Health

Wake Me When It’s Over

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

EARLY ON IN these pandemic days of ours, I wrote about how crushingly tired I felt all. the. time.

The hourly fluidity of the situation is terribly draining. And even if you try to consume it in small doses, the relentless torrent of pandemic-related news gives rise to an ever-present nervousness that buzzes quietly in the background. Keeping the buzz at bay requires mental bandwidth, and expending bandwidth seeps energy. I feel exhausted just about all day long.

Then came the summer of 2020, when we were able to get outside and see friends. We gained a greater sense of risk management — of knowing which activities were more dangerous than others. By the end of that year, vaccines were being distributed — an astonishing scientific and public-health feat. Last spring my family and I got our shots, and by early summer, infection numbers were plunging.

The delta variant squashed our optimism for a while. Again, though, the caseload eased. The finish line was in sight.

Cue omicron.

Graphs of infection rates show a near-vertical line over the last couple of weeks. Event cancelations are rampant. Like many others, I’m back to fully remote work for now. For the first time, people I know (and care about) have tested positive (despite being fully vaccinated). As in those first several months, I am venturing out only when I absolutely have to.

And the exhaustion has returned. All day long, I am utterly, hopelessly, helplessly consumed by fatigue, both mental and physical. I can’t concentrate or focus. My mood alternates among sadness, fear, and rage.

And I know I’m not alone. Usually that helps me. Now … not so much.

Are we ever going to get this right? | DL

I Think I Saw This Movie Already

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

WELL, HEY, WE made it to another year!

Right? I mean … right?

Having just flipped the calendar, I confess to no small amount of cognitive dissonance. After a catastrophic 2020, last year was to have been COVID-19 II: Humanity Fights Back. Vaccines arrived on the scene, and we had nearly a year’s worth of experience with the illness to inform our public health policy for the next 12 months.

Slam dunk, right?

Yeah, no. Much like Ben Simmons passing up a gimme in the most clutch of moments, the world — led by God-fearin’, science-hatin’ ‘Murca — gave up the ball. Republican “leaders” got themselves vaccinated on the sly while cynically trash-talking the vaccines and urging their followers not to give up their “freedoms.” As 2021 slogged on, only about 60 percent of the country’s population got vaxxed, giving the novel coronavirus plenty of opportunity to mutate — which it happily did. The delta and omicron variants blitzed across the world, sickening and killing far, far, far too many people, children among them.

And so here we are on the first day of the new year, and it feels as if nothing has changed. Remote learning is returning. Restaurants are closing. Masking is back (though it never should have gone away). All that traveling we were going to do in 2022 is now a ginormous question mark.

It’s as if 2021 never happened. If the past 12 months are a blur to you, as they are to me, it’s because we’re in almost the same dire straits we were last January.

Happy New Year? Or Happy “New” Year? | DL

COVID-19 No. 20: Why Are We Still Here?

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

IT WOULD BE HILARIOUS if it weren’t so utterly, catastrophically tragic.

We identified early on a few very easy ways to limit infections. Wash your hands often, wear a mask, and don’t congregate in large groups for more than a few minutes at a time. That’s it. Enough people doing those three simple things would have cut down drastically on the spread of the novel coronavirus.

And then science moved with uncommon swiftness to deliver a series of safe, effective vaccines, which were offered free — free! — to adults, and later to teens, and still later to younger children. Enough people rolling up their sleeves to receive a nearly painless injection would have helped build herd immunity and lessened hospitalizations and deaths.

But, well, either of those things would have impinged on too many of our freedoms, right? Whatever the hell that means.

And now here we are, almost two years after all of this started, still wearing masks, still counting the deaths, still mired in suffering.

More than 10 months after I last posted about this awful pandemic, we’re still dealing with it — or, perhaps, still failing to deal with it. This despite absurdly easy and effective methods that science handed us to beat it.

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so utterly, catastrophically tragic. | DL

COVID-19 No. 19: Resolving Not to Resolve Anything

~ Tom ~ 1 Comment

AS AN INVETERATE, NEAR-OBSESSIVE list maker, I have long indulged in drafting New Year’s resolutions.

I will write 500 words a day.

I will read 30 books this year.

I will walk two miles every day.

I will lose 15 pounds.

And on and on and on.

