Many of you are, like me, feeling this year can’t end soon enough (and January 20 come!). It has been a slog. I often ruminate on what it must have been like to live in a world where polio, measles, TB, Strep Throat, meningitis, influenza and other infections spread unabated by vaccines and treatments and aided by an even deeper well of ignorance. Somehow life went on, and life still goes on now, but it is a very strange life. At least I have a new neighbor slated to move in soon; it is hard to believe the election was as close as it was, but it is also soothing to see competence and rationality starting to get the upper hand.
JOB: I am still working for Medstar at the World Bank Headquarters in downtown D.C. The Bank won’t let anyone who has been sick recently or has traveled in the building, so we do a limited amount of in person visits and augment that with video visits. We started doing Covid testing a few months back and that has gone well, though the doctor’s side of it is very repetitive and tedious, and lately the staff have been overwhelmed. I have gotten used to wearing a mask all day and a face shield when I am seeing patients. Sigh, but it is for the best, and we probably should have been doing it to protect ourselves long ago. I have not been sick at all for over a year.
TRAVEL: Fortunately, I got in two trips before things got weird. I went to Portugal alone for a week in January and enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was as nice as Spain, but there was plenty to see and do and the weather was pretty good (Lisbon and Porto). I went to Austria to ski (first time in 19 years) the last week in February with my old friend, Vince Seiwert. Innsbruck was beautiful, and I got to know it well after tearing the medial meniscus in my right knee in a freak accident on the last run of the first day. I was skiing better than ever, too, after taking a lesson. Sigh. We had a few big arguments (religion, the Constitution) while we were together, and I haven’t heard from Vince since he got on the plane home. Two fantastic people he knew from Germany visited us, and I still keep in touch with them, so I have that going for me.
In the US, it was a true blessing to have our house on Keuka Lake as an escape. There is not a safer place where I can relax (in my own way, without the heat on, and doing some sort of physical activity all day). I was there for a few days in May alone, in July with a small group of O’Rourkes (never more than 10), and alone again in September, when I also drove to Roanoke to spend 5 days with the Wrights, playing (terrible) golf for the first time in years.
FITNESS/HEALTH: My health is still excellent (and I look pretty good for 56). I was in fantastic shape before I hurt my knee, best in years (see above), but I finally took it easy for a few weeks after a knee injury, and it settled on its own. I got into really good running shape again in a few months and then a nagging foot injury flared up. I needed that exercise during all that was happening, so I tried to fight through it. It hasn’t gotten better despite lots of different strategies (the recent plan seems to be working on some levels, though). There are no races or pressures other than the relentless aging that gives me less and less time left to be able to do the things I like. Sigh. At least the gym is open in my new apartment building, and I am usually able to work out there alone. I have gotten good at working out and running with a mask on all the time. I think of it is a training aid.
MOVING: My old apartment was very expensive, the building full of college students who rarely followed the rules, and I had a very noisy neighbor fond of causing crashing and banging sounds between 2 and 4am, so I moved to a new apartment just on the other side of the White House, coincidentally a block from what became Black Lives Matter Plaza. The apartment is nice enough, with limited natural light and lots of random noises, but it is far quieter and way less annoying than the other place. It is not close to any groceries, but I get some delivered and often walk at lunch or Sunday mornings to get things. It is very near the action and the Mall, which I like, but I am also well stowed away from trouble. The walk to work is a few minutes longer, but once they open things up in front of the White House and Lafayette Park it should be a pleasant stroll.
The new place early on.
Favorite Compliments: I see a lot of male patients at the office, and some of them are surprisingly complimentary of me. It prompted me to recall a few other unusual compliments I have gotten in the past 10 years or so.
1. I replied to a patient’s statement that he had a “typical face” for his region that I had the typical bald guy face. He cringed and said, “No, no. Your face is very chiseled.” (I found this very amusing because I had described my face with that word a few days prior for the first time).
2. While I was getting the computer ready, a new patient said, “Doctor, you work out! You are in great shape!” I said I try to take good care of myself. His reply: “No, you are in great shape! I can tell you have a six pack even through your shirt!” (I clarified it was only a 4 pack).
3. I was playing golf at Bucknell’s course about 6 years ago with an elderly man I’d joined who had grown up in Danville. I carried my clubs and walked while he rode in a cart. Towards the end of the round, he said, “I have to tell you, I have never seen anyone move so fast and easily while carrying their clubs.”
4. During a neck ultrasound following up on my thyroid surgery, the technician, with whom I was friends, started saying things like, “Yes, he is really healthy. Yes, he works out a lot,” while she was on the phone with the Radiologist who was reviewing my study. After she hung up, she said, “He kept asking me about you. He said you have no fat at all in your neck.”
MUSIC: This was a weird year for music as well. I bought a new laptop, which I like, but the new iTunes/Apple music won’t allow me to download the albums I buy, and no one from Apple has been able to fix it. So, now I subscribe to Apple Music for $10/month and stopped buying albums. It is super annoying, but I am getting used to it. I still have my vast catalogue of 5000++ songs in my iTunes to shuffle play.
Here is what I did buy: The most valued purchases were Phoebe Bridgers, “Punisher” and “Stranger in the Alps.” She is fantastic, a once in a generation talent (I am a bit obsessed), and led me to her side project, Better Oblivion Community Center and its self-titled debut album, and from there to Noah Gunderson’s great album, “White Noise” and its less rocking but still great follow-up, “Lover.” Other good ones: Grant-Lee Phillips “Lightning, Show Us Your Stuff”; Soul Asylum “Hurry Up and Wait”; Fiona Apple “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”; Van Wagner “You Can’t Force a Mule”; Grouplove “Healer”.
