What Do You Know, There Was Actually Some Good News This Week Just in Time for Pride Month.
My adopted home state, New York, is in Phase One of re-opening after locking down since March 15. I dread Phase Two, because in Phase One the traffic in my suburb has become a nightmare already, and in Phase Two dentists are allowed to go back to work. As soon as Phase Two hits, I know my dentist will hound me about resuming where we left off three months ago. Now, I thank the lord that I live in the time of modern dentistry… with about the same fervor that I wish modern dentistry would leave me the fuck alone. Jesus, I hate going to the dentist, but having a nice smile is much more important when you are in your 60s than it is when you are in your 20s.
Old people are creepy. It’s a fact. This is something that I remember from my 20s with vivid clarity, and I’m not letting myself off the hook just because I happen to now be in my 60s. You have to take care of stuff, like teeth. And hair. And shoes. And wear lipstick, and shut up about how you used to buy Wonderbread for 35 cents a loaf. Update your eyeglasses. And stop wearing plaid shirts.
So, yeah, I’ll be phasing out of quarantine and sharing public spaces with **shudder** people, and it will be the official end of my Corona Cocoon, and I will be sad (about having to act “normal” around “people” again) and terrified (of my dentist).
It will take me a while to ramp up my activity level from my quarantine baseline of coma-esque restfulness. I am so used to doing nothing that this morning, when I had to go to the post office and to the drug store, I did the post office and called it a day. That’s all I can take. I’ve pencilled in some castle-making for 6 – 8 PM, when I’m recovered from the exertion of mailing a package (hey Jeanie! Look for something from me in about a week!), but I won’t hold it against myself if I decide to stay on the couch watching Netflix instead.
Speaking of Netflix, I was watching another multi-episode drama from Asia last night, about a magic portal between two parallel universes and the time-traveling king who jumps between them and I thought to myself, I wonder how long it takes to learn to ride a horse. (Although it’s set in 2019, the king rides a horse through the parallel universe portal.)
I would like to know how to ride a horse. I think I would look cool on a horse. This might be my new hobby, the one that stops Top Cat nagging at me to go outside for FIVE MINUTES and enjoy the beautiful day.
If any of you Dear Readers knows anything about riding a horse, please let me know if it’s possible to learn to look cool on a horse in one Summer, and do I need to get a special cowgirl name?
Brianna Noble on her horse, Dapper Dan, riding in downtown Oakland, CA, June 11, 2020.
And, oh yeah. Fuck Trump.
Yay! We got a win for America!
Seizing on a medical milestone that doesn’t exist, President Donald Trump said Tuesday [June 16] he thinks the same scientific expertise that produced a vaccine for AIDS can deliver one soon for COVID-19, too. “These are the people – the best, the smartest, the most brilliant anywhere, and they’ve come up with the AIDS vaccine. They’ve come up with, as you know, there’s various things, and now various companies are involved … AIDS was a death sentence, and now people live a life with a pill. It’s an incredible thing.”
There is no vaccine for AIDS.
See you on Friday, Dear Readers. Let’s avoid going back to normal together.
