Welcome to Literary Friction. I'm Octavia Bright, still coming to you from quarantine in London, here by the grace of the internet,

and my very perky mic, with my treasured co-host Carrie Plitt, who's beaming in from Oxford.

Hi, Carrie, how you doing?

I'm beaming in and beaming to see your face after you.

There she is. I can see you in this lovely little square on FaceTime. It's very inadequate, actually, but it's better than nothing. Totally inadequate, and I'm afraid I haven't really dressed up for you today. Me neither, babe. I'm in my pajamas. Let's be honest. As am I. With the sweater over it. That makes it look a bit more pro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like we've been out of sleepover or something. It's great. Oh, that would just, that would be the nicest thing ever. It really would be. But anyway, I am okay. I've definitely, I definitely feel a little more settled into the strange new life since we last spoke before. I think I was just adjusting and trying to figure out what it was like. And I feel more calm now. I'm still

up and down, but I'm trying to take away some positives from the experience. I'm a very social

person, as anyone who listens to this podcast probably knows. And I was actually quite terrified

about the prospect of months of just not being able to see anyone else besides my partner.

But I have to say I haven't minded it as much and have really appreciated the time to spend

with myself and just having a slower pace of life.

And I hope that I can take that back into the world and not feel this

sort of restless need to always be out and always seeing people and always socializing and always

planning my days in this really structured way. How about you? Yeah, I'm weird, but I'm okay. I mean,

I'm finding time a bit of a mindbender, but I usually do anyway.

So it's kind of stretched even further into this weird sort of hinterland.

I mean, I've definitely found it weird how a part of me has found a way to adapt this kind of new regime way faster than I'd have expected.

And actually the like new normal

adjusts subtly, right, for you internally in ways that you don't necessarily imagine. But then

there are other bits of me that are just resisting, resisting, resisting, resisting. Like, I miss my friends.

I miss my family. I'm really irritated by my lack of freedom.

I have to like handle my impulse to rebel daily.

But I also believe firmly that we should be doing the right thing.

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