The alarm goes off at about 6:10; I hit the snooze; then when it goes off again, I lay in bed and listen to the classical music, drifting back towards sleep while an orchestra plays Gershwin’s “Lullaby.” C. comes into the room and starts dressing; I lay with my hands behind my head and my eyes closed. She sits on the edge of the bed and I stroke her back as she dresses.
I had been dreaming about visiting an old friend: I walked a long way to meet her; it was some sort of church social or something. We finally sat down to talk together but we got interrupted. There were young, drunk people around. A young man was holding forth about how much he liked bananas.
After malingering in bed for close to a half-hour (which has become common in these Covid days) I go into my office, write down my dreams, and spend a couple minutes looking at headlines. The Ohio governor has called protestors “bullies” for showing up at the health director’s house and menacing reporters wearing masks. There’s a social media flap about a food blogger throwing shade on Marie Kondo and another Asian lifestyle writer. (Certain sacred American practices continue despite the Pandemic). At
7:14 I go into the kitchen and make breakfast, slicing bread for toast and flaking leftovers of last night’s salmon (delicious: I baked it and basted it with a lime/cumin vinaigrette). I wash blueberries in a china bowl. C. makes her toast, sets the table in the dining room. We eat, quietly and mindfully at first, then start talking about the news: Trump trying to make “Obamagate” a thing on social media; a restaurant in Fishers (Hamilton County was officially open yesterday) opened at 50 percent capacity yesterday; there were lines at barbers and beauty shops around the state. We argue without conviction about our theories and analyses of news coverage. I think people who are protesting quarantine are a tiny, tiny minority, who are getting a ton of “ink”—ink is now almost completely metaphorical—and thus skewing our sense of what’s happening. Public opinion polling shows that very large majorities believe things are opening too quickly. I notice several times that my saucer, my coffee cup, the fruit bowl, and C.’s saucer are forming a perfect diagonal. (I’ve been spending too much time at home. How about you?)
It’s now 8 sharp and I’m writing this at my desk in my home office, still in my pajamas (I’ll shower and dress during a break this morning). I tune in briefly and notice that I feel full—not overly but appropriately full. (I’ve been working with a nutritionist who recommends tuning in to hunger and satiety). It’s time for work, which is going to involve doing a performance review; reading some other performance reviews, and generally getting ready to take the rest of the week off. (I’m tired, and don’t want to let my vacation days die unused.)
For the next three hours I flit from work task to work task. Wrote the performance review (for a very high-performing employee), which I did at the dining room table for a clean writing surface (these things, inexplicably, still have to be done with pen-and-paper, then scanned and sent in). Responded to various email requests for this and that. Helped my admin assistant remain calm amidst multiple mini-crises. Monitored two email accounts. Tweeted a couple things for a project. Indeed, I’ve been doing my job unconsciously enough this morning that I have to look at my outgoing mailbox to check and see what I’ve been doing. Oh yes, this, that, this, and that: none of it interesting. In between I read an NYT story about Dr. Fauci testifying before the Senate today, where apparently he’s going to do that thing where he manages to tell the truth (we shouldn’t be opening so fast) without making Trump look bad.
This is one of those days when you do a thousand tiny things. In between the last ¶ and this one, I read and responded to two emails, opened an attachment, read two text messages (and responded to one) and thought to myself: I’ll do this later, I’m going to finish this diary time now. All this has brought me to
11:08, and I’m going to tie up a couple loose ends and then take a shower (Pandemic Hygiene Schedule Adjustment).
1:05 – the last couple hours involved a shower, about 30 minutes on the phone doing a reference check for a colleague, and some more of the thousand little things; more tweeting things for work. Then around
1:18 I get lunch, a large salad of raw veggies prepared by C.—cabbage, peppers, green beans—I probably will burn more calories chewing it than it contains—along with a half sandwich of turkey meatloaf on wheat. I eat this, scrolling among social media and the New York Times and Washington Post, and listening to WXPN in Philly streaming on my computer—very distracted, in other words. I make coffee. I read about Fauci’s testimony, then spend about 5 minutes reading a story about potato recipes. Potatoes are versatile, is the point. C. tells me the Blue Angels are supposed to fly over Indy today, so we go outside at 2 and look vacantly at the sky for 10 minutes, finally hearing some rumblings but unable to see anything. This is a metaphor for something, surely. She asks me to fill the watering can to water the herbs; I do so, splashing my jeans and sneakers with water from the faucet. It’s brisk and mostly cloudy but pretty nice outside. It’s now
2:15 and I’m back at my desk. Have a phone “meeting” at 3 to go over the staff member’s annual review. I think I’m in a good mood because I have the rest of the week off. While I’m off I’m going to catch up on movies and do a bunch of reading and tidy up my office. I’ve made coffee and I’m sipping it and eating a couple small dates. Bonnie Raitt is on WXPN singing “That’s Just Love Sneaking Up on You.” Makes me think of the late, great (Covid victim) John Prine. I’ll spend the next 20 minutes cleaning up my email box from minor unfinished matters of the last few weeks.
It’s now
4:58 and the afternoon has flown past; continuing with the thousand little things. I’ve been working with my office window open and it’s a little chilly but nice. Got peckish at 3:30 and ate two mandarin oranges. I’ve got my email cleared out back to last month. (Embarrassing to say, I’m a digital hoarder, and never got caught up on emails from Dec. 9-Jan. 12, when I was on FMLA with an eye injury. Listened to an archive interview with Sonny Rollins while I worked (he talked about his grandmother being a follower of Marcus Garvey and about his experience in Eastern mysticism, and about having conversations about it and sharing books with John Coltrane). Listened to music and then switched to NPR around 4. Checked things off my list. Stood up and stretched and put a cast-iron pot of chili in the oven. (We started eating it two days ago, the beans were a bit undercooked, so we’re putting it in a low even for a couple hours for tonight’s dinner). Which is going to be a Zoom dinner with some pals in Tennessee.
