118 Comments

I am back into preventative measures. masking in public, staying home when ever possible. when folks call me an alarmist I tell them that I have trust issues and people are nasty so leave me alone.

Expand full comment

LOL, I'm stealing that and crediting you should anyone reasonable ask about it reasonably!

Expand full comment

The line I use is I am an extreme introvert and it’s too peoply out there.

Expand full comment

Lol! A good friend and I were just discussing this today. She says she doesn't think of it as "quarantine" because she has a lot to do and doesn't require company to do it!

Expand full comment

Ellen, I really am an introvert who had jobs that made me act as if I were an extrovert. Once I retired, basically gave up acting! Being alone with my little dogs is my idea of fun. The quarantine was NO PROBLEM for me!

Expand full comment

Somehow that gives the idea of a t-shirt to confuse peoply people:

"Please Do Not Aggravate Me,

I'm an Agoraphobiac!

Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk"

Expand full comment

Lucian,

Since i was old when Covid showed up (i just turned 83,)

I had three Covid related shots as soon as each was available. .

After the 3rd shot i got Covid.

Was tough 3 days. Kinda tough 2 days and was pretty much gone by 9 days.

I guess the shots did thei job and kept me from being Ventilated

So,

Lots of fluids but water wihout Forever Chemicals.

Expand full comment

Still more sage advice on here, yes, select your water and/or use purified water system for household use if at all possible! Thanks!

Expand full comment

Hope you're both better soon.! Selfishly I'm missing your insights, as I'm sure many others are too.

Expand full comment

I’m so sorry you and Tracy are still suffering. When I saw your headline, I was hoping that the “downhill slope” was about Trump, not you.

Expand full comment

Vladonald Trumpski, aka "Herr Gropenfuehrer," aka "Too Many Creative Epithets to List Because Trump," is hurtling down a slope as steep as any in the most demanding Winter Olympics sking, luge, or bobsled events, or on the international tours for same, and unlike James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (The novel, not the film so much) Trumpski has NO PLAN at all, at least, none with any finesse and guts behind it, just the by now familiar craven, self-destructive, miserably delusional gibberish his OWN ATTORNEYS find bizarre and requiring constant admonitions! A hearty Hip Hip Hooray! for that, anyhow.

Expand full comment

Trump doesn't have any guts to downhill ski, not even enough for the "bunny slope."

Expand full comment

I'm thinking of him as a bloated, dissolute arch-criminal on his last go round, trying to sabotage the ski slopes, might kill the "wrong people" and not 007, but so what, sez Trumpski!

Note: Sometime on some more salubrious comment thread, and specifically about Norman Mailer's fictionalized version of Oswald, or at least starting from that, a novel I read in amazement at the plethora of documentable distortions, for one thing, despite enjoying - if that's the word for it considering the Guadalcanal WW2 ferocious, miserable combat setting, maybe :"appreciated and was deeply moved by" is more like it - The Naked and the Dead, also Miami and the Siege of Chicago and various articles, etc., no bias at all against his writing - anyway, I want to engage with you a bit about the Oswald book, only not on a thread like this...maybe I will go ahead (already seriously considering it anyway) and start my own Substack blog, free for all to read and comment for probably several months (I mean, who knows how many people would read it at all, right?!), where we can discuss the merits and drawbacks of a book like that - taking a notorious historical figure, then researching until satisfied "I have enough material to handle this now," then plunging in to "fictionalize a plausible novelistic character" based on that person. Mailer, again, I like ( his writing, not the the second-hand version of his ego issues and alleged godawful treatment of some wives and "paramours," - when his writing is overcome by the ego and sexism, the remedy is to read something else!

Expand full comment

I looked up "Oswald's Tale" on Amazon: 1995, 885 pages. Mailer could certainly write at length.

My copy of it, along with a ton of my other books, was given away during my 3rd or 4th downsizing. I also really like my Kindles, and I can't imagine myself anymore toting around anything more than 300 pages. When I finally downsize to a closet in a Senior facility, I will have my Kindle, a few cases of rum, and...

In any case, I remember key things about that book.

Anyone can always (eventually) reach me at SmartStaff@sbcglobal.net

Expand full comment

Excellent, this promises to be interesting irrespective of how any disagreements about that one book (very entertaining but as I maintain, seriously off the mark in important ways) turn out!

Expand full comment

good advice. with Mailer, it's much too easy to get in those weeds and become "second-hand" (nice way to put it!) pissed off at HIM, which is about as pointless as anything I can think of. more and more, I'm finding myself thinking that his best WRITING (that is, his most brilliant PROSE) is in "Armies of the Night." but it's also possible that I'm overly sentimental about that particular occasion, at which it was impossible not to think that one was "in the middle of HISTORY" or something.

Expand full comment

But what about Stephen Miller

Expand full comment

Yeah, what about Stephen Miller...

Expand full comment

shit, do I REALLY HAVE TO think about Stephen Miller??

and you two need to start feeling better, awreddy.

Expand full comment

ROFLMAO - I had almost "forgotten" about that...arrrgh.

