There are a whole lot of conspiracy theories circulating about the coronavirus. There are so many different things to address that trying to squeeze them all into one blog would be a tedious endeavor, so I’m going to do this in parts and give each piece of the puzzle the thorough examination it requires.
One thing is becoming crystal clear as time passes and evidence mounts: Some of the conspiracy theories have truth tangled up in them. There is definitely something shady going on. There are multiple cover-ups, and seemingly baffling decisions by world leaders, and I don’t mean Trump. Trump knows nothing and he is not now, nor has he ever been a world leader. I would say Trump is just as clueless as the rest of us, but it’s painfully clear he is far more clueless than most of us. I do mean the American Government. I do mean China. We’ll get into specifics later.
There are multiple things we need to examine when looking at the current COVID-19 outbreak and the response, or lack of response, to it. They are all pieces of the same puzzle. They all fit together somehow and form a picture, or a story. I don’t claim to know what that picture is. I don’t know the story, and I don’t expect to solve this. I’m just some guy, okay?
Someone will solve this, and then it will all click. We’ll know it when we see it. I’ve read a whole lot from people who think they’ve got it all solved, but I don’t think I’ve seen the truth yet. I know I for sure don’t believe that there is a signal embedded in 5G which will activate a chip we all have injected unknowingly through a mandated vaccine to turn us all into mindless automatons. That’s not the kind of thing I’m going to be focused on here. I’m not going to focus on any kind of theory about what exactly is going on. For now, I just want to examine the individual pieces.
Full disclosure: I am not an epidemiologist. I’m not a virologist. I am not a microbiologist. I’m not a biologist of any kind. I’m not even a scientist. I’m not a doctor. What I am is a writer, and a researcher. My day job relies heavily on research. I spend my days at work finding, aggregating, and analyzing data until I have a clear picture of what’s going on.
One thing we’ll be looking at is the numbers, the data, the reporting, total numbers of cases, total death count, mortality rate of COVID-19 vs. Influenza in any given year, with special attention given to the 2020 flu season. We’ll be looking at the claims that the numbers are too low, and we’ll be looking at claims that the numbers are inflated.
Another thing we’ll be looking at is the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Top epidemiologists claim that it couldn’t have come from a lab. That statement, on it’s own, is suspicious. Scientists don’t usually speak so definitively, and when they do, it’s a red flag. You can always trust the science. You cannot always trust a scientist, or even a group of them. I don’t want to come off like some kind of climate denier. My point is that the data is out there to look at.
I’m going to fully examine the response, or lack of response of the American Government concerning testing. This lockdown was supposed to be temporary while we got testing measures in place. That hasn’t happened. Our government keeps giving us bogus answers why while other countries seemingly have testing under control.
Another piece of the puzzle is the confusion around the medicines and treatment. There is some really suspicious stuff happening with Hydroxychloroquine and Remdesivir.
We’ll be looking at strange deaths that may or may not be coincidence.
And by the time I’m finished examining all those pieces, I’m sure I will have found more pieces to look at. I can’t stop falling down this rabbit hole, and it keeps looking curiouser and curiouser …
There are three women I know of now whose name is pronounced Tar-uh Reed. Tara Reid is an actress who starred in the Sharknado franchise. Tara Reed is an artist and designer. She designed my favorite coffee mug. And now I’ve learned that there is a Tara Reade, who used to work for Joe Biden.
When I heard about the allegation that Tara Reade made against Joe Biden, I was deeply disturbed. Were Biden’s hands on shoulders, close-ear talking, hair petting, and hugs something more than just an overly-affectionate guy with boundary issues and a lack of understanding of personal space? It had always looked uncomfortable, but innocent, to me. And, if it’s innocent, I find it strangely endearing, despite the fact that I don’t personally like to be touched by strangers.
He’s not just overly familiar with females. For every picture of Joe Biden petting a little girl’s hair, there’s another of him with his arms around a man, gazing into his eyes, or practically kissing his ear. I could do a Google image search and come up with some pretty compelling visual evidence that Joe Biden is in love with several men. He’s not. At least, I don’t believe so. Some people are huggers. And Joe Biden is a hugger extraordinaire.
I think the world no longer tolerates that, but I also think it is both innocent and changeable behavior. Unlike Trump, Biden does have some sense of self-awareness, can listen to criticism, and make changes.
I’ll be honest: I really don’t want the allegations to be true. I do have that bias, and I will freely admit it. I always have that bias. No matter who it is. Like any regular person, I don’t want sexual assault to happen. I would hope we all have that bias. I hope that none of us would wish a woman had been sexually assaulted so we could have some ammunition against a political opponent. But I know better. There are plenty of people who really hope Biden did exactly what Reade says he did. And we all know it does happen, of course.
