GRIZZLY PEAR
I went to the dermatologist who removed a mole on my leg for a biopsy. It was strange to watch a small piece of myself being slowly detached from my body.
My guy was just a friendly nurse practitioner. But I now understand why a surgeons are stereotyped to have big egos. Cutting into another human must be the most powerful manifestation of god-hood in this modern world. It must be intoxicating to be the one holding the scapel.
I’ve started playing around with one-sentence stories. I’ll push it through the end of the month and reassess from there. Who knows where this experiment might lead (most likely nowhere), but this is what grizzlypear is for.
Hope you also had a good breakfast this morning.
What a year!
The good news is that we all stayed healthy, my job is still keeping me busy (and I’m still enjoying the effort), and the kids seem no worse for the wear.
The bad news was pretty much everything outside the walls of the house.
It was a great privilege to ride out this storm in relative peace, and I thought I should list a few key items of gratitude, beyond the basics.
To start meta, I’m quite happy with the current revival of this blog. I think I’ve found a good balance of consumption and production that enriches my life with a single medium-ish effort post every week. I’ve been reading more than I’ve been posting, so I’m hoping to turn this into a twice weekly post, but we’ll see if that happens.
I also lost quite a bit of weight. Most of it was due to being evicted from restaurants – my last meal was at an In-N-Out parking lot in Henderson, in February. I still want to lose a few more pounds (and I’ve actually gained back a couple since my low in late summer) but I can’t complain about where I’m at.
Fermentation was also a nice find. I’ve gotten consistently good with making Natto, the Bread is still awesome, and the discovery of how to make Kim chi / Sauerkraut has been a revelation. I now consider fermentation as one of the great pleasures in my life (along with reading, board games, and playing music).
And the kids really do keep growing. I don’t know what we would be missing out from in-person learning in a non-pandemic reality, but we have caring contentious teachers for my daughter who are trying their best. It has been a joy to watch the two of them blossom and develop a relationship with each other.
I heard an aphorism on Jonah Goldberg’s podcast about life with children “the days are long, the years are short”. With two kids, I can vouch for the truth of this sentiment, but I’d say it also applies quite well to 2020.
This past year was just a moment, and an eternity, ago.
Let’s see what the future brings.
