I don't need to mention that life has turned upside-down for many of us this year. Social isolation (excuse me, social
distancing), masking to "protect others" (at the expense of one's own health), and "sheltering in place" (again, at the expense of one's own health) have become by-words for all, and a new sort of social shaming has arisen...
Like many on the personal-liberty end of the spectrum, I've been of the belief that while the worst of the disease
is serious, our sociopolitical reaction to it is overblown, and we're putting our individual and community economic health at risk. We've been using a "portmanteau" (a word made up of two other words combined) to describe the current sociopoliticaleconomic situation: a panicdemic.
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| Welcome to the PANICdemic |
While we have been fortunate in that the government stimuli have afforded us (at least for the month my sister and I were furloughed by our retail jobs)
more money than we were making working (which we had to give up to return to our jobs), we realize that $600/week is chicken feed for those making a "living wage" or better (middle class in New Jersey starts at about $100k annual gross income), and most small business owners are losing everything they own — including their homes and businesses — because of shut-down and shelter-in-place orders. In short, many are
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| I think this describes most of us during the panicdemic |
The variety of patriotic "Red, White & Blue" t-shirts we're selling this year strike an extremely off note as our constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms have been trampled upon by state and local officials in the name of "flattening the curve", "stopping the spread", writing "small business" stimuli such that they can only benefit "essential" big-box stores and "too big to fail" retailers (i.e., Amazon and Walmart). In short, we have become the
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| I think this describes us better at this point in time than the National Anthem |
Since moving into a "masks required by law" environment, I have found that face coverings restrict my air intake (I swear one of these days I'm likely to aspirate my mask and suffocate!) and, because I have to SHOUT to be heard as as ||whisper||, dampening the mask with those droplets we're supposed to be
not spreading,
attracting and
holding those airborne viruses we're supposed to be
avoiding. I'm not alone in my dislike of
mandatory facial coverings (especially when outdoors, at home — even in the public spaces of the multi-family dwelling in which we live, or at a reasonable distance from others), and therefore, I propose a bit of a throwback to the Clinton era:
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| Thankfully, our LGBTQIA+ community can serve openly now |
I have a few other "Don't Mask/Won't Tell" designs, but they haven't made it onto T-shirts yet.
On the bright side of things, my sister's hairdresser is expecting her first child any day now. I had wanted to make an Infusible Ink onesie for her amidst some of the other things my sister wants to give, but was falling shy on inspiration. Amongst all this lockdown-fatigue creativity, it finally hit me:
I hope the baby never has to remember the panicdemic, the social distancing, the mandatory masking (are babies fussing over not recognizing parents in facial coverings like they do when parents don/doff spectacles?), or the economic devastation these illnesses are causing, and that she lives — like Moses — to 120 (or as long as she wishes to and is able to!) in good physical and mental health.