Tara Reade’s story, when I first heard it, sounded credible. In a public, yet deserted hallway, Biden pinned her to a wall, groped her, kissed on her, and asked if she wanted to go somewhere else. When she reacted negatively, he said, “Come on, Man, I heard you liked me.” Shit. That sounds like Joe Biden, I can hear him saying that. So, it sounds bad. I agree that we should listen to women. We should take them seriously. We should look into their allegations and dig until we find the truth. I let other people do the investigative journalism. I found their articles, checked their sources and compiled a pretty decent collection of truths that form a pretty cohesive picture.
Here’s the truth that I have found:
In 2009, Reade wrote an article commending Biden’s work on the Violence Against Women act. The same year, she wrote another article claiming that she’d left DC because her husband had received a job offer to manage a Congressman’s campaign in the Midwest, and she’d moved with him.
From late 2016 to early 2017, she had a Twitter account using her newly married name, Tara McCabe. She used this platform to praise Biden on multiple occasions. She retweeted him saying, “My old boss speaks truth. Listen.” This Twitter account also featured a lot of anti-Russia, anti-Putin sentiment.
Then, in 2018, she writes in an Op Ed for Medium which praises Russia and Putin, that she left Washington because she “saw the reckless imperialism of America and the pain it caused through out the world,” and because she loved Russia with all her heart. In this article she describes Putin as a “compassionate, caring, visionary leader.”
She wrote several pro-Russia, pro-Putin articles during this time, gushing over him, saying, “President Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness. His sensuous image projects his love for life, the embodiment of grace while facing adversity. It is evident that he loves his country, his people and his job … President Putin’s obvious reverence for women, children and animals, and his ability with sports is intoxicating to American women … And like most women across the world, I like President Putin… a lot, his shirt on or shirt off.”
Then in 2019, she’s all in for Bernie Sanders. She wrote another article, with yet a different reason for leaving, this one with the harassment allegation attached. "Then, I went to Senate personnel for help. No one helped me. I resigned or I would say, I was forced to resign.” The report she says she filed doesn’t seem to exist.
When she started attacking Biden publicly, she also resumed denouncing Putin. Putin was bad again. When the media dug up her old articles praising Putin, she deleted them. Too late, of course. They can no longer be found where they were originally published, but copies were made. She now claims they were part of a novel she was writing that was set in Russia. They were clearly op-eds, not notes for a novel. No novelist I know of publishes their novel notes as op-eds while they’re working on the book.
There are a whole lot of other inconsistencies, people she says she told about the incident denying any knowledge, her brother pointedly changing his story, an old neighbor of hers coming forward to say she wouldn’t trust a word Reade says, and countless other glowing red flags. But this blog is already so very long, and I haven’t even gotten to the meat of what I want to talk about yet. This has all just been background, the evidence I followed to form my theory of what is going on with this. And I want to get it down before I read it somewhere else.
I’ve got a theory! It could be Russia!
Okay, hear me out. Here’s what I think might have happened:
Sometime in late 2017 or early 2018, Reade somehow becomes involved in communications with Russia, a political operative, maybe even someone in the government. Hell, perhaps even Putin himself, a highly unlikely prospect, of course. But not outside the realm of possibility. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Putin maintains a stash of burner phones and carries on flirtatiously with American Women in his spare time. It’s the stuff of spy novels, sure. Yeah, it’s far-fetched, but allow me my fantastic imaginings. I am a fiction writer, after all.
But a Russian political operative of some kind becomes romantically involved long-distance with Reade. Of course it’s not a real relationship, not on the Russian side. They are just using American citizens as sleeper agents they can prompt to stir up shit when it would cause the most damage.
Reade is manipulated to turn against Joe Biden and encouraged to back Bernie Sanders. Now, an aside at this point. I like Bernie. I would vote for Bernie, I’d love to see him as President. I don’t believe that Bernie Sanders or his campaign are involved in any collusion with the Russian government in any way, and both he and his campaign openly discourage Russian meddling. None-the-less, there still exists evidence that Russia has interfered in ways favorable to Sanders and his campaign. Russia doesn’t want Bernie Sanders as President, but some of Sanders more rabid supporters are very easily influenced by carefully placed fake news stories and are extremely useful at stirring up political infighting on the left. Alright, back to my theory.
At this time, she’s also advised to stop praising Russia, so as not to raise any suspicion. And, finally, to drop that allegation bomb on Joe Biden right when it would do the most damage. Hopefully to allow Bernie Sanders to overtake Biden for the nomination, but, failing that, at least send Joe limping into the General.
Yes. In a nutshell, I think the Tara Reade allegation is simply more Russian meddling of the same sort that has been going on all along. I think, in some form or another, she is a Russian agent. Maybe there is no spy novel romance going on. Perhaps she’s just being paid. But this whole thing stinks of Russia, and Russia’s fingerprints are all over it.
But, hey, what do I know? I’m just a fiction author with a good imagination
The virus is real. The virus is here. It is highly contagious and potentially deadly. I think we can debate about the severity and the origins of the virus later, or, we could debate it now, but while staying the hell away from each other and cutting off this thing’s lifeline.
