Who knew hair weighed so much?

 Have you ever cut your own hair? If not, you should probably try it at least once, just to see if you can. During the stay-at-home order, I learned that I can cut my own hair. I can’t cut it in any particular style or anything, but I can trim the ends and take off a little excess length, and generally reshape it a bit so that it’s not unreconstructed elderly hippie hair, because no one wants that on her head. 

The first time I cut my own hair was actually in January, so nothing to do with the coronavirus. I just didn’t feel like waiting for a hair appointment. I had to have my hair cut that minute at that particular time, so I got some scissors and got to work, and was pleasantly surprised at the results. And then I promised myself that I would never do it again because that was nothing more than rank beginner’s luck, and I wasn’t going to get lucky a second time. And then the ‘rona shut the whole damn thing down for months and my hair was approaching I-was-at-Woodstock-but-I-don’t-remember-details stage, and it was either kill or be killed; and so I got the scissors out again, and that’s how I learned that the first time wasn’t a fluke, and I actually can cut my own hair when it gets too long, like this sentence. 

When I cut my own hair, though, what I have is hair. Which is fine, as far as it goes. I wash it, I comb it out, I pull it back into a clip, and it dries however it dries, and that’s the end of it. I missed having an actual style. So I got a real, proper haircut. And now I don’t know what the point of all this was, because I avoid conversations about hair and grooming whenever I can, and here I am halfway through about 500 words on the world’s most boring topic. But it’s a good haircut that has an actual shape and style. For at least a few weeks, I’ll be able to leave the house without a clip or a headband or a hair tie (and all three at once is not unheard-of), and that’s a nice change. It makes me feel normal again. Maybe life will resume. Maybe I’ll soon have a reason to fix my hair and put on real clothes and leave the house and join the world of purpose and energy and endeavor. If not, then this haircut should withstand a few months of growth before I have to get out the scissors again. If that happens, I’ll spare you the details. You’re welcome. 

One Line a Day

 I have been drafting a project charter, which is more interesting than it sounds. It’s like writing something into being. I worked at a biotech company many years ago, and the QA Manager had a favorite saying: “If it’s not documented, then it didn’t happen.” I could say the same thing about future events: If it’s not documented, then it won’t happen. 

Speaking of documenting, I have a little journal that has a title: One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book. It’s a five-year diary, with short little entries for each day of the year, for five years--the same day on one page, so you can, I suppose, compare August 26, 2020 with August 26, 2024 and see what’s changed. 

My sister gave me the One Line a Day journal for Christmas, and I almost just put it on a bookshelf as a quasi-decorative item. It’s very pretty, with an abstract-design pastel design hard cover and gold print, with gold leaf trim on all of the pages. So it’s nice to just look at. But then I thought that it might be nice, as a project, just to add an entry every day. Too bad I didn’t have this last year. It would be interesting to see the difference between 2019 and 2020. 

Anyway, you see what’s coming, don’t you? Yes, the journal went from being just a nice, middle-aged sister Christmas present to yet another anxiety-fueled compulsive must-do daily task. I already write every day; I also already keep a little planner. So this is a completely unnecessary layer of documentary complexity in my already well-documented life. But it’s not that much of a burden, really. Sometimes one line a day becomes just one word; just a single word that sums up or expresses something about my state of being on that day. 

One day last week, I wrote a very cryptic entry, thinking that I’d look at it next year and see if I could remember what it meant. Joke was on me (as it always is) because I looked at the entry 48 hours later, and I had no fucking idea what I was talking about. The thought of encroaching senility is never far from my mind. I should write more about that. I should make a note. 

*****

Oh, I know what it meant! And it was funny, too. Gosh, I crack myself up. 

