Lockdown in Paris : Day Fifty Three

This post is late. I know it. So very late. I wrote it yesterday, but then there was gin and a video call and then gin and a quiz and then gin, and it because impossible to be on time because I was too late. But here it is, belated and below.

Saturday, 9th May

Do you know what I love about hangovers? And by “hangover” I am referring to a very specific brand of hangover - not the one that fills you with existential dread, nor the one where you’re convinced all your friends have realised why they should hate you forever, and are spending their day texting each other about it. Not the one where you think everything’s fine and then about an hour later you find yourself staring at a fixed point on the wall thinking Oh my god, am I really about to throw up? (For reference, this is called The False Dawn.) No, I’m talking about the fairly benign hangover - the one where your brain slows to a shuffling plod, every cell in your body is twice as heavy as it was yesterday, and you’re always on the verge of going back to sleep. What I love about this hangover is that you want to eat everything, and you could not care less about it. The only thing you are enthusiastic about is eating everything you can get your hands on. I love that bit. I love that I can go to the shops and fill my bag with pizza, coke zero, Maltesers, crisps and cake, and my brain doesn’t even have the energy to wave an arm in protest. It just lies there, eyes closed, going Yeah ok sure, I mean why not - get some peanut M&Ms! My hungover brain is much more chill about calorific intake than my boring sober brain, and that is why we are better friends.

I can’t believe that on Monday I won’t have to fill out a form to leave the house. What kind of madness is that. I’ve been institutionalised, I need rules. I’m so unfamiliar with the socialising concept that I now don’t know what to call it. What is the acceptable term for a social engagement overshadowed by global doom?

I don’t know how it’s all going to work, and hangover brain just wants to eat the pizza even though it’s 15h40 and that’s neither here-nor-there when it comes to mealtimes. Earlier I stared at a recipe for cake for a full twenty minutes while picturing myself making it (I really wanted some cake) and after all the imagining I just couldn’t face actually baking the thing. I decided that in the end it would be less effort to go out to the shop, and since everything seems to be happening from a long long way away, I reasoned that I probably wouldn’t even notice I’d gone until I got back. Which is true. Now I’m here it seems like a dream, me plodding through Carrefour just picking stuff up and dropping it into my bag without even looking at it as I drifted through the aisles like a really hungry ghost. I realise this sounds like I was shoplifting, but one of the things you can do in France that you should never do in the UK is use the bag you brought in with you and just fill it with stuff you are going to buy. This has always struck me as problematic - I still feel like a shoplifter every time I do it - even if it’s very handy. But it’s still weird. When I get to the till, what’s stopping me from taking out every item except the three bottles of wine at the bottom? I don’t know. Hungover brain can’t deal with these kinds of puzzles today so let’s just leave it at that. 

I watched about 25 episodes of Friends this morning - when I say this morning I mean the 25 minutes that was left of it once I got up after which it was the afternoon. I plan to watch movies until the family quiz this evening, which I don’t think I will be excelling in tonight. 

A note from Tomorrow Steph to Today Steph, who is now Yesterday Steph - you lost the quiz.