Is It Still Going?

I just looked back at some earlier 2020 blogs. A couple from before the virus took over about politics, a couple from before Ann died, including the one I wrote about grief on the day we found out she had passed, but before I knew she was gone. And as I read them it seemed like a lifetime ago instead of a few months.

I feel like a different person wrote those. 

And in a way that's true. I mean cellularly for sure. We have that turnover of cells that happens and even with it being slower in my 50s I'm still a completely new person than I was. But also just experiences. Everything we see, do, hear, learn, it all changes us. Or at least it should. Sometimes it's a gradual change, those slow changes that we don't really notice until we are confronted with something from our past. But then there are the changes like this year. 

The tidal wave. The massive earthquake. The forest fire of changes. The ones that come and everything that was there before is now changed. Or gone. 

2020

The tidal wave, earthquake, forest fire year. 

And even literally with that last one. So much damage and destruction from the fires this year. The next time we drive down to Bend it will be completely different than it ever has been. I think the road is still closed right now on the route we normally take, the worry now is about landslides and falling trees. I'm not sure when we will see it again. What will be there when we do. 

That's what this year feels like on a personal level as well. 

Like the virus, the deaths, the political bullshit, it's all hollowing me out. Changing the shape of who I was. Quickly. Not a thoughtful slow change, but a sudden drastic, things will never be the same again shift. 

But then again grief always feels that way doesn't it?

And it's all grief. All of the changes that have happened, that are happening, it all feels like grief and loss. 

The loss of people, sure. We've had an abundance of that the past year or so. Personally just with friends and our mothers, and then the addition of over 200,000 dying from the same disease that Ann did, and that's just in the US, it's over a million world wide. 

But the loss of our normal lives. Our routines. Our comforts. All of that is gone. And yes, again, we are so lucky because it's an easy shift for us. Brent can work from home with only a few changes to our used to be mostly mine now mostly his office. We were able to adjust our house to fit our needs and our wants. Media room, workout room, front porch bar. It's all worked out. But it's still a loss. An adjustment. A change. We normally travel, we aren't. We normally go to sporting events and concerts and comedy shows and we aren't. By this time I should have an abundance of Christmas shows planned. There aren't going to be any. And it's all really superficial things, and I know it's not a big deal, but it's still a loss to me.

The politics have been a lot of loss for the past four years. The facing people you thought you knew and seeing a side of them that shocks you. Losing that veil of ignorance. Now, in a big way, that's a good thing too. Knowing who you are really talking to and dealing with is good. But, man, it can be a big loss. And this year being a presidential election year it's just moving so much faster. It's all of the stuff from the 2016 election that never healed and adding on to it. At warp speed. At avalanche progression. 

The racial injustice finally breaking through for a moment only to be pushed back when a large group of white people could clutch their pearls and say oh but what about... So there is loss there. Loss of a chance at redemption. Loss of a chance at change.

And the loss of respect I have for you that goes with all of that. The politics being more important than people. The denying that we need to change things in our systems. That it's not a fair country and that we need to work toward making it better. That for hundreds, HUNDREDS of years in our country we haven't done the right things and the cracks are now giant fissures and you want to deny that? Ignore it? Not see the pain? Tell people the right way to protest, even though you've ignored the people protesting the right way for years. 

The denying Covid because you might have to stay home more, or wear a mask when you are out. When I see that, when I see people I know taking that stance I want to find them and look them in the eyes and let them see what grief looks like then ask them to imagine that among 200,000 more families. People are dying and it's too much to ask of you to wear a fucking mask?

So yeah, it's a loss, but probably not really.

I'm not sure what or who I will be when this all comes to a close. I know I'm different. I know I've changed. I'm not sure what will stick. I'm not sure what I will still mourn as a loss in 2021 and beyond. Will I be like the forest after a fire. Different. Changed. But growing new life. Welcoming fresh growth. Or like the coast after a tidal wave? Everything gone. Swept to sea. Unrecognizable from what it was. Earthquake? Landslide?

