Fewer deaths all around
A giant party at my house
A portion of the research I feel bad about not doing just becoming irrelevant (e.g. what’s the evidence about surfaces now? Are we badly underestimating the harms of long covid?)
Leaving my house in an unprepared fashion and seeing where it takes me
Whatever it was that I used to do in places other than my house, that I actually can’t seem to remember or explicitly pinpoint and plan from a distance, but which I vaguely miss (possibly this is basically just 4)
Seeing friends who live in faraway places such as Berkeley
Going on a cross-country train and embracing the general lack of hygiene and space
Seeing non-household friends without inadvertently spending a fraction of my attention on air dynamics and mask stability
The stakes of everyday personal choices being lowered enough that people being thoughtless or foolish isn’t a critical threat to friendliness, harmony or anyone’s life
Helping the economy of restaurants and cafes recover
Casual minor encounters and non-encounters with strangers in shops, streets and cafes (and these being more of the meeting places of the world, and internet comments being less, for more people)
Meeting new people regularly
More distinct places and place-vibes to conveniently be in
One fewer area to worry that I should be doing something better
Listening to an audiobook on crowded public transit on the way to my downtown office, and then being at my office
Reading and writing in notebooks in cafes
The world feeling so big that you can go to other places and find people thinking about entirely different things
Being dirty
Crowded, dimly lit places with atmosphere and mild uncertainty
Resolution of this episode
Watching everyone else enjoy things coming back
Giant party at my house too! I never thought I would miss parties
Finally making out with [redacted]
Getting to flirt because I’m able to interact with people who I don’t also share a house with 24⁄7, and (new, poly, in-quarantine) housemate relationships are not a good idea, but also I want to date
Being nice to strangers / not literally running away from them if they get too close (I wonder how hard this habit will be to break?)
Smiling at people without being like, shit, they can’t tell, I’d better make my eyes squinty
Wearing lipstick where everyone can see it
Wearing clothes I’m excited about where anyone except my rather indifferent male housemates can see it
Getting to meet my coworkers in person
Holding my best friend’s new baby and booping its nose and kissing its tummy as much as I want, because this will be the first time someone I know really well has had a baby and so they won’t think I’m weird
Going on walks
Being somewhere other than my house, literally ever
Being spontaneous
Trader Joe’s
Buying my own produce
FEMALE FRIENDS
Not having everyone around me be on video calls 90% of the time
Not having to be on video calls really ever
The knowledge that I could go to ecstatic dance if I got on BART for half an hour and paid $20 – I almost never do that, but I just like knowing that somewhere out there ecstatic dance is happening and I could join if I really wanted to
Having a routine
The possibility of performing on a stage again
Massages, oh my god
All those weddings that got postponed! Gonna be so many weddings!
Literally everything you listed
Re: Casual minor encounters and non-encounters with strangers – I have been really surprised how much I miss this, because I previously thought of myself as not all that interested in the mass of people around me. But now, I think so fondly of this one time I was at the grocery store and needed something from a top shelf, and I was able to just stop a guy walking past me and ask him to reach it for me. Also another time when I was walking home from the BART station and someone asked me for directions to his hotel, and how rewarding it was to help him. And another time during morning commute when I struck up a conversation with an old guy decked out in Green Bay Packers gear because I figured he was probably from Wisconsin, and even though he wasn’t, we had a really nice and friendly talk. And all the conversations started by using a little red Radio Flyer wagon to get groceries. I guess you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
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Seeing my long distance boyfriend who is an ICU nurse
Not being in the lab nocturnally
The gym
More literature search time into evolutionary biology and SETI rather than immunology