Today is my birthday. One year ago today I had my last social gathering without masks: two friends came over to my apartment for Chinese food and board games.
Four days before my birthday I had seen my last live theater, the inadvertent closing performance of The Inheritance (Broadway was to shut down completely the next day, March 12th, which marked for me the moment New York began taking this seriously).
Four days after my birthday my office shifted from skeleton crew to full remote and I had my first COVID symptoms (neither of my friends got sick). I recovered. Many did not. New York became a haunted city and I was shut up in my apartment for the transition.