Texas Notes: Snail Eyeball

     Today's report from EGD's Texas Bureau Chief Caren Jeskey, offering insight and inspiration in these parlous times.

     Texas opened its restaurants back up on May 1st. How odd to see small groups and couples sitting at tables strategically placed at least six feet apart from each other on the patio of Mandola’s Italian family restaurant in Austin last night. This is our new world. When I saw the signs on the door that said dine in and to go I figured these were vestiges of the past. Surely no one was actually going to eat inside of a restaurant at this stage of the development of the novel coronavirus. As I picked up my to go order I glanced at the interlopers who were in fact sitting at tables and ordering food from masked and gloved waitstaff. I wanted to study the customers closely, but felt like a voyeur at a zoo who suddenly realizes that they are staring at actual sentient beings. Yet could they be? I mean, how could they be when they were so boldly acting as though the world is back to normal? I guess they really needed their fettuccine hot and fresh and served to them. I get it, normal life sounds like a good plan to preserve mental sanity. Since we cannot control this behavior in others all that’s left is to wait and see if it was worth the risks.

     I was surprised to be accosted by this scene last night, somehow expecting a very private long walk after being the only customer at Mandola’s takeout counter per the new normal I’d gotten used to. I was not thinking I’d be one of the masses vying for space just like the old days back in March of 2020. I wonder if this return to normalcy means my days sojourning in various parks and fields while on endless walkabouts are coming to an end. I am not ready to say goodbye to the solitude that became necessary as a responsible citizen, and I worry that going back to normal too soon will mean unnecessary devastation.
     Today during a FaceTime video call a dear friend and mentor mused “when people ask how others are doing these days they take the question more seriously. It’s no longer a social convention. There are now levels to the question. How are you doing physically, as in are you safe from the virus? How are you doing with all of the isolation and solitary confinement? How are you doing spiritually?”

  Another said “I am having a really hard time with the isolation, but truly enjoying the songs of the magpies. I know they are not popular with other birds but I just love them. I can finally hear all of the birds around me.” As we Skyped (he’s old school) between his home in England and mine in Texas the sun suddenly popped out and lit him up through his window. “See? You brought the sunshine.” I asked him to take photos of the sunset over the sea and he agreed, “I’m always nipping over the road to catch the sunset.” I’ve had more face to face time with this kind friend and I’ve gotten to hear his melodic voice more often since the COVID scare began, even more than I did when we were both living in Austin. The conversations feel increasingly more authentic and caring.
     Zoom work dates are also proving to be quite nice. Last week a friend and I hung out on Zoom while we each worked independently. Two and a half hours later all of my paperwork was done and she’d put a big dent in organizing her tax records. Today two new friends from my neighborhood and I had another work date and we each got about ninety minutes of work done. Prior to the session one of these neighbors dropped off a small gift bag of inspirational trinkets to further pave the way to a closer bond. As a Houston doctor suggested, we should have called our measures “physical distancing” rather than “social distancing” and sorted out ways to promote connection in safe ways since the beginning. Many folks I know did not reach out nearly enough and they are now at a point of irritability and exhaustion. One said “I am so tired of my own company.”  

