Corona Journal, 8 April: Day 24
9am Lessons. Am requested to do 40 mins instead of an hour with M, as an hour is a bit long as he’s so small. You’re telling me. We decide to start at 9.20 instead of 9am.
9:05am Apparently M is shouting that he wants to start the Italian lesson NOW. Feel secretly a bit smug that he likes the lessons/me so much as I fire up boyfriend’s laptop (mine is too old to cope with video calls without overheating and shutting down).
11am Two lessons down, the two that were supposed to happen yesterday. Sitting at the table, making sure I’ve got lessons plans for tomorrow. Apparently I am a teacher now.
11:10am Boyfriend is playing x-box, talking into the headset and saying things like “Ok, yeah, cheers – shall I air strike?”, “I mean, we’re the only ones here so we might as well loot it,” and “Yeah, yeah, there’s one up here – ok, I just killed one – there’s another guy on the roof! – nice one, cheers lads.” Men are absolutely baffling to me.
2pm Suddenly feel really shitty; a mixture of boredom, anger, sadness, restlessness, tiredness and physical aches is making me grumpy. Spend half an hour just glaring out of the window at nothing, then get into bed.
3pm Boyfriend wanders into bedroom and we play a couple of rounds of Heads Up on Houseparty. That’s right – we are lying next to each other while on what is essentially a video call with each other, having to mute ourselves so we don’t get a nasty echo. Seems pointless but how else will we play Heads Up?
3:10pm “We really could just be playing charades,” boyfriend says. I point out that that would involve standing up. We decide we can’t be arsed.
3:30pm Boyfriend goes off for his shift at the hospital and I stay in bed, listening to a podcast while staring at the ceiling because I can’t even be bothered to make the effort to focus my eyes on a book or screen.
4pm Manage to rouse myself to make the trip to the fridge for a glass of Fanta Lemon, a white magnum and some paracetamol. Painkillers aren’t known to cure bad moods, but I figure I might as well try. Return to bed.
4:30pm Wonder when the book I ordered will arrive?
4:35pm Oh for fuck’s SAKE. The book I ordered weeks ago isn’t out until July. I preordered it without realising it isn’t actually published yet. Want a book now, and no I don’t mean one of the 25+ unread books on my shelf at the moment. A new one. Have a £15 Amazon gift card from Christmas and spend it on a book called How to Do Nothing, which seems apt.
4:40pm Back to lying under a blanket and listening to podcasts.
8pm Inevitably fell asleep for 3 hours. Heat up leftovers and eat them in bed while watching a Liz Gilbet TEDtalk on feeling overwhelmed in the pandemic. She has such a calming voice. I’m feeling a lot better now but have no intention of getting out of bed or doing anything else today.
11:30pm Whatsapping a pal and she tells me about something shitty her ex did. I call her and we trash talk him for a bit, and then I fall asleep. It’s been a weirdly nice afternoon; usually when a bad mood strikes, I have to swallow it down and just get on with things because it’s not appropriate to have a tantrum in Aldi or stare out the window for an hour at work, but didn’t have to today. Instead, was allowed to experience my bad mood properly and have a full strop all afternoon while ignoring everyone and everything. Glorious, really.
