The Awkward Girl's Guide to the Week | In which I am not waving, but drowning

Everything I've been reading, watching, and otherwise getting up to this week

Hi, it’s Amber, and this is The Awkward Girl’s Guide to the Week: my regular roundup of everything I’ve been reading, watching, and otherwise getting up to. This post is free to all subscribers, but a paid subscription will give you access to exclusive, subscriber-only content, and allow me to keep creating content for you. It will also make you my new favourite person, so thank you in advance for supporting my work!

Photo by Mourad Saadi on Unsplash

So, I’ve had four — FOUR — separate social obligations this week (three down, one still to go), and it would be totally fair, and not even remotely hyperbolic to say that I am DECEASED because of this.

FOUR social obligations.

This is intolerable.

Can you even imagine how much time I’m going to have to spend locked in my room reading books to recover from this? Or how unlikely it is that I’ll actually get this time I crave? Or how much this has messed with my hair-washing routine? Or whether I will ever stop asking these questions that only I can answer, and just get on with the damn post already?

I also had two — TWO — migraines this week.

I feel like these events (the four and the two) are not unconnected.

“I just want the world to back off for a bit,” I told my husband as the second migraine finally receded, leaving me feeling fuzzy-headed and sorry for myself. “I want people to stop emailing me and talking to me, and expecting me to do multiple things at the same time, when I can barely even do one thing at one time.”

But the world does not back off, and I would very much like to know how Other People cope with it. Because we’re only two weeks into the new school term and already I feel like I’m being pulled under by the laundry and the school run and the book deadline and the newsletters I said I’d write and the TO DO lists and the nonstop freaking tidying, and the fact that every day after school there’s a small gang of kids in my house, all shouting and asking for snacks and having arguments over who told who to say “the F word”.

(Which is “shut up”, apparently.)

There’s just so much to DO, though. On top of all of the daily chaff, with the deadlines and the endless laundry, I need to take 10,000 steps, do a Peleton ride, eat more protein, and turn my camera roll into a photo book. I need to clear out Max’s cupboard, read more books, put fake tan on my legs, and I need to figure out what to have for dinner every single day. Without exception.

Oh, and I also have to write this newsletter. So maybe I should get on with that?

READING

This week I finally finished Really Good, Actually, and immediately headed over to Amazon so I could read the reviews and reassure myself that everyone thought the same things about it as I did. And, the crazy thing was, a lot of them didn’t.

I thought the book was amazing. As in, I read it with a highlighter beside me at all times, so I could highlight my favorite sections and remember them forever. I have literally never related to a fictional character so hard. I loved it. But, on Amazon, there were a lot of 3 star reviews from people saying it had no real plot, or they didn’t like the main character (Yes, the one I very much related to… oh.), or that there were too many OMG, SWEAR WORDS. (To be fair, this was the American site I was on. No one from the UK is going to complain about swearing. Other than Max and his fellow 5-year-olds, obviously.)

I was shook. And actually quite encouraged, really, because it just goes to show how differently people can see the same thing, doesn’t it? And how wrong some of them are meaningless people’s opinions of books can be. And yes, I’m talking about ME and MY books now. I mean, I don’t ever read the reviews of my books, because, look, I almost delete my Substack every time someone unsubscribes from it, does it sound like I’m resilient enough to read my own reviews? (Pleasedon’tunsubscribefrommySubstack) But I read other people’s, and it helps me understand that a negative review doesn’t necessarily mean a book is bad — which is important information to have as an author.

Anyway, Really Good, Actually was not bad. It was… well, really good, actually. And I didn’t even think there was that much swearing…

WATCHING

Because of all the socialising and the migraines, I’ve not had time to watch much TV this week — which is actually a good thing, because on Tuesday the TV broke down and had to be taken away to be repaired/replaced, so I wouldn’t have been able to watch it anyway. (Luckily it’s still in warranty, so no cost to us, other than Max’s distress when he came home from school and the living room wall was bare…)

I did, however, head into Edinburgh on Thursday, to see my cousin Melissa perform in The Beatles Were a Boyband at the Fringe:

That’s my cousin in the pink. She was brilliant. And the show (which is primarily about activism and gender-based violence, so be aware of that if you decide to see it) was hard-hitting and thought-provoking, and made me cry at the end, so it was brilliant too — especially all of the social media and Taylor Swift references. It still has a few days to run, so if you’re planning to be in Edinburgh this weekend, go check it out.

LISTENING

If you read my newsletter a couple of weeks ago, you’ll know I’ve replaced the “buying” section of these roundups with Monday’s ‘Money Diaries’ posts (explanation of that here, if you’re particularly interested), as part of my bid to tackle my shopping addiction and get out of debt. Not shopping means I think I’m also going to have to retire the “trying” section, however — because no “buying” means very little “trying” basically — so I thought I’d replace them with a new ‘listening’ section, where I’ll share one of my favourite songs each week. So you’ll either have the opportunity to discover something new, or to look down on me for my bad taste, like that one woman who commented on my post about getting Taylor Swift tickets to make sure I felt appropriately judged for liking something she doesn’t.

Anyway!

Music is actually one of the great loves of my life, but, for some reason, it’s something I rarely seem to talk about (other than the Taylor obsession, obviously, which I will try my best to dial down for these posts), so here’s the amazing Leith Ross, who will proceed to sing my life… (Listen here, if for some reason the embed option doesn’t work…)

I get my food delivered and my books sent to my door
And I don't talk to people anymore

Until next time, kids.