Marie Javins's Blog, page 38

Dogs v Birds

In a world where individuals guilty of existing-while-black are murdered by law enforcement or by racists who own guns, I keep reading comments where people suggest my--our--friend Chris is guilty of being a jerk for OFFERING A DOG A TREAT.

I'm not saying he was trying to make friends with the dog. He was clearly offering the dog a treat so the dog owner would leash the dog which was illegally off-leash in a migratory bird habitat.

The number of commenters in the world who claim Chris had ill-intent toward the dog due to offering it a treat is small, but nevertheless horrifying and absurd.

Sometimes, I just want to give up, you know? People are just so...god, they're just so dense. I don't want to be that person, but sometimes it's hard to see the good, the smart, the reasonable in people. They want so badly to prove they are uniquely more clever, they are special, they see an angle no one else sees. "They're both jerks."

No, they're not. One of them is an entitled privileged person you'd avoid at a party, the kind of petulant, duplicitous, self-absorbed vice-president you end up working a few offices away from and hoping that one day she'll go somewhere else and get a job so you
NYTimesdon't have to listen to her BS in meetings. The kind of person who tells you about her traumatic time when she chipped a tooth and thinks it's the same thing as chronic illness, gender or race violence, or permanent loss.

The other is a wildlife-loving gay man of color who has learned how to manage difficult situations by carrying dog treats.

I know it's silly to even think about this. Half the commenters are bots anyway, just stirring the pot because that's how you destroy a superpower without even touching a tank or bomb. But when I see an actual REAL person suggest that a black man in America is an asshole for carrying dog treats, I see who is the asshole.

And so should we all.

"Christian Cooper is already back birding at Central Park. 'I’m not excusing the racism,' he said. 'But I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart.'"

Mammals on Breadalbane Terrace

Different animals peeking around in the front of house versus the back of the house.

Front of house
Back of house

Clickable and More Fun

Here are some more fun links about our pal Christian Cooper.

He used to do a web comic called "Queer Nation." I colored some and Yancey drew some. We had a blast, though web comics were not really a thing for many more years. Queer Nation was ahead of its time.

https://www.wired.com/1998/12/can-miss-thang-save-earth/ 

http://gayusatv.org/chris-cooper/ 

https://web.archive.org/…/www.queernation.c…/archive_fr.html

These links are more fun than scream-y spaniel woman.

She Went There?

48 hours ago, if you'd asked me "What do you think Christian Cooper would be famous for," I'd have guessed for something he'd written, a science fiction book or maybe the Star Trek comic he used to write where he introduced the first gay character in the history of Star Trek. Or maybe I'd have said "He was featured in that documentary about Central Park birders," because he's a dedicated and locally famous birder. He gets up at some obscenely early hour in the spring so he can be at Central Park by dawn to watch migratory birds.

If you wanted to dig in more to his background, I might have told you about his global travels, his days editing at Marvel, how he's a Harvard grad whose friend from college was the first male ob/gyn I'd ever met, or how he'd jumped through all the hoops necessary to get a small condo in the East Village back in the day, and he'd made his exclusive roof rights into a tiny, green paradise. I might have mentioned he had a fabulous 30th birthday party at a private mansion which inspired me to do the same a few years later (at the Frying Pan lightship). He hired a few drag queens to come to his party--were they telling fortunes? I no longer remember. I might even have mentioned I vaguely remember he knows some Klingon, but maybe he just had the Klingon dictionary and I read a lot more into that than I should have. I probably would have told you that Chris is never one to back down from taking a stand on a moral issue. He's gone to his share of righteous protests.

I would NOT have anticipated that early yesterday morning, an angry middle-aged woman of some apparent privilege, a white woman investment banker with all the clichés that description carries, would go on a hysterical rant at Chris when he asked her to leash her dog in a migratory bird habitat in Central Park. She got up in his face, she called 9-1-1 and made a false report claiming she was being menaced by "an African American man," ramping up her hysteria while also nearly choking her cocker spaniel.

