October 12, 2020

Had to drive down to the Coliseum today. I took Seminary and passed the houses covered with Halloween decorations of pumpkins, ghosts and skeletons. Passed two ambulances pulling out of those black iron wrought gates, slow moving, no lights, just picking up the dead. Ghoulish for real.

COVID19 is moving through Oakland, killing the old, killing the vulnerable, killing a lot of people. The retirement center on High Street was reported as a hot spot, adding 30 deaths to our daily total. Staff and residents died.

Everyone out is wearing masks, but every holiday ends up with more hospitalizations. We were having groceries delivered for a long time, but I go pick them up now. And we’re ordering food out and I’m picking it up, but half of our restaurants are still closed, hopefully surviving on the COVID rescue money.

I’ll go up to Park Street and get a beer when I order at the door with the table and the masks and the hand sanitizer. I’ve finally moved to using my phone to pay for everything with the tap. Haven’t used cash dollars in months. I’ll wait, in my car for the food to be delivered to the table at the door and the cars parked next to me have other people staring at their phones, waiting, some drinking beers like we’re in the restaurant, but in our cars. It’s become so normal.

There will be a time when this is behind us, when every day we aren’t seeing so many people dying, when there’s a vaccine, when the virus mutates and just fucking goes away, but right now we’re in a pandemic and it’s a shared experience.

I’m seeing more and more people who can’t handle it. Online they’re falling victim to so much disinformation that’s encouraging them to basically die. And our President is a joke, a charlatan incapable of leading our country through this because he’s a broken child.

But we’ll do it. Until then, drinking beer in my car, then putting on the mask to pick up my food, taking it home and dressing up our presentation in the back yard at the bar with my Bird and I, makes me feel lucky. I can work from home. I have means to communicate with my friends, even though the personal is being robbed by a fucking virus right now. We will get to the other side of this. Not all of us, but most will.