VIRUS DIARY: Thanks to COVID, an ‘anti-first day’ of school
September 16, 2021 GMTMAPLEWOOD, N.J. (AP) — Three days before the first day of school, a text message delivered the blow: the babysitter had exposed our three kids to COVID. Robotically, I began ticking through what the next several days would look like.
VIRUS DIARY: A really, really, REALLY long Olympic journey
July 26, 2021 GMTSOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC (AP) — My location was Haneda Airport in Tokyo. My destination was the Main Press Center for the Olympics — also in Tokyo.
VIRUS DIARY: The unfinished business of a funeral deferred
July 1, 2021 GMTNASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — It dawned on me recently at the Nashville airport that the pandemic wouldn't end at the same time for everybody. I had expected a trickle of travelers, but the airport was jammed.
VIRUS DIARY: From red carpets to empty streets, and back
April 29, 2021 GMTLOS ANGELES (AP) — On the last normal night in Hollywood, there was one couple wearing masks. It was novel enough that I shot a photo of them. I had no idea they would soon be all of us.
It was March 9, 2020, and the premiere of Disney’s live-action “Mulan” brought a packed red carpet to the Dolby Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, where as an entertainment photographer for The Associated Press, I had shot the Oscars four weeks earlier.
VIRUS DIARY: It’s mud, mud everywhere in UK’s 3rd lockdown
February 19, 2021 GMTLONDON (AP) — It's apparently not enough for Britons to endure almost 120,000 COVID-19 deaths and face a new variant of the virus that scientists say is more contagious and more deadly...
VIRUS DIARY: In face of tragedy, a faith in science endures
January 29, 2021 GMTPHOENIX (AP) — As I read about the 35th anniversary of the 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster this week, I was transported back to Fifth Street Middle School in Bangor, Maine...
VIRUS DIARY: During upheaval, inauguration prep is a comfort
November 16, 2020 GMTWASHINGTON (AP) — As I chug up Capitol Hill near the end of my morning run, I pass the same bustle I’ve seen every four years at this time since we first moved to Washington in 1996...
VIRUS DIARY: In pandemic, seeking solace in virtual worlds
November 13, 2020 GMTST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — It’s 2014, and you’re relaxing with your best friend in a pastel-hued Florida condo the day after Thanksgiving...
VIRUS DIARY: Becoming a car owner in middle age, abruptly
October 16, 2020 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — It rolled off the car carrier near my home in Brooklyn and less than 20 minutes later it was mine: a 2015 Mazda CX-5 in a deep blue...
VIRUS DIARY: Always learning from ‘happy little accidents’
September 18, 2020 GMTPHOENIX (AP) — I'm not alone in confessing that I have always enjoyed those Bob Ross instructional painting programs that ran on PBS for many years...
VIRUS DIARY: Alone, craving change, but above all grateful
September 15, 2020 GMTPHOENIX (AP) — For what feels like the first time in my life I’m craving change, longing for something different...
VIRUS DIARY: In Hawaii, pandemic, pregnancy and plumerias
September 4, 2020 GMTHONOLULU (AP) — I remember setting out for a late afternoon run and the overpowering perfume of plumerias from the tree outside my house...
VIRUS DIARY: She has her cake, but others can’t eat it, too
August 28, 2020 GMTPHOENIX (AP) — When my birthday rolled around in June, I had to face the fact that, thanks to COVID-19, I would not be having cake with anyone...
VIRUS DIARY: Dreams of Buffett songs and warm distant shores
August 26, 2020 GMTSPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Working from home. Unwilling to go anywhere. Getting tired of the pine trees outside my spare bedroom window...
VIRUS DIARY: We eloped, just not the way we’d planned
August 7, 2020 GMTSANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The plan was to elope in April in New York City, where my fiancee, Julie Trolle, lived...
VIRUS DIARY: A friend dies but leaves something to hold onto
August 4, 2020 GMTLONDON (AP) — My friend Greg died.
I am not alone in losing a friend to COVID-19. Some 46,000 people in this country have died, as have thousands more around the world...
VIRUS DIARY: Cycling in COVID London gives hope in the gloom
July 31, 2020 GMTLONDON (AP) — I moved to London in 1997. I was 31. So, measuring by my London years, I’m only 24....
VIRUS DIARY: For these kids, no adventures to choose
July 29, 2020 GMTBURKE, Va. (AP) — On a recent car ride, my sons, Billy and Jimmy, were discussing an interactive “Minecraft” show on Netflix that allowed them to choose the direction of the story...
VIRUS DIARY: Keeping New York alive, one song at a time
July 27, 2020 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Outside, the soundtrack of sirens wailed, each another death blow to the city that had nurtured my development as a musician for so long...