*****

Sometimes I record several days’ worth of entries at one time. Cheating, I know, but a person has to find efficiencies wherever she can. (And there is proof, in case any was needed, that I have been working as a Federal government contractor for too long, because no one other than a Federal government contractor would use the plural form of the noun “efficiency,” except maybe a real estate agent in New York City.) Until yesterday, though, I hadn’t written entries for any future days, only for the current and past days. Yesterday, I wrote on today’s page “First real haircut since January.” As soon as I wrote it, I realized that I really should have waited. What if I changed my mind? What if the hairdresser didn’t show up for the appointment? What if some catastrophe prevented me from showing up for the appointment? Then what? Then I’d have falsified a record, or I’d have to cross out an entry and write something else. 

To make a long story short(er), my long(ish) hair is now short(er). Not only did I avoid catastrophe, but I got a really good haircut. Or maybe it’s just so much better than the cumulative results of my own DIY scissor work during the last six months, that it just seems like a good haircut. Does it make a difference? No, it does not. I’m glad I wrote it down in advance. If it hadn’t been documented, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. 

Little Fires Everywhere. BURN.

Nora Ephron wrote or said something about how one of the worst things about getting older is that when you watch a movie or a TV show, you notice when period details are off, and it ruins the show for you. I knew exactly how she felt when I watched "Little Fires Everywhere."

LFE is a limited Hulu series based on Celeste Ng’s novel of the same title. I have not read the novel and probably won’t, now that I know how it ends. And also because I hated every minute of this terrible hot TV mess, though I did watch all eight episodes, so the joke is on me, I suppose.

Why did I hate this show so much? Well, let’s start with the period detail. It's so wrong in so many ways that I don’t have time to enumerate them all here. Suffice to say that you’ll need to do better than a few bars of “Tubthumping” before I will believe that the year is 1997. I was alive in 1997. I remember 1997. Frozen yogurt existed, but no one called it “froyo.” Cardigan sweaters existed, but not the open-front cascade-style cardigans that became all the rage in 2010 or so. I could list ten more examples, but I won't. And when LFE does get the period details right, it beats you over the head with them. Poor Sarita Choudhury probably sustained serious shoulder and neck damage from the weight of the 7-pound chunky David Yurman necklace that she wears in her first scene. It hurt me just to look at it.

The soundtrack is also a source of pain, with its terrible, terrible covers of angsty 90s girl singer-songwriter songs. I like Alanis as well as the next person, but I do not want to watch a self-important angry teenager perform “You Oughta Know” as a goshdarn violin solo. And “Uninvited” is apparently not slow and sad enough, because the wailing, agonized cover version on the LFE soundtrack is a mental health crisis set to music.

Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington are both fine actresses. In fact, it's their fault that I kept watching this drivel. “It has to get better,” I kept thinking. “Kerry and Reese won’t let me down.” Kerry and Reese: You let me down. I’m disappointed, ladies.

Obviously, Kerry and Reese are not solely to blame for the dreadfulness of LFE. Even with terrible material, their performances are reasonably good; even compelling in a few scenes. But they did serve as producers, so they bear at least some of the responsibility for clunky, obvious characterizations, completely lacking in subtlety. How do we know that Reese’s Elena is a raging, entitled bitch? Well, just look at that sleek blond grown-up Tracy Flick hair and those St. John ensembles and that French manicure, and that perfect Shaker Heights mansion with the insanely complicated family calendar hanging on the refrigerator. Of course she’s a raging, entitled bitch. And how do we know that Kerry’s Mia is an artist? She wears black clothes and chunky silver jewelry (not David Yurman chunky, though, or she'd never have the strength to lift her fucking paintbrush) and she listens to Velvet Underground and Nina Simone and she drives an old Chevy hatchback. Of course she’s an artist.


*****

Did you ever see “A League of Their Own?” If not, then stop reading this trash pile, and go and watch it. I’ll wait.


