Missing Normal?

                                                                                    Myrtle Beach SC 

"Normally" I'm spending the last week of September/first week of October on vacation. I choose this time because nobody else is on vacation then, and what makes a vacation ideal to me is having as little human interaction as possible. This year nothing else is normal, so I'll spend my week off at home, dreaming of next year's trip to the beach and finding ways to occupy myself that don't require 8 hour days in front of a computer. I suppose I can alphabetize my socks, or make felted gifts from the prodigious follicular output of Fox the Cat this summer. 

It doesn't escape my notice that I'm one of the fortunate ones who still has a job, paid vacation, employer-subsidized healthcare. But seeing how others less fortunate are now jobless and insurance-less only offers further proof of how effed-up our eco-political system is. 

And millions of citizens who aren't aware of how most of the rest of the civilized world operates think this is "normal." It's not.