break time 2020

Seattle Electric

busysmartypants is taking this week off to breathe and rest and catch up on some reading.

After feeling some hope--there's a vaccine! people in my town are actually getting shots--it feels like real progress is still lurking a ways off.

More vaccine shipments are delayed both here and in other states. On purpose? Simple mismanagement? And someone dies every minute.

My houseless neighbors were forcibly removed from the park. AGAIN. With brute power and dozens of police and days of low-flying helicopters and arrests. It feels like the neighborhood is being punished. I don't understand why we can't do better for our citizens. Does the mayor think people are living in tents in the park with no toilets because it's fun? I just don't understand. 

The Current Occupant's delusions continue and are increasingly scary. 

And not incidentally, drivers are harried and careless and now that we have wet, rainy streets and sidewalks I feel as though I'm cheating death every time I step into a crosswalk. 

*

Take some time for yourself!

Do yoga.

Meditate.

Read.

Stare at the sky. Or at the ocean.

See you in a few.

she's speaking

 Seen on Westlake Avenue. Artist unknown.

Don't let anyone steal ya joy. Missy Elliott

 

I'm speaking. Kamala Harris

yes, more signs of the times

Seen on my gallivanting around town.

The Woods

Rain City Fitness for the win

 

small talk is big talk

I stopped at the co-op this morning and the clerk seemed distant. It's hard to tell these days--we're all in masks and I'm trying not to step too close but also put in my debit card and throw groceries into my bag while keeping my bag from touching anything near the cashier.

Anyway, they finally asked How's it going and I thought for a moment and said, It all just feels weird.

I know they were making the small talk required of clerks, it's an upscale co-op and sometimes the chipper checkers are TOO much. Usually I just nod and say Great or whatever, just to get in and out.

But I also couldn't think of a way to just lie and say Great, and move on. 

#

In a year of unprecedented and challenging times, a pandemic Christmas was another punch to the gut. I spent about 6 hours on video chats on Xmas Eve and it was so nice to hang out with friends and family and keep up traditions by watching Dina Martina's holiday special and toasting my Capricorn pal's birthday. Xmas Day was a lot of driving around in a Zipcar in the rain and cold, dropping off vegetarian snacks at my sibling's and saying a quick masked outdoor hello, another stop to gift dog treats in a friend's back yard and another cold masked outdoor hello, and then sloshing home to shower, drink water and open up a few gifts alone.

I know it's what we need to do. I try to accept the loneliness and sadness and anger. It's hardest when I hear from younger family members that they're feeling the loneliness and sadness too. Or from friends who've gotten sick or whose livelihoods--art, dining, drinking, music--are dead. When I see houseless neighbors slumped in doorways or at bus stops. I can take it--I know hardship and pain quite well--but I want better days for those who have been hit hardest.

And, if I'm honest, I want revenge on all of the selfish, venal, criminal, hypocritical American politicans who have made this much MUCH harder and deadlier than it needed to be. Karma is a bitch, and I hope she hurries.

#

Anyway. The clerk at the co-op smiled under their mask and agreed. It all does feel weird.

I added, I think I'm running out of words. 

They nodded. I keep trying to explain to my partner how small talk with customers has changed. No one knows how to talk about--this.

I can't even imagine how small talk has evolved over the pandemic, I said, thinking, I wish there was a way to find out, what a fascinating story. Nodding to the clerk, I took my receipt. Well, I hope you have a good day.

They nodded back, eyes crinkling. Please take care of yourself. 

It was a brief moment of feeling understood and connected, between two strangers. It was small but for this morning, it felt like enough.

i don't know her

My 2020 writing project has been all-consuming. I'm not done yet, probably not even close, but it's taking me pretty far down the old memory lane. I'm reading things I wrote decades ago, when I had no one but my sisters to talk to or confide in or learn from.

It's like reading someone else's writing.

I was hilarious, sometimes.

Deep.

Petty.

Sometimes heart breakingly desperate to escape.

 

 

yes/no person

I don't think of myself as a yes person.

OK OK I'm a contrarian, I freely admit it.

That said, these are tough times and I'm trying to keep kindness front and center. To others, and to myself.

This whole idea of "we're in the same boat," though. The toxic positivity folks.

Nope. 

That ain't it, not now, not for me. Not even close.

I'm lucky, in so many ways, and I'm struggling. Like most people I know.

This week I checked in with two white ladies of a certain age, former co-workers and people I know (knew) to be educated, kind, and generally well-off. 

One chided me for asking if she was "hanging in there." She hoped we were doing better than that! Life was pretty good. She's been ordering takeout. Her daughter adopted kittens.

