Another long day in isolation. This certainly wasn’t what I had in mind when I planned to be in Louisville this week, but…no plan survives first contact with the enemy, and I’m certain this virus is the enemy. I lost the battle this week, but I expect to win the war by changing tactics.

I’m binge-watching The Terminal List. In previous posts I wrote about the books by Jack Carr – I liked them a lot, but the military and gun worship got to be a bit much. The series is much the same, but I’m enjoying it. I don’t love the casting of the main characters – Chris Pratt and Constance Wu are NOT who I had in mind for Reece and Katie, but they’re growing on me. Pratt’s wild-eyed version of Reece is hard to reconcile with the stoic character in the books, and I have a hard time seeing them get together in later seasons. But I think Amazon has already OK’d season 2, so we’ll see.

I also watched a gloomy though good movie called Downeast. Part love story, part gangster movie, set in a small Maine fishing town. Really interesting.

I watched 13 Minutes, a movie about a tornado hitting a town in Oklahoma. Kind of timely, given Florida this week. Decent movie, and anything starring Paz Vega is worth a look.

I also watched more than a little of the Dunhill Championship from Scotland, with play at The Old Course, Carnoustie and Kingsbarn. Legendary courses, and it’s always fun to see the pros struggling with links golf. I’ll never forget my round at Carnoustie.

Rough day yesterday, but today is starting better. Thanks to the food and drugs delivered by my daughter, the fever is gone and I’m functional again. Looking forward to another day watching TV and reading.

One of the things I watched yesterday was the very last episode of The Expanse, just for old time’s sake. They ended the screen version in a good place, with a focus on the two main characters just taking a break to hold on to each other. The book series ended in a very, very different place, with my favorite character Amos becoming the unlikely savior of humanity.

I woke up this morning with a weird thought fully formed, about how to describe The Expanse succinctly. Funny how the mind works while asleep. It goes something like this:

• What if humanity founded a rich interplanetary civilization across the solar system? What would that look like?
• And what if that civilization was disrupted by the sudden ability to travel to the stars via giant gateways? What would that do to the civilization?
• Answer those two questions by following a dozen compelling characters’ lives during that disruption, and you’ve got The Expanse.

It’s simple in retrospect, but it was genius to come up with those ideas and create such a rich story around them. Thank you, James SA Corey.