ANOTHER IMAGINARY VICARIOUS VISIT TO NEW YORK CITY: A SEMI-FICTITIOUS EAVESDROPPER'S REPORT

 ---"I find it unnerving when I glance through an upper-floor window inside a skyscraper here and everyone on the ground is so tiny they remind me of an insect."

---"It is hard to avoid sounding cynical about the throngs of people here. Everyone knows one of the best-selling novels about life in New York should be entitled 'Far From the Maddening Crowd'."

--"The title of that novel will imply that if you live here too long, you turn into a deranged lunatic. You go mad to the point of complete and irretrievable derangement."

---"I don't know whether statistics will show that a higher percentage of New Yorkers go crazy and end up in a psychiatric ward than do residents of Philadelphia, for instance."

---"The human face will never be the same for me. It is the face where the COVID-19 gets spread from, so it is a lot harder to smile at faces these days. Any face could be the face of a would-be COVID Killer, as I call them."

---"If I were religious, I would be saying 'count your blessings that you tested negative for COVID' to everyone I interacted with when they tell me they didn't test positive. If they test positive, I would probably say something else, such as 'Count your blessings that you are still alive' or 'Maybe the Lord has asked you to reunite with them sooner than you had expected.'

---"Whenever I visit an art exhibit here these days and any of the subjects in the artworks have their mouth open, I want to shout at them to please SHUT YOUR MOUTH and PUT ON A MASK ASAP!"

---"I think the word 'trust' is at risk of being banished from my vocabulary. People lie to me all the time about whether they were tested recently, and whether they got vaccinated. Why should I trust anyone about anything these days?"

---"At least we've expanded our repertoire of worst-case scenarios, since children are often spreading what ends up being a fatal exposure to the COVID-19 virus. This means we'll have to use the term 'enfant fatale' to describe what's going on. I don't remember using that term before, but COVID has forced me to talk that way about children. How tragic that we're sounding cynical toward everyone these days. Children have lost their air of innocence."

---"What's especially hideous about COVID is that so many of the victims are desperately gasping for oxygen as their final statement to the entire world."

---"I think anyone who's come down with COVID finds that hugging their pet dog helps them to recover sooner. Our pet canines turn into unpaid medical assistants who nurse us back to health."

---"I never did find out whether if a person with a mild case of COVID-19 interacts with someone who has a severe case of COVID-19, is the mild case person at risk of turning into a severe case person?"

---"As a Christian, I need to find the best prayer that specifically refers to how to get over a flu as soon as possible. But I'm not sure whether there are prayers available that specifically contain the word 'flu'. This is one of the reasons why I sometimes question whether my religion is fully relevant to what I need in the here and now."

---"I find it tragic that we have all developed a hatred toward our own lips, because of this terrifying crisis. If we open our lips, we could either infect or get infected."

---"Maybe I need to attend an art exhibit that celebrates and praises human lips. This might help to restore my confidence in the beauty of human facial lips."

---"Maybe you should pay your rent several months in advance, as one way to anticipate a worst-case scenario. That way you won't get evicted if you end up in the hospital."

---"There may be a need for a doctoral thesis that's entitled, 'The Role of Medical Pandemics in Spawning Anti-Social Attitudes in American Society'."

---"I can't even tell you which university has the greatest library collection devoted to the subject of pandemics, much less who is the leading scholar with expertise on pandemics."

---"If we ever do host a Pandemic Symposium here, I hope it will all be a virtual event. I don't want anyone getting infected from attending an event aimed at helping to put a stop to pandemics."

---"One thing I hate to see during this crisis is that my oldest child seems to be a lot meaner toward my youngest child during this period."

---"I would love to attend a ballet performance in which the dancers simulate what it's like in real life to attempt to respond to the COVID-19 challenge while still maintaining a sense of forward momentum in your own life. Maybe a bold new COVID choreographer will get profiled in 'The Times' and everyone will find that feature story inspirational."