Life in pieces, p.6
Life in Pieces, page 6
She was dressed in hippie clothes and this is LA, so I am making what I consider to be a fair assumption about her diet.
BE NICE TO PEOPLE. Everyone is struggling. It’s all we can do.
You’ll all be delighted to know that Valentine wet himself twice, then did a poo on the toilet. So that was all thrilling. I cleared out the Tupperware and baby bottle cupboard. It was a bit sad to get rid of all the bottles, knowing we won’t need them again. I always wondered if we might ever talk about a third, but after this … FUCK THAT. I am done. Get off.
I made a curry with all the rotten vegetables in the fridge, so I’m really looking forward to getting food poisoning from that.
What else … I washed my hair. Fucking incredible feeling. It had been a while.
Love Dawn x
7 April
Isolation Update – What is faster, a … OH SHUT UP!
I’ve been drunk since Friday. I realise that’s nothing to show off about. The 4 p.m. margarita has become a crucial element to my day. It’s two parts tequila, one part Triple Sec, one part FRESH lime juice. That’s my recipe, and that is my drink. I could hoof ten thousand of them in one night (not entirely true). To me, there is nothing more delicious. Safe to say we drank too much and woke up terribly hungover yesterday. At one point I said the words, ‘Stop talking to me, I might be sick’ to someone. No idea who.
You know when you are feeling anxious so you google the thing to make you feel better? Well I googled, ‘What are the drinking stats in Lockdown?’ I guess I just wanted to know I wasn’t going to be the only one ordering a new liver on Amazon when all of this is over. This is the result I got:
As you might expect, one in five people are drinking more often in lockdown. These people tend to be people who were drinking more heavily and more often to start with. But at the same time, one in three people are drinking less often. And 6 per cent, or more than one in twenty, said that they had stopped drinking specifically for lockdown.
What the hell does that even mean? One in five are drinking more but one in three are drinking less? I drink too much to understand conflicting stats like that. I took my maths GCSE three times and still never got it, so I’m going to leave the mathematics out of my drinking from now on and just focus on the taste. I am drinking more, yes. As are loads of my friends. I send subtle messages out on WhatsApp like – ‘Might have a drink tonight’ – to see what kind of response I get, ya know, to make sure I’m not alone.
It’s nearly always met with a flurry of drunk responses. Again, this is where the time difference is useful. When I start drinking at 4 p.m. in LA, all of my friends in London are at midnight, already hammered and off to bed. The trick is to only communicate with them when I start drinking early, that way I’m not made to feel bad about it. My friends in LA are drinking more, but they start around dinner time, like normal people. It’s best I don’t communicate with them until later.
There’s loads of chirpy ‘YOU’RE ALL GONNA DIE’ talk on the radio, and the Prime Minister is in the ICU. It’s BANANAS. Everyone is so pissed off with governments, but no one wants that. I hope Boris pulls through, and I hope that it shows people this can happen to anyone, and that being careful is really important. Fucking hell, what a MESS. Los Angeles is going on even more of a lockdown, and the advice is to even stop going to the shops this week if you can avoid it.
I can’t avoid it; I have a family to feed. I spent a huge portion of my weekend – when not drunk – trying to find a food delivery service. The earliest delivery I could get was 20 April, almost two weeks away. I don’t want to go to the shops, but what the hell else are people supposed to do? The company I found was the ugly veg one, which is great. All the weird-looking produce that the supermarkets won’t sell. I’m excited to get some carrots with bollocks and potatoes with nipples. Should give the kids and me something to talk about.
I downloaded Becoming by Michelle Obama. I should have read it ages ago but didn’t. I’m spending so much time in the kitchen that having a book to listen to, specifically in there, is nice. I tried some fiction, but autobiographies seem to be easier to focus on when both kids are pulling my pants down, begging for snacks. I’ve done Demi Moore, and now Michelle. Both really good.
On Saturday night we barbecued baby back ribs, sausages and corn. YUM. Valentine spent most of the meal with his arse in the air, yelling ‘LOOK AT MY NAKED BUTT.’
I literally have no idea what happened to my life. This is not what I imagined when the plane touched down in Los Angeles nearly twelve years ago. Exactly the opposite, actually. Well, minus the naked arse being in the air, but I always presumed it would be mine.
