The Empress Book Club: I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself. And Make it Awkward! 😂
Picking up this thread again: Glynnis MacNicol wants you to want IT!
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Fellow Empresses, How the hell are you?
A thread I want to pick back up again before we get too far into autumn—the much-beloved cozy season— is narratives of pleasure for women in midlife. The arc of the female orgasm is something bestselling author Glynnis MacNicol explores from multiple vantage points in her book I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself. And for all the talk of midlife women’s invisibility, MacNicol has found the opposite to be true.
But before we get into all that, I’ve got some big news to share. The Institute of Women’s Futures is a 501c3 nonprofit that I co-founded with and (you may remember them both if you attended Heather’s Menopause Monday event two weeks ago). We are dedicated to the science of midlife women’s thriving, and our main focus is improving healthcare for all of us. We’ve created an anonymous survey to reach 500 peri/menopausal women to understand your healthcare needs during this critical time. Here’s a link to the survey. It’s super quick! Please take it!
Now, back to some quality escapist joy amid this all-systems, full-body transformation we call menopause. Glynnis MacNicol on finding unexpected pleasure in midlife
Trigger Warning: The men in this interview are pretty cringe, but I think this is a GOOD thing. Awkwardness is a collective rupture—a chance to rewrite the social scripts—and we see moments of that happening right here with these chaps!
From the publisher:
When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie?
Come to Paris, in August 2021, when the City of Lights was still empty of tourists and a thirst for long-overdue pleasure gripped those who wandered its streets.
After New York City emptied out in March 2020, Glynnis MacNicol, aged forty-six, unmarried with no children, spent sixteen months alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment. The isolation was punishing. A year without touch. Women are warned of invisibility as they age, but this is an extreme loneliness no one can prepare you for. When the opportunity to sublet a friend’s apartment in Paris arose, MacNicol jumped on it. Leaving felt less like a risk than a necessity.
What follows is a decadent, joyful, unexpected journey into one woman’s pursuit of radical enjoyment.
The weeks in Paris are filled with friendship, food, and sex. There is dancing on the Seine; a plethora of gooey cheese; midnight bike rides through empty Paris; handsome men; afternoons wandering through the empty Louvre; and nighttime swimming in the ocean off a French island. And yes, plenty of nudity.
In the spirit of Nora Ephron and Deborah Levy (think Colette . . . if she’d had access to dating apps), I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is an intimate, insightful, powerful, and endlessly pleasurable memoir of an intensely lived experience whose meaning and insight expand far beyond the personal narrative. MacNicol is determined to document the beauty, excess, and triumph of a life that does not require permission.
And with that, stay tuned for weekly commentary on this book, an author chat, and an upcoming virtual salon Ask-a-Therapist with a dear friend of The Empress, our very own
from , who is just such a gift to the community.Yours in Grandeur & Deep Sh*t,
PS - I am a human typo. Amnesty appreciated.
For more info on the Empress Book Club, its mission, and how it works, click here.
This week’s book club is brought to you by:
The Menopause Mothership
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Survey done!
Survey done but wanted to point out that self paid insurance is not one of the insurance options.