SD 611–659: Kept meaning to write, things kept happening, kept not writing, December came and went, and now it’s a whole new year.

Let’s see, in November worked in the office for another couple days.

Started a podcast. JK. Just invaded Justin and Natalie’s studio space instead.

Watched the Chicago Thanksgiving Parade in the metaverse.

That was weird. Also went to a friend’s house for an in-person Friendsgiving which was a nice change from the isolation of last year. And on Thanksgiving we got wind of something exciting called the “omicron” variant of COVID.

One week in December Matt got his booster on Monday, I got mine on Tuesday, had awful chills and a fever Wednesday night, on Thursday night Matt went a holiday party for his work, and on Friday I went into the office for my holiday party.

It was a lot of fun! A little toooo much fun. Spent Saturday on the couch hung over and skipped a live Mystery Science Theater 3000 show I had tickets for, which was a bummer.

On Monday Matt felt sick and cancelled a dentist appointment… and tested positive for COVID with a rapid test that night. Omicron comes for us all. Dane and I tested multiple times as well but never tested positive. Because of the exposure though Dane had to switch to working from home and I had to miss a day I was supposed to be in person in the office. Matt quarantined for 10 days and only ever had mild symptoms.

That week I also learned Bridget passed away. It’s going to take a long time to process. It was horrible trying to work through it all and I shouldn’t have but it would’ve just pushed off the work and made things worse down the road coming a week and a half before Christmas. I numbly powered through the mountain of work I had left in anticipation of the holiday break and heading home to Minnesota to see family for the holidays for the first time since 2019, not sure the whole time if I’d collapse from exhaustion and or come down with COVID.

I somehow made it through and after testing negative again the morning of, headed to St. Paul on Amtrak. The trip was delayed in Chicago because the train had to turned off and on again to resync the PTC safety system. Amazing what a reboot will do.

The trip was good and I had a nice holiday, faking some sense of normality in a very abnormal time. Minnesota doesn’t have a mask mandate. It’s weird.

Vincent was supposed to come visit Chicago for the first time in over 8 years after I got back from Minnesota but he ended up cancelling the trip because of Omicron fears. I really wanted to see him, but flights have been canceled in the thousands and I probably would have had a breakdown without any time to decompress after the family visit. Things are rough. It seems silly to expect 2022 to be any better. I would’ve said 2021 was generally better than 2020 until the last two weeks but it’s all a matter of perspective. I don’t know.

I should probably try to reflect on 2021 more broadly but at this point I wanted to get these basic details down before any more time passed. Plenty of other good things, bad things, inconsequential things, etcetera happened in the past six weeks. But who can remember all that meaninglessness! Words, words, words, nothing ever being said!

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