reopening

Well since my last post, we’ve seen positive tests spike to record levels around the country.  Places like Florida, Arizona and Texas are being the worst hit, and coincidentally they were also the ones that removed lockdowns early.

I get it, we are fatigued, and tired and depressed about not being able to do all the things we love in this world.  Hugging friends, eating at a nice restaurant, watching sports, having a party, seeing loved ones in person.  It is hard mentally for everyone.  It’s causing people to simply say fuck it and let their guard down.  It’s the absolute worst time for that.

I have many groups of friends.  My best friends in the world with whom I talk with every day in chat, local people I used to smoke cigars and golf with, my friends through years at my job, my online group of friends from the Lotus days, our homeschooling friends, and my online gaming group of friends, who I play Xbox with most days. 

In the gaming group, we have people who refuse to wear a mask.  They claim it’s for freedom.  We are free to choose how we want to live, and they don’t want to waste 1% of their life cooped up.  I get the sentiment but disagree vehemently. The simple act of wearing a mask helps protect everyone, not just yourself.   If everyone just agreed to wear a mask, positive cases would go down and we could open more things, and DO more things.   But alas, they don’t see THAT side of freedom.  How this became an issue, I’ll never comprehend.

I had an argument with that group where I didn’t pull any punches. We each think the other sound insane. I’m an anti-freedom bully and they are idiots for not taking things seriously. It was an argument that could have basically nuked that friendship.  I was devasted to be honest, and figured I wouldn’t talk to them again.  They are genuinely good people, and they have helped me stay somewhat sane through this whole thing.  I figured it was over, and it crushed me.

Yet, the next day, they invited me to play online like we do most days and I accepted.  I figured I would get an earful, but we just played video games and enjoyed each other’s company.  We didn’t talk about our argument at all, and it hasn’t been mentioned since.  I’m going to keep it that way, because I need as many ties to sanity and good people as I can find right now.  I just won’t be visiting them in person.

I still disagree with their stance, and today smacked me in the face with another reason why.

As I work in the large convention industry, those shows have all been shut down.  No one is gathering in large crowds.  Even so, the Texas State Fair was one we thought might happen.  We have clients that go to that, it’s outdoors, it might work.   Well today it was canceled.  This basically canceled a piece of revenue that could help keep us afloat as this thing keeps going. It also hammers home the message that we will not be doing a big convention any time soon. It also does not bode well for me, my team, or our company in general.

Make no mistake, this event was cancelled due to Texas opening up too early and people not taking precautions that they should. Whether it be social distancing or masks, you could see people crowding bars and pools and beaches like nothing ever happened.  They wanted to feel normal again, which trust me, I feel intensely too, but because of that the virus infected people at a much higher rate.

Because of so many people not caring about others, many more people got sick, and many things have gone back into lockdown.  That “freedom” basically forced everyone back inside, and took a huge shit on all the industries out there that were hoping for some semblance of normal this year.  Those people basically shot themselves and the country in the foot.

Something as simple as wearing a mask, not gathering in large crowds and social distancing would make it so way more things could open, but instead, things have regressed to record levels.  Freedom indeed.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t document a few other things for posterity.  Trump’s Tulsa rally was a bust, despite his boasts of millions of ticket requests.  Protests still persist, but for some reason it doesn’t make the news anymore. I guess we solved racism.  [sigh]

It has also come out that the president was briefed that Russia had paid Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan bounties to kill American soldiers and the president did nothing. I mean he lied and said he was never told, then said it wasn’t credible etc. etc. It’s his typical deflection bullshit. Even after he was briefed months ago, he was lobbying for Russia to join the G7 again.  I still don’t know how anyone can support that evil idiot.  But hey those are the folks that think COVID is a hoax, so this is all going to go on for way longer than it should have.

So just remain vigilant, please.  Protect yourself and the ones you love. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Whether you believe it or not, we are ALL in this together. And we can only get out if people take it seriously. 

I’m just afraid not enough people do.