Sunday, June 27

The end. Today, episode 427 will be the final entry in the 91divoc blog. Unless I change my mind, and that could very well happen if I wake up tomorrow and start writing.

I am a creature of habit. It is one of the issues that has kept me in weekly therapy (every Wednesday, 4:45) for over 25 years. I know where it comes from but I can’t seem to do anything about correcting it. I do know that if I do wake up tomorrow and write episode 428 I won’t be surprised.

This blog was originally created as a place to focus on Covid and the effects it was having on me and the rest of the world. I’ll save the creature of habit issue for another blog.

Sixteen months ago I wore a mask to a staff meeting and was told to sit six feet apart from my colleagues as we discussed how we would transition to virtual class instruction. Though the pandemic had begun, we still met in person to figure out how to exist not in person. Was this the first super spreader event? Who knew? We were still at the point where handshakes and hugs had been replaced by elbow bumps.

We learned quickly that we didn’t really know anything. We didn’t know if six feet was adequate distance to prevent spreading germs. We didn’t know if washing our food packages in warm water was sufficiently safe. We didn’t know if having a cough or a sore throat meant we had Covid. But we did know how to read and watch television news and soon we were reading everything printed about the deadly disease, nicknamed the China Flu by you know who. Governor Cuomo, a recent ME TOO candidate, became our television hero as he performed daily, letting us know that we’d get through Covid if we came together as a nation. We watched him joke with his brother and he eased into a state of acceptance.

Days became weeks became months and we got used to our new lives. Those of us living alone became our own best friends. If we liked crossword puzzles, we did thousands of them. I played two hundred chess games a day. I made a drawing every day of a masked person. I read and read and read. I told people (on facebook) that all was good, even though it wasn’t. Others, who had land to play in, gardened, went for nature walks, lay in hammocks and happily escaped daily commutes and stuffy offices. Others who were not able to remain at home, risked their lives as they became “essential.”

Despite losing half his staff, Jeff Bezos figured out a way to hire a few million more so that we could get our packages quickly. On any given New York street you could see a delivery person pushing a cart of a hundred boxes, a hand held communication device in their hands as they charted their every move. Stores were closed but business was booming. The stock market crashed for about ten seconds, then rebounded and grew to dizzying heights. Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon and Walmart collectively had more wealth than most of the rest of the world. Pandemic? Ka ching!

For months we watched the numbers. Millions sick, hundreds of thousands dead. Months of ambulance sirens blasting day and night. Hospitals overcrowded with no room for sick people. No room in the morgues. And a president who refused to wear a mask and continued to hold rallies.

We Zoomed. We Zoomed school, weddings, funerals, yoga classes and meets with friends from around the world. We met in small groups in breakout rooms and we shared our screens. We told teachers that we were logging out because our batteries were dying. We downloaded apps til the cows came home.

We got so used to it that when things finally started to turn, when the vaccines came and we protected ourselves, we didn’t really know how to return to pre-pandemic life. We’d forgotten how to go to restaurants, how to shop in real stores and how to meet real friends. And besides, we had learned that we didn’t really want to go back to our lives because they weren’t really the lives we wanted to live. During the pandemic we learned that Black Lives mattered and that Black people could write, paint and be as intellectually gifted as we were. We learned that having an extra car and a second house in the country wasn’t really okay. Then again, some of us didn’t learn that.

And now it’s June and we are breathing maskless air again. We carry masks with us, just in case. We know that the virus is still everywhere. We know that half of the countries of the world still have no vaccine. We know that millions of our own neighbors remain unvaccinated. We don’t understand it, but we live with it.

One thing I’ve learned through all of this is that the only thing I can really count on is TODAY. If I am here. If I am breathing and seeing and feeling, then I know it’s okay. Tomorrow is a maybe. That being said, today is Sunday, it’s a warm day, maybe a beach day. I’ll pack a sandwich, a bottle of water, a book and a mask. Here goes.

Saturday, June 26

Derek Chauvin, after receiving a 22 year sentence for killing George Floyd: “I want to give my condolences to the Floyd family.”

Derek’s mother: “The public will never know what a loving and caring man he is.”

Please tell me those things weren’t really said. Condolences to the Floyd family? From the guy who jammed a knee into the neck of a defenseless man for nearly ten minutes? I think what Derek Chauvin meant was this: My condolences to the Floyd family. I’m sorry that I felt it important to crush a man to death, but he was Black and I didn’t like him. I know you must miss him, but I don’t care.

And the mom: “The public won’t ever know what a loving a caring man he is. He loves white people and white supremacy and white power over defenseless Black men and he cares about maintaining white power. He loves hurting defenseless Black men and if he only wishes he could have gotten away with killing George Floyd.

Friday, June 25

I didn’t think I’d begin my day in tears, but as i sit here now, I am wiping away some seriously salty drops. I have just watched the trailer of the documentary Summer of Soul, which will be coming to theaters next week. The film focuses on a little known music festival that took place in Harlem in the summer of 1969.

During the same summer of Woodstock and the landing of (white) men on the moon, Harlem hosted six weekends of concerts. Fifty two years later it is being brought to our attention.

In the one minute and six seconds of the movie trailer, I saw clips of Mahlia Jackson, Mavis Staples and B.B. King in front of what looked like a crowd of thousands, all Black. Stevie Wonder is on drums. My tears began instantly as I watched to the sound of Gil Scott Heron announcing that the revolution will not be televised.

This film brings the Reverend King, Tommie Smith and John Carlos and George Floyd to mind instantly. Who knew that in the summer of ’69, while a rock and roll revolution was happening in upstate New York, there was another revolution going on in Harlem. This one, however, as Gil Scot Heron told us, would not be televised. Until now.

Wednesday, June 23

When we were young robots were fun. We knew robots from science fiction stories and television comedies. They were box like, grey metal with some lights that blinked. The Jetson’s had a robot maid. In Sleeper, Woody Allen disguises himself as a robot to avoid capture.

Today, robots are real and they are a trillion dollar industry. They have replaced millions of people in warehouses and other work places. They answer our phones and transact business for us, taking our credit card information and authorizing purchases. They fly through the air taking pictures and dropping bombs. They call us, disguised as real people, and tell us all kinds of things we don’t want to listen to.

How much of our day to day life is spent communicating not with people, but with machines? How many buttons to we punch, letting machines know all about us? How many hours do we spend inputting information into a machine, where it is recorded, saved, and kept in a cloud forever.

Our phones know where we are always and they tell the rest of the world where we are.

Do we like all of this? Does any of it actually make our lives better?

Tuesday, June 22

Today, blog post number 423. The end is near. About a month ago, Medium, the site that publishes this blog (and paid me one cent in profits earned!) posted a message that I had used up all the space on the blog. Nearing the 400th post, I could no longer add to the blog. So I began another and simply called it 91divoc continued. I should have taken the hint.

I don’t know if the pandemic is over or if we’re just waiting for the next stage to become our new covid reality. But I do know that I’ve touched on pretty much every aspect of the pandemic here in this blog. It’s time to move on, whether or not I can move wearing my mask or stuffing it in the closet.

It’s time for a new project. I’m going to spend the next few days saying good bye. Sunday will be the last post here. I’ll wake up Monday and start fresh. A new blog? We’ll see. I think I will end the daily masked portraits as well. Before I began them, I was drawing a daily portrait of an M train subway rider. I could go back to that, but that would mean me having to relearn how to draw mouths and noses.

Monday, June 21

We’ve been maskless and living life as if the pandemic is history for a few days now. But wait. DELTA. The handsomely named variant is spreading quickly. We don’t know what comes next.

With full knowledge of this new breed of the virus, America remains determined to open up. We are desperate to see those cash registers ring.

It remains to be seen whether this is the beginning of another chapter or whether it’s just a slight plot twist that won’t develop. I still have a few handfuls of clean masks left from the 100 pack box I bought last March.