Or just a quieter, cat lady, eating fresh baked goods and sitting on her porch remembering the lost things. 

Time to Push...

 I haven't had this few blog posts since 2016. Now to be fair I still have three months left this year so I could suddenly get prolific and end up in a more normal territory. 

Today while I was looking at numbers and saw the low 2016 number I thought...was that the year I was depressed all year just dying for a manic swing? And yeah, that was it. I read my birthday blog from that year (which would have been written before the election but during the season) and the deep frustration I had with how people didn't pay attention to facts anymore. Man, I had no idea that those would soon be the good old days.

That now we have separate sets of "facts" for everyone. 

Today, for instance, I read about a lawsuit being dismissed because anyone should know that Tucker Carlson doesn't deal in facts on his TV show. Well, I would argue with you that most of the people, if not all of the people, who watch Tucker Carlson think he's dealing in facts. The rest of us know he's dealing in manufactured outrage, but his viewers? They believe him. It reminded me of when Alex Jones told a judge that he plays a part on his show. That it wasn't real. He was acting. And I thought, well there goes his following. AND IT DIDN'T CHANGE! He admitted that he was spewing bullshit and the people who watch and listen were like, that's fine. 

I don't get it. 

I'm also feeling really on edge right now. I wrote about it when I wrote about RBG dying. It just all feels like we've passed the point where we can affect change. Like if she had been able to hold on and Biden won and the Senate went blue and the House stayed blue, then maybe, just maybe we could have pulled it back from the death spiral. But any one of those things not happening and we were either going to spin in place or go up in flames. I've been worried about Trump winning again (see above where people of that ilk don't fucking care about facts). I've been worried about the Senate (the odds are really tight there) and I was praying to every possible deity around that RBG would hold on. Now? Now it feels like I should just check my bank account, buy a gun and hole up with my new mixer, and bake my way to an early death.

Breonna Taylor got no justice. I didn't think she would. I'm always completely surprised when an officer is held responsible. They have manipulated the laws so thoroughly that it's pretty much impossible to charge them, let alone find them guilty. But it does seem especially galling that the only charges that happened were from shooting a wall. Like spitting on her grave.

Brent and I were talking about it at breakfast this morning and I said that I shouldn't have been surprised. That conservative branch has a real thing about protecting walls. I mean most of what they deemed "violence" and "riot" here in Portland has been spray painting walls. I had no idea you could be violent to a wall, Then I said, they should be the party of walls and as it came out of my mouth I realized what I was saying...Oh yeah. They've been upfront for the past 5 or 6 years that they love a wall much more than they care about people who aren't white. All white walls matter. 

Which did not make me feel better.

Right after RBG died friends of mine did a flurry of groups and added me to a ton of them. There are so many activist groups out there. Which should give me hope, but instead it completely overwhelmed me. Like if there are so many of us that know what is happening is bat shit fucking crazy and deeply wrong then why is it still happening? Which my inner nerd voice said, almost 3 million more votes. Oh yeah, there has always been a plurality of people who know what the right thing is, they've just had their voices drowned out by dirty political shenanigans. 

Which then again put me right back at the despair spiral.

It's really hard. Part of me feels like just unplugging. No more news. No more social media. No more information. I know what I'm doing in November. I know the Republicans will do everything they can to cast doubt and shadow on this election. I know that there is nothing that can be done to prevent the uber conservative tilt of the Supreme Court. I know that's all going to happen and why watch?

Then there is the part of me that realizes what an extremely soft candy ass position that is to take. It's hard and I don't want to...

Bah.

So...

I'll keep doing what I can. Which is write. These blogs, posts on my account, thinking things through and sharing those thoughts. It might not make a difference, but then again it might. 

I'll keep doing what I can. Which is donate. I can send money to organizations fighting for the things I believe in. It might not make a difference, but then again it might. 

I'll keep doing what I can. Move forward without getting bogged down. It means not being part of a bunch of groups because I can't deal with that much wound up energy coming my way. It means not fighting with people who aren't looking for a discussion, just an argument. It means stepping in to say something when it really needs to be said but otherwise holding my tongue. It might not make a difference, but then again it might. 

