C U Next Tuesday: I hope

17/3/20 Hello America 24
People say Georgia O'Keeffe made flowers look like vaginas, but I and a lot of other women think people were seeing vaginas in her work because they were being sexist. Although this piece...I mean this looks straight up like a vagina.

Guys, I am too scrambled to do this post this week. There are too many cunts to count and I truly cannot focus my anger right now. Feel free to add your own cunts, or say whatever you want.

I thought that it might be worth skipping this post altogether, since this is so useless, but then I thought, No. Now, more than ever, we need to band together and call people cunts.

Non-cunt feelings

Like everyone, I am reeling from bad news hitting from all directions at once, and to boot, my husband has temporarily lost his job. We will be ok for a couple months, but I’m nervous if it’s longer – whether we will survive that length of time, and whether his places of business will reopen. Now we must rely on my fairly unsteady income during what is usually my slowest season, proving to be even slower now.

And I mean, god help us if anyone we love gets sick. Or us, I guess, although we are theoretically not going to be vulnerable.

I am jealous of the people who are so worried about being bored.

It’s weird to be in a position where there are only shitty choices. These businesses closing are helping society and their workers stay healthy. They are also harming society and hurting or killing their workers by putting them out of work, which could mean homelessness, starvation, lack of healthcare, and death in the long-term.

There are so many people expecting capitalism to continue to drain us, and that’s where so much of this stress comes from, when it should be focused on our health.

There is surprisingly hopeful news from my end, though. In dipshit motherfuck Louisiana, independent contractor agreements are abused and workers have barely any rights. Tipped employees make jack shit without their tips and their income is often reported only in terms of their meager hourly (by the employer). Our state has swiftly and generously extended unemployment benefits to basically anyone who says that they are affected by COVID, and there is no means test or bureaucracy to prove that. The benefits max out at about $250 a week, and usually depend on your income, but they are giving everyone the full benefit without question if they are home sick, were sent home, had their hours cut, their workplace closed temporarily, etc. They are including gig workers and independent contractors. It’s not much, but it’s a start. I hope the system can handle it – they estimate it’s about 15% of Louisiana’s workforce in this position as of today. Surely more soon.

Seems like they could have done that stuff sooner. Like, lots of people who aren’t eligible for unemployment normally desereve to be.

My husband is service industry; he partially owns one bar, and works/worked at another. It is surreal to watch so many of our friends lose their jobs on the same day. It was like our city just got a bucket dumped on it. So many people are grieving. So many employers are making terrible choices. Our landlords are restaurant owners who lost their income and know we just lost most of ours; they are good people and we agreed to work together but we’re both kind of in a shit sandwich. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for mortgage suspensions (followed swiftly by rent suspension).

I am a freelance artist and illustrator; my work hasn’t been directly affected too much so far (except I have some contracts in limbo that I think are just going to stay in limbo for the whole year now). But I’m sure it will be affected as people forego luxuries. Spring in New Orleans is big for the art community; tons of artists I know sell at festivals, do wedding and other event-related work, and have gallery openings and shows and performances. All canceled. It’s unclear whether unemployment is open to us.

I’ve had friends struggling with childcare reach out to me to see if I wanted to come do art with their kids; I would love to do that – I would love the income of course, but it would also be a welcome and cheerful distraction- but I’m not sure it’s responsible. My husband thinks if I only do a few householes where I trust people it will be OK, but I just don’t know.

For me, I’m going to focus a lot on producing content. If people can afford to hire me now, amazing, but maybe I can at least build my audience for if – fingers crossed – we can start spending money again without fear of literal death.

I still maintain that COVID feels like justice; I knew we’d all get swept into it, which doesn’t feel great, but few will emerge from this completetly unscathed. The fact that it crosses class boundaries feels like justice (not perfectly equally but enough to satisfy me). The stock market is crashing because so many people are losing their income and have no idea how they’ll survive. Anyone can carry the illness, and anyone can get it, and it’s too late to separate yourself from the unwashed masses. In short, they have to take care of us to take care of themselves, and they are either going to learn that the easy way, or the hard way.

I hope ya’ll are faring OK. I’ve had a wild past 4 days or so and haven’t been around here much. I’m keeping ya’ll in my heart.

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24 Comments

  1. I just posted this on the DOT, but this see you next Tuesday…

      • …great to see you…sorry we can’t seem to say the same about that .gif

        …although poor old myopicprophet is very much working on making that sort of thing work so it’s always possible this might stop making sense if it magically embeds itself at some point?

