Clean Countertops with Sara Petersen & Emily J. Smith

Daring To Desire

Both Emily and I are huge fans of Amil Niazi. [https://www.instagram.com/amilniazi/?hl=en] She writes about middle age, motherhood, womanhood, and most recently ambition. You might be familiar with her excellent column at The Cut [https://www.thecut.com/tags/the-hard-part/], where she always manages to write about the exact thing I've been fruitlessly ruminating on with clarity, humor, and insight. She's a delight. And so is her new, bestselling book, My Life After Ambition: A Good Enough Memoir [https://bookshop.org/a/86808/9781668056035]. A few weeks ago, I interviewed Stefanie O'Connell about ambition [https://www.patreon.com/SaraPetersen/posts/alex-clark-is-158880204], and it feels like a topic that can be endlessly excavated. Especially for women. Amil's book is the book I needed to read when I was 25 and depressed that I hadn't "succeeded at life as an adult" yet. And it's the book I still need now that my definitions of success have changed. We had the absolute best conversation, delved deep into our personal histories of ambition, and came out on the other side ready to fuck up with abandon.

Lena Dunham's FAMESICK And The Price Of Redemption

In which Emily and I discuss the many revelations of Famesick, a book positively brimming with Hollywood gossip (Adam Driver! Jenni Konner! Nora Ephron! Fucking Bruce Springsteen!) and themes near and dear to our hearts (feminism! bodies! performance of self! people-pleasing as women!) We also review our personal histories with Girls and whether or not we were on the right side of history as it pertains to the gleeful misogyny of Lena Dunham Hating in the mid-aughts. We top everything off by playing a little game of compare and contrast with Famesick and Lindy West's Adult Braces.

WE Feel Bad About Our Hair

As mentioned in Wednesday's newsletter [https://www.patreon.com/posts/158078320], which was a self-indulgent rant about my hair woes and from whence they sprang, Emily and I spent an hour talking about why hair haunts us. And listen, while much of the episode is us bitching like BFFs at a slumber party, I legitimately think we landed on some actual insights as to why HAIR is such a fraught fucking thing for so many of us. Plus, a lot of you got in touch to say you liked us ranting about DINNER so perhaps we make this a regular thing? Chime in in the comments to let us know what very basic everyday thing we should bitch about cover next! HAPPY WEEKEND AND HAPPY HAIR!

Starving To Be Good

This week, Emily and I talked to Anna Rollins [https://www.annajrollins.com/] about her beautiful memoir, Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Girl [https://bookshop.org/a/86808/9780802884510] Anna grew up in an Evangelical Christian community in Appalachia and was taught from a very young age that gender, sexuality, appetite, and thinness were toxically intertwined. Eating disorders were very much normalized in her community, and girls were taught to fear their desires. It's an incredible book, which both Emily and I tore through. Emily has written [https://substack.com/@emjsmith/p-175028957] before about her history with disordered eating [https://therumpus.net/2018/03/01/fitting-in/], and listening to both Anna and Emily exchange their personal insights was such a privilege. I got so much from both Anna's book and our conversation, which TRULY covers the gamut of why ideals of womanhood are Very, Very Bad.

"Do you want kids?" is the wrong question

Today, Emily and I discuss something we've been discussing since the day we became friends. What does it mean to bring children into the world? What does it mean to want to become a mother? And is that the same things as wanting to raise kids? There are just as many reasons not to have kids are there are reasons to have them, but so often cultural conversations about maternal ambivalence, pronatalism, and the climate crisis coagulate into a sticky abstract. Ultimately, the question of motherhood is intensely personal. So we get into it, and bring our individual baggage along for the ride! RELATED READING: Why Having A Third Baby Felt Like The Safe Choice [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/parenting/motherhood-stay-at-home-mom.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bFA.naCV.otrBcnvR1bM3&smid=url-share] (by Sara) Reclaiming Maternal Dread [https://www.patreon.com/posts/reclaiming-dread-145172852] (by Sara) I Don't Cherish Every Moment [https://www.patreon.com/posts/i-dont-cherish-145173137] (by Sara) Is Having A Child Worth It? [https://substack.com/@emjsmith/p-162542785] (by Emily) The Choice of Childlessness [https://humanparts.medium.com/the-choice-of-childlessness-8d83cd36e633](by Emily) I Need More Time: Weighing The Option of Egg Freezing [https://magazine.catapult.co/people/stories/bodies-more-time-option-egg-freezing] (by Emily)