The Awkward Girl's Guide to the Week | In Which There Are First World Problems

*But also Taylor Swift tickets

[Hi, it’s Amber, with your weekly roundup, which has been on hiatus for a couple of weeks because of my holiday, but which is making a brief return before I go off yet again. This week’s newsletter is free to all subscribers, but if you’d like access to exclusive posts, subscriber chats, and more, you can upgrade to a paid subscription below. If you’re reading on Gmail, you might find that this email gets cut off in your browser: just click the “read more” button to… well, read more.]

Things I Have Googled Since Returning From My Holiday Last Week:

• Scottish school holidays 2023

• Why so many school holidays?

• Cheap flights September 2023

• Cheap flights October 2023

• How to make money fast

• How to make money fast legal

• Sell feet photos online how much?

• People who live in hotels permanently

• Post-holiday blues real thing?

• Weird saggy skin on thighs how?

• Firming cream thighs

• Cellulite cream scam?

• Make bathroom like hotel

• How to stop hating where I live?

From this, you will have gathered I am not happy to be home. (And also that I have weird saggy skin on my thighs, but that already feels like an overshare too far, to be honest, so, moving on…) If I were to try to tell you exactly how miserable I am to be home, however, you’d probably accuse me of being even more dramatic than usual, and because I’m very aware of the First World Problem nature of my post-holiday blues, I’ll simply say that YES, I KNOW, and I’m working on it, I promise.

In the meantime, though, it’s been pouring with rain ever since we got back, and I almost cried watching someone’s Instagram Story of the hotel we stayed in yesterday, so you can safely assume that any time you see me and I’m not on holiday, I might look like I’m OK, but I’m secretly wishing I was running around in flip-flops and no makeup, with my salty hair in a claw-clip I bought in a tourist shop for €1. I feel like that’s my real, true self. It’s the only time I’m happy, really. And until I can figure out how to to get back to the sun — or, alternatively, to stop hating where I live — here’s what I’ve been reading, watching, trying, and buying, since last we talked…

READING

I started this on the flight home from Gran Canaria, and even though I have literally nothing in common with Maggie, the main character, I don’t think I’ve ever related to anyone more:

Honestly, I quite enjoyed the flight because of it: and I was seated in front of an unaccompanied 2-year old who thought the tray table was just there for shits and giggles*, so those are not words I say lightly, trust me.

(*He wasn’t totally unaccompanied, in that the rest of his family were across the aisle from him. They were cheerfully blasting really loud music from a tablet, though, so you can imagine what I was dealing with here, and how grateful I was for the two little cans — yes, cans! — of wine that were delivered shortly after takeoff… )

This book actually reads almost like a memoir to me — I have to keep reminding myself that it’s (probably) not the author’s real life I’m reading about, but I guess that’s testament to how relatable it is. I’m only about halfway through so far, because as soon as the flight landed, real life raised its ugly head again, but I already have absolutely no hesitation in recommending it, although I’d suggest not trying to read it while being repeatedly kicked in the back, if you can possibly manage it…

WATCHING

I’ll tell you what I HAVEN’T been watching: the Barbie movie. It’s not that I don’t WANT to watch it, you understand. I mean, you can probably tell from my Taylor Swift obsession that I am pretty basic, really, and definitely not the type to reject something just because it’s popular, so I’m sure I’d enjoy Barbie. It looks fun. If it was on Netflix, I’d definitely make a point of seeing it. I just don’t particularly need to see it — or any other movie, for that matter — the week it comes out. (Or the week after, or whatever we’re up to now.)

I mean, I enjoy watching them when I get round to it, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t get particularly excited about movies in advance, and I suspect this is probably slightly weird of me, really, because at one point last week I opened up the Substack app and literally every single post I saw contained a reference to Barbie in the title. It made me feel a bit left out, and like I should probably go and see it, so that I could finally feel like I belong here, but then I remembered I don’t actually like going to the cinema, don’t own anything pink, and only have a few hours childcare this week, so it’s not going to happen. Until, of course, it comes to Netflix, or one of the other streaming platforms in a year’s time, at which point I’ll be all, “OMG, you guys, you HAVE to see this Barbie movie!”

Please don’t hate me when this happens.

BUYING

So, I bought the Taylor Swift tickets. Well, one of them, anyway. It was a Whole Thing.

First of all, I did not get a code: which was predictable, but also soul-destroying. BUT! BUT! My mum, who was on holiday with us, and who had ALSO registered, having decided this was her time to see Taylor, DID get a code.

It was ON.

We had three chances to get tickets on the appointed day: 11am, 1pm, and 3pm.

“This is going to be horrific,” I thought glumly, as we assembled in my parents’ hotel room at 10:40am. “Like, I bet it’ll cost at least £150. AT LEAST.”

Then we logged on, and yeah, there were 4,000 people in front of us in the queue. And when we finally got through — with Terry in charge of operations, as I knew I’d just panic and lose my mind — the only tickets they had left were either £380 or £660.

“The dream is over!” I wailed, throwing myself onto the bed in disappointment. “There’s no way I can spend £380 on a concert ticket!”

So we logged sadly out of the queue and went down to the pool, me congratulating myself for having made a sensible — if unsatisfying — financial decision for once in my life. I mean, £380, to STAND UP at a concert! Who would pay that?!

