These emergency alerts from my state government are so fckn surreal.
Also, the US will soon pass all other countries for total cases of infection. And according to accounts from the ground, our death toll is considerably higher. Healthcare workers in NYC are reporting many more deaths from pneumonia and its complications, people who aren’t and won’t be tested. And dipshit in chief reports his response as a 10/10. You can hide numbers and withhold testing but the bodies are piling up. Where are you going to hide those, #45?
Just when I think I have reached the ceiling of my rage, I learn that it was a ceiling under a ceiling under another ceiling. I do not think there will be an end.
I need to finish my impeachment hunks calendar so I can start on my global pandemic hunks calendar. 2020 is so busy with hunks!
It’s been going great. I’m so patient and kind and gentle and loving with the children, there is never any fighting or slamming of doors or fond stroking of the knives in the kitchen. Our isolation is just bursting at the seams with enriching activities and adorable, coordinated dance routines set to hits from yesterday and today.
As wonderful as it’s been, being with my amazing children 24/7, making four hundred meals a day, and just loving them so so so hard, it isn’t quite enough. Because the only distraction from the crushing anxiety has been my madly spinning merry-go-round of depression, rage, and fear. Wheee!!! Anxiety! Depression! Rage! Fear! Round and round we go where we stop nobody knows!
So I want plants. Lots of plants. Since I don’t have a yard and I kill almost everything I touch, I’m starting small, with things I can grow on my balcony. I’ve tried and failed at this before (you can’t see it in this picture but I have a nice little collection of dead plants and broken dreams in the corner of the deck, begging me to add to it). What better time to try again than a global pandemic.
This here is lavender.
And you know something? It helps, a little. A calm, quiet, lovely little pleasure, taking care of these tiny things. watering them, moving them into the sun in the morning, bringing them in at night when it gets cold. I like it very much.
Alas, my skill at killing plants far surpasses my skill at keeping them alive. So say hello AND goodbye to these sweet green sprouts. Soon they’ll be as withered and useless as my hope for the future. And away I’ll slink, back into the darkness, dropping another addition to my pile of death, wondering who my next victim will be…
I sure did pick the wrong year to try and bring some spirituality into my life didn’t I? 2020 is a real shitshow so far.
But perhaps a state-mandated period of social isolation is just the ticket. The one to take me to the promised land, where golden afternoons slip into violet evenings and grace is all around me.
This is different than the social isolation that I normally practice. This one is official! It’s for the common good. It’s the healthy choice. It’s not weird or sad. It’s my duty as a citizen!
My romantic life. I was asked about my romantic life recently. I didn’t have a good answer. Except for no. No sex. No romance. No men. No life.
It did get me thinking though. When was the last time I felt anything about anyone? Not a sexual desire. Eh. Sex is easy. The body wants what it wants. But beyond that, I haven’t been interested in anyone in a very long time. Everyone I know or meet, they’re all just so dull. My trusty reliable old boredom can’t even find the energy to be bored by them. What is below boredom?
And besides, no one is interested in a stress pooper. But in my defense, I am not alone. LOOK:
So if I am doing my math correctly, and I do believe I am, what we have here is:
global crisis plus social isolation divided by stress pooping = my spiritual awakening and massive emotional growth.
Day 1 of work-from-home and school-from-home. It went super great! I love my kids so much! I repeat it over and over again. Quietly. Sometimes loudly. I love them. I love them so much. I love them and I love them some more, there’s so much love coming out of me that maybe we might drown in it, which is fine totally fine to drown in love a beautiful peaceful choking love that fills our mouths and lungs and silences us all thank fucking christ.
For real though, things are stressful. For me. the kids seem relatively unfazed by all of this. Is that good? bad? I’m surely doing everything wrong. But maybe I’ve done something right? No? Yes? I don’t even know. What is happening right now is absolutely surreally gonzo. I am one big farting factory of churning anxiety. Meanwhile these boys of mine continue on, inventing great games like nut ball (one guess what nut ball could mean to two adolescent brothers).
I am glad though, that they can roll with the punches. That they’re capable of just accepting and dealing with whatever fresh new hell I’ve introduced into their lives. Here’s how I’m looking at it: Yes sure my shitty roller coaster parenting has broken them in irreparable ways. yes yes, I’m a terrible mom, blah blah, same story different day. But hey! Hey! Here is something. These ruined children know how to go with the flow. How to live with uncertainty. How to find their balance on a shifting unstable ground beneath them.
I know that my choices and decisions have often resulted in creating that instability, which isn’t so great. But I have also done something else. Given them someone to trust and rely on, a safe, soft place to land. I’ve shown them that no matter what, no matter how, when we fall, I’m there. Always. I may be the earthquake. but I am also the table they can crawl under. I am the first responders. The clean up crew. The rebuilding committee.
One might say I should work on not being the earthquake. One might also say you should stop being such a judgmental asshole and see that some of us are just tectonic plates and we can’t help it, it’s in our nature to shift. we are tectonic plates and it’s our job god damn it.
Really though. I should stop with the constant reading of the news. But I won’t! I can’t! I don’t know how to stop so I won’t even bother to try. I am even looking at social media again. Why? because I hate myself. and I am stupid. and I need to feel the onslaught of fourteen different emotions at once to fuel my anxiety furnace and keep it burning hot and sweet.
Just go to bed already Christa what is wrong with you