     Some friends have also experienced devastating crises in the past few weeks—a divorce, a separation, more than one family mental health crisis, forced time within already unhappy relationships, even some domestic violence, and financial uncertainty. I went through deep fear when I lost most of my income abruptly in mid-March and then found out that I also have to move, but thankfully I was able to achieve a state of acceptance and hope with the help of a strict formula of self care. This included miles of traversing local streets towards increased serenity, daily meditation, and strong support from friends, family, strangers, teachers and mentors. I have found power in vulnerability and humility and by sharing my stories I now know that I am loved and supported unconditionally. The real problems of the world will still be there but thanks to the fact that neighbors and friends have had to show up for each other and have noticed others’ pain has also meant that there is a stronger sense of caring between us.
     Perhaps what’s brought me the most serenity is the deep bond with nature I have been achieving. I’ve watched magnolia flowers unfold and bloom, noticed the deep and vibrant purples of irises and even certain leaves as they shimmer in the sunshine. I've heard the calls of doves, bluejays, hawks, owls and birds whose calls I know but names I do not. There has been the loud rustling of the wind in the trees and wind chimes singing throughout the days and nights. I’ve heard the laughter of children all around me and songs playing through blue tooth speakers attached to cyclists (including me). I’ve been visited by inchworms and caterpillars and discovered a glob of slime under a picnic table and then realized there was a snail arching an eyeball in my direction. I’ve felt the breath in my nostrils and bare feet on cool grass. I’ve sobbed and I’ve felt deep peace. I’ve put myself back to sleep with soothing sounds and meditations when the night fears creep in. The solitude and imminent need to self soothe has created, for me, a much deeper sense of my own wisdom and connection to an inner voice of intuition. I can hear myself think and I can put my thoughts to rest.

     Neighbors have brought me eggs from their backyard chickens, others have regaled me with gift cards from local restaurants and cases of Topo Chico. One young man I met in a local health leadership training program last year has really reached out, and said that he wants to help take care of me and assuage my fears of financial and housing insecurity because “we need you.” This has enabled me to take care of psychotherapy clients as they confront their own existential questions and practical problems. It has also given me the strength and fortitude to reach out and be present with those I know or suspect may be suffering. We are all on this lifeboat together.
     While fishing for a comment from a favorite friend and expecting something about wisdom she has gleaned from her forced isolation I got this: “I’m deeply content, to be honest.” She is a person who seems to navigate this world with a calm grace, this is true. “The only thing that pisses me off is heteropatriarchal racist imperialist capitalism.” Let’s unpack this later. For now, go in peace.

‘Our worst day’: The fight to treat patients, keep staffed

Capri Reese, photographed by Ashlee Rezin Garcia

    Having teamed up successfully to report on battling the COVID-19 pandemic at Mount Sinai Hospital, photographer Ashlee Rezin Garcia suggested we try a different locale, and Roseland Community Hospital on the far South Side graciously invited us in. Ashlee not only took the photos, but used her keen eye to gather key on-the-scene details — I conducted interviews and wrote the piece. We share a byline in the paper.

     Capri Reese can’t go home. Not unless she finds someone to step into her shoes.
     “All of a sudden we’re down five staff in one day,” said the 12-year veteran nurse at Roseland Community Hospital, who Tuesday had to track down coworkers on their day off and get them to the hospital, in addition to all her usual duties.
     “I see patients, treat patients, respond to codes, rapid response, intubate, order tests, write prescriptions,” Reese said. “All of those things, and I’m also covering for the CNO — the chief nursing officer.”
     Five holes in a 14-person staff, including someone to do her job after her 12-hour shift. Those are very big charm-studded Crocs to fill.
     “It’s a juggling thing, like a rolling puzzle, every day,” she said. “People who don’t usually call off are calling off.”
     Why? Exhaustion, stress, ailments like the ordinary flu, plus absences related to COVID-19 — battling it themselves, caring for a relation who is, or watching their children because daycare centers are closed.
     Against those obstacles, Reese has only her considerable charm.
     “Strap that S on your chest and come in,” Reese said over the phone to a triage tech.
He agreed.

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Sorry Elon, the rich-guy-blathering-idiocy-on-Twitter role is already filled

