“Talk talk”

10 things from my week, brat edition

As I was reflecting on what to write about today, I realized my brain the past week has been fully occupied by Charli XCX’s new album, brat. I’ve either been listening to brat, or thinking about how to have my best Big Brat Summer, or reading about how other women see themselves in this hyperpop ode to modern womanhood. It’s safe to say that Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” is the song of the summer, but while I’ve been singing, “I’m working laaate…cuz I’m a singerrr” to myself for the past month, it doesn’t make me feel anything. “I’d go back in time to when I wasn’t insecure / To when I didn't overanalyze my face shape”—now that’s relatable.

Here’s everything I read this week about brat, plus some things that are brat, in my opinion.

1. “Are You Ready for Saturn Return Girl Summer?” by Emma Specter for Vogue - brat is about being 31 and still not having it all together (as if anyone does). As Specter writes, the album is “signifying the true ascendance of the semi-grown adult who still wants to have madcap adventures despite being in possession of an extensive nighttime skin-care routine that involves at least one wildly expensive unguent.” She refers to this phenomenon as “Saturn Return Girl Summer” because, astrologically speaking, it takes 29 years for Saturn to return to the same zodiac position that it was in when you were born. That term is all well and good, but in the spirit of the “semi-grown adult”-ness that Specter describes, I hope brat pushes us away from calling ourselves 25-year-old teenage girls and toward embracing a messier form of womanhood.

2. “i’m having a brat summer” by Emily North for her Substack, angel cake - Here’s how North conceives of having a brat summer:

   to me, that means loosening the reins of my innate reaction to fix every problem in my orbit with a smile on my face and allow myself to complain when it is justified. it means asking for what i want and not letting my voice quiver when i do so. it means strategically building the life i want and not passively floating by with saltwater silently stinging my eyes.

3. “Should I Be a Mom, or Should I Stay a ‘Brat’?” by Shannon Keating for The Cut - The obvious rejoinder to this question is, “Why not both?” But in all seriousness, I love reading essays about women’s ambivalence toward motherhood, not because I’m unsure whether or not I want children (I do), but because the prospect inevitably comes with a host of fears: what if I’m infertile? Or have a traumatic birth? Or have a miscarriage, or multiple miscarriages? I don’t relate to the uncertainty over motherhood expressed in brat’s penultimate track, “I think about it all the time,” which Keating shares. But I understand the anxiety of running out of time, in the sense that I have a finite number of eggs and I’m past the average age of a first-time mother where I live. It’s an illogical fear, but I still have it.

   She also captures a more familiar refrain for those of us living through the so-called “panic years”: “I might run out of time.” In your 20s, anything seems possible; the world is open at your feet. Your options are limitless! But then the years inevitably pass. And decisions, irrevocable ones, have to be made.

4. “I Think About It All The Time, Too” by Ashley Reese for her Substack, Bad Brain - In this incredible essay, Reese writes about how she will eventually undergo IVF using her late husband’s sperm.

   Now, I’m approaching my mid-30s, and I’m finally starting to research what exactly IVF entails. 

   I just imagined that Rob would outlive the cancer long enough to be with me through it all.

   So I, similarly, feel a bubble of bitterness licking at my insides when I see a baby announcement, an ultrasound printout, a photo of a happy couple with their hands gently resting atop a pregnant belly. And I imagine the photo shoot I’ll have, alone.

   “Congrats!!!” I reply, anyway.

5. “Every pop girlie wants to be Charli XCX” by Rebecca Jennings for Vox - Explaining things is Vox’s whole schtick, and this story delivers in helpfully positioning Charli XCX in relation to her industry peers. I also found this informative as someone whose only previous reference for her music was “Boom Clap,” the bane of my existence working retail in 2017-18.

6. “chart tayrrorism” by B.D. McClay for her Substack, Notebook - This post is more about Taylor Swift than Charli XCX. But any conversation about pop music inevitably leads back to Taylor Swift. I highly recommend reading this if you, like me, have a vague interest in the chart wars but are too lazy to track album variant releases yourself.

7. An exposed lace bra is brat.

8. Gas station pizza is brat.

9. A vodka coke is brat.

10. Smudged eyeliner is brat.

Thanks for reading!

- Isabella