Leave it to Leonor #455

This week’s takeover is by Kim Baldwin. Kim is the former digital editor for the Nashville Scene. Her culture writing can be found in places like the Nashville Scene, Parnassus Books’ Musings, Substack and Joy the Baker. Originally a blogger, Kim started The Blonde Mule in 2006 and later turned her popular interview series “These My Bitches” into a podcast. On Ladyland, Kim interviews folks like Samantha Irby and Mary Laura Philpott about their day-to-day lives and current projects. Kim writes a weekly culture newsletter, takes on freelance clients who need help with their newsletters, teaches social media classes and is a frequent conversation partner for author events. You can find Kim on Substack, Instagram and Bluesky.

I know Kim through our mutual friend, Nicole the Troll. Kim very kindly included LITL in her Joy the Baker posts a few times bringing so many great readers to this community. In what will be a recurring theme for the summer takeovers, we have never met in real life, but enjoy being snarky and petty in DMs, commenting on each other’s newsletters, and sharing hot literary takes (the latest EmHen was mid. Don’t @ either of us, or do but be prepared)

I hope you’ll enjoy her takeover as much as I did and I’ll see you in the comments of The Blonde Mule!

This week, I’m thinking about ambition. Up until recently I worked as the digital editor for an alt-weekly. It was a big job that demanded more than I was willing to give it. I recently turned 49 and am in a ‘what in the hell am I doing’ phase. I have a book idea for a memoir-in-essays and a book idea for a contemporary fiction/romance novel, neither of which I’m writing because I got so burned out at my job that my brain broke. 

I have long wished for a government program that sends perimenopausal women into the woods for 10 years to make art. A reverse maternity leave, if you will. In the meantime, I live in a log cabin with my husband and two cats, where instead of writing, I’m doing jigsaw puzzles and taking pictures of lizards. Liz, laugh, love!

I’ve been reading this newsletter for so long. It is a thrill to take on the voice of LITL this week. Leonor, thank you. I hope you’re resting and I’m sorry you didn’t get to talk about the Cole Escola episode. XOXO
[Ed note: not writing about Good Hang is SO HARD. I was losing my mind this week over the Abbi and Ilana episode. LOSING MY MIND]

​This week in reading. . .
Petition to retitle this section “this week in crying” because I cried so hard at the end of Atmosphere I had to go find my husband and ask him to hug me. Atmosphere is the new novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid about lesbians in space and the 1980’s Space Shuttle program. I have never read TJR, so perhaps she is always this masterful, but my god, what a book. What an ending. I also read the brand new collection of essays I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman, which I enjoyed and recommend for any other young Gen X-ers/elder Millennials crashing the fuck out.

​This week in Good Hang with Amy Poehler. . .
COLE ESCOLA. I really wanted to see Oh, Mary! while Cole was still in the title role. Alas, I quit my job and moved to the country instead of flying to NYC to see a play. I’ve been a fan of Cole’s since their role in Difficult People. Like all episodes of Good Hang, this one opens with a phone call to a friend. They called Amy Sedaris! My queen! The convo between Amy Poehler and Cole was, surprise, so funny. They both did this recurring bit where Cole was being faux modest. My two favorite lines from the ep: Amy calling Cole’s sex work “front of house” and Cole mimicking Martha Stewart (!) turning to him at a dinner party and asking, “Are you Mary?”

This week on Love Island UK. . .
One of the great tragedies of my life is that Love Island USA went viral at the exact moment I wrote about the mass appeal of Love Island UK. If the UK franchise was the one going viral, would I have a book deal right now? WHO CAN SAY?

On Love Island UK we are currently in the aftermath of my favorite episode, “Movie Night.” I am surprised (but also elated) every year when the lads go to Casa Amor and act like they don’t know every move they’re making is being recorded and filed away to be shown to the girls a few nights later. It is dramatic, stupid and chaotic and I can’t get enough.

​​This week in a meme. . .

This week in movies. . .
I watched the 1988 film The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!. Let me explain. This movie hit my radar twice last week. Once in the episode of Good Hang with Andy Samberg and again in the essay “Copaganda and Me” in Maris Kreizman’s new book (excerpt in Rolling Stone here). Unfortunately, I laughed, but I don’t feel good about it. There’s a remake starring Liam Neeson (?!) that hits theaters on Aug. 1. I’m sorry to say, I will probably see it.

​This week in a newsletter. . .
Lyz Lenz wrote about witnessing the masculinity crisis at a Trump rally. 

Lindy West revealed, in her hilariously named newsletter Butt News, that her new memoir Adult Braces will be out in 2026 and is available for pre-order now!

Garrett Bucks on what it means to be a good neighbor.

This week in google searches. . .

• actress who played mayor in Naked Gun (mom in The Sopranos!)

• burned or burnt

• gso meaning

​This week in one good thing. . .
I met Stacey Abrams! I did not know I would be meeting her. If I had, I wouldn’t have worn a t-shirt I bought in a New Mexico gas station that has a picture of an armadillo and says “Armored Vehicle” in bold letters across the chest. She thought it was hilarious and told me that she loves stupid. We both laughed and her assistant snapped truly iconic photos of this whole exchange.

​This week in a quote. . .
“I am not drawn to action only because people have suffered or are suffering; I am drawn to action because I am distinctly aware of every inch of humanity from which suffering keeps people.” - Hanif Abdurraqib

​This week on the internet. . .
The news coming out of Palestine continues to devastate.

The effect on cancer research after Trump paused NIH grants.

Trans folks can get accurate passports again.

Them looks back at the life of Andrea Gibson, who died last week, and revisits eight of their life-affirming poems.

​This week on the animals in my yard. . .
One day last week I noticed a critter had gone nuts digging holes and trenches in the mulch in front of my house. I have not seen an armadillo in my yard yet, but surely this was the work of a ‘dillo. So the next morning, as soon as I woke up, I rushed outside to see if I could catch the critter in action. It was a skunk. She was ambling around my front yard rooting in the grass. TBD on who actually dug up our mulch. The skunk did not appear to be covered in mulch, so as of this writing, the clawed perpetrator remains at large.

me, a cow who's going to be okay,
Kim

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