my careless contagion

I started this blog two-plus years ago to deal with the emotional fallout of my divorce. I named it My Careless Contagion because I felt I infected those around me with sadness. But I want to talk about a contagion of a different sort in this post. For months, I have stayed silent while the specter of coronavirus has cast a long shadow over our planet. What follows are my opinions only, though I have followed this disease closely since the beginning.   Pandemics have routinely ravaged the planet, killing millions and rearranging civilization in their wake. At this moment, people are referencing the Spanish Flu which killed an estimated 50-100 million people 100 years ago. The fact that we don't know how many actually died is not inconsistent with pandemics, as bodies are normally disposed of in haste and if whole villages die, who is left to count the dead? Satellite images of mass graves laced with lime in Iran have hammered this point home. Are they counting the dead or ju...

Sometimes I think I'm going out of my mind, but I tell myself I'm doing just fine. There are so many people hurting in this world; who am I to complain?  I used to blow through my day, drink beer, have sex, fall asleep, and do it again the next day. My line was always, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." I lived hard. I was brutal. I was mean. Who was harder than me? I was like a diamond phallus cutting holes in the sky, scraping big F-offs in the pristine, white clouds. I didn't just burn my candle at both ends, I broke the candle in half and lit both ends of the halves. My goal, it seemed, was to rampage through a short but chaotic life. I chose my chemicals, and then my chemicals chose me.   Something told me I had to change. I kept hearing that voice. My reply was always, "I'm doing just fine." When I blew out my knee, I made like it was nothing at all. When I stopped sleeping altogether, I started to worry. When I would l...