Ew. Gross.

At one point, my partner mockingly parroted that old line about "Take off your mask so we can see your smile!"

"Jokes on them. I don't have a smile," I said.

It feels all the more violent now. The real expectation is: "Be unsafe and display happiness so I can be comfortable!"

Well, that feels like the betrayal done by family and so-called friends. Two layers of being ostracized.

A difference, of course, is that the COVID aware didn't drug and nearly kill anyone. We just asked for mutual care.

When the infected folks decamped Albuquerque, it called to mind the mass abandonment done by society in their haste for "normal." Not a word of regret, just... absquatulation. And then, when Carol finds out the uninfected get together without her and iced her out...

It was delicious. Not sure if it'll be a tradition yet. But I wasn't mad about it.