Welcome back! We are back to normal and beginning the start of my favourite winter seasons and time when the shaving of legs will be few and far between. Regardless, we will push on with the project.
Welcome to I shaved my legs for…THIS?! The newsletter exploring the 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 (semi) 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 hopefully worth you reading about.
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The Shave
Shaved my legs in the middle of a cold and I had my dads advice that all you need to set you right is a ‘shit, shower and shave’. This did not cure my cold, but I did enjoy the sweet feeling of shaved legs in clean sheets for a full days worth of time.
Rating: 10/20 as a medical cure, I have to say a shave leaves something to be desired
The Content
I spent my sick day binge-watching Rose Matafeo’s new show Starstruck which made me absolutely furious because it is so freaking good and exactly the type of show I would want to make. I live for a female lead that’s at both times a very nice girl and a lil horndog.
The show has absolutely everything I enjoy watching - cuteness, touching friendships, likable characters despite obvious neurosis and will they/won’t they romances. Which is why it is so upsetting that the core identifying feature of a straight relationship seems to be defaulting to British crime drama as a go-to watch to avoid endless discussion and negotiation.
When I was single, I did not watch a single crime drama and yet not it is all that I am able to consume. In our house, we just finished Deadwater Fell and Loch Ness in quick succession interesting in that former started strong and fizzled and the later started fine, continued fine and then absolutely nailed the ending.
Anyway, the point is, there is a deep power in love making you go outside of your comfort zone. I have learned that I can love both British Crime Dramas as well as my historical interest in only rom coms. The only thing that would make it better is if I could get my boyfriend to give some things he doesn’t think he will like a go too, like taking a look at the rat-sized hairball I pulled out of the shower drain.
Rating: 14/20 because even though I am deeply entrenched in this ‘we watch British crime dramas’ system, I don’t purport to understand it
The Food
I’ve been on a cereal kick lately. Let me cast your mind back a few months. I was in the supermarket and I thought to myself ‘I deserve a treat - y’know what, I’m going to buy myself some Cheerios’. But then when I went into the cereal aisle, Cheerios were no where to be found. And it was that day, that a flame was ignited.
That flame continued to burn inside of me for all this time. A small, flickering want deep in my belly. But even when Cheerios returned to the stores, with some, admittedly underwhelming new packaging, I left the flame to smoulder. The box was too big, it was too much cereal for me to get through.
But eventually the flame couldn’t be contained. I bought a box of cereal, and I’ve been going to town on that cereal ever since. I’ve had it with milk (of course), dry by the handful and my new favourite cereal method - thrown atop of a Ben & Jerry’s chunky monkey pint.
Rating: 20/20 because satisfying a craving is pure decadence baby
The Social Stuff
This article has been doing the rounds, as many similar articles have done the rounds after a comedian has done something bad and then people have looked back on everything they said and questioned how nothing was said earlier.
I struggle to reconcile how I feel about these articles because though I agree that there are gigs that have made me uncomfortable and you can hear just awful material, doing stand up regularly has been one of the biggest joys of my life. I have found the Melbourne stand up scene to be deeply supportive, across the board. Sure that is partly because I come to stand up from a place of great privlidge, but I also think it is because there is nothing that a stand up comedian respects more than hard work and a good set to show for it.
As a comedian, you are a sole contractor, without a HR department to turn too (though when have they ever helped) and with a constantly shifting heirarchy dependant on the space that you are in. It can be extremely difficult to navigate how you respond to bad behaviour from someone that can be at any one time an act on your show/a colleague on someone else’s show with you/someone giving you a spot at their show and this dynamic makes it tricky to enact big changes.
Anyway, I hoped to have a more nuanced take but I am running late in writing this and must leave it here. I think what I want to say is it is more than okay to choose to do only the gigs where you feel safe/find people you feel safe to gig with and avoid those places that don’t align with your values. But whatever you do, just keep getting up and telling jokes because nothing will change without the good guys (and okay guys, and neutral guys) being there.
Rating: -5/20 for a dislike of bad guys and anything getting in the way of more stand up shows.
The Miscellaneous Stuff
Great story about scones transcending their inherent white, poshness. Bonus shoutout for a Dulce de Leche flavoured scone mention.
Sage advice - replace every terrible man in movies with Tig Notaro
Yes, I want to watch this Sasquatch doco, I am a believer.
Stop telling women they have imposter syndrome.
A really intense article about oat milk that serves as a reminder to trust nothing.
Rightly or wrongly, I love the town that spent their Covid relief money on a giant squid statue.
Obsessed with these candles.
A meditation from the judge who decided the Parent Trap custody arrangement.
Yahoo!! The villain of the internet?
Rating: 18/20 really good links this week and I’m feeling proud of myself.
Final Rating (57/100)
Phwoaaar. Not even close to being worth it. I guess that makes sense seeing as we have largely centered around a day I was sick. Something I have moaned about endlessly having spent a year without illness and now not being able to cope with the effects of it as a low grade cold ravages my body.
Anyway, hope this was an okay if slightly disjointed read. I’ve been a busy busy bee, so I am very excited that I have been able to deliver this on time if nothing else. As always, if you enjoyed this newsletter I would love you dearly and without reservation for ever if you were to share it with a friend. Also give my podcast ‘Ben and Prue are better than you’ a listen and if you are in Melbourne come to Deathbed Comedy every second Wednesday, which I host with comedy powerhouses Jordan Barr and Urvi Majumdar.
See you all soon, and have a good week my prudes!