Pandemic dreamin' on such a summer's day

Dream #1

Short version: I invited some people to stay at my place during lockdown, and they brought along a heretofore unknown chimpanzee.

Hilarity did not ensue.

In fact, I found myself saying stuff like,

"Of course I adore your monkey and I want him to be comfortable here but I just don't feel this is the best environment for him"

and ...

"No, I am not being uptight about this; it's just that I need to get some work done, and that's difficult to do with Bonzo swinging around the apartment all the time"

and ...

"I'm sorry, I assumed his name was Bonzo. No offense intended."

Dream #2

More Toronto freeway dreams. There has been more than one, but I can't recall the others at the moment. This time I was trying to dodge road crews, potholes, and bicycles (!) on the Gardiner Expressway.

In this dream, I had to periodically pull to the side of the roadway at some sort of weigh station or sentry booth. Then I had tell someone (the freeway gods?) a joke or funny story. Each time I tried to do so, however, someone just before me had told the same joke or had told a better joke, so I had to keep moving on. Author's note: I blame hashtag games of Twitter.

The big existential crisis of the dream was when I decided to stay on the Gardiner to get to my destination, somewhere northwest of the city, instead of taking a crosstown route to the 401 MacDonald-Cartier Freeway.

Author's note: Sadly, there is no crosstown route like this in Toronto. Quiet Flows the Don Valley Parkway does not count.

I don't know why, other than it being "the road not taken," but this decision caused me a great deal of anxiety. So much so that the anxiety woke me up.

Oh, and somewhere in the midst of this, I had to drive in reverse for several miles so that I could look through the contents of hundreds of Amazon boxes that had been spilled in the roadway.

At this point in the pandemic, my dreams are little more than thinly veiled yearnings for purpose, attention, guidance, road trips, and shopping.

Dream #3

Author's note: The US-Canada border has been closed to non-essential travel since late March; this is expected to continue until at least late August. Oddly, you can still fly to the US from Toronto's Pearson International Airport. (The commuter airport, Billy Bishop/Toronto Islands, appears to be completely shut down, save for the occasional traffic or weather helicopter.) But upon return from your travels, you are supposed to self-quarantine for 14 days until you're sure you're not sick with the 'rona.

I'm in the waiting area of a small commuter airport flying to a work-related conference in the USA. I'm really looking forward to the trip.

I'm carrying with me a small suitcase and my Mac desktop computer (27" monitor) under one arm (as one does, surely). No case for the Mac, just tucked under my arm and dragging it along to use while I'm at the conference. I suddenly realize I've brought it to the airport but forgotten the power cord, the speakers, the keyboard, the mouse, etc. However, I figure I'll sort it out and buy those when I get to my destination.

Suddenly my Mom and sister join me. They're going with me to the conference where we're going to meet my brother and his wife. We go to board at Gate 2, but the numbers are not sequential, 5, 7, 3, 1, 4, 6, 2, so it takes us a while to find the gate.

Instead of using a "jet bridge" to access the plane, we have to take a tram, which will carry us to the plane at midfield. Suddenly, one of my work colleagues shows up for the flight as well.

"I didn't know you were coming to this conference!"

"Yes, I am, but I don't have a place to stay."

Suddenly, I realize that my Mom and sister don't have hotel rooms either. "We'll figure it out when we get there," I say.

Finally, we are on the tram, and I open my suitcase, which is more like a briefcase or satchel. I look at my Mom in a panic. "I've forgotten my passport! I don't have my permanent residence card! I can't get on this flight. I can't get into the US without my passport and can't get back into Canada without my permanent residence card."

I stopped short of standing up, the shot panning out, and yelling, "I'm a man without a country!" but, give that the border is closed and there's no end in sight to all this meshugas, that is the subtext in my thinking these days.

I realized I would not "figure this out later," but I woke up before I had to take any action, such as bolting from the tram or, upon arrival in the US, proclaiming my ignorance when I got to Customs and Immigration. Surely I, an American citizen, does not need a passport to enter my own country when a Canadian driver's license should suffice as ID, I would say in my best Karen/Kyle imitation.

I'm an anxious traveler at the best of times--fine once on the plane, fine when I get to my destination, but getting ready to leave for the airport or leave the airport for the hotel, or home-train-hotel, or home-bus-hotel, or home-car-hotel, or everything in reverse, presents me with a host of unknowns that, frankly, puts me on the edge of a psychic abyss.

So forget two weeks of quarantine: The first trip anywhere after this pandemic is going to require my immediate hospitalization upon arrival for nervous exhaustion.

Smiles of a Bummer Night

Easy for you to smirk, you didn't spend your evening dragging
dead weight out of a movie theater. Persconferentie van de Zweedse
filmregiseur Ingmar Bergman in het Amstel Hotel te
Amsterdam. 10 oktober 1966, by Joost Evers/Anefo.
Courtesy of Nationaal Archief via Wikimedia Commons.
CC BY-SA 3.0.

Now reading: "(Swedish Angst) An Ingmar Bergman Movie for Every Quarantine Mood" by Rachel Handler, Vulture.com, 15 July 2020.

 

Despite the author's claims, personally, I'm not sure I'd recommend you watch these films under the current circumstances. Nonetheless, it's an interesting read, and I do rather like Persona, Wild Strawberries, and Fanny & Alexander. I'd like to watch The Silence again (at least I think I've seen it before) and a version of Smiles of a Summer Night in which all the saucy dialog hasn't been neglected by the subtitles. 

