[The Life of Shaun #578] Twenty-Twentugh

What a sense of dread and disappointment I woke to on Wednesday morning.  It was one thing, four years ago, to vote for an unknown man against a publicly-maligned and divisive opponent.  It's quite another to know what kind of president Trump is and vote for more of it.  So, despite the lessons of 2000 and 2016, my spirit slumped seeing all that red on the map.

As the tide turned over the week, I grew more hopeful, and was proud and happy when the vote from black-majority Atlanta turned the tide against Trump.  But even when Pennsylvania pushed Biden to victory, my joy was tempered; there are still 70 million Americans who think Trump's behaviour is not only acceptable, but desirable.  Policy aside, the president is also America's head of state, and to want a petulant, entitled, lying bully to represent your country on the world stage is something I just don't understand.

Fortunately he's done, but Trumpism isn't going away.  Like the poison unleashed by Brexit, this rot is now endemic, and it's going to be a long slog to cure.  I have faith Biden is a good starting point.  He's innocuous but respectable, and he's a centrist, which America needs to dampen the knee-jerk polarisation that's characterised its politics since the Tea Party shrieked its way onto the scene.

So good luck, Mr. President, and Mme. Vice President.  May you leave America in a better, calmer, kinder place in four years' time, ready and waiting for President Harris to finish the job.

Cheers,
Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #577] Done and busted?

I am officially out of quarantine today, and I've passed the "double dip" risk period, where some people start to feel better, but then quickly deteriorate.  I am expecting fatigue and anosmia for some weeks, possibly months, from what I've read and heard, but it's manageable.

On this side of things, I wonder how much more widespread SARS-CoV-2 is than is known.  I never developed a cough, the key feature of covid-19, which makes me think there must be an appreciable number of undetected cases out there.  Hopefully millions, and the severe cases we see are extreme outliers.  But who knows, and who knows when we'll have that data reliably.

Until then, wash your hands and up your quinine.  The latter won't help with covid-19, but it might help with your nerves, which is just as important.

Cheers,
Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #576] Anosmia Phởk

I lost my smell last night.  It happened over the course of a phở.

At the start, it was fragrant and flavourful; by the end, it was flat with a metallic undertone.  I didn't think much of it until I had some Ben & Jerry's and it had the same metallic 'note'.  This kicked off a series of smell tests from bathroom odoriser to Czech schnapps, all of which were a hard fail.  (Dog farts too, so it's not all lose.)  I know this is a common effect of covid-19, but it's a bit scary as developing new symptoms makes me presume that the virus is still gaining ground in my body rather than being on the wane.

This morning I feel the same; same sore/scratchy throat and fatigue since last Saturday, so I don't feel on the decline.  I'm checking my blood O₂ regularly, and it's at 98% when I am sitting upright, so no warning signs yet.  Nothing to do but wait and hope it stays mild and the senses return in full.  Tedious.  May it remain so.

Cheers,
Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #575] 40,000,002

Covid-19 has made its way to our little corner of Islington - Sushil and I are now part of the statistics.  Well, technically only I am; Sushil's test came back negative.

I started to feel ill on Thursday, and on Friday I had a fever, so I entered my symptoms into the NHS test-and-trace app, and they sent tests for our household in the post.  We took the tests Sunday, mailed them to a lab in Glasgow on Monday, and I got my positive result this morning.  Though Sushil's test was negative, we are pretty sure he was the vector.  Despite the upswing in cases in the UK, his work has continued to insist he commute into the office daily by tube, and the week before I was ill he felt "a bit under the weather", which by his Indian immune system standards is near-death.

I felt rather miserable on Friday, but my fever broke on Saturday, and since then I've felt mostly alright.  I've been fatigued with a bit of a scratchy throat, but nothing too bad.  I know this virus can go up and down, but I am hoping that since the initial hit was relatively mild, I am on the path to recovery.  If this is my brush with covid-19, I'll take it.

Convalescing,

Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #574] If I were 19 again...

