About COVID...

I'll be honest. There's shit I want to do.

I want to go swimming--oh my God, do I miss swimming. I miss the pool, I miss the solidarity of our aqua group, I miss the way it burned calories and the things it did for my body.

Two days before quarantine I got possibly my least favorite haircut of all-time, and it has been growing out over the last four months into... wait for it... my LEAST FAVORITE HAIRCUT OF ALLTIME! I would love to see someone whose to just married, pregnant, and all over the place who could cut my hair. I can dye it, mostly, but jeez, I need a better cut.

I want to go traveling with my Mate. Go to the ocean. Or the mountains. Or anywhere not here. Someplace with a swimming pool. Maybe someplace with friends. 

I want to see a movie in a theater.

I want to walk into the grocery store without a mask.

I want to sit in the middle of a Starbucks and drink coffee and read.

Or go out to a restaurant.

And the thing is, I know our state is letting more and more things happen, because... 

Uhm...

See, I'm not sure why.

Because people are still dying of Covid and will continue at staggering rates until we have a vaccine.

They're still getting the disease--and it's horrible. It's taking weeks and months to recover if you're lucky and recover.

Our medical staff is still burnt out. They're still exhausted. Still not getting the equipment they deserve.

I get the protests. The protests are necessary--and I saw an awful lot of footage of people out there with masks on, social distancing, and speaking their mind. I still do.

I imagine, when all is said and done, it won't be the protestors who spread the disease, unless they were forced into unsanitary jails. 

It will be the two-hundred people crammed inside a church.  The barbecue with fifty-to-one-hundred people because fuck Covid, that's why.

The grocery store, where you only see three people with masks and someone is coughing and crowding your back while you're waiting in line.

So the movie theaters may be open--but I don't think we'll go. And I can wait another three months, four months, six-months, twelve months, before I get rid of this shitty haircut. Mate's sort of addicted to curbside service--even for our anniversary, it'll be fine.

And I'll look longingly at the beaches until I know my family can go and it will be okay. 

Squish went to a friend's house this Friday-- they were so cute. Three girls--they put on makeup and their best outfits just to see each other and play at her house. Afterwards they were STOKED. They wanted to put together a small party, maybe ten kids, of course there were parents supervising. Boys and girls, it would be all about gaming and chatting and pizza and sleeping on the floor overnight. 

And then the parent supervisors got sick. 

"Is it...?"  Mate and I asked hesitantly.

"We don't know," Squish said. "But we'll have to wait a long time before we do that, I guess."

We didn't even have to tell her. She knew. 

The thing I keep thinking about is that yes, California is opening up the state based on hospital capacity. They can take so many more people now, their ERs won't get overwhelmed, they have so many more beds ready for whatever COVID might bring.

Well that's great. Swell. Wonderful.

It's just that I don't want to END UP IN THE HOSPITAL. 

I have (supposedly) two conventions later on this year, one in August, one in October. And even though everybody is pretending business is fine, Mate is asking me to seriously consider not going, if those events are still being offered when the time comes. 

I'm seriously considering not going. I mean, I've been almost floored by regular con crud. COVID would take me out--and probably my family with it.

And in the meantime, I'm not going into Lowe's when it's wall to wall people. And you definitely won't see me in any store without a mask.     

And I'm going to watch COVID stats obsessively, and watch the cases per day go up, and the death rate go up and I'm going to remember that our leader at the Federal level is full of shit. He's dusted his hands off and gone, "Corona Virus? We're done with that! I dealt with it! People are dying? Well isn't that a nasty thing to say."

And the governor of California is stuck-- he can't help out his people if he gets no federal aid. He has to open up the state to some extent, or his citizens are going to starve. Yes--other countries have shut down the country, shut down the virus, and instituted a new normal that has helped their citizens stay healthy. 

The United States isn't one of them because the leader at the federal level is an idiot sociopath who flat out doesn't give a shitstain if we live or die.

California--as much as we try--can't be our own country right now. We have to deal with that idiot sociopath, and there are only so many evils to choose from.

So... I"m going to feel like a weenie. My children, bless them, are going to chafe a little, even though they understand--and they watch statistics too. And we are going to remember that just because there's enough room for us all at the hospital, doesn't mean we want to spend our vacation there.

I hope you all stay healthy. Remember--masks help everybody, although I feel I am probably preaching to the choir there. Stay safe. Do your best.

Next year, maybe, we'll see happier times.