Into the 40s....

Day 43
Sunday, April 19

Argh. Another lousy night. I have listened to and loved Robyn Davidson’s camel trek adventure on Audible.
But I feel blech. Luckily B makes coffee and feeds the cat.
Perk with P on the phone and prep the Smart Arts broadcast. Test the App. Third time lucky and it sounds good. Have a good rant about critics with nothing to review. I don’t miss audiences! I do miss the ritual, he venues and losing oneself in the immediacy of live performance. There is not much critics can do when they are out of work. Jonathan Mill in his daily online voice classes, which I have been attending, encourages actors always to be keeping their skills up ready at a moment’s notice to be back at work. Critics? Well, we should just keep writing, even if it is a half-baked iso-journal like this one.
I am having trouble with the Blogger program and importing pix. I am feeling there is less and less relevance to keeping the journal at all. I don’t know what day it is any more and, quite frankly, I don’t much care.


Day 44
Monday, April 20

Today B and I have our first row. I am devastated. We vowed not to push each other’s buttons but it happened and he gave me a serve of one of his old grudges. He harbours grudges. I hated him and felt trapped in a box with the enemy. I tried to walk myself into better humour. It was not quick or easy but eventually, he makes a sort of conciliatory effort. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, I have found a magnificent jumping spider with big white fuzzy palps, popped him in a viewing tube, captured a vinegar fly for him from the kitchen green waste and am awaiting the exquisite precision of salticid capture. He is very thin. Once he has eaten, I pop him out among the herb pots near the fruit-drop spot where I try to cultivate more vinegar flies. Even they are scarce these days.

Some more struggle with Blogger. Why can’t I remember what I did to solve that image import problem? How could I forget? Who cares about this bloody blog?

I do an exercise class, wash groceries, walk the hall. For the last 18 days, I have walked myself into the green on my phone pedometer. That’s a good 7-8k a day average. It is not as interesting as walking outside but I just push on because I must.

Spend some desultory time at the desk trying to get myself writing. Don’t seem to get the care factor up.
Take my book into the courtyard and sit in the not-sun.

And so the day wanders to G&T time. Have a long rant with M on the phone. We disagree and agree to disagree. We are always both a bit sloshed when we talk. She’s on the Semillon and I on the G&T.
We have a curry from the freezer with rice and an Indian salad, sugar-free chocolates and time-wasting food coma.
I waken to watch Come Dine with Me and some hair-raising true crime before taking a pill and having a shit sleep broken by nightmares about old airmen showing off by flying old prop planes at some suburban air show and crashing in to each other. I am about to rescue one with a ladder when I waken utterly disgruntled.



Day 45
Tuesday, April 21

Yep. Here we are. Still. No end in sight.
Jonathan Mill has brought his voice class to 7.30 am. Not a bright time for me but, to the cat’s utter disdain, I try. He loathes the strange vocalisations. He puts his ears back and glares at me with slitted eyes. Have the P call over life, the universe and Malcolm Turnbull’s book. Roll around social media and news reports.
Do the bed-making, shower, dressing routine and get busy, busy, busy. So busy. Airing things, cleaning cat littler, moving things in their sterilisation stages, walking, doing the LucySquad exercises, sitting in the courtyard, hunting for documents, photos, washing hands, washing hands….
I hear a plane and go look for it. Hear people out and about in the street.
Sam kindly does some grocery shopping for us and drops it off.
Think of friends I’d like to call but don’t call.
Cancel the hairdresser appointment.
Make tomato salad while B makes cocktails. Talk for an hour with M. Join Emma’s Zoom Gaggle of Great Gals and hear how others are handling things. Their spirits are a little lower. Everyone is tired of income and work worries. Gorge on lamb chops and cauliflower. Sink into restless night.


