Things You Can Do

 Outside

1) You can pee.
 I recommend peeing outside, as many public washrooms are closed — especially, it seems, when you need them most! I found a great outdoor spot to pee in Hamilton. There’s a wall on one side, and a little inset door, which says ‘no loitering’ (because lots of guys pee there). You just have to make sure there isn’t anybody in the parking lot behind you spying. Well, all they would see is your butt. (Of course they would know what you are doing.) Peeing outside is great! On the one hand you feel like you’re flaunting authority (which I love) and then of course, you get that pee out, which is often an absolute necessity. (I do apologize to all the women who don’t like to squat. But I know some of my best women friends quite happily, do! So go to it, ladies!)

2)  You can litter.
Littering is fun. For some reason the garbage cans have been removed from a lot of public places — I’m not sure what that has to do with COVID-19. But ours is not to reason why, ours is to obey. And most of the time you can’t eat inside so —. Well I found myself hurrying through a Tim Ho's coffee and bran muffin in sub-freezing temperatures while sitting on a cold rock, and there was no garbage can in sight. So yes, I littered. Again, there is something freeing about committing the ‘verboten.’ Also, as I’m watching the cup blowing away, I thought about that scene in American Beauty with the rumpled paper bag? Which was, I guess, all about beauty? (I was never sure.)

3) You can have sex.
This is awfully liberating!. Sure, you might freeze your nuts or vagina off. Or you could just throw somebody onto the back of an outdoor heating mechanism and have your way with them. If you are caught, you may be arrested for ‘public indecency.’ But you would be in good company! Oscar Wilde and many other homosexuals — famous and not — risked life and limb to have a good outdoor screw. Of course if you are an exhibitionist, it’s extra fun!

One more thing. I recommend you do any — or (preferably) all of the above — on a GO bus or train. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Toronto GO Transit system has gotten particularly drunk with power during the pandemic. It has given them the chance to cancel the express bus between Hamilton and Toronto — something they always wanted to do — but now they have an excuse. It doesn’t matter that the new COVID system of stuffing people on trains and tiny connecting buses between Toronto and Hamilton is actually dangerous for your health. But GO has always been corrupt. There are several GO stations built in lonely, empty neighbourhoods simply because ambitious MPs wanted to to tout this achievement in their election campaigns. So if you live in a tiny neighbourhood that doesn’t need a GO station—  but  for some inexplicable reason has one — you can thank the corrupt GO Transit! As you may have guessed, I hate Go transit -- ever since they wiped out Coach Canada (and Greyhoud, practically) in the name of not providing proper service to small towns.  I used to travel on GO from Hamilton to Guelph before COVID.  My daily commute to work was 5 hours (there and back-- it used to be 1 hour and a half before GO). It was worse when it snowed. So, yes, I recommend you litter, pee and have sex on GO Transit immediately! If you can manage to do all of these things at the same time, that would be even better!

As you can see I have become mentally unhinged. Well I always was, but COVID-19 has made it worse. I know I am not the only one. I am a rebellious creature, that’s the problem, and I absolutely detest being told what to do (however wonderful the cause is!). And there are many like me. The way that most people deal with the stress and strain of COVID-19 rules and restrictions is by becoming a drug addict (or — I should say — more of one) and/or by raping their innocent daughters, and/or by killing someone. Since these are extreme and unsavoury ways to deal with stress, I would suggest you just go outside and have a good pee, a good litter, or a good screw. I feel I am doing a public service by suggesting these alternatives (which is something we’ve all learned is more important than anything nowadays.) No, you wouldn’t be hurting anybody by peeing, littering or screwing out of doors. The worst you might do is shock someone. But shock is good for people generally -- and especially with their mind-numbing daily diet of Netflix and/or logging onto Facebook in order to finger wag the ‘COVID naughty.’

Happy Holidays!

