"...faerie dust"

They just put up the Rockefeller Christmas Tree yesterday. Last night I had a Christmas Eve dream. Remember I mentioned being nuts was the source of my creativity. It was in a mish-mash of static from my whole life. Old schools places I worked traveled to all of them.

There I was a pissed off teen again in weird armor helmet a huge bleeping Excalibur too! See artist impression above. Family friends enemies folks from my whole life were extras in this epic. These from when I was a kid to this day. ...“And there was a War in Heaven!”

Yeah remember that? Well my inner knight sure did. The lot of us spent several sweaty gleeful installments hacking, and being hacked by hell’s underpaid Demons. I’d wake think WTF?!! Fall back to sleep, and pick up where I left off. We had a bleeping ball!

Fighting evil with the help of old pals. What could be better! Not only that, but I think we won. Well them Demons beat it da hell out'a there at least. Then this strange after battle mixing of other dreams. The normal blended with the surreal. That, and I lost my sword. Spent a few dream cycles looking for it. I may well find it when I crash, and sleep later.

Wadda Dream.

Must have been that Faerie dust in my in my Diet Pepsi.

"...remembering"

I found more posts from early in the Pandemic. This from April 11, 2020.

Once upon a time:

I sat on my fire~escape this afternoon reading the New Yorker.

Bright sun fresh breezes. Industry is sleeping as the air is fresh...I even sensed the ocean just a few miles away. Normally it might as well be hundreds.
Reading on there was a piece on how the Virus will decimate the country's homeless. It may well. I see them all the time as do you.
They have no masks because they have no money.
They can't shelter in place because they have no homes.
The city shelters like prisons or Navy ships are hot spots of infection.

So most Homeless stay away.

I think I mentioned seeing our blessed EMT folks removing bodies from homes. My 'Hood is a hot spot. The whole of the Emerald City is, but some areas worse than others. Queens was the first serious area now Brooklyn seems to have the crown. It moves around.

700 to 800 people are perishing in the Emerald City a day now.

They say it will level off. There's that lag time from infection to going critical to hospital to death. As less people are out less get infected. Lower numbers will take time.
That, and all the COVID deaths may not be getting counted. Some of those dying at home are perishing of other causes made worse by the Virus so are technically in another group.

Me I'm just sitting here reading at the end of the world.
Fran Leibowitz sez in the New Yorker that she has a special kind of sadness seeing the City she loves like this.

Sez she,... "New York is quiet. It's like a meadow.
A Meadow without flowers trees or restaurants."

March 31, 2020.

The Virus could kill as many as 200,000+ persons in this country. This the best case scenario. One Million…1,000,000 if we stay as we are. Or so real world virologists are saying despite #45.The real butcher’s bill will come out in the middle.

*(...As of Autumn 2021 counting every death including the numbers suppressed in the red states. We're at 1.2 Million perished.)*

This has had an effect on my view of the future. I fear for my family friends myself. This is as real as it can get. Many reading this including myself may not be here a year from now.

*(Six died in my building. 48 on the surrounding blocks so far.)

*(We were in an early hot spot.)
I’m stocking up on Chocolates, and diet Pepsi for the final act if it comes. I may sound un-serious, but what else can I feel as the world ends. Oddly everything but sweets is in short supply. 

We are in a culture changing moment, and need to act like it each in our way.

There below the USNHS-Comfort. 

She entered the Emerald City harbor this evening. She is very welcome.

March 25, 2020.

There, and back again. My short adventure out getting my meds, and paying my electric bill. Both the streets, and trains were empty. Like Sunday morning at 5am. I was not in 20 feet of anyone the whole time. There were so few folks. I took care of my affairs. Went to the also empty supermarket across the street. I checked first for crowds.
Of course I showered when I came in, and put my things in a laundry bag sprayed with disinfectants.
The trees are budding much more than when I was last out. Also Army helicopters buzzing about now, and then. Huey's, and Chinooks,...NY Air National Guard I assume. All is quiet.

March 16, 2020.

Went to laundry. My local is taking only ten loads a day. I was number 12. My friend the owner let me in. She said she was making exceptions for old customers. Bless her. The markets are open. Shelves perhaps 30% empty. This after being restocked from the earlier rush.

I assume the distributors are not topping off the locals,...holding back. A wait, and see. The library was closed. A note said fewer days new shorter hours. Also directions to the main branch downtown. This has a quarter day schedule.

The food take outs except for the chains were shut.
The Haitian Chinese Hispanic, and Indian take outs either closed or on shortened times.

Maybe one in six wearing masks.
Btw the drug store was out of these all week so far. Folks speaking to each other. ...without masks,...but still. New Yorker's open up when shit hits the fan. Folks telling their personal war stories of this thing. Blessing each other.

I'm listening to WQXR while posting this. These guys are one of the last Classical Station's in the region. We used to have several. They're reading listener email. Many artists in the audience. Musicians laid off from season concerts. 

Assorted painters writers the usual NPR creative crowd. 

The station is their community center. Playing requests even taking calls on the air. I don't think they've ever done that...these guys are a classical music station.

Many museum/gallery workers laid off. One called gave the low down on all that. Life in wartime. 

Stay tuned.

March 11, 2020

"...it just got real."
The World health Organization has finally declared COVID-19 a Pandemic. Being an Elder with Diabetes I should self quarantine now. Being a partial shut-in this won't be a problem. I'll have to make arraignments for shopping though. So yes I take this seriously. I lived through Polio, and AIDS. This one is different...very different. It's spreading like the last big one the 1918 Spanish Flu. I'm glad the WHO are finally being honest. It's a Pandemic. The use of the "P" word was held back I'm sure for economic reasons. That's as far as I go with any conspiracy. In fact it's likely been a Pandemic since Nov./December 2019. Certainly since January. We don't know because it wasn't taken seriously till now,...when it's too late. Please everyone be cautious be safe be smart,...but most of all be kind. 

March 8, 2020.

Right now in the Emerald City buses most lines are now free. This so essential workers can get where they need to be. Also Bike shops are now essential businesses. Folks are going there as alternatives to mass transit. The Subways as far as I know are still running all their lines. These are not yet free. Though there's political suggestion they should be.

Tho' I don't know where you could go. Also New York's Virus count doubles every three days.
It is now 'Double' what it was on the weekend. Cops finally enforcing 6-10 foot social distancing.
Stay Home.

March 3, 2020.

Went to market the shelves were somewhat light.  No bread little dairy no fresh meat. Tons of canned good though. Those $14 dollar packs of hot dogs are still sitting there. I think folks are refusing to buy them. Pandemic price gouging is a crime, but still not enforced. The upside no crazy crowds like last time.  I think it was general apprehension plus #45’s insane speech that sent folks rushing to the shops. I just read Spain might lock down. In another week or so. It’s moving fast now. 

Remember have enough for at least a week,…more if you can. Plus bottles of water. These are still cheap. At least for now. Be thoughtful take reasonable precautions. Put a backup supply of non-perishables aside...that, and all the Chocolate you can carry.

Keep cool, but prepare.

February 27, 2020.

Locally bleep is happening. Our governor has put a State Police, and National Guard ring around New Rochelle. A town just north of the Emerald City. That btw was the commuter town where Rob Petrie of the early 1960's Dick van Dyke show lived,...no it wasn't fictional it's a real place.

Btw some now call it "New Roach Hell".

Public gatherings are prohibited, and other measures are being taken. For example the NY National Guard Bio-Units are involved with disinfections some public areas.

The Gov sez this is the largest Cluster in the Nation.  ..............??!!!
How the fuck did that happen?!!
He calls it a "Containment Area". I better get serious about laying in a vast supply of instant noodles Diet Pepsi, and sugar-free Chocolate. 

We're being told to bathe, and shower a few times a day.  Wash every time we go out. Use rubbing alcohol if hand sanitizer ain't around, and it ain't. I've never been so clean in my life. I may get sick, but at least I'll smell nice.

Which after all is what really matters.

*(This below are more posts from early in the Pandemic. I had put this up last month. I figured I should gather them together here. The dates over lap with the above. February through April were extreme months in the City during the early pandemic. Near 1000 dying a day. 

As Spring moved to Summer it leveled off as we bent the curve of infections by staying home. Life was not normal, but somewhat less deadly. It was also in summer that it was clear that some states refused to do anything. That, and supporters of the president who said the Pandemic didn't matter agreed with him. They lived as if nothing was happening. 

They died in their thousands because of this. They got infected very ill, and died. Yet refusing some of them on their death beds to admit it's COVID that's killing them. #45 tho' voted out in November not only refused to accept he lost, but still didn't give a fuck about this world disaster. That, and his making it worse. This is a dark, and disturbed era.)

Once upon a time:

I’ve been gathering posts from my pandemic Journals onto one site. Not that anyone will read them. No one wants to remember. Like the 1918 pandemic this will vanish. A few grainy videos maybe not much more. Still it happened, and some noted down what they lived. 

There was a call at the start for people to do this. Not for the present, but for history. This below from April 9th 2020. How quickly we forget what happened to us.

