In which Emily and I take a minute to just CHECK IN. I don't know about you, but general adult life has felt rather impossible lately, so if you too need to let your brain off its leash, join us.

Topics include:

• Senior status

• When to call the doctor

• Exes on the street

• Dream analysis

• Emily's parenting quandaries

• Sara's inability to wake up

• "We're kinda vibing and then . . . "

HAPPY WEEKEND! And if you like this slightly unhinged format, let us know and maybe we'll do these Happy Hours on a more regular basis!

In which Emily and I discuss the Perimenopausal Industrial Complex and our role within it!

ALSO:

• tech bros who want to live forever

• healthcare access

• the more you know . . .

• a documentary we can't fucking wait to see

• country mouse life vs. city mouse life

• everything being a symptom of everything

• Emily's introduction to tween lingo

• period tracking

• mood tracking

• MAHA

• healthcare as aspiration

• VC funded wellness

This week, Emily and I discuss the daily occurrence that is Getting Dressed.

Themes include:

• soft pant

• hard pants

• pants

• the perfect tee

• money

• cognitive effort

• joy

• color

• florals

• gender

• lack of color

• sartorial inspiration

We're going to discuss Furious as our first CC pick. Due to a boring shipping mishap and the fact that books sometimes take longer to consume than TV shows, we're going to discuss Famous Men on the following CC meet-up. So if you have anything we absolutely MUST cover in our discussion of Furious, let us know in the comments! And if you have ideas for future CC picks, we'd love to hear them!

Are decisions easy for you? Hard? Are SOME easy and SOME hard? Emily and I bravely admit that making decisions is a necessary factor of adulthood. Maybe we just don't want to be adults? Maybe decisions suck because we're women? Maybe we feel safer in the limbo of indecision? Maybe we're scared decisions preclude unknown futures? Maybe we are so indecisive we didn't come to any satisfying conclusions at all for this episode? WHO CAN SAY? We sure can't!

Shout out to this freeze-frame lollllllll

Anne Helen Petersen (no relation) is one of my favorite cultural critics. When I was a baby writer just starting to collect bylines, Anne was someone I consistently looked up to. She can write about ANY topic--even one you think you might be bored by--and reveal what's interesting about it.

I will talk to Anne about anything any time, so when she asked me to come on the Culture Study podcast to talk about recent momfluencer trends, I obviously said fuck yes. I hope you enjoy our conversation about Brooke Raybould (always and forever); the trend of postpartum family communication (??); and much more. And if you're not already subscribing to Culture Study, you can do so here. Some of my favorite Culture Study eps/posts include:

Taylor Swift And The Good Girl Trap

"This Book Occurs Exactly At The Place The Far Right And The Far Left Meet"

Your Kitchen Objects Are Filled With Feelings

What's With All This Eldest Daughter Discourse?

How Your House Makes You Miserable

Anne and I have also collaborated on this essay about Kate Middleton's cancer remission video, and this analysis of the launch of the Ballerina Farm electrolyte powder. To quote Rufus Wainwright, oh what a world we live in!

This week, Emily and I talk about the very real consideration of what to watch, what to read, and what to listen to on any given day. There are SO MANY buzzy new shows, hard-hitting podcasts, and novels everyone is talking about. If one has a job, has relationships, and goes to bed at 9:30 PM (for example!), how does one prioritize media consumption? If you're on a book bender, do you let TV fall by the wayside? Can you read simultaneous books? DO YOU EVEN LISTEN TO MUSIC EVER?

Also: Are you guys interested in a Consumption Club? ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Sound off in the comments!!

Last week, I wrote about Lee Tilghman's LATEST reinvention, which has triggered quite the response. Some of my favorites include this essay by fitness and exercise writer Anna Maltby and this incisive analysis by Mallory DeMille.

In her book, Lee Tilghman wrote about how the wellness influencer economy exacerbated her tendency towards restriction, tracking, and disordered eating. Not even a year later, her online presence is effectively rewriting this thesis. In Tilghman's "method" launch, she includes a before/after photo; props her own body up as "proof" that her "method" works (ie will make you lose weight and appear toned); employs "beautiful from the inside out" marketing language; and places moral weight on particular foods. In other words, Tilghman's launch might be triggering for anyone who is actively steering clear from diet culture, anti-fatness, and wellness as a stand in for worthiness.

Emily has discussed her relationship with disordered eating and eating discovery recovery on a few of our eps, and I wasn't sure she'd be up for talking about Tilghman's rebrand, but she was, and both her insight and her unique perspective made for a fascinating conversation. Because this episode contains personally vulnerable content (and because I get a little spicy lol), we've paywalled it as a bonus ep for premium subscribers at around the 15ish minute mark. If you'd like to upgrade so you can listen to the entire conversation, you can do that here. Premium subscriptions are either $5/a month or $50 a/year and give you access to one extra essay per week, access to the entire archive, and commenting privileges. They also enable this newsletter to exist! Thank you!

Emily and I have had several mini conversations within larger conversations on the pod about aging, vanity, and the various facets of beauty labor we in which we both invest. But today, we're going all in on botox. Disclaimer: I hope it's obvious that people's faces are their business, and we place no judgement on individuals' choices! This conversation is focused on the way the beauty industry (and women's media) has sold botox and injectables to various audiences. It's also about the difference between how women in their thirties talk and think about aging/botox and how women in their forties talk and think about aging/botox.

We were inspired to make this ep after listening to this positively brilliant ep of Diabolical Lies, a podcast that is regularly delightful and absolutely worth subscribing to. We also reference this essay by Haley Nahman, this one by Emmeline Clein in The Cut, and this piece by Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker.