How is that for clickbait? I am sitting on my porch on a lovely Spring late afternoon, early evening. I know that the lily beds need thinning, desperately, the azaleas could use cutting back. The mimosa saplings, in all their ugliness, should be dug out. I need to put the forsythia in some sort of cage or train it on a stake. It is just this skinny little vine. For all I know it might even be a flowering quince, not a forsythia at all. 

Strange to be a prisoner in my own house, like a recluse from a Dickens novel.That has been the trajectory of my life, even pre-quarantine.I see my neighbours, whom I recognize from my daily walk. The family with their adorable toddler just walked by. I know many of my neighbours by their dogs, beagles, Malamute, setters, pug. One woman walks her dog, after work, wearing her scrubs. 

There are chores to do, unfinished tidying up, as if completion would compel me to look at that the rest of the quagmire of untidiness, unexpressed needs, sex acts not consummated that is our marriage. 

Let me sit here now. Just sit. Just watch. Just be neighbourly. It seems so hard to shut off the mind. Toss the politics out. The media and politicos have done a Hell of a good job, making themselves indispensable. It used to be we were hooked on cigarettes, pushed on us by media. Now we’re hooked on politics, pushed on us by media. Instead of smoking Marlboros, we like Trump. Newports? We like Obama, Virginia Slims, Hillary, perhaps? If you don’t think politics can be reduced to brand identity, maybe the media people and the Mad Men have failed.

Back to the bird songs, the motorcycle noise, the dogs.