Summer Skin: this week's book recommendation.

Someone, somewhere is looking after me because lately I have been reading a string of great books, all by authors I've never read before. Surely I'm due for a stinker but please let my run continue a bit longer - it's bloody terrific.

The latest of these is Kirsty Eagar's Summer Skin, which I picked up for a whole $1 in a work book sale. I thought Summer Skin would be a bit of fun, and it is, but it's also the feminist love story I really didn't know I was looking for. Somehow Eager has written a romp that's hot, funny and just lots and lots of fun. I'm not getting carried away - this is not a book I'll be re-reading for years to come - but should you happen to find yourself in need of a little somethin' somethin' with which to curl up, you could do a lot worse.

Dreams

A disclaimer: obviously there's nothing more boring than someone else's dreams blah blah blah.

But seriously what does it say about me that I had a terrifying nightmare last night that was not about dinosaurs or serial killers but about getting too drunk at a work party and mildly disgracing myself? Nothing... good, I feel.

This is just a really nice column over at the New York Times:

“Light Years,” James Salter writes: “For whatever we do, even whatever we do not do prevents us from doing its opposite. Acts demolish their alternatives, that is the paradox.” 

"Can you fucking believe this guy?"

What's that you say? For some reason you haven't checked out these Women Rejecting Marriage Proposals in Western Art? Friend, you are missing out. Get into it over here at The Toast.

well you’re too late, Richard
I’m a lesbian now
WE’RE ALL LESBIANS NOW
ARE YOU HAPPY
YOU LEFT AND NOW WE’RE ALL LESBIANS AND EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE

Places I got chocolate icing while making this vegan chocolate cake

1. My face.

2. My hands.

3. The white sugar flowers that were supposed to adorn it.

4. The floor.

5. The bench top.

6. The oven.

7. The oven door.

8. MY FACE. LIKE ALL OVER IT SERIOUSLY.

9. The cookbook.

10. The keyboard of this laptop.

Overheard in the Office

“Sure he’s got a mental illness now. If you’re on coke for 15 years you’re going to give yourself a mental illness.”

These are a few of my least favourite things

Mondays (Garfield and I are so alike that way).

Rudeness (Really? I mean really?).

Insomnia (Zzzzz).

Headaches.

Needles.

Blood tests.

More blood tests.

So many blood tests.

Horrible, insensitive awful people (Seriously what is wrong with you?)

“There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.” 

― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

“He wasn't a complete human being at all. He was a tiny bit of one, unnaturally developed; something in a bottle, an organ kept alive in a laboratory. I thought he was a sort of primitive savage, but he was something absolutely modern and up-to-date that only this ghastly age could produce. A tiny bit of a man pretending to be whole.” 

― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

“Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window.” 

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house, with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.” 

― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

“I wrote at the start that this was a record of hate, and walking there beside Henry towards the evening glass of beer, I found the one prayer that seemed to serve the winter mood: O God, You've done enough, You've robbed me of enough, I'm too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever.” 

― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

“You do care a little for me, I know... but nothing to speak of, and you don't love me. I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now... and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness.” 

― E.M. Forster, Maurice

Things I thought but did not say to the dude at the park this morning:

Mate. I mean maaaate, what are you doing?

I'm sure that's your kid playing on the playground right there and a good time he's having too. Also I think it sucks that society's knee jerk reaction is too often to regard dudes hanging around playgrounds as would-be paedos.

That much said. If you're going to hang out inside the fenced-off playground waiting for your kid and you don't want people to give you Side Eyes you should maybe consider doing the following:

1. Put on your shirt.

2. Stop doing planks.

3. If you must do shirtless planks on the grounds maybe at least turn around so you're facing the fucking playground.

Thankyou and good day.

Things I want to say to my work colleagues

"If you've noticed me driving in or out of work lately and you're concerned I'm maybe living out of my car and am not okay please don't worry about me: I've got some home opens going on right now and this is my attempt to get all the random clutter out of the apartment and... into my car. Honest. I swear."

Don't get me started on the day I realised my calorie count for Cadbury Creme Eggs was out by 30. Dark times.

This article over at The Atlantic on calories was an interesting read that nonetheless left me agreeing with this random reader's comment more than anything else:

Mr. Fusion

It reminded me of the old saying that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest. Counting calories is the worst way to lose weight, except for all the rest.

"He was irrelevant: a waste of tailoring and education."

