I gave notice at my job! It's great! I just feel sorry for my poor boss: I'm the second person to leave in the nine months since she took over, and it's totally not a reflection on her excellent work in the role. I already feel slightly more human.
Two beers and the inflatable slide, hooray.
Still lurking, wishing everyone the best from KaKania. Some good stuff here:
1- I finally started to break out of my latest procrastination/paralysis cycle last week (though I'm still very far behind, and I'm still needing to day-drink in order to move forward on some of the scarier things). I might actually get the bachelor's teaching degree this semester! (Though I still need to do the master's afterward.)
2- We (well, technically it's all in Iberian Fury's name) have a signed offer on buying an apartment, so theoretically that will close by the end of the month. It's only a little cheaper, and significantly worse as an apartment in almost every way than the one we almost had a year ago, but it checks all our boxes, and it *is* 4 blocks closer to the big wonderful park we love (180m away instead of 700m!), so yay! Homeownership!
3- Iberian Fury and I bought have vaccination appointments, though her second isn't until mid-July.
4- The Infanta turns 2 tomorrow, and is really awesome (though lately she has been very grumpy -- indeed, grumpy enough that the daycare sent her home on Friday, thinking she was sick because she'd gotten herself worked up so much over not liking the food they gave her). Hopefully as she gets older she will stop getting bronchitis with every cold.
5- Sunny and high 70s today, and the real spring/summer weather seems to have finally arrived!
Scheduled for my first COVID jab, for which I'm grateful but also it's about goddamned time, the rollout process in Alberta is a mess.
I'm starting to get sucked into COVID-culture writing. I think there should be a specific journalism anti-prize, like the Razzies, for articles clearly designed to drive rage-clicks by bait-and-switching demented "suggestions" with far saner alternatives: like this Glamour piece which seems on the verge of proposing a deranged procedure called "self-dumping" as a response to "ghosting," but whose author is not sufficiently gone to commit to that and instead just recommends sending a single clearly-worded text message.
Worst outbreak to date here. Over 200 cases in one day which is almost double our previous count. Cases keep coming in via plane because the exposure notices are just lists of flights. And, unfortunately, bus routes. Schools and daycares should prob be on there but all info about them have been soft-muzzled. We're on lockdown at least until June - stores can only sell essentials, restaurants/bars closed to inside dining, can't leave our communities (people are being fined), schools closed, and rotational workers have to isolate. The last is kind of horrifying that it needs to be implemented (they weren't before because they were residents returning home I guess?).
I qualify for AZ but the nearest shot location is well over an hour away. It should branch out to M and P this week and I think those are available in town.
We're finally going to come out of our second (or is it third?) lockdown here. Cases are way down, now finally under 400 where a week or so ago they were threatening to go back over 1,000 (pop. here is just under 3 million).
Jammies just texted me that his co-baseball coach for Pokey's team just tested positive for Covid. Then the other coach texted Jammies to say, "Let me know how the game goes please. [My son] hasn't been around me for awhile so he will be at the game."
Jammies had already decided to cancel the game tonight, but JFC. And yes, the dad lives with the son.
I just read an abstract of an Economics paper saying that school opening in Texas was associated with increased transmission and likely led to 800 deaths due to an acceleration in the growth of cases. Hypothesis, based on mobility data, was that it led to spillovers in adult behavior.
We're at 50K+ deaths so far, so if it only led to 800 deaths, I'd say that public schools - forced to open haphazardly and with minimal safety and oversight - turned out to be remarkably safe.
Although dying because your job required you to be there is far worse than dying because you chose to visit family over Thanksgiving.
I mean, neither is a great choice. Not dying is better than both.
Hypothesis, based on mobility data, was that it led to spillovers in adult behavior.
this strikes me as exactly right. If you're being super safe here, you're doing it of your own volition. The momentum is towards being relaxed and unsafe.
If I kill anyone on Thanksgiving by ignoring the CDC, it will be because I didn't get the stuffing hot enough to kill the salmonella.
Finally registered to vote in PA, so here's a question for Pittsburgh folks: whom to vote for mayor in the Democratic primary? As a newbie I don't have great context on the main differences between Peduto and Gainey.
I have no idea. I need to figure how to vote because I was voting in person and now have to be in Nebraska that day.
