![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWell, the vaccine and COVID-19 do have an effect on menstrual cycles. Also it may be the vaccine's jump start of my menstrual cycle that was partially responsible for the bad headaches I've been having.
Mother: I just heard from your brother, your sister-in-law and her friend both had their periods start after getting the Moderna vaccine.
I text message co-worker.
Me: Weird question - did your period start after getting the vaccine? One or two days later?
Co-worker: not so weird a question. One day after the each shot of the vaccine, I had the worst period of my life. Horrible stomach cramps, migraine headaches lasting for the last five days, etc. [So maybe the horrible headaches I've been having aren't sinus related ? Or both?]
She sent me a link about how COVID affects menstrual cycles...According to the article she sent me, a 55 year old woman who'd gone through menopause two years previously, had her period start after getting COVID-19.
Ching is one of several patients who spoke with MedPage Today about changes in their menstrual cycles since the onset of COVID-19. Jaime Horowitz, a 25-year old from New Jersey, said that her period was the most painful it had ever been when she first got infected, then disappeared entirely for three months. Anna Lefer Kuhn, 45, of Washington, D.C., maintains that the virus brought her period to a halt. Keely Enright, 55, a Charleston resident who receives hormonal therapy, said that her period came back when she caught the virus -- two years after she went through menopause.
Is there some relationship between coronavirus and menstruation? Ob/gyns are hesitant to speculate, as there's plenty of room for correlation over causation.
However, evidence that women with COVID-19 fare better than men has raised questions about the biological factors that may account for sex differences, and scientists are looking into whether female sex hormones and menstrual status are protective.
So I looked and found another article on this...from Israel, which was ahead of everyone on the vaccinations.
Does the Covid-19 Vaccine Disrupt Menstrual Cycles
Israeli women have been reporting menstrual bleeding after being administered the COVID-19 vaccine, leading to increased scrutiny by officials. The women, which have shared the experience on a Facebook forum called Talking about Vaccines, have reported an early period and various other instances of bleeding.
The comments to the article were even more interesting.
19 March, 2021
I have always had regular cycles...like clockwork. I got my second vaccine 3 weeks ago and the beginning of this week started what I thought was my period but 2 weeks early. It was very short lived. I assumed I was starting to have menopausal symptoms but no other signs. It then hit me about the vaccine so I looked and found this...hmmm.
15 March, 2021
Like others I had my period hours after my vaccine totally out of synchronisation of my cycle. Definitely felt it caused my period to arrive. Also much heavier.
2 days ago
I’m so glad to find I’m not alone in this! After having a lifetime of regular periods mine stopped abruptly last June and after blood work may Dr diagnosed me as peri-menopausal. I have not had a period or spotting in nine months and have been happy about that. Then had my first COVID shot on Monday and two hours later started bleeding. I’ve been having a heavy but cramp less period all week. Not sure what to make of it. I hope further testing sheds light on this.
18 March, 2021
I had my vaccine yesterday and started bleeding the same day. I am on hormonal birth control and am not "scheduled" to have my period for another week. My period NEVER comes early, regardless of outside factors (stress, change in eating habits, etc.). But it came early the same day I received my vaccine. It was bizarre enough for me to search on the internet whether this was common and this is the only thread I found. Definitely needs to be researched more. I hope its okay!
13 March, 2021
I got mine last Saturday. Period came 3 weeks early.
I think there is a link between COVID-19 and sex hormones. Also, I know understand why they are wary of giving the PFizer and Moderna vaccines to pregnant women at the moment. It could induce a miscarriage.
Definite pattern at any rate. My period is finally winding down. I'm in peri-menopause, as is my sister-in-law and her close friend - who both had their periods start right after the vaccine was administered.
But you don't read much about it online or hear anything. Why? Menopause is stigmatized in our culture - it's an embarrassing thing to discuss. Took me a while to get up the courage to mention it here (when I heard back that others had mentioned it in passing), I told my mother, who in turn mentioned it to my brother finally - who in turn told his wife. And I finally texted a co-worker. After hearing from her - I've posted an article on it on FB.
Part of the reason we may not have heard much about it in the US - is a lot of the people who got the vaccine are 60 and older, which means way past menopause. Israel though has vaccinate 80-90% of their population, so they got reports - and they used the Pfizer and Moderna.
I wish we would be more open about sharing this sort of information with each other - it's the type of information that can help.
***
Cancel Culture? Reconsidering the Art
I found an interesting article on Canceled Culture? Reconsidering the art of controversial artists.
