So I've been keeping a journal since 2014.
Some years the journal is short (2014's is only 4,000 words long, 2017's is non-existent), some years it's long (this year's holds the record 103,000 words in length). As such, I've decided to post a few non-incriminating excerpts from the journal, looking back on the pandemic year.
It's mostly dreams and political observations, partly because I didn't feel comfortable posting anything more personal about myself and partly because I didn't do anything exciting this year, on account of the lockdown (or so I keep telling myself).
January 2020
January 1: a good omen to start off the new year. Just after midnight discovered a poem by Ariosto that I was previously unaware of. Rinaldo L’Ariditi or Rinaldo Ardito (Rinaldo the bold) remains incomplete, was itself only discovered in 1846, and remains untranslated into english. From machine translating the Project Gutenberg version, though, it seems that the story is about Rinaldo going undercover among the Saracens. Discovered by Signor Zampieri, conservator of the Grand Ducal Library of Florence, it contains 12 cantos of which the first, sixth and beginning of the second are missing. Discovered this in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, Volume 6. I think there is some question over the authorship, people doubt it's really him. Still I would love to read it. Need to make sure it’s not one of those 18th century hoaxes, though. Didn't Dolan write something about those?
Funny line from Wodehouse: ‘In the first place, does one get the Yule-tide spirit at a spot like Monte Carlo?’ ‘Does one desire the Yule-tide spirit, sir?”
Currently reading: The Path to Power by Robert Caro. Dynamiting the bank by accent, practicing the law without a license to cover for a cousin on a months long bender, brown-nosing his way through college, the introduction of the infamous ‘Jumbo.’
January 2: Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, killed by drone strike in Iraq as part of Trump’s re-election strategy. Biggest U.S. military error since 2003? Single most prominent "enemy" commander, per news. Iranians tend to be more evenhanded than Americans, but twitter is full of speculation about retaliation.
From Turing Police: there’s nothing of value I can add about what just happened in Iraq and what is probably going to happen next but I really pray that during my lifetime I get to see a final reckoning for the people who run this country.
Matt ‘Cushbomb’ Christman: RIP to Qasim Sulemani. A reformer with results.
Twitter joke: let Iran take Mike Pence and call it even.
Someone said he was the most popular Iranian alive.
Not a great start to the decade!
Currently reading: The Path to Power by Robert Caro. His election to the model House of Representatives as Speaker and his turning it into a political machine by inviting speechmakers and more importantly, having debates from aides as previews to upcoming real debates to draw attention from journalists looking for a scoop. His cultivation of allies in Texas through the use of his inattentive boss, marriage to Lady Bird Johnson, career of Sam Rayburn and friendship with LBJ. Funny line, LBJ telling Ladybird to ‘insure the furniture for Friday night’ as they were having journalists over. Heroes of the French Epic arrived, late Christmas present from the folks. Very kind. Excited to read it, but must finish this first. Also browsing Albert Russell Ascoli, Wrestling with Orlando: Chivalric Pastoral in Shakespeare's Arden.
January 4: slept in. Felt really stupid today, like my brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen or something. Caffeine headache, I think was the actual cause. One whole pot after nothing over Christmas.
January 7: man, what a night.
Iran sends 13 ballistic missiles to an Iraqi base hosting American troops, as a warning, no deaths, then more to Erbil, where Canadians are present too. No deaths. All this after Pentagon employees sent home early after a snowstorm, lol. Then a 737 goes down in Tehran eight minutes after takeoff. Ukrainian. Rumour is Iran anti-aircraft artillery shot it down by mistake, but who knows? Then a 4.9 magnitude earthquake in southwest Iran. I was wondering if Iranians were testing a bomb to show they have one, but everyone is saying it must be Americans, but after a few hours it looks like it was just an earthquake.
Also today I received the first ATIP I filed in December.
January 17: Buttigieg thing blew up again yesterday, with him denying fixing the price of bread to the NYT editorial board. LOL. People now saying I’ve influenced an American election. Turned down a radio interview with [redacted]. Stupid, but whatever.
