Rants
Category
On Recommending Books
“Oh, you like books, tell me, what should I read?” is among my least favourite questions in the world. It’s not that I don’t like to recommend books per se – I do, I like doing almost anything book-related and it’s also rather flattering when people see you as some sort of a book whisperer who can pick the right one for them. But that’s exactly the problem: recommending books is a bit like working with vulnerable animals – very tricky and also a huge responsibility. What if I mess up?
Lockdown Life: Training Like a Madwoman
A Facebook friend recently shared a Sunday Times article about middle-aged middle-class women who are hell-bent on exiting the lockdown with defined abs. I haven’t read the article for two reasons: 1) it was behind a paywall and 2) I was afraid it would hit too close to home. There is no denying I’m spending significant portions of my week strengthening my core. And I have a hunch that these ab-obsessed women do not come out of that article very well.
Lockdown Life: Rethinking Things
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Writing this post has proved trickier than I thought: not because I have no views on isolation living or because they are too complex to get down on paper/screen (frankly, they are pretty basic). It’s not what I have to say, it’s the cont..
Yes, These Are Actual New Year’s Resolutions
I’m writing this in a hotel room in Thessaloniki, after 10 days of exploring Greece – proof, if needed, that life can have extremely unexpected plans for you. As J is now working in Athens, I will most likely be coming to Greece often, something I’m looking ..
Life Update & the Future of the Blog
Well, yes. I have been awfully quiet here. It’s been mostly for a very specific and I think understandable reason: I started a new job three weeks ago and you know me and work – it can get out of hand. The good news is that I am extremely happy with the job:..
On the Unintended Consequences of Exercise
I have been working out regularly for a little bit more than a year now. I do it twice a week, with a personal trainer, for 45 minutes, at 7am. When I’m finished, I get a coffee from my favourite café across the street and walk to the office, which takes abo..
On How I Read
Let me tell you right away that this is going to be a boring post. I have already shared with you my best tips on how to get more reading done, I’ve got nothing else to give on that front. But I’ve been asked – many times – how I, personally, read. When exac..
On Thinking Yourself out of the Box
I like to believe I’m a pretty clear-eyed person when it comes to myself: I tend to think I know myself well, don’t have many illusions and can assess my strengths and weaknesses with relative accuracy. While I do often ignore that knowledge – I’m frankly no..
On Dressing During the Apocalypse
If you are a regular reader, you know that I occasionally talk about sustainability and environment and climate change, but not really in depth. It’s not because I don’t think these things are important, I think they are HUGELY important – I have worked with..
On Elegance
Elegance is like porn: difficult to define, but you’ll know it when you see it. ‘Elegant’ is a sibling term of ‘stylish’ – another difficult-to-explain concept – that implies a certain gracefulness and sophistication, often also simplicity. I don’t think, ho..