Silent Sneeze

Yesterday, I went to Trader Joe's as it opened to pick up some groceries. Trader Joe's is a grocery story that's like a smaller version of Whole Food's except it's actually affordable and its CEO isn't a merciless plutocrat. They also have great frozen meals that are perfectly suited for two-person homes. Though the quality of its products should appeal to all people, TJ's clientele mostly consists of lefty types, seemingly polite and open-minded by way of their politics, though their awareness of the world immediately around them may not be quite equal to their social awareness.

I arrived ten minutes early and pulled out my blackberry to check some news. It's a lousy habit and it makes me look like one of those space cadet teens swallowed whole in their technology matrixes, but it's something I do. Nearby, some hippie guy was having a conversation with a younger gentleman in his early twenties about renewable energy. The hippie made a gesture towards my car, one of the only ones in the parking lot and remarked on how in 30 years or so those things would be extinct. As if taking his cues for Zerzan, he didn't even mention the word "car" or "automobile", as if the very term offended him to the core. Moments later, he noticed as I did that his son was about to run into the road. Watch out there, hippie guy, cars aren't extinct yet!

I could tell the hippie held the same kind of antipathy toward me. I was dressed in a nice tucked in polo shirt and khakis, ready for work and absorbed in my cell phone. I drove that car to the grocery, not only because it was cheaper and far more convenient than Philadelphia's awful public transit system, and not only because it seemed more reasonable for carrying frozen groceries back to my home which wasn't within walking distance to the only affordable natural food market in the city, but because the rotten job market had forced me to work some 30 minutes outside of the city. You see, I had to make it to work on time or they might think that I was expendable at my place of business, where the employees had just incurred a 10% across the board salary cut. I was the enemy, alright. The working man.

A small crowd started to gather as opening time drew near. The presentation of new bodies likely introduced new pathogens into the environment and, possibly as a result, I sneezed. I must admit that I was a bit dumbfounded when the sneeze was followed by a long period of silence. Momentarily insulted by my peers, I soon looked back down at the day's headlines. Then, I felt the next sneeze coming up. They're sure to say something this time, I thought. It's early morning and perhaps the first one just caught them off guard. Sometimes, that will happen to me. I'll miss the opportunity to say "Bless you" by suspending too long a gap between the sneeze and my response time. To avoid embarrassment, I'll simply say nothing instead, but feel awkward and slightly perturbed.

Now, they were ready for it. Those lefty liberals with all that goodwill supposedly oozing out of their pockets. The Zerzanian hippie who was set to save the planet by enacting a final solution on automobiles. Here was their chance to redeem themselves with the smallest possible tiding they could grant.

"Bless You", or "God Bless You", which an agnostic like me doesn't say but still appreciates, is more than just an Emily Post gesture of proper manners. It's an incantation and an acknowledgement. It's well-wishing as a selfish act. Saying "Bless You" is a hex on your disease, an amelioration by way of a social support placebo. You say it not only because you care about your fellow man, but because you know that his disease could spread an afflict you. Despite all our attempts to set barriers between one another, we are still biologically dependent on one another. The survival of the species depends on our perpetual collective interest in the wellness of others. A society that does not care, looks away, or stands in silence is a society that is sick sick sick.

They ignored me again. I wanted to go inside and phlegm all over the organic produce. I wanted to wipe my sleeves on their shopping carts, to lick their granola, to teabag their teabags, but it'd be unreasonable to mistake a small gesture like this for a lack of caring. But caring is not only a convenience, it's also work. It's a full time job. Any of the doctors and nurses I work with will tell you how hard it is to keep treating the same assholes who never listen to you, are never compliant with their medications, and consecutively promote their own self-destruction, but they continue to treat these awful people. Real health care doesn't care who you are or what you did. It treats you same whether you just shot a cop or saved a baby from a burning building, whether you can afford to pay your bills or whether you don't have a dime to your name. It's the most indiscriminate, even Christlike, of all professions.

Admiration for the Tapeworm

I had a conversation with a friend who had just gotten over a nasty cold that resulted in a major ear infection. without health insurance, she waited around to see what it did. Finally, after about 6 or 7 days she was able to find a friend with some leftover antibiotics, which helped clear it up. She's thankful she only got an earache. I am too.

Spinoza's idea about human survival (pieced together from what I vaguely remember) was that any species that allowed for its own self-destruction (when it could be prevented) was biologically maladaptive- and hence must have been overtaken by an external force. it's always been my contention that ideologies can function quite literally as artificial intelligences, operating as self-perpetuating beings with or without the assistance of human co-conspirators (by nature of its parasitic appropriation of our means of survival). capitalism fits this model succinctly and appears to be the tapeworm chewing away at our chance for surviva as a species. it's a disease and it's making our species sick. we need universal coverage for sure to ameliorate the symptoms, but it's just one step on the road to a full recovery.

Invisble Men in a One-Eyed World

I walked by a homeless man this morning, who asked if I had any change. I didn't. I wasn't trying to be an asshole. I sincerely had no money. "No, I'm sorry. I seriously have nothing." As he repeated my words to me, they took on a new resonance. "I'm sorry. I seriously have nothing." Who the fuck was I telling a homeless man I had nothing? He continued as I scuttled up the street, away from his world and his problem, expecting the reality of his situation to disipate behind me. It didn't. "I'm sorry" he screamed, squeezing his face as he did so. "I'm sorry!" He yelled. "I'm sorry, I'm sick! I'm sick!"

The senate panel shot down the public option twice today.

Meconium and Its Discontents

I was buying something at the market and the checkout girl sneezed into her hands. Oh no, Swine Flu, I thought. There it spreads. In front of me was an infant with his nose and upper lip stained by mucus. He stared at me as if from a stoned daze, looked down, gazed right. I smiled at him, trying to cheer up what was likely a trying and confusing time for him. It has always been my contention that childhood is the most stressful time for humans, which is why we repress the stress and it comes out in weird ways later in life. In fact, the pain of the day-to-day is so insufferable during the first three or four years of life that we suppress all of our memories. What a collective daydream we all live. Will humanity one day forget its own infantile collaboration of consciousness? Society is young, nascent, so young in fact that sick people like Margaret Thatcher doesn't even believe in it.

The girl could have called in sick, but then again she probably doesn't have any sick days. So, she'd have to go without a day's pay. She might also get in trouble with her boss, who probably isn't fond of people taking off when they don't have sick days. If she loses her job in this economy, she's fucked. She can't afford to do anything that might jeopardize the job she hates, that demeans her and dehumanizes her and forces her to go in when she's sick. There's a lot of politics in that sneeze. And with it, the virus spreads To the lower-income baby whose immune system is already working overtime, whose stress levels are already heightened. The check out girl's disadvantage is our loss and while someone somewhere is pocketing her sick days, the sickness is what gets redistributed. We all wash our hands in the filth, from my hand to the dollar to her hand to the register and then from the register to her hand to the next customer in line, who requires change. We all require change and we'll all check out sooner or later.

We're a sick baby trying to struggle our way through our infancy, unable to remember the past and unable to think beyond self-preservation even when our needs are being met. We're redistributing the sickness.