things I did in 2020

[redbird]

An incomplete list of things I did this year, in something resembling temporal order:

• went to New York with @adrian_turtle and @cattitude to see my mother and my aunt Lea. That turned out to be the last time I saw my aunt.
• practiced/learned at least a little French almost every day, via Duolingo. Reached "diamond league," a meaningless ranking that I nonetheless was somewhat motivated by.
• finished indexing a book that I edited in 2019 (my first-ever indexing job, the author's idea rather than mine)
• a lot of text banking, and some phone banking, for candidates in the 2020 elections (mostly Biden/Harris, the Maine senate race, and non-partisan get-out-the-vote efforts that probably reached/motivated more Democratic than Republican voters)
• joined the local Senior Center so I could use the exercise room, which I did once before the pandemic and lockdown in March
• socialized via Discord and Zoom, and got to know some new people through those
• got ice cream delivered regularly
• baked bread from scratch
• had telemedicine appointments with doctors both by phone and with video (over Zoom)

Comments

[noachoc]

Are you still in diamond league? I got up there, realized that you had to maintain a rank to stay there and dropped back down to Obsidian and stopped caring that much about the rankings.

[redbird]

I look at how much I'd have to push myself to stay up there for a third week, and decided it wasn't worth the (actual or potential) strain on my hand and shoulder.