Cafe Hitch-hike

2020-07-30

Dystopian Daily News

I guess I can say I accomplished one thing. I finished another challenging online course for my work training, and that deserves a little self-applause.

Work is surreal. No one knows shit about anything. Some of the employees want to set up in-unit daycares because either they don't want to send their kids to school but don't have daycare available. Of course, our employer says 'hell no' to that. Daycare's always been a creative act for us Yanks, especially for the less privileged. I've heard of people doing all kinds of things to have their kids supervised while they go to work, and maybe we just can't keep jerry-rigging it to be workable because what used to be done can't work anymore.

People frequently ask me why I didn't have children. Reasons: I couldn't afford it, I didn't want to drive myself further into the ground with it, and being a mother would had made me even more vulnerable to life's fuckery. I was too frightened to bring a child into this world. I felt like I couldn't do enough to protect him or her from what goes on. I have some regret, but I think I prefer this alternative and having a Marley along with my extended family instead.

I couldn't even bear to read the news after more bizarre and true events in mainstream and even more liberal news. I think I'm going to cancel my subscription Dystopian Daily News and stay away from its sites.

Yeah, people are so nervous about what do about the schools in these coming weeks. We're more nervous here in Florida. It's probable that having the kids in school will increase infection cases (and the other numbers attached to it). Phase 1 of the public health Darwinism began when things started re-opening, and soon we are starting Phase 2: schools are back in session. Just as had happened in Phase 1, we again will have to wait and watch for what happens. Then, we'll be in more trouble if the numbers increase and more people get sick or die.

I heard more about the infections and deaths in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where my mother's family originates. I felt very sad to hear about that and especially the blatant neglect its people are getting from their state-level leaders. What sickens me is their obesity and diabetes rates were already through the roof, and they tend to be poor and live in active, extended family units. I'm waiting for others to point the finger at the infected, saying it was their fault for what happened.

I can admit that as a Latina, being overweight and even obese has some degree of acceptability among us. It seems more so for those on the lower end of the privilege scale and less so towards the opposite end (though some acceptance exists). The diabetes is a diet thing, too; I dare to guess that the American diet is very bad for us which leads to the obesity and diabetes. Diabetes is just something my mother's family inherit once they hit their 50s or 60s.

Being in touch with relatives is a big part of life, and it's often economics (and having lower-paying, labor intensive jobs) that also make a bunch of us live together in a small place. So I guess we are just simply to blame, right? Well no, because the local governments and health authorities worked closely to put things in place, but the state-level basically told them to "recommend" it. My disbelief just gets lower and lower by the day.

I'm embarrassed that it's gotten to this, but it's largely of our own, wider doing. Yeah, so the origin of the virus is elsewhere, but it was up to us to do something about it. It's not different for anything else we get due to someone or something outside ourselves: we're still responsible for how we manage or work with it individually, right? Maybe I'm in the minority on that understanding.

Then, in more news... the relationship with Rafa has concluded. We were a bit different when we regrouped last October/November, but I had to be honest about some things within myself and where my heart was going between now and then. He is a good man, he is one of the best people I know. They usually call someone who makes you feel that way a good friend and that he was and pray we can still be.

I'm not going to skewer myself again with brutal self-examination about why I wasn't feeling certain things or why certain things just weren't happening. I can blame all kinds of crap and myself. I can bemoan whatever committment-phobe tendencies I possess and may or may not be aware of. I can call myself broken, warped, or whatever. I pretty much made all of those moves after we broke up the first time. I was doing self-examination with the grace of an Inquisition dungeon guard; gee, I finally got wise and gradually tried doing it in a different tone. I can't sit there and blame him for everything and I won't. What happened was a summation of what was between us.

Yeah, no relationship is perfect. I sure as fuck know that. It's a matter of what we can and cannot live with. My heart seems as complex as a labyrinth. I'd sure love to navigate it better, but here's where I am at this moment, and I'd say I tried really hard to make changes. It is what it is, and that's that for now. I did the best I could.

downwind | upstream