2025 has not exactly gotten off to the greatest start in the history of the Gregorian calendar. Thursday was a particular bad day for me. I woke up and put on a news podcast, which was my first mistake. One of the worst things about Trump being president, I now recall in full detail, is the exhaustion you feel trying to keep up with current events. It's especially bad right now, as everybody tries to figure out the meaning, legality, and implications of all his executive orders. I'm tempted to just bury my head in the sand for the next four years, but that's not really practical, especially living in DC. A lot of people I know and love either work for the federal government or work for companies who rely on federal contracts, and all these potential funding freezes to agencies like USAID directly affect their livelihoods.* So, I can't avoid the chaos, even if I want to.
*Thankfully, S got out of the government contracts space about five years ago, so her job won't be directly impacted by any of this stuff.
The thing is, even those EOs that I'm sympathetic towards (there are a few), I have major problems with, because I either don't think the president does (or should) have the authority to unilaterally decree them from on-high, or I think they are worded and/or being implemented in such away as to minimize their benefits and maximize their damage as much as possible. I guess that's the point. The goal isn't actually to make America great again (whatever that even means); it's to help the people this administration likes and punish those it doesn't.* It's the exact opposite of the message of every other president of my lifetime, all of whom Biden was effectively echoing when he said, "I'll work just as hard for those who didn't vote for me, as those who did." We don't even get this lip-service now.
*The good news, such as it is, it is virtually impossible to carry out this goal. We are too intertwined. A lot of Trump supporters will be hurt by these EOs too, which is probably one of the reasons many of them have gotten walked back to some degree.
Take the return-to-the-office order for federal employees. I understand why you might want to discontinue remote work. It has positives and negatives, and it's not unreasonable to conclude that the latter outweigh the former.* But it's being enforced too abruptly and harshly. A bunch of people I know have to go back almost immediately. As one of my friends put it, "They're giving us two weeks to completely change our lives." Like, if you gave people who live in the area until September to return to work (let it coincide with a new school year, since that often dictates people's schedules) and people who live out of the area an additional six months, it wouldn't that bad. In fact, it could even be a boon for the District, revitalizing downtown and bringing back the Metro ridership that was lost during the COVID shutdown. As it is, however, it's incredibly disruptive and stressful for thousands of people -- and again, this is surely part of the point. Since government work is left-coded ("the Deep State"), the fact that it inflicts hardship on so many is no doubt seen as a plus to this administration.
*I like going into the office (part-time), for three main reasons: 1) When I get to know people personally, I'm much more likely to solicit their help or offer my help to them, which greatly aids in efficiency; 2) I often get ideas from informal chats that only occur in-person; 3) It's nice to have another space, outside of my house that I go to regularly. The flip side of these, of course, is that it sucks to commute to work everyday, and it sucks to be indefinitely stuck in a geographic location you don't want to be in, just because that's where your company got the best deal on a lease. The best policy, in my opinion, is a flexible hybrid schedule with the option to go full-on remote after one has been with the company for a few years.
Then, I learned there was an aircraft crash that killed around 70 people about five miles from our house. These types of disasters are obviously so sad and scary no matter where they happen, but they get amped up just a little more when they happen so close to home. You probably already heard that the plane collided with a military helicopter during its descent into National Airport. It sounds like the accident was completely on the helicopter. An air traffic controller was in contact with the helicopter's pilot and made him confirm that he could see the plane and would let it land before he went through the plane's airspace. It's unclear why the pilot didn't do this, but it's speculated that he was looking at something else he thought was the plane (possibly a different plane in the distance) and not the actual plane he was about to crash into. Tragic.
My question: Why was this helicopter there in the first place? Like why was it flying through this area at all? Reagan National is one of the most congested airports in the world. Why does a military training mission need to fly anywhere near its runways, especially at night in extremely windy weather? Couldn't it have gone around? A few miles in either direction and it would never have even been in any conceivable line of flight. It makes no sense to me. Again, tragic.
To top it all off, short on the heels of learning about this, I was carrying a box full of groceries from Costco downstairs, when I noticed a flap on the box was sticking out in a weird way. Uh-oh, that doesn't look sturdy, I thought immediately before the box's bottom gave out and all its contents tumbled down the steps. Unfortunately, one of the items was a three pack of pasta sauce, and one of the glass jars burst when it hit the bottom (the middle jar, somewhat weirdly). I mean, it just absolutely exploded -- like one of those ink bombs you see in bank robbery scenes in movies -- sending flecks of marinara and glass everywhere and leaving a puddle of dark redness on our light gray carpet.
Although things like this aren't even comparable to the true horrors and tragedies of the world, there is something about seeing your domicile in disarray that can push you over the edge. There's a passage in an Irvine Welsh book -- one of the Trainspotting followups; I don't remember which one -- in which a character name Spud ends up at this woman June's apartment. The place is a wreck, and June is having a meltdown because she's broke and depressed and her boyfriend is an abusive psychopath (Francis Begbie), and Spud just kinda walked in on the situation and doesn't really know what to do. So, he starts washing her dishes. She joins him, and they clean up her entire kitchen. By the time they're done, she has walked back from the figurative ledge, and he leaves feeling relatively good about the whole encounter ("chuffed," as the Scots say) .
There's something about this passage I really love, and on Thursday looking at the mess of marinara before me, it resonated with me first-hand. I was June, only I had no Spud to come to help me.* I had to clean it up all myself, which I did... kinda. There's still a faint stain, but given the state it was in, I think that was inevitable. It certainly isn't due to a lack of effort on my part. After I picked out all the glass and scooped up the top layer of sauce, I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed some more. I spent literally an hour scouring the carpet. I went through about ten beach towels, dozens of buckets of water, and almost a full bottle of cleanser. I thought I had it licked completely, but today I can still see a reddish tinge. It's too early to say exactly how bad it's going to be (it hasn't totally dried out yet), but I know it's going to annoy me, at least a little bit, every time I look at it -- a lovely little reminder of a truly dreadful day.
*Which is actually probably a good thing. Although Spud has the kindest of hearts, he's an addict and a thief and gets into (and causes) trouble wherever he goes.
Until next time...
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