My Quarantine Friends

By Steven Alan Green

One would think we can all agree that quarantine was the last thing on our list of 2020 objectives;

though for the life of me, I don’t know why it actually was on my list. It’s been a strange and scary one. And, even as news through the transom is starting to look like vaccines will soon be traveling in our collective bloodstream, it’s still a rather scary and daunting concept, just to get through the day. I have both a literal advantage and Achilles heal when it comes to self-isolation. Ten years ago, I was psychologically stuck in a tall tower of condos, literally fearing for my life every day for nearly a year. Without getting into gory details, I basically got through every single day by two incredible gifts. My creativity, specifically my writing, and (less in my control), in a word: Friends.

There’s a terribly fine line between needing company and being good company. I can publicly admit, there have been several times during this pandemic when I would call someone, simply because I was losing my mind being alone. However, I made sure I had a credible reason to call them, as “just calling to see how you are” is an oft thinly veiled cry for help. To the facts, I can be very picky on who I want to have a conversation with. I’m a very impatient guy and as a writer, I’m constantly finding myself, diverting attention away from whatever the other person is saying and how I would edit what they just said. Of course, it often rains when it pours and thank goodness for call waiting when I’m just too much full of myself.

I have two categories of friends. One, is the friends I’m relying on in some manner for something. Perhaps it’s Tom, who’s been driving me to the shop every day because my car is still in hospital. We’re also actual friends for several decades, and I really enjoy our conversations, his Hollywood anecdotes and just his general sense of let’s get this done and let’s have fun whilst doing it. Or Drew, who I do business with, and who’s also a friend, so the conversation draws both ways. These are people I must speak with, but also enjoy speaking with them. Then there are those whom I’m not doing business with whatsoever. Mary is a good example. Mary, whom I met on the story-telling circuit, is always supportive and positive and inevitably demonstrates one can derive great pleasure by decorating a Christmas tree. Then there’s Will. Will is a cornucopia of funny voices and historical Hollywood factoids, as he is a veteran actor and performer who both worships the past, and indeed often lives in it.

Of course, it often rains when it pours and thank goodness for call waiting when I’m just too much full of myself.

There’s Jack, who surprised me with a fat and fun writing job last year and who’s balls out take no prisoners enthusiasm is in a word: infectious. Then there’s Carl. Carl is a Hollywood writer who has had great success and yet, remains down to Earth, accessible, and downright stellar funny. And, Earl, all the way over in England, who I ring once in a while, when I still have energy at 2am and he’s just chopping into his Weetabix. And let’s not forget Tamsin, who 3,000 miles away, collaborates with me on a fantastical storyline and uproarious hilarity on a screenplay, for which we were approached by a Netflix director. Tamsin also happens to be my “soon to be ex-wife” of over 20 years. Which reminds me of Liz, an ex-girlfriend who is married now, but still finds time to check in on me and advise. A nicer person cannot be found. Finally, conversations with my brother Richard. As former family advisories, we really worked on it for the last couple years and I am very pleased and proud to be in a place with him as mutually respecting humans who exchange and play with big amorphous ideas. There are so many more, now that I think about it, including Martin, Jessie, and of course, the person I speak the most with, my friend up north, Mimi. And, man do we have laughs.

But of all these wonderful voices on the other side of the telephone machine, there are two characters who enthrall me the most and in fact, if I don’t speak with them now and again, they get into my head through the secret passageway and knock very loudly on my subconscious door. Nick and David are the two central characters in the screenplay I’m working on with Tamsin and Rob in England for Tom the director. I like spending time with Nick and David. They are fun and interesting and best of all, unlike all my other friends, I not only tell them when to speak, I tell them what to say.