— I only shop wearing a mask and frantically wipe everything down, my cart and the self-checkout equipment, with one of my own wet wipes I carry into the store. I’m looking at everybody cautiously for who might move towards me, so I’m already moving away from them before they see me. I listen with a finely tuned ear for anything that sounds like a cough, sneeze, or even congestion. Why isn’t everybody wearing masks? We are crippled by our own stupidity to do what’s right, trying to halt this freight train of catastrophe. Everything we manage to ultimately do on the public stage takes too much time to make the right decisions, and then we only go halfway to getting to an objective. Our vanity knows no bounds.
— In German, it’s called “Stosslueften” and is translated to “Shock Ventilation.” After watching a Japanese documentary about COVID-19 and the possibility that microparticles can remain in a room and distribute virus molecules to people who are present, the program recommended creating a draft in the room that would exchange fresh air. Stosslueften, also spelled Stoßlüftung, is one of those things in Germany that mothers tell their children is healthy for them as they fling open the windows on a winter day. It turns out that this is true, which makes me wonder how we’ll change the dynamic of sealed buildings where adults have to work and classrooms where children study.
— Washing dishes is a strange everyday chore that is now happening twice a day. Washing our hands so frequently in the kitchen after we come in has allowed the hot water to flow more frequently and so I grab the opportunity to fill a large bowl of hot soapy water and deal with the dishes before they stack up. Why not run them in the dishwasher? That stupid thing runs about an hour and feels like it uses 50 or more gallons of water. By hand washing our dishes, I think I might use 3-5 gallons of water at most, and as they drain in the sink to the left, Caroline will come over and finish drying them before putting them away. For those few minutes, we are doing something cooperative, and it gives us yet another opportunity to smile at each other in appreciation for the help offered. Regarding the dishwasher, I don’t think we’ve used one in over five years, probably longer.
— Here we are on the second day of April. I’m watching Arizona’s Governor Doug Ducey speaking to our state about his response to dealing with COVID-19, and what I heard was an indecisive man pandering to an electorate with a subpar level of education with pat answers that demonstrated zero insight on how to act on the public’s behalf. Relying on the CDC, which appears beholden to a president more concerned with control and self-image rather than individual lives, is the recipe to radically alter the fabric of the political glue that has worked for over 200 years here in the United States. While we cannot change our course in real-time and must rely on the leadership, as it is, for the foreseeable future, their failure will either be a catalyst for change or the capstone leading us to our demise.
— Couldn’t find yeast online, sold out everywhere. A local Walmart showed they had stock, but upon my arrival, there was none, and the guy trying to stock the section said he’d not seen any for a while. A visit to Albertsons didn’t produce results, nor did a stop at Safeway. On my way down the street, I was passing a Smart & Final and thought, why not? They had two 2-pound packages, and while that’s about 32 times more than we wanted, it was better than nothing. So, in addition to our shortages of toilet paper, sanitizing wipes, face masks, and other assorted goods, flour and yeast for making bread at home are in short supply. Is this pandemic seriously turning people into bread crafters?
— Regarding face masks and social distancing, supposedly, there are people in government who fear that if the general public is given instructions to start wearing masks, they’ll somehow give up their vigilance on maintaining safe distances between people. While I visited a number of stores today and felt better by wearing a mask, I had no interest in being near anybody as I trust no one to be mindful.
— Caroline brought up the idea of taking a drive this weekend as she’s not been away from our block for two weeks now, and it is a beautiful spring going on here right now in the desert of Arizona. I don’t think it’s a bad idea, as there are plenty of other people out and about driving to do whatever it is they have to do, but I’m a bit reluctant due to a big brother effect going on right now. Google is turning over the metadata about how people are adhering to the “Stay at home” recommendations. So, if we leave our phones at home, it’ll appear that we are where we’ve been for weeks now, but if I take my phone so we can call the Mexican joint up in Globe I want to visit so we can get some to-go food, Big Brother will know what we’ve been up to. On one hand, our traveling supports business as we’ll use gasoline and we’ll be giving money to a restaurant that is remaining open. On the other hand, how necessary is it to drive over 200 miles roundtrip for some really great Mexican food?
