second night to self, ahh

:-)

Imagine if it were a week by yourself, Bug.

I feel extra relaxed because B is at the house with T, no need for me to check in with T this morning, although I will anyway.

I think instead of a film this afternoon I'm going to read the Buffy book, I bet I could finish it in a few hours.  Maybe I'll read it after posting this, maybe I'll finish it before lunch, heh.

I'm balking at scheduling my haircut for next weekend ... may wait until early May when I'm at 90% ... which means I will have to cut my hair myself next week.  Perhaps riding Metro will be a big enough baby step for next weekend.  I may hookup with somebody two weekends from now ... it's weird plotting out these baby steps when I can't take any yet ... but tomorrow I'll get my 80% badge ... but the reality of not 100% rides on my shoulders.  States are beginning to report data on fully vaccinated people who've caught COVID and even a handful of deaths from COVID among our fully vaccinated elders (a few per million so far).

I might become one of the few people who can never fully return to normal?  I dunno.  Riding Metro next week.  One baby step at a time.

Don't take the AstraZeneca vaccine

It isn't approved in the US yet, and now I'm hoping it never is.  Wherever in the world you may be, don't get the AstraZeneca shots.  In Europe they're now documenting deaths caused by the shots.  In something like 1 per 100,000 shots, the recipient develops life-threatening blood clots, and at least a couple dozen people have died from blood clots in their brains.

That one's a No Go.

This side effect wasn't caught in the AstraZeneca clinical trials (which have been fucked up for other reasons) because fewer than 100,000 people were given the shots in the clinical trials.

Some countries in Europe are deciding that for older people, the risk of dying from COVID is worth taking the AZ shot if no other shot is available, but in the US we've got widely available alternatives and everybody who wants a shot will be able to get one by the end of next month.

I bet the US will not approve the AZ vaccine.

One Thing or Your Mother

The first 30 pages of this 230-page supermarket-format paperback were spent laboriously introducing the characters, as though somebody who had never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer would randomly purchase this book while idling through the checkout lane.

But at page 50 it is starting to pick up.

Just ordered lunch, will have to wait two hours after eating before resuming the toy play (because GERD) so we'll see how far I get.

To finish books I have to spend time finishing books.  But the Internet!

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[UPDATE]  This book has me laughing out loud repeatedly!  And also worried about who's gonna get killed next.  Of course, they can't kill off any member of the Scooby Gang, we know that.  This feels like 2nd season, yeah, 2nd Season stuff.

finished the Buffy book

It was quick and fun :-)

Then I showered and went to pick up more alcohol, and got pissed off at the people I saw not wearing masks -- including a large house party on 17th St with dozens of people crowded together on the lawn, none of them wearing masks, everybody squished together, definitely breaking the law.  Brazenly and openly breaking the law.  You can have outdoor gatherings of up to 50 people in DC but they have to remain six feet apart.  There was no "apart" on that lawn.

Tomorrow is my P1+10 -- 80% badge -- maybe I won't get as pissed off at these people tomorrow?  Sigh.  I did see poll results that 36% of people in the US admit to not following social distancing at all during the past week.  It's gonna be a slow journey to that land for me.

I want to read a book of poetry next!

meta-Buffy post

I made fun of how none of the Scooby Gang would die in this book (others died), but Buffy the Vampire Slayer was all about death, or avoiding death.

Survival amongst death, for some.

Strong women dealing death to demons.  Demons dealing death to everybody else.  Strong women saving the world.

And Buffy never gets a man, relationships never work on Buffy, it's part of the narrative tension of some US TV shows, that relationships never work, like Sex in the City,

But it was good to have strong single people represented.  To have a woman who is not defined by her husband represented.  Despite whatever assholishness Joss Whedon has committed, he gave us this cultural representation of strong single women and a lesbian couple!, and he gave us cultural representation of grief,

We grieve poorly in the US.  We do not pay enough attention to our ancestors and the cycle of life.  The past and the future.  What we will leave behind, and those who are left behind.

born nonbinary, AMAB made me gay?

I think the jump into being gay (for me) was a way of eradicating gender, if we're all guys then there's no gender,

yeah, if we're all guys there's no gender,

WTF, I hate gender so much I want there to be one/no gender,

so I build a life of one/no gender,

a gender totalitarian?  an agender totalitarian?

if one/no gender claps in a forest,

2nd Season Dollhouse may be peak Joss Whedon

Produce TV like nobody's watching,

I can't imagine the power wheel you have to whip to climb into Hollywood and create these shows,

these hot people doing exactly what you tell them,

we're all watching him make them dance,

film is about making them dance, the producers and directors making them dance,

the power behind the screen, the power that forces the screen, what is on the screen, screenpower,

do you interrogate the Wizard? the power behind the screen? the screentime?

fuck, that's why it's so hard

I live my life as a work of art,

everything measured,

everything watched by God,