Lake Lewisia #516

It was a small wedding--just a couple dogs, the moon, some trees--just family. Neither of them had anyone to give them away--neither of them wished to be property any more--neither of them minded the thought of belonging to each other alone. The vows needed no reminder notes or practiced speeches--just us, if nothing else--just a forever, if we can get it.

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LL#516

plague journaling

One of my coworkers is...well. There was a post I saw once that said, whenever they saw the acronym ACAB ("all cops are bad") they misread it as "assigned cop at birth." And this kid used to work as some sort of...security or policing...entity. But he looks exactly like someone who was assigned cop at birth. Everything about him. So it didn't exactly surprise me when, a month or so ago, he started parroting President Tang's theory that covid-19 would clear up in April when the weather warmed up.

(I don't know his exact political alignment, but evidence would indicate our Venn diagram doesn't intersect at any point.)

So today we were talking about how little work there seems to be at the moment, speculating about how and why this is the case. He suggested it would be nice if we could take an extra day off at no penalty--no pay, but no attendance record ding--while things are this slow.

I...very...slowly...pointed out that I was rather more worried about that becoming the norm--shortened hours, furloughed workers, plant shutdowns. Yeah, sure, a four-day weekend, great fun. Until it happens every week, or every day, and I can't buy shit anymore.

He assured me that it would be fine. It wouldn't be for long. Because the government said everything would reopen May 1st.

Those are all real words that actually came out of his mouth.

And maybe I shouldn't be surprised. I'm sure there are people all over the country who say the same sort of thing all the time. They're a bit thinner on the ground in California compared to some other states, but okay. Sure. Normal.

I just. Cannot. Understand why anyone is saying that thing right now. I cannot believe anyone is uttering a sentence that includes the phrase "the government says" which does not also contain some phrase that translates to "and that's some bonkers-ass bullshit." Or at the very least, follow up with a note of "I'll believe it when I see it."

How. Just. How can you live in this time and remain capable of blithely swallowing the official line coming out of the federal government? Or any authority figure, frankly, but the federal government has definitely lost that particular privilege of respectability.

I don't...nnnnnnnhhhhhh... Visualize me scrubbing at my hair furiously while making tea kettle noises. That's what I'm reduced to.