French exit (sort of)
I had 99 ideas but now I'm down to one
As one of the lucky ducks that made it to Glastonbury, the week started off in a post-festival blue fog. In a fit of mad optimism I had booked the dawn bus on Monday morning, which meant I left at about 3am and got home around 7am. Efficient, but the move of a masochist.
Perhaps that, coupled with much delirious hammering all day Monday and the wee hours of Tuesday in an effort to ready the walls for replastering1, is what has led to the creative vacuum in which I currently find myself. I spent most of yesterday binge watching This Is Us2 and eating the melted KitKats that I'd dug out of my unpacked camping bag.
To be honest and as you might have noticed, this publication, if it is fair to call it such a thing, lost its way a few weeks ago. I originally started the whole off because I wanted to write and thought a public deadline would make me stick to it. It certainly did: this is my 99th week of publishing on the trot. Well done everyone (me). I'm starting to suspect that one hundred posts might be the right time to bow out.
I chose to write about food because it was the most logical thing to do. I wanted to write, and I loved to talk and think and read about food. Even though I'm not necessarily getting it right all the time - there have been some fairly sizeable kitchen disasters - cooking mistakes have never really bothered me in the same way that proper mistakes do. I don't wake up in the night thinking about that time I spent hours making really fancy eclairs only for them to be sqaushed by something falling out of the cupboard as I got a plate out to serve them3. It makes me happy to feed people, and for a long time it made me happy to write about feeding people too.
When I dabbled in giving cooking a proper go, it was always a worry that if I actually did it for 'real', as a job, it would kill my passion. If you've ever spent time with me before a dinner party or on Christmas Eve you may think I take it far too seriously for just a hobby, which is probably true. Ultimately, though, there are zero stakes, I'm putting that pressure on myself for fun4. It's fun to shout 'Corner! Backs!' at my husband wearing a paper hat from a cracker. He's a good sport about it. Now, this self-imposed deadline has made me resent my beloved hobby a little bit. I don't always want to cook to be able write. The satisfaction is in the live action, not the post-match analysis5. My inner child-nerd it me needs a break and I don't want kitchen homework anymore.
It should be said that consistently publishing and trying to translate gibberish into prose has had the desired long-term effect. I've fallen back in love with writing after an on-off affair throughout my teenage years and twenties. Back then I could never manage to stick with a journal for more than a year while navigating the rolling hills of mental health (as much as it did help through some dark spots). Now, my thirties have given me the confidence to slap whatever I want on the internet and it turns out that silliness is much more fun than angst, who'd have thought! For the most part, the whole process and my small but loyal audience has brought me a lot of joy.
There are other projects I want to have a stab at and all sorts of nonsense ideas scribbled in my notebook that deserve a good chew over. It feels like it may be time to put my efforts elsewhere and a century might round things off nicely. Stopping debdoesfood is not something I undertake lightly , this is the first format that has actually worked for me because I hate websites and social media, and I really don't want to lose my momentum. Breaking my streak feels fundamentally wrong. But, always leave a party while you're still having fun, nothing good happens after 2am and best to quit while you're ahead.
Not sure how I'll follow this next week, but all that talk of one hundred has put me in a bit of a sticky wicket.
Yours penultimately,
Deb
Which I did not necessarily succeed at doing.
Do not do this if you're feeling emotionally vulnerable, it’ll kick you right in the nads.
Although that example did come to me awfully quickly.
I acknowledge that this is insane.
I also think that Match of the Day is really boring.