Plague Diary

[minuspace]

Yeah, I got that network lock too, reminded me I had to terminate my good ‘ol copper wire contract. Because A) that’s exactly when it’s supposed to work and B) other ‘ol timey telephony provisions clearly nothing. So good.


Then, from looking at the world through this keyhole, everything is now connected.
  I post mittens :
  fireworks go off outside my window
->these two things are causally related


Yes, I will sleep well tonight.

[The Wizard Joseph]

7-12-2020

The last entry in this diary was the better part of a month ago. Perhaps this is fitting. So much has changed both in the world and for me personally. The US pretty much went full potatoe, so to speak. We just opened right up and pretended nothing was wrong anymore. Our numbers are exactly like seeing the moment when a fat kid gives up trying to do a chin-up and just drops off. We're in the range of 60,000 new daily cases. We have managed to kill as many folks as WWI in less than a tenth of the time and are looking to quickly surpass WWII in less than a sixth.

Everyone is pretending nothing is happening though. In Wisconsin at least most folks are unaware of even basic facts or worse have adopted personally preferable lies largely pushed through far right media outlets. In public places like Walmart I estimate less than a fifth of folks wear masks. WHO is under petition from hundreds of scientists in dozens of countries to recognize the virus as airborne. WHO has acknowledged that it cannot be ruled out, but has been unresponsive about reclassifying the vector, downplaying the role of such transmission even as the R0 clearly indicates the likelyhood and the numbers rise exponentially. For the VAST majority none of these realities exist, much less are understood. And so it goes.

I have largely extricated myself from living with my family and hope to complete the process of moving back to LaCrosse by the end of the month. The saying that familiarity breeds contempt is true. Whatever illusions or justifications I may have had about the EXTREMELY bigoted nature of their politics and personal beliefs have disintegrated entirely. Rather than benefit materially from giving my tacit approval I have openly disowned them explicitly because of it and moved out. I now do what I can to get by, much of it quite unlawful. I have friends in the area that are like family and am getting by comfortably for now, but infection hangs like Damocles' sword over me every day. True isolation is no longer an option for me and so I live on the assumption that I could well be dead or worse in a couple weeks or a month either from covid or "The Life". It's a different reality entirely, but I must say that in my desperation I have found a challenge and oddly some of my depression seems to have lifted, even as my other mental conditions seem to be exacerbated. I am definitely going crazier in essence, but I feel happier or at least less like a burnt match.

A rabid rat am I
Sharp of tooth
red of eye
Mad and clawing
Until I die
Of the fire
Other rats
Or talons
From the sky

[chaotic neutral observer]

2020 Jul. 22

Although I appreciate that many retail locations have made hand sanitizer available near their entrances, this does not come without certain risks/consequences.

I have encountered at least one dispenser (of the pump variety) which is aligned such that, if one's hand is not positioned properly, it will deliver a jet of said sanitizer directly to one's crotch.

At which point one is reduced to traversing the pharmacy / post-office with a splotch on the front of one's pants.

At least it dries fairly quickly.

[altered]

Jul 29, 2020
———

If you’re racist, you might say I had it coming.

Fuck you.

The mission was simple: walk to Chinatown (two and a half blocks), pick up item from Walgreens, return.

We successfully completed this part of the mission, but my friend decided we were going to go a bit further from home to pick up baked goods from a nifty cafe.

And this was where the trouble started.

About three hallways wide, this was a narrow pathway bordered on either side by outdoor eating areas, packed to the gills, people unmasked, walking directly into each other freely and without worry.

We made it to the cafe, where masks were mandated but all the white girls decided that masks meant they could invade people’s personal space. Well, decided. They changed their mind when I gave them the whites-of-the-eyes panicked horse glare.

On our way out was The Incident.

3 unmasked men, chatting with each other, coughing on occasion, grinning, no masks in sight. There are two narrow walkways in between the eating areas. They walked down the one WE WERE ALREADY ON, WALKING IN THEIR DIRECTION.

We escaped over some planters, flipped off the crowd while I used the benefit of my ridiculous respirator to make a sound like a deranged bull transmogrifying into a swarm of bees (as a deterrent to any assholes deciding we needed to be taught a lesson), and left this hellhole.

The people serving the outdoor customers were largely East or South Asian, were dressed in the functional equivalent of hazmat gear, and looked terrified.

The average customer was white or Hispanic, unmasked, wearing expensive polo shirts or dresses according to gender, ostentatious as fuck with showing how rich they were. Real “gold plated iPhone case” sort of crowd.

And what did I pick up at that cafe?

Matcha.

And it was just shitty green tea dust, not even real matcha. Bitter as the day is long. Could have gotten a near equivalent experience from unsweetened Lipton, for fuck’s sake.

I spent five dollars and risked my life for matcha so bad that a thirty cent teabag compares favorably.

[chaotic neutral observer]

2020 Aug. 19

When the pandemic began, they shut everything down.  Then, as the alarm subsided, they've gradually been opening things up again; restaurants, tourism, non-essential stores, etc.

But not only have the conditions which led to the initial shutdown not improved, but the numbers now appear to be worse.  Either the initial alarm was an overreaction, or the current recovery is optimistic, even delusional.

I check my stocks, and they look pretty good.  I don't understand why they look so good.  I think Mr. Market may have misread the situation.

Somebody explain to me why now isn't a good time for a frenzied selling spree.

[LMNO]

Because the Market became detached from reality years ago.

Sell when the 1% start getting impacted.

[Doktor Howl]

Hey, we're fucking idiots.

[Cain]

Look Dok, we've only been dealing with this for 17 months now. You can't just, like, expect people to learn overnight.

[Doktor Howl]

Well, 18,500 dead in the USA so far, more than half of them in NYC.  They've got the mass grave thing going on Hart Island again (wait long enough and anything will come back in style.)

Pima County is at 543 cases, 16 dead.  Only thing is, we didn't have any available ventilators BEFORE the Boomer Doomer.

God.  Does anyone even remember just 18,500 dead?

[Bruno]

We're doing about that much per week right now.