DIARY

Anxiety

Blinded

June 1, 2020

On Thursday evening - four days ago - I got in a car crash. It was bad. It was also my fault.

I was driving through the middle of nowhere, headed North along the coast, on my way to be with a friend in crisis. The sun was at that point just above the horizon when it's blazing directly into your eyes, and you have to flick the visor from side to side to side with one hand while you steer with the other just to see the pavement ahead of you.

I didn't expect a stop sign anywhere along that particular stretch of road, empty as it seemed. I wasn't looking out for one, but even if I had been I was blinded, and I wouldn't have spotted it. So when one suddenly appeared, I drove straight through it at 40 miles per hour. A man turning from the opposite lane hit me directly on the driver's side door (it's called a "T-bone"; I know terms like this now) and my car and I went flying off the road into a field, where we crashed through wheat and dirt and narrowly missed telephone poles, and finally came to a stop.

DIARY

Not The Same (Or: Me And My Puzzles)

April 25, 2020

Marty is so helpful

The bloom has, shall we say, fallen off the shelter-in-place rose.

I am enormously privileged during this time of COVID-19; that fact does not escape me. My parents are in New York City, which is frightening, but they are being careful, and are healthy. I have friends who have fallen sick, but all have recovered. I have a porch where my children can grow a garden and breathe the ocean air. I have the ability to teach them - not nearly at the rate requested by their teachers, of course, but I also have the sense to know that we are all doing the best we can, and that is enough. I am an introvert, vastly prefer my couch to a bar stool, and have worked from home for most of my adult life, so puttering around my house for most of every day honestly feels like more of the same.

DIARY

The Crash

April 12, 2020

I am exhausted.

I most definitely should not be: I'm sleeping literally more than I ever have, and doing oh my god, so much less - on the work side, at least; the parenting side is obviously, ah...intense. But even on the days when Kendrick has the kids, it's like I can barely keep my eyes open. I sleep for 10 hours, at least. Nap for two hours, at least. A walk around the block feels like the equivalent of running a marathon: I cannot do it, which is fine, because I also do not want to do it.

Lest all this sound like perhaps somebody has come down with a case of The Depressions, though: I really don't think so. I'm anxious about money and the health of my family and, you know, THE STATE OF THE WORLD, for sure. But I'm also smiling more easily, and more often.

DIARY

In Which I Manage To Almost Kill Myself With A Steak in the Midst Of A Global Pandemic

March 28, 2020

So I think we can all agree that good gossip - by which I mean the exchange of non-terrifying information - is in short supply these days. Just last week, Francesca and I had a phone call which consisted almost entirely of me relaying a play-by-play of how, exactly, I managed to lose one of my AirPods while said AirPods were physically located inside my ears. (This is a true story.)

It was riveting.

But our conversation this morning was a new level of scintillating, as it involved a tale of how I managed to almost die last night. From the virus currently terrorizing the world? Of course not. From a steak.

DIARY

Stand Still

March 17, 2020

We awaken every day to a fresh batch of news stories, all speaking to us of a new reality that would have sounded impossible - the stuff of sci-fi stories - just a week (a day?) ago. We open our inboxes and scroll through a steady stream of messages from businesses, family, friends, all offering tips! and tricks! on how to deal with our new circumstances. This morning, one such email advised me to take advantage of this time to learn a new language. Another suggested that I start doing online yoga daily so that, when this is all over, I emerge from my home a lithe, well-muscled butterfly.

"Stay safe" has become the new email sign-off.

We are, at this very moment, living through a situation that is completely unprecedented in human history. That is a simple fact, albeit an overwhelming one to consider - especially given that for many of us, this whole thing still feels fairly theoretical. The enormity of the crisis is only magnified by the constant and unrelenting cycle of news and social media: We may be self-isolating, but we are still being flooded with a virtual avalanche of information - some of it accurate, much of it not, and all of it unsettling.

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