Day 46
Wednesday, April 22

Same old. But it is promising to be a sunny day. I crave the sun. I crave the sun.
Make an early start to meet my walking chums on Zoom. It is a wonderful session.
I recommend LucySquad exercises and brag that I’m doing 7-8k indoors every day. It is a bit of a push, mind you, but I must stay fit, must stay fit. I worry that B sits and studies too much and does not move much. I ask him to wash the kitchen floor by way of exercise. He does so cheerfully,.
Fresho delivers three boxes of veggies. Huge capsicums, celeriac,onions... Bean sprouts! Yessss. A big, fresh, kilo bag. Chicken and beansprouts for us tonight.
Tynte has a good flower offer today. Cyclamen, two for the price of one same day, I send myself flowers to brighten my world. I feel guilty.
The usual busy day being busy, sterilising and washing things endlessly.
Lots of cloud on this supposedly sunny day but I find a window and sit outside with the newspaper for a while, listening to the music of the garbage trucks in the street.
D is texting about the crowds on the beach. The low rate of covid cases has made everyone relax, no matter what the authorities are saying. The idea of “the common good” escapes them.
Half of me is envious, the other half furious, We just don’t know this enemy. It is predicted in waves. We are really lucky here, one of the lowest rates in the world. But what does this mean in the big picture? The virus is not going away until a vaccine has been found.
The rest of the world is still a ravaged tragedy of suffering.
Cocktails in the courtyard with my home-roasted almonds. Bliss. M phone session. Chicken and Beansprouts. Bliss. We treat ourselves to a wee serve of rice with it and lashings of my fabulous garden chillis. Watch Molly Bloom.




Day 47

Thursday, April 23

Wake with that worried feeling which seems to underlie one life these days.
It is dark and cool. The cat is absent. He has become very jumpy and nervy. His behaviour is changing. He likes to sleep under covers instead of on top.
Coffee and cat soup routine, P call and Mill. Cat has settled on the bed.
Rain. Steady rain on the roof.
Then rolling, rolling thunder, an almost constant roar. The car is concerned but not upset.
Radar shows a massive complex moving across the state.
B goes through the banking and has an angry outburst in which he threatens to block my access to the bank account to prevent me from helping my son. It is a shocking, grotesque confrontation and it feels like abuse, psychological wife-beating. I am distraught. The rug has been pulled out from under my sense of wellbeing. Suddenly, I trapped in this tiny house with a cruel and brutal man. Strength is sapped from my body. A headache sets in. Visual interruptions. Energy. Motivation. The delicate string of corvid coping has been cut. I can’t exercise. I am just empty. I feel leaden. Frightened. Disappointed. Afraid. Trapped. Trapped. I slough around trying to do chores, sterilising incomings and wiping things down.
When Jim rings to talk about work, it is a relief. He is so opn the ball with this plague. There is no deadline for the work but we will be ready when the drawbridge goes up. He spurs me to tidy my desk and finish the Dave Brown piece. Not my best work. Just out of the way,
I have a MEAA media section Zoom meeting. B brings me a G&T and I say thanks. But when the meeting is over and I have had my chat with M, I don’t feel like cooking for him or eating with him. He has written me an email. I look at it but it is all self-justification and I am too bruised to have any moreHe says it is late and we can keep the laksa ingredients for tomorrow. I agree and eat leftovers, watch some TV, do not speak to him. I have nothing left to say. I don’t know how to go forward.
The cat is very upset. He claws at B when he tries to engage with him and goes to the cattio. I visit him there and he strikes out at me, too. Very aberrant behaviour. But he is a part of everything that is happening and he is not good in conflict, any more than I am. I visit him again before going to sleep and he comes inside and visits me but then returns to the cattio.


