The bread machine is working just fine, and we’re keeping it going – there’s nothing better than freshly baked bread after so many weeks of dry biscuits and crackers. And yes, as my brother keeps repeating, we should have bought this baby two years ago. So, everything seems to be fine.

And while the bread machine is churning our Sunday loaf, I spent some time browsing my social – try to understand why Amazon thinks I’m French and keeps suggesting books in French, and why Facebook only notifies me posts in Portuguese and Tamil, and ads for 5000-bucks-a-night hotels.

And I noticed a trend that’s been going on for a while – a lot of my contacts are becoming Lockdown Writers of Bloggers, Pandemic Content Providers.

They are writing their next book that is about, you guessed, a deadly virus/zombie plague/post-apocalyptic landscape; they comment on Government and local policies about the pandemic; they blog and tweet about the pandemic, issuing either hopeful messages or snarky one-liners about the meaningless life we all are living, or stuff.

And this is all good and fine, I guess, but…
I don’t feel like being like that.
And yes, the bread machine that’s diffusing the smell of freshly baked bread in my kitchen right now is a response to the fact that we’re in the Red Zone, and the nearest bakery is in the next town, five miles away, but…

I believe there is a wide territory between ignoring the events through which we are living, and making these events the one and only topic of discussion. And this is what I will try and do: I’ll try to keep exploring that territory.
Sure, there is a Lockdown Diaries banner on this post – but that’s not a mission statement, it’s more like a mood piece.

I’ve a half-formed idea about a series of posts I’d like to do, and I’m working on a translation of a novel set in China (I mentioned that already) and a giallo-esque novel I’ll probably publish under an open alias (meaning, you’ll know it’s me even if it’s a different name).
And there’s more to come.
Stay safe out there, and keep looking for that wide and open territory between denial and despair.