Okay, so, it’s easy for me to have that opinion. I’m lucky. Kind of. Ish. I’ve kept my job. Kind of. Ish. My pay has actually been slashed pretty badly. Commission has been cancelled for April and May so I’m going to be getting base pay only. Okay, yeah, I know a lot of people only get base pay and I was one of them for a very long time, and I’m lucky to have gotten anything above and beyond that. But I have been getting paid above and beyond my base pay and I’ve grown accustomed to a new comfort level. The stimulus covers that for this month, so I’m not feeling it yet. But I’m lucky to have kept my job and gained the flexibility to do it from home, which is something I’ve been lobbying for to management for the past four years, anyway.
But the immediate lifestyle adjustments? Fuck, man. This is heaven. Sequestration is magical. I have a valid reason now for telling people to stay the fuck away from me when before I was just an asshole. I never had any desire to go anywhere anyway — and now I have the perfect excuse, and zero guilt. It’s fucking fantastic.
Okay, so, I like the lockdown. It’s not hard for me. I’m working from home, which is perfection. I want my commission pay back, my performance-based earnings, but aside from that, we can keep this lockdown going for everyone capable of working remotely for just as long as … well, forever. We can just keep this up forever.
I don’t miss anything. I don’t miss eating out. I don’t miss going out. In fact, I just had to go out, and it was sheer hell. I needed a VGA cable immediately, so I ordered one from Best Buy for curbside pickup. Traffic is fucking stupid. Fucking assholes everywhere. Nobody at Best Buy was wearing a mask or gloves, and they’re walking up to customers’ cars handing them merchandise, talking to each other in close quarters. The guy who handed me my purchase weighed at least four hundred pounds. If he gets this virus, he’s pretty likely dead. This thing isn’t kind to the morbidly obese. Unfortunately, most of central Indiana is morbidly obese.
Okay, so, all cards on the table, I have ulterior motives. I like things shut down. So, of course I’m going to champion this course of action. But I also just think it’s the right thing … nay, the ONLY thing to do right now. The death toll will likely be at or very near 45,000 by the time I post this, and it is climbing steeply on a daily basis. And that’s with all of the extreme social distancing most of us are practicing right now. If we hadn’t done this, if we hadn’t shut down, we’d be over 200,000 deaths, easy, and it would be fucking chaos out there. Hospitals would be beyond capacity, mayhem would ensue. I have no proof of that, it’s just what I think. I can’t prove something that I think would have happened under different circumstances.
I’m not terrified of this thing. I’m being respectfully cautious. This is a formidable enemy. My goal is to not get it, to avoid it completely. That way I don’t roll the immune system dice on this disease at all, and I maintain a zero fault status in the spread of the virus. If I can pull that off, that will be a perfect game, I win. But this thing is highly contagious, and it is in my city, and it is inside far more people than the daily news numbers show because hardly anyone is being tested. Also, a lot of people get it, and they are just fine. If I get it, I will likely be okay. But, that’s not a guarantee. There is a risk. People say the mainstream media is collectively sensationalizing this. Well, of course they are, in their way. Of course they’re playing it up for ratings, that’s what they do.
But I don’t think they are making it sound worse than it is. I was watching a news broadcast and they said that eighty-six percent of the people under fifty who died of COVID-19 had an underlying health condition such as an autoimmune disorder, obesity, diabetes, high-blood pressure, asthma, or being a smoker. First of all, those are all pretty common. That’s a lot of at-risk people. But second, that’s what they did say. Eighty-six percent of those under fifty who died had an underlying health condition. But what they didn’t say, and what I heard was this: Fourteen percent of the people under fifty who died of COVID-19 did NOT have an underlying health condition. That sounds fucking scary. Yes, that is still a small number. Most of the people who die from COVID-19 are over eighty years of age. So, the percentage of people who died who are under fifty is low, and it’s fourteen percent of that number … but still. That’s otherwise healthy young people with no underlying health conditions who are dying. Greater risk for the elderly doesn’t equal zero risk for the young. That’s not how math or statistics work.
I’ve watched videos online from real people. Nurses on the front lines in the hardest hit cities describing chaotic and dangerous conditions in hospitals. People who got the disease pretty badly, but recovered, recounting their terrifying near-death experiences. Yes, a lot of people have a sniffle and a cough. Yes, some people remain asymptomatic throughout the life of their infection, remaining symptom free, but still allowing the virus to replicate in their bodies so they can spread it. But this thing just slaps the fuck out of some people, and sometimes kills them, for no reason. Not because they’re old, or sick, or have an otherwise compromised immune system, but they’re just simply unlucky. I mean, maybe there’s something we don’t know. Perhaps they all have something in common, some underlying factor that hasn’t been identified as a risk. That’s surely possible. But still — do you have it, this factor? Do I?
But fear of getting infected isn’t the main reason to distance and hunker down.
We should stay locked down and we should try our best not to spread it because it’s extremely contagious, and there is a pretty large section of our society, who, for various reasons, really shouldn’t be put into battle with this virus. A lot of them don’t have a chance, and we, as a society, need to do the right fucking thing and keep this bug as far away from them as we can. And if caring about the sick and elderly is outside of your capacity, just know that you aren’t safe, either. It could kill you, too. Fourteen percent of the people under fifty who died from COVID-19 did not have an underlying medical condition or compromised immune system. I’m sure they all thought they would be fine.