This year, though, I am on board with the many people advising against making resolutions. They argue, rightfully, I believe, that the incalculable stress of the last nine months makes this the worst time to set any personal goals more ambitious than merely making it through the day. Why add to our constant anxiety by lading ourselves with the added burden of the American obsession with self-improvement?

Instead, I am entering 2021 not with targets and metrics but with the simple intention of increasing my well being. I know the things that make me happy, and I know that doing them more will make me a healthier, more fulfilled person. And so that is what I intend to do.

If you already have your list of resolutions drawn up, and the habit tracker app downloaded, and your spreadsheet created to mark your progress, hey, have it. Me, I’m gonna cut myself some slack. This is one list I’m happy to stick in my back pocket for once. | DL

Dear Baseball: Please Don’t Play This Season

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

WAYNE TWITCHELL AND Terry Harmon.

These are the names I remember.

Yes, yes, of course I recall Schmidt and Carlton and Bowa and Maddox and Luzinksi and Boone. But when I think back on my earliest — and I mean my very earliest — sports memories, the Phillies of the mid-1970s, it was players like Twitchell and Harmon and Jerry Martin who lodge in the back recesses of my mind, where more important things should rest.

On lazy, endless summer days, theirs were the names Harry Kalas smoothly announced on radio broadcasts — on KYW 1060, I believe. I’m back in Upper Darby, playing step ball in the center of a block-long strip of row homes, AM radio squawking, drenched in treble, Twitchell and Harmon toiling on the brutal, sizzling Veterans Stadium artificial turf.

And, yes, I also distinctly remember watching afternoon NLCS games in 1977 and 1978, Phils and Dodgers, and night games, too, Lefty slipping off the mound in the pouring rain, Bowa snaring a carom and throwing out Davey Lopes only to have the first-base ump mistakenly call him safe, the Bull fumbling a fly ball against the left-field wall.

When Tugger somehow threw a limp fastball past Willie Wilson, securing the Phils’ 1980 World Series win, I can still see where I was: in the family room in our South Jersey home, wearing a Richie Ashburn bucket hat that my dad and my brother and I were handed before a Sunday-afternoon giveaway game a season or two before. Tug leapt off the mound, bouncing on his tiptoes, and Boonie arose triumphantly from home plate, hands raised high in victory, and Schmitty leapt onto the pile at the mound, and I grabbed my hat and tossed it high toward the tilted ceiling.

I remember this. I remember it clearly.

This is to say that I love baseball. It has been my sport since the very beginning, even through high school, when it was never the cool sport. I played Little League ball for six years, made the freshman high school team, and still regret not trying out for the varsity squad.

Major League Baseball is cranking up to start an abbreviated, 60-game season in a month, and I think it’s a potentially tragic mistake. I love baseball, and I want it to shut down until next spring.

Seven Phillies players have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Seven.

Several team staff members have also tested positive.

COVID-19 is not the common cold. It is a vicious, often lethal disease, even among those who are otherwise healthy. And it spreads like mad in close quarters … such as locker rooms and clubhouses. There is, of course, no effective treatment. There is no vaccine.

Is it worth playing a 60-game season for our entertainment if players and front-office members die?

I love baseball. I love it. Which is why I don’t want it played this season. | DL

COVID-19 No. 16: Hey, People Are Listening! Well, Okay, Most of Them …

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

IF MY TRIP TO THE GROCERY STORE this morning is any indication, we are taking the situation much more seriously than we did two weeks ago, when I last visited.

Then, I rolled up about 5 minutes before the store opened and still made the first wave of 15 people to be allowed in. Today, I got there about 20 minutes early and was 17th in line, requiring a 20-minute wait.

Then, shoppers mostly paid lip service to social distancing, standing uncomfortably close while waiting in line. Today, the gaps were at least twice the recommended 6 feet.

Then, about half of shoppers wore masks. Today, it was all of us, with the exception of the guy in front me in line, who at least had a scarf covering his face. Of course, lest you think that everyone in southeastern Pennsylvania has embraced science and the expertise of biomedical professionals, when I encountered Scarf Guy inside the store, his face was uncovered.

As happens often, if not always, this crisis has brought out our best and our worst. Healthcare workers are literally risking their lives daily, and so many people have stepped up with uncommon charity and generosity. Yet the brazen, depressing selfishness of others seems equally prevalent. From spring breakers and bar hoppers who didn’t want the party to stop, to megachurch shysters insisting their worshippers praise Jesus in person, to runners breaking into parks to log their miles with friends, a shockingly large number of people have been putting others at great risk of debilitating and possibly fatal illness.

