I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
Douglas Adams
Category: Personal
One year ago today, I was on my way back from picking up a used Toyota Corolla, fiddling with the radio, and I heard the news that the governor had declared a 2-week shelter in place.
Twenty minutes later I was standing in line at a local grocery store with a bandana on my face, a healthy supply of toilet paper, and the feeling that this would all blow over soon.
One year later, I sat down to think about the best and worst things about the past year in trying to continue living normally during a global health crisis.
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How it’s going…
It feels like the last thing that happened was the election, followed by the massive rejection of the election results, followed by Christmas, New Year’s, and an frenzied assault on the Capitol.
Oh, and despite all our efforts to be safe when going out, we managed to catch COVID.
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Walk It Back
We’ve all seen them, starting around the middle of 2016 and slowly growing, at least around here in the middle of rural Pennsylvania. Those red hats. The large hand-painted Trump signs on the side of the highway. And those jacked-up coal-rolling trucks with like 8 flags bolted to the tailgate. And you think to yourself, how is this a thing?
Everyone’s been saying the same thing. I’ve never seen a year like this. I’ve never seen the country so divided. This is so weird and stressful and I don’t know what’s going to happen.
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It came out of nowhere
It was only meant to be a short drive. Pop out to Dunkin’ for a quick coffee before my daughter’s weekly Zoom call with her class. The drive out there is maybe 3 miles and should have taken like, 15 minutes, tops.
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That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief
“There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.”
— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief
I’ve recently become slightly obsessed with watches. Ever since I gave up on the Apple Watch Series 2 I had been wearing for a year — it just didn’t launch as fast as I wanted it to — I looked into getting a “real” watch, that is, something that looks a little more “grown up.”
That’s when I started doing a little bit of research, and oh man, what an expensive hobby this could turn out to be.
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Casual Observations on iOS 13 Reminders
I installed the Gold Master of iOS 13 as soon as it became available a couple weeks ago, and one of my most anticipated updates to test was the redesigned Reminders app.
Yesterday was the first time I was out at the BB&T Pavilion in Camden, NJ, for a concert (or for anything, really). Months ago, I picked up some tickets for the Beck, Cage the Elephant and Spoon Night Running Tour. It’s always a risky move to plan an outdoor event in the thick of summer. You know it’s either going to be super hot. Or super wet. In this case, it was both.