Disjecta Membra: 3

Once again I return not with a single blog post (because I can barely concentrate enough to manage that feat), but a prismatic one — a single blog post broken up into fragmented, colored beams. Please to enjoy. Or don’t. Don’t enjoy things. No obligations.

A good portion of my day is now spent as a digital hunter-gatherer. I eyeball our supply and try to loosely plan meals and such and then I’m like, I DON’T THINK WE HAVE ENOUGH EGGS OH FUCK OH FUCK and then I realize Easter is coming and so I spend an hour doing some kind of Internet deep dive trying to source local eggs, and I make a bunch of phone calls and then, boom, I get two dozen eggs and the day is saved. Until the next crisis. Do I have enough toilet paper? I better go check again, oh shit, oh shit. Can I wipe my ass with tree bark or an errant squirrel? Should I have some kind of toilet-side shower pail, a tabo?

Last night, part of my huntering-gathering was about cocktail ingredients. I know. I know. That is probably not healthy? I promise I’m not drinking any more, I’m just not drinking any less — zing! Ahem. No, it’s just, we have a lot of base spirits. I’m well-stocked on gin and whiskey and such, but then, things to mix? Not so much. And yes, you can drink whiskey straight, and I do, but these days I am a fancy man who sometimes likes to add in various syrups and occult reagents to my drinky-dranks. Or tonic, at least. I think tonic makes gin medicine. Right? Whatever.

An interesting side effect is our buying has moved almost explicitly local. By which I mean, a lot of what we’re getting (particularly regarding food) is coming from local providers, makers, growers, farmers, etc. — like, meat from local farmers, veggies/fruits from an upcoming CSA, apples (and hard apple cider) from a local orchard, oatmeal and flour from a local mill (!), sourdough starter from a local pizza place, bread from a local bread place, all deliverable or curbside. I say this again as a very privileged person: a 20-minute drive will put me at one of at least seven proper grocery stores, and that’s not including all the growers and farmer markets, which are considerable. I live in the opposite of a food desert. I don’t say any of this as a moral lesson, only noting the interesting shift in where our stuff is coming from. As a plus, what we are getting seems to be of a measurably higher quality. Again: privilege speaking, and not for much more money. Sometimes less, actually, with veggies and fruits. But our grocery stores are becoming erratic in their supply. I’m to understand this isn’t because the supply isn’t there, but chains are either broken or rearranging, so there’s gonna be some instability. Turbulence ahead in every direction, so onward we go, seat-belts tightened right the fuck up.

I should do another post about Animal Crossing. It’s getting all French Guyana up in my island. Except with more rampant capitalism.

I have a secret book. I just got edits for it. I’m excited about it but it does mean I’m gonna have to muster up some will to do proper work.

Actually, I have three secret books. No, wait, four. Not trying to humble brag, I actually lost count. None of them are announced yet. Publishing involves a whole lot of waiting. Especially now, when everybody’s just, SHRUG, I DUNNO WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING NOW.

People are losing their jobs in everywhere, and in publishing, too. It helps if you can buy a book. And if you can’t, taking one out from a digital library loan is good, too.

One by one you start to know more and more people who are getting The Virus. And you start to know people who are dead from it, too. Not just names you know, or people online, but real people. A lot older. But not all of them.

I think the most vicious bites this Virus takes are the ones regarding loneliness. It’s not enough that we are forced into relative isolation, but worse, if you get “the Cove,” you end up quarantined. And then if you die from it, you die alone. And when you die alone from it, you also have no funeral. None can gather to see you off into the beyond. You’re alone from snout to tail of this thing. On a boat, drifting out to sea, into the mist, until you’re gone.

Hang this on the GOP’s neck like a cursed albatross. All of it. Trump. McConnell. Every salivating little goblin in their crew. This is on them.

Sorry, that got dark. But I mean, it’s gonna, sometimes. It’s a pandemic. One made worse by intervention that is both ignorant and malevolent.

I feel like I wanna podcast or something. But I don’t know what the fuck it’d even be about. Certainly me and Carboni could fire up the Ragnatalk van again. (Here I’ll note that before I moved, we had been working on a rewatch of Avengers: Endgame. But now I’m like, is that inappropriate? Or extra appropriate?) I thought about doing a writing talk podcast, but do I even have the juice for that, mentally? It feels a bit like “rearranging the Titanic’s deck chairs” to try to focus on just talking about HEY HERE’S HOW YOU DO WRITE GOOD when the world is falling apart. Hmm. Not sure. More thought necessary. Or I’ll just sit and stare at the wall. There’s your podcast. It’s just me sighing and grumbling, ASMR-style.

Wanderers is still on sale. Still $3.99 if you’re so inclined. *stares*

So, it’s Biden. I wanted Warren. Was good with Bernie. Biden’s low on my list, but I’d vote for him over Trump any day. I mean, I’d vote for a pile of raccoons stuffed into a scarecrow over Trump, because I don’t hate myself and I don’t hate this country. So, I’m voting for the Supreme Court. For the environment. I’m voting because Biden is someone you can hold to the fire, and Trump isn’t. And one good thing about Biden I like is, I don’t think he wants this job. I don’t think he relishes it. That’s a plus to me. Regardless, I hope he picks a helluva running mate.

Fuck your lawns. Your lawns are a wasteland of nature. Here’s a good article, and it interviews rewilding advocate (and oh, also excellent novelist) Jeff Vandermeer. We did it last year at our last house and had a bumper crop of fireflies and a fox family take up residence. Gonna try it here and see how it goes. Will also try to plant a lot of natives when we have access to those plants, but not sure how I get them now. You might have a HOA that’s a dick about this sort of thing, but this might be a good time to try to push for changes — or just cough a lot anytime a HOA rep tries to get to your front porch. Maybe they’ll get eaten by whatever you have growing there, now.

I have a lot of new birds at the house. Birds I’ve not seen before. Let’s see, here’s a quick catalog for the four of you who care: Eastern towhee, Eastern bluebird, Carolina wren, golden-crowned kinglet, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, yellow-bellied sapsucker, Northern flicker, tufted titmice, black-cap chickadees, nuthatches, chipping sparrow, white-throated sparrow, song sparrow, tree swallow, Cooper’s hawk, red-tailed hawk, black vultures, turkey vultures, robins, cardinals, pine warbler, red-winged blackbirds, scarlet tanager (not seen this season, but in fall), blue jay, cowbirds, catbirds (also not yet seen this year), uhhh, let’s see, brown thrasher, gray junco, house wren, and there’s probably more? Anyway. Here, have some birbsnaps, bye.