One of the things I've noticed over the years is how people are willing to hand-wave favorites, and denounce people they don't like. I don't think anyone is immune from that? (shrugs) I mean I do find it entertaining that folks are willing to cancel Whedon, but are still fannish about David Boreanze and still watch Bull. Or have no issues with say Alfred Hitchcock, while they won't watch Woody Allen. Hitchcock was just as bad. Granted he's dead so it probably doesn't matter.
I mean it's sort of like saying, you need to give up those evil brownies, but I'm still eating my cookies, thank you very much. Hmm, yum, brownies.
I want brownies now. Particularly pot brownies. Never had pot brownies.
When and if marijuana is legalized? I'm totally making gluten free pot brownies.
Anyhow, I've been wrestling with the whole cancel culture idea or the need to "punish" folks. I admit it - right now, I would love to do away with the entire Conservative Branch of the Republican Party in the US, and see Trump cancelled in every way imaginable.
But I'm on the fence about some of it. Also the cancelling - basically just means the mainstream platforms. They mainly jump to the fringes again. Instead of posting on Twitter - it's well another lesser know platform. Which isn't a bad thing.
And the article - along with the Video make a good point about how it does force the artist to be held accountable. OTOH - should we stop enjoying their art? Stop watching it? Or does it provide us with the opportunity to focus on other less controversial artists?
As more and more painters, writers, musicians and filmmakers are unmasked as "bad actors," we're forced to reconsider their work.
"I think what we are trying to do in this world is hold people accountable for the harm that they do," said Loretta Ross, a visiting professor at Smith College. "Because previously, only the powerful could punish the powerless, but now when anybody has a keyboard, they can become a critic."
And a powerful one. Ross said that calling out artists and performers on the internet hasn't just shamed them; it has significantly damaged careers and reputations. Louis C.K. has been dropped by HBO, F/X and Netflix; Johnny Depp lost lucrative movie deals after a very public legal battle over domestic violence allegations; and ABC canceled TV star Roseanne Barr's highly-rated television show after a tweet many considered racist.
Correspondent Erin Moriarty asked, "In some cases, doesn't the call-out culture work, and work well?"
"It can work," Ross said, "but does it achieve what you want, which is accountability? If you want to achieve punishment, it is actually a good device for just punishing people."
But to some, like art critic Aruna D'Souza, any reckoning is long overdue. "I think that lots of artists are terrible people, because being an artist allowed for a kind of latitude of behavior that included things that today we find really offensive," she said.
D'Souza believes that both artists and the institutions that show their work need to be held accountable – like New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017, when a petition, signed by thousands, sharply criticized a Balthus exhibit with an eleven-year-old model in a sexually suggestive pose.
D'Souza asked, "Do we just keep going back to the same artists all the time, knowing that some have caused real pain in the world? Or do we take the opportunity of saying, 'I'm going to put this person aside for a minute and I'm going to look at someone else'?"
Which is the reason D'Souza questions the CBS News profile of Woody Allen that is airing now on Paramount+.
She said, "If someone is there being interviewed, they're given a kind of legitimacy just by the fact that they're being interviewed on a big newscast."
D'Souza suggests that, rather than featuring those with troubling personal lives, the media, and museums, should turn to new and overlooked artists.
Moriarty asked, "Would you not show the work of someone like Picasso because there are other artists not being recognized and you're giving too much time to Picasso?"
"Absolutely!" she replied.
But is looking away – or keeping others from seeing controversial work – the best answer?
Moriarty asked Richard Peña, who teaches film theory at Columbia University, "When you are choosing artists to study, do you ever even consider what kind of person that artist is?"
"Frankly, no," he replied. "I used to work at the New York Film Festival, so I actually know some of these artists, and some of them aren't people I'd particularly want to spend time with.
"We simply don't know the history of all the artists that we show, artists whose work I know and love, and love to present to my students. But if we're suddenly to discover some terrible fact about them, for me that would give me another way of looking at their work. I'm not sure it would make me not wanna look at their work."
As long as it's presented in context, there is a value, Peña said, in viewing and analyzing even the most problematic people and their films, like D.W. Griffith's classic – and racist – 1915 film, "Birth of a Nation."
Peña described it as "a piece of racist claptrap. Now because he's the author of that, do we negate him from film studies? It would be impossible; his contribution was too huge. I think what we have to do, though, is always be aware of who D.W. Griffith was."