I have learned the following by reading articles written by experts in the field.
There are eight strains of SARS-CoV-2 circulating the globe right now that cause the disease COVID-19. No one strain is deadlier than another, they are all very similar to each other. SARS-CoV-2 is not likely to rapidly mutate and go airborne or get into the water supply. Its current method of transmission from human to human is so effective it has no immediate need to try to adapt or evolve. If and when it does need to evolve to try to bypass our eventual vaccine, it will take it a while. Coronavirus evolves, or mutates, at a slow rate, about four times slower than influenza.
I should be citing this stuff, but this is a blog, not a peer-reviewed paper. This isn’t shit I’ve discovered through testing and examination, and I’m not trying to formulate my own hypothesis. I’m no expert in any of this, I’m just repeating shit I’ve found from articles that were well-sourced, and anyone can find them by Googling this stuff and seeing where I found it. But I digress, as I am wont to do. Anyway, more science facts.
SARS-CoV-2 spreads from human to human in both large droplets and aerosol that exit the body during a cough, sneeze, panting, heavy breathing, etc. Any method that would allow moisture to escape the mouth on the breath. The virus can hang suspended in mist for up to three hours and remain active. The virus can live on paper and cardboard for up to 24 hours, and can live for up to 72 hours on plastic, stainless steel, and other smooth shiny surfaces.
So, on a relatively humid day, and, I know, how many of those are we going to see in mid-Spring, right? On a relatively humid day, an infected person sneezes. That infected aerosol can join with the water already in the air, and just float around ready to be breathed in for up to three hours. So, sure, stay six feet away, but if you move into a space someone else was just standing, you’re now breathing in what they just breathed out.
I don’t care who says what about masks. I don’t need someone to explain to me how and why masks work. I get that the virus is small and can pass through very small openings and to be fully effective a mask would have to be rated to work against particles as small as the virus, which in this case is N-95. But I also understand that if you’re sick and you cough and you’re wearing a piece of cloth over your face, you’re going to greatly decrease the chances that you’re going to spread the virus. Yes, small aerosols will make it through, but a lot of the germs will be caught and never enter the atmosphere. So, yeah, masks are prudent. Any of us could have it, and we should try not to spread it in case we do.
I am lucky and I get to stay in my house. I don’t know what lies I’d be telling myself if I had to go out in the world every day like nothing has changed and do a thankless job. Everyone still out in the world and not practicing social distancing will probably get this. I may get this, despite my best efforts. Most of us will be okay. Some of us won’t.
The virus is real. The virus is here. It is highly contagious and potentially deadly. I think we can debate about the severity and the origins of the virus later, or, we could debate it now, but while staying the hell away from each other and cutting off this thing’s lifeline.
Okay, so, it’s easy for me to have that opinion. I’m lucky. Kind of. Ish. I’ve kept my job. Kind of. Ish. My pay has actually been slashed pretty badly. Commission has been cancelled for April and May so I’m going to be getting base pay only. Okay, yeah, I know a lot of people only get base pay and I was one of them for a very long time, and I’m lucky to have gotten anything above and beyond that. But I have been getting paid above and beyond my base pay and I’ve grown accustomed to a new comfort level. The stimulus covers that for this month, so I’m not feeling it yet. But I’m lucky to have kept my job and gained the flexibility to do it from home, which is something I’ve been lobbying for to management for the past four years, anyway.
But the immediate lifestyle adjustments? Fuck, man. This is heaven. Sequestration is magical. I have a valid reason now for telling people to stay the fuck away from me when before I was just an asshole. I never had any desire to go anywhere anyway — and now I have the perfect excuse, and zero guilt. It’s fucking fantastic.
Okay, so, I like the lockdown. It’s not hard for me. I’m working from home, which is perfection. I want my commission pay back, my performance-based earnings, but aside from that, we can keep this lockdown going for everyone capable of working remotely for just as long as … well, forever. We can just keep this up forever.
I don’t miss anything. I don’t miss eating out. I don’t miss going out. In fact, I just had to go out, and it was sheer hell. I needed a VGA cable immediately, so I ordered one from Best Buy for curbside pickup. Traffic is fucking stupid. Fucking assholes everywhere. Nobody at Best Buy was wearing a mask or gloves, and they’re walking up to customers’ cars handing them merchandise, talking to each other in close quarters. The guy who handed me my purchase weighed at least four hundred pounds. If he gets this virus, he’s pretty likely dead. This thing isn’t kind to the morbidly obese. Unfortunately, most of central Indiana is morbidly obese.
