Category: Pandemic Life

Pandemic Status VII

9/25/2020

All indices up. But--anxiety-fueled Terror up the most. (Anxiety over virus, election, disunion). Rage still in the lead....

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Pandemic Status VI

9/18/2020

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All indices up.

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Covid Remembered and 911 Too

9/11/2020

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This is a little flag I got on the first anniversary of 911, September 11, 2002.

I was driving a cab in those days, and I didn’t have a personal car then, and it was time for me to turn my criminal history into the cab company (yes, unlike Uber and Lyft, Yellow Cab tried to make sure their drivers weren’t criminals). So I had to take a bus all the way up to the DPS office on North Lamar, and a bus back, with multiple changes each way—and the bus back got caught up in the 911 ceremony. We all had to get off the bus north of the capital at 15th and Trinity (I think I remember). I had to walk all the way down to 6th and Congress to catch the next bus. What a hassle. Speeches were being delivered—I don’t know who was speaking. I pushed my way through the crowds, very annoyed, and somewhere along the way someone gave me a flag, and I still have it.

(Here's what I wrote about the 10th anniversary of 911).

So much for that day. Maybe next year, on the 20th anniversary, I’ll post my memories of what I experienced driving a cab on 911—memories which, as you might expect with me, have a heavy dose of stupid tragic absurdity.

This photo below is from our current tragedy.

This is a beer I drank during my last visit to a beer joint. February 26, 2020. Johnson City, Texas, just after I did a workshop at the wonderful Johnson City Library.

At the time, I didn’t know it was my last visit to a beer joint.

On February 26, President Trump said of covid victims, "...if you look at what we have with the 15 people and their recovery, one is—one is pretty sick but hopefully will recover, but the others are in great shape."

Yeah, right. I mean, no one really believed that at the time. Few people. I pay attention to the news, and while I sat in the beer joint I was figuring out what I might need to stock up on.

Of course, Trump himself didn't believe what he was saying. (Does he ever?) Three weeks earlier he told Bob Woodward, "It goes through air, Bob. It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus. This is deadly stuff."

Me, I like beer joints. I like hanging out and drinking beer in them.

When will I again get to hang around a beer joint safely?

A thousand people a day are dying of covid—and those people did not need to die.

I think about those dead people—dead and not coming back—and I think of their families, and I think of the dead people to come, and I think of the Trump cultists who are just fine with the body count. It will take a generation to fix (maybe, sort of) the damage America has suffered the last four years.

All indices up. Rage especially and Heartbreak especially.

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Pandemic Status IV

9/4/2020

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Up and up and up. Thanks, Trump.

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Pandemic Status III

8/28/2020

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All indices up, and the scale runs to--infinity.

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Pandemic Status

8/21/2020

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All indices up....

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Writing and Editings XXVII (Pandemic Edition)

8/14/2020

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Whoa—I haven’t posted in a long time. Yet I live! And I’ve been doing things—teaching writing editing quarantining raging.

I haven’t been to my campus office since March 9. I get my groceries curbsided, get my beer delivered to my door. Pandemic life!

In late March I started a Pandemic Diary, my daily observations on the terrible condition of the world, which I’ve managed to keep up. I begin each day by updating the RAGE/TERROR/HEARTBREAK index:

The scale is open-ended. The ultimate number before this is all over could be—infinite.

I’d like to see all indices go down.

I’ve been teaching online, of course. My zoom room is busy and disordered, just like my brain.