Crazy Times & Resolutions

So this year we spent the holidays in Florida. It was a great vacation, one near family, one spent mostly outside, and one in which we met new friends at several family gatherings. The upshot  –– at a time when the COVID variant omicron rages –– is, in hindsight, predictable: a couple members of our crew tested positive.

The good news is our clan members’ symptoms are mild. (“Cold symptoms and body aches?” I told my wife. “With my sinuses and my old man’s hockey back, that’s my permanent state.”) I tested negative and flew home to Massachusetts

late Monday night, thinking of a significant change COVID has had on the world (and I’m probably late to the game in facing this realization) is that you now need to seriously weigh your health risks before seeing people or attending events before doing so much of what was once part of everyday life because you could now find yourself ill or quarantining.

Our close-contact exposure has us cancelling upcoming domestic trips. This is part of our collective new reality –– the need to weigh the risks of exposure; it’s something many of us probably did not do prior to March 2020, a true new reality.

Crazy times that aren’t ending soon.

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Resolutions . . .

. . . as we head into the new year, here are mine  –– short and simple:

3) Fall in love with a new author. 2021 was the year of Megan Abbott, for me. I’ll be on the lookout for a new author to read widely.

2) Improve fitness. I’m avoiding putting specific goals here. But the more I exercise, the better I feel, so . . . 

1) Outline more effectively. I'm finishing a novel right now that has an ending I did not see coming until I was halfway through, which, if you believe in the no-surprise-for-the-writer, no-surprise-for-the-reader method, is excellent. However, if you try to keep three balls in the air, which I do, it's terrifying and can lead you wasting lots of time. It's something I'll continue working on in 2022.

Happy (early) New Year to all.