I'm told there are ballot issues that matter, but I forget.
8: Good to get an update, x. trap! I don't remember the name KaKania, but is it the same place you've been for a while, that is known for a good housing system?
https://musilreader.wordpress.com/tag/kakania/
18: 43000 cases and 800 additional death ps within the first 2 months after opening. Like one of Trump's rallies. Described as a gradual acceleration. In NBER.
Ok, that's depressing. My first instinct is always an optimistic take but I can't make this one stick.
When does the "day" end for day-drinking? I'm hearing that it may be helpful for motivating aversive work tasks.
Annnd just saw video from Al-Aqsa. I've been diligently avoiding the news all day for reasons, but now I can't unsee it.
When everyone was very calm and in bed, I said (I forget the cue) "no two people are not on fire." So the kids all demanded to know what that was from, and I ended up playing Strongbad's Children's Book for them, and now they are terribly wound up and hyper. It holds up pretty well, although now jokes about girls being ugly fall a little flat. SOME people are being fangoriously devoured by gelatinous monsters!
I actually came by last week not to leave a comment on the self-driving thread but because I thought I'd give an update on one of these threads if there was a recent one, and then go back to not commenting for like a year again. But the only check-in thread was maybe a week old and it seemed awkward to jump into that one. Even more than to comment on this one.
Anyway, the update is that I spent essentially a year+ living with my parents, after initially going to visit them for 1-2 weeks last March when they were recovering from either colds or the flu (almost certainly not Covid). We avoided Covid but I went to hospitals somewhere around 25-30 times in 2020; we never paused or even considered pausing my dad's cancer treatments. I waited in the car in a parking lot, outside in a hospital courtyard, and in the occasional waiting room (or hallway outside of a waiting room where someone was coughing). At one point, my dad was being treated for two different active cancers at two different hospitals. Somehow, we got through it and my dad is now at a point where he still gets treatments and diagnostics but it's more of a holding pattern, with extra stress before each of the progress check appointments.
There wasn't really much question that as long as my work was remote (and it still is), I'd take him to all the appointments and do all the shopping so my parents could stay home as much as possible. I'm very lucky to be in a position where that was a possibility. I'd probably have quit or taken a leave from my previous job to do all of that. Instead, I got into a rotation where I'd go home for a few days every couple of weeks to make sure my apartment was ok, and I was prepared to do it until either there was a vaccine or things reached a point where it made more sense to just move to within an easy drive of where my parents live. My parents got vaccinated in February; I've been back home most of the time since late March. I visit them on treatment weeks.
Meanwhile, i mostly stepped back from the participatory internet (i.e. not commenting here at all, and using social media much less) but until after impeachment it's hard to say I was spending less time online overall. I don't know if I'm looking forward to an office again, but I'm looking forward to not staring at a computer all day for every interaction. In many ways I'm lucky I could spend so much time with my parents because I don't know what I'd have done if I'd been home all the time alone. I tried some socializing over zoom and gave up pretty quickly; it's been too much like yet another meeting. And not getting into arguments online, or trying to follow other people's arguments while staying out of them, has been a real benefit to my mental health.*
tl;dr: still alive
*And probably to others'.
Wow that sounds hard. Also sort of lucky, that the year your parents needed you as a caretaker was the year you could work remotely, but hard. How are you holding up?
The UK is going to go back to something quite close to not-a-lockdown-at-all in about 2 weeks, and outdoor dining/drinking/socialising has been allowed for a number of weeks. My wife and I have both had our first AZ doses, but the second is not for a while, as we are both under 50 (although only just in my case) and the UK has only recently started offering the vaccine to under 50s. She had a pretty hard time with the after-effects of the vaccine. Bad enough to get tested for various bad outcomes, although the tests were all fine. For me, it was one day of feeling like I had flu or a bad hangover, and then more or less back to normal.
Work is infuriating and rewarding in about equal measure. My team has been expanded and we have more work than we can currently handle, and we will win a big award from a professional/scholarly body later this summer for a project we did, which is nice. Can't say which as it isn't announced I don't think until August. I am getting pretty sick of remote working, though. I've always done it at least a couple of days a week, and most of my team is based in Scotland, not London, so we do remote team meetings anyway. But I haven't seen any of my colleagues in person for over a year, and there's some things that are hard to do except in person, and, on a personal level, I genuinely like my former boss* and other office mates.
