I know I speak for everyone in saying how much I hate this pandemic. But I hate this pandemic more than I've ever hated anything.

I've been lucky. Obviously, I haven't died of it. I haven't even had it. Neither have any of my loved ones--

though we've had a few exposures and scares. Nor am I a doctor, or a nurse, who's watched all her beloved elderly patients die, like @ASkarimbas.

But yesterday, a friend mentioned that his mom's in intensive care. Everyone I know's out of work.

I'm not even complaining about being out of work--writers and journalists have been out of work for years anyway--but it doesn't help to be out of all my *other* options for making pocket money, like teaching.

I'm in a position such that I can't even say to a friend, "Let me at least help you take care of things this month so you can focus on your mom"--either financially, or by doing all the other things that need to be done--

all of which involve pointlessly putting people at risk--e.g., can I at least come with you to the airport so you don't go through this alone? (All things, by the way, my friends did for me when my mother was gravely ill, and which helped.)

(They didn't help a *lot*--there's no Band-Aid you can put on that situation, especially because my mom died), but it was sure better than going through it alone.

I *hate* the pandemic. The cruelty and unrelenting exhaustion of it. How badly and selfishly we've handled it.

The way it's exposed every weakness in our psyches and societies. The dynamiting of my cheerful, hubristic belief that humanity had conquered epidemic disease. The fear. The grief. The worry for everyone I love, especially my older and sicker relatives.

But also for myself: The odds aren't entirely reassuring for people in my age bracket, either.

I hate the discovery--yet again--that as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. That nothing about that has changed.

I hate the stupid, selfish ignorance of the deniers and anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers and the adult toddlers who believe, "It can't happen to someone as special as me."

The only bright spot--to cite the ancient wisdom of Mr. Rogers--are the helpers. The heros. The doctors, the nurses, the vaccine researchers, the vaccine investors, Bill Gates, BioNTech, Pfizer, Katalin Karikó, @kkariko, Drew Weissman, Ugur Sahin, Özlem Türeci, Zhang Yongzhen--

and so many more, including many whose names I'll never know.

They deserved a more worthy adversary than a mute, mindless, +ssRNA sack-of-shit virus with a single linear RNA segment.