The Internet Personified: She's a giggle at a funeral

Babydarlings,

A trip to the gynae earlier this week revealed that my round belly, that I've been trying to come to terms with because feminism but also trying to hide a little bit, because sometimes, at certain angles, it looks like I'm very slightly pregnant (well, no, more like five months, which is how big the things are), is actually the result of three massive cricket ball sized fibroids sitting on my uterine muscles and just, like, growing, I guess? Everyone has fibroids, nine out of ten women, and while I was congratulating myself on being the tenth, apparently I am not. (Maybe it's you!) Anyhow, they don't HAVE to come out of me unless they grow in the next couple of months, but if they did come out, I imagine myself rising from this flat stomached (totally ignoring the layer of fat that's probably also there), but then a friend's friend told me a few nights ago that her cousin had HER fibroids removed and now she can never have babies ever again. It would settle the question for me one way or the other, just having one option removed, but I'd rather just wait for old age and watch my eggs shrivel up at the back of the shelf because that was I can tell myself it was totally my choice, you know?

Anyway, that is an update into my ovaries! I became very health conscious this week, and downloaded Practo which is like Zomato for doctors, and found myself scheduling long procrastinated appointments with a dentist as well as an OB GYN, my mouth and my vagina, very intimate parts of one's body and places you don't spend much time discussing. All went well at the dentist as well, it ought to, he had very high reviews and as we left he told us to rate him, which I'm not sure I'm comfortable with my doctor saying, but hey, good ratings led us to him in the first place so why not pass it on, eh? Practo is quite a fun app, and now I'm browsing doctors to see what else I can have done. (Just joking. Sorta.) It is however EXPENSIVE to avail of modern medicine, and when I was done sniffling over all the housewarming money an aunt kindly gave me gone into ultrasounds and teeth cleaning, I realised we have spent faaar more on our cats health care over the years than on our own, which is fine, we are Good Parents, but good parents also should stay alive to take care of said cats.

This week in food and drink: No place new this week, my mum had a book launch and we hosted the after party, ordering from High Range Family Restaurant again, but here is the thing, most of her guests were over the age of 50, which means that they wanted more food than they wanted drink. Usually at my parties (guests under or around 40) people drink a lot, have a late dinner and don't go back for seconds. At hers, everyone ate, and all the food finished, so much so that I wondered if I ought to have over ordered even more than I over ordered in the first place. Something to bear in mind for your next mixed age group gathering, I guess.

On Sunday, my friend Sam had us over for a very long lunch party that lasted from 2 pm to 7 pm, and she served what is normally mutton chops, you know, mincemeat, potato, breadcrumbs, but in a tuna version instead and those were so good, that I'm going to get our cook to do us tuna shammis as well.

This week in household hints: Oh, speaking of cooks, have taught Najma (who is our cook/housekeeper general/cat sitter) how to make coconut milk, following Isha's recipe from Goa. For this, you'll need a coconut scraper, which is available on Amazon for a very reasonable price, and once you scrape out the coconut, put it in a mixie, cover with water, only enough water to submerge it, not more, and grind. Then you transfer to a clean cheesecloth, squeeze and serve. One coconut makes about 200 ml of milk, which I have been using in my coffee. I turned the grated coconut into chutney for dosas, but you could also sprinkle it on cereal, or use it in baking.

This week in books: I ordered a bunch of books off of a used bookstore listing on Amazon, and while I was down that particular rabbit hole, I saw a book called Stoner, by John Williams, which I normally wouldn't gravitate to, since I'm not in the mood to read all about pot smoking, har de har, but the blurb said "the best novel you've never read" and I was like, "That sounds like hyperbole, but what the hell, I am intrigued" and I clicked on "read first pages" and the first paragraph was about a man called William Stoner, who had been a teacher in a university but who was forgotten quite fast both by history and his colleagues, and then flipping forward a page, young William Stoner is sent off to agricultural college by his parents who had him at twenty and twenty five, but were always old in his eyes, so bent over by work, and the house he grew up in was quiet with the weariness that comes from working all day, except for creaks of the floorboard when someone shifts in their chair, and are you intrigued yet because I was and then I read the whole book cover to cover till four in the morning, and lay in the dark thinking about it as well. Here is Julian Barnes in the Guardian, talking about this strange little classic. (He thought it was about pot smoking too!)

Currently reading: Pakistani author Sabyn Javeri's debut novel Nobody Killed Her (part of a books package sent to me by my editor at Harper Collins), which is part political/part friendship/part White Tiger-esque and also kind of beautiful with red pages like a cake. I'm thoroughly enjoying it, even though I don't know that much about Pakistani politics.

This week in British dramas: Have been burning the candle at both ends, finished writing and settled into watching some TV and then read. As a result, I wake up the next day a bit fuzzy headed and bleary eyed, but hey, one must suffer for one's art (or to keep up with one's television.) Our internet was a bit slow last week, so I had to wind down with whatever was at hand in my laptop's hard drive, which was Victoria, an ITV production on the life of young Victoria, written by one of Downton Abbey people and very drama, very romance, very Upstairs-Downstairs. Only ten episodes, but it's coming back soon, so binge to your heart's content.

Also on my hard drive: Witness For The Prosecution, by the same people that did And Then There Were None last year, a two part series based on an Agatha Christie short story, which was excellent. Samantha from Sex And The City is in it! And her British accent is terrible! But watch it anyway, especially if you liked The Night Of.

And finally, I took Saturday off, and spent the day "catching up on my Netflix" as it were. Stumbled upon The Bletchley Circle, not to be confused with The Imitation Game movie which was about female codebreakers at Bletchley Park. In the SHOW, it's four codebreakers, but set after the war when they all return to normal lives as mothers and housewives and what not. But then! A serial killer appears! And they can put their pattern solving code breaking minds to good use to hunt him down! Watch, watch.

Yes, I haven't slept much this week.

This week in stuff I wrote (that is also stuff on the internet): As Aunty Feminist, on the importance of having a conversation about intersectional feminism.

This week in apps: I love the Google Arts and Culture app, which not only shows a bunch of different exhibits from around the world, not ONLY highlights a daily set of artists, not ONLY shows you a glimpse of history that day but ALSO has a "near me" feature to show you what's on at your local museums. Very fun.

Reading list: This writer wore men's clothes for a month and it changed her life, which has sent me scuttling to K's cupboard to see what t-shirts I can appropriate. ** Scathing review of Gurinder Chadha's movie about the Mountbattens, which sounds like imperialist schlock. ** "In ancient Greece, it seems, a small penis was the sought-after look for the alpha male." FASCINATING. ** Getting all your news from Trump's Twitter. ** Hipsters that look like lesbians, confusing lesbians. ** Australian kid's book writer detained at US airport, because IT'S BEGUN. ** Being a Dalit woman in corporate India. ** Diagnosing your kid's mystery medical problems through Google. ** Hindi pulp fiction is dying. **

Have a great week!
xx
m