I have been riding the bus to the office through winter because it is too cold and/or rainy to ride my bike or scooter; for most of the season I have been enraged.
I only go into the office on campus twice a week. I’m not honestly sure why, other than management is terrified that people like me will get used to working from home. Which we have, by the way. I’m very used to it and prefer it, and don’t have much of a reason to be in an office in a building on a campus. The rest of my entire career could be spent with me “coming into work” once a week at most. Once a month, even.
Anyway, back to the bus: the sign I love to see is this one:
Because mask wearing has been mandated by the city but not strictly enforced by the bus drivers, and certainly not with federal backing. Signs have been taped to the buses all this time but nothing like this at the bus stops. It’s such a small but critical thing, and a faint relief to think that possibly our federal government is doing something about the pandemic. For sure our state government is not.
So, I have been enraged because people get on not wearing masks, or (more often) not wearing them properly. Occasionally the drivers will say something but that’s been rare. There I sit with people who literally don’t care who dies, who they kill, who gets long term health problems. They don’t care. And I care about that.
Not much to write about Keely today, other than that she is still in recovery. I wrote on twitter yesterday about the smell of blood in my studio — tl;dr it was a flashback to much less pleasant points in my life. But it is the smell of recovery in this case, and she was a bit more lively this morning when I got up. Her morning walk was slower than usual, and she conked out afterwards, exhausted. She’s still on pain meds which I think have something to do with that too.
It’s been a dreary and wintery looking few days, even if the temperature isn’t too cold. Today is Lunar New Year, which I have no special investment in other than another notch on the calendar. Still, a turning of the wheel.
Happy year of the ox!