Day 48
Friday 24th

Dark and glum. The cat arrives and I give him his soup as I make coffee.
B offers to make something for my breakfast. I accept.
I watch Zach Theatre’s production of The Tortoise and the Hare, a modern musical. Stop to share in a Skype call to B’s ex, E, in Maryland. I am civil with B and grateful when he helps me sort out a malware problem on my laptop. But I don’t like him. I just have no one else. He asks what I thought of the proposals in his email. Nothing.
I am still leaden. Flat. Heavy. Alone. Horrified. Trapped. I cry in the shower.
Do chores with no pleasure.
I can’t see a future.
B just sits in his chair reading. As he does all day every day.
We had been doing so well together. We had made a pact, not to press each other’s buttons. Twice he has gone for my jugular, so to speak, always on the issue of helping my family, the most important thing in the world to me…, the family I cannot see or touch. Of course, he loves this. He does not have to see them all. He can just hate them from a distance. He harbours such grudges. He is so judgemental.
I talk to Sam about it. Sam says that B, too is stressed out with this phenomenon. Sam is not judgemental at all. He is compassionate. Beautiful soul.
The day drags.
B makes more moves for conciliation. He does not resile but he is also abject. Can't live without me. Seeks solutions. Finally, there is an embrace. Finally, I let it loosen. We aren’t able to go anywhere. We must go on.
We have drinks.
I make laksa.



.
Day 49
ANZAC Day
Sat 25th

With a candle in the dark we stood outside our front gate. Down the street neighbours stood with lights. Satellites tracked in the starlit sky. Reveille played and the Last Post, my digital phone and an analogue radio down the street making beautiful echo. Peter in his sonorous ceremony voice read poems and odes were delivered and a bloody Christian service and the sun rose from black to grey to dusty pink on the clouds and then to blazing rosy fire. And we quietly stepped back into our houses.
I watch the British National Theatre’s Twelfth Night and Tamsin Greig and am absorbed deep into every moment, laughing and crying. It is five-star splendid.
Strange day ensues. Low energy, No new covid cases for three days now.
Brenda on the phone in epic sessions about some woman called Paula Taylor who is full of conspiracy theories about black hates and white hates and gold back currency and cabals and mole children in the tunnel of NYC.
Llysa and Andrew, my cherished theater simple friends, call from Seattle and we talk long avbout theatre and the master and margarita.
It is raining. But so mild.I put on Cat Stevens to help me pace the house for exercise.
B and I take our drinks into the courtyard and relish the soft steadiness of it all.
Marg on Facetime.
Night of Anzac entertainments on the TV, very Aussie.Music from the Homefront. I am absorbed and weepy and feeling deeply my country, my people and this strange time so beautifully expressed by a vast talent line in #homefront iso . Younger generation musical idiom rallying to this melancholy celebration of our national identity. Owning it. Multi-screening collaborations on Zoom. Where would be bd without Zoom? It was here for us when we hit the Coronawall.
B puts on headphones and watches something American.The rain continues steadily outside.


Day 50
Sunday, April 26


Day 50!!!!
Who would have thought? And yet, there is no end in sight. Good start to the day, though. No new corvid cases.
I worry that people will get too blase. We have all downloaded the tracking App and are hoping that the state will go on testing the young to find asymptomatic vectors. We are not out of the woods, even if things are looking good here.

There’s a spot of complexity with the ABC radio phone app which today does not want to play with us. We end up having to use the old-fashioned phone.
The National Theatre’s Twelfth Night makes a wonderful, meaty reviewing subject for Steve and I on Smart Arts. It is a joy to feel so enriched and nourished by theatre in these strange theatreless times.
It sets off a busy and productive Sunday which even,.stop the presses, includes a postal delivery of the Atkins bread and cracker products I had ordered.
Energy levels are up again today so I happily pound around on chores. Doi my 20-minute exercise program.
There’s a nice patch of sun for sitting and reading. I’m loving The Things She Owned while the wasps buzz around the prunus leaves above e me and the water tinkles in the fountain. The courtyard is colourful with blooms and the lemon tree in the wine barrel is putting out buds and more buds. I am thrilled.
I find that music played on the desktop computer in the living room helps me to get my steps up. Power around. Roast some more almonds.




