I’m trying to not be disappointed by my lack of reading this year. In 2021 I got through 10 books, which feels pathetic compared to 2020’s 25, but I’m reminding myself that circumstances are very different. My new year’s resolution is to bring back to slow mornings of the previous year, I want to wake up earlier and allow myself some quiet reading time in bed with the morning light. But commuting and my TikTok obsession constantly threatens any attempt at reforming the habit.

What I will say is that I think I really engaged with the books I read this year, diving deep into each one rather than feeling like I skimmed past them in a week or so. I ticked off some reads I’d been wanting to tackle for year, and found some new favourites as I finally got round to finishing off the book pile I acquired last Christmas and way back in April for my birthday. 10 books is still good, I’m going to keep saying that over and over till I hopefully feel it, repeating it like a mantra as I start to pick out my selection for next year.

#1 Let Us Compare Mythologies – Leonard Cohen

Everyone knows how much I adore Leonard Cohen so it was about time I picked up his first ever collection. But what I was met with was something vastly different some any other Cohen I’d read. While his later stuff is silly and light-hearted, tossing out all rules of what poetry should be or look like, Let Us Compare Mythologies follows them to the letter. It’s very literary, as though Cohen originally planned to follow the path of the greats like Keats or whoever, before branching off to find his own voice. While it was definitely still beautiful, and still had hints of the classic Cohen voice, it wasn’t as charming as his older works. I’d still recommend Book Of Longing for a first Cohen read, but I’m enjoying diving into his back catalogue regardless. What a man.

#2 Nina Simone’s Gum – Warren Ellis

After a crisis with my original flat in London, I sat down the next day with a coffee and a cookie and read all 200+ pages cover to cover. Hyper-focussed to block out the stress and upset, I couldn’t think of a better book to accompany me. I haven’t read a book like this, maybe ever. So simple and so sweet and so unique, Nina Simone’s Gum tells the story of exactly that. After a performance in 1999, Warren Ellis climbed on stage and stole Nina’s chewed gum right from her piano, and kept it with him ever since. Kept close as a strange little relic or lucky charm, the book follows Warren’s mission to have the gum cast in gold, weaving in and out with tales from his career and anecdotes that will restore all your belief in human kindness. Encountering so many people desperate to help him in his mission to protect and preserve the memento, I couldn’t stop reading. It’s not that the story is gripping in its plot, but the conversational tone made it a page turner as I was eager to continue the cosy conversation me and Warren were having. By the time I finished, 3 hours later, I honestly could’ve gone back to page 1 and started all over again. Immediately joining my best of the best favourite book list, I haven’t stopped recommending it since.

#3 A Theatre For Dreamers – Polly Samson

You would think it would be difficult to get into a book about a sunny Greek island in the middle of winter in London, but the escapism was heaven. Grabbing a book that had been sitting on my shelf for months as I ran out the door to get a train, I realised it’d been ages since I read some proper fiction. A Theatre For Dreamers was recommended to me after watching a documentary about Leonard Cohen and Marianne on Hydra, and the novel finds its setting there. Including Cohen as a character, it fictionalises that circle of artists and writers, finding a home on the picturesque island. Despite the far off setting and climate totally opposite from my own, something about the book really invites you in. You feel like you’ve been welcomed into the friendship group, and my commutes were quickly transformed into sunny moments of transportation, from a rocky train to a beach.

I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, despite being interested in Hydra and it’s circles, I’d been putting off picking up the book for a long time. But when I finally did, I flew through the book within a week or so, constantly wanting to get back to the dramas of the sunny island.

#4 The Favourite Game – Leonard Cohen

Back on the Cohen hype, this was my first foray into his prose as I picked up his first novel. First published in 1963, it fell out of print for a long, long time, only recently becoming accessible again. And thank god it is. The Favourite Games is odd, yet wildly easy to read. Made up of short chapters, and text that flits between short sentences and long winding poetic prose, I flew through it. Semi-Semi-autobiographical, it follows the life of a young writer from Canada, battling between love and artistic calling. The main character Lawrence Breavman is self-involved and complex, all his relationships feel fleshed out and real, every character full and developed. Nothing is missing, as the plot is just busy enough and just slow enough to leave space for Cohen’s poetry.

Criminally overlooked, I’m going to be shoving this novel under everyone’s noses for a long time.

Next up…

The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller

On my list for 2022 (so far)…

My Year Of Rest And Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

The Fran Lebowitz Reader -Fran Lebowitz

POPism – Andy Warhol

Please send me your recommendations!

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Yesterday I noticed that my childhood bear looked dirty. Pooh Bear, 21 and sat on my new bed with his bald spots suddenly tinged grey, and for a moment I’m flooded with a burning anger for my boyfriend’s dusty room where my bear lived briefly. Taken from home to home, resting proudly in every bed I’ve set my duvet on, when I first moved down to London we were left in waiting for a month. And there’s no way Pooh would be boxed up and put in storage, no way. Parted from all my belongings but a suitcase of clothes, a scrappy bear felt like the one thing I needed.

Once an underwhelming gift, I didn’t care for Pooh Bear much on that Christmas, age 1 and more interested in Barney. Originally full of metal that would bend him into poses, dressed smartly in a red t-shirt that left dents in luscious fluff – now he’s full of shards, occasionally poking through thinning arms as a reminder of his former glory. When my Mum asked if I’d ever get him restored, I couldn’t say no quick enough as his bold spots and holes bring me more comfort than fresh fur ever could. I love his strange face, I love the way his smile has migrated into something sideways and old, I love how certain patches have matted into a kind of velvet. And I think lately I’ve loved him more than ever, feeling almost embarrassingly reconnected to my childhood bear at 23, gripping him tight despite my boyfriend taking up the other pillow, crying if he fell from the bed onto a foreign floor.

During long distance days or earlier teen relationships, Pooh was relegated to a draw each visit with no space for him in the bed. I could probably liken him to a child, needing to become certain of feelings before I introduced bear and suitor. So he stayed out of sight, spending another year shuffling between bed and hiding place as I grew bashful of him. At uni, you rarely see other childhood toys. Maybe we’re all doing the same dance of hiding or maybe some people are simply less sentimental, but I remember feeling shy about his presence but knowing, completely, that I couldn’t do it without him. Moving from Middlesbrough to Sheffield to Manchester to London, taking trips in between for holidays and internships, going back and forth for Christmases and birthdays, this bear might be the truest form of companionship I’ve ever known and god his dirty material makes me want to cry.

