I’ve kept an “activity log” since 2013. It’s not really a diary so much as a list of my favorite things that happen every week.
My 2020 log reads like a play in three acts. The first act is the beginning of the year, before COVID changed our daily lives. The second begins March 8, when I wrote “I started staying home today.” Oh, the naïveté! The third act comes in October, when I rented a car and left the city for the first time in seven months.
The pre-COVID entries feel like another life. My last meal inside a restaurant was on March 6, with great company but very mediocre food. We joke that if we’d known what was coming, we would have picked a nicer restaurant. My last normal date was at a silly dive bar, better known for its drink roulette wheel than its actual drinks. And my last big event was a safari-themed party at a club, where I wore cat ears and pretended that counted as a costume.
And then. A shift to my “new normal.” I stopped mentioning restaurants and nights out, and started writing about solo walks and virtual parties. In that very first mention of COVID, back on March 8, I wrote that I was grateful for easy access to nature. The hills here can be gnarly—but they sure offer peaceful, restorative views. Especially in the early days of COVID, when it felt like my world had narrowed so dramatically, I loved that I could look out beyond the city, and remember that the rest the world was still out there, waiting.
My new routine

I can’t say I’ve totally cracked how to feel fulfilled, or even like myself during all of this. I’ve always thought I was good at spending time alone—I’d go to concerts alone, and I even took long solo vacations. But now I’ve realized that “solo” in the Before Times actually meant “solo, with the option of socializing.” I’d chat with baristas, talk to strangers in line, go to group events. Even when I started and ended the day alone, there was a persistent possibility of interaction. That’s remarkably different from the COVID kind of alone, when you actively avoid other people and have to calculate risk every time you socialize.
In many ways, I know my 2020 solitude was a form of privilege. I’m not saying I liked it: in fact, I very much hated it, and I don’t see much good in pretending otherwise. But I was also lucky to keep my job, and do it from home. I was able to take precautions to stay in more than going out. I had hobbies to keep myself entertained. I had friends and family ready to talk however, whenever.
I’m hopeful that in 2021, we’ll get some of our old routines back. In the meantime, I think we’re all learning a very new meaning to what it’s like to live “in the present,” without any sense of control.
Goals vs. reality
I recently found a list of “2020 goals” that I’d scribbled in a random notebook early in the year. I actually managed to do several things on the list—just in a very different way than I’d initially imagined.

For example: “See more concerts.” Ok, so I only made it to 3 concerts before lockdown. But technically, I saw way more live music in 2020 than I had in 2019. Thanks to platforms like Twitch, I watched tons of festivals and saw many favorite artists perform. In the process, I rediscovered the magic of Sofi Tukker and started joining their daily live streams. They’ve built an entire community around virtual DJ-ing, and I’ve loved being a (very, very small) part of it.
I also managed to dance more in 2020. When I wrote “get back into dance” on my 2020 goals, I meant things like salsa lessons and nights on the town. I got a good start on that one before COVID… but surprised myself by keeping it going the whole year long. Virtual dance parties with friends turned out to be a true highlight of 2020. Even if you think you hate dancing, I dare you to try it for yourself. There is more joy to be found bouncing around your house than you might think.
One goal I absolutely did not achieve: less screen time. Mere weeks after I wrote about getting away from my screen, COVID sent me into a mostly screen-based existence. I’d like to cut back this year… but we’ll see.
The myth of downtime
One of my 2020 soapboxes: rallying against headlines that lectured to use our “newfound free time” productively. Sure, I spent more time at home than ever before. But once you try to approximate some semblance of the life you had before COVID, it’s not like there is magically more time in a day. And I think we all underestimated the mental impact of something like this. I watched significantly more TV in 2020 than any other year of my adult life. And you know what? That’s ok.
I also think there’s been too much pressure to develop new skills or find new hobbies. Personally, I’m taking solace in loving the same things I’ve always loved. I dance, I read, I wander. I entertain myself with brightly colored makeup and flashy outfits. No, I don’t have a “new” hobby to brag about, and I didn’t do the Shakespeare-in-quarantine thing, or whatever. But as long as I feel like I’m finding fulfillment in small ways every day, that’s alright by me.
The baking roundup

