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COVID-19: Thursday, April 16

It’s a pretty day, but chilly.

Unemployment numbers are released: 5.2 million more unemployed, 22 million total.

Cuomo announces our stay-in-place orders are extended until May 15. De Blasio announces budget cuts. Public pools will not be open this summer. Composting is cancelled.

I go for a run in the afternoon, even though I don’t want to. I’m tired. I run through the park—a route I’ve run hundreds of times—but since it’s been a couple weeks it seems like ages. There are people, more so than my runs through the city. Lots of people on the street and a few people on the grass. I take a break to look over the lake, the light is pretty. People shout at one another: a quiet conversation cannot be had between two people six feet apart and wearing masks.

COVID-19: Wednesday, April 15

It’s overcast.

I read in the New York Times that some doctors say six feet might not be enough distancing because a sneeze can project more than that—a 3D simulation provides illustration. I think to myself that just because the virus is novel we shouldn’t give up on sneezing into our elbows. I’m really growing tired of this.

Sam defrosts a chicken on the kitchen counter. I think to myself: coronavirus probably won't kill us but salmonella might.

The building across the street catches fire. Apartment 7M, to be precise, I hear the fireman outside my window say. Flames pour over the balcony and flumes of black smoke catch the downdraft and blow down Lafayette as everything in the apartment burns. I stop counting after the twelfth fire truck arrives. The smell of an apartment on fire is not the smell of a barbecue.

The neighborhood gathers to watch, to take pictures. I see somebody in 11M lean over his balcony to take pictures. I’m amazed by the modern firewall; only the adjacent apartments have been evacuated. I hope everybody is okay, but then I wonder where they are if not home, quarantined, and ostensibly present to attend to whatever might suddenly catch fire.

By this point there must be 50 firefighters or more. They lift a crane and fight the fire from outside; invisible to me are the firefighters on the inside containing the fire from the opposite end. They extinguish the fire, the flames stop, the smoke stops. The smell lingers. I watch the soaked and burned remains of the apartment thrown from the balcony. A once-yellow sofa falls seven stories to the driveway below.

I go to the grocery store. The familiar keys-phone-wallet jingle is appended with “mask”, which now conveniently hangs from the key hook next to the door.

I make a sweet potato muffin recipe that Alana sent me. It’s a Goop recipe, and only after I’ve substituted most everything for something else—instead of olive oil I use butter; and instead of almond milk I use coconut milk; and instead of gluten-free flour I use all purpose flour; instead of xylitol I use cane sugar—and add an egg do I realize it’s meant to be vegan. The flavor is nice, but it has the texture of styrofoam, which happens when you try to fake bread by using a lot of baking powder and baking soda.

COVID-19: April 14

Blue skies, but chilly.

When I’m tired of reading about coronavirus I read about New York, and I read E.B. White’s Here Is New York: “The city makes up for its hazards and its deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin—the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty, and unparalleled."

New York adds 3,700 deaths to the total by counting untested victims who died of coronavirus symptoms.

COVID-19: Monday, April 13

Covid testing closes in some places because of rain and high winds. In the early evening, somewhat suddenly, the skies clear to blue and the sun comes out.

For dinner I make the world’s best hamburger helper: leftover mac n' cheese + leftover doro wat.

I wonder if when this is all over, the population of the city will decrease as people take their telecommute to the suburbs. I think that perhaps those who stay will invigorate the city with a newfound love for place built from perseverance and a knowing that at its worst New York is still the best city in the world. Perhaps that energy will outweigh the loss of people who weren’t really committed anyway. And perhaps a good real estate deal or two will come out of it.

COVID-19: Sunday, April 12

Easter.

I read an article from the February issue of 1843 about headphone use in public spaces: "Headphones have destroyed our sense of common purpose,” the author writes. "A bedlam of babble in a handful of headphones.” Now, I read everything in the context of a global emergency: if we can’t be together together, how can we be alone together.

I run to Times Square. I leave my house and run my normal route to and across the Manhattan Bridge. I run a few blocks down Canal to Broadway, where I turn right and head north. Broadway will take me all the way to Times Square where it meets 7th Avenue and a whole mess of other things. It's an arterial avenue that cuts through the city from bottom to top.

I run through SoHo, which is empty. SoHo hasn’t been a “cool” neighborhood for a long time, but it’s still popular with tourists. It’s also the closest neighborhood when I need something from a big brand like CB2 or Uniqlo and don’t want to pay for shipping or wait a few days for it to arrive.

