Thank you for reading The Middle. I hope you enjoy this selection of my thoughts, feelings, etc. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss a single sentence. Sian x
Thoughts
Is everyone else obsessively watching videos of Brad Pitt and George Clooney from the Venice Film Festival or is it just me? Those two are a sexagenarian smoke show and I’d still go there (Brad not George), don’t judge me.
Speaking of Venice and very attractive men, I saw a video of Aaron Taylor-Johnson on the red carpet and immediately abandoned my hopes for him being cast as the next James Bond and instead have him pegged to play Rhysand, the internets favourite book boyfriend. Can the ACOTAR girlies please weigh in?
After outing myself as fervent Stanley cup despiser, my friend Riva delights in sending me videos of women in America packing their Stanley cup and associated accessories like a fucking suitcase to go to the beach, the movies, or on a walk???? WHY? You’re not going to Europe, Julianna, you’re grabbing a carton of milk from the corner shop. I’m sure you’ll survive without a single-use ass wipe you won’t even use. I’m so enraged by something that does not remotely affect me and have full agency to disengage but I am unable to look away.
Have started a list of words I’m petitioning to be banned from our dictionaries/modern lexicon. So far I have: nup, phwoar, nom, nummies. Please tell me you hate them as much as I do. Why do we use them so much? Why is ‘phwoar’ used anywhere outside of a comic book? Make it stop.
Anyone else been to New Zealand and think that the view in Queenstown looks like a Windows desktop screensaver option?
Was late to listen to Brat which means I was even more behind in catching up to the Chappell Roan juggernaut that is The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess but I’m here and I love it and I’m never leaving.
Received the Camilla & Marc t-shirt I purchased from their annual ‘Ovaries. Talk About Them’ campaign to raise funds for an early detection test for ovarian cancer (all profits from the sales of the collection are donated to the UNSW Ovarian Cancer Research Centre). Currently, there is no such test available for women and the only way to be definitely diagnosed is through exploratory surgery and biopsy. This doesn’t sound so unreasonable until you consider the vagueness of the symptoms that can present with this particular cancer and women’s tendency to underplay their own pain and discomfort, so by the time diagnosis occurs, it’s far too late for some. I always aim to purchase something from this campaign every year because the funding is so vital to help researchers continue to try and find a solution. There will be countless failures that take a lot of time and money but it’s a crucial step in the scientific process. Please check out the campaign and donate or purchase something if you can. I always have someone commenting and asking about my t-shirt when I wear it, and they have the pleasure of listening to the lecture I’m now giving you, willing or not.
#WriteAWriter
When I first read one of these #WriteAWriter letters, I wondered about the author that I would write to. I thought about all of the great books I’ve read in the last few years, sifting through who would be top of mind for me. I’ve probably failed to reflect adequately and have bypassed so many authors in my mental rolodex but to be honest, the first author my mind flipped that hamster wheel of information to was Markus Zusak and his book, The Book Thief. And before you ask, I haven’t watched the film. The book is on such a high pedestal in my mind, I do not need it to be rocked by a cinematic interpretation that I may not 100% like. Thank you to
for this beautiful prompt and for all the #WriteAWriter letters that have come from it.Dear Markus,
I haven’t always been a writer or taken writing seriously. I doodled and made little story books as a child, obsessively ensuring I didn’t write outside of the lines and always wrote in pencil before going over it in pen. This was obviously before I had unfettered access to Liquid Paper and White Out, the most overused items in my pencil case. My favourite subjects in school were English and History and I was good at them. In Year 10, I fell in love with a little-known writer (maybe you’ve heard of him?) by the name of William Shakespeare. In classic 00’s adolescent girl fashion, Romeo and Juliet swept me off my feet and I declared an unending love for Shakespeare’s work that endures to this day.
But I left school and decided in order to become an adult and therefore ‘impressive’ and a ‘success’, I should become a doctor. I didn’t get into medicine though, so took a left turn and studied a Bachelor of Biomedical Science instead. I then compounded this by going on to complete an Honours degree the following year, and somehow thought in that time I was going to cure cancer?? I know, what the fuck was I doing? We can lament my higher education choices in a future letter as I’m certain that somehow you will read this fan mail and bestow the gift of life-long friendship upon me.
I know what you’re thinking: why are you wanking on about old mate Willy when you’ve written this letter to me? It’s coming, I promise. I had to tell you my origin story for greater impact below.
During this period in my life, I never lost my love of reading and books. I loved fantasy and history and romance and contemporary literature and some classics (not all, some of them are incredibly boring). I still remember walking into Dymocks in Rundle Mall, a favourite escape between lectures on immunoglobulins and the breathing mechanics of a fucking turtle. Back then, there was a cafe in-store and multiple little nooks in which to disappear and read on a well-worn fabric armchair that had absolutely not been sanitised for a decade. It was heaven. It was where I purchased The Book Thief, circa 2008. I don’t particularly remember going home with it, or even the act of buying the book itself. All I know for sure is where I got it and how I felt reading the first pages.
A lot of people love The Book Thief for the plot; for Liesel and Rudy and Max and the devastation of the closing chapters, where you know what happens to you know who (I did sob my heart out at that part, don’t worry). It’s the culmination of almost 600 pages of a lyrical and beautiful narrative set against one of the most hideous times in our recent history. Of course I was gripped by both adoration and devastation by the time I finished.
Personally, I have always loved your book for its beginning. I still remember reading the opening few pages, a frown marring my face, as I tried to comprehend the introduction of your narrator, Death. I stopped and started again and then again, not because I couldn’t grasp what you were trying to tell me but because I couldn’t believe you gave Death a voice, a physicality. Breath. A sense of humour! You gave colours a flavour and inhaled a sky. You animated the inanimate, the abstract, the sky!!