* former because I now report to the MD, not because we don't still work together.
A client in Belgium is even trying to arrange an in person workshop at their university, in the autumn. Which feels ... odd. Might happen, or might not, I guess. I used to do things like that half a dozen or more times a year, sometimes quite a bit more.
31: Good to hear from you. Take care. That's a lot.
Anyway, my office is meeting in person in October.
I guess I'm at the gate at the airport right now, but I can't expense it.
I feel like a year ago we were talking about the need to be able to go back into lockdown at short notice, but now I'm thinking those lockdowns should be more granular, preventive, and short. Like, public health should work out a threshold for case rise that would prompt a regional lockdown for one week for one metro area, which would probably be a lot lower than the level that would get the media writing articles.
And it should really be targeted to gyms, bars, and restaurants, along with a PSA about "Time to hold family gatherings outside!"
Fake accent, what a year. It's such a huge gift to the person you love to be able to step in as care-taker when you're needed, but it's also such a huge, draining job. I hope you've got some regular things going on that help refill your cup, as they say. It's especially important to maintain those things when you feel like there's so much to be done for other people that you can't carve out time for yourself.
39: Or even just masking. Like, vaccines will do the bulk of the heavy lifting, but in a population with immunity cases would probably drop seasonally, so there will be some increase in the winter. I'm hoping that if cases go up, masks will be required on public transit.
Tough week here. Finally hit fully vaccinated today and we're visiting friends for the first time in a year. But one of my dear friends from grad school died of Covid last week (45, Ontario). He was a truly inspiring teacher who was about to win a national teaching award next month. It's just such a shock in terms of timing and age, I was expecting someone I know to die this year, but not someone my age and not this month.
I was just reading about him because Newt's at his college (although never had a class from him). He sounds as if he was a really remarkable teacher. I'm sorry for your loss.
I'm so sorry, U. That's so awful.
My sympathies, UPETGI, how awful.
Very sorry about your friend. Much too young.
Thanks everyone. 44: I hadn't quite realized until this week quite what a legend he was at UT, e.g. the reddit thread just refers to him by first name.
There's a guy in the airport in orange Buddhist robes, but he's wearing a deer hunter's blaze orange knit cap. I never noticed it's the same shade until now.
Is there a season for vegetarians in Nebraska?
Once again, no edibles for sale at the airport.
31: That's quite a year; I'm glad that you were able to do it and that the prognosis is good at the moment.
2: Congratulations on feeling more human! Hopefully the break will give you a chance to reorganize and get on a desirable path.
30: I loved Strongbad, but never saw his children's book. Now I know what I'm up to on lunch!
31: That sounds like a rough year; caregiving and just driving people to appointments is time and emotion consuming; glad that it has gone relatively well.
My wife and I had a nice weekend; we visited Monterey and visited the aquarium. Staying in a hotel was interesting; we had to sign forms acknowledging Covid protocols, but the main upshot was that housekeeping wouldn't be entering units, but would provide additional things as needed. I was also amused that we had to initial that Monterey County had recommended that they shut down their pool... but their pool wasn't shut down, and was in enthusiastic use by the family at the end of the hall. The other major adjustment was that instead of providing a "continental breakfast", they put basically the same items in a paper sack that you could collect and take away as breakfast.
That evening we grabbed some hot dogs from an eatery a few hundred feet from the hotel; they had a big outdoor patio, so didn't seem to be greatly altered for Covid times.
We went to a diner in town for breakfast the next morning, and it was crimped by the pandemic. It was breezy out, so no one ate at the sidewalk seating; inside they were backed up with a wait, but had half the tables empty for Covid spacing. We wound up eating outside; it was breezy, but the food was good... and the wait area was pretty tiny. So limited Covid exposure once you were seated, but packed into too small a space while waiting for tables -- I guess at least you were still masked at that point, so small offsets? And you could put your name on a list and pop outside until you were called -- which was our plan, before we decided to just eat outside.