This would have been merely a small chapter in the ongoing battle of birdwatchers vs dog owners but for her phone call.

She used the term "African American man" as a weapon. Her intent was crystal-clear in the video--which has gone viral with millions of views. I woke up this morning and checked to see if any outlets had picked up Chris' story. Holy smokes. Yes, dozens and dozens of outlets have reported the story and posted the video. "White Dog Owner Calls Cops on Black Bird Watcher, Goes Viral." "Central Park Confrontation Goes Viral, as White Woman Calls Cops on Black Man Over Dog Leash." "A video of a white woman calling the cops on a black man because he asked her to leash her dog in Central Park Monday is drawing outrage on social media."

Chris was indeed guilty of asking her to leash her dog and offering the dog a treat. Watching the video is shocking, because Chris is calm the whole time, but assertive. He's asking her to follow the law, or take her dog to the section of the park where off-leash dogs are allowed. She immediately ramps the tone up to crazy-town, and then she places a false emergency call to 9-1-1. When I watched the video yesterday, I assumed she was full of shit, putting on an act of placing the call to try to intimidate Chris (I could have told her that wouldn't work). But no, she legit filed a false report. Admitting it ON CAMERA.

On a video now seen by millions. She's been suspended from her job. Her dog has been taken back by the rescue which may have noticed a pattern of emergencies that seem to clearly indicate a lack of respect for leash laws--the dog was always getting hurt and needing emergency care.

She's apologized and said her life is being destroyed. All for what? Trying to get a black bird-watcher arrested and worse--she chose her terms with malice. I don't feel the least bit sorry for her. "Birding while black" is not a crime.

Chris, however, says he has no beef with her so long as she keeps her dog on a leash in the Ramble.

Making Do

My little ground floor apartment in Jersey City is more a bolthole than a residence. It's about 450 square feet, maybe a little less. The bedroom, living room, and office are the same small room. Likewise, the kitchen and dining room share the same quarters. The bathroom has no separate shower. The bathroom IS the shower, plastic curtains serving as dividers.

The kitchen has no oven, but it does have two small gas burners, a microwave, a toaster oven, and now, an Instant Pot.

Oh, and I have my tiny backyard with patio umbrella, but it hasn't been that hot here yet, so while I cleaned up the patio and dragged out the umbrella stand, I didn't make use of it yet.

My upstairs tenants have been out of town during the entire pandemic, so I could use their oven. And they wouldn't mind since they're not using it and I'm feeding their cats and sending them video of the nice cat to show their five-year-old twins. (The kids are less interested in the mean cat.)

But I wanted to see if I could make a successful meal using the tools I have, so I'm pleased to announce that... ...I successfully had a delicious meal of baked chicken breast with parmesan and spices, partially microwaved and partially toaster oven-ed sweet potato, and Instant Pot asparagus spears.

Now if only I could figure out the right approach to an overripe banana and Bisquick.

Pandemic Conundrum

We find ourselves at an odd moment for so many reasons.

Our lives are suddenly prospectively shortened. We realize our list of dreams needs to be addressed.

Simultaneously, we are trapped within our homes, or at most, within a controlled orbit in masks and gloves with social distancing, hoping the studies are right about exposure.

I was just listening to a program on WNYC where the obituary writers talk about DO IT NOW, because death comes suddenly.

What a conundrum, that so many have realized there's no time like the present for following dreams, but the present isn't having it.

Settling In, the Lafayette Edition

I headed home from the airport, put on my disposable gloves, got a takeout coffee at The Grind and an egg-in-a-wrap from Martha's, took them home to dump into my own dishes, scrubbed my hands carefully, and had breakfast in my own home.

ShopRite miraculously opened up delivery slots, so I got as many groceries as fit in my half-size fridge. They even had Lysol wipes, which I hadn't seen since early March. I stopped by the dollar store--they had hair wraps, the right kind for maskmaking, and I pulled out my cheapie sewing machine I hadn't touched since I moved to Los Angeles.

