#98: going offline, acts of desperation & 12ft.io
missed me?
anyway, welcome back (okay, presumptuous of me!!!) to sent from my iphone with love, your hot links to epic things that i have found On The Line and the irl bit, which is hot reccos for Real Life Living™.
tumblr called, they want their yadda yadda…
this is the online bit:
★ going offline ★
not to break my second of substack silence with claims that i am better than thou, but last week i spent a collective total of an hour on my phone. i was literally… off the grid. what happened in the world was none of my business. my phone was a piece of hardware i sneered at, a reminder of my baser past. i couldn’t imagine what was so captivating about it, how i spent my life (and neck) craned into its’ black mirror. i didn’t know what time it was, let alone which day. i found out about the lorde remix three days later. it didn’t matter. and it felt amazing.
of course, i would love to commit to going offline more frequently, but i know the only way i can do this is in an involuntary state (i just checked my phone 3 times whilst writing this sentence). so until i am incarcerated orange is the new black style for some glamorous crime, or hiding out in a siberian cave, signal bouncing uselessly back across blinding layers of snow or, like, at a music festival, i’m back staring into the void baby! missed y’all.
★ 12ft.io ★
i guess you could say 12ft.io is the putlocker of paywalled journalism. and i guess you could say 12ft.io has gotta be up there with one of my favourite sites.
whilst i know it’s morally ambiguous, and we should pay for writing because it’s a dying art and there’s no money in it blah blah blah, it’s also like… are we really paywalling information in 2024? in a cost of living crisis? isn’t every website mining all of my personal data in exchange to read an article about which white male celebrity is so “baby girl” enough payment? use, or don’t, at your own discretion. idc.
★ the girl, so confusing version with lorde, charli xcx and lorde ★
it’s perfect.
this is the irl bit:
☆ employing toby’s travel mantra ☆
as a general rule, i am not a stressed person. things happen, you usually survive. the worst thing that happens, generally, is the suffering of a minor inconvenience.
sometimes when i am travelling by myself, i get a little antsy, because there’s no one else to remember to bring the toothpaste or a hairbrush or a phone charger. but then i remember toby’s travel manta, and i am calmed, and think who gives a fuck? everything is replaceable, i decide if something is stressful or not.
the mantra:
as long as i have my passport, anything else is a bonus.
as long as i have my passport, anything else is a bonus.
as long as i have my passport, anything else is a bonus.
☆ a series of really good books i’ve read lately ☆
june was great because i did a lot of not working. this is something i am a big advocate of. it really edged me for retirement. not for the being old of it all, but more just for the ability to do absolutely not much and feel pretty good about it.
funnily enough, when you remove the part of your day where you labour over things that have little to know consequence for close to 9 hours, you have a lot of time to fill doing things that you enjoy. these things can include; performatively reading at a cafe, or, like, actually reading near a body of water.
here is what i read and loved:
ordinary human failings by megan nolan
and then i was in one of those moods where i knew i had to keep reading the same author because nothing else would suffice so i picked up megan nolan’s debut acts of desperation
then i read boy parts by eliza clark which was sickening (literally, but also in the gay compliment sense)
now i’m reading all fours by miranda july which i CANNOT put down it’s crazy good
☆ owning a pair of sexy everyday boots ☆
i know there’s that whole thing about not caring what anyone else thinks, but everyone knows the best pieces to own pay dividends in compliments from strangers.
i bought a new pair of miista boots (heavily discounted, vinted) and have had multiple hotties on the street stop me to compliment them. from this i have learnt- there is no more sophisticated and sexy addition to an outfit than a pair of good boots.
unfortunately a little less sexy and sophisticated is the feet sheathed by the pair of new boots. i decided to wear mine in whilst traipsing around new york and now i have to say either my foot pic career is over before it began or its about to take the hell off because these gorgeous booties busted my dogs up like they were out for blood. on the bright side, i feel like the perfect pied marketplace is probably a little oversaturated, so i probably have more of a shot making serious bread with something a little more outré, no?
ciao bella xxxxxx