Day 51
Monday, April 27

Blech. Another lousy night. Sleeping is a challenge. Audible keeps me company through the dark hours and distracts my mind from itself.
Oddly, I seem to have energy for the day.
Still no new cases. Day four.
Do the morning routine.
Ex husband’s birthday. I ping him a message and wonder how he is going in his retirement in country Ireland. A good place to be for an old medico just now, I’d say.
The paper says they are opening up the elective surgery lists again. Oh, relief for my endo-cursed DIL, N. Ping her the news. She gets on to her docs and shortly responds that she is listed for May 14. Oh, what a relief.
I have a big Woolies order coming today. They are finally able to supply things they have had to cancel before. I am much relieved.
I get the cattio ready and do a load of washing.
Grab a moment of sunshine with my book only to find a man on a roof next door looking right in at me. He is doing something with a swimming pool there. He’s one of those over-chatty tradesmen. Very disruptive and very invasive. I am not pleased.
The shopping is delivered on time and I do the sterilising routine. Gawd it is such a total drag. Sanitise, wash, spray, categorise, spray, leave, stage…. I am astounded my hands have held out. But they have,. Even my troublesome nails with some good Sally Hansen treatment. And your wedding ring simply dazzles with its white golden shine.
I have found a way around the shortage of antiseptic spray. I have gone to the manufacture of my favourite Fresh Air O and ordered direct. 12 cans!!!! They’ll take a few weeks but I feel more relaxed in my use of the rations of have.
Power walk around the house to music to get my steps up.
I have a beautiful ratatouille simmering in the kitchen. It has become a favourite iso dish. I make a superb ratatouille, even if I say so myself. And I do.
I roast almonds and B and I take our drinks to the courtyard. Have a long late yarn with M, followed by ratatouille and sausages and old Come Dine With Me eps I have found on SBS On Demand.



Day 52
Tuesday, April 28

Pffft. Vile night of snatches of sleep. Grey morning.
But, the fifth day with no cases, the radio tells me as I make the coffee.
So much careful preparation has been made to cope with the pandemic here in Adelaide, including reviving the empty Wakefield, Hospital, and it has lain empty and unused. Wonderful.
Noting a FB friend has a birthday today so I go to his FB to make a greeting and find he is promoting a different Corvid App to the Government one I downloaded. He’s a retired medic so I question if there is more than one app? I quickly get a patronising response telling me I should just download the app and get behind the cause and “be a leader”. I am gobsmacked and insulted. I put up a link to the other app I am asking about. There are two. See. Then I think, fuck him. I add a note saying that I feel absolutely insulted and affronted by his response. And I then unfriend him. Self-righteous boor. Some tolerance factor in me has snapped..

MOrning talk with P, bacon and eggs un bed from B, Jonathan’s online voice class, and then I surf up what the theatre world has been doing in a time of dark venues.
The action has exploded. I find a massive list of new things to watch.
But it is The Show Must Go Online which attracts me/ That is the whole point. This mob out of London have done a full reading of Two Gentlemen of Verona via Zoom. And they have done it wonderfully. I am utterly engrossed and impressed and sit in bed with the laptop watching, watching. Oh my, but it is very long.
Energy level not so great today. Force myself to a little exercise. Blech. It’s raining now. I put half the washing out and half in the dryer. Catch up with email, Fb, Twitter….
Do a some writing. Eat a heavy lunch of leftovers. Burn incense.
The scent of washing in the dryer and the incense is lovely and homely. I put on music and powerwalk the house.
The cat remains perplexed by this behaviour and watches from various vantage points.
Usual long lynchpin talk with M and then the Zoom meeting with Emma and her Gaggle of Great Gals. Small group but very enlightening hearing how they are coping. Now things seem safer, shopping seems easier. The distancing rules are still in place but other people do not feel as intimidating, says one. It was the first time she had gone shopping and not felt afraid.
We eat leftover sausages chopped into leftover ratatouille with penne. Divine.