When I first reluctantly rolled my suitcase into my partner’s house after finding my new flat flooded, the first feeling was one of grief. After six months of blissfully living alone again, filling each of my walls with my things, writing my name on every corner I could look at with objects that came with an owned by me tag, being separated from my things feel shamefully like losing a piece of myself. When my TikTok algorithm feeds me a clip of minimalism with sweet voices talking about the need to disconnect from material things, I utterly can’t relate. I think there’s a bit of me in everything I own as I used to look around my flat and gush over all the artwork and vinyls and books I’d gifted myself. Raised to scrimp and always consider the value before a purchase, everything has been granted special access, deemed worthy, invited in. For the first week without it, I mourned my coffee machine, my artwork, my record player, my books, my little silly trinkets. I mourned my own space that looked and smelled and felt like mine. I cried the whole first weekend, coughing out a couple of small sad words on the first night – ‘Can Pooh sleep in the bed?’

But we as people lose a lot. In the course of my 23 years, I’ve lost favourite albums to breakups, I’ve lost hobbies and passions, I’ve lost important jewellery and phones and passports. I’ve lost best friends and partners and family. Most the things we love will disappear or die in a pessimistic but true way. Maybe the difference in my love for pooh is that the silly bear is forever. Theres no need to snap pics and post on my Instagram because he’s not fleeting, beyond life phases and changes, his role in my life is almost boring in its solidness. There’s a gentle pleasure in him, something sweet about owning a thing that is so completely pointless and simple, but keeping it so long you’ve embedded a million different functions and needs into it, year by year.

By this point, Pooh will never stop smelling like me, with 21 years of nights pushed into his stuffing. Nothing about him will ever be scary or new or strange as he ages with me. And no matter how many strange beds I held him in or boyfriends that patted his little head, he’s mine. Unleaving, untainted, unchanging in its power to soothe, my childhood toy is the purest form of ownership, the solidest companion, still the best thing I have.

I think this is just my ode to him.

Nearly 4 weeks out from my life in Manchester, and I think the home sickness is starting to kick in. Still, when I fall asleep, I imagine facing the window and hearing the noise of the Northern Quarter. Wake up shocked that I don’t turn right into my kitchen, go down 4 flights of stairs and turn left towards the café, right towards town. Having spent 2 years on autopilot, its turning it off is tricky when navigating a new place still feels clunky. While I cling to google maps in London, here are places I could direct you to even with my eyes closed back in Manchester.

For coffee...

Siop

After an achievement, when a zine with your by-line falls into your mailbox or NME reply to your email, go and get a donut. Put 5 candles in one to celebrate an anniversary of your work. Buy your Dad one when he drives to collect you for Christmas, buy your friend one and take it to a picnic in place of baking. When people visit, collapse there for hangover breakfasts and sit for ours taking in a way that sounds just like ‘we should start a podcast’, but don’t. Pace down the street to be there before they sell out, buy bags of coffee to take the flavour with you.

Just Between Friends

In 2019, the simple coffee sign screamed glamour. Sat there as the weather chilled, being bundled up in a coat feels like the cosiest statement of style. I loved the recycled mugs and how they never quite sat on their coasters. I finished reading Elizabeth Smart there, I’d meet my own flatmate there, slowly learning that the cherry brownies are amazing and living right opposite a café was always what I’d wanted.

In 2020, the sign turned to a statement of necessity, something you’d see in a mirage, an oasis calling out – C O F F E E. Real coffee, foamy milk coffee, properly brewed coffee in a cardboard cup. Coffee to make you feel real, and even a pastry to go with it. Opening as a hatch when everything else was shut, there was a brief period when no one else realised and that coffee felt like supplies from the resistance. I went every day for weeks.

Idle Hands

I have the faint idea that I went to Idle Hands before, back in uni at 18 with a rubbish boyfriend. I got black coffee then and hated it, it was in a much smaller place. I know for a fact I went the day I found my flat, ate pecan pie and wrote a letter. I went Daisy there, it became our place, working our way through the rotations of flavours, sharing with select friends, talking about everything. I’ll always think of her there, Daisy and chocolate cream.

For a drink...

Rose + Monkey

I first went to rose and monkey because it reminded me of The Washington in Sheffield, and now I’m searching for its twin in London. As though an eclectic musician inherited an old pub, I’d get either a Guinness or an aperol, paired with pretzel pieces or a full indian feast. The place to run to in between the various lockdowns, a guy plays guitar to himself in the corner as friends talk in groups. Pouring a pint that Quentin had no complaints about, it had everyone’s stamp of approval.

Night + Day

On New Years Eve 2019, I sat outside Night + Day in a beret, drinking a gin martini and admiring my own life. I laid photobooth pictures of myself down on the metal orange table and snapped a picture. In March, it housed a brief reunion with Sheffield friends before I wouldn’t see them for a year, a night out with Emmie that I remember despite its unremarkability. She danced to kylie, I don’t think I even bought a drink. Unlike the day before my 23^rd birthday, when me and Sophie bought one too many and its house wine coarsed through my veins painfully the next day.

When the sun rolled in and they placed their benches outside as a left over from the days we drank under umbrellas because it was all the government would allow, I never walked home without considering stopping for one, messaging something to say ‘you out?’

Castle Hotel

YES

You meet everyone at YES. Sometime in December 2019, I push myself into the door when the crowd reached it. With shared air only, the night is hazy to remember feeling so foreign now. But I remember meeting daisy and Jamie, them meeting Quentin, creating a group chat and a backbone for a year of only online communication. Then a year of basement cinemas and vegan chicken, two for £8 aperol spirtz, lunches after job interviews, long coming reunions, getting food because you’re there and you might as well, walking 15 minutes in the rain for a cocktail and immediately swapping to £3 beers, whiskey and Guinness in the gig room where it’s always cold. 3 or 4 floors and I don’t think I ever saw them all, too busy laughing and hoping for a seat on the terrace.

For food...

