We Go Way Back

The last couple of days I've spent with my head in my hands. I haven't been murdered or anything, it was still attached at the neck when I was doing it. I was pondering is all. Like, I don't mind saying out loud that I'm pretty good at writing. It sounds braggadocious, but a) I'm not saying I'm the best at writing,* just a standard deviation or so above the mean and b) genetics keeps me humble by making me bad at other stuff, so it all evens out. My jump shot is pretty inconsistent. And, really, jumping, full stop. As in "when I jump, it looks like I've come to a full stop."

I'm also bad at math. Not just arithmetical figuring, but mathematical concepts and organizational sets. That thing I said before about standard deviation above the mean? I had to look that up before I wrote it. I still don't know what it means,** but I think I contexted it enough to make it read. And see, that's what I'm saying about writing, I can pseudo-explain lots of shit that I do not at all understand. I have a graduate-level degree. In a humanities discipline. I got possibly the best state-run tertiary educational system in the whole world to officially attest to my proficiency at perfuming up some bullshit. It has absolutely no monetizable value. Less maybe than zero as I know people for whom it costs to ply their writerly trade. But again, quantifying it all involves numbers and such and suddenly I can't feel several of my fingers.

But look, here you are reading this blog I've been doing for 15 years for free. You're already up to speed on a lot of the dynamics at play here, existential and professional.

What I can't really figure out is: if quarantine/shutdown/shelter in place was a good idea in March, why in mid-May when the trend lines (in the areas around where I live and nearly everywhere else that is not New York) are at best flat, if not still creeping upwards, is it a good idea now to do the opposite? This is not sarcasm or some probing rhetorical jab setting you up for the sweeping right hand of sardonic Truth. I'm covering up here. This is me turtling.

I'm missing something, I have to be. There are complexities and modalities that both elude and confound my inadequate capacities here, I get that. But on the other hand, it's just a line plotted from points on a graph. Up is more, down is less... I think I get it. But I have the self-awareness to recognize I have to be wrong.

Sure, I want to get a haircut eventually, but is the risk now actually less? I guess what I'm saying is I've cut up a lot of T-shirts. Honor the sacrifice. Be sure.

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The prolific and gifted film and television director Lynn Shelton died suddenly this past week. You may not know her name, but you've almost certainly seen some of the work she's done. The features were small, but the TV projects weren't really. It's one of those losses that hits out of nowhere, not like Jerry Stiller or Fred Willard, both sad but guys at an age where shit like that isn't a total shock. She had a lot more left to do. This is someone who came to it late, didn't make her first feature until she was 39 and died at 54. Watch her latest feature. I haven't seen it, so this is not a recommendation, I've just seen a lot of her other work, so I have total faith. It's on the list for the weekend. It'll be something we can say we did together.

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*I mean, you can if you want...

**Repeating the same word with a slightly different meaning is not a pun, no fucking groaning, you.