I can’t think of anyone who has suffered more from the Covid pandemic than myself. As we are well into the second year of this plague, let’s look back on the last year and reflect on how it has affected us personally.
Wrestlemania
My buddy Seph and I were going to Wrestlemania 36 in Tampa, Florida. The show must go on (with Vince McMahon, how could it not?), but sans an audience. Especially disappointing, as this turned out to be the farewell match of my all-time favorite athlete, The Undertaker, taking on AJ Styles in the Boneyard. Too bad I couldn’t be there.
Rent Money
Los Angeles being dead as it was and the quarantine in full effect, I spent much of 2020 not at my apartment, but down with my parents in Carlsbad. I could still work remotely, but still. I got such a good deal on a room in LA that I didn’t want to lose that I continued to pay rent. My landlady is such a sweetheart that I’m glad to help her out. But there’s still something annoying about the fact that I could go up to a month at a time without stepping foot inside an apartment I was paying rent on.
Church
Imagine that! Unable to attend in-person church services for months at a time. Watching it on TV just isn’t the same. And Our Lady of Angels cathedral in downtown Los Angeles stopped doing weekday morning reconciliation- which they still haven’t reinstated!
Volunteering
This whole article sounds selfish and insensitive, of course, bemoaning what I’ve lost with scant mention of the millions who actually died. Yet not everything I mention is completely selfish. For example, I was also a volunteer before Covid! I volunteered for the American Cinematheque, doing whatever they needed me to for their film screenings at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood and the Aero in Santa Monica. They continued to have drive-ins, which I could not attend without a car in Los Angeles, but a mass indoor gathering like that was of course a no-no. I was also a librarian at the Pasadena Senior Center. Seniors being in an especially vulnerable position, they closed the entire facility down. So without these volunteer opportunities, I am made to look less charitable as a whole. My image!
No Release Party
My second novel, “A Heart Condemned to Roam” came out in 2020. One of the proudest accomplishments of my life was getting a book published for the first time, “Hellish Beasts” in 2019. And now! Again! The difference is that while with Hellish Beasts, I got a proper release party, down to a signing at Vroman’s in Pasadena, the book stores were now closed. So we had to celebrate inside. In private. It was still a incredible, blessed accomplishment I thank God for and enjoy with my friends. But it would have been more fun in person. Ah well, we shall see what 2022, and the release of My Magic Summer with The Moon Maidens has in store for us.
The New Mutated Nifty Minithon For Epilepsy Awareness
The big event! My latest half-marathon, coinciding with the release of the latest (last?!) X-Men movie. Or it was supposed to. Problem is, The New Mutants got pushed multiple times. The New Mutated Nifty Minithon For Epilepsy Awareness, wherein I run from Alhambra to Hollywood, was intended to be opening weekday, in April 2020, and I would see the movie after running the race, per the tradition. But because of the pandemic, the release date was pushed back to August 2020. Movie theaters were still closed in Los Angeles. I thought of attempting to get a friend to take me to the drive-in, and even had a wild fantasy of racing to Hollywood, then Ubering to LAX and flying out to Las Vegas, but I figured in the latter case I would risk falling asleep during the movie. I held out hope that the pandemic would end and they would rerelease movies like Bill and Ted Face the Music in theaters when they opened. What I ended up doing was rescheduling the race for April 2021, a year after the original date, and got my girlfriend to meet me in the hotel with the DVD.
So still a blast, still an extremely fun day and great movie, but oh what could have been.
Texas Frightmare Weekend
I was really looking forward to this! Originally scheduled for September 2020, I was going to meet Clive Barker and give him a copy of my book, Hellish Beasts, which has been compared to his own work. Then they pushed it back to April 2021. Now it’s going to be this September…hopefully.
Seph
I’m not sure what I can/should say about this, for the sake of taste and accuracy. One of my dearest friends in Los Angeles died this last year, I am still sorry to say. He didn’t die of Covid. While I have speculated that the conditions of this previous year have contributed to his untimely demise, that’s not really for me to say. What I can say, however, what nobody can factually deny, is that in this last year of my friend’s life, I got to see considerably less of him that I would have had all external factors been normal. We couldn’t volunteer at the movie theater or go to Wrestlemania (see above) or Mardi Gras (see below). It is with some bitterness, I must admit, I refer now to 2020 as The Stolen Year.
Brother couldn’t come home for Christmas
My little brother caught the virus and couldn’t join us for Christmas! He made a full recovery, thank God, but still, separated from his family at Christmas!
Mardi Gras
Was it foolish of us to make arrangements for the Mardi Gras of February 2021 during October 2020, while the pandemic was still raging? Yes of course, and well done for pointing that out. There’s the door, sir.
