I really just need to write something here. I think of things constantly, from my past, from the realities of the new world, and I never write them down because it’s not convenient. I work on stuff, must work on stuff, then in my “free time” I work on some more stuff, volunteer for Biden/dems, make masks or watch something educational. I usually take a bath most evenings and watch something less educational, like Norsemen, or semi-educational, like Time Team..it’s always like “I’ll write something tomorrow” or “I’ll remember and write it all down all at once,.. when I magically have time to write a book about it”. Funny.
So I’m writing something now.
So, this pandemic, right? I’m definitely ok with the rules of a global pandemic world. I like wearing a mask, I feel like people don’t know how ugly I am, which is nice, I also don’t want to get anyone sick or get sick of course. I don’t mind staying away from people I know because I generally assume they don’t want to be around me anyway. Instead of me coming up with excuses or not contacting people and then felling guilty (but also like I’m doing them a favor), it’s just out of my hands, Hurrah! And I definitely don’t mind not going to the store very often. Most things we need are online and we can schedule grocery pickup for everything else. It’s almost like our lives pre living here, immobile, extremely rural, surrounded by strangers and/or hicks. We were always alone, together, observers of the fascinating world and not participants except in our own activities. Great. I feel a little bad saying I don’t miss people any more if I see them in person or online, but that’s what’s been normal and comfortable for me for the last 13 years.
p.s. If I see one fucking comment about “but masks don’t werk tho becuz my aunt is nurse and says so” – I’ll burn this whole website to the ground if I ever have to hear one more ignorant mother fucker say anything about masks or hoaxes or “but they’re skewing the numbers because…!”.
This is the world we live in. A world of people who are willing to try and get through this and people who are fighting it with every fiber of their being and making life worse for everyone. This would literally be over if it weren’t for stupid, stubborn people. They have dragged this out so long they’ve forced us to depend on a vaccine to come out, that half of them won’t even take. We cannot have nice things, go places and feel safe, eat out without being a piece of shit for doing so, and their kids can’t go to school because it will spread like wildfire because kids are kids. Unfortunately in a few weeks their kids will go to school in most states and the numbers will spike even more. I wouldn’t be surprised if this went on so long that our entire way of doing things is permanently altered in major ways, and I don’t just mean the obvious ways like – that maybe ‘essential workers’ will be treated like humans and paid a living wage (unlikely even if Biden is elected but we’ll see) – I’m talking no more shaking hands ever again and robots run half the shit people used to (which is already inevitable but could happen much faster). I already watch things from the past with the new world in mind; “should they be doing that” – “that’s not realistic or safe” – “what about covid?!” – “aw, that’s how things used to be, sigh”.
Our culture is already permanently affected. There’s music that will never be made, seasons of shows that will never continue, movies have been put off or will lose funding, sports…wait I don’t care about sports, small businesses will dwindle into the night unnoticed and forgotten, forever not contributing to the little bit of handmade quaintness left in our world. At least independent and gig workers were able to collect unemployment and my student loan payments were suspended. However I’m not worried about us as much as the thousands of other people I know aren’t as fortunate as we are.
Short and long term, our society will be trashed even more than trump has ushered in (though this is in a huge part his fault too) and it will likely be blamed on the democrats if we win this next election. The mess we’ll be left with will be unheard of. Homelessness will get even worse than it’s already been getting over the last decade because republicans think giving people enough money to live on when they lose their job in a pandemic is ‘spoiling them’. Wouldn’t want those workers to think they’re as worthy of comfort and security as the rich, right? Police are already willing to get more lethal, and at this rate will continue to if the republicans get to keep any power. The Right choose nationalism and racism over humanity which will puts stress on the positive awakening people are having because of the Black Lives Matter movement. Dividing and hating each other more and more because they won’t tolerate “socialism” and we won’t tolerate racism. A long running civil war will ensue in one way or another until this country finally falls apart. The national debt, important programs that were cut by trump and we might not be able to restart, or it could take years of legal battles to undo the damage. Thank you fucking GOP for ruining literally everything, Literally Everything.
And we used to joke that nothing interesting will ever happen in our lifetime. What a time to be alive.
I wish we lived in Argentina, South Africa, anywhere in the southern hemisphere. To be thousands of miles away from the US would be gold to me. No more gun culture, no more trumps (directly), no more masses of ignorant, anti-intellectual, anti-vax, conspiracy loving idiots. Ok, not entirely “none”, I’m not that naive, but they won’t be americans and that will be worth dealing with a few chads.
Once in a while I get angry for a short time, like seconds, about the pandemic even happening. Not angry because it’s out of control because of idiots, not angry because it’s killing so many people and trump’s politicizing of the mask making it 100 times worse – those are the constant angers; no I get angry because this is reality and it’s not fair. People weren’t designed for this many stressors at once. It’s going to permanently affect our DNA, like many traumas our ancestors endured have done. I think about being old and telling people about this time, looking back at it as if it were history and what it will feel like to have lived through it. It’s alien to me because I don’t have that yet, like a grandparent might – in fact I didn’t even grow up with grand parents so I have no idea what they would say or feel when talking about WWII or the previous pandemic. I don’t read about the Mr Yuck campaign of 1983 and go into a flashback about Mr Yuck stickers being on every bottle in the house and a sense of danger being instilled upon me by the media. Although, I do still remember my safe word from the “don’t talk to strangers” campaign of that time. It was pineapple. Most American’s from the last 40 years don’t have a lot of collective traumas (that we all experienced) to look back on. No world wars with domestic bombings, no mass pandemics until this one. Some of us have been in hurricanes and tornadoes, some of us have been held at gunpoint, many of us have personal traumas, but collectively we don’t have much to share before this.
With this pandemic the blame is on my own neighbours for partying in their back yard LITERALLY every weekend before and during this pandemic, like they live in a different reality. The 80 year old lady across the street having her kids and grand kids over from the next state nearly every day. It’s the “leader” of our country acting like a traitorous child, being so anti-science and making masks into a political statement “against him” (like the child he is). I already knew about the many people I didn’t trust because of their love of “god, guns and trump”, but we also can’t trust our 25 year old normal looking neighbours who welds grills for Subarus, and 80 year old friendly old ladies across the street to think about the collective.
And this is why I have no faith in this country.
Picture: Montezuma’s Castle, Arizona. When once people lived communally and many decisions meant life or death for them all (until those decisions were out of their hands due to assholes like us).