curfew

The records I bought from America back in April have definitively abandoned their quest to come and live in my house. It's not known to me where they ended up, but I have a feeling it's somewhere better than the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and I hope whoever received them has a record player. They are: Badge Epoque Ensemble, Nature, Man & Woman; Drugdealer, Raw Honey; The Beach Boys, Surf's Up; Flore Laurentienne, Volume 1; and James Blake's self-titled album. 

When I asked for a refund I was given one without drama. There is a parcel under the piano waiting to be taken to the post office which contains a pair of shoes that don't fit and I will receive a refund for those too. I need new shoes and I still want those records, but this combined refunding will come to just under five hundred dollars and that made me think of the passage in Lucky Jim about how claiming back the deposit on empty beer bottles (of which the cupboard in his room is 2/3 full) represents his one sure method of saving money. That said I have no difficulty saving money. What I do have difficulty with is figuring out how to get to the post office to hand over the shoes package, although the PO is three minutes ride or ten minutes walk little outings like that currently seem enormous. 

The government has ordered the closure of as many workplaces as it deems possible to close without disrupting the provision of basic needs. No school. We're not allowed to go further than 5km from home, only meant to go shopping (for essentials) once a day, and we're permitted to go outside for exercise alone or with one other person, for an hour a day, and we have to stay indoors from 8pm to 5am. No visitors. Seems absolutely incredible right. This state of affairs will go on for at least six weeks.  

I went out for two walks today of about an hour each and I went to the supermarket where I bought a bag of pretzels, because Lenny's coming over for the day tomorrow, a jar of dill pickles, and a box of frozen spinach. None of those are things I need, let alone things I really need. We're all operating on the basis of a not enquired-into tacit agreement that things we buy from food shops are essential, obviously most of them aren't but we are too clever to ask too many questions. There is already significant pressure on the concept of meat being essential. It seems likely, between reductions in manufacturing capacity and panic buying, that there will be shortages of meat, possibly in other states too not just Victoria.

I finished one more small drawing. These drawings are all inflected by 2020. I see that, maybe you can see it too.  

I plan to leave the coloured pencils alone for a bit now and try charcoal. I was thinking of drawing this thing

But since the curfew came into effect the evening failing of light is a visual experience I feel I want to think about in a drawing.