The Ides of March

A scene from the new normal. Rocco needed one of his yearly injections. Setting up the appointment was just like normal but I had to call from the parking lot when I arrived. Then I walked him to the door and handed him over to the tech. They called me for payment and the tech walked him back outside. No non clinic people allowed in the clinic.

And part of that makes sense. If you have a bunch of people milling around waiting to check in or check out, then you aren’t observing proper social distancing. I don’t know if they are also doing it to protect the staff but that would also make sense. I know that the focus is on people but having a pet at this time kind of makes life a little easier and you need to make sure you can deal with any pet health issues.

There is a part of me that is starting to feel like I should be doing more with my dancing. It looks like it will be at least another month before I can have an actual live lesson and a significant amount of rust could easily build up. The problem is that I really don’t want to. It might be different if I was moving towards some type of competitive goal but I’m not.

Ballroom for me is all about the feelings it stirs up inside. And you can’t replicate that without a partner. There is nothing like flying down the long side of a dance floor in a Viennese Waltz with the power and energy flowing back and forth between you. Yes, I could work on my part but so much of dancing is that dynamic between partners. The little adjustments you make based on what you feel or don’t feel. That would be missing.

On the other hand, it is going to be a long month and there’s a lot of time to kill so at least studying my notes and trying to practice a few things makes sense.

Since it also looks like we face at least another month without non essential services, my hair is going to get seriously out of control. I know in the grand scheme of things, this ranks about as low as you can get but I’m trying to keep some of this light and airy. I have weird hair. Once it gets beyond a certain length, it just starts doing all sorts of waves and curls and I’m too lazy to really deal with it. I hate to think what I’m going to look like in a month.

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I ended up injecting myself into a Facebook argument the other day. I’ve decided there is no longer any point to that. There are still people filled with anger and hate and looking to lash out and needing to blame someone for this. And then people on the other side find other stories and you get the “oh yeah but what about …”. None of that is helpful.

I don’t watch the news but I can’t help but see snippets of reactions. There were some who didn’t seem to like having all these corporation people speak about what they are doing at a press conference. Yes, some of that is certainly a PR boost for them. And, I am certainly cynical about a lot of corporate good will. On the other hand, if it helps, what’s the problem. Why can’t we all just focus on solutions instead of retreating to our political camps and throwing things at each other? If some guy who does infomercials about a pillow is willing to have his people start making masks, isn’t that a good thing? Don’t we need masks? Should we turn them down just because of what he sells or, even worse, his political affiliation?

But I’ll get off that topic because it is depressing. I will say that even though I’m cynical, I still like the fact that a lot of companies are putting out “we’re in this together” themed ads. I know it is an attempt to play on my emotions and it sort of works. Look, if they are trying to make the situation better, then good on them. If it helps get them some better PR, then so be it. It will take a lot to get us through this and then to get things back to some kind of “normal”.

That’s all I’ve got for today. I’ll be honest, keeping this up is a little difficult because talking about random details of my life seems silly with so much going on. But I’ve also got a lot of free time on my hands and this in some small way is my connection to the world. I can just imagine people in their own isolation reading this and then things don’t feel as socially distant.