I don't often link to Nick Lezard's frequently-excellent "Down and Out" column for the New Statesman, although I do read it, because pimping out the work of someone I consider a friend seems a bit gross somehow. Still, this week's installment is worth a link if only so you too can enjoy hearing someone described as "a meat-based conduit between the screen on his desk and the customer".

Completely insane things I said on the weekend

"I think I just need to calm down... I'm going to Ikea."

Something to remind myself that I'm a moron whenever I think I just don't really like Dylan

Real talk: he has never looked better to me.

carrionlaughing:

some days I remember that in the wonder woman film, chris pine is gonna look like a beautiful butch hipster lesbian cosplaying amelia earhart and everything is okay

Via hellotailor 

Believe!

Not proud to say it's now basically my life mission to recreate this Cadbury Creme Egg toastie.

It never works. Trust me.

This anonymous column over at The Guardian, Asymmetric Love, is kind of fascinating. It should probably be printed out to keep for emergencies if you're the kind of person who thinks you deserve closure, which is really just a way of saying you're still super into someone and you wish they were still super into you.

Lost Garmin: The Stages of Grief

1. Hmm I must have put it somewhere else. I'll have a look for it later.

2. Strange, it's not here either... or here. But it must be...

3. ... somewhere, right? RIGHT? I MEAN IT HAS TO BE SOMEWHERE.

4. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up. It'll turn up.

5. I WILL NEVER RUN AGAIN.

Overheard in the office (on the phone)

"I'm not seeing any genitals."

"I hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Yaz record."

Things I don't want to talk about

Why there's caramel sauce on the tracker of my laptop.

Related: The saucepan containing burnt toffee in the sink.

Scenes from a suburban life

Tradie Outside My House: “Hey Babe”.

 Me: *Death Stare*. 

Tradie’s Girlfriend I Hadn’t Noticed Standing Behind The Truck: “What do you need, Babe?” 

Me: *Commits seppuku*

Things I did not expect to happen to me this week that happened to me:

Aidan Turner in the latest adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None adding to the growing body of evidence (you see what I did there? I'm sorry, I'll... let myself out) that maybe I'm.. into muscles now? I don't know, it's all very confusing.

Questions that plague me at 3am

Am I being racist when I use "yo, yo Baby Creed" as a greeting?

The English Language Has Failed Me

BECAUSE WHAT IS THE NAME FOR THAT THING WHEN YOU HAVE SO MANY NEW BOOKS OUT FROM THE LIBRARY THAT YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY READ THEM ALL BEFORE THEY'RE DUE BACK AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHICH TO START FIRST SO YOU JUST STARE AT THEM ALL IN THAT TOWER BY YOUR BED AND TRY TO PRIORITISE BASED ON HOW MUCH YOU WANT TO READ THEM, WHEN THEY'RE DUE BACK, HOW LONG THEY WILL TAKE YOU ETC BUT IT'S ALL JUST TOO MUCH SO YOU START READING A NON-LIBRARY BOOK INSTEAD TO CALM DOWN AND THEN YOU STRESS OUT ABOUT THAT EVEN MORE BECAUSE NOW YOU'RE EVEN FURTHER BEHIND.

Yeah, I have that.

My favourite thing a reader emailed me (at my work address ) this week in response to something I wrote:

"I would not have been born if my mother's elder brother had not slowly poisoned his wife to death."

Word (also: Sherlock spoilers ahead)

• Things I Didn’t Anticipate Seeing on the First Day of 2016

  weeesi:

  1) Andrew Scott fellating a prop pistol as Benedict Cumberbatch watched
  2)

  (via violethuntress)

  Source: weeesi

  • 1 HOUR AGO
  • 152 NOTES
  • #SHERLOCK
  • #SHSPESH
  • #TAB SPOILERS
  • #SNERK
  • #P MUCH
  • #HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
  • 
    
  • 
    
  • Via Destination Toast

Favourite things of 2015 #5: Rainbow Rowell's novel Carry On

Rainbow Rowell's Carry On is not, in my opinion, her best book. I don't think it's as sweetly heartbreaking as Eleanor & Park, nor as straight-up mesmerising and romantic as Fangirl: a book I loved so much that when I finished it I literally started reading it again immediately - something I'm not sure I've ever done before or since. Arguably it lacks the dopey first-book charm of Attachments - a delightful romantic comedy of a book I have returned to several times.

But sometimes a book or a movie or a bit of music feels like it's been written just for you and only for you and, for me, Carry On was that book. Friends who have read it and know what a soppy romantic I secretly am will understand why it's perfectly in my wheelhouse. But it wasn't just the central love story that I loved, I loved it all: the jokes, the winking and I loved so much what Rowell did with Agatha in the end - like, yeah, WHY NOT JUST FUCK THIS SHIT - I can't even bear it.

