Meet me in the Afterglow?

We welcome you with open arms G.O.A.T.s of Mount Olympus.

“Hey, it’s on me, in my head, I’m the one who burned us down, but it’s not what I meant.”

That is the quote inspiring today’s blog. From whom, you ask?

Dear reader, do you not know me at all? Afterglow, Taylor Swift, from the (absolutely spectacular) album Lover, of course.

When once again faced with criticism from my blog yesterday, I admit that my initial reaction was anger. An argument was sparked, and neither of us would admit that we were in the wrong.

But after the annoyance I felt writing yesterday, I thought perhaps it was judicious to enter a Lover era in the blog and look at things in a different light.

So, here goes the story today. (Hey, let’s see how many titles of Lover songs I can get in this blog? And how many can you spot?)

I was woken up by dad this morning (after another (albeit smaller) aircon battle in the night). I was so tired and would have preferred death by a thousand cuts to that 7:30 wakeup.

Lily and I had to start sewing a tie out of a bandana for our Taylor Swift music video, but I asked for three more minutes in bed. Ten minutes went by and she started shouting and I was like, “you need to calm down” but I (begrudgingly) got up and began to sew.

I did not consume breakfast, because there was really nothing I liked. Anyway, we had to return our beloved car, but we made a rookie mistake: I was in the front. So we came to a fork in the road, I confidently told them that the town was to the right, everyone listened, but the town, in fact ,was not to the right. Who knows, maybe I was trying to get to cornelia street 🤷‍♀️ .

But eventually we made it, and returned the cars (mum yacked about her cool daughter (Lily) like she was trying to win a prize, maybe get her named miss americana (and the heartbreak prince) (I know, these are getting bad… but it’s harder then you might think)).

We purchased pies for lunch, then headed down to the pier where we were going to get on our boat, which we then did. We took off and the four of us actually slept in the front of the boat because we were so tired.

Who was driving, you ask?

The man, of course. He had named himself the designated driver (remember, I am not men, I am man).

But anyway, we arrived at a good spot, with no one else, and with mostly calm water. After dropping the archer- sorry, the anchor (gosh I really need to lift my game) we swam around, and I snorkelled which is great fun. I also dove down to touch the anchor which was fun and also terrifying since I am - for some unknown reason - scared of the chains on anchors or on buoys. They are just freaky.

Anyway, I fought my (kind of stupid) fears by touching the anchor, so yay me!

Lily and I also took some aesthetic pictures, (which is really good fun) while the twins went crazy and tried shout-singing through their snorkels.

But then some annoying people showed up and parked their boat right next to ours!! How annoying is that? We couldn’t place their accents, I thought at first that one of them was a london boy, but this was not the case.

We eventually decided to move on, but the new place we stopped at was less nice. I did, however, sleep again on the way there. When we arrived, the others swam, and Lily and I ate our pies, as we planned what needed to be filmed for our video. We then enforced this on the others, who did not seem too happy about it, but got on with it nonetheless.

Here, I failed. I was confident that I knew the speed of the outro for “Now That We Don’t Talk” (the video we are filming, from 1989).

Guess who was wrong? ME!

Anyway, we didn’t know at the time, and after proposing to Olivia (again, she keeps rejecting me, maybe I should invest in some paper rings) and also trying (but failing) to scare away the mega yacht that had moored right next to us (by yelling “Leon Marchand is not that good!” (they were French)) we left to go and visit a shipwreck.

Lily drove us there, but she is pretty bad at it. I attempted to reassure her and said, “soon you’ll get better” but this was not the case. In fact, Dad later said “If I had to rate all of my daughters, in driving the boat, from 1-4, you’d be 7” It was quite funny, I would have told him, but I think he knows.

Anyway, onto the shipwreck!

I was slightly disappointed by it because it was more of a rusty boat on the shore, but the others went to snorkel near it. I preferred to stay in the boat and take pictures, sadly they are on the camera and I can’t access them right now 😔.

After that, we moved on to one last stop, I drove us there (with great talent (in fact, I asked dad to rate me 1-4. He said that he would not answer, but my sisters were there at the time and I understood that what he meant was, “of course you are 1st but I don’t want to hurt their feelings.”)).

I went for one last snorkel and it was amazing, a bunch of fish tried to attack me! They swam at me at a high speed because I was near some food I think. It was pretty cool. Lily also took some videos of me being ethereal (picture Drew Barrymore in Ever After) for the video, and during this time, apparently the whole family got a view of a man on a neighbouring boat, completely naked.

Apparently, they were all traumatised, but they neglected to mention it to me for about four hours!! I felt left out. I didn’t want to be included, but also I did, you know?

Anyway.

We returned the boat, then went to get ice creams and/or drinks. This was where the infamous argument (cf: the beginning of the blog) took place. Luckily, Lawyer Lily stuck up for me. It’s nice to have a friend. She convinced me to channel my inner Lover energy and move on from Reputation vibes. I took her advice into consideration.

We filmed some of our transitions (remember, follow us @alolliru to find out more) and walked home. Lily and I lead the charge, and had a lengthy discussion about getting drunk, and Elliette’s party (when Eva was there; Quent, if you’re reading this, we did in fact talk about all of the girls you loved before) (this is not strictly true but that is Lily’s favourite so I had to add it in somehow 🤷‍♀️).

When we got home, I moisturised Lily’s back; the cruel summer sun had burned her quite badly. It’s pretty funny. We edited our video, and this is when we realised that I had messed up our only hope at that shot; but we persevered and sort of managed to fix it (shout out to the pro-est editor, Lily).

I began to compose my blog, as we began to lose daylight. I searched for the annoyance and anger that had motivated my previous blog, but it was like, “I forgot that you existed” so that was good.

Later, we were faced with a fearsome creature: a centipede/scorpion (Lily’s words) was in our sink. It was quite freaky. We prayed that it would just leave, but we must have prayed to a false god since it is there to this day. (Disclaimer: we did not, in fact, pray: nary a one of us is religious, I just had to fit this one in somehow).

Finally, we all ate dinner together outside. I finished writing my blog, and we talked and listened to music in the afterglow of the sunset; and despite having a pretty awesome day, this was honestly my favourite part. It goes to show that sometimes all you need is to hang out with your family, and also that Taylor Swift was right when she said “I want to be defined by the things that I love, not the things that I hate, not the things that I’m afraid- that I’m afraid of, the things that haunt me in the middle of the night, I- I just think that you are what you love”.

I’m gonna be called a sook by my whole family now.

Honorary mention today for the Lover album, it is definitely underrated, and is often called “just another pop album” and “lacking in the lyricism that Taylor Swift is known for”. While this may be true, it is also amazing.

(Also I got all of the songs!!!)

(Also does this mean I have to be folklore themed tomorrow? Whimsical yet intricate stories?)

Peace right out.

Cheeeeese!!En savoir plus