I went to See’s Candies yesterday to buy a box of chocolates to thank the nurses and doctors who recently saved me from the angel of death. The Covid safety mandate change to masks being optional have not changed the behavior of the majority of the population where I live, where most people are still wearing them. Those who aren’t are those who either refused to wear them during the most restrictive times or wore them around their necks or hanging from their ears as some kind of statement of virility or whatever. So, at the candy store, it wasn’t surprising that of the cluster of customers and three staff, only one person wasn’t wearing one. Of the same gender and color as you can imagine. But it still made me mad. (I’m immune compromised and get sick for several weeks even if only a cold has come to visit.)
         Outside the store, observing an older-than-me woman as protected against the elements as I was and coming out fully N95 masked, I said, “Can I tell you a joke?” ignoring the smoke signals of her non-response.
         “How many (gender + color) does it take to put on a mask?"
         She shook her head, taking off her mask and grumbling as she walked away, “I don’t get involved” or something to that effect. She then sat on a bench, unfolded the lid of her small white paper bag and ate her solitary piece of chocolate.

Elon Musk launched a rocket seven years ago and now it’s no longer needed, so it will be crashing into the moon, leaving a crater. If you have or haven’t seen the movie “Don’t Look Up”, you’ll know that this superstar of capitalism is looking for a place for he and his cronies to inhabit when our planet can no longer exist because of the damage of capitalism. The “rocket piece”, as it’s being called, is twelve meters long, the size of a school bus, and whizzing towards the moon at 5,600 miles per hour.

​Professor Jonathan McDowell of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard and Smithsonian (and we’ve all heard of Harvard, whose affiliated mention it within ten seconds of meeting) says, “It’ll be fine.” 

Quoted in Juan Villoro’s Horizontal Vertigo.

"[Guy de Maupassant] was one of the many intellectuals who opposed the building of that fantasy in iron [the Eiffel Tower]. When what is currently the symbol of Paris was completed, a friend was surprised to find Maupassant in the restaurant on top of the building. How was it possible that a declared enemy of the tower was there? Maupassant's response was irrefutable: "It's the only place where you can't see the Eiffel Tower."

​