Upcoming

I registered for a triathlon last night, you guys, and today I went for a run for the first time in six months. It was not pretty. But it's good to have a goal, right? I'm always more motivated by an event than by a vague sense that exercise is good for me.

ALSO Pete is turning 16 tomorrow (16! can you believe it?!) and is kicking off his birthday with an 8am vaccination appointment. Twelve hours from now, all of the eligible Gladlys will have had at least one shot. I am three weeks out from shot #2.

Did I tell you this? I just can't remember what I've told you and what I haven't. I've been feeling a little blocked up lately, because one family member wants me to write a post about which I feel some reluctance, and one family member does not want me to write a different post about the thing most on my mind recently. But the first of those posts is also on my "upcoming" list.

ALSO upcoming: it's almost #EAMDRAL time. Next month will mark our Eighth Annual May Dickens Read-Along. What should we read this year? I'm considering Great Expectations (maybe it's a good year for reading about the transformative effects of serious illness), and I'm also considering Little Dorrit. I last read Little Dorrit in May of 2002 as I was advancing from 8 months pregnant to 9.3333 months pregnant and badly in need of a distraction. In that season, as the last of the 9/11 rubble was being cleared away and the future began to seem a little brighter again, I had a similar sense of emerging from something horrifying and unforgettable. Maybe it's good I didn't know that we'd still have troops in Afghanistan on Joe's 19th birthday. But here's to the emerging part, not the unforeseen long-term consequences part. May we move speedily to the far side of this.

ALSO ALSO upcoming: the women's retreat has a date. It was scheduled for September of 2020, and then it was postponed indefinitely, and now it is scheduled for the very end of September 2021. Everyone who goes on the weekend has to be vaccinated, a decision that seems destined to generate pushback in these weird and polarized days.

This paragraph is not about an upcoming event for me, but maybe it can be an upcoming event for you. Vaccination is the connection here-- on Friday night I waded into a Facebook discussion about vaccination in which one commenter attempted to steer us to a homily about vaccination that should really come with a warning label. DANGER, DESTRUCTIVE ANALOGIES AND INSUPPORTABLE CONCLUSIONS, it would say. I was not polite about my reaction on Facebook, and then, unsatisfied, I went over to  Twitter to complain further. And the next day I hied myself to confession for the first time since Advent. YOU GUYS, it was the best. THE BEST. That feeling of lightness and freedom and belovedness (and also the awareness that it's time for another social media break, because there is enough angry in my life without Twitter to fuel it)-- I almost want to get off the couch and do a little Snoopy dance as I remember it. But it's late and I'm tired so I will do an Inner Snoopy Dance instead. If you too could use an Inner Snoopy Dance moment, I suggest gently that you investigate the reconciliation schedule at your parish.

Okay! I will be back soon. Tell me what our #EAMDRAL book should be, and tell me what you are most looking forward to in your post-vaccination life. At the top of my list is when Alex comes home for the first time since Christmas 2019, an event for which I will need an entire box of Kleenex all to my weepy self. But I was also pretty tickled when the college roommate with whom I am doing this triathlon (a triathlon, you guys, after all these months on the couch-- this is kind of a nutty idea, but oh well) said that perhaps we could get an AirBnB for TWO nights, and just have a luxurious stretch of time in which to hang out after our race is over. Doesn't that sound delicious?

P.S. The enthusiasm pervading this post is brought to you by yet another item from my "upcoming" list: the end of the spring semester. This is the last week of classes, and I have now posted all of the online content I will have to post for the spring semester. That was a mammoth task. COLOSSAL. I am currently shoveling my way through the massive pile of grading, but do you know what awaits me on the other side? Freedom, and ease, and a nice fat Dickens novel -- that's what.