Even if it seems like the world has stopped revolving, or that it might end in some ball of firey hate sooner rather than later, we all still have to move through today into tomorrow because if tomorrow comes, we're going to have to deal with it. I've been using the lock-down/insanity time to grow. I've committed to reading 200 books in a year as part of a mastermind group with the purpose of rewiring my brain and changing my life for good. For real. Writing is my way forward. I'm making great strides in all directions an author must go in order to achieve all-around success. Expanding - the library, the content, the audience, the connections I need to make to get me where I want to go - in front of people to talk about the importance of our stories. And, I want to see my screenplay make it to the big screen. I'm focused. Spending a specific number of hours working on specific projects, reading, checking in with accountability partners, writing, writing, and writing some more. It might seem like the future is something not worth planning for, but we should anyway. Because if the world doesn't end, the sun is going to rise tomorrow. And then what? Here's my latest plan - https://nanci-writes.squarespace.com/blog/3zpvbj9q2tauo1uv19srtp7fq91aoa

But wait, it's getting hotter. We're expecting 117 degrees (F) by Friday, our near record-breaking number of days over 110 this summer, another expected record-breaker. Having more days over 110 degrees than previous years is not a record we want to keep breaking. The heat isn't making the virus disappear like a miracle. In fact, we seem to be in a blooming phase, our numbers are increasing like the number of fires popping up all around us. It happens in the summertime. I'm still amazed at who is okay with wearing a mask, and who isn't. It seems like the people who should be more worried, are not, and those who should calm down, aren't. There has to be a happy medium someplace, right? Personally, I'm good with the mask. I recently ordered an SPF 50 golf shirt that came with a matching mask, made out of the same SPF material. I figure the sun damage I'm not getting while wearing the mask for a couple of years (we could be doing this for 2 years?) will save me a decade or two of sun damage, out here in the desert where it's over 110 degrees for more days this year than last year. Maybe next year's heatwave will kill it.

They held out as long as they could. Until one or the other took over. Fear or facts. There are a few holdovers, still arguing with complete strangers about how rediculous 'you all' look while they plant themselves in a grocery store entrance to throw a temper tantrum because they don't want to wear a mask. They don't want to follow the 'guidelines' or 'recommendations' of their 'leaders' (I'm not sure which is more questionable) that while it may or may not keep them healthy, it is the very least they could do, except for staying home completely, for their fellow man. It's sad, really. How easily people can deny what is happening around them. The It Only Affects You When It Affects YOU Syndrome. As the virus spreads and more become sick, the closer it will get to those who will have to decide what is real, when it is happening to them, instead of when it was still not quite a possibility that it might happen to them and something could have been done. To late. Yesterday there was one person without a mask lecturing a man, most likely strangers to each other, about how rediculous everyone looked in their masks and how 'this isn't real.' Personally I don't mind the mask. I haven't had a shave in three months and my skin is probably its best condition in years. The mask is providing me the best sun protection possible during the Arizona summer. Or anytime in Arizona. When all this is over, and someday it will be over, my skin will look better, and I will have fought off some sun damage. But that guy without the mask doing the lecturing? He was older, heavy, and wearing the worst hairpiece ever. If he ends up in the ER, he could be graded as someone no worthy of saving versus a younger person without one of those basketball beer bellies (yet). Or he'll survive this too and still look like that. Or worse with the sun damage and a few more pounds. It's just a mask. No one is asking him to enlist. But someone else might have to make the decision whether he lives or dies. It's not real.

Can we handle it? I mean, it's not like we're being forced to join the military and shipped off to a foreign country to shoot at people who will be shooting back at us. It's not like we're fleeing our homes because of war, fire, flood, or drought. It's not like we're being asked to take care of people we don't know or care about. Oh, wait. That last one. That's what's being asked of us, why we're being *asked* to wear a mask. Because we can't be told to. We can't think of doing it on our own. Now we're facing two years of being *asked* to cover our faces. Oh My Gawd, that feels like forever. I can remember what I was doing two years ago. I was talking with a friend who is no longer here. Making plans for a future that passed a long time ago. What will I do today, to prepare for the day when I will no longer be *asked* to care for people I don't know?

Everything to the east of me is on fire. Or so it seems, especially at night when we can see the flames. During the day the smoke changes. In the morning it is laying low between the mountains and hills. As the sun rises, so does the smoke, by 10 the mushroom cloud has formed, by two the winds are beginning to blow, and now, at 7 p.m. there the smoke has filled the valley and I can smell it. This is the 5th fire this year that I can see the flames from my home.

Something I could never have prepared her for. Something I cannot explain. Something I cannot tell her when it will end. Something I cannot understand myself.

This pot has been on the stove too long. Ignored by everyone in the kitchen. No one wants to pay attention to the froth spilling over the edge. Even I did my best to stay oblivious. My oldest told me to prepare. 'When you go to the store,' he'd tell me, 'just pick up an extra can of this or that. And make sure to get hand sanitizer, bleach, and alcohol.' He's always been a germaphobe, so I didn't listen. He's also been a bit of a conspiracy theorist. He also works in the Emergency Room of a downtown hospital in a massive city.