Else what's a heaven for?

When George Floyd happened, a very wise friend said (not just to me), “It’s not your job to watch the news. Don’t watch things that will upset you unless there’s a good reason, you need the information, you’re going to do something with what you learn or see.” And she was right.

I didn’t post on Facebook about it. I knew a horrible thing happened and we needed to improve our systems, but I wasn’t going to take to the streets. I had enough on my plate. I may have lost friends over it, in some “if you don’t post about this, we’re not friends” thing. Who knows? Facebook doesn’t really work for me, so I just check it once in a while to see if my husband’s ex-wife posted about the kids or my husband said something funny.

When the war in Ukraine started, I should have listened better. I spent 2 days glued to the news and when it became clear this would take longer, I tried to avoid news report about the atrocities. I was happy when things went well for the Ukrainians and donated to the Ukrainian causes our kids’ school suggested. (They are Georgian and had Ukrainian employees, so I figured they’d know.) I didn’t post on Facebook.

When October 7th happened, I was horrified. But I also didn’t expect much from the rest of the world. We were working with a recently acquired Israeli startup, so during my next meeting with my (African American) boss, I gently suggested we be a little sensitive with them. I said I didn’t know if he’d seen the news. He was like, “What? Duh!” As a Jew, I’ve gotten used to the idea that the world does not always see or report our suffering.

I tried, but really didn’t succeed in staying away from the gruesome coverage. It was harder, because my Jewish friends, including my wise friend, kept saying, “Did you hear about?” My best friend, a new convert, insisted on watching, saying she had to bear witness, even when I pointed out that she has chronic illness and also what does this help? She said, “It’s different, you’ve been through this before,” and I explained, no, this is unprecedentedly awful.

I didn’t post to Facebook. My wise friend’s husband posted the loyalty post on Facebook. They still talk to me though.

I did get angry about the “Free Palestine” bullshit, especially in my neighborhood, and it’s probably for the best that I rarely encountered people carrying flags from a protest. I could go on, but it would make my blood boil.

About 2 weeks ago, i.e. before we found out what happened to the Bibas family, I made a casual remark in front of a non-Jewish friend and he said, “There’s bad people on both sides.” I let it slide, but after they returned the babies’ bodies, I’m finally done. I know there are plenty of bad Israelis, especially the politicians, but no one ever can point to a situation where Jews celebrated the death, let alone mutilation, of innocent children.

My husband was surprised when I said, “I’m done,” saying, yeah, I was done on October 8, 2023. I feel guilty for not being more vocal. I feel guilty for letting that remark slide. It’s eating me up inside and I thought about saying something, but by now it would sound like picking a fight. I feel guilty for the intergenerational trauma that makes my lizard-brain freak out whenever anyone does something to indicate they are Jewish.

Also, I was doing really well for a few weeks and then this happened and my mental health (and productivity) have been shit for 2 weeks. I don’t know how to fix this, but I’m hoping posting about it will help.

Last night I dreamt I was part of a group staging commercials? I worked on several productions, but the one that made me wake up was the one where we had a farm boy as one of the actors and he was covered in insects and he kept coming over to touch me and I kept freaking out about the decontamination I’d require before I could go home to my kids.

When I woke up I thought about all the dreams I’ve had about insects and my secret fear that I’ve observed a sign of infestation that hasn’t reached my conscious brain yet. I realized that it could also be the inter generational trauma of city dwellers in a Third World country.

Now that I’m writing about it, I know it’s a displaced disgust reaction *sigh*

I have never been so thrilled to put a year in my rear view mirror. Hooboy did 2023 suck:

• I started the year with a mystery ailment that crippled me and had major surgery;
• my baby was in the hospital for 2 weeks (story to be shared someday);
• I worked until the wee hours multiple days a week for months trying to keep my boss from firing me;
• learned about how both nature and nurture combined to disable me;
• and then got sick and injured as a result of all that for the last 2 months of the year.
• My relationship with my mother deteriorated.
• Destination Thanksgiving was not as bad as expected, but it was not good either.

