So I most likely have it. 
It's Friday April 17th and I started feeling sick Monday April 6th. 
It's fairly rare that I've experienced an illness that's lasted 12 days and counting and showed little to no signs of improvement. In fact this week has been the worst (Monday & Tuesday especially - although last night was the first time I woke up hacking up several lungs at 2 am and couldn't stop coughing for hours).  I've also never had an illness that has resided almost exclusively in my upper chest/lungs and I've never felt such tightness/lack of breath before. So it seems like I have a viral infection like I've never had before and I live in the epicenter of America's worst outbreak in a city with the highest density in America and my boyfriend was also sick and my doctor (on two video calls) said "most likely" I have it, so I'm assuming I have it.

​But I haven't gotten tested.

On Tuesday, May 22, 2015 - almost five years ago - I went to see The Drowners at the Brooklyn Bowl. Back then, it was just an ordinary Tuesday night, two years after I'd moved to Hoboken, NJ, close enough and convenient enough to take the PATH to 14th Street and the L to Bedford Avenue and within minutes, I was at the venue. It was that convenience that drove me to move out of my "comfort zone" of central NJ suburbs into Hoboken, a city that offered the kind of fast-paced lifestyle I didn't quite know I craved until I got here and started living it, loving it, and never wanting to go back to suburban life again. As of May 1st this year, I will be entering my 8th year in Hoboken, after selling my home in South Brunswick, blowing all of my savings on an exorbitantly-priced apartment for two years, downsizing for a year, re-upsizing for 3 years and now back in a slightly-less beautiful still exorbitantly priced apartments in one of the buildings I used to live in and loving every minute of it. Until 2020.

But back to The Drowners.

A bit of quarantine news about I WILL BE OKAY (releasing June 30).  First, the advanced reader copies are in the hands of readers now (as several posted on Instagram) and I got my first review on Goodreads.  

So that happened.  It's a little bit ummm... awesome :) And also today I approved the Final Copy of the Book Cover (which is already all over my site so it's not that exciting but also the back cover, which I saw for the first time).  See below.  It's also a little bit ummm... awesome :)  And finally, we did the very last copy edits this week and it's about to be released to the distributor/printer (not sure the exact process) and will be out of my hands and out into the world in 3 (short) months.  Well they used to be short months but this week has felt like a year because you know, quarantine/ end of the world/ job-crushing recession.  But please pre-order my book thank you!  So much appreciated.  

I meant to post this months ago but things got just a little hectic around here. The number one song of the 2010s? Well what else could it be but the band that inspired my debut novel (I Will Be Okay) and was the soundtrack to my first summer here in Hoboken back in 2013, where I got the life I'd always wanted to live and the man I'd always wanted to love and I still remember walking the streets with this song in my ears and the summer sun shining and thinking, all of this is everything.

#1. Getting Sodas - The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die (2013)

Here's what happened to me since December 28th, 2019.
Got Elie.  See post.
Spent 2 weeks house training, never leaving the house other than walking her.  
On January 11th, my amazing editor Kristy from Amphorae sent me her officially edited copy of I Will Be Okay (on sale June 30!) for my review. This is my first novel being published and I've spent at least 30 years off-and-on writing novels so it's been to... put it mildly... a long time coming. This was exciting and amazing and by the way, could she get it back like ASAP please...
On January 12th, I flew to Seattle-Tacoma airport for work. Yes that was 1 day later.  Yes I had a 4 month old puppy who wasn't house trained at home. Sorry Mike!
January 13 to 16 - it didn't stop snowing / raining the entire time we were in Puget Sound.  We saw the sun once... for the grand total of 20 minutes one day while we were inside... good times. We left the hotel every morning by 6:30 am (actually 6:32 because the Starbucks at the Residence Inn in downtown Tacoma didn't open until 6:30 am but I was first in line every morning because did I mention I had a puppy at home and got my novel edits that weekend and was on NO SLEEP?!).  We returned to the hotel at 6:30 pm. Is that a 12 hour day? Why yes it is. Do I get paid any extra for working 12 hour days in freezing cold Washington state? No I do not. Did I need to get my edits done ASAP? Why yes! So every night between 8 pm and 10 pm I skipped dinner with my boss to work on the novel edits. Which I will have to say, were helpful and strong, and after close to a year since I last read I WILL BE OKAY, it's pretty damn incredibly good. A couple of times I was like "who the hell wrote this?" Pre-order today!