I pause at Houston because I’ve always paused at Houston. There’s little traffic so I could cross, but it seems safer to wait for the signal. “Look both ways before crossing, even when crossing a one-way street.” Advice given to incoming freshman at NYU—patronizing and comical, but useful because bikes and assholes don’t always follow the traffic rules.

I get the signal to cross, and I cross to the median where I pause once more. Out of habit I wait for any cars turning onto Houston, not paying attention to pedestrians, but there aren’t any. Everybody has different criteria for “when you become a New Yorker.” For me it was the first time I didn’t hesitate to yell at a driver turning into me as I crossed the street: “Fuck you! I’m crossing here!"

I didn’t live in New York on September 11th—I was a sophomore in high school in suburban Indiana—but I’d read accounts of New Yorkers in the days after who came out into the streets for no other reason than to be with other people, to commiserate and to mourn. Union Square was one place where they'd congregate, not only because it was a public space but because it was the largest and closest public space to the World Trade Center not cordoned off by the NYPD.

When I approach Union Square I slow down to keep my distance from others, mostly people coming out of the Whole Foods. I cross 14th Street into the park and most of the people there are homeless men, sitting on park benches with no place to go.

On the north side of Union Square I run past a bucket drummer, a nuisance in normal times but now a sort-of beacon in a sea of silence. I can hear him all the way past 19th Street three blocks away, and if there wasn’t a light breeze I could probably hear him for another few blocks.

Between 22nd and 23rd the sidewalk widens. There is plenty of space, but I run into the street to keep as much distance from others as I can. As I pass between two parked cars I lock eyes with an Asian woman who, behind a mask, looks at me as though she’s caught her pre-teen son out with friends instead of staying home to study for the PSAT: disappointment mixed with anger.

Continuing up Broadway I skirt between the Flatiron Building and Madison Square Park. Broadway between Flatiron and the ACE Hotel is an interesting mix of Yuppie District—sweetgreen, Milk Bar, Opening Ceremony—and the 28th Street Flower and Bargain Districts, but everything is closed. I run past a homeless man huddled next to an access ramp and think about white flight. In the 50s and 60s we fled to the suburbs. Today we've fled to our apartments.

I run through Herald Square and notice that the garbage cans outside Macy’s are empty. Garbage cans in Manhattan are never empty; they’re almost always overflowing with the detritus of petty consumerism: plastic Starbucks iced coffee cups, Chick-fil-A sauce, Hop-On Hop-Off bus maps.

I think about one of my favorite bars in the city, it’s nearby: Keens is one of New York’s oldest steakhouses, but if you’re not eating there—which I’ve only done twice—you can still order a drink at the bar, and they mix a good Manhattan.

I continue up Broadway and run past security personnel guarding empty office buildings and police officers patrolling empty public spaces. I make it to Times Square, and I think to myself: there are too many people here. There aren’t many people, but it still seems like too many.

I read the displays. Disney says: “Thank you to all the healthcare workers and first responders around the world / We are grateful for you.” T-Mobile says: “Please practice social distancing.” American Eagle says: “We are in this together. We are stronger together.” Clear Media says: “Not all superheroes wear capes.” Sephora says: “To all the healthcare, emergency, and social workers: \ You have our immense gratitude \ Thank you. \ We belong to something beautiful.” Green Giant says: “To all on the frontlines, you are the true giants.” Below the ball-drop is an impressive four-piece vertical public service display: “PL \ EA \ SE \ Practice \ social \ distancing \ & help \ save \ lives. \ cdc.gov/covid19 \ Prevent the spread of germs \ Please \ Stay \ Home \ When \ You \ Are \ Sick \ Prevent the spread of germs \ cdc.gov/covid19.” Amazon advertises a new album from The Strokes called The New Normal. #nystrong

What isn’t missing from Times Square is the guy who walks around carrying an “end is near” sign: “Because of sin Noah’s ark was built. No one believed him. Flood came—they perished. End is near. Judgement day is coming. Repent today. Confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. Only way to heaven.” That he isn't at whatever off-brand church he belongs to on Easter makes his message a bit less convincing.

I think about another one of my favorite bars in the city: Jimmy’s Corner, an old-school bar with boxing memorabilia covering the walls. You’d think in a place like Times Square it was actually owned by Yum! Brands or something, but you can find Jimmy there most nights.