Wolf At The Door

I went to Wolf At the Door one last time, three times. Shrugging and slipping in for a dinner out excused by a why not, adding an extra bao to the order, still eating even as the rain fell around the fragile gazebo, £1 tacos could out weight any doubts. Serving up some of the most fun food I’ve ever had at a bafflingly low price, ‘serious’ baos never have quite the same appeal as one filled with chips and curry sauce, and chased by a pilsner.

CRBR

Marking the end of any lockdown, me and Emmie flocked for soup. Ramen is a mystery, no matter how hard you try, homemade attempts are never as good as restaurant quality where simplicity becomes something intricate. The ladle spoon scooping up broth calmed my chop stick anxiety, picking up and dropping mushrooms like Bambi, splashing soup over clothes to ruin the sweetness of the image. The meal always had to be proceeded by a bun, and a clear cocktail that was deadly in its crystal appearance. Making an event out of cosiness, it’s the tastiest comfort.

Crazy Pedros

Go to Crazy Pedros at 5pm after work, say you’ll stay for one and leave hours later, full of half price slices and happy hour cocktails. Go on your birthday and cram as much as you can into a bottomless brunch, switch from frozen margaritas to prosecco for effectiveness as the brain freeze sets in, tally your slices. Go on the Friday night of pride, share a whole pizza and nachos while maintaining your buzz with tequila. Get takeaway, opt for monster munch on a pizza or something mental over a classic stonebaked from down the road because sometimes more is more.

Companio

During lockdown, the Companio queue was the only one I would tolerate. Way down the street from the door, I stood in the rain at 8am every weekend for months, far more dedicated to my ritual than my warmth. When my time came to go in, I abandoned my pre-conceived order as the counter seemed to get fuller every week, eventually overflowing to the baker’s bench by February. Letting impulse lead, centring the child that begged for treats, embracing the romantic visions of bakeries in Disney films and art, I’d pick out what I wanted. Coffee and almond croissants, cinnamon buns, rhubarb danishes, basque cheesecakes, cheese and marmite rolls, honey cakes, fresh sourdough, pear and hibiscus tarts and on and on and on. 2 or 3 each week, every Saturday, I’d eat them in bed with a book, collecting a cappuccino elsewhere as I wandered back to warmth.

For a moment of calm...

Manchester Art Gallery

There’s a room in Manchester Art gallery that’s full of nudes. Walls full of Eves and Liliths and Sapphos and Marys, they’re connected by a conversation about censorship. The conversation interests me but not as much as the beauty and all the sad eyes. I’d take the same pictures everytime, awestruck anew over and over.

New Islington Marina

During the brighter months of the first lockdown, I almost felt like I was the only one in Manchester to know about the marina. I’d have my pick of benches, stopping to enjoy my pastries in the fresh air with a book. I watched it get busier and busier till even a patch of grass was hard to come by in summer of 2021. But we always found somewhere, becoming a one and only meeting spot when everything had to be outdoors. In winter, Quentin poured whiskey into our coffees for his birthday. In autumn, me and holly toasted her university challenge victory with canned beers. In summer, me and daisy shared ice creams and arancini on a bench. Our lives revolved around it for a year and a half, I’m sure others still do.

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Even on my fourth go round, I’m still unsure whether I’ve developed anything to say about packing up and leaving. If I wanted to, I reckon I could write paragraphs about the strange labour of wrapping up plates and praying frames don’t arrive with cracks. There’s definitely something to say about the way the task numbs you in relation to your belongings and their significance in its need for focus so you don’t forget things you’d later end up missing. I could create some metaphor about plants in a box, how life moves easily from place to place with protection, blah blah. But right now I’m on a train chasing boxes of my things across the country and I have nothing important to say, I don’t think.

I’ve never been good at letting go of things. I could still tell you an insult that hurt me in 2013, or the exact phrase my first boyfriend used to dump me. I’m still mourning my old Sheffield flat, so I know the process of grieving my Manchester home will be too long to hit 20 minutes after handing a key over. I’m sure it’s a wave still building out at sea somewhere, ready to crash down when I next see a photo or my friends go out without me. So far the current is more soothing than harsh, hitting against my ankles but still letting me walk as I chose to move on.

Unlike Sheffield or my parents’ home, the choice to leave wasn’t done for me by time. My year in a uni house hasn’t bled out, the demand of education isn’t forcing me to move place to place with a calendar, I was scratching at the door begging to be let out of academia or a shit hometown. Nothing was pushing or pulling me from my flat, it was the first place I truly settled of my own accord and made a home of, building a life up from nothing but a few friends and a couple of boxes. Staying in the same place for longer than anywhere beyond my family home, my Manchester home in the heart of NQ was a home, a real home, proper home with all my addresses changed and bills in my post box. Nothing would’ve stopped me from staying there forever, getting married there, bring babies home to its exposed brick walls as the clock for once didn’t dictate my circumstance. It saw me through two years of seasons and I saw more of it than anywhere as its walls held me in lockdown, staring down of the balcony to learn the side street like my own skin. I knew exactly how to turn the tap on so it didn’t splash me, I knew the best places to put washing to dry in each weather condition, I knew my routine to a comforting extreme, touching the door lock twice each night for over two years now. And I don’t even know what my new flat’s lock looks like.

I pushed myself out and I don’t have anything wise to say about it without sounding like a girl boss motivational quote. Maybe later I’ll write them out and edit them over pictures of my 12-year-old self in the I love London hoody I demanded to own and my mum tried to demand I bring on the move with me. Across my wonky teeth face I’ll scroll ‘I’m outgrowing my own potential’, or that one about comfort zones or whatever. But I am, I’m venturing out of my night-time routine into a life my younger self would’ve scrapbooked about and I’m sure after a good night’s sleep and a moment of sadness, I’ll be ecstatic about it, I just need to wait for her to wake up or break through the brain fuzz to scream her excitement to me.

Maybe that’s the big thing I have to say. Less about the act of moving, and more about the way that growing up is just gathering the hopes of all the versions of yourself. Something about carrying the dreams of your younger self in the same hand as your adult potential, and striving to reach further for both of you even if it’s a scary big stretch. A pack up your dream flat and move away kind of stretch. A listen to Taylor Swift ‘Never Grow Up’ on the train after your parents wave goodbye kind of stretch. But doing it because you know the 12-year-old you used to hope you’d be this brave.