On Sunday morning, Art woke up early and let Lilu out. Lilu is a Siamese cat and sounds like a screaming baby, so that got me up at 6.30 again. I went into the living room, and Art announced he was going back to bed. Right then, I thought, I’ll sit here and contemplate life while the rest of the family sleeps. Great!
Actually, it was nice to be alone. A rare and indulgent treat. We live in a lovely but modest three-bedroom bungalow. Chris and I got this house long before we had kids, and it’s perfect in many ways, especially for a couple, but it’s a weird shape for a family of four. (It does have a pool though, which is amazing, but it’s too cold to go in right now). So we’re moving house soon (it was supposed to be last Christmas, it feels like it’s never going to happen now) and the new place has an upstairs, which I am so excited about. As things stand, you get to the garden here by walking through our bedroom. This means there is nowhere for Chris and me to escape to. Our bedroom is not a sacred space, there is always someone that isn’t us in it. Usually, that’s OK, but in lockdown, it’s intense. I just hope we get into our new place soon; the idea of being able to close my bedroom door and get some space feels like the dream of all dreams right now. This is why I currently hide in cupboards.
Coming up with activities for the kids is still hard. I had an idea to make macaroni necklaces with them. You paint the macaroni, then thread string through them and make jewellery. Fun, huh? Only, have you ever tried to get string to go around a bend? FUCKING DISASTER. I should have used penne. The lessons you learn, eh?
I give up. TV is better for them than my stupid ideas.
I feel like I didn’t stop all day. Also, Valentine pooed his pants on the trampoline. It was so awful. I couldn’t cope, so I just threw them away. Oh, and I lay in bed and ate a plate of bacon. Just bacon. On its own. This is not related to the Valentine shitting himself story, I just wanted to let you know that I am now the kind of woman who eats a plate of bacon in bed, like that’s normal.
You know what goes well with bacon in bed? Tequila, that’s what. Stop judging me, I’ll do better when I have an upstairs.
IS IT REALLY ONLY MONDAY?
How you all doing? Tell me the news from your caves.
Love Dawn x
8 April
Isolation Update – Back of the net (who even says that?)
You know you’re drinking too much when you have a legitimate breakdown in a supermarket because they have run out of your favourite lime juice. (Funny fact, the lime juice in LA sold out SO fast.) I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Rows and rows of lemon, apple, orange, mango, mango and passionfruit, coconut but no lime juice. WHERE WAS ALL THE LIME JUICE? I walked up and down the aisle like a madwoman, muttering under my mask, ‘There must be some here somewhere, THERE MUST BE SOME HERE SOMEWHERE.’ I asked a guy who worked there, ‘IS THERE ANY LIME JUICE OUT BACK?’ He didn’t even go to look, he just said no, because it was ALL GONE and he knew it.
WHY IS THE WORLD SO CRUEL?
Instead I got real limes, 450 of them. It’s not the same. I mean, it should be. But I find it hard to achieve the perfect level of tartness with real limes, but I will try. Yes I will. BECAUSE I HAVE TO.
I didn’t think things would get this bad. But here I am, surrounded by limes but without the perfect juice. Why are they so hard to squeeze? The hardest of all the citrus fruits. THIS is why the lime juice in bottles is so vital. Anyway, I realise the amount I have already talked about this is showing I clearly have a problem.
ONE MORE THING THEN I AM DONE – I am going to buy multiple bottles when it’s back in stock, so I am NEVER in this mess again.
OK, OK, I’m over it.
You’ll never guess what happened today. I put twenty plastic Easter eggs into a bowl and Art and Valentine threw them across the room. Isn’t that FUN?
I’ve had it with Easter, and it isn’t even Easter yet. Knowing that it would be cruel to deprive my kids of chocolate, but also knowing how loopy it sends them, I am nervous about the whole goddam thing. Sunday will be a hard day for us all. The excitement, the treats, the sugar rush, the crash. Be assured I will be drinking by noon.
I did get lamb chops last week though. I’ll defrost them Saturday night and do something sensational with them on the big day. I’ve been thinking about them since I got them. Imagining them in the freezer, hoping they are as succulent as they are in my dreams.