You are absolutely right, we have a fine morning here in the Twin Cities with much better air quality, and I need to get outdoors and also t.c.o.b. !

Expand full comment

i thought my lapses in time had increased and that ski season had started.

seriously.

good i guess

Expand full comment

I hope you get better soon. I am, apparently, one of the lucky ones who has not had Covid. I live in a very rural area and spend most of my time outside on my farm. Groceries I pick up at curbside and order a lot of necessities online. TN was hit really hard at the height of the pandemic and I became used to not mixing and mingling much. As a former healthcare (MRI) worker, I take all the precautions I can to avoid an infection. Take care!

Expand full comment

Lucian and Tracy, wishing you a speedy and easy recovery from this point forward. Sounds like a miserable experience, and my heart goes out to you.

Recently, I had the RSV, pneumococcal, and flu shots, all at the same time. The only reaction I got was sore arms for a day or so.

I’m fully up-to-date on all my Covid vaccines, and looking forward to the next one. Based on your experience, that next vaccination day can’t arrive too soon!

Here’s a note for you and your readers. I read just yesterday that Covid-vaccine efficacy is increased if you get it in the same arm each time. Apparently, since the immunity builds up quickly in the lymph nodes, it is good to put it there.

Hope this helps. Feel better soon!

Expand full comment

FYI re which arm: Most people, I believe, request the non-dominant arm, for obvious reasons.

(That would also be easy to remember.)

Expand full comment

Interesting, but I’ve always gotten shots in my left arm.

Expand full comment

I never thought about it before, but so do I. Huh.

Expand full comment

Sage advice from experience, always on the agenda, right? Thanks!

Expand full comment

Yikes, David!! Triple whammy!

Had the pneumococcal shot earlier in the year and had the booster a few months back. Getting ready for all of the new vaccines coming our way. Old folks sure are getting shot up a lot these days! Will space mine out as I had a mastectomy 13 years ago where they took all of my lymph nodes under my right arm. The left arm is the only place where I can get the shots. Oh well...

Expand full comment

Hi Lucien. Stand, or lie down STRONG.

Yes, I wear a mask anytime I'm in a store or restaurant. I'm almost 78. Can't afford to get Covid or the RSV thing at my age, especially with COPD.

WE are preparing for the storm here in Los Angeles assuming we lose power almost for sure. My camping gear is coming in handy.

Take care dear Truscott family.

Ann Bose

Expand full comment

You take care as well. Stay dry.

Expand full comment

Covid is still with us and it is still deadly to the wrong unfortunate person who gets it. I have a short cautionary tale....

We hosted a family reunion this past weekend and got a horrible scare. Not two days passed after the day of the reunion before we got a call from the family organizer telling us that she got a call from a branch of the family that had attended even though they had what they thought were colds.

Yeah, they didn't have colds, they had covid. Now, I and my partner are in our early 70's and relatively robust, but a majority of the family members are even older than we are, and are NOT robust...worse yet, the next day after the reunion, we attended a gathering of senior college members and could have exposed 20 or more other older people.

I was furious. A (private) rant...a panic attack, thinking of the potential numbers of people we might have exposed...and two negative tests later with no fever and no symptoms, I finally regained some calm. The family "with colds" apparently gave the idea of a potentially more serious infection nary a thought. Well, I am likely preaching to the choir, but I BEG folks--if you don't feel well--STAY HOME!!!! You do not want to be the vector of this virus!!! You do not want to have to make the call that will result in a cascade of more calls, breaking the extremely unwelcome news! Witnesws the week of misery that Mr. and Mrs. Truscott have had to weather and take hold and practice CAUTION and PRUDENCE!!!!

Expand full comment

I have a pet peeve that has bothered me for years, on the same note as NOT ‘colds’! I’m sick to death of people who are coughing, sneezing, hacking, wiping their nose and eyes (often with their hands) and saying that they have ‘allergies’. WTF is wrong with these people? What makes people think they are entitled to wander around with anything slightly ‘cold-ish’ after going through Covid and having RSV and flus to deal with too?

Expand full comment

Not only that: with no tissue, or even a sturdy paper towel suitably divided, ready to help, NOTHING!

Expand full comment

Get better soon.

Expand full comment

Bon courage

Expand full comment

Thanks for the update. It's way better than any PSA.

Expand full comment

I'm planning on getting the new covid booster and flu shot as soon as available. Like you, I read it is better to wait at least a couple of weeks to get the RSV vaccine. I'm also scheduled to get my second pneumonia vaccine during my annual physical in October. I really do not understand the anti-vaxers. I'm so grateful that there is protection available for infections that would most likely out me in the hospital. I hope covid lets you and Tracy out of its grip soon.

Expand full comment

Just a shout out for shingles vaccine too. Hope you and Tracy feel better soon!

Expand full comment

Rest, relax, pet kittens, eat ice cream, pet Ruby, sleep, watch silly tv programs, rest. Get well in your own time.

Expand full comment

Get well soon! Your fans need you!

Expand full comment

Thanks for the solid advice and hope you and Tracy recover soon! Not the time to be laissez-faire about vaccines, that’s for sure!

Expand full comment