Reports from a Root Canal, Dickinson and Orlando, and an Uptick in Coronavirus Cases Across the US

Sylvia, roses from my garden, and the new Poets & Writers

Reports from a Root Canal

I had my root canal (sans novocaine) on Monday, and was not prepared for five-six days of being straight up knocked out by pain and fatigue, although last time, I ended up at the hospital with a bad reaction to the antibiotics I was given, so… I also have to quarantine for 14 days because while the endodontist takes precautions, they can’t promise I didn’t get exposed to coronavirus at their office. Cool. So, a tooth that wasn’t hurting me before, now hurts, and I’ve been exposed to a virus that could kill someone like me. Someone remind me not to ever to go to the dentist or endodontist every again.  I am not convinced dentistry isn’t straight up a scam. (This article from last year’s Atlantic confirms some of my feelings, too.) Dentistry is doubly hard on those of us with MS and immune problems, too. Dang. I’m hoping I’m not here posting about coronavirus symptoms next week…

Anyway, the above picture was taken from bed, where I was recuperating with Sylvia, some roses that are finally blooming in my garden, and the new issue of Poets & Writers with a very moving interview with Natasha Tretheway (whose mother was murdered when she was young). I had been a fan of Natasha Trethway’s work for a long time, but didn’t know this terrible tragedy in her past, which she is publishing about in a new memoir, Memorial Drive.  The night before my root canal, I had a ton of nervous energy, and put it into editing and reorganizing my book manuscript, which has been a finalist, but still hasn’t found a home. I haven’t recaptured that mental energy yet, but I hope to give an editing pass on my other book manuscript next week. I am taking C and Zinc in hopes of boosting my immune system in the meantime, and Glenn has been pureeing fresh cherries for me to eat.

Pileated Woodpecker with red flowers

Dickinson and Orlando

So, besides trying to take bird pictures while I was briefly awake every day this week, I tried to distract myself from the pain (I can’t take most pain medications, sadly) with the Apple TV series Dickinson – Emily Dickinson’s imagined life as a rebellious young woman, with a trip-hop soundtrack and a music-video aesthetic, complete with giant bee hallucinations, and caught the film of Virginia Woolf’s speculative novel of time-travel and crossing gender boundaries, Orlando, starring Tilda Swinton, which was beautiful and playful and very well done. I enjoyed Dickinson (especially a guest appearance by John Mulaney as a notoriously unhelpful Thoreau – spoiler alert: I never liked Thoreau) and it drove me to go back to finally finish the slow-and-scholarly book After Emily, a discussion of how Emily’s work eventually got published, by whom, and how it became famous. I’ve been making my way through Woolf’s work in the last year, so watching Orlando fit right into to my reading agenda. Both shows make the point of how difficult it was in each time period to become a woman writer with respect and a following. The more things change…the more they stay the same?

roses and perched hummingbird

And in Depressing News…Rising Numbers of Coronavirus

And in depressing news, there’s been a big uptick in coronavirus cases across the US, with especially hard hit areas like California, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona. If we hoped warm weather would slow down coronavirus’ spread, we would be disappointed. The numbers show that increased restaurant spending correlates to higher rates of coronavirus, so states opening up too soon, people being impatient to get out and get back to normal and socialize, is leading to sad and deadly results. ICUs are overwhelmed, but people are still – still! – complaining about wearing asks in order to not kill the people around them. I wondered aloud what would have happened to America if we hadn’t shut down at all, but had a federal mandate to wear masks, and a (prepared, ahem) federal government that provided effective masks for free to everyone in America. Would we have had fewer than 150,000 deaths by now? My academic friends are nervous about schools re-opening in the fall, and this humor article by my friend Juliana Gray pretty much covers the logic there. Meanwhile, I need to be looking for more wishing fish and monkey feet.

So through bars, and restaurants, and birthday parties, coronavirus is spreading across America, taking advantage of the fact that Americans are bad at: washing their hands, social distancing, and wearing masks. John Stewart, on an appearance on Colbert’s night show, said that was exactly the same advice that we were given during the 1918 flu, too, and we are failing in exactly the same way. That flu killed upwards of 600,000 people the US in 1918. The more things change, the more they stay the same? I hope not.

Good news? Cute bird/pet pictures? Please feel free to post anything cheering, healing, immune-boosting in the comments.