Looking back through my January posts over the years, I have talked ad naseum about my loathing of January, so I will just say, a mid-Michigan January for someone dealing with depression is like throwing a drowning man a dead carp. Sure, it might be funny for a second, but the dude drowns, and you’re out your best dead carp.
The week after the Christmas holiday, I was back on the Dreadmill in the Not So Stankment, pounding out daily 3-mile lumbers and intervals. After what seemed like months of being ill in one form or another, it felt great to get my heart rate up and to sweat again without a 101˚ fever.
So, after 21+ miles of lumbering nowhere slow, I was stoked to get back on the magic Zwift machine last Monday and get my legs back to doing what they do best. Or at least do better than running.
On Monday, Jake The Dog’s veterinarian had a conversation with me in which she encouraged me to start thinking about Jake’s “current quality of life.” I’m pretty sure that almost every pet owner knows exactly what that means.
Given Jake’s hind leg issues, it’s a conversation that I have been expecting for some time now, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
We all have fond holiday memories, at least that’s what marketing departments around the world tell us, so it must be true.
Here are a few of mine; whether they are fond memories is up to you. At this point in my life, I just laugh, shake my head, and mutter some 21st century swear words I find more fitting than Ebenezer’s “Bah Humbug!”
Friday always has that “I might get laid tonight” vibe to it, even though, for me, Friday night usually means drinking a few IPAs in my comfy chair, some crap white trash cooking, and in bed alone by 9 PM because there’s nothing to do that hasn’t been done before, nothing to watch that hasn’t been seen before, and nowhere to go that hasn’t already been gone to or sullied by the never-ending pandemic and its variants.
I promised I don’t know who I would try to keep things more positive here rather than dwell on the revolving door of suck mental and physical health that I’ve been stuck in for weeks now. So, I will just say this week has not exactly progressed how I would have liked; in fact, it regressed in many ways, especially in the mental health department.
Wow, that was way easier to write than the 750+ words I wrote and rewrote earlier before saying, “Nah.”
Today is hopefully the last in a shit show series of posts that went on way too long dedicated to me being ill in one form or another. — Management
Saturday brought Day 7 of Crud 2021 to me and Day 5 to Wifey. I would include B, but he’s 17, and his immune system got rid of his Crud roughly two days after he got it; if he had it at all, he still maintains that he was never actually sick, and it was an allergic reaction to a friend’s cat. Discrepancies on who was Cruded first and for how long aside, it’s been a long week/few months, and I’m happy to see the end of it.
The last time I posted here, I was bitching and moaning about the head cold I picked up. Well, that non-COVID-related illness turned into more than just a head cold, and three four days later, I am just now getting a bit of my mental and physical mojo back. Who would have thought that a bout of COVID would be easier to kick than whatever the hell this is?
Somewhere between miles 1 and 434 of my drive home from Pennsylvania last week, I made the executive decision to start writing and posting here more frequently. And I did!
Then I didn’t.
My post COVID creep back into the world started on Wednesday with a short “Last Day of Quarantine” solo hike in the woods of the Sylvan Preserve. Then, I made it official on Thursday when I returned to the cold, sagging, well-milked bosom of society with a trip to Meijer to buy groceries. It was all very anti-climatic and soon forgotten.