There were good parts.

• I went on the trip of a lifetime to London and Paris with my mother and son, where we went to all the history and museums around his interests, which was fantastic because he is mini-me. (His favorite was the Conciergerie.)
• 3 of my fellow granddaughters (including my sister) had babies this year and another announced her pregnancy.
• Our family vacation to western Florida was not really one of the better parts of the year, what with cruising during a hurricane on a less than ideal ship, but we met my new nephew.
• Skiing after Christmas was superb in unexpected ways - Jon and Lexan both got better at skiing from 1.5 weeks of skiing; Sherlock learned to ski, from first lesson to skiing intermediates that scared his father at the beginning of the trip; and I finally got through my injury and got to ski fast. (Third Christmas in a row where there were impediments to my skiing!) The family time was amazing, spending almost a week staying with my brother and his family, getting to know them the way you can't in just family holidays. Truly a wonderful end to the year.

The best parts of the year were my family. Jon was an absolute rock through all of this, truly the best partner a person can have. Being with him makes everything better, because of his kindness, generosity, humor, and good nature. I don't like much about parenting, but watching my kids grow and gain abilities is amazing. Sherlock is a sweetheart, but also more strongwilled than a Ferengi. Lexan is loud about how bad his year was, but is growing up to be such a wonderful companion.

It was not a good year for reading. I read 35 books, of which only 5 were nonfiction, which at least is above 10%? but 1 was a graphic novel for kids and 2 were memoirs. Best books of the year is hard to say:

• I liked Leah Carroll's Down City,
• I'd never read Robert Harris' Pompeii and I wish he had other books I'd like, although there was one scene of nightmare fuel and it doesn't even involve the volcano,
• I'm glad I randomly came across The Queen's Bargain at the library, although I have a lot of Thoughts about it,
• I'm glad the founding of Valdemar trilogy is done, because how does a writer write that many books but they get worse over time??
• Rick Riordan on the other hand gets better and better, even while still writing middle-grade-accessible books, and
• this is from 2022, strictly speaking, but I read it after my last day of work that year and anyway, did you know there's an autistic character in The Other Miss Bridgerton?

I can't remember what my resolutions were for 2023 - it's been 3 years since I wrote a New Year's post. whoops.

For 2024, I am focusing on incrementalism - how to get a little better every day because compounding. I understand it intellectually, but I suck at things that require consistent effort. I'm trying to get there through measuring the little things, but also better routines, creating rituals, driving simplicity/fewer decisions.

I'm also aiming to read one quality book per quarter (I have a list!) and of course, journaling more.

"Kids get sick," is what Nurse Craig and my husband always tell me, but March-May was a lot. I wasn't even back to work yet before I had to take both boys to urgent care, one for an earache and the other for stomach problems. Sherlock missed a day of school for that, then a few more in mid-April for a slight fever. At the end of April, I got the text at work about how he looks tired and has a 100F fever, would I please pick him up? ( We eventually went to the hospital ) When we got there, we were met by pediatric and surgical residents, who told us he had appendicitis, but the standard of care no longer assumed surgery. He'd be there for monitoring and then they'd re-evaluate. Meanwhile, my 4yo was still NPO. He begged me for something eat, having kept nothing down in the last 24 hours. At bedtime, the aide brought me those damp sponges for cleaning the mouth. My clever little monkey insisted he needed to be thorough and sucked on several.

Around midnight, long after I'd gone to bed, a young man came to the room to ask me to sign paperwork. I asked him what for. "For the surgery." What surgery? I don't know, I'm a surgical resident, please fill out the paperwork. We went back and forth and finally he offered to call the surgeon. "Absolutely not. If there is ANY possibility he is operating on my son tomorrow, you let him sleep."

We were up at six for "vitals" and waited hours for rounds. I do not miss all the time I spent sneaking out of the hospital room to get breakfast in the hall so that I didn't upset my ailing child. The surgeon trooped in with his entourage and halely explained my son's appendix was like a rotten banana, that was falling apart and had to be removed ASAP before it spewed infection. HE explained they'd been trying to get my son in yesterday, but he got to the hospital so late *facepalm* He was scheduled for a 1pm surgery but they'd try to get him in sooner.

