Love in the Time of Covid 19

 

Howdy ho you random reader. I'm sure that I have no dedicated following anymore, after my long absences. Blogging used to be my lifeline to sanity, when I was an over the road trucker. I had designed my own webpage back then, as my ISP only offered unstructured space as a home page. It was entitled The Reluctant Trucker. I only became a driver because I needed a job, not for any romantic notion of the open road. When I came in off the road I changed my ISP but didn't like the format of the pre-structured homepage that Comcast offered, so I came over here to blogspot. I was still driving a truck, but instead of moving randomly around the Lower 48 and Canada I reported each day to the same location; my recurring nightmare.

I'm pretty much down with it now, it's not such a nightmare anymore, going into work. There are still aspects of the job that are hellish, to be sure, but overall it's not bad, even sometimes enjoyable. I've got to keep my guard up though, it is precisely when a driver gets comfortable behind the wheel that he is most at risk. We all know that the nightmare could return in less than a second.

So, I find myself with some time on my hands, what with Indiana's stay at home order. I've often contemplated checking in here, but the times I do have grown farther and farther apart, and yet the site remains; so here I am. What, working from home? Not possible, I'm a truck driver, remember? In fact transportation is considered essential and my company is still operating. With Indiana's lax restrictions most businesses other than restaurants are still open too, business as usual. After all, they are each essential unto themselves, right? There's plenty of work for me to do.

No, my isolation is voluntary. I was wondering what the stay at home order was going to mean for my job when I was handed a sheet of paper declaring that I was part of the "Essential Team" of Stone Belt Freight Lines; a development I met with mixed emotions. On the one hand I can little afford to be out of work, on the other I doubt that public health officials are trashing the world economy for nothing, shouldn't we all be doing our part? Still conflicted the day before the stay at home order was to start I was sitting in a line of trucks waiting to be loaded. I had my window down playing solitaire when a guy jumps up onto the step of my truck. He didn't actually put his head through the window, thank goodness, but was well within the six feet of social distancing. He said, "Sorry it's taking so long but we've got four loaders out sick."

Great, so what the f**k are you breathing on me for? I was pissed. I called my boss and told him what had just happened and went on record that I thought what we were doing, continuing to operate as if nothing was out of the ordinary, was wrong. He said that if I didn't want to do it I didn't have to, I could just leave, hang up my keys and let them know when I was ready to come back to work. Taken aback I told him I'd complete this load, delivering to Indianapolis in the morning, and then let him know my decision. I knew I could just quit, I didn't expect to be given a choice in the matter. Could I afford not to take work that was available? Not easily. Was it the right thing to do. Almost certainly, with the only caveat that if too few of us sacrificed would it make a difference? A lame excuse at best.

I probably would have made the same decision in the end, even without this incident. Despite the fact that I rarely get sick and haven't, knock on wood, had the flu in over twenty years the risk remains to be an unwitting carrier with no sign of the illness. And, being a driver the potential is there to not only spread the disease within a community, but to transport it between communities. If what I were doing was essential I'd be all in. I'd be the man for the job. Like I say I don't usually get sick. The work ethic at my company is that when you're sick you work through it. I've been in a room full of sick people without the protection of a flu shot and came out unscathed. On the other hand if I did contract the disease I'm pretty healthy, I'd most likely survive it. But I don't feel that what I do is really essential. I can't in good conscience take the risk to others more vulnerable and the public health system's capacity.

So here I am with a little time on my hands. There's plenty to do around the house, to be sure, but I've been wanting to check in here. I promise that before this is over I'll come back with some more updates on my life and work.

 

Preemptive Retraction

 

Oh, I get a kick out of my post titles sometimes. I wrote a post recently titled Insult to Injury. It was an appropriate title since the post dealt with the Department of Transportation's lack of concern for the motoring public, strangling traffic with closed lanes yet no work being done for weeks at a time. When I reviewed it before publishing I realized that I was merely complaining. I was reminded of the rule that I had back in the day, when I used to write all the time: I could complain, but only if the gripe was presented as somehow interesting or amusing. This was just a bitch fest.

