I skipped my usual café breakfast yesterday because the COVID infection rate here in PEI is multiplying. So I didn’t have time for my usual breakfast and drawing session, but I did quickly thumbnail a diary comic. Things are busy in the lead-up to Christmas, both at work and at home, so I don’t see myself getting ’round to doing a proper version of this.
I did think it was a pretty obvious metaphor for what’s going on…
So for one, there’s this sudden exponential spike in cases here on PEI, and some restrictions are being put back into place. As Craig and I dashed around town yesterday running errands, though, it didn’t really look like anything had changed. We are completely vulnerable to this thing, because we refuse to give up our usual consumer Christmas stuff.
I’d also read an article in the Manchester Guardian about Boris Johnson, and the sneering contempt and corruption of the ruling class he belongs to. It’s no better here in Canada.
Plus we’d watched Tick, Tick… Boom! on Friday, Jonathan Larson’s musical about his panicked attempt to become a success before his thirtieth birthday — which was tinged, of course, with the knowledge that he died the night before his eventual breakthrough hit, Rent, opened on Broadway. It was a powerful show, and I could really relate to both that panicked feeling and the general “theatre-kid energy” of the piece.
All of this added up to… well, aliens, according to my head. I guess that’s the easiest, ready-to-hand metaphor for feeling pessimistic about the state of the world, and being affected by external forces outwith one’s control.