Hello!
Back back back in your inbox and happy to be here! To be honest this week has been a bit like pulling teeth, so it might be a shorty. I’ve been writing until my fingers cramp and wishing I had the funds for a Euro holiday.
That being said, time for the weekly news.
The Content
The exact wrong thing to be doing right now is to watch Ally McBeal on Disney Plus, I want to delete Disney + in support of the writer’s strike and yet here I am doing it anyway and I can’t look away. I didn’t mean to do it. I only wanted to legally watch The Bear and then while I had it I thought “Why not try Ally McBeal, I’ve never seen it before and I’ve heard about it” and then it was all too late. I was hooked.
Well, to be fair I was intrigued. Getting hooked didn’t really happen until the dancing baby entered the scene. The dancing baby was a revelation. The baby made the song Hooked on a Feeling their own.
Why have shows given up on the weird fantasy vision for their lead characters? I want to see Carmy from The Bear having a dialogue with his inner critic as represented by a talking goat (a bear a little too on the nose). Cartoon Lizzy was fundamental to the success of the show Lizzy McGuire and yet we have just let this technique slide? Shows aren’t willing to be lame while taking themselves seriously any more. I’m tired of the knowing winks and annoying hammy characters that are actually meant to be real. Give me a girl earnestly trying to catch her dancing baby so it stops the nightly torment.
My final note is that it is worth watching to see how they talk about “political correctness” while being so wrong in their opinions. Ally McBeal is meant to be progressive but she hates women (and has many other terrible views). So many of the storylines are hard to watch, Ally assaults someone every couple of episodes and manages to talk her way out of it. I don’t think they’ve lost a single case. It’s incredible to see how much things have changed and what has stayed the same. As Ally herself said “Disney is pure evil”, so I will be getting rid of it as soon as I finish Seasons 2 through 5.
The Food
Nothing feels better than getting approval for your beer selection from the person in the bottleshop. Even when it turns out the beers that I have selected were more “adventurous” (bad) than I would like. An approval that can be easily bought - buying a pick and mix of cans with weird flavour combos and faux illustrated labels (I like Sailors Grave) works every time.
My partner doesn’t believe me when I say I get asked for an ID at bottleshops all the time. A rough side effect of having a partner still happily in their 20s while you edge towards not just being 30 but being actually IN your 30s. And sure, maybe the ID thing isn’t happening quite as often as it used to, much to my pain of having to listen to all those “you’ll love looking younger when you’re older comments”. But, I have noticed that the easiest way to avoid getting asked for ID is to buy wine that is >$30 a bottle. The other day I purchased this vodka on sale for $25 and it was straight to the driver’s licence.
The Social Stuff
Seeing as I can’t afford a holiday I’ve been taking some time to travel in my own city. By which I mean, getting tipsy on two glasses of wine and walking around aimlessly looking for dinner. It feels even more authentic if your phone is almost flat and you are desperate for the bathroom too.
This technique will provide you with some of the worst dinners of your life. Both expensive and devoid of the atmosphere because anywhere too successful feels intimidating to walk into alone. The other night I was stuck in a 1/4 full restaurant that clearly had the chef’s phone plugged into the stereo. You could tell it was from a phone because the music volume kept dipping or it would pause altogether as the messages came in. It did my head in. I felt the entitled white woman rising up within me and I had to fight the urge to bring it up.
I was successful in the end but horrible stuff. The type of travel experience you get to forget as soon as you get home to make room for all the rose-tinted memories.
The Miscellaneous Stuff
Here are the links:
Loved and surprised by this article about wealth, privilege and thinness. Especially this quote: “Instead of wanting more, demanding more, enjoying more, and of course, working less, we get discipline and denial. If “thin is in,” it’s a thinness of imagination. It’s giving upper middle class aspirational. It’s giving nothing.”
Bookmarked this beans recipe for if Melbourne ever actually gets cold again.
I’m so glad to see at least ONE article agreeing with me that Aidan and Carrie shouldn’t be together. He gives me the ick big time, they make no sense together and they frankly do not know how to listen to each other.
Light on this week, but sometimes we work instead of procrastinating. Who knew?
Final Words
This was a bit like pulling teeth this week. Apologies if it reads that way. I still appreciate you subscribing and opening it and the self-imposed deadline is sure to help me be productive and come up with ideas or improve my writing in some way.
So this will be it for this edition. See you next time?