The General Situation

What a Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday...
Me: Too bad you hiked and I biked at the same time. We should’ve staggered our activities so that we each got some alone time at the house.
Adam: I’m always happy to be with you.

Today...
Adam: I’m going on a walk.
Me: I was thinking of going on one, too. Should we go together?
Adam: No.

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I highly recommend a long drive and, if possible, a hike. We went up to Buellton, in the Santa Ynez Valley, where we ate sandwiches from Industrial Eats in a park with an amazing wisteria-covered picnic area. And then we took a beautiful hike at Figueroa Mountain. But the best part about the whole outing was just being somewhere else—somewhere besides this house—for six hours. Finally, one day was significantly different from all the others.

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In an effort to be positive, here are ten things that have brought me joy lately.

1. I miss so much about swimming—the camaraderie of my Master's group, the meditative nature, and most of all, the post-workout glow that lasted for hours. Walking and hiking are great, but they're just not as aerobic; biking can be, especially coming back to this house way up the hill, but the morning weather rarely cooperates. (It's cold coasting downhill.) So I've started running the trail loop we often hike from our house; what normally takes us an hour, I do in 35 minutes. And I feel fantastic for hours afterward.

2. Another benefit of trail running: I can eat Cheez-Its with less guilt. Cheez-Its are the best.

3. The Mirror and the Light, the third and final novel in Hilary Mantel's series about Thomas Cromwell. The plot gets saggy, but the writing is always fresh and evocative. At one point she described an afternoon as being so damp it was as if it had been wiped with a snail.

4. My pet lizards. Stubby has moved on, but the ones on the master bath balcony are still around. (Recently, however, I did have the uncomfortable realization that I'm the one trapped in a terrarium.) I'm not above talking to any lizard, especially these days.

Adam: What are you doing down there?
Me: There's a lizard on the lawn, which I've never seen before. So I'm talking to it.
Adam: I could use your help with something, but it can wait till you're done.

5. Pretzel M&Ms and almond M&Ms. I'm usually a classicist when it comes to M&M's—plain or peanut—but the store was out of those. The smart move would be to mix up a batch of pretzel and almond varieties....

6. Adam's uncle Thom recommended the taped version of the National Theatre's production of One Man, Two Guvnors starring James Corden (and free on YouTube), and while the hamminess can grate at times, I still laughed out loud. It's a nice break from dark, twisty TV shows.

7.  These songs.

8. Like everyone else, I've given up on wearing real clothes unless I leave the house. Unhappy with my loungewear, I bought a pair of sweatpants from Vuori, and they're great—so lightweight they're barely there. What I thought was navy is actually royal blue mixed with black, but no one sees the pants, and the 20% discount for new customers made the $84 list price a little more palatable.

9. We've had Zoom cocktails with a few friends and family, which is fun. With East Coast people, we do it earlier than we might normally have a drink, so we need something weak. Enter the Americano, a negroni with seltzer instead of gin. (In other words, 1.5 ounces each of Campari, sweet vermouth, and seltzer.) I've had Americanos before and never loved them—with no gin to fight back, the Campari overwhelms—but our beloved Bettina turned us on to Bruto Americano, a more nuanced alternative to Campari. And we can buy Bruto directly from the restaurant—another way to help them in these difficult times.

10. The only pug I follow on Instagram is Walter. Every time his toothy face pops up, it gives me delight. And, rare in Pugville, his owners never dress him up.

Treading Water

It's amazing how quickly you can go from one rut groove to another. The world seemed totally upended a year ago, and now everything is simultaneously strange and normal in a new way. We get up, and maybe we exercise (walking, hiking, or biking, but no swimming); we talk about what to have at our next meal, we cook it, and we clean up; sometimes we nap; sometimes we read. The other day, I considered clipping my toenails, then wondered if I should save it for when I really need something to do. Or should I clip them right away, so that I'll need to do it again that much sooner? 

I understand why people would be upset about Trump easing restrictions. On the other hand, we could encourage him to have a rally.

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Several friends have suggested we get a dog now, but our lease forbids pets—inside, anyway. We already have several outside. There's Stubby, a lizard who hangs out by the garbage cans outside our garage. He's been around for a week.