“The State of Illinois is trying to obtain 12,000 body bags. Just that…what more to say than that. Me I’ve no intention of dying in the bedlam of an overwhelmed hospital. That or a field hospital in a city park. I’m staying home. I have one serious regret. My mother wanted to die at home. This was not possible given the advanced cancer. 

However I should have let her die where she wished. So I’ll die at Home. My Ma had no control over her fate. Tho’ we should have given her that.  This time I’m doing it right.  I’m kicking the bucket at home. With my books my stuff my memories all around me. This is who we are, and how it is.”

*Even I forgot this post.

Perhaps this is why near all memory of the 1918 Pandemic is gone. Just a faded photo, and a short paragraph in history books. …if that. It must have been too terrible to want to remember. It’s more complicated this time. Near a third or more in this country didn’t, and still don’t believe anything happened. This with near a million bodies at their demented feet.

If Peter pan is reading this will you please fucking get me out'a here!

April 5th, 2020

Woke bathed sat. Listened to Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” on my fav radio station. Found a 15 year old post card from a radio pal congratulating me. This on getting an audience rich time slot. Good timeslots is the currency of live broadcasting. Planned dinner,…first things first. Went to market. I stocked up last month. However that’s my reserve for when it gets bad. No it’s not bad yet. A few thousand dead. This is now considered,…not bad.

Went out. More wear masks now. The message months late is getting through. On my block two ambulances. Rainbow lights flashing. Around the corner another. I looked down the parkway. In either direction I counted five more. This at a random time on my few blocks. 

The Virus is hitting it’s first peak in the Emerald City. There will be more though this isn’t in mainstream media yet. Look on the international medical sites these are speaking about it. Few at market. No dairy nor paper goods,…none. Little bread. Meats very marked up. A pack of beef hot dogs is $14. dollars. However plenty of canned goods at normal prices. That, and about half of the frozen goods they used to have. 

It’s the end of the weekend. I imagine they’ll restock Monday or Tuesday…but will still price gouge. It getting warmer. 60’s for a few days, but nights still sometimes cold. Trees budding more, and the sky is noticeably bluer. Industries in the region shut down or reduced. Such is the day,…so far. Stay safe.

April 4th, 2020

The Apocalypse is slow. Internet works,…even pizza if you can find it. The end gusts through bare trees. A quiet death watch in a Central Park field hospital.

April 2nd 2020. 

I walked past a house where the EMT folks were removing a body. The remains were on a wheeled stretcher. This being moved down the walkway, and stairs. Then into the ambulance. People neighbors were watching from their windows. An older woman,…the wife? Stood watching at the top of the stairs. As is required next of kin cannot accompany either the infected nor the deceased. There she was alone in their home. A home of a lifetime decades,…a life together. I’m assuming this. It looked like it.  

784 people have perished to the Virus since yesterday in NYC. This one was different. This one I saw. Stay safe stay well stay brave. 

March 28, 2020  

The Emerald City is empty. Manhattan is striking. Empty. This at mid-day. Including Times Square. You can see such online. There are plenty of video’s. In fact I didn’t even plan on going into Manhattan. I just stayed on the empty subway till I got there. I had gone to my pharmacy for my diabetes meds re-fill. They’ve stopped deliveries. Instead of going home I stayed on the #3 to Manhattan.

I wanted pizza or hot dogs,…nothing was open.  …Nothing. That’s when I decided to walk down the middle traffic line. No cops no cars just some bikes now, and then. Saw a few Army supply trucks, but no real traffic. It looked like those end of the world movies. Think “On the Beach”….art, and life mixing it up.

Things smelled different. It might have been fresh air. As I mentioned in another post. The sky is noticeably bluer. My social distance was three blocks. Sometimes farther. Literally no foot traffic. Well folks far blocks ahead. That was all. Likely tourists. These dummies I read came here on a cruise ship. Did you know these are still going around the world? Madness.

Stay safe stay the fuck home. 

March 22nd, 2020

So the first thing I see online when I wake up. The Virus took hundreds of souls as we slept. Hundreds more have died in the City since this time yesterday. What is one to do with such knowing. How are we to internalized this? This event is so beyond living with. This, and the suffering in all the world. I witness it before me where I live,…still I can barely believe. It’s heart breakingly insane. ‘But you know this. I only post as a way of bearing witness. Be well be safe be brave be kind.

March 19th, 2020

#45 wants to Quarantine that is blockade New York New Jersey, and southern New England. Odd since he keeps saying the Virus doesn't exist. He would. Shutting the country down will wreck the economy, and he'll lose in November. He'd kill you, and yours to stay president. I just have this thumbnail of info, and even that is rough to read Blockade a whole national region. Life has become science fiction. Is the Army going stop all traffic, and people from leaving or entering? The interstate borders are profoundly porous. Anyone can wander in or out. Driving back roads or just walking. This is going to be messy. 

