Yes!! I went out first thing this morning — drove into town to go to the market as soon as it opened, so that I could get my week’s groceries without having  to shop with too many people in the store.

(Ohio is on Stay-At-Home orders, which means we can go out for essentials but that’s it.)

And when I got back home, this time I paid attention to everything I touched before I washed my hands, so that I didn’t go through some sort of paranoia attack all day about whether or not I had washed every single solitary thing that might need washing…

And I’m hoping to do only one load of laundry today — instead of worrying that I didn’t get every single thing that my clothing might have  touched when I came in the door.

In short, I hope to have a nice day.

The weather here is unbelievable!! We did not get all the rain that was predicted — which is good because Wakatamika Creek has already become a veritable lake, flowing all over the bottom land. (It doesn’t affect the town, because the creek always floods and that bottom land always eventually absorbs it. In the nearly 200 years the town has been here, I guess they figured out not to build anything at all anywhere near that creek…)

Anyway. It is gorgeous outside. Most of the windows are open, which is such a relief for me, because I am allergic to cats and I have 7, so fresh air is just like the best thing that God invented, ever.

I am on Day 15 now of my quarantine. We still have no confirmed cases of the virus in Muskingum County — and here is something that actually pisses me off: Ohio has stopped reporting how many people test negative for the virus. The last time they reported the number, several days ago, it was close to 20,000 people who didn’t have it.  They only report now how many people have it and how many people have died from it. Which just totally skews everybody’s understanding of what is going on.

And when questioned why they stopped releasing the numbers, they let it be known that the nearly 20,000 who didn’t have it, did not even include the amount of negatives coming from the private testing sector. The State itself (not the private sector) is testing 500 people a day! And 1400 people have tested positive (that includes those who have recovered and 28 who have died). So who knows how many tens of thousands of people in Ohio don’t have the virus?

It just feels so manipulative and political, doesn’t it? (If you don’t live in America, you probably can’t get a real sense of how many politicians want to blame Trump for absolutely everything imaginable, even if it means having to “misrepresent” or downplay the facts. It just gets ludicrous.)

The Health Department here in Ohio also seems to be relying on a forecasting formula that the Federal Government has stated is outdated now because the forecasts did not match what is actually happening in Italy.  It just feels so controlling — try to make everyone feel hysterical so that they no longer trust the Federal Government.

It is just so hard to know what the heck is going on anymore, so it’s still best to just stay inside and wash.

And speaking of Italy — that Instagram photo I posted last evening (lower left of this page if you’re on a computer) is of Pope Francis giving the Urbi et Orbi blessing in a deserted St. Peter’s Square last night. Isn’t that one of the most amazing sights?

And speaking of the Pope… I spent yesterday catching up on some back issues of Biblical Archaeology Review (which has nothing to do with the Pope, just the Bible). What a cool magazine. But so hard to spell!! (I’m guessing that the next Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album will have both the words “Archaeology” and “Apocalypse” in it so that I can go out of my fucking mind trying to spell it…) (See various references to my inability to spell the word “Apocalypse” as well as the 2004 double-album title Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.)

I love Biblical archaeology. I love the stuff they discover, and how it helps us re-frame what was handed down in the Bible (for instance, before contemporary times, women had a very different way of interpreting what is written about Eve in Genesis because they relied primarily on Genesis 1 and let that inform how they interpreted Genesis 3 — meaning, in short, they believed that Eve was the spiritual equal of Adam and also that Adam was standing right next to Eve during that whole serpent thing, so, um …) (Also, the King James Version of the Bible misinterpreted the word for “pupil” to mean “apple” so the saying “apple of his eye” actually reads “pupil of his eye.” I just love stuff like that!)

And I especially love it when archaeology supports what is written in the Bible. I love all that ancient historical stuff.  Oh — and I ordered a scholarly book from Amazon yesterday that’s a couple years old already, but it re-examines Judas’s role in what happened to Jesus, along with the role of the Jewish High Priests, and it apparently redirects the blame to Herod. That the High Priests were providing shelter to Jesus from the Romans during Passover, and that Herod intercepted that.

(Folks, you really, really gotta closely examine that relationship between Herod and Jesus at every turn. Something really, really bad was going on there. We’ll probably never really know what. But it has something to do (I think) with the Romans having appointed Herod King, when that was not the way the Hebrews accepted a “King.” And all the John the Baptist stuff is connected there, too.)

This all fascinates me, personally, because I am working on a one-man play (titled In the Days of the Flesh) about the (fictional) Gospel According to Caiaphas, which exonerates him from what happened to Jesus.

And here we are today! I’m gonna go eat my lunch now and get this day underway.  (And, btw, the market was completely stocked with absolutely everything.) I hope you are having a good Sunday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting!! (Oh, and another by the way!! Dylan’s new song, “Murder Most Foul,” already has 2 million views on YouTube — and that’s not counting my endless listenings because I bought the song immediately, so I stream it.)

I’ll leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning, “Casa Dega,” which I only listened to halfway, because the windows were open and I realized that the birds were singing and I preferred listening to them!! But anyway, this is not the version I listened to, but I like this one because it captures Tom Petty live in 1978, when he still had that awesome attitude he had when he was young. (He’s 28 here.) Enjoy, gang!! I love you guys. See ya.

“Casa Dega”

Well the clouds roll by in the big blue sky
As the sun beats down on Casa Dega
And the moon pulls the tide and the tide brings night
But night is more than just night in Casa Dega

Oh

Baby I think I’m starting to believe the things that I’ve heard
‘Cause tonight in Casa Dega I hang on every word

She said to me as she holds my hand
And reads the lines of a stranger
Yeah, and she knows my name, yeah she knows my plans
In the past, in the present and for the future

Yeah, baby now I think I’m starting to believe the things that I’ve heard
‘Cause tonight in Casa Dega I hang on every word

Then she said…

Oh

And you almost pay the price of a whisper in the night in Casa Dega
Time rolls by, night is only night, can I save ya?

Yeah, yeah
Alright
It’s more than just a night
Alright
Yeah, yeah

© 1978 Tom Petty