— We have a quarantine area in our place where deliveries and groceries are placed for three days. The photo above is our quarantined goods, which include corona beans (seriously, that’s what they are, and we just had to have corona beans during CoronaVirus2020), a shirt, gelatine sheets, flour, yeast, Dr. Squatch Soap, a headband, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder recommended by Lex Fridman, sugar, and a bunch of yarn. I wait for my Kermit MK3 to return from Scott to join the quarantine area before rejoining my Eurorack setup, but I’m reluctant to pester the guy to finish repairs and post it back to me; I sure do miss it though.
— Another weekend is upon us, and as is the routine, we’re up before daybreak. Caroline wakes shortly after me, and before long, we’re leaving for the first walk of the day. The sun is just coming over the McDowell Mountains as we step out to another beautiful day. Today, I’m 1,095 days away from turning 60, and on this occasion of recognizing the day of my birth, I look back at the year that was and am happy about what I had the good fortune to share with my best friend, Caroline. Eleven months ago, I left for Europe early as I was dipping into Berlin to visit Superbooth and a couple of other places before meeting up with Caroline in Frankfurt and then heading into the Balkans for some whitewater rafting. We weren’t home long before the two of us drove down to Bisbee, Arizona, where Caroline was attending a spinning retreat, spinning as in making yarn. A week later, our niece came in for her first visit to Arizona. Over the three weeks she spent with us, we took her to various Native American areas in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, up to the Grand Canyon, horseback riding in Sedona, out to visit with the Salt River horses, and various museums and gardens so she could get a sense of the Desert Southwest. A quick trip for Caroline and me after Katharina returned to Germany took us to Los Angeles to visit with Itay, Rotem, and their new son Liam before I returned to Southern California on my own to dogwatch a friend’s pet in San Diego while he and his girlfriend went to Sweden for a dozen days. A stand-out concert took place in September as the sonic overlord’s Sunn O)))) pummeled us. A year without the obligatory visit to Oregon wouldn’t have been complete, so just before Thanksgiving, we once again found ourselves melting in the beauty of the Oregon Coast for nine full days. The New Year started up in Winslow, Arizona, as we finally got it together to spend a couple of days at La Posada. Barely two weeks later, we were waking up in Duncan, Arizona, near the New Mexico border, to go out and watch the sandhill cranes fly along the Gila River. Those were just some of the highlights of my 56th year on Earth.
— Speaking about my years, Caroline and I have been in love for 31 years or 11,249 days. This also equals 971,913,600 seconds or 16,198,560 minutes, which could also be seen as 1,607 weeks, but my favorite way to see the time we’ve shared together is in the measure of telling one another, “I love you.” I’m guessing that we share the words I love you at least ten times a day, sometimes 20, and maybe even 30 times on occasion. So, working from an average of saying I love you 20 times a day, Caroline has probably told me close to a quarter-million times or about 224,980 times, and I her, a similar number of times. I’ve not heard a song that often or maybe any sound or words as frequently as this utterance of I love you. Mind you, those sweet words were quite often accompanied by a kiss, hug, or combination of the two, so the embrace of love is now seared into my experiential box of treasures.
— Also, from that box emerges handmade socks. This pair is from yarn we picked up in Coos Bay, Oregon, last year; they will be my COVID-19 socks.
— Ah yes, the opportunity to allow our focus to gaze far into the distance is indeed good for mental health. We drove out to Superior before turning south to Winkleman and then back north to Globe. The desert is spectacular and vibrant, with colors that speak volumes to anyone’s sensitivity to allergies. There were far more people out doing just what we were than I’d expected, and sadly, bikers and off-roaders obviously couldn’t care less about social distancing. Maybe the best part of the morning into the afternoon was our stop to pick up some chile relleno and enchiladas with a side of chips, salsa, and guacamole at Guayo’s on the Trail which turns out to be the sister restaurant to Guayo’s El Rey. Sitting in the car and getting into some tortilla chips before opening up our Mexican lunch was such an incredible treat, making this one of my best birthdays ever.
