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Because I usually am in Vino ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** In 2009, I gave up my studies as a medievalist and musician, left my home, my family, my life and moved to Provence in southern France for a guy. In 2012, I moved away from him to study wine. Today, I'm a vagabond sommelier working in Paris at one of the oldest and most famous restaurants in the world, struggling to find some purpose to what I deem the rest of my life. I'm still married and after 8 10 years, I'm still trying to fit-in with French life and culture and to understand why the French are the way they are. Because they're weird in a different way that I think Americans are weird. Perhaps it's me who's weird. |
| Today is not going well. 1st of all, it's still Wagner week on the Met's streaming platform. 4 hours of Tannhäuser. I'll admit I don't know what this one is about because by the time we got to it in my Wagner class I couldn't deal anymore and decided to spend more time studying the troubadours of medieval France. So blame Wagner for the reason I became a medievalist. I woke up to the sound of my husband's alarm clock. Why did he set an alarm clock you ask? To go shopping. Here in the backwater of Provence, in one of the most undereducated and poor sections of the country, we are surrounded by people who still don't understand how the virus works and think we're in some form of the Apocalypse, so without fail they rush the supermarkets every morning. It's the Apocalypse, but the stores are still stocked every night... go figure. Their houses must be overrun with pasta by now. So anyway, he wanted to go early to beat the crowds of old people who are terrified of anyone who looks remotely Asian but don't mind coughing all over you. (Go backwater racism) This was fine because it made me roll out of bed at 8am rather than the 9am or maybe 10am I wanted. I tried to make breakfast which was dry cereal because I don't like milk in my cereal and we were all out anyway. How long did it take me to pour cereal into a bowl and coffee into a mug you ask? About 10 minutes. Never before has anyone ever turned around in circles so much just to get cereal into a bowl. To my office where instead of getting anything done, I played the Sims until noon. This would be acceptable except for the fact that it was punctuated by several trips to the toilet because apparently I'm sick. My husband, after getting back from shopping, decided that this was a good time to tell me that diarrhea is one of the symptoms of the virus. This he tells me through the bathroom door, happily chatting away while I'm trying to do my business. I have to add here that he demands absolute privacy to brush his teeth let alone go to the bathroom. I'm lucky I got to keep the door closed. Cut to me making lunch while trying to ignore the fact that the smell of cooking meat makes me want to vomit all over the kitchen and worried that I have more than just a bit of funky stomach. Then we eat lunch. I feel worse. My husband says "most people's symptoms are not that bad." "Most people didn't smoke a pack of cigarettes a day before they went into lockdown," I remind him. Sure I haven't smoked in two weeks but it's going to take longer than that to repair 18 years of damage. Cue me taking a pepto-bismol that I smuggled into France from the last time I was in the States and falling asleep. It's now 16h. I managed to roll off the couch and make coffee - which was again way more difficult than it should have been - and write this entry. I'm still kind of tired and my stomach is still wonky. Chances are I'm fine, but I worry because it's true that for the past few days I have been rather "meh". Perhaps it's quarantine blues. Perhaps it's the prelude to maladie or perhaps my body is fighting a maladie already. Let's face it, I have been known to ignore sickness in the past and just get on with whatever I'm doing. I'm not sure which I'd prefer. Obviously, I'd prefer to not be sick, but on the other hand, if it's quarantine blues, who knows how long that is going to last. All I know is that yesterday I spent 6 hours working on an adult coloring book and watching reruns of Unsolved Mysteries on Youtube. |
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I think it's awesome that you're using that negative experience to get creative. It's hard not to just wallow when those things happen. I use a paper journal for most of my actual coping process too, but I do share bits and pieces on WDC as well.
Might try a short story a day instead. Stay safe. 
