I have a garden, or what we call in New York a garden — a cement plot edged with potted plants — and I often think I should go outside to sit at the green plastic table and write and work, in good health, having made myself a glass of iced tea or something. But sometimes I just can’t do it. I make the list, but then I sit on my brown couch and stare for hours, turning something inarticulate over and over in my head, waiting for something that never happens, dehydrating myself, eating nothing good, caught between dread and guilt about not doing the things on the list and the pleasure of not doing the things on the list, while the air gets too heavy to move through, the stillness a little terrifying, if I let it be, like lucid dreaming about paralysis. Recently nearly a whole week passed while I was on the couch, while the sun shone outside and the flowers bloomed absurdly.