Smizing and other useful things we've learned in 2020

One of the silver linings of major challenges and struggles—like, oh, say, pandemics—is that they often lead to the acquisition of new skills.

As I look back on the insanity that was 2020, I’ve been thinking about the many strange and unexpected things we’ve all learned. For example:

• Smizing: The art of smiling with one’s eyes, in an attempt to at basic human connection while wearing a mask. If you’re a beginner, you can just, you know, actually smile. But if you’re really good, you work up to the advanced, energy-saving version: the full-on, twinkly, eyes-only smile. (Related and arguably more important skill: Recognizing when someone is smizing at you.)

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    You know I’m smizing when the crow’s feet are showing!

• How to do the opposite of smizing. I don’t know what it’s called. Glizing? Stinkeyezing? But it’s the withering looks one gives to people in the grocery store WHO DO NOT PUT THEIR MASKS OVER THEIR NOSES DAMMIT. (Maybe this is just me?) Anyway, I’ve gotten good at it—not that it accomplishes anything whatsoever.

• Mad Zoom skillz. Think of the vast knowledge we’ve all quickly acquired about this previously obscure platform! Skills like how to mute and unmute ourselves (some people are still working on this), how to not be inadvertently be seen naked or on the toilet (ditto), what angle to have our computers at so we don’t look like we have seven chins, and—most important of all—how to check email, Facebook and the New York Times Cooking section during a Zoom conference call for work while maintaining an “I’m totally engaged and listening” expression.

• What six feet looks like. I’m not very good at estimating distances. But given the number of six-feet-apart pieces of tape on the floor that I’ve stood on while waiting in lines this year, I feel like if you told me to draw a line six feet long, I’d be able to nail it within a centimeter. (Huh. I just mixed metric and imperial there, like some kind of nutty British person. Weird.)

• How to make sourdough bread. Apparently many people did this. I did not. Mostly I perfected the eating of bread, and other carbohydrates. It’s something I’ve always been good at, but I feel like this year I really took it to a new level.

• How to socialize al fresco. This isn’t actually a skill, per se; more like a “why the hell didn’t we do this more before?” sort of thing. (Right??) Since indoor gatherings and get-togethers are verboten and isolation = death, I’ve been seeing friends outdoors, socially distanced, like crazy ever since April: walks and runs and hikes; drinks and meals on patios and decks. We’ve eaten at a few outdoor restaurants, too. The kids, meanwhile, meet up with their friends at parks or take bike rides or skateboard or walk around downtown.
  
  And will the cold slow us down? Hell no! As the Germans say, Schlechtes Wetter gibt es nicht, nur unangemessene Kleidung.* Translation: There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. (*I got the German version from Google translate. So it might actually mean something along the lines of “weather will not be bad, but clothing isn’t appropriately.”)
  
  Check out the hygge scene from our patio, where we hung out, fire blazing, with a couple of friends last night, in appropriate clothing. I mean….

  

  Note that two of those chairs weren’t quite six feet apart. Rest assured, I adjusted them after taking the picture.

• And finally: How to wear a mask without fogging up one’s glasses / sunglasses. Just kidding. This is not possible.

What did I miss? (Also: Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! And thank you for reading.)