I figured out that I've gotten weaker because even though I walk about as much as before, I'm not carrying a laptop and other stuff.

Anyway, I miss people. I'm going back to the bar as soon as my son gets fully vaccinated.

Oy. While all the 'introvert' discourse sort of annoys me, I am definitely someone who has a hard time dragging myself out to interact with other people. Spending a year where interacting with other people would be a bad thing to do has reinforced this tendency terribly, and it's going to be a lot of work kicking myself into having enough of a social life that I'm not lonely.

But I'm going to a restaurant with a friend tonight, and another with another batch of friends later in the week, so it's a start.

That's like more going out that I ever do.

This crap is mostly kid school events - award ceremonies, end of school performances, etc, - and my summer work schedule, which is mostly in person. So less of a introvert/extrovert social whine than a life-commitments whine.

I bought a weighted vest to re-train carrying a backpack regularly. I am not a crackpot.

When I encounter the poisonous bullshit that will shape our lives for decades to come, as did the lies about Vietnam and Iraq (e.g., "Those numbers aren't real" or "The economy as I define it is worth some unspecified number of deaths"), or when I see notionally-progressive politicians, who not only failed to protect their constituents but failed even to try, prancing and capering about the drops in new cases and deaths as though they bear no responsibility for the past peaks, I feel a murderously angry despair.

Then you add more weight to the vest.

Also joined a gym so I can say "not very often" instead of "no" when asked if I even lift.

FWIW, I've been going in to the office 3X a week for a few months now, and one upside is that I can do casual errands on my way home from work like a normal person who leaves the house a lot, instead of letting them build up into one punishing mega-errand. When I was 100% wfh it seemed so haaaard to put on pants and mask up that I would really let things pile up.

Getting back my walking stamina was definitely a project, still in process.

I was already more than a little hermetic pre-pandemic and moving toward an increasingly online life. My girlfriend moved in the fall before, so I had another adult to talk to the whole time. Unlike most people, I endured lockdown just fine and I still kinda want other people to stay away from me.

7: I'm really angry about the new CDC guidance, specifically that they did not tie it to case rates and percentage population vaccinated which means that everyone now has cover to drop everything. And OSHA never came out with a workplace covid safety standard even though the admin promised one by March 15. We are still tolerating high levels of death, and everybody is supposed to be immediately happy and ready to open up. I get that masking outside is rarely necessary (maybe ina. Mosh pit full of 59% covid positive people?) but I wore one when walking from the car to the grocery store, for example. There's a whole industry devoted to scolding people who are wearing them outside which is just completely minimizing the trauma that certain communities who were exposed during the pandemic are living with.

I have eaten on a patio, not yet ready for indoor dining.

Though I did get my first real professional haircut in over a year yesterday and now my head looks totally weird in the mirror.

I also just wish we could rest a bit and ratchet down the expectation ps a bit. Ok, healthcare workers you went through hell, but now we need to make up for lost revenue so get back on track and bill again. All that stuff we said about supporting your mental health, that was just to get you through the surge.

I don't think titration of socialization should be seen as bad or subpar. We aren't used to it! And to carry on your metaphor, spending a whole day with other people at this point may be as much overdoing it as running a marathon without training.

I went out with friends last week, and was invited to something with the same group the night after, and declined for that reason.

I'm really angry about the new CDC guidance, specifically that they did not tie it to case rates and percentage population vaccinated which means that everyone now has cover to drop everything

I take your point, but I think it's hard to argue that public health professionals shouldn't tell the truth -- and that's all the CDC did, as best as I can reckon.

Saturday afternoon my Costco was full of masks, as always. I like living among the civilized.

My daughter has been cutting my hair, and after some initial misgivings, she has really started to enjoy the task -- and is getting pretty good at it, too. I don't think she's going to let me go back to my barber.

My wife was cutting mine. It's not that she was bad at it, but it took so long. The real barber is like 10 minutes.

16.1: I mean, public health as a discipline was always supposed to take public behavior into account, right? If giving guidance that works with an ideal population prompts counterproductive behavior among the actual population, it's not good public health guidance.

19: Exactly. Also, I've read some stuff that it's not totally clear that if someone is vaccinated and they get infected that they can't transmit. So, at the current level of virus, in public, it still makes sense for vaccinated to wear masks to protect the unvaccinated.

I mean not getting infected prevents transmission, and it's biologically plausible, but I don't think anyone has demonstrated it - especially for J and J.

I thought there was now data on asymptomatic transmission among the vaccinated specifically. Perhaps from Israel?

