The gap between these has become longer than I’d prefer. There’s been some outside factors at play. Need to work on it, regardless.
2003-2004: Recover
For much of my life I’ve been perhaps a little too vigilant about the myriad aches and pains of my body. Having suffered two cataclysmic health episodes over as many years right at the start of my adulthood (a collapsed lung followed by a particularly awful bout of pneumonia), every sensation out of my respiratory system faced intense scrutiny. The small stabbing chest pains I had once ignored were recognized as a lung thinking about giving out on me, and even the mildest creaking or rasping of congestion while breathing still feels (psychosomatically, I suspect) like it’s the fault of the failure-prone left unit.
2005-2007: Lies
Today, that’s transformed into hypervigilance, which seems to be simply in-step with most of society, and even a tiny sniffle is cause for worry. Today I woke with a very slightly sore throat, which made me start to worry that, perhaps, my sense of smell is off. Now I’m sitting in my usual pretzel and a pint spot (well away from any other customers) and though that doesn’t seem to be the case… yeah. Odds are good that unless I wake up feeling amazing, I’ll sign up for a nasal swab tomorrow and cancel what few plans I had over the long weekend.
2005-2006: We Sink / Asking for a Friend
The pretzel and pint taste just as I remember. Smells, outdoors at least, seem within a standard deviation of their regular intensity. But playing it safe is the duty of a responsible, thoughtful person. Not that the traits are given these days — though I honestly consider myself a little laissez-faire when it comes to my pandemic preventative measures, compared to many folks I’m downright stringent.
2008: Get Out
Which isn’t that much of a surprise, honestly. We live in an era (in this empire at least) where points of data are points of contention, and arguing parties aren’t even in agreement on what they’re fighting over. Add that to systems of belief that have been around for a long time and you end up with a three-sided disagreement. One side points to an existential threat, the second says “that’s nothing, that’s harmless,” and the third fervently proclaims “existential threats are good, actually.” Small wonder that major societal issues make so little progress when a major chunk of the population views their circumstances as little more than a hotel room, a rest stop on their way to a disneyworld-like eternity.
2010-2011: Gun
Does a solution to this exist? Not a realistic one, certainly not at my scale. Such hypotheticals assume a level of omnipotence, the sarcastic snap of a Q’s fingers to restructure institutions shorn up with dust and blood, built atop graveyards. It’s a bit like a goose coming up with solutions for the windshield of the airliner it sees at eye level, an ant coming up with the best way to “solve” the boot overhead.
2011-2013: Bow Down
Eventually some rant about Alaska politics will appear on here, as they exist at a scale that it’s possible for an individual to influence (though those days may be waning). In the interim, I’ll ask; why is it considered reasonable that someone 2000 or more miles away from us has more say over our problems than we do? Simply put, why do they get to be the boot?
2015, 2017-present: Leave a Trace / Empty Threat