VIRUS DIARY: Pandemic life, captured digitally (literally)
July 23, 2020 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — In journalism, when we’re trying to explain a complicated story, we often start with raw data...
VIRUS DIARY: Perfect pregnancy plans, ruined by a pandemic
July 16, 2020 GMTPHOENIX (AP) — It was the day after April Fool’s when I stared at a tiny window on a pregnancy test and watched a very clear plus sign quickly appear...
VIRUS DIARY: In Saudi Arabia, a photographer finds new focus
July 9, 2020 GMTJIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — I moved to Saudi Arabia from Egypt last year, eager to photograph a national awakening that was once unimaginable in a country so beholden to ultraconservative mores...
VIRUS DIARY: Goodbye to NYC, and to its unforgettable sounds
July 7, 2020 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — The last few weeks I spent in New York City, the soundtrack of my days went like this: police helicopters circling, firecrackers startling, uniform chants for justice rising into the air...
VIRUS DIARY: Pro golf without fans in an eerie green expanse
July 3, 2020 GMTVIRUS DIARY: Moving closer to grandsons they can barely see
July 1, 2020 GMTWARWICK, R.I. (AP) — A child's swing twists forlornly in the breeze beneath the behemoth maple tree that shades our home...
VIRUS DIARY: Soccer in UK loses passion, soul with no fans
June 29, 2020 GMTLONDON (AP) — What have I learned about pandemic soccer — I mean football, of course — since its return in England...
VIRUS DIARY: A film writer goes back to the movies
June 25, 2020 GMTDORMONT, Pa. (AP) — “The Goonies” wouldn’t have been my first choice, but options were limited.
It had been 96 days since I had been to a movie theater...
VIRUS DIARY: `Across the pond’ becomes an Atlantic chasm
June 25, 2020 GMTLONDON (AP) — “Across the pond …”
The arch phrase describing the Atlantic Ocean has long been an inside joke for those who regularly hopscotched over its untamed expanse...
VIRUS DIARY: ‘We’re together & we’re safe’
June 22, 2020 GMTPALMYRA, N.J. (AP) — All I wanted was to be home. To sleep in my bed, cook in my kitchen and greet my husband after work...
VIRUS DIARY: A pandemic, a layoff & a suddenly stay-home dad
June 19, 2020 GMTSALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The day his boss looked over at the TV screen and gave a forlorn nod at the plunging red lines of the stock market, my husband could feel the layoff coming...
VIRUS DIARY: Jumbled scenes from an isolated life, captured
June 18, 2020 GMTPHOENIX (AP) — Working from home is a blissful reprieve from the many sounds of the office. The gum-smacking, the open-mouth chewing, the drink-slurping, the hand-sneezers that haunt my nightmares...
VIRUS DIARY: Learning his way around a kitchen, finally
June 17, 2020 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — This is not the plan I cooked up.
Only a few seconds after the hamburger patties started to sizzle on my new iron skillet, the smoke detector began to chirp...
VIRUS DIARY: `The meaning of abiding love in all its guises’
June 16, 2020 GMTCLEVELAND (AP) — Loss and its many guises have been constants during the pandemic. Loss of loved ones...
VIRUS DIARY: Romance conquers ocean, outbreak and red tape
June 12, 2020 GMTSAO PAULO (AP) — The certificate arrived on the floor of an otherwise empty elevator. My 1-year-old stumbled to the doorway of our Sao Paulo apartment and watched as I picked up the document...
VIRUS DIARY: The pandemic nudges him into the woods, sort of
June 11, 2020 GMTATLANTA (AP) — For someone who grew up on the sandy beaches and the urban jungle that is coastal South Florida, camping — real camping, as I imagined it — was the stuff you’d see in movies: friends gathered around a fire somewhere in the woods, eating marshmallows and telling ghost stories or listening for bears...
VIRUS DIARY: The singing stopped, and the emptiness arrived
June 9, 2020 GMTWORTHINGTON, Ohio (AP) — My mother taught me that the best place in the world is on the inside of a chord. If you've ever been there, you'll know what she meant. It's a bear hug of awe and wonder, a sublime sliver of beauty or dissonance or genius powered by the humble human voice.
VIRUS DIARY: When the class hamster came home - and stayed
June 4, 2020 GMTLITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — After 60-plus days, I threw in the towel. Mr. Rich had to go.
VIRUS DIARY: Time and longing during a locked-down babyhood
June 3, 2020 GMTSEATTLE (AP) — My 8-month-old baby has now spent 32% of his life under quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic...
VIRUS DIARY: He draws, and a world opens up for his mother
June 2, 2020 GMTLONDON (AP) — I cannot draw. I am unable to sketch anything past the outlines of a simple flower or a house no one would want to live in...
