Welcome back to the Book Riot Podcast.

It's a news and talk show about what's new, cool and worth talking about in the world of books and reading.

Today is Thursday, March 11th, 2021.

By all accounts, the anniversary of COVID being what it has become.

The Beast was born.

In this day, there's a lot of stuff happened, but in America,

this is incidental, but I remember it because today happens to be my birthday, and this time, last year, this day last year, I had family over, had some family

in town actually. We're eating pizza, in my living room, having a good time, and the text notifications.

Tom Hanks has COVID.

Rudy Go Bear has COVID.

The NBA is canceling the season.

The WHO is declaring a national pandemic.

My kids went to school the next day and that was it for a year.

Then they no more school and Rebecca and I before the show we're spending a moment.

It really it did hit me today. Like my birthday, I don't tend to care about my birthday that much, but it was a the full year and what the year has meant.

Really hit me with a wave of sadness I knew was below there of what it's meant to do this year and to be perfectly

clear no one's had a better responsible COVID experience than me you know everyone's healthy, kept their job, my kids have been really more,

I'm going to start crying about it if I talk about him too much, more than I could ever

ask them to do. We had Michelle's mother who helps us in the afternoons with the kids while we're working.

Couldn't be better, but still the loss of experience and time and not seeing our friends and not seeing our family my kids not seeing their

friends not doing the things like again I don't want to get too much into this but here

we go like my kids are like seven and nine which is prime kid time.

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