The PVP Diaries #38

In the comments, susaninseattle1 left me this gem yesterday, saying, “I don’t know its provenance so can’t give it accurate attribution, however, thought the parody of our guv oddly satisfying.”

‘We have a 4 phase plan to reopen the state. The plan will be a phased plan that we will plan to utilize in phases. The phases will be planned and the planning will be phased. We will move quickly and slowly to open but remain closed. I have created a staff of staffers who will plan the phase and planning while phasing their phases. And that is our re-opening plan.’

There’s nothing odd about that sense of satisfaction, Susan. It’s the only healthy reaction. Hell, Inslee probably thinks it’s funny. He’s gotta be getting tired of hearing himself speak by now, constantly rolling out platitudes in an effort to placate a state full of career internet commenters. I remember an Inslee presser where he talked about 5 or so “buckets of data,” each one of those having other buckets within it. It reminded me of my last job, being in meetings with civilians from The Air Force Weather Agency, rolling my eyes at all the committee-speak that they seemed to invent anew each time they came to town.

In of my earliest posts I talked about all the people saying that life will never be the same again. That the world is permanently changed and COVID-19 will forever influence the way we do things. I still don’t agree in the least. We’re elastic. The threat will pass (has passed, let’s face it), and the surviving businesses will succeed or fail based on the same criteria as before. The masks will come off, the distances will be closed between us and we’ll complain again about technology keeping us too far apart. Loans will be granted and denied, college degrees won’t mean any more or less (if less is even possible), racism and sexism will still be conjured out of thin air and deployed like paratroopers wherever someone wants something that he or she hasn’t earned. People who lost jobs during the lockdown will still go through the process of resumes and interviews in order to find new ones.

The only place that Coronavirus will live on is in the tiresome conversations of people who didn’t get the apocalypse they were hoping for. The people who only derive self-worth from pontificating about the tragedies they’ve survived; whose identities are so enmeshed with politics and social media that they can only communicate in buzzwords and memes. They’ll be standing in a healthy world, downtown somewhere, amid bustling commerce, noise, and a complete return to normal, and still talking about the Coronavirus as a lurking threat to humanity and the future of Lululemon. “We shouldn’t let our guard down,” they’ll love to say. If you’re talking like that, your perimeter’s already been breached; you never got your guard up in time to begin with.

………

The dig continues apace:

Yesterday, wonder of wonders! my kids both came out and helped. Like, actually helped. Each one grabbed a shovel and spent a solid half hour out there doing good work. I didn’t ask them to; my daughter just came out and started digging, then The Boy joined in. Eventually he felt the joy of swinging the pick into the earth, and only stopped when he could barely lift it anymore. I figure  2 or 3 more days and I should be able to put down the gravel base, if I can find someone to deliver it. I reached out to the local fellow last week, but he hasn’t gotten back to me.  Maybe by Mother’s Day it’ll be looking like something.

………

No “Homeless in Coronafornia” update today. He messaged me from a computer in a Motel 6 lobby yesterday, saying that his phone was stolen. Theft is SOP among the homeless, and he’s been victimized countless times over the years. I don’t guess that a few months of Coronavirus lockdown is going to permanently change anything about that situation, either. But by all means, tell me about your all-new, post COVID world.

— Phase your buckets carefully, Comrade Citizen! —