Pandemic pondering

How was my lockdown? Since you ask, I've had too much time to explore every orifice, mostly metaphorically speaking. It doesn't help that something  compels me to keep a journal, the constant writing of which rarely amounts to anything other than something that may later make me chuckle. Or not. 

One day in August. I'd finished one journal and the process of getting out of bed and walking to another room to get a new notebook made me lose my train of thought. What was I writing? I wrote. For some reason, I decided to answer in my nascent German. Ja - yes - heute habe ich Deutschklasse - today I have German class. Unutterably boring, but it took slightly longer to compose in German. Had to think about whether the adjective 'deutsche' needed to stand alone with a lower case 'd' or if it was part of a compound noun thus requiring capitalisation. Jeeze. See what I mean?

So the pandemic. Suppose it helped that last year we'd been through something so much worse on a personal level. Who could have imagined that, in his awful dying, our daughter's young partner had been somehow gifting us the strength to proceed relatively unscathed through the forthcoming global crisis? 

And really, all my co-morbidity, Diabetica, and I have had to do during the pandemic is avoid actual as opposed to virtual human contact. My personal shopper and husband, Al and I have everything we need. Just had to keep fit, for so long only within a five kilometre radius. 

Which led me on my bike to Fawkner Cemetery. Found it simply by heading north rather than south on the Upfield Bike Trail, thus avoiding congested paths. Apart from the deceased, none of whom I encountered on that visit, I spotted perhaps 20 other souls minding their own business in all that peaceful landscaped treed acreage. I pedalled around, stopped to read a few headstones and plaques; relished the mature ghost gums - my favourite trees. Also had a bit of a cry. Seemed like an appropriate place to allow it.

Took Al with me on my second ride to the surprisingly lovely cemetery. I inhaled it all, through my mandatory mask. Thought I wouldn't mind having my ashes under a towering ghost gum by the creek, sneaked in by someone with a trowel, on a bike ride . Who'd know? 

I parked my bike by the curb in the Italian section and worked my way along, giving Al a bit of a commentary. I have a compulsion to share my inner monologue with him telling myself he enjoys it. I dawdled along, companionably pondering the lives of the people in the photos who'd had all their dreams by 1967 or whatever year they'd died. At the last grave, I turned to Al. He wasn't there, having quietly pedalled off. Made my hair stand on end for an instant, wondering whose presence I'd so clearly felt by my side as I practised my Italian pronunciation all along those headstones.

Bit disappointed not to have a ghostly visitation on my third solo cemetery cycle, given how many potential spirits surrounded me. What I did get was a comforting sense of inevitability. So much life lived in its fullness, whatever that might have been. A tiny oblong slab marked the brief life of a two day old infant; so much hope and sorrow a hundred years ago. 

Whatever business those thousands of people had been in the middle of, whatever plans they'd had, whatever they still wanted to do, all those who'd lived and died, they'd had whatever life they'd had, for what it was worth. That was all.

You tend to think about your own mortality when you spend time in cemeteries. let alone during a pandemic. Contemplating it all and dreading death just isn't worth it. No one is getting out of the world alive. 

But somehow, all those dead people, and all those who'd loved them, got through it. I find that reassuring.

Killing your darlings

Anyone else found anything interesting during a Covid clean-out? Like, for example, their own completed novella manuscript buried in a back room drawer? Well, that was what I found. I'd put it away, after too many publishing rejections, in 1997. A bit disappointed with myself, I shook the dust off and returned full time to my proper job as a secondary English teacher. Hadn't read my novella until recently. It's a bit of a time capsule and I can well understand the rejections and why a trusted reader proclaimed it a draft short of complete. But rereading it, I didn't hate it. Its themes are perennial and I am still interested in my protagonist's story.

So during Covid-19 lock-down, amongst other things I've been revising my novel. That means trying to improve my fiction writing. Call it a project. It's not for anything but it is creative and absorbing; good way to keep the black dog at bay. (And believe me, I can see it straining at the lead in my peripheral vision.)

