Here’s the start:

Monday, Oct. 19, 2 a.m.: I’m so overactivated, I can’t sleep. I want to vote during the first hour of the first day of early voting here in surprisingly purple mid-South Florida. I have to vote ASAP, I suppose out of the same paranoid sense of urgency that made me decide to surrender my absentee ballot at the polling place and vote in person.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve left this apartment since covid-19 arrived, and those were to see the dentist and keep my car’s battery from dying. I probably won’t be the only youngish senior there today, in this town full of retirement communities. First, we were told to mail our ballots in really early, but then, thanks to the postmaster general’s boss, the USPS started to look sketchy. I’m hoping there won’t be too many people arriving to vote in person at 6:30, in the pitch dark.