Pandemic Project
So, I guess I didn't write in here for all of 2019, but that's ok, I filled in my thoughts-book with the basic outline of what happened, yada yada. Not so important in the grand scheme of things, really. I worked a lot, spent quality time with the kids, traveled a bit, took classes, etc. Pretty normal. THENNNNNN 2020 came along and BAM. All of a sudden, we living in a movie. Seriously. You can't make this shit up. It's like the curse, "may you live in interesting times," well, these are those interesting times. Hey, I didn't sign up for this when I got in line for my new body at the service counter (I imagine the after- and- beforelife to be like a huge waiting room of sorts, only cooler, more like a resort, but when you feel like diving back into real life, you have to get in line and take a number and you can suggest to them that you want male or female or a certain time period but you aint gonna necessarily end up with exactly what you wanted, because thems the breaks. Not everyone can have a cushy ride, ya know?
I was talking to these people in the subreddit about the theory that this existence is a simulation. I bounce around from philosophy to philosophy, really. Existentialism, creationist, nihilism (usually not so much this one...well, yeah, been pondering that one more lately, as the damn pandemic drained me of my optimism.)
People around me are like, "I can't wait for this to be over and for things to get back to normal!" and I look at them like, "ehhh?!" Because things WILL NOT be normal afterward. Even if we clean everything up and vaccinate the virus away and quell the social unrest...I know this for a fact because *I* will not be the same. My perception of the world, of people, has completely changed. So, for me, nothing will be the exact same anymore ever again. And no matter how shallow anyone else out there is, I cannot believe that the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people to COVID-19 and the rage and sorrow of hundreds of thousands more who marched in the streets will NOT make an indelible mark on their soul in SOME way?! The only kind of person I can think of who could be completely oblivious to that is a sociopath, and we have one of those in the White House at this very moment.
I do realize that in order to BE a politician, a man or woman must be arrogant, self-absorbed, and hardened to some degree, so as not to allow the horrible jabs that the people from the opposing party will fling her or his way. However, I believe after this rather appalling performance these last 4 years, it would behoove us NOT to elect someone with no empathy and no soul. We need someone who is able to perceive the world and its problems that require fixing that lie beyond the brim of his MAGA hat.
I'll try to keep this updated better this year, as it appears that this is going to continue to be a very eventful year. Trump may not exit his perch if voted out. I am worried.
Short list of crap that happened so far:
Jan 2 - Fires rage in Australia and threaten all the wildlife
Jan 2 - Iranian General Qasem Solemani killed in US drone strike
Jan 7 - WHO first notified of COVID-19 (a novel coronavirus, which humans have no antibodies for, with a death rate of 1%)
Jan 8 - Prince Harry and Meghan Harkle step down from royal duties
Jan 8 - Iran launches ballistic missiles at 2 military bases in Iraq, injuring American soldiers
Jan 8 - Ukrainian flight crashes in Tehran, killing all 176 passengers on board
Jan 26 - Kobe and Gigi (his daughter) die in a helicopter crash
March 5 - MY BIRTHDAY, it was the last day I went out for fun. I haven't been to a restaurant again since. Also, Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the race. Boo.
March 10 - Italy becomes the first country to implement a nationwide lockdown. Things really start to heat up with coronavirus. Around this time is the beginning, when we start realizing things are getting serious.
March 11 - The Who declares the coronavirus a pandemic. People are panic-buying toilet paper in stores in America. Canned food is also flying off the shelves. It is crazytown.
Narch 13 - Trump declares a national emergency and about time too.
March 16 - DOW plunges 2,997 points in the worst trio since 1987 amid coronavirus fears.
March 24 - The 2020 Summer Olympics, which were supposed to take place in Tokyo, are postponed until 2021, and honestly I think they're gonna have to postpone it again
April 2 - Record number of 6.6 million Americans filed claims for unemployment in the last week alone.
