It’s been A WHILE.
Hey, that’s a Codeine lyric!
It’s Thanksgiving weekend and I have a couple days off from work. So, I thought I’d offer some updates on life and the blog.
When I last wrote things were still very much up in the air. Family, vaccinations, work…pretty much all facets of life were filled with unknowns. A week after my last post the puppy had double knee surgery that required almost 24-hour observation and care that lasted several months. The procedure aimed at curing her painful knee condition only half-worked, and required a second surgery. At some point in between her two trips to the operating table, she had a bad reaction to one of her antibiotics and was rushed to the ER. She was hospitalized for about a week. I forget what exactly the diagnosis was but I remember her red blood cell count was problematic and she was on fluids because she couldn’t keep any food or water down. I mean… take a look at these pictures and tell me it’s not the most pathetic thing you’ve ever seen:
Thankfully the second surgery fixed her knee issues. She still required several months of restricted movement before she was cleared to run and jump and play again like a normal dog. She’s healed now and back acting like a real dog again.
After we got our jabs, I started to feel a little better about the world and my health. I think our first activity post-vaccination was to visit a buddy who works at El Segundo Brewing. I don’t think I will ever forget the feeling of removing my mask to take a bite of pizza next to someone not from my household.
Maybe a week after that, mom followed through on her plan to visit. Theo was still restricted to a play pen so she couldn’t get too excited, but we sat outside in the sun (and shade) so mom could interact with her for the first time ever.
My birthday was celebrated before we were both two weeks post-vax so we ordered in from Vespertine (naturally). I should devote an entire post to the most recent Vespertine meals we had, especially the Eleven Madison Park one. I have a lot to say about that one, having dined at EMP before. Maybe I’ll share a full review soon. Either way, it was a wonderful way to spend a birthday. We opened bottles of lambic and wine, and dined on truffle chicken. What more could I ask for at 38 years old?
June was a huge month for us. The first weekend of the month we drove down to San Diego with friends, got an Airbnb for the weekend, and sat in the proof-of-vaccination section at Petco Park to watch the Mets play the Padres. The next week, we flew back to New Jersey to see my family for the first time since Thanksgiving, 2019.
I don’t know if I can honestly find the words to describe how significant that trip was for me. If you’re reading this for the first time, here’s some backstory. Getting to see my dad — in person — was incredibly important to me. At the time I went home he was still very much in recovery mode. He has a live-in aide named Richard who helps around the house in a variety of important ways. I did my best to help out as much as possible by making him do his daily exercises and stay on top of his various medications and powdered shakes. I brought him his morning Dunkin’, and took him on short trips to his office (with a portable oxygen tank). He got to meet Christine for the first time, and enjoyed a meal with us at a restaurant in town. There was a small hiccup with a late-night trip to the ER but it turned out to be not very severe. I know 2021 still has a couple weeks to go, but getting to see him, and specifically spending Father’s Day with him, was the pinnacle of my year.
Things were going pretty good until the Delta wave started scaring me back into my anxiety-riddled bubble. At that point I’d started going back to work full time. We had friends — and dogs — over for a 4th of July celebration. We went to Vegas for a weekend (and I spent the next week in a heightened state of anxiety, I was not ready to be around so many people). At the beginning of August we took a trip up to Napa for a long weekend. We spent our days drinking wine around the region (Copain, Frog’s Leap, Cliff Lede, et. al.) and spent our nights drinking beer at Russian River Brewing and Moonlight Brewing in Santa Rosa. We enjoyed an absolute stunner of a meal at Valette in Healdsburg. But after each little trip or social event I would retreat a bit, worry I’d been too cavalier, and try to make up for it by shutting myself indoors more. Let’s just say we’ve gone through our fair share of at-home Covid testing kits and made several early morning drives to testing sites out of an abundance of caution.
At the end of August we flew to Portland and drove to Hood River for a wedding. It was only for a couple days but it was nice to be around people in a more cautious setting (as compared to, say, Vegas) to revel. It felt pretty much normal.