I have spent far too much of my time imagining my lamb chops in the freezer. Please can someone send me some porn?
I had a bad night’s sleep. Weird dreams, dark thoughts and I needed a wee but couldn’t be bothered to get up to do it.
I ate crisps at 9.30 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m., and 5 p.m. Brilliant. I thought a lot about how I would feel if I ran out again, wondering if I should slow my consumption. But you know what? The world’s gone mad, who knows what tomorrow will bring. We have to just eat the bloody crisps.
I’m still so upset about the limes.
Art talks all day long. All day. No breaks. It’s pouring down with rain here, so it’s quite intense inside with these two children. Sometimes I wonder if Art has a secret speed dealer who slips him drugs under the fence, because he acts like he’s off his chops on something … all loved up with a LOT of chat. He’s like a random fact generator. Dinosaurs, big cats, anything that can run fast, he knows EVERYTHING about ALL OF THEM. It’s wonderful, in a way. He watches hours of nature documentaries and retains all the information, but fuck me I wish I could turn him off for twenty minutes. It’s really hard to focus on Instagram when he won’t shut up.
I got bored today. Actual bored. I kept having moments where I just walked away to sit down. Bored, low energy, couldn’t be bothered. Let them throw Easter eggs at the hot oven, they’ll work it out. Do you really need to parent constantly to be a good parent? The rain is such a massive kick in the teeth. It makes the days so much longer and harder. The dream would be to light a fire and watch movies all day, but you can’t do that with small kids. Art could just about manage it, if I agreed to watch shit all day. But Val gets bored after twenty minutes of TV and wants to play or be occupied in some way. I know this is hard on everyone, but I can’t help but wish this had happened when Chris and I first got together. We’d have fucked, eaten and written our way through it. Oh, the books I could be writing … maybe lime-squeezing wouldn’t be so stressful if I had more time to do it?
But I am not lonely. And I know a lot of people are. I hope you’re all OK.
I gave the kids leftover pasta Bolognese for dinner. Valentine ate it like I’d never fed him a meal before, but Art refused. He hates pasta. HATES it. Isn’t that the cruellest thing you’ve ever heard? It means I must try quite hard with their dinners. Which usually I don’t mind. But today, I could have served them soil. I just could NOT be bothered.
I had a cheese board with the gooiest cheese at five o’clock, and I didn’t touch booze until six. PROGRESS.
I do think I need a few nights of not drinking so my body can have a break. If I never saw another drink again, I wouldn’t really care (despite how it may sound in this diary). But I am so enjoying that feeling of, ‘And . . . . relax …’ at the end of the day. Or half-way through the day, sometimes. Usually, I would drink four nights a week, not seven. So, I think I should aim for that. If this is our life now, I have to come out of it with some organs.
But what night will I be strong enough NOT to drink? It’s food that’s the problem. As soon as I taste it, I want wine (post 5 p.m.). Tonight, I am making pasta with pesto, bacon and toasted pine nuts for me and Chris – how can you not have red wine with that??
I think we all know what is going to happen.
Oh, Chris came up with a great game to play with the kids in the hallway just before bedtime. He throws as many cuddly toys as he can hold at them, and they must catch as many as they can. Bloody hilarious. I particularly loved it, because while they played, I got to crack open my first bottle of the night.
And that’s it from me. It was a long and eventless day.
Love Dawn x
When in Doubt … Drink
One friend, who doesn’t drink much but also has two boys, just texted: ‘Are you drinking every day, or is it just me?’ She seemed worried. It was my absolute pleasure to reassure her that yes, I am also drinking every day, despite my feeble attempts not to. She then sent a picture of herself making a cocktail. She looked happy, because this is where we are at.
I live for these texts. The knowledge that alcohol is fuelling parents everywhere, that whatever this new normal is, drinking is a part of it for lots of people. We know (or we hope) it isn’t forever. Let’s just do whatever it takes to survive and worry about the damage we have done later. That seems like a very grown-up attitude to lockdown, if you ask me.
