JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR # 26

A low, lead-colored sky, snow falling (again) as I drive to Norwalk Hospital for my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. It all goes smoothly, in and out in less than half an hour. A security guard checks my temperature, a nurse hands me a form to fill out, attesting...

JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR # 22

About 25 years ago, I started to study Stoicism, the philosophy founded in Athens  in the 3d century B.C. by the Greek thinker, Zeno of Citium, developed by his pupils, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, and carried on during the first and second centuries A.D. by Romans like...

JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR #21

We celebrated the welcome demise of 2020 in a manner befitting a plague year — all dressed up with nowhere to go. But we had a good time all by ourselves: martinis before dinner, a fine old vine Zin with filet mignon and roast potatoes, followed by dancing to...

JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR # 20

I haven’t posted for several weeks for a couple of reasons: one, until two weeks ago, I was busy finishing the first draft of a new novel, an effort that left me too mentally depleted to write so much as a shopping list; two, I was recovering from a concussion...

JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR # 18

No Covid news today, but I have a suggestion: To prevent the next presidential debate (if there is one) from becoming a mudbath like last night’s, President Trump should be fitted with a shock collar, similar to the kind used to train and discipline dogs. A...

JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR #17

Warm, clear, and breezy, Friday was very much like THE September 11 of nineteen years ago, and seemed an appropriate day to commemorate the dead. Leslie and I sailed out to Green’s Ledge lighthouse in her little sloop, Reveille, with her sister, Jennifer, our...