Well, not new. New old music. Old music, mostly, that you probably haven’t listened to in a while, maybe ever, but you’ll totally love. Music! What I’m saying is, here’s some music for you. Handpicked by moi.

The Flaming Lips. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots.

This is a weird, beautiful, quirky little song, unlike any other song.

Saint Motel. My Type.

I’m not sure if I love this, or really hate it. But I keep listening to it.

Blondie. Long Time.

Love Blondie. LOVE.

Cake. Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town.

I like to sing this very loudly to myself. It’s VERY dramatic. Stick to the very end to hear the ad-libs.

Dave Dobbyn. Slice Of Heaven.

This song was a SMASH HIT in New Zealand and Australia, and my cousins in Perth had it on cassette tape. We played it a lot when we visited them from HK for Christmas. Then we would sing it, acapella. Then we’d make up Nativity plays. My sister was Mary. I was the Donkey, but I like to think of myself as the writer/director BEHIND the Donkey.

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Bellbottoms.

Obviouslah I’m a Baby Driver fan, I’ve got a working brain. But what made me fall in love with this song was an interview with Edgar Wright, when he said he used to listen to it in his car, like Baby does in the movie, and daydream and write in his head. And the movie grew out of this solitary daydreaming. This is exactly the kind of thing I do, and totally the way I think of ideas and write. I think and think and think until eventually, my head will explode if I don’t write it all out.

The clip is the movie clip, rather than the video, because, well, it’s better.

And if you’d like to see the clip while you read the script – and why wouldn’t you? – then take a look at this amazing Instagram account.

Lemon Jelly. Nice Weather For Ducks.

Another weird song. But kind of great.

Gizzle. Get Loud For Me.

I have a feeling I posted this song before, but tant pis, as they say. It’s one of my favorites right now.

There’s no video to this song. But just trust me. It’s Turin Brakes, Feeling Oblivion, and if you’re in just the right mood, it will make you burst into tears. But the kind of tears that make you feel better about everything. I promise.

I LOVE this book series. (I have raved about it before.)

Cannot wait to see the movie.

I started watching this show last week.

I try to watch one episode of everything. As long as it’s not terrible, I try to watch three.

I have watched eight episodes of the Imposters in four days. I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

This is the blurb: “Con artist Maddie is as beautiful as she is dangerous. Over the years, she has left a trail of unwitting victims who become tormented upon realizing that they have been used and robbed of everything — including their hearts. Her latest assignment threatens to be derailed, though, when she meets Patrick, a potential love interest. Further complicating Maddie’s work are three former targets — Ezra, Richard and Jules — who realize they have been scammed by the same woman and team up to track her down.”

Okay, that’s not the best copy in the world, it makes the show sound breathless and serious. But I swear to you: Imposters is fucking funny and fast and juicy, with great characters and seriously enjoyable dialogue. They are chewing through story so fast, I don’t know how they’re going to keep it up, but I have total confidence that they will. After years of shows as deliciously slow as Mad Men, there’s something very satisfying about a show that starts at 100 mph and doesn’t stop.

Enjoy.

So, for about a year, my right wrist hurt. Not just my wrist. My thumb, my index and middle finger hurt, too. They’d ache and tingle and swell. I had pain in my elbow, sometimes up to my shoulder. But mostly, my wrist hurt.

I wondered if it was from overusing my iPhone, but I’m really not on it THAT much. Frankly, if I could still use one of those ancient Nokias that can’t save more than ten texts at a time, I would. I only text and email from my laptop, and I mostly use Instagram to scroll back look at adorable old photos of my own children. (Yes. I’m very self-involved.) So I figured, it’s not my iPhone.

Then I thought it was carpal tunnel and/or tendonitis from typing too much, but what could I do? I can’t just go and become a fucking shepherd or whatever. The only thing I know how to do is write. (And the only thing I know how to do well is spell.) So I went to my PT, I went to a Chinese medicine doctor, I wore a totally useless wrist splint, I stopped typing in bed (the writer’s secret shame) and only wrote at my desk with a proper monitor and keyboard and mouse. Didn’t make any difference. My wrist hurt. All. The. Time.

Then one day, after like 14 months of this bullshit pain, I thought, it REALLY hurts when I use my mouse. Let’s try something different.

So I bought this.

And this.

And YOU GUYS. Pain. Gone. Completely gone. Within about 24 hours. It’s been six weeks, it hasn’t come back.

