Bet on the Shaver

I shaved my legs for...THIS?!?! Newsletter #63

Ahhh my little newsletter, she is late again. Sometimes despite our best intentions life (and Covid) gets in the way. But I am officially back in Melbourne, for a glorious 13 days, and ready to bomb with some very undercooked material at some open mics as soon as I shake the sickness. Touring in Perth was a wild month - so good to see so many new places (sometimes even more of them than just a hotel and a venue) but how is it so tiring sitting on your ass on cars and planes? Was it the incredibly taxing content I was taking in? I doubt it seeing as most of that content was The Big Brunch Showdown, The Ultimatum Queer Stories, Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld, and two other romantic comedy reads (Emily Henry and Mhairi McFarlane). Is it wild to be reading about other people falling in love and boning their hearts out while you’ve abandoned your own partner for a month? Or just comforting?

Anywayyyyy…You are reading the latest edition of I shaved my legs for…THIS?! The newsletter explores my theory that shaving your legs or putting in that bit of extra effort should translate to having an above-average day. To test this theory I critically review every shave and the subsequent day/week/experiences and give it all a rating out of 100. Any day that scores higher than a 75 was definitely worth the shave.

And if you are new, please subscribe below to become an official prude and be bestowed the key to my heart.

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The Shave

Despite buying tropical-strength mosquito repellent my legs are covered in bites from Broome and shaving has become more akin to a game of mine sweeper. Each stroke of the razor brings you ever closer to the stroke that will take the top off of one of those over-itched bumps and leave you in agony. I resent the bites now, but I know I will miss the thrill once the bites have healed and shaving is once again a mundane experience.

Rating: 10/20 some points because who doesn’t need a lo-fi game when they are on the road.

The Content

I am furious with every company in the world changing to a subscription model of delivery. Especially the ones you weren’t paying for in the first place.

This is to say I spent most of my time sick with Covid rigorously deleting items from my Gmail and drive because I refuse to spend money on increasing the storage limit. You never sold me on the cloud, I was reluctantly dragged up there as you cleaved out the storage capabilities of every piece of electronic equipment and left nowhere else to turn. I will not now be paying for something I already resent. I am one step away from buying some big old-school filing cabinets and going completely paper-based.

And I swear they make the search function bad on purpose so that it isn’t easy to just delete a whole bunch of emails at once! You must go through and check that some important receipt hasn’t been included. More than that, you find your ability to reminisce, to live in memory, it is so much greater in your inbox than it is in any physical location. I watched the businesses and the newsletters come and go from my inbox over the last decade and felt a wave of nostalgia hit me.

I remembered the newsletters I had read every week in the past and then slowly got sick of. The American jeans company I was obsessed with and eventually went to, only to buy $300 jeans that didn’t fit by the end of my time in America and never really again after that either. The trial wine box subscriptions I could never afford after that first trial month.

I guess you know what they say… a trip through the inbox is as good as a holiday.

Rating: 0/20 cities are dead. But the digital space is forever (if you pay $19.99 a month that is).

The Food

A month or two before Christmas last year there has been a car parked across the street from our apartment. Let me set the scene without doxing myself. The car is a run-down-looking white car (Honda? Who knows?) that has been parked with its nose about half a meter into a metered and handicapped parking space. The longer the car was parked there, the more we started to talk about it.

When it was still there near the end of January, we made a bet. My boyfriend was sure that if Council hadn’t cared enough about the car to take it away yet, then they would let it sit there for a full year. So we bet dinner on it, and as each month ticked by this year, he began to slowly grow in confidence. Suggesting fancier and fancier dinners. Almost tasting the beef tartare, which we all know tastes exactly like a McDonald’s cheeseburger without the guilt, and also which he won’t eat because he is one of those “can’t get past raw beef people”.