This time it was a

sexual dream, so maybe you don’t want to hear about it. But you’re going to. I was at a party, wearing military gear (I remember looking down an seeing my military boots).  I don’t remember much about the party except it was a bacchanal, everything was wrecked; it started slowly and became chaos. I don’t know how to describe the room that the party was in — it was perhaps an artists house? Old wood? But the central incident that I woke up remembering was that I lost someone’s penis. Yes, it’s very complicated (and it must mean something, mustn’t it?). Anyway I stole it and then I lost it. I was having sex with him and he is somewhat dim -- in the detail. But his presence was strong and masculine, and he was an artist (was it his party?). Also I was not the only one who loved him at that party, everyone loved him, they all were protective of him, and were watching me with him. And with him, I had -- well — how shall I describe it -- tastefully? Shall we call it fabulous fellatio? Going down on him was fabulous. (I don’t know how to describe it except his penis just fit; it was heaven.) But when it was over I then suddenly had his penis in my hand, separate from him (odd that). Odd too, that his penis being separate from his body did not alarm me in the least. I just put it in my pocket. And then the worry came. Because the party was winding down and I had lost it. And I frantically searched my pockets, and pulled out all sorts of phallic paraphernalia, dropping them on the floor, but none of them alas, was his ‘equipment.’ Then the party was really over,  and people were cleaning up. And I caught of glimpse of him (handsome, masterful) and I wanted to talk to him. But oddly again, I didn’t seem to be in trouble -- for either stealing -- or for losing his penis. Oh yes, and I remember two other details, one very odd and the other not so much. The first detail was that before leaving the party I saw a large stuffed deer with diamonds for eyes. This may seem terribly symbolic. And perhaps it was - because I do know a beautiful young man who identifies as a deer ('deer' in gay lore is somewhat the opposite of 'bear'). And so this deer may have been that young man. But why was it dead? This worries me. But then again (and this is complicated to explain) taxidermy has been figuring prominently in my life of late (shall we leave it at that?). And finally, the other detail -- not so odd -- is I remember telling this gorgeous dominant, artist -- my lover -- during our lovemaking, that I was a slut, and that lots of people wanted to have sex with me. And I remember very clearly him saying “I can see why.” And when he said this I turned my head away from fellating him, and noticed that I was lying on my stomach and  my ass was exposed. Well as you might imagine when I woke up I was incredibly horny, and very worried about having stolen that guy's penis. But after all he hadn’t seemed very worried, so why should I be?  I find it coincidental that I dreamt this last night, because last night I had also watched a youtube video about Jung and dreams that a friend just sent me. Now I’ve never paid much attention to dreams. But in this video a therapist was talking about writing them down, which I thought was impossible. How can you remember your dreams? And then I remembered that I had written a blog about a dream recently. And when I woke up this morning, the image — but most of all the feeling of the dream — was overwhelming, so I wrote down all the details I could remember.  And now I’ve realised that dreams are not only the subconscious (which I’ve always been suspicious of because Freud used the subconscious for ridiculous ends sometimes) dreams are irrational. And the irrational is what I’m all about now (Heraclitus, Lucretius, Gorgias, Ovid — it’s a long story). And this woman in the video said — and I’m paraphrasing — that at the centre of Jung’s philosophy was the notion that everyone needs to believe in something, that we must have an irrational side even if we claim to be a creature of reason. In other words you may have that friend or relative or teacher or someone who says they are completely logical and dispassionate. I have such a friend now (or he seems to be an ex-friend as I hardly ever see him since COVID-19 so I can write about him here. I mean I still do love him but he’s definitely an ex-friend). And my ex-friend is one of those people who can no longer tolerate my anger (have you noticed that I'm a pretty angry guy?). And I’ve tried to explain to him that anger is a good thing but he very much above it all because he is a Buddhist. And in his mind anyway, the exemplary Buddhist is not emotional but instead above all human emotion. But emotion is irrational. And that’s what this woman was talking about in the Jung video -- that getting angry or frightened or whatever --  is necessary, because if we don’t allow ourselves to have feelings then they just go into hiding, but are still there, lurking. So we must be irrational. We must believe in things beyond reason. (So maybe my ex-friend still is irrational, and emotional, in one way -- because of his belief in his God. Because if there wasn’t a God we would invent him -- or her). Which brings me back to the penis incident. Now it seems almost de rigeur to analyse it. The circumstance seems, in fact, to invite analysis. But I would posit -- isn’t that somewhat contrary to the point? Why be rational about something that is irrational (i.e. a dream)? I mean why can’t it just be what it is, in the reality of a dream, i.e. I took someone’s penis by mistake and then lost it (silly me). I mean of course the dream had guilt in it; I’m guilty, I’m guilty all the time, my first novel was called Guilty, I have been suffocating in guilt ever since my mother told me to clean my room when I was a kid, and after I cleaned it she said: “I was worried because you made it too clean”. Or perhaps I’m the only male in the universe besides Woody Allen who has penis envy? Or perhaps I want to forget penises (horrifying thought). But really I do think we are ruining it if we try and figure out what any dream means. It doesn’t mean anything. Does water mean anything? What does a bowel movement mean? Does a whinnying horse mean anything? These things just are. It was a dream, and it must be respected, because well, right now, it’s what Shakespeare (oh yeah that guy again) said we are made of. And right now, frankly, my 'dream' is a lot more real than my 'reality.'

