Setback

We were supposed to go to California this weekend but Sam got Covid.

Of course our plans were scuttled, and Sam entered isolation mode. At our age, you can’t be too careful, though Sam at seventy is like a normal person at forty with excessive back hair. He is prone to saying whatever quirky stuff pops into his head, but I’ve known him since he was seventeen, so I know it’s his nature and not dementia.

I am looking at my calendar- I keep an old-school paper one right here, on my writing desk- and right now on today’s date is a line with the word “California” written on it. I am not supposed to be here, yet, here I am.

I’m waiting on Sam, but it’s not a huge deal. I bring him his morning coffee and food on a tray and he seems cheerful enough. The only thing I can legitimately gripe about aside from the cancelled trip is that Sam and I were watching a streaming series that was passable and his absence required I take a break from it, so I watched the #1 movie on Netflix, Hit Man.

Can I just say Hit Man is every single fucking thing I hate about the morass of subpar content that defines what we are encouraged to consume. It is toxically masculine in a stealthy, facile way, with every female character orbiting around the main penis as arm candy, victim, or annoyance. The premise was absurd: a smoking hot college philosophy professor hired by the police to entrap those plotting murder-for-hire as a faux hitman employing a system of dumb disguises and accents. I stumbled out of Hit Man into a reality show called Dual Survival, which wasn’t immune from macho flexing, but I was heartened to see Mother Nature badassedly doing her worst while two hardy outdoorsmen were reduced to blowing on dried moss to start a fire. 

Sam is recovering from Covid, but I can’t say the same for myself re. Hit Man. But here’s my plan: tonight, I’m going to take two Golden Girls and see how I feel in the morning. It sucks, though, that I have to reach so far back to see any progress.