Weird World

This is a completely scattershot post, a stream of consciousness ramble, plus some the pictures I wanted to save on my blog, but didn't, because I was working, and also, y'all, how to make sense of the world we're in, where nothing unfolds with any predictability, the $421 million debt the president owes taking over the news cycle one day, the horror show presidential debate the next, and then suddenly, everyone in and around the White House is dropping like flies with the covid, and orange man himself, the new covid evangelist, may well be the spreader in chief. Don't let it dominate your life, he says. Tell that to the 210,000 who have died, a number so large we can't even wrap our minds around it properly. I heard that more people have died under this president's watch than in World War I, the Vietnam War, Afghanistan and the Gulf Wars combined. And what was that scene the other night when he checked himself out of the hospital so he could stand in stage light on his balcony, posing like Mussolini while struggling for breath thanks to his covid pneumonia. I almost felt sorry for the man, with such grandiose visions of himself playing in his mind. He was ridiculous and pitiful, and I found myself taking in at a whole new level how utterly broken this human impersonator is. But enough of that, at least until I turn on the news today and get my mind blown again. 

In happier news, my son had a birthday, and he and his lovely fiance spent it just hanging out here with us. One of his friends came over later, and as this young man hugged us and took off his mask, I thought, well, I have no idea where you've been, who you've seen, and our quarantine bubble is all shot to hell anyway. Still, now I'm counting days again. Of course, my son is still out there working as a firefighter, though he's now with a ladder company, so he's seeing more fires than medical calls. I don't know whether to be happy about that. But it was a lovely low-key day, with him watching football games with his dad and sleeping on the couch for a good part of them as he'd gotten off from his overnight shift at nine that morning. Look at his sweet bald head.

What else? My girl and her guy continue to work hard and play hard, and their puppy is now the official mascot of their business school cohort group. Their section had a field day last Saturday, with egg tosses and basketball games and various other fun activities. Someone posted this picture of my girl and her dog.

As long as I'm swiping photos from social media, here's one of my niece in Dallas, doing her job as a dentist in all her PPE. Extra points for the Snoopy cap.

So the good news is I finished the book two days ago, at least the draft that we're all calling final. I'm not finished working on it of course, because now I have to do one last read from beginning to end before turning it in by Monday, and then it has to go through copy editing and the legal read, as well as first pass pages, and maybe second pass too, and I shall have to respond to edits in all those rounds. Then, there is the updating at the last minute once we know the election results, and also just how crazy the Supreme Court nomination hearings will be. I am not thinking about any of it right now. I'm looking forward to moving on to my next job, which I was supposed to have started a month ago. But first, I have a Zoom call in a few minutes with my subject, her comms director, and her agent, to go over and choose photographs from her life to be included in the book, for which I will also have to write captions. It's good to have work, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. But really, though, gotta go, so forgive any incoherence and  typos. One more thing: