Excuse me, but you have something on your face…

Plus, Jim Steinman.

Here’s a thing I’ve done multiple times: gone out to eat (masked up), seated myself at the best-ventilated outdoor table available, removed my mask once the waiter brings water, keep my mask off during my meal, then replaced my mask once the waiter brings the check, then wore it on the way home (which was often, literally, around the corner from the restaurant).

I don’t need to tell you that this doesn’t make any sense, but: it doesn’t make any sense. Does this bother me? Not really. To be honest, I love it. Mask-wearing is a rational practice in lots of ways, but I also enjoy, even relish, its moments of pure irrationality: wearing a mask while walking my dog outside when nobody’s out, for instance. I have masks that I wear basically only during those scenarios, because they are laughably inadequate when it comes to actually filtering the air and thus keep my glasses from fogging over, and yet not to wear a mask feels so rude—! I mean can you imagine—!

Once, taking my dog out late at …