OK, so did you see the scene when the black spectator catches a ball, and Geena Davis’s Dottie smiles and motions to the woman to toss it back to her? And instead, the woman, who is excluded from participation in the all-white All American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, drills the ball 60 feet or so to Fredda Simpson’s Ellen Sue, who catches it and then rubs her hand, wincing a little. Ellen Sue and Dottie both give the woman a surprised smile and respectful nod; and she nods in return, satisfied that the players recognize her power. The whole scene takes about 15 seconds, and it says more about the injustice of racism and segregation than any 10,000-word polemic ever could.

“Little Fires Everywhere” is well-meaning. It has lots of true and important things to say about race and sex and privilege, about justice and injustice. It just doesn’t say them very well. It could have thrown a baseball; but instead, it wrote a 10,000-word polemic and then it shoved it down our throat, one compound-complex sentence at a time. Rather than trying to be Important and Relevant for eight hours, maybe it should have just gotten over itself and told us a story. I'm always all in for a story. 

Sunday

 I almost forgot to write today. It’s only 12:30 in the afternoon, so it’s not like the day is over or anything; but I feel that I wouldn’t have remembered, except for that I did. 

Well, it makes sense to me. 

Since I’m reading about writing (Nora Ephron, The Last Interview and Other Conversations) it seems odd that today of all days I would forget about writing myself. And it wasn’t the convenient forgetting of someone who subconsciously doesn’t want to do something, either, because I have a ton of ideas percolating in my head. At least six drafts are piled up in my Google Docs folder. 

*****

It’s Sunday, and I went to Mass for the first time since March. It was a little weird. No missals or hymnals, social distancing enforced with taped-off pews and taped-off spaces within individual pews, no singing, Holy Communion at the end of Mass; and of course, everyone was wearing masks. The Communion thing is the dream of every lackadaisical Catholic--go to Communions and then keep walking past your pew out the door. I feel guilty when I (occasionally) do that, but not today. The final blessing takes place just before Communion, and then you go and receive the Eucharist, and you breeze right out the door, and no one gives you side-eye for sneaking out early. 

As for the masks, I’ve come to hate the sight of them. I even hate the word and all of its variants: “face mask,” “masking,” “mask up,” “face covering,” etc. I understand the necessity and I don’t plan to join any anti-mask protests, but that doesn’t mean I have to like them. I mind less for myself than for others; or rather, the sight of others. So I suppose I do mind for myself. I don’t want to see covered faces anymore. It’s visceral; I find myself becoming agitated when I see people exit their cars and begin to put on the mask. And when I see a lone driver wearing a mask in the privacy of their car, I want to honk or yell at them. Who are you protecting, inside your own passenger-free car? Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you doing this to all of us?

Tomorrow, I won’t think twice about masks. I’ll just put one on when I need to and go about my business. Today is just a bad day on the corona-coaster.

*****

The dispensation that excuses Catholics from Mass attendance remains in effect, so I didn’t have to go to Mass today. There is no rule or obligation that compels me to go. But right now there are some things that I am trying to manage that are beyond me, so I needed to go. It has nothing to do with the pandemic, except for the irrational anger at the sight of face coverings (cringe!) 

I suppose that I want someone to tell me what comes next. What is the end game? When do we take the masks off, go back to work and school, and resume ordinary life? Is Corona 2020 a one-time event, or will we be subject to quarantine and lockdown and shutdown and isolation (all words that I hate almost as much as I hate masks) every time the CDC identifies a new micro-organism? Who the fuck is in charge? 

I know Who’s in charge, actually. But like other important things, I forget sometimes. I write every day, but it’s still possible for me to almost forget about writing. And I believe that God will win in the end, but I forget about that sometimes, too. I forget about that quite often. It was good to have a reminder. 

I can see (pretty) clearly now

Our community has an emergency operations planning committee, of which I am a member. I don’t know how I ended up on an emergency operations committee. Anyone who reads this blog should know that I’m the least qualified person to handle an emergency, unless “handling” is synonymous with “panicking and breathing into a paper bag.” But there I am. They’ll realize their mistake at some point, but then it will be too late. 

