Catherine Newman Shares 12 Cool Things for a Messy, Funny, Joyous Life
Polar plunges! Paul Rudd! What to do right before friends come over!
Hello! How’s your week going? WE ARE SO EXCITED because…
…we’re featuring
!!!! The brilliant author writes books about parenting, marriage, aging, and friendship that make us laugh and cry. (Fifteen years ago, her memoir about raising a three-year-old while expecting her second child was a touchstone for me when I was pregnant with Toby and terrified!) She’s also written for Cup of Jo about everything from teenage boys to hot flashes, and her joyful house tour brought down the Internet.Since Catherine is a natural treasure, we made this issue free for everyone to read. Please enjoy and share with friends, if you’d like!
(Next week, we’re also doing another Ask Me Anything. I’m an open book and happy to tackle your juiciest questions. If you’d like, you can submit questions on this short form, and I look forward to answering them.)
Without further ado, Catherine shares 12 favorite things, including a party strategy and the low-key way she stays connected with her adult kids…
Road trip soundtrack: Whenever our family drives in the car together, we do an activity called ‘Song Pickies,’ where we take turns picking songs from Spotify. That’s the way we catch up with each other — by listening to what everyone’s been into lately, and by remembering old favorites that we used to listen to together. It’s the actual best.
Comfy footwear: I wear Oofos clogs all day, every day. They cured my plantar fasciitis. CURED IT! I spray-painted them gold, and then most of the paint peeled off, and for some reason I love the trash-core vibe.
Book-tour uniform: I feel like I’m cosplaying an author on a book tour. I’ve been wearing things I don’t normally wear — like an old floral dress I’ve had for years over a long-sleeve striped shirt — and it’s really fun.
Podcast: My husband, Michael, has been driving us everywhere on book tour, and we’ve been listening to a podcast called Dead Eyes. On the surface, it’s about investigating why the host was cut from a Tom Hanks film, but really he just interviews his funniest friends about all their failures. There are three seasons, and it’s the most healing thing.
Hosting strategy: When the kids were younger, we routinely had massive groups of children and adults over. I loved it, but now our entertaining is much quieter. This might sound weirdly formal, but we always set the table and light candles before guests arrive. I learned this from my friend Maddie. The first time we arrived to her house for dinner, she had already set the table and lit a mess of votive candles. It gave us this feeling of being so wanted, which I’m always trying to recreate.
Trader Joe’s item: As a new non-drinker, I am pretty much obsessed with Trader Joe’s Jalapeño Limeade, which makes the best N/A margarita around. Just put it in a blender with ice and an extra squeeze of lime juice. These are my favorite glasses in the world. Very thin and light, but oddly sturdy. Plus, they’re inexpensive so if people do break them, you can be like, ‘Please. These are the cheapest glasses in the world.’
Hobby: Polar plunging is the greatest mental-health reset I’ve ever experienced (with the possible exception of Zoloft, which I guess we can’t really count as a *hobby* exactly). But we’ve also been just normal swimming a lot this summer — my daughter’s friend is living with us and has a summer goal of swimming every day — and it’s heaven on earth. Lakes, waterfalls, swimming holes, the ocean, and a friend’s glorious pool!!! There’s no more deliciously cool way to head into a summer evening.
Book: I’ve been rereading all my Samantha Irby books. Alllll of them. Mostly I’m studying her, trying to understand how she writes about the body’s precarious indignities in such a funny way. But also I’m in love with her generosity. If she were a business, I feel like the motto written on her delivery truck would be, ‘We feel shame so you don’t have to!’ You hardly know it’s happening because she’s so sneaky, but wow — what a gift.
Recipe: I’ve gotten a little notorious for my chickpea recipes! But my absolute go-to summer meal is this: drain a can of chickpeas and spread them on paper towels to dry while you heat a bloop of olive oil in a pan. Fry chickpeas for 15 minutes or so, salting them pretty heavily along the way and flipping them around with a spatula until they get crispy (you can add a teaspoon of za’atar at the end, if you like). Meanwhile, put green salad stuff in a bowl: shredded romaine, lots of sliced celery, cukes, herbs, pickled pepperoncini peppers, and sliced radishes if you have them. Add the chickpeas, toss with your favorite vinaigrette, and top with crumbled feta or grated Parm. Perfection.
Gift: Two different people sent me gift boxes from Rancho Gordo, the fancy bean growers, and I’ve never been so excited. You might have written this off as a weird trend — designer beans — but honestly, these creamy, dreamy beans will change your life.
