There is a lot of coping going on. Exactly who is coping with what is hard to say.

The coronavirus may be novel, but the novelty wore off long ago. Everyone wants this over with, of course, but no one can really imagine a virus-stable future. So like billions of people, I stumble forward daily. Which means there are lots of discoveries. One of them is that I don’t particularly like watching films or even television dramas. I would rather read. Actually, I would even rather watch the lettuce grow in my garden. And, no, that’s not an expression. Literally I go down to the greenhouse almost every day, shut the door and experience a sort of summer, vaguely humid, not to mention loamy and warm.

Yes, growing things in an era of death has much to be said for it. And like many things these days, there is surprising practicality in doing things for oneself. With a little bit of agricultural planning, Jane and I may just be achieving lettuce self-sufficiency here in San Francisco. Imagine. And even if you can’t imagine, take my word for it, photosynthesis is much more interesting than the travails of a police inspector bent on uncovering a serial something or other.

Not to say that the exercycle isn’t vastly enhanced by watching reruns of James Bond. Thing about the 007 series, action, or the promise of action, is almost constant. When demands on one’s extant quadriceps are also constant, it’s a good match. Furthermore, there is a sort of travelogue inherent in the Ian Fleming stories. One moment we are in Siena, then damn, it’s off to Spain. Not to mention Italy. And of course these are almost invariably the haute environs of various international shady characters. So lots of seeing how the imagined other one half of 0.001 of the population lives. And if like me you are a perennial klutz who never knows what to do, hang out with 007…the guy who always knows what to do, speaks every language, is instantly comfortable behind the wheel of a Maserati or a Cessna, while knowing the recipe for every mixed drink available and having the capacity to drink them all with no discernible effect.

But above all, there is action. Rooftop chases being my faves. With car chases being a close second. After all, 20 minutes into the exercycle, the action better be good. Speedboat chases and crashes often pop up around this time. But what I really need in that stage of my neuromuscular endurance is a good surprise. Villains popping out of stairwells are particularly effective. As is the inevitable transformation of a benign looking taxidriver into a professional assassin. Happens all the time.

Occasionally I do venture out. Admittedly, 10 days or more can go by before I do this, but it is worthwhile. The community garden down the hill, the one I occasionally drive by, turns out to be quite charming. One could even say the same for the footpaths surrounding the garden, tilted crazily as they are by the ever shifting San Andreas Fault and its affiliates. But actually that charm can wear thin. Jane and I had almost made it home the other day on this, my first wheelchair run in more than a week and a half. The sidewalk was more than cracked in one spot, with a startling three-inch rise. I reversed course and went another way.

Poppy, our new dog, is a more at home than ever. I do keep meaning to order one of those athletic crotch protectors that football players wear. Such are Poppy’s forceful paws. But she is an ever eager dog, so friendly and determined to get something, like a treat, out of me. Which I mostly happily do.

And then there is the other thing that happens around 4 AM, which involves waking up to imagine that I have the Coronavirus. I just know I do. I have no fever, no cough, but the absence of symptoms doesn’t mean shit, I say. I just know because I know. This is a kind knowing that keeps me awake for a couple of hours until I arise, get on the exercycle and resume James Bond.