Worried that my lack of side effects to the COVID-19 vaccinations may mean that my immune system is underperforming, I’m considering going in for a third shot, despite the fact that neither hypochondria nor paranoia qualifies as an underlying condition.

I had my first mask incident today, not an argument about whether someone should or shouldn’t be wearing one, but rather about my bold choice to wear a white one before Memorial Day.

In the latest step of the sexual revolution, the CDC has announced that it’s okay for small groups of consenting adults to be within six feet of each other without masks on, angering purveyors of the S&M trade, who are concerned about the effect on business if masks are removed.

 

Now that I’ve received a second shot of laced mRNA, it’s time to turn my attention to my next goal in life.

I’ve already made a hole-in-one, albeit on an indoor simulator.

I’ve conquered LEGO, as you all know, though a Master Class might be fun.

I’ve walked around a renaissance fair dressed in medieval garb, eating a very large turkey leg, while people addressed me as Your Majesty.

I’ve learned to play the piano. I can’t actually play, but now I know how to.

I ate a peanut, once. I ice skated, once. I did chair yoga, once.

I’ve been questioned by the FBI. Unrelated to that, I’ve had my picture in the paper.

I’ve burned the hair off the back of my hand with a cigarette lighter, even though I’ve never smoked.

I’m not sure what’s left. I’ve never seen Gone with the Wind. Maybe, looking back on the last year, I’ll enroll in Le Cordon Bleu, to be ready for COVID-22.

According to Lifehack (whatever that is) these are the top ten reasons, with notation added, why New Year’s resolutions fail:

1. “You’re treating a marathon like a sprint.” Speaking from personal experience, doing so in the last two-tenths of a mile of a marathon may result in not being able to walk for a week.

2. “You put the cart before the horse”, and the horse is full of Greek soldiers (1184 B.C.?).

3. “You don’t believe in yourself.” Cogito ergo sum (Descartes, 1637).

4. “Too much thinking, not enough doing.” Back to the ancient Greeks, circa 1988, when Nike, goddess of victory, famously first advised, Just Do It.

5. “You’re in too much of a hurry.” Isn’t that the same as number 1 and the opposite of number 4?

6. “You don’t enjoy the process.” Are we having fun yet? (Zippy the Pinhead, 1979)

7. “You’re trying too hard.” This seems like a red herring. I’ve never met anyone who tried all that hard to keep a resolution.

8. “You don’t track your progress.” How do you expect Fitbit to stay in business?

9. “You have no social support.” Add another Zoom meeting. Have a glass a wine during the call so that you can enjoy the process of tracking your progress, unless the resolution was to give up drinking.

10. “You know your what but not your why.” I don’t know – third base (Abbott and Costello, 1936).

I would add that limiting your number of resolutions helps. Zero is a comfortable goal.

Breathe (in and out), in public, without a mask on
Touch my face, a lot
Hug a random stranger on the street (and then take a 3-hour shower)
Don’t order from Amazon for at least 2 days
Don’t eat my own cooking for at least a year
Burn all my clothes (but remember to take them off first)
Delete my Zoom password
Cancel all fourteen of my streaming subscriptions, unplug my TV, and hide my computer and iPad
Go indoors somewhere other than a grocery store or pharmacy (maybe walk into a bar with a duck and a three-legged dog)
Pay Lacuna, Inc. (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) to erase my memory of the last 9 months (or better, 4 years, except for the hole-in-one)

Running out of new destinations for my daily Covid constitutional, I walked over to the local Armed Forces Recruitment Center today, but was surprised to find that it was closed, given how many people are out of work. So I couldn’t ask anyone there why they had a sign posted on the window that said No Weapons Allowed. I would think they could save a lot of money on training if they saw the wisdom of bringing in people who were already predisposed to violence.

On the other hand, the nearby public library had no such prohibition posted. I guess they assume that no self-respecting weapons addict would be caught dead, idiomatically, in a library.

A little further down the block there was a large advertisement on the side of a building promoting the services of a doctor in regard to medical cannabis consultations. I mention this only because, by the time I got home, it took me (and my worthless laptop spellcheck) three tries to spell cannabis correctly, and I hadn’t even had a consultation, though I can’t speak for the computer program.

In January, I got a haircut. I haven’t had one since, but have learned to strategically position seven mirrors, while contorting my body into a new yoga position I invented, to enable me to trim the back of my neck, with a minimum of bloodletting, after sufficient warmup, stretching, and prayer.

In February, I had a few people over to watch the Super Bowl. No one has entered my apartment since, but I saved the garbage as a memento, and to use as a continuing test of my sense of smell.

In March, I made a hole-in-one at the Old Course at St. Andrews on an indoor golf simulator, received a very nice credit to be applied toward further visits, and then received notice that the facility had shut down due to the virus.

In April, starting to feel very isolated and uncertain of the meaning of life, I sustained myself by concluding that, I Zoom, therefore I am.

In May, my car wouldn’t start and my plant died, but I soldiered on.

In June, I sucked it up and went to the dentist.

In July, I got together with friends (outdoors, with a tape measure), which, if memory serves me, used to be a thing.

In August, I ate my first quadruple chocolate cookies from Big Fat Cookie, giving me a reason to live while waiting on a vaccine.

In September, I played Pickle Ball for the first time in my life, and walked away uninjured, for the first time in my life.

In October, I changed my clocks, though my attempts to do so telekinetically failed.

In November, I recycled some light bulbs. It’s the little things.

Finally seeing hope for the future, in December I hope to start my own pre and post natal drum circle business.

With the oracular expectation of shortages that would result from another run on stores as we entered the fall and experienced a rapidly increasing number of COVID cases, I overstocked on everything I could and, not surprisingly, ran out of storage room, so that I had to clandestinely slip into the park in the dead of night with flashlight and shovel in hand and squirrel away dozens of frozen pizzas and rolls of toilet paper in a series of unmarked consumer staples graves.

I considered sketching a map to aid in later finding my stashes, but instead felt compelled to match my abilities against those of scatter-hoarding squirrels, who, while they may have memories that would put an elephant to shame, don’t, I think, have the advantage of being able to create mnemonic devices to help them find their buried treasures.

I experienced a moment of concern as to whether some hungry, little gray member of the family Sciuridae might accidentally happen across and then feast upon one of my Margherita specials. But Internet research allayed my fears, as there is no evidence of the creatures being able to operate an oven.

I realized that I also could turn a profit on my hoarding by converting the adventure into an online-based treasure hunt for people to while away the hours they might otherwise spend searching for a bar still open in violation of the latest governmental orders.

To that end, I signed up for a class on computer coding and another on starting a business out of your garage, which importantly includes advice on protecting your ideas when it’s a shared garage, as mine is.