I was trapped in my room for over a week with Covid. I’ve read some, binge-watched a bunch of different shows, just generally done nothing. So thoughts that have crossed my mind….

Everyone seems to want the administration to release the Epstein files. I don’t.The administration has had those files for what? Seven months? God only knows how they’ve manipulated them. Donald Trump won’t be in them, but his political enemies will be. They can’t be trusted, and simply risk potentially smearing the names of innocent people.

I would express an opinion on California’s Prop 50, which would authorize a new redistricting plan (created in response to Texas’s redistricting to create more Republican districts and disrupt the House of Representatives), but I am going to be working this election, so I think I’ll leave my opinions to myself. I have been wondering if the Penzey’s pins (one says “Kind” and the other says “Embrace Hope”) I have on my purse constitute political speech; Penzey’s has been an outspoken critic of the Republican Party. I may take them off my purse anyway.

I have binged a lot of British shows — “The Great British Baking Show” (remarkable for how the contestants support each other, and Paul Hollywood’s intense blue glare), “Fake or Fortune” (finding out whether art pieces are really what they purport to be), a bunch of shows about the British monarchy, and several revolving around the question of the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays (I have turned into an Oxfordian, for those who care about such things), and a lot of “QI.” The whole premise around QI is to have a panel of celebrities (mostly comedians, but sometimes people from other professions as well) asked questions, the answer to which is not what anyone really expects. (Usually the questions are “gotchas”: the answer arises from a particular fact which is narrow in scope. Although sometimes the answers are of the variety “what everybody knows is wrong.”) The scoring is opaque bordering on arbitrary: points are awarded for correct answers, subtracted for wrong ones (although points are awarded for *clever* wrong answers) with one or more (frequently all) the panelists ending with negative points. Think a demented version of “Celebrity Jeopardy!.”

British panel shows (“QI,” “Would I Lie to You,” “Eight Out of Ten Cats” (best name for a show *ever*), “Insert Name Here”) may just be my new obsession. For someone seeking escape from the Trumpster fire which is America today, they are as comforting as a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows in it. I would really love to move to England, except for their recent horrific record with regard to trans rights. As the mother of an adult trans child, I would never want to live somewhere my kid would feel uncomfortable visiting.

As to the aforementioned Trumpster fire: I weep for my country. I am grateful I live in a blue state, but it increasingly looks like that won’t be enough protection. Given that my husband works for the federal government, we are sadly very aware of the ways things are going pear-shaped.

My psychiatrist has given me an assignment to find one thing a day to be grateful for. Today’s gratitude is that in my neck of the woods it has been really a moderate summer, not too hot. And Josh Groban.

I hope things are well with you.