"It is never twins, Watson" (Contains Sherlock spoilers)

"This episode will be derided as Steven Moffat trying too hard to outwit the viewer and twisting what should be a perfectly simple whodunit into a plot device of labyrinth complexity. But the secret is that it isn’t that clever and it doesn’t completely make sense, because it’s not supposed to. Moffat and Gatiss just filmed 90 minutes of the internal monologue of a tortured queer genius drug addict off his tits on coke, wrapped it up in a gothic mystery, and then gave it to us as a late Christmas present."

 (via heliumstars)

I am pretty much onboard with this as a response to the delightful, silly, maddening and somewhat ridiculous Sherlock Christmas special, which I heartily enjoyed.

I like this essay by Whitney Cummings' over at Lenny Letter quite a lot:

I had always had a hunch something was wrong because I could give but I couldn't receive. I could give someone nice jewelry, but when they tried to buy me a two-dollar coffee I would resist to the point of it getting awkward. And if someone gave me a gift, I viewed it like a grenade. I would have to wait until you left to open it because I was so worried I wouldn't receive it well enough. My dear friend Beth gave me necklaces with my dogs' initials on them, and I stressed out that she didn't know how much I love them. I'll Instagram them looking resplendent under the Nashville filter and tag her, send her photos of me wearing them so she didn't think I was lying, and yet I still felt a pang of guilt that I didn't deserve such kindness.

You can read the whole thing here.

Don’t feel bad if you’re sensitive to negative feedback because apparently after one particular bad review Hans Christian Andersen was found just sobbing while lying face down in the dirt

Via Amy Spalding

Favourite Things of 2015 #4: Sufjan Stevens' new album

I've not always been a super fan of Sufjav Stevens. I like his voice and I like plenty of his music but the religious vibe has always put me off, which is a bit dumb I guess given my deep love for Belle and Sebastian, despite Stuart's on-again-off-again flirtation with faith.

So I'm not sure what made me buy Sufjan Stevens' new album, Carrie & Lowell outright when I don't buy that many albums these days. All I know is that I heard it mentioned on a podcast and thought I should give it a listen. I listened to one song and then another and I knew it was an album for me and something I was going to want to listen to over and over again.

As a purchase it has not disappointed: I love this album. In a year that has had some pretty bloody bleak moments this lovely, sad and sometimes deeply depressing album has been like a... well not a balm exactly and not like pouring salt on a wound either but it's been a wonderful accompaniment to some sad and mopey times. To me it's like Madame Bollinger's famous line about drinking champagne when she's happy and also when she's sad. I can listen to this album when I'm in a good mood and when I'm blue as the bluest blue whale and it works on me either way, albeit probably in different ways.

To conclude: love it. Definitely my album of 2015.

Thoughts on watching the first two episodes of the rebooted Dr Who for the first time

1. I really like Billie Piper. She's a delight.

2. This show is hella silly.

3. It's also basically like Star Trek with fewer regular cast members.

4. I'm not sure yet if I'm into it (the only episode of Dr Who I've ever seen that I loved was Blink and the Dr barely features) but I think I might want to keep watching?

Luke Skywalker running away but leaving a map like

Via Rainbow Rowell

Favourite things of 2015 #3: Breakfast at Sayers

To be fair 2015 was not the year I first had breakfast at Sayers. However, it was the year I started having so many breakfasts at Sayers that my dream of being able to order "the usual" came true. It was also the year (mostly) I wrote two terrible novels perched (mostly) at a table at Sayers before work, pecking out awful dialogue while getting chocolate from my breakfast muffin all over the keyboard.

Weekend breakfasts at Sayers with piles of scrambled eggs, newspapers and company are a delight. But it's the weekday breakfasts with me and my laptop that have proved to be a bit of a revelation to me this year. Getting some writing-for-fun done before my day of writing-for-money begins feels great. Doing it while eating a giant muffin (so good) and drinking too much tea is even better.

Christmas is over but there's still time to enjoy(?) this lovely, sad Christmas song

Plus Andy Samberg is very much in my wheelhouse, let's not discount that as a factor

Recently I found myself having a real craving to rewatch Celeste and Jesse forever, a completely charming little movie I haven't thought about in yonks. Only when I was curled up in bed with my laptop, watching the above opening sequence (which I love) did I realise what I really wanted was a bit of an excuse to weep. Enjoy!

