Fact: Life milestones cluster.

First, everyone you know turns 21 and all you seem to do is go to 21st birthday parties every damn weekend. Then everyone moves into grubby-floored shared apartments with friends, and all you do is go to housewarming parties where someone ends up sleeping in the bathtub. Then everyone moves in with their significant other and you go to a lot of dinner parties (and eat either roast chicken or lasagne). Then everyone breaks up with said significant other, and decides they hate their career, and you all go out to bars in hope of widening the social gene pool and drinking away the worries about how much you hate your career. Then everyone gets engaged and married, all at once, so all of a sudden you spend every second of your life travelling to, shopping for and recovering from weddings.

And then everyone gets knocked up. And that’s where I am right now. It’s baby baby baby, plop plop plop. Everyone I know is clearly getting laid. A LOT. And high five to all of you for that. (You smutty little filthmongers.)

Now, some women waft through pregnancy, looking amazing and feeling fantastic, barely noticing any difference in their day to day lives. Others are slayed by nausea, exhaustion, and general aches and pains, and wake every morning wondering what fresh hell will arrive that day. I was firmly in the latter camp. And these are the items that helped me survive. So if you’re knocked up, or know someone who is, enjoy. If you’re not in this place at all, then this post will really bore you. But then again, my bourgeois analysis of the concerns of 20- to 30-something yuppies like moi was probably highly tedious too, and you clicked away on like, line three. So never mind.

ANYWAY.

If you’re plagued by nausea / vomiting / acid reflux / heartburn, nothing will taste very good for the entire nine months. On the plus side, you can impress your friends by burping like a trucker. And nothing says ‘mother’ like someone leaning over a toilet bowl for the sixteenth time that day, screaming ‘THIS IS BULLSHIT’ in between mouthfuls of [insert foodstuff here].

Super Lemons are a Japanese lemon-flavoured candy that are so sour they make you wince and drool and swear. They also may stop you feeling godawful for an hour or so. Apparently extra saliva helps create enzymes that relieve nausea. We ate a lot of these in Hong Kong when I was a kid (though we were not, I hasten to add, knocked up). And we liked another candy called, I think, Toxic Waste. No confirmation if Toxic Waste is good for pregnancy or not. You can usually find Super Lemon in Japanese food shops, or try Amazon or Ebay.

Next, Pink Lady Apples, cold from the fridge and sliced into 1cm rounds, also helped my nausea. I don’t know why; I’m not a nutritionist. Warning: chew them VERY well. If they come back up, apple skin will slice the shit out of your throat.

Ditto cucumber. Sliced thin, on buttered toast, with cracked pepper. If you are great with child and feel meh, try it.

For the last trimester, heartburn can be a real bitch. Sometimes it gets so bad you’ll throw up. At least, I did. Eating almonds will keep you going without feeling sick. Something to do with the alkaline/acid levels of your stomach, or some shit like that. (I’m not a doctor, either.) Man, I ate a lot of almonds. I also ate a steak sandwich cooked in butter every day for breakfast, as it was the only meal that was guaranteed not to give me heartburn. God, that was awesome. I’d love a steak sandwich right now. Let’s put a photo of a steak sandwich in, just for fun.

Nice.

Of course, you can take drugs for nausea and heartburn… I tried Vitamin B6, Omeprazole, Zantac, Motilium, Gaviscon, and a bunch of other things. Tums were the most calming and the yummiest. Sometimes I’d fall asleep, sitting up (lying down makes heartburn a lot worse), with a Tums dissolving in my mouth. A few hours later, I’d wake up with heartburn again, pop another Tums, and drift back to sleep. I’d wake up with coloured spittle dried around the outside of my lips. Which means I was also probably drooling. Did I mention pregnancy was sexy? No? That’s good. Because I would have been lying.

I have a thumping great girl crush on this woman. Tara Lee. I did her pregnancy DVD every single morning from week 12 onwards, even when walking or sitting for longer than a few minutes was no longer an option (pesky back and hip problems). She’s sort of gentle and calm and kind, and so pretty, and she has a nice voice, and um, oh, she has really great hair, and oh no, am I gushing? I feel like I’m gushing… The yoga moves are very easy, and really stretch out all the muscles that are working hard to carry that 30 pounds of babygut around. All in all, it was a lovely way to start the day. By week 37, I could recite the entire thing, word-for-word, with Tara’s calm-but-wise-inflexions, including lines like ‘feel like you are doing an internal dance with your baby’, WITHOUT IRONY.