...I would become a nurse.  I've been throwing around this catchphrase for years.  I even looked into it quite seriously nine or ten years ago, going to an open day at a local university.  I couldn't imagine relating with the 18ish year-olds who would be my cohort over the three-year programme, and decided I was too old to be that poor again.

But the thought never really left me.  It's been bouncing around between the back and front of my head.  And these years later, things are different, both with me and my options.

Practically, they now have a truncated version of the course for people with a BSc in another discipline who are making a career change.  It's two years instead of three and, while I'd be on the upper side of the age range, I'd be with my peers, other adults beginning their second (or third) careers.

But more importantly, personally things are different.  I am looking for something else out of life than I was then, and I've had some years to build up my financial side a bit so that aspect's not as scary as it once was.

So today was my last day at Barclays.  I have a long weekend break, scheduled with a massage and lunches, before starting my next chapter on Monday: the MSc in Adult Nursing at City, University of London.

I'll never be 19 again, but I can still do this.

Excited and terrified -- but more excited,

Shaun

In the requisite tone, my application essay, if you are keen on a bit more colour:

I can't recall when I realised I wanted to be a nurse, but it's been on my mind for some time. I remember a night, about ten years ago, at home with my flatmate. At some point in our conversation I said that if I were 19 again, I would become a nurse. We talked about it, and how if I had followed that path, I wouldn't have travelled as much, and I might not have moved to London - any path you take opens some options and closes others.

What I can remember is why I felt that way. I hadn't had any major health issues, but I'd had enough encounters with health services to have an impact: stitches and a broken arm when I was a kid, mole biopsies and wisdom teeth extraction as a teenager, a varicocelectomy and sexual health screenings as an adult. What I remember the most about these encounters is the nurses, their presence not just during, but before and after each procedure, tending to and soothing me, patiently answering my unending questions. I remember how much calmer and reassured they made me feel, and at one point thinking I wanted to be that person for somebody else.

A little over five years ago, I was that person. My mother was diagnosed that February with stage IV lung cancer; she underwent one round of chemotherapy, but decided that the effects weren't worth the few extra months she might gain, and refused further non-palliative treatment. She was fine for a while, but around August she started to slow down, and by the end of October, my sisters and I all recognised what was coming. I flew to Illinois to live with them and take care of my mom.

At first she was just weak and needed help in and out of bed and her wheelchair, but soon she needed to be hoisted up and down. Next came the pain, finding ways of mitigating it without diminishing her awareness: patches in the morning, ibuprofen in the afternoon, morphine for a good night's sleep. As the tumours spread and grew, she became weaker; her right arm gave out, followed by her legs, and she relied on me completely not to be bed-ridden. Of course, eventually she was; it became too difficult and painful to get out of bed, so my sisters and I took turns tending to her, feeding her, cleaning her, helping ease her pain.

She died a few days after getting into the bed for the last time; she hated being dependent, so we were all glad it was quick. Those were the hardest months of my life, but also the most thankful and purposeful. I was glad every day I could be there for my mom, to help her through the difficult end of her life. I could see on her face when she was scared, or the pain was coming back. And getting to be that person - the one who calmed and reassured her - felt like the most natural thing in the world.

When I was 19, I didn't know what I wanted to do, other than get out of my hometown and travel.  I knew education was the route out, so I studied hard and received a BSc in Computer Science with honours from a top-tier engineering school in the Northeast, followed by a job in technology at IBM. After five years, I moved to London and sat an MBA to expand my career options, landing a job at Morgan Stanley, then Barclays.  I've had a challenging, varied and successful career in competitive, ever-changing industries, but the primary rewards have been outside of the workplace. As I've begun ticking into my 40s, I've reassessed what I want out of the rest of my professional life. I want to dedicate my time, capabilities and energy to something that is more personally rewarding and meaningful, and the only thing that makes sense to me is that thought that's been bouncing around in my head for more than a decade: being that person for someone - being a nurse.

