3/5 In the laundry room, after ten at night, the trombone player again, playing against the wall.

¾ J and I both need medication to stay calm.

3/3 Phone call about the children. Totally wrecked after that. Contact government agencies, get lawyers in motion.

3/2 Two civil rights groups.

Number one:

We meet over zoom and oh my god, says the moderator, we’re more than 40 tonight, more than ever, so many that we won’t have time for everybody to introduce themselves, but is there somebody from the press here tonight, could you please identify yourself? There’s no-one from the press, but a photographer, who readily identifies herself. An agenda has been put together with numbers of minutes in front of each item to guide the discussion. The previous meeting, we learn, was a hybrid meeting in both a physical location and over zoom. It had been very frustrating for those online because they couldn’t hear what people said in the room. Several attendees are still upset about this and demand a solution. The person who is in charge of tech assures them that there won’t be another hybrid meeting until that issue is resolved. Another topic is social media. How can we get more followers? If there’s anyone here tonight who can help us with that, please get in touch. Actions that were taken over the past few days are reviewed, mostly by showing photos from protests, most of them small, regular gatherings at symbolic places such as a tv studio or a car company branch. New actions are proposed and voted on, the voting happens by raising your hand and showing it into your camera: for, against, abstain.

Number two:

We meet over zoom in a webinar format where you can see the speakers and write in the chat, but can’t talk or show your own video. The speaker announces, calmly, in a living room voice: If you’ve been here before, you’re a returner, and you should please go to another zoom room which we’re posting the link to in the chat, but if you’re here for the first time, stay here and wait a moment. We end up being about 1,100 in the first-timer room. You can introduce yourself in the chat if you want to. The speaker, who is joined by another speaker after a while, shows a presentation about the political landscape and specific goals of this organization, although everything is turning much broader and more general these days. Who has ever taken political action in any sense, they ask. Type a + in the chat if you have. Lots of plusses roll by. We’re taking action tonight. They give us the address of a website where each of us can go right now, enter our address and phone number, and automatically get connected to our representative in congress. Then we should read a script that is shown on the screen of the webinar. It’s fine to just read the script, but if you feel like adding something personal, even better. Do it now. You have three minutes. After the three minutes, more roll calls in the chat: If this was your first call to your representative, type a +. Were you nervous? Type a +. Again, lots of plusses roll by for minutes, congratulations to everybody, we have now taken political action, and thousands of people have called their representative in congress. Next time we’ll be returners and go straight to the other zoom room where we’ll take even more action.

3/1 Writing about trees. It seems inappropriate to write about anything else while your country is getting smashed to pieces, but then again, what on earth would you write, as everything is being said everywhere already. It’s not that we are forbidden from saying anything – yet, but I still end up mute, a devastating silence.

2/28 A day as black as a raven. (Zelensky in the Oval Office)

2/27 Took ten milligrams of weed, which has frequently helped me to fall asleep and stay asleep, but this time, when I woke up around 2am as usual, it was as if I could, awake, watch my brain being sucked into sleep, which scared me. For hours I tried not to fall asleep under any circumstances, a true panic attack, attenuated only by the intense, changing weed thoughts, each of which more surprising than what I can normally think, only to pop like a soap bubble immediately, I can hardly remember any of them.

2/26 A wall of meetings, for both of us, which we work through from my apartment. Civil rights group, also over zoom, in the evening.

2/25 For people who are not famous, and who do not regularly get taken for someone who is, this is probably unknown so I should make a note of it. How people go about talking to someone they think they know as someone who is out of their world. They walk up to me, a deeply curious and elevated look in their eyes, as if my presence, which they don’t quite believe yet, has already enlargened their life. Their question, uttered with a sense of daring, will usually be: Are you an actor? This is funny, because why would they care if I’m an actor? They want to know if I’m David Duchovny. But they don’t dare asking that, as if that would be an unseemly infringement on my privacy, or just too good to be true. And it’s not that they recognize my face, but can’t remember my name. Nobody, and over the years there were many, has ever asked me if I’m David Duchovny. Only if I’m an actor. Or that unforgettable girl on Columbus Circle who wanted to know, squarely squinting at my face: Are you famous? It would be quite awkward if I had to tell them that I am indeed famous, or an actor, but not David Duchovny.

2/24 Back in Manhattan. Mail ballot from Germany got here on Friday. 

Even though J and I are getting better and better at all the traveling routines, the exhaustion also seems to grow.

Brat family around us on the flight. Father stretches in the aisle and makes an audible yawning sound while doing so, everything, especially the behavior of his children, follows from this detail.