{"id":1689,"date":"2020-10-26T15:51:56","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T15:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/?p=1689"},"modified":"2020-10-26T15:51:56","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T15:51:56","slug":"predictability-unpredictability-and-the-magic-of-girl-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/?p=1689","title":{"rendered":"Predictability, Unpredictability, and the Magic of Girl Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have been tested for COVID six times now. I imagine that number will climb to a total of nine for 2020. I\u2019ve flown to Mexico, having tested negative for the sixth time four days ago. I\u2019ll get tested upon return. And if I go home to New York for Christmas, I suspect I\u2019ll test before and after that trip, too. I\u2019m getting so tired of tests that it makes me want to forfeit returning home for the holidays, which is just absurd. Of course<\/em> going home is worth a couple more nasal swabs. But part of me just wants to forgo the stress of the airports and contact with so many others; to just hole myself up in one place, spending time with only a small cohort of people, and not too often. It certainly unburdens me of all the necessary COVID mitigation. But that\u2019s just 2020 for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Life just gets more abnormal by the day. Though I\u2019ve regained some normalcy by returning to work from furlough, I\u2019ve felt like a whirlwind for the last month with no footing. I basically only spent a week and a half of October in my own apartment, between dog-sitting, visiting friends in Moab and Durango, and now heading to Mexico. Suddenly Halloween is less than a week away, Thanksgiving and Christmas are around the corner, and I couldn\u2019t tell you where I\u2019ll be for either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent an hour journaling about the developments in my life from the last month, highlighting how ungrounded I\u2019ve been over the last 30 days. I somewhat forgot that this blog even existed. That said, I did take occasional note of little things that have amused me here and there. So here\u2019s a brief collection of observations amid the chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I didn\u2019t bother bringing a notebook on my Mexico trip, so I elected to journal on a Word doc. Back on my work computer, I couldn\u2019t recall if I already had some sort of journal document created. I scrolled through some folders and landed on a doc I had titled \u201cpandemic musings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t much, but it was a little trippy to read these few blurbs from clearly the very beginning of the pandemic, mid to late March. I wrote about losing track of time (still am). I bitched about how ridiculous it was to be planning the Olympic Games when they were clearly going to be postponed (it still feels ridiculous to plan at times, though I am more confident that the show will go on). And then a thought to get a tattoo of a song lyric on my arm (sorry mom and dad \u2026 but that desire still holds. #Happy24thbirthdaytome?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suppose what\u2019s funny about those three \u201cmusings\u201d is that so much and so little has changed, simultaneously. We are still in this freaking mess. It\u2019s not ending any time soon. The only difference is that we\u2019ve accepted that we\u2019re in it, and we don\u2019t care<\/em>. The country is just one gigantic sh*tstorm, between the election, COVID, wildfires, racial injustice, and so on. So we\u2019ve done what we Americans do: shown complete indifference and continued to do whatever the hell we want. We recognize there\u2019s no deadline to this nightmare, so we\u2019re just going to live it. As pathetic as it may be, I don\u2019t see any other viable option in a country as divided as ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the vein of embracing this new normal, I finally returned to my climbing gym. What a flipping relief. I genuinely don\u2019t know how I had gone so long without my greatest passion. The first day I returned, I felt a renewed energy in my step, walking to the gym on the same familiar blocks, just from a new starting point. I passed the Italian restaurant diagonally across from the gym and laughed out loud when I read the words printed on the door, clearly pre-pandemic: \u201cLinger and Mingle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cLinger and Mingle\u201d can\u2019t quite touch an even funnier display that my roommate, Joe, and I saw a week prior. We were on our way to camp and climb in the South Platte. As we pulled off Highway 24 and headed to Rampart Range Road, I came to a stop and looked to my left. There sat a building with maybe four establishments. The two businesses I saw listed, side by side? \u201cWoodland Butcher Block\u201d and \u201cThe Little Baby Station.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*laughs nervously*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite all the weird vibes I\u2019ve been feeling, there\u2019s been at least some predictability in my life: namely, my dad\u2019s love for Billy Joel. I called him a couple days ago, and after a lot of muffled fumbling, he picked up. He apologized for the delay, explaining how he was trying to watch the puppy but also really wanted to listen to the Billy Joel channel, so he had the car radio running. His phone\u2019s Bluetooth got mistakenly connected to the car, ergo, I couldn\u2019t hear anything when he talked into his phone, as he was seated outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was so comforting about this whole thing was just how predictably Steve<\/em> it was. Even more so knowing that this is something I myself would 100% do. The number of times I have engineered my life around live music like this? Innumerable. My heart felt a little warmer just thinking of Steve out on the driveway, laughing to himself at Billy\u2019s quips and remembrances in between songs, cursing the dumbasses who voted Rosalinda\u2019s Eyes as high as #49 out of the top 88 cuts. Stay golden, Stevie Ray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Of course, there\u2019s some joy in the un<\/em>predictability of life right now as well. I have recently been struggling with a severe lack of female friends in Colorado Springs. All of my girl friends have left me, and I am left with essentially four male friends in close proximity. And it\u2019s brutal, not gonna lie. Girl friends are crucial for dare I say everyone\u2019s<\/em> health and security. So it was an absolute joy when my friend Nina invited me to climb with her and some others in Moab. Not only was it amazing to reconnect with her, it was such a blessing to go climbing with another woman again. My soul was restored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, as luck would have it, the restoration continued<\/em>! As I departed Indian Creek, I headed back east through Durango, where I stayed with my friend Sydney. Sydney and I became friends in year one of college, but she decided not to return to school after that year for health reasons. When I got to her house, we quickly determined we hadn\u2019t seen each other in a year and four months. So we did what any friends would do: we gave each other our own 5-minutes synopsis of the past year of our lives. It was shockingly effective. Having caught each other up, we were back to chatting and laughing as if we\u2019d been hanging out all this time. God, girl friends are the best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been tested for COVID six times now. I imagine that number will climb to a total of nine for 2020. I\u2019ve flown to Mexico, having tested negative for the sixth time four days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ponderings"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1690,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions\/1690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}