Do MY OWN GODDAMN GROCERY SHOPPING. Followed by a pedicure, haircut by someone other than myself in the mirror with Tom Scud trimming the back, and an evening at the local Korean spa. Maybe a dinner out in an actual restaurant somewhere, though I feel like that experience won’t be the same until a critical mass of people is vaccinated.
I am also dying to have a bunch of friends over just to sit around bullshitting, but I am guessing I will be ahead of at least some of them in the vaccine line due to crappy lungs, so that may have to wait a bit longer.
In the meantime, I will have to content myself with hypothetical trip planning for that blessed day when we are not global pariahs.
I guess on the bright side, by the time we are actually able to go anywhere, I will have banked a bunch of vacation time, so maybe we will finally get to go to India. I feel like that’s a trip that should take at least three weeks, though we could easily spend three months if we did everything we want to do. If we can’t hold out that long and only get 2 weeks, maybe Georgia (the country) again, to see things we didn’t get to see the last time, like the Black Sea coast and the major mountain ranges? Or maybe Poland and the Baltics for a family history tour. It kind of depends who is letting Americans in by the time we are ready to go, although hopefully they will be more flexible with people who can document they’re vaccinated (and I sure wouldn’t go anywhere until I am, anyway).
I’m dying to get some real restaurant-cooked Asian food. Chinese, Korean, Japanese specifically.
Haven’t seen my good buddy in Seattle in 6 years, need to go there.
Dying to get a proper full-body massage for my permanently messed-up back.
Itching to get back into the gym and do some workouts.
I have some bucket-list trips I’d like to take my kids on, and I think I’ll accelerate the timeline on those because as we’ve seen, you just never know what could happen.
Oh, I would be excited about just about anything at this point! But as long as we can’t go anywhere for quite some time yet, and I have been wanting to go to India for my whole life and don’t know when I will manage to save up this much vacation time again, as long as I can pull it off, I want to take advantage of it. My last job that I stayed at for a long time didn’t allow any vacation time to roll over from one year to the next and it took me 10 years to be allowed to take off two consecutive weeks (one of the major reasons I left - it was particularly exasperating when I had in-laws overseas). So if I can manage to create some silver lining out of this clusterfuck, I absolutely will.
My Wife and my vacation to Key West was… delayed. There is a great little hotel that we just love. Very relaxing, but night life and good food when you want it.
I have two very good friends that I’ve only seen once since March. I suspect we will be doing some visits with lots of beer and overnight stays.
Otherwise, I’m perfectly fine with staying home. My Wife and I live pretty remote, so we are used to entertaining ourselves. We are well suited to this. We play chess and cards or a board game nearly every night.
I don’t need bars or restaurants, though a nice meal out is nice once in a while.
1.) I owe my mother a lot of work around the house and the yard. My sister, who lives a few blocks away, has been handling it all this year.
2.) Go on some trips. My wife and I are registered for the DC Science Fiction Convention. Last year ReaderCon was cancelled, and this year Arisia and Boskone are virtual, but I’ve never been to the one in DC, and we wanted to go in person. Also, this year I wanted to take her to a sort of beginner rock-hiking area. She felt good about conquering one a year and a half ago, and I wanted to get her to another one. Now that she’s recovered from some minor surgery, I’ve picked out two similar areas, but they’ll have to wait until the pandemic has cleared up.
In person tabletop gaming (board games and role-playing games). It’s my passion, and I really miss it. Online gaming is…ok, but it’s just not the same. The social dynamics are very different.
I really miss the face-to-face interactions. On a social level, it’s the main interaction I have with my social network (I have quite a few gamer friends, but no close family).
On a purely technical level, I’ve realized that a lot of the action in roleplaying games, even the parts that don’t directly involve roleplaying as such, depend critically on reading facial expressions and body language. Tone of voice over online chat just doesn’t provide anything like the same feedback.
Also, one of the reasons I love big box miniatures games is physically interacting with the miniatures and tokens and other bits - its a tactile experience.
And I have, just, waaay too many games, and most of them just don’t have an online equivalent, so its either in-person or nothing.
