I’m on “vacation” this week. I put that in quotes because I’m spending the week alone in my apartment, which is the same thing I’ve done every week since March. The only difference this week is that I’m reading comics and watching TV all day instead of just part of the day. I had a number of PTO days left this year that were in the “use it or lose it” category, so here I am, with a week off and nothing to do. I’m not complaining. I fully recognize that sitting around doing nothing for a week while getting paid my full salary and still having health insurance is something for which I should be really grateful.
The vacation got off to a rocky start, after I had a really bad night Saturday. I just couldn’t get any sleep, mostly due to a really stuffy nose. That left me feeling like a zombie on Sunday. I did a little better with sleep Sunday night, and I think I got back to something like normal last night, so, all things considered, I’m not doing too bad today. But the rough weekend has drained some of my ambition. (Not that I had much to start with.)
I started a note in Evernote a few weeks back for “things to do on my vacation,” but I’m looking at it now, and I don’t think I really want to do any of those things. A few of them seem risky, given the current COVID-19 situation. And a few of them just seem like more work than I want to do.
In the “too much work” category: I’d thought about attending GitHub Universe, which is running today through Thursday. Or the virtual DevIntersection event that’s running tomorrow and Thursday. As much as I think that it’d be a good idea to spend some time “sharpening the saw”, so to speak, I’m really more in the mood to just relax and do nothing this week. If, at some point, I feel like I’ve maxed out on TV and comics, maybe I’ll try to do some work on this year’s Advent of Code project. I’ve done the Advent of Code thing in previous years, though I’ve never gotten through the whole thing. Anyway, that might be a good compromise between stuff that looks too much like work and stuff that looks too much like being in a coma.
In the “too risky” category: I miss being able to go into NYC at this time of year. It’s cold, but it’s nice to go in and do some holiday shopping, and visit some museums, and maybe see some movies. I noticed a blog post in my “On This Day” widget about the Cartoon Musicals program at Lincoln Center from 2005. That was fun. All of the movie theaters in NYC are still closed. I could watch some stuff from the Lincoln Center virtual cinema, or the Film Forum one, but there’s nothing at either of those right now that I’m terribly interested in. If I’m going to stay home and watch movies on my couch, I’ll just stick with Netflix.
I’ve also been thinking that I should spend some time watching some of the video content that the Met and MoMA have posted this year. Maybe I could start with the exhibit tour for Making the Met. It bothers me a bit that I never got to see that exhibit in person. Technically, I could hop on a train today and go into the Met and see the exhibit, but it just seems like an unnecessary risk, and a bad idea. I feel bad that nearly all of the Met’s big plans around celebrating their 150th anniversary this year had to be scrapped or scaled way back. But I’m sure the Met is doing better than a lot of other cultural institutions right now, even if they’re not doing great.
I always feel a little guilty doing nothing, but apparently I shouldn’t. I just read this article about niksen, the “Dutch art of doing nothing”, and apparently doing nothing is good for me. (I could read a book about it too, but reading a book about doing nothing seems like failing at doing nothing.) So, anyway, it’s just past 9 AM, I’m done with breakfast, and I should really be done with blogging too. Time to read some comics. Or just stare into space. Whatever.
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