🎬📽🍿 Watched “Belle” this afternoon. First time in a while, if ever, that we ever left the theater in complete silence as we tried to unpack everything.

I can at least say it is one of the most visually stunning animated features I’ve ever seen.

“I get why I need to come here,” the daughter said after walking around for a minute. “This place is like a Filipino Walmart.”

I know I’ve talked about having guiding words for my year. In the epistle reading during today’s TLM, I may have found a guiding verse:

Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. (Romans 12:12, RSV-CE)

I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.

Thinking about getting steps or a ramp to help our aging dog get onto our bed. Found this online; I suppose it’d work, since we’re not Jewish.

Lots of COVID-19 schadenfreude out there. It’s understandable, in a way. But I’m still convinced that schadenfreude is a sin.

And yet part of me wants to see “Sing 2” just to see how far Bono’s career has fallen.

More than 10 years out of the news business, and this becomes the kind of story I live for these days.

Hard to decide who should bear the brunt of blame and wrath for this: the Indian legal system or the Church itself: “Indian Bishop Is Acquitted on Charges of Raping a Nun” (The New York Times). Lord, have mercy on us all.

You know the day is dragging when finding a meatless tamale in the freezer is the highlight of the day.

Neither positive — nor pregnant, I’m guessing.

🎬📽🍿 Tonight, I learned that “Princess Mononoke” kicks the Lorax’s ass.

Still slightly ill, but feeling much less foggy than yesterday. Logged into work and did more or less a full day.

I honestly doubt that whatever is ailing me is That Virus. Still, I did my due diligence and checked the CVS locations that offer testing within a 10-mile radius of me; they’re booked through the end of the week. I mentioned this to an East Coast friend of mine, and she offered to overnight me an at-home COVID test tomorrow from her stockpile, since I can’t seem to get one around here. I’m taking her up on her offer,

Haven’t tested for COVID since a year and a half ago, just before my June 2020 colonoscopy. I hear the tests aren’t as invasive as they used to be, and that they don’t always require you to swab the surface of your brain. Fingers crossed.

Jeff Tweedy actually liked and retweeted me. My year already is complete.

Between forgoing Mass yesterday and calling in sick today, I’m plagued by a sense of self-doubt—like, am I just getting out of stuff I just don’t feel like doing?

The ice layers that kept us from leaving the house yesterday remain, despite salt reinforcements that Chris brought home.

And honestly, I’ve been sicker and worked through it. But today my head feels dizzy, tight with anxiety, and extra cloudy.

I just want to lie on the couch, shut my eyes, and listen to Jeff Tweedy and Wilco all day. Tweedy’s cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes”(subscription only), on repeat, is carrying me through this morning.

Called in unwell today. Throat hurts. Head hurts. Sinuses and eyeballs hurt. I don’t think it’s The Virus That Shall Not Be Named.

Helps that C is home from his last Wisconsin work jaunt. Going to lie down and read and catch up on Jeff Tweedy’s SubStack newsletter.

The worst part of Midwest winter: when the sidewalk, deck, and driveway turn into ice rinks.

(I refrain from posting such things elsewhere because I get too many Sun Belt “friends” reporting their own balmy weather, which gets old after, say, the first post.)

The thick layers of ice surrounding our house (and only a half-cup of melting salt on hand) got me anxious about making it to Sunday Mass and CCD tomorrow. Just got email tonight officially canceling CCD.

Unclear as to whether the Chicago archdiocese COVID Sunday Mass dispensation is still active. (The archdiocesan website doesn’t make that clear.) But I’m taking a cue from this that we’re okay with Mass online tomorrow.

I’ll still bring it up in confession this week, though. Still feel weird about being online instead for Mass, but I’ll feel even weirder if we break a limb on our driveway or end up with our car slipping around the bridge off-ramp to church in the morning. 😐🥶