Things have been feeling more and more normal ever since. It’s been a slow process, but I have opened myself up more to the idea of normalcy in the latter half of the year. We’ve had a lot of friends over, gone to various friends’ houses, and tried — as much as my anxiety will allow — to add some living to our lives. We even celebrated Zwanze Day at Beachwood Brewing in September! I know! I went to a ticketed event with a bunch of strangers! In hindsight it might seem silly, but a year ago just the thought of having a buddy over to watch football on a Sunday morning, or going to a local restaurant and sitting indoors was terrifying. It is impossible to write the sentence “We and four of our friends went to Otoño for dinner a couple weeks ago” and have it carry as much weight as it should. It’s a very trite thing to write. But the truth is, other than a couple meals in New Jersey and Las Vegas, I’ve had maybe ten meals outside of my home since March of 2020. When I say I went out to a restaurant with friends I cannot possibly convey the gravity or weight of that statement. It is not as commonplace as it once seemed.
In October we went back to Vegas. I feel bad saying this because the trip in July with our friends was fun, but this time it was a much more fun experience. In July there was no mask mandate, in October there was. In July we spent a weekend at a hotel/resort hosting a McGregor UFC fight, a Bruno Mars concert, and a Dave Chapelle standup show. In October we spent the middle of the week at a hotel hosting nothing. WSOP events were happening around town, but the city felt half-empty. It was so quiet (by Vegas standards) we actually got a booth at Top Golf. We enjoyed dinners at Best Friend, Yellowtail, and Bardot. Oh, and on our last night in town I proposed to Christine. She said yes.
Recently we’ve continued to try and live our lives as close to normal as my often fragile psyche allows. Again, I’m going to work every day now. The pup goes to daycare a few days a week to prep her for when we’re both back in our offices full-time. We hosted some horror movie screenings on our patio with a new projector screen. We went to a Halloween party. We’ve met friends at breweries and restaurants and even gone to some cocktail bars (remember those?!). We went to two Friendsgivings this week. One was Mediterranean themed and one was more traditional. I, of course, made the same dish for both: maple-roasted sweet potatoes with ras al hanout and whipped feta [recipe here]. It turned out pretty good!
The remainder of 2021 should be relatively calm. Christine has a trip to New Orleans planned in a few weeks but I think we’ll just be boring and hang around until the start of 2022. We’d like to go back to New Jersey in January. We thought about going for the holidays, but airfare was shockingly expensive and we thought it’d be smarter to skip the holiday rush and fly when the general vibe is a little calmer. Hopefully this new variant in the news won’t make us regret our choice to delay.
So that’s what’s been happening in my personal life since March. Now some quick notes on the blog.
I’ll be honest. It’s been hard to find the inspiration to write this year. Obviously, not going out to eat or attend concerts and events has made it much harder to create content regularly. Not being in a good headspace for most of the year hasn’t helped either. I hope this will change in 2022. At the very least, I am 100% confident I will post more than I did in this year. This is my third post of 2021. We’d have to experience a cataclysmic disaster for me to post less.
As long as I am inspired by things I experience, I’ll post about them. I am also intrigued by platforms like Patreon or Substack, too. I don’t know too much about how they work, but definitely want to research them both more. In a perfect world I would love to post here a couple times a week and then create more specialized content for an audience of subscribers or patrons. Swan Fungus the blog could be a place for updates on my daily life and the occasional review of an album, meal, or event. A Patreon or Substack would then be devoted to longer articles, interviews, mix tapes, and lengthier reviews. It would probably require a very soft paywall, but I work better under pressure, and committing myself to pen a high-quality weekly newsletter, or create a thriving hub for subscribers with specialized content would absolutely revitalize my drive to see Swan Fungus evolve and thrive.
Lastly, I want to say thank you for those of you who still stop by this page to check in on me. I know I have given you almost nothing this year in terms of reading material, but whether it’s here or Twitter or Instagram or Facebook (cringe), please know that your likes and comments and DMs are always very much appreciated. For those of you who have stuck around, I’ll try to reward you with a full Top 100 Albums of 2021 next month. My list of noteworthy albums is somewhere between 30 or 50 right now but I’ve always got Ian and Mike around to tell me which new releases I missed this week. In the meantime, if you head over to Spotify I’m continuing to create playlists for my old Sunday Mix Tapes. I think I’ve gotten 300+ posted now. Not every song on every mix tape is available, but a lot are. Go click around and kill some time until the Top 100 is posted.
Continue stay healthy and safe.
-Evan