Anyway, we were discussing the upcoming Annual Meeting and Board of Trustees election. Did I mention that I’m also  a candidate for the Board of Trustees? I know. I have no idea how this happened, either. I’ll have an entirely separate post about that topic. Mark your calendars. 

So anyway, we’re on this interminable Zoom call, discussing the contingency plan for the annual meeting, and all of a sudden, I was literally dying from heat, like 104-degree fever heat. Ironic, I thought. We’re discussing COVID-19 emergency workarounds, and now I myself have the ‘rona.

Actually, what I have is a super-helpful Nest thermostat, which thinks with its little Google-powered brain that what we really want is not to be cool in the summer, but to save as much energy as possible, which is why it will adjust the indoor temperature to 88 degrees the second you turn your back on it. A thermostat set at 88 in August and an hour and a half with a computer on my lap and I felt like I had Ebola. I got off the call, turned off the computer, turned down the temperature, and was miraculously restored to health. 

*****

I worked today, because it’s Thursday, and everybody works on Thursday. I am part of a pilot test group for a new software application, and I found the testing process harder to understand than usual. Normally, I just follow the instructions, and I get the expected results (or I don’t, but not because of user error) and I submit my completed test script, and that’s the end of it. 

This application is less straightforward than others that I have tested, and the engineers created a video to go along with the instructions and test script. Even with the video, though, I struggled a bit to follow the steps. I had to keep stopping the video and switching back to the application to see what step I missed, because I kept missing steps. Finally, I finished testing, submitted the results, and crossed “pilot test” off my list of things to do. But I didn’t feel the normal list-crossing-off satisfaction. The whole job had been such a mental struggle that I wasn’t confident that I’d done everything correctly; and if the job isn’t done correctly, it isn’t done at all, and then where do I get off crossing it off a list? That is a clear and distinct violation of the to-do list EULA. (Look it up). 

Not only that, but this was the second time in as many days that I had a hard time following directions. I do not now, or ever, claim to be the proverbial sharpest knife in the drawer, but I can usually follow simple written instructions without any difficulty. So not only am I a viral plague vector, but I’m also suffering from early dementia. Or just dementia, because I’m almost 55 and it’s not too early for me to suffer the infirmities of old age.

*****

It’s Friday now. I don’t have coronavirus, and I got things done today. I’m pretty sharp, cognitively speaking. And you know what else? I’m not going blind, either. I finally replaced my Fitbit, when the charger broke. The screen on the old one had gotten very dim; and being me, I naturally thought that my eyesight was failing. So in just a few short days, I recovered from coronavirus, reversed a decline into dementia, and regained my sight. One miracle after another. 

Ants marching in circles

It’s Sunday morning, and we’re back from a week away. We’re watching the Capitals, who seem determined to exit the playoffs at the hands of the Islanders. I care a lot less about hockey than I usually do, because I care a lot less about a lot of things than I usually do. Damn ‘rona. 

I kept a daily diary during our vacation, and I just cleaned it up and published it on the blog. I was just worried enough about the NJ “travel advisory,” whatever that means, that I didn’t want to post anything online until we were safely over the Delaware Memorial Bridge and heading back toward Maryland. Who knows? Maybe they were monitoring blogs and social media as a way to identify non-quarantining invaders from Maryland and Virginia and half of the rest of the country. But the travel advisory turned out to be a non-event. I held my breath for a bit as we approached the bridge, wondering if we’d see flashing electronic warnings to out-of-state visitors to quarantine or else. Not only were there no signs or reminders on the road, there were no signs or reminders anywhere. It was nothing. We lived our lives on vacation as if the NJ state government didn’t exist. 