The aquarium was wonderful to visit at limited capacity; it was so easy to wait a moment or two for a group to move on, then get to step up to the display, instead of having to strain or glance over people, as often happens when they're busy. Heebie mentioned early on that Covid deniers were going to be annoyed when we all came back to restaurants; I can definitely see the appeal for attending theme parks and exhibits while limited capacity is required.
We went to the no-longer-National Bison Range yesterday. Beautiful day, lots of arrow leaf balsam root blooming. (It'll all be gone in 2 weeks). Not many bison.
Had to stop in at the visitor center because our Interagency Pass is no longer good there, nor is our annual CSKT recreation pass. The woman at the desk told me she's overcome every time she thinks about the Return of the Bison Range.
Will the east-of-the-divide portion of Glacier National Park be returned to the Blackfeet Nation during my lifetime? That would be such a bfd.
My mom was watching a play with her cousin in a Tel Aviv theatre when they announced everyone had to go down into the bomb shelter. It was crowded in the shelter, so after a while my mom and her cousin decided to leave and hang out at my mom's apartment across the street, and watch the news about the rockets on TV. Fun times!
Thanks for the kinds words, everyone.
32, 40: I definitely feel some cognitive dissonance about the disconnect between my family crisis and the global one,* not just being able to work remotely without formally requesting it, but also the way the timing has worked out in other ways. We got our first good news for my dad just as the fall/winter surge was underway. I don't think it's survivor's guilt exactly, but maybe something like that.
* Though there was a period when hospital staffing was a bit of an issue**, plus supply chain disruptions for certain anti-cancer drugs (resolved within the last couple months, apparently).
** But things ultimately worked out.
60: Who did the Blackfeet displaced when they turned up in that area?
An SLC bar's Frequently Argued Points re: its policy to only admit people with proof of vacciation.
That's terrific. The only flaw is failing to advise readers that they might want to read The Scarlet Letter. It's remarkably short.
The wikipedia plot summary is shorter and gets the point across.
The restaurant that has its servers open carry (and wear kilts, IIRC) is perhaps out of business now.
Remember kids, don't play with gasoline unless you want to see something awesome.
I am not looking down on anyone who doesn't want to see something awesome and I am reflecting on safety in my own life.
Condolences to UPETGI and anyone who's suffered losses from all this.
re: 64
Not sure exactly, and I guess Charlie will know more. But I think Piegan, Gros Ventre, Blood, Crow and others are all mentioned in the historic documents for that vague region.
https://digitreaties.org/treaties/cession/574/
https://digitreaties.org/treaties/cession/565/
https://digitreaties.org/treaties/cession/695/
https://digitreaties.org/treaties/cession/692/
With all of the land cessions for Montana also available here:
https://digitreaties.org/treaties/historicmap/Montana%201/
Let's all discuss the situation in Israel until someone says something antisemitic or objectively pro-genocide.
I will say disproportionately vicious things to anyone who wastes a single goddamn second talking about Israel before talking about Ethiopia.
I get that, but what happens in Ethiopia has close to no impact on my life and what happens in Israel very much does even though I know exactly the same number of people in both counties.
There's also the fact that Israel is waging war on Palestinians largely using American money and weapons. And Israel has a disproportionate affect on American domestic politics.
You know what would be a nice weekly summary for my inbox? Putting the weekly news into context with ongoing concerns that aren't reported.
I remember when I was a kid, there was a newspaper feature that was something like "the week in weather!" and showed all the natural disasters worldwide, and highs and lows in various places, and it helped me realize the difference between a natural disaster that generates headlines vs. one that doesn't, and how record highs and lows can cause problems in places that aren't the hottest or coldest places, etc.
Something like that is what I'm picturing, so that the civil war in Ethiopia is put alongside the crises that generate more headlines. Something very matter-of-fact and comprehensive to just give me a yardstick for humanitarian crises that is less fickle and biased.
At least one of those has the potential to afffect your life more than everything that ever happened in in the Mideast since 1973.
Mossy! This is your homework assignment! Educate the lazy privileged Americans!
As an American citizen I'm thinking mostly of my ability to affect change in my own country's policy towards Israel and Palestine. American public opinion matters a great deal here but matters pretty much fuck all about the situation in Myanmar or Ethiopia.
84 One of the few bright spots in the Biden admin's FP has been ending support for KSA's horrific war on Yemen.
Last weekend there was a parade of a couple hundred cars past my house flying flags and honking horns with signs about Tigray and Eritrea so I did at least bother to look it up, although the situation confuses me. Tigray is part of Ethiopia but is being attacked by Eritrean forces but Ethiopia is either ok with it or is supporting them?
In local news 14yo got first Pfizer so 2/3 of the family is at least partly vaccinated.
It's not like anyone needs to rebuild a temple in Eritrea before the world can end.
Some say the world will be templed in Jerusalem. Some say Eritrea. From what I've tasted of Jerusalami, I hold with those who favor Eritreacly. This riff is really going nowhere and should be abandoned, twice.
72 I was thinking of the 1895 cession, which isn't on that site. Here's a link on that one: https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6496&context=indianserialset
The NPS explanation -- see 1895 Agreement and Ceded Strip in the definitions -- at least acknowledges the thing. https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/education/upload/Work-House-Vocabulary_Resources_Standards-2-2.pdf
87: I looked on the CVS website. Easy to book Moderna, but the Pfizer slots are full. I thought one of your kids was in a Moderna study.
I'M not afraid of Mossy's disproportionate viciousness, you great bullying galoot, but honestly I don't have anything to say about Israel/Palestine that isn't profanities. I guess that's most of what i have to say about Myanmar too, so you can just assign the profanities to whatever target you wish. (My earnest friend posting endlessly on social media about Fascinating Commonalities Among Settler Nations and how the Jews are Hypocrites About Right of Return is kind of grinding my nerves, though. If we could just get BACK to PRINCIPLES and have everyone discuss it RATIONALLY motherrrrrfuckerrrrrrrrrrszszsz)
I think beating an Arab bystander with an Israeli flag is a little on the nose.
Just tried reading up on the situation in Ethiopia and I'm not sure I understand what's going on. Here's what I did manage to get: the previous government of Ethiopia was dominated by politicians from Tigray. As a result, both the new government of Ethiopia (domestic political rivals) and the government of Eritrea (who the previous government fought a war against) are on the same side of this conflict where they're both against Tigray. What isn't clear to me is whether the armed forces on the other side in the conflict is a Tigray separatist movement, or is trying to retake control of the Ethiopian government? Either way the end result is genocide of Tigrayans.
76 et al: Those who have relatives, friends, or professional connections in Israel and/or Palestine have much to worry about. For the rest of us, including most Jewish and Arabic-Americans, Israel/Palestine isn't much more relevant than Ethiopia/Eritrea. Unlike in 1973, it's unlikely to affect the price of gasoline, both because the U.S. is now a net exporter, and because the Saudis aren't interested. It won't involve U.S. soldiers. Israel is insignificant to the U.S. economy. It's unlikely to lead to terrorism in the U.S or Western Europe- the Palestinians gave up on that a while before 9/11 and have shown no signs of resuming. There may be a few street protests in this country, accompanied by some violence, but not much more. Random attacks on American Palestinians and American Jews would not be a change from the status quo.
I don't even think it will have much affect on U.S. political debate or elections. The two parties take very similar positions on Israel-related issues, and now all politicians agree that the wisest course is to look the other way. A prolonged war or a complete rout may lead to refugees from either or both sides seeking asylum here, but Israelis and Palestinians have been coming here for decades and the numbers won't be noticeable.
Not to say that we shouldn't care about who our government is supporting. U.S. support for ethnic cleansing by Israel is as repugnant now as it was with South Africa in the 1970's, and support for ethnic cleansing coupled with missile attacks is a whole lot worse. Just that it doesn't affect our daily lives.
Sometimes protests block traffic near me, but I guess I don't go places much now.
I guess academia is unusual, and maybe math especially, but I'm much much more connected to Israel. I have a number of Israeli colleagues, most of whom don't live in Israel but their families still do. I'm much more likely to be invited to a conference in Israel or have a student apply for jobs in Israel. It's maybe less relevant to me than Germany, Australia, or the UK, but it's right in the next tier.
In particular, the question of "would I visit Israel, and if not would I decline without giving a reason or with giving a reason" is highly relevant, and Israel's actions are thus directly relevant to my decisions. (See also China: Hong Kong, Xinjiang. I did go to a conference in China in 2015, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable now. Also the next ICM is in Russia which is quite controversial.)