They did not. Still NPO, but at least the end was in sight. (HAHAHAHAsob) A nice lady came in and asked what he liked, explaining that while he was in a surgical floor, not a kids floor, they would bring him toys. I knew the tv and ordering system from my own stay *sob* and we watched a lot of cartoons. Eventually his turn came.

The surgeon came out and told us they'd gotten the rotten banana, he should be good to go in a day or two. That's what I heard any way, but apparently he also said something about how sometimes there are complications. I'd say I wish I'd listened more closely, but they were going to explain it all again over the next few days anyway. Sherlock woke in the post-op room just long enough to eat an ice pop with a slight smile. They wheeled us into a corner room on a children's floor, with an enormous tv and wraparound windows with an expansive view of the horizon. it was larger than my first apartment and the shades were certainly fancier.

The constant stream of medical folks - pediatric and surgical - tracked his output. We measured his pee and my champion pooper suddenly couldn't make a movement. He wasn't very hungry. His abdomen was harder and more painful than it had been presurgery. The nurses and doctors intently asked if he'd passed any gas. Nada.

Friday afternoon, a surgical resident came in and explained he had an ileus, a common complication of appendix surgery. He explained that sometimes the GI fails to reboot after surgery and then it gets stuffed and then it can't reboot. Given that it was Friday afternoon, he suggested we put in a tube to drain things, but it would have to go through his nose and he'd once more be NPO. ( No fun for anyone ) He was so mad.

Jon arrived an hour later, after the commotion was all over, to relieve me. I'd been there 2 nights, it was time to see my other son. I took him to the school play and to synagogue and then some nice folks took him for a play date so I could go back to the hospital. I think this is when the HVAC unit in the boys' room leaked and flooded their room, which we only discovered when the neighbors banged on our door at 2am. I was so tired-stupid, I couldn't figure out how to dry the floor until they helped. Great neighbors.

( Gross details )

The doctors came back to explain that sometimes an abscess will form after surgery, so he'd need a CT scan. I texted Nurse Craig to ask how many CT scans is too much for a 4yo. He got it and they found our little overachiever had TWO abscesses - neither of which they could do anything about. They got permission to put him on the superantibiotics. He was still poorly. ( Distractions ) I went to the hospital on Mother's Day, where my mother had spent the night to give us a break. She proudly showed me how she'd coaxed him to eat bacon and he eagerly gave me a plant in a DIY pot. We celebrated Mother's Day with my brother. A day or two later, Sherlock came home.

He was home two weeks when he had another fever. ( How we ended up in the same hospital again )

Before going to our in person doctor, we'd called the surgical team, but they never got back to us. The pediatricians and surgical team were not happy to see us. They ran lots of tests, reluctantly put him on IV tylenol. They couldn't find anything wrong so they... sent us home. We took a car to where my family had gathered for Memorial Day, cussing medical mysteries.

Epilogue: We still don't know what was wrong with him the second time - he's had a few low fevers since then - and haven't had the energy to get the genetic testing to find out if maybe it's an Ashkenazi thing.

Part One

I came to the pain specialist's office one day and discovered that he was not available, so they'd booked me with a young woman. The pain specialist's office was particularly annoying because the physician's assistant ( sucked )

The doctor listened carefully and suggested it might be referred pain from my spine. Which sounded crazy - I had chest pain, how could that be my spine?? She showed me her spinal model and suggested an MRI, but that seemed like a lot. So she suggested a different prescription NSAID, we discussed how I could drink during the holidays on that med, and she sent me off for a few weeks. I went skiing with the family - which was an epic story on many levels - slept in a really uncomfortable chair at the motel in Vermont, and got to a point where I couldn't take it any more. The doctor's office wouldn't write a script for the MRI, so I had to wait for another appointment.