March 17, 2020

As I post this on the evening of March 17th 2020. I hear Bells. Saint Marks with her new bells barely two years old in her 120 year old steeple. Saint Gregory’s further down with her 146 year old brass. Bells of Saint Greg’s above. Both chiming as the sun sets.

With a hymn of Bells, and Blessings on the lips of many. That’s Brooklyn or my part of it on this dusk. Be safe be kind be well.

March 12th, 2020

I went out today. This to try to get assorted supplies. Folks about. More behind masks. No traffic. Only a few allowed into shops at a time. That, and many closed altogether. Despite this I felt a calmness today here in the Emerald City. Beneath grey skies a quietness. Life goes on, but with a difference. An awareness. You all be well you be safe. 

March 10, 2020.

Been watching City-Cams around the world. Italian cities look empty,…like in a sci/fi movie. Seattle the same. Various cities around the world are in various stages of slowing down. 

We are witnessing history. A history that is moving faster than we’re used to. For the first time I’m more than concerned. When I went to the Hospital earlier this week. This to get checked up, and renew my meds. I saw things. Whole sections closed off. Bright orange signs saying “Special Procedure Area. No Admittance”. That, and security there. 

They’re getting ready. 

There’s going to be great sickness, and maybe death here. We know that knew that we all did. It’s was just seeing this that changed things. Made it finally viscerally real. I have the same feeling we all had in the Emerald City when Storm Sandy was inching it’s way here. Apprehension. Will it be as hard as they say or will it just blow past. We have to be ready. Brave cautious, and kind.

February 26th, 2020

I was always a solitary person.  However this is very different. This is “The Quiet Earth”. Like so many I have fits of profound sorrow anger boredom confusion, and attempted gluttony. However I know there is no other way.  We have to stand down. Maybe,…especially in big cities for a year to 18 months.  

This till the vaccines are generally available. 

A long road is still ahead. 

Stand fast.

  "Remembrance Day"

I wrote this last night when it was already November 11th in Australia. I was posting to FB friends there, and other parts of the Commonwealth. Remembering WW1 is a serious matter to that population to those cultures. Here it's mostly forgotten. It's a niche knowledge.

Professionals political science students , and online history fans are aware of it in the States,...few others. The Vietnam experience dimed our interest in anything celebrating or memorializing past wars. 

Some young people are not clearly aware there was a WW1. Others have only the vaguest notion of the Second War or which side of the Korean or Vietnam wars we fought on. We are a nation with few memories now. This bodes badly for our future.

However some here do remember the 11th month of the 11th day at the 11th hour in the 18th year of the then new 20th century. The First World War came to an end. This the first round in the Second Hundred years War. 1914~2001.

The First Hundred years war was in the 15th century the Third began in 2001. The Fourth perhaps around 2110. After that there may be no organized human culture left to fight. 

Not because of the wars. Rather due to the Earth itself rebelling against our presence upon it, and washing us away starving us via it's rising oceans, and expanding deserts.

However we have it in us to adapt. Adapt out of our habit of conflicts, and adapt to living in a new planetary reality. We can do this are more than capable of it.

The Earth Abides

 "...timeslip"

I’ve been wanting to write a new dark matter time shifting story. Then came across this in the Encyclopedia Galactica. A booster section from an early Elon Musk space attempt fell to earth. It passed through a random timeslip, and landed on a Swedish farm in 1887. It found it's way to the Saint Petersburg Academy of Science, and rested there unremarked. Well in WW2 General Zhukov had a look at it when the place was Leningrad. Otherwise it still sleeps.

  "...a room"

A Room of One's Own" 
"...A woman must have money, and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." 
Ms. Woolf was on to something.
I would add a room that locks from the inside. A room with your quiet treasures. A room where you make dreams come true. 

  "I Still Believe in Angels" ...mostly

"Today's Sermon" ...It ain't Sunday, but so what.

I still believe in Angels,...mostly. Granted these guys are never around when you really need them. Well okay sometimes. Like when one yanked me out of the way of that cross town bus.

It was many years back. Just after the non-appearance of the Y-2K Apocalypse. Just before the 9/11 20 year long failed war on terror. Anyway I was stumbling along oblivious when a thousand tons of flying steel came bearing down on me. You'd think a person would notice that. Anyway someone yanked me back from the curb which I was wandering off of.
This into the cross hairs of red eyed General Motors hot raging steel.

ZOOM!

