Weeknotes 79

It was Nat’s birthday yesterday, which was really fun, and we’ve both taken a week off work to relax and enjoy ourselves.

After making a fuss about the unforeseen onset of June, I missed the opportunity last week to note that we’re more than halfway through 2021 now. What the actual. I’m conscious that I complained last year about having a summer stolen from me by lockdown; I don’t want that to happen again this year.

It’s two weeks since my second dose so I’m presumably as immune to SARS-CoV-2 as I’m going to get. I feel like I should be starting to change my life in recognition of this milestone but I’m not sure what that means in practice.

I have tentative social plans for next week, and I’m a little tempted to start going to the gym again, although perhaps not tempted enough to actually do it yet. I think the reality is that I’m waiting to see what happens when regulations are eased on the 19th. If it’s a total shitshow then I don’t want to get caught up in it unnecessarily.

I’ve deleted self-pitying shit about football from the last few weeknotes, so let’s just stick to the facts this time and see if it survives the edit.

I don’t like football. More generally, I find other people’s obsession with sport incredibly alienating. I don’t get it at all. I don’t even understand what you’re supposed to be looking at — a complete semantic void. And yet everyone unquestioningly behaves as though it’s intrinsic to the human experience somehow, a self-evidently meaningful part of life whose appeal is obvious to anyone with a brain that’s working correctly.

It’s usually fairly easy to ignore this discomfort but occasionally it reaches fever pitch and there’s no escape, both in real life and online. So that’s pretty unpleasant but the current wave should be over soon and then I can relax a bit.

I enjoyed watching the good (if uncritical) Taylor Swift documentary Miss Americana. The most striking aspect was seeing how focused she is on reviewing her own performance, always paying attention to how well she’s doing and what she could improve. I suppose that behaviour could come off as cynical or neurotic but I found it admirable and largely inspiring. In principle I do try to maintain a similar degree of self-awareness of my own work but also, you know, I’m very lazy, so it’s not quite as effective.

We saw Nomadland which was excellent. It was such a good reminder of how much I enjoy Frances McDormand that we then watched Fargo to get more of her. I could probably watch Fargo every week for the rest of my life and never get bored of it.

11.2kg down. 😑