April 8 - Bernie Sanders drops out of the race, making Biden our man. As much as I wanted to "feel the Bern" (I'm a Bernie fan) I have to admit Biden is more...electable, and right now it's more important to vote AGAINST than it is to vote FOR, I'm sorry to say. (BREAK THE FUCKING 2 PARTY SYSTEM! WE DESERVE MORE AND BETTER OPTIONS!)
April 9 - NYC has it bad. The state of New York alone has the highest number of coronavirus cases than any country in the world. And I'm amazed that my kids didn't get it but I guess Simon kept them safe for once in his life
April 20 - price of US oil turns negative for the 1st time in history!
May 1 - Armed protestors against stay-at-home orders gather at the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, as Governor Gretchen Whitmer reinstates State of Emergency (I hope they all got sick)
May 24 - oh yeah and don't forget about the bugs. This year we get cicadas. They're loud and they destroy crops. Plus, also murder hornets.
May 25 - The Death That Shook The World. George Floyd is killed unmercifully and needlessly on video by a fucking toxic waste dump of a cop. I will never forget the look in his eyes when he looked up, saw he was being recorded, and HE DIDNT CARE. He kneeled on this poor man's neck while he was gasping and saying "I can't breathe" and calling for his mother. It's enough to make a grown man weep. That is, any living, feeling, man with an actual beating heart and stuff. Not like cops. ACAB!!!! No Justice No Peace Black Lives Matter Now and Forever!!!!!!!!!! So. We've been having violent riots on one hand, and peaceful protests on the other, every day somewhere in this country since this event and what difference does it makes? I mean, REAL difference? And why do you think I'm angry all the time? No, I'm not black. But I'm deaf. I'm Jewish. I'm bi. I know what it's like to fight for your place in society. I'm not tryna take away from BLM, not at all, not tryna make this about me. Just saying that, I feel you. I get it. So what do you need? I'll help.
Anyway we got more shit to get to. Yes really. This year done been a clusterfuck
May 27 - as if it couldn't get any more biblical, we had locust swarms. SEE! this is what you get when you put a heretic in office and then you treat him like he's the second coming
Jun 4 - oil spill in Siberia
Jun 7 - BLM protests WORLDWIDE
Jun 10 - Statues of Confederate figures start coming down because of BLM, either removed officially or knocked down unofficially
Jun 18 - SCOTUS rules that children who benefited from the DACA program can stay (this will be important later. Apparently, by ruling thus, SCOTUS accidentally gave Trump a lot of power. He said that he would unveil some stuff soon, which makes me very nervous. I don't think it's going to be anything good.)
Jun 20 - Trump's failed Tulsa rally. only 6200 people attended when they expected 10,000 (and many of those who did go got the Rona)
Yeah, ok, and after that it was pretty much more death and stuff. On the Rona side, all the red states got REALLY sick, like really high rates of the Rona, because they refused to wear masks. And even after they had almost no hospital beds (right now, Florida has less than 25% of all their hospital beds in that entire huge state available right now. Texas is doing bad too and so is Georgia. Funny thing, though. Atlanta, Georgia, has a Democratic mayor, and she ordered a mask mandate for her city, but the state governor SUED her to strike down the damn mask mandate, WHILE his state was a red zone and cases were increasing by the bucketload every day. Does that boot taste real good, then?! Geez.
On the protest side, Oregon has been protesting for Black Lives Matter (BLM) for 52 nights straight and Trump sent in Homeland Security and now they have these guys in plain fatigues with a plain police badge with no identifying marks so you can't tell what agency and they don't have name tags and they don't identify themselves verbally they just point guns at you and force you into unmarked vans. As if you were being kidnapped. Then you're held in a federal cell without being told why for 12-24 hours. It's definitely not constitutional and I don't know how Trump thinks he's gonna get away with it but now he's sending them to other cities with protests BUT ONLY CITIES WITH DEMOCRATIC MAYORS. He. Is. An. Asshole. I don't understand how Melania can sex with him. EW. I would rather sex a slug.
Ok, bedtime for me. More later.