Dispatches from the Time of the Virus II: Fuck, Not Ivan

     It was scary to hear my wife Val yell to me in the kitchen from the living room at about 7:40 PM Sunday in a shocked tone, “Oh, no, hon; I just read Colleen’s post on Facebook. Ivan is in the hospital with coronavirus.”

     Ivan is Ivan Gonzalez, a friend for about 30-35 years who lives around the corner from us in Buffalo. He is an amazingly great guy; he absolutely loves his family, is a musician (I met him in Buffalo’s punk scene), Buffalo Public School teacher, hockey player, artist and one utterly hilarious guy who can be as caring as possible at one moment, as profane as you’d like at another.

     But this is not a fucking obituary about Ivan; as his wife Colleen posted, Ivan is in for the fight of his life against a strong and uncaring foe. Knowing Ivan, he is asking us more to do what we need to do for ourselves than to think about him, but indeed, we need to think about Ivan, Colleen and their family. We need to start seriously following social distancing if we already aren’t; we need to stay home unless it is necessary to be out. Wash your hands and wash your hands again; using fucking wipes or sanitizer whenever you get the chance, We need to fight this fucking coronavirus or COVID-19, stop trying to blame another country, region or whatever for it and to believe in and fund the science.

     We need to care about and do everything we can for people with coronavirus and their families, much more and much sooner than we did for people who suffered from AIDS/HIV. We also need to support the individual families who need physical, financial, spiritual and emotional support. And finally, whether or not some want to think about it, we need to think about what we do in the voting booth this November (and earlier in some places) and damn well vote out the president and his minions and those who have let this country be susceptible to this virus.

     God damn it, I am getting sick of writing obituaries, so let’s do everything we can not to have to write Ivan’s or anyone else’s obit.