The Blog that Used to Be About Australia: I Wish I was a Witch

If I let myself think about things long enough, I get scared.

I'm not too scared of Tim, Jack, or me dying of Covid 19. I think the chances of that are pretty slim.

But I can imagine us being sick enough to be hospitalized. And even if not hospitalized, I can picture us being gross and horribly sick at home.

I don't like being sick.

I also don't like having my family members sick.

Sickness depresses me.

Also, Tim sometimes gets in a very bad mood when he's sick. So...along with compassionate reasons for not wanting my husband to get sick, I also have selfish ones.

But the main emotion I'm feeling now is anger.

Overwhelming anger.

Like the type of anger that makes me wish I had witchy powers, so I could bring forth revenge and justice.

Well, these feelings might be influenced by the fact that I've been watching season 2 of The Magicians lately.

Anyway, here are some of things making me angry.

1. That if someone in my household DOES happen to die, there won't be much outrage from the world. It's not because we're not good enough or that too many people are uncaring. It's because there is way too much to be outraged about. We'll just be a number. And I'm not just counting the 140,000 plus Americans who have died of Covid...but also all the other Americans who have died due to greed, corruption, incompetence, sadism, etc.

It's kind of like George Floyd. We all know his name. And we know a few other names. But there are so many other Black people who have died from racism. Most of the grieving family members are left screaming into the void.

2. I'm angry that Texas is one of the few states who are not allowing us to vote by mail. Apparently being afraid of catching a deadly virus is not a good enough excuse to want to stay home.

Not only that but our Governor Greg Abbott has designated voting as an exception to mask mandates.

Don't worry. He's doing this out of the kindness of his heart. He doesn't want people to lose the right to vote simply because they don't have a mask.

What the flying fuck.

Could they not just give out free masks at the polling places?

Here's a question.

What happens if we end up getting Covid when it comes time to vote? Do they want us to go to the polls anyway? Risk other people getting sick?

Or is this what they're hoping for in the first place—that most of us will be either dead or too sick or too (knowingly) contagious to go vote?

Really. How does this make sense?

Greg Abbott doesn't want lack of masks preventing people from voting? But he's okay if fear of the virus or actually HAVING the virus prevents people from voting.

It actually does make sense if you realize one important fact. That is...Greg Abbott is an evil human being. And if I had witchy powers, he'd be suffering greatly right now. I mean like massive diarrhea, nightmares, terrifying hallucinations, etc.

3. I'm angry that Jack's college is requiring Freshman to live on campus, and I'm angry that they're acting like they're doing us a favor. I'm angry that it took way too much effort to get them to answer my questions and concerns and that when I finally got answers, I didn't feel reassured at all.

I'm angry for the students. I'm angry for the faculty. I'm angry for the custodial staff who will risk their lives and NOT be given any hazard pay.

I am angry imagining students and their families, custodians and their families, and faculty and their families getting sick and/or suffering from the fear of getting sick....while the executives of the school work remotely from the comforts of home. I actually don't know that this is the case. I hope I'm wrong and that the executives plan to put their own selves in the same risky situations that they're asking from the rest of us.

4. I'm angry at my parents for disagreeing with me about opening up and saving the economy. They pushed the idea that we need to get things open; that a damaged economy is more dangerous than the virus.

I pushed that opening up wouldn't save the economy, because people would be too (rightfully) scared to go out, and all the reduced capacity for social distancing wouldn't bring in enough profit to make opening up worth it.

Also...you know....sickness and dying. I don't think those things are great for the economy. For one thing, hospitalizations and body disposal services cost a lot of money.

It turns out those in power took my parent's side.

And look where we are now.

No, Texas is not like how New York was in March and April. But every day, we get closer and closer to being like New York.

I've been thinking, what if we did things the way that I wanted instead of how my parents wanted?

What if non-essential shops stayed close?

What if restaurants continued to have pick up or delivery only?

What if bars remained closed?

What if gyms stayed closed?

What if people prayed via Zoom church?

What if people weren't pushed to go back to work?

What if instead of giving money to businesses, we gave money to people so they could survive while their businesses were put on pause for a few months?

What if we felt humans being alive was more important than humans having jobs?

What if instead of pushing for things to go back to normal, we pushed for innovative ways of creating new normals?