Saturday, June 19

Dream from last night: Leo and I were in Pepe’s Pizza, New Haven’s claim to pizza fame. Before us, on the table, there were a stack of pizzas, maybe ten of them, one on top of the other. The topmost pizza didn’t really look like a Pepe’s Pizza. It was just a lot of red sauce on top of some soft, oily dough. No cheese, no other toppings. I took a few bites and told Leo we were going to have to send this back. In the more than fifty years that I’d been coming here and eating Pepe’s, I’d never once thought of sending a pizza back. But I figured that one look would convince the waiter that something was wrong.

In the next frame, I’m outside somewhere, trying to call Pepe’s on the phone. For some reason, I needed to tell the manager, not the waiter, about the bad pizza, and he wasn’t available. I try calling, but my phone isn’t working properly. I punch a million buttons but I just kept getting a blinking screen. As I punch more and more buttons I realize I‘m hungry.

Translation: You can solve problems if you know how to manipulate things in the modern world, but if you don’t, you’re screwed. Going back home won’t necessarily be the way to solve your problems. A step backwards leaves you hungry.

Friday, June 18

Let’s talk about the pile of mail sitting on my desk. This morning there are another twenty pieces in the stack. If you live here in New York and you don’t know that there is an election coming up then I’m not sure what planet you are on. The twenty plus daily mailings have been going on for a few months. Besides those, I get at least ten phone calls a day from people who can’t pronounce my name correctly, but are eager to get me to stay on the phone and hear their spiel.

I might be the only adult not running for something. Comptroller, City Council, DA and of course, Mayor. Deciding on who to vote for when you don’t really know a single thing about them is difficult. Let’s take a look at their ads.

Reshma Patel, candidate for NYC Comptroller “fights for Us.” She is a part of our community, she wants to lead us through the pandemic and she will tackle the Issues That Matter.

Jenny Low will “LEAD A WORKER-BASED RECOVERY FOR NYC.” She is running for City Council and she is going to fight to raise wages for all workers, fight for healthy and safe workplaces and fight for good jobs that will allow working people to thrive.

Elizabeth Crotty, running for Manhattan DA is the ONLY candidate with the Unanimous Support of Ray Kelly, NY Law Enforcement, Firefighters, and First Responders. She mentions twice in her ad that she is the “most consistently safety-focused candidate.”

Tali Farhadian Weinstein wants to know if we are “READY FOR MANHATTAN’S FIRST WOMAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY.” She is the only candidate to take gun violence seriously.

Christopher Marte, running for City Council says “Con nuestras viviendas, trabajos, el planeta y seguridad en la cuerda floja No vamos a aceptar la politica de siempre.

There are fifty more ads but I think you get it. As I write this I have received two text messages. One from Jumaane Williams telling me to elect him when I vote early by mail or on Election Day, June 22! https://cli.re/jumaane. The other message is from Danica who is volunteering with Susan Damplo’s campaign for City Council. Danica tells me that Susan’s main platform tenet is to promote systemic fairness. And a link to her recent event: http://bit.ly/friedmanevent.

Shoot me now.

Thursday, June 17

Words of wisdom needed. It’s not easy writing this blog every morning. Sometimes I have good ideas, sometimes I don’t. Lately I find myself opening up my computer to a blank screen that matches my own blank brain.

I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier every day. Lately it’s been hard for me to sleep past 5:30. This morning I finished my morning routine of weights, pushups and sit-ups and a five mile run and then a shower and breakfast and a look at the newspaper all before 7:15. And here I am now looking for a few wise words to share.

7:15. The nice thing about starting the day so early is the peace and quiet. True, the city never sleeps, but at 6 A.M., most of it is out like a light. I pass no more than five people on my run and none of them are making noise. Today another runner and I crossed past each other at Madison and Montgomery Street, exactly the spot we’d passed each other yesterday. And as I ran down Henry Street passing the elementary school, the same man from yesterday was standing in the entranceway. We all rise early.

7:24. It is a picture perfect day. It’s bright and sunny, warm but not too hot. The air isn’t, but it feels clean. It’s the kind of day when you think that people will wake up just happy to be alive. On the street people will greet strangers warmly. Smiles will be bright. We’ll all feel like we’ve just won game three in the playoff series.

7:27. As I sit here now, I’m looking at a pile of mail that I left on my desk from yesterday, a collection of nearly twenty glossy, colored advertisements from politicians. Over the past few weeks I’ve been bombarded with card stock. A small, impoverished nation could be saved with the money wasted on these mailings. I’m going to save this rant for tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 16

It’s official. It’s over. In California and New York, the states with two largest Covid death tolls, it has been announced that all life can go back to normal, whatever that is. Movie theaters and restaurants will no longer have six foot rules, sporting events can fill their stadiums, we are open for business.

If you believe the reports, we are over the 70 percent vaccination number that seems to be mean something. Though the numbers in the Bronx and Brooklyn are still at or below forty percent and nation wide we are about to hit 600,000 deaths and still counting, the word from our governors is that it’s time to celebrate. Parties and parades are coming. President Biden will host a maskless, 1000 person party on the Great Lawn.

The real message is this: Go out and spend money.

It’s should be noted that the governors of both states are fighting for their political lives. Promoting a maskless return to normal will certainly help us look beyond sex scandals and French Laundry parties. While we return to our maskless lives, we can only hope that the parties we attend and baseball games we go to won’t become the next super spreaders.

For now, it might be best to keep in mind our new mantra: focus on the now. And remember that the difference between yesterday and today is just a few minutes. Our governor might tell us it’s over, but really it’s just the next day, and yesterday we were masked, washing our hands constantly and maintaining space in order to stay alive. If we want to stay alive, we need to be smart. And don’t worry, we’ll all have plenty of opportunities to spend our money.

Tuesday, June 15

Over the past few days I’ve watched two episodes of the Underground Railroad, a ten part series that makes you rethink everything you always thought about slavery in America.

The production is magnificent. The camerawork is stunning high art. The acting, especially by the black actors, is phenomenal. What we thought was a dark period in our history is shown as ten times darker. It is hard to imagine actors portraying the roles of people reduced to the most degraded pieces of human flesh. These actors do it to perfection.

Watching the film, I kept wondering why. Why did so many black slaves stand for the kind of treatment and punishment they were given? Why weren’t there more rebellions? Why didn’t they steal guns and fight back? Why was there so much passivity?

I know there are reasons why.

A white man who stands before a black man with a whip can only participate in a senseless act of violence if he allows himself to believe that he isn’t beating a person, he is beating a thing. Throughout the south this became the belief, that at most, a black person was a lesser person, a person without feeling, without sensation, without mental ability. A black was not a person loved by god. But was this really what people thought, or was it convenient for them to pretend to believe this? After all, when you beat a person and hear shrieks, it means there is feeling. And you know you are the one who has caused this pain.

Over the decades, people passed down histories. Blacks became free, but the treatment instilled on them would be remembered for generations to come. Whites lost their right to own, whip and murder slaves, but the desire to maintain power over blacks remained and was passed down to children and to their children and to their children.

And here we are today, two hundred years later, fifty three years after the killing of Dr. King and a year and a month after the death of George Floyd. How far have we come?

Monday, June 14

They’re partying in Tel Aviv. Bibi is out. Bibi the magician, Bibi the modern day Kind David, replaced by one of the strangest coalitions ever to have been put together anywhere in the world.

For the next two years the country will be led by someone who is considered to be even further to the right than Bibi. But his power is shared with a coalition that includes centrists, leftists and even Palestinians. Many in Israel are certain it won’t work and that Israel will be facing another election soon. But maybe, just maybe there is hope.

The thing I like most about the multi-party coalition is the straight out fact that they represent a wide range of Israelis, from far right settlers who will fight the two state solution to its death to Palestinian Israelis who fight for the removal of the settlements and equality for Palestinians. It’s a bit like the Yankees and the Red Sox have joined together. This is exactly what Israel needs now, a party that represents everybody.

Yes, there will be tremendous chaos, but it just might work. Imagine the best. Imagine that over time these disparate groups will come to embrace one another. Each group will compromise, a little at first, then more, until real progress can happen. Imagine a peaceful Israel shared by all.