So this is more of a PSA than an interesting post, I know, but for the three people out there who are experiencing severe wrist pain and can’t figure out why, HEY! Try this. Let me know if it works.

Well darlings, I am writingwritingwriting (is it good? is it terrible? who can say, certainly not moi) and then at night I fall into bed with a book and bam, that’s it, game over. In case you’d like it, here’s a recent reading list. It’s not everything I’ve read – often when I dip my toe into recently released fiction I get very fucking bored and irritated immediately, like the grumpy old biddy that I am. The moment I read a female character who doesn’t feel real, I throw the book at the wall, so I throw books at walls frequently.

I did not throw these books.

Jane Fonda, My Life So Far.

Fascinating and thoughtful and wise and unflinchingly, almost painfully honest and self-aware. I adore her.

David Niven, The Moon’s A Balloon.

It’s not often that an autobiography will make me cry – that’s one of the reasons I read them; they’re safe, and I am SUCH a weeper. But this book made me sob. Such a lovely man.

Dreaming The Beatles, Rob Sheffield

Absolutely delicious book. This made me – genuinely – dream about the Beatles. (FYI, John, every time, always. I could have made him nice.)

The Beatles: The Biography, Bob Spitz

After the dreaming book, I read about six more Beatles books, because I am nothing if not excessive. This was the best of them.

Leonardo da Vinci, Walter Isaacson 

This wonderful book gives texture and life to a period and person I knew nothing about. So, so enjoyable.

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell

Funny, smart, thoughtful and interesting. I loved this book.

Persuasion, Jane Austen

My absolute favorite, I read it once a year. I have tried to think, for years, how to retell Persuasion in modern times, without making Anne super passive and annoying or putting up with so many idiots telling her what to do, when she should be jumping into the sack with beautiful Wentworth at the first opportunity… It’s a tough one. Give me time.

More soon. What should I post about? Makeup? Makeup, right? Okay. I’ll write a makeup post next. Pinkie swear.

Two cool new TV projects dropped in my lap in January, gang.

So obviouslah, I needed some new music to listen to while I’m playing make believe in my head. Writing, for me, starts with daydreaming. And then, if an idea comes, scribbling it – whatever it is; characters, plot ideas, dialogue – down as fast as I can, on paper, on my iPhone, on my hands, inside of book jackets in the middle of the night when I’m too asleep to get some actual paper but too scared of losing the idea, anywhere. Yes, it’s incredibly annoying for the people around me. Where was I? Yes. New music. (Or new old music.)

This is what I’m listening to:

Nana Adjoa – Late Bloomer

Gizzle – Get Loud For Me

The Beatles – It Won’t Be Long

Gin Wigmore – Kill Of The Night

Dum Dum Girls – Coming Down

Electric Six – I Buy The Drugs

The Cure – Close To Me

Gary Clark Jr – Come Together

The Romantics – What I Like About You

Iggy Pop – Candy

Harry Nilsson – One

Bad news, gang. ABC did not pick up Mavericks. It’s okay, shhhhh, it’s okay. Hug it out. Better? Okay. Yes. They picked up a bunch of cop shows and procedurals, and just one other sex-filled relationship soap so far – an Eva Longoria produced/starring show, set in a hotel in Miami. Who can blame them? I want to watch Eva Longoria in a sexy hotel soap in Miami, don’t you? Anyway, it’s disappointing, but it’s a pretty darn good script so it might find another home… I’ll keep you posted. x

THIS INCENSE IS INSANE.

Nippon Kodo Kayuragi Japanese Incense Sticks in Aloeswood. There are 40 sticks in this pack (and it comes with a little holder, too). Smells utterly delicious, lasts for hours and hours, and every time I walk into our apartment I think ‘omg that smells so damn good’. Not like the incense that the stoned girls used to have at college, all cumin and fake jasmine, ewwww. More like… I don’t know. Let me think.

Got it: it smells like Hong Kong. Not in a bad way. Not in the humid-cement-covered-in-urine-and-rotting-cabbage way (though I am genuinely quite partial to that smell, too). More in the walking-into-a-Hong-Kong-furniture-store way. It smells like sweet smoke and rice and shiny dark furniture. And I’m not sure what else. Aloeswood, clearly, whatever the fuh that is.

It just smells like I want my apartment to smell, forever.

It is my gift to everyone I know for the rest of the year. Having me to dinner? Have some incense. Helped me with a work thing? Voila. Invited me over and braided my hair while we watched Marvelous Mrs Maisel together? Light this on fire. You’ll thank me later.