An "Espresso" Summer Listicle. 🌞
Women have multitudes, and that means not giving a fuck and being desperate at the same time. ☕️
It’s funny how I start my newsletters with a little intro every time, but I’ve been thinking… does the intro really serve a purpose?
Maybe not.
Anyway, I decided to go straight to the subject today by offering you all a list of what I’ve been wanting to explore this summer.
We’re more than a week into summer, and while everyone’s been dubbing it the rat boy summer of them all, I’m having a brat girl summer. This means I’ll probably be doing whatever I want whenever I feel like it, and in my current state, this means bed/couch rotting, reading and NGAF about anyone — unless you’re Paul Mescal or Hozier.
Throw some good cries in this and probably a good resto or two, and you’ve got a summer of questioning everything, BABY — With a bit of fun in between, always, I hope.
Even if I’m a hot mess of a person and mostly because I contain multitudes, without further ado, here are listicles for the summer.
Music For The Plebe
Music-wise, even if my sad girl person is loving emo country right now, I’ve also been listening to a lot of female artists who’ve been ROCKING IT. It’s the summer of Queer women taking the stage, and I’m loving this for us (the Queers™️). So here’s a list of women (queer or not) to listen to this summer.
Chappel Roan
My new God is a Drag Goddess who sings about love and misery like no one has ever done before. “Knee deep in the passenger seat,” anyone? I don’t know how you can be knee-deep in the passenger seat, but I love the imagery and the lyrical prose of the Great Chappell Roan.
Favourite song? My Kink is Karma
Y’all, how I wish I could sing out loud to my exes this song. (I’ll also be singing it out loud at Osheaga in August)
Sabrina Carpenter
Love a woman who’s IDGAF a minute and goes PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE the other. Sabrina, please, please, please, continue your brilliant work. It’s beautiful to see the duality of women finally represented in the arts.
Fave song? Espresso. But, tbh, I’m probably a PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE girlie at heart
Charli XCX
Hyperpop’s Queen, Charli XCX, has delivered the most perfect pop album of all time. An offering of the greatest calibre to us, mere mortals living in her world. I recently found a Reddit thread that basically summarizes why I love her.
Favourite song? TOO MANY TO COUNT. But I think b2b wins the palm. Minimal lyrics, yet so catchy.
Honourable mentions.
Olivia Rodrigo. Because being 33 and still relating to a 21-year-old is a vibe.
Taylor Swift. The latest album is WEAK, but it grows on you..? I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys and Down Bad are absolute bangers.
Billie Eilish. Lunch. That’s it. That’s my editorial comment.
Reneé Rapp. I hate the way she writes her name, but love her music.
What’s In Your Bag - [B]rat Girl Edition (as seen by moi, a 33 years old woman with a full-time job)
In London, I went to Daunt Books, the most beautiful bookshop I’ve ever been to. It was so beautiful that I shed a tear.
Bref, j’ai acheté le tote bag de la place. Since then, it has been the only bag I’ve been using. But for this exercise, I decided to empty it and make a beautiful Polyvore circa 2012 montage with my Canva skills, showing what the content of a Brat Girl bag probably is, according to moi—a [B]rat girl.
A cap with some weird statement: The one featured here speaks to me so badly. As a Livejournal teenager, I still contain the knowledge of 1000 blogs.
Niche fragrance: Athenaeum by Jorum Studio is my parfum de choix when I want people to think I’m some mysterious woman who comes from another century — smells like an old Scottish Library, meaning please do not speak to me. [I am still waiting to buy Rain Cloud by Perfumer H, which I regret not buying in London, but for 200£, it wasn’t happening, and the only stockist in Canada is sold out.]
A book that will make you hate everything: Ghosts by Dolly Alderton is an AMAZING READ. It's one of my favourite reads of the year to date. But, damn, it is a hard one. It reminds you of the state of dating in 2024 and how, sometimes, it’s better to stay at home.
Japanese stationery: Muji pens and Maruman’s Mnemosyne notebooks are now my go-to’s. I always have my notebook and my Muji pens on me, usually five pens. The ink flows so well, and the paper is so soft. Might I add that the 186 notebook is landscape-oriented, and I love it!
Summer skincare essentials: Sunscreen, skin tint and face mist. Minimal makeup for sweaty weather.
Large hair claw: I have too much curly hair, and when the weather gets warm, it’s unmanageable, so I have to tie it up. Hence, I always have a huge hair claw in my bag.
Cool sunglasses: The Céline dupe sunglasses are close to my heart because I look so cool in them!
Water bottle: This SNRI gal needs her water intake.
iPhone, AirPods, cute case: How can I listen to sad songs and pop queens if I don’t have these essentials?
Other Summer Essentials — according to a [b]rat girlie who goes to therapy
I’ve been keeping good thus far—a week into summer—and maybe the following list will be boring, but my therapist said I should consider these things for the next following months. Why not list them here?
Meeting new people who can fill me up with positive thoughts: I’m currently fighting hard against my inner demons and anxiety. My therapist suggested I meet people I’ve always wanted to be friends as an attempt to rebuild my faith and trust in people. It’s been actually pretty positive for now. I’ve been meeting with people who lift my spirits and who are pretty awesome. And, in a fun twist of events, I have a Rat Girl Summer Day Trip to Vermont coming up with one of these cool people.
Making my inner teenager happy and fulfilled: Teenage me never really got to be understood correctly by the people around her. She still appears sometimes, craving the love and validation she never really got. This summer, I’m giving her everything she ever wanted. This means we will buy the clothes she wanted to buy, go to the shows she wants to go to — Green Day at Osheaga anyone? — and fully live her punk/scene kid identity, which brings me to…
Embrace my punk-scene-kid-turned-sad-girl personality: I sometimes feel like I’m too intense to handle. Too sad, too much, too intimate, not friendly enough, too bitchy, too chaotic — things people have said about me in the past. But I think, at my core, I’m this happy punk kid who grew up to be extremely sensitive and overly artistic. And it comes with its flaws but also its beautiful qualities: sensitive, artistic, creative, crazy laughs, the connections I can build, the care and love I give others…
Accepting the fact that I, too, have limits: Tired? No energy? Flaking on people? Not enough spoons? Crying all day? Yeah, it’s okay. There is no need to be always out and push myself to my limits and crash.
Prioritizing moi: It’s never too late to finally learn to prioritize myself. And by prioritizing, I mean going to spin class, going out when I feel like it, reading what I want to read, listening to what I want to listen to, getting tattoos, eating food when I want to eat, watching TV, staying in bed, buy tickets to shows — at the moment of writing this, I just bought a ticket to Wallows at Place Bell — But also, not trying to please everyone. Saying no. Listening to myself.
Maybe the goal of this Summer 2K24 is to just live.
And it’s good.
Conclusion et finale.
I wrote in the subject line that women had multitudes. We do. In this first half of 2024, I can truly say I’ve been connecting with my multitudes more than ever. Listening to hyperpop, mainstream pop, and sad girl music. Accepting my limits and wanting to push them further. Not giving a fuck and yet being desperate at the same time. Wanting kids a minute and the other, knowing I’m having the time of my life without any. Wanting to move to Europe and actually enjoying my life here in Montréal…
Questioning everything you have in your early thirties is a curse sometimes. It’s been a ride. I can even add it’s been one hell of a mid-year, mais Dieu merci for listicles and for therapy.
On se reparle bientôt,
-xo