And then there are the lizards that sunbathe on our master bathroom balcony. First, there were two, and then a third one showed up. It's smaller, so we figured it's a family. But now there are five total. Sometimes their behavior is very pug-like.

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Uranus has been gassy.

Alone Together

Well, these are shitty days. The boredom and loneliness are annoying, but the dread—the fear—that something far worse is coming is often hard to bear. Rather that get glum about it, Adam and I keep reminding ourselves what a run of luck we've had: in particular, selling that damn house in the nick of time and being sequestered in a pretty wonderful place. Knock on wood.

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During dinner the other night, Adam was talking about current events, a.k.a. the many ways in which the world is royally fucked. So I sighed.

"This really weighs heavily on you, doesn't it?"

"Sometimes," I said. "But that sigh was because I just realized that we'll be sitting across from each other like this, and talking about this, for the next eight weeks, and that's if we're lucky."

To his credit, he neither yelled, cried, nor locked himself in the bathroom.

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Early on, I made a list of chores for whenever I got bored. First on the list was vacuuming the sofa, but that sounds strenuous and depressing, so I did everything else instead. I rearranged the bookshelves (in a room we only ever pass through), and discovered that they needed to be dusted, so I did that. I vacuumed the pool table, which I only ever use to fold laundry. I weeded the backyard. And I've laundered everything that can be laundered; if something falls on the floor, I'm off to the laundry room. I think the sofa is next.

And I'm getting an inordinate amount of satisfaction from using up stuff we've had a round for a while—liquid soap in a guest room, a small amount of obscure pasta, etc. I suspect doing so makes me feel like I have a better sense of what I actually have in the house. And, as with the chores, it grants a sense of order in a world tilting toward chaos. Anyway, I recommend it.

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Adam: Is the hat another birthday gift for me?

Me: [Pause.] Yes.

Adam: Thank you!

Me: It's nothing. You gave it to me for my birthday.

Sold!

Me: It's supposed to rain here for the next few days.

Mom: I don't think we're getting rain. Wait, my phone has a cloud with a lightning bolt coming out of it. What does that mean?!

Me: You're not really asking me that.

Mom: Does it mean a thunderstorm?

Me: Not at all. It means electromagnetic radiation will be very strong, so you should only go outside if you're wearing a tinfoil hat.

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And the house is sold! The situation was touch-and-go at the end, or what was supposed to be the end: on the day before we were scheduled to close, the buyer showed up at the escrow office with three checks totaling the purchase price. Two were from his own accounts; the third—the big one—was a check payable to him, which he planned to sign over. And it was an out-of-state check, even though the escrow officer repeatedly warned him she wouldn't be able to accept such a thing. He did manage our expectations well after that, first telling us that he'd need seven business days to straighten the matter out—this was while the economy appeared to be in free fall—and then somehow getting the money wired the next day. Still, for 24 hours, we were convinced we were going to have to move in.

No, we're not looking for a new house just yet. One good thing about the pandemic is that no one—touch wood—is likely to buy the house we're renting anytime soon.

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Humanity is doomed.

Bay City Strollers

Adam and I went to San Francisco for a long weekend—to get away, and to kill time while waiting for the sale of the house to close. (Thursday is the big day.) Unlike most people, I don't have a special fondness for San Francisco, but I like walking around it just fine, so that's mainly what we did. None of the art museums had interesting shows, but we had never been to the Legion of Honor, way out in Lincoln Park.

That's actually an athletic feat, as I'm clinging to the column, like a koala. Anyway, we stayed at the Battery, a private club with 15 or so hotel rooms. If you ignore the tech bros in the public areas—easy enough—it's pretty great. Then again, I may have been swayed by the free bag of Pirate's Booty in the minibar. I don't even like Pirate's Booty! That's just how powerful the goodwill is from an in-room snack clearly labeled as free.

The hotel gets a demerit, however, for window treatments that allow light to seep through—bad in any environment, but especially in a city, where light comes in at all hours. A trick I remembered from by Budget Travel days helped a bit....

