i have plenty of time, though i have plenty to do as well. part of the problem is that i have no discipline. if i'm pulled to the horrible news, i just go there, and i might spend all morning there, or morning into lunch, and some of the afternoon too. it's the senselessness of the killing. and the utter lack of morality, to use a press conference to tout hydroxicloroquine, or whatever. to blame obama, or whoever.

the news got back at me when i read that the makers of hydroxicloroquine gave him $1.2 million. of course. it's all between friends. no matter that it doesn't work on covid. or that the people who really need it now can't get it. or that it kills people who aren't using it right. use the press conference to tout your buddy's chemicals.

spring is coming up around the mountains, and this means the tiniest wildflowers, and a few weeds, and worms everywhere, which get the birds going. things do turn a little green, even though basically it is dry from about january to july, and verydry in april, my birthday month. all those years in the north, and i though april was a rainy month, lots of rain mixed with occasional snow and thunderstorms, that kind of stuff. down here, not hardly an inch. you see some grass coming up and you want to make it wet, because that will green it up, bring it along - but water is scarce, and i, myself, feel like even doing the wash is an imposition on a hard-pressed reservoir.

better off than most people - i repeat that to myself, as we have the luxury, out here at the end of the road, in a remote south-central new mexico valley, to not really see many people. i wake up in the middle of the night worried about the supply chain, or about roving gangs in the cities when the money runs out, or about my various relatives getting caught up in the hard times, as i'm sure they will, eventually. but it seems all peaceful for now. people are not going bonkers.

i found out this morning how to keep a dow jones window open, and i do that. the stock market is fairly level, even going up, though there's a hint of trouble in the air. it's like nobody really wants to flip the switch that'll make it crash that much more. and, it's already gone down quite a bit, so its level, as it stands, is tenuously a new level that it could keep, if people really have the confidence in rebuilding and in the recovery of a real economy.

but there's also the possibility that some things are lost forever. department stores, i'd say, lost forever. lots of restaurants, lost too. it's hard to imagine now, what places would be like with a lot of people in them. it's not something i can see myself seeking out. the days of getting out on the beach, and just relaxing in a crowd, are over. even if you're stupid enough to do it, you surely won't relax in the process.

so, during the day, i pull myself back to the horrible news. i can't help myself. people are dying, right under our eyes, and we the lucky are out here in the country, time out, while they do it. in respect to them, if nothing else, i check the news. somehow i feel like i've paid them respects, by being horrified. they didn't die unnoticed.

and yet i've got three writing projects, one quilt, and a fireman's training program, all going neglected, in my morbid fascination with random deaths on the east and in louisiana. so far, nobody i know yet - people related to people i know, yes, and my aunt is in trouble (being ~96, being frail of mind, being in a nursing home that is contaminated - not a good place, at the moment). Everyone is suspended, like me. In a living room, probably with a television that's been on too much, probably overeating as i am - and we are all waiting for the "all clear" to go back to living our lives. it may not come right away.

so the morbid fascination - the pull toward the horrible news - keeps me, really, from the productive stuff. it doesn't keep me out of the outside. i spend my days clearing brush, cutting old branches, taking sticks away. it's all fuel, waiting to burn. i'm trying to get it out of reach of the house, so that when it goes, it goes in another direction. i would also say this about the tragedy. the sooner we forget about it, the better. let the bad news go downwind, away from us.

i have a new theory, a new explanation. it has been pointed out that this is a time when the earth is quite crowded. maybe four or five billion people? it's like if you believe in reincarnation, every soul who has ever been on earth, is back on earth now. we have people like me who respond in horror to trump, and it's probably because we were here during hitler, and it doesn't take much. people who died in the forties, could very easily rearrived in the baby boom, and are the ones, like me, who are now vulnerable and have to go home, sit still, and hope the world doesn't come to us.

but if you believe in reincarnation, then it's also possible that a large number of souls are needed elsewhere, all of a sudden, and the disease goes through and grabs them, so that they'll be available, now, wherever that place may be. not on earth, surely, as there are no new ventures on earth. but if there is a limited supply of souls, and we have most all of them, and in fact we would do ok without a few thousand of them, then maybe this is a way of making that happen. those souls, from our point of view, died in vain, what a horrible place to go - and it even seems like it was totally avoidable. but, under this theory, they won't be gone forever. somewhere, they are coming back, and, reborn, having a new experience in a new place.