*****

Now it’s Monday, and was that thunder? Yes, it was; and my timing is impeccable. I just got home from the pool. I’m rearranging my days a little bit, shaking up the routine so that I don’t sink back into the corona-funk that I just managed to pull myself out of last week. Normally I write first and swim later. Today, I decided to reverse that order and if I hadn’t, I’d be sidelined because of a thunderstorm. I swam my laps and now I’m sitting on the couch writing about it. Yes, I know that this is the same damn thing that I do every day, but I REVERSED THE ORDER. Don’t you get it? It makes all the difference, I’m telling you. 

The thunderstorm that’s happening right now is an August, pre-fall thunderstorm, not an apocalyptic July heat purge. It was pretty sunny for most of the day, but cooler than normal. The days are getting a little shorter. The crape myrtle is in full bloom, and the pool water is chilly. Everyone is talking about school, such as school will be in a few weeks. Everything is uncertain. Everything is up in the air. Even the thunderstorms can’t make up their minds. I’d usually describe a thunderstorm as “raging” or some other hyperbolic adjective; but this one isn’t even shouting. It’s rumbling gently, explaining itself more than anything else. It’s not mad. It’s just there.

*****

Now it's Tuesday afternoon and I'm sitting poolside, waiting for my nephew to finish swimming. I finished my laps and got out because it's cold in there today, but 7-year-olds don't get out of the pool until someone makes them. The whistle will blow in 20 minutes, ending this swim session, so I'll let him stay in the water until then. 

We don't have chairs at the pool this year. Thanks 'rona. So I'm wrapped in a towel, sitting on the warm pavement of the deck, watching a red ant run around in circles. I don't know why he's doing this. I don't have a particular interest in entomology in general nor the habits of ants in particular, but this does seem like out of the ordinary behavior, given ants' reputation for industry and purposefulness. It's a word. Summer 2020 is getting to everyone, even the ants. 

Or maybe the ant is trying to disrupt the routine a little bit. Maybe it needs a break from the daily grind. Maybe it's tired of working from home and distancing from the other ants. They're social creatures, I know that much. 

I spent just a week away from the constant crush of current events, and I’m just like that thunderstorm. I’m here, and I don’t want you to forget about me, but I don’t have to shout. I’m just like that ant. I’m going to shake things up here and there; defy expectations. I like this newly nonchalant, uncharacteristically insouciant attitude. It won’t last, but I’ll enjoy it for now.

A week off

August 8: We're going on vacation today, against my better judgment and definitely against my inclination to follow the rules and stay under the radar. We're going to New Jersey, which has travel restrictions against residents of over 30 states, including Maryland. This is crazy because Maryland is outperforming Pennsylvania in almost every COVID metric, but Pennsylvanians are free to cross the Delaware River into New Jersey without quarantining for two weeks, and Marylanders are not. But the travel restriction is actually an advisory: "Voluntary, but compliance is expected." No one seems to know what this extremely equivocal language means, and my research indicated that the state is not enforcing the quarantine requirement, and we paid a lot of money for this beach rental, so we're taking the risk. We're just about to get on the road now. The car is packed with the bikes are securely fastened to the rack. The weather is cloudy and unsettled, much like my mood. We're not sure about today, the weather and I. We'll see how it goes. We'll see what happens. 

Leaving the state feels like leaving the country. Every state has its own rules now. I feel like I need to make sure my papers are in order. But that's the least of my worries because my papers are always in order. My mental health is suspect but my documents are impeccable. 

We're driving through Baltimore now. This is the furthest I've been from home since March. It all looks the same. The Baltimore Sun printing plant and the Port of Baltimore on my right and the Domino Sugar sign and Fort McHenry on my left. I don't know Baltimore as well as I should considering that it's so close to where I live. I like it, though. I could live here. But I'm just passing through today. 

*****

We crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge about an hour ago, and now we're almost there, and it might be a good week after all. No checkpoints and no COVID quarantine warnings. Other than face masks in the Wawa near Elmer, I have seen blessedly few indications that this Saturday in August is different from any other. Less traffic, maybe. It's still cloudy. It might rain, but I don't care. The ocean is good, rain or shine. 

