January 24. Nothing but sleep. Chills at two o'clock in the morning.

January 23. Our tests were negative, but during the flight we both became unusually tired and slept almost continuously. In the evening, back in New York, I had a fever. Harmless fever, barely over a hundred. I shivered and tossed and turned all night, and J had to talk me into taking a Tylenol. I woke up a few hours later completely drenched in cold sweat and otherwise felt okay. Immune system at work.

I wonder if the immune system is some kind of Turing machine that, if only sufficiently programmed, can fend off any possible threat. Any being based on the same signature of life as ourselves. Or, conversely, is it possible, or has it ever happened, for an entire species to be wiped out by a pathogen?

We have tested again, continue to be negative. The fever comes in waves. Waves without particularly high amplitude, but miserable.

January 22, Atlantic Ocean. The map in the seatback shows that we are flying over the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone. I consider writing down the name so I can research what it is later. But I need to learn to do something like that right away. I read in Wikipedia, and get to a page from 2009 where someone from the crew of a U.S. Coast Guard cutter describes the 1966 voyage during which the first evidence of this fracture zone was discovered.

January 21, Berlin. For thirty-six hours, we ate practically nothing but currywurst. Got acquainted with German payment methods: the American credit card either doesn’t work, or it’s cash-only anyway. I go to Edeka, where I have to buy something for five euros to get two hundred euros change. J goes to a piercing studio in Wilmersdorf – the best she’s ever had. Our flight has been canceled. We are looking forward to a few more days in Berlin, but KLM rebooks us, without our intervention, on another flight that arrives almost at the same time. Shopping at KaDeWe. J is in a lot of pain; whiskey from the hotel bar. Pour as much as the glass holds.

January 20, Berlin. Hackescher Markt, later Simon-Dach-Strasse. It’s been a quarter of a century since I showed up here. Covid is a gruff affair in Germany. Exclamation marks on the signs everywhere, white and red floor markings.

January 19. J says that in Germany I act more confidently. As if I owned the ground I walk on. In America, I don’t.

January 18. Road Movie in German. We drive up and down the small country. I haven’t seen Germany during the pandemic yet. Unsurprisingly, everything seems more urgent and orderly here, the tone of the signs, the exhortations. In Sweden, on the other hand, there is no pandemic at all.

January 17. Surprisingly good with my parents. Staggered drunkenly through the village.

January 16. Not an easy weekend.

January 15. Watched movie, played Sorry!, programmed Microbit.