Bad Days in the Fort

Despite the fact that fall has finally arrived -- we are sleeping with the windows open, and sometimes it is too cold in the house -- I am having a bad time lately.

A lot of things: the local public schools cancelled the mask mandate, even though a survey showed most people wanted to keep it in place. Dr. Skull has had both shots and a booster, so he should be okay. It's stressful all the same, and of course not everyone has or can get the vaccines.

I'm so sick of this pandemic, and so sick of the stupid fuckwits who insist on making it a political issue -- killing themselves and strangers so they can own the libs -- and frankly, so sick of this country, which seems determined to cater to the most hateful, the most willfully ignorant, and the most bigoted shits among us.

(An article worth reading, in that respect.)

Further, my students are at the point in the semester where everything is too much for them. On top of that, several of them are having personal crises: parents dying, positive Covid tests, a wrecked car which is their only transportation. That sort of thing. There is not much I can do, but I do what I can.

I've been ill off and on, with migraines and stomach pain. Stress-related issues.

And my kid is having some problems.  This, of course, is the worst. My father-in-law, of blessed memory, used to say "Little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems." It's true. When they're little, nearly every problem they have is something you can handle, by the sheer power of being a parent. Once they're grown, your powers are no longer super-powers. You're just another adult, trying to help them figure things out.

It's rough.