Since the fun is

gone I’ve been downloading lots of computer games. My latest is Fishdom and it’s lots of fun. You match gems and decorate little fishbowls. It’s good for loneliness, because the fish talk to you. They are pretty funny looking, and have personalities. Because it’s ‘interactive,’ you put your name into the app and the fish call you by your real name. And basically I have a lot of trouble getting together with my friends these days (they don’t answer emails, they’re depressed, it’s cold outside, etc etc) so the fish are like well — substitute friends. The only problem is they can get a bit sucky, and one of them reminds me of my father. Every time I win a game he says: ‘The way you win is just amazing Sky!” Near the end of his life my father used to call me and ask: “Any new achievements you want to tell me about, son?” I couldn’t  just talk with him about the weather, it had to be an achievement. So the only real problem with Fishdom is the one fish who lays it on a little thick and  reminds me of my father. Truth be told? I’m lacking an audience. I’ve always needed one, must have one, in fact. I’ve been zoom teaching, but the students are on Christmas break. So who am I going to entertain? My boyfriend resents it when I treat him like an ‘audience.’ And my friends, well as I said, it's just that the elements -- rain, snow, sleet -- and a dreadful fear not so much of COVID-19 but of being spotted on the streets laughing or having fun and then shamed by their Facebook friends  --  keep us apart. But I need to perform. Which made me think about Fran Leibowitz, and the HBO documentary Public Speaking, when she says: “All the best ones died.” And she’s right. Fran is so right, because the gay men who had crazy sex and died of AIDS were not only the greatest artists but the greatest audiences, because those three things go together, and if you don’t get that, then there is no hope for you (sorry for being so judgemental.). But anyway, she talks about how these arty sexy fags would go to the ballet and hold court on the way Susanne Farrell would turn her leg or flick her wrist. And that made me think about audiences. Because I need them so badly right now. I mean not just one person -- tons and tons of people to appreciate me -- and clap. (I can’t help it. It’s just the way I'm constructed. Some people are just made that way. It’s part of diversity okay?  Just like some people are made to hide in corners? Some are made to -- not.) Like Jerry Seinfeld said, there are people whose worst nightmare is to be dead, and there are others whose worst nightmare is to deliver the eulogy. In other words some people would rather die than speak in public. Me, I need to speak in public or I’ll die. Recently I caught myself speaking to the cat, and well -- the universe -- yesterday (my boyfriend was out, it would have bugged him; he would have thought I'd finally gone senile). That’s how desperate I am for applause. So let me make a case for audiences. What is an audience and why is it important? Because in the COVID-19 world there are no theatres or concerts or crowds of more than five (and what is the sound of ten hands clapping?) So what are we missing when we do away with audiences — i.e. if either they die of AIDS, or they just are not allowed to ‘audience’ anymore, like now, in the lockdown? A case could be made by conspiracy theorists that all these pandemics and epidemics have been whipped up to wipe out audiences forever. And it’s an important case to made, because audiences are important. I’m not saying that just because I love audiences and need them (though I do) but  because the world is a spectacle.  