Three Years of COVID

It was three years ago today that COVID was declared a pandemic.

In case you're wondering . . . of course I've had it, despite having been vaccinated.  After Omicron broke out, everyone got it! But then, the vaccine makes COVID cases more mild, it doesn't necessarily prevent it.

I'm happy to say that after vaccination and infection, my immunity is pretty good.  But I'm still in a towel-throwing mood.  I've given up any idea that I can get my old life back, and even to this day, when the worst of COVID is supposedly behind us, I rarely go out for entertainment or pleasure, I haven't been to a restaurant since just before the pandemic started, and I haven't been to New York City, the metropolitan area of which I live in, in nearly four years.  That might change, as I have been invited to event taking place in the city next month, but it's an evening event and my local bus line - which shut down in 2020 due to the pandemic - has since resumed operation but with a schedule that no longer includes buses running after 8:00 P.M.

When did the bus company decide that New Yorkers roll up their sidewalks at night? 

I've just become more disconnected and embittered after three long years of this, and some TV news anchors are already talking about a fourth year of it.  I keep giving up on everything I can - I've lost interest in so many endeavors in the past three years - and I'm too disgusted to resume any of my previous activities.  When Lent started, I tried giving something up for the pre-Easter period, but I was too disgusted to follow it through after everything I've given up on indefinitely.  Ironically, I've recently been thinking again about recommitting myself to the Church.

As the pandemic eases but does not end, some friends of mine are resuming their pre-pandemic activities, and my English ladyfriend Therisa - who has a passport full of visas already - will soon be leaving Manhattan, where she's lived for nearly a quarter century, to move back to Britain - to Wales, to be precise - to open a dance studio.  I may be looking forward to an endless future of mostly staying put - staying the fuck at home, as Samuel L. Jackson once put it.  (Oh yeah, I've been dropping F-bombs - something I never did before COVID hit - and sometimes I've dropped enough to level Dresden.)  I feel like a fox poking its head out of its hole and looking at the landscape after a big forest fire and surveying the damage . . . and wondering if it's safe to come out.