Right now I’ve got a couple fun things I’ve been storing up. The Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago sent out an AV Club interview with Tracy Letts making movie recommendations, which I’m going to read. And I have an email from a friend I’m reading Dickens’s Bleak House with. Yes, I’m kind of a nerd.
I’m going to indulge them, then go for a walk.
7:00 – Tracy Letts’s film picks are interesting and eccentric. My pal loves Bleak House. (He’s reading it for the first time, so I presume doesn’t know there’s a contagion plot coming!). Walk was great—beautiful day, very still, sunny & blue skies, about 60 degrees. Highlights included: a young family playing basketball at the little neighborhood court in Forest Hills—two 40s-ish guys and three kids, including a wiry, skilled 14-year-old girl and a maybe 9-year old boy who could dribble. I paused and watched for a moment. The 9-yo missed a chance to steal from his sister, and one of the older guys gave him flack. I was thinking, “Wow: Live sports!” Also: a dog running manically back and forth behind his iron rail fence, barking at me, like he was doing a Doggie Pandemic Home Marathon; a stocky woman barreling towards me cluelessly, steering me into the Street on Broadway Ave around 57th. I got out of the way then looked over on the porch at her husband, and waved, to which he, eyes invisible behind his sunglasses, didn’t move a muscle in return. (This is the exception, most people, even the grim joggers and the toddler-wrangling young parents, usually give me the nod, at least.)
In “notes” on my phone I jotted down the numbers of a few houses for sale. (For fantasy purposes only: my wife & I agree that homeownership is mainly for chumps.) I went ear-bud-less on the way north but was not mindful, brain jumping around among tasks of the day and random wisps of thought, such as the fact that Sonny Rollins played “Surrey with a Fringe on Top” or the fact that C. has ordered fried chicken from Café Patachou for Friday night takeout. On the way home I listened to my Amazon Music on Spin, which produced: Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, The Pogues, Bob Dylan, and John Coltrane. It was Coltrane playing “Pursuance” for the last half-mile, which caused me to pick up the pace.
I got back a little after 6:30 and made a margarita (I have only two beers left, only two pretty expensive bottles of wine left, but a year’s supply of limes—the result of having braved the bonehead-infested Costco on Sunday but before noon, when alcohol sales become legal on Sundays). I’m writing this at 7:08 and we meet our Nashville friends on Zoom, for “dinner,” in two minutes.
7:10-8:30 – we talk to our friends in Nashville while we eat. They’re chronically running late, so she’s in the kitchen, in the background of the frame, stuffing peppers while he sits at the table, his face bifurcated vertically by the edge of the frame. We have some laughs; things turn a bit serious when the tell us they’re planning to have a tiny, plan B wedding in June, and ask if we can come. We’re nervous about committing, which we’re up front about (I’m 55, C. is 62; we’d be looking at a hotel or an AirB&B, stopping at places for gas, etc. It’s only a little over 4 weeks away). They understand our hesitation, but it’s a bummer. They had this amazing wedding in Ireland planned; we were so looking forward to it. We move on to talking about what we’ve been doing, watching, reading; joking around. I show my giant bowl of limes & my margarita.
After dinner, for an hour I go back to some light work tasks and some social media. I tweet more things for work; look at email and quickly answer a few messages; then put an “Out of Office” message on my email. It’s now
9:40 and I’m on vacation. There’s no denying that I would normally be a wee bit more ecstatic to be starting vacation under normal circumstances. It’s a short break anyway—just through next Monday. But it will be good: it always takes a couple days for me to really relax, so I should have a good weekend and be recharged when I get back next week. It will dawn on me slowly that I’m off duty over the next, like 24 hours. I will actually work in the mornings but on stuff I really want to do—writing projects—and only for a couple hours. Then I’m going to watch a movie, then exercise, then cook dinner, and do some pleasure reading, and….
My butt is slightly sore from all the sitting today. C. is next to me watching “The Big Bang Theory.” I’m waiting for her to fall asleep so I can have the TV and probably watch an episode of “The Americans.” I don’t have to set the alarm in the morning. (See, it’s gradually sinking in.) At a little before 10, C. goes to bed; I exchange a few texts with a friend who’s in upper administration at the university; gloomy vague portents. I jot down a couple lines in my diary (my other, paper diary: private!) Actually, what I write is this, slightly redacted:
It’s EDLM day, so it would be absurd to diarize at length now, but it is noteworthy that: 1) I am on vacation until next Monday, 2) I resolve to process last week’s [therapist] notes, in part because 3) I have been dreaming a great deal…, 4) We had Zoom dinner with S. and D. and they are planning on having a small wedding next month, which we are very nervous about travelling to; 5) I really need this break; 6) California State declared it’s not doing classes in person in the Fall, and Inside Higher Ed wrote an editorial saying campuses should not try to reopen this year.
Well that’s enough for now. More anon.
I scroll around in social media for a bit then watch the second half of an episode of “The Americans,” go back to looking at social media and glancing at newspaper websites, then watch another episode. That show is great and at this point—not quite midway through the fourth season—almost unbearably tense. This takes me to almost midnight—the latest I’ve been up in many weeks. I turn off the TV & my phone, turn off the lights, and get in bed. C. is fast asleep; it’s warm under the covers; I close my eyes and consciousness quickly starts flowing and breaking up…dream images…