It’s not real or true, or right or wrong, it is simply a spectacle, and the wise ones know how to appreciate it (or critique it) in all it’s craziness.  And that means also realizing that it is a spectacle. And what is a spectacle? It’s something made up (i.e. in this case, by God). It’s fake. Spectacles are not real, they are manufactured. And that’s what the world is, it’s fooling you. Truth is a lie. I know that’s always a tough one for people to get, but if you understand this secret it will save you — it will save all of us. ‘The wise man,’ said Gorgias (who the f-was Gorgias? I’ll tell you someday) is the one who is fooled. But to be fooled means to know you are being fooled. I remember when my boyfriend and I (why does he keep cropping up in this blog -- probably because we are at home together all the time these days) we were walking down the street in drag on our way to the Dora Mavor Moore Awards many years ago, (what could be more natural?) and some kid lept off his little bike  and  yelled at us kinda fiercely: “You’re not fooling me!!!” It was very odd. But my answer was -- I can’t remember if I just thought it in my head or I actually said it -- ‘Relax — we were just putting on a spectacle.' Meaning it’s completely fake and we know it. And if you were a smart little boy you would know it too. It’s like COVID-19. (You knew I‘d get around to it eventually, didn’t you?) I’ll tell you some actualities (I won’t call them truths because I don’t believe there are any.) The COVID-19 test doesn’t mean anything. Any scientist knows this. It just means you might have a little COVID in your system. You are not a ‘case.’ If you test positive your life is not in danger and you are not necessarily even infectious. And in addition to that, they are going on and on about how all these people are dying — but I know for instance in Britain -- and I’m sure in Canada -- the overall national death rates have not increased. So it’s all a big deliciously juicy, scary lie. And what they should do is protect the people in old folks homes and those who are marginalized (what are called the poor 'black and brown folk' on TV)— those with no money for the doctor or health care. But instead they close theatres. And then there are no more audiences. And you know why they are closing the theatres? (Here's a conspiracy theory for ya!) Because if you were a discerning audience you wouldn’t just accept everything as truth. You’d be critical. You would question everything-- yes even the so-called truth.  You would see everything as a big spectacle, and enjoy it, but then say 'all this spectacle needs a little critique!' You would be like that old faggot, in the pink frilly shirt, and gold, too-tight, spangly pants, who died of AIDS, who would stand up all by himself at the opera, and give a standing 'o,' yelling 'brava!,' because he thought some fat opera diva sang Casta Diva as good as Callas -- which  of course is impossible. Where oh where has that very special faggot gone? Not only I— but you and me -- all of us, we shall not survive, without him.

