back up blog

You know what braveness is? Braveness is trust. Braveness is boogying in your own freaky way, sugartits. Braveness is knowledge. The knowledge that there might still be so much left to do, but so much has already been done. Look at you go! Braveness is faith. Braveness is having faith in yourself. Braveness is paying goddamn attention when it’d easier not to. I’d like to be braver- short of wearing spandex knickers and a cape to Starbucks there’s no greater way to feel like a motherlovin’ boss on the daily. So I wrote a list. I did it for me, mainly. But then I didn’t get round to Monday’s blog post because I got drunk and passed out in the wrappers of two cream cheese frosted cupcakes, waking up with my new contact lenses still in, and my eyes were scratchy, and my head hurt, and I thought to myself “Oh shit, now I have to tell the Internet that I’m totally drinking again, even after I swore off booze forever .” And then I fell back asleep. Still without having written a blog post. So...

Housemate wanted to share cosy three-bedroom apartment by Southwark station, on London’s Southbank, with two (caring, care-free, impossibly shiny haired) late twentysomethings . We’re a Gemini vegetarian writer and a Sagittarian celiac barrister, both of whom believe that a house is a home.  You’re probably a water sign: intuitive, imaginative and nurturing. You’ll have your own life, because lord knows we ain’t nobody’s babysitter, but you’ll also know how to integrate that life into two others to make a handpicked and dysfunctional London family so that nobody has to use post-it notes to communicate because yay for open and honest dialogue about who used the last of the milk! Kisses! Potential housemate should probably be down with a mostly quinoa and plant-based diet, though one of us eats steak like it’s a chocolate-covered snack i.e. all the time. If you’re lactose intolerant so much so the better, since we’d both like to reduce our dairy intake because urm, cow hormones much?...

I spent the weekend sleeping on the couch in my house. Except, it’s not my house. It’s my brother’s apartment; I don’t live there any more. A girl with the name of a flower has made my room her own. I gave her my key. It’s a rite of passage to make an East London council estate home when you first move to London, and I get why. It’s gritty, it’s edgy. The beer is cheap and the clothes are cool. It’s “keeping it real”. But I came home from a weekend away last month and there was a pool of blood by the elevator. That’s too real for me. I had to leave . So I won’t miss Crazy Caroline, the woman who lives opposite with a sign on her door saying “Please knock gently, this is a new handle” in childish scrawl. The sign has been there three years, they tell me. I won’t miss whoever plays marbles on the wooden floor of the apartment above my bedroom at 10 p.m. every night. Well. It could be marbles- it could also be extreme hotbedding. I won’t miss the Indian cooking smells that permeate the wa...

iPhone users are wankers. It’s simple fact. They text when you’re talking, leave it out on the table at dinner, and don’t know what to do with their thumbs when the battery dies. And the battery always dies. My circa 1998 Nokia C3 and I have been getting along just nicely, thankyouverymuch . We’ve prided ourselves on calling over texting, of learning how to read a map instead of following Google’s little blue dot, and of acquiring numbers over usernames. It’s been quite the point of pride, and one not hindered by the fact that underneath that cloud of iPhone judgement is the dirty little secret that until last year, when my bag got stolen in Rome , I was actually an iPhone Wanker myself. DETAILS WILL SELDOM GET IN THE WAY OF SOME HEARTY PASTIME JUDGEY-NESS IN THESE PARTS, FRIENDS. I’ve been jonesing for some smartphone lovin’ for a while now. Half of my favourite people live overseas and it’s hard to arrange a Skype date when everyone is home and able to talk and OH HEY I GOT HELD UP A...

