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⬅️ Previous capture (2022-01-08)
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- Heeeeeeeere's omicron. The medical professional subreddits are unhappy. They say it may be truly airborne, not just droplet, but to acknowledge it as truly airborne means PPE protocols must change and hospital management is resistant, so they are making like an ostrich and pretending otherwise. They say omicron may not be "milder" as the news is saying, and because it is so infectious, even if a smaller percentage of infected need the hospital they may have the worst surge yet, and the healthcare professionals are already done. Can't imagine how hard it must be for them. I drove past a covid testing site and the line of cars was significant, longer than I have seen it. Hey, so how about that booster shot? Scrambled around through poorly constructed websites and got spouse and I appointments right before Christmas so we'll have a few days to recover if we feel low. I thought for sure uncle sam would have stuck him but I guess govt is still busy with the first vaccinations.
What a tragedy of stupidity this is. Eight months ago I was so hopeful the worst was over when the vaccines rolled out. Then delta hit, and then delta seemed to be tapering off, and now omicron, and what do we get to look forward to after this? It's so fucking predictable and dumb. Virus doesn't care about memes and propaganda and spin, idiots. Virus gonna do what virus does. Instead of being in control, now the cosmic GM is rolling on the random encounter table - good job. I feel about the same as I did in jr high PE when some nose picker would mouth off and our whole group would have to go for a run around the track as punishment. You can do all the right smart things individually, but your fate is decided by the stubborn crowd who goes for what is most flattering for them to believe. This kind of deep helpless (magnified by the same situation in regards to politics, wages, housing, climate change/sustainability, education expenses, technology) is really damaging. What can men do against such reckless hate?
I am expecting they will cancel some of spouse's privileges and lock the trainees down in hogwarts once it really kicks up after christmas. Spouse says some of his classmates just tested positive - if you are positive and have to quarantine it is an automatic training recycle (you get booted and have to start training from the beginning). That would be devastating for us right now. I have to pick spouse up from the airport and thought maybe he could take the metro partway (because what's more fun than picking someone up at a major airport at peak rush times right before christmas), but then I remembered that public transit is probably riddled with covid so we won't be doing that. Can't take the risk. So much fun being covid paranoid again, right? We're going to see the matrix movie and I am glad I switched tickets to an unpopular screen time, but I still wonder, should we even go? :-( Ugh.
On the brighter side, it's so infectious that the wave should be compressed in timeframe. Hope it will be mostly over in late Feb when it comes time for us to move. Right now it looks like we will be shipping our stuff, selling the car, and taking a plane to Anchorage. No road trip. Our basic little economy car would get stuck in the dirt driveway at spouse's parent's house, if we didn't end up in a ditch on the way there.
Got the official word that we will be moving to Anchorage, not Fairbanks or Juneau. Big relief, many happys. Friends! A city we kinda still know! Good.
- I've been boycotting kelloggs for years now, way before it was cool. Just go low carb. All those name brand corpo packaged food products are suddenly off limits. No chips, crackers, cookies, cereals, pop tarts, candy, etc. Just go low carb and most filler convenience foods are out. Easy peasy. If I see a commercial for a food, it goes on my "do not buy" list, and I don't care if it's marketed as healthy or not. Sunchips? Out. Suja? Out. Aha? Ohno, out. If a food has an advertising budget or a mascot, management is probably invasive so fuck 'em. I revel in my expression of useless micro spite. Eat low carb, stick it to The Man! (and by extension, eat less meat, stick it to The Man.)
- Spouse came home Fri night for a solid day. Sounds like he has had a rough week. Wizard bootcamp is no joke. We saw spiderman and had hamburgers and worked on the puzzle. It's 90% done now. I bought another puzzle - once you pay attention, puzzles are available everywhere. Got this next one at TJ Maxx, of all places. I think it's because I don't like most boardgames so I just avoid the game aisle. You know when you visit a friend couple and everything's chill and then they pull out a boardgame and it's like, fuck. Oh boooooy, enforced fun. Generally I like strategy based games and fucking hate "social" performance games. If it's going to force me to do a "funny" impression on cue like a dog, I hate it. Then you're stuck pretending to have fun, wondering if everyone else is pretending to have fun, and if this is just some sort of horrible group obedience enforcement exercise. I used to cooperate and play, but then someone forced "cranium" on me and now I tell people flat I am just not a game person. I know it sucks to rain on their parade because they invested in the game. Some people think because I like to roleplay that I would also like various wacky improv styled games and the answer is NO. I think it's the competitiveness? Nobody's judging you on a scorecard when you roleplay. Anyway, puzzles are stocked with the board games. Puzzles are good. Puzzles are cooperative and there's no winner/loser divide. Like, for instance, if I invited people over and had a table with a puzzle dumped on it, there's zero pressure, it's just a mental fidget toy. So the next puzzle is actually 4 smaller puzzles, 3 - 300 piece puzzles and a 500 piece. Puzzle appetizers, easy to complete in a sitting. The art is nice, I think spouse will like them.
