Saturday night.

The highlight of my week: a clandestine run to the backyard to take out the garbage. The bread I bought just before my big trip had gone moldy – I guess humidity is objectively high and it’s not just me, eh. Instead of enjoying artisanal locally grown mold spores for several days, I obeyed the spirit but not the letter of the law when I ran outside and threw away my accidental science experiment. It’s pretty funny: my studio’s door got jammed in place due to misuse, and I actually had to give it a good shove to get out. Heh.

The highlight of my day, aside from that: chasing wild animals in No Man’s Sky, feeding them treats, and digging through their virtual alien poop to find the right chemical (cleverly called “faecium”) to advance my mission. Alas, they kept giving me alien milk and eggs instead. That did result in my making alien cream and churning it into alien butter, but it took a while to find a replacement formula to synthesize artificial alien poop the mission required. Ahhh, the glorious quarantine life…

I’m getting giddier with every passing day. Just 13 more and I’ll get my second shot. This feeling is a lot like the anticipation you get as a long-wished-for vacation draws ever closer. You know it’ll be a major change of scenery, and you’ll experience something new, and your life will, in some small but measurable way, be a little bit different afterwards. For me, this will be a ticket to freedom, at least as far as this goddamn pandemic is concerned. I know I’m lucky and most folks in Canada won’t get to experience the same… In our Vaccine Hunters group, those who finally got their first shots are saying their second-shot appointment is in late July, more than three months from now. Only time will tell if NACI’s nationwide experiment with long gaps between the shots will be successful. If it fails… I’ll be in a very bizarre position of being a very rare person with both shots in their system, while whatever new variant will rage all across the country. Hopefully it’ll never come to that, but the odds are greater than zero, as with all things.

In covid news, this is an interesting article from a few days ago. It profiles three different Canadians who traveled to the States (temporarily or permanently) to get their shots. It’s not just me, then: to quote a great old show, “There are dozens of us! Dozens!” Heh…

In more serious covid news, India is kicking ass: it holds the world record for getting to 100 million administered vaccine doses faster than anyone else. They accomplished that in 85 days, whereas it took the US 89 days; it took China 102 days. That’s a huge logistical accomplishment, though it’s mildly tarnished by the fact that 100 million isn’t even 10% of India’s population. (Or, to be fair, China’s.) Still, though – the race is on, and here is hoping other countries will try to beat that record.

Good night, y’all: may your bread stay fresh and may your virtual aliens produce all the poop you want.