I will say that the NYT “bubble” piece embodies a thing I see again and again: people who know the risks, who claim to be taking the pandemic very very seriously, and then who in the same breath tell you about the 20 totally risky places and events they went to just this week.

I don’t mean “I had to work,” or “my kid has to go to school.” I mean, “This virus is *so* bad and my parents who we live with are compromised and ANYWAY I went to Applebee’s last night and then shopped at five different grocery stores and attended a COUGH-IN-YOUR-MOUTH party.”

They will describe a life to you that is barely different from life before the pandemic — eating out, social gatherings, travel, all of it — and then in the same breath tell you how serious this all is and how they’re being really really good and making these sacrifices.

Generations before us (which were often fraught in their own ways, to be clear) often had to sacrifice considerably for war or depression or disease, but some Americans right now won’t even sacrifice fucking WING NIGHT or GENDER REVEAL PARTIES.

Somewhere along the way, the already-bullshit American Exceptionalism gave way to a solipsistic narcissistic Individual Exceptionalism, where a person’s singular “liberty” (translated as “whatever I want, fuck you, I got mine”) is paramount. Zero sense of community or country.

Trump is of course the King Shit of this mode of existence — he represents the country as a man who cares only about himself, and has no view of other humans or their needs except when it is transactional in a way that elevates and glorifies him and his Sleestak desires.

I dunno how we get past this — I only know we have people in this country who won’t even sacrifice a third of their faces to a slip of fabric. It worries me about what will be needed to fight future pandemics or even climate change. “Fuck you, I got mine,” as we boil and drown.

I think it’s possible! I don’t think it’s outside our grasp. But it can’t just keep going like this. We need accountability and a reckoning with all the snakes we* let out of the can. Those snakes don’t go back in. We have to deal with them.

*the Royal we, the communal “us”

ANYWAY that turned into a thread I didn’t mean to write? Wear your masks. Be good to each other. Don’t take selfish risks. Stay home for Thanksgiving. Care about your bubble in thought, recognition, AND in your actions.

To sum up: here are dogs, dogs are good people.