Becky Boop

Not long after I first realised I was pregnant, I spoke to my littlest sister on the phone. It was June, it was hot, and Glastonbury was on the TV. I was doing what I always do when Glastonbury is happening and I’m not there: watching the telly with a morose look and the world’s worst case of FOMO. Maddy enquired after my health (it was still early on enough in the pregnancy for the situation to seem vaguely novel,  and my state of health interesting) and I told her that I was scared I would Never Have Fun Again. The last time someone used that expression was my aunt, talking about how she felt when she gave up smoking. I think pregnancy is essentially the same. Suddenly the world is full of things you can’t do (drinking, smoking, going to Glastonbury) and things you don’t want to do (sex, rock ‘n’ roll, going to Glastonbury). Would I ever be the same again? Would I ever go to another party in my life? Would I ever return to Glastonbury? It took Maddy about 10 seconds to poi...

This evening I watched an episode of ‘This is Us’. I was home by myself eating pasta at the time, because it was past 8pm and this is my life now. Described by Channel 4 as a ‘US drama charting the lives of individuals whose paths cross and stories intertwine’, I did not set out with particularly high hopes. The trailers looked like E.R. without the laughs, but it was that or watch episode 1,386 of ‘Professional Masterchef’, so I decided to indulge the saccharine fluff for 42 minutes. In the first episode, viewers are introduced to two characters who are about to have triplets. Doubtless both husband and wife have names, but they have been wiped from my memory in the wake of the FURY I felt watching the first hospital scene. In it, a wise old owl (doctor, male) tells the hopeful young couple that they need to have a ‘talk’ about the position of the babies. The woman, lying prone on the bed, recovering from a recent and very vocal contraction, agrees immediately. Sh...