On occasion, Anja will compliment me on my ability to recognize people. I don’t know when I first noticed it myself, but there are actors I recognize even if they played minor characters in an episode of a show I watched 15 years ago. Or I might point out that woman I saw on the bus before COVID hit to a confused Anja.

I’m learning it’s not a very common trait because of the scoffing sound I make whenever Anja confuses Keira Knightly and Daisy Ridley, or Michelle Pfeiffer and Meg Ryan. I only recently became aware how much of a jerk that makes me, and how, if we were in a room full of people, I’d stick out like a sore thumb.

I’m in that supremely annoying stage of prospective dog ownership where I casually interrogate dog owners at parties, curious about their pet’s behavior and the techniques employed, and then silently judge them for their mistakes, exchanging contemptuous glances with Anja in the process.

• Happy Hanukkah and/or Christmas to those who celebrate!
• Even though our house is (reluctantly) multi-religious, we forgot just about every tradition we were ever taught for this time of the year. On Hanukkah Eve, Anja said “where are the tea lights?”, but we had no luck finding them to produce a makeshift chanukiah. Probably for the best. I don’t mind that we didn’t put up a Christmas tree, but I did find myself missing our outrageous ornaments.
• This week was all about the new piano I bought. I can’t stop thinking or talking about it.
• All I’ll say is: this piano project is the first one I’m approaching through a neurodiverse lens, and it’s making everything so much smoother and funner.
• Illegally, I’m mentioning something that happened in week 50. A. took me for my annual Fancy Birthday Dinner. For the first time since we began dating, I told her to leave it a surprise. I suppose it’s one of those benefits of having gone to in-patient eating disorder treatment: chill vibes about food surprises. If you ever have an appetite for exquisite 10-course Asian fusion dining, book a table at 101 Gowrie, where the atmosphere is as beautiful as the tableware, the bread is to cry over, and the umami is so intense that you’ll have trouble putting it into words.
• We needed a two-nighter to finish watching Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. I’m very much at that point in my mid-thirties where finishing a feature film under a warm blanket on the sofa after 8 p.m. is a challenge. I love whodunits — the genre might be in my top three — but I was quite disappointed to learn that both A. and I were able to guess the ending within the first five minutes. Janelle Monáe and Kathryn Hahn looked great nonetheless.
• All week, people kept asking me what I’d be doing for Christmas, and I’d cheerfully reply “Nothing! You?” every time. I feel liberated from the pressure to spend time with family or friends during the holidays, to eat more than I can carry, and to be and have fun. We certainly did have fun, just in a “really couldn’t be bothered” kind of way.
• I made my first batch of heavenly mud, a rich, creamy chocolate dessert. It was heavenly.

Amsterdam’s patient zero is a woman who just happens to have spent early 2020 in the north of Italy. She has a son who attends the high school which just happens to be Anja’s place of employment. Anja is the first person I know to be infected with Covid 19. I am the second.

Working in travel technology, my experience of the outbreak of Covid 19 was colored by coworkers wondering by the water cooler what all the fuss was about. The most vocal among them are Rotterdammers, a people known, if anything, for its no-nonsense approach to trouble.

“Slept a little, had a midnight snack, went in for a bathroom break. Slept some more. Basically the life of a four-year-old” she says, and she tells me about her flight to Stockholm. She has been sleeping poorly lately; I say “lately” but I only met her last month, so I don’t know what her sleep hygiene is, although she says “it has improved since I began falling asleep in your arms”. I imagine how she sleeps on the plane, entertaining the other passengers, cabin crew, and pilots with her stupefyingly loud snores.