Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.
1. FIRST AND LAST WORDS
Besides the death and misery, a thing I hate about the pandemic is how I can go a whole day only have said one thing aloud to another person, and it’s often “SLOW THE FUCK DOWN.”
While that phrase, with the right intonation, could mean something else entirely, I assure you, there are no Covid Unsafe activities happening up in this bitch. Literally.
This directive is always hollered at an inattentive driver, like the one in a red sports car blowing through the meek stop sign at the end of a slip lane. It’s how I learned this morning that my voice still works. On my way home, different intersection, gray minivan, same deal: driver willing to kill me to save five seconds of his or her time.
Now, I have been tsk-tsked for talking back and told my mouth will get me in trouble, but if my experience is being nearly struck or actually grazed, I feel like the trouble has already found me and people need to be told.
2. GROCERY STORE PARKING LOT
Speaking of grazed, nothing like feeling the wind off a car being driven two inches from your body as you attempt to cross the supermarket parking lot. Bad drivers would be less bad if given better design with which to work. Look at almost any parking lot. What happens after exiting a vehicle? Where are people supposed to go except into a chaos zone? Now, try this while on foot.
3. FOUND OBJECTS
While walking by the park I noticed some new debris.
At the pond there is a fishing rod supported by the thin layer of ice, and as you can see, there are footprints on the ice. Should I be concerned? There is no way it has been cold enough for long enough that this ice should support the weight of an adult.
I’m also still concerned about the brassiere still hanging on a tree beside the same pond. Is it too late to bring it back to its intended use, or would birds have begun turning this into a nest by now?
4. PANDEMIC TRANSIT
The positivity rate is like a billion percent and I’m on a bus where the driver has her mask off and is shoveling snacks in her mouth, an elderly passenger near the front of the bus is doing the same, and almost every seat is full, so no, there is no distancing really possible. A few windows are cracked. The phrase “lipstick on a pig” comes to mind.
Twitter has been ablaze lately with this knee-jerk backlash to the idea that anyone should ever take personal responsibility for their behavior when it comes to reducing the spread. They blame it on the government. I’m choosing to think of them as silly instead of complete morons. Government inaction is a problem, but how can you say folks deciding to take their masks off in tight, indoor spaces is fine? It’s not. Neither is stubbornly refusing to get vaccinated.
For awhile, you could find a handful of disposable masks stocked at the front of the bus. I have not seen those in months. Either the driver allows someone on the bus, unmasked, or there is a whole production of the driver stopping the bus, getting up, dragging a mask out of a closed storage space, and then there are still a few minutes of a delay while the rider pays fare, gets settled, and gets the mask on. And that’s if the passenger has any intention of wearing the mask.
We need government and individual responsibility.
Today I watched someone get on, no mask, no attempt to get a mask, and two other passengers utterly disgusted by this, get off before their planned stop. . . something you can tell when the bus is stopped at a light for a bit and the other riders have walked several blocks. Why do we think it’s acceptable to tolerate the reckless behavior of one person, putting others at risk, or making them very uncomfortable? What about the passengers who would have liked to leave then and there, but have mobility challenges? I guess we let them gamble because nobody wants to enforce common sense.
There’s this push for home Covid tests to be distributed by the government, and while I don’t hate this idea, I have to wonder why people think this is a silver bullet. Are folks all isolating when they get a negative test? Do they treat these home kits like people do with home pregnancy tests, taking it again and again because their denial levels are so deep? I can’t not wonder about that when there have been plenty of doctors’ accounts of people on their hospital death beds continuing to deny that they have Covid. Those might be the extreme, but the people in denial with home kits? There’s my question: everyone gets their home tests and then what? So what? Someone tests positive…what do they do with this information? Why do we think people will be more safe about Covid than they are about anything else? Think about how many people are walking around knowing they have one STD or another and not letting that information impact their future decisions? Why the sudden push to test? Is it just throwing darts because people aren’t doing the other things experts have already told them a million times (vaccinate, mask, distance) to do, those things we know work?
I want to be generous. I understand someone might need to eat on a bus because of low blood sugar, but why wouldn’t you take a few bites and mask up while chewing? I don’t expect things of others that I don’t do myself. On a train ride back from New York over the summer, I did the whole move mask, take bite, put mask on, repeat process and understand it’s irritating. But I owe it to fellow passengers to not add to their stress with careless and overly casual behavior, even if I know that I’m fully vaccinated and have been very isolated from others. They don’t know that. Why should I mess with someone else’s psychological well-being?
