Week 10 of the new reality. . . .
WEDNESDAY, MAY 13
12:45 p.m. — Today’s five-mile walk took me down the Willamette River, across the Broadway Bridge and back upstream along the East Bank Esplanade. Here's a shot of two Portland icons together: “Big Pink” (1st Bancorp Tower) and the White Stag sign.
8:39 p.m. — Aw, crap. The Russian bots are swarming onto my blog again.
Below, the numbers on the left at 2:30 p.m. this afternoon; and on the right, six hours later, at 8:35. Turkmenistan is a new reputed country of origin I don’t recall ever seeing before. . . .
THURSDAY, MAY 14
9:33 a.m. — Day 64, by my count, and still no sign of federal stimulus money or unemployment benefits.
On the brighter side, a staffer at the state Employment Department called me around noon Tuesday to discuss the extensive paperwork I had placed in the mail last Friday.
After walking through the peculiarities of my gig-economy work record (remember: two part-time jobs and two free-lance clients, all of at least six to eight years’ standing . . . at least three regular clients that offer only very occasional work — as in, twice or three times a year . . . and (in 2019) at least 15 one- or two-days-only piecework jobs), she stated she would approve my claim “today or tomorrow.”
As I understand it, because I’ve had a trickle of free-lance assignments from a remote client in Seattle that has amounted to two figures or very low three figures a week, I will probably have to start a new unemployment claim nearly every week from now on, because that’s how the system works.
I live to jump through bureaucratic hoops. . . .
I live to jump through bureaucratic hoops. . . .
[ UPDATE: It turned out our federal stimulus checks had been paid to us by direct deposit two days before, but we hadn’t noticed because we’d been expecting them in — and checking — a different bank account . . . and five weeks of unemployment benefits flooded into my personal checking account the next day. The following week, I started to get just enough free-lance work from my Seattle client and was allowed to do a few hours of customer service for Portland Streetcar which cumulatively would earn more than the $194 a week maximum allowed by the state for unemployment, so I promptly stopped filing claims from then on. ]
For the record, the other four were Philip Kerr’s Prussian Blue, Ian Rankin’s Saints of the Shadow Bible, Toni Morrison’s Sula, John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood: secrets and lies in a Silicon Valley startup.
Up to now, I’ve had an over-my-dead-body attitude toward e-books; I had read a grand total of three over the past four or five years on Carole’s e-reader (a Kindle, though she now reads books and watches videos on an Apple iPad) when I simply couldn’t get my hands on a copy in time for one of my book group meetings.
Three years ago her sister passed along an extra Kindle and I registered it online but never used it until after the pandemic shutdown. By force of circumstance — closed libraries, a household budget far too limited to support my reading habit even at bargain-basement prices — I finally turned to it last month.
For me, reading an e-book still qualifies as a distant second to the sensual reality of a book in hand. Perhaps you’ve seen at least some of the photos of the Little Free Libraries I’ve visited on foot across the city starting a week ago Sunday.
The nearly dozen books I’ve procured from them have emerged from quarantine at our apartment and I’ll start in on a couple of them before long. Probably not all, though; some hold fairly weak interest at this point and/or are fairly beaten, so more likely I’ll trade them up for something else at other LFLs.
So far, however, it’s been easy-peasey to download electronic copies of books from the Multnomah County Library . . . which diverts them off Amazon for free (so, other than heightened click traffic, the Evil Empire is getting nothing out of me for them, Mom. . . . ).
11:26 a.m. — Tonight I started reading Home, the early memoir by Julie Andrews. Its quiet, sweet elegance provides a soothing break from the hundreds of pages of violence, racism, and foul language in James Ellroy’s Perfidia.
FRIDAY, MAY 15
12:31 p.m. — Tough to calculate the total mileage of this morning’s long walk through Southwest Portland because I took such a meandering route, but it must have been between 6 and 7 miles.
I took a stroll through River View Cemetery, a 350-acre nonprofit established in 1882 by such Portland movers and shakers as William S. Ladd, James Terwilliger, Henry Failing, Henry W. Corbett, Henry Pittock, and Simon Benson.
. . . and the final resting place of many Oregon state governors and U.S. Senators, as well as such luminaries as Abigail Scott Duniway, Virgil Earp, Henry Weinhard, and major league pitcher Carl Mays.
But I didn’t seek out any of of those. It was my first-ever visit to the place, despite it’s lying only
But I didn’t seek out any of of those. It was my first-ever visit to the place, despite it’s lying only
two and a half miles south of our apartment, so I mostly just took in the grounds and the natural beauty.
As I was taking this selfie, I heard a chuckle from up the trail, and when I got up, an older couple walking their dogs had the following comments:
He: “Are you guys twins?”
