Very few people are masking in stores even right now, and nobody's masking on the street at all (which includes eating outside in those damn little "outdoor dining patios/sheds," which take up a lot of the sidewalk). Meanwhile the state's infection rate has skyrocketed, despite King County having an amazing vaccination rate of above 80%, but that's mostly people above fifty -- fewer than half of the people 18-30 are vaxxed. In spite of that, good old Jay Inslee, who just got props from Grampa Prez Biden about climate change, declared "I do not want to have to shut down a single business in the state of Washington" and, the news said, "he is not making the state's new masking recommendation a requirement because he doesn’t want to take away the benefit of numerous residents who got the COVID-19 vaccine so that they wouldn’t have to continue wearing masks." Meanwhile the state's been fully open for weeks with no pandemic restrictions. But vaccination levels continue to drop and infection rates continue to go way up.

It feels a bit like living in that blown-off splinter of reality

That really is what it feels like. It's unreal. -- And the eviction moratorium just ended today, too. It's all just so....fucking baffling.