203 there's a jam going on somewhere today
The exams take place in a large open room. This is UCSF we're talking about, so I'm sure they've undertaken precautions. But this is the first time I will have been unmasked inside with anyone other than my wife in six f****** months.
I'm literally risking my life, not really because I need dental care at this instant, but because it's new fall semester of student dentists and they need to get going with their education. Still, I would feel better if this exam were happening outdoors.
This brings us around to the topic of existing infrastructure. Existing infrastructure is the golden handcuffs keeping us from really changing our course as we barrel toward environmental catastrophe.
When most of our retirement savings is tied up in a suburban home, how many of us really want to see the end of the car?
Existing infrastructure is what is putting me into a large room filled with other unmasked people.
Not that I advocate blowing up infrastructure or anything like that. Just reimagining it.
Instead of selling your suburban home to retire, you might invite six friends to live with you. And then build an ADU in the backyard for a young family, and start doing some intensive biodynamic farming on your front lawn.
Freeways make fine multi-use trails.
9am. Here. Got a list of questions to read, a squirt of hand sanitizer, and a new mask. No temperature scan.
I got here late to avoid the rush.
Now I've gargled hydrogen peroxide, had my temperature taken (96.9), and washed my hands.
Just had a bit of a stand off with the attending. Considered leaving. Decided, ultimately, the riskiest thing here is being in a room with twenty other unmasked patients, not the attending's hands being in ten other mouths. She's washing them, no doubt.
And I knew about the risk of being in a room for two hours before I came down here, so that hasn't changed.
Meanwhile, I find out that to actually get my teeth cleaned, I'm going to need to get a Covid test. They have tents set up outside. So, next visit I get the further joy of stepping into a potentially infected space, a testing area, and interacting with a person who has likely been exposed, in order to prove I don't have the virus, so I can sit in a room with twenty other people without masks, some of whom have been tested, some not.
(Correction: you only need a test if you're getting something like a filling done. The test is one week in advance. Questionably useful, but I guess better than nothing.)
I'm starting to think my brother's advice (he is a doctor) to skip the dentist for a while might not be that bad.
I didn't walk out, though. My student seems pretty nice.
After six months of avoiding a virus, why is stepping into the healthcare system the most exposure I've had? Seriously, people, existing infrastructure. A big old room seemed like a great idea, before the end of the world went airborne.
How about opening the windows?
It's noon and I'm finished. Looking at the whole situation at the dentist, I guess the biggest factor is making sure no one with Covid gets inside the place to start off with. After that it's pretty much hygiene theater. All the masks and hand sanitizer, plastic coverings everywhere, if somebody's breathing out Covid air and I'm not wearing a mask, I'm f*****.
(Remember "My Animal, My Self"? Of course we went to the vet yesterday, too.)
In the olden days, when a politician would vascilate between policy positions, it would be called a "flip-flop."
What is it called now? A see-saw?
Cover all your bases?
Roid rage?
Buying votes?
File under: all politics is a stage play put on by Texas every four years
Yes, dear leader has gone off script, but not so far that he didn't raise more money than any presidential candidate so far.
I'll just drop this in again from yesterday, in case you missed the sad/funny.
You might say, "don't punch a fellow when he's down."
But he's not! He's doing great!
Although maybe his surprise was ruined.
That's right, the FDA won't bypass a vaccine trial to help you keep an outlandish promise, and it's because they don't like you!
File under: gasping for equal airtime
Note here the subtle differences between "me too" and "the original."
File under: what do you do about existing infrastructure?
Come up with another way of looking at it.
Transform it into something appropriate for the twenty-first century.
Like I was saying, freeways can make excellent multi-use trails.
And don't tell me that if everyone in LA switched from single-occupant cars to riding electric bikes it wouldn't be awesome.
Full circle, even.
File under: #singularitynow
They left out the immigrant workers.
But they got the robots right.
And finally, there's a jam going on somewhere today.
Comments
Post a Comment