Sunday, June 13

Hundreds of New Yorkers came out to the flower show on Gansevort Street yesterday. Scores of stalls were set up with happy (white) women manning the booths, showing off and selling their stylized arrangements of unnameable flowers. I didn’t see a single tulip, but then again, this is New York, and so the tulips gave way to more estoteric breeds of flower. The buyers certainly would have conversation pieces for their coffee tables tonight.

We were unimpressed by the arrangements, which looked less like flowers and more like art creations, but the crowd was all smiles and you could see each smile clearly, as masks were nowhere to be seen. Yes, here it’s over. The pandemic, to the happy, monied people here in New York, is history, for some an ugly memory and for others an inconvenience that took way too long to end.

“This one is done, but let’s see what comes next.” Yes, that’s on our minds as we prepare for the summer of 2021. For me, I’m on hold until next week when I’m hoping Canada will reopen the border and let me in. If they will, I’ll be on my way to Nova Scotia for July, bringing lots of art supplies and some books with me. And my golf clubs. Whatever is going to come next is not something I have any control over, so I’m going to park that way in the back of my mind. I’ve learned one thing from this past, ugly year. The present is what really matters. Since we don’t know if we’ll even be alive tomorrow, we might as well make the most of today.

Saturday, June 12

More and more the streets of New York are looking like they once did. On the Upper West Side, scores of people, mostly white, are packed into restaurants. Lines form at the more popular spots. Downtown, zillions of people, mostly young, crowd the streets. Coffee bars and real bars are filled. It’s a party.

Masks are now worn dangling around the neck or not at all. Six feet that became three feet is now no feet. In the newspaper, pandemic stories are replaced with articles about valedictorian controversy in Mississippi and a guy who swims in Lake Michigan every day.

We’re making the adjustment and learning how to live in the future. A few weeks back we were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to make the transition without suffering some kind of PTSD. Somehow, we’re managing.

Personally, I’m ok. Still alone in my apartment, but I’m emerging from my shell and looking forward to whatever comes next. I have a date this afternoon, a real date with a real person that I might even be able to give a kiss on the cheek to, or at least a handshake.

I had a talk with a doorman last night. We were talking about how tired we were of wearing masks and doing all the things we’ve been doing to be safe through covid. Was the pandemic over or are we just pretending it’s over? We talked about vaccines, about non-vaxers and about variants from India. The doorman told me he was thinking positive. “If it’s pretend, it’s pretend,” he said. “I’d rather pretend it’s over than go back to all that shit.”

I think there are a lot of people who won’t go back to all that shit. Let’s hope we won’t have to.

Friday, June 11

TGIF. For some reason, I love saying that now. Well, it has been a really long year. A nice stiff drink after quitting time is sounding pretty damn good. Make mine a double.

Actually, today is going to be a fun school day. I’m giving my kids a day off from their current project and we’re going to just have a good time with art. Today is banana art day. I came across a woman by the name of Anna Chojnicka, a Polish woman who had done NGO work in Ethiopia, who, at home during the pandemic, has been making one piece of art every day since the beginning of Covid. Rather than working on paper or canvas, she makes her art on a banana.

You might have seen this before, but it was new to me. It’s really quite simple. When you poke a little hole in the skin of a banana, the oxidation process makes the area where you poke the hole turn brown. The deeper you poke, the darker the brown, so when you get good at it you can actually create depth. Anna’s drawings are fun and pretty well done. They don’t last long, so she photographs them and shares them with the world. Then, she peels and eats the banana. It’s all good during a not so good time.

Today I’ve asked my kids to bring a banana and a sewing needle with them to Zoom class. TGIF.

Thursday, June 10

Have you heard about Jeff Bezos’ trip to outer space? Of course you have, because everybody knows about it. Everyone is following his story.

I have a hard time understanding people’s fascination with the lives of the rich and famous. I don’t understand America’s fascination with the royal family and I understand even less the fascination with the movie stars and beautiful people running around doing stupid things. As for the fascination with people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, you really gotta wonder.

I guess it’s all about the enjoyment of living vicariously. We’ll never be king or queen of England, we’ll never be rock or movie stars and we’ll certainly never be billionaires. We can read about them and fantasize about what it must be like. What would it be like to never have to work a day in your life, to have people call you “your highness” and to have a team of people doing your chores, bowing in front of you and putting your socks on for you. What would it be like to be be so beautiful that all heads turn toward you wherever you go, mouths open wide, eyes bulging to the size of large saucers? What would it be like to have everybody around you nod “yes” in agreement whenever you said some something? What would it be like to have so much money that you could drop a million dollar bill out of your pocket and not bother to pick it up?

The more important question: What would you do with twenty or thirty billion “extra” dollars if you had it. Would you build a rocket ship and fly to outer space?

There are billionaires and there are billionaires. For as much as we can hate some of what Michael Bloomburg or Bill Gates represents, they are pouring mind boggling amounts of money into pretty good causes. We might not agree with some of them, but we know they are attempts to better things worldwide. On the flip side, we have Jeff Bezos (and Elon and Branson) who are spending their hard earned? money on themselves. In a recent article, Bezos says that the trip to outer space he is planning for next month will satisfy a childhood desire. He always wanted to be an astronaut and now he is one. Whoop-di-doo.

Bezos has offered seats on the flight to others at a cost of nearly three million dollars each. So if you too want to check off “go to outer space” on your bucket list, you just need to fork over a few million. But seriously, I wouldn’t recommend it. After all, you won’t be getting as far as the moon or Pluto and you won’t even be wearing a space suit because the cabin will be pressurized. And if you want that feeling of weightlessness, you can smoke a joint or drop a hit of acid or take some mushrooms, which will cost you about three dollars.

Wednesday, June 9

I’m becoming human again and it feels really good. I woke up this morning thinking about how I would begin running again, an attempt to have exercise (and no pot smoking) lift the depression that has been plaguing me for the past few months. Lying in bed at 5:30 A.M. I thought about how it was going to be 95 degrees this afternoon and that might be a little much for a run. So, I got out of bed, laced up my sneakers and headed out for a run a little before six.

I ran a five mile loop, Madison Street past the Manhattan Bridge and looping back on East Broadway. I was the lone runner, but I did pass two men sleeping on the street and a number of early risers starting their day. I love my neighborhood.

I have a natural runners body, so it was relatively easy for me to begin again. No aches or pains or pulled muscles, I’m now showered, have eaten breakfast, and sit here much like I have every morning for the past sixteen months. But the good news is that I’m a day into medicating myself properly. Now when people ask me how I’m feeling, when I say “I’m fine,” I really will be.

Tuesday, June 8

I’ve been fighting a pretty heavy depression for the past few months. It’s easy to blame the pandemic and all that goes with that on what has brought me down. I’ve spent the past few months in a fog, tired all the time, feeling empty and despondent. I tell people I’m okay, I’ll be fine. It’s not the kind of depression that keeps me from living my life. I still wake up at 6 every morning, lift weights and do pushups and sit-ups, read, shower, eat breakfast and write this blog. I teach my classes and act like it’s all good.

But I spent three quarters of the day feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. Sad and lost.

A few months ago I started smoking pot again. Pot was my go to drug of choice for many years, but I stopped about fifteen years ago because I finally realized it wasn’t doing anything good for me. I’m not sure why I started again back in April. I suppose the pandemic had gotten to me. Drinking was still an option, but drinking alone isn’t much fun. And so I found myself lighting up every night. And watching baseball. Three hours of Yankee boredom.

I was with a friend one day and was discussing feeling depressed and when I mentioned I’d been smoking pot, my friend told me that the pot was contributing to the depression. Kind of a no brainer, but I’d never thought about that. So I stopped smoking, and I smiled, thinking that I’d beat the depression. Only it didn’t go away. Maybe a little, but I was still spending days in a fog.

Yesterday, I was with another friend, who asked me if I’d been running, which is something I’d been doing daily since the pandemic started last March. I told him I’d stopped running a few months ago. I wasn’t really sure why I’d stopped, but I’d just stopped. My friend told me to start again and that it would help a lot. Another no brainer that I’d simply ignored.

