The second time I heard the story about George Floyd on the radio, it was probably Wednesday, May 27, I had to rush over and turn it off. I couldn’t listen to him gasping, “I can’t breathe.” I couldn’t hear a voice that I knew was killed moments later.

The wins and losses, so far, of quarantining.

I haven’t wanted to write. What is there to say, really? Nothing seems terribly insightful, relevant or new. It’s all being said on the news, social media, in conversation and text: this is a strange, scary time and I can’t wait for it to be over. And yet.

Every once in a while, I have one of those nights that reminds me exactly why we live in Brooklyn. Why we don’t move somewhere where we can triple our square footage while also halving our cost of living (give or take… you know what I mean).

“’School is the armpit of life,’ my best friend Kenzie once told me. My school is no exception. Walk through the scratched glass doors on that first day and your life becomes a series of brutal and painful encounters…”

Every year when I reflect on what I’m grateful for, I feel a bit like a lottery winner. This was a trying year in some ways (freelance is amazing for the flexibility, but filled with rejection and not a lot of money), but pretty awesome in most ways (I stress less, exercise and read more, and have volunteer work back in the rotation).

A funny thing happened a couple weeks ago. Amy Thomas wrote me an email. Turns out, there’s another writer named Amy Thomas. She’s an expat, living in Madrid and discovered me doing a Google search.

Like a lot of parents living in the city, Andrew and I contemplate how long we can last. How many years we can live in a 1100-square-foot apartment.