Late afternoon thoughts listening to Vampire Weekend during a pandemic, sampling Adam Gopnik, etc.
I remember sitting on the examining table in the doctor's office and feeling the concept of immunity sinking in a bit. The doc had taken a pen and drawn a single line on the table's thin tissue topping. I had asked about shingles. Could I ever get it again? What could I do to prevent ever getting it again? The pain from my shingles episode a couple of years before had been at times unbearable. Those were the hours it felt like some tiny invaders under the torso splotches were slowly pulling a tiny pipe cleaner tipped with tin foil through my blood vessels. Yes, I got the vaccine, but could it ever happen again? The doctor said, yes, it could happen again, and then drew two more figures. The horizontal line was the virus. It stayed in my body. It would always be there. The downward-pointing crooked lines represented my immunity. When my immunity was lower than the strength of the virus, he explained, when it dipped below the base line, boom, welcome back shingle...