I'll keep doing what I can. Reading. Learning. Expanding my own knowledge base and understanding of what it is like for people who aren't like me. People who can't just shut it all down and pretend the world isn't what it is. People who deal with much worse shit than a bad case of the I don't want tos. This one I know does make a difference. Every time I learn something new I become a better version of myself. Every time I learn something new I can share it with others and help them learn something new as well. It does make a difference. 

So here we are...we keep doing what we can and seeing what makes a difference. We keep trying.

And we wear our fucking masks!

Oh Please...

Both sides do it has been changed to both sides would do it. So at least they've recognized a little bit of the bullshit.

And yes, it's bullshit. 

First it's bullshit because no, both sides don't do it. There is a marked difference between what the two sides do. One side tends to wring their hands and worry about fairness and what people will think. The other side changes terms and moves goal posts and explains why it's totally different when anyone not wanting to be willfully ignorant can see that it's not. 

Second it's bullshit because it's a nonsense argument. It's not one parents accept from children, "Susie did it." Who cares? You aren't Susie and I'm not Susie's mother so you are still grounded. It's not something we would accept from a spouse, "Everyone cheats." It's not something we should use to justify our own hypocrisy. 

So stop it. It's a bullshit argument. What you mean is I do what I do and fuck you for expecting anything else.

And now...

Democratic Party Members, I'm speaking to you...

Stop expecting the Republicans to play by any sort of fair play rules. It's not going to happen. 

I've talked about this being one of the most frustrating parts of the Obama presidency for me. The man kept thinking that Republicans were honorable in their intention. They weren't. They never intended on being that way. They only wanted to shut him down. Lucy and the football. 

Republicans will use what ever levers of power they have at their disposal to make things work for them. 

Democrats need to do the same. 

Stop being concerned about how it looks. Or is it fair. Or it's not the right way to do it. 

If in the next election a giant blue wave comes (and I hope it does) and Congress and the White House are all blue then you need to move on those laws like a bitch. Grab them by the legislature and make some changes. Don't wait to ask. Just pop that tic tac and go for it. And if you have all the levers, and you do your research first, they'll have to let you because you have the power. 

When they go low we go high is a great aspiration that leaves you sitting at the top of a tree while someone cuts it out from under you.

Stop worrying about a game being played fairly when the people you think you are playing against are not playing that game. 

Republicans gerrymandered their districts so hard that they are now beholden to the most conservative wing of their party. They know if they try to go moderate they will be primaried out. They did it to themselves. It's why you get national polling on things like sensible gun laws but a Congress who won't vote for them. They know that it doesn't matter if the majority of people (Republicans and Democrats) want the laws, what matters is their extremists are the ones that turn out for primaries. They will do the same with Roe v. Wade, with LGBTQ+ rights, with regulations, with tax cuts, the most extreme parts of the party are the ones electing them. They will not get more moderate. 

Stop expecting them to.

Progressives need to progress. We need to move forward. We need to get some actual protections in place written by sound legal minds so they can't be overturned by an increasingly ultra conservative judiciary. And the next time progressives hold all the levers we need to stop worrying about how it looks and pull those son's of bitches!

I'm honestly in fear for the continuation of our country as we know it, even if the way we know it right now isn't great it's better than it could get. 

I don't know what happens in November.

I think it will be bad no matter which way it goes.

But for fuck's sake, vote blue and let's at least give saving it a try!

And The Hits Just Keep Coming...

 I was thinking last week that I needed to sit down and write another pandemic post since things had changed yet again. We added fire to the rest of it. Went from you need to stay home to avoid germs to you need to stay home with your doors and windows shut tight and wet towels around anything that might not be sealed well and don't run any outside air exchangers and you are still going to feel like you've been running behind a diesel truck for a week...

