Top Shelf #3

Green Dot by Madeleine Gray, the magic of a facial, Glossier announces AUNZ shipping, and some thoughts on scary, destabilising change.

A more streamlined (and by that, I mean fewer items, no promises on a shorter word count) and late Top Shelf this week, written from Bali on my phone, after a few strange, swirling days spent: reading, swimming, processing a job loss, eating watermelon, sleeping 10 hours a night, scrolling, attempting to switch off.

I feel like I’m in a little bubble of un-reality, cocooning me until I get back home and have to answer the big, scary career question of: what’s next? So if you have any recommendations for books you’ve read while going through a big life change, or tools/advice to help plot the next work step, I’m all ears. And if you’ve stumbled across a block of time off, or experienced a redundancy yourself, is there anything you did and loved doing, or regret not doing, during your time between jobs?

📖 Book: Green Dot, Madeleine Gray

Hera Stephens is 24. She doesn’t want to work, but reluctantly gets a job as a comment moderator in a newsroom. She sits opposite Arthur, an older journalist she’s separated from by the large, Dell screens dividing their desk. They message, go to work drinks, eventually sleep together. At this point, Hera finds out Arthur is married. But she’s already in love with him. As she narrates:

“An older white man on the other side of my monitor coming to know and love the bizarre assemblage of pop references I have accumulated since my youth, using them to entertain me when he should actually be concentrating on war crimes in Bosnia - that’s entertainment. How could I not love that? How could I not be falling in love with him?”

Green Dot is the most hyped Aussie fiction I can remember encountering - it’s had overseas buzz and praise from the likes of Elizabeth Day and Pandora Sykes. It also runs the risk of not rising to that hype: familiar ‘young woman sleeps with older, married man’ and office romance tropes, the risk of becoming just another book in the recently built but ever-expanding pile of ‘sad girl novels’.

But it’s brilliant. It holds up those tropes, turns them this way and that to find a new angle from which to offer a fresh perspective. On power, on intimacy, on youth, on desire, on modern friendships, on interior lives: “Am I dramatising feelings for the sake of conversation, or do feelings grow when you voice them? I am mostly sure that my monologue is an accurate representation of my emotional state - but I also know that I live for drama. I go on. I’ll speak it now and work out if it’s honest later.”

The prose is tight, observant, and very funny (Hera is thinking of the work stories she’ll tell a friend, and “consider[s] contriving the existence of a water cooler in the office, to add some bureaucratic texture.”) The title is perfection, referencing the green dot next to an Instagram profile pic, signalling that the person is online. The character is messy, the writing is not; Hera’s voice is intimate, clear, and curious: “Silence. His face splintering. And for whose benefit are these expressions? I find myself wondering. Is he making these faces for me, to show me that I matter enough to cause him pain? Or are they faces he is performing for himself, so he can convince himself he has a conscience, is a good man still?” The pop culture and Sydney references make it feel very grounded in time and place, without those references ever feeling forced or awkward.

I did think of the book’s non-Australian readers, and wondered whether Hera’s brief relocation to London - she returns to Sydney in the midst of the pandemic - was designed to appeal to a wider, international readership. I ‘got’ the choice;  the distance and time zone difference added another layer to Hera and Arthur’s relationship and communication, and deepened Hera’s obsession with the ‘green dot’ in a time of universal isolation. But it did feel fleeting. I liked it as a device to increase the chance of UK interest and readership while remaining Australian fiction primarily set in Sydney, but I also felt slightly pulled out of the story asking myself these questions.

I highlighted so many of Gray’s wry, intelligent one-liners and insightful, vulnerable passages. Here are just a few more to give you a real flavour:

“‘Hi,’ he says, as a greeting. ‘Hi?’ I answer, as a question. Always this reticence, always this nervousness! The intimacy that can be erased in such a short time. The task of building it up again, line by line, brick by brick.”

“There will always be a Venn diagram crossover of three of your things with someone else’s things. Present them like jewels; like jewels that promise intimacy. Wait for the other person to pick them up, and act surprised and delighted when they do.”

“All the other times I’ve waited for him, I’ve had things to occupy me: books to read, people to watch. I’ve had distractions to assure me I am not waiting, not really. I’ve been young, I’ve had options. I’ve had some modicum of power … But getting your mistress to wait for you in a park at night-time and then abandoning her there because you can’t think up a good enough excuse for your wife? I thought we both knew that there was a line.”

Green Dot’s hype is deserved. The fact it is a debut is pretty mind-boggling. Gray is a talent. Read it.

💄 Beauty: Glossier comes to AUNZ

After nine long years of waiting, today’s the day: Glossier is finally shipping internationally, including to Australia and New Zealand.

My top pick is the perfume, Glossier You, which smells unlike anything else I’ve tried. It sits close to the skin, but it’s still detectable at the end of the day. It lingers on clothing, and it’s a great layering scent to make other perfumes slightly muskier.

Boy Brow is iconic, but in the years since its launch, other formulas have caught up (I turned to the more readily available Kosas Air Brow). The Stretch Concealer is great for those with a drier skin type than mine - it was too slippy for my oily t-zone. The Ultralips are nice but nothing special - the cap doesn’t like staying put, so it isn’t handbag friendly, and the formula is very similar to the semi-sheer, shiny lippie I’m sure you already own. The Cloud Paints are lovely, but the fussy packaging and application meant I rarely used mine before giving it away. And the Balm Dot Coms are just nicely packaged Vaseline.

To me, international shipping feels years too delayed, coming at a time when the hype has dulled, the cool girl shine wearing off. Those desperate to get their hands on the products have likely had a travelling friend sneak a tube or bottle back in a suitcase, or used a postage forwarding service. And those not as bothered have found alternatives closer to home.

Will you be placing an order? Anything you’re still excited to see nestled in a pink bubble wrap pouch of your own, all these years later? Standard shipping is free for orders over $110 ($16 for smaller orders), and express shipping free for orders $210 or more.

🧖‍♀️ Doing/feeling: The magic of a facial

I had a Balinese facial this week, my first facial in years and years. I couldn’t believe how good it felt.

Eyes closed, the cool cream dotted over my face, traced around my lips and eyebrows, pressed and swept over cheekbones. Fingers tap tap tap dancing across the planes. Then: warm steam opening up my pores, a mask that set and cracked before being peeled off in big, satisfying chunks, cold water sealing my pores back up. Knuckles dragging tension out of my jawbone. Thumbs pressing behind my ears, into my temples, between my brows.

In the midst of a stressful, uncertain time, it was bliss. I emerged a calmer, glowier version of myself.

I also had my first hair colour in at least six years the other day, so it’s been a real week of change. Here’s a little before and after:

cocoshanicehair

A post shared by @cocoshanicehair

As an anxious person, change, loss of control, and uncertainty can all feel terrifying. When those feelings are attached to career - the hook so many of us (wrongly) hang our sense of selves, our confidence, our competence, our worth on - it’s even more destabilising. I feel rattly.

But I know this chapter is also a very rare opportunity to pause, breathe, think. Read some books. Take baths at 10am, and walks at 2pm. Spend time at home, with my dog. Talk to and meet up with people I wouldn’t get a chance to amidst the daily crush and chaos. Work out what to do next, and go again.

Until next time,

Britt