What have you been up to (staying alive, mostly)

The thinking class, TV recommendations, and the weird appeal of farting men

In my last post I went for Christmas presents, and now I’ve got my sights on something else. I don’t know if I’ll have any sway on this issue, or whether I can get Mum on board to make it happen, but having just been to my first Christmas do in — actually, several years — seeing people I have not seen in — actually, several years — I came up against the worst of all questions, and I would like it banned.

No, not ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ (people know the deal now) or ‘How’s work…’

You know what it is, don’t you?

What have you been up to?

Yup.

What have you been up to?

It’s four years since you last saw me and so you’re just going to throw that question out there and see what I give you back.

Well, Jim. What can I tell you? I’ve been breathing, sleeping, eating, working, crying, farting, shagging, sleeping some more, watching Netflix, drinking coffee, worrying about my career and the state of world, comfort eating a lot, spending quite a lot of time in bed sick wondering if my future is down the toilet…

Still with me, Jim?

I put on weight, lost weight, got a wattle, woke up one day and realised I was now a middle aged woman… I bought a heated blanket, joined a woman’s group, go to the sauna when I’m well enough - yes, saunas are very big here - and I’ve done a lot of washing up, took some stuff to the charity shop… cancelled a lot of subscriptions lately… tried using chat gpt for therapy…

Jim? Jim? You have to leave? OK!

But seriously, how do you answer that question? I mean if I last saw you on Friday, I think you can give an answer but after four years? What have you been up to?

My mind goes blank. What have I been up to? I don’t know whether to gee myself up to give the success story version: I put out a book! I’m writing a screenplay for the TV series, yeah, all’s great! Or the grim version: had long covid, spent most of the last couple of years in bed wondering if I would ever be able to work or live normally again…

And so I went for ‘staying alive’ which is better than ‘this and that’ but I think a bit bleaker than you are meant to sound at a Christmas do.

Can we just ban that question please? Please? Santa, baby?

IN OTHER NEWS

THE NEW THINKING CLASS

This made me think on Instagram. Brene Brown talking about the new ‘thinking class’. She says that if you ask a tech billionaire what should my kids study, they’ll say they should study coding, physics. But if you ask them to what do you attribute your success, the same person will say, my deep reading of philosophy and the stoics.

She wonders if: ‘there is a thinking class that’s emerging where they’re like, we’re going to read philosophy and we’re going to read the liberal arts and we’re going to study history, and the rest of you just keep scrolling.’ She talks about Steve Jobs famously not letting his kids have iPads, and I think most tech guys don’t let their kids use tech at home. The rest of us, however, are hooked.

It reminds me of that David Foster Wallace quote about us being ‘entertained to death’. I am on a ‘no TV, just reading’ kick… we’ll see how long it lasts but I am really starting to not like the crap that I’m putting into my mind. I think it finally happened! I finally had my fill of grim serial killer dramas starring depressed police men with broken marriages having a shoot out in an abandoned abattoir. Woohoo. Progress.

TELEVISION RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE NON-THINKING CLASS (ME)

But before I stopped, let me tell you what I was watching…

The new (ish) Slow Horses was flawless and brilliant. Well, I don’t know if it was flawless, everything has flaws but I loved the last series. And also, slightly disturbingly, I fancy the main guy. Yup, the farting, greasy haired genius that is whatshisface.

What makes it even more wrong is that he reminds me of my dad. I told mum that. ‘He wasn’t that bad,’ mum said, before adding that my sister had said the same thing.

But he almost was that bad. Dad would wear a rain mac as a dressing gown, with nothing underneath and lie on the sofa with bare legs poking out of. He left a discoloured patch on the sofa from where his head spent hour after hour and his farts could be heard from the bottom of the garden. ‘Better out than in’ was his motto.

Dad really wanted us to be part of the thinking class. He left school at sixteen and was obsessed with education. ‘They can take everything away from you but they can’t take that…’ he’d say. If you asked him what he was doing lying on the sofa in his mac, he’d say: ‘thinking’. And he was. He could spend hours looking at the ceiling thinking.

He felt crushed every time he saw his daughters splayed out on the sofa watching Eastenders. ‘All that money on your education and this is what you do…’

Still doing it, dad! Sorry! But hopefully not so much…

But Landman! God, I love it! Billy Bob Thornton as a worn down oil exec with a firecracker wife and a comedy genius cheerleading daughter. It is sublime in parts. There is a scene when his adult son is kicked out by his girlfriend and he goes to dad for advice. ‘Let me tell you something about a woman,’ says Billy Bob in his delicious Stetson drawl. ‘When they do something irrational, like kick you out of the house, you have to sit em down and give them a give them a good listening to…You listen to everything they say and you remember it and you make it happen.’

A good listening to! Yum.

We have not yet seen Billy Bob fart but when he does my heart will be his.

CHARM ON A STICK, OR RATHER THE STREETS

And this made me smile. I love this man so, so, so much. I would like to stand on the street doing what he does but I could not be so inventive and witty with the compliments. What a gem of a human. If we had someone like this on every street corner, the world would be an entirely different place.

This was a lovely article on being ordinary.

EAT, PRAY, LOVE GOES WILD

And very unordinary: I read Liz Gilbert’s new book All the Way to the River, about her love affair with a woman dying of cancer and wow, she really said some things in the book that I did not expect. I stopped reading her last book, City of Girls, a few chapters in - but I really enjoyed this. It’s about love addiction and drug addiction and what happens when they combine. Spoiler: plots to murder and a lot of drugs. Really, a wild book.

Ok thanks for reading the last few posts. It feels nice to be back at it after patchy service.

xx

JOURNALLING WORKHOPS

Goodbye 2025 and Hello 2026 - These two journalling sessions are the perfect way to end the year and to welcome in the new year. In Goodbye 2025 we look back at the year that’s been and take stock of what happened, what we learned, what we enjoyed, what we didn’t love so much. We let go of the year and all its gifts and disasters.

Then in Hello 2026 we look forward to the year that’s ahead and think about how we want to feel, what we might like to do more of, what plans we would like to make. Both sessions are online so you can join from anywhere and they are very relaxed. You come, we scribble together and drink tea and take time to mark the end of the year and the beginning of the new one. You never read anything out loud - everything you write is just for you - and you do not need to be a writer to do them. If you can write a text you can do these sessions.

I am doing them in partnership with a brilliant journal called, well, Goodbye 2025, Hello 2026 by Selina Barker. I recommend getting a journal before the session but you don’t need to. And even if you are not interested in the sessions, I recommend her journal full stop. I do it every year. It’s become a ritual in that Betwixmas bit of Christmas.

There are different date options so you can fit them in round your partying / tv / recluse schedule. Lovely to see familiar names signing up already and new names too. All welcome, and if there are a few of you at home you can do it together.

I will also be bringing back The Artist’s Way next year, starting January 20th. Link to come.

Mx