Three wins

1. Read the eleven peer reviews I had received at work, and was stunned, inspired, and humbled by the kindness and positivity. Part of me thinks that’s just because people felt sorry for me and my Christmas Eve surgery. A more positive part sees I’m doing things right.
2. Despite what I was told, my PICC line, which delivered antibiotics intravenously, was able to come out on Wednesday. This meant I no longer have to carry the dispenser pack, that I can pick up the dog again, and that I can take normal showers!
3. Had my first physical therapy session, where the therapists straightened me out right quick about my posture. The younger one, a senior student, massaged my calf in a way that gave me so much more flexibility it left me speechless.

I made it home after seven nights at the hospital! Staying there between Christmas and New Year’s really wasn’t as horrible as you’d imagine. I figured: if anything happens, I’m already at the hospital, anyway.

Still, I should confess that I was excited to be released from the presence of my hospital neighbor, a dentureless elderly woman with severe bowel problems whose sounds were revolting. If you’re wondering how petty I am for focusing on that instead of my own fracture-related infection, imagine what Anja’s life is like.

For this week’s weeknotes I’m trying something new with sections, inspired by Tracy Durnell. Overall, week 48 was great: I had a few important wins in the health department, and overall I leave it feeling confident, optimistic, and loved.

Three wins

1. After 34 days, I retired my cast and got an aircast!
2. I’m finally able to learn to walk on two feet again
3. I’ve been enjoying my Miracle Morning routine

Stuff I did

• 8 hours on both Thursday and Friday confirmed what I had hoped: I finally feel energetic and proactive enough to get back to work.
• Organized my workload to get reacquainted: what was I doing? Why do I care about this company? Why do I care about my coworkers? A nice Get Well Soon card helped tremendously.
• Began planning for a little getaway to Paris with Anja and Lemonade.
• Finished writing my letter to Mathilde, which had been a long time coming.
• Ordered a muzzle and foldable travel crate for Lemonade.
• Ordered the New Zealand Prayer Book.

Consumed

• Doing my best to get in four Bible chapters a day.
• Started reading a chapter a day of Live with Intentionality as part of my morning routine. Feel weird about the fact that it’s self-published by someone unknown to the Internet. It’s a helpful, concise read, though.
• Trying to exchange reading the news for reading IndieWeb RSS feeds in the morning.

Learned

• Soporific (adjective): sleep-inducing (from nytimes.com)
• That, if sleep-deprived enough, I’ll find myself becoming a boxing specialist overnight as I watch the hours and hours leading up to the soporific match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson.
• Many people mistake narwhals for unicorns, despite their vastly varying physiques.

Appreciated

• The rendition of “Bread and Roses” in the movie Pride.
• The rendition of “The Age of Worry” by Madison Cunningham.
• Anja for taking stellar care of me all the while stating clearly what she needs for herself.

• After the swelling in my ankle postponing it with a week, I was finally able to have surgery on my left ankle on Wednesday! I’m surprised by how pleasant the whole experience was. Post-surgery, I’m in very little pain, and I’ve been able to leave the Oxycodone in its designated box. Four days later, aside from the anti blood cloth pill, I’m raw-dogging recovery.
• My pre-surgery phase lasted longer than expected, all because I didn’t understand what “keep your foot up” really means. I’m trying my hardest now to keep it elevated above my heart, and that seems to be working. Just might make it to Paris after all.
• In this interstitial state between lying in the road with a triple ankle fracture and running, I find myself learning all sorts of sweet things. Like how excellent Anja and I collaborate in a crisis. How cozy it feels to write in my journal with my head under the covers so as not to wake Anja. How much better I feel if I just let myself rest enough.
• It seems everyone’s getting covid again. I was so bummed and embarrassed to miss our annual corporate event at work, only to learn that it was a complete super spreader, again.
• Failing to use this recovery phase for reading and listening to audio books, I instead find myself turning to body cam footage of American police officers cracking down on abusers, murderers, neglectful parents.
• It’s cute to see how Lemonade responds to my cast, crutches, and wheelchair. We’ve made a little den for her underneath my night stand, because she keeps wanting to lie next to me. What a precious thing, to love and be loved by a dog.
• All in all, I’m surprised I’ve managed to keep all weight off of my left foot. I’ve always had the tendency to compartmentalize life (and forget I had made plans with two separate friends after school, for example), and something told me there’d come a time when I forgot I am not to stand on my left foot. So far, so good!