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #573] La Serenissima

When to visit Venice was something I'd thought about since moving to London in 2005.  Back then I said I would visit either when I was older or in a couple, as it's not a swinging singles kind of city.  As tourism morphed into hyper-tourism, that when became more of a whether to visit Venice.  Of all the world's destinations that are drowning in their own success, Venice is possibly the worst impacted of all.  I've been to enough overrun hotspots to know that, whatever the inherent charms, they are difficult to see behind a wall of fanny packs and selfie sticks.

This is something that's become a bit of a challenge for me; when a place is "hot", I dread going there.  I know that it's hypocritical to travel and then bemoan  "too many" others doing the same.  When I was growing up in Las Vegas, all I wanted to do was get out and travel, and that's been a huge part of what's made me the person I am.  How could I be against the same opportunities for anyone else to see what's out there and where they belong?  But logic couldn't stop the horror I felt when I saw the changes in Barcelona or Berlin between visits several years apart.  There's a difference between increased tourism, and tourism on the scale that obliterates what was there to begin with.  It's a fine line, but when a city no longer feels like it's for its residents, it's been crossed.

I am a fan of Bhutan's tourism policy: "high value with low impact".  You have to spend a minimum of $200-290 per person per day in the country, depending on season/party size, which prevents low-value/high-volume tourists, and ensures the country isn't overrun with mobs bouncing from one Instagrammable spot to the next.  Yes, this means many people, including me, will likely never be able to afford to visit, but that is of lesser concern than preserving the place for the people who live there.  The Bhutanese model couldn't be copied exactly in cities like Venice, but changes in the same spirit could help stem the tide: higher hotel taxes, limiting the number of hotel rooms, licensing AirBnB rentals and limiting them to 30 days/year, and above all, banning cruise ships.  Every decision has winners and losers, but weight should be given to who benefits - residents or corporate interests - not just the monetary value.  Just as houses should be homes, not investments, cities should be for living in, not for profit.

All that being said, with covid-19 hammering tourism, we decided now was the time to go to Venice, when it was relatively empty.  And what a joy this version of Venice is!  The city is popular for a reason, and its popularity well-deserved.  It's in a league with only Paris and Prague as far as architectural beauty, and the total absence of cars is a dream.  We were able to walk up and eat/drink anywhere, getting prime tables with canal views, no reservations required.  The city has a few "must-sees", but the real joy lies in aimlessly wandering the streets away from the tourist hubs and just seeing what you come across.  I was pleasantly surprised to walk through some rather gritty, local-feeling areas.  But nothing could hide the damage that tourism has done to Venice as a place to live.  Almost everyone we heard on the streets was speaking German or French; the city was sparse, but did not "feel Italian".  It's going to take more than one Summer of pandemic to right the wrongs done to Venice.

Arrivederci,

Shaun

Ponte dell'Accademia from our room, one of four bridges spanning the Grand Canal.

Piazza San Marco, the spiritual heart of Venice.

A canal...somewhere.

My favourite scene during our visit: a beautiful, elegant Italian lady arriving at a friend's for dinner or the like, going about her life while the tourists scutter around her.  It seemed an apt metaphor.

Ponte di Rialto, the most elegant bridge on the Grand Canal, and Insta-Central.  My photo was taken from a public transport boat.  #genx

The Grand Canal.

A gondola returning in front of the Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti.

Sushil and me sporting the latest Italian fashion.

San Giacomo dell'Orio, my favourite neighbourhood we explored.

Backstreet Venice at night.

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

[The Life of Shaun #572] No pain? All gain.

Six weeks ago, as I sat down at my computer to work on some essays, I felt a deep, localised pain in my right shoulder.  It died down to soreness pretty quickly, eventually merging up with my neck, and just kind of sat there.

Two weeks ago, I was awoken at 04:00 by piercing pain in my upper right arm, which kept me awake for hours trying to find some contorted position that reduced the pain to throbbing, so I could doze lightly back off.  In the morning, I booked an appointment with my GP, who referred me to an orthopaedic, who gave me an Xray and MRI.  The result: inflammation in my right shoulder, which he believes is exacerbating the slipped disc he found in my neck.  I've now been referred to a spinal specialist, who I will see today and, hopefully, will start me on the path to recovery.