January 20: dreamt I was wandering an abandoned school/factory in a place that was both Perth and Siberia after an apocalypse. Announcements over a loudspeaker kept trying to get me to show myself. I was with Dad and a few others. A helicopter carrying a load of pine trees spotted us overhead and as the pilot waved we decided to give ourselves up. A jet (a commercial airliner that flew like a military fighter) tried to land on the nearby highway, but kept having to abort when cars drove by. Eventually it crashed and I woke with an ominous feeling…
January 31: can’t get over that story about the propane tank exploding in the guy’s car in Halifax. He lit a cigarette, forgetting about the tank. Quinpool Superstore parking lot. That’s got to be the most chaotic, storied parking lot of all time. You always used to meet people there and see some weird shit. It really was like a cursed community square in a way. Closest liquor store and groceries to campus probably played a role. Also the hole in the fence was like the first example of real life direct action I’d ever seen. They kept repairing it and people kept cutting it back out. It was a great shortcut from those apartments to the parking lot, but the landlords were afraid there’d be like some sort of squatter’s rights/common path business and they’d be forced to maintain it. So there was a back-and-forth battle to keep it open.
February
February 1: man, Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn campaign ads are the last things that still make me feel genuine emotions.
February 3: infuriating skullduggery in Iowa. The “app” for vote counting broke down, it’s got Pete’s fingerprints all over it. Bernie definitely won but they’re not reporting the numbers –– would rather look incompetent than give him his victory speech. The Buttigieg came out and declared victory. The most loathsome asshole in America since the Bush administration. First he fixed the bread prices, now he’s fixing the election. Of course, I think Bernie is still going to win, the intention is to cast doubt on the results.
March
March 17: a few bits of positive news. Singapore scientists report virus may be mutating into less powerful strain. Italy reports third day in a row with same number of new cases––which could mean they’re at their peak. Still think March 24 is the day shit gets real, but could mean we only have to maintain bunker mentality until July. A twitter correspondent thinks Thursday is when things get bad here. It’s probably a safe bet that things will be worse, but I still have money on the 24th.
The bad news for Canada though is that no matter how well we handle it, we’re still sitting on top of a giant incubator with no way to separate ourselves from what hatches.
Currently reading: The Decameron. Feudal France in the French Epic. The Battle of Maldon.
March 26: How many people do I know––how many loved ones do I have––who will be sick or dead before the summer is here? Or out?
March 27: went outside today to [redacted]. On the way there a news report on the radio said Service Canada had closed across the country and that in Edmonton fights had broken out with people shoving each other and throwing chairs after not being served––talk about a breakdown of social distancing.
Anyway, on the way home I stopped and bought a mars bar, full throttle at the Esso Circle K and feel guilty about this non-essential trip. Otherwise I think I’ve only been out on the last two Tuesdays to get groceries. God I spent all week asking myself if I had a sore throat or if it was just me thinking about my throat more often. And now I read something disturbing about the dry cough symptom and I’m worried I’m developing a cough. Really hoping. I think it’s just psychosomatic, that mars bar did kind of go down the wrong way and I’ve been thinking about coughing ever since. Still gonna try to keep away from others just to be sure. I’m only recording this in case some epidemiologist needs to track my movements in the future. Disturbing report on the radio, too, of doctors telling covid-19 patients in New York that this will probably be the last time they’re awake, just before putting them on a ventilator. Christ. And some sort of mandatory do not resuscitate order being used. For the record, if you’re reading this I one hundred percent want to be resuscitated.
April
April 1: Last night I dreamt I was washing dishes and the patterns of tomato sauce on all the dishes was extremely vivid. Felt very disturbing, somehow.
April 2: one million cases worldwide. Big numbers posted in Ontario today. Started rewatching The Sopranos.
Currently reading: The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 by Ian Wood. Jomsvikinga Saga. “In addition to regulating the chief feasts and rituals of the year, the Church canons prohibited Sunday work, in accordance with the Ten Commandments, and these canons were backed up by the dissemination of miracle stories concerning the fates of those who did work on Sundays. There are tales of hands withering, of buildings being burned, and of children conceived on Sunday being born deformed. It is not difficult to depict the early medieval Church as a power-house of psychological oppression. ”
April 11: went to get tested at 2pm Public Health building by Tim Hortons. Called and said I was there early, they said they were about to call to see if I could show up early. Asked me to pull into the handicap spot near the door.
Oh and I heard the neighbours coughing but that's normal for them they're all heavy smokers.
