The year 2021 passed under the sign of the coronavirus pandemic, just like the one before it. The restrictions and quarantine measures are starting to feel normal in a way, but also to chafe and bother me. My brain is growing dull from lack of stimuli. I’ve never had such low energy and activity levels as I did this year. Last year I cared about infection and mortality rates; now I maybe look at some high-level curves occasionally. (Current situation: cases close to reaching last winter’s peak levels, death rates low and flat, largely due to a high number of vaccinations.)

This year we have vaccines, at least, of several brands and several types. They were made available gradually, starting with the elderly and other at-risk parts of the population and then gradually to younger age groups. I got my first dose in June and the second in August. Currently the age cut-off is at 12 years so even Ingrid got her first dose in autumn.

Covid tests are also widely available, both rapid at-home tests for verifying you are not infected despite having no symptoms, and lab tests for verifying infection in case you do have symptoms.

None of us in the family have had covid-19 as far as we know.

I’ve been working from home all year. Restrictions on contact and movement were lighter in October and November, so I spent one to two days in the offices (either at Urb-it or at tretton37) but then it was back to full time work-from-home again.

I find it hard to remain focused in all the online meetings so I knit to help keep my brain busy during the slower parts. I’ve knit a total of eleven pairs of socks this year, nine for myself and two for others.

In other work-related events, I moved on to a new customer assignment in the beginning of the year, at Urb-it, a sustainable urban logistics company. It took half a year before I even met my colleagues IRL.

Both Urb-it and tretton37 managed to have Christmas parties at least, which is more than we got last year, and tretton37 even squeezed in a conference before the restrictions were tightened again.

Nearly no travelling this year, just like last year. We went for a three-day hike in Tiveden, and I hiked the first few sections of Kuststigen. Missed our annual ski trip, and our annual Estonia trip, as well as my annual ski tour.

You can tell that a year is eventless when I can remember every single time we went to the cinema, and count these on the fingers of a single hand. The latest James Bond movie, Dune, and the latest Matrix movie. There wasn’t much more of other culture either – during the more relaxed months of autumn, we saw the musical Forever Piaf, and two dance performances (one, two).

Schools for Ingrid’s and Adrian’s age groups mostly worked as normal, with classroom instruction rather than distance learning, so they both had normal years. There are very strict rules in place about any respiratory symptoms, though, so they both need to stay at home for the smallest cough or sniffle. Both were at home for over a week in December, and at some point just over a third of their classmates were actually in school. Many missed school hours there.

In other news: at the end of the year, a week before Christmas, we got a cat. Swedish has a new word, coronahund, meaning “a dog people get due to staying at home because of covid restrictions”. I guess Nysse is a covid cat in a way. I made friends with a Morris, a neighbourhood cat, during all my days at home. I started wishing that he were around more, and the kids, especially Ingrid, have been asking for a pet for a long time already. So after a few months I decided it would make sense to have a cat of our own. According to one source, 30% of the owners of “corona dogs” have no plan what to do with the dog when the pandemic ends. I intend to keep working from home and it is very unlikely that I would ever go back to working full time in an office, so Nysse is not among them. (Plus he’s a cat, not a dog.)

My daily exercise is a brisk midday walk more often than it is a proper workout session, these days. Often I don’t have the energy for more.

With lower energy levels, my taste in workout videos has also changed. My favourite sources used to be PopSugar (on YouTube) and HASfit. The PopSugar videos with Raneir Pollard were the most fun. But then YouTube turned up their advertising earlier this year to truly annoying levels – interrupting a HIIT workout to show me some ads in the middle really doesn’t make me a happy user! – and I had to give up on those. I don’t mind paying for online services, but I’m not going to be bullied into paying.

I actually support HASfit via Patreon, because I watched their workout videos a lot. But now their tone doesn’t work for me any more. I used to find them motivating, but now it’s almost the opposite. Telling me “you can do more”, “if your brain is telling you you’re tired then it’s lying”, “don’t stop when you’re tired, stop when you’re done” does not help when I was already struggling to find the energy to just start. Reminding me to think about what made me come here, when I barely managed to do that, just makes it harder.

Now I mostly watch FitnessBlender. The workouts are quite similar but the tone is very different. Calmer and less pushy. Forgiving any weakness in advance, somehow. And right now this low-key approach works much better for me.

