Not that the world particularly needs to know, but with this blog post maybe I’ll remind you of a simpler time – when the Internet was full of posts about cats and what people had for lunch. Sure, self-indulgent and vacuous, but still better than the rage-addiction delivery system it’s become.
While it sucked in a lot of ways, 2020 was a good time to exercise and read. In terms of exercise, I started making more time for it when we were in lockdown. I was working out of my storage room. Turns out it was pretty easy for me to keep up with my workload if I stumbled down to the storage room in my jammies at 7:30 or 8, worked for a couple of hours, then went for a run or put on a workout video before taking a quick shower, grabbing some lunch, and getting back to work. Not driving to and from work or messing with professional attire really saves time. Anyway, setting aside time turned into a streak, and at the moment, I’ve done at least a half hour of exercise – usually more – every day since March 27. Included in that was a round of P90x, a half marathon, and quite a bit of cycling.
I also managed to keep a list of the books I read in 2020:
- Jan. 29th – SPQR – Mary Beard.
- Feb. 6th – Queenslayer (Spellslinger 5) – Sebastien de Castell
- Feb. 11th – Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up – Tom Phillips
- Feb. 15th – Crownbreaker (Spellslinger 6) – Sebastien de Castell
- Feb. 25th – Running with Sherman – Christopher McDougall
- Mar. 14th – The South versus the South – William Freehling
- Apr. 24th – The Stand – Stephen King
- May 6th – Lawrence in Arabia – Scott Anderson
- May 10th – Only Human – Sylvain Neuvel
- June 7th – At Home – Bill Bryson
- June 26th – Upheaval – Jared Diamond
- July 5th – Seveneves – Neal Stephenson
- Aug. 2nd – How to Hide an Empire – Daniel Immerwahr
- Aug. 8th – The Guardians – John Grisham
- Aug. 15th – Longitude – Dava Sobel
- Aug. 30th – Runes of the Earth – Stephen R. Donaldson
- Sept. 29th – Fatal Revenant – Stephen R. Donaldson
- Oct. 24th – Against All Things Ending – Stephen R. Donaldson
- Nov. 14th – The Final Dark – Stephen R. Donaldson
- Nov. 29th – Indiana: An Interpretation – John Bartlow Martin
- Dec. 5th – Traitor’s Blade (Greatcoats #1) – Sebastien de Castell
- Dec. 25th – Knight’s Shadow (Greatcoats #2) – Sebastien de Castell
- Dec. 29th – Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid – Bill Bryson
So, the year wasn’t totally wasted. Though, I have to say, the Stephen R. Donaldson series (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) from August through November was a bit of a slog. There was some good stuff here and there in the series, but mainly I was reading it because the First Chronicles meant so much to me when I read it as a kid.