And I’m being that brave. My god I’m going to miss that home and the friends and the life I had there, but I’m being brave and I’ll think about it every time I see a cheesy tourist hoody. I’ll squeeze little Lucy’s hand each time I know a tube route without googling it, at any party, in every moment I feel her heart flutter at my life as a reminder to remember, not take for granted, keep being braver and bigger and better than she hoped, moving larger than life even as the smallest fish in a big new pond.

Yeah I think that’s it. On the fourth go round, I have nothing truly significant to say about moving. But I could write novels about all the ways I felt the gaggle of my past selves demand attention in the last week or so, all egging me on, staring in awe, begging me to not forget days they spent daydreaming in Stockton about sitting on a train moving down to London as I am right now.

As the world has rumbled back into action, my attention span seems to have been swept up in the crowd. Only just returning after a several month bender where books were a forgotten thing in the face of weekends away and morning brunches, my mojo seems to be making its way back home. On a mission to power through the books still unread on my shelf, my birthday made the selection overwhelming and admittedly took my attention away as I tried to make my way through the pile. Returning to old favourite authors as well as dipping into works by people I barely even knew the name of, I’ve been touching on the various corners of modern icons from music to art to fiction these past months…

Lady Sings The Blues - Billie Holiday

The book that shook me out of my own reading blues, Billie Holiday’s memoir became an instant favourite.

Before I dove in, I knew very little about the singer. I liked her songs but that was about it, listening occasionally when playlists brought her back to my attention. But since learning more about her life, the songs sound even better, overflowing with passion and tragedy just like her life. Taking you from her childhood through her successes and struggles with addiction, Billie writes her story with resilience despite the intensely vulnerable tales being told. After I finished reading it, I watched United States Vs Billie Holiday and wanted to immediately re-read it and hug the book close. Highlighting all the gaps and missing information about the elements of racism and how the war on drugs was used as a tool of racism, the difference between the film and the book broke my heart, as Billie clearly never truly knew the real reason why she was being so harshly punished. Leaving me with a real love for her music now, enthusing each song with 10x more feeling, this book will stick with me.

Breakfast At Tiffany's - Truman Capote

For as long as I can remember, Breakfast at Tiffany's has been one of my favourite films. A story I never tire off, Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly always felt like a character I wanted to emulate, constantly referencing her outfits as I tried to call upon each a touch of her grace. The Holly Golightly of Truman Capote’s novella feels more like the woman I’ve ended up as, far more real. While the story still definitely has some of the glamour and fun of the film, the original tale is just as different as everyone says. Previously putting me off picking up the book, I’m glad I finally did, as the more tragic tale now resonates with me so much more. As a story and sweet little novella, it’s left far more open with the lack of happy ending, as Holly’s character in the book is actually as elusive as Hepburn’s version constantly talks about. While the film talks a lot about running away, Truman’s actual character really does, never truly giving the reader a clear image of the fascinating woman he was trying to capture. I wasn’t wowed enough by Capote’s writing style to pick up another book, and I don’t think I would’ve been amazed if I didn’t already love the film adaptation, but I’m glad I ticked this one off my list.

Lunch Poems - Frank O'Hara

I love Frank O’Hara. Coining the term Personalism, O’Hara talks of his poetry as essentially a different approach to just picking up the phone and calling his friends. Writing deeply personal works about his social circle, his poems are full of names and inside jokes, that for a moment invite you into the New York Group. Moving between silliness and pure sentimental romance in the space of one line, I love how he writes about love especially, focussing in on little moments and details rather than declaring grade sentiments. I poured over Lunch Poems in a couple of days, reading the collection back to back for a brief support in romanticising my own life and social goings on.

Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl - Carrie Brownstein

I think autobiographies by women might be one of my favourite genres. Similar to Just Kids and I’m With The Band, Carrie Brownstein’s memoir lets you feel like a best friend or a little sister for a moment as she writes about private moments with intimacy and honesty. I’d never listened to Sleater Keaney, or really any of that music scene, so I went in totally blind here and had my expectations exceeded. Yeah sure, hearing about Carrie’s career and success is interesting. But what was fascinating was hearing her thoughts on the line between musician and fan, and then being privy to hearing all the issues and downsides to making it. A really raw look into the industry, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl felt like lifting the veil and revealing all the anxieties of the sparkling world of a musician, all told in a way that makes you feel like you’ve been invited into some exclusive club. Written with such ease, this was one of those books that I seemed to glide through, flipping page after page on train journeys without it ever making my brain feel tired.

Playing To The Gallery - Grayson Perry

After Descent of Man became one of my favourite books of last year, I was keen to dive into more of Grayson Perry’s writing. I love his style, managing to be funny and approachable, without ever feeling obvious or like he’s explaining the obvious. This especially made Playing To The Gallery a joy. As a book about the art industry, it would be easy to feel locked out or not smart enough when you’re approaching it as an outsider. But instead, Grayson Perry takes your hand and makes all the lessons a breeze, full of silly little anecdotes that perfectly exemplified bits of theory or fact. If you like art and galleries in a casual way, pick this up. I feel like it will have totally changed my experience the next time I walk into the Tate or wherever, giving you points to think about and all the bolstering you might need to simply mill about with a bit more confidence and ease.

Next Up...

✿ Let Us Compare Mythologies - Leonard Cohen

✿ A Theatre For Dreams - Polly Samson

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I wasn’t one of those people that grew up with parents spinning records. By the time of my earliest memories, my grandparents had already packed up all their vinyls or long since donated them to charity shops, swapping to CDs. I remember ABBA gold playing in the car to Mcdonalds, or the radio humming quietly in the background of Sunday roasts, but never the grandeur of a turntable. The elusive turntable, the coolest accessory. I pined for one from the first day I heard about the Beatles, read my first NME magazine, saw the cool girl place the needle down in some film in that important hazy time somewhere between 13 and 16. At uni, I saw them casually sitting in the corner of friends rooms, almost forgotten as they shrugged them off as something they’d always had with a small collection of heirloom records gathering dust. Sophie played The Wombats and Luther Vandross on her, I watched an ex by Joni Mitchell’s Blue praying one day it would be amongst shared possessions, spending hours letting my fingers walk over record shop boxes to play the part I wanted. At 18 the excuse was that I didn’t have space, 20 I didn’t have the money, by my 23^rd birthday there was nothing stopping me.

I bought my first record player with the money I’d got from an article in NME. My younger self looked over my shoulder as I spent days browsing trying to find the right one, she was the one unboxing it, standing at my side watching me drop the needle all starry-eyed. I think it’s the most affirming thing I’ve ever bought.

I find it so hard to invest in myself, always filling and emptying online baskets contemplating worth and absolutely everyone was sick of me by my 3^rd week of almost but not yet buying my record player. It’s so easy to get caught up and made to feel inferior in this purchase. Blogs will tell you that if you’re not buying a £400 turntable with the best speakers available, you might as well not bother. I got so caught up in considering the purity of sound and bass despite being more than happy walking around with £3 headphones when really all I wanted was a record player to work, look nice and give me a place to play the albums I loved loud for my younger self. I realised I didn’t care too much about the technicalities, it was all for her and she definitely isn’t a purist and I still care far more about feel than sound. I got a Denver VPL-200 for £60, the first record I played was the Grease soundtrack.

As someone with a super addictive personality, the pull to buy every album I’ve ever loved is high. I hear one good song and want to run down to Piccadilly Records but I’ve had to practice restraint. Instead, I’ve been letting sentiment guide me. I think about younger me, the classic albums she’d want to brag about that have ended up being a part of my life for a decade. I think of older me and possible future kids excited that they will be the type of people that will grow up with a parent spinning records, I think about the soundtrack I want them to have.

The first album I bought was Folklore by Taylor Swift. It was the release that got me my NME commission, so I bought it as a gift to remember the occasion, for me now, me at 14 and me at 50 when I still want to remember my cool days. Hearing the echoing harmonies on My Tears Ricochet spinning around my living room was immediately almost tear-inducing, I realised why people have always wanted the experience, understanding the longevity of the form.

From Depop, I picked up Patti Smith’s Frederick for my favourite author and Blondie’s Sunday Girl for my old burlesque name. With far less restraint, my 7” collection grows rapidly, containing odd Bowie tracks, French songs I love, and Lennon tracks I felt like I should have.

I went out one lunchtime hunting for Purple Rain. Walking to the record store I rang my mum, telling her about my plan to only buy albums that I love from start to finish, that I would put on and let them play. Purple Rain is the epitome of a start to finish album, a perfect example where the tracks blur into one another and the form of a big continuous disk makes so much sense. £15 got me a holographic special cover, I jokingly offered my mum the giant poster it came with.

Dodie’s Build A Problem was the first album I bought on its release day, taking part in the race for chart success. I wrote a review of the album and she printed it out to stick on her bedroom wall, so I bought her record, printed out her tweets about my review, and added it to my collection as a reminder of a beautiful moment of recognition over a beautiful piece of art.

My boyfriend bought me the Funny Girl soundtrack. I feel no shame in letting Barbra Streisand’s voice blast across my neighbourhood.  

Other albums I’ve acquired through various gifts and eBay finds include: Harry Style’s Fine Line, Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell, a battered copy of The Moody Blues Days Of Future Passed, The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and an ABBA Greatest Hits that I felt my Grandma would approve of. My younger self semi-swoons at the mix of classics and cringe cliché.

The list of albums I want to get grows constantly. Falling into a side hustle as a music journalist, new albums seem to get a fast-track to sentimentality. Writing about albums and artists makes their role in your life feel so intimate, a feeling I sense especially strong for new artists like Dodie and Lord Huron alongside icons like Prince and Jeff Buckley. I want a copy of every album I’ve ever taken the time to write about ideally, a way to physically remember a moment when I let a piece of work take up all my brain space for a day, a week, a couple of hours. I want to find myself holding a physical copy of the albums that has always been important; Patti Smith’s Horses, hear Leonard Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel no2 on a record, get my own copy of Joni Mitchell’s Blue, enjoy meals soundtracked by Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue. I want to lug these albums from home to home, hear them begin to crackle, use them to decorate walls, learn exactly where my favourite songs start, be seen finally fulfilling the role of cool-girl setting the needle down and feeling my younger self get butterflies over me now.

Today is Record Store Day and I can get involved, planning my day around a walk to Vinyl Exchange to pick up a copy of Hounds Of Love. It’s not rare, it would still be there next week, but I can get involved today so I’m going to. I’ll hold the disk all wrong, sing along to Running Up That Hill, and think about all the words I’ve written about Kate, about old relationships spent learning her discography, months reconnection and how my love for her has morphed over the years like the record probably will. I’ve listened to the album for years, but now it’ll be mine.

My flat falls first. I notice the mound of clothes growing and growing with each day, each extra hour wasted away with wet hair post-shower scrolling through TikTok when I said I’d do X and Y and Z. I put coats on chairs and sit down before making the 5 steps to the hook. I become thankful for my massive cutlery collection as I forget to load the dishwasher again, too tired to collect the 4 glasses from my room. I’m aware of the disarray before I’m ever acceptingly aware of my mood, bullying myself over books by my bedside, I’m only just starting to see that the two come hand in hand. Tossing clothes on the floor at the end of the night, I say I’ll do it the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Until I did it today.

I lay in bed till 10 rolling my brain over weekend to-do lists, planning breakfasts, counting up coffee budgets. When I stand up, heaviness isn’t the first thing on my mind. I notice my skin in the mirror and think it looks beautiful and the happy thought makes the pile of clothes I trip on seem like an inconvenience rather than something that sucks my life force. I decide to ignore it momentarily, underlining momentarily as I make coffee in my favourite mug and mindlessly wipe down the countertops while I wait for halloumi to fry. I did step one without realising. When my brain clocks it the mental pat on the back feels like the first kind touch in weeks. I eat itching for more, turn off the TV with the last mouthful, ask google to play the radio as a sign of better times and decide to follow suit.

I think the kitchen is always a great first step. The sleek, shine of a freshly Dettol wiped surface is instant gratification, unlike the abstraction of dusted wood. The smell of bleach in the air works as a stimulant pushing you into further corners as the kitchen blurs into the living room. After 2 weeks, I wipe up incense residue and bin burnt-out candles, flooding my mind with soft daydreams of Saturday afternoons walks to pick up new supplies and a rose latte, cling to it as a reward I may or may not take.

