Better. Not "great," but good enough.

I get up in the morning and watch the monologues from Colbert and Seth Myers. I need a laugh first thing in the morning. I look a little bit at Apple News+, mostly I do the Quartiles game.

But I can't stand to look at election news. There was one good story about the Georgia state supreme court letting stand a lower court ruling that puts those new election rules on hold, at least through this cycle. That was one potential source of chaos. But the rest of the headlines were all about how "close" this election is. Then I just move on.

I don't know if it's me, or if the media is trying to drive clicks, but they seem more hysterical by the minute. What are we supposed to do with this information? Well, click on it, obviously. But I've already voted. I don't run Kamala's campaign. I can't do outreach to America's millions of young men who seem delusional.

What's the point?

I watch a lot of local Florida news in YouTube. Anecdotes (news stories) aren't "data," but it does feel as though a "get the hell out of Dodge" theme is beginning to emerge. It may be an illusion. People love Florida winters and no state income tax. This state won't be depopulating soon. But smart people will leave. I think I'm making progress with Mitzi.

Our situation is like the last 50 years of the climate crisis in a microcosm. There's the growing awareness that we might be vulnerable to something catastrophic, but the reluctance to do anything about it. It's a "low probability, high impact" risk. My assessment is that, while it may well be the case that our particular part of Florida won't see a hurricane with significant storm surge in our lifetime, if we do, I don't want to have to be trying to cope with the aftermath.

As I've told many of my friends, I don't want to be in my 70s, dragging all my shit to the curb and dealing with all the paperwork to try and "recover." If I'm lucky, I've got maybe 10 or 15 years of decent quality of life left. I don't want to spend two of them grappling with this bullshit.

There are folks in Tampa who just gutted their places to the studs and are putting them on the market, hoping institutional investors will buy them and rent them to folks who will eventually have to carry all their crap to the curb.

It's insanity.

Anyway, Mitzi's talking more about it, so I know it's in her mind. I don't push. I don't think I'll be out of here by next hurricane season, but maybe 2026. Hope so anyway. I'll be 70 in 2027.

I know New York isn't paradise. It'll be gray much of the year. But it's safer, at least in terms of large-scale catastrophes. We're always at risk of individual catastrophic events, no matter where you live. But it's unlikely we'll see an event where thousands of people around us are all competing for resources to recover, adding to the doubt and uncertainty and stress.

And I just don't like Florida anymore. I guess "hate" is too strong a word, but this is a cruel state. It does something to people. Something that isn't good.

And I just want to get out of here.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:42 Wednesday, 23 October 2024