What I did on my summerfall vacation.

Let's catch up... it's been a while. CONTEXT COLLAPSE! 106

Oct 08, 2021

Chicago skyline stuff. — Greetings from Chicago.

Hey there! It’s been a while.

The past few months have been busy. In my work life, I’ve been busy helping clients write books, build newsletters, and publish articles. In my personal life, I’ve been busy raising a very energetic toddler, helping family across the country with family stuff, having a health scare that turned out to just be a scare, and taking an extended break from drinking. (And LOLOL of course those last two are related).

Anyway, it’s good to be back.

The toddler is almost 3 and is at that age where he’s learning to put words together, slowly learning to have conversations, and making his likes and dislikes massively clear. Blippi’s been replaced as the media apple of his eye by vintage Spongebob Squarepants episodes. He calls Spongebob the “Shape Show” because Spongebob is, well, a square. Can’t dispute that logic! He also calls meatballs “spicy eggs,” which I can’t really dispute either. Our local playground has weird parent high school-clique like dynamics, so we take him to another playground where the small talk isn’t an ongoing competiton of social ones-upmanship. It all works out.

And the not drinking part? My last alcoholic drink was on July 25. Before that, I was drinking a lot this year. In all honesty, I was drinking a whole lot during the pandemic. Then I had a health scare that thankfully turned out to be less of a medical emergency and more of my body emphatically shouting DUDE SLOW YOUR FUCKING ROLL.

Haven’t had a sip of beer, liquor or anything else since then. Like a lot of people who were drinking but then weren’t drinking, I still have a lot of cravings during downtime. So like a lot of people who were drinking but then weren’t drinking, I’ve been exercising a lot. I restarted Couch to 5K, am doing some other exercise stuff and hahahahahahaha doing Ring Fit Adventure on the Nintendo Switch (which actually gives a decent workout!) in mornings.

I’ve lost about 16 pounds in the meantime. The plan is to have a good bourbon on the rocks when I lose 25 pounds to celebrate. Or maybe I’ll keep at it longer and see how the fitness thing goes. Let’s do this thing.

Anyway, it’s great to see you all in our shared newsletter format. I - no joke - missed you all.

With no further ado, let’s jump into the links. We’ll be back to our usual newsletter soon.