        • Hahaha, no worries. Things are so awful over at kinja lately it feels like I’m engaging with trolls as often as with good-faith commenters.

          Good to see you and other friendly faces, I’ll have to start coming around more often 🙂

          • …you’re doing the lord’s work there, mamacita…but we’d be glad to see you spend a little more of that time round this way…those assholes don’t deserve your time…in my not-especially-humble-under-the-circumstances opinion, anyway

          • I’m 99% out of Kinja. I know it changed some in the fall, but I feel like having a period of time withdrawn from fighting with that crowd has done me some good. I’m sure plenty of people there don’t mind my absence hahaha.

            • …I know I would if I ever found the time to go trawling through the place these days

              …but yeah, the folks I miss from kinja may very well be outnumbered by the ones I’m just as happy to have nothing to do with so that makes some sense to me

  4. OMFG His mouthpiece at the press conference just made the claim that we had to develop our own tests for Covid-19 because the ones the WHO were using were prone to false positives. They’re still trying to create a narrative that this is blow out of proportion!

  5. I hate to say it, but I don’t believe “deserve” or “justice” will have anything to do with the long-term impacts we’ll see. Too many good people will die and too many terrible people will be unaffected for me to buy into that concept.

    Specific to how nations handle things going forward, it’s a matter of whether voters pay enough attention to see who are flinging bullshit and who are legit trying to help. Obviously, I’m not hopeful.

    • It’s not that I think those who will deserve it will get it; rather it’s that there is no way to control who gets it at this stage. I mean, we are all trying to minimize the spread but the rich and poor will get it, and if the hospitals are overloaded, plenty of rich people will suffer the same. Less about it being pointed, and more about it being wild and uncontrollable. I think that people are still coming to terms with that.

  6. “but it would also be a welcome and cheerful distraction”

    Fwiw, depending on the ages of the children, you may also be able to do some real good, in helping up their fine motor skills & hand strength, while we’re out of school due to the virus.

    If they’re young children, you being there in person, to help them position the pen/pencil/crayon/marker/brush in their hand *properly* would help the kids keep up those important “handwriting technique” skills we try to teach kiddos in our early childhood and ECSE (Early Childhood Special Ed) classes.

    That is one area *in particular* that I’m concerned with,since so many kiddos–even tiny ones–may end up on phones & tablets over this break, rather than playing with crayons, pencils, markers, brushes, & paper. (If you can, short markers & pencils like golf-pencils are best, just because regular-length ones can be difficult for tiny hands to balance properly😉💖)

    I say GO FOR IT, if the little vectors don’t seem *too* vector-y! The kids could probably use some activity, AND would most likely love seeing a non-family adult–ESPECIALLY one who’s bringing then a fun activity😉😁🤗

    And, honestly, as an adult who works with kids, they are some of the BEST mood-boosters for when *we* are in stressful times, because teaching them things requires SO much focus & concentration that *we* have to stay outside our own heads for a bit.

    • Thanks for your expertise here! It’s three different friends and I think the oldest kid is in kindergarten so that definitely applies. They are fun and no one is ever unhappy to see me when I show up with craft supplies. I just need to monitor how I feel and how their parents feel about the situation. All three of these friends are in situations where they are either still expected to go to work or one of them is expected to work from home and now they’ve got preschoolers around.

  8. Damn, I’m sorry Hello, America. I know a lot of people are struggling right now but I’ve heard New Orleans wasn’t fully recovered from Katrina yet. And y’all have an extra burden as a city dependent on tourism.
    Your husband can apply for an emergency grant from the USBG even if he’s not a member.

    https://www.usbgfoundation.org/beap

    I don’t know what to think about doing arts with the children. I guess if it’s a small enough group, maybe?

    • You know, the question of whether we are recovered from Katrina doesn’t really even fit into reality anymore, because the truth is that a lot of people have not personally recovered (as in, they lost a lot of wealth and maybe loved ones), but their lives have changed. A lot of the displaced people have moved and are gone now. But thee city is generally thriving without them. So it’s just like…a new and different place. The city I guess has recovered even if people haven’t?

      But yeah, we are getting shitfucked because of tourism and hospitality. My husband already applied for the USBG stuff (he is a member) but I’m sure they are overloaded. Good to always link it, though, you don’t know who else might need to see that.

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