Status Update II (Patreon)

Hi all! 

I write this post from my very comfy chair, which I have missed for several months. Last month, I said I was going to explain some things later. It's later now, so you get to listen to me rant about my zany adventures.

Or don't. Your choice. This post is 100% skippable. 

As some of you know, I had surgery earlier this year. What I didn't say was that I had to travel a pretty long distance to get that surgery since I wanted good odds of not ending up all paralyzed. After my surgery was done, I didn't return to my country right away. I was too weak to travel, the doctor wanted to see me in a month, and rehabilitation where I live sucks. So yeah, not traveling was a good idea at the time.

Then a bunch of countries started closing their borders, mine included. Since I was still too weak to travel, I ended up locked out of my country. 

Yeah, that happened. 

I remember thinking, "It'll be fine. How long can borders remain closed anyway?"

Turns out, the answer is months. 

That is how Mat's Hotel-Hopping Adventures In Times of Corona began, a time filled with so many hijinks my IRL friends who know I write tell me I should do a book about all the stuff that happened to me.

As this was happening, I was in contact with my country's consulate, which was going through the slow and needlessly bureaucratic process of trying to bring all the citizens abroad back home. Eventually, my turn came. The guy from the consulate (who had kind of become my buddy at this point by virtue of constant phone calls) called me, and something like this happened:

"My dude! Guess what? We got you a flight!"

"Totally tubular! But are you sure I won't have any problems, what with my back still being all weak?"

"No worries, fam! I already passed all that info to the main office. We've got you!"

But he was wrong. So wrong. 

They didn't have me. They didn't have me at all. There was no one to help me carry my stuff, which was all sorts of troublesome for me. It was even worse when I saw the tiny hotel room I was supposed to stay in to fulfill the obligatory quarantine. 

So yeah, that sucked. 

Didn't make my back worse, though. Silver lining. 

It did make writing super hard since I couldn't get comfortable. The people in the hotel were super nice, and they did find me a sorta okay chair, but yeah. There was only so much they could do to improve a place clearly not equipped to handle someone in my condition.

But that's over now. 

Finally. Finally, I don't have any other stuff going on. I can do what a bunch of people all over the world have been doing all this time and lock myself up in my house in peace. 

So yeah, my life has been interesting.