3/16/2020 — West Village, NYC
Day three of the end of the world as we know it and… you know the rest. Honestly I’ve listened to R.E.M’s song twice now and I can tell you with absolute certainty that it’s only improved with age.
Hit play below. Or don’t. I find videos in online articles annoying and disruptive to my flow; but way, way, way less annoying and disruptive to my flow than a global pandemic that worsens by the hour and kills… Some people? Too many? Not really all that many? Hard to say. But those Italians. Keep singing mio paisanos!
It’s all relative. Being that videos aren’t as bad as, say, a fast spreading invisible plague that has me humming My Sharona while emptying the trash, I recommend you click below.
Feel better? And if you didn’t click play, you can remember.
***
It starts in the morning. Every morning. Each day is new. That’s the gist of these letters from Manhattan.
Let me take a step back, you’ll get it soon enough.
Anxiety is treated like a pariah in our society. Especially if your society happens to be Jewish New Yorkers. We’re all of us, collectively, indebted to soul-quaking nervousness but we do our utmost to avoid it at all costs — just like how we’re avoiding our friends, parents, relatives, everyone we’ve ever known.
People medicate anxiety, they bravely confront it in therapy, they go to a gym to lift heavy objects and then carefully put them back in place to control anxiety, they stockpile fresh produce and cans of chicken (ew!) they will never possibly eat as a single person in a small apartment who has endless access to groceries just to stave it off, but I’m going to say: no more. I’m going to give anxiety an uncomfortably intimate, way too socially close big ol’ hug and handshake. Without washing after.
Anxiety. Love ya babe.
Let me remind you I was talking about earlier today.
A solid two hours before I normally wake up I realized I was no longer fly-fishing in a supermarket, and casting just really beautifully with lovely technique — that was actually my dream.
I was in my bedroom. I felt the plushness of my pillow, the heavy warmth of the blankets. The red (evil?) numbers on the clock read 6:20am. As we’ve ascertained, I’m not a farmer. I’m a Manhattanite. I needed way more rest.
I drank water. I read news stories about plummeting stock markets and soaring infection rates and the by now hilarious daily drum beat of anti-Bernie Sanders stories in the New York Times masquerading as objective coverage, and guess what? I was full. All topped off. Didn’t need any more information. I also didn’t need any motivation to spring out of bed. I didn’t need purpose. I didn’t need goals or tasks to cross off my list and feel good about myself. I didn’t need coffee, food, sex, love.
Just take a dose of adrenaline, add heart palpitations, toss in a heaping cup of dreadful thoughts — you’re raring to go.
Out of bed, on my way, it’s a terrible morning. “Let’s do this people!” I didn’t shout that because no one is here to listen. But you get it.
What I also got was way more done today than I have in a long time. My dad, God bless him, saved my kosher bacon from his redoubt in La Jolla by tasking me with a long list of calls and emails and video conferences for his medical device business. I even got to edit a WordPress page, click “update,” and see my labor made manifest in the world. Nice!
Anxiety propelled me through an eye-straining cascade of webpages, two different video conferencing tools, and more texts, emails and phone calls than I normally make in a week. I am slightly exaggerating. But it was BUSY. Best of all, whenever I felt like slacking off, I simply took a look at the news. Way more people are sick. Way fewer stocks healthy. Governments across the globe in crisis. But still not that many dead people? So hard to say. Maybe there are a lot? The Talmud says one death is pretty bad, so IDK? It’s just bad, people. It’s baaaad.
Jolted, hyper, ready! Go back to work.
At 5:30pm I distracted my guards, filed off my leg irons and broke free of solitary confinement. Woo-hoo! Freedom. Fresh air.
Now what?
I donned torn leather gloves and rode a CitiBike from Christopher and Hudson, along the long Hudson River. I head north to the mid 70s then pedaled east up to a docking station at West 84th Street and Broadway. It was a cold afternoon with wind off the water. Dark clouds hung to the west. At one point I wondered if I was silly to avoid the subway, but too late. My mission: retrieve a pair of bluetooth earbuds accidentally left at a neighborhood bar. (Remember those? Those were fun.)
I wasn’t in a rush to return to my little, little, little slice of West Village heaven, so I walked home. All. The. Damn. Way. I texted friends, texted my siblings text group (Marc, Ben Isaac, Amanda, Talia) and then talked to the brother who made me a brother, Thacher #2, for 59 minutes and 40 seconds.
The world emptied around me. A black doorman in livery loaded luggage into a white family’s Mercedes-Benz SUV by an elegant pre-war building on West 79th Street. Plastic gloves littered the street, considerately taking the place of the plastic bags that had just been banned weeks ago. Digital street signage reminded me of COVID-19 because I HAD TOTALLY FORGOTTEN. All stores were closed, along with most restaurants. By tomorrow everything will be closed except for drugstores and grocers.
I noticed there’s a new documentary coming out that presciently describes life in America:
I was going to write today about texting ex-girlfriends in a time of crisis to feel slightly less bad about exing them or to make them feel worse for exing you, but we’ll save that for later.
Buona notte paisanos.
— Zachary
P.S. Just listen to the song and you’ll get it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine
Six o’clock, T.V. hour, don’t get caught in foreign tower
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn
Lock him in uniform, book burning, bloodletting
Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate
Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down
Watch your heel crush, crush, uh oh
This means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steering clear
A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)
R.E.M. — It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine). Released 1987 on the album “Document.”