Corner of Bourbon & Division

Covid still sucks. I am marginally better than I was yesterday, which is something, at least. My sinuses are doing a funny thing where, if I scrunch up my eyes, they make a squeaking sound due to the lingering congestion. It's funny but also kind of annoying and uncomfortable.  I am, however, less congested than yesterday, so I am hopeful that this signals the beginning of the end of this ridiculous illness. Today marks two weeks since I started symptoms, so I am eager for this to be over. I haven't had an illness drag on this long since I had recurring bouts of bronchitis as a kid, and I am very over it.

Yes, I know, I am very lucky and privileged to have not experienced illness that lasted more than a few days before this, but I reserve the right to complain about this anyway. At least this bout of illness isn't as crazy-inducing as the several months of cervical radiculopathy I endured back in 2022, because that kept me from sleeping due to the pain, and Covid at least hasn't affected my sleep too badly. I've been a little short on deep sleep, but I've been getting a good 6 to 8 hours a night for the most part, and my CPAP provider just sent me an email earlier today telling me how great I've been doing with the therapy.

In unrelated news, I've been having a really fascinating conversation with a few people in a group on Facebook. We started out discussing a series of videos about the tradlife/wellness/crunchy granola-to-fascism pipeline, and now we've moved on to discussing copaganda. We started today with a series of clips from the original Dragnet television series, in which Joe Friday has to kill a perpetrator firing at him. I have had to dust off a lot of my analytical skills from my university days studying literature, and it's been a lot of fun, even if the subject matter is super depressing.

I've also been reminded of spending my teenaged and young adult years watching various cop shows like Law & Order, NYPD Blue, and most importantly for me, Due South (from which this icon is taken). Now, I'm under no illusion about what these shows are about and the role they play in whitewashing the police and rehabilitating their image, but I will wholeheartedly confess to really enjoying crime fiction of many kinds, from cozy mystery novels all the way to hard-boiled noir detective fiction. I like television procedurals like CSI and Criminal Minds, and spent my childhood reading Sherlock Holmes and watching all the various BBC mystery shows in which murderers are brought to justice. It's a really nice fantasy, in which cops aren't tools of the state and a mechanism of systemic oppression, and I enjoy consuming fiction about it. In reality, I am a prison abolitionist and think we should be heavily defunding police departments and investing that money into more robust social safety nets, but that doesn't mean I won't binge watch Law & Order when I'm sick. ;)

In news that is even further unrelated, India and Pakistan appear to be on the verge of nuclear war/mutually assured destruction. A couple of weeks ago there was an attack on tourists in India-administered Kashmir, and India has decided that Pakistan is responsible. So now India has "retaliated" with a series of air strikes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Pakistan itself. Pakistan has now declared the attacks "unprovoked" and has promised to retaliate in kind. The thing, of course, is that Pakistan has far less military power than India, and so the odds of them resorting to their nuclear arsenal is reasonably high if things get out of hand. Then India would likely respond in kind, and the next thing we know there's an all-out nuclear disaster in that part of the world, and the rest of us get plunged into nuclear winter.

A lot of people that I respect and who are far more intelligent and knowledgeable than me are freaking out about this, and I will confess that I can't bring myself to freak out at this point. This falls firmly into the category of "I can do absolutely fuck-all about this," and since I have no control over what happens, I don't know what to do about it. There isn't much I can do about nuclear winter, either, except starve to death along with everyone else in the Northern hemisphere. In theory I could stock up on iodine to counteract some radiation exposure, but honestly, if all of our crops and livestock get irradiated or die of cold or starvation, the iodine is a little moot. *throws up hands*

So I'm refusing to actively worry about it. Is it terrifying and worrisome? Absolutely. Will my worrying about it help the situation? Absolutely not. So, here we are. I am going to focus on what I can control, and leave it at that.

I do need to be more pro-active about contacting my federal and provincial MPs to encourage them to be more pro-active about, well, everything. I have been letting my lack of energy govern everything I do, and I need to do better on that front. I don't know how I'll manage it when I can't even pack up my own house or keep it clean, but I am not doing nearly enough to try to improve the state of the country and the world.

All righty. Work has been really busy all evening, so I'd better get back to it. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

I've had Victor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, on my to-read pile for longer than I should probably admit to in public, and I'm about halfway through now. It is a difficult read, even though he mostly doesn't go into very gruesome detail about his experiences in the camps. It just seems extra important to read it right now, as history is repeating itself.

