unpacking april
a month in review hallelujah
I have this slightly unhinged habit of carrying around a tiny red journal with me at all times.
Not for anything productive, obviously. I’m not jotting down business ideas or planning my life. It’s purely for reviews. Things I’ve read, watched, overheard, mildly obsessed over. Anything that feels like it deserves a second thought.
Because I have this belief, which may or may not be correct, that there’s no point experiencing anything if you’re not going to sit with it afterwards and decide how you feel about it. Otherwise life just becomes a series of things that happened to you, and I’d quite like to think I have some say in it.
Anyway, this is my attempt at making that slightly more public.
This is unpacking april. My first of what will either be a consistent monthly ritual or something I abandon by June.
Things I Read
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
I read Lost Lambs, which might be the best fiction I’ve read all year. You know when a book is so good you start rationing it, like you’ll only allow yourself one chapter a night so it doesn’t end too quickly? That. I didn’t want it to be over, which feels like the highest compliment you can give anything.Famesick by Lena Dunham
I also read Famesick by Lena Dunham, which I could not put down in a completely different way. Less romantic, more compulsive. It’s one of those books that makes you quietly reassess things you’ve previously glamorised. Like burnout.
We talk about it like it’s a badge of honour. A sign that you’re doing something right. But reading what she went through while making Girls, which, for the record, is still one of the best shows ever made, did make me pause and think… is any of it actually worth that?
I don’t have an answer. I just have a slightly uncomfortable feeling about how casually we accept that level of exhaustion as the price of doing something great.
Things I Watched
Girls
Speaking of Girls, I rewatched all of it. Again.I do this every couple of years like it’s some sort of emotional reset. I knew the memoir was coming, and it felt wrong to read it without revisiting the thing that made it all happen.
It’s still so good. Slightly chaotic, deeply flawed, occasionally unbearable, but in a way that feels very honest. Everyone in it is a bit insufferable, which is probably why it works.The Drama
I also watched The Drama and loved it, despite the mixed reviews and a few cringe-y scenes which comes as a default with anything Robert Patterson gives us. My review is that the storyline and the cinematography was great. Thoroughly enjoyed. 8/10. So, what’s the worse thing you’ve ever done?
Things I Did
Shopped in Southall
I went to Southall and had one of those days that makes you feel very anchored in who you are. Parathas, chai, fabric shops, buying an outfit for my cousin’s engagement that I absolutely did need and bought at risk without even trying it on (spoiler: it fits). There’s something about being in spaces that feel familiar in a cultural way that make you feel a little bit more grounded.
Gunna London Concert (night two)
If you didn’t know, my day job is managing the socials for Nando’s, and lets just say that sometimes the perks are perking. Work so kindly offered me those Gunna tickets, which was nostalgic AF! It felt like a direct throwback to my uni era, and a reminder that I used to have far more energy for standing in crowded rooms than I do now.
Pub x
And, of course, I’ve returned to the pub. Because it’s pub season again, which in the UK is less of a season and more of a personality shift.
Things I Obsessed Over
Justin Bieber at Coachella
There’s something about a celebrity crush that forms when you’re younger and just never really leaves. Watching him perform felt like being 14 again but all in all, I was so happy for him because he deserved all the love he got from Coachella - Justin… remember who tf you is!
Ballet Flats…
Also, I am still, relentlessly, on the hunt for the perfect ballet flats. Specifically the Puma ones, which have somehow become both impossible to find and deeply necessary to my happiness.
Final Thoughts (because apparently I have those now)
April felt suspiciously nostalgic.
Gunna had me thinking about uni, Girls took me down memory lane of all the decisions I made in my 20s. Justin Bieber at Coachella confirmed that a teenage crush is, apparently, a lifelong commitment and I still love him the way I did when I had posters on my wall.
Even the ballet flats. Which feel less like a trend and more like something I’ve been circling back to for years.
Anyway, here’s to nostalgia.
See you in May. Probably.