Depressed for two months. Smoking pot for two months. No exercise for two months. Not to hard to figure out.

Today I will start running again. I haven’t started yet, but I already feel better.

From all this I think I will learn something about how depression works. How easy it is to fall into it, and once you do, you simply forget about what you need to do to escape it.

Today: No pot, six mile run. Here’s to a world of brighter skies.

Monday, June 7

I have just finished reading Go, Went, Gone, a novel by the German writer Jenny Erpenbeck. Highly recommended reading!

A few lines from the book worth thinking about:

“Time does something to a person, because a human being isn’t a machine that can be turned on or off.”

and

“Could these long years of peacetime be to blame for the fact that a new generation of politicians apparently believes we’ve now arrived at the end of history, making it possible to use violence to suppress all further movement and change? . . . Must living in peace — so fervently wished for throughout human history and yet enjoyed in only a few parts of the world — inevitably result in refusing to share it with those seeking refuge, defending it instead so aggressively that it almost looks like war.”

Erpenbeck is writing about African refugees in Berlin but her words speak to many places, including right here.

Sunday, June 6.

This really happened. I received a text message today that reads as follows:

Hello! Your $.01 payment from Medium is on its way. To view more information, visit https://connect.stripe.com/express/xYmxd6BmyMw3

I mentioned yesterday that when I read my stats on the blog site, it was reported that I’d earned one cent. Now the payment is coming, actual confirmation that I’m now a professional writer. I’m not sure yet how I’ll spend the money. And I’m not sure if this is an advance against future royalty money or if this is the whole payout. Just kidding.

Meanwhile, there is a story today about 21 year old Khaby Lame, a Senagalese born Italian (without the citizenship) who lost his job at the beginning of the pandemic and, rather than look for other employment, turned to Tik Tok. He posted what the article refers to as “life hack” videos, which are essentially brief films of him doing regular, mundane things. He slices open bananas, put on his socks, and does other things that you and I do every day. Mr. Lame now has sixty-five million viewers and is being paid by companies like pasta maker Barilla to post more similar videos.

Mr. Lame might be a really nice guy. But being paid big bucks to put your socks on?

And the question of the day that I can’t come close to answering: What’s wrong with the world?

A deli in Long Island has gone public and is now worth over 150 million dollars on the OTC stock exchange. A guy in the midwest sold a digital piece of “art” for nearly 70 million dollars worth of bitcoin while Dogecoin, a pseudo currency created as a joke, is now worth billions. Billions! Of dollars!!!

I’ll ask that question again: What’s wrong with the world?

Saturday, June 5

I received an email from Medium, the site that publishes this blog. They were sending me stats on my blog and reported that 2,600 people have viewed my blog. I don’t know that many people, so I’m happy to know that there are a number of strangers out there who have read a bit of my writing. Thank you, and I hoped I gave you something to think about.

Medium also reported on my earnings to date. A few months ago I filled out a form allowing Medium to start paying me for my blog posts. I had no idea why I would be paid for this, but I filled the form out anyway and wondered if I’d become one of those internet millionaires who has cashed in on the social media insanity. I found out yesterday that I’ve earned one cent. That’s right, the message was delivered. I’d earned .01.

Now that I’m a professional writer, I’ll remember what they tell people who venture out on the road toward stardom: keep your day job.

Friday, June 4

I’ve just returned from Zaffi’s diner, where I took myself out for breakfast this morning. I haven’t gone out for breakfast, except on weekends, in at least twenty-five years, but I woke this morning and just decided to do something different.

I don’t know what happened, but in the middle of my morning routine — shower, get dressed, read two chapters — I envisioned the next few minutes of my life, where I’d be pouring oatmeal flakes into a pot, adding fruit, grinding coffee, I just decided that I didn’t want to do it. I simply couldn’t handle cooking myself another breakfast, and so the thought of going up the street for my morning meal became almost exciting.

I love Zaffi’s. It has been here forever and everyone working there is friendly and sweet. It was nice to be greeted with a super nice “helllo,” and then to sit down with my newspaper.

I’ve been waiting patiently this past week for a depression to lift. A leisurely end of week breakfast was helping. As I ate, I read about the disparate parties who have joined together to force Netanyahu out of office. Nothing I hadn’t read a dozen times already. Then I read about Eva Hesse and Hannah Wilke, who have been linked together for a New York gallery exhibit. Both were Jewish, Hesse, as young girl, having been transported out of Germany before ending up in Auschwitz. Reading this fact about Hesse felt extremely sad. Earlier in the morning, I’d read two chapters of Go, Went, Gone, by the German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, which tells the story of a group of African refugees in Berlin. Reading her book has made me think a lot about people who’s lives have been upended by political insanity. After reading about the two artists exhibit, I read the obituary of F. Lee Bailey. It’s hard to imagine one man representing the likes of The Boston Strangler, O.J. Simpson and Patty Hearst.

Heavy world. Why am I depressed? Gee, um, duhhhh.

Thursday, June 3

I’m beginning to get a little worried about my mental health. I mentioned a few days ago that I woke up Monday morning wearing socks and not remembering having fallen off my bicycle the night before. Had I had a momentary black out drunk moment, or am I just not thinking properly these days?

This morning, while making breakfast, I found myself talking to myself in a German accent. I had just been reading a book by a German author, so maybe that’s where the German idea came from.

While fixing breakfast, I was documenting what I was doing, step by step, in my silly German accent. Speaking out loud to myself, I was reporting every move. “Now you are cracking an egg. Now you are slicing strawberries. Four slices for each berry. Now you are . . . As I reported every movement, I found myself pausing to remember some words. Bowl? Jar? What’s that thing called that you put the coffee in? Oh yeah, a coffee grinder (ghhrreyender in my German accent).

Am I’m cracking up? Forgetting some of the words, like bucket and bowl was disturbing, but forgetting them in my German accent was at least funny.

For now, I know that it’s Thursday and that I have to move my car in an hour and that I’m about to wrap up blog post number 406. Yesterday I ended my blog with the line “ignorance is bliss.” I might be there soon.

Wednesday, June 2

We’re almost there yet. In Brazil, India and many other places, they’re not almost there. Everyone will arrive at a different time, or not at all. We’ll see.

Today’s newspaper headlines: The New York mayoral race, drilling in the Arctic, a debate over teaching racism in schools, a shortage of goods, Republicans in Texas, Naomi Osaka. There is not a word about Covid or Palestine on the front page.

Reading the paper today, we don’t have to fear the pandemic or the Middle East, but there is still plenty to worry about. In the Arctic, there are billions of gallons of oil under the surface, but there are polar bears and caribou and lots of beautiful land above. There are no more computer chips, so no more cars can be made. Lots of other things are not available too, so we will have to make due with what we already have. Naomi Osaka is depressed and wants the world to know that the more you get a camera stuck in your face, the more depressed you become. In Texas you don’t need a permit to carry a gun. Anybody who wants to can pack heat. All over the country the left and the right are divided about whether or not racism should be recognized in school. Republicans link recognizing systemic racism to communism. And here in New York, a million candidates running for mayor are in the phase of their campaign where they hate each other and are on the attack. You can read all about it today.

Or skip the paper and breathe a little easier. One day I might learn how to do this. Imagine not having any worries about the world condition. Have they done the studies about life expectancy or happiness, comparing people who read the news and people who don’t? So many studies have been done about so many things, but I’ve never seen a report about this. Is ignorance bliss?

Tuesday, June 1

The New York Times announced today that their coverage of Covid-19 and coronavirus issues will now return to regular sections and the Tracking and Outbreak section will no longer appear. Another sign that the pandemic is ending.

But there is concern that more recent variants that were first identified in India could be devastating. It seems that here in America, where we are ahead of the rest of the world in vaccinating, is watching huge declines in infections while other parts of the world are suffering greatly. India reports that three percent of the population has been vaccinated, meaning that over 900 million people there are still in serious danger. Worldwide the numbers of unvaccinated are in the billions.

