“Could Have Been Anyone, but Uncomfortable Me” –  159/2025

Lyrics: “Josephine” – Frank Turner, 2015

I’m 2/3 through a much needed three day weekend. With lots of rain and thus lots of staying in, which was fine by me. I needed that. Work has been quite busy this past week with an important strategic meeting, which I had been worrying about in the days leading up to it. Of course I did, I’m a worrier. Thankfully I don not worry as much as I used to and I often enough manage to put it all in perspective, but some tiny underlying worry was and probably will always be going on in the back of my mind nonetheless.
The meeting itself went fine. Of course it did. After over a decade in this job I finally start believing that I’m doing a good job and that I know my stuff! Either way, it was a big relief to have that meeting out of the way and having gotten approval of my plan for the next few months.


Earlier this week Stuart Alexander, a Scottish director / editor, who had directed the music video of Frank Turner’s “Somewhere Inbetween”, put out a 30 minutes conversation he had with Frank on drugs & addiction on Youtube (audio only). It’s a follow-up piece to a similar conversation about imposter syndrome they had around shooting the video about a year ago. Even 12 years in I’m still such a fangirl that I usually try to watch / read new interviews with Frank right away. But I was dragging my feet on this one until I felt I was in the right head space. Drugs & addiction is a heavy topic and Frank never holds back when he talks about it, which in general I appreciate. Even though I never ever did drugs of any kind I know myself well enough by now to acknoweldge my own bad habits / addictions of some kind. Those might not be physcially harmful, but they are not helping my mental health either, if you get my drift. Seeking distraction via reading book after book or (re)watching TV shows or scrolling on my phone much longer than I should or just being in my head too much and not in a productive way, but in a ruminating, paralysing way. So often I feel like it’s so much more comfortable and safer to keep thinking things through and going in circles instead of just going ahead and do things, you know? That kind of thinking, that kind of habit, definitely not helpful!

Anyway, I listened to the drugs & addiction talk today and it wasn’t as “bad” as I had feared. It gave me a few things to think about . Yes I get the irony of that statement after just having stated that I am thinking too much. But hey, I also finally cleaned out and reorganized two of my kitchen cupboards today. It might sound silly to some / most of you, but it felt like such a daunting task, that I kept starting it postponed for ages. Until I did. And it didn’t even take that long and wasn’t such a big deal.

Glass storage containers, water bottles, napkins in a cupboard
(Much) more organized than before

These past few weeks I’ve at least managed to do less ruminating and instead kept my mind busy with various podcasts episodes. Preferable none of the selfcare / selfcare variety, because as helpful as they can be and were in the past, at the moment I feel like they keep me in the “thinking instead of doing” headspace too much. So for a while now I’m trying to listen to more regular podcasts, where a host or two talk to interesting people; with a focus on social issues in the broadest sense. Preferable with female hosts, because I think there are more than enough male podcast hosts around anyway. If you’ve got interesting ones that fall into this category hit me up. I did the cupboard sorting while listening to the second half of a German politics podcast on toxic masculinity with a focus on the younger generation of men.


This week I was reminded of a time in my life a few years ago when I was working on a super cool project at work. A project that took me to Manchester three times in about 18 months to engage in workshops and meetings and site visits and such. I had the chance to spend some time at the Lowry, a gallery / theatre / culture complex back then.

The Lowry
The Lowry at Media City, Salford, Greater Manchester

The reason my mind pulled that memory out from some deep hidden corner, was of course, that the Operation Mincemeat World Tour will start at the Lowry in February 2026. The first scenes of this musical saw the light of day at a scratch night for new aspiring writers at the Lowry or as the Lowry itself says

Lowry has been involved with Operation Mincemeat from the very start, co-commissioning the show and providing support, funding and mentorship through its early development. We’re delighted to be opening the tour – giving our audiences the first opportunity to see the show outside of London and New York!

So, of course I want to be there, when the show has it’s glorious return and I’m grateful my friend bought a ticket for me as well. We’ll hopefully see the original cast there, but you never know. Anyway, Manchester is always worth a visit and I haven’t been there since 2019. Pre-Covid. Six (then seven) years not just feel like it’s been a long time. It actually is.

It’s always nice to have plans lined up for the future, right? Especially in this grim and scary looking time we live in at the moment. But now I’m off to bed to catch a few hours of sleep before I plan to watch the Tony Awards. I hope it’s working the way I plan. But if my silly little yellow show wins anything, I want to be there. A good thing it’s a three days weekend and I can sleep all I want tomorrow morning.

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