One day, we went over to Berkeley, because Adam had never visited the town or the campus. And we both saw something we had never seen before: people playing quidditch, the game from the Harry Potter books. Attempting to play, I should say; flying seems to be an essential part. The young men and women standing and running with broomsticks wedged between their thighs, often clasping the front of the stick with one hand, was quite a visual.

I made Adam go out for a drink before dinner each night, because it's something we don't do in Santa Barbara, where someone always has to drive. At Stookey's Club Moderne, I was delighted by the little nut dish—always a good sign—when the bartender asked if we wanted any peanuts or cheeses. At least I thought she said cheeses, which sounded like supermarket cubes, and we had a big dinner ahead of us. But then I realized she must've said Cheez-Its. Cheez-Its!

And those are the highlights—that and not getting COVID-19 (if, in fact, we didn't). 

P.S. I did come upon a good warning sign.

Another Light That Shines

The sale of the new house is proceeding: the buyer's final walk-through is next Tuesday. One of the few improvements I made to the property was to take down the dining room chandelier and put it on consignment. Naturally, the buyer really wanted it, so Adam and I had to drive into L.A. to get it back. We used the trip as an excuse to visit the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation in Holmby Hills. It's the usual story: rich guy accumulates a ton of art and (presumably) doesn't trust museums to show it the way he'd like, so he turned his house into a museum. You can only go on a tour, which is not my thing, but after a bumpy welcome—the guide yelled at us for not parking the way she expected us to, so I got shirty with her and told her not to touch my car, so Adam got mad at me—it turned out OK. The art is spectacular. Below: A Fernand Léger mosaic next to a Marisol sculpture outside front door.

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We're generally not looking at houses until the closing is done, but there are exceptions. This shower was a recent highlight.

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We've put our New York apartment on the market. It feels like the end of an era, of course, but when we do return to the city, I'm ready to stay in other neighborhoods. (Our photo of Batman and Robin making out didn't make it to the listing. Can't imagine why....)

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I opened a pint of ice cream today. It was happy to see me!

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David Roback of Mazzy Star died last week. Most people know the band from "Fade Into You," which is a lovely song. But I'm partial to the album She Hangs Brightly; I know the lyrics to every song from repeated listenings over the years. (Here's "Halah," the opener.) P.S. I hate how people write "R.I.P." on social media, when what they really mean is "I'll miss you."

The Search Goes On

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At the end of last month, one of our real-estate brokers was chatting with another broker, who mentioned that a client of his regretted not buying the house that Adam and I eventually bought. As I may have written here, as much as we liked aspects of the house, we realized—only after buying it—that we dreaded the prospect of a big renovation project, which we felt the house needed. And our broker knew that.

"Make them an offer," she said.

Well, the guy did, and we got to a point where we're basically whole. And now we've closed contingencies, meaning that if the buyer pulls out before we close in a couple of weeks, he forfeits a substantial deposit. And if/when we close, Adam and I will be back where started—looking for a house.

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In the run-up to my fiftieth birthday, whenever I mentioned that the momentous occasion was approaching, I would politely pause so that the listener could insist that such a thing was simply not possible. (It never happened.) I grew resigned to perhaps looking my age; there was some comfort in knowing I don't always act it. And then I went for my colonoscopy. When I was wheeled into the room where it happens—talk about a different musical!—the doctor said, "You're 50? I can't believe it. I would've said 35 or maybe 40." It wasn't when or where I expected it, but I'll take it.

P.S. It helped make up for my initial call to the gastroenterology office, when I was asked, "Are you over 80?"

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Patrick Berry is the best crossword constructor out there, and I get extra joy from the Rows Garden puzzles he devises for the Wall Street Journal every other week. Consequently, I was delighted to see that he has ten free ones on his website. They're definitely worth a go if you like this kind of thing.

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How on earth did this one slip by the censors?

Among the notes reminding me what to write about here is the word "lemons." I have no idea why, so you'll just have to fill in the rest yourself.

Field of Light

It was time for us to get away—from Santa Barbara, from the new house—so we went to Paso Robles for a night. The town is about two hours north, and it feels different enough without having to really travel. Also, we wanted to see Bruce Munro's art installation, "Field of Light." As you can see, it makes for spectacular photos.

