COVID-19 Journal: Day 86

I'm in the bizarre situation of finding calm through listening to Dominic Raab repeatedly tell whoever is asking "it will be ready when it's ready" and "everything is working according to plan". I've also listening to more of Between the Stops even though Toksvig also talks of contemporary social issues amongst her London tales from history, memories from her own life, and what it's like to catch her bus. I must admit to tuning out slightly to her posh chirpy voice from time to time. "I don't want to think about boys and their parts and their disproportionate influence on history," etc.

I went to Tesco today. It's surgical now. Loo roll and lamb steaks. And fish fingers. No treats. Apart from the fish fingers. I walk straight there, masked, and straight back. Masked. I had fruit and yoghurt for lunch at about 16:30. I have changed my clothes several times today. My face is puffy because I've cried a lot. I don't expect anyone at Tesco would have noticed, or cared. I certainly didn't.

As I search for my axis, which I seem to have slipped away from, I've been working my way through a selection of In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg episodes compiled by a friend, Lauren. So far I've listened to:
At the end of one, there was the announcement for the next, which was going to be Feminism and Darwinism with Germaine Greer. Now, even though Greer has attracted some hot criticism recently for her stance on trans rights, she is unquestionably an expert on women's liberation. I have been thinking about the many connections and differences between racist and sexist oppression, so was curious to listen to her speak on this to refresh my stance on women's lib (because, I guess, it's become so natural for me to expect and fight and question my own existence in a still-sexist-but-better society). Here is Greer's session at Free Thinking 2011. One small point that popped up - perhaps from a question? - very useful to all this, I think, and that's to always consider the difference between freedom from and freedom to. That feels like it might be a small useful device.

I am in an oddly un-free position of having to quarantine for two weeks if I wanted to go back home. Of course this not the same; you can't look for freedom from (unless you're an idiot), and it doesn't make moral sense to seek freedom to not be quarantined, because it's about a virus we're attempting to control. I don't know what I'm trying to say.