Sometimes the mask gives me a headache. It pulls on my ears, which tugs on my temporal lobe, constricting cerebrovascular flow and cutting off oxygen to the brain, making it even more difficult to connect with loved ones than it already is while wearing masks. After eight months of hanging out with this constant barrier between us I sometimes suspect that I’ve forgotten how enjoyable the company of friends can be. Add to that the cold weather, the desperate attempts to brunch on the block and socialization has become synonymous with stress. I tell myself that I’m doing the right…

Last week my wife and I moved to Jersey City (from Manhattan) for more space. It wasn’t because of CoVid — we’d planned to leave the city for over a year and only had to decide whether it would be in Brooklyn, Queens, or in… swallow… deep breath… New Jersey? CoVid didn’t help my case for either of the former — neither did the garden state being my wife’s native home — still I never thought I’d leave New York, regardless of how close it is on the Path.

I’ve lived in New York City for the past 24 years…

There is a saying amongst acupuncturists: “Going to a western doctor to address a chronic illness is like going to an acupuncturist with a bullet wound.” On one hand, it serves as a diplomatic extension of recognition, that western medicine serves an important purpose. Without things like emergency medicine, heart or brain surgery and (certain) vaccines, who knows where we’d be? Dead, probably. We’d be dead. On the other hand it proclaims what most holistic medicine practitioners hold true: That if it is quality of life one seeks, not only quantity, pharmaceutical medicine is useless at best, harmful at worst.

…

As a child I thought the weatherman on the News was really in control of the weather. I would regularly hear my father cursing and complaining: “The weatherman screwed me out of my golf game today! Or, “I hope the weatherman lets the Yankees get the game in today, that son of a bitch.”

“Geez,” I would think. “I hope so too!” I had no idea the weatherman held so much control over the fate of Major League Baseball. Dad’s golf game, fine, I could see that. Just a handful of old fogies smackin’ it around the fairways, yelling at…

More people are fleeing the city than have since after 9/11. Young adults in search of more space — older adults for more security — rents have actually gone down — all under the logical premise that outside the city life is cheaper and easier. My question is whether logic is always applicable.

Outside the city they have backyards and patios, more space to walk around and be unafraid of coming within 6 feet of who knows what — who knows who, and why aren’t they wearing a mask, these people? Outside the city you don’t only get your own…

Suddenly the air isn’t safe (as if it ever was). Oxygen is not safe. The one thing in life that was guaranteed is dangerous. Beware of how you breathe and where you breathe. Wear a mask. Stay away from people. We are not safe to one another. Finally we’ve done it: The biological microcosm of the macrocosm that is capitalism: From incidentally isolated as a result of our busy schedules to forcibly isolated due to an uncontrolled crisis. This is our result. They keep telling us we’ll get through it because we’re strong. I disagree. …

I notice myself not calling friends and family as much anymore. I’m not disconnected — I’m lucky — married — but there seems as if there’s nothing left to say. If most dialogue doesn’t literally begin with, “ What’s going on,”it is at least implied: What is going on? Not much. Groundhog day continues for most: Waking and cooking and cleaning and whatsoever activities you use to keep busy. For those of us with passions in the arts or fields that require great study to become great at, time can be well spent. …

Before Jillian I’d never dated a white girl. I’d dated half white girls and Asian girls, plenty of blacks or Hispanics, but I just never so much dug “my own kind.” I don’t think I had a fetish, as fetishes tend to be more specific in preference, which apparently didn’t describe me. If anything, I suppose I had an anti-fetish.

Fools indiscriminately assign pathological etiologies to personal choices: All comedians must be on stage doing the (arguably) bravest and most difficult thing in the world because of their desperate need for attention, their weakness, ironically. And those who date outside…