It's been exactly one year since I received the press proofs of my first article for SpaceFlight Magazine. A second article was published about six months later and a third is still scheduled for publication in September. It was a good beginning, but I thought my budding career as a space journalist be a lot further along by now. I certainly thought I'd be down at Kennedy Space Center tomorrow morning for the launch of the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission. Oh, well. It wasn't meant to be. Little did I know back then that the world was about to change. I keep trying to get media accreditation again, but it might be a while. In a post-covid world, newcomers go to the back of the line.I shouldn't complain though. My problems are small compared with what other people are going through. I was going to get a haircut later in the week, but my stylist got laid off at the salon. Another covid casualty. I know someone locally who got infected now. He's OK, but it makes me realize that the disease is all around us. Most of my friends are healthy and continue to lead normal lives. A few seem to have flipped out and are way too angry for their own good.
Sometimes when my day is uneventful it is tempting to go on an angry rant myself. It would certainly be an easy way to fill up space. The problem is that I'm not really angry. I'm still very detached. I think this is the secret to social distancing. I look at the world like it is an episode of Black Mirror or the Twilight Zone. It is not my world though. I try to navigate the pandemic and the social unrest like everything is covered in a sticky glue that you can't let touch you. You have to plan your moves very carefully.
I have a few farmer and rancher friends that I envy. I keep thinking that their farms are so remote that they are completely unaffected by all this turmoil. This probably isn't true though. Farmers and ranchers might not have to worry about riots in the city or getting killed by a random cough at a grocery store, but some of them are probably having big problems selling their cattle or their crops. The whole supply chain is screwed up now. We are in the middle of a global mess that affects all of us.
You'd think we could all rally together to find a solution. That's what my parents did during World War II. It's not happening though. I have never seen so much anger and division. Much of the rancor takes place on Facebook. I look at what some of my friends say online and think "Do I even know you." I think there are going to be articles in prestigious medical journals for years to come about how social media causes mental illness.
The solution for some of us has always been dogs. It's hard to be angry when you've got a good dog. Dawn continues to be a joy. She certainly came into our lives at exactly the right time.
Tink is today's Dalmatian of the Day |
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