the ocean

​Boy, if only something had happened in 2020 that I could write about here!  Some years have a defining event, like Watergate or the release of the classic Lindsay Lohan feature Just My Luck, but this year?  I’m coming up short.  So I guess I’ll just creep back to my COVID bunker and take a nice hand sanitizer bath while I work up the courage to venture out into the toilet paper riots.

​Seriously, though, it’s been a strange year.  We went from googling slow cooker recipes and wondering who the hell greenlit The Goop Lab back in February to checking on our local ICU capacities and trading sexual favors for Clorox wipesin March.  Quarantine seemed kind of dope at first, what with not having to take public transit or put on real pants and all, but soon the charm of pretending one might actually finish an entire knitting project and changing one’s Zoom background to a photo of the Hindenburg disaster started to fade.  June rolled around and the reality struck that ‘80s-themed booze cruises and topless street festivals were probably not going to be on the menu for this year.  We started forming secret quarantine clusters of the few people we liked and trusted enough to risk them coughing near us while binge watching Below Deck: Mediterranean, and developed creative new ways of socially distancing things like Instagram influencing and sex.  As summer pressed on, we took masks and made them fashion, though oxygen tanks and iron lungs remained depressingly utilitarian.  The point is, we managed to adapt and make the best of things, even if maybe Florence Pugh’s Breakout Year got pushed back a bit and gender reveal parties weren’t ideally suited for the digital environment.  And then in September, Taco Bell announced it was getting rid of the Mexican Pizza. Good lord, haven’t we all suffered enough?

​And now we face the specter of socially distanced holidays:  A Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade where Billie Eilishis forced to lip sync on the StarKist Tuna float without the benefit of a live audience.  Office holiday parties minus the customary adultery and sexual harassment.  Christmas and Hanukkah dinners where grandparents are unable to properly harangue their single grandchildren for refusing to be set up with their podiatrist’s mailman because the Facetime connection keeps cutting out.  Allegedly.  And Hallmark holiday movies that are exactly the same as always because they were all filmed in Vancouver sixteen months ago using an audio-animatronic Candace Cameron-Bure (same as the original, but more likely to develop human emotions).  

​It will definitely be different.  But wasn’t the whole point of The Grinch that the holidays should be about connecting with loved ones and not all of the Flimflambles and Zodiderads?  I’m actually asking, because ever since I saw Jim Carrey in that lime green Perez Hilton costume, I’ve been repressing all related content.  My own personal view, however, is that making our celebrations smaller, simpler, and more personal can be a very good thing.  For example, not spending days preparing enough complex carbohydrates to give two dozen guests low-grade diabetes may give us more time to actually talk with our parents, and not just about the lawn-maintenance and Kohl’s-coupon-related topics that tend to rise to the top of their agendas.  Not running from store to store trying to find that Succession-themed Lego set little Timmy’s been dreaming of might actually encourage us to buy him a damn book for once, so we stop getting notes from school that he called Beverly Cleary “basic.”  And not going to midnight mass with hundreds of strangers just might save us from having to listen to a children’s choir.  I’ll just say it:  fewer little drummer boys, more Cardi Bs.  

​So yeah, hang in there.  2020 has been rough, but it turns out there’s a new year coming.  Here’s hoping it’s safe, sanitary, and blessed with a vaccine powerful enough to kill every last virus in Johnny Depp’s body.

Hallmark holiday movies are upon us, and I’m reaching my breaking point. This year they started before Halloween. Certainly I’m not against mindless entertainment, having now viewed nearly every season and iteration of Below Deck. But I could do without the following:

— No one ever being cold. People are going to tree lightings in the snow with their coats wide open. Candace Cameron Bure has one set in Alaska where she barely dons a sweater. Let’s splice in some footage of people in Chicago drowning in fifteen layers of underwear, shall we?

— Work being the enemy. Nearly every Hallmark lead “works too much,” though this seems to consist of taking one or two calls during a multi-week holiday vacation. Apparently everyone is supposed be caroling and making cookies instead.  That’s how economies function, right?

— Small towns thriving. Did these people miss the endless analysis of the 2016 election? Rural America is struggling with opioids, not dancing down candy cane lane.

— Young children being highly invested in their parents’ romantic lives. Somehow I find it hard to believe that the average five year old with a recently deceased father is really dying for mom to get her groove on. Where are the children demanding that dad quit eye fucking the urban marketing executive visiting her hometown and watch some Octonauts with them already?

— Characters who are probably Santa. In real life, portly bearded men who hang around children all the time are generally not the best people to share your secret holiday desires with. More often than not, they are one the registry,

— Teen star redux. As much as I admire Melissa Joan Hart’s grounded and realistic work as a woman dating a nutcracker come to life, not every former WB star is on that level. And can we agree that Tia should not be permitted to work without Tamera?

Anyway, I’m crabby. Merry Christmas.

I think it’s maybe time for me to admit that I’ve gotten a little weird during the pandemic. More so than usual, I mean.

I’ve always had some hermit-like tendencies, and now I have the excuse to indulge them. At first, I was maintaining the pretense of an outside life by calling friends, planning socially distant events, even heading outside for runs. But now it’s cold, and I spent much of the past week in my bed. It turns out I can work from bed, have my meals in bed, even post this from bed. And it’s a really comfortable bed. Presumably I’ll have to get out of it in a few weeks when the new frame arrives, but maybe I can convince them to work around me.

Also, and in conflict, my OCD habits. I don’t do well not doing anything. So while I may be physically stationary, I keep coming up with lists of things that “need” to be done. Some might say my CD collection did not necessarily need to be alphabetized and packed for storage during this time of national crisis, but those people are probably communists. And I for one found it incredibly essential that I catalogue the contents of our garage. Now if anyone comes looking for that inflatable unicorn, I know exactly where to direct them.

Social skills and normal emotional responses are also fading. On work calls I sometimes find myself unable to credibly feign interest in the weather and everyone’s health. And I am becoming inordinately upset about the delay in delivery of my stamps. It has been a week, people! How can the post office not rapidly deliver its own damn product?

Anyway, that’s the news. I know there’s a vaccine and all now, but I’m pretty sure it don’t cure crazy.

Okay, so I didn’t write this one, but I’m in it, and I’m frankly too lazy to think of anything else to write about. So here’s another song parody from the CBA Bar Show: