“I should buy an internet and learn how to use it”
Newsletter April 2019
This month's subject line quote comes from Fiona Shaw who continues to be amazing in Season 2 of Killing Eve, and gave a wry, funny interview to an American journalist that made me LOL. Sometimes, she was making jokes. Other times, she was just blithely talking past the heavy handed PC-ness of the world. Either way, she was great.
A bunch of people have been asking how/why I quit social media. I haven't fully quit, of course. Sending you this email newsletter may fall in the realm of social media, so I appreciate the irony. But I have massively reduced my time on and commitment to social media and have noticed a huge improvement in my mental wellbeing. You can read the full piece here. Writing about social media really made me miss blogging. I was an avid blogger back in the day as were several writers I really admire. The internet ecosystem has changed so much since then, and it's been sad to watch blogging die off. I wrote a brief eulogy.
OK, enough complaining about the internet. On to the recommendations. Life has been busy this month so I haven't consumed as much content as I usual.
I finally went to see the Seamus Heaney exhibition. It's fantastic. If you're in Dublin, you should go see it too. (It's free.)
Two podcast episodes that have really stayed with me: Nikki Giovani on Death, Sex and Money and this story on treating PTSD with MDMA. I binge listened to a bunch of '10 things that scare me and made my own list of fears which was (oddly) very calming.
As mentioned above, I've been watching Killing Eve. The latest season of This is us was like a warm hug after a long week. This series of videos provided some much needed respite after a tough therapy session too.
I read Sinead Gleeson's 'Constellations' in 2 sittings and loved it. I read a lot of memoir, though it's rare to find a book about women’s lives and bodies published in Ireland. I really enjoyed it.
