hey, how's ohio?

I'm in Ohio now.

if you've been following,

and wondering if it's different here

than it was in Queens,

the answer is 

yes.

I just woke up from a 90-minute nap.

i've been doing this every day for the past fourteen days

if you're thinking "good for you!"

thanks,

but it's not really good.

For three months of lockdown in new york

i was barely sleeping at all

window art, astoria 2020

no naps

no successful naps, anyway

lots of lying on my back, yes

but little sleeping in said supination.

i was waking no later than 5 AM,

fixing my face and hair,

and recording fitness videos

with a well-rehearsed smile

for 45 minutes 

most mornings.

then i would busy myself with 

my daughter's remote learning agenda,

and the rest of the day was spent

worrying about money and hospitalization and death,

making three healthy budget-friendly meals,

and worrying some more.

then i would put my weary head down on the pillow

and worry

until i dreamt about

nothing

then waking

nothing

then waking

nothing

then waking

and in the short walk from bedroom to bathroom

seeing a future so bleak

i don't even want to write about it

(even i have boundaries--

thin ones they may be,

but they be.)

In Ohio,

i am no longer

an insomniac.

i am sleeping

in the comfort of my parents'

politely quietly tastefully

decorated guest room

as if i was at a bed & breakfast in Maine.

that is to say

like

a

bear

in

winter.

sleeping so hard at night 

i am having all the classic dreams--

If you were in my class between first and eighth grade

you've totally been in them.

if we have ever done a play together,

you are there, too,

helping me into a costume that doesn't fit

or searching for the script

of the play

to which

i have forgotten

the lines. 

Often you eighth graders and actors

have dream subplots together of your own,

as if you absolutely

belong in a Shakespeare play 

in plaid Catholic school uniforms

eating melting ice cream.

In Ohio,

i am sleeping so hard

my face has a new shape when i wake up.

the shape is not a pretty shape.

what my face-fat can transform into throughout the night

is nothing short of abstract art

except that I shouldn't dignify what i see in the mirror

in the mornings

as "art"

Before my Ohio arrival,

my right eye had become irritated from mascara + stress

and my hair had become trashed from heat styling

so, once in Ohio, i stopped wearing eye makeup, 

got a hair trim, and stopped curling or straightening my trashy hair.

now i look not only tired but depressed.

my eyes look depressed

and my hair looks tired.

or the other way around?

any way you look at it, 

it's far from perky.

even my damn mom, 

who is undoubtedly my biggest champion,

said "did you sleep okay?  you look tired."

i said "yeah, i sleep here like a bear in winter;

i just didn't put on mascara today."

she said, "oh, shit, I hate it when people say stuff like that to me.  I take it back."

i wasn't even offended; she was entirely right.

... and i'm so grateful to have a mom who says "shit" when she means it.

i feel sorry for my face

i feel sorry for my hair

but i can't play the game that i am 

youngandprettyandhaveafuture

that was a fun game 

and i won a few rounds around the age of 36

but i am losing so consistently now,

i am ready to cede.

(Elizabeth Hurley won, by the way, so I don't know why any of us would bother anymore.

Liz wins. The rest of us can now save on beauty products and spend our pennies instead on avocados.)

anyway.

I just woke up from a 90-minute nap

and instead of feeling refreshed,

my only thought is

I am so fucking tired

I am so fucking tired

I am so fucking tired

It makes no sense.

i woke up this morning a little before 6:30,

and thought,

nah

and went right back to sleep.

i got up a little later and spent the next four hours 

in anticipation of the 90 minute nap in my near future.

i had coffee:  can't wait for this to wear off!

went jogging:  looking forward to that catnap!

made art projects with my daughter:  this is sure wearing me out...

read books with her too:  can't keep my eyes open...

had lunch:  carb up, girl, crash is coming!

then i went into the

politequitettasteful room,

read about two minutes of reading material,

and donated the next 90 minutes 

to a dream

in which I had to crawl from the backseat

to the front seat of my own car to steer

because my mom and i had been riding in the back together

by some sort of auto-drive situation.

i pulled us over because we heard sirens 

and hoped i'd get my seatbelt on in time 

if the cops approached.

anxiety?  who?