The second spent a long time talking shit about diversity training (all they focused on was black people, she complained). And Trump voters ("those people"). I said that those people were my family, and while I disagree with them--vehemently--I also despair. I feel sadness. I feel kindness. I don't know what has happened.

Maybe the I'm fine/you be fine mentality is a kind of protection. If I'm not fine/you're not fine then there are bigger questions to ask.

And I think there ARE bigger questions to ask. 

Let's not stop asking them. 

more signs of the times

As we close in on the end of this scabrous year, the door signs around town are getting funnier. 

Have we given up? Given in?

what a time to be alive

Per the Washington Post on Saturday, only 25 Republicans (out of 249 polled), would say on the record that Joe Biden won the 2020 US Presidential election. I'm linking through Complex in case you don't have a Wapo account.

Profiles in courage, as always. 

It baffles me. Boggles the mind. It doesn't seem accidental nor does it seem cowardly. It's a choice. A decision. It's treasonous, really. 

*

I also read the live chats on the Post website. On Fridays, Carolyn Hax hosts what's billed as an advice chat and it is, but it's sensible, thoughtful, funny advice (I guess as opposed to what I perceive as the Ann Landers/Miss Manners corporate advice business). Reading Hax is like a conversation with a wise friend. In the December 4 chat, a person wrote in about living alone and working from home during pandemic times, and how their friends no longer check in on them and how very alone they feel. 

Then another a-loner wrote in. And another. Soon there was a flurry of posts.

Busysmartypants is one of those a-loners. It is a lonely time. I try to stay busy with work, writing, mutual aid projects and online hangouts. I try to check in regularly on my other lone friends--a quick text or meme or e-mail, sometimes an actual greeting card--and am happily surprised on the rare occasion someone checks in on me, too. 

There is a mental health toll that will be paid on the other side of this pandemic/political nightmare in which we live. Especially for Americans.

we don't need the state to help each other

 

#mutualaid

legendary library

 I can't say much for my own city during these dark days.

The mayor seems incapable of governing, rich whitefolk in my neighborhood sport "Black Lives Matter" right beside "Recall Sawant" signs, and who knows when Pony or The Blue Moon or Neumos will be able to safely re-open.

That said, my old friend the library--the Seattle Public Library--has been a beacon of solace, learning, and community. Last week SPL hosted "Legendary Children," a night of drag, trans and queer artists' performances. What a treat.

The other day, I saw this sign outside the Capitol Hill branch, offering restroom services. It made me proud. And also beyond mad, that we still have houseless folks in this extremely rich city, people living outside and using a public toilet during a pandemic. To our everlasting shame.

 

sunday beachday

Last week a pal and I gallivanted to Camano Island. 

Mindful of the pandemic, I rented a car for the day, wiped it down with handiwipes and masked up. We hit the road and diverted off I-5 at Marysville, for a beautiful drive through the Tulalip Reservation, with no stops until I spied a "Bakery" sign just over the border into Island County at Camano Commons. 

When I say I may have had the best oat/raspberry jam scone of my life, I am not exaggerating. A light, oaty pastry, with a well of tangy sweet jam. Wow.

After another drive, we stopped at Cama Beach State Park, paid the park fee, and spent the next hour or so wandering the cold, rocky beach, giveing the few other beachcombers a wide berth. A seal popped up in the Sound, fur sparkling, to have a look at us. 

I stood for a long time just watching the tide lap in.

It was a peaceful, satisfying jaunt.

living life on camera (or, donald duck-ing it)

As I noted, this has been a holiday of alone-ness, quick outdoor hello's and virtual gatherings. 

I don't like it much, but it's what we need to do. The Capricorn within doesn't allow for much wallowing in sadness although I had a moment on Thursday where I looked out at the misty morning and felt so sad not to be rushing to my sister's place, laden with food and drinks and looking forward to the festivities. The Zoom account I invested in back in March has gotten a real workout, for better or worse. 

• A pre-pre Friendsgiving hangout with California pals, admiring their dog and laughing about "donald duck-ing" it on work video calls 
  
• Shared a Thanksgiving Eve happy hour with great friends, raising a glass to a dearly departed kitty, giggling that 5 out of 6 out of us were wearing plaid shirts (sooooo PNW) and then 6 out of 6 when that person ran to fetch plaid; and one late arrival logging on through a vocoder that turned his voice into Daft Punk. 
• Thanksgiving morning with my s.o. and family, the first ever.
• Thanksgiving afternoon with my actual fam--West Coast, East Coast and Canada--catching up on the haps, and giggling through several rounds of skribbl, an online Pictionary-type game.
• A birthday chat yesterday with long-time pals
  

I hope that better days lie ahead. It's difficult to imagine them because we still have some tough times in the interim. Be safe and of good courage.