In the present time, is there anything that is of worth to you that is worth looking forward?

Aside from the pandemic ending and seeing a dermatologist...probably looking forward to the indie life sim game Paralives. I want to see what's so great that they are willing to compete in an market with a Titan.

Probably getting back to LabCorp, to see Dipti, who, although she tends to stab repeatedly to find blood, I've actually grown to miss her, stabbings and all.

(Although I am extremely sensitive to pain, the only place on my body that has grown numb from my constant contact with baby butterfly needles is where the prominent vein lies in the back of my left hand. This constant contact is due to taking medication requiring monitoring for toxicity levels. My father also takes similar medicine, so we've been stabbed by Dipti more times than we care to count.)

Probably work on a health regimen to get rid of my potbelly that throws its weight around. (Not kidding! I slouch like crazy!)

Found a peaceful place yesterday. Looking foward to get there this evening for solitude.

I'm looking forward to the day when I would start my sentence with...
"Back in the days when we were in lockdown..." :D
Also playing FFVII:Remake when it gets to my hands.

looked forward to compleating high school: DONE!
Looked forward to a BS physics: DONE!
Looked forward to a PhD physics: failed.
Looked forward to a BS engineering: DONE!
Looked forward getting Married: DONE!
Looked forward to a Good Job: DONE!
Looked forward to children: DONE!
Looked forward to an MS Physics: DONE!
Looked forward to retirement: DONE!
Looking forward to assisted care living: Wait a minute...
Looking forward to death: no... back the truck up. How did I get here?

November 2087, Thanksgiving

"Back when I was in lockdown when I was a young woman, I spent it watching anime, comedy, superhero shows from Japan...I learned how to cook, how to wash a cat bed made from an old blanket, write episode guides for binge-watching...My smartphone was my go-to device and my two computers, Bessie II and Bessie III were my access to the internet when my phone couldn't do the job. I spent about 1 in 15 days outside the house, usually for banking. I was quarantined back to back for the most part starting on March 15, 2020. It gave me time to clean my room. I think my bed ate one of my pillows."

Great Grandma knows.

Looking forward to a show on Hulu premiering around June 19, 2020 called Love, Victor. It's a TV show spinoff of the movie Love, Simon. I bought the 4K/Blu-Ray disc combo of the 2018 film, two of Becky Albertalli's books: Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda and Leah On The Off-Beat, and recently downloaded from YouTube the motion picture soundtrack from the film by Rob Simonsen. Also looking forward to her latest book Love, Creekwood. I placed my pre-order since it was announced in April 2020.

Looking forward to the next time I get to see my fiancée. COVID may be throwing a wrench in our plans for the summer, though...

Also looking forward to finding a language learning, particularly Swedish, discord server that feels more homey, I guess?

Oh, cool! I enjoyed the movie very much and the book as well. Nice to know there are more possible stories there.

After watching the movie and reading the books, I wanted to read more. So I went on this website called Wattpad, registered a free account, and started reading the fanfics. Some of them are good. I've read these ones:

Cake and ice cream. It's that month... well, day, really... of the year.

So. Much. Cake!
(And finally an excuse to eat moar cake than usual, too )

Also looking forward to sometime next month (or with my luck at the very end of June, possibly start of July) because final book (I think? Possibly? I'm not sure? Maybe not?) in a series, and FINALLY the next book in a series I've been waiting FIVE YEARS for. FIVE YEARS!!! (can anyone tell I'm really tired of waiting for that one? No?)

For those who may want to see the new Love, Victor season 1 episodes, but don't have Hulu, check out this link to the thread for that season. It was filmed well, I enjoyed it.

Thanks for this link and the one's to the stories on Wattpad. I will have to look into those. Fan fic is always iffy, but can be fun. As an aside, Wattpad brings back fond memories of a former student who used to share her original work there.

I don't want to derail this too much, but Wattpad is wild. There's apparently a whole genre of fan fic dedicated to One Direction, but specifically set during the Purge. Sometimes I just like to type in random words and see what pops out, like Jesus x Moses or whatever. I also remember seeing a guy who went to China without a VPN (you need a VPN to access YouTube/Netflix/Google/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Reddit/etc.) and the only source of entertainment this dude in his mid 20s had was Wattpad.

Well, I was looking forward to travelling to the UK in September with my brother and daughters, a trip a over year in the planning, but of course that's been fucked up thanks to youknowwhat, so now I have nothing planned and nothing to look forward to and feel quite depressed. It seems to be a recurring thing in my life - that whatever I look forward to with any excitement fails to eventuate, or is ruined, because of something unforeseen.

Swimming in my pool. First time this summer.

Looking forward to the day that scientists can make up their mind about whether masks are good or not ('member when they were all 'Masks Bad! Masks No Work!' and now some states and countries are mandating them wtf) and when our dear leaders will stop moving the goal posts.. and when the Boomers who had the love-ins and Woodstock and free love and all that during a pandemic will finally have some self-awareness.