You'd think that as an English teacher I'd be able to write passable fiction, given I taught writing for years in secondary school. Yeah? Well, no. Sure, I wasn't bad at encouraging others to develop their ideas.  Same with editing students' writing. I could easily correct grammar and spelling, slash redundant expressions and suggest modifications to anything clunky. I also had heaps of ideas as to how others could begin and develop their stories.

And yet, I've struggled with this in my own prose fiction. 

Somewhere in my thirties, I think I was trying too hard to be literary, or something. My fiction style became ponderous, laboured . No one's ever enjoyed my fiction writing. There's been a bit of damning with feint praise if not actually diving under bushes to avoid my asking them what they thought of something I'd written and foisted on them for comment. 

However, with the help of a couple of trusted, unpaid editors, I think I may be finally figuring it out.  Of course, one can Google all this stuff. Gems of wisdom are fed to me daily on social media. But something clicked when my editor-sister - also an English teacher - gave this piece of advice after she'd graciously suffered another telephone reading. Get rid of the scaffolding, she said.  Trust the reader's intelligence. Let the reader make the connections. She demonstrated in an example and, lo and behold, a veil fell away. Never mind that I'm a fascinated wanderer as I detail what I can see in my mind's eye. It's not doing it for the reader. 

It's the basic 'show don't tell' thing. And furthermore, don't make a ball of string out of a piece of cotton, which I fear I may have just done.

My last post, Broken Glass, was a short story that I wrote in the mid-1990s during my early try-hard literary phase. I've edited it, keeping my sister's sage advice in mind. Is it any better? Perhaps. Think I was quite depressed when I wrote it, having just lost a 39 year old friend to pancreatic cancer. Didn't realise how prescient that whole experience would be, given how things have turned out with the loss of our lovely 'son-in-law' to cancer last year.

Anyway, here it is Broken Glass, version 2

The crash sent Rick's mind back to his childhood, so he could almost feel the slippery opaque glass with its milky surface, and regular pattern of tiny coloured dots. Holding it was dangerous, but he'd wanted it.

Even his mother couldn't hold it easily in one hand.

"That's too much. Here." Cross again, she’d made a sucking snapping sound with her mouth. "I’ll do it. As if I haven't got enough to do around here." She'd helped him."Why did I buy these stupid looking things? I should throw them out." She kept saying she'd get rid of them but she hadn't.

His mother was outside at the line when he wanted a drink. Knowing he was supposed to have his drink in the kitchen, he chose instead to sit on the floor in front of the TV in his nest of cushions and blankets.

Despite his mum’s warning, he took one of the greedy, slippery glasses from the back of the cupboard where they lived with the Easter and Christmas mugs from his granny. "Cheap and nasty rubbish," according to his mum when Granny wasn't around to hear.

With infinite care, he poured his cordial from the heavy bottle in the fridge. It welled and splashed at first, but he wiped it up. He avoided resting the container on the side of the glass in case the glass tipped over. He didn’t completely fill it.

Holding the drink aloft, he walked in concentrated slow-motion to the lounge. His eyes flicked from glass to doorway guarding against a spill. Painstakingly pacing, his toes feeling the ground, he made slow progress on the tortuous route to the next room, six adult strides away.

After a sip, he placed the glass safely not near the edge but in the middle of the coffee table. He remembered his mum’s lessons.

Pleased with himself for not bothering his mother, he clambered into his nest. 

Suddenly his mum shouted sharply, "Rick! Get the door for me! Hurry up!"

In his haste to help her, he knocked the table. The drink washed over onto the floor on the far side. Helpless, he watched the slippery glass rolling across the table before smashing on the hardwood floorboards.

"Rick? Rick! What have you done now?"

He heard the backdoor and the alarming rush of air and temper as his mum flew

into the room. As he darted around the table, his bare feet lost their grip in cordial.

"Leave it! It's too late now! You've done the damage. What have I told you

about those damn glasses?"