On Apple Music: Bob Mould “Blue Hearts”; Beabadoobee “Fake It Flowers”; Belly “King”
BOOKS: I have struggled, despite what should have been abundant free time, getting books read and keeping up with the New Yorker and Atlantic. It is probably my addiction to the “Spelling Bee” game in the NY Times online edition (I achieve a “Genius” rating almost every day), in addition to watching too much MSNBC (no reason to anymore:-). I only finished 11 books this year, and I have three I am in the midst of. I will surely finish the best of those, “A Promised Land” by Barack Obama, soon. Otherwise, here are the 11 with a brief (ha!) blurb:
“The Little Red Chairs” by Edna O’Brien, hard to pigeonhole, but a good, if troubling, novel.
“Calypso” by David Sedaris, always amusing, especially his penchant for overdoing things
“Biased” by Jennifer L. Eberhardt, territory I have trod before, but important for humans to understand, though those who need it most are least likely to read it.
“Moneyland” by Ivor Bullough, explains how the super-wealthy are taking advantage of the system and each of us while making our lives worse. Makes me think the old 90% tax rate would be a great idea. Definitely worth it.
“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusa, a well-regarded mining of the Nazi era yet again.
“The End of October” by Lawrence Wright, a great journalist with impeccable timing for a book about a worldwide pandemic, but it was ultimately a disappointment, with many cinematic tropes and deus ex machina – clearly wants to be made into a movie.
“Flights” by Olga Tokarczuk, an award-winning novel that is very strange and not for me.
“Egghead” by Bo Burnham, a comedian and filmmaker, he also writes. Meh. A frivolity.
“Everything is Trash, But It’s OK” by Phoebe Robinson, a talented comedian and cultural figure, but her book of essays is way too long and padded.
“The Wizard and the Prophet” by Charles C. Mann. A great, great writer telling the story of how the green revolution, which helped humans grow enough food to feed the billions of us, depended so much on the efforts of just a few people who were coming at it from very different angles.
“Disloyal” by Michael Cohen. Not a bad read at all, infuriating and revealing of what I certainly expected to be the reality, though even a bit worse (see an analogous quote below).
CITY LIFE: At its best, DC is a very livable city with plenty to do. In a pandemic, it isn’t so great. There were plenty of tense times where food was short, but I could always get something (few people were fighting over the baked tofu or lentil pasta). My main activity out of the apartment was walking. I walked all over (in addition to my runs):
I tried to find some new friends, but that was not easy, so I was often alone or with friends I’d made before the “lockdown,” one of whom was a fairly reliable companion for some really nice, long strolls (one was 13 miles). Once the protests started, I often went to the area that became Black Lives Matter Plaza, both at lunch with my doctor friends, on weekends by myself or with my niece, Kelsey (that day, in the first photo above, had the most people), who was also good for a low key adventure every few weeks. BLM Plaza was very interesting and often moving. The city handled it well during the height of the protests, as it did the pre and post-election times (not true for the Park Police). I hope all the extra fencing and plywood will be removed soon; we still need to social distance and stay out of restaurants, but there are some nice spaces that have been off limits for too long. Since I am not on the front lines, I will not likely be one of the first to get a vaccine, but I would guess I should have the series finished by March. I am willing to try any of them, but the Moderna one looks best. Perhaps the saddest side of the pandemic, at least what is obvious to anyone walking this city, is the plight of the homeless and mentally ill. Rare are the days when I don’t witness someone overtly psychotic shouting and/or pacing.
This is the day the news outlets proclaimed Biden the winner.
QUOTES:
Adam Gopnik (a genius), in the New Yorker: “The pressure of extreme and unexpected events forces the flaws in our common character to the surface.”
Lauren Groff, The Atlantic: “(Florida) has been built on the promises of an eternal present, on blithe and deliberate disregard for the past so as not to learn from it – on a refusal to give a single whit about the future…. Florida votes for precisely the people trying to strip necessary life-giving protections from our neighbors and from the glorious natural environment that we are dependent on.”
Me: “There has to be a genetic basis for gullibility, and it would appear to be very common.”
George Packer, The Atlantic: “But on racial matters, the U.S. could just as accurately be described as a land in denial. It has been a massacring nation that said it cherished life, a slaveholding nation that claimed it valued liberty, a hierarchal nation that declared it valued equality, a disenfranchising nation that branded itself a democracy, a segregated nation that branded itself as separate and equal, an excluding nation that boasted of opportunity for all. A nation is what it does, not what it originally claimed it would be. Often, a nation is precisely what it denies itself to be.”
Evan Osnos, the New Yorker: “According to the standard measure of complexity in writing, the Flesch-Kincaid index, ______ communicated at the level of a 4th grader.
Henry Adams, “I expected the worst, and it was worse than I expected.”
Me: “Y’all should turn around and face the other direction. The most dangerous people in this area are in that big white house behind you, not us.” Imaginary shout to the unfortunate souls standing across 16th St NW in riot gear in 92 degree heat during one of our lunchtime visits to the protests.
My new address: 733 15th St NW, Apt 318, Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 570-238-2084
Instagram: drterryo64
Halloween costume for work:
Mr. Clean for a few hours, then back to Mr. Abitslobby.
Unfortunately, as this terrible year ends, things are only going to get worse before they get better. Hold on tight to what matters in life and try to do what it takes to improve things when you get a chance. There is an end in sight, and perhaps a better world on the other side of this if we remember how working together makes life better for the most people possible, and how being selfish and uncooperative makes everything worse for everyone.
Please be in touch. I love to hear from you! Be safe!
Terry O’Rourke