Plus, I apparently went back in time and bought a huge number of disposable gloves and left them in my Jersey City house for Pandemic Marie to find. Part of the DIY experience! There are several woodworking masks under the sink and in the basement too.

The apprehension I had before flying home is starting to dissolve. People just get by, but with more social distancing and masks. 

Testing the Waters

I took a plane Wednesday night. Crazy? Maybe. My theory, based on reading some reports about air filtration on planes and how many (very few) people are flying, was that flying is pretty safe. While my experience seems to bear out this hypothesis, I have ten days of isolation in Jersey City and then another two weeks on return to LA to find out if I guessed well.

My biggest concern was getting from my apartment to the gate. I waffled for days over which airport to fly out of. Burbank Airport is a ten-minute bus ride away, on the nearly empty 222 bus, while LAX can be anywhere from a half-hour in the dead of night to two hours in traffic. Longer if I take transit and hit all the connections wrong. But flying from LAX means a direct flight to Newark, and flying from Burbank means a connecting flight via SFO or DEN. What’s safer, two flights and waiting in a second airport, or getting to LAX?

I talked it over with Steve B, who had driven to Burbank a few weeks ago and hit zero traffic. Ultimately, I split the difference.

Fly out of LAX, fly back to Burbank.

I obsessively checked the United seat assignments for a few days leading up to my flight. Was it crowded? Where could I sit and be far from others? Should I switch to a day flight instead of a red-eye?


Ultimately, some decisions were taken out of my hands. There are barely any flights at the moment, so once I didn’t commit to the early daytime flights, I had no choice aside from the sole redeye. The scheduled aircraft was suddenly swapped out with a new Dreamliner, and I was suddenly in Premium Plus. (I have Platinum status, now guaranteed to end of 2022 due to pandemic.) I thought I’d get upgraded to a flat bed in Polaris, but that didn’t happen.

As my work day ended, I got a text from the airline. My plane had been delayed. Departure time was no longer 10:55 pm. “Due to cleaning,” my flight would be departing at 12:45 am. GROAN. That’s gonna suck, I thought. (Spoiler: It pretty much did.)

I clicked around for options. There weren’t any aside from flying on Thursday, but I had to work on Thursday. I resigned myself to the overnight.

But what about getting to the airport? Flying so late also made the decision for me. Transit was questionable already at a time when there are fewer trains and buses operating. Was it safer to be in a closed-up car with a Lyft driver for 30-50 minutes, or was it safer to take spacious, empty buses and trains to the airport? Late-night departure meant a Lyft. I pulled on the N95 mask I’d had hanging from a hook since March (prior to that, it lived in a box since I had pulled up the carpet in my condo in 2017). These are super-uncomfortable for the reason they’re so effective. They’re stuffy and hot. The elastic cuts into your cheeks, pulling the mask tight. You feel like you might die just from lack of air. I covered it up with a cloth mask, put on disposable vinyl gloves, and used my phone to schedule a Lyft to Lax.

The N95 and gloves gave me peace of mind as I lifted the trunk of the Lyft car, put in my bag, and then got into the back seat. I thought about tearing off the N95 mask about 20 times during the 30-minute drive, but kept it on the whole ride.

“The airport? I haven’t driven anyone to the airport in two months,” the driver said, an accent so thick he seemed to labor to get the words out under his mask. He played music and an irritating radio announcer kept interrupting and talking over the music in Spanish. It didn’t register for most of the ride that his Google Maps was just giving him directions to LAX, and then I had to laugh at myself. Pay attention. 

Traffic was nearly non-existent, and the airport was the least-crowded I’d seen it since 1995. I was at Terminal 7 in record time.

I kept my mask and gloves on as I ventured up to the check-in counter. The automated check-in machines were all closed. Each counter (there were only two) had a large piece of plexiglass acting as a barricade, so the attendant behind it was safe from random passengers with Covid-19. I handed over my newly Real IDed-license and checked in.

