The unhappy anniversary

I’ve been listening to Fiona Apple’s “Fetch The Bolt Cutters,” so hit play to join the mood if you want to. Also, there’s no culture diary this time. This is what those in the business call “a very special episode.”

They say body cells refresh every seven to 10 years, which is part of why I call seven years “a lifetime,” but COVID-19’s first five years were their own lifetime. Yes, if you didn’t realize or didn’t hear, Tuesday, March 11th 2025 marked the five-year anniversary of the day COVID-19 began to truly rearrange the world’s particles.

This is how I remember March 11th, 2020:

1. My old job sent us to work from home, a thing that only one member of our team regularly did, because he lives in the Oakland area and we were in New York City.

2. I packed my work monitor and essentials into a cab that zoomed home.

3. I set up my home office that would more or less stay the same until the summer of 2023.

4. I mistook hand soap for face wash in a rushed moment.

5. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were diagnosed with COVID, meaning even the rich celebrities who didn’t make a ton of public appearances could get it.

6. Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert, full of hubris where his brains should have been, groped the microphones at a socially-distanced press conference, and later was found to also have COVID.

7. Everything at the dead of night seemed cold, but I had my friends in various group chats. I don’t know if we’d gone to Discord yet, but we would.

And then, it all slowly pivoted to DIY masking and social distancing for all. Pots and pans banged upon for the hospital workers. Blame thrown everywhere. The CDC botching so hard you’d think they were The Shockmaster.

Five years later, I sit here only having had COVID once (that I’m aware of). It sucked. But I got smarter about masking, didn’t unmask at a standup comedy show* again, and I just mask a lot. I don’t love doing it, but it works for me.

I think of the COVID-19 pandemic as proof of the best and worst of us all. On the upside, vaccines were found and some lucky few people can act like they’re in 2019. On the downside, the failures enlarged the existing fissures both amongst civilians and between the people and their leadership.

To put a number on it, at least 7 million people have died from COVID. Many more people have suffered and will continue to, and those trying to do anything these days to mitigate things get treated like they’re morons by the least thoughtful members of society. Do I sound aggrieved? Well, I was most recently by the people who say they can’t hear me through my face mask when we all know good and well that I’ve never had a tough time with speaking loudly enough.

Yes, I’m god damn tired

I’m tired of people acting like things can’t and won’t happen to them, because of the belief that everything works out in the end.

I’m tired of the increasing “I’m just here for me and I don’t care about others” mentality that has people unaware of how other communities feel betrayed. Empathy didn’t die its first death during COVID; there wasn’t a whole lot of communal sensibility in 2019. But holy hell did empathy lose a few more lives during these last five years. I’m even worried my own empathy has eroded when my patience wears thin.

I’m tired of the fact that you and your family need to be affected before you realize things are truly bad. The ignorance of the isolated, if you will. I’m tired of how some people don’t know a single trans person, and don’t care to meet them. I’m tired of the lack of a general strike.

Right now, it doesn’t feel that alarmist to suggest that America is basically creating a situation where another pandemic could thrive. Vaccine, for example, feels like it’s about to join the list of banned words. The actual CDC is launching a study connecting vaccines and autism, because unfounded conspiracy theories became mainstream. Fortunately, the H5N1 bird flu doesn’t seem to be easily transmissible between humans — though that sentiment could fall apart if it mutates. The anti-science brigade is even going after Habitat For Humanity and other climate change-targeting organizations. It all makes you want to contract inwards.

But, as I’ve written before, living in whatifsville is basically life paralysis. At the same time, I can’t help but shudder when I think about how Long COVID broke lives, and how fear of Long COVID does similar damage.

So, what to do?

While people being weird to me about masking upsets me in the moment, I will continue to exhale that frustration and move on. And try and improve the situations I’m in.

Something I’ve noticed recently — and I get it if this is obvious — is that people really appreciate compliments about their outfits. In particular, folks love those “I love your hat!” or “your shirt’s amazing” compliments when you’re walking right past them, and not actually starting a conversation. And in those moments, when masked, I feel like I’m redefining what the average masked person can be in public. For the most part, the masked folks you encounter keep to themselves, and they’re quiet. We’re seen as judgmental, and I get it.

I know masking in 2025 confuses some, and I’m OK with that. I am the only person in my local social circles or at the office who masks regularly. But all of those people know me and what I stand for, and we get along. Maybe I can do my part to make maskers seem less hostile and angry, even though some of those frustrations aren’t going away. It shouldn’t be on the masked to improve the social connections between us that the unmasked, but why not try?

I will still mask indoors and in crowded spaces when I can, and I will continue to take breaks to consume food or beverages if it seems like a low risk. That’s the best way I can live. Hopefully the next five years will be better, but I don’t know where we’re pulling that miracle out of.

Thank you for reading

* I’m pretty sure I know where I got COVID. It was a fun night, though.