Today is my birthday. I have only celebrated it twice since 2020. Prior to the pandemic, my greatest frustration this time of year as an introvert living in Chicago was finding a restaurant where I could meet a few close friends and family members for a meal without too many rowdy, drunk St. Patrick's Day revelers interrupting. Now, because of the risk of indoor dining, I have decided to just wait until it's warm enough to eat on a patio. (Not expecting the unseasonably warm weather we're having.)
Sharing meals to celebrate is such a simple thing we all took for granted. So many gatherings have food as the focal point. I keep missing out of them, postponing them, taking a plate home instead, not getting to eat my food when it's hot and freshly made. I can't share a birthday cake with my friends or have them over for a dinner party. I can't serve snacks at my open studios like I used to. No workplace happy hours or ice cream socials for me. I'm eating my lunch outside in the cold, the snow, the rain. Its the price I pay for safety.
A moderator in one of the online groups I'm part of asked us for our personal definitions of what it means to still be taking precautions. It was an earnest question that anticipated a straightforward response. But in my mind, my answer was loneliness, isolation, and alienation. I try to avoid crowded indoor spaces as much as I can, quite a feat when you live in a big city and rely on public transportation because parking is so expensive. I tried requiring masks at my open studios and only showing my work in spaces where masks were required, but I didn't make as much money as I hoped to as a result.
I feel burdened with the knowledge of what could go wrong. Sometimes I almost wish I didn't know what I know. Sometimes I wish I could be blissfully unaware and live in denial. Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier. But if people suffering from long COVID can take the time to share their hard-earned knowledge from their sickbeds, the least I can do is heed their warnings.
Still, as a lone masker is many of the places I go, every day feels like a protest. Still, there is no end to this disaster in sight. Last fall, prior to the election, I saw a scientist's estimation that perhaps in 2027 we could finally have a vaccine that would give everyone sterilizing immunity, meaning that we wouldn't have to worry about breakthrough infections and long COVID anymore. Now that the country is being run by misanthropic sociopaths and a pathogenic Health and Human Services secretary, who knows? The research that was being done for numerous diseases has come to a standstill for lack of funding, and Captain Brainworms hates vaccines. I am mentally preparing myself for the possibility of traveling to another country to get their version of the better vaccine, provided they will even let me in.
I'm glad that there's so much awareness about the political crisis that we're in, but frustrated that because of it, the lingering crisis of the ongoing pandemic continues to be ignored. There is discourse online about sacrifice, about giving things up, about boycotting one of the stores I had come to rely on because they bring my orders to my car for no extra charge, as well as the one where I get my KF94 masks. (Do the people calling for these boycotts even wear them?)
We have already lost so much because of COVID, and every day we lose something else to DOGE. I don't want any more austerity, avoidance, or abstinence in my life. I have given up so much. I have sacrificed so much. Don't ask me to cancel, delete, or boycott another thing. I am already boycotting the air.
It's been four years, and my soul is weary. I am so tired of the world. For the past few years I have been accused of "living in fear" when really I was living in a constant state of rage. And now I feel nothing but exhaustion and despair.
Since it's an election year, politicians keep asking, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" I don't think anyone on either side would like my answer. Both Trump and Biden and their respective administrations are to blame for the mess we're in, whether the media and the general public want to acknowledge it or not. Mainstream publications minimize the danger of pandemic the same way they minimized the danger of Trump, and they fail to hold Biden accountable for his broken campaign promises the same way that they fail to inform the public about how many people are still dying of COVID.
Since 2020, I've made an effort to learn as much about COVID as I can, and I never stopped studying. That's why I know that COVID is airborne, you don't want to catch it multiple times, it lingers in the air for hours, one-way masking isn't enough, ventilation is extremely important, the current vaccines are only halfway effective, the virus keeps on mutating, you can still catch it outside, and that immunity to it doesn't even last that long! But few people I speak to in person are interested in any of these facts.
