June 18, 2020

Tansica from Red Hen writes that I am on the fiction shortlist for the RBA (Rubery) award (for independent writers and presses; final decisions in July), and that I have won the silver medal for LGBTQ from the Foreward Indies association. Never heard of any of that, but I have now, and will rejoice as much as I can.

Replaying the Beethoven sonatas. They are conversations which must be held a number of times.

One gladiolus blooms. Little galaxies of anemone. The spring blooms are done and the summer not yet upon us.

The end of the present upheaval cannot be seen. People abandon precautions against the pandemic long before the pandemic is ready to depart. Reminds one of victims of the Black Plague going out and dancing before the city walls in the midst of it, the Todentanz. Our danse macabre is on a beach, in bars. Last night I dreamed I had Covid-19. I would move from house to house, and each house would explode around me. It’s hard to explain how I know that was about the epidemic, but I do.

I’ve watched the video of the latest murder in Atlanta twenty times. The man said, “I could walk to my sister’s house.” Why didn’t they just let him? Has no one ever suggested that the easiest solution is sometimes the best solution? People want to defend the final action, but there is no way shooting into the back of someone running away from you at full speed is an act of self-defense. I cannot find where the history of policing in America has been anything but the history of a predatory and violent gang. People like me tended to underestimate the violence and the lawlessness because, for the most part, it was our interests they claimed to be protecting.  We could run up to Officer Friendly and expect a ride in a police car home because we were the right people. My own experience with the police is that they are universally liars. I would like to have some other conviction, but direct and repeated observation is difficult to overcome. They are violent not only because they were allowed to be violent, but because they were encouraged to be, as their violence was directed to those their patrons hated and feared. I think only white people can turn this around, because white people are largely to blame. Policing is corrupt to the root. It must up uprooted, then, and rethought. The policeman must think, “How do I restore peace?” I would be surprised if one in one hundred thinks that now. They think, “How to I exert control?’ People trained to think that probably cannot be changed.

Chat with Cody in Dallas. He asks me advice on the next step of his journey. I put my mouth in the hands of the gods and do my best.