A former presidential candidate died from the coronavirus earlier this week. A few weeks before, he attended a Trump rally without wearing a mask. I heard secondhand that a Marine living here in Montana justifies not wearing a mask by comparing it to someone who won’t carry a gun: If someone won’t carry a gun to protect him, why would he wear a mask to protect them? People in my community believe the coronavirus has been blown out of proportion by the media and that it’s nothing more than a glorified flu. Normally, I would be shocked, but when the president retweets a video from a pediatrician who believes that gynecological problems are caused by sex with demons and witches, then it’s tough to be surprised by anything anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if this picture came from an alternate timeline, one where true joy is an actual thing to experience.

Our school continues to discuss plans and contingencies for when school reopens later this month. Our discussions are good and productive, but there remains disagreement that I don’t think will be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Something like this can’t be resolved amicably, especially when people choose to believe what makes them feel better rather than what’s unpleasant. I miss the kids, too. I miss seeing them, laughing with them, and taking care of them, but how can any one of us live with ourselves if we inadvertently infect one of them, and they either get sick themselves or cause someone close to them to get sick? What if someone dies because of us? School staff are trained to protect kids from school shooters and earthquakes and nuclear attacks, but we’re okay rushing through a school reopening plan when an invisible enemy continues to run rampant in the world. But when we have Marines acting selfishly around people they have sworn to protect, then none of this surprises me.

It’s like God put an X over America and told the devil to do his worst, and the devil sent his demons and witches to fuck us from here to next Sunday. But instead of getting off, we’re killing each other with selfishness and ignorance.

I went for a walk yesterday and found out Lake County will hold their annual fair this summer. A few days ago, Lake County reported its first death due to the coronavirus. He was a man in his 70s. Yesterday, Montana recorded over 200 new cases, a majority coming from young people. Last week, Dr. Fauci said that young people are propagating the pandemic because they don’t care if they get infected. “[I]t doesn’t end with you,” he said. “You get infected and have no symptoms. The chances are you’re going to infect someone else, who will then infect someone else."

School starts in a few weeks, and the voices of parents who are worried for their children are getting drowned out by those that are against wearing masks and want things to return to normal, at whatever the cost. Death has come to Lake County, kids don’t care if they get infected, and the adults are propagating ignorance and selfishness. I enter commercial buildings with signs up stating that masks are mandatory, but I continue to see people not wearing them. I’m reminded of Jonathan Hickman’s amazing East of West series. On the cover of each issue is this quote:

This is the world. It is not the one we were supposed to have, but it’s the one we made. We did this. We did it with open eyes and willing hands. We broke it, and there is no putting it back together.

As long as we can have our fair then who cares about everything else, right?

I finished Ling Ma’s Severance yesterday, an entertaining plague novel that took me out of the plague novel we’re currently living in. What the novel got shamelessly and maddeningly right is our compulsion for normalcy at whatever the cost. We’re all guilty of this. I’m guilty of this. I continue to use the same route to drive to work, do the same job for eight hours, drive home on the same route, buy groceries at the same grocery store, workout my same workouts, make the same dinners, watch the same TV, talk to the same people, and sleep on the same bed. But we’re not living in normal times. If wearing a mask reduces the spread of the coronavirus by even a single percent, what’s the harm in wearing one? I don’t get it. Montana is the oldest state in the West. Shouldn’t we think of our elders before we think of ourselves?

Temperatures will reach the 90s this week, and I’ve been without an AC in my office for weeks. Fortunately, a few of my co-workers installed a new AC unit and a window in my office yesterday, and I couldn’t be more grateful. I’ve worked in this office for almost six years without a window so working with one now will be fun. I’ll now be able to tell what time of day it is without looking at my watch. That’s important for a guy whose job is to stare at screens all day.

I saw the president wear a face mask the other day, but I continue to hear people in my county protest them, their yells about rights and freedoms fueling our increased case counts. My county now has the second highest active coronavirus cases in the state, behind Yellowstone County, home to Billings, the biggest city in the state. We don’t have big cities in my county, so these high numbers are concerning. On Tuesday, the U.S. reported over 1,000 coronavirus deaths for the first time since May 29th, but nearly one in three of us don’t believe the virus’ death toll is as high as the official count. More countries are denying American’s entry into their countries, but that’s okay because instead of traveling, we’re spending our time online spewing more than three times as much hate speech since before George Floyd’s death in May. I continue to hear people proclaim that “All Lives Matter,” and someone in a position of power recently asked me why black people can call each other the n-word but white people can’t. If that’s not enough, a couple hundred acres started burning on the reservation on Monday night and more land should burn in the coming weeks and months.

The world is aflame with literal fires, a pandemic, and an infodemic, but all we seem to care about is ourselves, our rights to not wear masks, our right to infect everyone around us with our bullshit because we’re Americans. That’s the American way, a populace no one else in the world wants, a populace that is okay with unmarked vans kidnapping innocent citizens to who knows where because “All Lives Matter,” as long as that life is white. Science has never moved this fast to create a vaccine but that won’t matter because so many of us won’t even take it. How many will have to die before we realize how stupid we’ve been? I’m afraid the answer won’t matter because we won’t believe the literal death happening around us until it’s too late.

