The Plague's The Thing

Welcome to the first edition of The Uncertain Times

All the news that'll give you fits

Greetings from the front lines!

I'm one of those folks who is not working from home (or not not working from home as the case    may be). For me, as well as some of many of us out here,it's been business as usual, albeit with some changes to our regular routines.

You see, I work in the healthcare industry. While not directly dealing with patients, I am considered by my organization
as a caregiver. It's actually a catch-all word to give us some sort of dignity or purpose when, if truth be told, we are only employees. This applies to the maintenance staff, food services, etc etc etc. The thing is we're all out here helping
to get the job done collectively. Sure, the nurses, the doctors, et al., are getting much deserved accolades since they are in the thick of battle trying to fight this invisible enemy and care for its many victims. But you know what? We all deserve heaping helpings of praise along with everyone that has been working through this..

The thing is, we "caregivers" don't know we're facing either and it was scary as all get-out in the early days. I myself transport Covid-19 test samples from clinics on a daily basis taking the utmost care that is provided to me while utilizing PPE and sanitizing myself several times a day. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it, along with the lab technicians, medical assistants and anyone else in this wide open field of screams. And, like them, I don't really have a choice.

The fear and anxiety during the first wave has subsided though it hasn't made this pandemic any less serious. Early on, I had an honest to crap melt-down, damn near resulting in a panic attack when dealt with my first specimen. The information given us at the time was limited at best, so don't think that wasn't a reason to freak the frick out. If that wasn't enough, I am constantly reminded of what germy souvenirs I could bring home, endangering the one person I love most in this crazy goddamn world. As more has been learned along the way and the misinformation has been dialed down (despite one Fathead in Chief's diatribe about disinfectant and ultra-violet butt lights), the tension has lowered while the danger unfortunately remains as the hits keep right on a'comin'.

What I've observed while being out here in the world when the rest of you weren't is that it has all seemed so normal, especially with Spring in full bloom. At the same time, the populace is being infected and dying by an invisible enemy, putting everyone all on high alert. Since then, it's been slow going during these last few weeks. A lack of human presence on the streets has such an eerie calm. Add a heaping helping of the fear factor and you've got the new normal. If I had to give it a name, I'd call it Paranoid Boredom.

One of my big concerns these days is that this constant high alert has begun to dull the senses to the point of causing a lackadaisical response. Mistakes will be made if those of us out here are too complacent about it all. My temperature is taken a couple of times a day when I enter a hospital or clinic, but I've noticed that those manning these stations don't bother to look up from their phones when someone enters their area. Surprise, surprise. Mostly, the utmost care is being taken in businesses I still have to visit and I for one am grateful for their diligence.

Please go the edge of Flat Earth and jump the fuck off

The quarantine is helping and hurting at the same time. The Covid  is being held at bay as a result but human-and inhuman-nature is making a bunch of loonies in the process, most of which didn't have far to go to begin with. Sure was east to topple over that basket of deplorables and there they are, semi-autos and Confederate flags in hand, yelling "Our Bodies, Ourselves". (Say what?) Yeah, the economy is in the dumper and people do indeed have to get back to the high cost of living again. I'm employed while so many are not. I'm not speaking from a lofty, elitist position, just another working stiff. I'm still making the same shit wages I was before all this, trying to make ends meet. This thing is going to get dragged out even further with more deaths on the way if stupidity rules the waves. Slow your roll, people. Heed the words of The Outlaw Josey Wales : "Dyin' ain't much of a livin' boy."

In the meantime, I'll be out there again tomorrow, dealing with the Corona-Covid contagion, dodging the sickies and fighting the good fight for you, for me and for a paycheck.

Why?
Because I have to.
It's my job.

Corona My House

Ground zero?

In the words of the Wicked Witch of the West,
"Oh, what a world....what a world..."

Yeah, it's gone nuts out there alright. I should say it's already gone nuts and now it's just flat out insane. The pandemic they've been warning us about forever and a day is now upon us and what do we do? Hoard toilet paper. Yeah, we're fine. Lordy lordy, what is we gonna do?

I have two perspectives, not because I'm bi-polar or bi-coastal for that matter. I'm more BOGO as in Bi One Get One. I'm also spinning off the rails so bear with me as I attempt to put two thoughts together and come up with a blog.

On one hand, I have what is known as my day job, the one that pays most of the bills and that, my dear friends, is in the healthcare field. I am, as the main character in my book,
RED ASPHALT, a laboratory courier. That means I pick up and deliver, among other things, blood, urine and other bodily fluids for my employer's clinical lab. Naturally, we have been testing for Covid-19 at the hospitals and clinics in our network. Hooray. I'm on the front lines. Of course, we've been bombarded by tons of information regarding this outbreak and guess what? We still don't know what the hell we're doing, making it up as we go along. On Friday, I couldn't get that goddamn HBO mini-series CHERNOBYL out of my head. I began to feel like one of the first responders to that clusterfuck. "Boris, go down to the core and clean up. Take this mop. Hold your breath. You will be fine." The stress has just begun and my own melt-down is imminent.

My other job, actually my vocation, is an independent writer, a fashionable term for someone w/o representation. Among my works are pieces for the theater, though that's a catch-all phrase as well. I write melodramas and interactive murder mysteries which have been fairly lucrative for yours truly in the past decade. This year alone, the first six months in fact, I had four productions scheduled, one having wrapped up just last month in Texas. However, everything is on hold as of this moment in time that changes by the hour. Actors Studio Inc. has a scheduled benefit performance of MURDER: THE FINAL FRONTIER on March 21, the first in my adopted state of Oregon which was to be followed up by another the following Saturday. As of today, show #2 is cancelled. Another of the same show in the Los Angeles area is on hold while a production of SONG OF THE CANYON KID in Texas this May is up in the air, shall we say? Meanwhile, acting as another playwright's agent, I was able wrangle a production of Michael K. Young's CASE OF THE MYSTERIOUS CRAVAT, a major coup, I felt. However, at this writing, a show set for two weeks hence is suddenly a big question mark. When it suddenly dawns on you that the survival of this particular art form is predicated on putting butts in seats, it's time to rethink your options. And in terms of survival itself, it's a lose-lose proposition. Social distancing. That's not entertainment.

(UPDATE: Actors Theater Inc. cancelled their March 21 show on 3/16. The next day, the Rogue Theater pulled the plug on THE CASE OF THE MYSTERIOUS CRAVAT and, alas and alack, SONG OF THE CANYON KID is a no-go in Texas this year)

My problems, especially of the latter, are comparatively minor and I acknowledge that. People are sick and dying, businesses and facilities are closing left and right and the world is on lockdown. On the other hand, which I continually wash for twenty seconds at a time, the former, meaning that dreaded day job, is disconcerting because it also boils down to the same thing, spouted by that wise sage Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense of the good ol' US of A:

"There are known knowns; there are things that we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know."

What a soothsayer. That was 18 years ago. Match that up with anything that's been spouted in the last couple of weeks and you've got yourself The New Reality.

Tomorrow I head back into the void. It's another day and the sun will come out. Everything else is anybody's guess. Hopefully, the answer won't be blowing in the wind. I can only hold my breath for so long.

Take care, people. We'll meet again. Don't know where. Don't know when.