I leave Times Square and run east on 42nd Street. Bryant Park is utterly empty. No homeless men, no vagabonds. Nobody except me and a park employee tending to the garbage cans, replacing one empty bag with another.

The emptiness isn’t surprising, but I should explain why. Since its inception the Bryant Park Corporation has been particularly aggressive in keeping out undesirables. First by removing park benches and adding metal tables and chairs. William H. Whyte, an urbanist in the 1970s, championed them as giving park users a semblance of agency in public space without actually providing it.

More importantly, removing park benches eliminated a surface on which homeless people could sleep. Over time, more and more features were added: upscale food for sale, movie nights on the lawn in the summer, a skating rink in the winter, Fashion Week. Sharon Zukin describes it as “pacification by cappuccino.”

Urban thinkers and advocates have been asking this question for years: Who’s city is this anyway?

I run a few blocks east to Grand Central. Once inside I don’t break pace as I run down the ramp towards the main concourse. For some reason this doesn’t strike me as unusual until I reach the main concourse. Shocked, I stop and take in the sight of an empty, cavernous space normally brimming with activity: commuters catching a train upstate if they don’t live in the city, the subway if they do; tourists careening their necks up to the ceiling painted with the constellations; me grabbing a drink at The Oyster Bar or Campbell’s Apartment, just because.

I’m lucky that my friends and family haven’t been infected by coronavirus; the hardest thing so far has been weeks of quarantine. I haven’t cried during this pandemic—I’m no “boys don’t cry” kind of boy, but doing so seems like an admission that things won’t resemble “normal” for quite some time. But standing here, taking in the sight of my city hollowing out like this, I tear up.

I turn around and run back home. I run down Madison Avenue to Madison Square Park. I turn left onto 23rd Street and then right onto Park Avenue South. Left onto 18th Street, right onto 3rd Avenue, left onto 12th Street, right onto 2nd Avenue. I cross Houston and take Forsyth to the Manhattan Bridge back to Brooklyn.

Back home I put a bottle of sparkling wine in the freezer, but it doesn’t fit because it’s full of frozen food, so I put it in my oversized ice bucket that once graced the tables and suites at the Waldorf Astoria. I bought it salvage a while back and don’t use it as often as I’d like: it fits two bottles comfortably, but one bottle looks silly, like a kid wearing his dad’s tuxedo jacket. I was hoping it’d be a fixture of backyard barbecues this summer, but that seems unlikely.

For dinner I make Ethiopian food. The doro wat turns out quite well, but the injera that’s been fermenting for a few days is an utter failure. I eat the stew with rice.

COVID-19: Saturday, April 11

It’s sunny, but it’s chilly and breezy.

Jim bikes over and we have coffee—tea for him—on a couple of decorative stone blocks across the street. The original plan was to hang out on my stoop, but the stone blocks are on the sunny side of the street. They installed them when they built the apartment building a few years ago, I guess as consolation for the loss of some mature trees that were sacrificed. I was disappointed when the trees came down, but I was hopeful the developers of 335 would emulate some adequate street-scaping over on Myrtle after a spat of development.

(Actually, I watched in horror as they were dismantled, limb-by-limb, tip-to-trunk. The stumps remained for months after and only came out when the sidewalk was replaced. Where the trees once stood were placed a few stone blocks. In all these years I’d never seen them used, but now there’s often somebody there taking a quick break from quarantine.)

Before coronavirus I’d met a guy on Hinge; we went on a couple dates. We talked about meeting up today. We don’t and the reason I give is that I’m working. “Trying to build up receivables before people stop spending money” is what I tell him. It’s both entirely true and entirely bullshit: the real reason is that although I wouldn’t hesitate to date him in normal times—he’s nice, he’s cute, he has a good job and a dog—a casual hangout nowadays is damn-near a commitment for marriage.

COVID-19: Friday, April 10

It’s a pretty day. The thunderstorm has somewhat cleaned my windows, and I can see clearer. By the afternoon it’s cloudy and windy.

I read an article in The Economist about folktales that tell of geological events from thousands of years ago, which indicates the longevity of these tales. A Native American tribe in Oregon has a tale that’s 7,700 years old and illustrates the eruption of a long-dormant volcano. And in Australia, the article reports, an Aboriginal tale illustrates another eruption, but the last time this occurred was 37,000 years ago.