The West Coast burned. California started, as is their way lately, and then we had a huge wind storm Labor Day weekend and transformers blew, and campfires weren't put out correctly, and it looks like a few arsonists as well. And the winds kept blowing. And the incredibly dry forests just went up. Closer to the city here than most people were comfortable with. And little towns that were set up in the mountains, in our temperate rain forest, burned to the ground. People have lived in those areas for decades but this time the winds came early, our normal high winds in the winter cause enough issues, but man add in the dry hot weather and...disaster seems like too soft of a word. Devastation. Destruction. California, Oregon, Washington, all on fire. All sitting under a thick bank of smoke that made our air quality "Extremely Hazardous."

And then there were the politics. I mean sure, there are always politics around these massive fires. One side yelling about FOREST MANAGEMENT and the other about CLIMATE CHANGE and it's really BOTH. We had bad forest management policies for years, we did too much to control small burns which led to way too much over growth that provided fuel. We also started building further and further into the woodlands and the whole reason to have a house in the forest is the forest so there aren't fire breaks and open spaces around the houses to provide at least a fighting chance.

There are those that want to point to logging and how that will save the forest, but it won't. The logging areas in Oregon burned as well. And the sort of great illustrations they give you about spaced trees don't spread fires are really good, except that's a really expensive way to log. Clear cutting and replanting (replanting only because it's the law here) is the actual way to make money logging. But if there were money in that sort of tagging and felling dead trees, and clearing out some of the undergrowth, then yeah, that could be good. But there isn't so it's really just hot air from the people who don't want any sort of regulation. And what we don't need right now is more hot air.

And then we had the extra political momentum of the Conservosphere spreading rumors that Antifa was meeting in the forest to burn them all down. And they won't let go of that. Anytime an arsonist is arrested they scream I TOLD YOU! like that meth addicted, mental unstable, long criminal record for similar acts, guy is Antifa. And then there was some looting, as there always is because some people are assholes, but the rumors hit that marauding bands of Antifites were coming from the city to steal their good burned stuff. So then you had people setting up road blocks to "protect" their things.

 And here is where I get it.

A little.

These communities are losing everything. Entire neighborhoods are gone, entire towns are gone. What is left in the ash is all that they have, and when people steal that from you? When it's all you have to remember a whole life by? Sure, you are going to be upset. But the people out there (Lars Larson, I'm looking at your skeezy face) try and make it also a political war? That's just as despicable. Using someone's loss to inspire their hate is vile. So anyway, we ended up with armed citizens pulling people over and threatening journalists by gun point and it was and might still get deadly. We have way too many armed angry people in America and you can just feel that it's about to go really really badly. Very much like the clashes between the protestors and the counter protestors downtown. When people are angry and armed you get violence. It's a fairly simple equation.

But I didn't sit down to write about it because I felt lousy. And my eyes were burning. And I just thought I'll wait until the air gets better, because it has to get better soon. And then the rain came yesterday and the air got a good scrub and it got better and Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.

For Fuck's Sake.

I saw a great comparison made, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the Thurgood Marshall for women's equality. She means so much to so many of us. She was an incredible role model. A force to be reckoned with. Small in stature and large in intellect. She made me feel better about the world even when she mostly had to write dissents. Because she knew that by putting forward strong dissenting arguments she was helping future generations to fight those battles. She should have been able to retire a few years ago when the cancer came back, but she didn't because she was trying, you know she was trying, to hold on until Trump was out of office. Because she knew, just like you and I know, that McConnell would never hold himself to his own standards he made up in 2016. 

There have been a few times in my life where I could physically feel grief. Yesterday was one of them. When I read the headline that she had passed I felt the blood drain from my face, the bottom dropped out of my stomach and my hearing went whoosh. Despair and grief blending into an almost overwhelming feeling of loss. 

Her death would always be hard. She was huge. She was so important. But...now?

Now her death signals another ultra conservative on the court. Three picks for Trump. Trump. Who should not be president. Trump who got his first pick when McConnell kept it from Obama when McConnell KNEW the Russians were interfering on Trump's behalf, don't ever forget that part. Trump who will get his last pick when McConnell rushes through a pick to make sure he gets his way because he can see that national temperature lately has been running very cold toward Trump being reelected.  

