I mean, I will, because I have to, but I just don’t know how I manage it with any shred of grace or sanity.

I definitely have pandemic burnout. I am still mostly functioning (though you couldn’t tell it from the state of the house,) and I’m not tempted to do reckless things, but I am totally over it. My stress levels through this (both the pandemic and this shit administration) have been too high, for too long, and it’s not healthy at all.

This morning I had to run into the market, and I used regular checkout because I had two cases of beer and I just…didn’t feel like dealing with self-checkout. I chatted with the couple in front of me, and with the checkout clerk, AND THAT WAS SO NICE. SO VERY, VERY NICE.

Fuck, maybe I actually like people after all.

Then there is my sweet Lily, who does not understand why I will not pet her when I’ve been out until I’ve washed my hands. She just looks so crushed when I tell her she needs to wait when I come inside. (Yes, I know the chances of catching it and passing it to her are pretty much nil, but I’m not giving my cat the ‘rona on top of everything else.) This morning she was just repeatedly flinging herself at my feet when I came in from the market, and it’s silly, but it *hurt* to not be able to just give her belly rubs right off the bat.

I can’t help but wonder – would I feel better if I felt the government was actually *trying* to help? You know, rather than saying $1200 will last folks 10 weeks and having super-spreader events in the damn Rose Garden and now 45 is talking about having a rally tomorrow night?

If Biden wins, I am at least fairly confident that once we have a properly tested & safe vaccine, that he will invoke the Defense Production Act to make sure we can produce enough of it as quickly and safely possible. (Hopefully he’ll invoke it the afternoon of 1/20 just to get as much prep work out of the way as possible – vial manufacturing, logistical planning, etc.) And you know, we’ll not have close up/maskless events at the White House, or saying experimental therapeutics are a cure (they are not), or lying about every last damn thing. I think I could be less stressed if I wasn’t being lied to every damn day.

Instead, we get to steel ourselves for 45 bitching all day about the UN Food Program getting the Nobel Peace Prize, and probably continuing to go after Governor Whitmore for not being sufficiently grateful to him(!!!) for the FBI stopping the white terror cell planning to kidnap and kill her – after he’s egged those assholes on.

Obviously if we’re gonna do this for another damn year, I have got to get back into yoga, or drinking heavily** or doing drunken yoga, or something.

Please lord, let Biden crush 45 so at least I might be able to relax a tiny bit after January 20th, and contemplate the idea that better things are ahead, and that any light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train.

** Amazingly, my pandemic drinking has stayed solidly in the “light to moderate” zone. I know, I’m as shocked as you are