Day 98-100: My Dreamy Hunt for a Flu Haven

I’m posting on the fly from a friend’s house way upstate, where a big sun burns off the mists every morning. It’s all trees, few people, and yet so huge that the population adds up to seven million upstaters—lots of them libertarians.

After Round Three has concluded or a good vaccine has penetrated me, I’d like to buy land up here and design a gorgeous house I could execute inch-by-inch, like a vine. That’s how immigrants to the U.S. do it back in their home countries; they add a room every few years.

UPSTATE NEW YORK—IT'S REALLY ALL GREENMine would be a palace shrouded in nature, camouflaged among trees and rocks and water. Not very Howard Roark-like. Still, Rand’s point is to fulfill oneself without superfluous references: There are different ways to clear out postmodern sludge.

I’ll try the Finger Lakes next. Meanwhile your humble correspondent can recommend Jose Saramago’s Blindness, a great disease novel about a virus that causes its victims to see only glowing whiteness. Stock it for Round Two. I can’t believe I just touted a book by a lifelong communist, but it’s that good: Superb. Guess I’ll sell it. (The movie wasn’t bad.)