Day 23: Wine

I rarely drink. I might have a glass of something two or three times a month. In the summer, I might have a beer at the beach. Special occasions (birthdays, Christmas, New Years) are an exception. Dinner at conferences, another.

Because I do it so infrequently, I buy nice wine, good whisky, vintage port. A couple of month's ago, my local liquor store had a few bottles of Louis M. Martini which I discovered last year, in L.A, when I unsuccessfully searched for Pine Ridges. I bought the six bottles of Martini they had. We had two of them before my mother went back to Argentina, in February. I cracked open another one the day before yesterday. Today, I'm having my last glass from that bottle (broke one yesterday, so I needed a second one). I consumed half of it with my dinner (risotto with spinach and wild mushrooms) and now I'm sipping the rest of it slowly, making it last for as long as I can.

To drink alone, is one of the strangest things I could do, but these are strange times and one makes allowances for that. I think what makes it so difficult is that this glass of wine, which is not nearly as good when I'm the only one drinking, is not nearly as good as it would have been if I had friends to share it with. Of course, water or tea or coffee are better with friends; but my friends are scattered around the world, locked in, trying to do their best not to catch, not to spread SARS-CoV-2.

The glass of wine I'm looking at symbolizes the utter despair of this forced loneliness. I long for meetings (I have one tomorrow and two on Thursday) and I'm counting the minutes to them. I was lucky I got to chat today and to have a real FaceTime conversation with a friend (because meetings are good, but friendly chat is even better).

Of course, we take things for granted. Who would have thought that this is how things would play out? That we would be locked in and not able to visit friends or teach or have a cup of coffee in our favourite cafe? But here we are. My kid is like Chuck Nolan and I'm a lonely wine-sipping Wilson.

I miss my classes, the university library, the project meetings, but more than anything, I miss my write-ins with Jaclyn. They were keeping me real. And it just occurred to me that I should have joined CampNaNo at the beginning of April. They are, of course, still open and so I have signed in. CampNaNo might just save me.

8:17 pm:

Canada cases 17,897

Deaths 377

Recoveries 3791

World cases 1,429,437

World deaths 82,074

World recoveries 300,198