Friday 5: Obligatory

From here.

  1. In 2021, who made you laugh?
    Real laughter of the interpersonal communication sort was extremely difficult to come by in 2021, especially in the first ten months, before we were called back to the office and I had some kind of in-person human interaction on the reg. I have a couple of coworkers who frequently crack me up, including the woman whose cube is right behind mine. She’s from another country and also a lover of old films — she’s the only friend I can think of who also subscribes to the Criterion Channel — and we have similar fatalistic senses of humor. Most of my laughter this year came from podcasts, though, and the best for that was the Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. Irreverent takes on sports and culture. Stupid and clever at the same time.
  2. What was a pleasant surprise?
    I don’t know how pleasant it was, but shortly after my second shot, I found myself in a lot of neighborhood bars. I kind of hate bars, but one thing I missed most during the lockdown (as I have written in this space multiple times) was hanging out in cafes and boba joints. Just somewhere to be, surrounded by people who didn’t know me and wouldn’t talk to me. The cafes here still aren’t open at night, so bars it was, and I rather enjoyed it, although I think I dropped too much money per visit. Once I can find a way to have a few drinks and maybe a bite without spending the equivalent of five lattes each time I go, I think I can make it a more regular thing. Of course, this is all off the list now until numbers begin to go back down.
  3. How have you grown?
    I’m pleased to find myself getting better at my work. I was rather unhappy with myself at work for most of the lockdown, but I’m finding better ways to handle the flow, and I’m finding myself more pleased with my time management.
  4. What do you forgive yourself for?
    I’m forgiving myself for not stressing about my body during the lockdown. I made good efforts to walk and to get in the ocean, but those were mostly for mental health; physical health benefits were secondary. Or sometimes physical health benefits were an excuse to make unwise decisions about what I put into my body. I’ve been seeing a doctor lately about correcting some of these actions.
  5. If you were to get a tattoo to represent the year, what would it be and where would you put it?
    The most depressing theme of these past two years has been a sense of lost time, like there is this hole in the timeline of my life where there should have been stuff. I started a local silent book club whose inaugural meetup in February 2020 turned out to be our last. The podcast I planned to launch depended on meeting people in public spaces, so that never got off the ground and I haven’t even taken the gear for a test run. I wanted to spend some time with new acquaintances. I hoped to travel a little. I miss concerts, movies in theaters, dining with friends. Meanwhile, my body and mind don’t I’m in stasis as the days rip slowly off the calendar. My life may be on hold, but the aging process certainly isn’t, and since I don’t have too many birthdays left, I’m feeling resentful more than anything else. I would get the tattoo on my shoulder, and it would be a hole to represent everything I’ve missed, to remind me of this gap in the continuum of my life that probably doesn’t have to be as significant as I’ve allowed.

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