Author: Joseph Long

After 29 days of the Stay At Home, I had an appointment. I had a thing to do, at a time, in a place other than my house, with another person.

The University of Arizona and the State have come together to ramp up COVID-19 antibody testing, beginning with 3000 healthcare workers, 500 University students, and 1000 unaffiliated Pima county residents. One of the other graduate students shared the sign-up link in Slack, and half of our team of grad students signed up.

(In fact, a surprising number of the other astronomy graduate students said they were signed up. My theory is that, with all the undergrads gone, the only people in the “University student” category both bored enough to read all University communiques and geographically close enough to participate are the grad students.)

This is a blood test for COVID-19 antibodies, which tells you if you were recently infected and recovered. (Not the same thing as the “are you currently infected?” test, which uses a nasopharyngeal swab.) I don’t think I was infected, although apparently many cases are entirely asymptomatic. I just wanted something to do, with the added bonus of helping the study ramp up their process.

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So, today at 9:40 AM I arrived at the Health Sciences building. The appointment slots on the sign up sheet were in 10 minute intervals, which I thought was a polite fiction. (I always choose early appointments because medical scheduling rivals JWST for delays.)

Incredibly, I was out by 9:47 AM. Let me walk you through the process.

1. Welcome station: Before you enter the building, you give your name to a worker who ensures you have an appointment and gives you some hand sanitizer. Follow the paw prints to the next station.

2. Wellness check: A non-contact thermometer (i.e. a one-pixel infrared detector) is used to ensure you haven’t lied about feeling sick. If your readings are within normal limits, you get to follow the paw prints through a scary maze of hallways.

2. Intake / processing: Present your ID, get led to a room, present your ID again, get everything keyed into their electronic record-keeping system, get a couple of labels for your vacutainer.
3. Phlebotomy: A nice phlebotomist (mine was seconded from a blood donation organization in Phoenix) sticks you with a needle and collects a couple tablespoons of blood.

4. All done! I was told results take 2 working days currently, but may be longer due to demand.

It’s funny that we’re in a situation where you really don’t want to get COVID-19, but really do want to have already had COVID-19.

My friend pointed out that phlebotomy is a good cover job for a vampire. Tangentially related, today’s song of the day is “Blood Like Lemonade” by Morcheeba.

Back in college, I used to listen to Thao & The Get Down Stay Down regularly. I haven’t kept up with their newer stuff, but they were recently in the news for the creative use of Zoom videoconferencing to make the video for their new single: Phenom. The song struck me as dissonant and strange at first, it’s been growing on me with every listen. Please enjoy it as your song of the day.

Before I moved to Tucson, I thought there were four seasons. Since living here, I’ve learned there are five. Fall, winter, spring, summer, and the North American Monsoon.

I also used to think summer started at the end of May. However, we’re already facing our first 90+ºF (32+ºC) day next week.

Soon we will become nocturnal desert dwellers, emerging at night or before dawn for our socially distant jogging. Eventually, it will be too hot even for this, and we will have to estivate.

Also, the University just announced its furlough plan on Friday, which will impact many of our People. This may have far reaching impacts, possibly extending even to our blog operations.

The Blog Board of Regents will have to weigh in.

Because of all this, your Song of the Day is “Summertime Sadness” by Lana del Rey.

Of course, the definitive version is the dance remix by Cedric Gervais:

Being confined at home can make anyone a little bit Genghis Khan, as my cat can attest.

Today’s Song of the Day is “Genghis Khan” by Miike Snow. Please enjoy the video, below.

When every weekend is spent at home having a mild time, one must find one’s own diversions. After the cooking is done and the phone calls to friends and family concluded, I scroll idly through the daily output of internet meme-makers. This usually provides a few minutes of distraction, eventually running aground on reposts and old memes.

To avoid doing chores, I have been plumbing successively more obscure sources of memes to waste my time. First, there were the Spanish-language memes.

Eventually those ran into the same problem: reposts.

We had to go deeper. How about… Spanish-language wild-felid social-distancing memes?

My sister, future wildlife biologist, sent me that one. It’s from the Instagram account @andeancats, a “not-for-profit project [seeking] to develop the first Andean cat documentary in order to raise awareness to people around the world.”

Jared really wants to see an Andean cat at Magellan, if we ever get to go back. He went trawling through their past posts and found this:

Isn’t that just the cutest?

However, even the deepest veins of obscure internet amusements ran out eventually, so I went to work on my DIY fabric masks. But, because I refuse to do anything simply, I had to design my own fabric for social distancing chic.

Which led me, in a roundabout way, to the ISO 7010 standard for registered safety signage. Which, after a month at home, seemed like yet another collection of funny internet pictures.

Eventually, I decided on the following motif for DIY textile crafts in the age of COVID-19:

Happy to report that the fabric and mask project has been a success. Perhaps not in terms of viral particle blocking, but aesthetically. And isn’t that what counts?

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Your song of the day is “The Spot” by Your Smith: