I'm adding fringe and sequins to my mask ....

I've intended, during the coronavirus slowdown, to post an image of Orville Peck --- an aspiring singer with "country" edge who adopted as a gimmick (he is a talented musician, too) a mask long before wearing masks for other purposes became de rigueur among sensible people.

Sure it's a decorative mask, not an efficient one, and if you're thinking of adapting the idea for grocery store expeditions you'll need to wear another mask beneath it. But there are fashion possibilities here.

Got to admit it took me a long time to resign myself to the need for a mask during outings like a trip to the grocery store. Part of that's because I live alone and self-obsess a lot.

Masks are inconvenient and I'm mildly claustrophobic, I feel self-conscious, my glasses steam up and the cheapies that I've been wearing come adrift at inconvenient times (this mask business is likely to go on for a very long time, need to invest in something better). And Lucas County is one of those increasingly rare places where no confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported.

Then I got to thinking about how rude it is to wander bare-faced around a big store with a big staff where every employee has been wearing a mask for many hours straight every day and taking all sorts of other inconvenient precautions to keep the customers safe. Then how badly I'd feel if I became a carrier and infected someone else because of my own self-consciousness.

I still forget sometimes that there are prescribed routes through the store and inadvertently find myself going the wrong way in a one-way aisle.

And I get really annoyed when I see others fingering the merchandise --- for goodness sake, just look at it, decide what you want and then pick it up, don't squeeze or finger it and then put it back --- and at jackasses in too big a hurry to ask me politely to move if I'm blocking access to something, then dive in breathing heavily two inches from my nose.

It's a brave new world, and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci is expected to warn a U.S. Senate committee today of the dangers involved in trying to return to "normal" too rapidly.

And if I could sew, I'd be thinking of Orville's example and the potential of adding fringe and sequins to my mask.