Okay, so, all cards on the table, I have ulterior motives. I like things shut down. So, of course I’m going to champion this course of action. But I also just think it’s the right thing … nay, the ONLY thing to do right now. The death toll will likely be at or very near 45,000 by the time I post this, and it is climbing steeply on a daily basis. And that’s with all of the extreme social distancing most of us are practicing right now. If we hadn’t done this, if we hadn’t shut down, we’d be over 200,000 deaths, easy, and it would be fucking chaos out there. Hospitals would be beyond capacity, mayhem would ensue. I have no proof of that, it’s just what I think. I can’t prove something that I think would have happened under different circumstances.
I’m not terrified of this thing. I’m being respectfully cautious. This is a formidable enemy. My goal is to not get it, to avoid it completely. That way I don’t roll the immune system dice on this disease at all, and I maintain a zero fault status in the spread of the virus. If I can pull that off, that will be a perfect game, I win. But this thing is highly contagious, and it is in my city, and it is inside far more people than the daily news numbers show because hardly anyone is being tested. Also, a lot of people get it, and they are just fine. If I get it, I will likely be okay. But, that’s not a guarantee. There is a risk. People say the mainstream media is collectively sensationalizing this. Well, of course they are, in their way. Of course they’re playing it up for ratings, that’s what they do.
But I don’t think they are making it sound worse than it is. I was watching a news broadcast and they said that eighty-six percent of the people under fifty who died of COVID-19 had an underlying health condition such as an autoimmune disorder, obesity, diabetes, high-blood pressure, asthma, or being a smoker. Those are all pretty common conditions. That’s a lot of at-risk people. Eighty-six percent of those under fifty who died had an underlying health condition. That’s what they did say. But what they didn’t say, and what I heard was this: Fourteen percent of the people under fifty who died of COVID-19 did NOT have an underlying health condition. That sounds fucking scary. Yes, that is still a small number. Most of the people who die from COVID-19 are over eighty years of age. So, the percentage of people who died who are under fifty is low, and it’s fourteen percent of that number … but still. That’s otherwise healthy young people with no underlying health conditions who are dying. Greater risk for the elderly doesn’t equal zero risk for the young. That’s not how math or statistics work.
I’ve watched videos online from real people. Nurses on the front lines in the hardest hit cities describing chaotic and dangerous conditions in hospitals. People who got the disease pretty badly, but recovered, recounting their terrifying near-death experiences. Yes, a lot of people have a sniffle and a cough. Yes, some people remain asymptomatic throughout the life of their infection, remaining symptom free, but still allowing the virus to replicate in their bodies so they can spread it. But this thing just slaps the fuck out of some people, and sometimes kills them, for no reason. Not because they’re old, or sick, or have an otherwise compromised immune system, but they’re just simply unlucky. I mean, maybe there’s something we don’t know. Perhaps they all have something in common, some underlying factor that hasn’t been identified as a risk. That’s surely possible. But still — do you have it, this factor? Do I?
But fear of getting infected isn’t the main reason to distance and hunker down.
We should stay locked down and we should try our best not to spread it because it’s extremely contagious, and there is a pretty large section of our society, who, for various reasons, really shouldn’t be put into battle with this virus. A lot of them don’t have a chance, and we, as a society, need to do the right fucking thing and keep this bug as far away from them as we can. And if caring about the sick and elderly is outside of your capacity, just know that you aren’t safe, either. It could kill you, too. Fourteen percent of the people under fifty who died from COVID-19 did not have an underlying medical condition or compromised immune system. I’m sure they all thought they would be fine.
I have learned the following by reading articles written by experts in the field.
There are eight strains of SARS-CoV-2 circulating the globe right now that cause the disease COVID-19. No one strain is deadlier than another, they are all very similar to each other. SARS-CoV-2 is not likely to rapidly mutate and go airborne or get into the water supply. Its current method of transmission from human to human is so effective it has no immediate need to try to adapt or evolve. If and when it does need to evolve to try to bypass our eventual vaccine, it will take it a while. Coronavirus evolves, or mutates, at a slow rate, about four times slower than influenza.
I should be citing this stuff, but this is a blog, not a peer-reviewed paper. This isn’t shit I’ve discovered through testing and examination, and I’m not trying to formulate my own hypothesis. I’m no expert in any of this, I’m just repeating shit I’ve found from articles that were well-sourced, and anyone can find them by Googling this stuff and seeing where I found it. But I digress, as I am wont to do. Anyway, more science facts.
SARS-CoV-2 spreads from human to human in both large droplets and aerosol that exit the body during a cough, sneeze, panting, heavy breathing, etc. Any method that would allow moisture to escape the mouth on the breath. The virus can hang suspended in mist for up to three hours and remain active. The virus can live on paper and cardboard for up to 24 hours, and can live for up to 72 hours on plastic, stainless steel, and other smooth shiny surfaces.
So, on a relatively humid day, and, I know, how many of those are we going to see in mid-Spring, right? On a relatively humid day, an infected person sneezes. That infected aerosol can join with the water already in the air, and just float around ready to be breathed in for up to three hours. So, sure, stay six feet away, but if you move into a space someone else was just standing, you’re now breathing in what they just breathed out.