It’s the victory of

the dead over the undead. Literally. Back in April one of my friends said, jokingly: ‘It’s here, The Zombie Apocalypse!" and we laughed -- oh how we laughed. (Little did we know.) Who are the dead? Well when I was young it was clearly my father -- expressionless -- saying little, and telling me to be careful when I folded the American flag. And my mother was clearly alive, as there were red roses on her dress, and she was always 'going through' something or other, and I used to sing songs from The Sound of Music to her (“I Am Sixteen…”). And later, of course, she drank. Being dead was being expressionless and careful, and being alive was singing and drinking. It was all pretty clear; anyone could understand. History, if you look at it, has been a continuous war between the dead and the undead.  In certain periods the dead win -- the lights go out for awhile, sometimes for a very long time, like in the Dark Ages. But then the light comes back -- and people are dancing — like in the 20s — and women are flashing their you-know-whats and riding bicycles, and things are on the up and up. But how long oh Lord, how long? And why are the dead so intent on silencing us? It’s clear that we are an affront to them. COVID has never made it any clearer. Even the bandit kerchief with the skulls on it I wear as a mask is a trigger to some; it’s obvious I am too cavalier about ‘infection.’ And the other day when they started to ask me the ‘five questions’ on my way into the gym, I just said: ‘No no no no no!” which made me sound — for the first time in a long while — like a virgin. But why don’t they like us? Is there something about me that has always been evidently ‘alive,’ that the dead ones always hated? I think so. When I was a boy they used to ask “why do you always talk with your hands?” It was a gay thing, but also part of me being 'not dead.' And then many years ago when I walked past Woody’s bar (will it ever open again?) on Church street, some guy turned to his friend and said “If Sky Gilbert can walk by, then you can dance!” which was somewhat about me being alive too. But that still doesn’t tell us why they resent us so. It’s probably because, deep down somewhere, the dead understand that people are meant to be alive, and if they aren’t alive, they are somehow betraying their humanity.  After all, it's not 'reason' that makes us human. You'll find scant evidence of reason nowadays -- what with COVID and all. Why yesterday apparently two people in England got headaches or whatever (I could care less) from the vaccine and everyone went hysterical: “Oh no, not side effects! What’s going to happen? Are people going to have to stop taking the vaccine?” Well it turns out those two people were allergic to vaccines. So why did they take the bloody thing? (It’s like when you go to the doctor and say ‘oh doctor when I do this it hurts’ and the doctor says ‘well then don’t do it!') “Don't be so COVID!’”-- is what they will say, hopefully -- after this passes. Because being 'so COVID' will just mean not facing the facts. Because the undead actually know this fact: we all die, and we are more likely to die if we are 90 years old and/ or are already seriously ill. Is that rocket science? No, but suddenly to the 'COVID mind' this salient fact has become a ‘tragic situation.’ Well, when I see a photo of a 90 year old married couple on TV dying of COVID in their hospital beds,  it’s simply not tragic (except for the fact that the COVID police made them die in separate rooms.) Of course it will get worse before it gets better. And I don’t mean the COVID (that will go away). I mean the judgement and the approbation, the clicking of tongues, the shaking of heads. I remember when I was dating (that’s a euphemism) Christopher (Newton) a thousand years ago, he told me that we would never ever walk down the street of Niagara-on-the-Lake together. I was wounded and shocked of course (though it did have the the allure of turning me into the ‘other woman’ which I sort of was, because of Duncan MacIntosh — who is now the First Lady of Prince Edward Island —  but that’s another story….). So anyway I was shocked. And I asked him why, and he said “The twitch of a curtain means a ruined reputation in this town!” Eventually we broke up, but he still came to visit me in Toronto. And when he was walking up the sidewalk to my flat on Robert Street (it was right across from the Morgentaler Clinic, I used to sit at my desk and write plays every day — and there would be the dead and the undead quarreling right in front of my window — because the Evangelists used to accost poor innocent young women and try to stop them from having abortions). Well as he approached the lawn Christopher saw the ugly plants my landlord had planted instead of grass, and he made an ugly face. ‘Oh spurge,’ he said. “What do you mean?” I asked -- (as I am definitely not a gardener). “He’s planted spurge instead of grass, but it’s not working.” “Oh, is that what that stuff is?” “Yes,” said Christopher (ever the gardener). And then he sighed, wistfully:  ‘Spurge never works.” And then later when we hadn’t dated each other for awhile — and we were both seeing other men — Christopher had met a beautiful boy who lived on Church Street, and he was having a gay old time with him (so to speak). But then he had to break it off. (I think the boys name was Bobbi.) I said “Oh no, what happened? Why did you have to break it off with Bobbi?” He said: “Bobbi kissed the cat.” “Ah," I said. “Yes,” he said wistfully. (Christopher was often wistful.) "I couldn’t take it after that.” If all this sounds like Greek to you, then you are probably dead, and you don’t approve of me. And when it comes down to it, you never have approved of me, and you know —  it’s just envy. It’s just bloody envy. The undead don’t want to be dead you see, but the dead want to be undead. But they know that for some reason they can never be. (Why?) So they will lock us up and take away our fun. It’s particularly bad now. If you are one of the undead, you kinda wish you were dead right now. But it won’t last for ever. Because you see there is….well, life. And that’s something the dead can never understand.

