#WFH Diaries: Tina, Elsa and Charly of Holy Poly Macaroni

As confinement continues in most parts of the world, we’re checking in with creative people to see how they’re faring. Here’s an update from Charly, Tina and Elsa of Holy Poly Macaroni, devoted to educating people about ethical non-monogamy one adorable cartoon at a time.

Give us a one-sentence bio of yourselves.

We are Charly, Tina and Elsa, a polyamorous throuple in Barcelona, where we share our daily life as a triad, and exploration of ethical non-monogamy relationships, on our Instagram account, Holy Poly Macaroni.

It’s Charly (aka, Cookie Kalkair) answering these questions. I’m a comic book artist, and illustrate short comic strips to explain how polyamory works.

Where are you living right now, and who’s with you?

Elsa and I (Charly) live together with our 4-year-old son. Tina has her own apartment nearby, in the same neighborhood. But it’s not close enough for us to see each other from our rooftops. Bummer.

What’s your work situation like at the moment?

The three of us work from home, mainly doing video conferences all afternoon, in the case of Tina and me. Elsa is developing a new space dedicated to dance and movement in Barcelona. She’s working on a new “post-apocalypse” strategy. 🙂

Describe your socializing strategy.

We have WhatsApp groups with friends, where we drop daily news and updates. We organize recurring video calls to keep family and friends close. And we started giving ourselves “alone time” to have Skype dates and share a drink with someone we like.

How are you dealing with childcare, if applicable?

We homeschool our 4-year-old every morning, a different subject each day: math, French, Spanish, geography, history, etc. This week, we talked about Ancient Egypt and how mummies were made. We drew pyramids, camels, gods and mummies on a large piece of paper. In the hallway, we’ve created a long historical chronology, starting from dinosaurs and ending with us today. We add to it every week. It’s pretty fun.

What are you reading?

Charly’s finishing Des Hommes Justes by Ivan Jablonka. Elsa is in the middle of Jonathan Van Ness’ Over The Top, and Tina has started The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy. We’re waiting for her to finish because we want to read it too… no pressure, girl!

What are you watching?

Every week, we watch the latest episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race together via video chat. We are also trying to watch a trilogy every weekend, like the first three movies of Mad Max or The Matrix Trilogy.

Since the three of us are playing Apex Legends on PS4, we also watched Battle Royale, to come back to the roots of the genre. So I guess the next step will be the Hunger Games trilogy.

What are you listening to?

We have very different tastes in music, but we all start dancing together to “Yummy” by Justin Bieber. It’s our trigger. Tina is listening to the new Strokes and Fiona Apple albums, as well as her chaotic but great “Quarantine Playlist.”

How are you staying fit?

Both we and Tina are lucky to have access to our rooftops, so we do yoga there, following our friend Maeva Laloum’s yoga class on Instagram.

Have you taken up a hobby?

Tina would say Animal Crossing, but I guess that doesn’t count. 🙂 I am doing a 100 pushups-a-day challenge, but it’s pretty douchey to call that a hobby.

Any tips for getting necessities?

From our window, we can see when the delivery truck supplies the supermercado. That way we know when there’s been a restock. Pretty handy.

An awkward moment since all this started.

YAS! Last week I went outside to buy something at the supermarket. For a few minutes, I totally forgot that I was living in Spain (I’m French originally, and me and Elsa speak French at home). When the cashier talked to me in Spanish, I was caught off-guard. Weird!

Best work email you got since all this started.

We were selected for a series of interviews about polyamory by Erika Lust. It was pretty cool to take part in it, partly because of their progressive feminist adult content!

An aha! moment since all this started.

Maybe not “aha!”—but cute: Two weeks ago, it was Tina’s birthday. Elsa went to her apartment and sang “Happy Birthday” in the street for her. Then she left a bottle of cava, a cake she baked, and gifts in the elevator for Tina to pick up. Quarantine love!

What’s your theory on how this is going to play out?

We hope some aspects of this strange situation will stay as-is—that we figure out how to maintain good air quality, the low number of planes in the sky, and fewer cars on the road. We’ve gotten used to this new calm and green city landscape. But I feel we are lying to ourselves…