WTF

I want to write…I pulled up my blog, which I recently reworked, and reread some entries.  And I’m falling back in infatuation with words again.  But there is so much stuff going on, in our lives, in our country, with the world.  And all that is coloring my thoughts and feelings.  

Where do I begin?

In March, the world locked down with COVID-19.  It basically shut down, to slow the spread of the virus.  Everything except grocery stores, the post office, and other essential businesses.  It was a clusterfuck because the government didn’t organize to supply health care professionals with PPE, or have enough tests at first.  The fucking government has been a shitshow since Trump was elected.  So much to say on that…but not enough time or emotions.

I kept my job, although my hours got reduced, but I’m okay.  We had to start wearing masks out in public, to reduce the risk of contagion.  Some people have been resistant to it, for selfish and stupid reasons.  This whole thing has brought the nutcases out of the woodwork.  Some people don’t believe COVID is any worse than the flu, despite the fact that we don’t know anything about it yet--it doesn’t behave like any other virus we know.  We have no idea what the long-term ramifications will be.  So many people have lost their jobs, and now unemployment, and no more stimulus checks are coming…it’s absolutely frightening.  I’m donating to the food bank, giving to homeless people, to help local people as much as I can.  I don’t know anyone personally who has gotten it, yet, but I feel for the people who have, for the families who have lost their own.  

In June, more cops killing black people during calls happened again, to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and others.  And the world exploded.  Protests erupted all over the country, calling for criminal justice reform.  In retaliation, cops vowed to not be there when people called 911.  There have been cops, as well as right-wing militia nuts, trying to inflame the protests into violence.  Some cops knelt in solidarity with the protesters.  I am both angry and heart-broken, but I haven’t gone to any protests because…COVID.  But I wanted to, with all my heart.  Instead I started donating to the Equal Justice Initiative, monthly.  I drew portraits of Bryan Stevenson (founder of the Equal Justice Initiative) and Congressman John Lewis (who passed away from cancer), hoping to raise money to donate to Black organizations.  I started watching documentaries and movies about Black culture, listening to rap and hip-hop, reading books about being anti-racist, wanting desperately to learn and not let white-produced media from my past influence my ideas about what Black culture is.  I’m educating myself and doing the work of de-conditioning, de-indoctrinating myself from white culture.  It’s a massive tangle, a Gordian knot, to unravel.  

Because everything is closed, and we haven’t been seeing anyone outside our domestic circles, haven’t done anything we normally do, life has been narrowed to the loop of a single eye of a needle.  It’s been so strange to get used to.  It feels like life up until now has been a party: white privilege, doing things for fun, and frolicking.  But…the party is over.  Anything else feels just frivolous, shallow and self-involved.  It’s time to think about other people and about rebuilding the system we have been brought up in, so that it’s fair to everyone, not just straight white males.  It’s time to make sure the government does what we want it to do.  It’s time to fight for others’ rights, as well as our own.  It’s time to care about other people.  It’s time to stop judging others based on anything but the content of their characters.  

And it’s election year--the election is in 2 weeks.  And there’s chaos surrounding it.  Mail-in ballots being threatened due to the post office being fucked with, fucked-up debates, the right being riled up by Trump, so much so that they’re threatening violence to intimidate voters, and then to defend his refusing to leave office if Biden gets elected, militia-style.  This is like some dystopian Hollywood movie.  WTF??!!?     

All of this is crippling, emotionally.  And I haven’t mentioned everything.  This is just a bare bones overview.  I haven’t had a single desire to work on my art lately, not since John Lewis’ picture.  The only thing I have wanted to do is make semi freddo.  I have been making it for months now, trying all different kinds of flavors.  And I am damn good at it.  The texture is creamy and the flavors are delicious.  Sometimes the texture varies based on what I do to create those flavors (more water means more ice, which means less creamy).  I am taking such pleasure in the semi freddo.  I am also taking pleasure in sounds, with my synaesthesia.  Low frequency sounds, like going over bumps in the road, drums and bass, piano, putting items down on certain surfaces, walking on certain surfaces with certain shoes…they taste sweet.  Whooshing sounds, like a faucet running, a dishwasher running, higher frequency sounds taste foamy.  The taste isn’t in my mouth, but in my brain.  I think it’s the same part of my brain that gets aroused when I actually do taste those things.  But it’s the sounds riling it up, not actual food.  So wonderfully delightful.  Sensual pleasure, right now, is my art.  We’ve gotta have *something*.