“Stupid COVID” has been my constant refrain over the past two and a half years, and at long last, it got its stupid hooks in me. Today, I’m supposed to be spending time with a friend who’s visiting from California. We haven’t seen each other in seven years. Instead of giving her a big hug, I’m texting her places to eat, shop, and hang out in my own damn town while I sit at home on the couch. ARGH. Hmph x 1,000,000.

But in the interest of holding grief in one hand and gratitude in the other (thank you, Francis Weller), I’m going to focus on the upsides of my current bout with the plague:

1. I got sick now instead of next week when we’re heading to the beach.
2. My dogs are still willing to hang out with me.
3. For fear of catching the covids himself, JR is cleaning everything in the house. 🎉
4. I recently started a giant, epic fantasy novel, so I have that to keep me company. And if this sickness lasts a long time, I have another one waiting in the wings.
5. It’s warm and sunny outside.
6. I don’t have a fever. In fact, my temperature yesterday was 96.7. What the…is there such a thing as a reverse fever? Or is that just hypothermia?
7. We have an extra bedroom where I get to sleep without the usual addition of a 130-pound dog in the bed.
8. The chapter I’m currently writing in the third book of Aret is deeply bleak and disturbing, which is a perfect match with my physical/emotional/mental state. So…yay for that.

All right, I seem to have hit a snarky patch in my attempt to be grateful, so it may be time for a nap. The most important thing I need to remember right now is this: I normally long for downtime to focus on things like reading and writing, so resenting it simply because it’s been forced upon me is pretty stupid.

But not as stupid as COVID. 🤬