That’s to say nothing of the continued incompetence, stupidity, and corruption of the federal government, whose botched handling of this from the earliest days has caused vast amounts of unnecessary suffering and needless deaths. I have to force myself every day not to dwell on this, because the rage simmering within me at this evil — and that’s what it is — would be all-consuming were it to come to a boil.

Anyway. The sample size I’m describing here is far too small to draw any large conclusions. But what I saw in line and in the store was encouraging, and these days we need all the encouragement we can get. | DL

COVID-19 No. 14: All the Sleep in the World Can’t Help

~ Tom ~ 1 Comment

ALTHOUGH MY HOUSEHOLD is holding up reasonably well, there have been recent moments of turbulence.

The extension of Pennsylvania’s stay-at-home order and a continuance of school closures, both modified by the most dreaded of words — indefinitely — have exacerbated the uncertainty of our circumstances. And uncertainty, for me, at least, can be emotionally troublesome.

adult dark depressed face
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The girls have demonstrated remarkable resilience, but they’re teenagers, and they’ve been forced to deal with a world-shaking catastrophe they had nothing to do with. It is challenging enough for adults to have to pick our way through this minefield. For teens?

It’s amazing they haven’t taken up arms against the generations — mine included — that have dealt them the shittiest of hands, knowing what the cards were and not caring.

During a low period a couple of days ago, one of the girls noted how tired she was.

Maybe try taking a nap? I suggested.

It’s not the kind of tired that makes me want to sleep, she said.

And, boy, did she nail it. This is an exhausting time. The hourly fluidity of the situation is terribly draining. And even if you try to consume it in small doses, the relentless torrent of pandemic-related news gives rise to an ever-present nervousness that buzzes quietly in the background. Keeping the buzz at bay requires mental bandwidth, and expending bandwidth seeps energy. I feel exhausted just about all day long.It’s not the kind of tired that makes you want to sleep, she said.

I am reminded of the chronic pain I endured when a disc in my lower back blew out, coming to rest on a nerve and sending searing sciatic pain screaming down my leg. Keeping the pain at bay so that I could function at the most basic level sucked up bandwidth. It left me tired. But, as my daughter astutely observed, not the kind of tired that sends you to bed in the middle of the afternoon.

In my case, it was the kind that makes you clumsy and forgetful. In her case, it was the kind that jumps you on the pier and casts you adrift, unsure of when or where you’ll make landfall.

Control what you can control, I tell my kids. That counsel has never felt more salient. | DL

COVID-19 No. 13: We Had All Kinds of Time

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

THIS WAS GOING TO BE another measured, thoughtful post on everyday life during the topsy-turvy times that COVID-19 has dumped on us.

And then I learned, via Twitter a few minutes ago, that Adam Schlesinger died today.

He was just 52, a mere year older than I, and was a cofounder of and songwriter for the unparalleled power pop band Fountains of Wayne. If you know Adam Schlesinger at all, it’s probably from his Oscar-nominated song “That Thing You Do,” from Tom Hanks’s charming film of the same name, and “Stacy’s Mom,” an impossibly catchy tune that still pops up on commercial radio, 17 years after its release.

And that’s a shame, a damn shame, because Schlesinger and Fountains of Wayne were so much more than that.

grayscale photo of cutaway acoustic guitar
Photo by Jessica Lewis on Pexels.com

“Stacy’s Mom” was a hit, possibly more for its subject than its musicianship, and, again, that’s a damn shame. The album on which it appears, Welcome Interstate Managers, is one of those rare just-about-perfect records, a front-to-back work of sparkling songwriting, exquisite harmonies, and joyfully jangly guitars.

I may be feeling overly sentimental because when R. was much younger, Fountains of Wayne was a staple of our singalongs. Even today, we can sing deeper cuts word-for-word, reveling in their sharp lyrics and disarming accessibility.

Yet FoW’s other stuff is similarly bouncy and thoughtful, much of it thanks to Schlesinger, who went on to win awards for his stage, TV, and film work, and was also part of the wonderfully ethereal band Ivy.

