Stevie had it right back in 1976 when he said Loves in Need of Love Today and I have to keep looping this entire album to bring me back to a place of love.
And let's be honest and transparent; when we see a group of white people, with white men standing around gripping their guns in some kind of protest, what the subtext really is: I'mma protect my shit and no n****r is gonna take it from me. I mean, let's just be real here. That's what these assholes are really saying with their flags and guns and frippery. My God, go home assholes -- I swear, no one is interested in coming near your infected ass shit. Keep your guns, your underground bunker, your potato salad, and your toilet paper.
But the invisible virus floating around out here pretty much has our physiology figured out and no AR is gonna save your stupid, vapid, protesting ass. We're talking aliens level shit here, except the danger is invisible and flies around in a snot bubble smaller than a baby flea. God's gonna flick those sorry motherfuckers like an annoying booger if they keep up this kind of stupid. And shit, it already has.
The truth of this situation is weirder and more predictable as anyone might expect. Okay, even weirder. The guys behind these protests are four brothers, the Dorrs, who are right-wing scammers of the turfroots variety. Yes, that's right, these guys are conservative 'activists' who are scamming the shit out of other gullible right-wingers. Truth is weirder than fiction, folks.
The protesters should really scurry back to their houses, squeaking, "we wuz jus kiddin'!" but they won't. They'll say it's fake news while the Dorr brothers get rich(er) off their insane stupidity.
Meanwhile, Kentucky saw the highest spike in virus cases yet, following an anti-stay at home protest. People, I got lots of Costco-sized bags of kettle corn over here. Don't think I can't keep up with this shit show all the days long. I'm telling you these Uncle Daddy MFers and their inbred floozies are making this just way too easy
For shit's sake I heard some Florida politician explaining that the rate of infection is much higher down in the Southern part of the state, so it's cool the Jacksonville beach is now open again. Georgia is planning to open their state back up this Friday, April 24th, and I'm sitting here like .... okay, did I actually get enough Costco popcorn?
I'm hearing that California is now on time out until May 15th, but of course one really cannot tell. How is it that one day we're all hunkering down and wearing masks just to go down the street and the next day we're going to be back working in a cube? Yeah... I'm seriously wondering how that's gonna work because serious as a heart attack, I am not going to go back even if they reconfigure how close the cubes are. You want to know why?
Because shit comes out those air vents we rely on for heat and A/C. Seriously, no one can convince me they got that shit figured out unless there are N100 filters all installed prior to my return and I see the labels on the filters. Oh, and did I mention I want a filtering bubble installed around my little 4 x 4 cube?
Naw, that's okay, Boo. I can keep sitting here right at home without having to worry about shit, more or less. Next.
We are not all in the same boat.
I am extremely fortunate to have a job right now and I don't discount that one bit. Let's be quite clear here that while we're all living with the same crazy shit these days, we're all experiencing it quite differently. My situation of slowly dwindling into a state of mild insanity is not the same as your existential crisis.
Let me give you a rundown of what that's like for me:
By nature, I wake up way earlier than I would ever want to. On a normal day, I'd get up and do a normal routine that would result in me getting in my car and going to the office by 8 a.m. or so. These days, I wake up at some ungodly hour after a sleep routine that resembles something haunted and involving an alien invasion and during which there might be a bizarre midnight snack involving Velveeta cheese and whatever crackers are within reach.
5 a.m. is the worst. It's too early to want to get up and do anything, and just late enough that falling back to sleep (if even possible) might result in being seriously tardy. The parochial Protestant work ethic lives on as a residual proletariat responsibility; Work or Die. Cake or Death.
Thus, I get up most days no later than 7 a.m., force my arthritic body into the shower where I stand as long as I can stand it and then do the ritual of getting ready for work which is to pull on a pair of (hopefully clean) sweat pants and a sweatshirt. Most days, my sweatpants have flour handprints on them from baking bread. My jeans fit last week (or was it the week before?), but God knows if they ever will again. I'm usually in front of my computer, reading my first emails, by 7:30 a.m.
I keep telling myself it is absolutely not required nor even particularly expected that I would be propped in front of this glowing screen that early, but the demands of a capitalist society that weighs the value of a human being by their work ethic and productivity...
And here I am. I get a paycheck every single week until my contract expires on April 31st, 2020 and until then the glowing of this laptop screen will light my windows in a cold blue glow by 7:30 a.m. five days a week because to do otherwise would be death.
Martin Luther would easily agree with my Protestant work ethic, but Jesus H. Christ it's killing me right now.
The alternate life right now is the many who are unemployed. Among them are the hairdressers, massage therapists, acupuncturists, physical therapists, personal trainers, gym employees, swim coaches, contractors, pet groomers, aestheticians, mani/pedicurists, ... Jesus, the list is really too long. All these people have absolutely zero reason to get up at any specific time in the morning, nor anything to do at those times of the morning, yet I guaran-fucking-tee you they are waking up at 5 or 6 a.m. and laying there with their eyes open wondering What The Actual Fuck they are going to do today? With no paycheck and a wonky promise of some Federal assistance that looks like it might be a day late, dollar short, I suspect far more small businesses will fail than will survive. The outcome, when we all crawl out of this dark, dank hole will be a world that has lost so many rich and wonderful amenities, with lovely things to eat, and invaluable contributions to our daily lives will be our eternal loss. The world will never be the same; no not at all. At some point, we will all being doing the Time Warp and wishing we could go back to the way it was, which it never can be again.
Cake or death is the choice I have to make here. I'm choosing cake, by God. Even if it kills me.
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