You get excited about people who make things that mean something to you because it helps you to figure out who you are, and right now all help is good help. It feels defeatist to say that. You’re supposed to know. You’re not supposed to be the girl who posts romantic quotes on Facebook and cries at TV shows about twentysomethings “finding” themselves. You’d never admit it out loud, but when GIRLS first came out and everyone you know told you that you’re just like Hannah Horvath “… but like, in a good way,” you were really kind of flattered. You were flattered because that is you, represented, on screen, being told it’s okay to not have a book deal yet and yes, that you’ve “got” this, and yes, that one day you’ll be brilliant, and that yes, maybe even now there are occasional glimpses of it. It’s reassurance because in this moment you’re watching all thirteen episodes of Orange is the New Black back-to-back as you eat an entire fridge cake, berating every single second of the process ...

Last month I mailed a lock of my hair to a ninety-year old German medicine woman so that she could swing a pendulum over it, in turn discovering the inner workings of my current health. Why? Because science. That’s why. A makeup artist and reiki healer, whom I met at a press launch, by the buffet table, recommended Maria in Richmond to me. I was casually situated close as I could reasonably get to the mini French toast, and as we exchanged small talk I repeatedly apologised for my gluttonous snaffling of the carbs. Side note: my version of small talk is basically TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU LOVE! And that’s how I ended up ordering a book called A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principle of A Course in Miracles, and joining a Buddhist temple. “The funny thing is, I’m doing a sugar detox this weekend,” I laughed, picking up some more blueberry waffle. “Well,” the makeup artist replied, “I recently got diagnosed as being sugar intolerant by the most incredible healer. Told me I was eating ...

Darby & Joan are the quintessential middle-aged British couple, characterised by knitwear, hours of Scrabble, and a penchant for staying in on Saturday nights. Darby & Joan are, in fact, @calummcswiggan and me. Read the Darby & Joan back catalogue here .  Darby, Shit the motherfuckin’ bed: you’re moving to London! This is a sweet, beautiful moment. For so long I have wished for us to reside in the same town. For an age I’ve daydreamed. I’ve written letter after letter to the universe, positively visualising our reunited embrace, and now, two years since our last magical time down the road from one another, it’s all coming true. You’re moving here.  I could not be happier. I knew things would be different for you when you got back from Thailand. But, I didn’t know what was appropriate to say. And maybe that sounds douche-y and ridiculous because WE’RE BEST FRIENDS. Nothing should be in appropriate. Otherwise what’s the point? I know we exist to make each better, an...

I spent most of May and June telling anyone who’d listen that this, these months, now, would be the first summer months I’d be in England in my whole adult life. I’d been worried about it. It didn’t seem natural to spend my bus rides into work under the dull grey of clouds holding a very particular kind of drizzle. I’d pass women with goosebumped arms and thick, Kate Middleton-esque sheer tights, seemingly determined to make the transition to summer wardrobe despite all evidence to the contrary. There’s nothing sadder than white linen trousers in the rain. Reading books about Roman food and Sicilian traditions on my daily commute, almost every other day I’d think to myself I can’t do this. I’m not built to live in one place, and certainly not in a place under 30 degrees. I’d resolve to pack it all in, as I’ve half been expecting myself to do ever since I moved to London. Go somewhere hot and… well. I couldn’t ever get further than that, because then something glorious would happen to r...

Throughout most of my twenties I’ve felt like everyone but me has had their shit under control. That I was a woman with a girl’s soul. A grown-up in an adult’s body. That my experiences were somehow less valid than the rest of the world’s because WTF? Where is the instruction manual? Is this thing on? HELLO? And then, just lately, it has all sort of come together whereby I’ve realised that heck. I’m doing motherfucking FINE.   It’s a beautiful moment where you can look in the mirror and declare to yourself, damn gurl. You doing good. Because I am. I like who I’m becoming and it feels delicious to say that. It’s pretty goddamn kick-ass to be proud of who you are. Does everyone feel like this? I hope everyone feels like this. I bet Sienna Miller has always felt like this. She seems very well-adjusted. This past week I’ve begun mentoring my very first intern, and get a load of this banana pie: she wants to know what I know. I didn’t think I knew anything! But I know proper well loads...