4:45
On a Friday

At 4:45 today I was getting lost in repeated views of this video by Doug Middlebrook lip syncing to Carrie Fisher gently roasting a woman for indirectly asking about her weight. His flawlessly timed intakes of breath paired with the texture of her voice: mesmerizing. It also makes me want to reread Postcards From the Edge, the greatest work of autofiction ever written. Ben Lerner WHO? Rachel Cusk WHAT? Olivia Laing WHEREFORE? Okay I like all those writers. But Postcards is transcendent. Maybe that's a good one for self-isolation.

Today was super chill. Here’s Nima in his cushion-fort post-nap, around 4:45, and Nima inspecting daddy’s nipple.

At this moment I’m out of the house for the first time in days, to have a quick production meeting in DTLA for my sample line and the production of masks for the city of Los Angeles. It's hard not to move around daily with a mild sense of anxiety and paranoia, but that's also how I have been living my life day to day for the past few years as a designer, entrepreneur, and joint business owner. I'm feeling happy and blessed that I'm in a position that my world hasn't come to a complete halt and that work I'm affiliated with is contributing to limiting the spread of the virus. With the businesses we run, we are accustomed to thinking quickly on our feet and finding ways to survive and thrive under critical times, with little money and resources. I'm hopeful for the future yet nervous for the state of the world, and the people upon coming out of this.

Under New York's "shelter at home" policy, my wife and I have been eating dinner at retirement home hours. So at 4:45, I was just starting to prepare our meal for that evening (to use the term "evening" in a wildly generous way). Three to four times a week, I've been making egg scrambles with various veggie, meat, and cheese combinations mixed in, like I'm running a savory Cold Stone Creamery. I'm not a great cook, but over the past few weeks I've figured out what heat it takes to fluff the eggs up the best, and when to start sautéing broccoli so it's ready when we want to eat. It's been a small triumph during a period where the idea of succeeding at something (anything) has seemed borderline impossible.

Crying in bed wearing diamonds. Clusters in a raised setting, curved into a heart pendant. The clasp reads 14K PERU. My mother, boarding a flight in fifteen minutes, has left it with me. I believed her collection sold years ago, but she insists this necklace is the last of it. Jewelry: a poor woman’s insurance. I’ve never been responsible enough for such a gift, and I am afraid of what’s changed. It’s an early birthday present, but I know it’s a precaution. For a 63-year-old asthmatic, home isn’t safe. I remain in Queens, the deepest part of the epicenter.

At 4:45 I was lying on my day bed, catching rays of sunlight from my window over downtown Copenhagen, reading this book...Mosquito: A Human History of our Deadliest Predator. About halfway through the almost 500 page tome, it seemed fitting to pick it back up—to be waiting out a pandemic reading about all the instances in human history where battles were waged not just on each other, but with other invisible enemies like Plasmodium falciparum. It's the protozoan responsible for Malaria. That disease kills about half a million people a year, mostly within Africa. With days spent completely indoors as the weather gets better, and grey days turn sunny, I can't bring myself to see this pandemic as some great course correction in the history of earth. It's just the course of history on earth. Terrible though it may be, I'm glad to be a part of it.

Cracked open the good stamps.

I fucked up: I left my phone in an empty box by the door that a package had come in, throwing it into a heap of leftover hand sanitizer wipes from back when I had them. I wiped down my chihuahua's paws when we got back inside, now I dip them into a puddle of hand sanitizer in my palm before we walk through the door. I miss the ding of my phone reminding me to log what I'm doing at this exact moment because I just had the impulse, for the first time in a year, to go running. I still have my running clothes in the closet, but I can't find a fanny pack or another bag that would work. I let my gym membership lapse, it's closed anyway. Usually I could just go with a handful of items, or use a more delicate bag on the side of the treadmill. I move my bed to get in the closet behind it, where it isn't, just stacks of my mom's childhood Nancy Drew books. I just organized my entire apartment, I don't know where else it could be. It's a promotional Arizona Green Tea fanny pack, still in the package, that a friend gave me a few years ago. I find it in the corner by the lamp, behind a giant bucket of white paint (since reorganizing, there's no room for it in the closet. Wait, unless...). I stop to check my texts on my computer, and a phone call appointment for 7pm gets moved up, and I disinfect my phone and see the reminder to log what I'm doing. I take a picture of myself in the newly rediscovered fanny pack in my running clothes for the run I postpone (cancel), and a picture of my TV streaming On the Town, the only musical I've ever put on. My friend posted a clip of it the night before, comparing it to a screenshot of me on a livestream in desolate Times Square, and I asked my dad what it was from to avoid looking ignorant. I sit in the corner with the best phone reception and dial.