Loretta Ross said, "We have to get away from this angel/devil view of humanity. We're all complicated people, and we have to assume that the people whose art we admire are at least as complicated as we are."
And cancelling films or television shows of complicated, even criminal artists, Ross said, can have unintended consequences.
"You're talking about costing a lot of people their jobs, a lot of people who get harmed mainly because of the mistakes that one person can make," she said. "I mean, let me be honest, I'd watch 'The Cosby Show' if they put it back on! I mean, 'cause that's an ensemble case. And you don't want to group-punish people because of one person's bad acts."
What is art, and what is objectionable, is often subjective, seen through the lens of our own experiences.
Ross said, "I have to honestly say I never saw 'Gone With the Wind' or 'Birth of a Nation,' because my community told me that those films were not going to be good for my soul. It was like watching a horror film when you aren't into horror. Why would I do that?"
Moriarty asked, "Is there any artist that you would say deserves being cancelled and called out?"
"Well, I heard that Hitler was an artist, and I wouldn't be bidding on his paintings!" she laughed. "But again, it's about people's ability to, not separate the art from the artist, but conceptualize the art with the artist. We're not clones. We're supposed to disagree. That's what a pluralistic society does. But what we're not supposed to do is dispose of each other because we disagree."
For more info:
Loretta Ross, professor, Smith College
Art critic Aruna D'Souza
Richard Peña, Columbia University
Story produced by Sari Aviv. Editor: Steven Tyler.
I don't know. I'm on the fence, clearly - I fall somewhere between D'Souza and Ross, to be honest. I admittedly don't think I can watch Woody Allen, Bill Cosby or Louis CK any time soon, also Roman Polanski...not so sure about. Not that I was a huge fan of any of the above to begin with, although there are a few Woody Allen films I enjoyed. And I liked Bill Cosby - I was more upset about Cosby. It's easier with musicians, somehow. I forget the musician is singing the song. I have no vocal recognition skills whatesover. Also in some respects - films, you can forget someone did a film, in some cases. Actors - it can be harder with, and it is impossible with Standup Comedians.
On the writer front? I admittedly have never liked Orson Scott Card, David Foster Wallace, or Virgina Woolf - so no problems there. And two are dead, so not sure it even matters. Joss Whedon on the other hand? I've mixed feelings about.
That brings up another question if we cancel someone - and they are dead, does it matter? (Whedon isn't dead, but Hitchcock, Kurbrick and Woolf are, as is Margaret Mitchell and WB Griffith.) I think the third critic and film professor - Richard Pena makes some good points - in that, it provides an opportunity to revisit and reconsider the art from a critical perspective. To look at it deeper. I've been thinking about Whedon's work for example - and picking up on a few things I hadn't before - such as cruelty of his jokes, and where some of that comes from. Also the degree to which that was influenced by others such as Roseanne, who had a toxic brand of humor.
At any rate - it's a topic that I've not made up my mind about.
Mother made an interesting comment last night...she said that I couldn't be manipulated by men. I retorted that I can't be manipulated by anyone, folks have tried. I make up my own mind about things, and it often takes a while.
***
It's a gray day today. I find myself watching birds outside the window, fluttering about the branches of the trees. And I wonder if it will rain some more - it looks like it.
I slept through a good portion of the Church's Palm Sunday service on FB, it had nice instrumentals and music, but way too much on sermonizing on recent events. News events that I've been deliberately avoiding. I had to shut it off finally. Yes, I know the world is a nasty place for us to live in - but I honestly don't know what I can do about it. I can't figure out how to help my poor decrepit parents in South Carolina, let alone deal with idiots who like to buy guns and shoot people, and a society that continues to hand-wave this kind of violence. Or the voting rights problem in other states. I can't change what Georgia does. (I've already sent money to the cause.)
Had nightmares last night about my inability to drive, and missing work because I got the days confused and couldn't get there in time. Basically transportation nightmares. I think I'm worried about the transportation pass, and visiting my Mom. I'd planned on visiting her as soon as I got the vaccine - by early May or late April. But she's injured and it can't happen. And if I could drive this wouldn't be as big an issue - and I could go down and drive her to appointments, and go grocery shopping for her and...but I can't drive, so that's out. And I'd just be in the way. I have wasted a godawful amount of time and energy beating myself up over this - just so you know. My mother keeps telling me not to go there - she understands, also, she adds, a lot of folks don't drive or can't drive - even where she is.
Anyhow, the good news is most of my family seems to be COVID free and vaccinated. Along with many of my co-workers - those I know and work with.
