I couldn't find any new pics. I'm not even sure that I take new pics any more. I suppose that I still shoot with my film cameras. The rolls just pile up here on my desk now and do not get processed, much less scanned or viewed in any way. I could have used the time of the 'rona to catch up on things that I've wanted to do, or to lose weight, but none of that has happened. Instead, I have sunken into physical pain and attending to that pain. I drink a bottle of wine or more each day now, if you were to average them out across the week. No, that is an exaggeration, but only a slight one. Every time that I turn over a new leaf I find a different drug, though rarely a new one.
Speaking of dry leaves, the seasonal fires will be coming back to the valley soon. A generator arrived the other day and sits in its box. We need gas cans, filled with gasoline. Probably two of them, five gallons each. The generator is robust enough to keep our refrigerator on at night and keep our modem and router on in the daytime. If we have to flee the valley because of the fires again this year then none of us knows exactly what that will mean. It is difficult to find hotels that are open now. If there are thousands of families fleeing the region then it will not become any easier, and there will be fewer people offering their help. That is one way that apocalypses begin - factors merge unexpectedly.
I have plenty of camping gear and visions of just walking off into the woods and waiting for the wall of fire to arrive. It's all about facing your fears, they say. I gravitate towards the idea of never being found. So few people get to vanish any more. The world is very large and there are so many people. It seems that more would be able to just disappear into a crowd, or deep below the surface of the oceans, or to any city in the midwest. It seems that we would lose more track of people in prison than we do, but we don't. Most everybody is accounted for, sooner or later. Eventually some DNA is found scraped against a tree out in the woods and the family's long suffering and endless questions and nightly prayers can finally be over. They let go of hope.
A mass extinction event will probably turn all of that on its head. The numbers of missing, lost, or dead will become so great that the administrative capacity of governments will be overwhelmed. They won't even be able to keep track of all the white people dying. That is how serious it will be. As the president often correctly says, If we stop looking for all those missing, the numbers will go down.
Okay, I should stop. I'm laughing at this stuff, but it might be hard to tell from the other side of the computer screen if any of it is funny.
The president's niece claims he cheated on his SAT. She also claims that she has nice tits. Or, she claims that's how horny 'ol POTUS felt about them when she was 29 years old. She's a clinical psychologist and believes him to be a very dangerous man. Who am I to question her authority? The most amazing aspect of this tell-all book she is publishing is that Trump has not yet claimed to be an expert in clinical psychology. All the psychologists ask me, "How do you know so much about this stuff?" That was how he reassured us not to worry too much about Covid-19. The smartest man in the country was on the case. What could possibly go wrong? He said the heat will waft it all away.
The pic above is one of mom's favorites. We were walking down the street to her house a few years ago, when we used to live apart. I asked the boy to stop and turn. He did. The slight backlighting and the 135mm f2 DC portrait lens did all the rest.
Maybe that is why I feel depressed lately. I have no willing photographic subjects and the world outside of this house has become engulfed in airborne disease. There was something comforting about the idea that, at any time, I could just take off for a while, if I started to feel as if that was what I wanted. Or, needed.
Feeling that there is no escape seems indistinguishable from the feelings of depression.
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