Favourite things of 2015 #2: Mad Max: Fury Road

I loved the new Star Wars movie but I pretty much expected to love it. Because of my love for the franchise I also cannot assess it objectively at all, nor do I want to hear arguments from anyone who didn't love it because I just don't care.

Of all the movies I saw this year (and there were a lot of movies) the one that blew me away was Mad Max: Fury Road because I went in thinking hmmmm and came away feeling like I had watched the perfect action film.

Favourite things of 2015 #1: Running

Two friends are back in town for Christmas this year so I've been thinking a bit about what's changed since I saw them last.

There have been plenty of little things I've done and great experiences I've had but the single biggest new thing I've done this year has been to start running and - however implausible it seems - to fall in love with running.

I started running in March or April with the ambition of finishing a 4K, which seemed impossible at the time. When that was done I set my sites on a 12K which seemed even harder. When I finally dragged myself through a half-marathon earlier this month it seemed like the logical conclusion. It was also... almost fun. Scratch the almost it was really fun: the planning and the aftermath, at least, if not the actual running bit, which was on the tiring side.

Running lets me eat more or less what I want without getting Orca fat. It also gives me a sense of achievement (some may call it smugness) and helps minimise anxiety and blue moods. 

With the odd exceptions (I mean sometimes I am really not in the mood) the days that I wake up knowing I'm going for a run are my favourite days. And the days that I wake up to run and then go and eat back those calories with a pile of pillowed eggs or an over-stuffed chocolate muffin are the best days of all.

"I can see Han and Lando, like, competitively jerking off, but not fucking"

Over at Pajiba you can read A Serious Discussion Of Which Original Trilogy Star Wars Character Is Best In Bed and, really, why wouldn't you? Han Solo is the obvious choice, to me, but I think they might have talked me into Obi-Wan just a little bit.

As for the new instalment? Poe, Poe, a thousand times Poe.

Feelings!

I have so many feelings about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But to avoid even slightly spoiling people I'll just say that I thought it was super rad, much fun and you should go and see it now before you get spoiled. SERIOUSLY WHY WOULD YOU RISK THIS? Also my deep love for Oscar Isaac continues to grow to the point where I have to acknowledge I can never ever interview him for work - in the super unlikely event such an opportunity arose - because I would in no way be able to keep my cool and shit would get weird.

Things my Body Pump instructor says that make me think she's an anarchist:

"That's the way the world controls you. You can't do what you want, you have to do what they say." 

Sure, bitch was talking about the choreography for a new Les Mills biceps track but I think she makes a valid point...

This is what my summer is going to sound like.

Also: the sound of cold drinks being poured into glasses and salty crisps giving way to my super sharp teeth.

Felines of New York

“I go after the feather. I kill the feather. But the feather keeps coming back. Quite honestly it’s exhausting, but what is life if you’re not going after something? I just need to lay here for another minute. I’ll be fine.”

“I listen to music a lot, but not by choice. I don’t know how to turn it off. If I had it my way this place would be dead silent so I could hear if anything was crawling around.”

“I’m a little worried about entering the current job market. I just don’t think I have the work experience everyone is looking for. I don’t even have a resume. I know this sounds vain, but I’ll have to rely on my youth and good looks to stay afloat for as long as I can.”

“I think you’ll be fine. Nobody expects you to work.”

“Oh. That’s right.”

Via Felines of New York

Things I have been watching lately #1304

“Look out Boots, I’m going to buy a hundred meal 

deals and eat them off a prozzie in the nude.”

5 reasons to watch Mr Robot, according to me, after a weekend binge watch

It's a TV series about hacking that doesn't make hacking seem like magic.

It has female characters who a) aren't love interests for the main dude, b) talk to each other, c) do things.

For every "fuck society" and "down with the man" statement that might make you roll your eyes there's something to suggest the show doesn't 100 per cent buy into a lot of the stuff that comes out of the mouths of its characters.

Rami Malek is, to be sure, distinctive to look at but at some point he became super attractive to me so now that's all I see and it'll happen to you too.

It is a lot of fun.

Completely giving up....

... starring: me.

It's a bit funny, actually

The Richard Curtis film Love Actually seems to me to be one of those things that divides people, like Vegemite and awkward comedy: either you loooooove it and can't stand people who don't love it too or you haaaaaaate it and have no respect for anyone who feels differently.

But I sit somewhere in between: I hate some storylines but I don't hate the film. I love some storylines but I don't love the film. What an enigma I am.

