Do You Pee In The Pool? 👙
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It feels SO good to be home besties. Yesterday was a somewhat ✨ normal one✨ which consisted of Liv & I recording a Culture Vulture for you (all about Phoebe Bridgers, Paul Mescal, & Selena Gomez's new doco), a bunch of meetings to get my feet #backontheground, a LOT of unpacking, and catching bits of The 1975's live stream (their new live show is AMAZING) and I cannot wait to go and see it!! I also saw that Brittney Broski just met Matty Healy and as much as I love her this makes me burn with envy (it's hard to see other people living your dreams etc etc etc.)
An update on me: I've started watching Derry Girls after a BUNCH of you recommended it to me, and god I love it. I'm reading 'What Are You Going Through' by Sigrid Nunez and the jury's out on how I'm feeling about it at this stage. I'm also getting my wisdom teeth out next Tuesday (OGs will remember reading about how they got infected this year!!) I think that's all that's new for now.
Also thank you all for entering to win tix to Rupi - it was so hard to pick, but we've contacted our gorg winners! We still have two tix to the Brisbane show to give away, so if you're in Brizzy and want to go and see Rupi Kaur, just reply to this and let me know why and you could be on your way!!!
Do you get 🍂Seasonal Nostalgia?🌞
New Episode of Culture Vulture!!
People are voting in the midterms in the US today (or at least I HOPE they are)
There's a viral TikTok trend where you can check if people have voted
Do you pee in the pool?
London Laura: Do you get 🍂Seasonal Nostalgia?🌞
Laura is our resident ray of sunshine. She’s a new London dweller, chief of romanticising literally everything, and will definitely ask you all what your love language is at some stage. We love her to death and can’t wait to have her therapeutic wisdom in here whenever we can!
Mōrena lovely friends!!! It’s been a minute so a quick catchup - since we last spoke I’ve mastered cold showers (still gas-less 🙃) I saw Dolly Alderton speak AND had the sweetest, if not slightly homesick-filled, birthday full of cheese, negroni’s and even some new friends 🥺 I also bought some winter-appropriate shoes so ty for the reccs!!!! I seem to write these on transport of some kind so in keeping with our tradition, I’m on a plane flying back from a whirlwind 48hours in Iceland for work (!?) and by a TOTAL fluke ended the most magical few days with a special appearance from the northern lights!!!
Travelling always makes me nostalgic - I feel like so many pivotal moments in my life have happened while away with a moment to reflect; heatwave-induced DM’s to crushes because the humidity makes you braver, breakups after trips spent with dear friends who remind you who you are, running through new cities at 2am and getting a ✨glimpse✨ of what your life could look like. I’m also an annoyingly fast reader and regularly find myself having finished my book within the first quarter of a budget flight, with nothing to do for the remaining hours but scroll through my phone camera and get emotional over pics from the past few years of my favourite people when we were only slightly younger but seemingly a lot more chaotic??
This season particularly gets the nostalgia flowing, being my second autumn of the year I thought it wouldn’t hit as hard but the crisp, hand-numbing London mornings have me deep in autumn 2017. I moved that year in May (NZ autumn for our northern hemisphere pals) into one of my first flats. It was the classic NZ trifecta of ✨cold, damp & mouldy✨ but it was the first adult-ish space that was mine. As long as I can remember I’ve longed for the day I could host people, and so every Monday I would invite whoever was around for an industrial-sized pot of something cheap and warming (usually pasta), they would bring too much red wine and we would watch love island / the bachelor / whatever gave us an excuse to come together and it was glorious. Everything was changing so fast, which I feel like is ironically the only constant in your twenties, and that autumn, those dinners and hundreds of cups of tea hold so many memories of study deadlines, new jobs, flirtations and heartaches that the SECOND the temp drops and I can see my breath in the morning I have my aptly named “dinner party” playlist back on and I’m floored by seasonal nostalgia.
So whether you’re in the first stages of spring prepping for glorious NZ summer, or seeing pumpkin-flavour everywhere (that’s really a thing here hey?) I highly recommend leaning into nostalgia - and let me know the song that brings it all back for you!!! Mine is here 🌞
People are voting in the midterms in the US today (or at least I HOPE they are)
And for those of you who don't really know what the midterms are, here's a really good explainer - but also (via the BBC):
These elections are for Congress, which is made up of two parts - the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Congress makes nationwide laws. The House decides which laws are voted on, while the Senate can block or approve them, confirm appointments made by the president and, more rarely, conduct any investigations against him.
This round of votes - called the midterms - are held every two years and when they fall in the middle of the president's four-year term of office
Each state has two senators, who sit for six-year terms. Representatives serve for two years, and represent smaller districts.
All the seats in the House of Representatives are up for election in November, alongside one-third of the Senate.
What's on the line these midterms?
Well, for two years, both chambers - the House of Representatives and the Senate - have been controlled by Democrats. After these midterms, Republicans are predicted to take control of the House, while Senate control could still go either way. There are also state-level elections which could mean new abortion laws in some states.
AND IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT IT'S INCREDIBLY IMP TO VOTE IF YOU CAN!
There's a viral TikTok trend where you can check if people have voted
And I kinda really hate it. I saw on ✨the internet✨ yesterday a TikTok video of someone talking about a site you can visit to check if your friends, fave celeb - whoever - has voted (it goes on your public record but who you voted for is still private.) I totally see the intention of the people bringing this to attention, but even though I am ALL for voting and trying to uphold what democratic values we have left, this just feels incredibly invasive, and kind of like fuel to ignite more hatred, calling out, & cancelling?? Here are some comments I saw on an Instagram post about this:
"it's not accurate, i voted the other day and it says i havent voted in the past 3 elections"
"This is an invasion of privacy. I’m all for conversations about voting, and for asking your friends if they voted or not (if that’s the kind of friendship you have), but this? This is messed up."
"Pretty sure it's fake because I checked mine and it said "voter not found" and I double checked on the vote Wisconsin website and I'm for sure registered, and I punched in all my info correctly (like i obviously know my name, age, and what city im registered in). I voted in the 2020 presidential election so idk why it says "voter not found"
Keen to know what you all think of this!!
New Ep of Culture Vulture!!
This episode of the Culture Vulture is brought to you by Prime Video and the release of My Policeman!! Stream it here now, and see Harry in his first leading role 🥺🥺
Phoebe Bridgers, Paul Mescal, & Selena Gomez's New Doco — open.spotify.com
Today a wild story about Luce's bout of Bali belly, a chat about Phoebe Bridgers' & Paul Mescal's 'meet cute' and subsequent engagement, and a big debrief about Selena Gomez's new doco and how it made us feel. Listen wherever you get your pods!
Do you pee in the pool?
Too many of you said yes to this for my liking....
28% of you said yes
46% said no
25% said it depends
And if you were a yes or an 'it depends' I DON'T EVEN WANNA HEAR YOUR EXCUSES
Ye, TikTok & A New UK PM (The Shit Show)
Phoebe Bridgers, Paul Mescal, & Selena Gomez's New Doco (Culture Vulture)
Are Social Media Break-Up Announcements the New Normal? (Vogue)
Christchurch mass killer appeals against conviction and sentence (BBC)
Watch My Policeman here!! (Our partnership with Prime Video)SYSCA playlists (✨Supporters only✨)
Our HUGE SYSCA reading list! (✨Supporters only✨)