Midweek Meal
With the rebirth of the seasons comes the rebirth of the weekly reads, bants and eats newsletter that I KNOW you have all been missing with a feral hunger that feels maddening and elusive. The dull ache of failure has been seeping through your bones, dragging you down to sit in harrumphiness in the pit of your own ‘what’s the point-isms’.
OH WAIT that’s me I am describing. LOLLERPANTS!
WELL DEAR ONES, welcome back to another episode of the tragically infrequent postings by Ned in which I attempt to share a few ditherings on things that have brought me small joys, giggles, deep existential musings and a tiny nub of purpose in an otherwise long/short life. I decided to jump all in because I have an UBER dedicated readership :P and I have committed to a year on this site. Let’s see where it takes us shall we. I need this, I am a new mother type figure who is reconciling with a rewriting of my whole world and self and I want something that honours the old me. This is a good expression of that with the limited free time that I have. So onward to the sweet recommendations.
Reads
Wow, what a swift and brilliant little read. I love articles on the Guardian usually they have good recommendations for follow up reads and have a wide range of topics. Did I read this article this very morning which then motivated me to come write this blog post? Most certainly I did. Something I have had a really hard time with in my evolution of self (more on that in another post) is the weird social presumption of the concept of me as an individual and me as a mother being mutually exclusive. At the same time while there is an innate sense within me of fighting against my various prior identities being subsumed within ‘mamahood’, I also feel a depthless ferocity of love towards my little human so it’s a quixotic tension. This was a read that made me feel seen and not alone.
2.) My spouse is sober…I am not by Lindsay Johnstone.
I know I know I just wrote this whole post kinda well shitting on Substack as if I don’t actually use it quite routinely. I do in fact love to read newsletters on there, especially when they are both accessible and profound. This writing circulated its way to me quite by accident. Here I was just finished with my yearly Dry January effort feeling nice and smarmy about how much better I am than everyone. Just kidding, I was feeling troubled about myself and shocked at what an incredible challenge it was to give up alcohol. The experience brought me to a very emotional and unstable place and I wasn’t sure what it meant when I saw this article. I, of course, celebrated the end of my month of boozelessness with my ole favourite-a gin and tonic or two-and found, to my surprise, I did not enjoy it quite like I used to. I awoke the morning after with the grim realisation that I couldn’t quite find the reasoning to justify the physical and mental consequences in this aging body of mine. So much so that I am really trying to take a step back to analyse my relationship with alcohol. This makes a lot of sense in the context of my family’s personal history with addictive substances. This piece really speaks into that questioning. 10/10 would recommend.
Bants
1.) Now something a little lighthearted. I came across this fun reddit post somewhere in some email and wasted a nice minute or two watching it. Who knew Lindas reigned supreme for almost an entire generation.
Most Popular Baby Girl Names in the US From 1950 to 2018
2.) My laptop has been broken for nearly a month now. So, I am effectively cuckolded :/ from being online except when I can hop on my husband’s desktop at the rare moments my teacup human is napping longer than 30 minutes and I have given up on cleaning. I have been listening to a LOT of podcasts in place of watching ma shows and this one was a beauty. One of my favourite creative ventures, the On Being Project interviewing one of the most skillful language artists and living poets I have had the pleasure of following- Pádraig Ó Tuama- back in 2016 in Northern Ireland. Some lovely stuff on dialogue, reaching across the aisle, the Northern Irish Troubles and the power of poetry to lay bare.
Listen here or probably you can find where you get your podcasts.
Eats
Goodness you know I have not categorically been balanced in my cooking and eating these past two months. Something to do with depression, maternal rage cleaning blah blah looming sense of financial anxiety and inflation making it next to impossible to afford groceries. I have, however, returned quite often to this one meal as something that I usually have these items in my cupboards in bulk-ish and doesn’t cost a lot of time to prepare. My husband randomly obsessively bought multiple 50lb bags of dried chickpeas/garbanzo beans so basically that will be all we will be eating from now until we die LOL but in actuality they are a yummy source of protein for my non-meat eater fronds.
If you did want a meat with this dish to bulk it up I would probably airfry some lightly breaded chicken breast…nuggie style. You know what loves I will go and dig up my own recipe for homemade fried chicken nugs/strips I have somewhere and share with you. Back in my carnivorous days I was a fiend for fried chicken.
So off we trot to the second half of the week. I hope this perked up your Wednesday and I shall see you all next week as this sweet, sleepy February draws to a close.