this was not a good day.
it was the last day of my break from work and that stress, along with the gloom of the weather,
most assuredly made this day not a favorite of mine.
could not sleep. no sleeping in/late.
the whole break felt like no break at all. i had cooked holidays meals for fewer than i usually did,
ate only with the usual suspects of my live-in family members, and put up and took down
decorations with the same diminished number of family members. the doom of the pandemic,
the dehumanizing political environment radiating from DC, lack of the usual channels for travel
we usually do during time off, the prospect of returning to work, and the pressure to DO
something with my time all heaped upon me this day. i am usually able to achieve feelings of
coziness and safety away from work and responsibility, but not this year.
my laundry list of activities begins with laundry:
laundry before work but my work clothes were already done
a lot of chess was played by my wife and i -alone in the house with my son visiting his
mother all weekend- separately on our phones, for the mostpart, but occasionally with
each other on a physical board
folded towels during the gawdawful film Omega Man . the story it’s based on is a classic,
giving rise to much better movies like The Last Man on Earth and Night of the Living
Dead , but is itself a horrible piece of ‘70s shlock (sorry, fans of this movie).
made tea
played with bird-watching photos from our backyard: titmouses, chickadees, cardinals,
downeys, red-headed woodpeckers, an occasional northern flicker, a pair of carolina
wrens, a bevvy of mourning doves, and whole troupes of house finches and house
sparrows. it was the flicker photos i tweaked.
later, after a decidedly unfun discussion with my wife, we took a drive with the dog. it
served to freshen the air a bit but did not revive me fully.
lunch was simple; dinner was, too. no frills, just sustenance.
ironically, we found a documentary to watch in the evening about reading old diary entries from
adolescence out loud to a room of strangers called Mortified . it seems there is a whole
movement behind this where people dredge up old diary entries from when they were 13, 14,
15, 12, etc. and read them to audiences. it was quite amusing and cathartic. very interesting
subject matters, mostly humorous in an endearing way, with only some mention of the
harshness life brings to teens. altogether a feel-good concept.
not a bad way to end the day.