We felt for so long that because the car was only partially obscuring a parking space, it must have fallen through the legislation cracks in a way that meant it was no one entity’s clear responsibility for dealing with it. And because it was no one’s responsibility it wasn’t going to go anywhere, the world would move on but the car would forever stay behind in this not-quite intrusive enough nor legitimate enough park to do anything about it.

But then one seemingly inconsequential day, we looked out our window and noticed that a sticker had appeared. Finally, someone was aware of the car. The sticker issued a one-week warning to move the car or it would be removed for them. My partner’s hopes started to falter. It was looking like that dinner was going to be mine.

A few days later the sticker was ripped off the car and the game was back in the air again. We began relying on conspiracy theories - perhaps the car was left there as a recording device, a crucial component in some sting operation. Perhaps it was a convenient base for someone important needing a mid-workday nap. Perhaps everyone is right and Council don’t do anything despite the rates always going up.

But while I was away the car was towed and it was all finally over. 6 months of developing a story about the car stuck between the cracks and it was all over without even a chance to say goodbye. Will have to buy an extra shot in the car’s honour when my partner is paying for Pastuso.

(This picture is not the car being discussed, but a car in a similar situation from Fremantle)

Rating: 20/20 The car saga will stay with me for longer than the dinner I’m getting bought next week.

The Social Stuff

I’ve always preferred to travel alone. There is something undignified about travelling in a group. Barely being able to hear over the roar of the jet engine. Not even having a hope of getting that empty seat next to you so you can watch whatever trash you have chosen in peace (forever resisting Mrs Harris Goes to Paris). Having people watch your addiction to two squirts of pre-flight nasal spray straight up the schnoz to alleviate the incredible pain of that sinus headache as you start the descent.

Sometimes I remember to spray privately in the toilet stall before I get on the plane so I still get to enjoy the sinus freedom I crave. Sometimes I spray anyway and offer the spray around the group daring someone else to put it up their own nose and announcing things like “If you taste it you waste it”.

Unfortunately, like everything, the relief of the spray is only temporary. The more you use it, the harder your sinuses fight back. I had a runny nose for a week in what I have come to know fondly as “rebound congestion”. Really unfair of my body to rebel against my clear intentions to tame it. Anyway, I will never stop with the nasal spray - travelling solo or not.

Rating: 8/20 One day my sinus and I will come to live in perfect harmony.

The Miscellaneous Stuff

Absolutely love this house, bringing a new meaning to farmhouse chic (without the whitewashed wood).

Maybe I’m not part of a new creative era because I found this website so tedious.

Really beautiful read on the five senses of gentrification.

Should I be getting into fishing? (My next comedy festival show could be hooks, lines and stinkers).

Really love June and thought this video about food and body image was really honest and great.

A great piece on the WGA writer’s strike. Can’t let the industry I want to work in fall apart before I even get a foot in the door.

Loved reading Sylvia Plaths illustrated notes. Even though the thought of having my notes published would have me suicidal.

As someone that struggles often with my day job role being stuck between developers and homeowners, both of which trying desperately to keep me from joining their ranks, I think it is worth submitting to the Inquiry into the rental and housing affordability crisis.

Rating: 20/20 Nice links. Proud of myself here. Think they make me look smart.

Final Rating (58/100)

Not worth it I guess, but maybe that is just the guilt of missing a self-imposed deadline creeping in! It’s always difficult to be a person that is hard on yourself about that sort of thing. Constantly waiting for someone to say something as mean as the things that I think about my work and work ethic. If I had my way I would need to be staying up all night writing until my fingers are bloody and calloused and only then I might have begun to earn anyone reading what I’ve written.

But today I am well rested and the newsletter is late and that is how it goes. We trudge on and hope for the best. I spent a lot of money on an online tarot card reading the other day, so maybe I’ll just be a little out of sorts until that arrives (ask me for the link if you are a believer/not just curious about how much exactly).

If anything in this newsletter did it for you, why not share it with a friend? Or screenshot the bits that speak to you and encourage them to download it for a hate read. I find both options truly delicious.

Thanks for reading x