The public health nurse explained it was unpleasant. I joked that I had made the mistake of looking up what it consists of. She said they recently switched to a newer test which is a bit better because the swab doesn’t go as far back in your nasal cavity, but I think that was bs. Very unpleasant but actually wasn’t too bad. It goes up your nose and pinches you and you feel you need to sneeze but the time you want to react it’s over. She explained that she tells people if their eyes water then that means she did her job correctly.
They said I'll know in 4-6 days and to self-isolate until then. The test has to go to Edmonton, I presume.
Currently reading: The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 by Ian Wood. vikings. Companions of the Misty Forest. Tintin: Breaking Free.
April 12: think I feel okay? Bit of a sore throat but cough is down from yesterday (though it was gone completely the day before).
Finally got a day of writing in, thanks to the isolation.
New York death toll passes 6,000. Christ.
Currently reading: finished The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 by Ian Wood. vikings. The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free by J. Daniels.
April 13: feeling great today. No sore throat, no cough, no runny nose. A little bit of phlegm but otherwise good.
Test came back negative, but was told to continue self-isolating until my symptoms went away. For the most part I am feeling better, so I quit isolating so severely.
I'm about 90% better, I want to take an antibody test as soon as it's available, I think I must've had it because I've never been that sick in my adult life (and the test was more than two weeks after onset of symptoms), and if I can donate blood with antibodies that would be good.
Today was the first time I’ve been out to the kitchen since this started. First time I’ve been out of my room other than to the bathroom and to get tested.
Internet, tv and power have been out for three hours now with no sign of coming back. I’m going nuts here but still can’t bring myself to work on writing today.
Currently reading: the viking book and a bunch of comics, mostly Thorgal.
April 14: every neighbourhood should have feral goats for lawn maintenance and in late autumn there should be a cull and the meat given to food banks.
Currently reading: Finished the Viking book, started the Gwyn Jones viking book and Charlemagne’s defeat of Saxony.
April 15: got some writing done on Project Strife.
April 30: put a cracker out this morning and a magpie came to look at it but I think I scared him off by making eye contact. It was gone later though.
May
May 20: Been having a fucked up recurring dream lately that I’m one of the Volga River boatmen from that painting by Ilya Yefimovich Repin. In the dream it’s a ferry system and I’m pulling the boats across the river but I just looked it up and in real life the burlaks hauled barges upstream, which is insane to me. Weirdly, the song hasn’t been stuck in my head and I had to look it up. Again, I think this has been on my mind because of I’ve been thinking so much about the vikings’ Russian portages lately. I just got to the portage section of The Long Ships today though, so I can’t directly credit this dream to it.
Currently reading: The Long Ships, Danse Macabre, Edict of Pitres.
I loved The Long Ships. Bengtsson's dry wit is impeccable and perfectly in keeping with the sagas.
Three viking journeys, one to Muslim Spain, one to Æthelred the Unready's England and one to the viking Rus. The middle section in England is a bit of a slog, though the characters get to take part in the Battle of Maldon. They also serve as slaves and then bodyguards for Almansur. But it's the final section that rules the most: travelling the Dnieper searching for treasure and taking part in two amazing skirmishes.
The part that gets talked about, the comparison between the four religions (Norse paganism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is fine but it's only a small part of the book and it only gets talked about because it's the sort of thing book reviewers are trained to look for. What makes this so great isn't any didactic point the book makes, but the catharsis that comes from blending the storytelling style of the Icelandic sagas with the priorities of the 20th century novel.
May 25: magpie finally stopped by today and accepted my offering, a cracker left outside. He took it to the far side, hid it and dashed off. Still another on bbq, will check back later.
Also saw two squirrels fighting today. Normal for one to run along the back fence, today there were two, one chasing the other off. Lot of threat display vocalizations. They say covid19 is causing rodents to get more aggressive, as with restaurants shutting down they’re running out of food sources. I’m just glad it’s squirrels. The one advantage of living in Alberta is that there are no rats.
June
June 17: can’t stop looking at Edward Burne-Jones’s Pre-Raphaelite painting The Wizard. Need to learn more about it. “Set within a panelled chamber, a wizard stands beside a young maiden. With his left hand, the wizard holds back a curtain, revealing to the maiden a shipwreck within a magic mirror, possibly referencing Shakespeare's 'Tempest', whilst with his right hand, turns the pages of an ancient book. Beside the maiden, resting upon a tripod, is a copper cauldron, heated by a brazier.
