Tuesday March 17, 2020
Covid the invader has shut Seattle down. Highway 99 looks like a back road in Oklahoma. He’s also shut down the rest of the nation. In France the army surrounds its citizens. You need a form to go get a baguette. What kind of cowardly bitch ass virus beats up old people trying to get some bread for breakfast? Fucking tool. They’re french, Covid! They don’t fight! You dumb asshole. Leave em be. But that’s not enough. Covid’s got his arms around the economy, and he’s doing an Ebola impression and convincing all and sundry he’s a real hardcore bad ass. Bully picking on the weak and the old. Fucking tool. Suck my balls Covid. Suck em. He’s even got facebook selling designer masks…wow I mean if facebook is doing it then…
Stupid ass viral invader in my town. I really want him to suck my balls. Scaring everyone. Wrecking things. Preying on the weak and old.
I’m for damn sure not going to let that viral butthole tell me I can’t have fun, or laugh, or fucking play.
THAT. IS. NOT. OKAY.
My brain goes click boom bust…A few moments later I post this to facebook. A swing, a punch. The fight is on.
Hey in case you missed it, the guy who lives across the street from me has a business that’s taking off — from the Seattle P.I…
A “social distancing” expert finds his business, Freeze-Fun, finally, at last, taking off.
Paul Thompson is a life-long seattleite and 42 year old practitioner of the Seattle Freeze. “It started when I was two…I’m actually 44”, Paul said looking down and not making eye-contact. “Someone took my ball and I saw the world as a cold mean place where I should look away and avoid people at all times.”
Paul is being touted as one of several Seattleites who, given their anti-social and awkward ways, might be capable of, with super human freeze tendencies, navigating the Seattle landscape and possibly thwarting this virus, both by performing deeds in crowded places others might not go, and by sharing what he knows about socially awkward, distanced interactions with others. His company, Freeze-Fun, is offering weekend intensive courses guaranteed to rid you of any openness, friendliness, or just general interest in your fellow human being and promises to prepare you for the social distance landscape we now inhabit.
“We placed Paul at the head of the governor’s entourage at his recent press conference,” says Bruno Maxwell, head of security for Governor Inslee. “You don’t become a body guard without being somewhat of an Alpha-male, and we knew we needed some awkwardness to help us change from the straight forward, direct path we’d take to the microphone. With Paul in the lead, though, well, it was really genius to tell you the truth, I never would have thought to enter and make a quick right turn and hide behind the bean dip. He’s very very good at sort of blending in. I even forgot he was here once. We have to look for him a lot. And the governor made it through!”
The praise for Paul doesn’t end at the governor’s mansion, either. Abby, a bubbly and vivacious transplant from San Diego, says Paul’s classes have helped her a lot. “I like to look people in the eye and smile”, Abby says, smiling, showing pearly whites and bright blue eyes, before apologizing and saying sorry, that old habits die hard. “Paul has helped me out a lot, with his help I am hunching my shoulders more, avoiding people’s faces, and I am working on my grunt. I can do it okay but it still sounds a little bit like a hello. Pual is just such a natural, the way he moves into a room and effortlessly finds a corner to stand in — even when it is his turn to speak. I was so ashamed when I started his class and had already made two friends and set up a date for Friday night. The way he came in, didn’t even acknowledge us, and never even when the class was done knew who i was — god, it was just so inspiring in a dull and sort of bland and life sucking way. Which is great, because if nobody wants to know you, and you don’t want to know anybody, I’m sure the coronavirus will pick up on that and not know you either. I heard it was like a teenager?”
For training, Paul has his students carry things in their pockets and drop them on the ground. He takes them out to the grassy patch in his yard where he has picked and left a bunch of daises. The trick, he says, is to pretend there is something interesting on the ground. “This is how I got through high school, now it just comes natural. And often to me the ground is more interesting than people”, he told me over email, after missing our meeting, saying he was fairly certain he could be there but not positive.
The irony is, for the first time in is life, Paul finds himself popular. Will it go to his head? I wanted to ask Paul that question, but found he was looking at his shoe and shuffling off when I turned to grab my microphone.
Truly a professional.
With his help, and hard work from from those socially well-adjusted transplants, the coronavirus may have met his match. If social distancing is what is required, well, the coronavirus came to the wrong town.
His business booming, his name spreading far and wide, when asked if this was the day he dreamed of, the day he worked for and slaved for, to be out there, and known, in the limelight and doing his work with others, Paul has a clear, resounding and perhaps not surprising, if still mumbled answer –
No.