I will have to give this book a lot of consideration in the coming weeks and months, and maybe my takeaway once I've finished reading it will be different from what it is now. So far, though, what I've come away with aside from the horrors of the concentration camps is that everyone finds their own way to survive the horrors, that everyone has to find their own meaning and work toward that.

Earlier today, Sharon Astyk posted that the US has "crossed a Rubicon." She was referring to the fact that the Trump administration has begun deliberately disobeying judicial orders. Up until recently, they were mostly kinda sorta obeying them, but now to all appearances that has gone out the window.


I was talking to my mother on the phone about all of this, and she was lamenting that some of her closest friends seem completely oblivious to everything that's going on. The two women she was referring to are both very wealthy white women, and their money and age and general privilege will insulate them against most of the bad things that might happen if Canada were to fall to military aggression by the USA. I suggested she talk to another family friend because that family is Jewish, and if there's one thing I've learned from my Jewish friends over the years, it's that every Jewish family is always on the lookout for when it's time to pack up and go.

My mother was surprised at first, but she understood and accepted my explanation that Jews have been persecuted throughout history and are therefore extremely vigilant about when the next round of persecution might start. I did caution her to tread carefully, because the last thing I want is for our Jewish friends to be accidentally even more traumatized, but I think it will be fine. My mother is unlikely to talk to them about it because I'm pretty sure she'll forget about it, and even if she doesn't forget I trust her to be reasonably tactful about it.

I should point out that my mother herself is a war refugee from World War II (or right after, in her case). She and her family had to flee her country in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on their backs and some jewelry sewn into the lining of my grandmother's coat that they might be able to sell later on. She carries that trauma with her quietly, and doesn't speak of it in terms of the terror and uncertainty and grief that was an intrinsic part of the experience. A couple of years ago we discovered some old photographs taken by my grandfather during this time, and the expression on my mother's face as well as on the faces of my uncle and grandparents, is identical to the expression I see on the faces of refugees in news reports. The look is identical and unmistakable: the trauma is universal.

So I'm not surprised that, now that we are watching the USA repeat the history of Germany leading up to World War II, that my mother is anxious about it. Hell, I'm anxious about it too, and pretty much anyone who is paying attention should be somewhere on the spectrum between anxious and panicked depending on where they live and how directly they're likely to be impacted. Right now, living in Canada, we are "safe" until the USA takes direct violent action against us, whether it be military or something else. The odds of the USA trying to annex Canada and in so doing triggering World War III are definitely not zero at this point. Honestly, if nothing else, this is teaching me a lesson about my own complacency: up until, oh, three months ago, I was convinced that it was impossible for there to ever be military action of any importance in North America. After all, Canada has only one major border, and it was with our longest-standing ally. At worst we might be collateral damage if some enemy of the US decided to launch a bunch of missiles at us. It never occurred to me that the US might turn on us. I always assumed that if there WAS a World War III, it would take place in the Middle East and probably have Israel as Ground Zero. Which would, of course, be terrible, but I wouldn't have to worry about my immediate loved ones.

Just goes to show, I guess.

It's been tough finding any mutual aid groups in my area, for obvious reasons. Mutual aid groups by their very nature kind of have to be kind of secretive because they use a diversity of tactics to make sure people get the help they need, and some of those diverse tactics are not always super legal. If nothing else, my own little group that so far is just chatting to each other on Signal is doing okay. There isn't a plan of action yet, but there's a lot of sharing of information and resources, and I think eventually when we've actually identified what the most pressing needs are, we might be able to move forward more effectively. Right now most of us are in the same boat: we're reasonably financially stable, but all of us are a few bad months away from being in a really tight spot, if not outright unhoused. So I guess it's just a matter of seeing what floats to the surface once the waters get agitated enough.

At some point this week i need to get my seeds started. It's at the point now where if I leave it too much longer I won't be have viable seedlings to plant. Putting seeds into soil will at least give me the illusion of doing something productive with my life.

Today was only semi-productive. ( Day in the life stuff )

( The USA is imploding and it's kind of terrifying. )


( Much happier news that's given me hope. )

And I think that's enough from me for today. Catch you tomorrow!

Those of you who are more recent arrivals to this LJ (i.e. less than ten years ago, ahem) may not know that I actually have crazy nutbar prepper tendencies at heart. One of the reasons I've always wanted a hobby farm is to be more self-sufficient. I don't have any delusions about rugged homesteading and becoming 100% self-sufficient, because that's just not feasible, no matter what the Libertarians would have you believe. ;) Nonetheless, being less reliant on The System(TM) has always been an aspiration of mine.

