It’s a “oh no early morning meeting” Wednesday, but I have the day off! (And the meeting was canceled anyway, but still, I definitely enjoyed sleeping in today.)

I did not watch the SOTU last night – I find them to be far too long, the applause breaks drive me up a wall, and inevitably there is something that enrages me, no matter how much I may like whoever is in office. But, I did sit down and read the transcript this morning.

Good stuff:

• Acknowledging that burn pits have caused a fuckton of problems for veterans.
• Protecting Roe v. Wade. (My dude, you can say the word abortion.)
• Protection for our LGBTQ+ friends and neighbors.
• DARPA for health sounds pretty cool.
• Helping Ukraine.
• Infrastructure – not sexy, but I like my bridges to stay intact.

“Unity Agenda” gave me some serious eyerolls, but the underlying goals are fine.

Then the “Oh FFS” bits.

• More money for police. They’re fine, they don’t need more damn money.
• “Thanks to the progress we have made this past year, COVID-19 need no longer control our lives.” I’m sorry, what now?
• “We’re leaving no one behind or ignoring anyone’s needs as we move forward.” – the fuck we aren’t leaving anyone behind, how about the elderly, disabled, immunocompromised, and kids under 5?
• “It’s time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again.  People working from home can feel safe to begin to return to the office.” Fuck yoooooooooou. Gas prices are going through the roof and you want folks to start commuting again? You want folks to have to deal with shitty anti-mask & anti-vax coworkers in person? ALSO, THERE ARE TONS OF FOLKS WHO NEVER STOPPED WORKING IN PERSON AND FUCKING PAID THE PRICE.
• Zero mention of student loan relief.

This garbage with the updated CDC guidelines making it seem like Covid over – get the fuck outta here with that shit. This idea that it’s fine if everyone gets Covid as long as they don’t end up in the hospital? JFC. When I went into Starbucks this morning – all the seats were filled, folks were shoulder to shoulder like everything was fine. Idiots putting themselves and the folks working there at totally unnecessary risk for a coffee and gossip session.

In my county, since our first cases emerged, we have had 55 days where our community transmission levels were “low” – out of 725 days. And the last time we were at those levels was JULY OF LAST YEAR. Moderate levels? Haven’t seen those since August of last year. We only just dropped back into “Substantial” last week – sure, let’s just throw all non-vaccination mitigation out the damn window. (I know, they recommend ventilation improvements – who is actually doing that? No one.)

I want to be able to go have a nice sit down lunch somewhere as much as anyone – but wishing doesn’t make it so. And for every asshat that thinks that people like me who don’t want Covid or Long Covid want to “extend the pandemic forever” – goddamn, you’re stupid. These folks definitely failed the marshmallow test.

Now that I’ve vented my spleen yet again over the chucklefucks at the CDC, I’m gonna try to do something with my day off that doesn’t involve being all pissed off.