On Long Island, Covid-19 numbers have fallen since their peak, but they remain surprisingly and stubbornly high. Deaths from the virus have also declined, but even so lives are lost that should not have been. The 3,300th person in Suffolk County died from the disease between Monday and Tuesday this week. More than 41,000 New Yorkers across the state have died from Covid-19, which is still taking the lives of more people of color and Spanish speakers, by population, than whites.

Not a lot seems to be scheduled here for Earth Day, which comes next Thursday and marks the 51st anniversary of the first Earth Day. It is the pandemic no doubt that has prevented organized activities, but that does not mean that individuals cannot step outside to pick up litter, support an environmental group, or cut back on fossil-fuel use and nonrecyclables.

At the risk of offending my friends from Sag Harbor, what is up with those people? Most of the time that I run into someone I know in that village, the first thing they say is, “What are you doing over here?” with the emphasis on “you.”

“I wanted to go to Persan’s for a clam knife,” I protest. They tilt their head ever so slightly, suspicious

My rubber-band ball, made entirely from rubber bands, grew bigger every day. It was bigger than a softball, bigger than a  grapefruit. It was heavy and perfectly round. I liked to bounce it, like Steve McQueen in “The Great Escape,” off the wall of my first office at Vogue magazine, when I got my start in 1998. Everyone loved Steve McQueen, the 1970s tough guy with cruel lips, in the summer of 1998.

Bam. Pause. Bam.

People often ask me about what life was like at Vogue, back in the Gilded Age before the Millennium, before 9/11, before the collapse of print media.