I spent time with new friends yesterday, and they showed me a good time. I had a lot of fun following this guy around the flowers, and I hope to do more of this on a regular basis. I’ve found a new love, and that makes me happy.

My thoughts have been dwelling too much on the macro level and not enough on the micro. There’s a lot to learn and discover right here in my own backyard, and I hope to spend more of my time in that world than in the world of sensational headlines and grim statistics. At least my governor has finally made face masks a requirement in counties with over four confirmed coronavirus cases.

My goal now is to slow down and smell the flowers.

On the latest episode of The Last Archive, Jill Lepore talks about Rachel Carson and her book, Silent Spring. That book helped ban DDT, saved countless birds, and started the modern environmental movement. Jill then asks whether a book like that can change the world today. Since 1970, three billion birds have died in North America. If that’s not heartbreaking, then I don’t know what is. Oh wait.

I read Silent Spring a few years ago, and what I remember most about it was this feeling that little had changed since the time she wrote it. I went back through my notes and found this passage talking about the effects of pesticides that remains heartbreaking:

Scientific observers at Sheldon described the symptoms of a meadowlark found near death: “Although it lacked muscular coordination and could not fly or stand, it continued to beat its wings and clutch with its toes while lying on its side. Its beak was held open and breathing was labored.” Even more pitiful was the mute testimony of the dead ground squirrels, which “exhibited a characteristic attitude in death. The back was bowed, and the forelegs with the toes of the feet tightly clenched were drawn close to the thorax…The head and neck were outstretched and the mouth often contained dirt, suggesting that the dying animal had been biting at the ground.”

By acquiescing in an act that can cause such suffering to a living creature, who among us is not diminished as a human being?

COVID-19 has killed 137,000 Americans. Many of us think this virus is a hoax or a government conspiracy. Meanwhile, Americans will continue to die while we refuse to wear a fucking mask. “By acquiescing in an act that can cause such suffering to a living creature, who among us is not diminished as a human being?”

Last night I drank beer from a can with the word death and a skull on it. So I had a good night. I was able to write a rough draft of an idea for my new book that I’m happy with. It’s an ambitious idea and it scares me, but if it’s not tough, then it’s not worth doing, right? Unfortunately, I had to wake up feeling like death this morning to get there.

Florida reported over 15,000 confirmed coronavirus cases on Sunday, and the US is on track to record over 200,000 deaths by election day. Confirmed cases of the virus in my county have more than doubled since the beginning of July, and I continue to see people at stores without masks on. Our school conducted a survey asking our staff whether masks should be required when or if school resumes, and almost half of the staff say it’s not required. I saw this picture in a story I read in the New York Times that broke me. I read another article that described the US as the world’s largest experiment in herd immunity. I found out today that a former friend’s mom died a few nights ago.

I feel helpless. What does it say about me that I find so much relief in a liquid housed in a can with a skull and the word death on it?

Yesterday, America set a new record of confirmed coronavirus cases. The previous one was set last Friday. Our school learned yesterday that one of our teachers tested positive for the virus. Meanwhile, Germany recorded a bit over 400 new cases yesterday. On Monday, ICE announced that foreign students in American colleges that have moved to online-only education will either have to transfer to a school that will offer in-person learning or risk getting deported. Schools across the nation have had to make up for budget shortfalls by both moving online and cutting budgets, and some of the casualties have been to athletics, specifically to non-football sports, like those done at the Olympics. What will an American future look like without immigrants getting their educations in this country and without our athletes representing us at the Olympics?

I love America. I love its story and its promise, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re all watching this country fall. While we’re endangering everyone by reopening schools and bars and restaurants and rejecting those who make this country better, other countries around the world—those with better leadership than ours, those who listened to science and to the experts—have handled the virus enough to safely start reopening parts of their countries. They have taken in immigrants from around the world, they have paid their citizens to stay home and to stay safe, they have provided them better and cheaper health care, and they will start returning to normalcy while we are fighting still both a pandemic and an infodemic.

When George Floyd plead for breath to the police over twenty times, officer Derek Chauvin replied by saying, “Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk.” America will fall not with a bang but with our own stupidity and hubris, our own Derek Chauvin with his knee across our neck telling us to stop talking while we plead for breath.

There’s potential evidence of community spread of COVID-19 in my county, which follows news from Tuesday of 80 new cases of the virus in the state, a record. This, in turn, follows news of Kanye West’s announcement that he will be running for president while the real president announced his plans to pull America out of the World Health Organization. The president of Brazil revealed that he tested positive for the virus, and on Monday I learned that Ennio Morricone had died. How could you live without fear in this timeline? When our leaders don’t care about our health and when so many of us aren’t taking the pandemic seriously?

Last year, I began to lift weights more seriously. My heaviest weights at the time were a pair of 30lbs dumbbells. I struggled with them in the beginning, but over time, as I grew stronger, they went from my heavy weights to my medium weights. Today, my heaviest are a pair of 40lbs dumbbells, and for most exercises, they’re heavy enough to make me work. For a few, though, they’re starting to feel light.

I became stronger through consistency and perseverance. Lately, I’ve been growing lazier and lazier in other areas of my life, from writing and reading to playing my guitar and keeping up with my chores. I can attribute some of that to the coronavirus and the lockdown from earlier this year but not all of it. The rest of it is on me, and I have to do better. I want to do better.