And that something is this: An obligatory coronavirus blog post.
I’m sure you’re not… sick of these yet! lololololololol
Things are bad. And very weird. And it's been really cool to see the way my creative friends have been seizing upon quarantine as an opportunity for further creativity. Skits, streams, art, readings, quick writing challenges, more... It's awesome.
I mean, I haven't been particularly creative, but I'm happy for everyone who is.
I've already pretty well hermitized myself, so this is already kind of business as usual. Why should things be any different now?
Well... because there's something in the air.
I have a lot of partial ideas that never really seem to coalesce into anything, but again, that's not too from my usual creative angst. And now there's a whole lot more angst floating around.
An artist channels their feelings onto their art. Can't say this whole COVID thing has been good for my ~aRtIsTiC sOuL~ however.
You'd think there'd be something profound I could tease out of the panicked state I found myself in a couple weeks ago when the seriousness of everything was setting in, something to be gleaned from the rage and helplessness I feel now, but the best I can do these days (when I can jolt myself out of stupefied paralysis, that is) is a few lines of middling poetry middle schoolers would find too on the nose.
I've always been better at reflection than parsing through things in the thick of it. In a year, I bet I'll have some awesome material out of all this.
At the moment, however, there's something in the air...
That something is this: it's me widening my field of vision from my myopic little world and taking the... everything… in.
I, Drew Petriello, will come out of this fine. I don't need to worry about income. I don't need to worry about getting seriously ill. I, Drew Petriello, will be fine.
But if I stop thinking about just myself for a second...
There's something in the air...
That something is this: Jinny's asthma. Suddenly, all the flippancy about me catching it sluices out of me into the dirt and a suffocation starts in my throat.
If I catch it, it's almost a certainty that I, Drew Petriello, will be fine.
What about Jinny?
She could still get a mild or asymptomatic case. But that asthma. Her odds of being hospitalized are all the greater. But the hospitals are already overworked and we haven't even begun to see the real bad shit yet, hospitals are already running low on ventilators and we haven't even begun to see the real bad shit yet.
I widen my field of view from my myopic world a little further even and it's clear:
There's something in the air...
That something is this: what about the millions of vulnerable Americans? Vulnerable physically as well as economically.
It's almost as if having an economic system that prizes explosive growth over all else is a little bit unsustainable or something.
Lost jobs, lost businesses, lost careers, lost dreams, lost futures, lost security, lost lives...
Even simply acquiring a goddamn test in this godforsaken country puts on display how heavily wealth skews what's available to you.
How do you feed your family? How do you pay rent? What about prisoners? Have you seen the statistics popping up from Riker's Island? How can our sanctions against Iran be construed as anything less than an act of genocide at this point? What about nurses? What about postal workers? What about grocers? What about farmers? What about the uninsured? What about...? What about...? What about...?
It's hard to feel safe and smug when I think about literally anyone other than myself for a second or two.
Legislation is being made. Things are being done.
There will be some emergency relief. I mean, it's not enough relief and the relief provided already drifts too far in the direction of corporate bailouts, but there is relief.
There's something in the air...
That something is this: I'm furious.
At this point in time, fear is sequestered in a little corner of my mind while the rest of my brainspace storms and rages with the force of Jupiter's red storm.
I can't concentrate on writing stupid little stories when there's something in the air.
Irresponsible companies don't need to face the consequences of their actions because big pappa government will be there to hand them a twenty whenever they need it.
Richest nation in the world. Our nurses have resorted to wearing trash bags for protection.
Meanwhile, ghouls whisper poisonous sludge into computer monitors from their happy quarantine homes about how Americans need to go back to work to keep the economy healthy, that they're willing to lose such and such number of lives to keep the economy healthy. I want to strip these people naked, drag them into a Manhattan hospital, and tell them to start carting corpses.
I want to believe that there will be comeuppance for the people sequestered away, pumping out garbage about how the system is fine the way it is. I want to grab every politician running on a platform of "returning to normalcy and status quo" and shake them until their skin vibrates off -- the status quo is what allowed this to happen, the status quo is what allowed thirty fucking thousand dollar coronavirus treatments to happen.
There's something in the air...
That something is this: I'm a personal assistant to an invalid. I have witnessed our healthcare system through her.
Our pre-COVID healthcare was a fucking joke. The darkest of dark jokes, a joke born in the blackest tar hacked out of a smoker's lung, a joke enjoyed only by maggots.
So since I do my invalid bosses books for her, I can very confidently say that we pay way too fucking much for healthcare in this country. Thank goodness she has a lucrative job that allows her to work from a distance, that can be worked around her disability. She's very lucky for that.
She's very lucky that it covers an annual five figures worth of healthcare costs.
Insurance is wickedly expensive but so are all of the out-of-pocket payments because insurance only covers so much or flat out does not cover treatment that she needs to get by.
Medicare for all or single-payer or something even remotely resembling the word "humane" should have been our healthcare standard decades ago.
Now is the opportunity to change something. Now is the opportunity to become more humane.
Forgive me if I'm not optimistic about that.
There's something in the air...
That something is this: I feel helpless during quarantine.
I'm a ~cReAtIvE pErSoN~. Yeah, great fucking help that'll be with the ventilator shortage.
I'm aching to be out on the street and distributing food... doing something physical, something tangible.
But I can't go and do that. I can't put myself at risk like that.
I can't put Jinny at risk like that.
I can't put my boss at risk like that.
Regardless of how true it is or not, I feel like a useless person during this pandemic.
And that's why I haven't been particularly creative even though I really want to be. Creativity feels very, very low on the priority list.
I'm not useless. I know that. It just feels that way. I'm sure I can find something good to put my skills to.
Moreover, I can help in other ways that aren't shoving my way into the front lines. I still get a paycheck and can donate what I can. I can be available to listen.
I can stay the fuck in. Because whether it feels that way or not, that is helping. Stay inside and nurse the rage and fear stirring inside of me, bubbling away like a witches cauldron full of newt eyes and goat bladders.
There's something in the air...
That something is this: I don't know what the coming months will bring. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know much of anything at all.
And yet... here we are.
Eyes forward, buddy. Widen that myopic field of view.
Take it all in.
There's something in the air.