• In the evenings, we’re continue our journey with Better Call Saul (2015-2022). Midway through season 3, it’s finally beginning to get a firm grip on our attention span again. I loved the debut of Gus Fring, the way he lingers in the background, out of focus, voiceless, before landing, so to speak. I find this one of the finest roles in television history.
• Less reading this week.
• Struggling with discernment this week: what do I do when following Jesus when it gets hard interferes with my boundaries and sense of safety
• Beaming at work
• Beaming at home
• Sunday is amazing. First, I meet Kélian for a drink at Bar Bario. I met him at Omek and was inspired by his relationship to money. He gave me great tips and a few resources to boot. I aim to make 2024 the year in which I learn to be more comfortable in my relationship with money.
• Sunday continued at Bar Buka, where I met Erin for a drink. She, in an act of bravery the level of which I will never possess, left her Canta unlocked. I was able to open the door and take out the keys. I admire people who have such faith in the city of Amsterdam and the people who inhabit her.
• Erin and I eventually made it to church, which was surprisingly full. I met Rev. Jacque Williams, who is apparently running a great thing over in the part of the country I tend to avoid.

• This week marked the week I got back into the swing of things at work. I tend to find the holiday season quite boring because things slow down quite a bit. Now that people are returning from their winter break, my to do list is filling up again with exciting projects, opportunities for collaboration, and research endeavors. As usual, a conversation with my manager reminded me how much I love my job.
• I finished Angela Davis’ Freedom Is A Constant Struggle (2015) and read a few chapters of Out There Screaming, An Anthology of New Black Horror (2023). I had forgotten how much I love gothic horror. Echoes of Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties (2017) were in my head as a result all week.
• I also began reading Saving Jesus From the Church (2009) again after first picking it up last Summer. It’s a special book, one I’ll return to again and again I’m sure.
• In 2023, my Wednesdays at the office varied from busy to overwhelming: lots of interactions, many meetings, few moments to myself. By the time Bible study came around at 6:30, I was ready for bed. The Wednesday this week was radically different: I had very few meetings, got to concentrate on my task list, and I attended my first Omek accountability circle event. I found Omek, a community for people from the African diaspora, in the Autumn of 2023, and immediately considered it too good to be true. I found out this week that it isn’t. It’s actually a community of Black people from all over the world, all professionals at various stages in their career, and many of them live in Amsterdam. The accountability circle had me eat a desk lunch. and check off a large portion of what I had been looking to accomplish during the entire week. Awesome.
• Our dear friend AR from Stockholm came to stay at our place because she was attended a weekend-long dance workshop in Amsterdam. Five minutes with her and I remember there’s an entire portion of myself that I don’t tap into enough. Our conversations flow flawlessly, as if the last time we spoke wasn’t three years ago. I appreciate the depth we so easily reach, the air that I feel around myself, my relationships, my choices. We spend three evenings over candlelight, talking about work, family, love, trust, faith, Judaism, the war, and so much more.
• Another great thing about Wednesday was that I had the energy to attend Bible study, which started out small with the usual suspects, and became something different altogether when two other queer people of color showed up. They didn’t even realize there was only one straight person at the table until later. It was a very sweet experience to hear about their journeys. I hope I’ll see them again. We talked about the part in John when Jesus calls Philip and Nathanael and it made me think about feeling seen, wholly.
• On Saturday, I had the good fortune of meeting NB, a person I met at Omek. Over chicken and waffles we got to meet each other and it felt like we were old friends. It’s spectacular to hear about the experiences of a Black person who grew up in a white environment.
• Nice IndieWeb discovery this week: Rachel Smith.

• A somewhat quiet week, mostly spent at the office because Anja’s on winter break, although I did enjoy spending time at Coffee Company Oosterdok as well. Working without my regular laptop stand and wireless keyboard and trackpad doesn’t feel great for my body, but they make great coffee.
• I seem to have found my way back to the Miracle morning method. While I cringe at the very notion of self development, it has been great to start my day in quietude.
• Lemonade did really well on New Year’s Eve, and while I think she would’ve been fine sleeping in her crate in the loving room, we let her sleep on the bed. We’re now people whose dog sleeps on their bed. Another benefit to this, besides cuddles, is that it gives me the living room to wake up calmly.
• I spent my winter break walking serious distances in the city, and now that I’m back to work the rush of my calendar (even when it was mostly empty this week) made it so that I didn’t really go on a single urban hike.
• I’ve been making a bigger effort to practice the Law of Two Feet, and much to my amusement it gives me so much more headspace.
• We’re continuing our Better Call Saul (2015-2022) journey, which, mid-way through season 2, seems to find itself in a bit of a legal lull. I wonder if it’ll change. I wonder if I’ll continue watching if it doesn’t.
• I’ve set a reading challenge on Goodreads this year, and this week I’m already down 1, 25 more to go. I’ve discovered that non-fiction audio books work well for me.
• On Friday, we had farewell drinks for AN. I’m quite sad to see him go. He and I both have golden retriever energy, and it was always a bit of a homecoming to be at the office with him.
• On Saturday, I went to Coppenhagen for new beads. I’ve been looking for excuses to make more rosaries, and I decided I’ll make one for each liturgical color.