-Lake Orion, MI 2020 My mind tossed all night like ragweeds caught in a storm, thinking of these words Cut your hair tomorrow what my mother said to me after watching a video where yet...
Jack has a job. It’s the sort of job where he doesn’t get to tell many people what to do or what not to do. Say he’s a travel agent or an insurance claim adjuster or a legal clerk, and he’s probably quite...
In mathematics, the quotient is what you get when you divide one quantity by another. Thus, 3 into 36 yields the quotient 12. In Tracy O’Neill’s vertiginous new novel of information and its discontents...
“Remember Hoping Hospital?” I started my oral training class with a rhetorical question. Silence. The eighteen English majors, even the active speakers, had been quiet since the class began in early March. Due...
the stratosphere is now in of yesteryear the Dow Jones you’ll go far in this market buy a car rent a house that is you supply is scarce through the roof and demand is high you’re the man get the green while you can get the green you are late every...
My best friends, Ruby and Paul, live about an hour north of Manhattan. On March 13, we planned a nice weekend—I would come up for a day or two, as I often do to get out of the city. On March 14, Covid-19 accelerated its embrace of New York. Paul and...
i: The Hunting Dog and the Watchdog Once there was a hunting dog and a watchdog who lived down the street across the river by a forest of meat Watchdog took up on the big wraparound porch every day with a rifle between his paws and when Hunting Dog...
Watched 8 videos on how to sew a fabric mask1 Added an extra 10 ml water to sourdough recipe (no other variables changed)2 Reread another handful of pages of The Bell Jar3 Listened to daily press conference (Raab again)4 Spoke to my family in...
This is a follow-up to Roxana Robinson’s earlier essay, “Trump & the Criminal Culture” If you ran a company, would you offer a product that would kill nearly half your customers? How good a business model is that? If you’re...
Standing before a table heaped with avocados, I watched the other shoppers toss bags of potatoes, onions, and apples into their carts. I was alone in my pursuit of just the right green-black fruit. When I found it, it wouldn’t last more than a day...
“Don’t look now.” I turned to the window and saw a Mercedes parked in the lot. My heart sank. “I told you not to look.” My roommate Romina rolled her eyes—at what, it was always hard to tell. “That thing’s probably worth two years of tuition. So...
I never thought I would drive for DoorDash. Then again, I never thought I would live during a pandemic either.I live in Healdsburg, a small California town in wine country. Last December, I quit my job in the wine industry, looking for a change...
At five a.m., there was a bold flash of light and then a tremendous roar of thunder. Car alarms sounded throughout the neighbourhood. An early riser, I stood on the front porch, gazing into the dark as the rain began to batter the sidewalks. It is...
When the first corona cancellations started appearing in my inbox, I wrote to my monthly creative writing workshop, pledging to scrub every surface of our meeting space in order to provide a germ-free place for us to gather. I didn’t want to cancel...
I am lying on my couch, watching the lights come on in Hanoi from the window of my 33rd floor apartment. Phone in hand, I alternately scroll through headlines about the devastation coronavirus is wreaking on the USA, and search for updates about...
I have been in lockdown, here in Spain, for two weeks now. Actually a bit longer—I didn’t go out much the week before, either. This is our second home, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, in Andalusia. The village is remote, definitely not...
On Monday, I drive six hours from North Carolina to Atlanta to pick up my son Sam from his university. On Tuesday, we prepare to drive back, shoving into our car his entire dorm room—electronic piano, ratty sheets, plastic stackable drawers, boxes...
I’ve always made drawings, and I’ve always been a radio junkie. When I was a preteen, I hid my transistor radio under the covers. Now, the radio is always on in my studio, while I’m drawing. Whether tuned to my local NPR affiliate station...
Arrival February 10, 2020 I landed in Guangzhou to a newly polished, eerily silent, cavernous airport from my vacation in Vietnam. As I watched a middle-aged man carefully polishing an already gleaming section of marble wall, the feeling crept up on...
Each click was only a few minutes apart. Nothing had changed. But I still could not help myself from refreshing my computer screen. It was the John Hopkins COVID-19 Global Tracker, an interactive map that tracked the numbers of infection, death, and...
The photograph showed a new kind of behavior in the Oval Office: Donald Trump was using the body in a way that was unusual for a U.S. president. On his second day in office, the new Commander in Chief was demonstrating his physical domination of the...
Outside, the sound of clapping. Paul and I rushed out to our front garden, astonished. From doorways, at the end of walkways, from second-floor windows, our neighbors were banging on pots, clapping their hands, woo-wooing the National Health Service...
Right before Christmas, I developed a persistent cough. In due course, I went to Urgent Care. Upon examination, I was diagnosed with pneumonia. An ambulance (with an accompanying fire truck) was quickly dispatched to take me to the ER. I spent the...
It’s peculiar timing to interview author Paul Lisicky on March 16, the day before his new book LATER: My Life at the Edge of the World comes out. After all, we are in the eye of the COVID-19 hurricane, which has stirred up worries, fears, and...
