💅Bad Bitches Have Bad Days Too 💅

Sep 28, 2022

As you may or may not know, we're about to head on a SYSCA roadie, from Auckland to Dunedin (full timetable coming soon, but it starts earlyish Oct 👀.) Anyway, for those of you who don't go to uni, or who aren't in the lectures I'm speaking at, but wanna come to hang out, we're gonna put on some coffee catch ups!! Our mates at Allpress are hooking us up with some of their fave spots in each ✨big✨ city to sit for a couple of hours and hang out with whoever wants to come! It's super chill - not a planned chat or anything - we just really want to meet some of you!

BUT FIRST PLZ DO THIS:

We'll give you locations closer to the date, but for right now YA GALS NEED SOME NUMBERS! Please, if you're keen to come have a coffee with us (they'll all be in the morning at some stage) tick some boxes on this lil form so we have a bit of an idea of how many of you we're gonna be seeing!! Feel free to drop in for as long or as short as you like - we just gotta know how much coffee we'll be getting through.

Register your interest here!!!

Omg okay, first of all, I just feel like I need to reiterate how much I literally love you all. I sat down yesterday and went through the ✨hundreds✨ of responses I had from you all that were sitting in my inbox from before I went away, and it just FILLED ME UP. From the 'safe travels, rest, so excited for you to take a break' to the 'I never realised how much I needed these newsy's until you were gone, miss you' to all the GORGEOUS energy you sent me and Jimmy yesterday, I'm truly in awe of all of you. One thing I know for sure?? He can defs see that I'm in good hands with you all looking out for me. The fact that we've never met each other yet we miss each other when we're apart? Cute. The fact that you let me talk to you WHILE YOU'RE LEGIT LYING IN BED (for a lot of you)? So cute. The fact that you basically know everything about my life/ thoughts/ feelings and still hang out with me? The cutest. I love you all so much, plz never change.

Yesterday I celebrated Jimmy by wearing his favourite jumper and a shiny new 'J' ring that Rubes gave me (to replace the one that my pals all got me when he died - it's pretty well worn at this point!) I brought a bunch of Canadian Club (his favourite drink) and shared it with my bandmates in our last Battle of the Bands rehearsal (and we smaaashed the rehearsal too)- it's exactly what he would've wanted!!!

See you tomorrow morning for a full Battle of the Bands run down - the gig is tonight!!

Bel Chimes In: On Mental Health
Megan Thee Stallion Is Helping Hotties Get Therapy
Iran protests: Death toll rises to 76 as crackdown intensifies
Cows have been let loose in Indian government buildings in an act of protest
Lewis Capaldi covered Brittney Spears and it's EVERYTHING (it's also Everytime)
Some Try Guys tweets

Bel Chimes In: On Mental Health

This section is written by my crush, the refreshing-as-a-house-chardonnay-on-a-steamy-day, Bel Hawkins. You should check out more of her beautiful words here.

Hi! Missed you! How are you?! Hope life’s been doing its turning thing since we last spoke, and wow, I must say, it’s SO nice to be back. Writing these is one of the consistent highlights of my week, along with sitting in my car on a Friday night reading all your cute cute responses. I just… love us <3

This week in Aotearoa is Mental Health Awareness Week, so I thought I’d talk about it here. It’s an incredibly personal and complicated topic, I know, so forgive me as I skim the surface of it for this little column, and perhaps, one day in the future, we can go into more depth.

I grew up with two people very close to me who have mental illnesses. It has been a lifetime of fraught, difficult, joyous, heartbreaking and, at times, incredibly confusing experiences. How do you help? How do you make sense of their experience of the world? How is this fair? How does your life make sense in comparison to theirs? How can you be a good person in all of this? I went to India when I was 19 in search of answers to these questions, but actually, what I found was that they were a lot closer to home.

I have come to realise, over time and a lot of talking to people, that being in such close proximity to these people in my life has taught me some amazing lessons. Of empathy. Of not taking anything for granted and not expecting too much out of every moment. Of finding goodness in the smallness of life. Of understanding the complexity of human existence and that, for some (many?), it's not straightforward and easy. To have a glimpse into another world, even if it's sometimes dark and difficult to comprehend, is a privilege. I’m lucky for everything it’s taught me.

To end on a lighter note, I thought I’d share a practical list of things that have made me feel good lately, which I thought might be cute but also help you make your own to go back to when things might not feel so easy or you're not so sure.

Things that have made me feel really good lately:

Sea swims - It's spring here, and in my dream life, I'd be able to mermaid all year round. But something about throwing yourself into the ocean just completely resets the body and the mind.

