yesterday evening we stood outside a nepalese restaurant, one that we used to go to occasionally, and drank an imperial. in portugal, an imperial is a 20cl beer of whatever lager the place has on tap. we were waiting for a takeaway. across the road, a group of men enjoyed bottles of beer outside one of the few cafes that was open along the road. a group of people waited outside the restaurant next door for a takeaway of their own, with disposable cups of coffee and more bottles of beer. about 10 metres in the opposite direction, people in masks queued up outside of a supermarket at a few metres distance from each other. people shouted down to neighbours from balconies. it was a bit colder in the shade than we had expected.
before coming out, we had watched the first half of the eintracht frankfurt vs borussia monchengladbach bundesliga match. by half time (and with the score at 0-2) we had lost interest and decided to get something to eat. this was the first live football that we had watched since the lockdown. it had started strangely when there was a goal after 40 seconds. the frankfurt defence clustering around the single ball-player, before an innocuous shot ended in the corner of the goal. the spectacle never really improved. the muted celebrations; the isolated shouts in a cavernous stadium; the distance between everyone. perhaps if it was a football match that i had more than a slight amount of interest in, then it would be different. or perhaps not.
this is some part of the new normal everyone keeps talking about, i guess. there are some things that i am cautiously optimistic about for when the "new" normal "resumes": a potential reinvention of the global economy, a chance to right the wrongs that have devastated the environment that we live in; both from perspectives relating to public health, and relating to the war that is forever waged against the natural world by humanity. there are some things that i worry about: that the inevitable political, social and economic wreckage generated during this period will be used as a tool to enable austerity v2.0 across the entire globe. more specifically, i'm unsure whether the new normal will be a transient period: grouping together the events occurring whilst we all have to wear masks in our infrequent trips to buy food etc. or, whether it will be something that changes the way that we go about our lives for good. there is a tangible amount of privilege on my own part for wondering whether this will be the extent to which this crisis affects my life, i think.
anyway, i've got a bit bored of documenting how i´ve been spending the past 9 weeks, so i have decided not to carry on the diary format. i realised that i had started to try and draw significance from individual days, even where there was very little to note. so, instead, i'm gonna get back into writing something when i have more of a purpose.
if you would like a rundown of roughly what i have been up to since i last wrote, it can be summarised in a few bullet points:
- working; a lot. both my partner and i have been incredibly fortunate to find ourselves in regular (and stable) employment. it has also brought a lot of purpose to a large portion of my week. based on what i have been doing in my spare time, this purpose is not something that i would have been able to conjure had i not been working.
- the last dance: receiving an education in 80/90s basketball, the chicago bulls, and michael jordan. i've managed to keep the ending a surprise, so don't spoil it for me.
- rice: rice cooker is still churning our hot meals for lunch and dinner.
- a steady reawakening: tomorrow marks the first day since the state of emergency was first declared that restaurants and other establishments will be able to open their doors to the public. it's a bit strange because we still only really consume uk news, where the situation is worse by almost any measure. so resuming some aspects of our life has felt a little like committing a transgression of what is permitted.
- rain: so much. this weekend has been the first with the sort of weather that i had (mistakenly) promised myself when we moved here. (truth be told, this weekend has been slightly too hot...).
- lemons: we have a tree in our garden. we've established an optimised supply chain from tree to lemonade, to the extent where even i can contribute.
- dominion: highly addictive card game
i think that just about covers it.
a side note that i would like to mention: i finally had a paper published from work that i coauthored as part of my time in japan (around 2 years ago now!). my first "top tier" conference cryptography as well (crypto 2020). i'll see you there in the virtual hallway.
i should note that i wanted to call this post "the new abnormal", and then realised that this idea was as original as the latest strokes album. i decided against it as i thought that it wasn't worth the comparisons. however, it did lead to wondering if the strokes had made a prescient observation, or whether they just stumpled upon a particularly relevant album title?
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