Last night some friends and I went to a film presentation at the planetarium I was planning to wear while in the theater space, more out of courtesy to the others in the audience, who were mostly seniors As we got out of the car and headed toward the building, I started to rummage around in my bag but I couldn't find any, not even any spares For the past two years I've kept at least one or two extras in my day pack, and usually had a few regular face masks in rotation, depending on where I'd be going and what level of protection I needed to display I guess I'd taken them all out for washing or had discarded them after use. I mentally shrugged my shoulders and went inside Face masks weren't required in the theater; about 10% of the audience was wearing them The theater was sold out and it did feel odd to be in an enclosed room, without a face mask, breathing the air with 150 strangers It's going to take some time to feel like I'm not taking a huge risk while around crowds, indoors, without a face mask
June 15, 2023
While I’ve not been infected with COVID-19, I’ve known a couple of people that have gotten it. One was my boss at work. She tested positive about four months after the lock-down in our state started. It didn’t have much of an impact on me, though. It was during the time period when our offices were closed down and everyone was working remotely all the time. I didn’t even find out about her getting infected months later, when we returned to a limited in office work schedule. That’s when she told me about getting sick. It was surprising. Like having a news story come to life. The symptoms for her were bad, but not severe. She didn’t need to be hospitalized, though she felt pretty bad, she told me, during that time. The other was my uncle, my Dad’s brother. He was already in palliative care at the time, for a neurological condition he had contracted. I had visited him a couple of times before COVID closed everything down in the state where he lived. After that, my aunt and my cousins were not allowed to visit him. It was during that time that he got the disease and passed away. As with finding out about my boss having the disease, it made the news stories I had heard about people dying from the disease in isolation more real for me than it had been.
November 22, 2021