The waiting game.

I’m typing this into my phone in a back alley in Windsor while listening to exile on main street, waiting for the doctor to come out and do my COVID-19 test. It’s One of the strangest experiences of the whole pilava. Many people have had tests already, hundreds of thousands but this is my turn to go through it.

It’s like you’re the news. You’re one of the potential’covidiots’ who didn’t listen to all the warnings. But you’re not, until you’re tested positive. The placebo on the stress level walking into this is extraordinary. While I’ve only had very mild symptoms of drowsiness and cough in the past 24 hours, the doctor and I reckon it’s a good idea to test to make sure. She’s about to come out. I’ll come back to this after it’s done.

Fast forward a bit over 24 hours.

I'm done. I tested negative to the virus. It was just hay fever. The 24 hours wait was stressful. Like so many of the hundreds of thousands of people who have tested negative, I had times where I was convinced that I had the virus. I distanced myself from the family and thought through how I was going to answer the contact tracing people. Like, you need to be honest when you speak to them. That's obvious. But there's something in human nature that tempts you to be a little reluctant with the truth.

But none of that needed to happen.

A weirder thing was how my symptoms of runny nose, cough and general sluggishness, disappeared on hearing the news I was negative. Minutes before my brain told my body that I was sick. On the news, instant recovery.

Art is a curse.

'The sleep of reason produces monsters' - Goya

My dear old friend Nick, an artist, rang me today to tell me that one of our friends, another artist, Mike, had died in the past day or so. It was sudden and devastating news.

We thought back to how hard it is to live with art and how hard it is to live with art as the one thing you do, and that loneliness that comes with it. It's the thinking that you don't fit in. The thinking that you should get a real job. It's the feeling of the rush to make art filled sandbags to keep you safe from the flood of 3am stare at the ceiling anxiety. 

It's why I'm not "a writer". Fuck all that. I just type sentences for money. Fuck the novels and poems and plays and songs and whatever the 20 something me thought I deserved to write. I gotta stay on top. Just type for money. Keep it simple, stupid. 

And that's what I do. It's delightfully boring. 

But I still feel the pain of anyone stuck with art. 

It's a curse.

You can't shake it off. 

And I know that dangerous late night loneliness. 

We all do, I'm sure. 

Anyway.

Don't let your friends get lonely. 

Please.

Goodnight Mike. 

Two scenes in and outside lockdown.

So now we're in a pandemic lockdown. One hour exercise outside the house a day. One hour of shopping. Curfew at eight. Taking the kids out for that one hour is sacred time. So is being inside.

All time is sacred.

That's what I've found this year.

In the mornings we go out to play. This morning it was raining so we were the only people in the park. This park is full of people doing their one hour of exercise every day. Most people spend more than an hour and it's quite social.

And this is last night. Once the kids are outside we get an hour or two of TV before falling apart. The blue light is a police car's lights. They had pulled over a kid for what looked like being out of his house past curfew. The lights flashed our loungeroom for well over half an hour. Talk about atmosphere. 

The Climbing Tree.

Today we visited The Climbing Tree. It's our favourite place.

Dirty songs for dirty minds.

In the past week, Cardi B put out this extraordinarily dirty song and video and I love it.

Have a look.

I had no hesitation in adding the song to this playlist of dirty songs I've collected over the year for a mate's birthday. There's some foul things on it. Please don't play this to people who blush easily.


My apologies in advance.

A spoon full of shit makes the medicine go round.

Me and the family, earlier today. 

Today was a nightmare. 

Absolute nightmare. 

The pandemic lockdown has meant that we have to stay home and work from home, no school, and for us, only childcare on one day a week while we both work. This means two year old and a six year old in the house today while one of us works. 

And it was my turn to keep it all together while Lucy does her work. 

I failed miserably. 

I didn't plan it this way but it started with me and the two year old watching Mary Poppins. In Mary Poppins, the dad is rubbish. Disciplinarian, disconnected from the kids, judgemental, out of touch, no imagination, not interested in listening to the kids (or anyone else for that matter), just a pain in the arse. 

They need a nanny. And then Mary Poppins flies in. She's perfect in every way. Exactly the opposite to what the dad's like. She's engaged. She listens. Annoying tasks are fun if they're played like a game. That's what they're singing about with A Spoonful of Sugar. They're getting the room cleaned. And they do. 

But it's unfair. 

Because old mate Mary can do real magic. 

So the day goes on and I completely fail in getting the six year old into her homeschooling. She does not one minute of it. And we fought all day. It got worse and worse, and the worse it got, the deeper I got into the mud of it all. I lost all patience and confidence. It was torture. 

I was the dad in Mary Poppins, the obvious rubbish dad, and there was nothing I could do to improve. 

This is what the lockdown is doing. It could be a wonderful opportunity to have the best time with the kids. But I'm tired and today I couldn't come close. 

Luckily, tomorrow's another day. 

But I did get to play the Up There Cazaly clip to the two year old. 

He was transfixed and wanted to see it again and again and again. 

Just like when I saw it for the first time.

Sounds made for this late at night.

Strings, choirs, orchestras, drama and melancholy. 

These are special sounds for this time of the night.

 

Sweet dreams.

2020 As Years Go, I Wanna Be Sedated.

I'm back. 

Look at the previous post. It was saved as a draft probably a day or two after the 2018 Grand Final loss. You know the game. My team lost by a few points and have never been the same since. And did you know that I was concussed for the entire game? 

All trivial to what's happening now. 

We are in global pandemic. There is a lockdown and a curfew. We can only go out for an hour a day. Our flat and the walk to the milk bar is our world. It's very quiet. I type this and know that the last time I typed into this blog there were other seemingly important things on my mind. 

But tonight, it all seems silly. 

I think I will type into this blog some more. 

It will be a bit more like it was many years ago. 

Here's the beautiful record/video that got me back into the idea. 

It's about nostalgia and now. Perhaps what this blog has always been about. 

You won't watch it because it's 44 minutes long and 44 minutes is a lot to ask for in a recommendation. 

What is it with recommendations? We're always recommending things? There's not much point in doing it other to propel some of your self to the person you're banging on about the song or show to. 

I had a super villain idea once. The Recommender. Jumps into scene to interrupt whatever is going on, dinner party, tennis game, people kissing on a bridge etc, to recommend the cheese they sell at Aldi. 

Anyway. I'm back.  

Enjoy The Week: 2018 Grand Final Week Diary. Life Goes On.

I feel empty.

What just happened last week?