I had the MRI on Monday night, January 23. I'd been reading medical notes and test results (on 4 different portals!) for 5 months, so I was pretty excited to see the radiologist's report available Tuesday night. I was terrified they'd find nothing - I would be so lost, with literally no idea what to do or who to see. Then I read the report, Googled, read it again, and pushed it away, because nothing I read was really explaining what a such-and-such cm mass in my spine meant. There was also something about multiple herniated discs. Whatever this was, it was not nothing.

I tried to distract myself for the 3 days it would take to see the pain specialist again. When I finally got to her office on Friday, I was such a basket case that I asked her if I could borrow a pen and a pad, because I lacked the dexterity to type into my phone as usual. She seemed distracted, texting and trying to get someone on the phone, and I was annoyed by this. She gave me the pad with a sympathetic look and said she couldn't treat me any more. I had a mass on my spine, what she believed was a meningioma and this was way out of her specialty. She was trying to call a neurosurgeon at NYU that was well-regarded by her more senior colleagues to facilitate an appointment ASAP. She couldn't do anything to treat me any more, not even a trigger point injection.

Thank goodness the surgeon's office got me in the following Weds. I saw 2 different staff members who took histories - but refused to look at my carefully written page and a half of notes of my symptoms, tests, and treatments. Then the very pretty (and knowledgable) physician's assistant asked if I had any neurological symptoms, if I was peeing myself. I was horrified. She also did that stereotypical thump on my knee, pursed her lips, and said that my reaction was delayed. She also had no interest in my pages of notes.

The doctor told me bluntly that I have a schwannoma, that the textbook symptom is inability to tolerate lying flat. It was a mass that had been growing in my spine for many years. Its sausage-y shape meant it was 90% unlikely to be cancerous, but it was compressing my spine. In the waiting room I'd heard he was scheduling surgeries in 6-8 weeks, but he wanted me to get surgery the following week, that I could not wait because the longer I waited, the more complicated it would be to operate, increasing the risk, and within months I would be paralyzed. My careful page-and-a-half of notes was useless and the cough was a distraction - I had had pain because when one coughs, the cerebrospinal fluid gets jostled and the pain was when it was not in the right place. The good news was, 12 weeks after the surgery I could go play tennis if I wanted and he even told me I could travel a month after surgery, if I needed. He also asked me if I was peeing myself.

Jon and I went for drinks and snacks after the appointment. We took the subway home together - and I noticed that I was actually using the railing and had been for months. Oh shit...

To be continued…

It all started with a cough.

Just before we came home from our summer vacation in Florida, my sister and I developed a little sore throat and a cough. We never tested positive for you-know-what and my sister’s cough went away after a few days. I spent the whole month of July coughing, only getting rid of it with careful application of benzonatate and Mucinex. Then in August, I would cough maybe once a day - and it would hurt like hell in one particular spot on my right side, like someone was driving a stake through my chest. Then it would hurt when I sneezed or laughed (a very likely thing when you live with Jon). By September, it started hurting not just when I coughed or sneezed and Jon asked, “Shouldn’t you see someone about this?”

On September 17, I saw a nurse practitioner on telemedicine, who seemed like a lovely diagnostician but sent me to an urgent care because she couldn’t listen to my lungs or take a chest x-ray over the internet. The urgent care doctor gave me an inhaler, 5 days of prednisone, and creepy vibes. I was facilitating a 2 hour meeting at work when I started having trouble breathing. Talking to THAT impatient, telemedicine doctor made me realize I couldn’t breathe because I hadn’t taken Advil. Yikes.

I saw two pulmonologists. The bad one put me on a very expensive COPD drug and ordered all the tests. It was like being treated by Henry Higgins though - he never explained why I needed an allergy test, a cardio lung function test, and an EKG and ultrasound of my heart. I assume he was ruling out long Covid. He also wrote prescriptions for physical therapy and a pain specialist.

I had never heard of pain specialist doctors before. My original one reviewed what was now a page full of symptoms and treatments and offered a trigger point injections on the bad spot. It was incredible. For 2 weeks, I had no pain and everything was fine. Jon and I spent a boozy weekend in Sonoma and I looked forward to moving on with my life, to really concentrating on my new job and the exciting things going on.

