The Awkward Girl's Guide to the Week | In Which There Are Bedazzled Victorian Governesses
Three words I never expected to have to type together...
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 to lately. These posts are free to all subscribers, but a paid subscription will help keep me out of the Victorian workhouse, allow me to continue creating content for you, and also help you find that thing you wanted in the Black Friday sales.1
Speaking of Black Friday, I’m offering 50% off paid subscriptions today only, because I’m nice like that, so if a half-price subscription to this newsletter is the thing you wanted, you got it:
So, let the record show I completed NaNoWriMo — on Tuesday, actually. I’m sort of proud of myself, because 50,000 words in 21 days is quite impressive, really, but I’m also kind of not, because, like I said the last time I brought this up, this is literally my job, so I feel a bit like I’m asking for a medal just for doing what I’d have done anyway.
Me this week
One thing I’ve learned about me, though, is that if you give me a totally made-up goal or deadline I will literally break a leg trying to meet it — and, indeed, beat it — so, on second thoughts, this many words is probably not what I’d have done anyway. I mean, if I could write this many words EVERY month I’d be producing something like 6 books a year and then they’d finally love me.
One of the reasons I’ve been making such good progress with this particular book, though, is that it’s the sequel to this one, which is about a girl from the Highlands who ends up fake-dating a celebrity — so just a relatable look at real life, really.
This makes it quite fun for me to write, because I spend a lot of time thinking about celebrities and what their lives must be like: not so much the OMGGLAMOUR of it, but more just the little mundane things, like who packs their suitcase(s) when they go on a trip? Because I feel like if you were a celebrity, you probably wouldn’t want to have to faff around packing suitcases all the time, but, then again, I also know that if I were a celebrity, I’d probably be the super-controlling kind who’d want to pick out all my outfits myself, so all my staff would hate me, basically.
This is a very real imaginary worry of mine, not even joking.
Other questions I have about celebrities:
Do they have a full set of clothes etc in each one of their houses, or do they have to bring stuff with them every time they switch homes? It would obviously make sense to just have sets of clothes clothes in every house you own, but, at the same time, it would also be annoying to really want to wear that particular sweater you love, say, then realize it’s in your house in Aspen, and you’re in LA.
Would you just buy two or three of everything, then, so you always had access to your ‘favourites’?
Do the assistants/bodyguards etc get to travel first class (assuming there’s no private jet involved), or are they just stuck in economy? Would that not be a bit awkward? Do they get to stay in the luxury hotels with the celebs, or are they in a Premier Inn somewhere nearby?
If you’re out somewhere with your bodyguard and you decide to stop for a coffee, say, does he sit with you, or does he have to sit at another table on his own? Is THAT not awkward? Or would it be even MORE awkward if you felt you had to invite him to sit with you, even though you really just wanted to read your book/scroll your phone/be alone with your thoughts?
If you’re ordering something online, do you put your own (celebrity) name on the package, or do you use a made-up name so the Evri delivery guy doesn’t know it’s you, and tell everyone where you live?
NDAs. At what point when you’re starting to get close to someone do you ask them to sign a non-disclosure agreement? Because I feel like that could be a real mood-killer, really.
On the Eras tour, how is the clothing handled? Like, I’m assuming Taylor has multiple versions of everything she wears, rather than everything having to get laundered after every single show, but how often does it all have to be replaced? Especially all those Christian Louboutin boots that aren’t really designed for heavy use? How many pairs does she get through per month, say? Can I get an approximate cost for that?
Ultimately, I just need someone to make a documentary about celebrity lives, and I need it to be less about how they drink Cristal with Jay-Z in the VIP section, and more about how they manage their laundry, plus the logistics of having multiple homes all over the world. Thanks in advance.
[The rest of this post contains affiliate links. Please don’t hate me…]
READING
Guys, I gave up on How to Kill Your Family. I know. It’s not often I DNF (Did Not Finish) a book, but the clue was kind of in the title with this one, so it will come as no surprise that I only made it to the first murder, and that was it for me. It was just too bleak and… well, murdery, really.
This is not, you understand, a criticism of the book itself. I mean, I’m assuming that if I’d continued with it, I’d have started to find the main character a bit more sympathetic (If not exactly likeable,; I get that we’re not really supposed to like her…) and there would have been a much better justification for the rest of the murders than there was for the first one. As it was, though, I could understand why she would dislike — or even hate — her victims, but killing them seemed a bit much, really (YA DON’T SAY?), which made it all seem kind of gratuitous, and just way too depressing for my delicate sensibilities right now.