I feel like a prophet of doom who no one wants to listen to. I am a voice crying out in the wilderness. It seems like no one wants to hear. I try to share what I've learned about COVID and the information is
met with hostility, indifference, or silence. It's easier to just
withdraw from all the unmasked people in my life and be alone. I feel a
profound sense of alienation and isolation, as though I don't live in a
shared reality with anyone else. Other people are around me and not with
me, it seems. At some points I have even begun to cynically wonder, what do they have to offer me besides COVID?
Late
last spring, I discovered some online communities of people who are
still taking precautions. Talking to them has been the only antidote to
the loneliness of being a lone masker in so many of the places I go. Since
then, I've met people from all over the world of all ages and walks of
life who are trying to protect themselves and others from COVID. Many
are severely immunocompromised and have been increasingly shut out of
public life as protective measures like mask mandates and vaccine
requirements have been rolled back. Many of them can't go to work, or
travel, or go grocery shopping now. Some have long COVID and are
rightfully concerned that another infection will make their health
problems even worse. Their conditions include sickle cell anemia,
multiple sclerosis, diabetes, cancer, and immune deficiencies. Many of
them had been thriving despite their illnesses pre-pandemic, but now
because of everyone else's selfishness, they have no choice but to
hunker down at home for their own safety, or that of the vulnerable
children or other loved ones in their households. For many it has meant
the loss of livelihoods, hobbies, and human connection. If you're not
part of these communities, you probably have no idea how much those
disabled by COVID or those who are at high risk of horrible outcomes
have lost because of this. Careers, educational opportunities,
relationships... These are the people who have been flippantly told
"just stay home" over and over again by jerks on the internet. And do
reporters interview them when protective measures get rolled back? Of
course not. They're too busy interviewing the feckless fools who
protested against mask mandates, just like they went out of their way to
center the opinions of racist Trump supporters hanging out in diners.
Virtual communities are all high-risk people have left, so they have
built small but thriving parallel universes while the rest of the world
ignores them.
But as I said, these communities are small, so small
that they are not conducive to finding my ideal clients, art
collectors, or a romantic partner. There have even been times when I've
felt like the only interest that we have in common is our COVID caution.
As much I appreciate my new virtual connections, I'm missing out on so
much by taking precautions that others no longer will. Sometimes it can
feel like I've given up on an ocean of opportunities to go live in a
safe little fishbowl. I have been forced to rely on the internet, where
my art is rarely seen by the right people. The internet, whose
algorithms are always asking too much of me. And as I mentioned in a previous post,
when I've opened my studio and required masking (and provided beautiful
masks), half the potential visitors get an attitude and leave. And why?
Because most art spaces are run by people who take no mitigations at
all, and most of the interior design trade shows have policies like
this:
So why am I still taking precautions? Because every time I read new research about what the virus can do, my first thought is, I have enough problems. I don't need this. So many of my dreams have never come true and I would prefer not to
add to my preexisting miseries. I am concerned about the toll that long
COVID would take on my life, not just physically and emotionally, but financially. My fields of interest are precarious enough as it is.
I have read too many horror stories at this point. All it takes is one time. All it takes is one person.
One celebratory birthday meal in a restaurant. One opening reception in a poorly-ventilated gallery. One crowded flight. One champagne toast in a busy art fair booth. One small dinner party. One hair appointment. One family member who didn't show any symptoms. One medical appointment with careless doctors and nurses. One car ride with a friend. One office party in a crowded conference room. And it's a wrap. I have seen too much now. I know too much now. And I can't let my guard down now.
I also can't let my guard down because I now know too much about the damage the virus can do. It's an insidious virus that deceptively appears to be a cold but causes so much damage covertly. Unlike pandemic diseases in movies and TV shows, the drama of the suffering COVID-19 causes happens silently at first, behind the scenes later. It can cause organ damage, infertility, impotence, miscarriages, stillbirths, premature aging, and it can wreck the immune system. It makes existing health problems worse.
