RESPONSIBILITIES, FEAR MONGERING, AND ALL GIRLS SCHOOLS

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!!

Oldie Goody: I needed a small book to get my back in my reading game (this is my trick when I have a few weeks where I'm not reading a ton). And I found one at my local book store, in the staff picks section: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. This book came out in 1961, has had like a bunch of adaptations for screen...but also I'd never heard of it before last week LOL. I'm not done yet, so I'm trying not to read too many think pieces about this VERY eccentric school teacher and her impact on her set of 5 impressionable students at an Edinburgh girls school....but I've LOL'd a lot at the obsession Miss Brodie has with “being in her prime”, which like, same same? jkjk. Stay tuned!

Also, while we're here, I shared I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman with my Instagram followers and people are l-o-v-i-n-g this book. So if you have not taken my advice to read the best book I've ever read, consider this your almost-summer reminder. It's a slight, earthshattering novel that will fit oh-so-perfectly into your travel bag!

What I've been writing: Somehow I'm writing so much and still feel like I'm not getting what I need done. Probably because I've been prioritizing non-fiction over Evangeline and I REALLY want to get more Evangeline scenes done in a week. So TBD on my plan for that. I'm considering re-naming this section to “Maxie confesses she isn't done with Evangeline yet, even though she said she would be by now”.

WOMEN’S STUDIES

What gets passed down becomes our history.

Electric Lady: Is Your Desire Dipping? I'm captivated by women's health. I always have been. About how we could possibly be half the world and only get like 2% of medical funding. HOW ON HOW ON HOW ON HOW is that possible. I've had the pleasure of meeting Cindy Eckert, the creator of the little pink pill, Addyi, aka a viagra for women that treats the dip in libido that happens for a lot of women. So I've been following the creation of this drug since like 2019...but what stood out to me in this piece is how many people, doctors, and women have no idea there's FDA approved solutions for this very common experience.

And on that note, if you're reading this and have done hormone replacement therapy, or are doing it right now, for peri or menopause, can I interview you for something I'm (professionally) researching?? Just reply back if you're down!!!

Why Too Much Freedom is the Enemy of Success. I've long been a believer that creativity requires constraint, which is exactly what this Plain English podcast dives into. I remember getting into a text battle with a guy I was dating in 2018 about how those constraints, versus open freedom, actually allow us to be more creative, to create better results. If we were still on speaking terms (lolol, we're not), I'd send him this very smart podcast about just that. It's also a case for why our commitments, like having kids, can be a great thing for what we produce. It's a discipline and a constraint that get us to our best outputs.

Stop Living By Your Preferences and Start Living Your Vision. This episode on the Lewis Howes podcast GOT ME. Like really hit me where it hurts!!! I'm SO guilty of leaning out of complexity. It's not that I don't like hard things, it's that when things get operationally chaotic or overly complex, my doubt creeps in and I wonder if I just don't have the constitution for those types of problems at scale. This conversation with a High Performance coach basically said...if you want to get to new levels, you've got to take on more problems and complexity but see that as a responsibility, as a good thing. This conversation really untangled something in me that I didn't expect! Maybe it will for you, too.

The Girlbossification of AI. I have so many things to say about this piece in The Cut about Reese Witherspoon, Sheryl Sandberg, and Mel Robbins promoting AI as a women's issue...and how we should all be using it...and how we should be scared if we're not using it...that this type of fire means I probably shouldn't say anything right now and wait two weeks until I'm less fired up. But here we are. And first, context will be important. I've been working, deeply, with AI for certain workflows since ChatGPT came out in 2023. I've written the geekiest keynotes for execs you can possibly imagine for AI conferences about the data schema that make AI possible. Like, I've been in it for the last few years. Which truly doesn't matter because the tech changes so quickly that you could show up to tinker around AI today and it'll be different than late summer. SO, my issue with this piece is both 1) this piece sets up a false binary, around cringey girlbosses versus their snappy commenters...and it turned a real shift that we need to be paying attention to into a culture war snack. Look, women's frustration with AI evangelism is real and legitimate. Men are not saying, BUT MEN! HEAR HEAR! TAKE ON AI OR DIE! As a gender issue. But also the same people scaring us about AI are the same people benefiting from it. Also, most women I know, myself included, sorta hate the technology except for the like 2.9 use cases where it makes their lives easier (like research! Like combing through tons of transcripts! Like data analysis!) – We gotta stay close to the harder question underneath this piece: who controls these tools, who profits, and who loses work to them? And to me, nothing about that is a punchline!

Other Stray Links: I'm obsessed with this Stone Crop oil cleanser from Eminence, and I got my mom hooked on it, too. For any of my rosacea girlies, it's so lovely! My friend Jill bought Quince Curtains that she asked me to hang while I was in town (I didn't, we kept getting distracted), but I think I'm going to order some of my own because they're lovely!

PASS IT ON

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine:

Netflix is a Joke is a comedy festival hosted in LA, and like the true galpals we are, five of dear friends flew to LA for 48 hours to see Chelsea Handler's standup show, followed by Heather McMahan's. And can I just say, LAUGHING IS SO MUCH FUN. And laughing for two straight hours, on back to back nights, with your dearest friends, is so. much. fun. Staying up until 3am on a school night playing Titanic on a keyboard with one person recording, one person shhh'ing the room, one person passed out on the couch, one person paying NO attention, and one person (me) missing all the notes but demanding that they all “hear it”, is so much fun. I sat on my couch last night, alone, laughing so hard I was crying real, literal tears, while re-living the proof-of-titanic over text with the girls.

I highly recommend having a friend who is obsessed with Titanic. I also I highly recommend going to see Heather and Chelsea's shows, or watching their specials, or checking out their clips on IG...as both women are on tour right now. Or finding some standup in your town, and taking a night to just laugh. My word, do we all need it right now. The world, our world! Also, this trip was a good reminder in how to get your friends to do things: book the tickets, get an anchor “yes” and the rest will come!

Woman on xx