What if those in charge also did what Tim pushed. What if they had spent the last few months building up a strong system of testing and tracing?

I think if the government did what Tim and I had wanted instead of what my parents had wanted, we'd have much less cases...and we would keep the low number of cases in control with testing and tracing.

Instead we are completely out of control.

We have too many cases, and we don't have enough testing abilities to keep up with all these cases.

All this hit home for me when someone, I know, had a sore throat.

I already had the idea that Texas didn't have enough tests to test random people to look for asymptomatic cases. But I thought that we had enough testing to test people who had signs of illness.

The person couldn't find a time and place to get tested.

She was taken to a pediatrician's office where she was told she didn't need to be tested. Not only that, but she was also told she didn't need to quarantine.

That made me realize that I'm very much living in a shithole state.

If we had done things right, we'd have very few cases and a lot of tests.

Instead we have way too many cases and not enough tests.

But hey....

As long as you were able to go get that haircut and sip a beer at your favorite bar.

And now we're being told that schools should open, because it's important for kids to go to school.

If people really believed that, they would have done the things that needed to be done to MAKE it safe for kids to go back to school.

So yeah. I'm furious that the Trump government went with my parent's way, and I'm angry that it seems at this point that Tim and I were right, and they're wrong.

And I'm angry that my parents haven't come forward to give a little....Oops. We got it wrong. We got it really wrong.

I don't know what's worse for me to imagine—that they still think they're right, and I'm wrong. Or they know they're wrong but are hoping their magical gaslighting skills will make me forget that they pushed for the reopening?

5. I'm angry that my parents and sisters act like they have forgotten I had a DVT in October. It was given less attention than medical dramas typically get in my family. That was bad enough.

But then when it turned out, that Covid causes blood clots....I kind of imagined, this would help them remember, and my medical issues would get the amount of attention that other people's medical issues receive in my family,

I've tried to do research on this. I'm not getting any idea that having a past blood clot makes you more likely to have Covid 19 blood clots. But still....

Well, I'm also not seeing anything saying that you're NOT more likely to get Covid blood clots if you've had a mysterious blood clot in the past..

I guess I'd just like my family to show some amount of interest and concern. Have they even thought about it?

If anything....it can just be a simple association thing. They could read one of the many articles about Covid. It would probably mention blood clots. They think about how their sister/daughter had a blood clot. They'd reach out to me to ask me how I'm doing in that regards.

Yikes. One must be really desperate for attention if she hopes that a negative thing in the news will remind her parents and siblings to think of her.

Okay....I just want to clarify a point here. About....my medical drama getting less attention than other medical dramas.

Recently, we were the targets of one of my dad's rants. Why? Because Tim got confused about who in our family might be seeking a Covid test. It was a combination of forgetting and misreading a text...which is understandable, because the text had auto-correct issues.

It was like how dare we not be fully up to date and informed about medical dramas happening within the family. How dare we get a little confused.

But....guess what. The same family unit that might have someone needing a Covid test? I hadn't heard from them when I was diagnosed with the DVT....which was partly due to us being in a fight at the time. But I reached out a few weeks later to one of them (about various things) and one of the things I said was something like I assume you know I had a DVT.....

And he didn't know.

No one had told him.

So I'm supposed to be aware of all illnesses that happen to other people in the family. But the same doesn't go for them knowing about mine. Why is that?

Sometimes I think I don't want people talking about me behind my back. But no. When it comes to having a serious medical drama, if people are not showing loving concern to my face, I'd at least like to know they are worrying about me behind my back.

Well, that's it for my main anger issues lately.

I'm angry, scared, and feeling powerless.

I like imagining I could magically change things with witchy powers of revenge and justice.

Sometimes these little delusions make me feel a little better about things.

Though it's hard to stick with these delusions, because Trump not having a loud, public explosion of burning diarrhea kind of proves I'm not as powerful as I wish I was. (tbh, this is one of my more benign Trump wishes. I'll keep the other ones more quiet so secret services doesn't come knocking at my door)

BUT....I still at least can have faith in Karma.

I have hope that one day things will be righted in the universe. Or they will be righted via one of the many alternative universes. I have hope that people will either become worthy of forgiveness or redemption...Lost style. Or the universe will give them a huge and painful deserving kick in the ass.