Interesting read. I feel sorry for most of you. Except for the travel, I’ve been able to do most of the things that have been mentioned here in Wisconsin. I am not a big bar person anymore but a few before dinner drinks has been happening quite regular. The difference in my wife’s and my work schedule has been the greatest hindrance to our dining out. Family get togethers are more rare and smaller but they are happening. I swing by and go through any store as needed. Haircuts and styling for the wife and children are more of a hassle but still get done. I and 2 children still do in person college classes. Except for work, masks, and the dour media for us life is close to last year normal.
I just want to get back to work. I’m a professional musician and I love my job, even if I complain about some aspects of it sometimes. I was getting rolling on a lot of pit orchestra work for a few local theaters when Covid hit. Now theaters are closed and will probably be some of the last things opening.
Other gigs, like bar gigs or private events will come back before theaters, but I’ll bet that the bars and restaurants that will want live music will be low balling on music fees because they have limited income from restricted seating. Fair enough, but dollars to donuts the fees will not increase back to where they were before. It’s happened before. Wage stagnation is common in the music world. There’s not many professions where you have to compete with amateurs and weekend warriors who will play for beer and food.
I’m looking forward to having the house to myself for a while.
See, I’m an introvert. I’m not shy, and I like people, but the way I’m wired, I recharge my battery with alone time, and then social events drain the battery. So, other than missing close family members and some general inconvenience, I’ve been basically okay during the quarantine. For me, this hasn’t been an existential torment.
My wife and kids are the opposite. All three are extroverts; people time charges the battery, and alone time drains it. During the quarantine, for obvious reasons, they have been absolutely climbing the walls, and they’re impatiently awaiting the day they can join the screaming hordes of celebrants downtown.
The advantage for me, on that day, is that I will be alone in the house for the first time in a year. The side effect of my not being able to go anywhere is that they couldn’t go anywhere either. We’ve been cooped up together. I love my family, I love hanging out and being of service, but I also appreciate having a completely quiet house once in a while.
So my answer to the title question is this: I want to wish my wife and kids a good day shopping, and then close the door behind them for several hours of blessed solitude.
Totally agree Cervaise. Very happy marriage, no kids. DINKS. I didn’t buy a house in a remote area because I crave the presence of people. I’m not some sort of social outcast, but time alone is great. I’m never bored, and have plenty to do to keep busy or entertain myself. I’m much more relaxed, and am getting my job done remotely no problem. I’ve wanted to work from home for years.
I am also hard of hearing. I have hearing aids, but they only help so much. Face to face meetings are stressful for me. I much prefer the written word. The benefits for me working from home are great. The things I’ve brought up are just the tip of the ice burgh. It also benefits my work in that it’s easy for me to do installs/maintenance on servers on weekends or hours when I’m not disturbing people that need the machines.
My Wife and I have separate offices at home. My Wife has gone back into her… um… work office with coworkers. She prefers that. We never got the computer systems she works with to work as well at home, but I’d be happy to remedy that. Thing is, I would have to enlist the assistance of her work IT people, and I don’t want to step on any toes. What ever floats your (her) boat.
I’m going to be very unhappy if I have to return to the office. It’s a tricky situation for the powers that be. Some folks are required to be on site, others, like myself, not at all. Some people want to go back to the office, others not at all. IMHO, managers are going to have to manage, and not just throw out some blanket proposal that affects everyone regardless if it applies to you.
I’ve seen all my family fairly regularly in the past year, so that’s ok. We’ve even spent a few nights in hotels (no maid service, which sucks).
I have a Mediterranean cruise booked for August and I’m crossing fingers, lighting candles and invoking all the good universal juju that I can to make that happen.
Of all the great restaurants around here, one in particular just clicked. I want to go to that place, sit at a table indoors with a waitress, and have a nice plate of comfort food brought to me.
I want to go to a crowded casino and play craps.
I seriously really want to go to a packed stadium for a college football game.
See my old relatives back home in person.
Hit the Smithsonians again with no time limit.
Sports event with real crowd/Show in person as part of an audience.
Travel across borders.
Heck, right, pleasure travel, period.
Yep. Whatever y’all were thinking of “doing some day”? As soon as you can do so safely and responsibly, that’s some day.