I don’t care who says what about masks. I don’t need someone to explain to me how and why masks work. I get that the virus is small and can pass through very small openings and to be fully effective a mask would have to be rated to work against particles as small as the virus, which in this case is N-95. But I also understand that if you’re sick and you cough and you’re wearing a piece of cloth over your face, you’re going to greatly decrease the chances that you’re going to spread the virus. Yes, small aerosols will make it through, but a lot of the germs will be caught and never enter the atmosphere. So, yeah, masks are prudent. Any of us could have it, and we should try not to spread it in case we do.
I am lucky and I get to stay in my house. I don’t know what lies I’d be telling myself if I had to go out in the world every day like nothing has changed and do a thankless job. Everyone still out in the world and not practicing social distancing will probably get this. I may get this, despite my best efforts. Most of us will be okay. Some of us won’t.
Look, I’m not an alarmist. I am skeptical, to an actual fault. I don’t take anyone at their word, and I require proof of a thing before I’ll re-categorize a thing from a possibility to an actuality. I have scoffed my way through every big societal scare. I flashed a cocky smirk at people expressing worries about Y2K, dismissing their fears with a chuckle and promising them nothing was going to happen. I shook my head at people wearing masks during SARS. I fearlessly ate chicken and pork chops throughout the bird flu and the swine flu scares. I ate Big Macs and Whoppers while watching the world fall apart over Mad Cow Disease.
But I’m not fucking around with this. So far the death rate is higher than predicted. High risk people are really at risk, and those of us who aren’t high risk — we’re still not in the clear. Lower risk doesn’t equal no risk. I’m taking precautions; I’m staying home; I’m keeping away from people. Even before Corona, I was already being a germaphobe this season. I was determined to not get the flu this year. I’ve been drinking daily Emergen-C packets since November.
Much as I hated to go out, I had to. Supplies were low. Amazon Prime took my mandarins, orange juice, and bananas out of my cart before I completed my order and they needed replenished. They also jacked up the price of the grapes in my cart so I had to take them out. So, I had to go out. I don’t have a mask, but I do have disposable vinyl gloves, and I wore them. I do plan on making masks for myself and my husband this weekend.
Am I being too careful? I hope so. I hope I’m being silly and ridiculous. I can laugh at myself later. But I’m not taking my chances. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure I’m around to laugh at myself. And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure I’m not the reason someone else loses their life. None of us know if we have this virus on our skin, our clothes, or in our breath. Many of us may get this and never know we had anything more than a cold. Some of us will get this and feel really bad for a while. And some of us will get this and die. I want to live the rest of my life knowing I did everything I could to prevent further deaths during this time.
Most people did very well in the store. Half of them had masks on. We all kept away from each other. I gave everyone at least six feet and I didn’t come within twelve feet of anyone who looked like they might be over 55. I managed to get all my shopping done while all of us in the store gave each other distance, and I was in line, well behind the person in front of me. People were in line behind me, at a reasonable distance. And that’s when I had to go off on some daft bitch at Aldi.
This woman comes up from my left and stands, not right up on me, but closer than I wanted her — less than six feet away. She’s on her phone, yapping away, spraying mouth germs everywhere.
I took two steps to the right and said, “there are people in line behind me, and please move away from me.”
She didn’t move away from me. She kept blathering into her phone and took two steps in my direction, closing in. I moved further away, and said, louder, “please don’t stand so close to me!” She closed the gap again, at which point I yelled, “OH MY GOD, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!” And she continued just standing there, yapping into her phone, at which point I turned and looked at her and screamed “YOU! Get the fuck away from me!”
At which point she became offended, asking, “Are you serious?” And then began explaining to the person on the other end of the phone that she was just standing there and some idiot … and I don’t know what she said after that. I didn’t fucking care. She got the message and got the fuck away from me. And I don’t give a rats fat ass what the daft cunt thought of me. She was just aware enough of her surroundings to move in on me every time I tried to put distance between us, but not aware enough understand that I was desperately trying to put distance between us.
Fuck that bitch. Even when there’s not a highly contagious viral pandemic, I never want people near me in public. Stay at least six feet away from me, and under no circumstances attempt to touch me, are both pretty good rules to observe with me at any time. But now?
Blogger’s artistic representation of the Coronavirus
Look, I’m not an alarmist. I am skeptical, to an actual fault. I don’t take anyone at their word, and I require proof of a thing before I’ll re-categorize a thing from a possibility to an actuality. I have scoffed my way through every big societal scare. I flashed a cocky smirk at people expressing worries about Y2K, dismissing their fears with a chuckle and promising them nothing was going to happen. I shook my head at people wearing masks during SARS. I fearlessly ate chicken and pork chops throughout the bird flu and the swine flu scares. I ate Big Macs and Whoppers while watching the world fall apart over Mad Cow Disease.
But I’m not fucking around with this. So far the death rate is higher than predicted. High risk people are really at risk, and those of us who aren’t high risk — we’re still not in the clear. Lower risk doesn’t equal no risk. I’m taking precautions; I’m staying home; I’m keeping away from people. Even before Corona, I was already being a germaphobe this season. I was determined to not get the flu this year. I’ve been drinking daily Emergen-C packets since November.
