i think that as the quarantine goes on, people will get a little batty. it's intense, because we sense we are being lied to every day, we know the deaths are just beginning to pick up, people are going out without masks or concern, numbers are picking up, yet for us who are staying home it's getting harder. we're cooped up, more and more worried about contact, and finding increasingly fewer options out in the world.

i can live without meat, as i should probably have been more worried about the conditions that they used to get me my meat in the first place. now people don't want to work in a meat factory, and i can't blame them, because that's almost certain death. and in a way that's on us, because we are so used to having meat all packaged just so, and we are also used to it being clean and presentable, and not having to skin the animal ourselves. maybe my solution should be to just go out there and get everything myself, in situations where i don't want to support a murder factory, although it's the murdering part of hunting that i really don't like anyway. just eat beans and peanut butter, like i did in the old days.

i've gotten more into twitter bombardment of pop art related to my different publications: short stories, haiku, non-fiction, quaker plays. the pop art is an ongoing, evolving public relations factory but it all seems to be for very little result - not many people are seeing it or responding. this may change as one thing i've noticed: people do like the art. you have to work with very thin odds. a thousand see it, one will click on it. a thousand click on it, one will buy something. a thousand like the art, but they are a different thousand from the ones who actually read the book. but the pop art has its own function: it keeps me sane, or at least helps me in the process.

one thing people do way too much is read the news, or watch it on television. that's what's really driving me batty - watching the president lie and cheat and steal, and watching him get away with it. so we're all home alone, squirming at watching the country go to hell, and this asshat just taking advantage of it to make his buddies rich. hydroxychloroquine. drinking bleach is good too. oh yeah sure. by the way policemen should be able to kill whoever they want.

i am out in the country, and have taken to walking the dogs every afternoon. up a dirt road - we have two properties after us, actually, before the end of the road. one is unoccupied but had a couple of campers one time. the other, a guy is moving into, gradually, but he's still gone most of the time. i walk the dogs up that little hill, and it's all quiet and mountain forest most of the time, and they smell the deer poop and whatever else, before we turn around. no matter what else i've done, i've at least got out and got some fresh air.

mostly i've been working on the writing - quaker plays, genealogy, mcdonald's short stories, in that order more or less. i have a lot to write. i imagine catching that virus every time i take a teenager to go see a friend, and try to conjure up what i'd like written before i'm gone - and i still have two or three on my list, unwritten, waiting for my attention. the two on top of the list are autobiography, and language as a self-organizing system. hopefully i will get to them soon.

so it goes. may in new mexico is like every other may - it's the dry season. not a drop of moisture but an occasional set of clouds that blow over and tease everyone. and then, june is the cruelest month - more of the same, only worse. the "monsoon" starts in july - then we get all ten inches, all over the course of a couple of months. in this time, i want to produce. i really feel like i might be gone at any time. and what i have out there - i want more. i'm just not done yet, and the clock is ticking. if there's a time to get this done, now's the time. i've grown impatient with the news.