This is good news.
Last night's sunset again...there won't be one tonight, I don't think, since it's very overcast.
Mother: I just heard from your brother, your sister-in-law and her friend both had their periods start after getting the Moderna vaccine.
I text message co-worker.
Me: Weird question - did your period start after getting the vaccine? One or two days later?
Co-worker: not so weird a question. One day after the each shot of the vaccine, I had the worst period of my life. Horrible stomach cramps, migraine headaches lasting for the last five days, etc. [So maybe the horrible headaches I've been having aren't sinus related ? Or both?]
She sent me a link about how COVID affects menstrual cycles...According to the article she sent me, a 55 year old woman who'd gone through menopause two years previously, had her period start after getting COVID-19.
Ching is one of several patients who spoke with MedPage Today about changes in their menstrual cycles since the onset of COVID-19. Jaime Horowitz, a 25-year old from New Jersey, said that her period was the most painful it had ever been when she first got infected, then disappeared entirely for three months. Anna Lefer Kuhn, 45, of Washington, D.C., maintains that the virus brought her period to a halt. Keely Enright, 55, a Charleston resident who receives hormonal therapy, said that her period came back when she caught the virus -- two years after she went through menopause.
Is there some relationship between coronavirus and menstruation? Ob/gyns are hesitant to speculate, as there's plenty of room for correlation over causation.
However, evidence that women with COVID-19 fare better than men has raised questions about the biological factors that may account for sex differences, and scientists are looking into whether female sex hormones and menstrual status are protective.
So I looked and found another article on this...from Israel, which was ahead of everyone on the vaccinations.
Does the Covid-19 Vaccine Disrupt Menstrual Cycles
Israeli women have been reporting menstrual bleeding after being administered the COVID-19 vaccine, leading to increased scrutiny by officials. The women, which have shared the experience on a Facebook forum called Talking about Vaccines, have reported an early period and various other instances of bleeding.
The comments to the article were even more interesting.
19 March, 2021
I have always had regular cycles...like clockwork. I got my second vaccine 3 weeks ago and the beginning of this week started what I thought was my period but 2 weeks early. It was very short lived. I assumed I was starting to have menopausal symptoms but no other signs. It then hit me about the vaccine so I looked and found this...hmmm.
15 March, 2021
Like others I had my period hours after my vaccine totally out of synchronisation of my cycle. Definitely felt it caused my period to arrive. Also much heavier.
2 days ago
I’m so glad to find I’m not alone in this! After having a lifetime of regular periods mine stopped abruptly last June and after blood work may Dr diagnosed me as peri-menopausal. I have not had a period or spotting in nine months and have been happy about that. Then had my first COVID shot on Monday and two hours later started bleeding. I’ve been having a heavy but cramp less period all week. Not sure what to make of it. I hope further testing sheds light on this.
18 March, 2021
I had my vaccine yesterday and started bleeding the same day. I am on hormonal birth control and am not "scheduled" to have my period for another week. My period NEVER comes early, regardless of outside factors (stress, change in eating habits, etc.). But it came early the same day I received my vaccine. It was bizarre enough for me to search on the internet whether this was common and this is the only thread I found. Definitely needs to be researched more. I hope its okay!
13 March, 2021
I got mine last Saturday. Period came 3 weeks early.
I think there is a link between COVID-19 and sex hormones. Also, I know understand why they are wary of giving the PFizer and Moderna vaccines to pregnant women at the moment. It could induce a miscarriage.
Definite pattern at any rate. My period is finally winding down. I'm in peri-menopause, as is my sister-in-law and her close friend - who both had their periods start right after the vaccine was administered.
But you don't read much about it online or hear anything. Why? Menopause is stigmatized in our culture - it's an embarrassing thing to discuss. Took me a while to get up the courage to mention it here (when I heard back that others had mentioned it in passing), I told my mother, who in turn mentioned it to my brother finally - who in turn told his wife. And I finally texted a co-worker. After hearing from her - I've posted an article on it on FB.
Part of the reason we may not have heard much about it in the US - is a lot of the people who got the vaccine are 60 and older, which means way past menopause. Israel though has vaccinate 80-90% of their population, so they got reports - and they used the Pfizer and Moderna.
I wish we would be more open about sharing this sort of information with each other - it's the type of information that can help.
***
Cancel Culture? Reconsidering the Art
I found an interesting article on Canceled Culture? Reconsidering the art of controversial artists.
