good...

gah

Time and difficulty: you don't have bus stops or rail stations within reasonable walking distance, and can't count on one that will let you take your bike/market granny cart with you.

and as often as possible.

Please add alt-text when sharing images, so that blind and low-vision people aren't excluded from the conversation. Some context and copy/paste or a brief description are often enough. Checking the "reminder to add alt-text" box in your accessibility settings helps a lot.

Thank you.

A thing that's extra maddening is how often great mass transit projects will be announced (campaign promises ahoy!), and often approved with great fanfare--and then, a decade goes by, and oops, we don't have enough money for that, let us build elevated fast lanes instead.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

It looks like the OP lives in Washington D.C. Having used public transit there for three glorious week back in 2009, I see how they're making a multitude of assumptions about infrastructure that doesn't exist is most of the rest of the U.S.

Crossing all fingers!

There are so many unexamined assumptions in that post, it's really kind of breathtaking.

For starters, if there is NO mass transit to speak of, what alternatives are there to cars? (and no, 1 bus every three hours, 8 to 6 M to F, on four mayor roads only, isn't mass transit is it.)

I'm so glad and relieved for you.

Yes; fingers crossed nothing negative comes of it.

I desperately need to go to the dentist, and I haven't been able to bring myself to even try.

There are ways; a mental note about testing, or upcoming vaccination, or someone taking care of someone with sever LongCOVID.

It's not like there are many people who don't know someone who has LongCOVID or lost someone to COVID, so.

I struggle with this a lot (as I continue to mask in public and get the looks and pity ("that hysterical, paranoid person"), it's hard not to resent all the people who don't--especially when they sniffle, sneeze and cough around you in public spaces).

Fraught indeed.

gah, even worse (now I know there are two with essentially the same...willful blindness?)

AND HE WAS A DOCTOR, AN ER DOCTOR!!!

(if it's the book I'm thinking about)