*****

Sunday, August 9. In memory of Mary Jervis. She enjoyed life's small moments. 

That's the inscription on a memorial park bench on the promenade at 82nd Street in Avalon. No dates or other details--Mary Jervis could have been someone's wife or mother or sister or friend--probably all of the above--but we don't know how she died or when or at what age, or who commissioned the memorial bench. We only know that she was known as a person who enjoyed life's small moments. It's a good way to be remembered. 

It's our first full day at the beach, hot and sunny and intensely humid, and that's the way I like it. My niece and nephew are digging in the sand, carefree as only small children can be, even though they are aware of the pandemic. My 4-year-old niece has a beloved stuffed dog named Puppy. This morning, she told me to be careful with Puppy. "He might have da coronavirus." 

*****

Monday, August 10. It's day 3 at the beach and I’m writing on my Chromebook, not my phone. Sadly, it took me 15 minutes to remember how to connect this thing to a new Wi-Fi network. I’m turning into a GEICO commercial. Well, no one is getting any younger, and I’m up and running, so I’m holding off senility for now. For now. 

We're staying in the same little condo complex where we stayed last year, in a different unit. Someone is building a house next door, so the little sliver of bay view that we had from the 2nd floor deck is gone, unless you stand up and lean out a bit. I find that I don’t mind standing up and leaning out. 

It’s 9:30 in the morning. When I woke up, just before 8, a thick fog made everything look milky and indistinctly white. Now the sun is trying to burn the fog away, but the fog is holding on. The sky is uniformly pale blue gray, just a little lighter than the pale blue gray color of most of the houses here.

It’s trash morning. The rumbling garbage trucks and the construction noise are here to remind the tourists that this place doesn’t exist just as a holiday retreat for them. It’s an actual town with roads and infrastructure and a supply chain and a sanitation system. But we’ll be on the beach in a few hours, and we’ll forget all about that. 

*****

Tuesday, August 11. There's an Italian restaurant called Borghi's on 82nd Street in Stone Harbor, NJ. It's been there for a long time. We usually stay right around the corner from Borghi's, and I ride my bike past it every morning. Sometimes I stop and look at the menu, thinking that it looks like a nice place, and maybe we'll eat there some night this week. But the week always passes by very quickly. Before I know it, it's Friday night and we're leaving the next morning and we never did get around to eating at Borghi's. Maybe next summer, I'll think to myself as we drive past it on our way out of town.

It occurred to me this morning that there are a lot of things to do in a week, a lot of places to go, a lot of charming little corner restaurants with old-fashioned awnings and Chianti bottle candlesticks and I might not get to all of them, not this week and maybe not ever. Vacation is a good reminder that life is short and you might not have time to do everything you want to do. Or is that just me? That might be just me. 

*****

Wednesday, August 12. Wednesday of beach week is always a turning point. On Sunday, it feels like the week will last forever. All the time in the world, I will think to myself as I try to decide where we'll have dinner and where to ride our bikes and what books to read. On Monday, it feels like the week might even be a little bit too long. It's exhausting dragging all of the beach stuff, along with two little children (my nephew and niece) to and from the beach; and the back and forth about after beach plans and washing the towels vs. letting them hang out to dry seems more like work than work. But then by Tuesday, beach schlepping has become a manageable daily routine. Wednesday is when the near-term nostalgia begins. It was just three days ago when we packed up for the first day on the beach, I will think. Oh, and remember Monday, when we rode down to 96th Street after the beach and then ate pizza for dinner? All of a sudden, it's Thursday and it feels like time is running out, because time actually is running out. 