This is hell we are

living in hell. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. To be locked up in your house, ordered never to leave, told not to see friends, told not to make love without a mask (thank you Theresa Tam!), told not to hug or kiss — universities, concerts, galleries, theatres, restaurants closed? All of the above are not ‘luxuries,’ they are what make us human. We are living in hell, and if someone tries to tell you otherwise, I give you permission to slap them -- good and hard. Joe Orton used to talk about Morocco (he would go with Kenneth Williams — that gorgeous comedian from the 'Carry On' movies — and with Kenneth Halliwell who eventually killed him) and he would say that the boys in Morocco would just come up and ask him if he wanted to have sex -- whereas in London it was a lot more work to get laid. He would say ‘Morocco is human, unlike England’ and (putting aside all the colonialist associations of his remark) I think his point is well taken. I was born in New England, USA, and my parents were Congregationalist Protestants, so I know about man’s inhumanity to man. I know a culture that views hugs, kisses, sex, music and art as godless. So I give you permission — since we are living in hell — to find the satisfaction you need. You are now completely under government control (I’m not a conspiracy theorist, and it isn’t a rhetorical device me saying that) and to be under anyone’s control is intolerable for most people unless they are masochists who have turned their life into one big sex party, or they have Stockholm Syndrome. No life is now intolerable for most people, and the worst part is there is no ‘timeline.’ Make no mistake about it, we are now being told that the much anticipated vaccination may not help -- will certainly not allow us to ‘hit the streets’ any day soon-- and that it may not even stop people from getting infected.  And even if this vaccine  ‘works,’ there will inevitably be another pandemic. The powers that be have been hinting for a long time that from now on  life will consist of one pandemic after another.  I worry not so much about the people in the middle — but the very old, like me, and the young. I don’t have much time left, so it would be nice to actually live the remaining years  — not just sit in my room feeling guilty that I am not wearing a mask in my own home. But imagine if you were young? Imagine if you are 18 years old? This is the time of your life -- when you must start loving and screwing; you are horny as hell and/or as romantic as hell and you want it now, because you will never be young again. So what are you doing to do? Well I say, run, don’t walk to the nearest porn site; they were made for you, that’s why they are there, after all, what other alternative do you have? Human contact is dangerous, porn is not. Sure it’ll screw up your sex life, it will screw up your expectations of what is and isn’t good sex -- no one has sex like that in real life — and it will completely wreck your idea of what the human body is (the body fascism in porn is beyond belief). Porn is a wildly unrealistic fantasy, sure, and it will deeply mess you up. But what else are you going to do? The natural urges you have, to love and to make love, are human ones. And you must somehow satisfy them. The same thing goes for drugs. Take them. Now is the time. They are readily available at every Cannabis store, and the government seems to encourage it, so go ahead — after all, it'll keep the economy going. Now is the time to indulge your vices! Because if you don’t you will simply die of boredom or slash your wrists. You are and will continue to be human and have human needs, but that is no longer recognised. So what you must do is figure out a way to live vicariously -- by consuming drugs and porn, and whatever else this little silver or black or white box in front of you has to offer (there's always Netflix, I guess!). Cuz that’s all there is. You can and will learn to live this way, and make no mistake about it; this little machine that I’m typing on — and that you’re reading this on — is a drug, and it was made exactly for this, to allow us to imagine that there is an escape from the world’s inhumanity.  Someone told me something very interesting and terrifying about China the other day. This is not hearsay; he has relatives in China and is Chinese. Okay, so this is what’s going on in China — and why they are apparently now the world’s greatest power. After the pandemic hit  China eventually  managed to contain it quite neatly because they utilised big data to control their population. This means that they put digital data collection to practical use beyond just discovering the specific algorithm that helps your computer figure out what you will want to buy next. In China, apparently, the powers that be can keep track of your every move digitally — they know where you are going and what you are doing, and ergo, they can restrict your behaviour, if you are an ‘at risk’ person, accordingly. This makes terrifying sense and I assure you it is real.  I’m no saying this to depress you. I’m saying this so that you can understand what life will be like in the future. Yes of course, you can find others like you, who will want to hug and kiss and have sex, and sing and dance, etc, but it will be hard to find them, and you will have to make sure not to tell Theresa Tam. Ultimately it’s best to do what Big Pharma — and Dr. Fauci — tell us — wear a mask and go online for the pleasures you have been denied in real life. You will not be able to completely replace those real life pleasures; and you will still miss them. Maybe, as  in Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451 you will join a secret society where people are allowed still, to be human? Maybe? So there is a kind of hope. But what you may need for the next little while at least, as the Beatles say, is a little help from your friends.

We have learned many things

from COVID-19.

1. It’s about quantity, not quality.
    The important thing is not how happy you are, but how many years you live. For too long, we have casually tossed off phrases like ‘let’s throw caution to the winds!’ as we down another whiskey shot. For some, ‘live hard, die young’ has been the motto, but this virus has taught us that we must become more and more cognizant of what shortens our lives. The thing to remember, is that though such a life may not seem enjoyable now -- if you expose yourself to illness and disease, you will most certainly pay for it later. So if you can possibly manage it — just don’t do anything. That’s the surest way to live a long, long life.

