I should be watching the Tony Awards, but I’m being a bad theater gay and using the time go catch up on life before I have to go back to work in the morning. 16 days off has allowed my brain and body to decompress somewhat and there’s a certain amount of prep work I have to do in order to get everything lined up so that I can move forward in the morning. I know this from long experience of vacation returns in my chosen vocation. I routinely tell new medical residents that one of the worst days they will experience will be their first day back from their first vacation. They hit the ground at the start of internship, all hyped up on adrenaline and new experiences and responsibilities; then, in a few months, they get to return to normal life for a week or so and they reset. And then they have to return to the very abnormal stresses and schedules of which clinical medicine training is composed.
I am back home in Birmingham. I don’t have a lot to say about the last few days in New Orleans in the company of Frank Thompson. Good food was eaten. Walks with window shopping and gallery hopping were taken through the French Quarter. Drinks were consumed. Many heart to heart conversations were had. Rapid onset rainfall caused a couple of soakings. It was good for both of us. We’ve been friends for more than 20 years now and even though we no longer live in the same state or get to play together on stage routinely, we remain excellent touchstones for each other in dealing with the vicissitudes of life. The only truly notable event was walking up Canal Street last night when we found ourselves between a group of young Black women on the sidewalk having a good time and a group of young Black women on a party bus stopped next to them having an equally good time. They began having a twerk off. There was nothing for a couple of old white guys to do but to join in, general hilarity from the young ladies and passers by.
I was a good boy and wrote the first half of my sermon on morals and health care during my down time this weekend. Shouldn’t take all that much more to finish it up. I think it reads well so far and will hopefully get the points I’m trying to make across with a minimum of didacticism. I believe it’s scheduled for July 20th at the UU Church of Birmingham but I’ll have to double check that with the powers that be. I’ll also have to run it by ministerial staff to be sure I’m not saying anything from the pulpit I really shouldn’t. But I’m not completely sure what’s actually considered off limits in a UU space given some of what I’ve seen and heard there over the last quarter century. (My silver anniversary of having signed the membership book is next month).
I decided to take a look at the most recent Covid news as I hadn’t for a while. There are various omicron strains. They should all be covered reasonably well by the current formulations of vaccine. Vaccine remains available and the recommendation remains annual in the fall for mature adults, with a six month booster in the spring for those at significant risk due to age or underlying disease process. The CDC, under current leadership is continuing to reevlaute all of this and these recommendations could change. They have withdrawn recommendaitons for vaccination of children and younger adults (most of whom do not have severe cases). The biggest practical effect of this is going to mean that vaccinations won’t be covered by insurance for these individuals. I have no idea what will happen if there’s a mutation that renders current vaccine ineffective or even how to really track what’s going on given the degradation of public health reporting for political reasons. Keep your eyes and ears open.
The very public spat between Trump and Musk appears to have died down somewhat. I haven’t seen anything quite that viscious since a couple of old theater queens nearly came to blows over whether Patti LuPone or Glenn Close was the better Norma Desmond. (The answer is, of course, Betty Buckley). Maybe it was all a performance piece for Pride Month. I have a couple of tasks I’m responsible for for our local Pride celebrations so I better get on the stick and figure out how to get those responsibilities shoehorned into my life.
I am far more concerned about what’s going on in Los Angeles and the stand off between local/state and federal authorities. The administration is obviously trying to provoke response for propaganda purposes and there are moves of dubious legality in regards to martialing the National Guard and putting the marines on alert. We shall see what we shall see. From what I can tell, what’s going on is far less violent and destructive than January 6th 2021 so there’s definitely a bit of a double standard going on in regards to calling protest an insurrection. Domestic reporting on the situation does not appear to be terribly accurate and is fraught with media companies protecting their profits so I am getting my news from the BBC.
Wish me luck tomorrow – hopefully I won’t have left the building screaming sometime before noon.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 