She: “Is that your girl?”
He: “Are you guys twins?”
She: “Is that your girl?”
Below, unmasked family practicing inadequate social distancing along the Willamette Greenway trail.
SATURDAY, MAY 16
Finding a place to pee.
This is not that difficult if you’re in the wooded areas of the West Hills (technically known as the Tualatin Mountains) above our riverfront neighborhood: You can step off into the foliage around Terwilliger and Barbur boulevard without much difficulty.
But in the city, most of the places to which you’d normally resort — Starbucks, the libraries, even some of the hotels — are closed because of the coronavirus, and you certainly aren’t going to tap on the door of someone’s residence when everyone’s practicing self-isolation. In recent weeks, I’ve slipped into a quiet hotel, the OHSU Center for Health and Healing, and — since I’m an employee of Portland Streetcar — I’ve occasionally carried a handy key to the break-room trailer near the OMSI platform.
These opportunities are still few and far between. I’ve discovered it’s safer to do a long walk in the morning, before I’ve had coffee or anything to eat, and before my inner systems get going on processing waste materials. (The body seems to want to hold in liquids, especially, if you haven’t given it the signal you’re going to replenish them.) That way I don’t spend a quarter- or half-hour straining to control my bladder, which severely reduces the pleasure of sightseeing on foot.
Even more fortuitous is a temporary “port-a-potty” plunked on a residential street to serve laborers on a home remodel. The one shown above startled me on May 3 in a quiet neighborhood near the crest of the West Hills south of the Veterans Administration Medical Center.
5:03 p.m. — Slowly but surely, I’m writing down my memories of — and later experiences with — a hero of mine, Harlan Ellison.
Here’s the latest installment, about when I went to work for him as a hired-gun proofreader (and incidental copy editor) on the third volume of his collected works in 1996-97.
SUNDAY, MAY 17
10:06 a.m. — I continue to see a steady parade of excuses to throw off our masks, dump social distancing, and effect a swift return to the life we knew before this March — which is impossible for any number of reasons, but I doubt people are looking hard at those, either.
Scoffers search for every conceivable rationale to throw caution to the winds in the face of so many lingering unknowns, so many variables, and — STILL — insufficient testing (in terms of both accuracy and breadth).
One of the popular ones is: We’re going to lose a certain “small” percentage of the population anyway, so let’s get it over with. And the urge to minimize that loss is driven partly by this argument:
Officials are “overestimating” the number of deaths attributable to covid-19. Lots of these people would have died anyway from other ailments, the reasoning goes.
Officials are “overestimating” the number of deaths attributable to covid-19. Lots of these people would have died anyway from other ailments, the reasoning goes.
Maybe. But now now. And not in isolation from their loved ones.
The ugly choice is between allowing the deaths of tens of thousands of fellow citizens — likely strangers to you but possibly a few friends and even loved ones on the mix, if you’re up for the gamble . . . and the certain death of “only” thousands with their blood on their loved ones’ hands. (I would expect some of those survivors will eventually commit suicide over the guilt, as well.)
Very unpalatable options, either of these, but if you’re going to calculate the cost simply in terms of total fatalities, then of course maintaining quarantine and self-isolation is the preferable course . . . particularly since the risk of death from covid-19 can be reduced with healthcare, whereas mortal wounds due to domestic violence and children playing with guns are less likely to come to the attention of medical authorities in time to save a similar percentage of lives.
MONDAY, MAY 18
In other words, that “Total deaths, 137” figure in this screen shot from the OHA website has remained unchanged since May 14.
This is fairly encouraging compared, say, to Texas, where totals for new identified infections AND fatalities have been bouncing between 2 and 4 percent per day for the past week . . . at it explains at least partially why our governor decided to allow a modified opening of retail establishments a few days ago.
I certainly wouldn’t expect our numbers to hold where they are . . . but I’m hoping we don’t see any substantial spike in the coming weeks. Let’s see how smart and considerate our fellow citizens can be. Especially in the more rural counties, where controls have been released the most.
Here in Multnomah County, we still cannot walk into a Starbucks or return books to the library or turn in donations to a Goodwill.
Carole did give my hair a first trim last night. . . .
11:24 a.m. — Signs of the times, Portland Oregon; 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. this morning. . . .
5:04 p.m. — Today we blew past 90,000 covid-19 deaths in the U.S. so far this year.
Oregon has added precisely one fatality to the total since Thursday, according to the Oregon Health Authority.
Oregon has added precisely one fatality to the total since Thursday, according to the Oregon Health Authority.
10:12 p.m. — A supporter of the President with whom I’ve been trading comments remarked offhand that after watching The Incumbent for three years, it doesn’t appear that he’s afraid of anything.
