The 5th Monday of the Week
First, I want to recommend a business — the family are friends and they sponsor my radio show. If you need to try to get a payroll protection program loan for your small business, please consider my friends at First Liberty of Georgia. They can’t guarantee anything. No lending institution can. But they will do their best to help and they don’t have a big bank’s bureaucratic structure. You can visit them at firstlibertyga.com.
Second, I think I write for all of us that quarantining is getting tiresome. I have taken long walks, only stopped today because of heavy rain. The air is warming, the pollen is receding, and still we are stuck at home. I just want to get on a Delta flight to somewhere, even if only to circle Atlanta and land. I’m ready to go to Las Vegas even though I don’t gamble or go see the Pacific waves at Half Moon Bay. I’m just ready to get out.
Today is yesterday is the day before is the day before that. We are now on the twenty-fourth Monday of April in the fifteenth year of our quarantine. The routine every day is the same. I get up, I write, I pick the audio I want for my radio show, I do three hours of radio, spend an hour arguing about what to do for lunch, get food or cook, eat, feel guilty for not going to the gym, do two more hours of radio, figure out supper, eat, write, go to bed, wash, rinse, and repeat. Saturday gives me a few more hours of sleep. Then, instead of the radio, it is grocery shopping, more deciding meals, dealing with the work that piled up otherwise, and sleep. Sunday adds in a church sermon then back to the grocery store for the groceries I could not find on Saturday and maybe a glass of bourbon on the front porch at sunset. In between it all is laser tag with an eleven-year-old or a video game with him or taking a ride with my wife through the countryside.
Then we get back to Monday.
Who knew staying home could be so exhausting? I am an introvert by nature and suddenly feel the need for extrovert assertion. I miss my friends and I miss all the people working from offices being there. My prevailing theory is that everyone now working from home is just as slack at the office, but other people are there to occupy them. Now, home alone, they’ve decided I must have as much free time as them. I don’t. I’m ready for life to start getting back to normal.
That is why I am sympathetic to the protestors who want to go back to work. It is why I am sympathetic to Governor Kemp in Georgia wanting to let small businessmen take their lives back into their own hands. When God created man, He said it was not good for man to be alone. We are communal creatures. Even God is part of a trinity. We are meant to be with others. Isolation does none of us good and video chats are no substitute for meaningful interaction in person.
Now, I know you guys out of Georgia are tired of me writing about it, but I keep getting asked one question over and over. Last night, President Trump again made clear he disagreed with Governor Kemp’s approach. “What’s his problem with Kemp?” I keep getting asked.
I have no idea, but I think it is this. The President has experts around him who are very concerned about the virus spreading again. They are concerned that Georgia does not have enough testing capacity and that the virus could run wild in the state. They have conveyed all this to the President.
My guess is the President wants as much distance between himself and Governor Kemp so Georgia voters do not blame the President if the virus starts running rampant in Georgia again. It is about surviving any potential fall out. It is about self-preservation.
If Kemp is right and Georgia gets back to business without accelerating a viral spread, by summer the President will be praising Kemp and will have totally forgotten he ever disagreed. It’s campaign season. It draws people of the same party together. Winning heals all wounds.
In the meantime, a governor of a different state chatted with me yesterday. He said after the President’s treatment of Kemp, he really has no interest in looping in the Trump Administration on his reopening plans. He sees no upside at this point and would rather go it alone.
I generally support opening up the country ASAP. But I think Trump's issues with Kemp are legitimate as in these comments from the April 22 task force briefing: "I told the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, that I disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities which are in violation of the phase one guidelines ... I want him to do what he thinks is right, but I disagree with him on what he’s doing. ... But I think spas and beauty salons and tattoo parlors and barbershops in phase one — we’re going to have phase two very soon — is just too soon. I think it’s too soon. ... But they can wait a little bit longer. Just a little bit. Not — not much. Because safety has to predominate." What Kemp did is go his own way and Trump by necessity can't support the advice of his own experts. Trump was not criticizing Kemp's desire to open up Georgia. But he has made it clear that if Kemp goes beyond the task force recommendations, he can't count on Trump's support. But if something goes wrong, the media will blame Trump anyway.
I have been working from home for over 18 years, but for some reason the quarantine has been difficult. I live on the south side of Atlanta, but work for a company on the North side. I generally go into the office 1 day a week, but have not been able to do that in over a month. I work with Hospitals on the financial side, but cannot make site visits. I too am an introvert, but miss the face-to-face with friends, clients and co-workers.