And things keep getting worse.
COVID cases are going back up again. Not surprising, given that everyone seems to have given up any attempts at staying safe. The “quarantine” is pretty much over, with people going about their business as usual. There’s a growing backlash against wearing masks even. Barely half the people I see when we go to the grocery store are wearing them, and most of the ones who are wearing them are workers. So that’s a thing.
I’m still trying to keep us inside, but Becky is getting more determined to get out. She’s gone shopping on her own a few times, and we’ve gone out for dinner once or twice. The places we’ve gone have been doing reasonably well at keeping tables separated and clean, but I still feel nervous while I’m out.
Weirdly, they’re saying that COVID hits people with Type-A blood the worst, for some reason. Guess what my blood type is?
Of course, I’m still going into the office once a week. And to the bar at BBW once a week. It isn’t safe, but I’ve got to have some time to myself.
I’ve talked to Allison about Becky to see how she behaves when she is visiting up there. Allison says she has some problems, but not to the extent she seems to have them here. Fortunately, Allison does seem to believe what I am telling her and is going to see if she can think of something that might help. But she is slowly driving me crazy here.
I suggested to Becky that we might hire someone to stay with her when I’m back at work and she got really angry. She didn’t like the implication that she couldn’t handle things.
Outside of home, things aren’t much better. Protests are still going on, and I can’t do much to support them. I gave some money to one of the support groups, but since I’m the only one in the house who supports the protesters, there isn’t much else I can do.
I grew up in a small town in South Carolina called Orangeburg. We had a pair of black colleges there.
In 1969 we had a thing called “The Orangeburg Massacre” take place there. A bunch of students were killed.
I was nine at the time. I didn’t understand what had happened. But I knew it wasn’t right.
Maybe because that was my initial contact with institutional racism, I thought we were getting better. I thought things had improved over the past 50 years.
Instead, I was just good at not noticing things I didn’t want to because I was wrong. Things haven’t gotten better. People just got better at hiding their true feelings. But now they’re saying them out loud again.
Even our politicians. Even the president, but no surprise there. But with senior people saying racist things out loud, it has encouraged too many other people to say things too. And it’s depressing.
I thought we had been getting better. I was wrong.
Maybe we deserve COVID.
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