I remember visiting my friend Mike McGirr in Atlanta, shortly after he had back issues, and him telling me 'I'm not afraid of death anymore, I'm afraid of pain.'  While my brush with chronic pain is not in the same league that he, my cousin, or countless others experienced, after a few days into it, I was able to begin to relate.  Sitting awake again at 04:00 in the morning, trying to wedge myself into a tolerable position, I thought that if this were going to be my life forevermore, I could understand how the will to keep going could fade away.

Through trial and painful error, I've landed on a regime (400 mg of ibuprofen, every five hours, day and night) that is ameliorative enough I can stay in bed rather than migrating to the couch, but cured I ain't.  Whoever said 40 is the new 30 obviously never had a pinched nerve.

Be kind to your joints, folks.  You'll miss them when they're gone.

Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

[The Life of Shaun #571] Quarantine in Islington

Sushil and I adopted a puppy in May, a Boston terrier who we've named Chester.  While technically a quarantine puppy, we started our search close to a year ago, and actually passed on two pups before bringing him down from Wigan.  Like all Bostons, he's kooky and charming in equal measures, and we're smitten with our furry little nutjob.  Pam - well, she is less so, but she's coming around.  I don't think they'll ever be besties, but she isn't afraid to be around him; she doesn't want to play, which Chester just can't understand.

Aside from our growing pack, we're managing well in the covidity.  London is slowly reopening; we've had friends over for roomy drinks in the garden, had our anniversary dinner on the first night restaurants were reopened, have dined out with local friends once more since, and had pints out in Soho yesterday.  We're taking a trip to Venice this coming weekend (we thought this would be a good time to visit the world's most over-touristed city), going somewhere TBD in August, and seeing friends in Amsterdam at the start of September - all masked up and socially-distanced, of course, but that's the case here in London as well.

We know people who've gotten sick with covid, but all have recovered, and we're thankful that some cancelled trips and the Groundhog Day of working from home are thus far (touch wood) the worst we've had to deal with.  It could be so much worse, and we know that.

Stay safe and sane,

Shaun

Chester, on his ride down to the Big Smoke.

Enjoying his first IPA.

Rocking his pink collar.

Pic from last week - he's growing into a handsome man!

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #570] Mehrakesh

With the presumption that we'd be on a downer coming back from three weeks in New Zealand to both work and the dark of a London Winter, Sushil and I put a trip to Marrakesh in the calendar for February to have something to look forward to.  We booked a classic riad in the middle of the medina, at the end of winding passageways, near the main square, Jemaa el-Fnaa, ready for an exotic weekend, full of spiced food and enchanting streetlife.  

Instead, what we got were bland tagine, backpackers, tourist tat and touts.  We ended up trying to go home a day early, but our flight was cancelled after we had already boarded, so we spent our final night in a mid-range business hotel on the outskirts of the city.  The thing about Marrakesh is that it falls into a null space for me: it's too well-touristed to feel authentic or exciting, but it's Muslim and not developed enough to just relax with a drink and enjoy yourself; it's neither of the kinds of holidays I enjoy.

When you travel, you accept that you'll have some duds amongst the winners, but when we got back home I started to wonder if maybe it was more about me and the place I've been lately.  Why am I being such a negative Nancy?  Perhaps what I need right now are trips to people (duly booked for April, and corona-cancelled), not places, and to spend a bit more time at home.  Be careful what you wish for, eh?  But I'm actually OK with the lockdown - I could do with a little less motion for a while.

Contentedly isolated,

Shaun

Jemaa el-Fnaa, where there was, admittedly, a lot of local life on display, but also a reliably large minority of white faces and American accents.

Boxing in Jemaa el-Fnaa.

#millennialmarrakesh

Shopping near our riad.

