Day 18: Deadlines, dating apps and sopranos
It's cold
I don’t know how things are in your neck of the woods, but here we’re facing a challenge. It could be the lack of air pollution, or the fact that the building management is still decidedly keeping the central heating off, but it’s cold. On one hand, it’s great because we can still legitimately drink red wine, but it’s also inconvenient because wearing more layers means doing more laundry, which is not what I signed up for when this pandemic started.
Despite the sudden change in weather, today has been yet another excellent day at - you guessed it - home, during which I discovered that the tap water in our building is indeed drinkable (but still tastes dodgy). Though this discovery came late, I can at least now confirm that one can survive off pseudowater for a considerable amount of time. More importantly, we managed to buy bottles of actual, flat water, so my quality of life has exponentially increased. I’m not sure I’m still allowed to use that word in a friendly context, but too late.
Speaking of late, apparently, during today’s supermarket run, there was a guard circling the aisles and repeatedly telling people the store was closing and they all had two minutes left to complete their shop. He proceeded to do this for about fifteen minutes. For anyone who ever had to deal with Italians and their sense of time and deadlines, they would immediately know that it is a little like how people set their preferences on dating apps: suspiciously optimistic, mostly arbitrary and completely flexible.
The days are passing by quickly, so much so that you begin to entertain the thought that this is not going to end as soon as you imagined. It’s that horrible feeling of thinking you’ve had four hours of deep sleep on a flight, but in reality it’s only been four minutes, and you’ve still managed to leave a drool trail and get a strained neck.
You may have noticed today’s letter has deadlines as its theme, so let’s consider this happy analogy: it’s like being a student and studying for finals again. You feel guilty leaving your house, the next few months will determine the rest of your life, and you’ll have gained ten kilos by the end of it.
Though my balcony-DJ neighbour has disappeared, the music in Ticinese goes on. Today I could hear a family of singing children through the walls of my apartment, though I think they were facing tough competition from their dad who seems to be taking online lessons to become a soprano. Julie Andrews likes this.
Lunch: Shakshuka
Song of the day: The Rolling Stones - Time Is On My Side