Kate Baer Is Making Her 40s Her Best Decade
Nine ways the poet is coming out to play, including a sex playlist and a crowd-pleasing dinner.
Hi! How’s your week going?
, New York Times-bestselling poet and Internet gal pal, recently turned 40, and her fourth book of poetry — How About Now — comes out next week. I once wrote a post about nine habits that are making my 40s my favorite decade. Curious, I asked Kate what her own life rules are, and, no surprise, they’re amazing…
Find your ‘book type.’ I’m a lit-fic girlie, and I have no portion control. If I start a novel and love it, I’ll read it all day until I’m done. I just read Heart the Lover, oh my god, so good. Also, The Road to Tender Hearts, The Covenant of Water, The Bee Sting, anything by Elizabeth Strout. I keep an Instagram account of books I’d recommend to everyone.
Hang plants from the ceiling. We were looking for art for our living room, but it was all so expensive, so instead we just hung plants on hooks from the ceiling. They instantly made the space feel cozy and finished.
Make dinner bowls. The question ‘what’s for dinner’ is rage bait for me. Anyone asking me that can just f*ck off. My mom helps, and my husband takes over on weekends, but on the days I have to cook, I don’t know what I want to eat, much less what six people want to eat. My trick is to make bowls — like, rice and beans, or white bean chili — with lots of toppings. Everyone’s happy because they can combine whatever they want. And if you squeeze a lime on whatever slop you made, you’re like, oh, this is delicious.
Make a sex playlist. We have a speaker in the bedroom, and I always turn on our sex playlist. I don’t want to hear mouth sounds; I want to get lost in the drama. The songs are dirty — they’re not R&B, they’re Cardi B.