    It didn't start with Donald Trump you know.
    American history is rife with rich nutters leaping onto the political stage with a cry of "Death to tyrants." 
    While Trump has without question been most successful in injecting his execrable self into the news of the day, others certainly jammed their hands into the gears of history, where they could.
     The one that immediately springs to mind is Henry Ford. Before he got into the business of fomenting anti-Semitism and promoting square dancing as a way to preserve American values, not to forget being a real and direct personal inspiration to Hitler, Ford decided he was going to end World War I, commissioning a "Peace Ship" and accomplishing pretty much nothing except draw derision on himself.
      More recently, Texas oddball H. Ross Perot ran for president in 1992, briefly, before running away from it, vigorously, crying all the while, if I recall, that shady forces were spying on his daughter's wedding.
     Twitter makes it easier than ever for wealthy with more opinions than sense to make themselves known. Elon Musk, who really should be digging that rich folks underground railroad he promised Chicago almost two years ago, instead on Wednesday was tweeting his heart out for, the virus be damned, Americans to get back to work, one assumes in his factories.
    "FREE AMERICA NOW" he tweeted. "Give people their freedom back."
    Nor was his rejection of the idea of civil society acting to save lives limited to the free-fire zone of Twitter. On a Tesla earnings call he referred to stay-at-home orders as "fascist," akin to "forcibly imprisoning people in their homes."
     It's almost like he's auditioning for the Donald Trump role in American politics. Alas, that is already taken. We've got one too many as it is.
     I suppose this is an improvement over his tweets in March, such as “The coronavirus panic is dumb.”
      The moral of the story being: there are a lot of energetically idiotic people in the world.  And being very, very good at one thing — making cars, stirring the pot on third rate reality TV shows — doesn't mean you have a facility for accomplishing anything in another realm of life. Which leads to a not-very-cheery thought for this rainy Thursday in our Plague Year of 2020. But one whatever decent Americans remain ought to bear in mind. Getting rid of Trump will definitely be a start, but certainly will not end our problems. There's always another puffed up potentate, weaned on cash and yes men, clamoring for attention. 

     

Clip and save! Your COVID-19 crisis glossary

     Every prolonged crisis creates its own vocabulary. A special set of new words that linger. World War II (which lasted five years longer than the current crisis, so quit yer griping) is 75 years in the past. But many can reel off the terms it gave us: atom bomb, bazooka, commando, D-Day. And that’s just A-B-C-D.
     So what are the words our grandchildren will use regarding the current calamity? No doubt it will be covered in their “C29: Early 21st Century America, Decline and Disaster” class. A primer:

Coronavirus (kə-ˈrō-nə-ˌvī-rəs) n. Single-strand RNA virus studded with knobby projections (corona is Latin for crown). There are many coronaviruses — MERS, SARS, etc. — so the one causing trouble now was at first called the “new” or “novel” coronavirus, prefixes now typically dropped as superfluous. Usage: “More than a month since he declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, President Donald Trump has repeatedly lied about this once-in-a-generation crisis.” — The Atlantic
COVID-19 (koh-vid naine-TEEN) n. Abbr. of “Coronavirus disease 2019,” the illness caused by a strain of coronavirus first detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Some news outlets, such as the New York Times, use lowercase (“Covid-19”), but that looks like the name of a South Korean boy band. Usage: “Rupert Murdoch, Fox News’ Covid-19 misinformation is a danger to public health.” — The Guardian
Covidiot (koh-vid-ee-et) n. The Urban Dictionary defines this as “someone who ignores the warnings regarding public health or safety.” Also used to describe someone hoarding goods, selfishly denying them to others. Usage: “Q: What do you call an armed member of a radical group of lockdown protestors? A: A Branch Covidiot.” — George Takei

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Time to count the pollen

In the Laboratory, by Henry Alexander (Met)

     "Allergies are bad this year," said a friend who stopped by Sunday for a social distance walk, trying to set us at ease at his sneeze, so we wouldn't worry that microscopic death was vigorously swimming in our direction through the six feet of air between us.

    The next day, Facebook reminded me that, nine years earlier, my status was "Neil Steinberg is showered, dressed and brewing the coffee at 3:45 a.m., heading over to watch them take the midwest pollen readings. The things that excite me..."

     There are several directions I could go with this. It reminds us of the head work and devotion to science that is so casually slurred by lazy idiots when the results go contrary to their stream of inner psychobabble. It also hints at the countless fascinating stories ignored in the general disaster of the pandemic. We could note that Gottlieb Hospital was funded by nickels and dimes scraped together by David Gottlieb, who began his famous pinball machine design and manufacturing company in Chicago in 1927. Or that Dr. Leija is still going strong at 90, though I am told he retired last year.