A recent, catastrophic example of that was laid bare in the circumstances surrounding the death of one of my favorite mutuals on Twitter, Shafiqah Hudson, aka Fiqah, aka @sassycrass. When she wasn't sounding the alarm about fake accounts wreaking havoc on social media or sharing witty remarks and insightful social commentary, she was very open about her health issues. She was already suffering from some serious ailments and getting infected with COVID 3 times made everything worse. Her second infection led to kidney failure. She already was dealing with heart failure. She died tried to crowdfund for medical care and housing. She caught COVID for the third time in the hospital. Not just kidney failure and heart failure but a societal failure all contributed to her demise.
Internet trolls would write her off as just another statistic and one even called her a hypochondriac in response to a memorial I posted (before I blocked that jerk and hid their comment). Shafiqah was just one of the many amazing people who was left to "fall by the wayside," as Dr. Fauci said. Or whose death would be explained away by some nit-picking weirdo who would pedantically ask if she died "with" or "from" long COVID, seeking to invalidate the meaning of her life. I remain heartbroken because she was brilliant and deserved so much more, and I know there are more stories like hers.
There has been so much death, and yet so little public grieving. Maybe that partially explains the collective denial. I blame the rest on corporate and political interests. They are the ones who are successfully manufacturing the consent to be infected repeatedly. They have popularized the wishful thinking that the coronavirus would somehow miraculously evolve to become milder. They spread made-up nonsense about "immunity debt" while denying the very obvious fact that children keep bringing COVID home to their families because schools no longer mandate masks or tests and most didn't bother updating their ventilation systems.
Companies keep having super-spreader events with no safe or creative alternatives. If you want to move up the ladder at work or network to find more clients, you have to subject yourself to being exposed to the virus again and again in poorly ventilated rooms where no one is masking because the food and drinks being served are the main attraction.
Our government says "we have the tools," but the tools they've given us are expired tests that give false negatives and vaccines that don't do enough to prevent transmission. The CDC sounds like the Cigarette Smoking Man from The X-Files, lying, denying, and hiding the truth from us all the time.
Perhaps they are honoring their Tuskegee Syphilis Study era and returning to a time when they would rather study how a disease progresses than prevent it, if their new quarantine guidelines are any indication.
Perhaps in a generation or 2 they will apologize (too little, too late) to the remaining survivors and their descendants, as they did for the Tuskegee Experiment.
I have lost so much respect for the authority and expertise of so many public figures. Life-and-death policies have been shaped by the opinions of "experts" with irrelevant credentials. We are perpetually sleepwalking into disaster, trapped in a viral quagmire. The only hope that I see of getting out of this mess is the possibility of the nasal vaccines that have shown promising results in monkeys and hamsters and are now ready to be tested on humans. But otherwise, it seems like the efforts to minimize and normalize COVID seem to have paid off. We lack the patience and endurance to get through this as a society, and the people in power are taking advantage of that. Maybe television, texting and TikTok have destroyed our collective attention spans. The result is complacency and apathy.
I felt profoundly disheartened when someone I care about deeply told me that if he dies of COVID, it was just his time to go. It wasn't the first time I've heard this sort of Final Destination fatalism expressed. Are we all so dead inside that this is how we have come to look at life-threatening situations? Is this resignation to a tragic fate shaped by our constant exposure to senseless mass shootings and other random acts of violence? I want everyone to understand that death is not the only bad outcome, and neither is hospitalization. Some
people have been left in such agony from long COVID that they have
chosen to be euthanized in Switzerland, or they've taken matters into
their own hands.
"The burden of disease and disability from Long COVID is on par with the burden of cancer and heart disease.
The best way to prevent Long COVID is to prevent COVID in the first place. There is no Long COVID without COVID."
Were people only choosing to wear masks and get vaccinated to score political points and dunk on their enemies? A lot of Democrats seemed to think that Biden's words about the "pandemic of the unvaccinated" only applied to stubborn MAGA people
and not small children or others who either couldn't get vaccinated
because of certain medical conditions or who have conditions that make
vaccines less likely to work for them. Belief in Biden's words about the vaccine meant that everyone could be "vaxxed and relaxed." Never mind the possibility of breakthrough infections. (Remember when they used to call them breakthrough infections?) Never mind the fact that the virus keeps on mutating and the immunity to it doesn't last. Never mind the fact that since most Americans have had COVID by now, most of us
are actually at higher risk of bad outcomes from additional infections than we realize.
