OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

The Pope proclaims the previously unimaginable; Obama does not mince his words; Poland is erecting a field hospital in the national stadium; and I have just participated – joyfully – in my first webinar (the news of only the last twenty-four hours …). Aliens landing in my wild garden would no longer surprise me in 2020. Actually, I am expecting them to arrive before Christmas. Surely, no one in this universe would want to miss the new year’s celebrations on planet Earth – we will all be so glad to leave this year behind that we will not know how to mark the event. It will be outrageously fabulous …

… I will be in bed by eight, drunk on a bottle of Champagne!

(Only Goddess knows what tonight’s ‘debate’ will deliver …!?)

A book I edited went through the final revision stages today. It will go to print by Monday, latest. Another project I began this week is well on its way. I really enjoyed the webinar – it was a delight to interview Gigi Fenster about her remarkable memoir, FEVERISH, for the Jewish Literary Festival (@Home Edition). Gigi has a new book coming in 2021. I sincerely hope that the next Jewish Literary Festival will take place IRL and I can meet Gigi in person and listen to her talk about her second novel without screens between us.

I don’t think that I will last until the debate, but once again I am curious. The Tangerine Troll has never really been in control of any plot, but in the last few days, he has lost it irrevocably, it seems. I have an idea that he won’t be able to contain himself at all and the world is in for a freak show of note: a psychopath on full display. May enough people wake up to his malignancy and vote this particular horror out of power.

I was thinking about the reality of a Biden presidency: it will be decent and calm and we will be able to forget about the States for a while. Twitter might finally become boring – and more bearable – for a few days at a time … Imagine that!

“And that empathy, that decency, that belief that everybody counts, that’s who Joe is. That’s who he’ll be …” (President Barack Obama)

The rising infection, hospitalisation and death numbers worldwide … Deep existential sigh.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD