Monday, August 02, 2021

In Which I Have a Lot of Feelings

Oh, friends on the internet, it has been a MONTH. 

All the jobs I applied for rejected me with some alacrity.  I am now unsure if we are going to need to sell our house and move elsewhere before I can find another job.  I am seriously considering it.

My sisters flew in to visit - from Israel, to my parents' house, two hours away - and didn't bother to tell me they were there.  Possibly the middle sister was offended by my insistence that it is wrong to deliberately target and murder civilians with your army, and that this is true of the US *and* Israel both; she hasn't spoken to me since.  (Frankly, it's no great loss.)

My youngest sister, for reasons entirely opaque to me, is flying in, with her spouse and toddler, to stay with my cranky-old-man dad and my mom for three (?) weeks, after which they will all attend a large wedding in DC.  (After I'm there more than 12 hours with my kids, I want to murder my beloved father; this is a really bad idea.)  Truly, what could go wrong?  I haven't heard a single word from her either, so I assume she has no desire to see me.  Honestly, it's kind of like I don't have sisters, except for my mother's alternate woefulness and bitching about how I don't give a shit about people who don't give a shit about me.  (Weird, right?)

My mother has decided to fly to Israel in September to enjoy some apartheid theocracy in person, despite the really quite onerous requirements, the pandemic, and the fact that she's 70.  The last time she went there, she got so sick that she spent 3 weeks in bed and I harassed her into going to the doctor for the first time in 15 years.  And that was just dehydration and sleeplessness, probably.  Like the US, Israel has infected a bare minimum of 10% of their population and are having a nice outbreak, so that's gonna go great.  Mom is vehemently anti-medical care despite BEING A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL so I'm sure it's gonna go great when she gets Covid in Israel.  We won't see her for two, maybe three months.  I'm a little afraid she'll die and a lot exasperated.

My cousin is supposed to get married in three months in a big city.  My 87 year old grandma has plane tickets to fly across the country.  This is an objectively terrible idea and I'm bummed about the thought the wedding won't happen, but also really afraid that it will and my grandma's gonna die.

Meanwhile, certain people here where I live, with whom I must interact, are both craaaazy and inconsistent in their crazy.  Terrified about being around unvaccinated people- unless it's their kid's teacher, that's fine.  Making their kids wear a crappy cloth mask outdoors in public- but the adults aren't wearing one indoors any more, ever.  Afraid to teach in person - but fine to go to a crowded beach and stay in a hotel.  PICK.  ONE. 

In a month, the classes I'm supposed to teach will start.  I am record amounts of depressed and unmotivated.  The children are squabbling nonstop.  I just want to run away from home.  BLAH.

5 comments:

  1. You're right, everything is horrible and so many people are illogical everywhere. At times like these, I fall back on my philosophy and psychology courses. Buddhism says desire is the root of all unhappiness. Your desire for logical humans makes you unhappy. Psychology points out that you have a certain Circle of Control, and there are many, many things outside of that circle. Clearly you know all of this and worry anyway.

    On the upside, you will soon get to visit Cold City and hang out with me! We can walk through the gardens of Bicycle Company and look at plants. You DO get to run away from home!

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    1. And almost soon enough, even! But I hear I'm supposed to come back or something.

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  2. The numbers drive me crazy... the Reuters (and worldometers, which all appear to draw on the same data) report ~36M cases in the US but the CDC estimated 120M actual infections in the US through May 2021. With a third of the population possibly now having natural immunity, plus a significant number vaccinated, shouldn't herd immunity be around the corner? Of course, there's statistical overlap (some have been infected and also had vaccine, some people have been vaccinated but have no antibodies...) The studies that seem most interesting are the ones that measure actual immune response in the population but I haven't seen many of those lately.

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    1. Those studies are good! And also hard and expensive. Let's just publish a lot of really terrible data instead. (I agree that the US numbers are somewhere between twice as much and 4 times as much; I'm not sure about the 120M number but it has NOT BEEN GOOD.)

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