Month: September 2020

Third day of avoiding the news and I still accidentally caught wind of Trump's taxes. I know there was a blowup. I figure it was meant to freak people out, sway voters. It won't. No one will care. His supporters will say, "Hur hur, he didn't pay taxes, wish I could do that! What a badass!" And the people who despise him will just have one more reason to continue doing the same.

If the things he's done so far haven't turned people off, there's little he can do now that will change that. Roughly 42% of America supports his dumb ass, and that isn't going to change.

We need to have a serious conversation as a nation about that 42%.

Day one of not reading any news was hard! I'm not sure what my iPhone is for at the moment besides posting this and sending text messages. I miss the twitchiness of filling every free second with doomscrolling.

A friend and I discussed this today. What we came to is that there's no need to follow the news anymore in the US. We know what's coming. There will be an attempted coup on November 3. The only question now is: what are you going to do about it? No news outlet can help you with that.

I have entered into a pact with a close friend. I have sworn off the news until Tuesday, November 3. Not all of it. 99% of it. Especially political news.

Let’s see if I can make it.

Our kids finally start school tomorrow. We moved halfway across the country a week ago, and our previous pediatrician slow-walked some paperwork to the new school, so we’re over a week late with enrollment. But it’s finally done–with almost zero notice for the kids. They’re a bit shell shocked that tomorrow’s the first day.

Our belongings are still on a semi headed for our new city, so we’ll be gathering around a long folding table with the kids for day one. No idea how we’re going to work while sitting next to them, shepherding them through their day while answering phone calls and pings on Slack.

I hate this.

Not the moving part, not the being without furniture part, not even the part where we have to be teacher’s aides. I hate that this was avoidable. Our kids could be in school if our government and a bunch of right-wing idiots had just done the right thing. We could be mostly back to normal if it weren’t for a handful of incredibly selfish cretins.

More than six months in and the CDC says we’ve got almost a year until enough vaccine doses exist to start distributing them to the general population. Ten or more months until things can start to move back toward normal.

Thanks, Trump voters.