Weakness, Witches and Signs of the Time

I’m not able to leave the house much because I have bad lungs. I am still in the revolution, as my friend refers to it, but I’m also living in a time of coronavirus like most other humans on earth

and, since I’m more susceptible to the virus because of my bad lungs, I’m staying home and avoiding people.

Like before, but this time it’s a more extreme form of people-avoidance.

And from home I see all these protests on social media which are taking place all over the world. People of all colors and identities and genders and ages coming together for a long overdue, nationally-guaranteed-but-not-enforced, reality: equality for all under the law.

You know you’re living during a cultural shift when the Mennonites felt compelled to come out and protest with their nice clean signs.

Oh wait. The Mennonites are not the Amish so they live in modern society but still. For a short time, the internet felt they were Amish as they were wearing their good grey outfits so… in any case, very cool.

And, oh hey, we also don’t want to live in a police state with tanks rolling down our streets, feeling threatened and intimidated by armed police dressed in riot gear who continue to shut down citizens peacefully practicing their First Amendment right of free speech or seemingly trying to escalate otherwise calm situations.

Oh wait. The last was taken in Hong Kong where protestors are fighting to be heard and are also being met with a brutal response.

It’s interesting to not be able to tell the difference between the brutal response Hong Kong protestors are receiving from the semi-authoritarian Chinese government and the response American protestors are receiving from their…

democratic government.

In any case,

BACK TO ME,

the ongoing coronavirus crisis and my bad lungs mean that I remain inside most of the time. There is no way I could participate in the protests and the wonderfully diverse crowds.

And that deepens my feeling of isolation and detachment.

When some insensitive people said “Let old people and the weak ones die! Open the economy back up!” a couple months ago, frustrated with the global pandemic and its subsequent quarantine, I, after a wave of nausea-disgust passed, realized I’m one of the physically weak ones.

And then that passes and you realize, “Oh, hold on, that’s right! I AM THE PREDATOR! STAND BACK EVIL-DOERS AND DICKS!!!!!!!!”

And, since I don’t often leave the house, the only way I felt I could contribute to this amazing shift of consciousness was online and through this blog

and then Facebook and Instagram banned this blog.

🙄

In any case, go Deep State!

When online, I still feel like I’m constantly going to be tricked. 😑

“Don’t,” is what’s on my mind all the time.

I feel the same when out in public, but I have mastered the Casual Tough Walk.

And this has become essential because the neighborhood in which my husband and I live is the Red Light District of Milwaukee.

This was further confirmed by our landlord who lives in California but who, during his recent visit, touched base with the Milwaukee Police Department about reports from all of us about how shady our neighborhood is and how we need bolt locks and front doors not made of plywood.

And, in his conversation with the police, the officers denied any kind of crime problem in our neighborhood…

this happened three blocks blocks away.:

https://www.cbs58.com/news/37-charged-in-large-scale-drug-trafficking-operations-between-milwaukee-and-puerto-rico

…but they were willing to acknowledge the issue of prostitution in our neighborhood.

You know an issue is really bad if the police are openly acknowledging it here.

You ever hear the sentiment: “I can’t even watch the news. It’s too depressing”?

I feel the local network news channels have taken that sentiment to heart.

The Milwaukee network news usually focuses on bake sales in suburbs or small towns outside of Milwaukee or that one time the police drove by and honked for a single white kid’s birthday.

Feel-good community stories are awesome. But that’s all the news is here. One craft sale after another.

The local TV news channels have really been struggling for content since sports were cancelled, as sports took up at least fifty percent of the news and they don’t talk about much else.

Of course, weather has also filled in some of the space which the absence of sports has left. That’s fair because Nature is also resembling an exploding boiling pot, much like society and its issues which the local news refuses to acknowledge, so there’s a lot of weather to talk about.

But, since the climate is changing, the weather people are often extra wrong as they can’t keep up.

And, different cultures disagree on what exactly it means, but having ravens constantly disrupt weather forecasts seems to be a sign of something.

TODAY ON WEATHER: NO MATTER HOW YOU SHAKE IT, SIGNS OF IMMINENT DOOM!

Neither of those instances happened on the local Milwaukee network news but they did happen since Trump was elected President of the United (So Far, Check Back Soon) States.

To be fair, Wisconsin is a very partisan-dominated state. So if a news source is trying to present all realities, that is more difficult than it should be here.

But as the global pandemic goes on and the polls show more Americans are aware of racial injustice and feel that police brutality is a reality, the local Madison paper which is more conservative than liberal in its approach just falls back on covering what’s safe.