You can’t sleep on your back during pregnancy for a number of boring-but-scary reasons. This pregnancy pillow is comfy as hell and doubles as a nursing pillow once your baby arrives. My sister asked if it was from Pacha in Ibiza, and I replied ‘no, Peter Jones in Chelsea’. That kind of highlights the different stages of life we’re at right now.

Support belt. It’s ridiculous, it’s unattractive, and it’s silly. But it really helps with aches and strains you might have if you are large of bump. No, of course this photo isn’t of moi.

Lastly, a reminder of why you are enduring the hell of pregnancy in the first place. Because babies are awesome.

Errol Fletcher Barry. This morning.

As you may know, sometimes I write a blog for the luxenistas at SheerLuxe.

Here’s the latest one.

I chose this book just for the cover.

The Afterparty by Leo Benedictus.

And then I read it.

It’s brilliant.

I wish the cover for The Dating Detox looked like that, by the way. It would seem so much more appropriate, don’t you think? Only with vodka instead of whiskey, and maybe a cigarette stubbed out in it instead of a floating dude (which, by the way, I only noticed after staring at it for a very long time).

People sometimes email me asking for recommendations for books like mine. My suggestions are usually pretty useless. For one thing, I don’t read a hell of a lot of chicklit. And though I know there’s some great chicklit out there (and, of course, a lot of fluffy shit), I don’t know many chicklit books with heroines who drink and swear and screw and work hard and hope and fuck up and recover… and who are, most importantly, funny. And that’s why I started trying to write in the first place: I felt like reading something comforting-yet-sharp and nothing satisfied me.

These are the dependably satisfying reads that I usually recommend: Talli Roland’s The Hating Game, starring a hilariously strong and snarky heroine. Plum Skyes’ Berdorf Blondes always cracks me up. Jennifer Weiner and Candace Bushnell are consistently excellent (they’re bestsellers for a damn good reason…). I always enjoy Emily Giffin books, though they’re sometimes a little heavy on the concept and light on the laughs. Jilly Cooper is laugh-out-loud funny, but she writes bonkbusters and that’s not everyone’s cup of hot cha. And Helen Fielding is of course the funniest of all… but don’t we all know Bridget off by heart by now?

Anyway, read The Afterparty. It’s smart, fast and very funny.

Age four. Daisy bikini. Would totally still wear this.

Age eight. Pale pink pencil skirt, grey suede booties, hot pink sweater with a balloon appliqué. I would wear this outfit today, except for the sweater (I’m over 30; I can’t do ironic appliques). Man, I loved that skirt. My mother told me I looked like I worked in a bank. I loved that even more.

Age 12. Black opaques, DM boots (only six hole, wasn’t allowed the eight hole), seriously frayed denim shorts, oversize burgundy cardigan. I may have hit my sartorial apex at the age of 12, as this look is still pretty much perfect.

Age 14. Pale blue Levi’s 501s, oversize black belt with daisy-shaped belt buckle, white tshirt, black blazer with the sleeves pushed up, silver peace sign pendant on silver chain. Totally Cindy Crawford ya know? Also, peace signs were really big in Hong Kong in the 90s. Ditto hypercolour tshirts, high top sneakers, and enormous carryall bags made of purple and orange wool that we bought from street vendors from, I think, Nepal. Holy shit, those bags were ugly.

Age 16. Secondhand flowery tea dress with the hem cut off far higher than it should have been and a pair of huge steelcapped (no, they really were steelcapped) brown farmers boots that were two sizes too big. I bought the boots from a secondhand shop in a small country town one summer vacation, somehow got them home though they added about 5kg to my luggage and my mother had threatened me with death if I overpacked again. I wore them constantly for years, even though they were so heavy I could hardly lift my feet. I was trying to do a grunge thing, I guess. What can I say.

Age 17-20. These were my university years. My friends and I were lucky if we got out of PJs. We often didn’t. We also wore a disturbing amount of extraordinarily unattractive rugby jerseys. If one of us actually wore jeans, or – gasp – a belt – we assumed that person’s parents were taking them out for dinner or something. When I look back, I am mildly surprised any of us ever got any action at all.

What about you?

I really want these.

Unique Flare Jeans by Goldsign.

But US$278 on a pair of jeans is ricockulous. What are they made from? Unicorn sperm?

I am starting a new 99% movement for the 99% of people who think nearly US$300 for a pair of goddamn jeans is an outrage. Join me! (Fear not, we’re not gonna do the whole sleeping-in-tents thing. I’ve never slept in a tent and I’m not about to start now.)

I have an email to share with you.