I make a martini.

For dinner I make macaroni and cheese. The recipe comes from a colleague, an older gentleman, and as the milk and cheese to pasta ratio begins to unfold, I worry about Len’s heart health. Sam has been stewing Jamaican oxtail all day, so his oxtail and my mac n’ cheese makes quite a meal, and I begin to worry about my own heart health.

We watch Dirty Dancing. "That was the summer of 1963—when everybody called me Baby, and it didn't occur to me to mind.”

COVID-19: Thursday, April 9

When I wake up it’s overcast. It rains most of the morning, and in the afternoon a strong but brief thunderstorm comes through.

Another 6.6 million people are reported to have filed for unemployment during the last week. “The economy as a whole has fallen into some sudden black hole,” an economist is quoted as saying.

I make an old fashioned.

For dinner I make guisado del pollo with the pineapple I cut up yesterday. It’s a stew, but it’s a springtime stew, if that makes any sense. A chicken stew for a cool day knowing warmer days are nearby. Tomatoes and pineapple give it a fruit-forward quality, and a squeeze of lime at the end lightens everything up a bit.

I start to think more strategically about my emergency foodstuffs. If I get sick and am out of commission for a week or two, I need fully prepared meals that I can re-heat, rather than frozen stock and other ingredients. Beginning with the guisado I’ll make soups and stews and whatnot, eat half and freeze half, and slowly replace my stocks and broths.

COVID-19: Wednesday, April 8

Today is Passover. Sam and I joke about where we might source lamb’s blood to mark our front door and avoid the plague.

The New York Times reports an uptick in people buying puzzles. I haven’t done a puzzle since I was a kid, and even then it was grandpa who did most of it. Us kids would help with the easy parts and then we’d go off to play with real toys while he finished it.

I begin to think that I might die alone. Not from coronavirus; in a distant future. My oft-repeated joke of always having been prepared for quarantine is less funny, not only because I’ve run out of people to tell it to, but also because I didn’t prepare for this. Most of the things I do to occupy my free time are things I do alone, and have done alone, for as long as I can remember. Even my story above about going off to play with real toys is a half-truth: I was likely going off to play by myself. As everybody is now trying to find activities to fill their time, I continue to juggle the pet projects I’ve been juggling for years.

I find a pick-up wash-and-fold for my laundry. The place I normally use is closed, as is the place I occasionally use. The new place come to collect a month’s worth of dirty laundry.

I make an old fashioned.

Everybody seems to be making bread. “Do you have any good bread recipes?” I’ve been asked several times. “What kind of bread?” I reply, already knowing what the answer will be. Invariably it’s sourdough, and I give the same advice each time: don’t start with sourdough; or baguettes, for that matter. My recommendation—invariably ignored—is to start with ciabatta or focaccia or something else that's easier. Sourdough is difficult.

I take on my own home-fermentation project by making tepache, a Mexican fermented soft-ish drink made from the rind and core of a pineapple, sugar, and water. Left out for a few days it will lightly ferment. As I’m preparing the tepache I wonder how long SARS-COV-2 survives on a pineapple.

While I’m at it I decide to make Ethiopian food in a few days, so I set the stage for injera, a flatbread made from a fermented batter.

I go to bed thinking about microorganisms. I’m one of, I’m sure, thousands of people these days who have found a dark corner in their bedroom or kitchen to leave non-reactive containers filled with all kinds of organic matter, covered with coffee filters or cheesecloth or dish towels, sitting in wait for a few days or a few weeks for microbes in the air to work their magic with the sugars in our varied concoctions. Meanwhile, when we step outside our homes we wrap our faces in scarves, bandanas, or surgical masks.

COVID-19: Tuesday, April 7

In normal times when the weather turns pleasant I switch between my Prospect Park run and my Manhattan Bridge run. It’s nice outside, but also the park has been crowded lately. Today I run the Manhattan Bridge.

I listen to Matt’s new podcast. It’s good—informational yet keeping his signature “no shit there I was” style—but it brings a familiar voice to the stories I’ve been reading in the newspaper.