IT’S ME, Hi. I’M THE PrObLeM.

At 1pm, we once again entered the ticket queue, and there was, once again, only the £380 or £600 tickets left.

“BUY! BUY!” I screamed in a panic. “Buy them all! I’ll worry about it later!”

This, is turned out, was to be a Whole Other Thing. Because it was my mum’s code, it was linked to her Ticketmaster account, and her credit card. The credit card decided it needed its linked phone number to be verified. It wanted to do it via an app. We didn’t have the app. We tried Paypal. It sent a code to my mum’s phone. My mum was in the pool with Max at the time. We sent the code to my dad’s phone. Paypal wouldn’t accept it. Then it did. Then it seemed to… just go to sleep for while? Seriously, why is it so hard to give Taylor Swift all my money? WHY?

Finally, with just seconds to go before the tickets were released to the general public again, Paypal got its act together, and my mum and I became the proud owners of the Karma is My Boyfriend Package, which means we have to stand up all night, but we get a canvas tote bag and a lanyard. Which isTOTALLY worth the extra £200. <hysterical laughter>

“What does Karma is My Boyfriend mean?” asked my mum, confused.

I did not sleep much that night, no matter how many times I tried to assure myself I have a year to save up for it, and I’d regret not going. Then, the next day, I ordered an “Anti-Hero” friendship bracelet to wear to the show. I hate myself.

So, yes, happy though I am to have a ticket, this was obviously an act of extreme financial irresponsibility for me, having somehow managed to go from, “I’m not even going to TRY to get tickets, because I can’t afford them,” to, “I’ll remortgage the house if I have to,” in the space of just a few weeks. Or hours, even.

Something has to change, folks. I cannot go on like this. And as my plan to become fabulously wealthy so I can afford the lifestyle I want has so far come to nothing, it’s looking more and more like I’m going to have to try to live within my means instead.

GULP.

Going forward, then, I think I’m going to use this section of the newsletter as a kind of money diary, where I will list everything I buy (with the exception of bills and household expenses like groceries, etc), no matter how trivial. I feel like seeing it all written down, and being forced to be accountable to someone other than myself (And, let’s face it, “myself” isn’t exactly a good influence, is she?) might help here, so, starting next week, the “BUYING” section will have a focus on NOT buying, and I will do my best to be sensible, even though I really want a Cardigan bracelet, too. Yes.

TRYING

Every time I go somewhere more picturesque than where I live, I start to convince myself I have a shot at making Instagram work for me again, and that’s how I came to find myself switching on their new “Subscriptions” option, which is like Substack — or, well, Only Fans, I suppose — in that followers can pay to subscribe to “exclusive” content.

(Er, mine is nothing like Only Fans, just FYI. Just putting that out there so no one can accuse me of mis-selling…)

“OMG, Amber, not ANOTHER thing you want us to pay for!” I hear you scream in frustration. But no. Well, I mean, YES, ideally. But mostly no. I am not expecting anyone to subscribe to my Instagram. But having a more private space to post photos that don’t necessarily match my “theme”, or Stories I don’t feel able to share publicly, say, has actually made me start enjoying Instagram again, for the first time in years.

So far, I’ve been using my Secret Second Grid (Which you access by tapping the little crown icon on my profile) as a kind of photo diary. I’ve been posting every day, and even though there’s absolutely no interaction there, the fact that I’m not expecting any has been quite freeing, really. I think one of the things that’s been holding me back lately, both on Instagram and on the blog, is the knowledge that literally everyone I know will see every single thing I post, and feel obliged to react to it; which is awkward and exhausting, and makes me feel like I have to censor everything — or over-think it, at least.

I wrote a bit about that here, if you’re particularly interested, but it’s one of the reasons I like Substack so much (Most of the Real Life people haven’t found it yet, in other words…), and it’s also why I’ve been so quick to embrace subscription-only content on Instagram, even though I know perfectly well that very few people are going to want to subscribe to it. It might seem counterintuitive for someone who has lived almost her entire adult life online, and even made a living as an “influencer”, to want to actively stop people seeing some content, but it makes a weird kind of sense to me, so I guess we’ll see how it goes. Or doesn’t go, as the case will more likely be…

Finally…

This weekend we’re headed down to Kent to spend a week with Terry’s family there, so there’ll be no newsletter while we’re away. Max goes back to school a couple of days after we get back, though, so I’m really hoping to be able to get back into a proper routine again then. Like, really hoping.

The summer holidays have so far been easier than I’d anticipated, but I’ve hated being out of my routine, and have been having to spend a lot of time cleaning and decluttering, just so I can feel like I’m still in control (And also because there’s normally a gang of kids in the house, to be fair…), which has been… not very fun.

The near-constant rain we came home to hasn’t helped much either, of course, and has made this week feel a bit like being back in lockdown again, only with all of Max’s friends in the house with us. So even though I have at least a millionty-one things I should be getting on with before we head off again, I’m finding it almost impossible to motivate myself to do any of them, because all I want to do is sleep. And, well, drink, I guess. But a rainy summer holiday means I’m never more than a few minutes away from the next major cleaning/tidying project, so I should probably go and deal with that, while secretly thinking about this:

Until next time, folks…