Ramblings from the Covid cave

Excuse my post-sickness brain

I’ve had Covid for the past few days. Finally testing negative today. By now, I know more people who’ve had it than haven’t, so I know I’m not special. However, I did have it in my head that if I hadn’t gotten it by now, that I either 1) had already had a mild, imperceptible case or 2) I was God’s golden boy, immune to all apocalyptic diseases. Given my penchant for self-delusion, option 2 was the option I favored. 

But no. A few nights ago, I fell asleep in the recliner while watching a movie. I felt fine. A few hours later, I woke up with the worst body chills I’ve ever experienced. I put on a hoodie and burrowed into blankets, still freezing. I must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, it was daytime and I was sweating. My flus and colds are usually predictable, so I knew right away that it was Covid, because I’d never felt sick like this before. You could say it was novel. 

That morning, feeling extra sorry for myself, I Doordashed a chicken-fried steak from Denny’s. Don’t feel sad for me, Dear Reader, because it was fucking delicious. Exactly what I was looking for at that moment. Perhaps it was sitting there, deliriously housing down that piece of processed meat when the reality sunk in: I must be really sick. 

Covid caused me to postpone a trip to see family in Utah, but seeing the chaos at airports over the holiday made me a little thankful I missed out on that. Amidst the Elon-buying-Twitter news, it was a welcome reminder that so many people still use that platform to yell at airports/airplanes. It briefly felt like Old Twitter, and got the ol’ blood pumping again. 

I watched a lot of movies. Many I don’t really remember, but I liked most of them. It’s too hard to be critical of movies whilst swimming in Covid. Loved Violent Night. Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman seemed like it could be a good Christmas movie because Batman Returns is, so, you know (it is not). Loved it anyway. For some reason, I had it in my mind that Paul Schrader’s First Reformed would be a Christmas movie. It’s not.

My cat did not leave my side for three days straight. 

I finished Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Incredible. I once heard someone describe it as a vampire novel, and I was like whaaaa? But now I get it. 

Before getting sick, my friends Angie and Paul showed me old footage of someone driving down El Cajon Blvd in 1970, a clip uploaded by the San Diego City Clerk.  

This sent me down a wormhole of scouring the City Clerk’s Youtube page, where hundreds of similar videos have been uploaded. You can pretty much see how the entire city looked from a car 50 years ago. 

I was then informed by my friend :that these videos had already made the rounds and went viral—at least locally—when the city first started posting them. So, here I am, late to the party yet again. But if I hadn’t heard of them, many others probably hadn’t either. I highly recommend exploring. 

I drive this stretch of Home Avenue almost daily, and it’s uncanny (in the most Freudian sense) to see how it looked in 1970. 

Because I was sick and bored, I reached out to the City Clerk for information regarding this incredible archival project, and got this response from Sam Ely, the Archives Program Manager:

The City Clerk Street View collection consists of 35MM film that was initially created by the Transportation and Storm Water department from the months of January to October of 1970.  This project lasted for a total of ten months and this collection continues to be one of the most favored collections to date...These videos can be described as a live real-time photolog that was produced by the department. Each reel of 35MM color film was taken by a camera that the department attached to the top of a car, driving down the street or highway, producing street level views in numerous neighborhoods in San Diego, much like Google does in present time for the world-wide web. In order to preserve the 35MM film, the Office of the City Clerk has since converted approximately 2,548 35MM reels to a file format of MP4 for uploading purposes to the City Clerk Digital Archives, Film Collection—for all citizens to enjoy. Since its release, we have had requests from journalists, video game developers, students and citizens across our City.

Thank you, Sam! 

Okay, gonna go, but it felt good to write. Thanks for reading AWKSD in 2022. Stay safe. Get your boosters. Don’t get cocky about Covid like I did. See you next year! 

<3 Ryan

---

Got a tip or wanna say hi? Email me at ryancraigbradford@gmail.com, or follow me on Twitter @theryanbradford. And if you like what you’ve just read, please hit that little heart icon at the end of the post.

Julia Dixon Evans edited this post. Thanks, Julia. Go follow her on Instagram.

Saw a nice sunrise this morning