“It is believed that the wizard is Burne-Jones in his younger years, whilst the young maiden is said to have been modelled on Frances Graham Horner, the daughter of Burne-Jones' primary patron, William Graham.”
Maybe a new favourite.
July
July 2: hard to tell if the protests in the states still have that same vitality they had previously, because coverage has mostly stopped.
July 17: Think I just witnessed a powerful omen that only I could have recognized but I don't know if it portends good or ill fortune. bought dempster brand hot dog buns for the weekend put them away, just went to open the cupboard and staring me right in the face was the BIMBO CANADA logo, I had a visceral reaction, I jumped backward in fear and recognition.
August
August 2: up early, reading outside. Quiet day to myself. Ate a blueberry yogurt. Didn’t realize there was an actual blueberry in it. My brain spontaneously decided to imagine, “hey what if that was the severed foot of a tiny little mouse that fell into the yogurt vat?” Want to vomit.
August 28: if you did even the most basic social distancing, you took part in the largest coordinated effort in human history. We don’t think of it that way thought because the people in charge don’t want us to think of it that way because then we might start getting ideas.
August 31: Passerine bird collided into window, now sitting stunned on the ground. His friends nearby chirping and continuing to forage.
September
September 16: obituary for Charles Saunders on the CBC today, but announcing he died back in May. He was a recluse, lived in poverty and had been sick for over a year, but told no one. God, that’s as terrifying for me as it is sad. I guess he just dropped off the face of the earth when the Halifax Daily News shutdown in 08. The whole thing is so sad. I really enjoyed Imaro.
September 18: partial acceptance on Chramn of the Wizard’s Pingo to Dream of Shadows. They want me to change the ending, which I’m fine with I’m not satisfied with it myself, but I’m over here scratchin’ my noggin tryna figure out what to do about it myself.
September 19: sold Chramn of the Wizard’s Pingo. Gotta fill out a contract, withdraw it from other venues, sign up for paypal. Gonna rest on my laurels for the rest of the day lmao. Very fucking cool.
September 30: alright bitch let’s fucking do this. Full steam ahead on Project Strife.
October
October 1: Trump has covid :)
October 5: Had a wild dream last night. I was at the arrivals gate of a major international airport (but also the airport back home)? I met a few people I recognized, mostly distant family members. But in order to enter the new place, I had to pay a fee to the gatekeeper, who in this case happened to be my friend Kyle, who died in a car crash in September 2012. I had a big stack of bank notes, but they were mostly useless, outdated and discontinued currency from countries that no longer exist. I was flipping through my stack looking for legal tender, which occurred only rarely. There was a large lineup forming behind me and Kyle was getting frustrated, making sarcastic comments. Finally I agreed to step aside and sort myself out. Immediately upon waking, my first thought was that this dream had something to do with the myth of paying the ferryman, Charon, for passage to the underworld.
Thought I was paying entry fee for myself, but thinking about it now, maybe not. Maybe it's like that dead guy (Polydorus?) in the Aeneid gets turned into a tree until Aeneas gives him funeral rites. I always felt guilty we fell out of touch in years just prior to his death. And I wasn’t able to go home to his funeral…
October 14: Also that hoax letter about the release of grey wolves in rural NS? I fucking knew something was up with it.
Turns out it was a Canadian army propaganda exercise. The next step (after already forging government letterheads) was to set up speakers in the woods and play wolf noises on them.
October 24: got sick off eating too many hot dogs and early halloween treats. BC election today but boring who cares. Slept all afternoon/evening.
October 25: Had a dream that I met a (fictional?) twitter mufo at a fancy restaurant irl, they were telling me their uncle was an MP in the Lebanese parliament and showed me videos of him lighting a wastepaper basket on fire and throwing it at the speaker.
October 26: had a dream about a wooly mammoth with tarantula eyes. Worked on Project Strife.
Huge wildcat strikes today across Alberta. AUPE, the healthcare workers who are facing up to 11,000 layoffs. Good for them! Their backs are to the wall so there’s absolutely no reason for them to back down and I hope they don’t. Labour Relations Board ruled against them and they’ll get disciplined if they back down now, plus they’re going to lose their jobs anyway, so why not? UCP has been trying to downplay the layoffs as ‘just laundry workers’ but even the worst of what I think of as the pickup truck country Albertans understand we need fucking hospital workers during a pandemic.