Her feet outside the puddle, she reached out  and dragged him back. He’d felt sharp pain in his bottom and legs as glass jabbed into the ball of his foot near his little toe.

"Stop crying now. It's never as bad as it looks." Crimson splats dripped on the floorboards as she'd hobbled him back into the kitchen. She bathed his foot with cotton balls soggy from disinfectant mixed white in her baking dish. "Oh, it's all right!" Soothing, holding his face in her hands she kissed him and lifted him onto the table. "Sit there and I'll get you another drink. Don't worry about the rotten glass. Stupid looking things." She was quite sure she'd got all the glass out.

The memory flashed through Rick in the seconds after his son, Luke, accidentally nudged the wine glass off the edge of the bench. They both looked blankly at the spreading red pool on the floor and the glass, on its side, missing a jagged piece but with its stem intact.

Standing there, he remembered a few weeks ago looking outside over someone’s shoulder and watching the celebrant. Her lacquered dark hair was lifting slightly with the pace she was making. Brief case at her side, she was probably striding off to the next job. That bit of hem on her long black skirt was coming down. You'd think she'd have fixed it. He hadn't been able to stop cataloguing the details and felt guilty.

"I think we're talking about a very special person here," she'd said, her voice like liqueur. Her head to one side, she'd slowly scanned the crowd. She'd timed the pause while the mourners drew breath. Janine's sister in the front row released an enormous sob which hung for a while like the dust motes visible in the sun.

Rick shook the memory away, crouched and picked the two sections of glass out of the puddle which Luke was about to step into.  “Careful, mate. Go round that way and get the mop would you?’ 

"Sorry, dad." Luke's eyes filled with tears.

"Forget it, Luke. It was an accident. It doesn’t matter."

Rick had only drunk a mouthful out of that second glass and there was no more left in the bottle. He wasn’t sure he could manage through the night without another drink. Rationing it, he'd saved some from the night before. Sensibly, he’d consciously re-corked the bottle after he'd had his two and a bit glasses. 

'It's not a good time to give up drinking," some friend had told Rick, a couple of

months back. They'd shared a bottle of wine on a Tuesday morning. Janine had been asleep and wine seemed like a good idea. 

He hadn't had such a hectic social life since he was a teenager. The visitors with their cakes and casseroles had propelled them along. But that had stopped now. Life was supposed to go on after some respectful pause.

"I've got it dad." Luke mopped the floor while Rick prepared dinner, wondering whether he ought to go out and buy another bottle. Maybe later, after they'd eaten.

Alyse, Rick’s teenage daughter, had turned silent. Like Luke, she was helping out. Doing the washing. Setting the table. Taking over where Janine's mother had left off when she decided it'd be better for all of them if she returned to her own house.

Alyse briskly set out place mats, cutlery and serviettes like Janine had. Alyse's hair fell in golden glossy blobs. Rick had helped her to get the knots out when she was little. She used to hold him round the waist and press her face into his tummy while he smoothed out the tangles. He'd held her head gently so he wouldn't hurt her. There'd be a hot damp patch on his shirt where she'd been breathing. Now she  glanced up occasionally at The Simpsons on the television as she set the table. They watched television while they ate.

Rick was still painting the house. He hadn’t finished it in time, even though he'd

tried to. The garden was a clock, every day reminding him as he weeded it.  He'd never really bothered with it except for this last year. He’d thought it would be good for Janine. Some sort of compensation for their up and down life together for the last sixteen years. 

He'd really upset his mother-in-law when he'd refused to go and have one last look at Janine in the funeral home.

He'd felt a curious ecstasy after the funeral. He was ashamed of the feeling of relief after weeks of lying next to his dwindling sedated wife, her body swelling hideously and her  bones sticking out, never sure when death would strike or whether it already had.

The day of the funeral came blue and sunny; odd vaporous clouds drifted in a warm deep sky; weird metaphysical conditions that he couldn't help noticing. A compilation of Janine's favourites blasted at the crowd as they gathered outside the bizarre red-carpeted hopeless mechanised temple.

