It’s 2024 and of course it’s time for more Your Daily Lex, the first Your Daily Lex of 2024.

And given that it’s a new year, and given that this show has been around for a very long time, is it time for a new theme song?

Your Daily Lex No.

No it is not.

So much has happened since we spoke last.

I went on vacation, obviously we had Christmas in, New Year’s in, a variety of other things, and it’s been good.

One thing that was a high priority, especially for Liam, to get done before the end of the year, 2023, was releasing his third album with me, Liam and Lex.

So, I’m not Liam and Lex, we collect, anyway, you get it.

So, you know, whenever Liam finishes an album, he’s excited to start a new one, but also wants a break, which I totally get.

And we’ve done two albums prior, and he had been slowly working on album three.

One of the reasons his albums take longer as time goes by is he’s got more stuff to do, more things that can distract him and entertain him.

Like, if he wants to play games or talk to his friends or whatever, then he’s not going to work on music as much.

That’s totally fine.

The other is that his songs are only ever getting more complicated, in part because he is a more nuanced or thoughtful songwriter, and in part because he’s playing more live instruments.

When he was doing everything as MIDI via keyboards plugged into his iPad, that was one thing, but now that he’s recording live bass and live guitar and live saxophone in addition to all his keys, it’s a slower process, a more laborious and involved process.

And so, of course, it takes longer.

And I pointed out to him, you know, as the months were going by, hey, we’re probably not going to finish the album this year, which he had initially, Liam, wanted to do.

So, this will probably take until 2024, which is no big deal.

He’s like, no, no, no, we’re going to be finished.

I’m like, we’re not going to, here’s the calendar, like, we don’t have time.

And as the days were getting closer and closer, he really decided he wanted to get this album done in 2023.

And he did, spoiler alert.

Go to lexfriedman.com slash world to look at our new album, or just ask whatever music app you use to play the new Liam and Lex album.

It’s called The World Wasn’t Ready.

But perhaps you are ready to listen to it.

Finishing that album before the end of the year actually meant finishing it before Christmas Eve, because we went on a cruise leaving Christmas Eve.

Really, we left the house December 23rd to drive to Baltimore.

Now here’s where it gets a little complicated.

So, uh, we were leaving for Baltimore on a Saturday.

The cruise was going to leave on a Sunday.

On a Tuesday, I was feeling, you know, middling, not, not bad, just like annoyed, like, like not, not a hundred percent.

And so, uh, Tuesday night, I guess it went on a Wednesday night.

So then Wednesday, I felt, I felt the same way, kind of like, you know, like nothing to complain about, but I was aware.

So I was, you know, I had some extra tea and I took some extra vitamin C.

Uh, and then finally Wednesday night, so I’m going to bed.

Lauren’s like, maybe you should take a COVID test.

I’m like, sure.

I don’t have COVID, but maybe Thursday morning, I’ll take a COVID test.

And she’s like, yeah, that’s fine.

Or you can take it now.

I’m like, fine, I’ll go take it now.

So I get out of bed and I set it right next to my bedside and put it on there.

I set the timer and then we’re just, you know, in bed and I’m reading on my Kindle and Lauren’s reading an actual book because Lauren’s a Luddite and, uh, the timer goes off and Hey, I do have COVID.

I was as truly, uh, just one increment less shocked than if the, if the COVID test had said, Hey Lex, you’re pregnant or Hey, Lex, you’ve won the lottery.

Like I had zero expectation.

I was going to say that I had COVID.

So, uh, as you can imagine, that sucked.

I walked silently out of the room.

Uh, Lauren was unsurprisingly less than thrilled that she had just spent the past 15 minutes in the same room with COVID.

Uh, I had spent a lot of time with the kids that day and we knew we were leaving for a vacation, uh, on Saturday.

So pretty high stress.

I moved to the basement.

Uh, I plowed through my week.

I started to feel a little bit worse actually.

Uh, and my, my line on the COVID test was pretty excitingly stark.

Uh, these cruise lines don’t want you to cancel.

They don’t really care about COVID anymore.

I didn’t want to give COVID to anybody in my family or anybody else on that ship.

So we were pretty concerned about what exactly to do, because, uh, even if you had gotten their travel insurance, it doesn’t cover skipping for COVID.

Uh, and they have a policy where you can cancel, uh, the guest room and attendance of anybody with COVID.

We had two guest rooms.

Uh, and so that meant we would have to keep one room and Lauren’s like, I’m not going on this cruise without you.

So good stuff, trying to figure it out.

And eventually we decide, uh, we were going to Baltimore at the day ahead of time for the cruise and we were going to overnight in the hotel.

So now we say, we’re going to take two cars from New Jersey to Baltimore and we’re going to stay in two hotel rooms and I’ll stay separate from everybody else, which is what happened.

Uh, then I have a faint line, but still align as we’re boarding the cruise.

So I board the cruise mask.

My whole family boards the cruise mask and I go to our stay room and, uh, Lauren and I had one room and the kids had the other room and Lauren would sleep on the couch and I slept on the bed.

We both slept masked and we slept with a balcony door open.

It was horrendous.

And when I say it was horrendous, what was especially horrendous was my nose, the bridge of my nose, uh, where my tight fitting KN 95 mask would reside, uh, and rub away at my supple flesh.

Uh, so I, I, it was horrible by the end, like a couple of days in my nose was red and raw and bloody all the time because I was wearing a mask all the time.

I didn’t have meals with everybody and I would only either be outside on the ship, you know, when there’s open decks, uh, or in our room.

And even in the room I was masked unless I was sitting out on the balcony, uh, to prevent that tiny room from getting COVID infested.

Um, until my line went, uh, negative, like until I had nothing positive anymore, which was, uh, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, which happened Wednesday morning, Wednesday morning’s test was the one that was negative.

I brought 30 tests with me and, uh, yeah.

So then I got to join the family, stop eating my meals outside by myself.

Uh, when it was way too cold Monday and Tuesday, we were still, you know, uh, we weren’t far enough from Baltimore for it to be warm.

We hadn’t hit the Bahamas yet.

So boy, eating those meals alone outside cold was not fun, but everybody else got to have a great vacation.

Uh, and then eventually I joined them and I was really eventually, you know, by really by Monday I was feeling a hundred percent.

My test was still positive, but I was feeling a hundred percent, but yeah, nobody else got COVID.

Uh, in my party, there were no, uh, recorded COVID outbreaks on this ship outbreaks, outbreaks on the ship, which is nice.

Uh, and yeah, so that happened.

Wow.

Now it’s 2024.

I’ve worked out every day this year and, uh, I hope your year is off to a great start.

Uh, and yet a new theme song.

Are you kidding me?

You don’t mess with greatness.

Anyway, check out the new album with Liam.

We’ll probably talk about it more this week.

Go to a lexfriedman.com slash world to learn more.

Lex.