*****

Thursday, August 13. This morning, I rode my bike around the island, fantasy house shopping while still reassuring myself of my superior moral virtue. I don't need an extravagant sprawling Avalon mansion with dormer windows and multiple decks and awnings and pergolas and exquisite little flower beds bordering neat pebble walkways, I think. Just a nice little million dollar beach cottage would be more than enough. My face, I imagine, radiates with smug, slap-me self-satisfaction as I congratulate myself for not being greedy like the rest of these bitches. 

But I am greedy, as much as and even more than the rest of these bitches. This morning, my nephew asked me if we can come again next summer and stay for two years. That seems about right. I want more bike rides and more browsing visits to twee little beach boutiques and more swimming and wave jumping and more coffee on the deck and more reading and definitely more pizza. Two years might be enough. 

It's foggy on the beach today. The sun still feels warm overhead, though it's barely visible. If not for the beach umbrellas and cabanas and people in colorful swimwear, the whole place, sea and sun and sky, would blend into one canvas of milky pale blue gray framed with pale green dune grass, and lit by the barest glow of pale yellow sun. The lifeguards probably hate days like this. It's hard to see the people in the water. But I love days like this. 

It's Thursday. I don't have two more years. I will have to settle for just barely two more days. 

*****

Friday, August 14. If Wednesday is the turning point and Thursday is the point of no return, then Friday is the last stand. My son and I went bike riding this morning and island traffic was like Manhattan on Christmas Eve. People buzzed about in a frenzy, determined to cram everything into their last day of vacation. One more morning bike ride, one more walk to the bay, one more coffee and muffin, one more poke around the shops, one more day of nothing in particular, but near the ocean. The whole scene had a desperate, time-running-out quality that was simultaneously funny and sad. 

I've been coming here for a long time, and I find something new every time. There's always a new view that I've never seen before, or a section of beach that I haven't visited or some nice flat quiet length of road where I haven't ridden my bike. I bring home new memories with the old ones and they all become part of summer. 

*****

We shopped a bit this morning, because what's a vacation without an ill-advised fashion purchase. I limited myself to a souvenir t-shirt and a simple top and one or two other random items. In one little boutique, I saw a t-shirt printed with the words "A little bit classy, a little bit hood." Why not just wear a shirt that says "Hi, my name is Lauren. I have three kids. Ask me about their travel sports and SAT scores." Snotty, I know. But I also know that if you wear a t-shirt proclaiming yourself as a little bit classy and a little bit hood, then you are neither. 

*****

Saturday, August 15. Saturday morning, and we're in the car, heading home. We wake up at 7 on the  last morning at the beach, which gives us just enough time to pack, clean up trash and recycling, have one last cup of coffee on the deck, take one last ride to the beach and then back to the bay, and vacate by 10. One final drive around the island and the week is over as quickly as it began. 

I think we crammed everything we could into this vacation. Ocean swimming every day, bike riding, ice cream eating, people watching, bay sunsets, souvenir shopping, book reading, walking, shell collecting, and just sitting around. The weather and the water were perfect, and the fear and dread lifted for a few days. Other than face masks (for people and Puppy) and hand sanitizer and social distance, I barely thought about the damn 'rona. It was a good week. 

We never did get a chance to eat at Borghi's, though. Maybe next year. There's always next year. 

Ear to the ground

Well, I don’t know what’s wrong with me because here it is, 2:30 in the afternoon on a day when we were supposed to be smack in the middle of a hurricane and instead it’s sunny and warm and dry, but I’m still filled with dread and fear. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Did I say that already? I think I did. 

I had planned to remain inside all day. I was going to work a full day if we didn’t have a power failure (but I was fully expecting a power failure), finish battening down the hatches; and then hunker down, maybe in an interior room, and wait for it all to blow over. But it blew over without waiting for me to finish waiting for it to blow over. That seems rather rude, doesn’t it? 

*****

Advice from the Maryland Department of Health: “Call your healthcare provider if stress reactions interfere with your daily activities for several days in a row.” And I think, define “several days,” because I’ve been alive for over 19,000 days, and stress reactions have interfered with my daily activities for at least half of them. Maybe I should call my healthcare provider. I’ll do that right now. 

