the ocean

We've been watching some TV lately, as one does. We finished off Search Party, which we enjoyed a lot. I'm a big fan of how they just went ahead and did weird things that were funny to them, like giving people last names that were also ordinary nouns (i.e., Bob Lunch, Dr. Carpet, Dr. Baby). Also great how the characters were truly terrible people, not just in the Seinfeld sense of being self centered, but the actual sense of being liars and murderers (spoiler alert from four seasons ago). And excellent guest stars like Louie Anderson (RIP) and Jeff Goldblum (seems likely to never die). A definite recommend, though only if you like your humor dark like your chocolate or the Mariana Trench.

So I guess there's a little bit of good news, in that expert consensus seems to be that people (like me) who got COVID after being vaccinated and boosted will likely have a high degree of immunity that should last months, or at least until a new variant pops up. I fit a lot of caveats into that sentence, I recognize, but given that infectious disease experts seem to spend most of their time these days telling us we're all going to die, I'll take “I would feel really comfortable being out and about if I had a recent omicron infection” as a pretty positive message.

The question is, what am I going to do with it? And the answer is not much. With an unvaccinated child under 5 in my social network (my niece, not a friend from work), I'll still want to be pretty careful. Also, it's January in Chicago, which is generally not my preferred time for, say, taking my top off at a street fair, regardless. So maybe we'll go out for dinner while we can get reservations at places we usually couldn't get in to (or also maybe Applebee's, who knows?) or see a movie in theaters (how else can we enjoy the fellowship of people texting and loudly eating candy?). Probably we won't start following Phish around the country, I'd guess. 

Anyway, feel very jealous of my immunity. And less jealous of the fact that I spent new year's in isolation. We can't win them all, you know.

I have to say, my ten days of isolation instilled in me a whole new appreciation for all of the little things in life. Two days ago I ventured out to Home Depot to buy light bulbs, and it was magical. Never mind that they insist on making you exit out of a different door than you entered so you cannot avoid a long walk through the freezing cold no matter where you park; it is wonderful to be alive! And impulse items near the cash register? Don't mind if I do! A fun size bag of barbeque potato chips is just the thing to help me maintain my stamina as I follow the trail of tears back to my car. Yesterday we went grocery shopping after a two week absence and picking out crackers felt like an absolute luxury. Tomato Basil Wheat Thins? The world is full of many a wonder. We did the self checkout just so we could really savor each item that we personally selected and purchased, just like hunter gatherers of old. And today I went back to the gym, where running in a mask suddenly seemed plausible again. I like to think of the amount of laundry detergent it causes me to ingest as an additional challenge. There is such a wide world outside of my bedroom!

So Ian and I got COVID. We're not really sure how, since we're vaxxed, boosted, and double mask on the increasingly rare occasions when we leave the house, but we did. Ian tested Tuesday morning before he was supposed to be headed to the airport for a friend's birthday in Cancun, but since it came back positive he instead woke me up and announced that we have COVID. It was probably my best wake up call since the time he shared the news that our fridge had somehow superheated and a river of melted foodstuffs was running through our kitchen. 

We're very lucky that we have felt absolutely no symptoms, but man oh man that period of isolation is rough. Because my mom is here but has tested negative (again lucky), Ian and I have confined ourselves to our bedroom, except for brief periods where we take the dog out or make food to eat standing up in our bathroom. And it is a lovely bedroom, but scarcely designed for, say, fielding dueling conference calls or completing your 500th Peloton class. Mainly, it is a place where we sleep and watch TV, sometimes simultaneously. So that has been a shockingly large percentage of the last five days.

Thanks to the CDC's recently revised guidance that everyone who has never had to actually isolate seems to be up at arms about, though, we are actually permitted to leave our room so long as we're masked for days six through ten. I never realized how exciting it is to actually sit on one's couch again! And do a load of laundry (on the sanitary setting, naturally)! Of course, we are cautious, so we are continuing to avoid contact with humans, but that is definitely something I can handle.