Swapping wipe to cloth, the sparkling kitchen wills me to go on. I sing along to Taylor Swift now as I search for polish in the kitchen cupboard I keep stocked of empty ones, never quite getting far enough to sort it out. Dusting is a good measure, asking only for as much or as little as you want to give. You could move every object in your home and rid of the ring around it. Take every earring from your trinket tray and dust off each corner. Wipe your way around the maze of skirting boards or give a shelf a once over and call it a day. I find a middle ground, simply shuffling plant pots side to side, lightly brushing frames but making no real effort for corners or backs of things, not today.

(To be frank, for a moment, I’m writing this as a way to avoid the next step, which logically would be dusting my bedroom. But packed full of bits and bobs that make the act a nightmare, I’m practising creative avoidance…)

In the process of dusting, I’m confronted by the dying leaves of my neglect. Drooped and browning, for weeks I’ve been giving nothing but an occasional spritz. As the song switches, I muster up the energy to wet a cloth and wipe leaf by leaf, mentally apologising to the plants and I guess to myself as well. I water from the base like my mother told me to do and hope their joy comes back too.

Hoovering is the hardest part. As a child I’d cry when a hoover came towards me, terrified by the loud whirring voice that threatened to suck up my toes as my dad laughed. The fear changed into annoyance as I grew up and I’m still left wondering why they haven’t made them silent yet. When so much of my fuel relies on music and pleasant sound chosen by me, it’s always counter-productive in the act of mood-boosting. In my old flat, when I eventually caved to the activity, I’d carry my speaker in one hand and hold the handle in the other; a delicate balancing act between Henry the hoover and some man telling me stories about Jimi Hendrix. Today I resign to simply ticking it off the list, hyping myself up to press the power button and racing around the room, only caring about my favourite standing spots and giving the rest a lazy once over. It’s good enough, I feel some dopamine release.

From where I sit now, propped up on an unmade bed to franticly write this idea that came to me in that very act of hoovering, the pile of clothes hasn’t moved. Containing the outfit I’ve been wearing on repeat, the loungewear trousers I live in, and 3 different degrees of jumper put on and thrown off in an attempt to figure out the weather, it feels a bit like a diary of the last couple of weeks lack of self-esteem. Lazy and sloppy, its presence is back to feel confrontational as my now-awake eyes see flaws in my skin again, scurrying past the mirror quick. I know I should change my bedding, I know I’m doing my books a disservice leaving them strewn on the floor, I know my plants here need feeding too, and I think I’ll probably do it still.

Clinging on with final fingertips gripping to the daydream of light breezes and sweet drinks, maybe the clouds are rolling in again and maybe the jobs will be left undone. Throwing strops about the flux of life between tidiness and mess, clean dishes and dirty dishes and always having to decide on meals to eat that will, in turn, make plates mucky again, the roll of days feels exhausting still. But at least now I have a tidy kitchen, and I still think maybe I’ll manage to tackle the bedroom.

8:30pm on a Saturday and I’m complaining about the noise, turning down invitations because I’ve already taken my makeup off, dismaying over my tiredness as I promised to add another tick to my yearlong to-watch list. I complain a lot lately. I complain about crowds, offices, Instagram stories, busy brunch places. I stress about bookings and calendar dates, can’t keep up with the logistics of my life being stretched. Sometimes it feels like that medieval stretch torture, strapped to the rack of the month and they’re saying you will be taller! You will go out and be busy, have plans, get new clothes, keep up keep up keep up. With each bone crack I have to celebrate or it’ll make the new one seem worse, everything is about easing into to.

Life peels further from my imagination and I complain about that too. My dedicated time for rose tinting is squeezed and things are starting to slip through the cracks. I’ve spent all year missing uni, teasing myself with masters prospectuses, flipping through photos of my 18 year old self who now seems to me like the most social person ever, my peak. But 8:30pm on a Saturday in 2021 is cutting a bit close to 2017’s Saturday 8:30pms - ripping outfit after outfit from my body, getting hotter and hotter in my bedroom with music below, analysing the drink I made and uber costs and ease of getting home, selling my ticket and deciding to not go.

I could cancel on my best friends then if I had 50 minutes to falter. But the 18-year-old anxious flake looks like gentle when you’re in your 20s. Now it screams early retirement and I stress mostly about never getting it back as everyone dives in with such ease. Drunk girls are singing Valerie in the bar across the road, stumbling footsteps have returned to my weekend soundtrack – on Thursday the anxiety I got from 4 pints made me consider resigning myself sober.

Suddenly headachey and old, I keep looking at club pictures of my younger self and wondering if I’ll ever have fun in that body moving, chaotic way again. Surely we’ve all forgotten to dance? Or have we splintered off into those that threw themselves living room lockdown parties and those that didn’t? How long will it be until my approach to dancing can return? Liking to be the perfect level of unexpectedly drunk and dressed just casual enough that your presence looks just as spontaneous as you feel when you decided to go to a club at 1am. I barely remember 1am as anything more than a time to realise you’ve stayed up too late watching tiktok. 2am, 3am, even 4am are lost to me now. Should I be training for their return?

From the noise outside, I feel like I missed the reunion. Reacquainted with art gallery mornings, beer garden afternoons, café work days – It’s Saturday nights I can’t pry from the hands of my lockdown habits, clutching hard as the wheels turn and my bones stretch further. A more resilient person wouldn’t care, look down from the balcony with superiority as prawns cook and the 26^th film of the year starts.  But everything tells me I got old without realising, and everyone seems to be snapping back while I’m study wrinkles, wondering when I’ll get the chance to be 23 or if 23 is too late when 21 and 22 were sacrificed.

Far beyond clubs and bars, I complain a lot about people’s holidays, one way I can use the year’s moral compass as a wall between myself and plans. I turned FOMO into tuts as I add to the mental list of places to go, places I should’ve been, ways everyone is better than me. I’d like to go to Paris and wander round Versailles in a big dress. I want to go to every museum in Berlin, ride a bike in Copenhagen or Stockholm or Amsterdam, eat food in Italy. All these longings I’ve been putting off for a lot longer than a year, always waiting for something to say go as I was busy interning or working or stressing about working. It’s nice having a pandemic to blunt my own disappointments over my lack of travel, totally unable to empathise with people mourning the loss of their yearly holiday, but somehow knowing if travel opened up restriction free tomorrow, I’d probably still not go. I can’t figure out what I’m stalling for, but know the world’s pause was a comfort to me. It felt like a year to play catch up when I felt incessantly behind in big goal checkpoints. I relaunched a magazine, I started a newsletter, I wrote music articles weekly, I watched film after film, I performed poems, but my to-do list is long and the play button has been pressed. How am I supposed to go on holiday when I’m still writing my lockdown novel?