I often start the workout telling myself that I am allowed to quit before the end. I commit to five minutes only. Sometimes I find the flow as soon as I start. Other times I don’t, and I keep promising myself that I am allowed to quit after this exercise, and after the next one, and so on, if I really don’t feel like continuing. But I’ve never actually used my out.

Worked in the office today. And ran some errands in the city afterwards, like it’s 2020.

Being in the office actually felt normal today. Working from home feels more normal, still, but I didn’t catch myself thinking “wow, I’m here” or “I’m actually going on the train” or “gosh, look at all this city around me”.

It’s taken me two and a half months – since late September – to get to this point. Just as I got here, though, covid-related restrictions and recommendations are being tightened again. By just a tiny bit, and they’re all still expressed in weaselly language like “if possible” and “where appropriate” and “to some extent” but I guess it’s meant to be a signal of what might be coming.

tretton37 Christmas party at Riddarsalen (Münchenbryggeriet). Good food, good company.

After dinner a group of us played a game where we randomly guessed things about the person sitting next to us, based on nothing but gut feeling and prejudice. I guessed, among other things, that Ben to my right would be an overly cautious driver (and was spot on) and that Farnam to my left collects something weird (and was completely off since he turned out to be strongly against collecting anything). It was a lot of fun.

The people around me guessed that I am particular about some/many things in my life, but not about travel destinations, that I would be happy to travel just about anywhere. Yes, I said, but isn’t everyone like that? Apparently not – people can be very picky about wanting to travel to their bucket list places but definitely not want to go to some-other-place. I really would be happy to travel just about anywhere as long as I don’t have to worry about my health and life – Colombia would definitely be on my no-go list, for example.

It also came out that I am a private person, and that I give a serious impression regardless of what lies underneath. And I do. I keep the private and professional spheres quite separated, and make sure to make a professional impression at work. I don’t even really know why. I’ve done it as long as I can remember, and it is second nature by now. I think I expect people to not take me seriously unless I make them. And I think I expect/fear negative reactions if I let my private self come to the fore, so I keep it safely hidden.

Knowabunga conference weekend with tretton37, and in 10 minutes I’m about to hold a talk (about getting started with containers in Azure).

I enjoy this, but I’m not exactly sure why and how. The preparation part is a bit of a slog. Right before the talk I’m always nervous, in particular about taking too little time, or too much. I enjoy it while I’m up there, though. And I also really enjoy people coming up to me afterwards and telling me I did a good job.

I am seriously considering moving from “cats are really nice” to “let’s get a cat of our own”.

Also, this was a really awkward angle to photograph.

I’m slowly getting used to being in the office one or two days a week. And commuting.

The commute in particular is a little bit annoying, but undeniably my days in the office are much more eventful, which is good for me. There are all these things that can happen, that never do at home or even in the streets of Spånga.

Meeting new dogs in the street.

Not being able to get inside the office building because they use an app for access (seriously) and the Android version is broken.

Going out for lunch to a restaurant I’ve never been to before.

Getting rained on. Not that it doesn’t rain in Spånga, but I’m never out long enough for rain to take me by surprise – whereas a lot can change between going out in the morning and coming back in the evening.

I finally found a use for the pouch I made in my embroidery course last winter. It had been languishing in a cupboard until now.

It turned out to be the perfect size for a crafts pouch, for bringing my sock knitting with me on my days of working in the office. It is just large enough for a 50-gram ball of yarn, a half-finished sock, and a circular needle. And it makes me much happier to look at than some industrially-produced packing bag, although one of those would probably weigh less and perhaps be more practical. So it is now part of my standard going-to-office kit, together with my mouse with its pad, a conference speaker/microphone, a web camera, and other assorted office equipment.

My knitting is as much part of my daily work equipment as my conference speaker and web camera. Although not quite as much as my mouse and keyboard. Online meetings without knitting make my whole being itch with impatience.

I have ignored everything in the garden this season to the point where I really feel guilty about it. But not guilty enough to counterbalance the total lack of energy and desire to do anything about it, most of the time. Except today I actually cleaned out the weeds from the strawberry planters. Next year we might actually get some berries.