This week, Jersey City reinstated parking regulations. They aim to sweep. More than two weeks of trash — cups, cans, rubber gloves, urban confetti — has collected at curbside. A few days ago, a deliveryman spilled a gallon of milk on the street. Luckily for us, it rained the next day. The municipal government announced […]
Category Archives: News
The Ministry of Guesswork
Johns Hopkins University concedes something that we’ve all suspected: we’ve undercounted virus-related deaths. People with familiar symptoms have died in places where testing has been inadequate or nonexistent. People have died in places where the testing has been available, but they haven’t been screened, and during a shortage, there’s no sense in using a diagnostic […]
The guardian
This is Wilson. We met Wilson on the street. He was alone, flung from a stroller perhaps, right in the middle of the sidewalk. I’m sure he wouldn’t admit it now, but he looked bewildered. You would be, too, if you were fallen and unclaimed. You might wonder a bit about what the future might […]
Red herrings
At 5 p.m. yesterday, Hilary began to cough. She couldn’t stop herself. The fit didn’t last long — maybe five minutes at the most. She had no fever or aches. After some water, a cough drop, and some work on our puzzle, the tickle in her throat went away. She didn’t cough again for the […]
In the air
We wake up to a grocery delivery. Greens, beans in cans, a pineapple, some berries, toilet paper, a block of unsalted Kerrygold butter, other stuff. Our order includes a big bag of masa for tamales, but we haven’t been able to find corn husks. Getting it all upstairs is tricky. The bags are heavy and […]
A windy Thursday
When I heard the bad news about Adam Schlesinger yesterday, I was nearly wrecked by it. I know there’ll be much more horror and loss to come, and I need to steel myself, but it still shook me. I wasn’t ready. He was, as you’ve probably read, 52 years old. I’d expected many more wonderful […]
About apophenia
On December 29, I took a long walk up to Journal Square with Hilary. We’d somehow made it through 2019, and I was eyeing the calendar warily. My fear was that something dangerous was coming, but I didn’t know what it was. Hilary felt, reasonably, that I was scaring us for no good reason, and […]
The fog thins, ever so slightly
It is now abundantly, frighteningly clear that the CCP cooked the books. Many more Chinese have gotten sick from the coronavirus and died than the government is willing to admit. We now know that it took Chinese authorities about three weeks to tell the World Health Organization about what was happening in Wuhan. We will […]
Last night I dreamed I touched my nose
Brett writes that confidence is half of immunity. I know he’s right. Shortly after her diagnosis — when we had limited knowledge of what we were facing — Hilary came into this room and announced that we were going to have to try to have fun. Every morning since then, I’ve woke with a plan […]
Scary hours
I have lived a long time. I would like to live longer, but I don’t want to be greedy about it. If a meteor was approaching the planet, zeroing in on New Jersey from some precinct of space, and there was no way to avoid it, I don’t think I’d panic. I’d have Hilary with […]