They'd all gone back to Rick's afterwards. He didn't know who'd organised the barrage of food and alcohol but it had all happened. The sun shone and he’d sat on the front veranda and held court with Janine's basketball girlfriends. One minute he’d forget and be laughing and getting drunk. Next he’d be slammed by violent engulfing waves of unthinkable loss and that putrid jasmine blooming by the front door.

Sometimes it is as bad as it looks.

Broken Glass

I've been sorting through a few things to fill in my isolated days. Who hasn't? I found a short story and I thought I'd share it here. I wrote it when I was in my late thirties.

The glass was slippery, Ricky recalled, skidding back to his childhood in his memories.. This particular glass had a smooth milky opaque surface, and a regular pattern of tiny multi-coloured dots. It was awkward for him to hold, but he'd wanted it.

Even his mum couldn't hold it easily with one hand.

"Why did I buy these stupid looking things?" she'd said. "I should toss them out." She kept saying she'd get rid of them but she hadn't. Ricky liked the look of them and they held a lot of drink.

"That's too much. Here," she'd said to him more than once. She'd make a sucking snapping sound with her mouth. She was cross again. "I’ll do it," she snapped, "as if I haven't got enough to do around here-"

When his mother was outside at the line, Ricky had wanted a drink. He’d also wanted to watch the cartoons on TV. He knew he should have his drink in the kitchen but he'd made a nest of cushions and his special baby blanket on the floor in front of the TV.

He got one of the spotty, slippery glasses that his mum said he should be careful with. They were at the back of the cupboard with the Easter and Christmas mugs from his granny. "Cheap and nasty rubbish," his mum always said later when granny wasn't around to hear.

He poured his own cordial carefully from the heavy bottle in the fridge. It welled and splashed at first tip, but he wiped it up. He was careful not to rest the container on the side of the glass because he knew the glass might tip over. He didn’t fill the glass right up to the top because he didn’t want to spill it.

Carrying the glass of cordial, he walked with concentrated slow-motion through to the lounge. He held the glass in front of him, eyes darting from glass to doorway, trying to watch where he was going, but when he looked away he somehow tilted the glass so the drink almost ran over the edge. Neatly pacing, feeling his toes on the ground, he took painstaking tiny steps on the tortuous route to the next room, six adult strides away.

There. He sipped a bit of drink then placed the glass safely into the middle of the coffee table behind him. Not near the edge. "Not there, in the middle! Here." This was what his mum always reminded him. He might knock it over otherwise. He clambered into his nest, pleased and proud. He hadn't given his mum any bother. He didn’t have to trouble her and hear "What now?" if he called "Mu-um?" his high voice undulating with request.

Then his mum called sharply, "Ricky! Get the door for me! Hurry up!"

He jumped up to get the back door and in his haste knocked the table. The drink washed over the table, onto the floor on the far side. The slippery glass was rolling, rolling over the table then it smashed on the hardwood floorboards.

"Ricky? Ricky! What have you done now?"

He heard the backdoor and the alarming rush of air and temper as his mum flew into the room. He darted around the table, bare feet losing their grip in cordial,

"Leave it! It's too late now! You've done the damage. What have I told you about those damn glasses?"

Keeping her feet outside the puddle, she reached out, gripped his forearm and dragged him back. He’d felt sharp pain in his bottom and legs as glass jabbed into the ball of his foot near his little toe. There was lots of blood. 

"Stop crying now,” his mother had said more gently. “Come on. It's never as bad as it looks."

Crimson splats dripped on the floorboards as she'd hobbled him back into the kitchen. His mother had bathed his foot with cotton balls soggy from Dettol and water. 

"Oh, it's all right!" She’d held his face in her hands, smiled at him. She’d kissed him and lifted him onto the table. "Sit there and I'll get you another drink. Don't worry about the rotten glass. Stupid looking things." She was quite sure she'd got all the glass out, she'd said. 

