Cultural Appropriation Mask

Here I am, ready for my run to the post office.

My Pal Larry

Here's my new action figure! I got it off of Kickstarter.

Era of the Murder Hornets

Wednesday, March 11, 2020. I went by Trader Joe’s on the way home from pilates. It was busy but not too bad. Thursday night I stopped at Vons after work, and that was okay too.

Friday we learned we were going to work from home. We all raced around the office, except at the sink, where we’d spend 20 seconds, methodically scrubbing our hands just like we’d been taught on YouTube.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.

How long would we work from home? A while. A few weeks, maybe. Surely no more than a month?

“Did you go to Vons recently?” Liz asked me. “Yeah, it was fine,” I told her.

I stopped by Vons that night. It was not fine, and the checkout queues stretched down the aisles, so I didn’t hang around.

These Times

I want a woman VP too, but I think I could be convinced to go with Chris.

I Thought No One Was Looking

I totally forgot I'd put this up here on my blog. From the NYT, 6/14/20.

A Craving

I just typed "best salad in Burbank" into my browser and yeah, I got nothin'.

Black Lives Matter

I was in high school the first time I learned about the perils of walking-while-black in the USA.

Our family friend, Les, showed up at our house a little later than expected, and explained he was late because the police had stopped him. I was confused. Why would the police stop Les?

He explained this had happened to him often. He'd be stopped, spread up against a fence, frisked, and told he fit a description. He'd cooperate and then be on his way. The description was usually black, male, tall, about his age.

I was stunned. I was by no means naive. I'd grown up with plenty of poverty and violence nearby, and the neighbors...remember the (white) neighbors in the adjacent row house were always drinking, shouting, fighting, cussing, battling it out in the yard, and when they got more creative, one of them was arrested (in my attic) for firebombing a car in Georgetown. The police were actually quite helpful. My mother called them when those same neighbors tried to burn down our house. When my sister fought with one of them in the yard. When they traveled as a pack and assaulted my sister and mother walking to the supermarket. It's entirely possible my family might not be alive but for the Alexandria police force in the seventies and eighties.

Coast-to-Coast

Twenty days after leaving out of LAX, I flew EWR-SFO-BUR.

I was much less anxious this time around. Since my last flight, I'd been on buses, PATH, light rail, the #4 subway, one taxi with the windows open, three Lyfts, two Citibikes, and had been in a laundromat. I'd ordered grocery delivery, which I'd never done before. I'd ordered a pillow on a website and did curbside pickup (walk-up, actually). I'd sat masked in the park or on the stoop with friends, with several feet between us. I'd ordered from various delivery services ($$$$) and from restaurants that delivered to my neighborhood in Jersey City (most don't--yet). I'd worn four different masks and gone through over a dozen vinyl gloves.

Newark Airport was nearly a ghost town. There was no food for sale except for the self-serve "Global Bazaar" prepackaged stuff, so I was glad to have brought my own. I had nine seats to myself on the EWR-SFO flight.

SFO was a little better, and I was able to buy a salad. The United Club in SFO was open, FWIW, which wasn't much, but at least I could sit in a distant corner, remove my mask, and guzzle water.

TSA was easy and empty in both EWR and LAX. Precheck is meaningless without queues.

Would I fly again? Now, sure. Next month assuming flights are fuller, maybe not. My SFO-BUR flight was half full, and that was awful. Just too anxiety-inducing.

And now I'm going to sleep.

Morning Social

Ninety percent chance I'm heading back to Burbank today, but first, I spent the morning socially distanced from two friends in masks.

I got to pet this snore-y guy though. He was a foster named Thor. I nearly asked to take him back to Burbank with me.

Lots o' Lint

Houses.

It's always something.

Before. Lint. Lots and lots of lint. 

After. Now with bird protection.

Safe Salon-ing

I find it helps to have a yard in the first place, and it double-helps when your colorist lives upstairs.

While You Were Sleeping

I've been keeping an eye out night after night, hoping to see some of the critters in my yard.

A Long Journey

My FedEx Ground box looks like it had quite a few adventures in the Jersey City depot since it arrived there on 5/21.

It looks like they tried to deliver it and and I wasn't home. (Which is completely false.) The tracer person told me the problem was they thought it was a business, and so the business was constantly closed because most businesses are closed now.

I suppose it's possible they thought it was a business in spite of the sender (me) marking it "Residential" and in spite of it being sent "Home Delivery." And in spite of me calling about 12 times and saying my name, address, and "It's residential" over and over.

A different tracer told me it kept almost getting sent out from the depot but had never actually left, that's just how far behind they were.

Do The Left Thing

Do you remember how furious I was when that motorcycle cop stopped me for "jaywalking" across a deadend road while I was walking to work?

I felt hot rage. It took me a few minutes to ramp down my challenges to him and realize that the guy with the gun had me at his mercy. I had to play dead, essentially, which was even more humiliating than being detained for walking to work instead of participating in LA car culture. What a waste of my time, his time, and Burbank's time.

It's a testament to the patience of our black community that it took this long, militarized enforcement, and Donald Effing Trump in the White House for our young people to start breaking shit.