I saw a light on and let myself in. What barren wasteland of humour is this? Is this the waiting room. Because I’m masked up, out, and ready to get testy.

If you’re like me, you’re a hypochondriac. We are all going through a lot right now. We’re either having our day or having a day. If the virus doesn’t kill me, anxiety surely will “finish the job” like it works for the Trump Administration, and yes, it hurts me just as much to have to capitalize administration as it does you to read it, but that’s almost over and good riddance, just like 2020. But I guess I’m here not to dwell on the worst of it, as much as talk about what we hypochondriacs can do to get some relief, even if short lived.

So far, I’ve come up with nothing. I’m only half-kidding because the act of lying in bed doing nothing has relaxed me from time to time. If we aren’t '“making the most of this time,” are we even living… through multiple deadly pandemics (racism, stupidity, COVID-19)?

I’ve also come up with getting tested for it, on a now 1.5 month basis, starting from the end of June. The first time I had it administered, that test tickled my insides so hard that I now host a late night talk show for kids on HBO max. My nose felt like it had been thoroughly swabbed. As I popped my eye back into its socket, I asked the nurse (who clearly had been called up from the reserves) to tell it to me straight; did I have it? Unfortunately, there’s nothing rapid about these tests, so she couldn’t tell me, but I’ll get another one, and another one, until I’m positive that I’m negative.

Q: Did we ever think we’d get here, us hypochondriacs?

A: 1000%. Sure did, yup, been warning y’all for years.

Now, I still put my hands in my mouth, but in the morning and night I gargle Purell before doing so. It’s been a wild year, and I mean that literally. This year has been savage and full of disease. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s how to reset my password on Squarespace so I could log back into this damn thing.

Will us hypochondriacs make it through? I don’t know. Anxiety is a fickle mixtrexx, and that’s the woke, all inclusive way to say that because I replaced the ‘s’ with ‘x,’ you know, like an ally. Only time will tell. But snitches get stitches, so tell time to zip it. Instead, focus on what brings you joy, what brings you self care, what helps you meditate. I’m here going through it with you, and we can get through anything as long as we stay distanced. Soon, COVID will be a distant memory, by which I mean a memory of a time we were all distanced. And if there’s anyone who knows how to put distance between things, it’s me with updating this blog. So, to quote T.I., Eminem, Belle Delphine, and Joe Biden:

“I’m back!!!!!”