On Our Way

There being little major news today, I have an announcement. Having gotten through to my dental insurance customer service agent, I've successfully changed my chosen dental provider to the one who is actually my dentist.

There is, in fact, only one dental insurance company, a situation that used to be called a monopoly but now is called Medicare. Call it and you will inevitably be placed on hold.

"Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we are experiencing a much higher call volume than usual so your wait time may be..." That message plays over and over, punctuating a pleasantly bland music track. (They should try a new one, say "Drilling" by Minus the Bear.)

If you remain patient, however, or as in my case have nothing better to do, one of the dental insurance customer service agents will eventually come on the line. If she sounds familiar, she is. Our in-depth investigation determined that there are only two approved dental insurance customer service representatives, Aesha and Prisha, although they present as many different identities, including Jane, Lisa, Andy, Tom, Bobby, Mel and Jackie.

Thus the long wait times.

They are invariably polite and thank you repeatedly for the slightest thing like remembering your birthday or accurately answering the ubiquitous 'who do we have the pleasure of speaking with today?'

Ask not for whom the pleasure tolls. It tolls for you.

What they cannot do, however, is tell you how much you owe your dentist, because that depends on the code.

Your dental service provider knows the code, but I don't think your dentist knows. Simply call the billing department, where inevitably you will be placed on hold until...

Wait! This just in! Breaking News! South Dakota Gov. Kristi Sycophantia has offered Trump any mountain in the state he wants to have his face carved in except Mount Rushmore, which unfortunately if full. There is Mount Rushless, for example, the backside of Mount Rushmore.

It resembles two large globes with a crack down the middle. It has a stream emerging from its crack known as Fuga Anal.

***

Our news headline scan for today:

* This summer, after trying and failing to enforce a beach closure, the Santa Cruz County health officer said: “It has become impossible for law enforcement to continue to enforce that closure. People are not willing to be governed anymore.” (New York Times)

* Big Ten presidents vote against fall football season. (USA Today)

* Big cities are taking a big hit from the coronavirus pandemic. Statistics from employment search giant Indeed show that major U.S. metropolitan areas have lost a larger percentage of jobs, and have experienced greater rises in unemployment, than smaller metros. Especially hard-hit have been so-called superstar cities such as San Francisco, New York and Seattle. (Bloomberg)

* Governors Say Trump’s Order on Pandemic Relief Could Wreck State Budgets -- With Congress at an impasse on stimulus talks, disarray over resuming negotiations bodes poorly for reaching a deal this week. (New York Times)

* A rare heart condition that could be linked with the coronavirus is fueling concern among Power 5 conference administrators about the viability of college sports this fall. Myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, has been found in at least five Big Ten Conference athletes and among several other athletes in other conferences, according to two sources with knowledge of athletes' medical care. (ESPN)

*Chicago Police Arrest More Than 100 People After Looting Batters Downtown -- The city briefly raised most of the bridges to the main shopping and business district. Mayor Lori Lightfoot condemned the crowd’s actions as “abject criminal behavior.” (New York Times)

* Secret Service officer shoots man near the White House --The agency said the man approached the officer and claimed he had a weapon and then ran aggressively toward the officer and withdrew an object from his clothing. President Trump was pulled from a briefing after the incident. (Washington Post)The agency said the man approached the officer and claimed he had a weapon and then ran aggressively toward the officer and withdrew an object from his clothing. President Trump was pulled from a briefing after the incide(NewYork Times)

***

It's been a while since I've posted anything about that memoir I was writing. That's because I stopped writing it.

It's remained suspended in time, like virtually everything else during this pandemic. Somehow it started to feel petty to review the past when the present is startling enough as it is.

Witnessing us all tie on our masks to venture out into the world has chastened me. Of course, we've always put on other masks before we go outside to start our days. We put on our makeup and our lipstick, tame our eyebrows, comb our unruly hair, trim our beards, choose our outfit, gauge the weather (light jacket, thick coat, raincoat?)

In my case, as I checked for my keys and got ready to open the front door, I always shrugged: "Whatever... This is as good as it's going to get."

But the masks we don these days are not so much to hide our insecurities or maximize our assets as to broadcast our fears -- especially our fears of sickness and of death. We are walking advertisements that immortality eludes.

As I watch the little children, including my grandchildren, dance among their friends, all masked, they seem at once abnormally natural and yet absurdly naked. No mask can hide the emotions children feel when they find each other, especially in the strange new reality.

But us adults? The mask is merely an appurtenance, albeit a concession to what we've long known is our essential powerlessness over the forces that control our fate. Nothing else changes; least of all our body language.

Only the most vulnerable among us seem not to be able to mask their emotions.

No, no memoir writing for me, not now. Not for now. I've hinted from time to time I need a new muse, but it's deeper than that. For now, I can't be the teller of my own story.

"Maybe," my daughter suggested, "you need someone to tell your story for you."

"You mean, 'as told to'?" I replied. "Only famous people do that."

Perhaps that's one reason only famous people's stories get told. And why most others remain masked from history.

Also, this, courtesy of Dan Noyes, one of my two co-founders of the Center for Investigative Reporting: "There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently."

-- Robert Evans. (2002). "The Kid Stays in the Picture."

22Carole Weir, Nancy Ott and 20 others

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