Lofty fortune


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Maskerade

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I’ve barely noticed the lockdown, so busy have I been sublimating any anxiety into frenzied and probably pointless activity. In the past month, I’ve made 250-odd (and I do mean odd) fabric masks. Initially they were commissioned by medical personnel to protect and prolong the use of N95 masks, and later they were requested by everyone from Native American groups to food banks to homeless shelters. No one knows whether cloth masks shield the breather or the breathed-upon from COVID-19, but nearly everyone is required to wear one now. The utility of the masks I make, in particular, cannot be known since I work on donated fabrics—different ones on different days, none bearing any mystery as to why they were donated. The conundrum of the masks is that the more impervious they are, the more impervious they are. In other words, a mask that allows you to breathe is not preventing disease transmission. I know more than the average person now about masks, and that means I know nothing, sinc...
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The joy of crisis averted

I’m sure Germans have a word for it—they have a word for everything. Witness schadenfreude, the pleasure someone derives from another person’s misfortune. (It’s a little creepy that there’s an actual word for that, with its whiff of sadism.) Or maybe there’s a Millennial acronym for it, like YOLO or FOMO. What is the term for the great long-lasting joy of a small crisis averted? The other day, Other and I took a long walk along the Riverside bikeway. It was a breezy, springlike day, and there were many of us out there. My thick homemade mask was, as usual, impinging on my pleasure. Fussing with the ear loops, I decided to remove my hearing aids to relieve some of the behind-the-ear congestion. I put them in my pocket, and we continued our walk—now silent, at least for me. When I got back home and went into my pocket to retrieve my aids, one wasn’t there. Oh shit! I’m quite hard of hearing, as Other will attest. I’m a misery without my aids, constantly asking people to repeat t...
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