The rack is stretching me and I’m pushing back like it’s a leg press, like my strength alone could stop it. If I cut off my peripheral, I can be okay. Walk my path to and from where I want to go, figure out times when my favourite places are quietest and go, make my own leaps when I book tickets, take trains, make plans. But Saturday nights stay stubborn, too attacked by outside, too alien with the reluctance to make any plans to feel the empty space of no curfews. I am too old and too tired, affirming it with each early night and wondering when it will stop being true. I isolate myself in the house I built against FOMO, but they built a bar right outside. And when will it all come back?

I tried making a list, drafting a blog of ways to get your mojo back.

1.  Buy a new perfume but have no one be close enough to compliment it. Start doubting if it’s nice, because no one has said it is, with a subtly that won't travel 2 metres.
2.  Experiment with makeup. Do your eyeliner different on a day you don’t go out, worry too much to recreate it for the pub.
3. Go out to get yourself some new clothes. Buy nothing because you can’t try it on, fight a battle in every shop between the size you probably are and the size your brain thinks you are because you slacked on your hula hooping for a week.
4.  Get your fringe trimmed. Wake up at 7am and worry about your cool value in the world as everyone experiments with colour and you’ll never get the confidence to bleach your eyebrows.

I want to feel hot and cool, I got the memo that post-lockdown we were all glowing up, but it ended without me realising. I ask again, when will it come back? Starring at people from my balcony, head too busy creating a timed schedule for my movie night to even notice the tug to go out, the tug that would pull me into tiny tops in a moments notice and run out the door two years ago. Not ready to retire and not ready to go out, I'm lying in wait for some mental easing where spontaneity will take over the night shift from cosiness and 2am will be alive again. 

On days it eases and I let myself be excited rather than scared, I sit in a café with my friends. They talk about fake vaccine passports and people  who are playing the system to get to Portugal for an all-inclusive. I go home resigned to staying there for another year, turn down the evenings invitations, make a coffee and apply eye cream.

 I live in Manchester, alone.

My hair is my natural mousey brown with a slight gingery tinge. The year demanded my bleach as sacrifice.

My favourite things to wear are my Burberry trench, my white floral jeans and my grey lounge trousers. I haven’t been on a night out in over a year, but when I do, I vow to try harder with my makeup.

My favourite books this year were I’m With The Band by Pamela Des Barres and Platinum Blonde by Phoebe Stuckes.

In the last year I watched over 90 films so I can no longer have a favourite. But highlights included Babyteeth, the Before Sunrise series and the documentary about Leonard Cohen and Marianne.

My favourite albums to sing in the shower are Evermore by Taylor Swift, Purple Rain by Prince and Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers.

My favourite smell is the Twilight body spray from Lush.

My favourite thing is getting letters from friends, disposable cameras, Saturday morning pastries and cooking myself meals with wine on a Friday.

I’m in love with myself, my friends, the things I own, my brain, Taylor Swift and Patti Smith.

I sleep on the right side of the bed on my left side, with a pillow pressed up against my back and silently cursing myself for staying up so late on TikTok.

I repeat this mantra to myself; it’ll be fine.

I’m trying to implement a habit of drinking more water and going to bed earlier, still.

My 23^rd birthday passed unmiraculously, as they generally seem to when you get older. One day I’ll no doubt recount the occasion to future children with some grandeur of how the normalcy of seeing friends felt novel, how I got drunk off 2 drinks with the excitement of it all, and spent it wrapping in a cardigan made by the hands of a dear friend. But now I tell people it was nice, lovely even, fun.

By this point I’ve usually manifested, marked another year passed with a tarot card pointed direction and a fresh to-do list that masquerades as goals. Before I’d write holiday, published novel, empire. This year I can’t muster anything but holiday, haircut, tattoo, and I think I love it.

I turned 23 as the climax to a week spent out of office in the some-what second career I made myself in my 22^nd year. I think maybe I finally learnt the lesson of rest, ticking films off a bucket list and turning a book pile into a bedside. Rest and balance, as I ring in my 23^rd year with email chains that might as well be daisies as I smile down on pixel names I dreamed of as a teen.

It’s odd. As I turned 23 I thought mostly of 13 when I was sad, and dreaming, and read NME articles I now right. At the end of my 22^nd year I had no big conclusions other than younger me would think I was cool, I have no doubt on that. I think she’d be proud, exhale and drop some of the weight on her shoulders as from where she’s standing, everything looks so much better than just okay. I also have no doubt that at 33, I’ll write the same thing about me now. While I may hate ageing more than ever in a year that gave me my first wrinkle, I think I’ve finally settled into the comfort that self-development will happen without much input, all things generally flow to the place they should, and I will more than likely be fine, have a nice day, smile.

In my 22^nd year, despite it being spent mostly in lockdown which I clearly didn’t expect when I wrote grand hopes of 3 holidays; I was happy. In my last birthday blog, I reflected on building the life my 21-year-old-self hoped for, and I’m in a similar position as I email editors, gather by-lines and fall asleep spinning ideas around my head. I have a stack of zines with my work in, I have a portfolio, I have a (very humble) bank account with money from commissions, and my old self dreamed about it all. It hit me the other night that I have nothing to dream about at the moment, struggling to figure out a story to tell myself as I drift off without it turning into strategy or email templates. Development isn’t a romantic dream to have, but I think I love the smallness of it, giving me so much space around it where I’m realising life fits. That’s where new friends fit, and boyfriends, and calls with my mum on lunch times, nice Friday dinners I cook myself, new art prints on new shelves, Saturday morning pastries, days off, pub nights, plans that can’t be formulated into emails and existing without word count. So for 23 I have no big goals, just a holiday, a wild haircut and a silly tattoo, continuing with my work and rattling around the space called living.

I’ll be honest with you, so far my 2021 reading motivation has been minimal. My mind has turned to mush that thinks about nothing but Married At First Sight Australia, hula hooping and pub opening plans, so it doesn’t quite seem to have the capacity for a novel. 

