What the fuck is the date today? Let’s talk about being alone, for a second, because I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around it. I’ve been by myself in Turkey for six days, which is how long it’s been since everybody I know here evacuated for the holiday. They are in Greece, Vienna, southern Italy, France. I am here. It’s not bad, just interesting.

I am continually on the edge of being depressed or being brilliant, but I think it would be different if the book I was reading wasn’t so boring or if there was something new happening in the news. (Shutdown, shutdown, shutdown.) (Echo, echo, echo.)

(I do not really think I am on the verge of brilliance. What I mean is “productivity.”)

I rent movies, practice Spanish, go to restaurants that look nice, drink precise amounts of chilled white wine. Then I write, feeling private and interesting. I know being alone makes me seem strange, and people are suspicious, then welcoming. I’ll take the public fascination with my aloneness while it lasts. (Charming in a young girl, pitying in an older.)

People write me while I’m sleeping, and I wake up, grateful, with lots of letters to answer. Thank you, time change.

E. says he eats just one, large meal a day — out, at cheap restaurants— to save money. I don’t know how he has the self-restraint to be a gorger. I admire him for this.

I didn’t leave to be here, but to be away from other things, so loneliness as punishment is fair. I thought it was my job that wasted so much of my time, but really, it’s me that wastes my own self.

Do you think I look older? Certainly paler.

In the meantime, keeping panic at bay and sleeping like an angel. It’s a cold, rainy day and I am going to eat a hot, sesame-crusted simit.