I got it a few months ago, opened it by mistake, read the whole thing as it made me laugh so much, and every now and again I remember it and think ‘I should so blog about that’.

Yeah, it’s a phishing scam spam thing.

But it’s strange and hilarious and kind of beguiling.

The first few paragraphs are, though lexically tickling for the copywriter, rather predictable. So if you’re in a hurry, skip to the paragraph starting ‘Yes it’s true the world is a global place’.

FedEx UK Head Office
Parkhouse Industrial Estate
East Chesterton
Tel (+44) 7024018994
Date:17/09/2011

FEDEX COURIER MANAGING DIRECTOR..
FEDEX BROCAST DESK
Agent Jan Ward

Don’t you find the ranting-yet-patient tone of voice so charming? “I think you understand what I mean by a demurrage?”

From now on when I’m pissed off, I’m going to say “that is an insult to my face and me as a person”.

I almost hope the dude got some money. I feel like he earned it.

Last night I was almost asleep when I realised I’d forgotten to apply lip balm. Dry lips are the bane of my life (uh, after my eyebrows… and the perma-hangnail on my thumb… and – oh, never mind, back to the point), so I drenched up the energy to reach into my nightstand and fumble around the mess for my trusty tube of Homeoplasmine .

It was not there.

Instead I pulled out a tube of Lanisoh nipple balm, the most useless item I bought when I was pregnant. I never needed it. My puppies adjusted to breastfeeding pretty effortlessly, bless their not-that-little souls.

So I gazed at the tube of Lanisoh sleepily through my lashes, thought ‘fuck it, if babies are allowed to eat it it must be safe enough’, and smeared some on my lips. It’s very thick and clear, like a balmy-paste thing. It doesn’t taste or smell of anything, either.

I woke up eight hours later with the stuff STILL ON, lips perfectly plump and moisturised, no cracks, not even a hint of dryness.

I thought you guys should know about it.

Best. Lipbalm. Ever.

I’ve figured out the major flaw in the whole ‘being a fulltime writer’ thing.

Clothes.

Back when I was copywriting 9 to 5, I looked forward to getting dressed. I’m that kind of girl. I like clothes, I like looking good, I like makeup, I like all of it. I like putting on my iPod, striding to the tube, getting a takeaway coffee, and looking at people and shops and the morning unfolding around me, all with that happy little inner fizz that you feel when you’re happy with what you’re wearing.

Now, for most of this year, being pregnant made getting dressed a chore, and it coincided with, almost exactly, the moment I stopped copywriting. I felt like shit, I looked like shit. My boobs became crazy Jane Russell missiles seven months before their cue (by the way, I have no idea how anyone can dress if they have big boobs, they’re honestly a living hell). My skin was dry, my lips were cracked, I kept breaking blood vessels in my face from throwing up. To sum up: I did not do the whole elegant glowing thing.

But now that I’m not pregnant anymore (yay!), and fitting back into my old clothes (double yay!), I’ve realised that I now wear about 2% of my wardrobe.

Fact: this is what I have worn for most of the past two weeks.

An old jumper that looks a bit like this.

Boyfriend jeans. (Actually, mine are from H&M; and just huge, worn and ripped thanks to the natural wear and tear of time, but if I had money to burn, I’d get the Current Elliott ones too.)

Pink thermal socks (or army green thermal socks, depending on the day). I hate having cold feet.

Grey slippers.

My hair is always in messy bun thing, and despite owning more makeup than I’ll ever actually admit to, I don’t wear anything except La Roche-Posay Anthelios SPF50.

This is what I write in. I look, frankly, terrible. If I had to name it, it’d be something like Colourblind Sloth. I’ve contemplated getting properly dressed, just for the hell of it, but putting on a blazer and changing the socks and slippers for heels (which is pretty much all I would need to make the above outfit office-appropriate, in my eyes) to walk from the bedroom to my office is even stupider than being upset about the current lack of reasons to get dressed. N’est-ce pas?

PS Oh, I meant to say. One thing I do wear every day, without fail, is perfume. And, after months of nothing but L’Eau de Rien by Miller Harris, I have a new scent obsession.

Mure et Musc by L’Artisan Parfumeur. It. Is. Divine. ‘Mure’ is blackberry in French, ‘musc’ is – you guessed it, you clever thing, you – musk. It’s not too sweet, not too fruity, not too anything… just gentle and sexy and yummy. Love it. If you’re not near somewhere you can sniff it, you can buy a Mure et Musc sample for US$3 at LuckyScent. While you’re at it, try L’Eau de Rien, too. It’s sort of warm, salty and lickable. Goddamnit, I love being a girl.