November
November 22: 1584 cases in Alberta today, 4th record breaking day in a row. 140 in town now. I've had one friend forced to isolate because a co-worker had it, and a friend-of-a-friend's wife died of it, but not someone I've ever met. A couple of twitter mufos have had it too (stay strong). I've been lucky but it feels like it's closing in.
November 30: Alberta hospitals forced to ration oxygen. Jason Kenney decides to blame South Asians for spreading covid. Shameful.
December
December 7: going to regret this but blocked twitter until the morning of December 15. The idea is to harness all of my energy into projects that will actually amount to something.
December 8: had a dream I was in Buenos Aires. [redacted] happened to be there as well. I was overwhelmed but happy.
December 9: drank a Nos ® High Energy Drink containing taurine, guarana, inositol and that mysterious CMPLX6_ and it’s the most powerful I’ve felt all autumn.
Right now it doesn’t even matter to me if Project Strife succeeds or fails. I am experiencing amor fati aka love of fate. I am vibing at an absolutely cosmic frequency. I can sense you reading this. I can see the sightlines like in a cartoon. I do not miss posting. I am invulnerable to snakes.
December 10: going insane without twitter. What a fool I’ve been. Haven’t cheated an peaked today though.
December 12: Wrote a letter to Mick Herron and he was kind enough to write back.
December 15: So it turns out harnessing my psychotic energy didn’t work. Oh well. Back to the grind. Nice to be on twitter again.
December 19: the solstice approaches. I think December 21 will be the most powerful day of the year, so I’m going to wait and send out some emails Monday instead of now/last week, in hopes of getting a better response. I know that sounds like superstition (at best) or mental illness (at worst) but it’s getting me amped up, so that’s something. I dunno.
December 21: Slapstick at the grocery store. Can’t see because my glasses fog up and I have to remove them, then my resuable mask is getting old and rides up past my right eye, doubly so when I bend over to look for a barcode to scan at the self checkout. Can’t see to bag shit so I just put it loose into the cart. So fucking frustrating. And then worse still the whole role of plastic bags (that you now have to pay for) got stuck to something in the cart and all came loose as I was leaving. Fucking Christ.
The sun has returned, winter will end, we have made it this far, the cosmos is in balance, hallelujah, now let’s get to work.
December 22: to post, perchance to riff––ay, there’s the rub!
December 26: having a lot of bleak thoughts tonight. Mostly about dying, after that hospice care episode of white coat black art.
December 28: up at 2am trying to get a bit of writing done. Was laying in bed unable to even close my eyes. Up, dressed, bottle of sprite, check twitter, then the tiredness hits and back to bed. Fucking hell.
December 30: can’t stop thinking about that hospice care radio show. How hospice patients’ breathing gets shallower, how they talk about being rested, how they’re too tired to clear the phlegm at the back of their throat and start making a gurgling sound. And then I think, is this what it will be like for me? For Mom and Dad? Grandma? My brothers? Friends back home who I don’t speak to enough but think about all the time? Honestly, anyone I speak to (which isn’t a huge number of people these days), as soon as I’m alone I start thinking if that’s how they’ll die too. What a morbid way to end the year.
December 31: think today is the first day I’ve been outside since December 23, though only to take the garbage out. Laughing at the thought of a boutique rebar company.
Another year come and gone. Time for some personal stocktaking.
I had a few minor accomplishments this year. I’ve had two short stories published and a third––which I was actually paid for––to be published in February. Plus I’ve got a few more nearly finished or actually finished and out making the rounds. A lot of rejections piling up on them but I think I can get these guys published somewhere or other. I started working on Project Strife in March, and while it’s not done it does have a beginning, middle, and end, and every day that I work on it it gets a little bit better.
So yeah, a good deal of my life is objectively looking bleak, and yes, there was a worldwide pandemic, police killing of citizens ramped up dramatically, global economic shutdown, climate catastrophe worsened and our political situation than ever––but if I’m being honest, this was a good year for me overall. Perhaps I thrive on chaos.
Onwards!
–– Adam McPhee
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