Dispatches From the Fortress – Day 608

Wow. We're at Day 608. And in case you're interested, this is post #29,428 on this blog. I started it 7630 days ago so we've averaged 3.856880733944954 post per day. At that rate, I'll hit post #30,000 about 148 days from now, which would be right about the time I get back from WonderCon in Anaheim next April…assuming there is a WonderCon next April and assuming I go, which means assuming The Virus is down to a trickle then.

And it's assuming I can snap out of this "I don't want to go anywhere" mode into which I've settled. I do go out. I take walks in my neighborhood…though not very far from my house. I go to doctor appointments. I drive over to a market and let them load the groceries I've ordered into my trunk. Once in a while, I actually go into a market or a restaurant to pick up edibles to take home and consume.

But I've gotten way too comfy staying home…helped by the fact that there are very few places I want to go. This past weekend, one of my favorite comedians, Jim Jefferies, was performing down at the Ace Hotel downtown. I thought of going to see him but then realized there might be other people in the room. It's not exactly Agoraphobia…I think. And I'm confident I'll shake it soon.

My feeling is that if I can make it down to WonderCon in Anaheim next April 1-3 — that's about 40 miles from where I live — then I can make it down to Solana Beach next May. That's where Frank Ferrante will be doing his Groucho show next May 2-3 and that's 110 miles…and then I can go the full 140 miles to Comic-Con International in San Diego, July 20-24. One step at a time.

I see no air travel in my foreseeable future. There's nowhere I really want to go and every friend of mine who's been on a plane lately seems to have a horror story (like Ken Levine's today) about late and/or canceled flights and waiting forever, and maybe even some obstreperous "I will not submit to tyranny and wear a mask" passenger. I'm real sick of people who (a) think the rules don't apply to them and who (b) scream at people who didn't make those rules and don't have the power to not enforce them. The Freedom Fighters probably all like to go to crowded theaters and insist they have a right to yell "Fire!"

In my limited outings lately, I haven't run into one. The last such specimen — and I don't think I mentioned this here — was about six weeks ago when I went to the building where my podiatrist works wonders on all parts of me below the ankles. There was a sign in the lobby that said there should be no more than three people in an elevator car at the same time.

Someone I was happy to not share the ride up with was complaining to no one in particular that, once again, her Constitutional Rights were being violated. In this case, it was the right of the people peaceably to assemble as per The First Amendment. Yes, that's just why James Madison put that in there.