Today I am at home, entombed amongst blankets and pillows. There's not much reason to leave my current location; it's one degree above freezing and the precipitation is falling as cold, clumpy sleet. I'm confined to home-office work, which is an odd thing for an opera singer/photographer. In the past hour I've powered through two cups of coffee whilst melting my brain with social media and camera reviews. This all lead to my current state, where I wish to recount some of the more memorable events in my life since the first pangs of COVID-19 about a year ago. Here's a brief list:
Learned a thousand opera arias, songs, and oratorios, that I will probably never perform,
Edited seventy-two million photos,
Watched an unhealthy amount of Star Trek,
Sobbed with relief when Trump lost the election,
Began a side hobby of repairing and selling old film cameras,
Took an online math and science intensive,
Went to fourteen hundred doctors appointments,
Found a massive mold colony in walls of my apartment,
Moved to a new apartment with my girlfriend Diana and my roommate/longtime friend Jarrett,
Took a German language course,
Took lots of walks,
Attempted infrequent home-workouts,
Made this website,
Video chatted and reconnected with family and friends,
Ate a plethora of amazing vegan food because Diana made a vegan cookbook and I got to try the recipes,
Ordered too much crap online,
Wrestled with the question "what am I doing with my life?",
Wrestled with the privilege of asking that question,
Found out how stinky breath can get under a mask, especially after eating hummus,
Read very long, dry biographies on Winston Churchill, Napoleon, and FDR
Read very short, hilarious, painful stories by David Sedaris,
Hiked along the Swabian Alps,
Realized my fear of heights has gotten worse.
I glean no great epiphany from these events, but they show me a personality trait that I didn't realize existed in myself: restlessness. Maybe it's influenced by the amount of coffee I've been drinking these days, maybe it's a deeper existential question that pushes me. Either way, I'm seldom bored.