The kitchen is for crying (and sometimes killing)

Let's sing about it.

I made you a little gift. But before you scroll down to find it, can I just say?

This newsletter about home takes a lot of work. Most of my subscribers don’t pay me for it. We’ve all gotten used to getting home work for free. I get it. And there’s only so many dollars to spend. I get that too.

If you value my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your paid subscription will help me keep working for you and for the people who can’t afford to pay me right now. I’ll be forever grateful. (And you’ll get cool exclusive community and content too.)

---

I was driving home the other day when Lori McKenna’s Stealing Kisses came on. I hadn’t heard it since high school. It’s a song about a woman who remembers being in high school 20 years earlier  “stealing kisses from a boy” but “Now I'm begging affection from a man / In my housedress don't you know who I am /Don't you know who I am / Standing in your kitchen.”

At the end of the song, the woman stands outside her old high school and wishes she could help the girls there understand that she used to be stealing kisses from a boy too, but now? Now look at her. She whispers to “all of the girls, run, run, run.” 

I had to pull over and cry. I’m only a year younger than the woman in the song. And while I am not begging for affection in the kitchen, I’ve found myself begging for so many other things there. Domesticity in America can be fucking lonely, even when you live with someone you love, who loves you too.

I guess I’ve entered the “I need songs about women who woke up, walked downstairs, looked around their kitchen and started to cry” stage of my life. 

Some of you have too. When I asked for songs about domestic sorrow and rage on Instagram, my inbox filled right up. So I spent a couple hours making a playlist with some of those recommendations and some of my favorites. It’s my Friday gift to you. 

Some of the songs are sad, some are angry, some are violent, some are hopeless. All of them vibrate along a chord I can’t stop plucking. 

Women’s pain has always been a living document. I plan on adding songs to this playlist. I know I am missing some good ones. Leave me suggestions in the comments and I’ll add them. I use Apple Music but I know some people need to use Spotify. So you can find the playlist in either place!

Here’s the Spotify playlist

And just click on this to go to the Apple Playlist.

ALSO.

I’ve got two big newsletters coming - one on student loans and one on the future of tech and housing. They’re both going through editing right now. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss them. 

AND.

Is it soup weather where you are yet? Last week’s thread on soups led me to SO MANY good new recipes! Also, it was weirdly healing to bond over soup? Plus there’s one soup suggestion in there that sounded absolutely horrid but I made it and it’s DELIGHTFUL. (Can you guess which one?) Soup always surprises, I guess.

Have a good weekend, friends.