"The Majorelle Garden, on Avenue Yacoub el Mansour, was at one time the home of the landscape painter Jacques Majorelle. Famed designer Yves Saint Laurent bought and restored the property, which features a stele erected in his memory, and the Museum of Islamic Art, which is housed in a dark blue building. The garden, open to the public since 1947, has a large collection of plants from five continents including cacti, palms and bamboo."

Yves Saint Laurent Museum - sexy architectural diversion, but we did not view the fashion collection inside.

Night spice market.

Loved this woman.  This was the only stand at the night food market we saw being run by a woman, and she was certainly in charge.

Chez Rachida (Stand Nº 42)

[The Life of Shaun #569] So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu

Today is a sad day.  For Britain, and for me.  Though the mantras of "global Britain" and sovereignty have been woven ever thicker into the political spin, one only needs to look back at the anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner, populist emphasis of the Leave campaign to know what was at the heart of most people's vote to leave the EU.

When I moved to London in 2005, it was the height of the W years.  America was still suffering from the PTSD of 9/11, railing against gay marriage, and Islamophobia, xenophobia and nativism were replacing the historic ideals of liberty, equality and freedom of religion.  Arriving in London, I felt like I had found my people: open, liberal, mild-mannered and thoughtful about the world.  But even before June 2016, I had felt Britain becoming ever more like the country I had fled.  And, much like the Trump election has allowed Americans to feel free to express the worst versions of themselves, Brexit has unleashed an ugliness in the English character that I didn't think existed 15 years ago.

So tonight, while Brexiteers will be celebrating (mercifully, without Big Ben), I will not.  We are going over to Jan's for drinks and games, putting our phones in a box, no TV, no clocks, to pass the hour unnoticed and unacknowledged.

I will miss EU, and hope we're together again soon.

For now, ciao,
Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #568] Aotearoa

I was disappointed by New Zealand. Or, more accurately, I was disappointed that I was disappointed by New Zealand. It's really not New Zealand's fault - I put too much hope and expectation on it to sort out all my angst in Britain. That's too much to ask of anywhere, and really something that needs to be dealt with back here at home.

The country as a whole is lovely. It is beautiful, its people friendly, its cities well-maintained, and there is an admiral national focus on wine, craft beer and a work/life balance. But as I approached each place with the thought, "Could I live here?", the answer was always no. I loved Wellington, with its craft beer and café culture, but nowhere else struck me as somewhere I'd want to go twice. Given that the next nearest travel destinations on Australia's boomerang coast are about a four-hour flight, and then Asia's outer rings about eight, no matter how nice Wellington is, it would be quite isolating living there. Especially when all my people would be 24+ hours away in Europe and North America.

This really shouldn't have been a surprise for a city boy in a sparsely-populated rural nation, but a little part of me was hoping to have a eureka moment, happening upon a place I could call home, a little liberal nirvana somewhere far away from Brexit, far away from Trump, far away from all the xenophobic, flag-waving populism that's infecting the Atlantic Anglosphere.

Midway through our trip, I fell into a bit of a funk as I realised that New Zealand would not be our Brexscape. If not New Zeland, then where? I came to the conclusion that my roots in London were deeper than I'd realised, and we're here for the haul, come what may. It was a tough realisation: that I am going to have to live here post-Brexit, live in this insular, little England, live with these people who're limiting my future opportunities, taking away my freedom of movement. I want to want to leave, but there's nowhere to go.

So here I shall stay, with my people and in my city. I still despise Brexit, but there's nothing I can do about it. So with the Where's next? taken out of it, I can come back to the What's next?. I still haven't figured that out. But at least now I know where it will happen.

Cheers,
Shaun


Pics and commentary here:

South Island
North Island

North Island

Wellington

First up on the North Island was Wellington, New Zealand's capital, and my favourite Kiwi city.  Welly is physically reminiscent of San Francisco, with its bay, hills and Victorians, and also very much its pre-tech-money vibe.  It's eminently walkable and hip (but not too hip), focussing on the good things in life: bars (including our first real gay one - hoorah!), wine, craft beer, restaurants, artisanal peanut butter and habanero mustard - it's my kind of town.

