I'm looking at an apartment tomorrow. I don't think anything will come if it but it's good practice. It's also an admission, a resignation that I'll be here for a while. That is a pretty big blow.

I grew up here and here was not particularly nice to me. Even when I'd come back to visit, through my late thirties, i could be assured that if i walked down the little Main Street in town some truck would cruise by windows unrolled and scream "Faggot!* at me. 

Things had started to get better. The last few years of the teens folks started moving here from elsewhere. There were still plenty of rednecks and bigots but there were hints of liberallism. Coronavirus changed that pretty quickly.

Tourists are coming here, fleeing cities and disease. We didn't get many cases here in the spring and it made the whole thing seem made up. Something that happens in far away places riddled with sin and maybe deserving of a little biblical wreath. Wearing a mask was considered an unnecessary political statement, and an unwelcome one one. 

Now it's summer and the whole valley is swarming with tourists. There's very little coronavirus here and it's incredibly beautiful. It is not surprising that people want to come here. The locals are freaking out.

There was s letter from the editor in the paper the other day. A woman's story of some local seeing her South Carolina license plates and screaming obscenities at her. I am sure that there will be violence before the summer is over.

And tomorrow, if all goes well, I'll be signing a six month lease.