Good morning. Hello, there, friend. How are you? Did you have a nice Christmas? I hope you had a nice Christmas. Sorry I am late today, I am a bit out of it.
I woke up 6:30 AM Christmas morning and did my daily Covid test. I had been negative for six days at that point.
It was positive.
I called Emma, who was still asleep but had that sweet function turned on on her phone where important calls break through Do Not Disturb and it worked great. I was in the basement when I tested positive, and I had already shut the door to the upstairs. We were aware that a Paxlovid Covid rebound was a thing, for up to eight days after your last dose of Paxlovid, so I was still testing regularly, and we were still masking in the house (except my sanctum of my office). So far, at least, it looks as if my two whole days back amongst my family did not infect them. Fingers crossed.
My symptoms are completely different than last week: no chest pain, no chest congestion, no pain, really, just sniffles, a bit of a chill and a bit of a brain fog, I guess you could call it. No fever either time. Fingers crossed.
So, Christmas alone, in the basement. Talked to my mom, texted with my sister, Facetimed and texted with Emma and Jane, texted a lot with Jane. She is sad that daddy has to go back into quarantine, but seriously, check this shit out:
I mean COME ON.
So. Spent the day watching movies. Continued my Thanksgiving/Christmas tradition of watching the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films by finishing off the extended Return of the King. I liked it more than I usually do. The Gollum/Sam/Frodo journey gets a little boring to me, but the Minas Tirth stuff is still really good. There are two shots with some aged VFX but considering the age and scope of the films, that really is pretty minor. The irony is both of the shots are very simple shots but whatever.
Also watched Guillermo Del Toroās Pinocchio (beautiful but a little long and Pinocchio is annoying), Triangle of Sadness (thereās a good movie in there if it were relentlessly edited butā¦ not as such), Glass Onion (fantastic) and The Banshees of Inisherin (also great). Iām going to do Amsterdam and The Fablemens today but I have low hopes for each, and then probably Decision to Leave. Obviously I am doing this at home so thereās lots of things I would watch in the theater usually this week that I cannot. I would totally watch Avatar why not and Babylon why not I hear itās a train wreck and I love a train wreck. And The Whale and The Menu, but as it is I am dealing with a few very robust Plex accounts of a few friends, so if itās on streaming anywhere, I can probably watch it so let me know if thereās something you recommend. Also considering doing an āafterā day and watching Aftersun and After Yang.
I was reading the news this morning about a drone strike on a Russian base and three people were killed and, you know, I ārootā for the Ukrainians in this war as much as I root for anyone in wars, and I found myself smiling a bit and then I caught myself and I was like āno, never smile at deathā and then Iā¦ wanted some sort of secular humanist version of absolution or asking forgiveness or confession. When I was watching Banshees of Inisherin there were some confession scenes and, you know, it got me thinking. Humanism has done a good job with the confession part, mainly with therapists but also, like, Post Secret and, I donāt know, Tik Tok videos or Craigslist or something. But it doesnāt do such a good job with the absolution part. I want to confess that I smiled at the thought of those soldiers dead, I knew it was wrong, and I want to repent and be absolved, without a religion. Because those acts are so important. But who is there to absolve us if not god? Gah.
A bunch of you said āDonāt beat yourself upā for my dumb actions that got me Covid, and that was very nice of you, but I do beat myself up, because I clearly did something wrong and I knew this was going to happen. Iām not saying that of all CovidĀ ā lots of people get it on accident and are blameless, but that is not my situation. And Emma and I were talking about this last week. The one person I may have given it to (you all tell me I couldnāt have, but thatās moot go with me here) didnāt say I was blameless, what she said was I absolve you and that was so perfect. Absolution. Not punishment, not the denial of responsibility, but absolution and forgiveness. Yeah, man. Thatās the good stuff.
Someone open up a string of humanist confession booths in the back of Flying Jās and Loveās truck stops. You gotta travel for it. You gotta work for it.
Weāve had rolling blackouts down here since Christmas Eve. Weāve only had one ourselves, and our Powerwalls handled it just fine, but itās kept us on edge, keeping an eye on our power consumption, especially when the sunās down and weāre not producing solar, making sure our house batteries stay at 100%. It is absolutely, utterly confusing what uses power. When the first blackout happened Saturday morning, I ran around and turned off the things I thought would use the most power āĀ my giant computer, the drink frige, the chest freezer. It made a dent, but not much. After three days of monitoring it Iāve come to the conclusion that by far the biggest thing is the HVAC system, and itā¦ it just has garbage controls. Itās enough to make me want to finally switch to some electronic thermostats I can control with my phone, but I donāt know if that would be enough. The HVAC units themselves need some sort of control. It is very frustrating. The range is from 7MWh to 1.7MWh and it feels completely behond our control. Right now weāre using 6 and who knows why. Air filters use more than you would think. Luckily weāre generating like 8.5 right now but that doesnāt last very long.
Our Governor says it should be better by tomorrow. Fingers crossed. It took Duke two days to send one of those āyo try and not use too much powerā messages. I hear those work really well. Lord knows Iāve been neurotically keeping an eye on it since.
Justa mix for you today, mix of old and new, etc. etc. Been listening to a lot of shuffle play in my quarantine, so some rando oldies have come up. Forgot about Bran Van 3000, great song.
OK, well, Iām gonna go collapse into my chair and put on my new Care Bear sweater and a hat and a blanket and watch movies now. This took a lot out of me. Ciao.