Woke up today in early 1996, with Jean and Mary and the cats and ComicBox, which I suppose is down to today being the 25th anniversary of returning from Japan. Unlike everything else time-sense-wise, twenty-five years feels about a proper distance between Then and Now, but only because Plague and Crippledom have landed me in another dimension, one removed from even two years ago. If I could still walk, if I were still working, it might seem less than a quarter century, given that the teens of this century counted for maybe three years emotional time because nothing happened during them.

Whatever, this last week has been ferocious for achey pains. Rollatored to the laundromat with knees howling all the way. And of course there were half a dozen people hanging about inside, including a maskless woman doing a massive wash, so I spent most of the time outside in the not-warmth.  She had a mask, of course, she just wasn't going to put it on until she was ready to leave. Do we wonder that the city's cases are over 1,000 now and the province over 3,000? Our dilatory premier has mandated a 'brake' for the province, which merely means imposing on all of Ontario the restrictions that have been in place in the city since January: which have accomplished bupkis, obviously. Agreed that people are being suicidally negligent in their behaviour, still: what's needed is for workers who are sick to be able to stay home and get paid for it. They had two paid sick days which dear Doug the Businessman's Friend transformed into three days unpaid. And so: factories and big box stores and food processing plants are all driving the numbers up and Doug is closing hair salons. Oh wherefore, Nature, didst thou conservatives frame? They are inimical to just about everything.

(In the words of the old joke, I have no head. Can't imagine why us Olds are supposed to become more reactionary with age. I'm farther left than I was fifty years ago, because better informed.)