I wasn’t great at it before the pandemic, and I ran errands yesterday and I am definitely not any better at it.

The liquor store either doesn’t have plastic bags anymore or they ran out, so I left with what looked like a whole ass carton of booze, when it was just 2 bottles and some little single serve margaritas. The Safeway self-checkout has been calibrated to assume everyone is stealing every damn thing and the gentleman who staffs the self-checkout clearly hates his job. (Giant, with the same software, just assumes we’re all capable of scanning barcodes and generally honest.) Staples did not have the one thing I was looking for and I was chided for attempting to leave the store the wrong way. (The entrance and exit doors are right next to each other, but they have dumped a bunch of crap in between them so you can’t just walk towards the entrance, take three steps to the right and use the exit door. Dumb, and possibly a fire hazard.)

The only saving grace of the day was picking up lunch at Anita’s and taking a solid nap with the LilyMonster. (Leftover carne adovada tacos and chorizo queso FTW today.)

But this morning, I went to my good “we don’t assume you’re stealing” grocery store, and the comic shop was doing a mini Comic-Con and they had a bunch of arcade games in the lobby and tons of cosplayers about and that definitely put a big dork smile on my face.

And there is a young man who does bake sales to raise money for mosquito nets for malaria prevention for communities in Africa and he was there today, so I got some excellent cookies and this weekend he breaks $100,000 raised! The kids are definitely alright – or at least this one. His Mom helps with sale days and she loves to tell everyone, “He does ALL the baking!” – and he’s an excellent baker – I see a potential job as a pastry chef in his future.

My weekly Economist arrived and the cover title is “How to Save the Supreme Court” – while I admire that someone out there thinks it can be saved, but from where I sit – short of 5 particular members keeling over in short order, we’re just fucked. Biden won’t expand the court to 13 to match the 13 federal appeals courts. The Senate won’t do shit. Impeachment of the justices isn’t going to work with regards to lying about Roe in confirmation hearings, they can all just say their views evolved since then.

Personally, I’ll be kinda sorta OK. I am white, past childbearing age, can pass as straight, have no intention of marrying again, and can even pass as Christian if need be. But I shouldn’t have to pass as anything, and there are so, SO many who will be hurt or killed by this path we’re on and I don’t know what to do. Scream at my reps? Vote harder? Wrap a cricket bat in barbed wire and start swinging? Turn my home into a healthcare hostel?

I still need to figure out how to ask my company what they’re doing to protect their employees. I’m thinking for starters we don’t have our conference in fucking Tennessee of all places. I doubt they’ll ask me to go this year, but if they do, that’s a hard no. I’ll admit, I don’t even know who to ask. I mean, I guess I could just email the CEO, but I’m also thinking our head of DEI might be an appropriate start? I mean his job is kind of looking out for everyone that isn’t a straight, white, Christian male, so I assume he’s certainly been paying attention to what’s happening and has some idea of what’s coming.

I know I can’t make them care about what happens to their employees outside of work, but they should, and they need to know someone has noticed the silence.