I don’t mourn celebrity passings, with exceptions that can be counted on one hand. There is too much tragedy among us regular folks to devote emotional bandwidth to the rich and famous. But there are those whose talent is snuffed far, far too soon, who deserve my sadness and regret.

Kirsty MacColl was one. Adam Schlesinger is another.

Many feel the same about the playwright Terrence McNally, felled by COVID-19 last week. The influential singer-songwriter John Prine is, as of now, in critically condition. We will lose more in the weeks and months to come, and that’s on top of loved ones, family, friends, and coworkers who will leave us much earlier they ought.

It didn’t have to be this way. It did not.

The bourbon sits inside me

Right now I’m a puppet in its sway

And it may be the whiskey talking

But the whiskey says I miss you every day | DL

COVID-19 No. 12: Tumbleweeds in Place of Tellers

~ Tom ~ Leave a comment

monopolyMORE MUNDANITY RENDERED EXTRAORDINARY and bizarre by everyone’s favorite pandemic:

A trip to the bank.

The final paycheck from my previous job was delivered not via direct deposit but as a slip of paper that arrived in the mail. In ordinary times, that would necessitate a 20-minute lunchtime errand. In these times, it entailed a 5 a.m. alarm and a creepy drive through very dark, mostly deserted streets to the closest branch.

Per guidelines, if I have to be out, I want it to be when I’m least likely to encounter other people. While the introvert in me needs such solitude with regularity, my genial, more social side misses simple human interaction.

Depositing a check at 5:15 in the morning for the sole purpose of not running into anyone. Like I said, extraordinary and bizarre.

This typically banal daily errand didn’t fill me with the existential dread fostered by last week’s grocery-store run, but I was hardly comfortable. As I stood outside and slid my ATM card into the slot to unlock the door, I saw myself reflected in the glass.

Black jacket, black gloves, charcoal baseball cap.

Jesus, I thought. The cops are gonna think I’m robbing the joint.

All went uneventfully, though, and I was home and in the shower before long, trying to shake off the unease that shrouded me over the course of my trip. I’m so ready for the mundane to be mundane again.

I mentioned that the streets were mostly deserted. A handful of cars did pass me. And standing in the middle of a usually well-traveled road was a deer that seemed as startled to see me as I was her. Guess she didn’t get the memo about social distancing. | DL

COVID No. 9: I Am Not an Epidemiologist, So Take My Optimism With a Grain of Salt

~ Tom ~ 2 Comments

DON’T ASK ME HOW IT HAPPENED, and please don’t come at me tomorrow to see if it’s still there. But somehow, someway, to paraphrase the great Marshall Crenshaw, I found not simply acceptance today but optimism.

Maybe it was the dawning hope that a major project unexpectedly handed to me at my new job will be seen through successfully; maybe it was hearing R. cheerfully FaceTime with her cousin this afternoon; maybe it was the bracing 2-mile walk I took while it was still dark this morning; maybe it was the sun-soaked stroll around the neighborhood I took just before lunchtime. Whatever it was, the existential threat of the last several weeks just didn’t seem as looming today.

I’m under no illusions that the next several weeks won’t suck. But it’s … several weeks. Not years, not a lifetime. Several weeks of sucking it up, being there for each other, rolling with it. Yes, me and my family, we’re lucky. For now, and hopefully for as long as this lasts, we can do these things. We can afford to do these things. I hope that as a country, one assaulted by a sickness that cares not for race or age or status, we can close ranks and do the right thing by everyone.

I have sadly little confidence our government can do this. And this is not a both-sides-need-to-get-it-together thing; there’s a party that controls half of the Congress and the White House, and unfortunately it’s the party that has patted science, research, data, and evidence on the head and sent it strolling down the garden path while it catered to the shrinking, shriveling demographic of old straight white guys.

My hope is that the united will of the people — because, again, this is an illness that is striking down the high and the low; COVID-19 doesn’t play the us-versus-them game — can win the day.

Blind optimism, perhaps. But I believe there will come a time, a time not so long away, when I will hug my extended family and my dear friends, when I will shake hands with colleagues, when I will sit in the stands with a cold beer and cheer on my beloved Phillies, when I will go to work — actually go to work, not step into the home office and turn on my laptop. I do not envision this time as a dream or as a hope, but as an eventuality.

He said, eyeing a half-full glass. | DL