MOOP!

I went to Austin's choir concert tonight. It was absolutely lovely to be at a concert where every single person singing, and 90+% of the audience, were effectively masked. Still a little unsure about the whole "indoor performance" thing, but seeing a bunch of doctors perform under as-safe-as-possible conditions felt less risky than, say, me going to work every day with my definitely unmasked, probably unvaxxed students.

(Actually, I just went and looked, and per the city data, 99% of residents age 12-15 are vaccinated, which is _astoundingly_ good! .....and 55% of age 16-19. The racial breakdown suggests 58ish% of Hispanic residents, and 86ish% of Black residents. I've been saying "some of my students are unvaccinated" for a long while now, and yeah, the data bears out that likely as much of a third of them are not.)

I also went Chrimmas shopping today, which I haven't done seriously in a few years (because pandemic, obvs). I hit up...seven? different shops between Central Sq and Porter. I also walked from Central Sq to Porter (and also from Old North to Charles MGH) which is _so much walking_.

I don't actually have request-lists from anyone in my fambly yet this year (my dad, when I tried to pin him down for what he wanted at Thanksgivingtime, unhelpfully said "a new house". He is very likely going to get that --I haven't checked in with the parents about their timeline but it seems to be swimming along-- but I am absolutely not going to be helpful with it.) so I'm having to go on ~vibes~ with my shopping. I'm also having to do my regular thing in which I don't just buy myself everything cool I see, both because that is too much money and because I will get presents soon, _gosh_.

I miss Rodney's Bookstore a fair chunk --it was a really good used bookstore, and I really liked the small random sample of not-bookstore things it kept near the front, like interesting marbles and little toys. Weirdly, Leavitt and Peirce managed to scratch some of that particular itch, being as it has some weird gifts vibes. (It's a wee bit of a shame to be wearing a mask inside the tobaccary, I think, since then you can't niff¹ the good smells as effectively.)

I miss Joie de Vivre dreadfully, and there was nothing to replace it. Henry Bear's Park was nice, but it's not the same! I do appreciate living in a world where I can go to multiple independently owned stores to get my chrimboshopping done. And not drive anywhere, even though it was annoying.

I miss not being a pandemic. I miss the T being more useful. I miss hanging out with you, the person reading this. I hope you are well.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: niff is old slang from my college friends' idiolect. It means the verb of smelling, usually.