I leave my apartment and turn left onto Lafayette, turn right onto St. James, left onto Dekalb, right onto Clinton. I’m guided by the signals to walk and make my way towards Flushing, which will give me more-or-less a straight shot to the bridge, running along the Navy Yard

I remember the first time I’d ever been to the Navy Yard many years ago. It was always a curiosity behind a high, guarded wall, filled with mostly-empty buildings, some light industry, and miscellanea. A collective of artists had open studios that a group of friends and I went to, not because we were interested in the art but because we wanted to see the inside of the Navy Yard. We saw some bad art and then climbed several stories to the top of the building for one of Brooklyn's few remaining unobstructed views of the Manhattan skyline.

Fast-forward a few years and there’s now a distillery and a vineyard, wholesale coffee roasters and bakers, and even a client of mine is headquartered there after spending many years in Flatiron. I once arrived for a meeting and was asked to provide extra identification—and to leave early—because Hillary Clinton was speaking there later that night.

There’s a line outside Wegmans grocery store where Admirals Row once was. I turn right onto Navy, I pass the temporarily closed Kings County Distillery bar and turn left onto Sands, which turns into a bike path that leads directly to the Manhattan Bridge pedestrian access ramp.

I cross the Manhattan Bridge, running over Brooklyn Bridge Park and the East River and the FDR. The pedestrian bridge ends at Point #3 of the former Five Points neighborhood at the intersection of Bowery and Canal. Normally I’d turn around and run back home. Normally the sidewalks along Canal would be impenetrable, pedestrians would be shoulder to shoulder and there would be no space to run: tourists buying knock-off Gucci and Louis Vuitton bags; traditional Chinese medicine shops; vegetable stands; fish mongers; and if you look hard enough you can see Little Italy.

But today Manhattan looks like a ghost town. Even a satirical image of plastic-bag-as-tumbleweed fails because New York banned single-use bags five weeks ago, an eternity.

Not to belabor a point, but the near absence of human life on Canal is such an aberration that I am beside myself. Canal is the main east-west artery of Lower Manhattan, linking the Manhattan Bridge—Brooklyn to Manhattan—to the Holland Tunnel—Manhattan to New Jersey. My most recent memory of Canal is not buying soft-shelled crab or cannoli—both of which I’ve done within the last year or so—but rather sitting in traffic at 2 o’clock in the morning and it taking 30 minutes to drive from Baxter to the Manhattan Bridge onramp. A distance that today takes 20 seconds on foot.

I run down Canal and turn left onto Broadway. The streets are empty and the stores are closed, of course, but even restaurants that could technically remain takeout-only are closed because there are few residential buildings. I pass a store called Prime Essentials that sells cheap clothes. It’s closed.

There’s something eerily familiar, but it’s the familiarity of walking through the Financial District on a weekend afternoon in the middle of winter. Not a weekday afternoon on a beautiful spring day. It’s impossibly empty; you can’t not social distance. A particularly cinematic moment is when I run past a restaurant playing Standing Still by Jewel to their nonexistent al fresco diners. Remind me again how long we’ve been self-isolating? God damn you all to hell, I think to myself.

I run past the Woolworth Building and St. Paul’s Chapel. I run past the Stock Exchange and turn towards Battery Park. At the southern tip of Manhattan I pause and look towards the Statue of Liberty in the distance. A few men are fishing nearby. The stockades holding tourists bound for Liberty Island are empty. “Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be—Daniel J Boorstin.” I think to myself there must be literally thousands of quotes better than this one containing the word “freedom."

I turn back towards the Brooklyn Bridge, towards home. I run past the National September 11 Memorial. It’s empty and the trees are dead, but I remember the trees always being dead. I run past the Oculus, our $4 billion Calatrava-designed transit hub, looking like it did in architectural renderings from before it was built: clean, white, no people. The Apple Store is closed. Eataly is closed. Shake Shack is closed. Khiel’s Since 1851 is closed.

I’d planned to be in Manhattan for the evening applause for essential workers, but there isn’t anybody to applaud, so turn back towards Brooklyn. Approaching the Brooklyn Bridge I run past city hall. It’s quiet. As I leave the city I think about congestion pricing: if Manhattan had congestion pricing would the algorithm go haywire and start paying people to drive into the city?

Before home I run to Ft Greene Park. There are six-foot-wide signs in fire-engine red indicating how far to keep distant from one another.

I told my mother that I wouldn’t walk over to Brooklyn Hospital just to see what it’s like, but I do. It’s strangely quiet from the outside. I clap to nobody, but for everybody.

I run home wondering what scams Gwyneth Paltrow has cooked up at Goop.