One of the things I've noticed over the years is how people are willing to hand-wave favorites, and denounce people they don't like. I don't think anyone is immune from that? (shrugs) I mean I do find it entertaining that folks are willing to cancel Whedon, but are still fannish about David Boreanze and still watch Bull. Or have no issues with say Alfred Hitchcock, while they won't watch Woody Allen. Hitchcock was just as bad. Granted he's dead so it probably doesn't matter.
I mean it's sort of like saying, you need to give up those evil brownies, but I'm still eating my cookies, thank you very much. Hmm, yum, brownies.
I want brownies now. Particularly pot brownies. Never had pot brownies.
When and if marijuana is legalized? I'm totally making gluten free pot brownies.
Anyhow, I've been wrestling with the whole cancel culture idea or the need to "punish" folks. I admit it - right now, I would love to do away with the entire Conservative Branch of the Republican Party in the US, and see Trump cancelled in every way imaginable.
But I'm on the fence about some of it. Also the cancelling - basically just means the mainstream platforms. They mainly jump to the fringes again. Instead of posting on Twitter - it's well another lesser know platform. Which isn't a bad thing.
And the article - along with the Video make a good point about how it does force the artist to be held accountable. OTOH - should we stop enjoying their art? Stop watching it? Or does it provide us with the opportunity to focus on other less controversial artists?
As more and more painters, writers, musicians and filmmakers are unmasked as "bad actors," we're forced to reconsider their work.
"I think what we are trying to do in this world is hold people accountable for the harm that they do," said Loretta Ross, a visiting professor at Smith College. "Because previously, only the powerful could punish the powerless, but now when anybody has a keyboard, they can become a critic."
And a powerful one. Ross said that calling out artists and performers on the internet hasn't just shamed them; it has significantly damaged careers and reputations. Louis C.K. has been dropped by HBO, F/X and Netflix; Johnny Depp lost lucrative movie deals after a very public legal battle over domestic violence allegations; and ABC canceled TV star Roseanne Barr's highly-rated television show after a tweet many considered racist.
Correspondent Erin Moriarty asked, "In some cases, doesn't the call-out culture work, and work well?"
"It can work," Ross said, "but does it achieve what you want, which is accountability? If you want to achieve punishment, it is actually a good device for just punishing people."
But to some, like art critic Aruna D'Souza, any reckoning is long overdue. "I think that lots of artists are terrible people, because being an artist allowed for a kind of latitude of behavior that included things that today we find really offensive," she said.
D'Souza believes that both artists and the institutions that show their work need to be held accountable – like New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017, when a petition, signed by thousands, sharply criticized a Balthus exhibit with an eleven-year-old model in a sexually suggestive pose.
D'Souza asked, "Do we just keep going back to the same artists all the time, knowing that some have caused real pain in the world? Or do we take the opportunity of saying, 'I'm going to put this person aside for a minute and I'm going to look at someone else'?"
Which is the reason D'Souza questions the CBS News profile of Woody Allen that is airing now on Paramount+.
She said, "If someone is there being interviewed, they're given a kind of legitimacy just by the fact that they're being interviewed on a big newscast."
D'Souza suggests that, rather than featuring those with troubling personal lives, the media, and museums, should turn to new and overlooked artists.
Moriarty asked, "Would you not show the work of someone like Picasso because there are other artists not being recognized and you're giving too much time to Picasso?"
"Absolutely!" she replied.
But is looking away – or keeping others from seeing controversial work – the best answer?
Moriarty asked Richard Peña, who teaches film theory at Columbia University, "When you are choosing artists to study, do you ever even consider what kind of person that artist is?"
"Frankly, no," he replied. "I used to work at the New York Film Festival, so I actually know some of these artists, and some of them aren't people I'd particularly want to spend time with.
"We simply don't know the history of all the artists that we show, artists whose work I know and love, and love to present to my students. But if we're suddenly to discover some terrible fact about them, for me that would give me another way of looking at their work. I'm not sure it would make me not wanna look at their work."
As long as it's presented in context, there is a value, Peña said, in viewing and analyzing even the most problematic people and their films, like D.W. Griffith's classic – and racist – 1915 film, "Birth of a Nation."
Peña described it as "a piece of racist claptrap. Now because he's the author of that, do we negate him from film studies? It would be impossible; his contribution was too huge. I think what we have to do, though, is always be aware of who D.W. Griffith was."
Loretta Ross said, "We have to get away from this angel/devil view of humanity. We're all complicated people, and we have to assume that the people whose art we admire are at least as complicated as we are."
