Photo by Partition Studios, 2021.
I won’t ask you have you’ve been faring — no one wants to answer that question at this point. For some, they’ve sculpted of this time a sense of normalcy… others, less so. What’re you even supposed to get done in a year?
The days oscillate for me, personally. My off-days leave me slightly bewildered as if I had something important planned that completely slipped my mind. Did I mean to get something done today? I’d wonder, but I know that asking that question is, in and of itself, admitting defeat. Some days I just waste too much time scrolling Twitter. Grasping at my digital connections, I comment flirtatiously to my colleagues and call it networking, unconsciously biting my lip as I hit “send tweet". Sometimes this listlessness has me ordering cake for delivery, entire afternoons forfeited to my wrought iron clawfoot bathtub. It’s okay, I think to myself, no one’s in any place to judge right now. And it’s true! What a waste of energy that would be.
Don’t get me wrong! The good days have been really good. I’m lucky to be podded with the sweetest, Adahlia Cole (of Hungry Hungry Hooker fame), whose softness I regularly get to sink my claws into. Warming your hands on her impeccably sculpted curves is a necessity on chilly Bay Area ‘winter’ nights! Although we have many (many) shared indulgences, undoubtedly what sticks out is the undying devotion to food: eating it, making it… and in her case, photographing it. Between the two of us we’ve eaten well enough to satisfy several lifetimes of royalty — and make no mistake, there aren’t intentions to slow down. Since the beginning of this new year I’ve been taking an inadvertent break from alcohol, but the selection of wines we drank in 2020 must be one of the few things that actually thrived last year. No matter the difficulties, a life of hedonism must prevail.
On that note, I’m excited to announce that I’ve taken this year to embrace un-productivity. In the past I would identify proudly as a workaholic, my schedule bursting at the seams. Seeing friends has always been necessary, but so too was my leisure fully planned out. Spontaneity had almost no place in my life — for the astrologically inclined, you should know that I’m a Virgo. The past year has really thrown a wrench into all of our daily lives but hopefully that comes with a silver lining… for me, that silver lining was learning to relax. All tallied up, I spent weeks floating on the Russian River during the high heat of the summer. I regularly spend entire days videochatting with my clever friend Cayce Marlowe, doing nothing much while we carry our phones from room to room in our respective houses, the battery life of our technology being the only reason we hang up. Letting days waft by has become a carefully curated skill of mine, whether by losing myself in a book series or sitting stoned on my porch to catch a surprisingly warm day. If it’s true what they say about needing a minimum of ten thousand hours of experience to be an expert in something, then I’m well on my way.
Tucked into this silver lining are the dates I’ve gotten to have over the past year, each planned around Covid testing and my usual home isolation. I’ve met a truly world-class collection of people and curse every day that I can’t continue the monthly travel I’d gotten used to pre-pandemic (Upping the ante and leaving me cherishing more than ever the Fly Me to You dates I’ve gotten to indulge in!) I take no more than one date every 2 weeks, prioritizing everyone’s safety, and have been savoring anticipation more than ever before — my dates have almost entirely been four hour or longer affairs, each lush with hotel picnics or room service and wine and pillow talk. (So, all the best things.) Given all that, how can I complain?
Now, I suppose this blog itself is a testament to my lifestyle — packed with florid language (can you tell I’ve been reading a lot of poetry?), we’ve taken a long stroll through my thoughts and find ourselves here. How do you even end conversations right now? If you never really leave (your house) then how do you decide when to say good bye? If we’re acquainted, please know that I miss you. If we’ve not yet met, I hope you’re well (and if I’ve piqued your interest, I look forward to hearing from you!) I know that purely on a world-events level this year is in the running to be interesting at best, but I hope we can all enjoy our silver linings. Life’s no good without them.
Xo,
R