I might have liked it more before the sun went down and the lights came on. There's something about colored light that's just tacky.

And I suspect I might have even preferred the valley—unquestionably pretty as it is—even more without the installation at all, especially with the sun setting in the background. I'm hardly immune to Instagram bait like this, but it isn't very nourishing; I have a more spiritual experience every time I hear the frogs in the canyon outside our house.

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My Masters swim group often overlaps with a team of teenagers, including in the locker room. Generally, they're annoying because they never stop yapping—math class, that day's workout, tedious stuff. The other day, however, they talked about the share price of Tesla, how it had gone up that morning and one had already made over $400. Has the world changed or have I changed...?

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We're not going to renew our New Yorker subscription when it ends next month. I've come to dislike the magazine for many reasons that I won't go into here. One thing I will miss about it, however, is something blogger Charles Lavoie noticed years ago. Almost every cartoon could be captioned, "Christ, what an asshole." 

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A friend sent this screenshot of her phone. You know your website is getting traction when someone else's mom reads it.

Light My Fire

This is odd, even for California.

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Adam is always telling me that I drive too fast, too recklessly, especially on our street. So you can imagine my delight when, at a party, one of our neighbors said, "Are you the guy in the BMW who nearly runs me over all the time?" That's Adam's car, which I can't drive it because it's stick-shift.

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One of the best Christmas gifts I got this year was something I gave Adam. (That's marriage for you.) It's an electric candle lighter—a current zaps between the little prongs like a device in Dr. Frankenstein's lab—that charges via USB. It's a giant leap forward from the butane ones. I also gave him a vintage snuffer that's more fun to use than you'd ever imagine.

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Today at the house, we discovered that the kitchen window is busted. We're both exhausted by the damn place, and any goodwill I might have felt for the former owners is long gone. (That's what cleaning someone else's filthy kitchen cabinets will do to you.) Truthfully, it was gone when I saw the bonkers letters that one has been writing to the local paper.

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The spy game ain't what it used to be.

Ruthless Women Who Ruled the Waves

We're finally getting a bit of forward momentum on the house: the gas leak is fixed, the irrigation leak might not be in the worst possible place, the bathroom designer is engaged, the light fixtures have been put up for consignment, the landscape drains have been cleaned out, and so on.

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Doctor: Are you and your husband monogamous?

Me: Yes. But when he comes here next month, you might let me know if he answers that question differently.

Doctor: You know I couldn't do that.

Me: Well, the least you can do is suggest strongly that he sit me down for a little chat.

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Tough choice at the magazine rack.

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Received this email today in the Siteline account:

I'm writing to get in touch with Erik Torkells. I'm a New Yorker, and came across your Tribeca Citizen piece about your bag-snagging outing. Since I live on a street with two trees decorated with heavily filagreed plastic bags, one sporting a bicycle tire, and one with a hula hoop (!), I'm desperate to get ahold of one of the snaggers. Ian Frazier told me they aren't producing them anymore. So I was aiming to write to you and see if I could rent your bag-snagger. Since you are now a Californian, I wonder at the fate of the device. Did you leave it in the care of another tree-lover? (Who might possibly respond positively to someone asking to borrow it?) Thanks for reading this bananas email.

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On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the 1:25 lane and the 1:30 lane swim together, for reasons I don't need to get into. The idea is that we'll swim at the 1:30 pace, but the other day, it sure didn't feel like it. After practice, in the locker room, I asked the lead swimmer if we were on 1:25. "Yes," he said. "I thought about you, because you were the only 1:30 swimmer in the lane, but I figured you could handle it. You're starting to get into shape."

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We had dinner the other night with some friends, Laurie and Joe. She's fairly reserved; he's not. The talk turned toward TV, as it always seems to.

Joe: I really loved that show "Dirtbag."

Laurie: "Fleabag."

Me: Adam, that's the British show we gave up on midway through the first episode. It's the one with the woman who—

Joe: GETS SCREWED UP THE ASS!

Me: —has anal sex with a man.

Adam: Yeah, I got that.