Blogging from the Edge of the Apocalypse...

Captain Trips, from Stephen King's The Stand

As I write this, my wife is driving though Lot J down at TIAA Bank Stadium (home of the Jacksonville Jaguars) for a drive-through COVID-19 test. We live in strange times, to be sure, and I'm thankful that she has been isolating in a separate part of the house and following CDC guidelines for testing after her symptoms began to emerge. We are praying that it's merely a chest cold, but it's important to take every precaution we can to stay healthy in these uncertain times.

There have been so many great books about pandemics for those that have been bitten by the macabre voyeurism bug. Stephen King's The Stand is an epic tome, of course, and Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron is once again surging in popularity. Justin Cronin's novels are probably selling like hotcakes, and I'm sure Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" is getting a lot of attention as well. Joe R. Lansdale and Robert McCammon (Swan Song) write these types of stories with such style and humanity that they will inspire you to scratch out your own tales on the subject. I've always enjoyed (and often taught) Stephen King's "Night Surf." It's one of his first published short stories, and it perfectly illustrates the frustration and futility that many of us have experienced in the last month as life around the globe has changed so drastically.

Our kids are doing fine. Children are so unbelievably adaptable. We can learn a lot just by watching them navigate huge life changes in these strange times...

Jeanne and I are doing okay as well as we adjust to new work protocols and practices. As I mentioned to my students at FSCJ last week in a video--this, too, shall pass...

I miss my office. I miss running the trails at the Arboretum and the Timucuan Preserve. I miss sports. I miss trivial, banal complaints about morning traffic. I miss not getting the side-eye if I have the temerity to cough in public.

But these are surreal, interesting times and I know we'll come out of them wiser and more prepared as a result of all of this discomfort. I hope you and yours are safe and healthy.

Oh, and for my own take on the subject of the pandemic, you can read Remnants: A Record of Our Survival for free here, or pick up a Kindle copy for a song here...

Take care...