Be Yourself (quick, while no one’s watching!)

Be yourself. That’s what they always say, isn’t it. With seemingly endless alone time, and no imagined judgement from onlookers, I’m being myself to an alarming degree. All those annoying habits that I would curb while in polite company are getting free rein. I refuse to cook pasta without making my “Bucatini and the MGs” joke. I used to throw peanuts in the air and catch them in my mouth- now I eat everything this way. While listening to the BBC’s shipping forecast every evening (which I strongly recommend), I wait for the Mull of Kintyre to get mentioned so I can burst lustily into the song. Day and night I’m swanning about the apartment, clad in dressing gown and drinking hat, martini in hand, reciting things in funny voices. So far my best is Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan” as Roger Moore.

 There was a sense of adventure when this lockdown thing started. I was enthusiastic about new opportunities (my apologies to my pessimist friends out there- I can only imagine how annoying that was), dreaming up exciting new ways to deliver music to people online; but as it drags on, my eagerness, along with my concern for social norms, is waning. Now, I simultaneously can’t believe it’s happening, and can’t believe it will ever end. I know people like watching videos of musicians playing, but without us all being in the same room together, it’s about as much fun as the recording studio but without all the free drugs and contortionists. While I support and encourage musicians asking for digital donations, a PayPal tip is a pretty bloodless exchange. The meeting of eyes and smile of mutual appreciation is what makes that transaction pleasurable. 

 I mistakenly stumble onto articles by insufferably earnest people telling me how they’re using all this free time to learn new skills, or getting around to those household tasks they always put off. After this is all over, I vote for these writers to be kept in permanent quarantine in a hoarder’s apartment with an overly caffeinated Marie Kondo. So I tried baking bread. Don’t judge me! Although I will say that someone as careless and absent minded as me should probably stay away from an activity requiring precision and patience. I may be going hungry, but I’m amassing an arsenal of dense loaf-shaped house bricks which I intend to use as missiles when the zombies arrive.

 The other day I felt obliged to clean something and selected the kitchen cabinet that I’ve used to store junk ever since I moved in 16 years ago. I rolled up my sleeves and burrowed in, digging past my vape pen, my collection of fidget spinners, a pair of shutter shades, (I paused here to brush off some moldy cronut crumbs), a pair of crocs, a folded “Occupy Wall Street” placard; deeper, past an old Blackberry, my Von Dutch hat, some roller blades; deeper still, past a HyperColour Tshirt, a long deceased tamagotchi; when suddenly, with a triumphant “YOLO!” I burst out into a cool forest by a murmuring brook. A gentle breeze carried the scent of honeysuckle, butterflies flitted by, friendly woodland creatures stopped and lifted their hats as they hopped past (they were wearing hats). Letting the Sony Walkman fall from my hand, I followed the sound of angelic voices down to the river bank, where a group of smiling nymphs sat on a log, singing and braiding each other’s hair. At my approach, they stood, letting their wispy underthings slide to the ground, and walked towards me, arms outstretched, mischief in their beckoning eyes. “Stay back six feet!” I shouted, “the rules are there for a reason!” and leapt back into my kitchen. Honestly, irresponsible nymphs are making it worse for all of us.

 I take a walk around my local park every day. Now that it’s closed, all the local yuppies who used to overtake the place, hovering over their fashionably dressed brats while allowing their dogs 10 feet of leash to take a sneaky crap on the bandshell steps, are now clogging up the sidewalks where childless grouches like me take our constitutionals. And doesn’t it seem somehow cruel to walk your dog around a park it can no longer enter? So many disappointed mutts staring uncomprehendingly through the park fence; while staring back at them, the local squirrel population, equally confused, as if to say –was it something we said?? –Is this all ours now?? It won’t be long before the squirrels start planning something. You watch.

  Anyway, I should let you go- I’m sure you have scarves to knit. I’ve got more projectiles to bake, and I wonder what Christopher Walken would sound like reciting the Gettysburg Address? It might go a little something like this…