was the only one still clothed, so I went a little further down Lake Washington Blvd and found the extreme-north part of Madrona park which really is secluded with no other people there, as it was just a small patch of grass with no real beach, but a metal railing atop a sort of concrete dike, just north of a foot trail that otherwise takes people up a steep staircase to Lake Washington Blvd—which I had just come down. So, occasionally people would hike or jog by me from several feet away, but not often, and no one else was hanging out in that small patch of green. So I basically had a little picnic there all by myself, which was what I was out for to begin with.

Incidentally, I ran into our neighbor, Alexia, in the stairwell on my way out, and we wound up chatting for the better part of probably twenty minutes, maybe more. She said she had been out for a walk with a friend, and knowing both she and I work from home, she suggested she and I do a walk sometime this week too. I mean, I would love to, but . . . what about all that shit I already wrote about Sherri's birthday party? Alexia did say she had a mask "if it makes you more comfortable." Honestly, I'd be much more insistent that I wear a mask, given that in this very conversation she said she has a ninety-year-old mother who she visited to bring her groceries—insisting on wearing the mask the whole time she was there, which was absolutely the right choice. She even washed all over her groceries as well. So, what if I am an asymptomatic carrier? I have been checking my temperature twice daily since March 18 and have yet to come even close to a fever, but I have been to grocery stores around other people not wearing masks in the meantime. I ordered a pack of five masks from Amazon last week and its delivery date is estimated "between April 19 and May 4." Wonderful.

And Shobhit and I need to do our own grocery shopping tonight, and I may very well just put a scarf over my face. I am less and less comfortable with shopping without a mask on, which I did when we last went grocery shopping a little over two weeks ago. In the meantime, I am left with some sort of makeshift option, which I hoped to avoid having to do; I should have ordered masks much earlier than I did. But, whatever, this is what I'm dealing with now. In any case, I may still go on this walk with Alexia, but I will insist only on the condition that we both wear masks, and maybe even keep a bit more than six feet between us. We could perhaps even bring ear pieces with us to talk on the phone along the way, if we feel we are too far apart to converse easily. I'll have to see what kind of thoughts she has on the matter. But there's no way I'm going to just go on a walk with someone without not just one, but multiple levels of precautions. I'd much rather over-do it than not do enough, and who knows where the line really is?

— चार हजार सात सौ छब्बीस —

[posted 12:57 pm]