And cancelling films or television shows of complicated, even criminal artists, Ross said, can have unintended consequences.
"You're talking about costing a lot of people their jobs, a lot of people who get harmed mainly because of the mistakes that one person can make," she said. "I mean, let me be honest, I'd watch 'The Cosby Show' if they put it back on! I mean, 'cause that's an ensemble case. And you don't want to group-punish people because of one person's bad acts."
What is art, and what is objectionable, is often subjective, seen through the lens of our own experiences.
Ross said, "I have to honestly say I never saw 'Gone With the Wind' or 'Birth of a Nation,' because my community told me that those films were not going to be good for my soul. It was like watching a horror film when you aren't into horror. Why would I do that?"
Moriarty asked, "Is there any artist that you would say deserves being cancelled and called out?"
"Well, I heard that Hitler was an artist, and I wouldn't be bidding on his paintings!" she laughed. "But again, it's about people's ability to, not separate the art from the artist, but conceptualize the art with the artist. We're not clones. We're supposed to disagree. That's what a pluralistic society does. But what we're not supposed to do is dispose of each other because we disagree."
For more info:
Loretta Ross, professor, Smith College
Art critic Aruna D'Souza
Richard Peña, Columbia University
Story produced by Sari Aviv. Editor: Steven Tyler.
I don't know. I'm on the fence, clearly - I fall somewhere between D'Souza and Ross, to be honest. I admittedly don't think I can watch Woody Allen, Bill Cosby or Louis CK any time soon, also Roman Polanski...not so sure about. Not that I was a huge fan of any of the above to begin with, although there are a few Woody Allen films I enjoyed. And I liked Bill Cosby - I was more upset about Cosby. It's easier with musicians, somehow. I forget the musician is singing the song. I have no vocal recognition skills whatesover. Also in some respects - films, you can forget someone did a film, in some cases. Actors - it can be harder with, and it is impossible with Standup Comedians.
On the writer front? I admittedly have never liked Orson Scott Card, David Foster Wallace, or Virgina Woolf - so no problems there. And two are dead, so not sure it even matters. Joss Whedon on the other hand? I've mixed feelings about.
That brings up another question if we cancel someone - and they are dead, does it matter? (Whedon isn't dead, but Hitchcock, Kurbrick and Woolf are, as is Margaret Mitchell and WB Griffith.) I think the third critic and film professor - Richard Pena makes some good points - in that, it provides an opportunity to revisit and reconsider the art from a critical perspective. To look at it deeper. I've been thinking about Whedon's work for example - and picking up on a few things I hadn't before - such as cruelty of his jokes, and where some of that comes from. Also the degree to which that was influenced by others such as Roseanne, who had a toxic brand of humor.
At any rate - it's a topic that I've not made up my mind about.
Mother made an interesting comment last night...she said that I couldn't be manipulated by men. I retorted that I can't be manipulated by anyone, folks have tried. I make up my own mind about things, and it often takes a while.
***
It's a gray day today. I find myself watching birds outside the window, fluttering about the branches of the trees. And I wonder if it will rain some more - it looks like it.
I slept through a good portion of the Church's Palm Sunday service on FB, it had nice instrumentals and music, but way too much on sermonizing on recent events. News events that I've been deliberately avoiding. I had to shut it off finally. Yes, I know the world is a nasty place for us to live in - but I honestly don't know what I can do about it. I can't figure out how to help my poor decrepit parents in South Carolina, let alone deal with idiots who like to buy guns and shoot people, and a society that continues to hand-wave this kind of violence. Or the voting rights problem in other states. I can't change what Georgia does. (I've already sent money to the cause.)
Had nightmares last night about my inability to drive, and missing work because I got the days confused and couldn't get there in time. Basically transportation nightmares. I think I'm worried about the transportation pass, and visiting my Mom. I'd planned on visiting her as soon as I got the vaccine - by early May or late April. But she's injured and it can't happen. And if I could drive this wouldn't be as big an issue - and I could go down and drive her to appointments, and go grocery shopping for her and...but I can't drive, so that's out. And I'd just be in the way. I have wasted a godawful amount of time and energy beating myself up over this - just so you know. My mother keeps telling me not to go there - she understands, also, she adds, a lot of folks don't drive or can't drive - even where she is.
Anyhow, the good news is most of my family seems to be COVID free and vaccinated. Along with many of my co-workers - those I know and work with.
This is good news.
Last night's sunset again...there won't be one tonight, I don't think, since it's very overcast.