That’s on me, though. Like I said last week, I knew what I was getting into here, and I can’t really blame a book that’s blatantly about killing people to have a bit too much killing in it, so if that sounds like your thing, go for it…
The other reason I quit How To Kill Your Family, though, was that I found out there was a sequel to The Family Upstairs, which I read and loved a few weeks ago, and, of course, I immediately had to buy it. It’s called The Family Remains, and it picks up where the previous book left off, to my very great joy.
These two books also have some pretty dark themes (including murder), so I’d hardly class them a “light reads” either, but the characters are significantly more interesting/sympathetic to me, so I’m desperate to know what happens to them. Which I hopefully will have done by the time my next newsletter comes out…
WATCHING
The Crown, Season 6
The Crown has long been one of my guilty TV pleasures, but the longer it goes on, and the closer it gets to “modern times”, the less comfortable I am with it.
This latest season revolves almost exclusively around the last weeks of Princess Diana, and although I was never a particular fan of Diana’s (For no reason other than that she was OLD, and thus not very interesting to me. Also, the press always referred to her as a “fashion icon”, but Gillian and Kirsty from school would NEVER have worn any of the things Princess Di wore, so how could that even be possible?), but this season was just so blatantly made-up that it got me questioning the ethics of depicting real people, who can’t object, or give their side of the story.
And, yes, obviously this was the case for everyone else The Crown has ever depicted, so I’m a giant hypocrite for only feeling uncomfortable about it now, but, of course, I’ve never claimed NOT to be a giant hypocrite, so take from that what you will.
TRYING
This sequin skirt, which everyone on Instagram seemed to love, but which was so long on me it made me feel like a bedazzled Victorian governess, who’s finally been invited to spend Christmas with the family, rather than in her lonely attic room, with the pet mouse she tamed just to have someone to talk to:
It’s supposed to be a “midaxi”, which is a made-up word meaning “a cross between midi and maxi”, but, as you can see, it’s fully ankle-length on me, which felt a little bit too formal for the kind of events I tend to get invited to, even at Christmas. If you are a Victorian governess — or know one — however, I can definitely recommend it, especially when paired with this jumper, which is v v sparkly, and thus Much Nicer in Real Life.
I’m very happy to be dominating the much neglected “Victorian Governess Gift Guide” section of the internet with this post. I mean, someone has to do it, right?
BUYING
After many long weeks of searching, and endlessly hitting “refresh” on the Adidas website, I finally managed to score myself a pair of Sambas:
“Those are football shoes,” said Terry, who knows nothing. “All my friends have them. For football.”
“They are fasssssshion ssssshoes,” I hissed, clutching them to my chest like Gollum with The One Ring. “I lovesssss them.”
And I do.
I would love them MORE, of course, if I’d managed to get them in the Black Friday sale, but, of course, these were exempt from the sale, and that’s one of the many reasons I hate Black Friday. The other one is that it’s just so inconvenient, really. It’s at the end of the month, when I never have any money left, but then everything goes on sale and starts to sell out, so I end up panicking and thinking that if I don’t buy that thing NOW I’ll never get the opportunity again — which is exactly what they want you to think, isn’t it?
WRITING
In this week’s post for paid subscribers I try the weird Instagram trend of wearing a sweater tied over the shoulders of your coat, to see if it works in “real” life, or just on Instagram:
The Awkward Girl's Guide to Wearing Sweaters Over Coats
Of all the people I admire on Instagram — and there are a lot of them — there’s no group I admire more than the women who wear sweaters knotted jauntily over the shoulders of their thick wool coats. (Like THIS.) (Which, OK, is an image from Pinterest, not Instagram, but samesame.)
(SPOILER: It’s just on Instagram. Who would’ve THUNK?)
And, with that, I have to go and write at least 2,380 words by the end of the day: because NaNoWriMo may be over, but this book still ain’t finished…
Until next week,
I have so many of the same questions about celebrities! A friend told me that when Tom Cruise and Katy Holmes got married in Rome, they stayed in a v fancy hotel and everyone else - including their families - was in a much more basic one.
Yes! Why is black Friday now! Could it not be next Friday when I have money again? 🙄