December 5. Emotions have no memories.

December 4. Second concert in Hyde Park. Christmas concert. In the country where traditional music means Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald.

December 3. Supervised a candle discount sale. Panic at times, it was over a million candles after all, but it all seems to have worked out alright in the end. It’s the first time I’m back in the land of cubicles and sandwiches.

December 2, Valley Forge. First business trip. The pure joy of taking a rental car, driving two and a half hours to Pennsylvania (with good music) and checking into the hotel, meeting the client at their corporate headquarters tomorrow. Who knew I could miss that so much.

The Radisson, which used to exist next door to the casino, although in the same complex, is now totally absorbed into the casino, and is no longer called the Radisson. It’s a desolate place. On picture walls, beautiful women exult over their winnings; in fact, there are almost only drunken old men and youngsters in sweatpants here, as if on a class trip without class.

December 1. I’ve been feeling almost like a new person for days, just because I took the smartphone out of its case and it updated itself to the latest Android version. Now I have a small, shimmering, flat tablet with me, and it shows previously unknown symbols when it sits next to me on the table.

November 30. J speaks completely privately in these videos. Just like we talk to each other alone. I want everyone to see these videos so they know what a stunning woman she is. And then I wonder if I did something wrong, if I wasn’t there at an important moment when I should have been, so the energy went into the video instead. For the most part, I hope, not.

I went to the European Wax Center to get a Brazilian wax. This has been possible for men for two months now. The aesthetician says I am her third male client. I assume I am the third one ever. J guesses I am the third one that day. The work, I suspect, is similar to that in a nursing home. These aestheticians have seen it all.

November 29. Running along the Hudson. In the dark I can’t see the waves on the river, can’t gauge the direction and strength of the wind as I do all the rest of the year, and so I don’t know whether the gusts I feel are exceptions or not.

Compare the way evolutionary psychology is shouted down, and the way evolutionary theory itself was shouted down. Somewhere there must be something that makes us unmistakably human, we can’t be universally at the mercy of something. No, we are obviously not, but where is it, and what is it all about?

November 28. Walked around the lake in Downing Park in Newburgh. It’s a cold wet November day, dreary. The first snow fell this morning. Ducks and geese follow us vigorously, but we have nothing to offer them. There is a pavilion on the lakeshore that can be rented from the city to hold events in. J is quick to take a photo of the notice with the contact details. She wants to organize a concert to give something back to the community where she lives. In the evening we play Magic Cards with Commander Decks.

November 27. Left the house for the first time in days to drive to the shopping mall. Worldwide fear of the Omicron variant. I don’t feel like being afraid of anything anymore. Well, I’ve never been afraid of anything in this pandemic anyway, but even if Omicron turned out to be much more dangerous now, I don’t think I could somehow muster the necessary fear.

November 26. It is not often that I feel so much like nothing. I don’t really mind being nothing, but I am sorry for the disappointment others must have with me.