And then there are Christians who insist that wearing a mask means you lack faith, but not wearing one means you have a "faith over fear" mentality. They treat COVID the way snake-handling churches treat pythons. Funny how the same faith community that
so adamantly taught me to stand in the courage of my convictions is so
opposed to be doing just that when it comes to dealing with an airborne
virus. This is a test from God and they have failed it repeatedly. They have no idea how many parishioners no longer attend because every Sunday is a super-spreader. These are the fellow Christians I know from online COVID-cautious groups.
Some poorer countries never got a vaccine. COVID is spreading through prisons, homeless shelters and migrant and refugee camps all over the world, compounding human suffering. You would never know that looking at the smiling, unmasked faces of glittering celebrities at fancy award shows, or from the considerably less glamorous yet similarly maskless politicians in Washington. They have access to tools the rest of us may have never even heard of.
Yet the public scarcely knows about the far UV lights, high-tech air filtration systems, highly reliable tests, and nasal disinfectants the elites can afford to take advantage of. We watch these people on TV without knowing of all the hidden mitigations that are propping up the appearance of normalcy. Meanwhile, the rest of us are playing games with a virus that's in the same category as plague, rabies, tuberculosis, and anthrax.
Is it ignorance or sadism? Incompetence or malice? Some of it seems to be motivated by short-sighted foolishness. Do you really think that people who've gotten POTS
from long COVID will want to go to your theme park to ride roller-coasters? Do you think people who've lost their sense of taste
from the virus will want to spend money on expensive restaurant food
they can't fully enjoy? Do you expect people suffering from chronic
fatigue to take expensive vacations on your cruise ships and at your
resorts? Do you think people who now have chronic pain will be excited
about standing in long lines in an airport so they can cram themselves
into an uncomfortable seat on one of your planes?
But it's not just a lack of foresight and a profit motive, not when our captains of industry are the kinds of sociopaths who, when they
finally go to hell, will try to find a way to get their assistants to
bring them water because they're thirsty. Of course they're fine with
social murder. These are the same people who brought us forever chemicals and microplastics. They want plausible deniability. They don't want us to be able to sue them. They want a chain of transmission that never breaks. They don't want us to be able to pinpoint the source of a COVID exposure. They want us to be complacent, compliant, and complicit.
That's why they keep lying. That's why they stopped collecting data and made what little data is still available much harder to find. That's why the news keeps trying to give us all a false sense of security in a fake-normal world that is far more dangerous that most Americans realize.
But if all you've been paying attention to is the way the major corporate news sources have been reporting on the pandemic, you have no idea how bad things really are. So you let the CDC and the President get away with telling you what you wanted to hear and never bothered to look beneath the surface. You plan events with no regard for safety. You don't cancel your travel plans when you're sick anymore. You started coming to work sick again and you stopped testing. You started sending your kids to school sick again and stopped testing them. And you are unwittingly part of the problem and have unintentionally made yourself an asymptomatic carrier or the host of the next variant mutation.
Don't yell at me. Yell at your local health department and the CDC. Yell at your boss for not protecting you at work and your school district for not protecting your children. Yell at the restaurant and hospitality lobby for prioritizing their profits. Yell at the CEO of Delta Airlines for shortening the length of the quarantine. Yell at your mayor, your governors, your state and local representatives. Yell at the President for not doing enough.
I don't care what everyone else is doing. Sometimes everyone else is wrong. But I'm not wrong. I'm early.
