I got paperbacks and COVID

Well, my luck finally ran out. Or rather, my precautions finally weren’t enough. I couldn’t hold off a callous, indifferent world any longer.

Also, conditions worked against me. My spouse had to go into the hospital for a procedure last week, so I had to be in the hospital (masked, but many of the hospital personnel were letting their masks hang under their chins). I had to take lots of public transit (Philly riders are awesome at masking, but there’s always someone pulling their mask down to talk on the damn phone). I was at a gathering of friends where, as I was walking in, a friend announced to me she had COVID the previous weekend but her doctor said it was fine to go to meetings as long as she was masked (I was masked, N95 as always, but I left immediately, went home, and attended remotely). I have been wearing a mask everywhere for over two years.

Yet all my individual efforts were unsuccessful, finally. I figured I was having seasonal allergies (that’s what it feels like) but just in case I tested on the 15tth (negative) and today (positive).

My grandchild is unvaccinated. My spouse has stage 4 cancer. I have asthma. Right now, I am proud that I lasted this long, but honestly right now I am exhaustedly angry at people for being people. For everyone wanting the world to be the way it always was. For getting so annoyed about a face covering that they’re willing to let old and sick people die. For people I know going out in public when they’re infected. For scientists and doctors telling people they can go back to normal too soon after infection. For human beings spreading misinformation like air, just like infection, and for other human beings being fatalistic.

I’m fine, thanks. It feels like bad seasonal allergies. I can smell. I’m coughing, and will end up with bronchitis, but I always do when I have an upper respiratory infection. I just don’t want my husband to die and I don’t want to infect my grandkid, my kid, and my son-in-law.

There’s a limit to how much my individual efforts count, though. Obviously.

In nicer news, I got paperback copies of Dog of the Dead today. They look pretty good.