COVID-19: Monday, April 6

It’s nice outside. Very nice. But I have a long work day and don’t get outside at all.

I order Indian for dinner and make a few Manhattans while I wait.

I call home and talk to Mom and Dad about jam. Cantaloupe jam, specifically. They speak very highly of an out-of-season cantaloupe they’ve been eating, and I tell them about a low-sugar pectin that I use to jam. I hope that the sourdough-bread-making-raise-our-own-chickens trend wears off before canning season begins.

I go to bed thinking about all the spontaneous hugging that will happen once this is all over.

COVID-19: Sunday, April 5

Another pretty day. I walk over to Key Food and think it would be nice to spend some time outdoors. I get my wish. I wait in line for about 20 minutes before I’m let into the grocery store.

More and more people are wearing masks. I wrap my face in a scarf while I’m at the grocery store because that’s where I’m least likely to be able to social distance properly, but I don’t wrap myself up the moment I leave my apartment until the moment I return. I don’t believe SARS-COV-2 is floating around outdoors, especially on a windy day. I understand it’s contagious, but if it’s so hardy that when I sneeze into my elbow it might infect somebody half a block away then we’re all doomed and we’d might as well stop trying.

While waiting in line I wonder if it isn’t actually bad for my health to be so hygienic. Take caution, for sure, but maybe allowing small amounts of SARS-COV-2 into my body for it to process could be a way to slowly develop immunity. I’m thinking about antibacterial soap during normal times, which I don’t use because it kills all germs, including the good ones, and limits my immune system’s ability to stay up-to-date on the latest pathogens.

People at the grocery store are unfriendly, even scared, when you come within a few feet. I give as much patience as I can, but if you’re dallying in front of the eggs and blocking an entire aisle for more than a minute then I’m going to encroach upon your six foot space. A polite “excuse me” is muffled and incoherent and doesn’t go as far as it once did. I hold my breath—literally—and wish us both the best.

Back home I’m sitting at my desk when an ambulance pulls into the driveway of the building across the street. For as long as I can remember—long before coronavirus—this was, and continues to be, a daily occurrence. The building was built in the 1950s and its 327 units are set aside for middle-income residents. Judging by the luxury cars in the parking lot, those middle-income residents have been there for quite some time and are middle-aged or better.

It occurs to me that those ambulance calls are more likely coronavirus cases than heart conditions or old-fashioned loneliness. I live down the street from The Brooklyn Hospital Center, and for years I’ve occasionally put meetings on hold to wait for an ambulance to pass by my window. But today I think about the other end of those calls. Will there be a ventilator available if the patient needs it? Will there even be a bed? Will the nurse who treats them be mentally or physically exhausted? Did they get the Girl Scout cookies that I sent?

COVID-19: Saturday, April 4

It’s a pretty day.

I lay in bed an extra hour because I have no plans and I know none will materialize. I wonder if this is blossoming depression. Maybe it’s quarantennui.

I go for a run and begin social distancing with the walking people painted on the street.

On Thursday I ordered Thai food, and the curry puffs came with a sugary-salty cucumber dipping sauce that I saved because I thought it might make a good cocktail: 2 oz gin + 1 oz lemon juice + 1 oz cucumber dipping sauce. Shake hard and double-strain into a rocks glass. I call it The Paradox of Thrift.

For dinner I cook a Moroccan lamb tagine with tomato and eggplant. The recipe calls for drained tomatoes, and with the leftover tomato water I make another cocktail: 2 oz mezcal + 2 oz tomato water + 1/2 oz Ancho Reyes + a pinch of celery salt. Shake and double strain into a rocks glass, then express the oil from a lemon peel on top. It’s a derivative of a Bloody Mary that I call Vampiros Aztecas.

COVID-19: Friday, April 3

It rains.

The White House officially recommends—but does not require—that people wear face masks when they are out in public. As I read this, by divine comedy somebody walks past my window blasting “Breathe" by Faith Hill from his boombox. He’s wearing a face mask.

I cook potatoes to finish off the last of my shrimp mozambique. Using pork stock I made from a suckling pig I roasted for my birthday last year, I braise new potatoes in the stock, lightly covered so the stock evaporates. After about an hour, the liquid is gone and the potatoes fry in the remaining pork fat.

I read that the Lenox Hill Medical Center in Manhattan temporarily experienced a drop in pressure in its oxygen supply because so many people were connected to it at one time.

