I was terrible at staying in touch before COVID.

The other day I realized my phone had been on silent for four days. Hadn't noticed.

I'm forcing myself to log in to Facebook and post things in the rugby group I own, because the season announcements are coming up this week, training will begin in Feb, and the season starts in March. And I need to be more visible in the group (to help keep it under control) before the traffic goes up again. But every millisecond I am on FB is pure torture and hell. I hate it with a white-hot passion now. And I've completely abandoned my Twitter account... hoping I can ignore it through the rugby season, and I don't need to use it in the coming year to keep abreast of issues that may come up in the FB group.

Zoom hangouts are good... for about 30 minutes. Then my social fuel tank is empty and I gotta leave.

My dad's cognition and short-term memory are really failing him now, yet I can't spend as much time with him as I want to (and I know I will regret it when he's gone), but the possibility of him dying alone and gasping in a COVID ward is extremely high... so I do what I can to engage with him, when I can, but am on high-alert the whole time we are together, so it is exhausting and little fun.

I have friends who live out in the middle of nowhere, who are miles and miles from the nearest town. And I can't think of anything I'd like more than to be in a place like that, with electricity and heat, and no cell/wireless signal. Sounds like heaven to me.

I've even considered bailing on Hubski, but if I did that, the only time I'd engage with kleinbl00 any more would be asking him tech questions about writing or synths. :-)

I'm not sure getting vaccinated will change that.

Because I have also come to realize that I am now a highly-privileged middle-aged white American man, and even when my ideas and suggestions and proposals come from the right place, they are heard differently in today's culture than they were when I was a plucky long-haired metalhead with an insane amount of useful cutting-edge technical knowledge.

Now? I'm just a wisp away from being "OK Boomer"ed out of existence. So I find Big Ears, Small (non-existent) Mouth is the only way I can continue to participate in any of the communities or organizations I helped found or develop.

Middle-age? Or COVID? Or both...?