Today I made fresh pasta for the first time ever, since my dad wanted to try out a 1950's pasta rolling machine he had from one of my great-uncles. It's been on his to-do list as a good Italian for a long time, and I know this is something he would never do on his own, but he has wanted it to be one of his retirement accomplishments. It worked like a charm and all of the baking I've been doing helped in terms of what to expect from the dough. There are very important differences between pie dough and pasta dough, particularly in how to knead and handle the pasta side of things (pie dough should be worked as little as possible and kept as cold as possible), but I'm glad that I could help fulfill one of the things on my dad's bucket list. It is true that there's no replacement for the actual experience and I'm sure if we work together a few times he would feel confident enough to tackle it by himself.

In other news, I'm enormously relieved that the inauguration went well and that for now Trump is fading into the background. Q-followers are moving the goalposts endlessly again to fit whatever new narratives they can continue to delude themselves with, hardcore Trumpers are still claiming that everything was illegitimate, but it seems like the Capitol riot did get some conservatives to look around and reevaluate whether they want to be affiliated with the far right. Congress will still be gridlocked, Biden is facing a slew of monumental challenges, and the COVID epidemic is far from over but maybe, just maybe, some sanity will be returned to the general population. I'd settle for people not wanting to literally fight over issues and for civil debate to prevail once again.

In other other news, I'm seeing a lot of post-holiday "Are you OK? I'm not" op-eds being published. Suffice it to say I'm not okay. I'm not in the worst places I've been in and I have things to occupy me and am without the stress of a job, thankfully, but no. I don't want this to be the rest of my life but that seems to be what I'll have to accept.