For example, today the Wisconsin State Journal had as its top stories:

• Home Talent League: Adult amateur baseball league still hopes to begin play July 4 weekend = SPORTS/PANDEMIC THROUGH LENS OF SPORTS
• Madison Police Chief says officers wish they could show more solidarity with protestors = #BLACKLIVESMATTER PROTEST
• Flashback photos: Look back to Bo Ryan’s time as Wisconsin Badgers Men’s basketball coach = SPORTS (and I’m definitely reading that)
• UW-Green Bay Men’s basketball coach Will Ryan and father Bo Ryan have experience building programs = SPORTS
• WIAA offers clarification about fall prep sports = SPORTS
• With NFL’s social distancing protocols for players’ return to facilities, Packers have work to do = SPORTS/PANDEMIC THROUGH LENS OF SPORTS

Sports is what a large portion of Wisconsin readers cared about most until the bars temporarily closed for coronavirus.

But I think the people in Wisconsin are waking up. Either to the reality of what needs to be done in this country to make it live up to its Constitution or the need to get even more guns because they liked it how it was.

In any case, when I rarely leave the house to walk through my neighborhood, expecting to be tricked at any moment, I have twice been asked if I’m “working.”

In response I look down at what I’m wearing which I really shouldn’t feel obliged to do and then I just ignore whoever earnestly asked me because people drive to this neighborhood to pick up prostitutes and maybe don’t know exactly how it works so they just ask anyone who is outside and never turn around and continue my unflappable Casual Tough Walk.

As for the drugs in the neighborhood, I went outside (the light almost blinded me as I’ve become some kind of day-walker hermit vampire), to pick up the trash that always seems to be outside on the small patch of grass which runs down our building’s side of the street.

And, in the midst of my trash collecting, I had to step up on our porch steps as a large group of young men were approaching and they took up the entire sidewalk. They were black and white and Hispanic and, as a hippie, I just loved seeing that racial harmony.

They were loudly talking about how to best sell drugs to make a profit (what amount would produce the most profit and maintain their customer base) and my heart swelled.

Omg it’s a racially harmonious group of drug dealers!

I smiled at them, so happy to be outside and so happy to see racial harmony in Milwaukee, I didn’t even put on my Casual Tough persona.

And they smiled back and nodded at how I was picking up the incredible amount of trash that is relentlessly outside our building.

And, after that encounter, suddenly, we don’t have trash outside our building.

Community, man.

A couple days ago, we found a lost dog flier on our car.

And, in response, I experienced a range of emotions/responses:

• Sadness or “Poor puppy!”
• Realization or “If Riley is the dog that is always outside and loudly yipping… that dog is definitely no longer alive.”
• Hope or “Maybe I’ll see Riley from my window! I’ll stare out it even more because I want her to be home and a thousand fucking dollars!?”
• Anxiety or “Poor Riley is now an innocent player in the complex criminal activity that the MPD says doesn’t exist here.”

Except for prostitution.

In any case, I can’t often leave the house due to coronavirus and my heightened susceptibility to dying from it due to my bad lungs, and also because I’m often mistaken for being a sex worker.

While I am consistently unemployed, I’m not quite there yet.

I am, however, continuing to have breathing issues.

Last summer I felt like how that girl in the movie Hereditary felt when she was experiencing anaphylactic shock and was unable to catch a breath.

And that reminds me of witches.

Because I was watching the news via YouTube and Attorney General Bill Barr was talking about witches again. Why is the Trump administration so obsessed with witches?

First, every time a tweet went out it was “witch hunt this” and “witch hunt that” and then they kind of stopped that because they slowly took over the court system.

But then Barr brought up witches again but in a new way: witch’s brew! He said there was a “witch’s brew of extremists.”

That’s an interesting way to put it.

Maybe he watched last week’s episode of What We Do in the Shadows too.

Oh Nandor. 🖤

In any case, it leaves me to question the Trump administration’s obsession with witches. Do they have a problem with witches? Is there some group of Wiccans who are giving them trouble so witches are always on their minds but they can’t just come out and say WITCHES ARE BOTHERING US because that sounds crazy to mainstream ears who deny any deviation from the happy norm…

And then I Mozzilaed it and… holy cats:

United States: Neopagans casting spells for and against Trump

Well, welcome to 2020! Learning new things every single blessed day.

Stay safe and make sure you’re registered to vote, in the hopes America is still a democratic country in November.

If it’s not, I really hope the Lincoln Memorial comes alive at some point. America essentially having a king should make stone Lincoln get up.

And I’ve written this post over the course of days because I helped my husband (@muellerlowlife) with a temporary art mural downtown so I was OUTSIDE AND NOT IN THE HOUSE TWO DAYS IN A ROW and also experiencing a flurry of mental activity.

We talk about opening an advertising shop that would be more DIY art/design-focused and calling it

“Signs of the Times!”

Just in case because money. Looking for investors!

I’d maybe dress in a Tyrannosaurus Rex suit so I didn’t have to interact with people as myself because the thought of interacting with Gen Pop directly makes me shake my head “no” without utilizing conscious thought.

And this would appropriately be a sign of the times.