- I think when we get back to Alaska I want to start an artist/creative-focused mutual aid group. Mutual aid groups are typically about distributing food and disaster cleanup and helping with homeless - bigger issue, important stuff. I think of things like building housing or providing food and medical aid to protesters. Black Panther Party and their pancake breakfasts. While those things are certainly much needed, it's so out of my wheelhouse I wouldn't even know how to begin to make myself useful. I'd have to join an established group as another pair of hands and while that's valuable, it doesn't play to my strengths. But. I'd been thinking about starting an urban sketch group or some kind of low pressure "come as you are" art/craft group, and I realize it could be extended into a sort of material/skill swap, or a way to find someone to share a craft booth with, or a network of creatives to potentially source from when important issues need attention, or a way to share news of different creative community events that don't get widely advertised.
The big problem with Alaska has always been, there's super creative things going on, but if you aren't in the right circle you will never hear about it. Long-time Alaskans have built up their network, and they've seen so many newcomers arrive and move on that they don't try to cater to people who might be gone in a winter or two. And then the individual city/village is its own closed circle and it's tough to crack the shell. Because who lives in Alaska? Introverts. Hardcore introverts. Introverts limited by distance and sometimes internet access.
So I'm thinking when I go back to Alaska, maybe I can start building a low tech network of creatives and help foster the flow of news and info that will aid independent creatives so we can be more visible in the larger community, and offer some organized aid to projects that need it. Plus it just grinds you down, being a creative with no community, nobody to ask for advice or help or a little backpat now and then.
I don't want to build an online gallery or anything with a lot of data (host images/videos), that's for suckers. But perhaps event listings, a newsletter, a gift guide in November? Text based stuff? Maybe a hardcopy zine? I missed the boat on zines, never made one. But Alaska might still be a zine place. I want lightweight, web 1.0 presence and a focus on face-to-face, real connection.
Lots of hoops to jump through between now and then, but I think that is the angle. I'm pondering it. I realize I am not very good at friendships. I think I say I want friends because it's a default thing to say, but what I really want is more professional connections with fellow creators. I want people on the same vibe wavelength, but operating independently in their own niche. Like I don't need someone to go to the movies with, or complain to about household stuff. I got no kids, so that's a big void where a lot of people would want to find connection via parenting chitchat or schools or whatever. I just have nothing to say about progeny, unless you count creative projects as progeny. But that can be a positive because I have spare resources that a parent would invest in their child.
I think there's something there I can contribute to and grow. It's a great excuse to go out and meet different people and see what's out there, because it's not about what's useful to me specifically, but what's useful to the community and filling that "go-between" role. I have hoarder vibes anyway, this is just information and contact hoarding.
I remember the married couple that organized the free life drawing class that I used to attend at the anchorage library. Looks like one lives in upstate NY now and the other splits his time between AK and NY. I wonder if I can write her and pick her brain. I bet she knows stuff.
I think a creative focused mutual aid group could amplify the positive energy in people who tend toward isolation by necessity. Art is one of those things that is both worthless and priceless depending on the timing and the voice and the viewership. One voice alone can be drowned out, but many voices together is a choir. I think it could be a valuable, unexpected resource if tapped. And Alaska is a great place to try something like this because people already feel like their voice is absent from the mainstream, and they have the burden of being remote and limited by bandwidth. I don't think it would be realistically possible here on the east coast. People are too tied into the traditional establishment here. People are too trained to get permission from approved channels. I don't think I could get any traction here if I tried. But Alaska thrives on that scrappy DIY fringe vibe. I think there's a reason why Alaska was one of the first states to legalize marijuana and recently got ranked choice voting. Without the stranglehold of the establishment, we have a bit more freedom to actually change. Which can make us pioneers and leaders in unexpected ways, even if we wear the "red state" badge.
Pretty happy about going back to Alaska. Things to look forward to. Just have to survive getting there.
- Grey project is going alright. I am about to start the second phase. So far good success with the first phase, but it took longer to get to second phase than I thought. I am a little bummed because I'm going to have leftover supplies and I'm going to end up trashing them. I wish I could bag it up and give it to someone who could use it, but it would be an unnecessary risk for maybe $15 worth of stuff. What am I gonna do, post on craislist about free technically-legal paraphernalia? I can't move with it - this is a one time thing for me that I can only do while spouse is off at wizard bootcamp. I am annoyed with uncle sam's laws. If the grey project ends up being a positive thing for me I am going to be even more annoyed. I really dislike that I am going to have to keep this a secret, but, shit, what else is new. I always keep secrets.
- My hard lemonade actually came out good. I thought I'd ruined it because I didn't bottle it on time. I ended up adding more plain sugar than the recipe called for because it was very very tart, and I guess the extra sugar boosted fermentation or something, because it was ready sooner than expected. I've no idea how the alcohol content turned out - the hydrometer doesn't seem to work how I think it works and watching some youtube videos is probably in my future because the book I was following has a very brief description. Also, I got the hydrometer but it didn't come with the beaker thing to put it in and I didn't realize I needed one (wasn't on the supply list), so substituting something else has been a pain. Don't get a hydrometer without the measuring cylinder, folks. They seem expensive on amazon for what they are and I haven't been interested in going on another drive to the brewing supply store to fetch one. Anyway, the hard lemonade is tasty and not a fail.