On repurposing the alphabet
Hi team, happy….. well, everything, happy everything. I’ve missed wishing you for Christmas, new year and that weird gooch week in between.
I’m late on the wishes because I got fake married in the second week of December after handing in my book draft in the first week.
If you have a high level of anxiety, I recommend eloping then having a not definitely not wedding party four years later. Any time anxious thoughts started to rise while planning a party for 150 people, I could easily calm myself by thinking - how can I possibly fuck this up? We’ve already been married for four years.
I’ll write all about that later because I still haven’t processed the tsunami of love that came our way on the day. Likely the only type of tsunami that is a very good one.
I took the rest of December off after a year of working every day. Don’t get me wrong, I loved every second of it. Well - I loved most seconds of it and I took a lot of naps whenever possible. But once my comedy tour wrapped, my tv and radio stuff was all done, the book was in and the fake wedding was over, my body and brain both said okay see ya!!!
So I embraced being a puddle of mush and spent a lot of time in the real world with family and friends trying to relax. I say trying because I’m not very good at it. My cousins were visiting from the UK and my little cousin nephew - I don’t know what the children of cousins, I’m sure the formal term is dry and tedious and that’s why they’re all my nephews and nieces - got me hooked on doing these Murdle puzzles which is how I spent most of gooch week.
I’m back online this week and hard into the editing phase of the book with my publisher (all hush at the moment but I can’t wait to share all the details once I’m allowed) and launching a podcast with one of my favourite comedians and humans Anisa Nandaula.
I’m astonished that it’s already a brand new January and I’ve writing stories of my life on this blog for over a year now. I’ll be honest, the more my subscribers grow, the more nervous I get about what to write.
I don’t just want to look inwards for topics, I want to go on random research tangents and figure out how to make it funny. So I’m going to try a new jig where I commandeer the alphabet to help. I’ve ordered a pocket dictionary online (they still make those!) and when it arrives, I’m going to find the most interesting word in the A section and use that as a prompt to write a story. Then I’m going to find the most interesting word in the B section - and on we will go, till we get to Z and I’ll make another plan.
I hope that sounds good to you but if it sounds terrible, I won’t be offended if you unsubscribe immediately. I really won’t. I’m the kind of person that walks around their party anxiously asking if you’re having a good time and to please not feel bad about leaving if you’re not. You know, the kind of host behaviour that really makes guests relax. I’m genuinely surprised that any of you are still here and I’ve paused billing for my paid subscribers (hi, I really can’t believe you’re here and thank you) while I figure out if this new approach will be fun.
I’ll strive to make it fun. Before someone yells at me for laughing in a collapsing world (again) let me preface this by saying - I know there are many bad things raging on. I have no wish to stick my head in the sand pretending to be this ostrich. For starters, I’m not that tall or skinny.
But the news keeps freaking me out that everything everywhere is very bad and getting worse. I’d like one reliable place where things are (mostly) light and for me, that is this blog.
I hope you managed to have a small break at the end of last year. If you like your family I hope you spent heaps of time with them and if you dislike them, I hope you got to do something heaps fun after spending the obligatory amount of time with them. If you’re not near family - I’m not sure if I preferred the years where I was adopted into friends’ Christmases or at the pub drinking with other Christmas orphans. Whatever happened, I hope you snuck in some naps.
That’s a lot of hopes but honestly, I’m now well rested and coming in hot to 2025 with all the vibes. On a very exciting IRL note - friends in Sri Lanka, I’ll be heading over for the Galle Literary Festival in February. I’m so stoked to be back near the equator and to be spending that weekend meeting writers from all over the world.
Let’s kick off with the letter A the next time we chat. As always, if you hit reply to this email, your thoughts come straight through to me and I love reading them. Feedback, goss, story topics, musings about the alphabet, they’re all welcome. When my inbox is not a binfire, I do reply.
And you know what. Back to the ostriches, they’re not ignoring life when their heads are in the sand. It’s a myth - they’re flightless birds who can’t make nests in trees. They use their beaks to dig shallow holes in the sand to make a nest for their eggs and they turn those eggs regularly. They’re doing quiet decent work down there while we’re all laughing at them for tapping out so we all owe a large apology to ostriches.
Dang, that would have made a great story for the letter O.
Big hugs and happy everything,
Sashi
Your contributions to the world keep me going.
Not. Going. Anywhere. Love the alphabet, use it regularly.