The pain came back. I was waking in pain every morning, so I started sleeping in a recliner all night. Jon suggested I switch to Aleve at night, so I could sleep for more than 6 hours. The pain specialist suggested rotating which NSAIDs I was taking, to reduce damage to my kidneys, and wrote more prescriptions. I saw a good pulmonologist, who told me if trigger point injections help, it’s not a lung thing, but gave me a different steroid inhaler in case it helped.

I had made an appointment with my PT even before seeing the pulmonologist, but thought if it was a respiratory issue, it wouldn’t help. WRONG. My PT gave me all sorts of exercises - mostly variations of cat-cow - that helped on the margin, but I could tell it wasn’t going to fix the issue. He was stumped too and even carefully suggested maybe I had two different issues and that was why the problem was so intractable?

I tried acupuncture with a little old lady in Chinatown. She examined my tongue, said something about “woman hormones”, and stuck 2 dozen needles in my feet, arms, and ears. It helped the first time and the second time, the hour on my back was torture and I never went back.

I was so lost.

To be continued…

1) The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett (electronic)
2) The Wife Upstairs, Rachel Hawkins (electronic)
3) Pbzznaq Zr, Geneva Lee (electronic)
4) Jvaare, Harley Slate (electronic)
5) Blood of a Gladiator, Ashley Gardner (electronic)
6) Surrey SFS, Nicola Davidson (electronic)
7) The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics, Olivia Waite (electronic)
8) The Lawrence Browne Affair, Cat Sebastian (electronic)
9) Past Crimes, Ashley Gardner (electronic)
10) The Glass House, Ashley Gardner (electronic)
11) Bombshells, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
12) Nimisha's Ship, Anne McCaffrey (electronic)
13) Gnxvat Gheaf, J A Huss (electronic)
14) Unmasked by the Marquess, Cat Sebastian (electronic)
15) A Gladiator's Tale, Ashley Gardner (electronic)
16) The Conjurer, Luanne G. Smith (electronic)
17) Rookie Move, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
18) Hard Hitter, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
19) Pipe Dreams, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
20) Guerr-Jnl Fcyvg, Elia Winters (electronic)
21) Whfg Cnfg Gjb, Elia Winters (electronic)
22) Magic Tree House Super Edition #1: World at War 1944, Mary Pope Osborne (electronic)
23) Bellweather Rhapsody, Kate Racculia (electronic)
24) Combustion, Elia Winters (electronic)
25) The Heiress, Molly Greeley (electronic)
26) One Last Stop, Casey McQuiston (electronic)
27) When Stars Collide Susan Elizabeth Phillips (electronic)
28) Don't Feed the Trolls, Erica Kudisch (electronic)
29) Death Below Stairs, Jennifer Ashley (electronic)
30) Science Comics: Skyscrapers, The Height of Engineering, John Kerschbaum
31) Jolene, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
32) Scandal Above Stairs, Jennifer Ashley (electronic)
33) Beyond, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
34) The Bright and Breaking Sea, Chloe Neill (electronic)
35) The Governess Game, Tessa Dare (electronic)
36) Bepuvq Pyho: Cnevf, Lila Davis (electronic)
37) The Echo Wife, Sarah Gailey (electronic)
38) What Abigail Did That Summer, Ben Aaronovitch (audiobook)
Didn't finish: The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T. Sutherland, Razorblade Tears by S. A. Crosby (recommended by Stephen King!), Pbzvat Hc sbe Nve by Amanda Meuwisset
39) Peace Talks, Jim Butcher
40) The Book of Magic, Alice Hoffman (electronic)
41) Death in Kew Gardens, Jennifer Ashley (electronic)
42) The Deal, Elle Kennedy (electronic)
43) Loverboy, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
44) Heroes in Training: Hyperion and the Great Balls of Fire, Joan Holub
45) Dangerous Secrets: The Story of Iduna and Agnarr, Mari Mancusi (electronic)
46) This Poison Heart, Kalynn Bayron (electronic)
47) The Ex Hex, Erin Sterling (electronic)
48) Payback's a Witch, Lana Harper (electronic)
49) Olympus, Texas, Stacey Swann (electronic)