Movies: Wanderlust, with comedic geniuses Paul Rudd, Jordan Peele and Jennifer Aniston, a dozen times, is the most underrated movie. I also liked Race to Alaska about people on boats doing crazy shit, and Cha Cha Real Smooth, which is a total heartbreaker about being a young person. It is also very funny.
Family pro tip: Every day on our family group chat, we all share the results for the NYT Strands word-search puzzle, and over the course of the day everyone hearts each other’s results. Very occasionally someone will trash talk you, but mostly there’s no commentary. It’s just this…connection. Proof of life. I don’t know why the ritual is so moving to me. I guess because we’re saying to each other, in this goofy way, ‘We’re apart, but we’re still together. I see you.'‘
Catherine’s new novel, Sandwich, offers a hilarious yet tender snapshot of a family vacation. We asked her our burning questions about the challenges of midlife and caring for both your children and aging parents…
If you could time travel to yourself as a new mom and give yourself a pep talk, what would you say? I would reassure myself that it gets easier. There are so many things about babies that are exhausting — including the feeling of being completely captive, body and soul. At the same time, it’s hard not be nostalgic for a time when what my kids needed from me was, in some ways, obvious. When the kids were little, they needed to be cuddled and bathed and put to bed. And now as young adults, it’s so complicated, because you’re less able to give them what they need. It’s delicate but also the best. If I were going to pick a favorite stage, it would be this one, except my kids aren’t home, which is devastating.
I love how Sandwich depicts the delicacy of young adult children learning how to care for their parents. It’s so true. My son — who is 24 and lives in NYC — is tracking my Amazon sales rankings. He writes me about it from work, sends me these texts that are like, way to go, Mama.
What are people saying about the novel? Honestly, the best reader comment is any version of: your book made me feel less alone.
Do your kids read your books? Yes, Birdie is actually my first reader and reads everything in manuscript form. She’s incredibly perceptive and a total critical thinker. I think despite the fact Ben and Birdie are robustly represented in the books, they appear as perfect human specimens because the narrator in Sandwich is so madly in love with her kids. It is like the longest, most passionate love affair.
The narrator in Sandwich has also been married for a long time, which is a different kind of epic love. It’s epic and evolving. Michael and I have been together almost 35 years, and our marriage is like a living organism. It’s not an object. It’s a dynamic, relational experience.
What are the best parts about menopause? I am so over being picky about my body. Not to sound like a children’s storybook, but, like, I have arms for hugging and legs for swimming. I’m so filled with admiration for my body, even its scars and stretch marks.
What’s next? We would love to hear that you’re working on a new book! I can tell that I’m getting serious about my next novel because I bought new stickers for my sticker chart. (I give myself a sticker for every 500 words I write.)
“I am so drawn to how real and joyful this home looks,” commented a Cup of Jo reader when we featured Catherine’s house tour. People were delighted to see a bedroom chair piled with clothes and the mess of shoes near the door. Here’s what Catherine had to say…
Have you made any updates since your home tour? I just framed a Julia Rothman print. She’s the most incredible artist and illustrator. When she put a bunch of prints on sale, I saw one of a prescription pill bottle that was so perfect. It’s in our bathroom, where all our prescription pills live.
There’s a sentence in your home tour where you describe the impulse to hide your acne medication. You say, ‘It’s so weird what makes you feel shame.’ But you didn’t hide it. That’s the thing! It reminds me of what my friend Lydia calls ‘showing your uglies’ — which just means letting people see the things that you know they have, too, and then everybody feels a little less panicky about being found out.
I’m thinking of your family’s welcoming stance on furniture stains, and how you’ve come to appreciate your own scars and stretch marks. That warm, accepting attitude seems to be how you approach life. Oh my god, yes, the couch with stains on it just makes me think of all the fun times we’ve had. That’s such a deep observation that I’m approaching my body like it’s my own messy house — it’s just evidence of a life well-lived, rather than like a perfectly curated human specimen.
Catherine, thank you! We adore everything you do!
(Interview by Kaitlyn Teer. House tour photos by Lyndsay Hannah for Cup of Jo.)
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Thank you for reading! Hope you have a good weekend. We’re meeting friends at the beach, where I like to inch into the water painfully slowly and torture myself and everyone around me. And if you’d like to ask a question for next week’s Ask Me Anything, here’s the short form. Going to be fun! xoxoxo Lots of love.
Catherine really is a national treasure!!!
Maybe it’s because I’m home sick and laying in bed, but this interview made me weep. Her words are so open, so full of kindness to herself and her life. It’s like that kindness touches the depths of my soul, bringing me along with her. I’m on a waitlist at our library for Sandwich. If this is a taste of her writing, I am going needs lotssss of tissues.