My family - sounds a bit silly, obviously I didn’t not love them before, but I appreciate them more.
Collecting foreign currency - it’s a proper geeky habit and I am that person who’s like LET ME SHOW YOU MY FOLDER every time someone comes over.
Drag Race Thailand S2 - it’s such a joyful celebration of humanity, artistry, and queerness, focuses so much more on storytelling and spectacle than the English language versions, and is inclusive of trans women performers (the two participants of whom are incredible competitors).
Listening to albums - this is more of a re-learning to love. I don’t listen to many still but I’ve discovered The Sophtware Slump, Her Wallpaper Reverie, Dusk at Cubist Castle, SAWAYAMA, Fetch The Bolt Cutters, etc etc as well as going back to old favourites.
Myself amazingly. Learned a lot about nonviolent communcation and compassion therapy, and I am happy to be better about not bearing down on myself when I don’t do something.
And since it’s menless monday, let’s give a shoutout to Mary Lattimore, Carmen Villain, Emily A Sprague, Annie Hart, Nalia Hunter, and Ana Roxanne who have all made things just a bit better inside my head
I think a lot of it has just been having that extra time to be able to focus better on things and appreciate music or a book or a film or whatever. Not sure how to explain it, I think it’s something that will carry on after lockdown - just cause I think now was a chance to not be so anxious about my free time (not sure if that makes sense).
I think family and friends too, I’m a bit of a hermit weirdo in a lot of ways but I think it’s brought home the importance of having people to talk ramblingly to
Not wearing make up. I know this sounds a bit ridiculous but before lockdown whilst I would happily leave the house and go shopping or see friends without make up on, I would never go to work not wearing it. At the beginning of lockdown I would put make up on just to attend online meetings but I gradually started not bothering and now I regularly go weeks without putting any make up on and I’ve learned to like my face without it. I enjoy wearing make up but it definitely felt like a chore putting it on for work meetings.
Making sourdough bread, obviously!
Dedicated down time. I think before lockdown I didn’t think about this as much but constantly being at home and blurring the lines between work time and personal time forced me to give this some thought and now I regularly give myself time off where I don’t put any pressure on myself to do anything.
I never thought I would say this, but wearing a bra
I always used to take my bra off as soon as I could after getting home and go braless until I needed to go out again. Years ago I used to wear non-wired ones at home but when my favourite styles were discontinued I couldn’t find a good replacement so I just left it.
After a couple of weeks of never leaving the house in early lockdown I started to find it uncomfortable so I got some non-wired bras and found a style that was comfortable enough and now I wear those all the time.
I love my parents and everything, but if I’m honest, it’s taken a lot of stress away not having to deal with them quite as often.
My girls regularly hug trees they pass in the street. It’s something they’ve just picked up on their own and is lovely to see but there’s been a couple of times we’ve had to take the hose to their shoes when we’ve got home
My house. We bought a fixer upper in Feb 2019. It needed rewiring, central heating, new kitchen, new bathroom and full redecoration. It hadn’t been touched since the 1960s and had no real kitchen to speak of. I also had a kid in July 2019, when it was nowhere near finished.
Living here while heavily pregnant with no bathroom, surrounded by dust, then with a young baby and a half finished kitchen and all our stuff in boxes for over a year kind of made me hate it. Being forced to spend time here and getting the work completed slowly but surely (and doing it ourselves) has really made me love it. It’s still not done, but I can see how nice it will be when it is, and that feels good!
Genuinely amazing musician. Lauren Laverne played one of the tracks off At the Dam a few years ago on that Introducing show and I fell in love with it. Was lucky enough to see ML at the Lexington in the Before Times. Fuck knows how she got it up that tiny stairwell and onto the stage.