##

Sarah Lyall: ... as if the book were written specifically to help a lost prince heal his psychic wounds. 6/11/2021

A. O Scott: We aren’t so much addicted to screens as indentured to them, paying back whatever convenience, knowledge or pleasure they provide with our time and our consciousness. The screen doesn’t care what we are looking at, as long as our eyes are engaged and our data can be harvested. -7/15/21

Anatol Lieven: For all the real effort they made in Afghanistan, most NATO countries involved might as well have performed national dances at US presidential inaugurations to display their allegiance and amuse their imperial protectors. -8/27/21

Florence H. R. Scott: What we DO know is that she became an abbess through the virtue of her daddy, a king, building and giving her her own monastery. So if Mogg thinks saintly virtue and nepotism are the same thing, well I'm not at all surprised. So what we've got here is an emaciated sentient balustrade evoking the medieval Ivanka Trump for the purposes of a veiled (get it) nationalism when discussing corruption. Why? I have no idea. -12/13/21

Agnes Crawford: Like Johnson, Rees-Mogg wears his learning very heavily, but there seems to be little of substance below the bluster. -12/13/21

Nayland Blake: Think King Midas but everything he touches turns digital and he can no longer touch it. -12/16/21

Nayland Blake: In a terrain mined with snares for our attention and concern, where can we rest and do the work we need? -12/29/21

1) The Vine Witch, Luanne G. Smith (electronic)
2) Rivers of London, vol 6: Water Weed, Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel, Lee Sullivan, Luis Guerrero
3) Brooklynaire, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
4) Warprize, Elizabeth Vaughan (electronic)
5) Superfan, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
6) Moonlighter, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
7) White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
8) A Study in Sable, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
9) A Scandal in Battersea, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
10) The Bartered Brides, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
11) Fhozvggvat gb gur Znedhrff, E. M. Brown (electronic)
12) Fhozvggvat sbe Puevfgznf, E. M. Brown (electronic)
13) The Wizard of London, Mercedes Lackey (electronic, re-read?)
14) Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (electronic)
15) Once Upon a Time, Alessandra Hazard (electronic)
16) Top Secret, Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy (electronic)
17) False Value, Ben Aaronovitch (electronic)
18) Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian (electronic, re-read)
19) Beach Read, Emily Henry (electronic)
20) Dance Away with Me, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (electronic)
21) Inside Jobs, Ben H. Winters (audiobook)
22) Ynql va Erq, Zry Grfupb (electronic)
23) The Ickabog, J. K. Rowling (electronic)
24) The Glamourist, Luanne G. Smith (electronic)
25) The Duke I Tempted, Scarlett Peckham (electronic)
26) The Kiss Quotient, Helen Hoang (electronic)
27) Overnight Sensation, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
28) Hanover Square Affair, Ashley Gardner (electronic)
29) The Beast of Beswick, Amalie Howard (electronic)
30) The Earl I Ruined, Scarlett Peckham (electronic)
31) The Lord I Left, Scarlett Peckham (electronic)
32) The Duchess Deal, Tessa Dare (electronic)
33) Tales from the Folly, Ben Aaronovitch (electronic)
34) A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby, Vanessa Riley (electronic)
35) The Red Tent, Anita Diamant (electronic)
36) Sure Shot, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
37) Beauty's Kingdom, A. N. Roquelaure (electronic)
38) The Rakess, Scarlett Peckham (electronic)
39) Magic Lessons, Alice Hoffman (electronic)
40) Magic Lessons, Alice Hoffman (electronic, re-read)
41) Would I Lie to the Duke, Eva Leigh (electronic)
42) Fheeraqre gb Fva, Nicola Davidson (electronic)
43) Gur Qrivy'f Fhozvffvba, Nicola Davidson (electronic)
44) Spin the Dawn, Elizabeth Lim (electronic)
45) The October Man, Ben Aaronovitch (audiobook)
46) Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans, Brian Kilmeade, Don Yeager (audiobook)
47) Obhaq gb or n Tebbz, Megan Mulry (electronic)
48) Poison or Protect, Gail Carriger (electronic)
49) Obhaq gb or n Tebbz, Megan Mulry (electronic)
50) Gur Qrivy'f Fhozvffvba, Nicola Davidson (electronic, re-read)
51) The Art of Three, Erin McRae, Racheline Maltese (electronic)
52) Ready Player Two, Ernest Cline (electronic)
53) A Queen from the North, Erin McRae, Racheline Maltese (electronic)
54) The Art of Leaving, Ayelet Tsabari (electronic)
55) Tentacle, Rita Indiana (electronic)

