This is still very very behind, but things should move more swiftly now. I’m currently headed back to New York City, and lord willing I will not move from there for months.
I use my hoarded Amtrak points and take the sleeper car on the Coast Starlight from Olympia down to Oakland. It is a pleasant novelty, though a bit of a let-down that we go through the dramatic Cascade range at night.
Someone down the car has their curtain door open and no masks on despite regulations. It is not clear if it is them or someone else who has a deep, persistent cough. I shut my airlock to the hall.
Dawn. Out of the white haze of the Central Valley and into the white haze of the fog eternally creeping over the hills around the Bay. The sun is a dull red disc to our left, at eye level. To the right, it reflects off the train windows like we have two more suns on that side, one rising within a hill.
There are hundreds of cars in a lot by the train. The conductor gets on the intercom to say: See all those cars out to the left? They're all awaiting a microchip. They can't be sold until they have a microchip. If you're hearing about supply chain delays....
We're about to go over the oldest, largest metal bridge west of the Mississippi, says the conductor. This is a large bridge. If any of you are afraid of bridges... well, there's nothing we can do for you. We'll be two hundred feet up. This train weighs about eight hundred tons.
* * *
"The real question is, who are you? I mean, you’re reading this. You have the leisure to ponder American collapse like it’s even a question. The people really experiencing it already know.
... If you’re waiting for a moment where you’re like “this is it,” I’m telling you, it never comes. Nobody comes on TV and says “things are officially bad.” There’s no launch party for decay. It’s just a pileup of outrages and atrocities in between friendships and weddings and perhaps an unusual amount of alcohol.
Perhaps you’re waiting for some moment when the adrenaline kicks in and you’re fighting the virus or fascism all the time, but it’s not like that. Life is not a movie, and if it were, you’re certainly not the star. You’re just an extra. If something good or bad happens to you it’ll be random and no one will care. If you’re unlucky you’re a statistic. If you’re lucky, no one notices you at all.
Collapse is just a series of ordinary days in between extraordinary bullshit, most of it happening to someone else. That’s all it is."
—from indi.ca