It’s pretty clear that the pandemic is not close to ending. We might be shedding masks and going to parties, restaurants, ball games and museums with friends, but that doesn’t describe what is happening elsewhere. And, as borders are reopening, it will not be possible to contain the spread of the disease. We’ll soon find out if our vaccines actually work.

Today is my 405th entry here. I have set out to write til the end, but I think I will revise the plan. I’m going to set a date to finish my covid story: June 26, which incidentally is the last day of school and the start of my summer vacation. I will start my summer fresh, maybe with a new blog about anything else I can think of.

Monday, May 31

I woke up in the middle of the night with serious pain in my right shoulder. I could only lie on one side and slept uncomfortably til morning. When I woke up, I noticed that I had four small cuts on my hands and my shoulder was killing me. I thought about what had happened and somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered falling off my bicycle. But I couldn’t actually remember how I fell or where it had happened.

As I thought more about this, more of the night before became a blur. I had been to a party — yes a real party. It was the first time I’d done that in over a year. The party was downtown, near Wall Street, so I rode my bike in the rain. At the party, I drank a lot, which is something I know how to do, but hadn’t done in a while. I don’t remember feeling drunk when I left the party, but I also don’t remember riding my bike home or falling or cutting my hands or hurting my shoulder. And when I woke up this morning, I was wearing my socks, probably the first time in 62 years I had slept wearing socks.

If this is what life will be like post-pandemic, I’m not sure if I’m ready for the pandemic to end. Sad but true.

Sunday, May 30

The New York times announced that today will be the final publication of their At Home section. This was a Sunday section filled with articles, games and recipes that were meant to soothe people who were struggling to make sense of the pandemic. The At Home section was an attempt to get us to stop reading the front sections of the paper and to try to remember that life was good, life was filled with fun and interesting things to do, life was worth living.

The focus of the At Home section was the home. Since the pandemic forced us to be there for most of our time, we needed help in finding ways to turn our homes into places we could enjoy. With At Home help, our homes became museums, theaters, restaurants, science laboratories and libraries. We needed suggestions about how to do all of this on a limited budget and in ways that would not mess up our homes in the process. The At Home section was filled with ideas. We could find out how to create our own water park, how to turn popsicle sticks and felt into beautiful puppets, login addresses for free jazz and classical concerts, online discussions with movie stars, scientists and political people, great shrimp recipes. And every week there was a page of easy crossword puzzles, a sure half hour of at home fun.

The message from the removal of this section is pretty straightforward. It is time to leave home. The pandemic is over and we’re going out now. We’re returning to real concert halls and real movie theaters, real swimming pools and beaches, and, of course, to real restaurants and bars. Our return will not be cheap, but hopefully, we’ve already returned to our jobs, so when we venture out to these maskless, open places, we can bring our wallets, which will be stuffed with green.

Let’s hope that without the At Home section, the articles that we do read will not be about our next wave of Covid. Let’s hope we won’t be watching numbers ticking up, hospital wards back on high alert, mortuaries looking for extra storage space.

I’m going to wait a few weeks to be sure it’s over before writing the last chapter of this blog. I bought a box of 100 masks last March and I still have a few handfuls left. When I do decide it’s really over, you’ll be the first to know.

Saturday, May 29

Hamas rockets have destroyed your home. Who do you call for repairs? Chances are, your Jewish Israeli contractor will bring in a crew of Palestinians.

I’m not sure why a manual labor construction job is beneath a Jewish person, but apparently that’s the case in Israel. Palestinians, desperate for decent paying jobs, will take three or four hour commutes from their West Bank homes paying people to help them through checkpoints. Do they care that they are rebuilding the homes of their enemies? They care more about being able to put food on the table for their families.

The common cry from the Palestinian workers and their Jewish bosses is heard all over Israel. “We get along just fine. It’s the governments that don’t get along.”

The killing of George Floyd initiated a call for defunding the police departments. Shouldn’t the killing of 67 children call for new governments that will stop the killing? Seems like a no brainer. Then again, if the bombing stops, the need for repairs will stop and the work for Palestinian laborers will dry up. Suddenly, it’s a lot more complicated.

Friday, May 28

On the front page of the New York Times this morning are the photos of the children killed in Gaza and Israel during the last few weeks of war. They look like class photos, tiny people smiling, showing their happy selves to the world. And now they are dead.

If you had a hand in any one of these killings, if you were the one who launched the missile or programmed the drone, you should look closely at the photo. You are responsible for their deaths. You are the person who has ended any possibility of these children growing up to become doctors, artists, teachers, mothers and fathers. You can say that you were just following orders, and that’s true, you were. But it was you who pushed the button. You dropped the bomb. You programmed the drone. You’re guilty. You can say that you were aiming the bombs at somebody else. That doesn’t matter. Your bomb killed an innocent child.

Look in the mirror at yourself. How will you continue your own life, knowing what you’ve done?

Isn’t it time to say NO? Isn’t it time to refuse the orders of your military superiors? NO to dropping a bomb near somebody’s home. NO to firing a rocket into the air, not knowing exactly where it will land. NO to demolishing somebody’s house. NO, because you a human being.

Peace will only be achieved through peaceful actions.

Thursday, May 27

It’s getting weirder every day. I read a Facebook post by a woman I went to elementary school with. Susan had joined a Facebook Group for Jewish vegans. Yes, it’s already a weird story. But I suppose in the virtual world, there are groups of everything.

Well, some person in a position of authority posted a change in the group rules which stated that everybody in the group must agree that Israel is the home of the Jews. My friend asked for clarification, needing to know if she was being told to agree to the current borders. In response to her question, she was asked to leave the group.

As if we don’t have enough to worry about.

A few things come to mind. Of course, the first question is this: Why join a group of Jews to discuss cooking techniques? French, Korean, Vietnamese, Italian — do you really want to get tips from Jewish cooks? Gefilte fish or kugel recipes maybe, but seriously. (And I’m thinking of the old joke that I probably shouldn’t tell in this time period, but will tell anyway: What does a Jewish woman make for dinner? Reservations.)

But seriously. Don’t we have enough to worry about these days? As a Jew, we are currently under attack just for being Jewish. Regardless of our political views, just being Jewish is enough to get us stoned, knifed or shot. I don’t think my friend would be overlooked by an angry bigot because of her leftist take on the political situation in Gaza, or because her vegan spinach noodle kugel wasn’t cooked right. But her politics have gotten her tossed from a cooking club.

I’m hoping there is a Palestinian vegan group that Susan can get involved with. They’ll certainly have some good recipes.

Wednesday, May 26

A lone bird tweets. Outside my window I can hear the M train rolling across the Williamsburg Bridge. A sanitation truck is beeping, backing up beneath me. I’m here at my computer writing blog number 400.

Breathe in, breathe out. Again. Again.

We’re not quite post-pandemic, but we’re almost there. The masks are coming off. Yesterday I counted the first 100 people who walked past me. I was walking to the subway and the streets were crowded, like a normal day. Of the 100 who passed in front of me, fifty-seven were wearing masks. thirteen had their masks lowered and hanging around their necks and thirty people were maskless, breathing fresh air as if the last year and two months didn’t happen.

I played a maskless softball game in Central Park and we all slapped each other five and fist bumped, just like we used to.

It is going to take some time to transition from pandemic mode to whatever comes next. We know we won’t ever return to how things were before, but we don’t know exactly what our new world will look like.

The pandemic will not have a clear end. There will be no ninth inning game winning hit or three point shot at the buzzer. There will be no clearing of the air or bright sun shine popping through the clouds signaling an end or a new beginning. And certainly, we won’t see a rainbow or a pot of gold. At some point, it will just be over, and our lives will continue. Like a newspaper story that dies out after a few days, replaced by another story, the pandemic story will fade and we will focus on a new story, new statistics and numbers.

I hope the next story will be one we can enjoy together.

Tuesday, May 25

Are we there yet, no. But we’re almost there. Let’s hope that almost is good enough.

New York will eliminate virtual school come September. In an attempt to bring the city back, having school fully open is key. Our schools, which a few months ago were not large enough to house students in a socially distanced way, are now determined to invite all students full time. Six feet is now three feet and may soon be eliminated altogether, waiting on a CDC okay.