So many opportunities for screw-ups. I get my license back. I get my paper boarding pass. Both touched by the counter worker, who I’m sure is perfectly safe, but imagine if this were a normal airport day. So much potential for transmission.

My checked bag gone now, I shouldered my handbag and my laptop bag (two laptops!) and walked to a trashcan to throw away my gloves. Maybe I should have done that before getting my boarding pass, I thought. Maybe I should put on new gloves. I didn't. I probably should have. I seem to lean toward conserving gloves, when the truth is this would be the perfect place to go through them rapidly.

I headed to TSA. Precheck was closed because there were so few passengers, so I just went through the normal line. Which wasn’t a line. There was no line. I saw two other passengers at this point, one getting their ID checked, and another already over at the x-ray machine.

As soon as I got through TSA, I headed to the ladies room. No one else inside, which was good since public bathrooms have been identified as a main means of transmission. I scrubbed and scrubbed—the blow dryers were all gone, but plenty of paper towels were available. Also good, I noted. Hot air dryers can’t be good in the midst of a pandemic.

I sat alone in an empty section of the airport, changed masks from N95 to cloth, then aimlessly scrolled through my phone while awaiting departure. But wait. I was thirsty. Hadn’t thought about drinking water and masks. I filled up my water bottle at a refill stand, went back to the ladies room to scrub my hands again, went back to the bench I’d been on, took off my mask, and gulped water. For good measure, I ate an Rx Bar and some macadamia nuts. I sure wasn’t going to eat any snacks on the plane—which turned out to be good since there were no snacks on offer.

I put my mask back on and headed to the gate just after midnight. People really struggle with instructions. Some were masked. Some had noses exposed. Some had completely taken off their masks. Many passengers, on approach to the counter, would dodge around the plexiglass and take off their masks to better speak to the attendant. One attendant barked orders at a particularly pushy passenger. “Please step back to the other side!”

I boarded last—besides being in the front of the plane, I wanted to be on board for the least-possible time, in case of virus.

I sat on an aisle in Premium Plus, with the nearest passenger being at the window across the aisle. I was reasonably comfortable with the odds on this plane. Masked up, hands washed, I went straight to sleep.

Bonus, turns out wearing a mask means if your mouth drops open while you sleep, no one sees.

The cabin lights came on five hours later as we approached Newark Airport just before 9 am. Newark was similar to LAX had been. Shuttered food stalls, few employees roaming the halls. My bag came off the luggage carousel quickly and I headed to the curb, happy with my N95 and Lyft plan. I stood in a patch of sunlight in perfect, crisp spring weather.

20 minutes later, I unlocked the door to my downstairs apartment in my house. My tenants were with in-laws somewhere south of here, somewhere safe with room for kids to roam. I scrubbed my hands again, checked on the cats (Denise had been on cat duty, and now it’s my turn), and went to ShopRite’s website to look for grocery slots. These are damn near impossible to get, but by some miracle, all of Friday had just opened up. I ordered a hundred dollars worth of groceries (including two mega-containers of Lysol wipes(!), stopped by the coffee shop nearby for a latte which I brought home to dump into my own mug, washed my hands again, and sat down to start my day of working from home. That’s right. They said “work from home.” They just never specified WHICH home.

What’s the verdict? Why did I just do this, fly across the country when I haven’t gone more than two miles from home since early March?

I wanted to see the reality of what we’re dealing with. If the airport felt like the mall in the middle of Dawn of the Dead, I wanted to see it. But mostly, I wanted to see if I could successfully operate within safety parameters. Doctors go to work every day, so I should be able to follow their standards to navigate a mundane task.

And you know what? It was okay. But I don’t think it will be for very long. Right now, no one wants to fly, but once people are braver, and people seem incapable of reliably following rules, seems to me the world of transit will be a shit-show. I’m not sure I’d do this again in three months.

I Hope They Have Triple-A

I seldom look at my work phone and no one (including me) has the number.

Shame about the fan belt.

Now What?

Hey, Monday. I love you too.