I'd think the masks help to prevent the wearer from coughing/spewing whatever fluids to others. So if the mask wearer has Covid-19 (or some other ailment), the likelihood of it spreading is reduced, versus not wearing the mask. Doesn't necessarily prevent all instances of spreading, though, but does help reduce the chance. Like we could still touch surfaces that have Covid-19, so wearing a mask wouldn't work in those instances.

Masks have some protective properties if worn properly, worn under the right circumstances, if worn hygienically, and if you wear the right type of mask(s), etc., but they're not a guarantee against getting the virus. They do offer an additional protective barrier, though.

If you are sick yourself, have a low immune defense, work or live around people who are sick, or come into contact with a lot of people (especially people who have a tendency to cough/sneeze at you), or have other reasons to wear a mask when outside, wearing a mask could be a good idea to give yourself an extra protective barrier. Just make sure you have a few extra masks to swap around with if one gets sneezed/coughed on (dispose in garbage if non-washable), a sealable bag to put it in if it's washable (wash immediately when you get home), and clean your hands immediately after touching that mask (don't touch the front of it), so you don't spread around any viruses/bacteria. Masks lose some of their protectiveness if they get damp/wet, and shouldn't be worn for several hours at a stretch because the more you breathe into it, the more likely it is that those pesky bacteria/viruses are going through to the other side (from either side). Don't touch the front or the inside (that's where the microbes like to hang out), but handle the used mask via the head/ear straps. And of course, clean your hands immediately after taking off or disposing of the mask and before putting on a new one, so you don't transfer microbes to the new one.

But I guess masks work a bit like how birth control works (only with a slightly worse rate). There's a lot of potential user error involved, and even if you do everything correctly there's still not a 100% guarantee it will work. You could say "abstinence only" (or rather, social distancing) works best for the virus, but even that's without a 100% guarantee these days...

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We don't have a mask requirement (except health care dealing with absolute and possible cases, and on some planes). Our lockdown was quite effective in most areas. We've had few deaths relatively few cases, and the hospitals mostly managed without getting overrun. It's gotten to the point where most of the country has opened up again, if a bit careful and halfway in some places. It only remains to see if it continues this way now when people are getting tired of staying home and want to go traveling...

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I don't know if I'm looking forward to anything. End of summer, maybe? I don't like the heat... It's not so bad now, and I'm not sure if it's going to get any worse, but we've had up in the 25-30 C already, and I don't like that...

I also hope the virus trickles off soon, either through seasonal vaccination so it can be thrown into the pool of other viruses there's some general flock immunity for, somehow by itself, by mass vaccination to wipe it off the face of Earth, or by some other means, so some normality can resume. Getting pretty tired of having crappy years over and over again... Also realizing this is probably not going to happen anytime soon...

Would say I'm looking forward to being done with medications (hate the side effects), but I have no idea when that is, or if that means surgery, and I'm not looking forward to that prospect, so... eh.

Well, people don't like being told what to do. People aren't machines. And I live in Cali. Some places are allowing people to flout the mask order, which is rather heavyhanded because not every county is very populous and in some places only a few people even caught Covid. And even then, all of them had underlying problems and they should have stayed home. Also, read about these mayors housing covid-positive patients with those who were covid-negative. And of course the Oregon city where if you aren't white, you don't have to wear a mask. Really think about it.

Looking forward to "Over the Moon", a Netflix CG film about a girl who is inspired by the legend of Chang'E to go to the moon after her mother passed away some time ago.

Racist shit!

Maybe just quarantine yourself if you're vulnerable. Stop imposing on others. Also, states that didn't lock down had 75% fewer covid cases. If lawmakers and business owners keep clamping down, they're gonna have a revolt on their hands. And with the police being maligned and defunded as they are, they'll have to bring in the military. And then when the military is accused of not allowing some complete angelic angel to to breath and then killing him well... what's next? #DefundTheMilitary? Putting feminine hygiene products in the drinks of people in the military?

Yes. Think about it. Police can't distinguish between one black face and another already. Add a mask? Black people don't feel safe. I'm not going to debate you on this, but please think about it. Until you've been pulled over repeatedly just for being black, until you've been slurred and targeted, you cannot know what it feels like.

Black people don't all look alike. Sorry... if someone can't distinguish one black face from another, that person doesn't belong on the police force in the first place. Those kinds of people make my grandma spin in her grave.

I certainly agree with that, but the reality is that many police confuse black people all the time and detain innocent ones on a regular basis. They often get taken to jail and then processed and then, even if innocent, have to explain such incidences to future employers. It's a nightmare.

Here are a couple of examples. This is only a small small slice of what it is like to be black.:

Police detain a college professor because he's black and in the neighborhood where a black person had attempted to break into someone's home.
https://www.stevelocke.com/blog/i-f...mM-k63FKrXaFJtk

And here's a video of cops harrassing a black man on the street, again near where a crime took place and claiming he fit the description. It has commonly been reported that the police will say this after they've pulled someone over and started checking them out. They pulled over an FBI agent this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLhoR7kegkg