Six Weeks Gone, Maybe Another Six (or maybe 60) To Go

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

The first few weeks of this lockdown were fraught with inconveniences, mostly having to do with safety and avoiding contact with others. It was both a plus and a minus that up until this week, the weather in London has been almost summer-like with only one or two days of rain. Maggie and I could meet at one of the nearby parks, driving separately, and have a decent walk while keeping the safe distance, even though, as seems to be the same all over, there’s people who seem to dare the virus to hit them, especially joggers and cyclists. Speaking of dumb and insensitive, bejeesus Mike Pence, wtf are you doing in the Mayo Clinic, not wearing a mask then claiming you “want to look the doctors in the eye” to thank them? I don’t know if you know this, but the masks don’t cover the eyes. It’s pretty clear you’re shunning masks because your boss, the Presidick, does so. If Trump jumps off the roof, would you — ok, wishful thinking.

But back to London weather. This week, in fact right now as I’m writing this, the rain has been pissing down, and seems to come in waves every few hours. It means that any chance of a walk has to be carefully thought out. The UK’s guidelines/restrictions aren’t so bad that I can’t at least do that. I don’t know how some people can totally stay indoors 24/7, but I have two housemates that are doing just that. I suppose if they weren’t a married couple who stay in their section of the house, things might be harder. I get claustrophobic and stir crazy without much provocation. I have a routine that involves going out the front door a couple times a day, but on days like today, that routine has to be shelved, so I’m doing a lot more reading, since I don’t have Netflix.

It is now six weeks since the lockdown was imposed, and through just the basic practices of safe distancing and always wearing a mask when I go out the front door, I’ve not had any symptoms. I also don’t know anyone who has been affected directly, thank god. The government here, as of today, has not set any definite timeline for when we can ease back into life as we knew it. They have to move cautiously, because the only country I can think of that screwed this one up worse than UK is the US, who have idiots in charge that worry about their stocks more than the 60000 plus that have died. UK went rudderless when Boris Johnson was hospitalised, though before he got ill, he was almost as complacent as Trump when the threat was first evident. UK is now only behind Italy and the US for death toll, so probably no immediate plans to open any shopping malls in the near future.

I am a bit proud to say this coming month commemorates my 10th anniversary of giving up smoking after 29 years. There were a couple times over that stretch where I’d quit for maybe a year, only to have a relationship break up, and for me to go “Well, I’ll fix you, I’ll start smoking again!” I’m at least at the point where I couldn’t imagine ever smoking again, because for one it’s expensive, and for two, they don’t sell packs of 10 over here anymore. Those 10-packs kept my habit in check to some extent. I smoked as a teenager, quit as a young adult, then took it up again once I moved to LA. It’s not LA’s fault, much as I’d like to shift blame. With this respiratory disease running rampant, I can’t imagine why anyone would smoke, but if this were over ten years ago, I would have found a way.

Another personal item worth a paragraph, but not worth an entire story (at least not right now), is that I have now lived longer in this current space in North London than in any other place I’ve ever lived in my entire life. In June it will be seven years, a milestone I’ve never reached before. My family kept moving when I was young, and I kept trying to not move too often in my adult life because of the ever growing record collection, but the longest I could ever stay was the 6 years and 8 months in the last place I lived in LA. I don’t have any plans to leave this beautiful North London home, and hopefully, nothing terrible is going to happen that forces the issue. By contrast, Maggie has lived in the same place for 52 years. In that time, I’ve lived in 24 places, not counting the various places where I was a lodger for the first couple years I was in UK.

So life goes on in Crouch Hill. I still go to the corner shop to get a paper in the morning and go for a walk, weather permitting, in the afternoon. I did that before we had lockdown. The big difference is I don’t go out at night, but I think that’s pretty much everybody’s story now. Maybe after another 6 weeks, if we’re still in the same rut, that rut will become the norm, and anything less restrictive will seem like a godsend. I don’t want to make any predictions, but since dancing is going to be low on the totem pole, I may be considerably older by the time I DJ again. For once, I hope Trump is right, that it’ll go away like a miracle, but since he is wrong 99.9% of the time, I’m not holding my breath.

April 30th, 2020



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