A few months ago I was on a Hartford bus and this guy boards with no mask on and an open foam container of fried chicken. I thought he’d close it up after paying his fare and getting seated, but he sat there eating his dinner as if we weren’t in a pandemic and as if it’s ever appetizing to be dining on a bus. Everyone else was masked and staring hard at this guy. My stop was before his, so I don’t know if fellow passengers jumped him when he got off the bus, but by the looks they were giving him, I wouldn’t be surprised. Those elderly ladies were not having it.
Today, one of the buses I was on featured someone setting the bar for everyone else: a woman, probably around 65, correctly wearing a mask which was emblazoned with the image of Prince and lyrics to “Let’s Go Crazy.” Safety, but make it fashion.
5. HAZARDOUS CONDITION
There is a sign (below) that gets dragged out the moment there’s a whisper of snow, and not put away until the first heatwave. It’s an irritant than has become an inside joke with a friend; we text each other pics of it. It’s the kind of nonsense we have to endure in a place soiled by the insurance industry.
Here’s the thing: the locations where we are warned about hazardous conditions are not where we truly need to watch ourselves. This is not unlike the train tracks I wrote about last week. Sure, you could fall and break your ass if you aren’t paying attention, but actual hazards are places like the Woodland and Asylum intersection, which regularly features drivers blowing the red light at 50 MPH. Or trying to cross any street that is near a highway entrance from 4-5:30 PM.
The number of street signs and trees that drivers have crashed into indicates something about the real hazardous condition nobody seems to want to bother addressing.
6. TRESPASSING
What’s this mishegas?! It’s Xmas Eve. The roads are mostly clear. The sidewalks are not. But somehow, a driver decides to take over the sidewalk instead of just pulling into the driveway completely. I was about to throw hands, but I was on my way to a fancy lunch with friends — an occasion that will likely not avail itself again until 2023 or the virus burns itself out — and was not about to mess up my hair, which I spent quite some time doing and if you’ve seen me lately, you know it has two conditions: barely acceptable or steaming hot mess.
Car-Free Diaries: Week Four
Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.
1. FIRST AND LAST WORDS
Besides the death and misery, a thing I hate about the pandemic is how I can go a whole day only have said one thing aloud to another person, and it’s often “SLOW THE FUCK DOWN.”
While that phrase, with the right intonation, could mean something else entirely, I assure you, there are no Covid Unsafe activities happening up in this bitch. Literally.
This directive is always hollered at an inattentive driver, like the one in a red sports car blowing through the meek stop sign at the end of a slip lane. It’s how I learned this morning that my voice still works. On my way home, different intersection, gray minivan, same deal: driver willing to kill me to save five seconds of his or her time.
Now, I have been tsk-tsked for talking back and told my mouth will get me in trouble, but if my experience is being nearly struck or actually grazed, I feel like the trouble has already found me and people need to be told.
2. GROCERY STORE PARKING LOT
Speaking of grazed, nothing like feeling the wind off a car being driven two inches from your body as you attempt to cross the supermarket parking lot. Bad drivers would be less bad if given better design with which to work. Look at almost any parking lot. What happens after exiting a vehicle? Where are people supposed to go except into a chaos zone? Now, try this while on foot.
3. FOUND OBJECTS
While walking by the park I noticed some new debris.
At the pond there is a fishing rod supported by the thin layer of ice, and as you can see, there are footprints on the ice. Should I be concerned? There is no way it has been cold enough for long enough that this ice should support the weight of an adult.
I’m also still concerned about the brassiere still hanging on a tree beside the same pond. Is it too late to bring it back to its intended use, or would birds have begun turning this into a nest by now?
4. PANDEMIC TRANSIT
The positivity rate is like a billion percent and I’m on a bus where the driver has her mask off and is shoveling snacks in her mouth, an elderly passenger near the front of the bus is doing the same, and almost every seat is full, so no, there is no distancing really possible. A few windows are cracked. The phrase “lipstick on a pig” comes to mind.
Twitter has been ablaze lately with this knee-jerk backlash to the idea that anyone should ever take personal responsibility for their behavior when it comes to reducing the spread. They blame it on the government. I’m choosing to think of them as silly instead of complete morons. Government inaction is a problem, but how can you say folks deciding to take their masks off in tight, indoor spaces is fine? It’s not. Neither is stubbornly refusing to get vaccinated.