This post speaks to me; I feel like my stamina is depleted in a variety of ways (more so in terms of physical conditioning and emotional energy than socializing specifically; but I'm introverted enough that returning to "normal" doesn't involve much socializing).

Oh, the study I was thinking of was for Pfizer, so you may be right that it hasn't been demonstrated for Johnson & Johnson.

i acquired a whole new category of acquaintances/friends via taking up swimming in the bay & joining a club of other crazy people, & our nearest & dearest family & friends have beautifully swarmed in the recent health crisis, so that's been a deep plunge back in to in person socializing. was really hoping for more of a big pent up birthday cakes & ice creams party rather than myocardial infarction, but oh well!

the nurses were really great about letting us ( all vaxxed) remove our masks when in the icu room with door closed, & excellent about taking off their own to communicate with my profoundly deaf, lip reading stepson. he was gearing up to betray them by smuggling in purportedly "healthy" smoothies as of today so thank god better half was sent home lol.

22: I was going off of twitter feeds from Katy Stephenson, MD, MPH - one of the BIDMC researchers on the J and J vaccine. Monica Gandhi at UCSF is big on those data, but I don't trust her, because she claimed that India had reached here immunity.

India is pretty much fucked.

I was so overstimulated after the first time we had people over indoors since the pandemic that I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep

Have you tried melatonin?

Or edibles. I'm hearing that you can get those by trick or treating.

I haven't had a gym membership in so long I don't know if I need to spray the bench after I use it or not. I'm totally vaccinated.

30: I'm trying to envision the proportional-response trick for that treat, but it keeps ending in an arrest warrant.

The people who say it happens won't tell me which house even after I offered them fifty dollars.

I'll probably have one foot in pandemic times through August. The kid is masking through the end of the school year, so I'll feel obligated (or actually be obligated) to do so as well sometimes. And then we're spending most of the summer with my parents and Teresa's parents, for free childcare and automatic social distancing a.k.a. rural environments. I'm mentally ready for things to get back to normal but I've almost forgotten what that means. Going back to the office is the part of "normal" I'm most looking forward to, but few to no co-workers I like will be there anymore, so I'm not sure what to expect.

22: There is, for Pfizer, and it's reasonable to suppose the same will be true of the other vaccines.

I've been following the CDC guidance, and so I took my mask of at Costco because they didn't require it for those that are fully vaxxed. I'd say it was about 50/50 masked/unmasked, and I take that as a good sign.

Utah banned mask mandates for the last week of school even though the health department says masks are recommended, and last I checked, masking actually doesn't work all that well to protect the wearer if everyone is unmasked. Trying to explain this decision to the Calabat, who is brighter than our average legislator, was challenging. We wound up saying that the grown-ups should have mandated masks but did a bad job. I sent him to school with a mask but if everyone else isn't wearing them there's not much of a point.

22: I was going off of twitter feeds from Katy Stephenson, MD, MPH - one of the BIDMC researchers on the J and J vaccine. Monica Gandhi at UCSF is big on those data, but I don't trust her, because she claimed that India had reached herd immunity a while ago.

Ours are still required in K-12 schools, in programs serving disabled people, e.g., day programs, group homes, and hospitals.

I'm not taking my mask off indoors unless I know that everybody else is vaccinated for a while.

I'm kind of thinking about when to make the shift from home to downtown, as my principal place of work. I brought my good laptop -- the one with all the files etc on it -- home in March 2020, and so bringing it back will be the indication. All four people in my office suit were fully vaxxed 2 months ago: customers still wear masks, but that's like one or two people a day, usually. I like all 3 women who work here a lot. On the other hand, eating lunch at home is a real plus.

I'm glad to have been out last Thursday. A former client came by to drop off a (small) check and also a racist anti-Indigenous book. My office-mate's receptionist, herself an Indigenous woman, put the book and the check on my desk. She was gone when I came in on Friday and saw them. I considered throwing the book into my trash can, but didn't want to the cleaning people to see it, so I want down to a street-corner trashcan to toss it. I'm depositing the check. The receptionist and I were here together for the first time today, and she said that the client thought I might like the book. Jeez. She also thinks that the author of the book came with the client. My God, what if they were going to ask me to do some legal work?

They make kid-sized KF94 masks, which do actually protect the wearer, at least if your kid will wear it correctly (one of mine will, the other won't).

I think my masks are KN95. My son doesn't like them, so he wears paper masks with a cloth mask over it.

I am definitely someone who has a hard time dragging myself out to interact with other people. Spending a year where interacting with other people would be a bad thing to do has reinforced this tendency terribly, ...

