Monday night. I’m trying to make the most of the three hours of sun after I’m done with work: if my neighbours (and/or spy satellites) cared to look in the backyard, they’d see me doing squats while chugging a protein smoothie out of a blender, trying to get all the vitamin Ds with my unbuttoned shirt, and doing French DuoLingo exercises on my phone. At the same time. Ahh, lockdown… I will not miss you.

Things are getting even worse in the States. Over the past week, five black men were hanged from trees. The local police said they were all suicides…

Arizona is the new covid hotspot. Given the weather in Arizona in June, I guess we can finally put to rest the idea that covid thrives only when it’s cold. There are some interesting reports stating smokers are less likely to catch covid, but their condition deteriorates fast once they’re in a hospital – presumably due to their nicotine withdrawal. Some doctors suggest using nicotine patches on everyone diagnosed with covid, just in case nicotine helps in some way that’s not yet understood. This is getting into the cargo cult science territory, but we don’t have a lot more than guesses and correlations at this point. (Why do some families have five fatalities? Why do others survive unscathed?)

My face shield should arrive tomorrow – I’m curious how locals will react when they see me wearing my face shield and a face mask and glasses. Heh. Reminds me of the summer of 2018, when Seattle had the worst air quality in the world due to forest fires, and I was the only person wearing a respirator. (Others either tried to tough it out or used some mixture of bandanas and hope.) Things never really change, do they?