How you know

I’m obsessed with a show on Netflix called Atypical. It’s comedy/drama about a high school student called Sam who has autism.

In the first season he gets a girlfriend, but doesn’t know whether he loves her … how can he tell? He decides, based on the facts, that he must. But then his therapist teaches him to dance in a carpark and it changes everything.

He says: “Zahid [his best friend] says that you just know when you love someone, which is dumb because it’s not based on data or research. But when we were dancing in the parking garage, I just knew.”

I just know I’m in love because whenever I hear Stevie Nicks sing “Rooms on Fire” on the car radio, I think of DD and my stomach muscles clench, which I think must be my version of butterflies.

I’m pretty stoked that my stomach muscles are still clenching at the thought of him seven years after we first met, despite COVID taking a lot of the romance out of the world.

For example, last night he dyed my roots for me. My friend Mel normally does it, but she’s only allowed to exercise with me during the current restrictions, not paint my hair.

He did it while watching the footy and sipping a Champagne cocktail (Jen Pfeiffer’s “Rock It Like A Redhead” Sparkling and Chambord – yuuuum).

I really don’t like watching footy, but those roots weren’t doing themselves and Champagne cocktails make everything more fun.

DD had to use his pastry brush to apply the hair dye because I forgot to bring the proper brush and all the pharmacies on the northern beaches were shut by the time I realised #truelove

We’re in good company – Ryan Reynolds has been doing it for Blake Lively. They got a few million more likes on their Insta post tho …

While the dye processed, I made us sausages and mash for dinner, then I shampooed the dye out in DD’s shower and we watched a bit of tellie. And so, life in lockdown crept along.

I mused to my mum on the phone on Saturday about whether life was ever going to come close to going back to normal again. Currently, it doesn’t feel like it. And I still don’t have any real perspective on living through a pandemic. It feels completely surreal.

It’s impossible to plan or count on anything. That gets to me because I’m big on planning. I used to book my overseas holidays a year in advance. And I usually move house every five to seven years. I have the itchiest feet and no way of scratching them.

I can’t imagine how it must feel for my kids. It sucks that they’re stuck at home all the time, unable to see their friends and do fun things like go to the movies and see bands and dance together and eat fast food that’s not delivered to their front door in a brown paper bag.

I fear for the future of their social skills when most of their interactions take place on their phones.

They seem OK, but I wonder what the long term effects will be. Us fiftysomethings have seen and done so much, it’s not a big drama to have our wings clipped for a while.

Though it does feel like I’m going a tiny bit mad at home without a full-time job to occupy me. DD is flat out with his new job and I’m only partially distracted by my freelance gigs.

When it comes to work I like to be busy. Really busy. Working in weekly magazines does that to you. I haven’t been busy enough since my most recent retrenchment – I kept taking on tasks in that role until I was doing the equivalent of two jobs. There was always so much to do and I loved it that way.

My Drinks Digest inbox was going crazy until the current lockdowns. Now things have gone a bit quiet. Last week, the boredom forced me to clear out the spare room. This week it might lead me to finally paint the side walls of the house in a fetching shade of “Ancient Ruin”.

Except I find sitting at the computer writing to be way more fun. Sigh.

I wonder what this week will hold other than painting and checking my empty inbox?

I hope you’re managing OK wherever you are and whatever the universe – and COVID – has thrown at you.

Song of the day: Stevie Nicks “Rooms on fire”