5:20 PM. Emergency Alert. Attention all healthcare workers: New York City is seeking licensed healthcare workers to support healthcare facilities in need. Visit NYC.gov/helpnow to volunteer.

7:00 PM. New York cheers for its essential workers.

7:08 PM. The Shabbat warning siren.

7:23 PM. Sunset.

COVID-19: Thursday, April 2

The sun is out and the skies are blue.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases unemployment numbers: three million people filed for unemployment last week. I read about mobile morgues.

In the afternoon I go for a run. There aren’t many people in the park.

I fall asleep thinking about the long term. We’ll be dealing with the ramifications of coronavirus for the rest of our lives: economic, mental, social. What will become of a society afraid of large spaces? Of theaters, museums, sports arenas? There will be no “when this is all over."

COVID-19: Wednesday, April 1

It’s cold but sunny.

The morning scene on the street outside my front window is little different than normal. A Porky truck unloads at The Food Emporium. Cars, buses, and cyclists go by. But the buses are mostly empty. And there are few pedestrians on the sidewalk when normally there would be a steady stream of people walking to the subway.

Rent is due. I’m not one of the unlucky many who can’t pay, but I do take pause like I do every month to consider what I’m actually paying for. Invariably living in an exciting and dynamic city like New York is the reason for such a high price. But now that dynamism is put on hold. New York will not be New York, indefinitely.

I’m victim to a grocery store grift. On Monday I bought apples labeled as Gala, but they were, in fact, Red Delicious, which are inarguably the worst of the apples. I use them in an apple cake.

We’re not supposed to talk politics in the middle of a pandemic, but I make a prediction. The coastal states suffer the worst while the rural middle states sit back and watch the cities burn. Trump gets his shit together just in time for his base to avoid the worst of the disaster. He picks up some adjacent votes and wins the election: an electoral college win while once again losing the popular vote. The coastal states go bat shit crazy.

COVID-19: Tuesday, March 31

It’s overcast and cold.

A survey released by the Pew Research Center shows that roughly nine in ten Americans believe the current restrictions were necessary. I take issue with “were”. I would argue that with proper planning and good leadership most of the worst could have been avoided. Therefore, the restrictions “are" necessary, but possibly “were" not. However, that ship has sailed.

A thought experiment: What if in January Donald Trump had said to the American people: “We’re closely watching the situation in China, and we’ve started to stockpile masks, ventilators, and other equipment just in case. We’ve put together a plan to ramp up hospital capacity, if necessary, but what we need from you is to take extra precautions to stay healthy. Wash your hands, avoid large public gatherings, and, if possible, work from home.”

Thought experiment or pipe dream. Not only does the political situation make that impossible, but Americans’ capacity to consider the public good on a large scale is limited. Why is it that “freedom-loving” and “respect for the public good” are thought of as mutually exclusive concepts? The irony is that freedom-loving Americans are now stuck indoors for the foreseeable future.

In the afternoon I pull a box of Girl Scout cookies out of the garbage bin that safeguards my emergency foodstuff against Mouse. I have a cache of cookies from earlier in the year when Kini was selling them. I bought twenty boxes. I’d planned to give them away to friends, but that’s not going to happen. I’ll eat them all myself.

Jim tells me you can now buy Girl Scout cookies to donate to local health professionals, so I donate five boxes. It’s a nice thought that Girl Scout cookies are considered essential industry.

In an old issue of The Economist I read an article called "Prayer in a pandemic: Closed mosques, shorter sermons, and holy hand sanitizer":

For centuries the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, has been a changeless feature of life in the Arab world. In war or peace, prosperity or famine, the same rhythmic chant echoes across cities and towns five times each day. Midway through comes an exhortation to worship. But on March 13th a muezzin in Kuwait, his voice plainly cracking with emotion, made a small tweak. Instead of “hayya alas-salah” (come to prayer), he told the faithful “as-sa-latu fi buyutikum” (pray in your homes). Words that seemed immutable were no longer such.

I think about the word “indefinitely. “ A couple weeks ago it was in every article about closings, which was nearly every article in the newspaper: restaurants closed indefinitely; tournaments postponed indefinitely. The word was so common that I didn’t give it much thought, but now I do. Oxford defines it as “lasting for an unknown or unstated length of time.” A word with such finality and yet such ambiguity.

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