That memory of his own childhood had flashed through Ricky in the seconds after his son, Luke, accidentally nudged the glass off the edge of the bench. A wine glass. They both looked blankly at the spreading red pool on the floor and the glass, on its side, with a jagged piece out of it, but its stem intact.

Then he remembered when he'd seen the celebrant through the window. He saw her over someone's shoulder. On one level he couldn't help noticing, as you do. Her dark hair, lacquered into place, was just lifting slightly with the pace she was making, striding with her brief case to the next job. It's how it had seemed. That bit of hem on her long black skirt was coming down. You'd think she'd have fixed it. He hadn't been able to stop cataloguing the details and felt guilty. "I think we're talking about a very special person here," she'd said in a voice like liqueur during the service, her head on one side, her eyes roving around the crowd. Then she'd timed the pause while the mourners drew breath and Janine's sister in the front row released an enormous sob which hung for a while in the dust motes shining in the sun.

“Mind!" said Ricky. "Go round that way and get the mop would you Luke?' Luke was eleven. Ricky crouched and picked the two sections of glass out of the puddle.

"Sorry, dad."

"Forget it, Luke. You can't stop shit happening."

He'd only had a mouthful out of that glass and there was no more left in the bottle. Ricky wasn’t sure he could manage through the night without it. He'd saved half a bottle from the night before. He was rationing it. He'd consciously re-corked the bottle after he'd had his two and a bit glasses. He was sensible about it.

Luke was filling a bucket. Good lad.

"It's not a good time to give up drinking," some friend had told Ricky, a couple of months back. They'd shared a bottle of wine on a Tuesday morning. Janine had been asleep and it seemed like a good idea. "Nope. Not a good time."

He hadn't had such a hectic social life since he was a teenager. The visitors with their cakes and casseroles had propelled them along. But that had stopped now. Life was supposed to go on after some respectful pause.

"I've got it dad." Luke mopped the floor and Ricky cut vegetables into even strips, wondering whether he ought to go out and buy another bottle. Maybe later, after dinner.

Alyse, Ricky's thirteen year old had turned silent. Like Luke, she was helping out. Doing the washing. Setting the table.Taking over where Janine's mother had left off when she decided it'd be better for all of them if she went back to her own house.

Alyse was briskly setting out place mats and cutlery. She put out bread and butter plates, folded paper serviettes, tucked them under the knives on the plates.

Alyse's hair fell in golden glossy blobs. Ricky sometimes had helped her to get the knots out when she was little. She used to hold him round the waist and press her face into his tummy while he smoothed out the tangles. He'd hold her head gently so he wouldn't hurt her. There'd be a hot damp patch on his cotton business shirt where she'd been breathing. Now she glanced up occasionally at The Simpsons on the television as she set the table. They’d watch television while they ate.

Ricky was still painting the house. He hadn’t finished it in time, even though he'd tried to. He'd been keeping the garden weeded. The garden was a clock reminding him. He'd never really bothered with it except for this last year. He’d thought it would be good for Janine. Some sort of compensation for their up and down life together for the last sixteen years. Like most people's lives, he supposed.

He'd really upset his mother-in-law when he'd refused to go and have one last look at Janine in the funeral home.

He'd felt a curious ecstasy after the funeral. He was ashamed of the feeling of relief after weeks of lying next to his dwindling sedated wife with her body swelling hideously and her bones sticking out, never sure when death would strike or whether it already had.

The day of the funeral came blue and sunny with odd drifts of vaporous clouds in a warm deep sky, odd, metaphysical conditions that he couldn't help noticing. A compilation tape of all Janine's favourites blasted at the crowd while they gathered outside the bizarre red carpeted hopeless mechanised temple.

They'd all gone back to Ricky's afterwards. He didn't know who'd organised the barrage of food and alcohol but it had all happened. The sun shone and he’d sat on the front veranda and held court with Janine's basketball girlfriends, wondering how he could be intermittently laughing and getting drunk, then suddenly being slammed by violent engulfing waves of unthinkable loss. Getting giddily plastered on wine and that putrid jasmine blooming by the front door.