Hope was not an unused currency last year, or don’t you remember? “Two weeks to flatten the curve?” We kept getting update after update, clinging to any scrap anyone might share of good news. Word of a vaccine, lowering rates, restrictions being eased, etc. Yeah, things still sucked when we made the plans, but maybe three months from now they wouldn’t?
Anyway, my friend died, Rest in Peace, but I still had my tickets and our hotel room. I asked my cousin, and he was open to it, but ultimately, Mardi Gras was not going to be any kind of celebration in New Orleans, even by the time February 2021 came around and there were two vaccines out that were gradually being rolled out.
Vaccine Estrangement
And how about the vaccine? Now we have three of them! They are being distributed on mass, rates of new cases and deaths have gone down substantially, things are starting to open up again, and by all accounts, the worst is behind us, The light is at the end of the tunnel.
But if that tunnel is strewn with the bodies of bloodied fetuses? Or one fetus anyway? Keep in mind, I have been following the developments of the vaccines religiously (pun?), though more for my own selfish reasons (Mardi Gras, movie theaters) than for the grander compassion for the entirety of the human race, a lofty empathy we should all aspire though I feel few easily attain.
Well, after months of waiting, (and give full credit to those developing, approving, and distributing these vaccines, it has indeed been warp speed), we have not one, but three vaccines currently being used around the United States! The Moderna, the Pfiser, and the Johnson and Johnson. And they work, and the rates are going down, and the impact on the lessening of quarantine is obvious. All good?
No, I’m sorry to say, it is not. The sad fact is, that all three of those vaccines have either been developed with (Johnson and Johnson) or tested with a cell line derived from an aborted fetus. (https://lozierinstitute.org/update-covid-19-vaccine-candidates-and-abortion-derived-cell-lines/?fbclid=IwAR37Qb5yAf0uAImfaE2FDL3HkrjUrWNvsaUkZa2saXuxG5DtEJbpoSomcXk)
What’s a good Catholic to do? Opinions differ, which is terrifying. The official position of The Church is that it is acceptable to take the vaccines available, but you should take the available vaccine furthest removed from an abortion. So Moderna and Pfister would be better than Johnson and Johnson. Some bishops don’t find that satisfying enough and go for my more hardline stance about complete distance from abortion. The Pope was not speaking Ex cathedra when the Vatican issued this statement (https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20201221_nota-vaccini-anticovid_en.html), but just because it is not technically infallible hardly means we, neither I nor the Bishops, can simply disregard it. But to say taking a vaccine that only exists because of abortion is not “formal cooperation” with said abortion? It is a puzzling and statement, is it not? “But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:16) How can you exploit the benefits of a crime without implicitly endorsing it? They’re alright dead, but can lives be saved as a result? But how does not that create an unholy precedent? How could you not then say, “Hey how about we abort some more babies for their stem cells, cause there might be another pandemic sometime in the future”?
I of course am not a better person than actual representations of the church, more learned in her doctrines, holier, or wiser. I do not aspire to such arrogance. They teach, and I follow. Yet this is profoundly disturbing. It might be the foulest, most insidious consequence of this devil’s disease that it causes me to question the institutions I hold most sacred.
My initial strategy was simply to wait until one of the ethical vaccines (Sinopharm, Covaxin, etc) was approved in America. But, not surprisingly, with three effective vaccines approved and being distributed on mass throughout the country, there is a lot less push for those. Who knows when or even if the FDA will get around to them, or if the companies will even bother? I’ve thought about going down to Tijuana to get Curevac, but that’s a two dosage vaccine, and setting up the logistics of two cross-border drug runs weeks apart, getting the logistics right, making positive I get to choose which vaccine I get and that it’s Curevac, and me not speaking Spanish, well, easier said than done.
I can accept that perhaps in the near future, not being vaccinated might shut me out of certain public activities/establishments, and I don’t begrudge that. What’s harder, however, is when friends and families reject me as a result. I had two friends on two separate occasions, who I hadn’t seen in a while, hit me up, text me and ask me my vaccination status. I explained my position…and I haven’t heard back from them since. I certainly wouldn’t resent someone wanting to be safe and not want to hang out with me until I’m vaccinated, and understandably, who wants to talk about abortion? But to just shut off contact? Alas…
Ah well. If you don’t stick to your principles when the chips are down, they were never really your principles. Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.
So that’s me. A couple of losses, inconveniences, and annoyances. But nothing compared to the millions and millions who have lost their lives and loved ones to this horrible plague. And during the quarantine, I got into the best shape of my life, flourished creatively with a new book and a short film on the way, started the best romantic relationship I’ve ever been in, and discovered the secret of time travel. So not too bad, all things considered.
How about you?