— I need to post three days’ worth of Stay In The Magic today as I fell out of that boat. It’s not particularly difficult; it’s just tedious. After 8-years away from the book, I still find it cumbersome to return to it as I fret over what I wrote and how worthy it might be of actually having any need to have been said. This brings me around to the imposter’s syndrome phenomenon, where the creator of something questions the utility, inspiration, or value of the thing they’ve created.
— Another day, another slog of information regarding COVID-19. To counteract the negative, Caroline and I made a donation to the Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief and their GoFundMe page.
— I’ve not brought up my Surface Book in a few weeks as it was the computer I dragged out to coffee shops so I could work away from home. I need to update some firmware for my 16n Faderbank (synth stuff) this morning; I see that my notebook is in a kind of suspended animation. What stood out to me was a page I’ve been monitoring for a month now that has been following the statistics of the sick and dead as that relates to COVID-19. The page still in my browser is from March 13 and shows only 1,776 confirmed cases and 41 deaths, and for Arizona, we had 9 cases and zero deaths. Strange how, at that time, just before Caroline and I started to self-isolate, New York had 328 cases and zero deaths. Today, on April 6th, we stand at 338,412 people reported to have the virus and have seen 9,692 deaths, while in Arizona, we’ve jumped to 2,269 cases and 64 deaths. Twenty-four days after that browser stopped updating, New York has seen over 4,000 deaths from this coronavirus. What I don’t want to forget is that back on March 13th, our president, Donald Trump, and his lackeys at Fox News were still portraying the pandemic as something that was contained and not a threat to the people of the United States. San Francisco was the first city in America to issue a “Shelter in place” directive, but that was still three days away back then, and some majority of Americans believed our president and right-wing media that all was good in the heartland.
— Walking in the fresh air. Gyms are closed, and with that, I was certain that I’d see an increase in walkers and bikers due to so many people being at home. Besides the initial pop in people in our neighborhood that happened when the stay-at-home directions were given, there have been no further increases. Sad, although nice for me, I suppose. I’m out walking between 2 and 3 hours per day, so my time out there should encounter others at some part of the walk, but from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., there is nothing out of the new ordinary. Since March 14th, when we started to self-isolate, I’ve logged 191 miles or 310 kilometers. These 24 days without many airplanes, nearly nothing regarding pollution, and the increased quiet will likely be difficult to keep in memory once these days have passed. While this is all a far cry from the solitude found in the middle of the Grand Canyon or in Yellowstone during the winter, this is the modern metropolis version of peace and quiet. How fleeting it might be and sad that it may never again be experienced.
— Those of us lucky enough to be in love with knowledge seeping into our minds know the pleasures of encountering the frustrating moments when reading or doing something and being uncertain if we have comprehended what our eyes are finding. We attempt to decipher the series of words or tasks that are assemblages of a long history of thought and doing that has been shared and brought forward over the breadth of human history, it is nearly incomprehensible as to exactly how that effort has been accomplished. To read a book is not as simple as reading the author’s musings as those words have a long lineage of usage that has taken on cultural meaning and nuance while the string of images conjured by the sentences is a kind of amalgamation of bits and pieces of meaning and imagery that long precede any particular writer attempting to bring forth meaning in their work. When this works, we move knowledge out of the recent archaic, which might only be the last day, week, or year, into our present until we figure out a way to share our new knowledge with the next person who may be the recipient of what we’ve learned.
— My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk – John Keats.