Feeling remote in a Zoom class

About half way through my second Zoomed German lesson, while someone was reading her essay aloud from from her 'shared screen', I absented myself from the virtual classroom. Took a bathroom break. Had a little walk around the house, still within hearing range of that confident German voice. Actually, I was pacing up and down, convincing myself not to drop out of class.

Weird really. I've loved learning that language for the past three years. Not that day.

There are five of us in this 'Intermediate German Continuing' class, which due to Covid has gone on line. The plan was that we'd 'share screen' - our own - and individually read our personal writing while the others followed along.. That's one of those clever things you can do on Zoom on a PC or Mac. But not on the iPad I was using. Feeling disadvantaged and just a tad left out, had a teeny, tiny sulk about that; a sulkette. No matter. My Zoomed face, in its Brady Bunch grid, wasn't revealing any emotion

At the start of the lesson, the first student couldn't work out how to 'share screen' on his Mac. We all watched patiently while he peered up close and personal into his computer screen. Ten minutes later the teacher was still calmly trying to help him. And we waited. Yes, I know. New learning medium. Covid. Crisis. Hundreds of thousands dying world wide. Donald Trump. Couldn't I have been a little more tolerant? Evidently not. The teacher in me would have moved it along and figured the problem out with the particular student later. Suppose it's not so easy in a virtual classroom though. Still, my face in its little square wasn't revealing my increasing irritation.

Confined like everyone else, I'd been hanging out for that two hour session. To spend the first ten or so minutes doing nothing was tedious. But it got worse. When the teacher finally displayed this student's sophisticated essay, I could barely understand it as he read with his to me, flawless accent. Seemed to be out of my league, advanced German. I took some comfort from everyone else saying, almost unanimously, that they'd only understood 'ein bisschen' - a little. My image on the screen didn't reveal my rising sense of inadequacy.

When I began learning German three years ago, we were all beginners. But gradually those beginners left for various reasons to be replaced by more advanced students. I'm the least experienced now, and despite recently gorging on three seasons of Babylon Berlin, that day, Deutsch was all a bit beyond me.

Floundering, hurting, I was back in the late 1960s in Year 9 mathematics struggling with quadratic equations, or some such. The oblivious teacher was at the front catering only for that row of mostly boys who liked maths; who seemed to get it. Think I managed a ten minute bathroom break during every one of that teacher's lessons. He always waved me off cheerfully. Memory suggests he didn't care. With 40 kids packed into the room, he seemed prepared to let some fall through the cracks. For the next couple of compulsory maths years, I treated maths with contempt. Barely passed. Hated every painful minute during which I was reminded of how stupid and lazy I was, not by the teachers, but by my own sense of failure and inadequacy.

I've no intention of dropping German. I love it too much. Recognising those primal feelings that betray me if I'm not careful, I got a grip and returned to the session. Of course, because I know now how to learn, I'll have done heaps of revision before my next class.

And a shout out to all those amazing teachers who've pulled off the most astounding feat during the last four weeks in getting all their classes on line. If you ever deserved a pay rise and some proper respect, it's now.

Want to experience some magic? Make your own yoghurt.

I started making my own yoghurt this year to reduce waste. But really? You still have to buy milk and your initial 'starter' yoghurt so unless you have your own cow, you're going to create some waste in the process. If it was just about reducing waste, it would probably be much easier to return to buying Greek style yoghurt, at about $6 for a large tub, which can be recycled. 

So why bother? Making your own yoghurt is so much better. It's like the pleasure of bread making. It's alive and you're the alchemist.

If, like me, you have time, and enjoy creamy delicious Greek style yoghurt, whipping up your own is so satisfying. Seriously, the euphoria of tasting yoghurt straight from its tepid bath. Heaven. These days I enjoy my pleasures where I can. Perfect consistency: dollops cling to the spoon. Intense creaminess on the palette. 

It's taken me a few weeks to get there, a bit of trial and error. So here's my method, in case you feel like trying something new.

