It’s 11 p.m. and I’m standing over my kitchen sink stress-eating pasta out of the pot because right now life is the airport and time doesn’t exist. In New Jersey, a quick 18 miles and 2 river crossings from where I remain in Brooklyn, my 88- year-old nana is most likely sleeping after another long, semi-quarantined day of enjoying the news, chain-smoking cigarettes and worrying about me.
She stresses about me a lot. She stresses that I’m still single at 31 (the horror!). She stresses about my profession course (” You simply … write?
At her age, and with COPD, she falls into both the most susceptible and perhaps the most stubborn sects of the population at risk for issues from the coronavirus. She and her pals have (thankfully) been forced out of their normal regimen– going to the shopping mall, going to the motion pictures, going to restaurants– but if those locations had actually not been shuttered by government decree, I have no doubt they would be there.
” What am I expected to do about my hair?” this wonderfully vain lady, who is supposed to be not leaving your house, asked me — totally seriously– on the phone.
I have not seen her in over a month– I’m utilized to seeing her at least every two weeks– and I’m too afraid