Brin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brin_bellway) wrote2021-05-29 04:46 pm
brin_bellway) wrote2021-05-29 04:46 pm
New Year's Day and defence-in-depth
[cw: illness, (mild) food, (arguably) death]
Today marks one fortnight since my brother received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Everyone in my household has now had a dose kick in.
I've been thinking over, the past couple weeks, how to mark this occasion and what adjustments to make to my cost-benefit analyses going forward. This morning, I finally came to a decision.
Today, I willingly set foot in a restaurant for the first time since the pandemic started, and claimed the bagel voucher I've had since late 2019. But I wore my respirator while I did it.
---
What's the difference, then, if I'm still--in an important sense--never truly entering public airspaces?
Primarily, the difference is in my preferences regarding *other people's* exposure to public air. I've stopped boycotting falsely-essential restaurants. I've stopped wincing when my brother goes to work, or to the post office. My parents are considering returning to their delivery-driving gigs, and I will make no attempt to talk them out of it. While I'm still Chief Supply-Fetcher for the moment, we're gradually making my parents more directly involved in the process again: Mom went to the garden centre last week (or, well, she tried, turned out they'd already closed for the day), and during my last grocery trip I even texted Dad *asking* him to pop into the store and bring me the grocery bags. They're not risking life and limb themselves anymore, and a virus would have to break-through *twice* to reach me through them.
Secondarily, it would take less to convince me not to wear my respirator in a given situation. I'm going to keep wearing my respirator to work for a while *if my superiors don't try to stop me*, but I'm no longer willing to die on that hill. I'll probably wear a cloth mask for the energy audit (which we are now willing to do whenever they are; currently they are not): speech seems likely to be important there.
Today marks one fortnight since my brother received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Everyone in my household has now had a dose kick in.
I've been thinking over, the past couple weeks, how to mark this occasion and what adjustments to make to my cost-benefit analyses going forward. This morning, I finally came to a decision.
Today, I willingly set foot in a restaurant for the first time since the pandemic started, and claimed the bagel voucher I've had since late 2019. But I wore my respirator while I did it.
---
What's the difference, then, if I'm still--in an important sense--never truly entering public airspaces?
Primarily, the difference is in my preferences regarding *other people's* exposure to public air. I've stopped boycotting falsely-essential restaurants. I've stopped wincing when my brother goes to work, or to the post office. My parents are considering returning to their delivery-driving gigs, and I will make no attempt to talk them out of it. While I'm still Chief Supply-Fetcher for the moment, we're gradually making my parents more directly involved in the process again: Mom went to the garden centre last week (or, well, she tried, turned out they'd already closed for the day), and during my last grocery trip I even texted Dad *asking* him to pop into the store and bring me the grocery bags. They're not risking life and limb themselves anymore, and a virus would have to break-through *twice* to reach me through them.
Secondarily, it would take less to convince me not to wear my respirator in a given situation. I'm going to keep wearing my respirator to work for a while *if my superiors don't try to stop me*, but I'm no longer willing to die on that hill. I'll probably wear a cloth mask for the energy audit (which we are now willing to do whenever they are; currently they are not): speech seems likely to be important there.
no subject
It smelled faintly of respirator plastic, same as every other airspace. Working together, my civilisation has created the power to make a coffeeshop *not smell like coffee*.
We are as *gods*.
---
(Don't get me wrong, I do like the smell of coffee (even if I never drink it myself), but it's the *principle* of the thing.)
---
(They've stopped carrying all of my favourite bagel flavours--too unpopular for a reduced customer base to support?--but some of the ones they have left are okay too.)