everyone say congrats to me 🎉 I did a very responsible adult thing and subscribed to a magazine. okay FINE it was on sale 🏷️ and the website showed exactly one (1) photo of a glamorous actress 🫦 so I thought YES 😌 finally gossip. the good stuff. celebrity feuds and who wore the saree better and maybe a haunted prophecy column 🔮 (there’s always a haunted prophecy column in my imagination).

so imagine my absolute face 😳 when issue number one arrives and it is NOT film gossip. it is a WEEKLY NEWS MAGAZINE 📚 written in GUJARATI AND MARATHI, and I am a girl who barely holds onto one language and it is NEITHER of those 💀 so of course, because I have zero survival instincts, I sat in the hallway and started reading it anyway.

and that’s when things got WILD 🌀 because somewhere between the cover story and page four my brain downloaded a whole new operating system 🖥️ and I started having… OPINIONS. On MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. like actual ones with REASONS. I caught myself going “hmm, that ward’s infrastructure allocation does seem disproportionate” and I had to check my own pulse 💓 because I do NOT say sentences like that!!! I am a girl whose hobbies include glitter and staring at the ceiling!!!!

~i squint through the magnifying glass i definitely own~ and I swear the magazine is doing this ON PURPOSE. like it KNOWS 🧠. you flip in expecting glamour and it hands you a graph 📊 about water supply lines and suddenly I’m underlining things. I bought a highlighter. I went to the STATIONERY SHOP for a highlighter. what am I 🥲 what has this cheap subscription DONE to me.

🚨 BREAKING BICKY NEWS — LIVE FOOTAGE 🚨

I have become the sort of person who saves an article about municipal budgeting 📁 for LATER READING, and I know it’s real because I caught myself muttering “accountability” under my breath while making tea. ACCOUNTABILITY!! that word was never in my vocabulary!! it crawled in through the mail slot 📬 and made a little home next to my feelings about snacks 😤 and now it’s all I dream about.

let me tell you about the RADIOACTIVE moment Twitter-premier league style. I was showing my friend my new favorite graph and she goes “why do you care so much about the municipal election” and I said, with my whole chest, “because governance affects everyone” and then we BOTH just stared at each other like ??? because I had to go check if I had been replaced by a pod person 🫠 at some point in the night and I’m still not 100% sure I haven’t been.

~i tear the ticket in half and it floats dramatically into the recycling bin~ and honestly??? the funniest part is the cat 🐈 is my only witness. I put on my little reading glasses (I do not need reading glasses, I just wanted to look professional 🕶️) and I sat there annotating the fold-out map while the cat judged me with her whole tiny face. she’s seen me do the gossip deep-dives before and THOSE were normal. now she looks at me like I’ve grown a second head that’s very into zoning laws.

★ EXCLUSIVE CENTERFOLD INTERRUPTION ★

and I think the absolutely ICONIC twist is that I’m not even mad 🍿 I’m taking civic responsibility personally now. I leave the magazine on the kitchen counter like it’s a thesis 📜 and yesterday I told my plant about ward-level sanitation and the plant honestly looked more interested than my friend did 🪴 so I’m doubling down. new me. the me that knows things. scary !! but also. kind of the moment.

~i tack my newest favorite graph to the wall like a prize 💖~ because it is. I made a little timeline and I’ve started a folder on my phone called “THINGS I NOW HAVE OPINIONS ABOUT 📂” and the first file is just a photo of a municipal building that I don’t recognize but I feel oddly proud of. like that’s MY building now. I’ve never met it. I don’t know its name. but I support it. platonically. from very far away.

I guess this is what growing up is?? you expect it to be all ✨✨ and instead it’s a weekly news magazine in a language you can’t read making you emotional about drainage systems 🚰 while your cat judges you and your highlighter runs dry. and honestly?? it’s a little beautiful?? I’m a citizen now. with a folder. and opinions that have FOOTNOTES. nothing about me is the same and I blame the SALE 🏷️ and I’d do it again immediately 😌