This week I was slovenly, my new favourite word. It’s also a lie, I’m just harsh on myself. I was tired, run down and in need of finding the right ways to process and express my emotions. Writing was a challenge, as it always is when your mind is off running elsewhere. But words found the page in some capacity for which I am grateful. I am trying to entice more of them this week.
I finished Openings by Lucy Caldwell, and the love for short stories encouraged me to buy a book with 100 short stories from various female authors and A Sunny Place for Shady People, a collection by Mariana Enríquez. One I particularly enjoyed was The Counting Sheepabout a woman called Mary (that’s not the reason why I promise) who wakes up one morning and finds miniature sheep on her windowsill. I also whizzed my way through Breakdown by Cathy Sweeney, about a woman who upends her own life by one day deciding to get in her car and never return back home to her husband and kids. As of today, I am reading Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I find her fiction easy to follow and have enjoyed many of her other books while on a lounger poolside where nothing else but existing is expected of me. I started a new audiobook as well! I gave myself a break after taking my sweet time to finish The Last Witch of Scotland by Philip Paris. So far, so good with Bad Mormon by Heather Gay. My RHOSLC obsession continues.
Lifesize sculptures found in Pompeii excavations
A handy guide to handling a social media breakup
The new ‘straight-studies’ course that dissects heterosexual culture
The cult of the American lawn
The bibliotherapists prescribing reading to help make you feel better
Now that the sun is beaming and it’s basically summer (aka I am lying on a picnic blanket in the park shivering but it’s okay because it’s sunny and I’m British), I’ve been thinking a lot about my pending summer wardrobe. I’ve been making lists (obviously), adding clothes to my wishlist and building out my Pinterest ‘style’ (lol) moodboard. I am in desperate need of a wardrobe clear-out, so I’ll be balancing the purchase of any new items by selling things on Vinted or donating. I find wardrobe clear-outs particularly tiresome and challenging given my indecisive nature. Depending on the day, I could be reluctant to part ways with anything I own, believing that I maybe-might fall back in love with something. Other days, I am more realistic and ruthless, but only to an extent. I need to strike when the time is right. Fantasising about new summer fits is helping me get there.
When people say “we used to be a real country”, it’s the forgotten things of times gone by they’re referring to. Like the Eastenders Makeover game. Dressing up Dot Cotton as she stood there, cigarette in hand, was maybe a more defining moment in my childhood than I give it credit for.
I could never get into Grey’s Anatomy. It’s not for the weak and squeamish (me). I know I would enjoy the drama and character plot lines, but there was just too much blood and “stuff”. I did, however, enjoy this clip of Ellen Pompeo for InStyle magazine. There’s been a trend and increase lately in overly-curated celebrity videos, particularly from the likes of Vanity Fair. They’ve had a ‘lie detector’ series, strange conversations like this one between Glen Powell and Zendaya for the magazine’s annual Hollywood issue cover shoot, and even the Vanity Fair Game Show, where the cast of White Lotus season three see how well they know each other. It’s an inevitable evolution of content. One I find a bit perplexing. Ellen Pompeo’s video feels a bit more candid, and the concept works as a nice supplement to traditional written interviews. But I’m still not sure I really get the point.
I switched off my Instagram notifications again last week and it has been bliss. They had been turned off for a long time, but there was some release or announcement that I wanted to be reminded of a month or two ago, so I turned them back on - just for that - I told myself. I require little encouragement when it comes to mindless scrolling, particularly if I’m feeling glum. The distraction and brainlessness of the activity soothe me in a very successful sweeping-under-the-rug sort of way. But my Instagram screen time is down, yay, and the impulse to scroll has definitely lessened. Out of sight, out of mind, thumbs have become full-functioning once again.
Although given that my ‘blast from the past’ and ‘super spicy’ were both borne out of things I saw on “the apps” I worry content from next week might start to dry up. TBC.
Out of all the subheadings and little categories I created for The Offcuts, this one is perhaps my favourite. Don’t tell the other children that Mummy loves you best. I love ending on a reflective note with quotes, or words, or poems that draw out pockets of inspiration and make you see the world through a different lens. Or maybe it’s just not that deep.
When someone in my family used to comment or lament over their appearance, my granny would quote a line from the Rabbie Burns poem To A Louse.
“O, To see oursels as ithers see us!”
The poem centres around seeing things from other people’s points of view by humorously (and rather mockingly) using the perspective of a louse on a lady's hat to comment on the ridiculousness of social pretence in keeping up appearances. Essentially, snap out of it and have some self-awareness - the exact sentiment I shall be taking forth in attempting to spend less time on Instagram.