I swiftly typed the following:
“Oh, it’s obvious to anyone with even an inkling of basic human psychology that the president is terrified of LOTS of things.
“He’s terrified of looking weak . . . he’s terrified of appearing soft . . . he’s terrified of people no longer paying attention to him . . . he’s terrified of strong women he can’t dominate . . . he’s terrified of being exposed for not knowing what he’s doing . . . he’s terrified by the possibility that he really IS the worst president in U.S. history, as so many Americans have suggested . . . he’s terrified that the media might lose interest in him, so he has to keep whipping up thrills and abuse to hold their attention . . . he’s terrified of spending any time alone with his own mind . . . he’s terrified of children and dogs because they don’t find him the least bit interesting or sympathetic. . . .
“The only thing I’ve ever heard him admit to being terrified of are germs . . . but he’s so afraid of appearing weak or uncool that he doesn’t even do a decent job of protecting himself from those.”
TUESDAY, MAY 19
Estimated distance, 8 miles.
Here’s a shot of Tilikum Crossing bridge and downtown Portland from the Ross Island Bridge at about 11:12 a.m. this morning.
2:44 p.m. — A conservative friend posted an article about how the Danes managed to control the pandemic within their borders without imposing masks.
They DID institute a national lockdown on March 11, however — days before our president bowed to circumstance and declared a national emergency but left the states to clean up the mess as best they could . . . and some waited many more weeks before acting, or never did impose a lockdown.
They DID institute a national lockdown on March 11, however — days before our president bowed to circumstance and declared a national emergency but left the states to clean up the mess as best they could . . . and some waited many more weeks before acting, or never did impose a lockdown.
Also, compare the numbers and morbidity in Denmark (population 5.8 million) versus those in the massive city of at least 7.4 million in Asia. Now, I’m not going to accept the numbers automatically, or the rationale proposed in yesterday’s Vox analysis. Surely there are other variables — as there inevitably have been, throughout this fast-breaking, poorly understood pandemic . . .
. . . and it’s tempting to suggest the numbers simply aren’t being honestly and accurately reported out of Hong Kong because, you know, it’s China.
Except it isn’t. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the PRC, well accustomed to financial and political independence until it was handed back by the British just 23 years ago . . . still operating under separate governing and economic systems . . . with a substantial chunk of the population extremely skeptical of and even resistant to the authorities.
Remember all the peaceful protests and occasional riots last year? How well do you think government officials would be able to cover up covid-19 fatalities in Hong Kong this year, assuming they tried?
* * * * *
If you haven’t seen my thoughts, observations, political commentaries, and jokes during the preceding weeks of the Great 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic, you can go to them via the links below:
(what it really means to “get out” during a pandemic, previous plagues in history, my ongoing effort to obtain unemployment benefits, more photos of Little Free Libraries, streets without sidewalks, tactics courtesy of the Wall Street Journal for keeping your glasses from fogging and the long slow death of my hair dye job)
(which includes another visit to downtown on foot, an online reunion of most of the principal cast of “Grimm,” our address courtesy of the USPS, how the pandemic outed the real “snowflakes” and made “socialist Sweden” the unlikely hero of U.S. libertarians, and my first official visits to Little Free Libraries)
(online video chat with family, my brother’s remote musical video collaborations, a long walk from the northern border of the city, birthday wishes to my wife, a happy quarantine coincidence, and my discovery of Little Free Libraries)
(the yellow fever epidemic that almost killed Alexander Hamilton, post-lockdown pleasure reading, invasions by Russian bots, capitulation to the Kindle, more long walks about the city, the distinction between an “excuse” and a “reason,” and an outing by car to run errands and finish a video voiceover job)
(long walks through NE and SE Portland, tactics for maneuvering through the streets in mask and gloves, the current plague of faux certainties, and visits to the Rose City Book Pub and Reed College campus)
(the start of my exhausting efforts to obtain unemployment benefits, first long walks about SW and SE Portland, idiocy from the governor of Georgia, an online reading with the cast of my March play production of a new short play by the lead actor, and how this is all Obama’s fault)
(a visit on foot to a remarkably deserted downtown Portland, my analysis of the initial patterns of coronavirus testing and spread in Oregon and major metro counties, several dismissals of the worthless Incumbent)
(the remarkably dry and beautiful weather that has brightened our self-isolation, a library books pile-up, a visit to the Portland Farmers Market after lockdown, the Whole Foods “early elders shopping hour,” a hike up the hills to visit my best friend from grade school, and thoughts about Nevil Shute’s On the Beach)
(the weird hand-washing behavior of men, the shutdown of Portland arts events, and the run on guns and toilet paper)
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