Tuesday, August 25, 2020

A Weird Online Chat Quirk of Mine

There’s an old internet phrase (that is, old by internet standards, it’s probably only, like, a year in real-life time) that, boiled down to the essentials, is just “Imagine X” where X is some action you’re trying to downplay. It generally has negative associations, even when it tries to be humorous. “Imagine eating grilled cheese with ketchup,” is one, for example. “Imagine wearing those toed shoes,” is another. There are occasionally follow-ups, like “Couldn’t be me” or “this post brought to you by the Y gang” where Y is obviously opposed to X in some way, but again, this is the memetic phrase in its most basic form.

I don’t know what happened, but I’ve started using it an awful lot online, which wouldn’t be so bad, but like I said, it is kind of a negative phrase, and I think that might have translated over to my general mindset. Or maybe it’s that I’ve been feeling more negative lately and that’s why it’s been creeping in. Either way, I kind of wish I wasn’t doing it. It’s gotten to the point where I’ll type it out, realize exactly what I’m doing, and delete it again. Nobody else wants to see it, I think.

It is getting better, though. Deleting it without posting has meant that I’ve ended up not using it as much in normal online chats. And it hasn’t gotten into my normal speech patterns, so it hasn’t become that sort of habit, just an online one.

-F

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Christ In A Cup

I haven’t been attending church for, well, a lot of reasons, but I did end up going to an outdoor service over the weekend and while I could probably talk all about it the same way I talk about grocery stores and their procedures, I’m more interested in talking specifically about one specific aspect: the sacrament of communion. It was the first thing on my mind when I decided to attend, and I was interested to see how the inherently physical act of passing out wafers and wine was translated.

The answer came in the form of this little plastic container of grape juice. The peel-off lid for it came with an extra pocket containing the wafer, so it was all prepackaged and ready to go. If you’ve seen, like, a kids yogurt cup that comes with a spoon, it was kind of like that but smaller. Now, fortunately, this was a denomination of Christianity that believes more in the symbolic nature of the act rather than literal transubstantiation -- we didn’t have to watch the Holy Spirit seep through the plastic and into the juice or anything like that -- but it still is a wholly different act peeling off a wrapper and slipping it under your mask.

Communion glasses feel like shot glasses. I mean, I guess they always were like that but it also feels supremely odd to take off a facemask to down a slug of grape juice. There’s a feeling of immediacy. You don’t want a mask down for longer than you need to. There’s no ceremony at all.

At the same time, I wouldn’t expect any churches to do any differently. I don’t think people would rather have no communion at all when these are an option. But for me, personally, sitting there toying with the cup while waiting for permission to partake, I still couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there was a better way to be blessed.

Maybe we could all be spritzed with holy water or something.

-F

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

The Grocery (Part Four)

Am I going to do one of these every time I make a grocery run? Probably. I mean, it’s as good a marker as any for how things are going in a general sense. I’m not being scientific about this at all, though. I don’t visit at the same time, I don’t have, like, a set routine where I look for the same things, and, perhaps most importantly, I don’t really want it to be. These are purely anecdotes I just pick up while pushing my cart around.

The most obvious point of interest is that masks are pretty much universal now. I imagine some of that might be to do with the two people that could possibly be greeters who could bar people from entry should they not be wearing one, but it’s a nice change of pace from a few weeks ago. By the same token, however, keeping one’s distance is less of a thing now, which is weird when the cart is such a handy measurement device. You’d think just being a cart-length or two away from other people would be easy for everyone but I still got people trying to pass me getting rather close for comfort.

Some of this I still blame the store for. One-way aisles have been more respected, but the intention behind them -- reducing clogging in these narrow areas -- perhaps less so. The architecture of your standard grocery doesn’t seem to support a pandemic, though I’m sure they only thought about that in retrospect.

-F

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

The Walking Dance

Like many, I’ve started going on walks more frequently to stay active, and I’ve noticed that there’s this little interaction, this little dance that everyone does when two people are approaching each other on the sidewalk. Because you can’t just cross paths, obviously, that would mean getting too close. Instead, here’s what happens:

First thing’s first, you have to spot them. This generally happens when you’re still far away from each other but sometimes there’s some low-hanging foliage obscuring your sightlines so be ready for that. What follows are calculations between both you and the other person that wouldn’t be out of place in a middle-school math textbook. “I’m going at such and such a speed and they’re going at such and such a speed which means we’ll intersect…” That sort of problem.

If you’re really mean, you can turn it into a game of chicken. Who’s going to cross the street or get out of the way first? Not you! But what’s more likely to happen next is this sort of size up where you’ll check to see if the other person is wearing a mask, and if they aren’t, you get to give them a good solid glare that should last for about as long as you feel comfortable giving them the attention. That’s not that long for me, personally, but I’m sure for other people it’s different.

Once that’s out of the way, the next thing to look for is traffic. You should generally be aware of the oncoming sort anyway, but be sure to look behind you as well. Once you’ve gotten the hang of this in a general sense, you can even try to be as simultaneous as you can with the other person as well. See how close you can get!

Now, based on all these factors, you have to wordlessly decide who’s going to go out of their way. The default should be you, obviously. Yes, I know I mentioned chicken 180-ish words ago, but come on. Whoever it is, though, should obviously start drifting closer to the road in preparation to do so, also subtly indicating that they’ve elected to cross. One more check that the roads are clear, and that’s that.

Or is it? There’s a difference between a half-cross and going all the way across the street. I’ll leave that for you all to discover, though. In the meantime, stay safe, stay well, and I’ll talk to you all next week.

-F