Much as I hated to go out, I had to. Supplies were low. Amazon Prime took my mandarins, orange juice, and bananas out of my cart before I completed my order and they needed replenished. They also jacked up the price of the grapes in my cart so I had to take them out. So, I had to go out. I don’t have a mask, but I do have disposable vinyl gloves, and I wore them. I do plan on making masks for myself and my husband this weekend.
Am I being too careful? I hope so. I hope I’m being silly and ridiculous. I can laugh at myself later. But I’m not taking my chances. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure I’m around to laugh at myself. And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure I’m not the reason someone else loses their life. None of us know if we have this virus on our skin, our clothes, or in our breath. Many of us may get this and never know we had anything more than a cold. Some of us will get this and feel really bad for a while. And some of us will get this and die. I want to live the rest of my life knowing I did everything I could to prevent further deaths during this time.
Most people did very well in the store. Half of them had masks on. We all kept away from each other. I gave everyone at least six feet and I didn’t come within twelve feet of anyone who looked like they might be over 55. I managed to get all my shopping done while all of us in the store gave each other distance, and I was in line, well behind the person in front of me. People were in line behind me, at a reasonable distance. And that’s when I had to go off on some daft bitch at Aldi.
This woman comes up from my left and stands, not right up on me, but closer than I wanted her — less than six feet away. She’s on her phone, yapping away, spraying mouth germs everywhere.
I took two steps to the right and said, “there are people in line behind me, and please move away from me.”
She didn’t move away from me. She kept blathering into her phone and took two steps in my direction, closing in. I moved further away, and said, louder, “please don’t stand so close to me!” She closed the gap again, at which point I yelled, “OH MY GOD, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!” And she continued just standing there, yapping into her phone, at which point I turned and looked at her and screamed “YOU! Get the fuck away from me!”
At which point she became offended, asking, “Are you serious?” And then began explaining to the person on the other end of the phone that she was just standing there and some idiot … and I don’t know what she said after that. I didn’t fucking care. She got the message and got the fuck away from me. And I don’t give a rats fat ass what the daft cunt thought of me. She was just aware enough of her surroundings to move in on me every time I tried to put distance between us, but not aware enough understand that I was desperately trying to put distance between us.
Fuck that bitch. Even when there’s not a highly contagious viral pandemic, I never want people near me in public. Stay at least six feet away from me, and under no circumstances attempt to touch me, are both pretty good rules to observe with me at any time. But now?
Here’s where I am with politics right now: The fact that ANYONE is voting for Trump or McConnell sickens me. The fact that it’s going to be so many people that they could both win again solidifies my belief that our species is doomed, and rightfully so.
But then, compounding upon that, 80% of the people who aren’t voting for them are still complete idiots who believe themselves to be intellectually and morally superior, but are actually unable (or perhaps just unwilling, which may, in fact, be worse) to change their opinions when presented with facts that contradict their beliefs, and are only on the right side of this thing because they were raised to be, or were converted by someone. They’re just two conservative parents or a seductively convincing friend away from voting Trump. Lack of critical thinking skills is the new illiteracy, and it is rampant.
So, I’m anti-Trump, true. But that doesn’t mean I’m even remotely similar to most other people who hate him. I don’t even hate him for all the same reasons. When it comes to a lot of the Trump outrage, my reaction to it is, “So fucking what?” I don’t hate him because he’s crass. I don’t hate him because he’s rude. I don’t hate him because he has a foul mouth and is unconventional. Those are all traits I can respect in other people.
I do hate him because he’s a rapist, and, quite possibly, quite likely, a rapist of underage girls courtesy of Jeffery Epstein. But before I knew that, I would have said:
I do hate him because he’s willfully ignorant. I don’t know if he’s technically stupid. I don’t know what his processing power is. I assume it’s very not good, very, very #SAD. But it doesn’t even matter, because he’s definitely ignorant; he doesn’t have any knowledge. I hope he’s stupid, because smart people who are bereft of real knowledge are far more dangerous than a well-informed moron. Imagine, if you will, an AI program drawing on a database of pure fiction and, hey, it’s the President. But I highly doubt that’s the case because he sounds like a fucking moron with access to the same well of fictions and fantasy.
I do hate him because he lies constantly. I hate him because he’s an idiot with a severe lack of curiosity and no desire to know the truth of anything. I hate him because he doesn’t care whether he’s lying or not because he doesn’t care what the truth is. I hate him because he is an old man with the emotional and mental maturity of a twelve-year-old boy. But my hatred of him goes back before I knew that, too.
I hate him because I’ve always hated him. I hated him before I was a twelve-year-old boy. I thought his hair was stupid, and I hated him because I knew he had to look in the mirror before leaving his house, yet he wore his hair like that, anyway. And even after everyone publicly made fun of how stupid his hair looked, he continued to wear it that way and continued to allow it to become more and more ridiculous.
