Author: Paul In The Buff

Chief mischief maker at Living In The Buff Studio. A project turned, movement, turned cause to find fulfillment within and without.
An actual fortune!

COVID-19 Shutdown: Day 45

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

So often fortunes inside of fortune cookies actually come across as advice, proverbs, or idioms. Not fortunes at all.

This was an actual fortune. And in reflection, it was accurate!

See, it was only 10 days after posting this that I photographed Cortney one-on-one for the first time. New headshots. But from there our relationship grew quickly. Five years later, and she is still the refreshing change I was seeking, and that apparently the fortune cooking sent my way?

Maybe? Whatever – I’m not sure I ever had a fortune cookie that was this accurate, and timely.

COVID-19 Shutdown: Day 38

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Right now there are 861,266 confirmed cases of COVID in the United States. The death toll was just updated to 48,240. Taking into account, recovered, and deaths, currently there are 733,540 open cases. With the US current fatality rate of 5.55%, that’s another 40,345 deaths pending. Unfortunately we’re still seeing about 30,000 new cases per day with a slight decline from the peak of just over 31,000 per day. That means in a weeks time, if we have simply flattened the curve, there will be another 210,000 cases.

Meanwhile the numbers in Europe have been on a steady decline. Since April 12th, France has only seen an increase of 7,000 deaths. Spain 5,000, Italy 6,000 and Germany less than 2,500. The Unites States: over 20,000.

So here is your lesson n reading data: The numbers themselves only tell you a fraction of the story. Over 20,000 deaths in the last 10 days, with the potential pace of another 40,000 over the next week is NOT handling this well, and a WHOLE LOT of that responsibility falls on Trump, his decisions, and his administration.

Oh, and one other factor for you especially dimwitted Trump supporting morons; one of the biggest factors for the quick spread of a pandemic is population density. That is why in the United States you see the highest case rates in major urban areas.

The total land area of the United States is 3,797,000 square miles. The combines land area of Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the UK: 791,900 square miles.  So 4 million fewer people in 3,000,000 fewer square miles of land to live in. But please, ignore the factors that don’t fit with your narrative, or just keep failing to understand science while you wave your confederate flags, Nazi emblems, and protest signs with six misspellings because you’ve been inconvenienced temporarily. 

Hello? Religion?

COVID-19 Shutdown: Day 36

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Listen, this works so much better as a religion critique, so you missed the mark twice on this, but in another breaking news flash, just because YOU don’t personally know someone dealing with COVID directly, good for you! Consider yourself fortunate, and keep doing the right thing instead of advocating for everyone to do the wrong things. Plenty of people, including yours truly, know people, and have people in their lives that have been directly impacted by this.

Ok, Karen

COVID-19 Shutdown: Day 35. 4/20 version

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The K-word? Stronger than the N-word? Listen, Karen – this isn’t about the subjugation of a race of people, or even the subjugation your gender. This is simply about middle-aged, overly-privileged white women who complain in places where they have no place to complain. Such as someone protesting for her right to catch a deadly virus, or bitching at a minimum wage store clerk just trying to do their job the right way won’t accept her old expired coupon, or refund her money on shoes she bought 6 months ago, and worn a dozen times because they didn’t hold up as expected. Call the manufacturer if you think their products are shoddy. Amber at the Target customer service counter doesn’t deserve the grief. 

COVID-19 Shutdown: Day 29

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Yes, indeed, you can SEE this fucking virus. We don’t need to suspend all disbelief to pretend it is real. Unlike your god who you need to pretend he is in every sunset (but just the pretty ones, not the cloudy day sunsets where it just goes dark), or every baby’s smile (we know how babies are made now too – it’s a fucking biochemical reaction). So if that’s your response to being able to see your god, you’re fucking grasping at straws.

This is the same stupid joke as the “you can’t see your brain either.”  Well, you could. MRI, CAT Scan, they’ll show you your brain. The illogical religious arguments are based on the same level of being illogical that has given rise to criminal religions such as christianity. After all, the ONLY difference between a religion, and a cult is how many people follow it. The concepts, and tenants are no less batshit crazy whether you believe in Jesus, Alien Spirits from Volcanoes, or that guy who plays guitar, and fucks all the women is the messiah.  

