Tag: #Masks

  • First Day Without the Mask, Sort Of

    As of today, it has been two weeks since I got my second Covid vaccine, which means that the medicine is now completely in my system, and I am at FULL VAX!

    This also means that I can now go out in the open without a mask.

    Which I tried this morning while walking the dog.

    And it was weird.

    Weird not having a mask on. For lack of a better word, I feel very exposed without it.

    When I walked out of my building this morning, I had my mask in my pocket, and I thought if I encountered people that were close to me, I would put the mask on. So, ah, that didn’t work out too well, as this is New York, and there is a person every five feet.

    What I ended up doing was the mask under my chin look, and when a person got close, I would pull it over my nose and mouth. It sort of worked, but I did feel a little silly pulling it up and down. I fully admit that I am now dealing with the social pressure of a mask, and not thinking logically about the need of a mask. But, in my defense, this is my first day, so having some hesitancy seems to be appropriate. Later today, the kid and I will go to the playground at the local park, and that will be the next test. I intend to sit on my bench mask-less. We’ll see if I hold to that.

  • What is Up with Texas?

    What is Up with Texas?

    I used to get that question often when I first moved to NYC. I grew up in Texas, and when people would eventually find out I was from the Lone Star state, I would get asked, “Hey, what is up with Texas?” This was in 2006, the waning days of George W. Bush, and my adopted home state had an amazing reputation of crazy and gun crazy on top of that. (Luckily, Florida has seemed to taken on the mantel away from Texas in the last several years.)

    Today, The New York Times ran this story, “Red vs, Red in Texas, With Republicans Battle One Another After Mask Order,” and the title pretty much encapsulates what in now going on there. It even caused me to ask, what is up with Texas? It reminded me of this story The New Yorker put out a week ago, “How Texas Republicans Politized the Coronavirus Pandemic,” which goes into detail on how state Republicans were fighting each other to have a convention in Houston in the middle of an outbreak of Covid-19.

    My 77-year-old father, and  my brothers with their families are still in Texas, and I can only imagine that the anxiety and worry I have for them is the same thing they all had for us in March in New York. The difference is that at least the City and state of New York were committed to fighting Covid. Not that they did a perfect job, but at least everyone was aiming for the same goal. In Texas, it just seems like the state leaders are running around in a hurricane of chaos they have created under the guise of personal freedom.

    When people used to ask me that questions about Texas way back in the good old days of ‘Merica, I would tell them that growing up in Texas, there was a strong through line of independence balanced with respect. It seems to me that Texas conservatives have perverted this idea, and now it’s costing people their lives.