Hooded Breakfast - This is a small ritual my friends who all live in the same suburb are slowly making, where we mince round to Vee's house on a Saturday morning and drink coffee in the nook in her kitchen in our hoodies and unwashed hair. I talk about female friendship a lot in this column, and this part about it is definitely ~ it ~

Voice notes to my bestie - One of my besties moved to Amsterdam six years ago and I swear the reason we're still so close after all these years and all these travel barriers is leaving 10-minute voice notes to each other on WhatsApp. Recording them feels like you're giving a postmodern Shakespearian soliloquy but it's so cute and I listen to them on the walk to work, record them on the way home, and it just feels like she's right here, in my life with me.

Phoenixing time - Phoenixing may well be the word of the year (right?!) so doing literally anything that makes me feel lift up like a kite feels like a goddam gift. My fortnightly before work coffees with Luce. Making it up the maunga next to my house when the light’s right. FaceTiming my friend from bed on Sunday sharing a percolator of coffee each. Firing up my barbecue. Finally starting on the pile of books by my bed. Slipping into a bold lip for a night out. You catch the drift.

Move - sounds kinda basic, and I’m definitely not one to pedal the illusion of an influencer lifestyle where I wear chic workout gear and mince around on the weekends with a blow wave and a green juice (but also, kudos to you if that’s your reality). But rediscovering exercise in my weekends has brought me deep joy and a bit of purpose to what can sometimes feel like too much time on my hands. I think it's about your mind leaving your body for a while, and if you don't like working out, doing something like a yin class (honestly or just being still for a bit) on a Sunday at 5pm when the existentialisms strike has always helped.

DND - Not to be mistaken for Dungeons and Dragons, this is simply putting my phone on Do Not Disturb mode for periods of time, so I can just feel… mysterious for a moment. I love missing calls, 27 updates from my chat threads, a tag, a notification — anything to feel untethered to the world and analogue for a while.

Call an Anytime Friend - I did this recently, standing outside a wine bar while my friends drank inside, to speak to my Anytime Friend Simon, about a difficult situation that was unfolding. Just to talk at someone (something I HATE doing - must ask questions all the time) for 20 minutes, get their advice, be talked down out of a dizzy state of overwhelm, into the sense of home they make you feel, is a rare and precious thing and something I feel forever grateful for.

Being here and alive is an imperfect experience that is always changing. Go gently. Tell your friends you love them. Ask for help when you need it. Be as brave as you can, when you can. Thanks for listening. Hope this feels right. xxx

[Luce here: I'm just chiming in to second every single fucking thing Bel just said. God, she's the best - isn't she?]

Speaking of Mental Health: Megan Thee Stallion Is Helping Hotties Get Therapy

ADORED this intro by The Cut:

"In the past three years, Megan Thee Stallion has graduated college, lost her mother, performed at the Oscars, been shot, and been accused of lying about it in the media and in the courtroom. All this while recording music and performing around the world, not to mention surviving a global pandemic. She knows the value of asking for help, and now she’s providing resources so her fans can do the same."

So what's she up to?

Megan Thee Stallion has just launched a website called Bad Bitches Have Bad Days Too, which is a gorg list of resources, with a real focus on Black and LGBTQ+ communities. Something else kinda nice is that instead of hard launching it on all her socials, she sent an email out to her fans, which, as someone who finds email the most personal and genuine way of communicating (hi, duh!) I really really love.

Check out the site here!

Iran protests: Death toll rises to 76 as crackdown intensifies

As promised, I'm keeping you updated on what's happening over in Iran - and it's not good. Iran Human Rights (an org based in Norway) has just released their latest numbers of people who've been killed during the protests, and it's up to 76.

Here's a thread of some of the brave women who've been killed while standing up for what they believe in:

Omid Djalili @omid9

Thread: 1/. As the death toll rises to 41 today, four women you should know who were deliberately and unlawfully killed in Iran when protesting gender apartheid and the killing of #Masha_Amini: Hadis Najafi, aged 20, shot six times when security forces opened fire on her.

Cows have been let loose in Indian government buildings in an act of protest

"Charitable trusts, that run cattle shelters in the western Indian state of Gujarat, have set free thousands of cows in protest against the lack of promised government aid."

This feels like a very Squish story (if you listen to The Shit Show you know what I'm talking about.) Basically, cattle have been dying due to a lumpy skin disease outbreak in Gujarat and other regions in India, and protestors are begging the government to release some funds to help them manage it. For those who don't know, cows are incredibly sacred to India's majority Hindu community, and slaughtering them is actually illegal in 18 states, including Gujarat.

Anyway, since the government has not given out any aid, protestors have released their cattle and apparently, in the past few days, "cattle have taken over roads, local courts and government buildings in several parts of Gujarat."