You don't need special equipment, other than an esky (mine's big enough for a six pack) - cool box - a meat thermometer and a bit of patience. You have to wait for the magic. The batch I made yesterday had rested for about 20 hours - because I forgot about it - and it's the best I've ever produced.

Initially, I bought an Easiyo Yoghurt maker from the op shop but it's not necessary. Any clean lidded jars or even an old plastic yoghurt container will do.

For your first batch only, you need a starter. Buy a small tub of full cream Greek style yoghurt. I started my current batch with 170g of the Tasmanian Tamar Valley Dairy variety, but I don't suppose it matters. You only need it for your first 'cook'. Get the yoghurt out of the fridge before you start the whole process, to allow it to get to room temperature. I dispense the yoghurt into a large heatproof jug at this stage. (Tip: wash and reuse the yoghurt tub for your next starter.)

In a saucepan, whisk together a litre of full cream milk - I use the UHT type - and a cup of powdered skimmed milk. Now slowly, slowly - patience! - heat the milk to 82 degrees centigrade, stirring occasionally.

When it's at 82 degrees, take it off the heat and wait for it to cool to 46 degrees centigrade.

When it's at 46 degrees, gradually - slowly - mix it into the starter yoghurt in the jug. The idea is to try to keep everything as close to 46 degrees as possible, so don't be too slow!

Once you've mixed the yoghurt with the hot milk, pour some into your starter container - for next time - then fill your jars. Now turn on your hot tap and get it to the temperature where it stings on your knuckle. This is about 46 degrees. Put the containers in your esky, or Easiyo container if you have one, and fill the containers with water at 46 degrees - about half way up the sides of the jars in the esky. Now close the esky and put it somewhere to stand for at least 8 hours, but as I said, 20 hours produced my best return.

I've read that some people just put a container of boiling water in with their jars in the esky. Makes sense if you don't have a small esky that fits under the tap.

This recipe works for me. Of course, you can sweeten it in your preferred way once it's done.

There's heaps of information on line if you don't get pleasing results the first time. But it's like anything. Practice makes perfect.

 

Toilet paper? So yesterday.

Looked longingly at five toilet rolls, three on the bottom, two on top in the bathroom at a café the other day. Had a back pack with me. It would have been so easy to steal just one. No one would have known. It would have bought me toilet paper time.

Happy to tell you that my morality kicked in. I left, hands well-soaped and dried but not thieving. Self-consciously, I used the edge of my shirt to unlock and open the bathroom door. Felt irrationally proud of my antiseptic fastidiousness, despite having always bordered on OCD with hand-washing and hygiene. Then I realised that had there been any Covid-19 invisibly lurking amongst my fellow Francophones at the café table – no offence to any of my delightful group - I would have already contracted it. See, we were all handling the communal water bottle, as was the waitress. And before I’d gone to the bathroom,  I’d had a handful of sultanas from a little supply I carry around with me – bit of carb sustenance for this diabetic cyclist. Despite my best intentions, I’d forgotten to use hand sanitiser. Fark.

Quite easy to spread this pandemic, eh?

Being retired, I made the relatively easy decision to self-isolate, four days ahead of the state government’s declaring a State of Emergency as it turned out.

Still plenty of fruit and veg in the shops, if like me you shop small, and in a pinch I can be quite creative with legumes. Pfft to pasta and rice. Too many carbs for me. We’ll be right, potential imminent death notwithstanding.

It pained me a bit initially to miss out on my beloved German lessons, French conversation groups and choir rehearsals. Had a brief adrenaline fuelled sulk and then, something weird happened.

I felt pleasantly free, and not only from my packed post-retirement program.

My frugal zero waste tight-arse mentality has me pandemic primed. The lidded ‘nappy bucket’ is in situ in the laundry sink. An old towel has been cut into squares, now neatly hemmed. A repurposed squeezy detergent bottle is an excellent ‘portable bidet’.

Poor fools lining up for toilet paper. Having experienced a new cottony softness on my nether regions, I doubt I’ll return to my former wasteful habits. And don’t get me started on the squirty bottle.