I hate him because I’ve been seeing that stupid hair and that stupid face on my television for my entire fucking life, and I’ve hated him the entire fucking time.
But the truth of the matter is, a whole lot of people who hate Trump annoy me just as much as he does. They’re just his polar opposites. They’re just as misinformed, just as stubborn, just as obtuse, just as unwilling to pull their heads out of their asses and look at the world from a different perspective. They are the black to his white, or the white to his black, or however you want to say it. They are all extremists on opposite sides of the spectrum, and the rest of us are here, lost in the grays shaking our heads because you’re both fucking crazy.
I’m tired of everything being so difficult. Life doesn’t have to be this hard. We shouldn’t have to put up with all this unnecessary bullshit. We, as a society, should be so much further advanced than we currently are. If this all sounds vague, that’s because pretty much EVERYFUCKINGTHING is fucked up right now in the world. Everything is so goddamned backwards and counter-intuitive. I’d wonder how in the fuck we got here, but I’ve studied history and I see how we got here. It’s still difficult to believe that this is the world we are currently living in, contrasted with the way I know things should be.
And I feel robbed. I feel cheated. Not just for me, but, for all of us. We’re trapped inside this ridiculous society that we didn’t build, we didn’t craft, yet we perpetuate because — because that’s the way things are, of course. Things are the way they are because that’s the way they are, it seems. And most people are content to play their part and be the cog in the machine that they were meant to be …
I don’t know. In a way, that’s kind of how a society has to be, how it has to work. But ours is so fucked up. It’s tolerable, to most, to be a cog in a machine if all the pieces are valued, if there are none strewn about on the floor, discarded, forgotten, broken, if they’re all kept well-oiled, maintained, secure. If the cogs in the machine aren’t taken care of, the machine will stop working. Our machine is starting to shimmy and shake, I think.
I hope. I mean — things can’t go on like this. This fucking sucks, guys, seriously. What are we doing? Why do we put up with this Corporate Overlord bullshit we’re putting up with? They’re fucking robbing us all blind and paying us shit. How long are we all going to just keep doing this?
The title of this blog is misleading. I don’t really have an update. I completely lost track. I was doing my squats on a daily basis. I hit 202 on most days, fell short sometimes. I quit journalling them and lost track of what day I was on. I stopped when I thought it had been about 30 days. End results: My pants feel like they fit better, but I don’t see a visual difference.
Wednesday, September 4th, Day Eight: I did one set of 77 in the morning before I left for work. I did a set of 75 on first break, and a set of 50 at lunch. I was done by 1:30pm.
Thursday, September 5th, Day Nine: I didn’t do any before I left for work. I couldn’t find the time. It was a hectic morning. I snuck in a set of 52 and a set of 50 before first break using the private phone rooms. A set of 50 on break, and another on lunch, I was again done by 1:30.
Friday, September 6th, Day Ten: See Day Eight. Exact repeat.
Saturday, September 7th, Day Eleven: Oops. This was a super-busy day. I went to a horror convention, watched some good independent horror, completely forgot to do any squats. Fail.
Sunday, September 8th, Day Twelve: After an accidental day of rest I was able to complete today’s reps in a set of 102 followed by a set of 100.
Monday, September 9th, Day Thirteen: I didn’t do any reps before work. I did a set of 52 before first break, a set of 50 on break, at lunch, and last break.
Tuesday, September 10th, Day Fourteen: I did a set of 102 before I left the house. Well, it was kind of a staggered set. I had to pause around rep 15 or so because I was doing squats on my front porch and some guy was walking down the alley looking at me like I was some kind of freak. So I waited for him to pass. Then, I had to pause again around 27 or so as a prostitute walked the other direction down the alley yelling at someone through her cellphone. But I did 102 squats on my porch before I left for work. I did 50 at lunch and 50 at last break.
Wednesday, September 11th, Day Fifteen: Being able to do sets of 100 at a time and not being sore the next day has led me to push a little harder. I’m sticking to the 202 squats a day, but today I shortened my reps per set to 25 (27 for the first), and have extended the squat all the way down. Previous squats have been primarily to the seated chair position, then back up. All of today’s reps were full, butt-to-heel squats. I did my first set at 11:30am and my final set at 8:30pm. I feel like there’s something I’m forgetting … Anywho, I also did side leg lifts — 102 on each side with straightened legs, followed immediately by 27 on each side with bended knees —and weighted hip thrusts. The backpack I bought to hold my weights had a black and white American Flag patch attached with Velcro. I acquired a new patch at Horror Hound Weekend. It’s a skeleton hand making the Metal Horns, or fucking Devil Symbol, whatever you want it to be. I mean, for most people who make the symbol, me included, it means: “YEAH! ROCK N’ FUCKIN’ ROLL!!!!” with no less than four exclamation points. But, hey, if you want to bring the devil into it, that’s cool, I guess. The Devil is pretty dope, for a totally fictional and unrealistic Mega-Villain.
Anyway, I had some Velcro tape left over from a door screen and I stuck it on that new patch I got and I put it on my weighted pack in place of the one it came with.
