Wednesday evening. Statistically speaking, some conspiracy theories must be true, but which ones?

I took most of today off: even though it doesn’t feel like it, the year is coming to an end, and I’ve got a giant pile of personal time to use up. After what happened yesterday, that seemed like a fine idea. (I still logged on for two hours to help, but that’s just some background workaholism.)

I’ve finally caught up on my laundry, even though it took three loads. It’s been at least 37 days, and even my reuse/reduce/recycle attitude could only take me so far. Funny thing about a self-imposed lockdown: when you don’t have to go outside, you end up using a lot less clothing – or put much less wear and tear on your work clothes, in any case. The mere act of putting on socks to leave the house is a bit of a special occasion, an unusual sensation that once was common, a Pavlovian trigger followed by setting out into the potentially infected populace.

During the big grocery run yesterday, I finally acquired a pair of 3-volt batteries for my smart scale: so rare and hard to find and, I suspect, overpriced. Weighed myself for the first time in months… I might have been too stingy with ye olde caloric intake, because I’m down to just 157 lbs, which is a bit below average for a 6’2″ guy. No wonder doing daily pushups brought about a small change: literally anything would. Well, at least now I know the “before” stats for when I finish reading that fitness book.

In covid news: Bob Woodward’s new book is coming out soon. He has tapes: Trump had agreed to be recorded, so what follows is not hearsay. As early as February 7th, Trump told Woodward that covid was dangerous and deadly. In March, Trump said he’s intentionally downplaying the severity of the virus. That was six months ago. Hundreds of thousands died while he insisted the virus would magically disappear, while he mocked masks, while he pontificated on the efficiency of injecting yourself with cleaning products.

Bob Woodward is no angel, either: he sat on those revelations for months, saving them for his book. It’s hard to say how much would’ve changed if he’d released those tapes right after recording them, but surely at least someone would’ve been convinced. At least one town would’ve enacted stricter measures, at least one family would’ve started wearing masks. At least one life would’ve been saved. No profit is worth that. If Trump’s criminal negligence and deliberate withholding of vital information resulted in all those deaths, then Woodward is at the very least an accomplice.

And so there we have it, folks. The president of the United States of America spent months deliberately lying about a deadly virus, killing (by the official count) 190,000 Americans, with just as many deaths expected by the end of the year. If you tried going back in time and warning people about this exact scenario (even just a year ago, when we’d already normalized the idea of Donald Trump as president), you would’ve been called mad – and likely would’ve gotten institutionalized for good measure. Maybe that’s why we never encounter time travelers from the future. Maybe they’ve always been here, but their disturbing shouted warnings about bizarre catastrophes have always been dismissed as random detritus of damaged minds.

This is somewhat covid-related: the US west coast is on fire. There are apocalyptic-looking pictures and videos of hellish red sky, of dense and ash-filled air. The wildfires aren’t everywhere, but it seems like every area from Arizona and all the way to Washington is affected. My mom lives just south of Seattle. Some small towns to the east of her have already been evacuated. That’s the new future, with bigger wildfires and hotter summers every single year. It certainly doesn’t help that all the displaced people will likely be stuck together, and there’s high potential for even more covid clusters…

These types of natural disasters were among several reasons I moved to Canada – and to the east coast of Canada, at that. I wonder how different my life would’ve been if my work transfer to Australia had gone through in early 2018. If I hadn’t done so poorly on my interview, I would’ve been there when the entire continent caught on fire in early 2020. (I know, it seems strange that all of that happened just a few months ago.) If not for my failed speech check, I would’ve lived in the country that’ll be hit the hardest by the global warming, as opposed to the Great White North, which will also get hit, but not as soon, and hopefully not as hard…

I’m still asking my US relatives if they’d like to move to Canada and join me here. Who knows, if I keep asking, maybe someday they’ll make that mental leap and join me after all. One can only hope, eh?