Another young super conservative justice who will do their best to undo everything that has been done. Who has no reason to change or soften with society because they got their job by being a throwback. The courts are lost for decades. And it's so frustrating. I tried so fucking hard last election cycle to make progressives understand it wasn't about Clinton, it was about the Court. Clinton was for four or eight years, but the court was for decades. But you know her emails and they just didn't like her and...Fuck you. Again. Fuck you.

I feel despair. Like honest true despair. It feels like the upcoming election no longer matters. Trump might be gone but the damage he and Mitch have done to the courts will last for the rest of my life. For most of Christopher's life. For a good chunk of the formative parts of Liam and Kelsey's lives. It's just so disheartening. The social progress that we've made is going to be undone. Voting rights have already been slashed. Reproductive rights. LGBTQ+ rights. Human rights. We're in for another fight, but this time there won't be a doubt as to how it's going to go. Roll backs are coming.

So yeah. Pandemic update. The world is on fire and McConnell is holding a lighter. 

Fuck. 

An Excuse is Not a Plan...

"God has a plan."

I will either roll my eyes or set my jaw depending on when I hear it. 

It's one of the first things that broke the armor of religious belief for me. The fist chink in the wall. The first crack in the dam.

I was baptized at a very young age for my church. It's not a baptizing babies religion, it's a baptism when the person is old enough to understand what they are doing. The belief is that children are innocent and if they were to die they'd go right to heaven. But at 5 or 6 I was ready. I told my minister that I knew the difference between right and wrong and so if he didn't baptize me if I died I would go to hell. He couldn't argue with me on the point and I was baptized.

So then when we were in Bible study sessions and I would ask questions that he had no answers for and I would get the "God has a plan" pat response I would nod and think okay. God has a plan. Which worked until I was maybe 10 or 11. And then I started to ask more questions with much bigger consequences in my mind. What happens to people that our missionaries don't reach? Do they all go to hell? God has a plan. Why did that earthquake happen and all of those people died? God has a plan. Why? God has a plan.

And I would go back and forth on it. God has a plan, that's great. It means everything is working just fine no matter what it seems like from my view. But if God has a plan then why do we have free will? Because if He knows what's going to happen, and it's all already designed then we really don't have free will right? We are just toys He's moving around a board until we get to the end game. His plan. 

And then finally, what sort of plan has children dying from cancer? What sort of plan has entire populations starving to death? Who makes a plan where entire communities are burned to the ground by a lightning strike? Which then you get the argument for a lot of it, that God didn't do that, people did that. But God did do that if he has a plan. God did make that happen if all of the bad, shitty, horrible stuff that happens is part of his plan. 

Why, if you were an omnipotent being, why would you need to kill a child to bring their parents to believing in your comfort? Why, if you were an omnipotent being, would you need to wreck a person's life with drug and alcohol addictions just so they could see The Light and minister to other people with drug and alcohol addictions? Why don't you make a plan where everyone is fed, and healthy, and not addicted, and not killing each other and not dying from diseases that can't be treated? I mean, how about that being your plan?

And of course, that's met with, we don't know why he does these things, but he has a plan.

Why would you vote for Trump? He's amoral. He's not a decent human. 

Well god has a plan. 

Why would that plan include you voting for a person like Trump?

It has never made sense. It never will make sense. 

God has a plan is either used for comfort, which is the most benign use. Or it's used for an excuse which is lazy and despicable.

If you never have to worry about actually doing the right thing then you don't ever have to do the right thing. It's up there with people who do shitty things and then say, "Only god can judge me!" Nah, we are all judging you. Stop doing shitty things. 

I know that thinking god has a plan gave my parents comfort when three of their children died. I know it brought my mother comfort when Dad died before her, on her birthday. And I am grateful for that comfort. 

