Around midday today A. and I left the apartment and walked together to one of the grocery stores near us, to get some of the items that we consume quite quickly, or anyway quite regularly, like eggs, bread, milk, and bananas. A. has a job that permits her to work very often from home, even if she does go into the office now and then, in a building in downtown Manhattan, which is why she was able to go to the store with me today, in the middle of a weekday, when people ordinarily are working. I don’t have a job anymore, as I’ve mentioned, so almost every day you can find me at my laptop in our apartment, working on a book or on some piece of illustration. Which I do not pretend is a noble occupation, or anything very defensible for a man to be doing with his time, but that is where I am in my life, nevertheless. I am an artist, if an unknown or unsuccessful one, and I’m more or less beyond caring for my reputation. I say “more or less” because of course I still care about it a little. Because a reputation isn’t always arbitrary, or erroneous, and can sometimes tell you something true about yourself, even if it can’t tell you everything.