— चार हजार सात सौ सैंतालीस —

Today marks the end of my 11th week working from home, and although for a while now I have expected to spend the rest of this entire year working from home, I am now beginning to wonder how long it will last even beyond that? What a depressing prospect. People want to resist thinking of this as a "new normal," but what if that's just what we have to accept? Even when a vaccine becomes available, it won't be deployed to everyone all at once; that will take further time. I read an article today in the Washington Post that have an outside estimate of a vaccine taking ten years! That may have been a bit of fearmongering, but the flip side of that is a single year being maybe overly optimistic. When the fuck can I visit, let alone hug, friends and family again? Thinking about all this shit is starting to make me crazy. I mean, protesting at state capitols because I'm being asked to wear a mask in public is not at all on my agenda; that's even crazier. But the longer time goes on, the more all of us are going to reach some kind of breaking point. Even Gabriel mentioned that when this all started, and he's more strict about precautions than anyone I know.

What has to happen is "herd immunity," and it sounds like it's kind of a race between that happening from a huge wave of infections that overwhelms health care systems, and it happening with any kind of vaccination campaign. I'd sure like to encounter some optimism instead of more dispiriting scenarios.

But, what can we do? We have to figure out how to function as a society going forward, however long this takes. We can't keep everything—or nearly everything—closed forever, or even for as long as it theoretically could take to get past this pandemic. I'm suddenly beginning to wonder what the odds really are that I will die of old age, between shit like this, climate change . . . I don't suppose it does me good to dwell on such unknowable things.

For myself, right here and right now, at the micro level: "one day at a time," as they say. My days remain on a spectrum between good and tolerable most of the time. As I always said, I will continue dedicating my life to having a good time, until I can't. I just have to do that in very different ways for now.

— चार हजार सात सौ सैंतालीस —

— चार हजार सात सौ सैंतालीस —

I'm giving Shobhit a Social Review point for yesterday. He'll be thrilled. It did come with some frustration, though: the ignition in his car keeps locking, and neither of us can figure out how to fix it. He had the day off yesterday and he went to spend the afternoon at Howell Beach—our local nude beach on Lake Washington, which he loves going to, and which yesterday he said was "crowded," not a word anyone wants to hear right now. He said people practiced social distancing though, unless they were couples. And it was outside, so that's relatively safe. "Crowded" at Howell Park hardly means "sardine-packed." He actually opted to take the bus out there, which I didn't like but he did take his mask and hand sanitizer.

The plan was for me to drive out there to pick him up, since he took a drink with him, and then we would go for a drive, maybe through the Arboretum. And we basically still did that, it's just that he had to bus home first, because when I went down to get into the car, the fucking ignition would not turn. I looked up several articles and videos about it, annoyingly having to go outside through the lobby to load every one of them because there is no reception in the garage, but nothing worked.

Then when Shobhit got home and sat in the car, turning the ignition with his own key (which I had already tried; he keeps his car keys on a separate ring and had left it at home), it immediately fucking worked! He was confident it had to do with pressing the gas pedal when first turning the ignition, to unlock the wheel. (Turning the wheel in an attempt to unlock the ignition, one of the suggestions—that only locked the wheel as well.)

I suggested we still go for a drive anyway, and so we did. Shobhit had me drive, and we drove all the way out on Madison to Madison Park. Then we turned around, came back a bit, then drove through the Arboretum, which was lush and very pretty. We kind of meandered around a little bit from the other end of that, through Roanoke Street to 10th Avenue on the north end of Capitol Hill, making our way back via Broadway to stop at the Broadway Market QFC so Shobhit could buy a lottery ticket. Then we drove home again.

This was not a grocery shopping or errands trip, just a drive for fun. So, that qualifies: social activity! Shobhit will still be #1 on the Spring Social Review but it will likely be by the smallest margin ever. He's already only barely ahead of Alexia, who is high on the list as we've taken all these walks together and as such, aside from Shobhit, the only person I've done anything with in-person (but still social-distanced and always with masks on).

So anyway, we came home, I helped Shobhit make parathas to have with dishes he had already prepared for dinner, and we watched two episodes of Ozark.

— चार हजार सात सौ सैंतालीस —

[posted 12:32 pm]