     It's 5:25 a.m., time for Dr. Joseph G. Leija to count the pollen and mold that Chicago has been breathing for the last 24 hours.
     He takes a white plastic-foam container holding glass microscope slides, selects one etched with tomorrow's date and greased to make it sticky. The allergist tucks the slide in a small plastic case and stands up.
     "I have to phone the guard," says Dr. Leija, who left his home in Oak Brook about 4:40 a.m. He calls security at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital and says the door to the roof will be opening—nothing to worry about, it's just him, as it has been every weekday morning for the last 20 years, in his capacity as head of the National Allergy Bureau's Melrose Park station, the only location monitoring airborne allergens in the state of Illinois, the only one between St. Louis and Madison.
     It's a little ironic that Dr. Leija ended up an allergist. Originally, he was a general practitioner who suspected that allergies were "psychosomatic," he says, twisting a finger at his temple. No more.
     Now, at 81, he still sees patients, but is not paid for his daily rooftop visit.
     "I'm doing this for fun," he says, his light accent hinting at Mexico. "My wife thinks I'm stupid. But people really need this."
     He walks through the empty hospital corridors, takes the elevator to the sixth floor, unlocks a security door, climbs stairs and steps out onto the hospital roof. Looking toward the city, the pre-dawn sky is brownish pink. The air is cool and pleasant. In the fall, when it's dark, he wears a miner's head lamp.
     On the southeast corner of the roof is a $5,000 device called a Burkard Volumetric Spore Trap, developed during World War II by the British, worried about biological attacks and seeking a way to detect any toxins that might puff across the English Channel.
     In the base of the trap is a fan, drawing air at 10 liters a minute—the rate a person breathes—and a mechanism that slowly moves the slide past an intake, plus a vane-like tail to make sure it faces into the wind so gusts don't rip the device off the roof.
     Dr. Leija opens the trap, removes yesterday's slide, tucks it in the little case and puts the fresh slide in its place. Then he takes a key and winds the mechanism that slowly moves a section of the slide past the intake.
     "We wind the clock," he says.
     He crunches across the rooftop stones, to the door and goes downstairs to his office.
     Why do this so early? Perhaps to minimize soot from daytime traffic emissions? No.
     "Because of the television cameras," he says. "They want it early in the morning, by 7 o'clock. Advertising the hospital."
     "They" refers to Tracy Butler, a meteorologist at Channel 7, who gives the pollen count twice a morning, at 7:30 and after 11.
     "It's so nice to have somebody like Dr. Leija, who cares so much about the accuracy of this count," Butler said later. "The man is on the roof no matter the weather, getting this data for our viewers, and he does it voluntarily. It says a lot about his mission."
     Going on the roof isn't the half of it. Back in his office, Dr. Leija stains the slide with red glycerin, then puts it under a microscope. First the pollen, at 400x magnification. Pollen is— to be blunt—a male plant's sperm. He doesn't just count the spores.
     "You have to identify them," he says. Some pollen are round, or blunted triangles, some have "Mickey Mouse ears." Acer, betulace, fraxinus, populus—sugar maple, birch, ash, cottonwood—for a count of 134.
     "I'm surprised there's so much pollen, with the rain," he says. "Cottonwood is flowering right now. A few weeks back it was elm." When the wind blows from the south, Dr. Leija finds juniper pollen from Texas.
     "For me, it's fascinating," he says.
     Then to 1,000x magnification, for the molds. Ascospores, cladosporium, rusts, smuts, chaetomium. They look like coffee beans under the microscope.
     "There are so many molds," he says.
     The counting takes nearly an hour. "You can get lost in the microscope," says Karen Cantalupo, a nurse who helps Dr. Leija with the count. "Either you like it or you don't."
     The stats are entered online; not the actual numbers, to prevent drug companies from swiping the data, but vague terms. Today's pollen and mold levels are "high." Cantalupo calls Channel 7 and Gottlieb PR, which also disseminates the information. "Marketing, marketing, marketing," says Dr. Leija.
     With allergies, both airborne and food, skyrocketing, and in an era of big medicine and big money, the pollen count is still monitored by a nationwide chain of volunteers.
     "Allergists are doing this count for nothing," says Dr. Estelle Levetin, a professor of biology at the University of Tulsa and chair of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology's Aerobiology Committee, which oversees the network. "But it's also giving them information that's going to help them with their patients. I think they all should be doing this."
          —Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 4, 2011 Wednesday