All over in a second. I hardly knew what happened. Yeah folks a for real Uncle Sidney adventure,...no really this happened which is why I'm alive to post it.
Here's the thing. There was nobody there. I was on a side street across from Madison Square Garden. The ugly stupid thing they tore down the wonderful Penn Station for.

Btw there's talk of their rebuilding it,...please gawd.

But I digress. Thing is I was alone when that bus turned the corner, and missed me by half an inch. Yeah that. The suction near pulled me over as it went.
I was alone. Not a soul.

Somebody or something grabbed me.

We all have many mysteries in our lives, and this is one of my big ones. Seeing a Demon Spirit was another. Though yeah I was insanely stoned at the time, but still.
I choose to call this bus event the work of Angels. Well that or some dark matter entities invisible clowns dead relatives or space aliens. Take ya pick. For me it was Angel folks. I guess they wanted me to hang around for something,...what I can't imagine. ...we'll see.

So endeth the lesson.

*(The above is probably not the Angelic, and or space alien in question,...cute though he is. Still he'll do as a reasonable stunt double for the entity involved.)

  "Exit Visa" ...here's something to cheer you up.

 

I sent in my application today. This for the Federal "Freedom with Dignity Act of 2026" entitlement. If accepted I can present myself at any of the regional facilities for processing. I'm pretty sure I qualify. I meet the basic standards of acceptance.

I think the only exceptions are minors under 14 military veterans with a retirement rank of major or over. Most medal of honor winners former elected officials, and former board members of major corporations. For them there's still a federal program of subsistence.

It's minimal, but it's there. Sort of a radically cut down Social Security before that was abolished. This by the Economic Freedom, and Choice Act of 2022. 

As for my processing which should come as they say "on or around the third of the month after acceptance". Thing is you have to walk or take public transit to get there. It's still early in the program so the facilities are not conveniently sited yet.

I saw on the news they're renovating old malls factories, and abandoned supermarkets to make access easier on clients, and to encourage applications.

This is a good idea.

I'd have applied a few years ago if they'd done that in the first place.

Bad planning if you ask me,...politics.

Btw they send you a nice booklet with hologram images of their places. Nice videos online with client interviews that seem more or less authentic. It doesn't seem to be the scary shit demonstrators are claiming.

Yeah these are the prototype ideal layouts, but still. I imagine the "supermarket" processing stations will be a bit more humble. Ya know the usual bored civil servants, and minimum wage armed guards.

...who cares as long as it works.

If accepted I'm to go to Fort DeKalb the former Army base at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge.

It used to be a processing center for WW2 to Vietnam era draftees.  It was still working for volunteers to the Army through the Terror War era. Anyway it's up, and running for "Dignity Act" work. One of the first in Brooklyn as I recall.

I looked over their website. Part of the deal is they slowly work you through the plan. There's medical assistance, and emotional back up if needed. The whole thing used to take two hours for each client. They streamed lined to down to 10 minutes.

This is fine with me. Just get it done,...ya know.

First an orientation. Then a very nice buffet,...you can order special. Anything,...within reason, as much as you want.

I noted on my application a Thanksgiving Dinner,...all the bleeping trimmings. I hear this is one of the favorite requests so I imagine them guys have got at it. I requested some lines of cocaine for after. I hear that's allowed.

I bet they just give ya a TV dinner.

After the meal you get a stage show from Broadway. With real stars from current hits,...at least in that prototype place. I imagine most will just get some local stand-up crew to keep us cheered up.

Either is fine with me.

After all this, and another interview to make sure this is of my own choice, and that I have not in any way been coerced physically or mentally. You have to sign a bunch of shit about this. This so your family or one them religious nut groups don't sue the government.

I just want the damned process being poor, and hungry is no gag.

It's nobodies business but mine!

Overseas it's a seriously different story. In Europe the army just rounds up their poor the immigrants trouble makers, and they get the shake, and bake. No foreplay. 
Here they give you a dinner, and a show. 

This is fine with me.

According to the big packet they sent. After all the fun, and games they gets down to business. You're taken to the processing level below ground. It looks like a cheerful hospital ward. You lay down in a private room,...again in the prototype. 
In the real deal I hear you get dumped on a gurney in a large hall with everybody else. 
They inject you right then no pretty please.

Unless you request 'in writing' a fruit juice drink with the "stuff" in it.

It takes about 4minutes no pain you just drift off. 
They guarantee this. 
Then you're removed to another facility for final processing. Your ashes are either mailed to your family or designated friends. If not it's used for fertilizer. Btw this makes everybody in the country a kind of cannibal since we're growing their food with our bone meal, and ashes. I find this hilarious. Fuck'em all.

Bon Appetit!