In place of a Christmas card, Ian McKnight offers you this press release.
Living alone, anxiety yield greatest benefits yet; record capital investment program brings new office chair, vacuum cleaner; McKnight extends warm wishes for pleasant 2021.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INTERSTATE 96, Mich., December 28, 2020 — With the end of this interminable year approaching at last, Ian McKnight has decided to forego writing a holiday letter that reads like a press release, opting instead to write a press release that reads like a holiday letter.
“I am pleased to offer this report at the end of a long year. This year has been a busy and interesting — if not particularly enjoyable — one. As somebody with a steady work-from-home job and no children to speak of, I have no right to complain in a year like this,” McKnight said, “but that has not stopped me.”
Except for a threat that the draft might be reinstated, early indicators for 2020 were good. January and February included visits to exciting winter destinations like Boston and Marquette, though the eighth annual train trip to New York in March was an early casualty of the plague.
By February 26, in what critics decried as “letting anxiety control you” and “an embarrassing waste,” Ian acquired enough food, cleaning chemicals, and paper products to last for several weeks. It would be two more weeks before the first COVID-19 cases in Michigan were announced, leaving those who take pride in resisting anxiety to fight one another for what little store brand cleaning spray and single-ply toilet paper was left behind.
McKnight spent the first few months of the plague with his parents, and it became clear by the time that Holland’s Tulip Time was canceled that there would be no hope for 2020’s redemption. McKnight returned to his apartment in June, saying, “Living alone can be isolating, but spending this time with my family has been an important reminder that joy does not come from others — it comes from leaving your shoes wherever you want without having somebody make a federal case of it.”
While the earlier threat of a Selective Service draft did not come to pass, McKnight was pressed into service with the rest of Michigan’s legislative staff, who spent untold hours this year rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking ship that is the State’s unemployment insurance system. This awakened in him a deep love of numbered forms and renewed, fiery disgust with the condition of the American social safety net, which has failed untold millions when they need it most.
The General Election did little to change the balance of power outside of the presidency and was an unceasing carnival of horrors for the whole of humanity, and not least for those working on the front lines of campaigns in a year marked by both pestilence and political divisiveness.
“I will face God and walk backward into hell before I ever canvass or phone bank again,” said McKnight, who, despite an ongoing pandemic and not even knowing who had won the election, enjoyed the best day of his life on November 4 for no other reason than that campaign season had ended at last.
Not all was lost in 2020, however.
The plague ended commuting, returning countless hours to McKnight’s days that would otherwise be spent on travel. Financial savings from the regular 200-mile round-trip to Lansing were reallocated to a scratch-and-dent high-end office chair and a German vacuum cleaner, which have individually brought more joy than any commute or office ever could.
With almost all of the world’s English change ringing towers closed for business, McKnight found a new, outdoor rope-based skill in sailing on the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair. This was, incidentally, the closest he came to an international border all year.
Outdoor beer gardens (now accompanied with many layers of warm clothing), porches, parks, and, most recently, a strict quarantine pod have provided some hint of regular social life appropriate for a 24-year-old.
Things could be worse.
“I offer my best wishes to you and your family for a safe and pleasant 2021,” said McKnight, filled with unfounded optimism. “May we all have the good fortune to go about life without thinking of HVAC systems or ICU capacities and the good sense to make real changes with the difficult lessons we have learned this year.”
About Ian McKnight
Ian McKnight is a very old man in the body of a young bureaucrat. He shares his small apartment with two houseplants.
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Distractions
Things I have been reading, watching, and listening to this week.
“I Was In Charge of the Deck Chairs on the Titanic, and They Really Did Need Rearranging” by Emily Flake in McSweeney’s.
During a year in which every little thing we do feels hopeless in the face of an unending nightmare, Flake makes a case for our pressing on.
“Did the chairs I so lovingly arranged ever sink beneath the weight of a wealthy, silk-clad bottom? No, they sank beneath the North Atlantic, but that’s hardly the point. The point is, I did my duty to the best of my ability and froze to death with a satisfied heart.”
“What Biden and Harris Owe the Poor” by William J. Barber II and Liz Theoharis in the New York Times.
I am beginning to think that we may have fallen into a bit of a trap in believing that the problem has been this calendar year itself and that, when the clock strikes midnight on Friday morning, we will all be “back to normal.” That will not be the case — in fact, it will be the end of the CDC’s moratorium on evictions.
Even if things get miraculously better in 2021, we will still have the daunting task of using the lessons we have learned this year to make real changes for the future. That starts where it should have started long ago: with making sure every American has what they need to live a happy, healthy life.
“To fulfill the mandate that the 2020 electorate has given them, Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris must reject the politics of austerity and fulfill their commitment to policies that address human needs and cultivate human capacities.”