Haywood Turnipseed Jr.: It’s Saturday energy on a Wednesday.

It’s the first full day I am furloughed, but I’m not sleeping in. My wife goes to a hot yoga class on Monday and she gets up at 5:30 a.m. to get there on time. I get up then, too, because she needs every light on.
***
Someone explains how to contact the mortgage company and request a month’s reprieve without incurring penalties; someone else describes how to contact utility companies.

I chime in to say that I am watching a “Sopranos” marathon on HBO. I should be cleaning out the gutters, but instead I’m clearing out the DVR.

***

“Are you fired?”

“No, I’m furloughed,” I say.

“That’s a new F-word!” he says.

***

The Matisse cutouts still have to be rotated in and out of light; the Van Gogh has to be guarded.

We call the people doing this work “the Essentials.” That would be a great name for a band, I think.

***

President Trump gave a speech on television saying that the shutdown is all about the “wall.” I remember that last month he tweeted that “most of the people not getting paid are Democrats.” When I heard that, I thought about how many of the federal workers in Washington are African-American, which I think might be how the president meant it to sound.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/12/opinion/sunday/2019-government-shutdown.html