I am high risk, but I have to go outside sometimes to walk around and get some air. It's getting harder and harder. Yesterday I left my apartment for the first time in 5 days. I had to walk some outside of my apartment to preserve my mobility. We also had to drive to the pharmacy for me to pick up a medication I got refilled.
I went to the front foyer and two people had no masks on were standing in our small apartment foyer. One is our mailman who never wears a mask. I was wearing an N-95, I find them hard to breathe in, but am trying to train myself to wear them longer and can usually make it out the front door in one. I wish I had just gone out then. I thought, "Well I will go out this door down a long hall", so I try to leave that way on my walker.
Sadly the other door was blocked off, they are digging up sewer lines right outside it. By this time after walking down the long hall, I am short of breathe in the N-95 and change to my surgeon's masks in the closed off now blocked vestibule. I turned around and open the door to go back into the hall. Here comes another maskless woman walking fast down the narrow hall way. She is a nurse believe it or not! She also does not believe in social distancing and will get right on top of you. I turn around before getting too close to her, and wait inside for her to go into her apartment. I am sure she heard me grumbling about people who won't wear masks.
I feel trapped. I don't want to walk near a maskless nurse even with a surgeon's mask on who has been exposed to God knows what at whatever health facility she works at. Even if she is a house call nurse, that's exposure to a variety of people. I don't know where she works. With the mailman, he is walking all over a multitude of buildings running into plenty of people. I've already had to shrink away to get packages multiple times and make sure to always answer the door wearing a mask, with this guy.
Some time has elapsed, and I try and go out the front door. My husband has been outside, he left a few minutes ahead of me, waiting. The maskless mailman is still in the foyer. I decide to hug the wall and stay away from him around 8-9 feet to get out. I am irritated and say "Why won't you wear a mask?" as I walk by. He refuses to answer. I don't push it. Just getting out of this apartment building seems hard at times. Imagine if you were me, knowing if you catch this crap you will die. Of course online they tell me things like I should never leave my apartment for years. Then you will get to watch me crack up.
I am always having to run away from people who don't wear masks. They always walk towards me. They don't even try to get away from you for their own sake. Some people are polite and keep distance, some neighbors even went down to another corner away from the door to talk to each other maskless. I don't care if people don't wear masks outside, I don't wear them outside, if no one is around but don't walk on top of me. I won't walk on top of you. Some do things like you are walking outside and they will run up right on top of you.
A contact tracer on my Facebook told me just walking by someone the risk is low, but maybe we should at least be attempting to make everyone's risk as low as possible. Should a woman on a walker be having to hustle away constantly from others? I am breaking "Keep off the grass" rules all the time to avoid people. That night once we escaped, we went to this park. It was 7 or 8 and looked like midnight out. This is a safe area where I knew the chances of being mugged were low enough. I thought since it was dark, there would be less people to deal with. I was wrong. If one can't hike into the woods to a real remote area, finding private areas to go, is very difficult.
I wonder what is wrong with people that they have no fear of this virus. Do Americans have a death wish? Have lives grown so crappy, that spinning the roulette wheel is better to them. Problem is this crap is now spreading everywhere. I know people personally being forced to quarantine and who have gotten it. Trump's followers are like the willing Kool-Aid drinkers in every suicide cult.
Even if you are a hard core conspiracy theorist that thinks it could be a hoax, why not err on the side of caution if you are wrong? Are these people who never had anything bad happen to them so they think they can toddle through life with no ramifications? I wonder about sociopathy and numbed out people who don't care.
This gives me flash backs to my family who wanted me to expose myself to MRSA. The same thoughtlessness applies. I know who I never want to talk to or have nothing to do with ever again. If some neighbor who knows I have health problems won't at least give me space, that's sick. She's already seen me run away from her before.
Now get this, I live in an area where it's spreading like WILDFIRE and they are warning us that the hospitals are overloaded, so even now if you get an asthma attack or other problem you are going to be turned away. I got a severe migraine the other day with an extreme aura, where my vision dimmed and I had these huge orange spots, and thought, "Well you can't go to the hospital if this gets too bad!" Thankfully the vision problems went away, but I am still even somewhat sensitive to light even a week later.
I plan to insist to my doctor I need emergency antibiotics. They called me to get my email saying we have to go remote again. My state was doing well until the Republican dominanted state supreme court lifted the mask orders and took all the power away from the governor. It actually as in control. By the way on all the apartment building doors, there's health department signs that directly insist on masks being worn in all apartment common areas.
Is there any way possible to wake these people up? How much death and illness will it take? Isn't the natural outcome, that nature and reality itself will force a wake-up call?
Update: Since I am considered a "crazy" "anti-vaxxer" now, I was maybe too hard on the non-mask people. I do respect and understand whhere they were coming from now. That's for sure. I still wear masks because I am high risk, but I don't think little kids should be forced to wear them for 7 hours and more.
This sounds terrible for you! Idiots!