Never meet your heroes. An encounter with David Sedaris.

I had a brief personal interaction with David Sedaris the other night. Let me just say, I love Sedaris's writing. I'm a long time fan and have therefore read lots of his work. He's an inspiration. A great wit, he finely crafts his hilarious, often poignant observations into highly engaging anecdotes. I leapt on the opportunity to hear him live, having missed out last time he was in Melbourne.

At Hamer Hall I had my copy of Naked hoping to get it signed after the show but bought a paperback copy of Calypso anyway, not having read it yet.

Really got lucky then. Sedaris was signing books pre-show and there were only four people ahead of me in the queue, which I joined. Sounds simple. As I waited, hyperventilating, I noticed Sedaris did a bit of sketching and colouring on the title pages as he chatted to those getting their books signed. Me, I was about to faint from nervous excitement. Interestingly, Sedaris later addressed this very feeling during his show when an audience member asked him whom he'd most like to meet. He talked about this being tricky - my word - as he is often overwhelmed by nerves and therefore when he meets a much anticipated person, someone else turns up; a representative; not his true self.

I hear you, Mr Sedaris because my representative turned up to get my books signed by you, one of my writing heroes. Prior to my turn, I'd checked the readout on my insulin pump to verify that my rapid heart beat was just nerves and not a dreaded hypo - low blood sugar. I was fine.

To expedite the signing process, Sedaris's assistant had written 'JUDI' on a sticky note and placed it just so on the title page of the book for which I'd just paid $29.

Sedaris sat at the other side of the table with his mug and his felt pens arrayed next to him, perhaps wondering which colour to use. My idiotic representative quaked obsequiously in Sedaris’s presence. For the previous few days since I'd bought the tickets I'd been wondering what I could possibly say to  Sedaris. His delicious diaries - Theft by Finding - had revealed that he enjoys signing books. He's interested in what people tell him. Yet I had nothing to say and didn't want to sound stupid. Unfortunately, my blithering representative took over as I passed Sedaris my books, and this is what she blurted out during my two minute encounter:

"I was so nervous about meeting you I had to check my blood sugar to make sure I wasn't having a hypo. I'm diabetic!" She/I giggled like a teenager. Felt like a complete moron. Yet my unnecessary revelation prompted Sedaris to tell me a really insensitive clichéd tale, the type most people with diabetes have been subjected to repeatedly by the ignorant and curious. A nurse he'd met had told him about 'a diabetic' who'd had a great hole in his foot and he didn't even know it was there and you could see bones and tendons and everything!

"Yeah, thanks," I said. "haven't heard that one before." Actually, it's one of the plethora of stories one hears regularly when one has diabetes. Clearly he didn't sense my disapproval but I doubt whether he was listening. He said something about people feeling bad about being diabetic because they ate too many sweets, or some-such. I can't exactly remember, but it made me say that I'd had diabetes for 39 years. "Big year for you next year then," he remarked as he found his 'theme' and sketched '39 years’ in red felt tip pen on the title page of his book. My representative clarified that I couldn't help getting diabetes so I was one of the good ones! FFS! My cringe-worthy rep was being idiotic and politically incorrect. (There's no good or bad diabetes, or 'diabetic shaming', in case you didn't know.)

"Who are you here with?" Sedaris asked, still focused on his colouring in. "My husband," I indicated skinny Big Al, staring off over by a pillar. "Does he mind that you're diabetic?" What the fuck? "Of course not!" My representative guffawed inanely.

Sedaris was finished. My time was up and I was dismissed by his glance at the snaking queue.

Mixture of emotions for me; but mostly disappointment which I am still working to overcome. Having somehow managed to get seats three rows from the stage helped. Sedaris's readings were wonderful: poignant and hilarious; exactly what I expected. But that encounter in the foyer stuck in my craw and took the edge off what should have been a stellar evening.

I'm currently rereading Naked, and since the signing I'm perceiving things differently. Not sure I'll even read Calypso.