So how is the I 69 construction shaping up? A year later and they're still not finished. INDOT swears they'll be finished soon. They said that the joke around the office is that it'll be done by August 32nd. I'm sorry, but at two years behind schedule I don't find that amusing.

 

Gorgeous Days

 

We haven't had any. Well, about three nice days in the spring. Winter held on tenaciously then gave way immediately to summer with the warmest May on record. June was like July usually is and the heat shows no sign of relenting. One can only wonder what August will be like.

The good news is that we've had rain. The trees and fields are lush and green. Despite the heat it remains the glorious height of the year.

Keep it groovy.

 

Late Spring

 

It's the middle of April and winter just won't let go. We've had a few nice days but mostly it's been cold. Usually by this time the redbuds have bloomed and the trees are beginning to bud but all of the vegetative world is united in holding onto its winter sleep.

The snow was flying today, horizontal in a brutal wind. And yet, as bad as it was there was a change, a sign of hope. On the way back north in early afternoon I saw my first redbud tree, and after that I noticed a tree that was beginning to bud, and then another and another. I would have noticed if they had been budding on the way down. The awakening has begun! The plants know.

 

 

Update

 

Here it is the last day of August. The DOT said that all lanes of I 69 through Bloomington would be open by August. At the end of July it was obvious that wasn't going to happen, but I thought I'd be generous and see if they could pull off a miracle by the end of the month. Hey, two years behind schedule already, what's one more missed deadline?

But it has been a beautiful summer. We really couldn't have asked for a better one. On at least two occasions I found myself immersed in that state of bliss that I'd experienced earlier, my peak experience. So I did carry it with me. I haven't had it lately, but then lately I've been thinking about it, looking for it. I think it just has to sneak up on you. I look forward to when it happens again, and I look forward to a beautiful Autumn.

Well, that's it. Just wanted you to know I've been thinking about you.

 

Refined Savages

 

When I posted that link to the YouTube video of somebody else fighting Darkeater Madir I started to wonder how I could make a video of my own game play. After some trial and error I have figured it out and so offer you this clip of me (us, including my cheering section Cate) battling the Twin Princes.

Unless you actually play the game, Dark Souls III, you'll never really know its depth and complexity. I hope the clip at least gives you some idea of the mythic quality, the grandeur of the environment and subtlety of play that it offers. Enjoy.

 

Rare Moments

 

Peak experience? I'm not sure if it qualifies for that; certainly not a “religious experience.” It may have been related to Zen “satori,” it was certainly all about being in the moment, but in the end was simple, nothing grand.

I was in my big truck on a small two lane highway winding through the hills of Southern Indiana. It was a beautiful day as only high spring days can be; the temperature in the low 70's, low humidity and an intensely blue sky adorned with fluffy clouds. The vegetative world was burgeoning, the trees in full leaf and the pastures thick with grass and wildflowers. I was admiring the landscape when there was a sudden shift, a heightened experience. I was no longer just looking at the landscape, I was a part of it, almost as if I could see the whole scene from above. “Wow, this is it!” I thought, “The very best time of the year!” A thought tried to intrude to say that if this is the top then it's all down hill from here, but I let that trail away ineffectually and reveled in the euphoria of the moment. I can mark no point where the experience ended. It faded in the shifting of my gears, surely, but perhaps I still carry it to this day.

I was blessed to have another such moment not too long ago. It was a mediated experience, but none the less real or intense. I was playing the video game Dark Souls III, fighting a particularly tough boss monster: the dragon Darkeater Midir. During the battle he sometimes goes berserk, charging forward savagely and spewing fire in an ark before him. This can be devastating if you're in his path but if not then it's a fairly safe moment that can be taken to heal or buff. Darkeater was raging and I was running after him with my trusty Wolf Knight Greatsword on my shoulder. In the moment's respite before the dragon turned on me again I was suddenly uplifted in another of those sublime moments. “Wow,” I thought, “I'm fighting a dragon!” Once again what was already completely known was taken to another level, and in this case what was fiction was perceived to be actual fact. I was fighting a dragon and the superb programming of FromSoftware, inc. allowed me to experience it as real.

Please note that the video is not a capture of my gameplay, but is from YouTube.