And in the evening ...?

I've always found that routine helps me through rough times--keep doing what you love to do until you can't.

I think of poet Edwin Arlington Robinson and novelist/playwright/poet/essayist John Updike, both of whom died of cancer (1935 and 2009, respectively), both of whom were working on their death beds--writing, copy-editing. May I be so fortunate.

Many people have it far rougher than Joyce and I do right now--and I feel simultaneously guilty and grateful for that. We have been donating to others in various ways, but, as I said, we are lucky. We can do that--we should do that. And many, many others are doing precisely that--giving, helping.

But ... my routine ...

Our evenings are not all that different from what they were before the lockdown. We, of course, no longer go out to a movie--or a play--or to a restaurant--or to run an errand to Office Depot or the grocery store or a bookstore or ...

Other than that, however, our at-home routines remain fairly stable.

Here's how they go ...

We eat supper about five each evening. We talk and watch the previous day's Daily Show on the Comedy Central app on our Fire-TV--and host Trevor Noah, recording the show from his NYC apartment, has had some wonderful guests on during what he now calls The Daily Social Distancing Show, Dr Fauci among them. One night this week he spent the entire half-hour interviewing NY governor Andrew Cuomo.

Afterward, we clean up (I've been doing whatever hand-washing of dishes is necessary; Joyce usually does it). Then I head upstairs about 5:45 and change into my pajamas.

Yes, I said it. I head upstairs about 5:45 and change into my pajamas.

If you had told me I would be doing this when I was, oh, 15, I would have cried FAKE NEWS! and unfriended you in the late 1950s way: by ignoring you.

But I'm 75 now; I am on an energy-sapping med; I have to sleep a lot or I am in trouble.

Anyway, in bed about 5:45. There, I read a bit in six or seven books I have going. Right now, these are on my nightstand:

• Wilkie Collins: I Say No
• Louisa May Alcott: Little Women
• Hilary Mantel: The Mirror and the Light
• Cori McCarthy & Amy Rose Capetta: The Sword in the Stars (the 2nd volume in their up-to-date story of King Arthur, Merlin, et al.; Cori attended Harmon School in Aurora and graduated from Aurora High School)
• Kim Ghattas: Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East
• Val McDermid: The Torment of Others
• Ken Bruen: Taming the Alien

(The last two I'm reading on Kindle.)

After the reading, I do the daily New York Times min-puzzle on my iPhone. There's a ... mild competition between Joyce and me re: who completes it more quickly--without cheating (which we both do from time to time).

During all this time, by the way, Joyce has been in her study reading or working on a writing project.

After my reading, I'll stream a bit of a movie I know Joyce doesn't want to see. Recently, I saw, The Other Guys and Step Brothers. These are without exception (as you can tell by the two titles) films that I am somewhat ashamed to be watching--but do so anyway. Can't help it.

When I hear Joyce coming to bed (7-ish), I pause whatever I'm watching, and we begin streaming bits of "our" shows.  Right now, we're watching ...

• Waking the Dead
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Blood
• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
• Black Adder
• Death in Paradise
• Bosch
• After Life

A little bit of each one ... then we end with a comedian we like (we just finished the most recent Netflix comedy special by Chris D'Elia).

About 8 ... it's lights out.

Joyce stays with me a bit as we talk in the dark about the day, about events, about ... well, about anything. Then (she likes going to sleep later on) she heads to the other bedroom upstairs to read another hour or so before she surrenders.

My indulgent readers, are you asleep yet? Boredom is an amazing sedative.