27-Year-Old Teenager
Saturday, September 8, 2023. I know my age and I act like it!
It’s September, if you can believe it! The last two months have felt strange — both dreadfully slow and worryingly fast.
As predicted in a post I shared in August, I am entirely too busy this month, but staying afloat. I’m trying to believe that the things I’m working on don’t have to be perfect to be complete. I’ve been going on lots of walks to relieve my stress and spending time with my friends to make sure I don’t get overwhelmed.
When I do get overwhelmed, I feel like the teenage version of myself. I felt everything so intensely when I was 17, and I’ve felt that way a lot lately. It’s all-consuming. I’m a 27-year-old teenager, but this time around, I feel much more capable. She always had trouble picturing the future, but I know that Shailee from ten years ago would be proud of how tenaciously I take care of myself.
Working
Between working two jobs again, I also enrolled in a class on Instructional Design. Everything is manageable, but I didn’t miss having so many deadlines all the time. My side gig and the class both end in November, which is when I’m also hoping to do a little bit of solo travelling, so the next couple of months are just going to be about staying on top of things as best as I can.
Writing
Dr. Sarah Duignan, creator and host of the podcast Anthrodish, transcribed the episode I was a guest on in 2018. You can read it here. I am so grateful for Sarah’s continued support of my writing and only a little embarrassed of how much I rambled in that episode. 22-year-old Shailee was so much smarter than I gave her credit for, but also, take a shot every time I say “Mh hmm.”
I will also have an article about media representations of fatness coming out in CBC Arts sometime this month. I got to speak with incredible scholars and read fantastic writing while researching for this piece. I’m excited to share the final product!
Watching
Only Murders in the Building — This season is not hitting like the other two, and I wish we were seeing more of Ashley Park and Paul Rudd. It’s still the highlight of my Tuesdays and a good case for TV shows to be released week-by-week again.
Bottoms — Despite loving Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott, I didn’t like this movie as much as I hoped I would. I know I’m completely in the minority there and would love to figure out what I’m missing!
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah — The “Adam Sandler nepo baby movie” was sweet. Being 13 years old is precious and terrible, and anything that taps into the drama and silliness of that age is welcome.
Listening
GUTS - Olivia Rodrigo — 27-year-old teenagers, rise up. GUTS is incredible. Olivia Rodrigo sings about femininity, love, and identity in such familiar ways that it makes you wonder if you’re mentally regressing, or if she’s wise for her age, or if these emotional ideas that we push away when we get older are secretly more universal than we’d like to admit. “all-american bitch” is my favourite album opener from recent memory and it’s hard to pick my favourite tracks because I really did love most of this album. After a few listens, the only skip is “vampire“ (baffling why it was chosen as the lead single for the album — it’s not even the best song in the first third of the tracklist).
I Told Them… - Burna Boy — I listened to this album during my morning commute to work last week, and it turned a normally terrible walk into an event. Each song flows into the next smoothly, combining lush Pan-African beats, stripped-back raw audio for some minimalistic intros and outros, and 90s hip-hop. Favourite tracks: “City Boys,” “On Form,” and “Sittin’ On Top of the World ft. 21 Savage.”
BB/ANG3L - Tinashe — It’s criminal that this album only has seven songs on it. I loved listening to BB/ANG3L and can only describe it with other things that evoke the same feelings for me: the scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Andy arrives at The Met; walking home alone on a cool evening; looking down at the city at night from a plane; a kiss on the neck. I won’t bother picking my favourite tracks because the album is only 20 minutes long.
Reading
Yellowface - RF Kuang — This book reads like one of your favourite thriller movies. It covers topics like racism, jealousy, and success in publishing, all while being suspenseful and tense. I read Yellowface in a day and a half and wished it were longer, especially because the ending felt abrupt. The Twitter references and talk of cancel culture were hokey, but otherwise, I really liked this book.
Know My Name - Chanel Miller — I was on the waitlist at the library for almost 3 months, but I finally got around to reading Chanel Miller’s memoir. It was of course a difficult read, but also deeply validating and empowering in its honesty. Miller’s resilience throughout, but especially during the media firestorm over her sexual assault case, is incredible to witness. The following passage will stay with me:
“My mom's favorite joke is about a spider and a centipede having tea. The centipede gets up and offers to go buy snacks. He goes out the door and hours pass. The spider is so hungry, wondering what happened, and opens the door, only to find the centipede sitting on the doormat, still putting on his shoes. I imagine myself the centipede, struggling to tie each of my hundred tiny shoes, it takes me longer to get going than most. But I will put on shoe after shoe after shoe until I can get up and go again.”