##

Jacob Falkovich: Romance is the most complex and rewarding multi-player game that humanity has invented. -1/13/20

David Fahrenthold: The Trump Hotel was a Petri dish for bad ideas. -1/16/20

Michael Kimmelman: the coronavirus undermines our most basic ideas about community and, in particular, urban life... cities also grew, less tangibly, out of deeply human social and spiritual needs. The very notion of streets, shared housing and public spaces stemmed from and fostered a kind of collective affirmation, a sense that people are all in this together. Pandemics prey on this relentlessly. They are anti-urban. -3/17/20

Newsha Tavakolian: The fear is everywhere. Fear of death, fear of the future. Fear of a terrible year ahead. My past year has already been terrible. Like now with coronavirus, life forced me to stop and drop everything. It did so in ways I could’ve never imagined. -3/21/20

Anya Kamenetz: The phone is like a fentanyl lollipop; yes, it's possible to abuse, but our pain, and the massive pain of the world driving us to it, is arguably the real problem. -7/27/20

Megan Mulry: There it was: the realization that she wanted him to be happy. That she did not need to be the sole source of his happiness. That she would revel in his happiness as he reveled in hers.

A few weeks ago, I asked Jon if he thought we had Corona virus. "How could we tell, given that we've been sick all year?" We came back from our Christmas vacation with a cold that hit Jon so bad, he thought it might be flu. When we retrieved the baby from Grandma's, he brought back Coxsackie virus. Jon woke me up at 4:20 am on the Tuesday after MLK to say that he was having chest pains and going to the ER. It turned out he had pericarditis from all the coughing he'd been doing that month, so they kept him in the hospital for 3 nights. I kept things running at home, thanks to the babysitter, and visited him every day.

He and Lucky were scheduled to go to Joshua Tree for midwinter recess and they did, with perhaps slightly less hiking than planned. That's a pretty good recovery.

I never got so sick I had to miss work during all this, but I did work from home twice. I started doing daily work on Corona virus in late January, and wondered if I had a cold and suggestibility. I didn't feel great on Monday, March 9, but it was mostly the sniffles, so I dragged myself to work because I had an in-person only lunch meeting. As I was dressing for work, I told Jon, "They better have this meeting, because otherwise I'd work from home." As I arrived at my work subway stop, I got a company-wide memo stating we could no longer have meetings over 25 people -- they cancelled before I finished my breakfast. Grr.

That was the last time I went to the office. I really wish I'd brought my good headset home.

I was sniffly all week and when I coughed, people gave me dirty looks, which was my excuse for staying home. The baby had a well-child visit to the doctor, who looked at his goopy eyes and prescribed an antibiotic ointment; looked at his leg rash and suggested Cerave; and noted that his lymph nodes were a little swollen, maybe he has cold?

Lexan was coughing at night and so droopy, he was willing to go to bed early. He never had a fever though, unlike the baby. ( who had a 103F fever Thursday night/Friday morning, but got all better ) 5 hours later, he finished his nap and was his smiley, giggly self again, baruch hashem.

I date Thursday night as the beginning of our isolation. We stayed in all weekend because no one was quite up to going to synagogue or our usual museum-ing. Jon had aches and pains and my siblings implored me to take care of him, due to his high risk and advanced age. (He's almost 2 decades older than my baby brother and we have better proof than most of the health of his heart.)