Yeah, this.

I miss being around other people in an 'anonymity of the crowd' sort of way, I guess: hanging out at a coffee shop, all alone at my own little table, but surrounded by other people, with whom I am not expected to interact (their buzz of activity just a backdrop, sometimes interesting or amusing, sometimes just some background noise to ignore ...).

But having to do 'the social bit,' as heebie puts it: I'm not sure I am ready for this.

The linked book in 38 will throw off the Amazon advertising algorithms for a while. I don't much mind confusing the bots, but this red herring is a bit rotten.

Now that I may have to be presentable again I realize that almost my entire wardrobe is threadbare and made for a skinnier person.

For the first time all pandemic, I'm now wearing a mask for hours every day. As of this week. wheeee

I'm really probably overly concerned about being nice on the airplane. I keep reading that incidents are up and I don't want to stress the flight attendants.

42 Oh, right, sorry.

I learned my lesson on that from the Wehrmacht camping scene figurine.

I'm really probably overly concerned about being nice on the airplane.

I specifically ask for an aisle seat, even though I'd rather have a window seat, because I don't want to have disturb someone, wake someone up, when I need to use the facilities...

46, eh it's okay. Messing with the algorithm is good fun. Also, it's nothing like a link from apo.

The one in-person work-related thing that I have gone to since March of 2019 (training to be a designated fire protection assistant, jeez there are more types of fire extinguishers than you would think) featured one of the 50 or so people in Berlin (out of a population of about 3.6 million) who tested positive two days later.

The local testing center says it is open until 6pm, but that does not actually mean that you can get tested until 6pm because reasons. If you call the people in charge to tell them that they were not actually offering testing until 6pm despite their web site saying "open until 6pm" they will tell you that ACTUALLY they only offer testing until 5:45 because if the workers were there past 6 they would have to pay overtime, that they have had numerous complaints about the matter, and that they don't have space for complicated explanations about that on the web site. They do not say why they don't simply change their public-facing information to "open until 5:45pm."

I had a vaccination appointment three weeks ago. Less than one hour before the appointment, my GP's office called to tell me it was cancelled. They said they would put me on a waiting list and be in touch. Reader, they did not get in touch. When I called them to check in they said they were only doing second vaccinations now (epidemiologically unsound, imho), that they had not gotten any doses for first vaccinations for the last two weeks, and that they had no idea when they would be getting any doses for first vaccinations. They also said that they had decided not to offer AZ to anyone under 60 for liability reasons, leading me to suspect (again) that the practice was not being truthful with me when they said they cancelled my appointment because they hadn't gotten a delivery of AZ.

So that's me: cancelled vaxx appointment, potentially exposed, turned away from testing. Yesterday was a pretty crappy day, quite apart from spending more than an hour on hold with my bank because I had apparently/allegedly entered the wrong PIN too often. Either I didn't and the machine for train tickets damaged/altered my card, which is worrying, or I did and I have blanked on the PIN for the card that I use most frequently, which is worrying in another way.

I don't think I have the stamina for this.

35: the point, in public settings like the grocery store, is for kids to protect unvaccinated or immunocompromised adults. Everyone says any adult who wants one is vaccinated, but they don't provide a lot of protection for some people, and not everyone has easy access. For a lot of people with hourly jobs and no paid-time-off or without tech savvy, it has not been *easy* to get a vaccine.

50: Doug, that sounds shitty. Sympathies.

Yes. Hope you get a vaccine soon. It's great to have that taken care of.

I don't even have an train.

Thanks, BG and Moby. I went and got tested today. Thankfully, negative. Still no vaccination prospects. Bank thing sorted out though.

I can't mail you a vaccine because of refrigeration thing.

Thank you, I got two big jars of peanut butter in the mail today. It's almost as good.

I guess if Berlin doesn't have its act together by then, I will get at least the first round when I return to the States to get my driver's license renewed in July.

After an international flight seems like a suboptimal time to get vaccinated.

Doug - what country are you in? Canada had been weird about Astra Zeneca.

I'm going to guess Berlin is still part of Germany, but Putin is being pretty aggressive.

60: I wrote that and walked away for a minute, hit post, and then saw that he had said he was in Berlin.

There used to be a Berlin in Nebraska, but being ahead of their time, in 1918 people from neighboring communities went all arsony until they changed the name.

According to Wikipedia, about half of US states have or had a place named Berlin. I was going to say that I live in the one where the Berlin Wall isn't, but that's all of them now, too. I think mine is the only one with a Reichstag building.

