It’s been a long time since I’ve pulled my shit together and wrote anything. A casual observer might imagine that I’ve been too busy, just can’t find the time, etc. But they would be wrong. I have had more idle time than anyone should ever have, and yet I look at social media, pet the cat, stare into the fridge, look out the window, anything but be busy. We sold our house, so the next few months will be about packing up to move and also doing a course at BCIT which they tell me will take 1 – 1.5 hours every day. Then I will be too busy to write anything, now I’m just being a lazy lump.
Not long ago I went for a massage with my 15 year old grandson. It’s the third year in a row that this was his birthday present, so it’s becoming a tradition. When we went into the locker room to change into our robes, I noticed the kid now has hairier legs than I do. Mind you, it isn’t hard to have hairier legs than me, you almost just have to be a mammal. I hear about negative body images, and it’s usually in relation to girls and the pressure they feel to live up to the beauty ideals of society, but let me tell you, I have some of that too. I am hairless to the point of being almost alien. I have even been accused of waxing myself. I used to have a couple lonesome hairs on my chest but my abdominal wall popped out of my belly button one day, and the corrective measures taken to repair it involved mowing down my few sparse blades of grass. The week after the massage I started physiotherapy, which of course meant I had to take off my shirt every visit and sit there embarrassed, looking like one of those bald Egyptian cats. When I was younger my self defense was to call myself “highly evolved,” since in evolutionary terms, mankind is getting taller and less hairy all the time. Maybe I could start a hair club for men-type business that caters to us people who look like they were treading water in a vat of Neet hair remover? I could plant little hair plugs all over them, run an ad on TV showing hot girls going crazy for some newly hairy guys, and get rich. It’s about time the beauty industry started picking on men.
I see people on the news almost every day who refuse to wear a mask when they are asked to. I really don’t understand their objections, as wearing a mask is a very small inconvenience (I forget I have mine on), and has been shown to slow the spread of diseases, evidenced by the fact that this year the flu has been all but eradicated. One study I saw said it brought the R number down 30%. The R is the expected number of people you will infect if you get COVID. When it’s over 1, the disease is spreading and below 1 it’s dying out. 30% doesn’t sound like much but if it would be 1.4 without it, it would be 0.98 with it – a huge difference. In five generations of infecting people, 1.4 would be about 8 sick people, 0.98 would be 0.8. Anyway, news stories about anti-mask people almost always end with the non mask wearer losing his mind in anger and assaulting someone. Pretty convincing argument technique! I hear people say they are reluctant to get the vaccine too. I looked at the Canadian data so far, and there have been fewer than 200 serious reactions to the shot in around 1.8 million doses. That’s one in every 9,000 or so – a success rate of 99.989% If you are someone who knows they will react, I get it, other wise it seems pretty safe so far. I will be getting my shot as soon as it is offered to me, and I hope most people do as well. I’m sick of staying home and not seeing anyone, but not so sick of it that I will defy medical advice and go out before it’s safe.
Hang in there and stay well. Let’s have ourselves a good summer.