So the federal increase in SNAP benefits has ended this month. Most states have ceased their proclamations of… emergency, or whatever each state calls them. We are effectively pretending that we are no longer in a pandemic when we clearly continue to meet the criteria for continuing to be in a pandemic, and it’s all because the pandemic has inconvenienced enough people in positions of power that now all of those who are high-risk get to face the increased dangers of it hoping that they don’t get COVID-19 themselves (or again, or again and again). I think we’re somewhere in the 30,000s of infections confirmed at doctor’s offices every fourteen days in this state, but… no. Nothing to see here. Move along, folks. We’ve decided that the pandemic is Over because we are tired of having to change how we live to make sure higher-risk people don’t unnecessarily get infected — or worse — with it. And according to the metrics that the state of Texas does keep, we’re beginning to trend upward in cases again, so this is hardly endemic at this point. But still.

If we ever actually thoroughly get over this thing and enter true endemic status, it won’t be because of humanity, but it will be in spite of humanity. I’m a pessimist here though. I’ve had COVID-19 once (and hope never to have it again), and I’ve seen how people in my home state treat COVID (“like the flu, no big deal”).

Someone that I was friends with who put her hands on her estranged wife and was outed as a sexual predator by those who had been intimate with her finally realized that I had… for lack of a better way to put it, blocked her on everything (because I did, and for that reason, so I’m not even going to dispute that), and she decided to whine to someone that both of us knew claiming that I “was getting information about the abuser for the other side” when I didn’t even know until the day that I cut her out of my life what she did, which other people can vouch for, and then she has the nerve to say that I… continued to talk to my children’s fathers — who are not in their lives, who are not allowed to be in their lives — “until it was no longer convenient for me” or something. I’d like to know when it was convenient for me to have anything to do with either one of them past the point of gestation, to be honest. I’ve discussed the things that… happened on my personal Facebook because almost none of what I write there is public, and I at least like to think that I appropriately vet people. I was also consistent with this person, as I am with everyone, explaining that my current living situation does not allow me to invite people from the Internet onto the property… and this person did not seem to be comfortable with that, presumably thinking that I would make an exception for her or that an exception would be made for her when it was not my exception to make.

I like — and by that, what I really mean to say is don’t like — people assuming things about me when almost all of them are right there on my Facebook page (if we need to have this sort of conversation, you should know me well enough by now), let alone bringing my children’s fathers into something that was and continues to be not at all related to you or the issue at hand. If it’s any consolation, you’re about to join them on the short list of people that I can’t trust, who cause me concern and make me feel exceedingly uncomfortable. I’m mincing my words here. People reading this probably know just how I feel about this.