Hi ! Welcome back. Happy Women’s Day, if you’re in SA. (I consider it another meaningless day, like Valentines Day). This week I am thinking and writing about snow days, shower thoughts, small talk, stupid spellcheck, time-off, new phones, horrible movies and - as a bonus - lots of curated links to a good weekend reads - Eve D.❣️

Week in review…

☀️ I had a good week! August is flying past, and I took the week to finish up some odds and ends at work, but also to relax. The weather is approaching the cusp at just the right pace for me to start anticipating summer, which I am very much looking forward to (although I will be bitching about the heat just as much as I bitch about the cold)

📵 For the better part of this year I had moved my mobile life to a near-dumb phone from which I slowly removed all non-essential apps, one by one until I ended up with only Substack under the “optional” category. And you know what? That worked out great and I totally get the appeal of the “dumb phone” movement. Specifically, I saved a lot of time by not being able to doom-scroll at a moment’s notice (I still could, technically, but I needed to actually go and get the iPad to do it). Unfortunately, this week I realised I needed AI capability on my phone. So I had to upgrade. Now I have a “big big” phone, and it has all the apps, but I am hoping I have cured myself of mindless social media. The other upside is I now have a good camera (I think), so I will take more photos (at some point). 

🤔 Speaking of AI and digital intelligence, I typed this into Whatsapp (see below) and then went mad trying to figure out how to actually spell the word “piece”. It’s funny how quickly I went into mental meltdown. I thought I had Iost my mind (but in fact, it was just AI trying to take it away from me). 

🥳 On Thursday night I had the house to myself for five hours, and to give you an idea how hectic my life is: I think that was the first time that happened this year. (I spent it watching The Bear, and then rearranging the kitchen cupboards. WTF?). (The Bear is phenomenal, btw. I so, so, so recommend it.)

Food for thought:

Shower thoughts: 

🚿 I'm tired of how the exclamation mark and question mark are next to each other on the mobile keyboard. I often press the wrong one by mistake, then send, then horror when the whole mood and meaning of my message changes...Examples: “Happy Birthday!” vs “Happy Birthday?”; “You look beautiful?” vs “You look beautiful!”; “I can’t wait?” vs “I can’t wait!”. This happens to me all the time.

🚿 This is literally a shower thought: It’s stupid that, since we should shampoo twice but condition once, the conditioner bottles are same size as shampoo. It means I sometimes buy conditioner with my shampoo, and sometimes I don’t. This mismatch leads to problems. I only mention this because I ran out of conditioner this morning, and I was not happy.

🚿 I know this is a mystery as old as time, but honestly where do the socks go??? I only mention this because I just bought five new pairs of ankle socks and now I have …none? Related: from now on, I am buying one colour of socks only, so when one of the pair goes missing, I will still be able to assemble some pairs to wear.

🚿 I hate traffic. And I hate stupid, slow drivers who block the road. But I most hate overtaking them and them being the tortoise in the Tortoise and Hare story and catching up to me at every traffic light. Stupid karma can kiss my ass.

Options of smalltalk

Hate small talk? Me too. And I especially hate the fact that whenever I am in the middle of a new group of people, I am usually the one that has to hold the group together with conversation because most people have lost the ability to socialise (and I barely had the skill to start off with). Also: I mostly don’t like people, so this is an extra massive drain on me. So I was excited to see this article that suggested 132 ways to fill gaps in small-talk conversation. Unfortunately it turned out that most of the suggestions are things like “Have you ever farted in a lift?“ and “If you had a soundtrack to your life, what would it be?“ and “What biscuit do you most identify with?“. I am telling you now: you ask me such stupid shit, and I will stare at you, sigh deeply, roll my eyes and literally turn on my heel and walk away. Nevertheless, there were some good ideas in that list. Here are some, with my answers in brackets:

• Have you ever experienced a friendship break-up? (I have. I could write a book about the experience!)

• If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change about your life (My lack of live-in butler)

• Favourite holiday you’ve ever been on? (I’ve never had a holiday I have not enjoyed )

• What’s the one thing in your house you don’t think anyone else has? (A dead cheetah? (Not mine!) A dead karakul? (Not mine!) Lisa (All mine!))

• What’s keeping you busy this week? (My mental load of all the shit I have to remember to do, otherwise three lives fall apart in a tangled mess )

• How would you rate your day out of 10 so far and why? (An 8. I am sitting at G’s dining table, glass of wine in hand, writing. And there’s a fireplace. Bliss).

• What’s one thing that surprised you about today? (That I can still write a newsletter while two glasses of wine down. Maybe?)

• What’s a totally normal thing you have never done?  (Watched Star Wars)

Give yourself a Snow Day…

I spent the last year of high school in the US (technically it was an extra year, because I started two months before the end of the year I would have matriculated in SA), at a boarding school. Within months of my arrival, we were neck deep in snow and although I was quite used to snow (I lived in Poland and Austria) I was not quite used to what happens when a bunch of hormonal and moody boarding teenagers have to live together during the sad days of winter. Within weeks we were all ready to kill each other, tensions running high and dire moods all around. To make matters worse, since we all lived on campus there were no official "snow days"...you know, those days when schools are closed because of heavy snowfall and dangerous driving conditions. We studied where we lived, so the snow could fall as much as it wanted to and we still had to show up to class.

