Quarantining, pt. 3

I’m glad to report that vol. 1 of the Strangers and Brothers omnibus has been delivered. So now I have the set.

In vol. 1’s preface, C.P. Snow says that this is the series’s definitive edition: the order of the books and some of the language have been corrected. I’m pleased about this and about the lovely typesetting done in Monotype Ehrhardt.

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I must read at least six more books this month to meet my yearly quota. I’m finishing the short books I’ve already begun, like H.G. Wells’s Invisible Man.

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Infection-wise, Karin & I remain symptomless.

Samuel is much better, though he’s taken to squawking most of the day, like a pterodactyl. He hates to drink his medicine.

His urine is uninfected, the doctor says. Now we await the result of his COVID-19 test.

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A masked man delivered a pizza to our house. He noticed the t-shirt I was wearing.

“Did you go to ——— High School?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “But I did work there some years ago. And it’s where my wife attended.”

“I went there,” he told me. “Class of 1990.”

“Well, then, you’re ten years older than I am.”

“You’re thirty-eight?”

“That’s right. I wouldn’t have guessed you were so old.”

“Thank you!” he said.

“Well, you are wearing a mask.”

In this lonely time, I think people just want other people to talk to.

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One of our extroverted former pastors is using Zoom to set up 45-minute video conferences so that his friends can talk to him. Today, Karin & I had a conference with him to show him our new son.

I reminded him that he said he’d take me out for coffee once I completed the Ph.D.

Several other people have made similar promises. It gives me a perverse pleasure to remind them during this quarantining time. (Right now, of course, my claims are unenforceable.)