-Thankful for the fact that I have projects to work on.
-Updating my Instagram Stories to grapple with/make sense of/wrap my head around/record for posterity/all of the above, how there seems to be no end to how fucked things can get.
-Mourning my favorite restaurant in New York City being forced to turn into a quasi-bodega/takeout spot forever if they're to stay afloat.
-Resisting the urge to freestyle hang all of the framed pieces that are currently leaned up against the walls of my apartment.
-Looking at all the crazy things people are making on Animal Crossing as it goes from cult classic to the definitive platform for young people to learn about and escape from the buckling neoliberal consensus that has gone fully mask-off and fucked us for generations/eternity.
-Contemplating taking my hair down to 0 again with clippers I haven't used since college.

4:45—Montréal—I’m working in my home office. Without having colleagues around to impress with good posture, I might have found the least ergonomic way to sit on an ergonomic chair. It’s akin to the asymmetric perch of a very casual gargoyle and it will surely have me feeling sore if I keep it up any longer. My desk has a clear view of the kitchen. It’s actually almost in my kitchen, if I’m honest. But at the same time, it’s not “in” the kitchen. It’s all “open concept” over here. Behind me, Xavid is watching a show I assumed was Project Runway but just now I overheard someone bluntly correct me: “This is ‘Making the Cut’”. Without looking at a clock, I would still know that it’s near the end of a workday on a Friday because I keep looking towards the kitchen. It’s where I go immediately after working-at-home to cook or clean or find a snack. The person I was two weeks ago (someone not yet used to indoor culture) would have easily eaten half the Goldfish crackers in one sitting at this time. Today when I look over at my cupboards, I don’t think about the goldfish anymore because, yes, I did eat them all. Now I’ve been much better about realizing that the more I eat, the more often I must venture outside. This morning I told myself, “an apple a day.” I can’t figure out if that’s more calming to me as a single entendre.

Right now I'm working on my sewing project, trying to make a brown horse stuffed animal without a pattern. I haven't had motivation to paint or work, but I still need to keep busy with my hands. Domestic activities like sewing and cooking have been good for that.

Just sent a few emails: one about getting a replacement part for my refrigerator, and another to a brand, for which I write ad copy. My boyfriend is on his laptop, making “angel noises” with Ableton, taking a break from the cyclical wording of unemployment forms. New York’s shelter-in-place rule (which is more like a suggestion) has put everyone on edge, and all of my texts are being read as abrasive, maybe since they usually concern some disaster birthed from economic collapse that I had not yet previously considered.

Conference call. It’s funny how much of my time has been spent waiting for answers to questions, or at least an idea of when those questions might be answered. I was on the phone with the managing partners of Mission Chinese Food, along with our accounting team, our attorney and our operations manager. Right now we’re in the process of applying for small business loans and doing everything we can to prepare to reopen the restaurants, whenever that may be, and in whatever capacity. Things are looking promising and I’m very lucky to have everyone on my team!

It’s 4:45 and I am using my tape machine!

At exactly 4:45pm, I was picking up some cottage cheese from the floor, while I dialed the meeting number. Just before 4:45 pm, though—every clock in this house in Hudson has a different time—I was watching Ray, a handyman, and David, my spouse, carry upstairs and then place a 72" x 48 3/4" plywood board under our mattress, because it is too soft, and, for days now, I'm not able to write, because I don't like writing standing up, and don't care that Hemingway did, because my back hurts if I sit too long, because the mattress I sleep on is too soft. Mostly I am wondering what I should do with my time, now that I have so much, supposedly, but anxiety affects time, and so there is, in a sense, less time in a day.