Since last February class has been in session. A strict adherence to a demanding curriculum has kept me alive and more or less sane. As the grip of the epidemic dies down (I hope) I’ve decided to distill the knowledge in about 750, or so, words, give or take a few.
What you need to do is tuck the top of your facemask underneath the rim of your glasses. It won’t work when you walk in from the cold, but your glasses would probably fog up without a face mask in that situation. A bit of tape or a bandage fastening the upper portion of your face mask to the bridge of your nose will help if your glasses or face mask are too small for tucking.
Another bit of knowledge, less useful, more enlightening, came crashing into my still evolving self-esteem. I’m not the introvert I had always believed I was. This fact pretty much rules that out as the reason for my small circle of friends and the distinct feeling of hostility at family gatherings. Now I’m forced to face the fact I am probably just annoying, prickly, or even worse, boring. Why didn’t anyone tell me?
Styling gel for hair isn’t just for women and pretty boys. As a child of the sixties and seventies, I was exposed to a generation of men who had long, wonderful hair; they were everywhere, on television, in movies. They were the epitome of defiance and the agents of righteous change. How I wanted long, luxurious hair.
My hair is awful, a thick, unruly mop. It refuses combs, brushes, and prayers. I’ve tried to reason with it, pleaded with it, there were a few times I could have styled it with my tears of bitter disappointment. It has a life of its own. The only defense is to keep it short. I just can’t risk a trip to the barbershop, though.
“Take a little off the side, Ted. I want to look good in the ICU.”
One day I tried my wife’s “hair goo” and my hair looked fantastic. At least until about 3:00 when the gel seemed to wear off, and the mop returned. Most of the day, though, was spent snapping selfies and sending the pictures to everyone on my contact list.
“Hey, check out the hairdo, it’s wonderful, right?”
Now who’s the pretty boy?
I learned my wife is a lot more optimistic than I am.
Yesterday she told me she dreams about us being somewhere else, not home. She said it’s never exotic, or unusual. She dreams of us being at a state park cabin by a lake, at a house on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, maybe a cottage by the ocean, or in the mountains. Places we would go, if we could, places we will go when we can.
I’m haunted by nightmares.
I keep dreaming about my things breaking, or getting lost. In one dream my glasses are laying in pieces on my desk at work. It’s as if somebody took them apart, the lenses, the earpieces, everything laying in an orderly fashion, like a blueprint showing how to build a pair of bifocals. I dream of people stealing my pens, changing my password, and using a permanent marker to black out the keys on my computer keyboard. Nothing too bad.
Well, I need my glasses. Too often I become overly attached to some of my favorite pens. Plus, I’m not one of those ten-fingered typists, who never look away from the screen or paper copy of what they’re typing, I need to look at the letters. As far as nightmares go it is pretty mild stuff I suppose, but I still wake up and count my pens. After a cup of coffee.
It’s been a long year, and I’m tired of it. Mostly what I’ve learned is I didn’t want to be forced to learn any of this. And I definitely didn’t want to learn how little control humanity has over the forces of nature, how vulnerable we really are. I just hope I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Shutterstock