2. The old should be left alone.
    All those years we were hugging them and kissing them.  Sure, it was uncomfortable -- seeing them like that — ‘old’—  and imagining it might happen to us one day too. Now we know that it’s simply too dangerous for old people to have contact with the young. They must be put away somewhere— in buildings that no one enters — except for nurses and other trained personel, heavily supplied with PPE. Don’t worry, the old people will be fine. They can always chat with you on their iPads, and it will be virtually the same as having you there.

3. Stand together by standing apart.
    This is one of the most important of all the lessons. Before, we thought that when we were physically close, we were ‘together.’ What an old fashioned concept! We can be completely and utterly together in so many ways, even when we are far apart. Even more together in fact. We can send virtual hugs, kisses, pictures of our favourite pets, or just pictures of dogs and cats that we find on the internet and cherish, and want to share. We have to embrace the apparent contradiction (of course I mean embrace it virtually) and understand that being safe is what brings us all together. It's being unsafe that ultimately tears us apart.

4. Because, after all, home is where the heart is.
    This is undoubtedly the most important lesson to learn, but it’s most certainly the most difficult one. There have always been excuses for not staying home. “I’m bored’ or ‘I want a drink in a bar’ or, even:  'I want to pick up a street whore for casual sex! ’ Today, we can see how silly such sentiments are. Dorothy was right in The Wizard of Oz — ‘There’s no place like home.’ After all Dorothy traveled practically to another planet searching for happiness, when all the while that happiness was at home, on the farm — with ‘Auntie ‘Em’ and the three farm hands (who were not, in reality, a scarecrow a tin man or a cowardly lion). Once Dorothy realized her folly she also understood how silly the song ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ really was. (They didn’t put this in the movie, but that’s what happened.) Now this final lesson may be  difficult for some. Most of us -- with computers, yoga mats, and big backyards — will understand.  (And let’s face it, these days we all know for sure that there’s nothing better than a big backyard!). But there are those who  must be taught this lesson over and over again, because their situation is not exactly the same as ours. Let’s say for instance, that you are a young girl, and your father is an alcoholic and a drug addict, and you live in one room with him and your mother. Let’s say that he has always beat your mother. And late at night when your mother is asleep he sneaks into your bed and rapes you. Well lately, now with losing his job he’s been doing a lot more drugs. In fact each day during COVID-19 — when your mother is making the daily trip to buy toilet paper (masked, it’s a necessity!) — he rapes you for the second time that day. In this particular situation it may be harder for you to remember, little girl, that it is safer for you to be at home. But consider this. Let’s say you you were to go outside — or worse yet — try and run away.  And you might say -- ‘I’m young and I probably won’t get sick from COVID-19!’ While though that’s statistically true, l beg to differ. There are some cases in which children have suffered from a very rare limb inflammation disease that might be related to COVID-19. But never mind that! It’s about time — little girl — that you stopped thinking about yourself! If you run away from home you run the risk of infecting others with COVID-19. Others may die because of your selfish acts! Thank about that. Sure, your life seems troubling at home, and maybe it is troubling but when it comes down to it, what’s one more rape a day? What’s more important is that if you run away from home you may cause others to die. Listen little girl, you’d better start considering other people for a change — not just your own needs. After all, you are not alone on this planet!
    
5. It's wonderful, —when you think about it -- all the lessons we have learned from COVID-19. And if this horrible plague ever ever goes away (which won’t happen for a long time— and anyway —  it will probably be followed by another pandemic — even worse than this one) we will carry these lessons with us, forever. Yes COVID-19 has changed our lives. And ultimately, for the better, don’t you think?