*****

It’s Wednesday now. It was Tuesday when we were supposed to sustain a direct Isaias hit, and then nothing really happened; but in typical fashion, I found something to worry about. I’m still worried; still checking the overnight COVID numbers every day, looking for some indicator, however small and inconclusive, that things are beginning to look up. 

We dodged a weather bullet yesterday. No flooding, no trees down, and the lights didn’t even flicker, not for a moment. I even went swimming--by 4:30 PM, the rain had stopped altogether. I could smell the ozone as the sidewalk dried in the sun. It’s almost 4:30 again, and I think I just heard thunder, when it was supposed to remain sunny and dry all day today. The National Weather Service is trolling us. But it doesn’t matter, because I should stay out of the pool. Thanks to a newfound love for backstroke, my ears are clogged with water, and I don’t need an ear infection when I’m working overtime to avoid coronavirus. I can only monitor one disease trend at a time. 

Data driven

My job has taught me lots of things, including how to read dashboards and data visualizations. Generally, this knowledge is useful. Sometimes, though, a little knowledge is dangerous. 

Every morning, for example, I do what every sane person does on a beautiful summer morning, which is to check the overnight COVID numbers. What’s the positivity rate today? What’s the percentage change since yesterday? Up or down? How many new cases? How many hospitalized? How many have died? I have no idea how much money is in my checking account but I know how many people in Maryland have the ‘rona, and I know where the micro hotspots are by ZIP code. How is this knowledge useful for me, a person with no medical or public health background? I don’t know, but staying informed gives me an illusory sense of control. 

Although I can interpret a dashboard pretty well, I never could read weather radar. That, however, is not stopping me from tracking the radar for Tropical Storm Isaias, checking every five minutes to see how bad it’s going to be in Maryland when this very early named storm makes landfall. The predictions are all over the place, depending on where you look. 

As my project team likes to say, data can tell stories, and it can answer questions. Right now, it’s answering the age-old question: How much will things suck today? More today than yesterday? But not half as much as tomorrow? The plague is already here, and the storm is imminent. Will pestilence be far behind? I’m sure that there’s a Power BI dashboard somewhere that can answer that question. We have your live, interactive, real-time visualization, right here. 

H20

It's the last meet of the 2020 corona swim season, and the last meet of my son's 14-year swimming career. It’s amazing to think that someone who just turned 19 can have done anything for 14 years. 

It already feels like the season is beginning to turn. Crape myrtle trees are in full bloom and the days are getting just the tiniest bit shorter. It's still summer, and it will still be summer for a bit. But I won't miss summer when it ends, not this year. 

*****

At the end of the meet, we called the senior swimmers down to the starting end for the traditional seniors’ last swim. It's usually a big deal. Younger teammates, usually at least 60 of them, gather on the deck to cheer for the seniors. Parents cry and hug everyone in sight. The seniors high five and hug and act silly. No hugs this year, and no huge cheering crowd of kids. But with a few teammates and a few parents; just few enough people  to stay under the county’s limit for gatherings, and just many enough to make a little bit of noise, it was still special. They all did their best for 14 years, and they deserved a round of applause. 

Pensive before his last race

*****

We’re going on vacation next week. It’s a change of scenery and a change in routine and there will be some sunshine and some water so it’s all good. Water is the essential ingredient of any summer vacation. Sometimes it’s enough just to look at water; to sit on the beach and look at the waves or to walk next to a creek and look for fish or to stand on a pool deck and look at the neat rows of water marked off by blue and white lane ropes, with blue and white backstroke flags suspended a few feet above. Water can’t necessarily wash everything bad away, but it leaves everything refreshed and a little cleaner. We’ll travel from a small body of water to a large one. When we come back, we’ll be refreshed and maybe a little cleaner; and the end of summer 2020 will be that much closer.