Except for my own personal travel-size anxiety,

which knows no state or city boundaries,

the difference between pandemic life 

in suburban Ohio

and urban Queens, NY

is as vast as you think it is.

"what's different?"

i have been asked.

threat.

there is no threat

in the sound of rain

--that good old-fashioned kind of

summer storm--

or the sound of a lawn mower

or the zz-zz-zz of a oscillating sprinkler

...

the sound of threat

is siren

after siren

after siren

all day

every day

for sixty days

wafting through Astoria's open windows

broken daily

at 7:00 PM

with shouts and claps and the banging of pots

reverberating out of Astoria's open windows

--New York's clanging thank you

to the doctors and nurses and medical professionals

tirelessly serving Covid-19 patients

there is no threat on the screened-in back porch

of Shelley and Charlie's house.

the deer that occasionally wander by

are six-foot-distance skilled

unlike the moron pigeons of Astoria

who might as well be claiming:

"my feathers, my choice!"

as they swoop within a twelve inch proximity

and shit on my shoulder.

in Shelley and Charlie's backyard, 

there aren't any humans

how could there be threat?

...

during pandemic-life in Queens

my family and I spent many hours 

in our building's backyard 

and we were never

ever

alone

never.  

fire escapes

alleys

buildings that butt up against each other

it's not a complaint;

we got to know a pair of neighbors

we'd never met before.

we'd chat from behind our fences

and they would share their plush garden roses

with Katie on a regular basis.

we started having fresh flowers in every room

and before we left for Ohio,

we joined them on their patio

for a socially distant grill-out.

(we basically brought dishes to share

but ate our own food

and enjoyed conversation

that was not divided by a fence.)

To go to the grocery store 

in suburban Ohio,

conjures minimal threat.

i put my mask in my bag

my bag in my car

and i drive

-entirely isolated-

to a store 

where i put on my mask and

where the aisles are as wide as my NY apartment

yet the shoppers

do not observe six-feet,

and only half of them wear masks.

employees are still grabbing groceries 

as they are coming down the conveyor

and tossing 'em in the bags i brought myself.

i tried not to let my shoulders visibly tense

as two nice men tried to help me bag my groceries.

"i got it!" i said,

cheerfully.

(manically?)

from behind my mask,

and so the second guy switched 

to merely nudging each product toward my bag.  

with his hand.

as if, in an effort to help along that wayward apple juice

that dizzy hummus

that confused yogurt

"thanks," i said,

less manically

but also less cheerfully

since what i meant was

please-get-your-potentially-covid-hands-off-my-groceries-they-know-where-to-go!

At the grocery stores here,

they are,

or appear to be,

entirely

unthreatened.

...

did you read my post on going to Costco in Queens?

my trips to the grocery store in March and April

were epic

and not in the good way.

i had a whole therapy session -by phone-

to prep myself for a trip to the grocery store back in March.

and then I basically held my breath 

through the whole experience anyway.

In Ohio,

i feel very alone 

in my pandemic anxiety.

the lady in front of me in the grocery line

leaned her elbow and upper arm

right up on the little stand where you insert a credit card

and chatted away with the cashier.

no mask

no six feet

just sucking in everything 

her environment had to offer.

i will take great pains

not to make physical contact 

with the surfaces she has touched,

i thought,

(and i did)

but i was a little envious

that she was so carefree.

i'm not saying that 

the coronavirus isn't here.

it's here.

it's fucking everywhere, America,

but with this much square-mileage

one cannot feel its 

threat.

see the danger?

stay apart, stay safe

gather, and it gathers

it's invisible.

not spooky, fake-ghost invisible

scary, scarce-ventilator invisible

i tell you what, U.S.

squeeze your asses 

into a grocery store a quarter of the size

in a city 80% the size

with a population three times the size,

and the threat

just might

seem to

you know,

expand

broaden

float on fucking air

what I'm getting at--

i think

is that 

i sleep in Ohio

because every muscle

gland

and neuron

was taxed

in Queens

on a moment-to-moment basis

for roughly 99 days

and now

they've relaxed

because

the threat 

seems distant

the threat is not gone

coronavirus is not gone

unemployment is not gone

remote learning is not gone

they're just not poking me in my fat face at night.

and to that 

I say

"thank you"

and

good night.

backyard life, reynoldsburg, OH

backyard life, astoria, NY