Hello Hello!
It’s been a while! Each year summer rolls around and I am tortured by the ensuing insomnia it brings. The brick apartment I live in slowly warms up and bakes like an oven. Hotter than my own oven because I never have the patience to pre-heat that. The north-eastern orientation that is so lovely in winter means the sun is no match for my block-out curtains. It is hot, it is sunny and I am entering a state of delusion. Anyway, I know it’s boring to hear about how tired someone else is, especially when I have a child-free existence, so let’s just hope that the hallucinations work well to deliver me to creative genius.
Speaking of which my new stand up show CONCRETE PIGS opens soon in Adelaide and then Melbourne! You can buy tickets here, perfect way to support a free newsletter that has refused to spam your inbox with paywalled content.
Thanks as always for subscribing, or if you haven’t you can click the button here and I’ll be thrilled to have you, or you can follow me on Instagram. I’m chill and easygoing and just happy if you’re happy.
A Living Room Performance
I have regressed to my childhood self, putting on performances in the living room for a captive and supportive audience (myself really). It is weird to try and learn a comedy show without anyone to watch it, or only the kind souls that have already seen it a dozen times. It is even more difficult when you are trying to figure out how to move around the stage despite your lifelong bull in a china shop energy.
I knocked over and broke someone’s precious novelty lamp just yesterday. I love homewares but my house has nil objects d’art because last time I went to an Anna Spiro design sale I turned too quickly and knocked about 50 glass milk bottles off a table. Don’t worry, I looked scared and confused and blamed them letting too many people into a very cramped space until they let me go without paying for them. I think I might have had to buy a novelty bowling pin as a peace offering. Something designed to be knocked over seemed like the right fit symbolically.
It’s a somewhat unwelcome surprise to learn that after a lifetime of being clumsy and bad at sports, comedy is not the passive skill I once thought. Now I’ve got myself on the hook for maneuvering around a small space with one hand occupied by a microphone, telling jokes and climbing on and off a series of set pieces. I think the show will be worth coming to just for the chance to be in the audience when I eventually fracture my wrist and/or flash knickers.
It’s the struggle that has surprised me about working ever since my time working the Coles check outs. You start a job because you are interested in doing the thing - whether it’s comedy or a satisfying grocery scan ala leapfrog but before long you realise there are so many additional elements that are not doing the thing but simply doing ‘work’. I never thought I would be arguing with someone over filing systems, or that I would learn my true workplace strength is being able to fix a commercial printer. I
The riskiest bits of work are the jobs that aren’t doing the thing but are way more enjoyable. It’s easier to work on this newsletter than it is to fix the through line of a comedy show. Or it is much more enjoyable to plan for a project (despite having to learn a new project management website every time) than it is to actually deliver the project. I love to start things but I hate to finish them because that is where you need to push yourself to meet your vision. The planning I can get behind, the seeing things through - now that’s much more difficult.
Links
Reminded of this classic tweet from Russsell Crowe who is clearly into his town planning bullshit.
Reading Penance at the moment and loving it.
Quite a confronting graph about the increasing political divide between men and women here.
Cleaned my room for the first time in months - pretended this house is what I am uncovering
Also on the house front, I found a new architecture blog and I’m obsessed with this house in Oslo.
I’m not a huge Jacquemus girly but recently saw this 2019 show and have to give credit here for the architectural city set.
Haven’t thought about Mari Andrews for a long time (I think because she quit Instagram…confronting) but this was a great essay on when to quit.
A cute little celebration of brick and mortar retail (the internet is killing cities). In another life I would love to have a little shop., but unfortunately in this one I was not born into nor am I marrying into wealth
This powdered donut cake is SO good.
Okay this is it. That’s a goddamn newsletter. I hope you liked it. Please let me know if there is any element of your job that you use to procrastinate and/or excel at but hate.
I take comfort in knowing that owning a wee shop would be exactly the same in reality. Hopefully I will be back with a better consistency shortly, but at this point no promises. We are going for a random reward approach like a mouse getting cheese or me looking through tik tok until I see a video I actually like (cats being cute).