Earlier in the month, I'd heard that Decoy, the restaurant that supposedly has the best Peking duck in the city, had reservations available, so we got one for our anniversary. The city announced all bars and restaurants would be closed the next day, then they moved it up to the day of our anniversary. The restaurant offered us takeout, which we ended up doing, and it was so good, I hope it's still around for a dine-in meal. (We didn't try to get the foie gras and strawberries, shaped like a duck.)

We were supposed to leave for Florida, for Lexan's spring break, on Tuesday with my mother, but cancelled because she has my grandfather living with her (and is incapable of recognizing the danger to him). It was the right decision, but we really needed the break (and the vitamin D).

A day or two later, my chest was bothering me, like a cold was settling into my lungs. It's stayed like that for several days, despite my almost regularly taking Cold Eez. My body told me I needed humidity, so we got that going, and I've been walking around in a scarf and fleece when it was in the 70s.

I have no idea what this all adds up to, and I probably never will.

1) Lies Sleeping, Ben Aaronovitch
2) American Nations, Colin Woodard (electronic)
3) Fhcreyngvir Fcrphyngvir Rebgvpn, ed. Cecilia Tan, Bethany Zaiatz (electronic)
4) Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome (abridged, audiobook)
5) Provence, 1970: M. F. K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste, Luke Barr (electronic)
6) White Noise, Don DeLillo (electronic)
7) Algorithms to Live By, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths (electronic)
8) Daughters of the Night Sky, Aimie K. Runyan (electronic)
9) American Street, Ibi Zoboi (electronic)
10) Brain Rules for Baby, John Medina (re-read, electronic)
11) Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Kritzler (electronic)
12) My Lady's Choosing, Kitty Curran, Larissa Zageris (electronic)
13) The Swamp Fox, John Oller (electronic)
14) Garlic and Sapphires, Ruth Reichl (electronic)
15) South of Broad, Pat Conroy (electronic)
16) Super Con, James Swain (electronic)
17) The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (electronic)
18) And a Bottle of Rum, Wayne Curtis (electronic)
19) The City of Brass, S. A. Chakraborty (electronic)
20) The Kingdom of Copper, S. A. Chakraborty (electronic)
21) Liquor, Poppy Z. Brite (electronic, re-read)
22) Good Man Friday, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
23) The Flowers of Vashnoi, Lois McMaster Bujold (audiobook)
24) Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold (re-read, electronic)
25) Fvera Pnyy, Phoebe Alexander (electronic)
26) Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel, Tom Wainwright
27) Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, Fuchsia Dunlop (electronic)
28) The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor (electronic)
29) Cribsheet, Emily Oster (electronic)
30) Red, White, and Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston (electronic)
31) Quietly in Their Sleep, Donna Leon (electronic)
32) Orphan X, Gregg Hurwitz (electronic)
33) A Noble Radiance, Donna Leon (electronic)
34) Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes (electronic)
35) Persuasion, Jane Austen (electronic)
36) Great at Work, Morten T. Hansen (electronic)
37) The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, Steve Brusatte (electronic)
38) 97 Orchard, Jane Ziegelman (electronic)
39) Oernxvat gur Tvey, Kim Corum (electronic)
40) Royal Holiday, Jasmine Guillory (electronic)
41) Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey (electronic)

##

Emily Oster: The literature is oddly lacking in discussions of what happens, physically, to the mom after the baby arrives. Before the baby, you’re a vessel to be cherished and protected. After the baby, you’re a lactation-oriented baby accessory.

Emily Oster: Parenting [an infant] is a bit like being the dictator of a small, poorly functioning country.

Lois McMaster Bujold: She'd gone into her silent, highly reserved mode, which Miles had to school himself not to read as unhappy; it might just mean that she was processing too hard to remember to be animated. Fortunately, the ivory-carved expression also simulated aristocratic poise.

Shira: What if I made the radical choice not to worry?