"So these two viruses walk into a store..."

"The Laughing Audience" by William Hogarth (Met)

     As a rule, I don't criticize other parts of the paper. But it wasn't my colleagues writing the jokes featured Sunday. And besides, my job, as I see it, sometimes involves pointing out an awkward truth. 

    The hard part about 9/11 for me — and I have to emphasize the for me part, because for other people the hard part was burning to death in a pool of jet fuel — was that nothing was funny anymore.
     There was no ironic distance. No sense of relief, no minor mastery over circumstances that comes with finding humor in a situation.
     It was all sincerity — George W. Bush-level sincerity, the really strong stuff, 151 proof sincerity. We were defenseless, carried along by the torrent of history without the stout paddle that a solid sense of humor gives a person.
     For about a week.
     And then, I was watching TV news — that great font of unintentional comedy — which introduced a segment with a logo. You know: flickering candle, weepy soundtrack. I looked at the screen and thought, “I’m sorry all those people are dead ... but if I have to hear ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ one more time, I’m going to puke.”
     And with that, normality — my normality anyway — whirred to life, like a computer rebooting. Blank screen then, zing, back in business again.
     So it was with admiration and interest that I approached our Sunday front-page feature, “WE COULD ALL USE A GOOD LAUGH ABOUT NOW.” The Sun-Times dragooned 10 Chicago-area comics to share their COVID-19 jokes with our readers.

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The Pampered Idiot

"Mars—His Idiot" by Kerr Eby (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     "Like a thousand other strong men who have come into the world here in America in these later times, Jesse was but half strong," Sherwood Anderson writes of one character in Winesburg, Ohio. "He could master others, but he couldn't master himself."

     That sentence begs to be picked apart. "In these later times" might sneak past, at first, but it is a reminder that the times always feel late; the present, the crust of history yet forming, only now begun to cool. We've always missed the gold age. The time feels late, at least to those no longer young. 

"The Pampered Idiot" by Leonardo Alenza Nieto (Met)

      The "thousand other strong men"—don't they immediately spring to mind? Can't you just see them, in a group? Tough guys, a dime a dozen. Pumped to hide the hollowness within. Makes you think about all those guys parading around state capitals, holding signs, their protests demanding that they be asked to make no sacrifice, no matter how small, toward the country they profess to love. "I need a haircut!" Has any more pathetic plaint been made in the history of this country? No disruption of routine, no gesture made toward civic responsibility, not when they can display the firearms that are a far greater threat to their own lives, to the health and safety of themselves and their families than to any bad guys skulking around their nightmares. Strong on the surface, but oh so weak underneath. Not even "half strong." 

     The president certainly is at full half strength, and nearly named by that "couldn't master himself." As identifying as a thumbprint. As a mug shot. Not that he seems to try, self-mastery being an alien concept to him, to all of them.  Why even try try to control yourself when you can enjoy the fun of pretending you have control over others?
     You hear the term "babbling idiot" from time to time. But how often do you actually see one? Actually see an idiot, babbling? There's almost a rare kind of pleasure to it, the cliche in real life. Like being in a crowded Grand Central Station. "What is this?" you pause to say, smiling, "Grand Central Station?"

      Or there would be, if it weren't so serious. If the serious result weren't seen all around us all the time. Well, seen by some of us anyway. The others, not so much.