COVID-19 Shutdown: Day 14. No, 21! 22?

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When all this is over, and there’s thousands of surplus ventilators are being sold off, I’m buying one. As long as stupid people keep voting republican our taxes are never going to be used to provide services to the population, so I might as well be prepared for the next pandemic. Because you know, as long as stupid people keep voting republican, we’re not going to be prepared as a nation for the next one.

COVID-19 Shutdown: Day 8

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“nobody knew what they were getting when we the people elected blah blah blah…”

Yeah, no one knew. Unless you actually paid attention to how scummy he’s always been. Unless you noticed his attempts to buy an NFL franchise, and the league completely shunning him. Unless you realized he took every chance he could get to be on TV, in interviews, and in as much of the spotlight as possible – like that stint with the WWF? Should have changed their name to WTF during that time. Or how about his bankruptcies, all the lawsuits for fraud against him; fuck, he was settling a $75M fraud lawsuit for his fake university WHEN a minority of voters voted for him. That wasn’t a “we the people” election. “We the people” were looking elsewhere, en mass. Read the goddamn fucking data if you don’t get this yet, and keep having to throw out this “We the people” bullshit like it’s going to change the fact he lost the popular vote by millions. I knew what we would be getting, and that’s why I didn’t vote for this huckster.

COVID-19 Shutdown: Day 7

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

I know a lot of you are feeling high levels of anxiety, and stress right now. Perhaps you’ve lost your stream of income. Perhaps you had project that are put on hold. Perhaps you have been or people in your family have been directly impacted by COVID-19.

That’s understandable. Often, when things we can’t control begin to dominate the landscapes of our lives, we feel anxious about it. Being pushed to change our routines, the way we relate to people, the way we even relate to ourselves; it can be a difficult, stress-inducing adjustment. My suggestion is to find things that you can do, and can control while still observing the shutdown protocol. You don’t have to write that 1,000 page novel, but writing something you enjoy would help. You don’t have to become Rembrandt, but you can pick up some painting supplies to play with, and get creative with. Start learning a musical instrument. Start learning a new language. Keep your brain busy, and your body, and psyche will follow.

Yesterday I pulled together all of the window trim for a decorative window we had to dissemble in order to repair a wall in our living room. We’re going to paint it white to match the window, and other elements we’re building into the room. I sanded it all down, and prepped it for painting. That occupied my mind for a couple of hours. I might start into writing a feature length movie script shortly, I don’t know yet.

My point is, this situation doesn’t have to be an awful thing. It gives us the time, and excuse we need to take on things we always complained we don’t have time for.

COVID-19 Shutdown: Day 6

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Yesterday was fun. Since everything is cancelled we continued our home improvement projects, obviously, but on Saturday mornings I have my kids with me, so we took a jaunt to Tifft Farms Nature Preserve for a little social distancing hike around, and to have a little self-initiated cleanup of nature. It was quiet, and peaceful. There were others out there, but sparse enough of visitors that distancing wasn’t an issue. We started in the open fields, picking up wind blown plastic bags, wrappers, and packaging materials, but as we hiked further into the park, we reached an area that was obviously build up on land fill. The trash became a whole lot of broken bottles, antiques often. We found many shoe soles, a stack of marketing signs on thin aluminum, apparently for a product called Car Stairs. Industrial waste, construction waste, even huge chunks of old industrial slag. We threw out what we figured was appropriate, and filled a bag with about 15 pounds of waste.

Next week, we’ll choose a different park. Hopefully it will also be devoid of people. Honestly, I usually hope for that every time I go hiking; having a shutdown is never needed for me to want to distance myself from others in nature.

COVID-19 Shutdown: Days 4 & 5

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Our trip through Home Depot was challenging. People literally huddled in masses, hoovering at the paint counter waiting for their orders.  We stood as far away as we could, subconsciously barely breathing. We both realized we simply weren’t breathing normally, almost as if we were trying to not breathe at all. Meanwhile, people packed together, almost more afraid of missing the clerk calling out their order rather than the looming threat of a potentially fatal airborne virus. With sanitizing wipes in our pockets, we frequently wiped our hands discretely, and did our best to maintain social distance. It seemed like all of our fellow shoppers couldn’t have cared less.