The Awkward Girl's Guide to the Week | In Which I Am *Not* Too Old To Listen to Olivia Rodrigo

(I *am* too old to know who Travis Kelce is, though...)

Hi, it’s Amber with The Awkward Girl’s Guide to the Week: your regular look at what I’ve been reading, watching, and otherwise getting up. This post is free to all subscribers, however a paid subscription will give you access to additional, bonus content, keep me out of the Victorian workhouse, and is basically the only reason this newsletter continues to exist — so if you are able to upgrade, you’ll find the button below: thank you so much for supporting my work!

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This week, summer turned to autumn overnight, which is what happens here in the frozen North: although what we get doesn’t tend to be the crisp, golden autumn described by the rest of the world, but just a sludge grey pre-winter. A greige. They’re never going to name a Yankee Candle after that, are they?

“I’m really cold,” I said, pulling on my winter coat for the school run on Monday morning. “Aren’t you really cold?”

I said it again as I poured myself a hot water bottle to take to bed that night, and, by the next afternoon, when I was standing huddled by the radiator — which has developed a large dark patch in the exact shape of my body — it was clear what was happening here.

I was in my ‘Always Cold’ era. And I will remain in it now until sometime next May — or possibly April, if we’re very lucky.

The “big coats” have been dug out from the back of the wardrobe. The autumn-scented candle has been lit. (It’s ‘Autumn Glow’, not ‘Greige Pre-Winter.’) And. meanwhile, having finally finished my book, I had the entire week free to do whatever I wanted. Well, within school hours, anyway.

Some things I had planned to do this week, now that I’ve finished my book:

• Exercise.

• Write tons of amazing posts for my Substack.

• Eat healthy, home-cooked meals, that I would first of all learn to cook, because I would have time for that now.

• Finish reading that book I’ve been trying to finish for what feels like months now.

• Start reading something else.

• Moisturise.

• Learn to do the splits.¹

• Get a solid 8 hours sleep every night

• Just generally change my entire life for the better, really. In every possible way.

What I actually did this week now that I’ve finished my book:

Read stuff on the Internet about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, including — but not limited to — Googling things like, “Who’s Travis Kelce, anyway?” and “Is anyone else reminded of the Hiddleswift debacle?”

Swifties watching footage of Taylor at that football (?) thing last week

I mean, the guy literally made a joke about driving the ‘getaway car’. And then left with her in a convertible, in a scene that legit looked like an album cover:

I don’t know. After last week’s Sophie Turner pap walk, I’m convinced there must be a new album coming soon. I’m clearing my schedule. And in the meantime, I’m mostly listening to Olivia Rodrigo’s new album, Guts, which, according to TikTok, I am WAY too old for².

@sainthoax @sainthoax ♬ original sound - Saint Hoax

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I will admit that when Sour came out, I did briefly question what it said about me that I was spending so much time listening to a 19-year-old. But then Olivia was all, “I can’t even parallel park,” and I was like, “Same, bestie.”

I don’t think music has an age limit. I didn’t think it when my 13-year-old self was listening to her dad’s Bob Dylan albums on repeat, and I refuse to be told not to listen to Guts. Although, as a Gen X-er I don’t really care what you think, anyway.

So I’ve been listening to Guts, complaining about how freezing it is, and — curveball! —getting sleazy emails from a guy called Rodney, who apparently thinks I’m just writing these newsletters to give men a new way to harass me. Excellent.³

Here’s what else I’ve been getting up to…

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READING

Breaking news, guys: this very morning I finished reading Confessions of a 40-Something F**k Up, just so I could tell you I’d done it, and would finally have something else to talk about in this section.

That’s for next week, though. In the meantime, though, Substack has been awesome lately, so here’s a small selection of my favourite posts:

What To Do With Your Brokenness ✨

Sorry I'm Late - I fell in love too young

The blogging boom is back—and it’s happening on Substack

This cream is not about anti-aging!!!

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WRITING:

I’m skipping the “watching” section this week, because, other than the usual suspects (Neighbours and, well, Benidorm. I’m very high-brow, me…), the only other thing I’ve seen this week was Clifford, the Big Red Dog, which Max and I watched on Sunday afternoon. (Told you I was highbrow…) It’s one of those kids movies in which a plucky young girl from a tragically broken home helps teach everyone the true meaning of love, with the help of her faithful animal companion — in this case, the big red dog of the title — and her hopeless-yet-lovable uncle, played by Jack Whitehall. Max loved it. I… loved that he loved it.

In TV-related news, however, last week, as you may recall, I made the rash — and probably quite stupid — decision to start a newsletter about Neighbours (The Australian soap, I mean, not my ACTUAL Neighbours. Although, tbh, I would LOVE to start a newsletter about my ACTUAL neighbours. It would be exactly the kind of petty drama I live for.⁴ But, alas, I have to live here, so maybe not…).

I had assumed approximately no one would want to subscribe to this, and that I’d essentially just be talking to myself on it, and I was actually okay with that. I’m a pretty good audience, you know? Much to my surprise, though, it almost instantly started picking up subscribers, and although there’s still not very many of them, it means I have to keep on doing it now, so here’s the first newsletter, if you want to take a look:

Neighbours, WTF? Week 1

On my author newsletter, meanwhile, I wrote this post about not feeling like a “real” author:

Things 'Real' Authors Do That I Don't

And for subscribers-only, there’s also this very personal post about why I don’t just get a ‘real’ job, rather than asking people to subscribe to my Substack all the time:

I think that’s more than enough shameless self-promotion for this week, though, so let’s all just be glad that by the time next week’s newsletter comes out, I should have found something new to read AND watch, so I’ll hopefully have something to actually tell you about.

Until then, folks…

1. I’ve wanted to be able to do the splits for ages now. I once even downloaded an app that promised to teach me how to do it in seven days, which, LOL.

2. Also too old for TikTok, presumably…

3. He’s blocked now, needless to say, but if he does happen to read this… well, I don’t really care. Stop emailing me, Rodney.

4. Also, my friend-who-lives-across-the-road’s dog had puppies a couple of days ago, and who doesn’t love puppies?