the shadi show

This evening I finished a beautifully haunting horror novel, and usually what this means is a late night of lying in bed trying to prevent my thoughts from wandering too deeply into the world the story has created in my mind. But not tonight. Instead, I am spending the night tending to my soul because I recently heard news of an old acquaintance and his ongoing poor thoughts of me. I need to be liked. I have learned early on in life that to be liked is a matter not of frivolity but of survival. Popularity gives you opportunity. Unpopularity means loneliness and voicelessnsss and an unnameable negative reality. My default is to live in a world of dichotomies. This, however, isn’t true to how life works. It’s messy and colourful and never stays within the lines. I know this, and I love this. I hate that the memory of animosity can steer me away from this understanding. I may be paraphrasing here but I believe Taylor Swift once said that basing your entire self-worth on whether or not peo

The teachings of Buddhism state that attachment is the root of all suffering - that to be attached to a person or a place or a thing will cause us sadness when that person place or thing is no longer a part of our lives. There are some attachments that I would never give up, and I guess that’s what makes me gloriously human, but I can’t help but believe that my attachment to the certainty of my future is causing me to experience an acute unsettlement that I could really do without. Three weeks ago, I had a plan of exactly what my year would look like. In fact, I had a plan of how this year would lead into next year and the year after that and the year after that. This wasn’t even something that I was looking forward to necessarily - I was just sure of my path. Now, I’m at home and listless and grieving the loss of a future that, in truth, was never really that certain anyway. I don’t want to give up all of my attachments by any means. I am willing to feel sadness when something I have

In honour of my birthday and my love of reading and my wanting to do more stuff, I'm starting a book club here on the interwebs. It's name, you ask? The Reading Corner! (Well, duh. It was in the title of this post.) Our first book is: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Leo’s bookshelf🍭📚 (@leosbookshelf) on May 27, 2019 at 10:52am PDT Carry On is a Harry Potter 'retelling' - a similar story, set in a similar magical school with a magical system based on idioms - our favourite Chosen One story told with a hint of sardonism. Even better, the main romance (what Rainbow Rowell is known best for), is between our main protagonist and his high-school nemesis (our Drarry dreams come true - perfect for Pride Month!). The live show will be on Instagram (www.instagram.com/theshadishow/) @ 6pm on Saturday, the 29th of June (A

When I was younger, I was absolutely enamoured with creating stories for myself. Not to be a writer, because back then I didn't consider this to be something I did for others, but as a personal escape. I grew up as an only child in a single-parent household. I was home alone a lot. I used to pretend that on my solitary walks, I would stumble upon a hidden entrance to a fairy kingdom through the old cemetery in our neighbourhood, and fall in love with a handsome, brooding knight. I would find lost keys and think about what doors they could open - maybe I could find my way to a place where they needed a little girl like me to help them find a lost dragon or rescue a princess. That was a wonderful place to exist, and my mum always made sure that I had enough stories to stimulate my imagination. Books were my whole world. I can always tell how well I'm doing with my mental health by my response to stories. If I'm reading a lot, I'm doing well. If I want to write, I&#

I believe in earnestness. New Years resolutions have always been something I’ve loved the idea of. I don’t care if I never achieve them, there’s something about putting a dream into words and into the universe that makes me feel like I’m here.  Here are my 13, because I love the number 13.  Post an Instagram picture every day. I put a lot of creative effort into my Instagram page, and having that consistency of effort and posting will foster further creative effort.  Finish the books that I’ve started. I’ve got 50+ books on my goodreads account that I have put down. There’s nothing like the high of finishing something, even if it isn’t particularly good. I want to feel more of that this year. Make sure I’ve replied to all my messages by 7pm, and stop replying to them all by 8pm. I am notoriously bad at staying in touch with people, and I know the importance of constant contact after travelling halfway across the world by myself. I want to let the people I love know that I’m in their li

I am the sort of person that overthinks almost everything. Buying tickets to Paris on a whim and not planning an itinerary is not very me. I love the feeling of freedom and open skies and open days, but I can’t help but worry that I’m wasting my days away when I haven’t left the hostel by 3pm and haven’t fully decided on what I’m going to do when I’ve left. I’ve got to learn to let this worry go, because not knowing what the day will hold means that when I stumble across a Christmas market or cheap movie tickets or new friends, it makes the experience that much more special. Because it was a surprise.  That being said, it wasn’t all peachy. I ended up feeling so thirsty I ordered a cider, an orange juice and a coffee all at once and not being able to finish them, after paying a lot of money for an Italian meal that was so big and salty which for some reason I did finish. At that point I was a heavy rock in human form, and it took every ounce of energy left in my body to remove myself f