For the past five or so years, I kind of let that dream die a little. I didn't have the money to put down on a property, and after the Saga of Cruella de Froot Loops (named thusly by blackmare, actually), I kind of went into a bit of a tailspin about everything from finances to keeping the house clean to being organized about anything at all. I was a bit of a trash fire for a few years, although I did mostly keep myself from completely falling apart. During this time I stopped all of the "emergency prep" I used to engage in, and actually made my way through my stash of food *right before* the pandemic hit, because of course. The one time I could have used an emergency stash. I had to laugh about that one, because the irony was THICK. I also didn't engage in any kind of gardening, because my yard is tiny and it's mostly just been where the dogs go to do their business. I kept telling myself that where I was living was "temporary" and that I'd be buying a house "soon," and here we are five years later, and I am still renting the house I had to move into in a rush and which still doesn't really feel like home.

I was hoping to purchase a small property in 2020, and we all know how that turned out. I have a small hope that maybe this year will be the year I can do it, but it will depend a lot on whether the housing market will have calmed down enough that I can afford what I want. I have only my income to depend on for a mortgage, plus the down payment I've been saving for (which is okay but not as much as I'd like it to be), and while my salary is decent (more than many, but rather less than the median salary in Canada), the price of real estate is far outstripping the buying power of a single salary these days. If I were a much handier person, it might be worth buying a fixer-upper and putting some sweat equity, but I don't exactly have the skills for that at this point, and my plans at the beginning of 2020 to learn all about carpentry and home renovation got scuttled HARD by the pandemic). I'd likely be biting off more than I can chew, given that I have pretty limited amounts of energy on my days off work, and I don't think KK would enjoy living in a house that's one giant reno project.

This whole subject is never far from my mind, but it has been weighing on me especially heavily since the pandemic hit. I have been acutely aware of how vulnerable we are, especially in urban centres. I have no energy alternatives other than the grid. I am pretty much entirely reliant on the current supply chain for everything from toilet paper to dog food to clothing to fresh vegetables. I have a single rain barrel in my back yard which is currently frozen solid, so no reliable water source other than city plumbing.

I have been watching the beginnings of the Omicron variant wave with mild alarm, is the short version.( Dooooooom... )

Like the title of my post says, it's not all doom and gloom. In spite of the above rant, I am actually cautiously optimistic about this coming year. I have plans to try to pay down my debt, maybe finally buy the property I've always wanted, and to learn new skills. I want to learn to spin (wool, not the exercise), and some basic carpentry, and to start thinking about planting a vegetable garden again (although I keep hesitating about starting seeds, because what if I move in the summer and have to leave it half done?). I take great delight in my dogs (although KK informs me that Pixie peed in her car on the way home from doggie daycare today, oops), and am really looking forward to doing more training with them this year.

I think that we're mostly going to make it through all of this terribleness, although not all of us will, and not all of us will come out unscathed even if we do make it. I worry about my friends and my family, and I worry about society at large, too. In all the scenarios I had envisioned in the past, it honesltly never occurred to me that I would have to keep going to the office during the apocalypse. ;)

It kind of reminds me of this:


On that note, dear friends, I will leave you for tonight. In the words of R.E.M.: The world serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs. Be well. <3

It's 2012, year of the apocalypse! Or whatever. I don't know about you, but I'm excited.

I haven't checked the Mayan calendar to figure out the exact date that the world is supposed to end, but that's okay. I figure it ought to be a surprise, don't you?

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to a quiet year. 2011 was a year of lots of stuff happening, most of it good but all of it kind of stressful nonetheless. So I want 2012 to be a year of quiet time, of settling into the new house and getting into some routines. I'm going to try a bunch of new things, but all of them small, local new things.

One thing I want to do this year is reconnect with my friends. What with my schedule and all the upheaval last year, I didn't see people as often as I wanted to. So here's to spending more time with friends and keeping in touch. I'm going to be posting here more regularly, and making a conscious effort to read my friends' page every day instead of once every few weeks when I remember that this LJ actually exists. LJ has always been my main source of news and what have you for my friends, and it's past time I started using it again.

So Happy New Year again, everyone! I look forward to spending a lot more time with you again this year. :)

You know what I would really miss in a post-apocalyptic SHTF scenario? Modern pharmaceuticals. Specifically painkillers.