This is the exact reason why I don’t set myself reading goals. I don’t have a particular number of books I want to read in a year or a quota per month, just letting myself read at my own pace and enjoy. The last couple of months I feel like I’ve been fighting off that old English degree feeling of force, settling down every Saturday morning as a slave to routine more than a book lover. The climax of the sensation came last week as I tossed my book aside in favour of TikTok again, realising that I wasn’t enjoy the read so why was I bothering? I’m sure it’ll feel liberating when I stop feeling so guilty, but more on that later.

Here are my first reads of the year...

#1 Nights Sky With Exit Wounds- Ocean Vuong 

Technically this was a 2020 read as I flew through it in the Christmas-New Year limbo, inhaling it in a deep breath and finishing with a reluctant sigh.

Within the first pages I knew Ocean Vuong deserved every bit of hype he gets. His phrasing is so vivid but also so simple I was almost kicking myself for not coming up with it. He effortlessly creates such sharp emotions and this collection moves through the whole range of them from grief to love to anger to heartbreak. It deals with huge and heavy topics like war, death and coming out, but it never feels overwhelming or hard to read. After each piece I wanted to take a moment to digest, but quickly found myself turning the page for more as the emotions are gripping rather than smothering.

Like with all my favourite poets, Vuong had me hooked with his use of simple English. His work is fuss free and easily engaged with, even his more experimental pieces don’t feel like he was in cahoots with a thesaurus as they flow so simply and naturally. It’s one of those poetry books that’s ended up covered in my pen, with so many perfect phrases underlined to remember later, phrases so good I wanted to applaud but settled for drawing a star next to instead.

If you haven’t guessed already, I adored it. It immediately took a place in my list of favourite poetry collections, and I’m excited to dive into more of his work. Put this one on your to-read list.

#2 Trying To Float – Nicolaia Rips

You probably all know about my obsession with The Chelsea Hotel, but for those who don’t: The Chelsea is a hotel in New York where people like Patti Smith, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen all once lived. It’s haunted my academic life and was the topic of my dissertation, so I’ve indulged in almost every bit of Chelsea literature I can. 

I was gifted this for Christmas and I was excited as I hadn’t heard about it, being a memoir of a child that grew up in the hotel. I assumed it must have been written by an older woman, but about half way in I realised that Nicolaia is my age, maybe even younger and her experience of the Chelsea was way later than the era I’d studied. The essays in this book cover all corners of coming-of-age, colouring the classic dilemmas in the quirky tone of the hotel and its cast of odd inhabitants. I didn’t learn much more about the hotel other than the spirit of community continued into its later years, but this was a lovely read.

Lovely is definitely the right word as it’s easy and sweet, gets a couple of chuckles and feels like a friend telling you a story. 

#3 Chameleon In A Candy Store - Anonymous

If you read my last reading list post, you’ll know how much Anon hooked me in with Diary Of An Oxygen Thief. A modern sympathy for the devil narrative, the sleazy, awful narrator has such a unique voice that I finished the first book in a number of days. 

The second book ended up being the same. A slow start as it took me a little while to figure out where in the story you were and how much time had passed since the original book. But when this book gets going, I think I actually enjoyed it more than the original. It engages further with Anonymous’ awful personal relationships, and finishes up with such a cruel but kind of hilarious twist that made me even more desperate to try and figure out who the author is.

So much of this second book really dive into the meta element of it, referring a lot to the actual writing of the book and even pointing you towards Anonymous’ website and introducing his marketing technique which is possibly what led it to being such a cult read. It manages to be both smart and stupid at the same time which is exactly what you need sometimes.

#4 Eunuchs and Nymphomaniacs – Anonymous

Before I even finished the 2nd book, I pre-emptively ordered the 3rd so I could wrap up the trilogy. I dove straight in as soon as I finished the previous one, but something about it didn’t stick. Maybe it was my lockdown brain setting in as I seemed to lose the ability to focus on anything, or maybe it was that this 3rd book is quite different. The narrator is more pathetic than cruel here, balancing his usual behaviours with a heavy dose of heart-ache. In this book he’s more irritating and stroppy, still making his way through the women of New York while moping about his ex. 

The cast of characters in this one is quite hard to keep up with as so many women walk in and out of the story, but it still has the same hilarious moments that will make you guiltily laugh out loud as you fall into his gross mind. 

Not as good as the others, I really enjoyed getting stuck into a series which I haven’t done in years. This 3rd book closes up with a circle back to the beginning, tying up loose ends from the original novel, so it’s 100% worth persevering through all 3 to get a full view of Anonymous’ world.

#5 Orlando – Virginia Woolf

And here’s when it gets hard.

I read Mrs Dalloway in Uni and I remember struggling. I remember loving the themes and the idea behind the novel, but the task of getting through it was a slog with Woolf’s signature embellished narrative style of long sentences being hard to follow. But she feels like an author I should love. I love her letters and her shorter works, so I wanted to try again with Orlando, a novel that is so beloved by so many people in my life.

I sat down hopeful. My copy was small with only a 100 or so pages, but I was immediately put off by the tiny font that made following it even harder. I noticed the lack of chapters, only huge sections which always puts me off. But I was determined, I settled down on a Saturday morning with a coffee and a croissant planning to fly through it, but gave in after 6 pages and my head ached.

The follow day I tried again, sinking into the bath with wine and a hair mask that demanded time, but I soon found myself swapping my book for my phone. 15 pages in, it wasn’t going to happen as the protagonist had managed to do nothing but walk into a house in all that time. I didn’t read for nearly two weeks, partly out of a lack of motivation and partly actively avoiding the book. So I decided to give in.

I hate giving up on a book. I’m the same with films too, forcing myself to sit there and watch even if I’m bored. The act of putting a book back on my shelf unfinished makes me feel so guilty, especially when it’s a classic that I feel like I should have read. But when concentration is hard to come by anyway nowadays, I’m trying to not let myself slip back into that English degree mind-set of half reading a book out of duty. I don’t owe anyone anything, no one is demanding an essay on Orlando from me, I won’t fail if I don’t finish it, so why sap the passion from myself.

So I put the book down, I might return to it but probably not as I’m returning to the safe ground of modern classics and 60s America that I love.

Next Up...

✿Currently reading – Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

✿Lady Sing The Blues by Billie Holliday

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