This past weekend, I decided to be the change I want to see in this strange fake-normal world we're currently living in. Since about 2021 or so, I've witnessed an unsettling trend: art events that are likely superspreader events. At least one artist I know blames an art show as the source of their coronavirus infection. I became wary of art openings after learning about that. The only one I've attended since the pandemic began was a group show I was in, but between the unmasked crowd and the poor ventilation, (so humid that it made a portion of The Unforeseeable Future come unglued!) I only stayed about 10 minutes. I don't think I've written about how it's been the past few years to constantly know I'm being left out and left behind because of the art world's cavalier attitude about masking, but it really hurts. My Instagram feed is full of smiling unmasked faces crowded together for photos at somebody’s indoor art show. I don't smile back at them.
In The Unforeseeable Future (the book), I wrote about the pain of paying for a studio I couldn't use. I've now endured almost 2 more years of that pain. Quiet as it's kept, open studios are often rent parties for artists as we hope that some of the people who come through will either make a major purchase or introduce us to someone who will. I've been deprived of that possibility for over three years now, first because the pandemic began and now because of the foolish insistence that's it's over when it's not. While I am grateful for the existence of virtual "Still Coviding" groups online, it hasn't been a sufficient substitute for being able to sell my work in person, the way it’s meant to be seen. Even before the pandemic, I was getting tired of relying on the internet in general and social media in particular, where my hopes of getting my work seen by a new audience are constantly dashed.
A few months ago, I surveyed my email list to find out if anyone would be interested in attending a private open studio in a mask. Only a tiny fraction said yes. It didn't seem worth it. Then I saw the front page of the Chicago Reader, which featured an illustration The Fine Arts Building and an announcement about the 125th anniversary celebration. The thought of missing out caused me literal physical pain. This was my chance, finally, after all these years, to get the foot traffic I've always needed. So I decided that I would open my studio and require masks.
With the help of a cousin who has experience working as a bouncer, I was able to enforce that rule during my first Second Friday Open Studio since Valentine's Day 2020. Then on Sunday, when the building participated in Open House Chicago, I enforced my policy myself. Offering masks to potential visitors was essential. Selecting stylish masks to distribute enhanced the experience. I also offered printouts of cartoonist Whit Taylor's brilliant COVID explainer comic "Temperature Check" and added some public service announcements that I made from memes and infographics to my usual mix of videos that I play on my TV in the hallway. For an additional layer of protection, I kept both my air conditioner and my air purifier running.
Despite the horror stories I've seen about anti-maskers getting violent and my own bad experiences with them online, nothing like that happened, much to my relief. I probably could have had 50% more visitors on Friday without my mandate, but since one-way masking isn't enough, that wasn't an option.
When I was on my own on Sunday, I sat in the hall and informed everyone who approached my door that they were welcome to visit, but I require everyone to wear a mask and there was a nice selection of designs to choose from. There were only 3 violations: a defiant elder with an apparent sense of entitlement, someone who didn't seem to understand English very well, and someone absentmindedly wearing the mask I gave them on their chin. After it was over, I sprayed Lysol in the air and kept my air conditioning and air purifier running overnight since the virus is airborne and can linger in a space for up to 16 hours.
As much as I would have loved to meet a dealer, gallerist or big spender art collector, even though yet again that didn't happen, I am glad to have had the opportunities the past weekend provided. In addition to selling as much as possible, my goal was to create an oasis of safety within a potential superspreader event and help to raise awareness about COVID. I didn’t want anyone to get sick because they came to my studio. I know I'm just an unpopular artist with unpopular opinions, but I think people should be able to enjoy looking at art without risking getting infected with a weird new bat virus that keeps mutating!
It's been over 3 years since my last open studio and I am tired of missing out. I believe that art patrons should be able to enjoy events without being exposed to an airborne biosafety level 3 pathogen, which is why everyone who enters my studio has to wear a mask. No exceptions. Because I also believe in layered protections, I now have a HEPA air purifier.
I failed to post about this earlier, but now I would like to announce that my studio will be open during Open House Chicago today. Here are all the details:
Sunday, October 15th 12 p.m. - 5 p.m. The Fine Arts Building 410 South Michigan Avenue Studio 632F Chicago, Illinois
My 3 year pandemic anniversary was actually a few days ago, but it took me longer than I expected to write this post. Today's date is of personal significance to me because it's the birthday of my late aunt who passed away when she was the same age that I am now. I wonder what she, as a science teacher with a lung condition, would think of the mess we're in now.