For awhile, you could find a handful of disposable masks stocked at the front of the bus. I have not seen those in months. Either the driver allows someone on the bus, unmasked, or there is a whole production of the driver stopping the bus, getting up, dragging a mask out of a closed storage space, and then there are still a few minutes of a delay while the rider pays fare, gets settled, and gets the mask on. And that’s if the passenger has any intention of wearing the mask.
We need government and individual responsibility.
Today I watched someone get on, no mask, no attempt to get a mask, and two other passengers utterly disgusted by this, get off before their planned stop. . . something you can tell when the bus is stopped at a light for a bit and the other riders have walked several blocks. Why do we think it’s acceptable to tolerate the reckless behavior of one person, putting others at risk, or making them very uncomfortable? What about the passengers who would have liked to leave then and there, but have mobility challenges? I guess we let them gamble because nobody wants to enforce common sense.
There’s this push for home Covid tests to be distributed by the government, and while I don’t hate this idea, I have to wonder why people think this is a silver bullet. Are folks all isolating when they get a negative test? Do they treat these home kits like people do with home pregnancy tests, taking it again and again because their denial levels are so deep? I can’t not wonder about that when there have been plenty of doctors’ accounts of people on their hospital death beds continuing to deny that they have Covid. Those might be the extreme, but the people in denial with home kits? There’s my question: everyone gets their home tests and then what? So what? Someone tests positive…what do they do with this information? Why do we think people will be more safe about Covid than they are about anything else? Think about how many people are walking around knowing they have one STD or another and not letting that information impact their future decisions? Why the sudden push to test? Is it just throwing darts because people aren’t doing the other things experts have already told them a million times (vaccinate, mask, distance) to do, those things we know work?
I want to be generous. I understand someone might need to eat on a bus because of low blood sugar, but why wouldn’t you take a few bites and mask up while chewing? I don’t expect things of others that I don’t do myself. On a train ride back from New York over the summer, I did the whole move mask, take bite, put mask on, repeat process and understand it’s irritating. But I owe it to fellow passengers to not add to their stress with careless and overly casual behavior, even if I know that I’m fully vaccinated and have been very isolated from others. They don’t know that. Why should I mess with someone else’s psychological well-being?
A few months ago I was on a Hartford bus and this guy boards with no mask on and an open foam container of fried chicken. I thought he’d close it up after paying his fare and getting seated, but he sat there eating his dinner as if we weren’t in a pandemic and as if it’s ever appetizing to be dining on a bus. Everyone else was masked and staring hard at this guy. My stop was before his, so I don’t know if fellow passengers jumped him when he got off the bus, but by the looks they were giving him, I wouldn’t be surprised. Those elderly ladies were not having it.
Today, one of the buses I was on featured someone setting the bar for everyone else: a woman, probably around 65, correctly wearing a mask which was emblazoned with the image of Prince and lyrics to “Let’s Go Crazy.” Safety, but make it fashion.
5. HAZARDOUS CONDITION
There is a sign (below) that gets dragged out the moment there’s a whisper of snow, and not put away until the first heatwave. It’s an irritant than has become an inside joke with a friend; we text each other pics of it. It’s the kind of nonsense we have to endure in a place soiled by the insurance industry.
Here’s the thing: the locations where we are warned about hazardous conditions are not where we truly need to watch ourselves. This is not unlike the train tracks I wrote about last week. Sure, you could fall and break your ass if you aren’t paying attention, but actual hazards are places like the Woodland and Asylum intersection, which regularly features drivers blowing the red light at 50 MPH. Or trying to cross any street that is near a highway entrance from 4-5:30 PM.
The number of street signs and trees that drivers have crashed into indicates something about the real hazardous condition nobody seems to want to bother addressing.
6. TRESPASSING
What’s this mishegas?! It’s Xmas Eve. The roads are mostly clear. The sidewalks are not. But somehow, a driver decides to take over the sidewalk instead of just pulling into the driveway completely. I was about to throw hands, but I was on my way to a fancy lunch with friends — an occasion that will likely not avail itself again until 2023 or the virus burns itself out — and was not about to mess up my hair, which I spent quite some time doing and if you’ve seen me lately, you know it has two conditions: barely acceptable or steaming hot mess.
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