— If we can’t let the earth and various creatures of the planet breathe, the Earth will choke us out. It seems ironic that COVID-19 has its victims unable to get a deep breath, forcing them to feel the anguish of a tuna dragged from the sea or a bird trying to raise a brood in heavy smog where the poor air might take the life of its offspring. I know we are not supposed to believe that the world has intentions of its own that would allow it to seek revenge against the species that is causing so much damage, but then some believe in a God that makes decisions on spiritual worthiness affecting the soul of a person for eternity. While both lines of thought are kind of crazy, one is accepted as popular dogma, while the idea of anthropomorphizing a hunk of rock and water would be ludicrous. But again, giving human attributes to pets is, on some level, perfectly normal, and shaming someone for doing so would be considered rude. Okay, then the Earth is alive and imbued with the spirit of Gaia, because why not? It is angry and needs to rattle our sense of complacency when destroying our host. It sees us as the virus. This is in no way a new concept as I think it was Terrence McKenna whom I first heard some 25-30 years ago posit this New Age idea that I found strange at the time, but now I’m not so certain that it’s wrong.
— At this moment, nearly all flights have stopped, so upper atmosphere pollution is falling rapidly. Cruise ships and a large percentage of cars have been halted. The earth is taking a breather. Funny how people who practice yoga claim to understand the need for deep cleansing breaths and will then turn around, jump into their SUV, and take their children to school a mile or two away. Yet we insist on our convenience being an apex need and that any sacrifice asked of us is akin to communism; what’s next, taking away our guns? What a petulant superstitious society of idiots we are. We brought our thinking out of the dark and middle ages and decided our weird belief systems had a place in a modern age where an electronically driven metal box can freeze fresh food for months on end while voices and images can be beamed around the globe in real-time. To NOT understand our place and demand personal intellectual accountability is truly a mark of the idiocy we are comfortable with. If only we could stop and seriously think about these absurd ideas that praying to an entity none of us knows or has seen will bring about a miracle of something never before recorded or documented in any meaningful way. Or consider that when we look at a dog and want to infer when we think it’s happy as though we can read the feelings of another species while taking the lives of each other and countless other species we don’t much care about, we are a twisted and crazy species that has little self-recognition of our own mental illness.
From out the dust of Earth, our lives take form, and upon its surface, we grow as though in a womb, and yet we take no issue in stabbing, shitting upon, bleeding, and gassing our planet, which would make a better stand-in for a God than the one who gives nothing.
— Clearer skies, quieter world, the surface of our land is not vibrating as it had been. I don’t know how scientists will measure all of these effects and the ones we are as of yet unaware of, but I hope that we learn a lot more about how our activity, or lack of it has worked to do positive things. Never before in the Industrial Age has human activity across the globe come to a simultaneous halt; there must be larger implications.
— Thirteen years ago, Caroline and I were leaving Ocracoke Island in North Carolina and driving north once we were back on the mainland. Getting hungry, we stopped at the Mackeys Ferry Peanuts store and bought more boiled peanuts. Back on February 25th of this year, I was updating some old blog entries, and I came across the story about our stop out there in the woods and decided it was a great time to order 10 pounds of raw peanuts from the same place if they were still open, they were. We are in the process of finishing the first 5 pounds, with some of them having been roasted while more than half have been boiled. The other 5 pounds are in the fridge where they need to be and will likely start finding their way into our crockpot over the coming weeks. So, while we can’t travel right now, we are still able to take ourselves into the memories of places we’ve visited and kind of relive our time there through the tastes of things we enjoyed while out on the road.
— Why it took us a month to buy a folding desk so I could set it up outside on the balcony is a mystery. This is such an obvious need now that it’s here. It’s springtime, the breeze is cool, and the sky is blue with fluffy little clouds whispering across the sky while the birds sing out their orchestra of celebration that seems to recognize they have a new kind of freedom. To the neighbor with the wind chime, thank you for positioning it at the perfect distance from us so it adds a sweet accompaniment to the ambiance I’m enjoying on this perfect day.