I couldn’t believe I was reading writing like this. It was so unlike anything I had previously engaged with and I was so, so excited to inhale the rest of the book. You broke all the rules I thought I had about writing and even though I was swimming in the vast sea of scientific study at the time, those opening pages of The Book Thief have never, ever left me. Many years later, when I finally gathered the courage to start writing again, I wrote a piece from a place of great personal pain. I don’t think a lot of people get it, which is fine, it’s quite abstract and weird in its content, but I can see the influence of your writing on it. The way you used colour and imagery and personifying death had obviously nestled into my brain and gone into hibernation until it joined the words pouring out of me as I tried to process the biggest period of rejection in my life.
When I think about pushing myself as a writer, I always think of Death and The Book Thief. It helps keep me brave and reminds me that the rules aren’t always meant to be adhered to, that there is joy in breaking them open and seeing what’s inside. This is my favourite passage from the prologue:
Of course, an introduction.
A beginning.
Where are my manners?
I could introduce myself properly, but it’s not really necessary. You will know me well enough and soon enough, depending on a diverse range of variables. It suffices to say that at some point in time, I will be standing over you, a genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A colour will be perched on my shoulder. I will carry you gently away.
At that moment, you will be lying there (I rarely find people standing up). You will be caked in your own body. There might be a discovery; a scream will dribble down the air. The only sound I’ll hear after that will be my own breathing, and the sound of my smell, of my footsteps.
The question is, what colour will everything be at that moment when I come for you? What will the sky be saying?
Personally, I like a chocolate-coloured sky. Dark, dark chocolate. People say it suits me. I do, however, try to enjoy every colour I see - the whole spectrum. A billion or so flavours, none of them quite the same, and a sky to slowly suck on. It takes the edge off the stress. It helps me relax.
This book and your writing was such a gift, a joy I’m still experiencing as I thumb through its yellowed pages and type this letter to you. Thank you for expanding my mind, for staying in my brain and for appearing in my writing when I needed it the most. Thank you for showing me what is possible.
Your new pen pal,
Sian
Etc
LISTEN - None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
I have to give another shoutout to the author Emma Darragh for this recommendation. I saw her post about this book on her instagram stories and I knew I would love it as soon as she mentioned two things. First, the book is a psychological thriller and second, Nicola Walker, the actress who plays Hannah in The Split (the Brits do modern TV drama the best), narrates one of the protagonists in the audiobook. So with an abundance of unused book credits and a seven hour road trip to my hometown looming, I dove right in.
I don’t often listen to fiction as audiobooks, I generally stick to non-fiction and memoir but when the voice actors are engaging, thrillers in your ears are such good listening. None Of This Is True centres around Alix (voiced by Nicola Walker), a podcaster and journalist, and the eerie and unlikely friendship that springs up between her and Josie, a fellow school mum.
The book is tense and uncomfortable and while you know some bad shit is going to go down, it’s not super obvious in its sign posting by the author. It’s unassuming and immersive and the production value of the audio version is so good, I’m convinced it would actually be a shit read as a physical book. The entire cast of voice actors play their roles incredibly well and the author herself is featured. Please listen to it asap and come talk to me about it.
BUY - Juicy Tubes by Lancôme
The excitement that overtook me when I saw that the OG Juicy Tubes from Lancôme had returned was indescribable. They’re back, baby, and I feel like all my nostalgic dreams have come true. I couldn’t give two shits that the hideous low-rise jeans and thin brows that pervaded my teen years resurfacing. This 15mL of glittery goodness is scratching the 00’s itch in a BIG way. I still remember one of my mum’s good friends introducing me to Juicy Tubes when I was fourteen or fifteen. She had multiple tubes strewn about her purses and house and in the high-gloss glitter era of the mid-noughts, I begged Mum to buy me one from the heretofore unexplored landscape of the DJs beauty section. It was a canon event in my discovery of makeup as a teen. So when I popped into Mecca to have look, hoping they hadn’t sold out like they had online, and saw them standing proudly on the shelf in their original silver boxes, I snapped one up before a ravenous tween bet me to it. I got the shade ‘Tickled Pink’ and it’s perfect.
EAT - Laoganma Chilli Bean Condiment
If you’re not slathering this onto anything and everything, then you’re doing condiments wrong. This jar of joy is the thing I always reach for when I want to spice up an otherwise bland meal for myself. Its salty as fuck (as it should be) with the inclusion of the beans and has a mild level of spice that I slather over fried eggs on toast with sumac, goats cheese and avocado. Add it to a drizzle of sesame oil, light soy, peanut butter and diced spring onion to level up your noodle game on a Sunday night pantry scavenge. Mix some into tzatziki for the spinach and feta filo’s you’re defrosting in the oven. Maybe don’t eat it from the spoon. Buy it from your local Asian supermarket. Or buy two jars like I do so you can live without the anxiety of days without it when you can pull another one from it’s hiding place at the pack of your pantry.
Next week: all the kitchen shit I’ve bought and loved recently.
Sian x
Omg, so many things to love in this! I had to take myself off TikTok after I started wanting a stanley cup haha I knew it was wrong but feels like a content saturation that makes you lose all sense of reality.
And I'm very new to the Laoganma Chilli Bean train but I am loving it and put it on basicallly everything.
You’ve just reminded me of how much The Book Thief impacted me as a teenager, and made me want to dig out my own yellowed copy! 😍