I was so afraid

    that I rushed to my desk and wrote this. All I could remember, that is. It was a dream, wasn’t it? It must have been. We were gathered in a kind of luxurious bunker, and it was all my friends and sex buddies. But he wasn’t there, my lover — and I realised that for some reason this tragedy had kept us apart. There were vast windows looking out on numbing, terrifying vistas, I didn’t want to look, but of course I did, we all did, there were spirals of smoke swirling from the tops of buildings — whatever it was, it was a science fiction movie — but it was now happening to us, and we knew we were going to die soon, and that was the torture. There was nothing we could do. I touched someone, someone who I recognised, someone who I had touched many times before — but he didn’t recognise me and turned away. I considered getting very drunk. We were not listening to the newscasts, there was no point, and anyway we were afraid of what we might hear. We saw nothing before us but our own demise. I was wearing a Greek toga— it seems I had imagined it was some kind of party, but the various men that I knew there (or thought I knew) were ignoring me, when I turned to them they turned away. There was no laughter, if it was a party in honour of our own deaths. It seems we were together because we had to be, there was nothing else. And as we gazed out through that enormous wall of glass at the soul-destroying annihilation, well, we knew we were next.  I don’t think we can live this way any longer — and I don’t mean quarantine — I mean the fear and dread used against us. I don’t blame the lock down for my dream, I blame Dr. Fauci. I blame everyone who has ever used fear and dread as a kind of punishment. I’ve lived with fear and dread all my life — how many of us haven’t? And then there were the moments when the veil was lifted, when someone allowed me not to be afraid. First there was the social worker in group therapy who told me that it was alright for me — in my head  at least— to tell my mother off. And I did, in my head. I never told my her to her face — though when I told her that she was no longer my best friend (believe me, I know that sounds cruel but it was the only thing to do at the time) it was like telling her to jump in a lake, which was an important thing for me to do. (And she did jump, eventually, into the cool clear lake of alcohol, but not because of me, because of life). And then there was just — art, which lifted the veil, momentarily. (And there was my boyfriend who— and he said I could talk about him here — who gave me permission not to worry about being ‘the best’ anymore, which was a pretty huge thing for me, as I was eternally terrified that I wasn’t.) There was J.D. Salinger and Jack Kerouac and Frank O'Hara, and Noel Coward and Harold Pinter, and ‘the Barbaras' — Barbara Pym and Barbary Comyns — and Patricia Highsmith and Iris Murdoch and Rebecca West (really just The Fountain Overflows) Elizabeth von Arnhim and all the writers I loved. They gave me permission to relax. But that was an escape, it was an escape from dread, and to some degree, Daddy was still holding the ladder. (That’s Adorno’s metaphor.) You go to escape but when you’re halfway down the ladder with your fiancee in tow you look down and suddenly there’s Daddy — snarling, snorting, chomping at the bit. Which means it’s not easy ridding yourself of fear and dread. And so when some make it their job to utilise those two magical, hypnotic, lethally potent forces to keep you in line for their own special interests — which of course they deem to be yours (i.e.the public good) please don’t do it. No I won’t have it! It’s got to stop — they can tell us what to do, they can enforce the law, but do not manipulate my emotions do not make me afraid for your own special purpose. It used to be the only thing to fear was fear itself— but before that it was always a weapon. During syphilis it was a weapon. It was a weapon during AIDS. But we, the sluts, said 'no way.' I interviewed three people for Toronto Life magazine (1989?), there were two men and one woman with AIDS. Yes, they were diagnosed with AIDS, and the were alive and not on medication, and they were challenging the HIV paradigm, yes they were. You an look it up — I almost won a bloody journalism award for that damn article. And I’m not bragging, I’m just saying times have changed. Or maybe it was just that no one really cared about the fags, so we could be revolutionary, even about our illness. But we knew then — it was our shameful secret — that the doctors couldn’t scare us away from screwing. And when they went after us for blowjobs (‘well blowjobs might cause AIDS you can’t be sure!’) we just went out and had a lot of blowjobs. Because living in fear is not living. That’s what my dream was telling me. You cannot live in shame and fear and guilt and dread with people waving your fingers at you all the time, insisting you can and must be a better person. Screw you Dr. Fauci! Did they teach you that at medical school? That the best way to keep your patients healthy was to torture them with guilt and fear and shame and dread? It’s not for myself, or for those others who live in relative comfort, but for those can’t work from their homes, those for whom the deprivation is actually real, and especially for those who -- of the world -- were already fearful, never had any hope, never wanted to live, who never really wanted to leave the house ever. They. Will. Stop. Living. Is that the idea: to stop us all from living? I think so. Because living is about dying. It’s not about not dying. It’s about doing dangerous stuff — stuff that is dangerous to your health. Or else you may end up like I was last night, waking to a shivering doom and no way to lift the veil. I was there, I was really there, and the creature was slouching towards Bethlehem, it was the very end, and it wasn’t the dying, it was seeing it coming, and seeing no reason to go on living.