the love of my life: spaghetti
hi!!! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?? guys - I have a bit of a sadness in me today. I h8 the tory government, I h8 that the police do the opposite of protect women & people of colour, I h8 all the h8 in the world. h8 that I contribute to it even typing this, h8 that I can hardly even bear to type the actual word hate. I h8 that it’s impossible to even be mildly entertaining about these things. I h8 that this sounds like the cheesiest and also best bit in 10 Things I Hate About You, a bit that only Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger could make cool, and which I def can’t. I am a lil husk over here, writing my newsletter-diary on my bed like an actual teenager in a teen movie (by the way, I saw someone on TikTok rate the ten best post-90s teen movies and they put Easy A as number one, above 10 Things I Hate About You??? no ty.) Toby has gone away for a week to record some tunes for his band, and I am alone with the Off Menu podcast and with the new Lana album (I appreciate that many, many people have been this alone & more for the last year but hopefully u will appreciate the hyperbole/tongue-in-cheekness of my lone state). there is, rly, only one thing for it: yep, pastaaaaa. which brings me on to:
I’ve been thinking a lot about my body recently - more than usual even. Actually, I’m always thinking about my body. The bits of it that fold into each other when I sit down, the bits of it I feed, the bits of it I’ve refused to, the bits of it that skim over the bones underneath, the bits of it I hate, the bits of it I don’t so much. I’m always thinking about my body, even when I don’t want to, even when I just want to enjoy myself, even when I just want to be alive and not be a weight. It’s a constant scrap with myself to not think about how every mouthful affects the layer of me that keeps me warm and protects my insides. Every bite strives to be a reminder that I’m not good enough, and every bite is a fight to disagree with myself. Surely it’s not innate? Surely I wasn’t born despising my own actual flesh? Surely something, or someone, taught me to hate myself (taught us to hate ourselves)? I read this article the other day, and I remembered how specifically being a teenager in the 00s was about bodies - mine, your’s, women’s, famous women’s - and how specifically it was about what’s good and what’s not in a body. It was defining, and consuming. I’m still exhausted from it tbh. Consumed. Just the other day I said to Toby, in a voice masquerading as nonchalance, “Oh look, I’ve got cellulite on my thigh,” and he said, “What’s cellulite?” Imagine not having to have ever considered what cellulite is. In that article, they recall how there was a whole issue of Heat magazine called The Cellulite Issue and how the “journalists” circled pictures of interesting, beautiful, talented women’s fucking thighs, inches of skin zoomed in on with a fucking XL lens, and wrote about how disgusting they were for having cellulite. We were children, reading that. Imagine not having to consider how to exfoliate off cellulite (which btw, is an actual fucking physical impossibility). Imagine not looking for the worst things about yourself every time you look in the mirror. It’s truly a different world to the one I exist in, the one teenage girls exist(ed?) in. Because I know that none of this matters, I know that. Theoretically, academically, I understand that it’s meaningless. Applying that knowledge practically? A lot more fucking difficult.
I’ve always known the chef’s adage that to cook is to express love, and I’ve always believed it too - fish roasted with spices and served with 100 different salads in my friend’s kitchen with records on, my grandma’s lasagne, my mum always cooking a separate dish for me and her since I stopped eating meat, the knowledge of the glory of the crispy squid at a tiny Vietnamese restaurant in Camden passed down by a friend, the Kinder Buenos my best mate brought over when my flat door got kicked in on the last night of my tax return deadline, the oysters shared in a too-expensive restaurant, Maccies devoured after a night club, curry in the local Indian restaurant without parents for the first time, a sparkler in birthday cake, Pizza Bravo, my friends refusing to let me pay for our Turkish feast on my birthday, the espresso martini ordered for me as dessert the birthday prior, the pizza uber-ed over to me when I was crying and watching Friends. I know all this and I hold all this close (so close!!!) to my heart, but I could never apply that knowledge out in the wild: the kitchen. These years of distorted visions of myself meant years of distorted eating habits, and left alone the only thing I could ever conjure up was spaghetti - nights and nights and nights of spaghetti. Make no mistake though: I love spaghetti. In fact, spaghetti is my favourite-ever food; it has seen me through my worst and my best moments, my worst and my best moods. It is my ultimate comforter - even more so than my lifelong teddy (named Noodle, obviously), than watching The Mighty Boosh under the covers, than drinking sugared tea, even more than The Pub. Too-soft, too-hot, too-garlicky or al dente with chilli and oil, with mozzarella ripped over the top or black olives folded in, with lemon, with butter, with parmesan. All kinds of the simplest spaghetti have kept me afloat for years now. Something about how the vague ridiculousness of the long thin noodle meets the sophistication of its accompanying sauces feels just-right to me. Juxtaposition, u know? Did I already talk in a previous newsletter about juxtaposition? About how all the best things are founded in it? Spaghetti is a juxtaposition with itself, and that’s why I love it. Because aren’t we all too? In the most Tumblr way?