That sucks Doug, I hope you get it sorted soon. I know I wouldn't be flying back to the US next week unless I'd been fully vaccinated. I'll still be wearing an N95 and a face mask for the flight (and flying business class too, I'm a bit nervous about passengers transiting from India, took all my accumulated for the last few years for that.).

And speaking of stamina I'm losing all kinds including for my already easy daily routine. I sleep most of the day and have a hard time concentrating. I haven't left my flat in 2 weeks now. I'm looking forward to tomorrow when I have to leave in order to pick up my new residency permit. And I'm really looking forward to next week when I get to go back home for 6 weeks.

65: How long have have you been in Arrakis now?

Thanks, Barry. Of the smallish number of people local to Germany/Austria that I follow on twitter, at least two concluded that their Central European governments were just not going to get their act together sufficiently. They flew back to the States specifically to get vaccinated. One did it around Easter in Arizona, the other is now between doses in California. I think the extent of the shitshow is underappreciated in the States.

It's been clear to me since at least early February that sufficient vaccination was the Only Thing. And yet here we are in nearly June, and the most-vaccinated states in Germany are about level with the least-vaccinated states in the US. Our 85-y-o relative did not have his first round until after Easter (April 4). Prioritization regulations are still in effect because supplies are so short.

The back and forth on AZ has meant some weeks when a major vaccination center was going 95% unused because they were only giving it to an age group that wasn't getting appointment invitations from the city, and you couldn't set up an appointment without an invitation from the city.

66 Last week was my 6 year anniversary.

I'm about 5.5. I ask because for me SA stopped feeling like "home" a long time ago.

68: I'd be interested to read or hear a long-term assessment of your experience over that time and how your impressions have developed, etc.

69 I guess it helps being from NY. I miss NY.

70 Interesting idea. I'll think on it. I do like it here, and this region generally (KSA excepted) and I'd like to stay as long as I can bar finding and landing some dream job stateside. Though truly I'd much rather stay almost anywhere overseas than return to the US except for occasional visits. I've even thought of going the Mossy route and picking up some teaching English as a foreign language credentials as an option if I can't land another library job somewhere.

I've been overseas for all but four years since 1993. (Hungary, Poland, Germany, Georgia, Russia, Germany again.) I'd happily go back to the US, but I'm really integrated here: kids in school, market value as a native speaker, etc.

Except for a brief trip to Canada, I haven't left the country since 1992.

I also lived in Morocco for a few years in the mid-90s (with a very brief stint in Cairo).

The one in Illinois or the one in Nebraska?

I know that as soon as the Republicans manage to win another major election, I'm going to want to leave here again, but it does seem like we're becoming more entrenched in this particular place and this particular life. I had always thought of myself as a person who embraces change and novelty, but I'm not sure the evidence really bears that out. Maybe I'm just successfully stifling my inborn neophilia.

"Your comment seems to be relevant only to your navel. Post anyway?" Hmmm, does anyone else get this prompt when they hit Post?

41
I miss being around other people in an 'anonymity of the crowd' sort of way, I guess... But having to do 'the social bit,' as heebie puts it: I'm not sure I am ready for this

Interesting. I'm the reverse. I never enjoyed the "anonymity of the crowd" thing all that much, I could take it or leave it, and it feels daunting now. Every time I see someone I can't help wondering what their mask status says about them. (Unmasked but outdoors: Vaccinated? Not vaccinated and a right-wing anti-vaxxer - very unlikely in my immediate neighborhood but more likely elsewhere? Not vaccinated and not right-wing but a careless asshole of another stripe? Or not vaccinated but in a situation where it's reasonably safe to do so, so there isn't really any harm in it? Repeat for each other combination...)

But socializing I'm eager for, in situations where I don't have to worry about the above. An office happy hour or a neighborhood party sounds very appealing these days.

Only when I post about lint.

2020 is definitely one of the few years since, I don't know, 1976, that I haven't left the country. This totally plays havoc when I'm getting my security clearance renewed: I see you were in Italy in 2018 Why did you go there? I skied there from Switzerland. What was the purpose of your visit? Lunch. And sunshine. But mostly lunch. Did you meet anyone there? I kind of flirted with the waitress . . .

They only hire people who watch Bond films for these jobs, so they're having some fun imagining what sort of risk this could be.

Did you meet anyone there? I kind of flirted with the waitress . . .

Are you telling us the whole story, Charley? I kind of get the feeling you're leaving something out.

I went home with the waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the Russians too

80: Wrong blog, peep!