But. And yes, there’s a serious but. As of today, only fifty percent of teachers have been vaccinated. There is no plan in place to authorize the other fifty percent to get vaccinated if they want to continue teaching. And so, our schools will open with many unvaccinated people. Besides teachers, there are custodians, security personnel and other administrators, many of whom have opted to not be vaccinated.

The last thing we want is for the plan to fail in September and force us all back home to our virtual Zoom rooms in October. The education system cannot survive with another year like the one we’ve just had. And neither can I.

The DOE is also considering offering teachers like me a buyout. If I take it, I will not have to think about any of this ever again. My headache will go away. I’ll have my days to breathe clean air, go to the beach, read, take naps and go out for two martini lunches. Sounds like a no brainer.

Monday, May 24

I’ve sat here for fifteen minutes trying to write today’s blog entry. I’ve been saying for the past few weeks that I’ve run out of things to say. Like every other person who lives with his or her or their eyes open, I’ve been depressed. Empty, is how I say I’ve felt. Fourteen months of pandemic life has put me and most everyone else into a state of near total blankness.

For me, I can go about my day and do what I’m supposed to do. Going through the motions is easy. Checking the check boxes to let the world know I’m here and I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. Simple. The problem is feeling. I’m not getting pleasure out of the good things — a swim in the ocean, an ice cream cone, watching the Yankees win. The bad things aren’t producing much emotion in me either — Rocket blasts in Palestine, the Mexican-American border, my mask.

There is nothing zen or buddhist about my blankness. I am hardly elevated.

Still, I’m determined to write every morning. Depression comes and goes. It could be that tomorrow sunshine will feel brighter and I’ll actually feel the spark that I once enjoyed. We’ll see.

Sunday, May 23

For the few of you reading this blog daily, I apologize for missing yesterday. It was the first day in over a year that I didn’t write or draw. Back to work now.

I wish I could say that my day off has given me a new burst of energy and filled me with new ideas and new stories to share. But really I don’t feel any different sitting here now than I did on Friday. I’m tired, depressed and empty.

Fifteen thousand unmasked screaming fans jammed Barclay’s Center last night to watch the Nets win their first playoff game. Thousands, unmasked, followed Phil Mickelson and other golfers around the Kiawah Island course in South Carolina. If you believe the sports fans, the pandemic is over.

Vaccination sites are popping up everywhere. You can get vaccinated and receive free gifts. Foreigners are flying here, not to shop or visit the Lego Store, but for a vaccination. On television, Black doctors plead the case to get vaccinated.

Is it over? Are we there yet? I think I need more than one day off.

Friday, May 21

Friday, 7:38 A.M. Here I am, beginning blog entry number 397. As I sit, all is quiet in Palestine and Israel, at least for the next few hours. It took ten days to call a cease-fire. Ten days and over 250 deaths. Scores of families will not watch their children grow up.

I read an op-ed page piece yesterday written by a Jewish doctor in Israel. He works in a hospital alongside a crew of people representing every race and religion imaginable. In the hospital, Arab doctors tend to injured Jews. Jewish nurses assist Arab patients. Staff workers are Druze and Christian and every other belief. The hospital is currently attending to hundreds of people injured by Hamas rocket fire. It doesn’t matter who you are. If you are there as a patient, you need help, and everybody working there cares about you.

As mentioned in the writing, this hospital is a model for how Israel should function. Everybody who works there knows this. In the hospital, all sides become one side. It’s a given and it’s obvious and it’s simple.

As the hospital goes about its business today, there are billions of dollars worth of damage in Israel and Gaza. Ten days of insanity have created years of damage control. It’s silly to think about clean up and repair. Undoubtedly, there will be more rocket fire before this mess is cleaned up. As for mourning the death, there are only so many flowers one can purchase.

Aren’t we supposed to learn from our mistakes?

Thursday, May 20

Thursday is move the car day. Alternate side of the street parking has been limited to just two days a week. Pre-pandemic, we car owners who didn’t want to fork over a few thousand dollars for space in a parking lot, had to move our cars daily. Parking then was a nightmare. The nightmare got a little less severe when the city cut street cleaning to part time.

My car is parked in a Thursday space, meaning from 9 to 10:30 A.M. I need to be in my car, ready to move it when the street sweeper comes. And so, a few minutes before nine, I’ll grab a coffee, a book, my cell phone (of course) and take it all out to the car, which I’ll sit in for ninety minutes. On either side of me, another New Yorker will be there in their car with their phone. It’s kind of comical when the street sweeping truck comes, as each car, one by one, starts up and moves thirty or so feet to make room for the street sweeper and then, as soon as the street sweeper passes, the cars back right back into their spaces and the drivers stay in their cars til 10:30, when the space is “legal” again.

It’s all part of life during the pandemic. Thursday is car moving day. Every so often I forget and as a reminder of my forgetfulness, I’ll find an orange summons on my windshield. Forgetting costs sixty-five dollars, which, when you think about it, is a lot cheaper than the cost of a garage.

As much as I want the pandemic to be over, I don’t want the city to return to their daily street sweeping days. Once a week is quite enough.

For those non-New Yorkers, you must be thinking, “Why does he do this? Why not just find a legal space and park there.” Not so easy. In New York, for every free parking space on the street there are nine cars looking for that space. Calvin Trillen wrote “Tepper Isn’t Going Out”, a novel about parking in New York. Maury Tepper is just a regular New Yorker, who sits in his car reading the newspaper. Tepper is there always, because he just doesn’t want to give the space up. Here in New York, once you got your space, you keep it.

Wednesday, May 19

It is 7:46 A.M. My day is now about ninety minutes old. In the past hour and a half I’ve woken up, made my bed, peed (sp?), lifted weights, done sit ups and pushups, taken a shower, brushed my teeth and taken my medicine, gotten dressed, read twenty-five pages of the book I’m reading, made and eaten breakfast, read the morning headlines, poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down here to write this blog.

Sounds like a lot for ninety minutes, but this is what I do every morning and I seem to be able to do it thoughtlessly. Besides the pushups, it’s relatively painless. The hard part begins here, as I try to write the blog.

Today is episode 395. I’ve run out of things to say. I began writing the blog as a way to express myself during what was to become a long period of gloom and doom. Originally intended to be a two or three week short story, as the virus from China became a world wide pandemic the story became a novel became a tome. Five hundred pages later, we’re still at it. The plot hasn’t thickened, but it continues to develop. There is no end in sight.

It’s getting harder to write about my feelings because I’ve stopped feeling. I don’t react much differently to front page news of a dozen new deaths in Palestine than I do to a Yankee loss to Texas. “Oh well, now what?”

When the Yanks lose and when a Palestinian child is killed by a drone strike, I am still here, in my safe zone. There is ice cream for desert.

On Sunday, while I was taking a nice walk in the park with friends, two boys on a moped drove toward me. As they passed me I felt a smack on the back of my head. I didn’t see it, but my friends noticed that one of the boys had smacked me and the other had filmed it on his phone. So I imagine that I am now a TikTok star. Not 15 minutes of fame, but maybe 15 seconds.

It didn’t feel good getting slapped, being the old white guy selected by a young person of color to make a point about things. The point was made. The world is a mess. But I already knew that.

Tuesday, May 18

I was speaking with a friend last night who said she felt better knowing I was just as depressed as she was. Strange as that sounds, it makes sense. We feel better knowing others are just as bad off.

This collective depression is not something that will go away easily. Many of us are not depressed because of things going wrong with our own, personal lives. We’re the “haves”. We have jobs, money, homes, food and our health. We’ve been vaccinated. We have free time in the afternoon to take long walks, play tennis, read or just lie around and meditate.

But we live in the same world as the “have nots.” Across the ocean and in our own backyards the sickness is devastating, and it’s getting worse every day. Missiles and bombs drop in Israel and Palestine as thousands look daily for openings in the wall dividing Mexico from the U.S. Millions here look for work, housing and food. Billions world wide have nothing. On the pandemic front, a hundred nations are still without vaccines.

