One of the stories my Auntie Anne loves to tell is from the early days when my parents were dating.

She recalls visiting my dad’s apartment in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where everything was perfectly in place and organized.

Here’s the detail that causes the most glee in the sharing of it: My fastidious father had a copy of TV Guide sitting on top of the television in a leather slipcase, open to the current day.

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It would be nice to escape right about now.

The trouble is, there's nowhere to escape to. And even if there were, they'd probably cancel your flight out.

So here we are, dealing with a reality that is once again not cooperating with our wishes. My heart goes out to anyone whose plan—whose life—has been upended by the new variant, along with all those who were already suffering before Omicron came to town. It's really hard.

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We all have stuff we’re weird about.

It might be that we need a certain amount of sleep or solitude to function. We might refuse any situation in which we’re going to be uncomfortably close to strangers for a prolonged period of time. We might never leave the house without a full face of makeup or carefully styled hair.

Me, I’m weird about food. I hate being hungry, and I get anxious if I don’t have a clear path toward what I deem to be appropriate food at regular intervals. I’m also weird about making sure the house is impeccably tidy before I go on a trip or a guest comes to stay.

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It’s winter and there isn’t very good news.

The pandemic rages on — why is that such a normal sentence to write? Why does it feel like I’ve heard it or written it a hundred times? — and here in the United States, the vaccine distribution is slow. There is political unrest to boot.

I miss my family and the bustle of restaurants and coffee shops. I fret over the well-being of my students, my friends, my finances. I long to get on an airplane.

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