Except that, to my very great surprise and relief, our headmaster would randomly declare a "snow day" even when there was no snow. It was glorious! We’d wake up tired and bitter, dreading the day and we'd be told to...go back to sleep if we wanted to. No school! Go have fun! Who wants to go skiing? (Me!, I’d shout)

Those unofficial snow days were the best. We could do what we wanted, and funny enough what we wanted to was to hang out with the very people we hated the day prior. We had snowball fights, played board games, caught upon sleep, talked to our teachers like they were our best friends (they often were!) and yes, we even went skiing.

These days were reviving because they were unexpected, indulgent and came at just the right time. Today I understand what the headmaster was doing...he knew losing a day of school was totally worth it because it would restore our motivation and will-to- live. We’d come back to class happier, friendlier and more attentive. It worked.

And this week I was listening to an episode of My First Million and one of the hosts said he gives himself twenty “Carefree Days” a year. A Carefree Day is basically a Snow Day: he takes the day off work, and does whatever he wants, the quirkier the better. In his case, it's not lie-in-bed but rather something novel. The example he gave was of a time he hired a pro basketball coach to train him for the day on how to shoot hoops properly.

Twenty Creative Days a year is about one in 2 weeks, give or take a holiday here or there. And I like this. The trick, I think, is in the "novel" part. This shouldn't just be an "off work" day, it should be a "do something you haven't done before" day. I'm going to try! Here are some things I'd like to do:

• spend a day in a pottery studio

• spend the day on a horse

• go on a full day writing retreat

• learn how to dice onions, from an actual chef

• while we at it, learn how to cook one holy cow this is amazing! meal, from an actual chef

• take my best friends out to a five-star lunch, and champagne

Imagine having twenty days like this, per year. I challenge you!

And bonus: because it's a once-off, I give myself full permission to suck at whatever the day holds, and full permission to have no further expectations for myself. I must just go, have fun, and repeat if desired. Who could resist?

Weekend Reading: 

{Side note: G told me he clicked on one of my “must reads” from last week, and that it was a useless read because it was a whole long article for just one punchline, which I had already given, anyway. He’s right! I am going to do better. From now on, if I share something to watch or read it will be because I believe there is definite benefit to reading it, although of course I cannot guarantee that you’ll enjoy it. Also, to be clear: my target audience here is midlife women, not G :-). I know there are men who read this newsletter (surprisingly, quite a few!), but that’s not who I am writing for/to.  }

Without further ado, here are my reading recommendations for the weekend:

📕 I’m not self-optimizing anymore. Yes! Lyz is tired of all the shit women have to go through to exist. “This week, I learned that I need to wrap my face in shapewear. I already need to be taping my mouth shut; eating more protein; taking more supplements; wearing a weighted vest on my walks; lifting more; doing Pilates; running less; putting spring water on my face in the mornings, running faster; using lasers on my face; getting Botox, lip filler, chemical peels, hydrafacials and wellness shots…” . I agree! The list of things we should be doing is endless and complicated, and often conflicting. I need a break.

📕 8 tips for lasting love. These are surprisingly good. I think all eight apply, although I will admit I am clearly not an expert on the subject. Here is a teaser: “High expectations, in fact any expectations are probably not a good idea. Go with what is, not what you might have imagined”.

📕 Gather your people anyway. We make it difficult on ourselves to entertain, because there might be an expectation that we co-ordinate our dinner plates, have fresh flowers in the foyer, have a foyer, and no unfolded laundry in sight. But this author wants you to reconsider: she urges you to make entertaining easy. Make double of what you’d normally make for dinner, and invite over the neighbour. G does this, in a way: unpretentious dinners, always a massive success. We should just all ease up a bit, and maybe we should also delete Instagram and not watch Meghan Markle’s show.

📕 The Shift with Sam Barker. This is a great paid newsletter, and Sam has opened up her her top 5 articles so you can read them for free, but for this weekend only. The link will take you to articles about libido and atrophy; painful periods; blowing up your life; really angry women; and why everyone is getting divorced.

I’ve been watching…

This week we watched The Ipcress File (1965). It’s an old spy movie, that supposedly launched Michael Cane’s career. It has superb ratings everywhere, including Rotten Tomatoes, but I hated it. It was annoying, and stupid, and slow, and just not fun. They made two sequels and then started a TV series on it recently, and I want to know…why??? Whatever! Don’t watch it, or if you do don’t come crying to me.

Looking ahead…

This coming week, it’s all systems go at work (I’m cooking up some things). G is going away for the week on a very serious hike (I’ve just heard him have a twenty minute conversation with his fellow-hikees about the best way to tie shoelaces), and he will be non-comunicado. Gives me a chance to hunker down and work without pesky interruptions 😂 . I am planning to watch the second season of The Bear, and maybe fit in a long hike, but no promises to myself.

Thanks for reading!

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P.S.