3/27 Crash of surprising thoroughness, hours and hours of sleep.

3/26 Moved some of the furniture back to where it is supposed to be. Appreciating the one or two days on which they are not shrouded in the chaos, or let’s call it: business of our regular lives.

I’m hearing the astounded question why we painted the house ourselves. The last time I did this was twenty-five years ago, and indeed it never occurred to me to have somebody else do it, even though we could of course afford it. Maybe I’m considering it a basic expression of life which you cannot delegate.

3/25 Worked until midnight, couldn’t help but get up at six to do final touchups, then remove all the plastic covers and floor paper. When my regular workday starts at ten, I already have a four-hour shift behind me.

3/24 Living room done. Tomorrow we’ll have a place to live in again. Aware of how this must sound to someone who has been bombed out of their home.

3/23 It’s enough of a home stretch to give some relief that it will soon be over and we’ll at least be able to sit on the couch again. Too little of a home stretch – because it will still be several days until that – to make us actually feel any relief.

Past midnight, actually finished the walls of the dining room. First coat is enough, since it’s actually just the same color, with no fading over the years, and it blends into invisibility as it dries.

3/22 Progress is slower than expected. I wanted to finish the ceilings today with a second coat and then do the walls, but even the ceiling coat took me four hours to do, and then another one turned out to be necessary, since the ceilings were dark before. Will work on the walls during the week, little by little.

3/21 First coat of the ceiling done. Also, Appalachian Spring and Yankee Doodle at the Northern Dutchess Symphony.

3/20 More dust wiping.

3/19 Into the city in the morning for work, back to Newburgh in the evening to be with J. That’s about one hour and fourty-five minutes each way, some of it in heavy traffic. I have never been a commuter like that, and now it’s only for a few days. Yet the different realities I am passing through blow my mind. I cannot comprehend how a stretch of the Palisades Parkway, and the food delivery bikes of the Upper West Side, and the potholes of Newburgh can exist at the exact same time.

3/18 Wiping dust.