I haven’t written my full baking roundup yet, but I did the basic stats. I baked 37 recipes last year, and 82% were new to me. While cookies still reigned supreme, I actually made a broader range of baked goods than usual. That’s one upside to staying home: you can tackle incredibly complicated, multi-step recipes. My favorite bakes were these tahini challah buns, black and white cookies, and my mom’s yellow cake with chocolate mint frosting.
The travel tally
Well. This one sure looks different than usual. I literally took one real trip in 2020, and only left the city a couple times after COVID hit. First I rented a car and took a day trip to brush up on my driving (it’d been four years!). Then I drove to Southern California for my one and only true trip of the year. I stayed at Airbnbs near family, hung out in their backyards and otherwise kept to myself. It wasn’t at all like my normal trips home, but I’m grateful I was able to do it, and I definitely appreciated the change of scenery.
My year in blogging
I originally thought that staying home would mean more personal writing, but let’s file that under “things we just didn’t totally understand when COVID started.” Turns out, my brain felt very fried last year. I did manage to post 6 articles here, 10 articles on Sugarsmith and 118 pictures to my photo blog, Scene in San Francisco.
2020 fun facts
- Emo tributes attended: 1, before lockdown, and I loved every minute of it.
- Museum visits: 4, all before lockdown.
- Virtual weddings attended: 1, and it was absolutely beautiful.
- Best meal: Pizzetta 211. Amazing pizza and creative desserts.
- Virtual bar crawls: 1, on NYE.
- My longest streak of weekly karaoke parties: 7 weeks in a row. Over the interwebs, of course.
- Funniest line in my journal: “Went to happy hour on the Embarcadero. Lots of men in suits?” (This is shocking in SF! And clearly from the Before Times.)
- Books read: 29, and they’re mostly listed here.
- Times I walked the main street near my house: It MUST be in the hundreds. I have no idea.
I haven’t written 2021 goals yet, but I do plan to write some. Even though 2020 showed just how uncertain plans can be, I still think it’s worthwhile to write down your aspirations. Come back in a year to see how I did, ok?
The Today List
17 MayThere’s a point in my Amazon wish list where you see reality shift. First, there’s a long string of flapper dresses, decadently shiny, candidates for a 20’s-inspired party that I attended in February. Then suddenly, the sequins segue into sanitizer. And laptop stands. And, sadly: Disinfecting wipes.
There’s many ways to mark the turn from the Before Times to now. My company ID has been hibernating since March 6th. I haven’t taken public transit in 75 days. And in a truly San Franciscan observation, I haven’t used a backpack for ten whole weeks.
It’s hard to make sense of this fork in the road, from Reality 1 to Reality 2. It’s like the world hit a decision tree in a choose your own adventure story, and went down this curvy, confusing path. Except none of us chose this adventure. And we can’t just turn back the page, and try again.
I feel like I’m suspended in time, living in an alternative universe from the one I knew. But I’m choosing to see this universe as a detour, rather than a permanent shift. I’m not an expert and I certainly can’t control the future (although I can do my part to limit the spread… and so can you! Wink Wink). I don’t know when we’ll get back “on track” to where we were. All I can do is hope it happens, and try to keep myself as sane as possible in the meantime.
Part of staying sane, for me, means managing my time well. I always keep a to-do list, a never-ending assortment of tasks and ideas. Some are closer in, like depositing a check. Some are much further out, like trying a new hobby or visiting a friend. I’m a pretty intense planner, and I get a lot of energy thinking ahead to the exciting things on the horizon.
Except right now… we just don’t know. We don’t know when we’ll get to pick back up our to-do list, for the smaller stuff or the big things. My usual trick of thinking ahead still kind of works, it’s just not rooted in any real dates or plans. It’s thinking ahead to a hypothetical someday, instead of a scheduled trip or concert tickets you already have.
I did some spring cleaning on my to-do list a couple days ago. You see the shift between realities in there, too. There’s an entire list of tasks I’d planned to do back in March: Buy new blush, use up a clothing gift card, go try the newest bar in my neighborhood. There’s ideas for a trip to Paris, which I was scheming about but hadn’t actually booked. There’s my personal goals for 2020, which ironically, mostly had to do with getting out more.
At first, I considered deleting that kind of stuff. After all, I’m certainly not going to do those errands or travel to France anytime soon. But I changed my mind. Instead of deleting all those Before Times ideas, I moved them to a new section at the bottom of the doc. I titled the section “eventually.” Because when the day comes that we can get back to some kind of routine, I’m still going to want rosy cheeks.
In the meantime, I’m focused on what I’m calling my “today list.” I can’t control the bigger picture of where we’re headed as a society. I can, to some degree, control what I do with my time today. So for now, I’m trying to stay focused on that. It’s hard to steer away from thinking about what could have been this year, or what we had planned to do. All I can come up with to cope is focusing very, very much on the present reality. Even if it’s a lot less sequined and a lot more isolated than I’d ever imagined.
Keep hanging in there, friends. And if you ever need to talk to someone, drop me a note. I’m here for you.
Tell a friend:
Like this:
Tags: Musings, quarantine, Self-Reflection, Social commentary, Society, To-do lists