03.26.21

i read a bunch of reviews of the movie we just watched (another round, a maybe touching and very unexpected exploration of middle age in denmark and other things that concludes with a legitimately spectacular mads mikkelsen dance scene) and eventually got to one with a preface: the writer saw a screener of the film at home and i, the review reader, should think long and hard about whether or not seeing the film in the theater is right for me. what is right for me?

joe got his first and only COVID vaccine shot last weekend and i got my first the weekend before that,* so it's conceivable that we might be seeing movies in the theater before the end of april! i don't yet know how i feel about taking off my mask in mixed company yet; that's something i would want to do if we went to nitehawk, our forever local in williamsburg, but i might need to know that anyone who would bring me a cocktail or popcorn has little or no chance of suffering because they've interacted with me before i think about something like that. will we get to a point where businesses let us know if their workers are vaccinated? will we get to a point where i let those workers know that i'm vaccinated? i consider a scenario in which our apartment complex opens the exercise room back up for people who can demonstrate that they're unlikely to infect one another — some of us paying monthly dues again would be revenue for the building, and maybe it would be enough to justify the building staff going in to clean every once in a while? maybe we could agree to not care if they didn't clean and we could just work our challenges out on filthy recumbent bikes and the one rowing machine? — and then i think about the blood rage that descends on my neighbors when they differ on radio volume or how many ceiling-mounted televisions are tuned to fox news versus like matlock and i know that we won't return to normalcy in half-measures.

i was on a walk along the waterfront last week when a squirrel perked up on its haunches in the way that indicates it's one of the ones that's gotten used to snacks from people walking in the park. one shouldn't feed squirrels in the park or anywhere, what we tend to give them is much less nutritious than what they'd find on their own and they're perfectly capable of foraging, moreover we shouldn't teach them to approach humans for food, but i am a rotten woman and i had the tail end of a bag of walnut chunks in my pocket for just such an occasion. high on the prospect of interacting with a creature i didn't know, i dug into my bag, gave myself a thorough incidental coating of nut dust, and offered a cupped handful of food, six inches from the ground. the squirrel, a squirrel, ventured up and bit my middle finger without malice. "oh, buddy! no, not that." i dumped my nuts on the ground and he figured it out.

there is no record of anyone catching rabies from a squirrel in the united states, per my research; some speculate that they are so small that if a rabid animal bites them, the vast likelihood is that they'll die long before they're able to infect another creature. my finger bled a drop, but the puncture wasn't deep, because: squirrel. the whole incident was comforting, honestly; i haven't been to the wildlife hospital in more than a year, and steve's the only creature biting me these days. he's beyond walnuts.

*i still haven't figured out how to feel about this. my freakish blood pressure qualified me for vaccination here in new york a while ago, but i didn't feel comfortable signing up for an appointment because my condition was managed with meds, which meant i didn't really have a comorbidity at all, so. then a checkup revealed that my prescriptions weren't enough, my doctor advised me to go get a shot, and i did.