DEBILITATED MOOMS, REGRETS, AND A DUCK WITH A BILL

LIFE OF A BOOKMAN

Bookman: 1. a person who has a love of books and especially of reading. 2. a person who is involved in the writing, publishing, or selling of books. Oh, hi that's me!!

Forever, Paris: I've been leafing through this collectible book my bestie gifted me, Parisian Chic: A Style Guide By Ines de la Fressange and it makes me want to immediately get on a flight to Paris. Which is actually something she and I both did last year when we found out she achieved her life dream. Oh, you did the thing??? Let's go to Paris tomorrow to celebrate!! Something like that ;) But what a sweet peruse through best shops, secret galleries, bookbinders, dinner dates, etc. Take me there, take me there, take me there!! And in fact, a book has the perfect way of doing just that <3

What I've been writing: A lot, a lot, a lot and somehow still not enough?? That's what deadlines will do to you!! Whenever I'm writing to a deadline, I work my way backwards: which chapters have to be done in which months? And then I plan accordingly. It's the only way I know how to get it all done, especially when what I'm writing needs to be written on a pretty fast clip!

WOMEN’S STUDIES

What gets passed down becomes our history.

'I Regret Having Children' What a honest piece in The Cut about three mothers...who wish they'd never had children. These stories come together based on the sub-reddit r/regretfulparents. While I do think this article needed more diversity of mothers (talking to women with multiple children under the age of 4 about if they regret motherhood is like asking men on a battlefield with bullets flying at their face if they regret enlisting). And while I do LOVE that this very taboo subject has some space to breathe...the real truth I found underneath it all (the the world tells you to have kids but yet those voices have so little skin in the game) matches a conversation I had with one of my besties just last week. As we walked along the Embardero at moonlight (romantic, I know!!), we got into a funny little riff about how this particular brand of man who is super amped about having kids and always chirping about having more kids. This brand of men are, frankly, annoying. Because, while not universal, in so many instances they're the same type that doesn't lose much when that becomes true. Their career stays on track. Their income stays on track. Their NFL fantasy league stays on track. But can we say the same for women?

Trace of Suspicion: A Death in the Family I've grown up knowing that my older cousin died tragically when he was 23-years old, just getting his life started as a Marine, and his wife was put on trial shortly after... for murder. That was over 20 years ago. I was in middle school, so other than the grief that wove its way into my extended family (in the way someone special lost far too young should and does), I didn't really have a grasp on the details. And I never went searching. But on the bus last week I opened up my podcast to this new Dateline series about his suspicious death splashed across my new & noteworthy feed. I hesitated, unsure if I could handle listening but also knowing I could always stop, and then decided to dive in. Still working my way through the episodes, but I'm overcome with how much devastation can be created in the wake of loss. And also not sure how I feel with the re-litigation of loss, crime and pain used as true crime entertainment. But alas, I'm listening and sharing here so? Unclear.

Making sense of 62 Million Male Visitors to the Rape Academy. I tried to block this piece of news out, to not go there, because it's so shocking and so disgusting and yet men on the internet are spending their time trying to “explain away the 62M visitors and tell women they're overreacting”. So, I was happy that when I did dive in, it was via this piece by Lisa Rankkin, MD, who found a lovely way to, in her words, “acknowledge the scale of the problem without dehumanizing everyone involved”. It's a good read if you want to feel less alone in your outrage, if you want to hate what's going on and still love the shit out of the men in your life/world/families, and if you want to read a piece that still centers women's experiences via the luminous testimonies of Chanel Miller and Gisèle Pelicot (victims of rape in highly publicized cases)

We were so wrong to dismiss menstrual blood as waste. Period blood is getting renewed attention as a diagnostic and research tool THAT CONTAINS STEM CELLS. And immune cells! And molecular data that could show us a better understanding of endo, diabetes, cancer, you name it. I loved this read and what becomes possible when we finally take women's bodies seriously (because right now only 8% of all NIH funding goes to women's health research)

Other stray links: Have I told you about Duckbill? The Ai-copilot personal assistant that I've had doing all the shit I don't want to do: get a refund for my flight change, call around and get quotes for someone housework, find me a new eye doctor and make the appointment, fight with insurance, find me a dog walker...and on and on it goes. Here's my referral code (and no, not an ad, just a BIG fan for using it to cross the things off your todo list that have been there since last year)

PASS IT ON

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine:

I've been a regular meditator since 2019 when an astrologer told me I needed to because of my 'debilitated moon'. So I went through the Transcendental Meditation (TM) training. Yes, you can read that sentence again and unsubscribe forever lololol jk plz don't. We'll def talk about that astrologer, Astro Mike, at another time...because right now I want to talk about Joe Dispenza. I'm not new to his work, and I'm also not new to the critiques of his work. But more than anything, his teachings are always a good set point for me: that our thoughts are a record of the past....and if we want to change our life, we have to change the thoughts/beliefs/actions that make up our life. Over the last week I've been auditing every single time my thought tells me a story of lack, or of worst case scenario, or of fear. And it's TRULY WILD and eye opening when you really track and redirect it in real time. (And also sorta tiring.)

Anyways, I listened to this lovely podcast on Joe talking about abundance, and then found this reddit thread of someone sharing his Abundance livestream, and they've both been a great reminder to keep tuning into future potentials, instead of letting my mind relive old fears. Because they're old. And outdated. And plus, the research shows all of our catastrophizing basically never happens. So let's go think big, and openly, and beautifully, and freely about what we can create in the world!!! Because the world sure needs more of that and more of you.

Woman on xx