18 April 2020

making the best of a bad situation

another excellent diversion for a saturday night, which i thought might not happen again after some of the reaction to the last one, see below .......


14 April 2020

olden times

i've been rooting around in records from west yorkshire, uk, from whence some of "my people" emigrated in the seventeenth century --- research is centered around barwick-in-elmet, a village a few miles northeast of leeds and one of a handful of places that remembers the last of the britonnic kingdoms, elmet, to fall to the anglo-saxons in the seventh century --- it's the only place in the british isles that i have connected with an ancestor, and it's a place that connects to prehistoric times --- the village developed around a 2,000-year-old hill fort and remains proud of its maypole --- the church was built in the 8th century or so --- "my people," twelve and more generations ago, lived there, although they called themselves Settle back then. 

they were originally from a little burg called settle in northwestern yorkshire, established by the angles in the 7th century --- a mile or so from that village is a cave where they found the first evidence of humans in the yorkshire dales, an 11,000 year old harpoon tip --- i spent much of today reading the parish register of births and deaths and what not --- a surprising number of "bastards" being baptized --- a note that on 9 June 1638 was buried, "a woman, being a stranger, whose name is unknown, who died at Scoles" made me a little sad

best place name so far today is nether shitlington, a few miles south of leeds --- it was recorded as "schelingtone" in the domesday book, so who knows --- unfortunately, they dropped the "h" to make it "sitlington" in 1921 --- a great loss --- also unfortunately, it's a few miles from barwick-in-elmet and so not my ancestral homeland

12 April 2020

easing over to the dark side

feeling the need for more mindless entertainment, i splurged and got a big-ass teevee (54" for $375!!) for the living room, so i could put the semi-big-ass teevee (46", which cost three times the new one when i got it several years ago) in the bedroom --- now if i can just find something i want to watch besides "deep space nine"

06 April 2020

plague hysteria

someone felt compelled to blast out a condo-wide warning about the dangers of our all being out on our balconies at the same time, since the wind could come and blow germs up all over everybody ---

we went ahead and had an excellent saturday night dance party on our balconies anyway

and then you have to put up with these goddamn preachers and cultists --- "i'm covered in the blood of jesus" and it won't get me --- gah


so much of this situation reminds me of the hysteria surrounding AIDS in the 80s when nobody quite knew what was going on --- nevermind the preachers and what not, we're gonna look back on a lot of this in the same way, i think

04 April 2020


books, flowers, and rocks --- all beautiful in their own way --- this unit is one of a pair that were gifted to me in early october last --- six months and counting and still setting buds

especially when they smell like coconut
or absolutely never quit blooming

03 April 2020

borrowed time

thousands dead across the country and tens of thousands around the world, half the damn planet being told to stay home, unemployment records falling day after day, with over 700,000 added in march alone --- hospitals are running out of supplies, while the feds leave the states to their own devices, including bidding against each other for supplies --- i asked alexis if they had enough personal protective equipment at the hospital and she replied:

Unfortunately no. Everything is being rationed. We get issued an N95 and have to wear it until basically worn out. They are meant for a few hours of protection. Not a weeks worth of work. It is absolutely absurd.  And we are out of plastic gowns. They brought us 30 gowns the other day with Virex spray to spray on them so they can be disinfected for the next person to re-wear. This is just unheard of. And the peak of this mess hasn't even hit yet. I was talking with one of our infectious disease docs and she said the peak will hit around April 24th then we should (and hopefully) start to see a decline in new cases. God, I can only pray. . . . It's like healthcare in a third world country.
and expectations are that it's only going to get worse --- as many as 200,000 dead in the US by some estimates ---

angela sent me some masks which i guess i will start wearing to the grocery store at least --- i really don't want to catch this thing until we're a little further along in treatment, etc

and the republicans, under the guise of national emergency, are unilaterally abrogating environmental laws and disregarding congressional oversight of how the $2 trillion appropriated for the emergency is spent, and generally amping up their support for the oligarchy's looting of the country

meanwhile the putative president continues to poison the body politic with petty insults, threats, and raw partisan politics and generally acting as president of the red states, and to hell with the blue, which includes the country's largest cities --- he is a despicable human being and far and away the absolute worst president this country has had

so happy birthday to me --- 71 and officially living on borrowed time