Look who's back, back again.
So maybe I accidentally took a summer break.
Oops, all writer’s block!
Funnily enough, when you decide to start a newsletter about any and everything for a bit of creative freedom, it can quickly become a huge creative block instead. Soooo I accidentally took a bit of a summer hiatus. Sorry! But I’m back and I’m hell bent on recommending you things.
I think I’m going to make these weekly newsletters more short, sweet and to the point, with quick and easy recommendations and a few bits about my week. I want to start working on a few other recurring ideas and content categories (because I will always be a blogger at heart). I’m trying to take it slow and remember that this was supposed to be a fun creative outlet and not another sub-brand. Lordy, it’s hard.
To Read
The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America by Monica Potts
I’ve had this book on my list since I read a review of it in the New York Times. It’s part memoir, part research thesis about how society is failing women in rural America.
From the Times review:
As part of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a subsidiary organization called U.N. Women released a report last year looking at global trends toward gender equality. By nearly every available metric — from access to clean water and a path out of poverty to feeling safe while walking alone in the dark — the report’s authors found that women’s push for parity is losing ground. At the current rate of progress, U.N. Women projects that it will take another 286 years — nine generations — for women to achieve legally protected equality.
Reading Monica Potts’s expansive first book, “The Forgotten Girls,” got me thinking about this grim scenario. The central question for Potts is why the life expectancy of America’s least educated white women has recently been shrinking. Many women are dying from what researchers call “diseases of despair”: suicide, drunken driving, overdoses. Using her rural hometown, Clinton, Ark., as a focal point, Potts drills down into the lives of women for whom such indicators are realities.
As someone who comes from a rural, small town in the Midwest, it’s hauntingly poignant. I know of plenty of girls who have ended up the same way – former recess playmates and Sunday School friends and head cheerleaders and frenemies. If not dead, then mired in drug addiction, married and pregnant too young, and suffocated by restrictive evangelical beliefs.
I’m only just a bit into the book but it already is such a beautiful and depressing portrayal of these women’s lives and stories, focusing a lot on the author’s childhood best friend. Certainly not a feel good book, but definitely an important one.
To Watch
Shiny Happy People on Amazon Prime
I watched this recent documentary about the Duggars, of 19 Kids and Counting Fame, and I’m still thinking about it weeks later. The religion they subscribe to is literally a cult in every possible way, and it’s an infuriating watch, but riveting. Definitely heed any content warnings before you watch, because it is pretty explicit about child abuse and sexual assault.
To Listen
Stick Season by Noah Kahan
A Tiktok trending sound darling (you’ll recognize the chorus from The View Between Villages if you’ve spent any time on the app in the past few weeks). His debut album hits all of the “grew up in a rural small town in the Midwest” notes and I’m obsessed with it. Stand out tracks for me are Stick Season, The View Between Villages, and You’re Gonna Go Far (which fully made me cry in public the first time I listened to it so… buckle up).
To Buy
A Tomato Scented Candle
Trust me, I thought it sounded super weird when I first encountered it also. But it’s such an amazingly clean scent that just conjures up summery vibes. I’m sure the exact scent varies from brand to brand. My favorite high-end pick is Flamingo Estate’s Roma Heirloom Tomato, and a more budget-friendly choice is Heirloom Tomato by Paddywax.
Mini Vegetable Samosas from Trader Joe’s
My boss had these the other day (hi Scout!) and I tried some – they are delicious and adorably tiny. I’m obsessed. Go get some immediately.
The DryBar Single Shot Blow Dryer Brush
I had my doubts and reservations. But one night last week, on a total Tiktok-algorithm-fueled whim, I decided to take a risk and buy this $100-something glorified hair dryer. And honestly, it blew my mind. I was half expecting it to turn my hair into a frizzy mess but it produced a gorgeous, sleek and smooth blowout look in a fraction of the time and effort it normally would have taken me. Cannot recommend enough!!!
To Scroll
This is the “not cheap” companion account to Cheap Old Houses, and I’m thoroughly obsessed. It catalogues beautiful old houses for sale across the country and it’s completely drool worthy.
I recently fell head over heels in love with the sweet, glamorous and often a bit spooky art of Janet Hill. I had one of her prints and didn’t even know it was her! My new goal is to build a gallery wall of her portraits, because they’re all so fun and whimsical.
This account has alllll the grandmillennial style vibes you could want. I’m obsessed with the dreamy interiors she shares.