The thing is, as you may have already fathomed, I love drinking. I love how it tastes and what it does to me. I’ve never been addicted to it or worry that I could be. I just love it. I am an excellent drinker (these days). I mean, I’ve been doing it since I was fourteen so I guess I should be. Back in Guernsey in the nineties, we drank to get drunk and for no other reason. Nothing tasted good. We’d somehow acquire cheap wine and down it in someone’s bedroom before heading out to, hopefully, kiss some boys. The idea of it makes me feel quite ill now: the cheapest wine, drunk at lightning speed. Actually, that reminds me, we did the same with White Lightning, Diamond White and a revolting cider called ‘Brody’. I remember one time hitting up my uncle’s drinks cabinet and filling up a bottle with a little bit of everything. I drank it on the cliffs with some boys and we were all sick in front of each other. Sexy times.
Things got a bit more grown-up as time went by, and when we got into pubs and could drink legally we stepped it up. Shots upon shots were a big part of the scene. Sambuca and tequila, Blow Jobs and Slippery Nipples, whatever anyone was buying, I drank. JD and Diet Coke became a staple for me in the later part of the night. But my cousin Charlotte and I would often start with two glasses of white wine with a shot of vodka in each. Not only am I now amazed that we drank this, but I cannot quite believe we were served it. Can you imagine asking for that now and the response you would get? Anyway, Guernsey was a land apart, and growing up there was an absolute honour. Not that I can remember half of it.
I continued to be disgusting into university, where pints upon pints of lager and vodka with Red Bull became the tipples of choice – £1 a pint and £2 for a double vodka and Red Bull felt like all our Christmases came at once. Every day, for three years. My God, how am I still alive? Just thinking of Red Bull now makes me feel sick. These days, I can barely get it past my nose.
When I moved to London it all became a bit more classy. My friends and I started earning a little money, so even though the wine was still gross, and I was a sucker for a 2-for-£10 deal in my local corner shop, it was better than the 3-for-£5 we used to get in Liverpool. By the time I moved to LA when I was twenty-nine, I’d been wined and dined in some great places, and drinking disgusting wine just to get drunk wasn’t something I needed any more. I liked nice wine getting me drunk instead. The drinking scene in LA is different. There isn’t such a ‘pub culture’. Going for drinks after work isn’t a thing for a few reasons. Loads of people are freelance or out of work, or work in production, so there isn’t the office culture that demands the same nine-to-five grind. The working day is very different. Also, when I got here, before Uber, you’d have to drive everywhere, so binge-drinking in pubs was a little more complicated as taxis were unreliable and there isn’t really public transport. My life in LA has always been about dinners and wine, more than pubs. It suits me better. Nothing gives me more anxiety than drinking with a bunch of people who are not making dinner plans. I need to know I will be sitting down, with no line to the bar, and at least two courses down before 9 p.m. That is all I need from a night out. Despite my love of booze, food wins – always.
Since having kids, I’ve obviously drunk less, but at the best of times Chris and I are absolutely the kind of people who have a glass (or two) three nights of the week, and more so at the weekends. The rediscovery of tequila has been one of the best things about adulthood. For years, it came in shot form. As a teenager I drank it to the point of blackout more than I can remember. The very thought of it throughout my twenties was impossible because I’d puked so much as a result of it, I couldn’t even stomach its name. But then I moved to LA where the Mexican influence is huge. Margaritas with tacos is a common combination here. Friends who had been here for a while would drink neat tequila or have it with soda and lime. I thought this was MADNESS. How could they do that? Why would they be so CHILDISH? But then George Clooney brought out a brand of tequila, Casamigos, and my eyes were finally opened. Someone told me that if all you drink all night is tequila, fresh lime and soda, then you won’t get a hangover. Something about the glass of water and vitamin C with every shot. Never one to turn down an opportunity, I tried it. IT WORKED. I mean, I was tired, but I was not hungover. Not in the way I usually was with wine. I was sold. I have since learned that even the sniff of another form of alcohol makes your hangover even worse. It’s literally all you can have: tequila, lime, soda. DON’T mess with the system. Going for dinner and having wine, then going on to somewhere else and drinking tequila will cause self-hatred, extreme dehydration and possible regrets the next morning. (That was a good description of one of my hangovers.)
