Well, that’s it. The end of the world has arrived.

Betty White has died.

I actually walked all the way there, through the snow, got to the door, and discovered that Mary had stolen my keys and I couldn’t get in. So I trudged back home, retrieved my keys, and then was so worn out (I’ve been laid up for a few months now) and so cold (yes, it’s a major snow day) that I gave up and put on my warm slippers and told myself I’d try again tomorrow.

No hurry. We’re supposed to get around 10cm of snow today, better to spend the time indoors.

It’s another day on this Zoe nutrition plan. This was my breakfast.

This is the last, fortunately. Now we get to scan and log everything we eat for a while. Yay.

After a day on a strictly defined and timed diet, we got to stick our fingers and bleed on a piece of test paper, which we’ll now send away for our prize, which I think is 6 more months on a diet where everything I eat has to be scanned and weighed. Do you like my band-aid?

I fast all morning, and this is the reward I get?

Two muffins this time, less rubbery, more crumbly, but still not very good. Now I wait around until 3, and then I get to poke myself for a blood test.

Hey, while I was trapped in forced, hungry indolence, at least I got the syllabus done for my second spring semester course!

My wife has us on this Zoe nutrition test, as I mentioned yesterday. Today we’re on a tightly constrained dietary test: we have a supply of muffins we have to eat on a fixed schedule, with intermittent fasting, while the glucose meter installed in my flesh records my responses, and then later today I have to do a blood test. Funzies!

I had to eat three of these within 15 minutes.

They have the texture and taste of foam rubber. It’s not a flavor I associate with Christmas — maybe I should have sprinkled them with nutmeg and cinnamon? Nah, that would violate the experimental protocol.

Now I’m instructed to fast for four hours, and then I get more muffins!

I hate this. Where’s my lefse and krumkake?

Even lutefisk would be better than this!

I hope you’re all a lot less depressed than I am. This is not a good time of year for me, but maybe you’re still doing fine. Good! Celebrate!

Here’s my Christmas misery.

My father died quietly, in his sleep, on Christmas 28 years ago. You’d think it would stop hurting after 28 years, and no, it doesn’t, and it’s what I think of when I hear the word “Christmas”.

That is not to say that there aren’t good associations, too — I had many years with kids getting deliriously happy at Christmas. Unfortunately, we’re not going to see any of them this year. We’ll all hunkering down in our houses and refusing to see anyone, or to have parties, or to even go outside. The family aspect, the best part of the season, is gone.

Then, I got my Christmas present from my wife. Christmas presents are good, right? Nope, not this one. She signed me up for this thing called Zoe Personal Nutrition, which is all about microbiome analysis and monitoring the effects of your diet on your physiology. The science is appealing. I like contributing to a scientific project as a subject. The reality is a little less thrilling.

Yesterday, I stabbed myself with this continuous glucose monitor that I’ll be wearing for two weeks. That’s not so bad.

Christmas Eve is poop sampling day. I got some gloves and a disposable sheet to spread across the toilet and a scoop and a sealable test tube and a mailer. Oh boy.

Tomorrow I get to stick myself to take blood samples, and all I get to eat is some special muffins for breakfast and lunch. That’s my Christmas feast: prepackaged frozen muffins.

After that, I’ll be scanning and weighing every single thing I eat for the next six months, and Mary is going to be monitoring my diet closely. Doesn’t that sound fun? I tried to tell her she could have saved a lot of money and labor if we just got a pizza for Christmas dinner, but apparently I don’t eat pizzas anymore.

The end result, though, will be Science, I guess. A research team will know all about my microbiome composition, and how my body responds to various factors in my diet, and they’ll tell me all about it, and get a publication or two out of it. I have no idea what I’ll do with the information — giving me a catalog of what species reside in my colon is about as useful as telling me that I’m a Pisces.

Oh, well. Christmas sucks anyway. I’ll probably spend the day hanging out in the lab alone with my spiders.

I’m feeling heroic. For the first time in months, I walked all the way to my lab and back (a distance of less than 100 meters) on my own two feet. The secret was to wear a pair of oversized, felt-lined boots that did not tickle my Achilles tendon at all, although they made a clumsy gallumphing thumping racket as I shambled across the street. I think I just need to do this every day for a while to get back in shape for the 100 meter slog when classes commence again on 18 January. And then the cross-country hiking when field season starts again, maybe in May.

I had to go to the lab to feed my children, who are all doing quite well, and quite voraciously. I posted a photo of one of the husky young males on Patreon, but for the arachnophobic among you, you shall have to settle for a twig in the snow. It is quite a nice twig, sort of seasonally festive and all that, but sadly lacking spiders. I thought about sneaking in a subtle little Dictynid nestled in the needles, but even they are getting scarce here in Icebox World.