We scream out about it, we protest, we sign petitions, we donate funds. We feel helpless, which is why this depression is so severe. It won’t lift til the world heals, and we know that will take a handful of lifetimes.

Monday, May 17

Israel and Palestine are front page again today. The peace talks fail, the bombings continue, more deaths, more tragedy. Don’t think for a second that the people in charge can possibly solve this.

On the bottom of page one is an article about Bill Gates, his divorce from Melinda and questions about his sexual behavior. Bill’s past connection with Jeffrey Epstein seems connected to the divorce.

Dinners with Jeffery Epstein? What does that mean? According to Bill, the dinners were for the purposes of “discussing philanthropy”. How many of us believe that? I think we are a long way off from seeing Bill becoming the next Me Too target. I can only imagine the size of the payouts he’ll make to quiet down his accusers. In the end, if he does go down, he will most likely purchase the prison that houses him. It might be a prison complex with buildings in six or seven places, including the south of France, Bali and, of course, a small island off the coast of Seattle.

Thanks Bill for taking the focus off of the Middle East for a few minutes.

Sunday, May 16

It’s all a jumble. We wake up and go to bed with images flickering through our heads. The pandemic. Children at the border. Israel and Palestine. Dereck Chauvin’s knee.

It’s hard to keep things straight. Just when we thought that Black Lives Mattered, today it is Palestinian Lives that Matter. Yesterday, I read an article about the Palestinian Nakba that quoted Ta Ne-hishi Coates. It seems like it’s all one big stew with pieces of one thing mixing with pieces of another, all to produce a gigantic mess.

We live with this mess every day. We fret about it and then we stop, shake our heads in disbelief and laugh about it. We try but fail to make sense of what we’re living through. We celebrate a day of sunshine as if the simple fact that the sun rises and gives us light is enough to remind us that the world is ok. These days we thank whatever lord we pretend is sitting above us for being alive. Just being alive is suddenly miraculous.

I’m reminded every day of my life as a hamster on a wheel. Currently I write the 392nd blog entry. I’ve done as many drawings of masked people. Last night I ate brussels sprouts for what seemed like the millionth time. After, I washed the dishes and thought, “gee, didn’t I wash this dish twice already today. And yesterday, and the day before that, and . . .

Whoa, whoa is me

Out of touch with reality

Whoa, whoa is me

I’m stuck in the middle of eternity

I wrote these lyrics a long time ago. They seem fitting now.

Saturday, May 15

Israelis are notified of missile attacks on their cell phones. Google lets them know when they need to rush to a safe room. I’m imagining the message from Siri sounds like this: “A missile from Gaza is on the way to you. You have twenty-six seconds to find shelter. The nearest safe house is 0.3 kilometers from you. Would you like directions to the safe house?”

What about the missiles and other weapons being fired into Gaza? Are the Palestinians notified? Do they have safe rooms? Surely they are not equipped like their enemies. The disparity in numbers of dead and injured make that painfully obvious.

Not much more to say about this.

Friday, May 14

Extremely low energy, battling depression, trying to smile. I know I’m not alone. Many of us are vaccinated but still masked and maintaining social distance. Some of us are refusing to get vaccinated, making herd immunity an impossibility. Businesses are opening, borders remain closed. The CDC has just told us that those of us who are vaccinated can take our masks off and start it all up again. Will we?

As our future tries to come into being, the world continues to crumble. The soon to be civil war in Israel takes over the front pages this week, but let’s keep in mind that this is just one of many places in critical condition.

Syria. Yemen. Afghanistan. India. Sudan. The Texas-Mexico border. Should I go on?

Meanwhile, the price of bitcoin nears 60,000 dollars. Elon Musk builds rockets for travel to Mars. A home in East Hampton just sold for thirty-seven million dollars. Yesterdays millionaires are now billionaires and soon they’ll be trillionaires.

Who can wonder why we’re all so depressed?

Thursday, May 13

When I was young I prayed. In a basketball game, if I was fouled and went to the free throw line, I would say a little prayer before I took my shots. I had watched a lot of sports on TV and would see the players cross themselves before taking free throws. I knew that was a Catholic thing, so I made up my own version of crossing. I clasped my hands together, swiveled them twice, locked my two middle fingers together and wiggled them. All this was done with my eyes closed while holding the basketball. It took about five seconds.

I was a pretty good free throw shooter and I probably made about seventy percent of my shots over the few years that I prayed. I don’t know if my percentage would have been lower if I hadn’t prayed. Who really knows if God concerns him (her-it) self with free throws. I’m guessing no.

Since then I’ve given up my religious practice of prayer, though I do find myself thanking god for things like stock market surges and weekends. But I wonder if now might be a good time to start again. Surely this is a time when we could use some divine intervention. We can pick and choose what we’ll pray for. Throw a dart at the newspaper and wherever it lands will be a reason for prayer.

Wednesday, May 12

In this modern world of high powered, sophisticated, multi-billion dollar technology, we have the ability to know where anybody is at any time, within inches. We also have the ability to navigate unmanned rockets with extreme precision. That being said, why do our rockets explode in the back yards and front porches of non-military citizens. Why are small, innocent children the targets of these weapons?

Children, grandmothers, aunts and uncles are being buried in Gaza and Israel today. The war escalates. It is senseless.

My dream of barbecues, soccer, frisbee and peace is admittedly a Disney fantasy. True enough, but we need to find a solution. I mean really, this has been going on for a few thousand years.

There have been ideas that seem extreme. Relocating the Jews to Africa. That was an original idea in 1948. Considering the state of most African nations today, it’s probably not a very good idea. Nor is sending them to Alaska the way writer Michael Chabon envisioned it.

Besides my dream fantasy, I have no good ideas.

Tuesday, May 11

If the violence that erupted yesterday in East Jerusalem is any indication that the pandemic is over, then let’s have another Covid outbreak. Anything would be better than this.

It doesn’t seem to matter who is in charge, the end result is always tragic. How much longer is East Jerusalem going to be referred to as the “future” capital of Palestine. How much longer will check points keep Palestinians from access to the rest of the world? How much longer will Palestinians and Jews live in fear of a rocket exploding in their back yard?

In my dream, I go there and broker a peace deal. I bring people together and remind them that they are all family — brothers, sisters, cousins. Uncle Abraham, Aunt Sarah, Isaac and Ishmael. We’re family and a family should have barbecues together, not war. In the dream, I bring lots of good food, beer, maybe a few soccer balls and some frisbees. We clear out space around the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock and we fire up the barbecue grills and crack open the beer.

In my dream, people smile and feel peace.

Monday, May 10

They are digging holes in the earth and burying teenage girls in Kabul. Yesterday the report was 30 dead. Today the number is 80. To us, it’s just a number that we can attach to a newspaper photo of parents and relatives grieving, somewhere far away in Afghanistan. In the other world.

It’s Monday, my school week begins. I have little energy for teaching. In a few hours I’ll be sitting at my computer, staring at a bunch of tiny boxes of colorful icons representing ninth grade students. I’ll speak for three minutes to these little boxes. I’ll take attendance — now that’s a joke — and then tell the little boxes to get to work.

As I sit and watch these boxes, more bodies will be buried in Kabul. More tears, more grief.

I don’t know how much longer I can sit.

Sunday, May 9

I was flicking channels last night and found myself watching a few minutes of Forrest Gump. I’d never seen the full movie, but the few minutes I watched were moving. Tom Hanks is a lovable, simple southerner, wise beyond the IQ score attached to him. In a few consecutive scenes, his best army buddy, his mother and Jenny, the love of his life, die. Forrest, sad and confused recalls his mother’s parting words: death is part of life.

More than ever, we have learned the truth of that statement. Death is everywhere. Covid deaths, a few million. Black men, women and children at the hands of white police officers — a few a week. A stampede in Safed, Israel and another in India. And yesterday, in Kabul, thirty high school students.

We do our homework, we grab a slice of pizza, we hit into a double play, we make love, we brush our teeth, we die.

