Thandiwe Newton

            On Wednesday after midnight I put some more two-sided carpet tape around the edges of my mattress. I went to bed at 1:30. I woke up at 2:30 and killed a bedbug. I got up to pee then went back to sleep until 3:30 and killed another bedbug. I got up to pee and went back to sleep until 4:00, then went back to sleep until the 5:00 alarm. After yoga I found a few bedbugs stuck to the tape and a few babies crawling on the walls. 

            I worked out the chords for the second verse, the second chorus and most of the last verse of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian. All that’s remaining is one line repeated three times so I’ll probably have that done tomorrow. 

            I finished typing out the Turboscribe transcription I downloaded yesterday of Jacques Dutronc singing “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. I compared the transcription that I’d made of the first verse years ago to that of Turboscribe and the recent one is more correct, except that it got one word wrong. It had “loyaux” when it should have been “loyoux”. I’ll compare the transcriptions of the other verses tomorrow. 

            I weighed 90.5 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since August 12. 

            I played my Kramer for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            I put carpet tape on top of a bedbug nest on the wall near my bed and over some depressions nearby that looked like potential nests. I steamed the curtains that hang between the bedroom and the living room. 

            I weighed 92.3 kilos before lunch. I took a siesta at 14:30 as usual and thought that I woke up half an hour late. I brushed my teeth and thought that it was too late for a bike ride downtown but got ready to leave for a ride to Ossington and Bloor. Then I looked at my phone and saw that it was only 16:00 and not 17:00 as I’d thought. I had slept until 15:30 thinking it was 16:30 and so I had time to ride downtown after all. I left just after a thunder shower and the sun had come out but it clouded over again and I was feeling a few drops as I headed east on Bloor. It started very lightly raining at around Spadina but not enough to take seriously until Queens Park. I headed south and the rain kept on teasing but I was almost home and thinking I was going to dodge the storm. I was at Dufferin and Queen when the storm dropped. There was a tree that had been knocked down and blown under the railroad tracks at Dufferin. The cars were crunching over it but I couldn’t, so I got off my bike and walked over it. I got soaked in the few blocks between Dufferin and my place. 

            I weighed 92.85 kilos at 15:55 before I took the bike ride. 

            I weighed 92.25 at 17:10. 

            I got caught up in my journal for pretty much the first time this summer. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, potato wedge fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 2, episode 3 of Wednesday with my daughter Astrid on Discord. 

            Wednesday burgles the cottage where her parents are staying in order to steal back Goody Addams’ book because she thinks it holds the key to her getting her psychic powers back. But her mother Morticia’s powers are fully functional and she catches her. She tells Wednesday the book only provides shortcuts and so she can’t have it back. 

            Pugsley’s pet zombie Slurp is starting to regenerate a brain and can almost speak. Pugsley and Eugene think it’s because they’ve been feeding him but it’s really because of the meal of fresh brains he had at the end of episode 2 when he killed the driving instructor in the woods. 

            Wednesday’s devoted fan Agnes uses her invisibility powers to get the late sheriff Galpin’s phone for her. Wednesday learns from the phone that Galpin had a cabin near Camp Jericho. The Nevermore Students happen to be going for a camping trip to Camp Jericho and of course she didn’t plan on joining them until now. 

            Wednesday catches Pugsley dragging a coffin and he lies that it contains fireworks for the camping trip but he’s really bringing Slurp along. 

            Gomez and Morticia come along as chaperones and their tent looks like a smaller version of their gothic house. 

            A youth cadet group led by the cadet master Ron Kruger arrives and it seems the Nevermore group and the cadets were double booked for the camp that weekend. Wednesday suggests they engage in a competition for use of the camp with the losers going home. Each team has to capture a zephyr and place it at the top of a tower at the end of the course. Kruger seems well schooled in the powers of the Nevermore students. He has the cadets wear headphones so they can’t be manipulated by Bianca or the other Sirens. One of the cadets uses an arrow to shoot off Ajax’s hat to reveal his Gorgon snake hair and cause him to turn one of his own teammates to stone. The cadets use teargas to hold back the werewolves Enid and Bruno. Eugene overwhelms the cadets with a bee attack and Wednesday walks unharmed through both the bees and the tear gas to capture the zephyr. But a cadet has already captured their zephyr and he’s way ahead of Wednesday and already climbing the tower. Wednesday shoots a crossbow bolt carrying a line at the tower from a hill and rides the line as a zip line to the tower, kicks the cadet as she’s swinging in and plants the zephyr to win the competition for the Outcasts. 

            But Kruger is a sore loser and plots to capture the camp anyway that night. 

            The campers and Morticia sing “Bad Moon Rising” around the campfire. The music for this show is very retro. 

            Wednesday and Thing go to Galpin’s cabin. She finds evidence that someone or something named L.O.I.S. is targeting outcasts. 

            Wednesday needs Goody’s book to help her get her powers back and so she goes back to her mother and challenges her to a blindfolded duel in the woods. Wednesday wears a silver heart and Morticia a red one. The first to break the other’s hear wins. If Wednesday wins she gets the book but if Morticia wins she burns it. 

            Kruger leads his cadets into the sleeping camp but Kruger trips Pugsley’s fireworks alarm and stumbles into Pugsley's and Eugene’s tent where his brains are eaten by Slurp. Slurp grabs an axe and tries to kill Gomez in the shower but Pugsley stops him. Morticia wins the duel just as Slurp is about to attack her but Wednesday throws her sword and impales Slurp to a tree. 

            The authorities arrive and take custody of Slurp while Wednesday sees the red eyed raven land on the shoulder of a cloaked figure in the woods. 

            A new patient/prisoner arrives at Willow Hill. It’s Marilyn Thornhill who seems happy about it.

            Dr. Fairburn, the head psychiatrist at Willow Hill is played by Thandiwe Newton. She is half Zimbabwean and half English. She was born in London but lived in Zambia as a child until political unrest forced her family back to the UK when she was 3. She studied dance at London’s Art Education School until a back injury ended that dream. She made her film debut in Flirting in 1991. She made her TV debut in Pirate Prince in 1991. She enrolled at Cambridge University and earned a degree in Anthropology. Her Hollywood film debut was in Interview with the Vampire. She co-starred in Jefferson in Paris, Gridlockd, The Journey of the August King, Crash, Mission Impossible II, Beloved, Norbit, Run Fatboy Run, Good Deeds, RocknRolla, W, 2012, For Coloured Girls, Reminiscence, , She starred in Loaded, Besieged, It Was an Accident, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Truth About Charlie, Shade, Vanishing on Seventh Street, Retreat, Good Deeds, Gringo, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, All the Old Knives, God’s Country, . She co-starred in the series Rogue, Westworld (for which she won an Emmy), Line of Duty, The Slap. She made her West End debut in Death and the Maiden in 2012. She was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth in 2019.