"So, about yesterday--" or, I guess I preserve wet specimens now

Friday, May 31st, 2024, 19:47

Mood: Sore

Okay, so, I promised when I started this new blog that I wasn't going to genre-bend. I was going to keep it straightforward. Posts about homemaking, for example, would not get enmeshed with any big, gratuitous references to my mental health. Unfortunately, I have kept that promise for all of two posts, and this is where it ends. Oh, and as a related warning: there will be pictures of a dead animal as a wet specimen in this post. Please move on if this is upsetting to you.

Yesterday, when I was returning to work after my lunch break, I noticed something conspicuous on the ground, doll-like in its qualities and features. I really did think it was a doll. It sort of looked like those creepy rubber fetuses that sometimes pro-life activists use to harass patients outside of abortion clinics. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a newborn bird. They didn't even have any downy feathers on them, and their translucent skin revealed mostly formed internal organs. Unfortunately, the baby bird didn't survive. At first, I kept on walking, thinking there was nothing I could do.

But I couldn't help but think, I just didn't want that bird's remains to just get crushed under someone's truck. What the hell kind of a life is that, to have just passed away nearly as quickly as you're born, and then for your body to be crushed under tires on hot pavement? It seemed like asking for bad fortune to just leave the bird's body there, so I (as inconspicuously as possible) excused myself to go bundle the body up in paper towels and take it back to my vehicle. (Okay, this is where the pictures come, so don't look if you don't want to.)

When I got home, after eating a quick dinner, I picked a spice jar that was almost empty, cleaned it out, and got my isopropyl alcohol out--as well as The Country Pat's thick nitrile gloves and an N95. I then proceeded to do absolutely nothing right when it comes to preserving a wet specimen. Like, nope, nothing. Not a bit. I'm about to describe a bunch of wrong things to do when it comes to preserving a wet specimen. I firstly used 70% isopropyl instead of 90%, or ethanol. I didn't inject the bird's body with alcohol, either, leaving the door wide open for faster decomp. I sealed the jar with superglue--do you die? Oh and, after I had sealed the jar, I noticed one of The Country Pat's fucking hairs was in it. Amazing.

Shortly after I settled into bed with my laptop for the night, someone in one of my Discord servers tersely wrote: "GUILTY ON ALL 34 COUNTS!"

Admittedly, I didn't know what that meant. (Yes, in retrospect, I know how ignorant this makes me sound.) I haven't been listening to anything but music on my work commutes, so no NPR. I don't browse Facebook and I honestly have to be forced to view news content these days, unless it just happens to show up on my TikTok. Even then, most of the news I watch is to do with the Israeli-Hamas War--or, perhaps more accurately, the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.

So, you might be able to imagine my saucer eyes when I Googled "guilty on 34 counts" and the first image that popped up was that of our 45th President.

I told The Country Pat and he brought up a really good point: if it had gone the other way, and the jury found him innocent of all charges, we wouldn't have needed the news to find out. We would've found out by the gunfire and fireworks shooting across the county. He's right. We live in Rural Indiana, after all.

I didn't really know how to feel about this. You can still run for president with a felony on your record, and you can apparently still win the hearts and minds of many voters who insist that they represent the law and order party. To tell you the truth, I don't think any of us in this country are on the side of law and order anymore. The far and center-left have never purported to be, which is fine; I as well am of the mentality that lawbreaking is a good thing if it's in the name of human rights. Our centrist and center-right Republicans and Democrats--because that's what Democrats are, too, let's face it--may purport to respect law and order, but then they fund senseless wars waged by genocidal egomaniacs. And after the insurrection, and especially now that their leader has been convicted of dozens of felonies, there's absolutely no way that the "alt-right", if it's still trendy to call them that, can claim a reverence for law and order.

So what happens next? I thought the 2016 Election felt tense, after the Democratic Party fumbled hard as fuck and decided that they were going to "remain establishment" in the face of a voter base clearly hungry for populism. I thought 2020 felt tense, with the commander-in-chief nearly dying of the very virus he did almost nothing to stop the spread of, followed by a 2021 where the next commander-in-chief also did nothing to stop the spread of that same virus. So, what now?

I don't know about anyone else, but I think I am just hungry for stability anymore, and for an idea of what to expect. I was born in 1992. I was in first grade for Columbine and fourth for 9/11. I got my first paycheck job during the start of the Great Recession. My entire life has been peppered with politicians and other pundits saying something something "these uncertain times". Yet, back then, I could trust that the President would be elected democratically and by people who appreciate democracy. I could trust that election seasons weren't characterized by slurs, diseases, or hush money trials.

So what do we trust now?

We trust that life will go on as usual. We can trust that we are all still human, and fragile, at the end of the day. Each of us have been born, and each of us are going to die. Let's all just try to make it as easy on each other as possible in between.