Wow in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

I was surprised as hell last night when Victoria came over. It was zero percent sexual. In fact, she helped me walk the dog, helped me clean the kitchen, helped me cook, and watched TV with me. Very much… friendly, bordering on the domestic there. But as she left there was a moment of sadness in me. In the last 4 days, I was lucky enough to get to see her for a total of 18 hours. That’s more than I’ve seen anyone non-directly-blood related to me almost all year. The only exception being MBFITWW. And considering that she is a wife and mother… I feel like my benefit was their detriment. But more? I know that it is going to be “awhile” before I see her again. Best case scenario, I’ll see her again next Wednesday. But she said that she might not be able to make it. Which is fine. Honestly. She’s spent A LOT of time with me and she needs to do what she needs to do. But it is a reminder, I suppose. If I don’t see her next week and I do have a jury trial start on the 15th… I won’t see her again until October. And October 1, I have a strong chance of a Jury Trial again… which would push seeing her back to October 16. That’s over 6 weeks. And so the possibility that I may not see her again for 6 weeks… got me kind of sad.

That being said… I’m a little bitch because apparently, I still need to actually hear that people want me to be alive. I haven’t been sleeping with my CPAP lately. Victoria noticed that it wasn’t set up on Tuesday and asked me about it on Wednesday. I confessed that I hadn’t been using it. But had no good reason for that. She followed up with the expected response of reminding me that the CPAP was doctor-ordered because I stop breathing in my sleep which could become fatal. I don’t know WHY I need other people to validate me like that. But I admit that I do. It’s ridiculous but you encounter what I do every day and… honestly, you start to wonder if people would actually care if you disappeared. Intellectually, I know they would. My parents would be devastated. My family would be heartbroken. My friends would all say something palliative like, “It’s a shame we couldn’t have had more time.” I know these things. But none of that, and none of them, are part of my daily life. In all reality, I could be missing for more than 10 days before anyone realized that I wasn’t accounted for. So that’s a thing.

I may also be a bit more downtrodden today because I woke up with pain issues again. Two days in the same week means something. AND, no it isn’t because I was drinking (I wasn’t last night). So I’m going to blame the weather. And the fact that I need about 10 hours of sleep a night and usually only get about 6 or less.

Also today is already shaping up into another stupid day.
COVID (because what else) has significantly interrupted our normal course of action. So what was a busy day with over a dozen hearings and 3 trials has been reduced to a bloody 90 minute phone call going over a list and establishing whether the criminal defendant even bothered to call in or not. That’s the whole bloody day (based on court schedule). Of course, since this is a Thursday morning… every phone in the office is lighting up like a Contest Call Line. Every unrepresented citizen with a traffic ticket: “So what do you mean I have to pay the ticket or go to court?” Repeat ad infinitum. Sodding… children.
In personal matters, I need to nip over to the doctor today to fix an insurance issue. For some reason, the County switched plans wildly without sending us our insurance cards, so my Sexual Health Check was sent to the previous insurers instead of my current insurers. So I have to fix that.

Then as far as my evening? Default to factory settings. Pick up dog poop. Walk the Dog. Clean. Prep boxes to pack for Nancy. Sleep.
Friday- work is entirely “prep shit because you don’t know if you’ll need it now or in seven months, but you’ll need it at some point.” Then a Roll20 game that night.
This weekend, among more cleaning and packing, I need to learn how to sew. The couch is in desperate need of repair and some of my suit jackets are starting to fray, rip, or tear. Not to mention I could stand to buy more clothes for myself… at some point. I’m also still hoping that my current body isn’t “what I’m stuck with” as exercise and diet are still important things in my life. To that end, I think I’m going to print out and post a WEIGHT LOG in my bathroom. A way of charting, daily, my weight fluctuations and if I’m succeeding at all.

In all honesty- I should be in a more chipper mood. Some of my friends from Des Moines that I haven’t seen all year are stopping by on Sunday. And while it will be good to see these friends again (after all, these are good people who even visited me in Omaha) the length of time this time and everything that’s gone on… it just… it already feels like meeting up with strangers. The last time we hung out, I was a new home owner with a puppy and a wife. Now I’m… well, what I have become. I’m sure it will be fine but… I already feel a kind of chasm between us all. They’ve stayed in Des Moines… full access to all the options and opportunities I grew up with, living lives of varying degrees of difficulty but always having a large number of people and friends nearby. My life took a very different turn. Instead of being able to go to a different restaurant every night or do a thousand errands in two hours… I’m in a place where even just going to the bank is an hour long drive. I don’t know. I’m hoping this is simply my pain souring my mood and things will be perfectly fine on Sunday. Here’s hoping. And then Monday! Monday which I can only assume will be a day where I ask Nancy if she can/wants to come over to start packing and going through things but which, I’m almost positive, she’ll say that she’d rather spend time with her boyfriend and his kids. And I’ll continue to pack up the life that she didn’t care enough about. Putting her things in boxes and making a list of items with question marks wondering… is this going, staying, or what’s the deal?