To get paid by the University of Arizona, you have to not boycott Israel until the check clears.
Fully vaxxed! Fucking finally. God I've missed the taste of doorknobs.
Re:90
I know the site unfortunately isn't complete (I built it).* I think archival series that was used to build it stops before that point. There's also some lots of gaps in the pre-USA data. There is another phase of work happening, though, so hopefully we can get more in.
* user interface also needs work.
Re:90
I know the site unfortunately isn't complete (I built it).* I think archival series that was used to build it stops before that point. There's also some lots of gaps in the pre-USA data. There is another phase of work happening, though, so hopefully we can get more in.
* user interface also needs work.
100: 2 weeks out?
Moly - how are you feeling about your masking dilemma in terms of science vs fear of being seen a Republican. Now that the CDC says vaccinated people can do what they want indoors, I'm nervous that a lot of unvaccinated people will walk around without masks. So, I'll probably wear a mask inside stores until a certain percentage of the population is fully vaccinated.
I'm switching from a mask to a cowl.
I'll probably wait to see what everyone else does.
91- we applied for both older kids but didn't get in. 16 got his second Pfizer last week, 14 got first Pfizer at Hynes. No wait at all, validated parking, and discounts to stores in the mall. He got some pastries at Eataly.
Now we're just waiting for 5-11 approval. 11 year old might turn 12 before then so he'd just get it on his birthday, but 8yo is the one with the potentially higher risk so we still want to avoid potential asymptomatic transmission from someone else in the family.
OT: Do deer get creeped out if you cook hamburgers in front of them?
I was thinking about posting about it. It's weird to me.
It's not like someone cooking a skinned monkey in front of people. It's a patty.
My kid is still probably wearing a mask during the day until the end of the school year, so I'll continue to have one handy to keep her company. It'll probably now go in my pocket when I'm not required to wear it instead of around my chin though.
Well, they just announced that a kid at one of our schools died of COVID so fuck all the people who said there's no risk to kids. None of my kids knew her.
84 was me.
86: Granted. I instead refer 78 to Egypt, the UAE, the Philippines, etc.
85: US military aid to Israel ~$12bn, equivalent to ~3.1% of total government spending (trusting google instant results). Whereas foreign aid to Ethiopia in 2019 was equivalent to ~51.6% of total government spending. Granted not all aid is American, but most donors would likely follow your lead, and your weight in the IMF, World Bank, and G20 framework; and any given US citizen has dramatically more leverage regarding Ethiopia than Israel, precisely because the general public has no interest.
98: War and pandemic permitting, flights through and conferences in Addis Ababa may well be in your future; Ethiopian branded products are likely in your present. As, of course, are Ethiopians (and Eritreans, Sudanese, Somalis).
I'm not saying that other countries don't matter or shouldn't. In a very pointless sense, I'm an ABD student with a dissertation on public opinion in American foreign policy. It's just that 2024 is very likely to be decided by 10,000 shitheads in Pennsylvania and/or Florida. That means Israel matters more.
80: Ethiopia has more refugees than Palestine has people. Population of the Palestinian territories ~4.7m; IDPs in Ethiopia (prewar) ~3.2m; plus the current war >1m; plus foreign refugees ~0.7m.
More widely: the 2016 refugee crisis (which inflated every right wing in Europe, wedged every crack in the Union, possibly tipped Brexit) drew refugees from countries totaling ~161m people.* Population of Ethiopia: ~112m; with Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea: ~170m. More westerly: population of countries affected by the greater Sahel conflicts ~127m.**
*Syria, Yemen, Libya, Chad, CAR, Niger, Mali, Iraq.
**Chad, CAR, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Belt of Nigeria (Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Jigawa, Kano, Yobe, Borno).
113: And how many of those shitheads are likely to change their votes (1) at all, or (2) in response to Biden policy (or more accurately absense of policy, which is what I'm advocating: it's a waste of time, ignore it).
I think there are 10,000 people in Pennsylvania who would otherwise stay home but could be persuaded to vote if they thought Israel was going to do something to speed the Apocalypse because Trump had their back, yes.
