Lockdown in Paris : Day Seventeen
Thursday 2nd April
10h10 : I don’t know why, but I always seem to wake up at ten past the hour. It doesn’t seem to matter which hour, just that it’s 10 minutes past it. What’s that about? Today I set my alarm for 9am and barely remember yelling NO in its face, though I certainly did. Then of course I woke up at 10h10. Bodies are weird. Brains are weirder. I used to be able to do that thing where you just tell your brain when you want it to wake up and it does. On the nose. Basically that must mean that our brains ALWAYS know the exact time down to the minute, and they’re just being coy about it. Annoying.
11h17 : Put on my Two Week Jeans and whatever else was lying around from yesterday and made porridge, then came straight onto the balcony armed with a book the size of my head, my bullet journal, laptop and phone in a ridiculous pantomime of productivity. The book is part of C. J. Sansom’s Shardlake series and I started reading it last year and then for whatever reason just stopped. I suspect it’s because it’s so heavy reading it became exercise instead of reading, which sucked all the pleasure right out of it. Anyway I’m determined to get back into the Tudor times and find Master Shardlake solving murders in Norfolk or whatever he’s up to this time. Also - sneakily sneakily - this means I’m already halfway through a book and it’s only the 2nd, so this big fat book will be on the April Book List in no time. Yes I know - Filthy cheating hobbit.
12h : I really need to make leek and potato soup today. The leeks were lying there looking robust and shiny until a couple of days ago when they started to lose their youthful confidence and are now saggy, dull and reproachful. Happens to us all li’l leekies, happens to us all.
12h15 : I’m just going to take this moment to tell you that I haven’t washed my hair in a week.
13h : Got a message on one of the dating apps (for there are several) saying “Hi...how can I meet you?” You’d think my first response would be something like - If I could just briefly direct your attention to Current Affairs, Peter, you’ll see - and I’m not quite sure how you’ve missed this - that literally no-one is meeting anyone just now. But in fact the first response that sprang to mind was - you’re in HAVANA CUBA, PETER.
14h50 : Leek and potato soup is made, so we’re winning. The sad leeks have now met their destiny.
15h32 : Did the application for help from the government and immediately felt like I’ve committed fraud and will almost certainly see out 2020 in gaol, such is the turn this year is taking. Despite the fact that my financial situation (or lack thereof) is 100% legit. Still, my impulse to say “Don’t give me the full amount, just sling me enough for the rent that I can’t pay this month or next and we’ll call it quits.” Anyway I’m amazed it’s actually done - I am not one for administrative efficiency. Or any kind of efficiency for that matter.
16h12 : Ok so today I finally cracked. That guy with his stupidly loud music across the courtyard is doing his usual routine of having his speaker on full-blast on his balcony. Which - given we’re on a courtyard - is kind of like placing said speaker into a gigantic building-sized trumpet. Did I walk calmly onto the balcony and address this like an adult? Did I say, Excuse me, would you mind turning it down a bit? Everyone can hear your (diabolical) music. Maybe you could use, I don’t know, these magical things called HEADPHONES YOU UNFATHOMABLE EEJIT. No I did not. Instead, I put my own music on full blast and directed it at him. How’s that for pitiful passive aggression? Apparently this is the sum total of conflict I can stomach - me, cowering inside my flat, blaring out Lorde and fretting over whether this was “cool enough music to fight-back with.” I embarrass myself. The sad fact is I’ve got at least another 30 years of grinding my teeth before I reach that level of I’m going out there to give him a piece of my mind! For now though, I am resigned to being pathetic and petty. It didn’t work of course. I don’t think he even noticed the war I was waging.
16h30 : Oh. It wasn’t him. It was my other neighbour who I actually like. Stand down.
17h05 : Spoke to my aunt in Manchester who informs me that her theory is that when Trump dyes his hair in the shower it turns his whole body orange. She was in the same house when German planes flew over to bomb Old Trafford and there was an air-raid shelter under her garden, so all in all she could not be less fazed by the current state of play.
17h30 : Have just arranged a joint viewing of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves tomorrow at 11am, with Leonie-of-Leek, (Leek being a town in Staffordshire). Hang on, I made leek & potato soup today! Oh subconscious, you are a card. Anyway, Leonie and I discovered many years ago that we both know Prince of Thieves (frankly a paragon of film-making) line-for-line, so since then our texts have mainly consisted of context-less quotes. A month or two will go by and then my phone will light up with, Point me towards danger Azeem, I am ready! Or for no reason at all I’ll find myself sending, It’s the only road to London you little ferret. I straight up love Prince of Thieves, and it’s not even just because Alan Rickman is an absolute joy to watch. Yes, I do know that Kevin Costner’s accent hails from a country not yet discovered at the time of Robin Hood. And it’s true, Our Rob does gaze upon the White Cliffs of Dover and say, “By nightfall, we shall dine with my father.” In Nottingham Kevin?! We’re doing 190 miles in a day are we, in 1190? Here I was thinking the 12th-century was a bit dark-agey. But enough logic talk! Away with your factual inaccuracies! I made my peace with these mere trivialities years ago. Tomorrow at 11am I will deliver a stirring one-woman re-enactment of Prince of Thieves, and somewhere in the Staffordshire hills, so will Leonie-of-Leek. This fact makes me feel like the world does, after all, make just a bit of sense.
19h12 : Video call with Yorkshire-Laura, Scottish-Sar, and her fabulous mum Fabulous-Brenda, over gin and tonics. I have found that scheduling video calls allows you to legitimately drink as much gin as you want, and so the next 5 days are all booked up.
20h52 : I just want to take a second to say a warm HELLO! to Hugh, Sarah and Roger, whose enthusiasm for this blog has been passed along the wire and is very, very much appreciated. I promise to take photos of my flat to share, so you can better visualise this very tiny home! Actually while we’re on the subject, these architectural confines do have curious psychological repercussions out there in the human-sized world. When I’m in my siblings’ completely normal-sized houses, walking down a completely normal-sized hallway for example, my brain says to me “What’s going on, why are we still moving?” Being very much accustomed to taking only three steps in any given direction, my brain starts to short-circuit after more than four steps in any homely interior. How are we not in the bathroom by now? It says. How extraordinary - we have taken three steps from the kitchen… and yet I do not find myself in bed. What wizardry is here? Etc.
20h45 : Watched a YouTube video and found out I have a diamond shaped face. Who knew? Apparently any fringe should be split to the side and I need more volume at the top of my head. It only took me 35 years for a YouTuber to inform me of the shape of my own head. My whole life could’ve been so different.