VIRUS DIARY: Sweden stayed open. I stayed at home.
June 1, 2020 GMTSTOCKHOLM (AP) — Early April.
A buzz of my phone. “Free for a walk?” asks a friend. Another notification...
VIRUS DIARY: For boy with Down syndrome, new path of therapy
May 29, 2020 GMTPHOENIX (AP) — The speech therapist held up a book of animals. Our 4-year-old looked curiously at her across the Zoom call screen...
VIRUS DIARY: `Father, why don’t they stay home like we do?′
May 27, 2020 GMTKABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Judas trees must be blooming these days out at the Gulghendi Hills, their purple flowers bursting gloriously all over the green slopes...
VIRUS DIARY: Finding a surprising source of support in an ex
May 26, 2020 GMTCONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Embarrassing to admit but oddly comforting: My ex-husband’s husband and I share a slight crush on our state epidemiologist...
VIRUS DIARY: A Memorial Day visit, altered but not stopped
May 26, 2020 GMTSILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — I won’t be visiting Adam this Memorial Day weekend. COVID-19 is seeing to that...
VIRUS DIARY: Facing the coronavirus, still haunted by Ebola
May 22, 2020 GMTDAKAR, Senegal (AP) — “Are you going to die?” my 8-year-old daughter asked me the other day. “They said on the radio that adults are getting sick and dying...
VIRUS DIARY: When you prefer it anyway, staying in isn’t bad
May 21, 2020 GMTPHOENIX (AP) — Like you, I’ve been locked away at home for two months. But for me, not much has changed...
VIRUS DIARY: In Hong Kong lockdown, watched by a wristband
May 20, 2020 GMTHONG KONG (AP) — It took only a few seconds. Shortly after I stepped off a flight from Singapore, an official at the Hong Kong immigration counter gestured for me to extend my arm, then strapped a bulky plastic box to my wrist...
VIRUS DIARY: Of pandemics, parenting and ... Michael Jordan
May 19, 2020 GMTOKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Back in the day, I watched Michael Jordan drop 63 on the Boston Celtics on a small black-and-white TV with dials...
VIRUS DIARY: Starting a life, as life withdraws around her
May 18, 2020 GMTATLANTA (AP) — In December, I sat in a Manhattan building booming with shouts of praise and listened intently as a speaker from my church spoke about the end of the decade...
VIRUS DIARY: Navigating a flu-like illness in the corona age
May 15, 2020 GMTTEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — For those of us from a region where outbursts of violence are an occupational hazard, coping with coronavirus seemed simple enough: Stay at home and you’ll be fine...
VIRUS DIARY: Lockdown, loneliness and a difficult goodbye
May 14, 2020 GMTNEW DELHI (AP) — On the last night of her life, my cat watched fireworks and flaming paper lanterns illuminate the dark New Delhi skies...
VIRUS DIARY: On a river, with rod and reel, he finds peace
May 13, 2020 GMTROSCOE, N.Y. (AP) — The Catskills village that calls itself “Trout Town USA” is all but a ghost town this spring...
VIRUS DIARY: Luck (good for now) is her isolation soundtrack
May 12, 2020 GMTEVANS, Ga. (AP) — I woke up this morning to the sounds of birds instead of sirens.
Rather than dodging potholes and swearing at all the incompetent drivers complicating my 10-mile commute to the office, I spent the 45 minutes leading up to my work shift watching the steam from my coffee curl in the air as the branches of a tall pin oak, lifted by a morning breeze, fanned me with a thousand feathery leaves...
VIRUS DIARY: Searching for sanity in tiny moments of joy
May 8, 2020 GMTCHICAGO (AP) — We meet for a memorial service by video conference because that’s how it must be done these days...
VIRUS DIARY: Staving off the virus while our water runs out
May 5, 2020 GMTHARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — I know we're meant to be washing our hands frequently. We're trying. But we're running out of water again and I don't know when the water truck is going to be back...
VIRUS DIARY: In a morning run, a tonic for pandemic anxiety
April 30, 2020 GMTSCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — My alarm goes off shortly after 6 a.m. I’m usually up before then, lit by the glow of my iPhone, rifling through my inboxes, mindlessly scrolling feeds that don’t matter...
VIRUS DIARY: A positive test, then a Mumbai hotel quarantine
April 29, 2020 GMTMUMBAI, India (AP) — I was on assignment April 20 outside Mumbai, India’s financial center. My phone rang nonstop...
VIRUS DIARY: My new life felt small. Then came coronavirus.
April 27, 2020 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — “Home is wherever I’m with you,” the song rang out from the speaker. And the tears streamed down my face...