I'm not differing from you on policy. Just explaining what catches my attention and why.
Fair. But still, what would stop Republicans playing that card anyway, regardless of what Biden actually does?
Nothing looks as fake as a fake apocalypse. They want to see the world ending.
I'm flying for the first time since 2019. Going to see my parents.
Same but my daughter. I'm on a plane waiting to take off right now.
Well, they just announced that a kid at one of our schools died of COVID so fuck all the people who said there's no risk to kids. None of my kids knew her.
That's horrible. I'm so sorry.
(I still kinda think the risk to kids is far smaller than the risks to kids that we confront all the time. Part of the reason this is on my mind is that yet another kid committed suicide at the high school, bringing the total to 6 this year, which is so staggering and insane that I can't wrap my head around it.)
Southwest fucked up my first post- covid flight. And they didn't serve any alcohol.
I'm flying Delta, and it feels like a very new aircraft, and my elbows actually don't fit between the armrests. As in, a short woman feels a bit cramped. This is more packed than frontier, my previous yardstick for sardinity.
We're just waiting for you both to get into the air so we can do whatever we want without supervision.
As always, the biggest fucking irritant is the headrest which hits too high and forces my head forward.
Have you tried sitting on a phone book?
No one can stop me now, so I'm switching to two initials.
Seatmate, as the lights come on at the end of the flight: "they tell us to keep 6' apart in the airport, and then they pack us 1' apart on the plane!"
Me: obligatory chuckle and bland agreement.
Him: And they make us wear these masks that don't do anything!
Me: [pause a beat, then speak as though I'm comforting someone who is upset] Oh, I do think they do some good.
Him: you do.
Me: mmhmm.
Him: gets up and beats it to the front of the plane to hang out in the aisle even though we haven't gotten the go ahead to unbuckle, which is why he was able to get so far away.
Me: heads to unfogged to make fun of him.
What a dull exchange. I'm sorry I subjected you to that.
It turns out that I now struggle not to disintegrate into misanthropy in public spaces like airports now. I really need to chill.
135:. That's what Unfogged is for. It's rough out there in public. Or so I hear.
Maybe in 2019 it was less obvious to me how much people matching my approximate phenotype are likely to be loathesome? I've forgotten how to feel like I'm by myself, when there are people milling around. Which is ironic since I'm more invisible than ever, as a roughly invisible person plus facemask.
Because I'm older and male, it's been really obvious to me for quite a while.
Extremely padded seatbelts on airplanes is my new favorite hallmark of the rich. Gosh, first class is so luxurious.
I guess it's a bad sign that I mostly want the additional space and drinks.
But I've only been on a plane with a first class seat maybe once in the past five years.
The seatmate on the second flight was innocuous until she spontaneously needed to tell me how great De Santis is. She also can't wait to take her mask off. Jfc.
And I finally started The Warmth of Other Suns, so we were literally flying into one of the cities of origin that I was reading about, and it is all very complex and depressing to reckon with.
That's why books are so overrated.
143.1: Ugh! I don't think I'm ready for public transportation.
I wonder if we aren't going to see a small death wave now among people who have been holding on for long enough to see a few relatives and have a normal funeral?
She also can't wait to take her mask off. Jfc.
I think I'd have gone with something like, That's brave. Aren't you concerned about vaccine-shedding destroying your health? I heard on Fox that it's a big problem.
146: I'm curious about this, not now particularly but in general. Both the holding-on and spouse-then-other-spouse deaths. Obviously they happen, but do we have stats and mechanisms?
Obviously, you're trying to stay alive until your spouse dies so they don't marry a grifter and take resources that should have gone to your children.
Thinking ahead, you know.
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Bleg: Would I be right in guessing that buried/subsea power lines would be less vulnerable to solar storms?
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Less vulnerable to ice stroms. I remember that from Durham.
Oof. My sister-in-(common)law and her family were in this weekend and we had a big family dinner in a restaurant. It was so not pretty. To borrow a term from my friend's teenager, her husband is a total cumnugget. I am honestly still a little shaken.
Oof. My sister-in-(common)law and her family were in this weekend and we had a big family dinner in a restaurant. It was so not pretty. To borrow a term from my friend's teenager, her husband is a total cumnugget. I am honestly still a little shaken.