While we’re on a Tumblr dive - do you think Fiona Apple likes spaghetti? I’m listening to her now; I’m always listening to her. She’s fucking cool, isn’t she, Fiona Apple? And she’s thin - 00s magazine-approved thin, which I wish I wasn’t fucking obsessed with but I am, and I put that adjective in to show u, to express, how my head has been trained to go for that first, it’s not what I actually want or see or how I view people or how I interact, but it’s there at the front of my mind ready to jump out and ambush me at any moment. So I put that in to show you what I mean, how I feel, ambushed - and she’s weird, Fiona Apple, and she sings, and writes music about feelings and femininity and eating disorders, and abusive relationships, and stuff like that, that jars with her angel voice and naive percussion in a way that really makes u stop. Do you think spaghetti gets to her soul the way it does mine, the way she gets to my soul? I think what’s so clever about Fetch The Bolt Cutters is that you almost can’t wait for whatever song you’re listening to to finish because it makes you feel so bizarrely comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time, and then when it’s finished you miss it immediately. It’s too lazy to draw the comparison that when spaghetti is finished, I also miss it immediately, but it should be noted that that is true too.
What I’m really trying to express here is: eating spaghetti feels like caring for myself when no other food does. I can eat spaghetti even when I can’t eat because of what the 00s, and fucking Heat magazine, and The fucking Sun, and what I did to my broken little brain that says I’m not good enough. Spaghetti makes me feel like I am. Spaghetti, hot and buttery, gives me the strength to get through the evening if I’m having a bad one, and gives me the power to take on the world if I’m having a good one. It makes me feel fucking good, you know? How many things make you feel this good that don’t hurt anyone? Spaghetti is nourishment when I need it most. If I didn’t have the knowledge that I can always eat spaghetti I might not ever be able to eat anything else. I wish that was an exaggeration, but as it isn’t, it’s more than just a comfort to know <3
This was a bit of a heavy 1 hey!!!!! but I’m happy and well, and loved and healthy. if u need any help or anything there r some links to things that help me below & my email replies r always open (tho I am no professional - we’re all still working it out baby xxx)
This interview with Ruby Tandoh (I actually love Ruby Tandoh and Eat Up literally saved my life I could not recommend enough!!!)
Slut’s Spaghetti - Nigella Lawson
Everything I Know About Love - Dolly Alderton (I passed this on to someone, and I kind of wish I had it again because Dolly so accurately describes how I feel that I would like to read it over and over)
This article by Harling Ross (Man Repeller went a bit wrong, didn’t it, but for so long it talked about so much I wanted to talk about too)
Maybe Baby - Haley Nahman (Man Repeller’s greatest output is Haley Nahman imo. and she left b4 the reckoning I hope and think bc she has Morals)
Everything by Kim Addonizio (obviously poetry isn’t going to fix disordered eating but finding solidarity in poetry helped me feel more whole)
Samaritans who rly do saintlike work tbh.
see u next time (2 weeks!!! we’re going bi-weekly baby.) big love!!!!! xxxxxxxxx