Though we were in town from Christmas to New Year's Eve day, which meant many of the spots on our radar were closed, we had four agreeable days exploring Wellington's charming, compact neighbourhoods, enjoying being back in a comfortable urban space.  We had one day where we had a taste of "Windy Welly's" notorious gusts, but mostly we had sunshine and light breezes.  It's a pleasant and easy city, and would make a great home - if it were situated about where Bristol is.



Wellington hugs the Western end of Wellington Harbour, with its neighbourhoods stretching up into and around the surrounding peaks and bays.



Wellington hasn't had a major earthquake since an 8.2 in 1855, so it is replete with period buildings.



However, many buildings have signs at their entrances warning you that they have not yet been strengthened against tremors, so if Wellington is on your list, you might want to visit sooner rather than later.



Cuba Street, pedestrianised heart of Te Aro, Wellington's centre-most, and busiest, neighbourhood.



Hipster Te Aro.



Modern block of flats.



Greetings from India via the Wellington Botanic Garden.



Looking over downtown Wellington from Bolton Street Cemetary.



New Zealand's parliament building, "The Beehive".



Downtown Welly.



Newtown - possibly the heartbeat of hipster Wellington, but it was difficult to gauge in the Christmas dearth.



Newtown



The grand ladies of Mt. Victoria, one of Wellington's poshest neighbourhoods.



Too-cute-for-words Aro Valley, where I could see the Shaun of another dimension making a happy home.

Napier

Our North Island itinerary was more about the destinations than the journeys, so from Wellington we went right on to Napier via brunch in Greytown, a disappointing place to stop for an hour - that is, unless you are comparing it to anywhere else between Wellington and Napier, so mark it with an x in your atlases now.

In a recurring theme, the jewel of Hawke's Bay was largely destroyed by an earthquake in 1931.  A happy silver lining to that tragedy was a blank urban canvas, which was filled with Art Deco.  It's a small city, with maybe a dozen core streets, but pretty faithfully kept to the target style.  Only a few of them - the ones taken over by the frequent cruise ship hordes - are the shiny ones of postcards, but I actually liked this about the town.  I thought it was nice that not just the tourist bits were Art Deco, but the prosaic, workaday parts of town were as well.  We had a serendipitous rendez-vous with friends from Shaker Heights, Ohio who happened to be in town at the same time (as one does), but as much as I like Art Deco, two nights were sufficient in Napier.





Art Deco Napier



No relation



Meet me at the corner of Clive & Mitopia.

Rotorua

We spent New Year's Eve in Rotorua, whose nickname is Roto Vegas, which is apt; as we got to town I said to Sushil “It looks like Vegas.”  I was talking about the big roads and strip malls, whereas the nickname comes from the endless tourist masses and myriad diversions to part one from their money. Even if I lived in New Zealand, I doubt I’d visit twice. 



Central Rotorua.


Back to my roots...



Tutanekai Street, or simple "Eat Street", the epicentre of tourist Rotorua.  Giving it its fair due, we did have a lovely dinner at Atticus Finch.



Happy new year!

Auckland

Last up (excluding lunch in Hamilton, which bears no further mention) was Auckland, New Zealand's New York - it's the financial, artistic and culinary capital of the nation, and by some measure its largest city.  I'd been to Auckland once before, in 2010, and my overriding memory of it was "meh".  But the intervening years had seen a great boom in New Zealand, with increased immigration, money and attention, so I approached the city with some excitement.  

Excitement that was quickly dashed.  Though it's clear that Auckland has boomed, it's a very corporate kind of boom.  Lots of highways, towers and glass boxes by the harbour.  The city sprawls, and the central neighbourhoods rather seem to blend one blandly into the next.  For a place with such a concentration of capital and talent, there was no energy, no vibe, no soul.  Turns out, rather than New York, Auckland is actually New Zealand's Oakland.




Auckland is built over 53 volcanoes - some of them still active.



The..."heart"...of Auckland.



Skyline



Kudos to the sexual health services!



How we mostly spent the last days of our holiday.