For Carol and me, irrational fears of coronavirus have replaced our irrational fears of dementia from what I like to call our “everyday” neuroses.

Board games have never mimicked real life, at least my real life. I have no history of wanting to be a tycoon that would have informed me of how to win at Monopoly. As far as Settlers  of Catan, had I ever been a real life settler, I’m quite sure I would have perished with the first frost.

I’ve come to realize that I’ve been living the dream for some time now. You’d think that being cut off from the amazing opportunity to travel abroad afforded to Carol and me courtesy of Delta Airlines’ Surviving Spouse benefits would leave me inconsolably frustrated, but it has not.

Of all the things Carol doesn’t understand about me (contained in her book, What Have I Gotten Myself Into, Vol. 1-,one that confounds even her broadest allowances for abnormal behavior is my attitude toward haircuts.

I was fishing around for an idea for a blog the other day. I wanted to keep it personal, but Carol, I think, was right that I leave My battles with ear wax between me and my PCP. Then, while daydreaming through the coronavirus news one evening, it suddenly struck me:

The second house I lived in became a recurring and enduring nightmare long after we had moved. My first house was a row home in South Philly, which marked my brief Return to the City phase, back in the late 70s.

So it seems to have come down to this: pleasant evenings on our patio enjoying music and a glass, while watching two orb weaver spiders ply their evening artistry.

My first major in college was Psychology. I didn’t make it past the first year. When we reached the chapter on psychological disorders, and I identified with every one of them, I came to the realization that I had declared me as a major. I went to college, so I could become someone other than me, not to make me my own life’s study.

I have to lose a few pounds. Actually, I have to lose a lot of a few pounds. In my long distance running days, I never had to worry about my weight. Running forty miles per week meant everything I ate and drank converted immediately to fuel. I could walk around the house with a Dove Bar in each hand and a stupid grin on my face. Running for me was an obsession, quite possibly an addiction, but without a destructive physical or emotional element. As with all my obsessions, however, running, too, wound up on the ash heap of my history.

I have empathized with and celebrated what parents have faced and triumphed over during this pandemic as it applied to their school aged children. Thinking back to my school days, I try to put my parents in the current predicament to imagine how they might have handled the situation as admirably as their children’s children have been. After picking myself off the floor, my sides aching with the laughter this image provided, I began getting specific.