Frankly… like so many of us… I think I just… need to go Resident Evil Coma. Like… I don’t care if when I wake up, Raccoon City is under siege by unstoppable zombie hoards… I’m just tired of sitting here, watching it happen slowly, with the full backing and support of my own government.

Iowa is not doing OK

Everyone wants to talk about Portland, no one is talking about what a huge failure Iowa is

Popular rhetoric in conservative media posits that Democratic-run cities are doing poorly. But let me tell you about the red state of Iowa.

Things are not OK in Iowa.

Iowa has the fastest growing number of COVID-19 cases per capita in the nation. And congratulations. It takes a state full of negligent leaders to achieve this important honor.

First goes to Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has led with metrics and data. By which I mean, a manipulation of and complete denial of metrics and data.

Turns out, the state has been backdating positive cases. And apparently, our state epidemiologist knew about this “glitch” but still used that faulty data to push for schools to reopen in person. Also, the data is still not adding up. Calling this a glitch is like calling the Bay of Pigs a small misunderstanding among friends.

The reality is, the state knowingly used bad data to push to send kids and teachers to schools. And now, schools are opening and immediately being forced to close and move online because of outbreaks. But we don’t even know how many, because schools aren’t required to report that information.

For months, the state has been refusing to release specific Test Iowa data, saying they don’t have it, which doesn’t seem right. Both Utah and Nebraska, which have the same testing program as Iowa, have reported these numbers. Also, presumably the company in charge, Nomi Health, would have those numbers, since contractually they get all that data. Turns out, our $26 million no-bid contract, sold to us by Ashton Kutcher, didn’t get us much except an expensive magic cloak to help hide the reality of the pandemic in our state. At this point, a handful of magic beans would have been a better deal.

Also case numbers are a lagging indicator. Reynolds’ order last week, closing bars in six counties as the state impales itself on its COVID-19 spike, is just about as useful as spitting on a California forest fire. And that spit is landing back in her face, because now struggling bar owners are resisting the shutdown. If Reynolds had kept restrictions for even two more weeks, we wouldn’t be in this place.

But it’s not all the state’s fault. This is a team effort.

The University of Iowa, led by Bruce Harreld, is forcing the school to meet in person with no testing plan and bars as wide open as a derecho-ruined cornfield. Harreld, who only recently returned to Iowa from his second home, has refused to do literally anything to ensure a mass testing protocol or to enforce mask wearing or social distancing. But he did send some stern emails to students and criticized small-business owners. Sure, thanks, buddy. That ought to do it. You can’t blame him though, he’s a businessman, and they’re used to sacrificing people for profit.

But don’t miss what’s happening in Ames, the No. 1 city in America for COVID infections per capita. Iowa State University is planning a football game with 25,000 people.

At this point, a stalk of corn could run the state or our universities better. The corn might not do anything, but at least it wouldn’t be a waste of oxygen.

But we are here, and who could have predicted this except absolutely every epidemiologist in the state, who have been sounding the warning since Reynolds lifted restrictions in May.

Well, every epidemiologist except the state’s own epidemiologist, who seems to think it’s all OK. And I’m just talking COVID-19 right now. I haven’t mentioned the congressional candidate who shared a stage with a Nazi or the fact that at one point our governor hit a protester with her car and no one seems to care. Or the fact that Iowa had the equivalent of a category four hurricane blow through and it took the governor a week to ask for aid — a week of people sleeping on the streets with no help. And the president took another two weeks to send in the requested aid. Or the fact that two weeks before Ames, Iowa became the number one Covid hotspot in the nation, our actual governor was pictured there, in large groups without a mask. Oh and schools are opening in person. Did I mention that?

No, like a Midwestern mom when her daughter tries to talk about maybe majoring in English at Thanksgiving dinner, Reynolds has handled all of this with tight-lipped denials and an assurance it’s fine.

Nearly 1,200 people are dead in the state and no one is stopping it. None of this is fine.