Last year I was feeling more optimistic about things. This year, I feel a deep disgust. I'm so tired of seeing the same foolish decisions being made all the time.
I've had it with people refusing to wear masks indoors. Some won't even wear them in healthcare settings.
They've already made it optional to wear masks on public transportation, but I guess that's not enough for some people.
And now wanting to wear a mask is being stigmatized as some kind of abnormality. It reminds me of drapetomania or hysteria.
People like me get accused of "living in fear" but the truth is that I've been living in a constant stage of rage. I no longer trust other people to do the right thing when it comes to this pandemic. They'd rather pretend it's over and live in denial.
I am witnessing the consent to be infected being manufactured in real time by "experts" who were paid off by powerful business interests. Whether it turns out that COVID emerged in a wild animal or in a laboratory, why would anyone want to catch it? Especially now that we keep learning about all the damage it can do? I don't know what I have to say to persuade anybody anymore. Perhaps I should appeal to their vanity and warn them that COVID can make you lose your teeth and hair. Or maybe I should point out that it can also cause erectile dysfunction. But maybe that's still something you assume will only happen to other people. Or maybe the people you know who had it all said that it was not that bad.
Now it's gotten to the point where talking heads on TV talk about it in the past tense. How foolish to believe that we can somehow end the pandemic by declaring it over, as if it's Daylight Saving Time. The hubris of it all, to assume we have that kind of control over natural phenomena.
And how can anyone even make an informed decision about potential exposure without data about how many cases there are?
This is what "normal" at any cost looks like, complacency and resignation. Pretending that it's over, and wondering why everything still feels off somehow. We are supposed to accept the horror of catching COVID multiple times as something inevitable and possibly beneficial. Asking for stronger vaccines to be developed makes us ingrates. Asking other people to wear masks is asking too much. These expectations have left me feeling contempt, resentment, and a sense of refusal to comply.
You want to look at me like I'm crazy for wearing a face shield? Well I'm only wearing it because you're not wearing a mask. You think I'm abnormal for wearing a mask? So what. I'm an artist, so I'm accustomed to being thought of as abnormal. I am disgusted with what our society has chosen to normalize. It shouldn't be this way.
And as I've written before, this "normal" we're all supposed to be rushing back to wasn't that wonderful anyway.
What gives anyone else the right to decide that I should get sick?
2022 was a weird year for me. I continued to put a lot of things on hold in my ongoing effort to protect myself from COVID. Fortunately, my life did not come to a complete standstill this year. Here are some of the highlights, as well as my blog posts about them.
I was on TV.* (*My episode was filmed in 2021 and aired in January 2022)
Chronologically last, but monumentally important to me, I have published my latest book, The Unforeseeable Future, just as the year is ending. I promised myself that I would put a book out in 2022 and am greatly relieved that I was able to reach my goal.
I have no idea what 2023 will bring, but I look forward to blogging about it here.
The Tyranny of "Normal" | paper and ink on foam core board | 8"x10" | 2022
Let me begin by saying that this collage didn't turn out the way I hoped. I wanted to make it the traditional way, with paper cut from magazines. I dipped a COVID stamp from Etsy in red ink and acrylic paint and stamped the whole collage. But some of the paint got smeared and that was disappointing. Also, I really wanted to find images of people on public transportation and airplanes. I am considering making a digital collage, too, so that I can more easily access those images.
But enough about what this collage isn't. I should write about what it is. It's a companion piece to the blog post I wrote a few months ago. It's a manifestation of my frustration with the inadequate messaging about the risks of COVID. It's about people pretending that everything is normal. It's about people living in a fool's paradise of denial. And all around them, COVID is in the air, just waiting for a warm body to infect.
Why? Because cloth masks aren't strong enough to protect us from the new variants. They're better than nothing, but if I created any new masks to sell, I would want them to be KF94, KN95 or N95. Still, designing them has been very cathartic.
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