ReplyDeleteFortunately where I am, white people are a minority and I've even mentioned to people that I avoid "white spaces" because I really do. Because it's white people who are having their "Karen" meltdowns and bullying people etc.
hey are idiots. Oh all the time even when in stores, I go in them rarely but sometimes have to do business, I am always having to remind someone to raise their mask so I don't see their nostrils and of course it slips down constantly. Yeah where you are at white people are the minority, I can understand you avoiding "white spaces". While POC are these racist's first targets, White supremacy brings hell to the lives of poor people in general. I often feel very uncomfortable around the people with no empathy and whose whole existence is about being cold and getting over on people. They seem to have no souls. The people who refuse to wear masks by a woman on a walker don't care about anyone or themselves. As I said in that one article, America has a sociopathy problem.
ReplyDeleteOh I was watching CSPAN today and wanted to retch over the side of the couch. I watched about 20 minutes of it, after wrapping my leg and taking lung medicine, 5 boomer types all calling to rant that Trump should not concede.
It took me a long time to realize, How come when I'd rent an apartment, I'd do things like replace all the electrical sockets before moving in, do minor repairs and just generally improve the place by living in it? White people ... don't do this. They'll suffer along with shitty old sockets and a nasty balcony floor because the idea of giving, of helping someone else even if that someone else is a landlord or the next tenant, is foreign to them. Yeah, the landlord comes out ahead and so does the next tenant, but you get to enjoy your improvements for the time you're there and they're not expensive or hard to do. This is a very "Asian" thing or more specifically a very Japanese thing. You think about the other guy. In the Japanese national-folk religion of Shinto, everything has a soul. Your kitchen knife, the little stream running behind your house, everything. So you care about things. In Japan it's a thing that you can go into certain resale stores and buy used and even vintage video game consoles and digital cameras and such things because the Japanese are notorious for buying a thing and taking such good care of it that it's like new, years later. And my stuff is like that.
DeleteAnd yes, the ideal in US society is to have no empathy. Empathy is considered weakness.
You are right empathy is seen as a weakness in the USA, and that grew. I used to be physically abused when showing feelings even positive ones. They would slap me for crying. Even if I missed a friend and wanted to cry, I was told to shut up. That's one horrific thing I realized about the family, even the cousins who were less severe boasted of their ability to shut down guilt and their emotions. America is going to die because basic altruism has been lost. The culture here is a sick one. My UU does preach empathy, I get the feeling we are a little circle in the middle of many who don't. Evangelical Christianity the dominant religion of the right, destroys empathy.
DeleteI post this link all over my deconversion boards:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2019/07/19/episode-9-how-faith-breaks-your-feeler/
They consider themselves proud of having no feelings of being "hard" and always the focus is on "winning". Their god is one of brute force too. In my explorations of other religions, there's other gods that don't threaten hell or run the world via dominance or punishment.
I am bad at fixing things but with apartments, I have lived in, I make sure they get repainted, I worry about how things look. I need to get touch up paint. That is more positive to care about your surroundings. And care about what other people have to deal with but you are right, many just trash the places out, I heard horror stories from low level landlords before. One old church member told me people trashed even all the dry wall so he had to replace it. Again that is no empathy.
It sounds like "Asian society" or Japanese society they would care and fix things, they care about the "good of the group" I am sure this is why Asian countries are beating Covid. One thing to note is these selfish antimaskers don't care if someone is infected.
I like that idea of everything having a soul, us UUs talk about the "source", that seems relative to aspects of Shinto. They do seek beauty and peace in their surroundings. They care for their things. This is kind of an odd trait of me, but I get attached to things even old ones, maybe it is Aspergers at times, but this idea of "throwing away" things to replace them with new ones, I find despicable, especially if those things are still usable. I wear 20 year old dresses and do things I don't think normal Americans do. Some of this is poverty based stuff, but a lot of it isn't. I don't like waste. I buy many things used too at thrift. I have old digital cameras in here, some still work, though one good camera did break, from 20 years ago. LOL Technology would force me to upgrade. Collecting stamps too of course is collecting the old. Oh the dressers and cabinets in my apt, are 40 years old. I have book shelves, guess one thing that narcs did give me that filled my childhood living room in the 1970s.
Sounds like you keep stuff the way I do. My husband is like this too, keeps all the old stuff, old scrapbooks, clothing etc.
Being hard and lacking empathy is apparently a "feature" of Israeli society too. There's a huge thing of "don't be a sucker" so there's a lot of chiseling over small things. It's a very pushy society and that's pretty much the opposite of what I was raised around and how I want to live.
DeleteYeah that would drive me crazy too, it's more militaristic too because they all have to do military service when young don't they. I always thought Russian society too denied feelings and emotions and empathy too but wasn't close enough to them to know if emotions were simply hidden or just not there. I had contact with Russian immigrants in Chicago. I wonder if anyone has ever studied who the most empathetic societies are?
DeleteThis study put America at #7 in 2016 as the most empathetic society but that's probably dive bombed. Some have told me Americans are friendlier to strangers than a lot of places so it's hard to know hey said Americans are MUCH friendlier. Someone warned me of Germany in that way. I live in a very German area, and they are too close to the vest for my personality, sometimes gets difficult and this is not Germany LOL...in Midwest if things go bad, people will help you even strangers, I'll give this place that. I know we think of the raging Republicans but even there we got the society running at a 40/60 quotient where there's still many people remaining in some sanity and one hopes empathy.
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-most-empathetic-countries-in-the-world-have-just-been-ranked