Go out with a bang...

Although, please - not literally. Absolutely NO BANGING.

Short update today for you all, given that the usual caveats as to why I haven’t sent you this newsletter apply. For the interested, these are usually that 1. Life has been a cesspit of divorce misery and 2. Life has also been so utterly full of joy and jolliness that I haven’t given a second thought to sitting down to write because I’ve been too busy having All The Fun. In this case, both apply, more on which another time perhaps.

Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes sits my online dating “career” to date. The very short version this week is that these people do still exist and walk among us. Can’t be entirely sure, but this might have been the final straw for me and online dating. I’m taking a break. But, before that happens I give you, exhibit A:

Given that this particular child-birthing shop closed its (utterly RUINED) doors about 13 years ago now it’s clear I have nothing else to offer the internet men of 2024. This did make me think back to what it would be like to be pregnant again though. Now I’ve had two children, and one of the major reasons that isn’t ever going to be three is because my son was the length of an average toddler when he was born, meaning that by the time he arrived, I had my own gravitational pull. Jupiter’s moons actually orbited me during the final weeks of my pregnancy. When the midwives stretched his skinny little froggy legs out on the paper measuring chart in the first hour of his life, my newly born child was off the scale of what is considered even possible for a baby by some way. So yeah. Pregnancy: 2/10, would not visit again.

I very clearly remember going to ante-natal yoga (which, for the interested is less like actual yoga and more like sitting uncomfortably on a mat while a nice lady gently says things like ‘now, just turn your head to the side.... aaaaand...now look to the other side’ and then having a prolonged weep because you can’t get back up again).

We’d passed the sitting down breathing and visualising how not to actually die during labour stages of yoga, and were in the bit where you are standing up in an approximation of ‘warrior’ pose. Let me tell you that with an additional third of my body weight protruding horizontally out from my stomach like a shelf, I have never felt less like a warrior in my life, but was gallantly trying to get into the right position. The teacher wanders around the class murmuring gentle encouragement to the other women, placing a hand to straighten a shoulder here, or adjusting the curve of a back there. She gets to me. She’s approached me from behind, from which direction my figure looks much like it did before someone impregnated me with the BFG, which is to say mostly quite normal. My hips and waist could still pass for ‘not pregnant’ in the right light.

The teacher slowly makes her way round from my narrow back, and the full horror of the size and jaunty angle of my frankly fucking enormous belly reveals itself. It definitely took her longer than she’d anticipated to traverse my planetary circumference. I honestly defied the laws of physics by this point. When you think of a pregnant woman, maybe you imagine a lovely, whole swelling roundness. My bump stuck so far out at such a vicious angle that around month seven it became impossible to wear even specially designed pregnancy pants at all, because they’d either have to be so low to accommodate the two football-lengths sticking straight out from my lower pubic bone that they’d be somewhere around my thighs, or so high and capacious to cover the entire bump that they’d need to be the size of an actual five man tent and sit somewhere around my neck to stay up.

The teachers’ eyes widen as she takes this all in. I’m expecting some light correction, but she just stops and looks full into my face. My eyes search hers for clues as to what I should do to be warrior-ing slightly more confidently than I am. But she just looks, face softening into a look I can only describe as abject pity, mingled with slight alarm. She takes me by the hands and simply says ‘Oh, Lindsay.’ What? Am I doing this wrong? Maybe my arms aren’t straight enough?

She smiles a little panicked smile, eyes flicking down to the full extent of what will become my second child protruding between us so much that it’s all she can do to get close enough to actually talk to me.

“Are you....” What? Trying? Yes. Cracking in half at the spine? Also yes.

“Are you....” The size of a bulbous circus freak and unable to put on your own shoes should the need arise? Well also, yes. But this lady sees pregnant women all day long, It’s literally her job. Surely she’s seen worse?

“Are you.... ALRIGHT?” It’s said with love, but the message is loud and clear: you are MUCH TOO LARGE, even with months yet to go, for this gentle pastime. It’s probably time to just stop, go home, and sit sweating in a mumu until such time as the child in your belly decides it’s time to leave your uterus and head straight off to university.

Clearly, I was not alright. And that was the point I gave up on normal life, resigned to the fact that pregnancy would break me. By the time my son actually arrived, I could no longer walk, my hips mangled under the weight and bulk of him. I very clearly remember sitting in the kitchen watching my phone on the counter approximately two metres away, ringing and ringing out and thinking WELP, nothing I can do here to move to answer that, hope it’s nothing important.

(*As somewhere, some place, a circus goes bankrupt for lack of attractions…)

So the very idea that my knackered womb could be of service to a salivating total internet stranger has been the final straw for me. No more Bumble. So long squinting past the knuckle tattoos to wonder if in the wrong light and three too many tequilas I could overlook the fact that someone included ‘sex positivity’ as one of their ‘hobbies’. Goodbye match.com with your selection of illiterate perverts. Goodbye to Tinder and the parade of twenty-something fuckboys eager to get to know me as a ‘mature woman’ because I am many things, but the object of your fetish ain’t going to be one of them thank v much, and don’t you have homework to be doing?

Nope. I’m done for now. It’s been emotional. So I’ve taken up a new hobby, which I imagine I might write about next time. It’s a dance class. Except…. It’s not what you’d call a ‘normal’ one. It’s one you do…. in heels. And shorts. The technical title of the class is ‘hips heels and strut’ but me and my mate are going with a working call sign of ‘dance like an absolute slag and try not to break your ankles’ class. It’s fucking great fun! So - more on this another time. Onwards!!

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Some joys for your eyes this week

LOT of joys in my own eyes recently, so here are just a small selection of the ones which might also make you smile:

• I’m reasonably new to buying and selling on Vinted, but I enjoyed the thought that some people are having a worse time of it than I am. You might enjoy this collection of unhinged messages that some people have received when doing the same.

• I’m enjoying writing this in blistering heat, but before we all get too complacent, let’s not forget what it means to be truly British…

• Ok, well strictly speaking this isn’t a ‘funny’, but I found it utterly mesmerising and a thing of absolute JOY. Please, you may find the same.

Signing off with some sage words which while also not funny in the slightest, DO make me feel all kind of good. Perhaps for you too:

Adios amigos.

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Who am I really

I’m Lindsay. I’ll bring you a short, amusing read straight to your inbox maybe - oooh, lets say around twice a month (although on past form, this is a HEINOUS LIE).

Come follow me on Instagram, where I mainly reside, or to a lesser extent, Twitter, Facebook.

Want to read more? Check out previous newsletter editions here, or feast your brain on my blog AndOtherIdiots. It’s where I put my thoughts that are more thoughtful thoughts, not just stupid shit.

I don’t get paid to write this, but you can show your appreciation and buy me a coffee and/or just stuff tips in my knickers or maybe only after week four of this new dance class. We’ll see. Thanks.