Heyyy there, everything’s normal and nothing to see here!

The president has COVID-19 and continues to recklessly endanger lives, knowingly congregating with his constituents after testing positive for the virus. I think we’re up to nine infections traced from the same “super-spreader” event at the Rose Garden, at which we know for certain he was COVID-19 positive. The entire administration’s a circus, the GOP serial liars, and we cannot trust a goddamn thing they feed us.

Fantastic, thanks! And you?

I don’t really talk politics here. Vitriol spewed on social media leaves me so drained I prefer to keep Bluestalking a forum for books and salacious gossip. Not even a fraction of what I’m reading or writing or watching or thinking about makes it here as it is. Imagine if I spouted off about politics all the time. I’d write about nothing else.

The stresses of 2020 are taking a toll; my country is under seige from within and I am literally worried sick. Each day brings new shocks, and internalizing all this has left me and everyone I know shattered, complete nervous wrecks. I’ve let self care slide and didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until I turned off the news and looked within.

Despite a respectful fear of the virus, I did go to my doctor, who took blood and ran a panel. I’m aware all isn’t quite right. A couple of readings came back concerning enough she’s prescribed medication and requested re-testing in a month.

I’m not saying I have anything fatal; I am saying all the insomnia and constant flood of adrenaline and cortisol may have contributed to a disorder yet to be diagnosed. The doctor is targeting the testing, narrowing it to a couple of suspects, and I won’t be surprised if she sends me to specialists.

No doom and gloom. Chin up! I’m following doctor’s orders, overhauling the way I look at my health, and adjusting priorities bit by bit. I’ve grown cantankerous in middle age, grumpy and difficult, but I’m not completely stupid.

Shut it.

Outside of politics and health worries, my world is – SPOILER – almost entirely literary-focused. Aside from book reviewing miscellany, I’m working on bigger projects for two specific authors: Philip Roth and Camus. There’s a huge bio of Roth coming out next April I’m dying to lay hands on, plus the painting I bought from his estate auction watches me every time I walk through the foyer. A publisher sent me two essay compliations of Camus; it’s a secondary venture.

Since acquiring Roth’s Chinese reverse painting on glass I’ve intended to actually read his books – aside from Portnoy, which I read more than a decade ago and honestly disliked. Within the past couple of weeks I’ve bought multiple works of nonfiction by and about Roth, begun The Plot Against America, and started watching various documentaries and YouTube videos.

I’m falling madly for Philip Roth and I didn’t expect that. Based on a rushed read of Portnoy’s Complaint a lifetime ago, I mentally lumped him in with the School of Testosterone, my own personal and highly subjective classification for male writers I simply have not gotten along with, for various reasons. Most of them, frankly, have to do with an obsession with sex and sweaty man things. Can I be more specific: no.

I AM LOOKING AT YOU, HENRY MILLER.

For a good many years, I ostracized Hemingway. Weirdly enough, for a writer I’d formed an early dislike to – SEE: Forced march through The Old Man and the Sea book and film in high school – I made a concerted effort to see his homes in Oak Park, IL and Key West, FL. When in Rome?

Exactly when he snuck back in the parlor I can’t pinpoint but I had relegated him to the stables, where he’d been up to god knows. Visiting Shakespeare & Co. in Paris may have been his turning point, laying eyes on that iconic bookshop and imagining what they’d gotten up to endeared him to me.

If Sylvia Beach welcomed him, how bad could he be?

If you’ve read or know anything about The Plot Against America, it will be no surprise this is not an anxiety-lessening novel. Roth imagines an America overrun by facism, supposing what would have happened if the extreme right-wing leaning Charles Lindbergh had defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 election. The best choice to be reading right now? Not so sure. A phenomenal read, yes.

Its concentration on the fictional Roth family has thus far kept me engaged without raising my already sky-high anxiety. I won’t hesitate to put it aside if it gets too intense but I don’t get the impression it will.

LOLLLZZZ – famous last words.

My health is, and will remain, first and foremost over any reading. Philip Roth wrote something on the order of 30 novels. I’m not lacking in material.

It’s Sunday evening. My brain and eyes are exhausted from spending the weekend staring at books and screens. I’m trotting off to find something entertaining to watch so I can unfocus my eyes and relax my brain. No documentaries, no heavy anything. Pity I don’t have a soaking tub or I’d end all my days in it.

Wait. That sounds off.