We’re at the point now where if you aren’t grieving a family member or good friend’s recent death, you are probably in the minority.

Death is a part of life. Looking at the kinds of deaths that are happening daily, what does that say about life? Seems like everything we’ve ever learned about ethics, morality and GOD are meaningless.

Saturday, May 8

Who ever thought that you could launch an international career by poking holes in a banana. Meet Anna Chojnicka, an activist, who was working in Addis Ababa until the pandemic brought her home to London, where she learned an art form that she is now introducing to the world.

We all did some silly things to keep ourselves from going nuts this past year. Some of us ran a few miles daily and charted our progress. Some of us played virtual chess, fifty or sixty games a day, sometimes more. We read, we took nature walks, we baked lots of bread, we photographed ocean waves and flowers blooming. We also drank heavily and some of us took lots of naps. Anna Chjnicka got creative with bananas.

When you poke a hole in the skin of a banana, the oxidation process turns the hole you made into a dark brown spot. It takes just a few seconds. When you make lots of dots, you get lots of brown spots. And so, if you carefully poke the banana in such a way that you outline a picture, then you get that picture in a dark brown against the yellow skin of the banana. With a little bit of practice, you can get good at drawing portraits, still lives, landscapes and even abstractions. It’s really silly and kind of cool too.

During the past year of pandemic isolation, Anna made a banana drawing (and ate a banana) every day, but she didn’t stop there. Photos, videos, you tube, web sites, interviews — Anna has become the Banana Artist and she has gone international. She has combined her new love for banana art with her passion for NGO activism as she tries to connect the world for positive gains. While politicians and armies fight to destroy the world, Anna is hoping bananas will heal it.

You can listen to her speak. She has recored a few Ted Talks where she doesn’t even mention bananas and she has been interviewed by Ethiopian as well as the European media. If you can put aside your cynicism for just a few minutes, she will restore your faith in humanity.

Friday, May 7

Another week is coming to an end and I’ve never been happier thinking TGIF.

I’ve been reading all year about how horrible online school has been, but I’ve been saying that my students were doing great in my class. They loved making art and they were learning a lot, even in their pajamas from their bedrooms.

Lately, the excitement has diminished. I don’t see the happy faces anymore because my kids have stopped showing themselves on the screen. My Zoom classroom is now tiny boxes, each a posted icon. When I ask my kids to show themselves, they don’t. When I ask a second or a third time, they don’t. When I try speaking to kids, sometimes there is no answer. It’s just their icon. They could be at MacDonalds.

We are currently working on a painting project that is taking a long time. Each week I ask my students to send in a photo of their work in progress. At least this way I can see how they’re doing. Some of the kids show evidence that they are working every day and making real progress. Some show paintings barely begun. Some don’t even send the photo, even when I ask three or four times.

And the big question: What do I do about this? Part of me wants to figure each kid out. The other part says “screw it, who cares.” If I just go with the belief that this year has been a shitshow and it’s finally over, maybe that’s the best approach.

But actually I do care and I take my job seriously. I want to make an impact on all of my students. My goal is to teach them about art, teach them what being a creative artist means. I want to wake them up. It’s not easy doing that from my living room, especially when I can’t even see them. And double especially if they are at MacDonalds during class.

Back to reality. It’s Friday, TGIF. In a few hours I won’t have to think about it for a few days.

Thursday, May 6

I thought he had died, I mean I wish he had died, I mean, didn’t he move to Florida and just disappear? I thought he was golfing.

Today there are three articles on the front page focussing on that guy who used to be President. Two articles focus on Facebook’s ban of him from their social media platform and the third article discusses the future of the Republican party, with or without him. Apparently the party now wants to get rid of any members who won’t back the guy who used to be President’s claim that the election was a fraud. Liz Chaney, the republican we can’t believe we actually endorse, is back in the hot seat as many Republican big wigs want her demoted. Actually they want her gone.

In recent weeks the Republicans have managed to enact hundreds of laws making voting more difficult for poor minorities. They are doing everything they can to find ways to rig elections. As they rig, they remind us that we rigged first. So, I guess that as long as we can churn out a few hundred thousand fake votes, the new voting laws won’t really matter. They can rig, we can rig right back at them. It all evens itself out. What a country!

Wednesday, May 5

Without realizing it, I’ve begun another series of artwork. These are charcoal drawings of scenes from the Middle East, mostly Syria. I’ve made about twelve in the last few days, more coming. The drawings are mostly of robed people doing normal things. In many of the drawings, they aren’t doing anything at all, just standing or sitting around, which is what many newspaper photos of life in the middle east depict — people being idle.

In many of the drawings, there are a lot of people in a small area. People stand and sit amongst each other in empty areas filled with rubble. Often, there are hills in the background and a grey sky. It’s the middle of the day and people are idle. No one is working, there are no offices, no stores, no signs of commerce.

For the past few years I’ve been working on a series called TODAY. These drawings fit.

Looking at these people, you can’t tell what side of the political fence they are sitting on. But you know that the side they sit on matters. They are sitting and standing in places where civil war is a daily reality. It is May, 2021, but these people are not thinking about Covid.

In my living room studio, I spend a little time looking over the many photos I’ve collected over the past year. Why have I chosen this for my subject? Syria, Yemen, Gaza — these are the places that have my interest. I like to tell people that I like painting the robes. Some artists paint fruit, some flowers, I paint robes. And I like Arabic calligraphy too. But of course I know there’s more to it than that.

As an artist, I am attracted to the heavy issues. I try to bring the weight of the world into my artist’s world. It feels important and necessary. I’m pretty sure I’ve chosen a subject that will be here for the rest of my life, so I will always have material.

Tuesday, May 4

We’re now into the second pandemic blog. Yesterday when I was writing, Medium, the site this blog is published on, sent me a message that there was no more space on the blog I’d been writing since last April. I guess they have a five hundred page limit. And so, the blog continues here, part two.

Part two, but the story is the same. The characters, the heroes, the villains, all the same. The same masks, same six feet, same hand sanitizer. Black Lives still Matter. My students are still each the size of a large acorn, squared off in their little Zoom boxes. I can’t see half of them because they prefer to attend class with their video cameras shut off. Still the same.

And I feel the same too. Not very happy, often empty and confused, but able to tell people “I’m fine” when asked. Because, really, I am fine. I’m the lucky one with a job, a home, a refrigerator packed with good food, and my health.

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are trying to ignore the reality and launch into full back to real life mode. In a desperate cry for tourist dollars, all are invited as of May 17. Europe too will be opening soon. Yes, we’re all in this together, for better of worse.

Monday, May 3

I’m going to take a morning off from whining about the pandemic. I have something else I want to whine about. Why is it so hard to contact a big company?

Back in the day — way back, during dial phones — if you wanted to speak with someone you would dial seven numbers and someone would answer, unless they were speaking with someone else, and then you’d get a busy signal and have to call later. Even with a big company like IBM or your local government, a person would pick up the phone and say “Hello.” Just one word, “hello,” and the conversation would begin.

Trying to speak to a company today is a stressful experience. You call, you get a pleasant sounding, usually female computerized voice asking you to punch in account numbers, social security numbers, special codes, your date of birth and your mother’s maiden name. After that, you are often directed to another computerized voice who asks for some of the same information. Often they ask why you are calling, but still no real person.

After forty or fifty buttons have been punched you finally reach a human being, usually with an accented voice that is hard to understand, who asks you for more information. You tell them your address and if you don’t tell them all of your address — apartment number, zip code, etc — then they ask you for that. Your mother’s maiden name. All for security purposes, and finally it is okay to speak with them.

Some big companies have no phone numbers at all for their customers. They boast web communication that will solve every issue. This rarely works.

Here comes the gripe. I don’t understand why a phone call to my bank or a big firm like Google or Facebook can’t be answered by a person, right from the start. These are the companies that have the most money in the world. If a thousand people are calling them, why can’t they have a thousand people answering the phone to help? Citibank, Google, Facebook and the rest can afford it.

Today I need to talk with Google about a problem I’m having with my gmail account. Not looking forward to it.