 

And I will always remember Cries & Whispers ... but for all the wrong reasons.

 

Once upon a time, when I used to live in Washington, D.C., I would volunteer at the Smithsonian Institution's many cultural events, especially film series. Back in the day, it was one way to see some interesting arthouse movies. This was early days when VCRs and home viewing were still fairly new. This was also early days when I had zero dollars in my bank account, so every little freebie helped, no matter how constraining.

 

So I volunteered at an Ingmar Bergman film festival where I got to watch (most of) various films--The Silence (again, at least I think), Smiles of a Summer Night (saucy dialog-less), Persona, Fanny & Alexander, and, most famously, Cries & Whispers.

 

It's not an easy watch--but then again, I really wouldn't know for sure. Why? Well, I actually never got to view the entire movie. You see, there is a scene (which I will refrain from describing in all its gory details and thereby end up "spoiling the surprise" for you) that caused not one, not two, but *three* people to faint mid-movie. 

 

As a result, I spent most of the time in the theater lobby contacting security, who called the paramedics, who brought firefighters to the theater along with them, one of whom kept opening the movie theater door and saying things like, "Why in the hell is this movie making all these people faint!?"

 

So, really, I wouldn't recommend this particular Bergman movie at this time or any time. In retrospect, the scene in question just seems gratuitously disgusting, but, hey, it's Bergman. Oh that touch of Sweden with an ice pick in your chest and all that. 

 

Besides, why view a movie that I doubt would now seem as perverse as it was that evening some 35 years ago? You don't need fiction. You don't need celluloid. The reality of watching the American president talk about dishwashers when the COVID-19 death count is 138,000 and rising is perverse enough for a lifetime.

The Barefoot and Pregnant Contessa

Definitely not mine: Steak with shitaki mushrooms by Jon Sullivan.
Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Has anyone started a let's-see-what's-in-the-pantry-and-the-freezer pandemic home cooking show? A program for those of us who are too wary or too lazy to hoof it down to the grocery store but instead want to use up what we've already purchased or can easily find at the corner store mere steps from our front door?

 

If not, I may be your guy.

 

Tonight, I made chicken meat loaf. (Ground chicken is fairly easy to find here in Canada.) No marjoram? No problem! I'll just use up this old bottle of herbs de Provence that's been hanging around since Moses was pulled out of the bullrushes. Seasoned bread crumbs? Well, how about if I just use some slices of this stale sourdough bread I bought at the corner store last week? Ketchup? Do I have enough? Do I have too much? Just use the whole damn bottle! It's friends with Moses and will feel lonely if left behind.

 

Steak night! Because I just discovered this ancient frozen steak in the freezer! And look! I managed to buy a bottle of chimichurri sauce at some point. Let's try that as a marinade to cover up the frozen steak's sad, sorry life. ¡Che! You've now got un poquito de la Argentina en su plato.

 

Eggs? Salsa? Dinner! Or maybe breakfast or lunch! Heat the salsa, red or green, in a skillet and sort of poach three or four eggs in the salsa. Just add some leftover tortillas and a can of refried beans. You, my friend, are now the Barefoot-and-Pregnant Contessa!

 

And always remember: What doesn't kill you can probably be reheated for tomorrow's lunch. Or dinner. Or the following day's breakfast.

 

Bon appetit!

The president doesn't measure up

Because he has a very tiny brain/penis/emotional IQ/whatever.

Somewhere over the rainbow

According to Wikipedia, 19th-century gay rights advocate
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs introduced the idea of coming out
as a means of emancipation. Public Domain.
Via Wikimedia Commons.

From the news: "At age 90, Kenneth Felts decided to come out as gay during the pandemic."

 

Good for him, and I wish him all the best. It's sad to me that it took so long, but definitely better late than never. Mr. Felts' experience serves as a good reminder that, no matter what our circumstances, it's best to live our lives as we see fit and not be hemmed in by others' unfair, unreasonable, or bigoted expectations. 

 

Or our own.

 

If you don't think coming out still matters, consider this: There's a commercial for an HIV medication, Biktarvy, in heavy rotation on TV these days. It features in part a black male couple holding hands, dining out together, and kissing. 

 

There's are a couple of scenes in the commercial that feature cityscapes, one of which I think is a bridge on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. As I used to live in San Antonio, I wanted to confirm this, so I did a search yesterday to see if I could find out where the commercial was filmed.

 

In doing so, I came across suggested search strategies such as these:

"Biktarvy commercial disgusting"

 

"Biktarvy commercial complaints"

 (Keep in mind my original search was "Biktarvy commercial location.")

 

And suggested posts labeled:

"The worst commercials to grace your TV in the past decade" (no mention of Biktarvy as far as I could tell)

 

"Is targeted advertising just another form of racism?" (from Reddit)

And there was a link to a message board labeled "Country Conservatives" (you can find this on your own; they're not getting any additional web traffic from me) where the commercial was "discussed" using phrases like "gross," "disgusting," "they can fornicate with no fear of STDs," "Big Pharma," "why is so much of our money spent on medical 'necessities'?" and "yet another loss for moral standards."

 

So, yeah, coming out still matters. It matters a lot in fact. If nothing else, it matters to ignorant, unfriendly, even hateful people who may vote and decide your fate about medical care and the drugs available to treat your medical conditions.

 

Maybe coming out in its own way educates them--or maybe it just serves notice that we're here, that we live amongst them, and we're not going back into the shadows to keep them happy or make them comfortable.