But I don't believe it. And if I did I would have to say it was a terrible plan. My parents were already devout, killing two babies and 6 year old did not make them better Christians. And that's what it would have to have been, right? If their deaths were part of god's plan, he would have killed them. That's a plan. 

Or there was no plan. It was a horrible tragedy. Sometimes children die and we just have to keep going. It's not part of a plan, but it is part of life.

So yeah, when I read that "god has a plan" I will either roll my eyes and keep my mouth shut because it is being used to give someone comfort or I will clench my jaw and walk away because someone is using it as an excuse. 

Six Months In...

So it's been basically 6 months since we started this new stay close to home life. Since the pandemic became a real thing to us instead of an out there somewhere thing. Since we realized that yeah, it can happen in today's day and age. How weird. 

And it's been three months since the murder of George Floyd led to pretty constant civil unrest, at least in Portland. And no, the city is not on fire. And no downtown isn't a wasteland. No matter what the media wants you to think. But yes, it's bad. And sometimes it's worse and sometimes it's better. 

Weekends are pretty much always worse now because we've added in Patriot Prayer and their ilk. 

Two weekends ago they marched downtown and there were fist fights and actual riots and the police said...yeah, we are tired. You guys just go on ahead. 

Last weekend a guy from Idaho organized a Trump parade and hundreds of trucks and cars descended on downtown and they proceeded to show their love of freedom by pepper spraying and shooting paint balls at the people protesting. And at the end of it there was an altercation where the mace was met with gunfire and the Patriot Prayer guy died.  

I bring up the fact that the original parade was organized by someone from Idaho because that's always the claim from the Conservosphere, that the protests are organized by Outside Agitators! Like, oh I don't know, someone in Idaho saying let's go cause shit in Portland? Or maybe a kid from Illinois driving in to Kenosha, WI with a gun he shouldn't have had in the first place and ending up killing two people? 

I posted last night that if you go looking for a fight you don't always find the fight you were looking for and you don't always win. 

You know when these guys are egging each other on to go cause shit, or be Patriot Property Protectors, they don't envision it ending with death. Or at least not their death. Because if you are bringing an AR to clean graffiti you have to at least consider that someone could die. Maybe the kid didn't really, because he is a kid with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, but some of the adults in the group should have. One of the first gun lessons you should learn is that you don't pull it on someone unless you understand you could be killing them. Guns are death weapons. That's just what they are for. You can say you are threatening someone, but the threat is death. 

So yeah, if you go looking for a fight the problem is sometimes the fight you find is a different one. And you don't always win. 

Now the funny (funny in a 2020 way) part is that someone on my list took great exception to that post and proceeded to have a full argument without me. I say without me instead of with me because I just kept posting the same response. Because that was my whole point. The problem with looking for a fight is you don't always get the fight you were looking for and you don't always win. But he told me what I thought and how he was mad about it. Which then made me think, that sums up our current situation so well. 

We aren't having discussions, that ship has sailed. We aren't even having arguments anymore. We are plastering people with what WE think they believe and fighting them about that. We are telling them they believe things or agree with things that they might or might not. Last week another person on my list told me they "sensed my frustration" and made the assumption that I was calling them an asshole. I went back and reread everything I had posted to make sure I hadn't called her an asshole and just blocked it somehow and then let her know nobody ever has to "sense" what I am thinking, I will tell them. For instance if you say I called or even implied that you are an asshole and I have not I'm going to tell you that you are wrong. 

I'm actually worried about this election cycle no matter who wins. Biden isn't a lock. And he's not a White Knight that will automatically fix everything. There are a lot of emboldened angry people out there with guns. There are a lot of people out there who have decided how "the other side" thinks. There is a big enough divide right now that there is an other side. I think it's going to be bad and ugly and I have no idea how it all turns out. 

And on top of that we are still fighting a virus that we can't even get everyone to agree is a problem. 

We have a group of people willing and ready to strap on a gun and protect a building who won't put on a mask to protect people. 

It's a strange world we live in right now. I'm not sure what it will be like this time next year.