Archive of ‘personal’ category

06
Aug
2020

This doesn’t surprise me. It bothers and saddens me.

categories: personal; word count: 392 words

In case anyone’s actually wondering, the schools in this area are set to open up around here in the middle of the month… unless something changes, they open back up and there is a surge of infections directly related to this and the school district gets pie on their faces as a direct result of this (which would not actually surprise me), or there is an actual Hail Mary and someone along the chain of command comes to actual reason. Parents and guardians have the choice of deciding whether to send their students to school for in-person instruction or allowing them to continue doing the distance learning that was mandated back in the middle of last school year when this pandemic started and schools were forced to close down, and any student who is doing distance learning can get a laptop as a loaner from their school at request. Again, this state is prioritizing “the economy” and “getting everything back to normal” over people’s lives, and it shows.

At this point, I can see the school district getting egg on their faces at some point. It’s just a matter of when.

Meanwhile, the superintendent continues to be smug about it, even though members of the board were surprisingly hesitant about it. It seems that the school district is actually in a position to lose funding if they do not open up, and this actually drove the decision to open doors when they are scheduled to be opened. This does not surprise me at all. It will all be about money, and access to federal dollars, at the end of the day. It always is with this district. It will always be about access to federal dollars, and foolish decisions made to secure access to federal dollars, at the end of the day with this district. This is exactly why I called our pompous, smug superintendent a bald-headed fuckface when he was live-streaming about this decision on one of our local news agencies’ Facebook pages, and why I do not regret my decision to call him that at all. I will gladly attach my name to the decision that I made to call him that. He is pompous and smug, and he thinks he knows more than the CDC. He deserves it. He is an educator, not the scientist he thinks he is…

04
Aug
2020

I’ll be damned if this isn’t truth in a picture.

categories: personal; word count: 148 words

This is a screenshot that someone else took that has been disseminating around… but still. This is scary.

And people wonder why teachers are reluctant about being forced to open their classroom doors back up. The United States practically, and with good reason, closed everything down when the pandemic first started, but the economy and “starting everything back up again” now takes precedence when things are so much more worse than they were when the pandemic started. We’re playing with people’s lives here, and people in the highest positions of power do not seem to get that, or worse — they don’t seem to care at all.

I try not to make too many assumptions, but it is beginning to look more and more like “don’t seem to care”.

As I have come to discover, the United States is actually a frightening place to be in a global pandemic.

02
Aug
2020

In which the Internet says, “damn, spoil yourself”.

categories: books, personal; word count: 383 words

You have to love it when you call in a refill for something and are not even told that the medication in question requires prior authorization, wait… wait… wait, and then after more than a week passes call the pharmacist (my favorite line here is “calling to inquire about the status of this medication”), just for the person on the other end of the line to cheerfully say, oh, that medication requires a prior authorization.

At any rate, I did spend some more of the economic stimulus payment. I got a ring light and tripod for our camera (camcorder? camera? yes, I’m a nineties’ child) so that we can actually get more use out of it, and I was actually able to find those two things for affordable prices off of Amazon. As mentioned, I’ve also gotten a few candles as well… one from The Satanic Temple’s actual website itself, a few really nice looking regular-sized candles from a vendor on eBay, a few adorable tealight candles from another vendor, and some Satanic literature. Surprisingly, we were not in dire straights prior to this pandemic, so I decided to use the money from this payment to get things that we would otherwise have had to wait on. As mentioned, I got myself a pair of prescription sunglasses for when I’m having migraines (amber-tinted, and 80% sunglass). I also decided to spoil myself a bit since this pandemic did not actually put us in dire straights at the time that I got the stimulus check given our unique financial situation, although by no means did it make us rich or would I ever have considered us in any way rich or “well-off” from it… I got myself magnetic and thermal nail polish, two things that I’d been wanting for awhile, some other cosmetic items, and some items of clothing.

All told, I didn’t get a lot of things, because this wasn’t a lot of money.

And I would like to see a second stimulus check passed by the government, because there are other things that I would like to get us. I wouldn’t even mind the same amount. I’m not going to get my hopes up with a GOP-controlled Senate or Mitch McConnell. I’m frankly still flabbergasted that I even got the first check, heh.

01
Aug
2020

In which I read and mull throwing my hat in…

categories: books, personal; word count: 390 words

I’m continuing to make progress reading Satanic literature, although my focus on ritual reading is being narrowed to reading that has been published or written by members of The Satanic Temple. I’m also thinking of writing manuscripts for NaNoWriMo this year, never having thrown my hat in the ring — there have been several years where I have wanted to, but have either never had the time or haven’t had a clear idea what I wanted to write, but am now considering planning out months in advance what I would like to write (especially if we are still quarantining, or otherwise limited, in some fashion before then), and if maximally successful, letting a whole bunch of completed manuscripts start to pile up, beginning to edit them after each year’s NaNoWriMo, and go from there depending on what each of them are about. I’m thinking that I may start out with nonfiction works since those have always been what I have been the best at. I mean, no wonder, I did get a two-year STEM degree, didn’t I? APA is in my blood. This is what I do. Maybe I can try…

After all, NaNoWriMo doesn’t historically start until November. This gives me plenty of months to mull it over.

However, given that I may one day want to publish something, I do have to go into NaNoWriMo with that in mind, which is exactly what I’m going to do, both in the “write for the sake of a word count” phase (the actual month of November) and the actual editing phase, which I’ve heard are historically the months of January, February, and so on. IF I’m going to write about Satanism in any capacity and attach my name to it, which I have no problem doing at this time, I need to be careful how I go about doing that. I’ve also considered using a pen name (Meg Masters from Supernatural would be a nice pen name), but if I want Satanism to be taken more seriously and to be something that future generations can speak out about without apprehension or fear, I feel like I need to put some of that leg work in myself during this generation.

So what I’m saying here is that I need to be careful enough to be taken seriously, but not foolish and reckless.

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