At the absolute eleventh hour, after a whole big holiday temper tantrum, he finally signed the damned thing, so the government keeps running, and I can relax, at least about that, for a little while. My topical song sold a couple of copies while it remained topical, and it remains out there for your amusement, waiting for it to be relevant again, because we all know that’ll happen.

Anyway, that particular weight is lifted, allowing me to, at least a little bit, float through the in-between time; that week between Christmas and New Years where there really isn’t a hell of a lot going on, and one just sort of bobbles along doing what feels right. For me, that’s been cooking some food, reading a little less than half of a highly-regarded feminist fantasy novel before becoming kind of bored with it and moving on (though feeling kind of bad about the fact that I just wasn’t into it), drinking the occasional beer, and continuing to work my way through Witcher III: The Wild Hunt on the PS4, because I’ve been playing it for like two years now and figured I ought to finish it one of these months (I think I’m about to wrap up the “second act” of the plot, but really, who knows?).

Christmas itself around here was a pretty low-key celebration – hell, the way this year’s been going, we didn’t even put up a tree, as no one was all that into the whole idea. We exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve and slept in. Of all the gifts I found for my lovely spouse, several haven’t even arrived yet, even if I ordered them weeks and weeks ago. Thankfully, the really beautiful hand-painted wine glasses I commissioned from a really talented artist friend were ready on time, and they made her very happy. The rest of her gifts will show up when they do, and she’ll have more little surprises.

I got a few interesting collectibles, a nice sweater, and a MIDI controller for my digital recording rig; it’s basically a piano keyboard to make to the digital samples and synthesizer applications I have on the computer – I’m planning on mostly using it to build drum tracks and maybe more as I develop my limited keyboard skills. I’ve spent a few hours fiddling with it and getting it up and running and building connections between all the appropriate things, though I haven’t done anything at all with it you’d call “creative”, but it’ll come.

We’re going to largely float through things for the next week, largely by ourselves, because of the ‘rona. We did have a dear friend stop by to say hello yesterday as he was making his way back home from the rehab facility out west where his spouse, also a dear friend, is recovering from a stroke a few months back. It was at least nice to chat with a friend for a bit, even through the masks and distanced in the driveway – it’s been a rough time for all of them, and I think seeing friendly faces in the midst of his four-hours-each-way drive was a welcome thing.

I got outside for an hour or two this morning, hiking a couple of miles at my favored local park, and being relieved to find that my ankle was mostly up to it. I also saw some herons, and generally feel pretty good after being out in nature for a bit. It’s been a while.

So, yeah, that’s where things are. They are.