David Kalish's Blog

When the Times Union announced last week it would kill its entire selection of community blogs, including mine, the move felt like root canal. It wasn’t just the pain of watching my writing gig end after eight years—or my discomfort with the TU’s shutdown of a bastion of unfettered speech, a rare diversity of voices in

(Editor’s note: This essay is reprinted with permission from Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, an online nonfiction journal, where it first appeared.)  Lately I’ve been working the elliptical hard, pumping the pedals like I have something to prove. As a cancer survivor, maybe I do. Staying strong could help protect me against COVID-19. Because of my condition,

It started innocently enough—just a free app I installed on my iPhone to play Scrabble. A favorite game to keep me busy during the lockdown. But two months later, the joint of my right thumb aches. My wife asks why I’m not serving dinner until 7 p.m. or later. What used to take thirty minutes to

Did someone declare this “Opposite Year”? Because some higher authority may have turned the world on its head. What was down is up. White is black. Hot, cold. Last year my home was an empty nest; now my daughter’s back from college, mess and all, as if she never left. I used to travel more

Did someone declare this “Opposite Year”? Because it’s like some higher authority has turned the world on its head. What was down is up. White is black. Hot, cold. Last year my home was an empty nest; now my daughter’s back from college as if she never left. I used to travel more and snack

This week I found myself doing something foreign to me: figuring out which bills our family business could afford to pay. Sitting in our nearly empty medical clinic, I spent twenty minutes on the phone with NYSEG negotiating the utility bill. Shot off an email to an automatic door company explaining we couldn’t renew the

This week I found myself doing something foreign to me: figuring out which bills our family business could afford to pay. Sitting in our nearly empty medical clinic, I spent twenty minutes on the phone with NYSEG negotiating the utility bill. Shot off an email to an automatic door company explaining we couldn’t renew the

I try to focus on the positives. I no longer have to step inside a mall, or shop for things I don’t really need. My dog and I spend a lot more quality time in the forest. Uncomfortable social obligations and awkward get-togethers are a thing of the past. My daughter is home from college,

Assuming you don’t live off the grid, you know that tonight isn’t your typical New Year’s Eve. The world is welcoming not just the new year, but the next decade. The 2020s! That’s pretty special. That happens, um, only once every ten years. But there’s a less well-known reason why this New Year’s Eve is

I used to think getting old was just a stage. My hair loss, for example, was bound to let up any day. My daughter would stop growing like a weed. My crow’s feet would smooth out and the aches in my feet, even my recurring plantar fasciitis, would turn out to be an anomaly, like an