Anyway, what I have been sort of loving is Thirty Days of Love Actually which is, well, what it sounds like. This on Mark (played by the usually delightful Andrew Lincoln) in what is, for my money, the creepiest storyline of them all:

What better way to kick-off this insane project than with a few hundred over a thousand words on the character at the centre of the film’s most controversial plotline - Mark. Settle in for a wild ride as we dissect Mark’s failed attempts at big pimpin, his music tastes and answer the question once and for all - is he a total creep?
Most contemporary analysis of Mark focuses on his quasi-stalking of Keira Knightley’s character, Juliet (who gets married to his best mate Peter at the start of the film), but I’d argue Mark’s weirdness is established much earlier on.
I’ve not yet had the responsibility of being best man at a wedding, but I am familiar with what’s required. Organise the buck’s night, make a speech, don’t be too much of a twat. Sadly, it’s all a bit of a struggle for poor old Mark. We discover in the film’s seventh scene that his attempt to organise Brazilian prostitutes for Peter’s buck’s was derailed when it emerged the prostitutes were, in fact, men. There’s actually another weird bit in the film here when Peter, who is about to get married to Juliet, suggested that it would have been really excellent party if the prostitutes were actually women. Presumably so he could sleep with them? Is sleeping with Brazilian prostitutes a common thing people do immediately prior to getting married? Anyway we’ll cover this in more detail when we get to Peter. Back to Mark.

You can read the rest here.

Adriaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan or Unexpected Pleasures in the movie Creed:

1. I didn't need to have seen Rocky to be completely caught up 5 minutes into the movie.
2. Michael B Jordan. In multiple tank-tops. That clung to him when he sweated.
3. Sly Stallone being kinda... charming?
4. It acknowledged that boxing is basically a really stupid thing to do. Which: word.
5. Generic Love Interest was not so generic. She had, I don't know, implied backstory and everything. It's a low bar to clear but I'll take what I can get.
6. Michael B Jordan being charming as hell. Also the tank-top thing. I'm not over it.

Things I still spend money on even though I'm poor because otherwise life would not be worth living: a slightly more upbeat list

Going out for dinner

Going out for breakfast

Going out for wine

Ice-cream

Things I used to spend money on that I no longer spend money on because I'm poor: a depressing list

Magazines (mostly I can borrow these from work anyway)

Books (hello Mr Library)

Massages ("Oh, Andy...")

Pedicures (my toenails are totally fucked up from running anyway so this isn't a great loss)

Classic fucking LOVE STORY?

Um, no. Trying harder The Viewing Lounge.

 “You have a morbid aversion to dying. You probably resent the fact that you're at war and might get your head blown off any second."

"I more than resent it, sir. I'm absolutely incensed."

"You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs, or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate."

"Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously."

"You're antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated, or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're a manic-depressive!"

"Yes, sir. Perhaps I am."

"Don't try to deny it."

"I'm not denying it, sir," said Yossarian, pleased with the miraculous rapport that finally existed between them. "I agree with all you've said.” 

(Joseph Heller, Catch 22)

"Settle for me: in a sad way, Darling, it's fate"

(If this doesn't make you want to watch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend then you probably shouldn't watch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend)

I think maybe I want to make a nest of Lorde's hair and sleep in it...

... that's not weird, is it? (Pics via Rainbow Rowell)

Things I did recently that made me suspect I am not living my best life:

Stole some toilet paper from my favourite cafe. No biggie.

If an angry bear was treated the way rape is

Okay this is not bad, not bad at all.

“You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you.”

― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Not obsessed or anything...

... but this is my playlist today:

(Carry On fan art via Leela)

Questions from my husband that make me happy:

"Is it okay if I make nutella pancakes for dinner?"

Worth the bed sores

I'm on the record as being a big Rainbow Rowell fan. I'm also a sucker for fantasy novels and romance. These are three reasons why Rowell's new novel, Carry On, feels like it has been written specifically for me. Unlike, say, Lev Grossman's The Magician's, it's not necessarily a novel I'd recommend for everyone, even if I do think it's been heavily influenced by the Grossman series. Without wanting to do spoilers there are some elements of it some people might not be into and the central mystery could probably be more mysterious or convoluted if that was what the book was about which, well, it's kind of not.However, I would urge anyone who likes fantasy of the Harry Potter type and/or likes Rowell's other novels to give this one a red hot crack because I loved it. I read 90 per cent of it in one sitting and it was worth the bed sores.