If you noticed there wasn’t an Offcuts last week, I was too poorly to write, coughing and spluttering all over myself. If you didn’t notice there wasn’t an Offcuts last week, I am giving you a stern look of judgement and cannot believe you didn’t miss me. If you noticed that it’s Tuesday and not Sunday, mind your own business. Yes, last week I was ill again. Blergh. It is a near-permanent state of affliction for me continuously throughout the winter months. I am mildly to moderately unwell all of the time. My immune system likes to be on face-name terms with all that’s popular and trending. It is a point of contention for us. I know that Drafting is about the showing up and anti-perfectionism but that can only apply when the mind is still willing. Otherwise, we cross the line from a draft to incoherent nonsense. Which I’m not writing off (ha - pun) entirely but I did not have the energy to even attempt publishing something last weekend. I get knocked down, but I get up again. Then I drink a whiskey drink.
Writing might have taken a backseat in the past week or two, but reading has remained constant. I finished listening to the audiobook of Paris Hilton’s memoir and gave it an easy five-star rating on Goodreads. Her story was one that needed to be told and her recounting of experiences as a woman growing up in the public eye in the early noughties was stark. I also finished I’m A Fan by Sheena Patel. I enjoyed the no-holds-barred deep dive into the mind of a woman obsessing over a man.
I started and finished Giving Up The Ghost, Hilary Mantel’s memoir. I didn’t love it. I think much of it hasn’t aged well since 2004, particularly her fatphobia. I found the structure quite difficult to follow in the beginning as well. But her story was an interesting one, particularly her horrific time of time to receive an endometriosis diagnoses. I also started listening to Hera by Jennifer Saint and reading Green Dot by Madeleine Gray. What 2025 reading challenge?
Home Improvements - writers consider the aspects of their homes, gardens, and interior design that have driven them to distraction
Renée Zellweger And Hugh Grant Reunite For Vogue
Sally Rooney - in defence of the novel
‘Severance,’ ‘The Substance’ and our increasingly splintered (digital) selves
Students in an elementary school question death in music
“Mood-boosting” brain implant trialled by NHS
Virginia Woolf was a fun aunt
“I have lost all faith in zips”
My sister and booked tickets for Oedipus at The Old Vic with Rami Malek and Indira Varma. We left it a bit too late, which is quite typical of us when booking shows. The planning ahead in advance is not something on our radar. Tickets were dwindling and we struggled to find two good seats together. After many hours spent going round in circles consulting the calendar and the seat maps we got there in the end.
I saw a Cadbury Dream chocolate bar in the corner shop near where I live this week - since when have they been back? There are so many good chocolate bars that have fallen victim to discontinuement. RIP. I think often about Mars Delight and the more recently deceased Milky Way Crispy Rolls. Gone but never forgotten.
Hurrah! I found a new crime drama TV show! High Potential on Disney Plus has been hitting the mark. Even the Guardian, the hardest of taskmasters when it comes to critiquing TV, gave it four stars. The show focuses on Morgan, a single mum of three with an incredibly high IQ, who by chance ends up consulting on homicide cases for the LAPD. With new episodes dropping weekly, it should keep me going for a while.
Being a plant mum through winter requires a certain amount of resolve that I’m not entirely sure I have. There have been many fallen leaves, crisped edges, mould in the soil and I have kind of been ignoring all of it because I am scared they will simply die regardless of what I do and if I intervene then I can be held more responsible than if I passively stood by and did nothing. Basically Sophie’s Choice.
The article might be from 2018, but Brene Brown’s wisdom remains timeless. I read ‘The Midlife Unraveling’ this week and despite not being in midlife, many of the thoughts and feelings resonated in terms of where I feel I’m at in life at the moment.
“All of this pretending and performing has to go. Your armour is preventing you from growing into your gifts.” Food for thought this week.
