Television, Tea With Alice Salon 37

I never get over how beautiful this lighthouse is and how lucky I am to be able to walk to it from where I live now, to see it in all different lights.

Well. The response to my little announcement was overwhelming and kind. I feel warmed by everyone’s generous hearts. It took a few days to feel comfortable with having shared, given how strictly I usually draw the lines between private and public, which was a thing I had to think about more.

Sometimes people will project total openness onto me because they’ve seen, for example, Savage, in which I talk about things that other people don’t talk about. They then assume that talking about some things other people are uncomfortable with means I must be willing to talk about anything, and a (small) proportion of messages I get are quite demanding or intrusive, on that assumption. But I think that talking about things other people might not, makes it more important to have clear lines; to distinguish person from persona, public from private so you don’t end up like those Hollywood stars who talk about themselves in the third person. I like to say, I’m an open book with sealed sections.

An analogy would be, back in university, I used to run with the cross country squad. When a friend or running mate was injured, I’d sometimes offer to give them a leg massage before or after races. (I’d learned to give rehab/sports style functional massages for mum when she had cramps with her MS and then gotten a basic qualification to round out my skill set). I’d occasionally ask for £5 or £10 when money was tight but I generally did it for the satisfaction of knowing I could help. That said, one of my least favourite things was someone saying “oh, Alice will give you a massage”. There was something about that which really rubbed me the wrong way; that willingness to do one thing for one person turned you into a general dispenser for that thing. Whether it’s sticking your thumbs into someone’s calves or expressing vulnerability.

I’ll reiterate that if I do end up saying much more about the baby-having process, it’ll likely be here and in salons rather than in more general public forums, and if I do talk about it, I’ll do my best to make it interesting and at least moderately generalisable about human nature, rather than assuming you’ll be fascinated by the intricate journey of learning how best to get milk and vomit out of cotton shirts.

I’m prepping today for filming TV tomorrow. I’ll be a guest on Wil Anderson’s new Panel Show on the ABC, which comes out Wednesday. It’s called Question Everything, and is a light entertainment/comedy show tackling misinformation. I feel like Wil has found this admirable niche in Australian television of making quite important things very accessible: his other major show is about deconstructing advertising. Anyway, I hope I’m funny enough that my appearance gets good feedback etc.

I also hope that the clothes I ordered online arrive in time (for tomorrow!) because one of the handy things about quietly doing the pregnant thing during covid and having all my work on zoom since I started getting undeniably round is that I haven’t had to buy any new clothes at all, because nobody can see my shirts rolling up over my belly out of frame like a 1930s cartoon rapscallion. I guess things don’t have to zip up at the back to work on television… I’ll be the equivalent of a 2d set on an Old Western. As long as nobody slams a door hard enough that the walls wobble, it’ll be convincing!

That said, Salon Details!

Tea With Alice Salon 37

Time: Sep 14, 2021 08:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) or your local equivalent!

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88376850526?pwd=d3JKd0w1QnY1RWtib0RjS3IwUTRhQT09

I’ll send through the passcode to the relevant levels tomorrow!

Xx

A

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