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Watching Things Burn and Defying the Dark: Thoughts on 2020
Once upon a time, in the 1980s, I lived in the Stone Age. I didn’t use a time machine to get there, but only technically. I was 11 or 12 or 13 then, on the cusp of adult awakening, and I vanished from the land where Madonna’s Like A Virgin and Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean and Olivia…
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There’s a Dead Bird in My Bed: The COVID Diaries
Dear Diary, Does it mean something nefarious if you end 2020 by waking up to a dead bird in your bed? Like, if the morning gifts you a deceased flying creature, is that a portent of things to come? Is it a severed horse head, a la The Godfather? A harbinger of dread? Or is…
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I’m Alive and Dead Simultaneously: The COVID Diaries
Dear Diary, It is four days after Christmas and three days until the New Year, and I have done everything this month, and also I have done nothing at all. I did the Necessary Holiday Things; there was stuff in stockings, there were presents under the plastic tree, I was wildly grateful for my ridiculous…
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Hibernating — The COVID Diaries: Staying Sane in a Time That’s Not
Dear Diary, The fog is thick this morning, a cold cocoon chrysalis shielding our house and holding it suspended in time. It has been 38 days since my last confession. I’ve been quiet, I think, because I’m hibernating. The isolation and confinement of trying to be wise, trying to protect our people, has forced a…