Not In Front Of Family

• I have been listening to this repeatedly and weeping for a multitude of reasons. It is utterly perfect. Especially the song Not In Front Of Family.

• I have been making my own homemade vegan Nutella (I am not a vegan) and it is very satisfying, because it’s much greater than the sum of its parts or the effort made in putting them together.

• Over the years, I have been conflicted in my feelings about the Smashing Pumpkins. However, I must concede that I have recently been educated in how listening to Siamese Dream first thing in the morning gets the day off to an excellent start. Preferably with coffee and crumpets.*

• Anyway, I am as obsessed as everyone else is with To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. It is sweet and lovely and I love it and Peter Kavinsky with all of my haggard but perpetually teenage heart.

• I read Motherhood by Sheila Heti and I think we probably all should because it has made me feel better about myself and other people and the whole world.

• I have been to see the Picasso 1932 exhibition at Tate Modern twice now and it is awe-inspiring. On a very basic level, just that he managed to get that much done in the space of one tumultuous year, quite frankly.

*Incidentally, this also prompted a weird realisation that boys seem to use Smashing Pumpkins as a definite wooing tactic. The first time I heard them, it was when an older boy called Jago (dream holiday romance when I was 15) played me Disarm on his Walkman. I carried on listening to the song on repeat long after I went home and went off him.

Then, on my seventeenth birthday, a boy called Futoshi gave me Adore on CD. Futoshi was from Tokyo and played drums in my boyfriend Nico’s band. He confessed his secret crush on me with that present, announcing ‘if you like me, you can kiss me’. I declined and ended up giving the CD to my friend Tommy, as it had also soundtracked his much more grown-up New York holiday romance. Circular, no? I can now see that I was an idiot. That Smashing Pumpkins CD was a sweeter and far more thoughtful gift than Nico ever gave me. He was handsome but flaky (in retrospect I realise: mostly because he didn’t like me that much).