Speaker 1: Hi everybody, and welcome to the Kylie Cast. I'm Kylie Griswold,
Managing editor at The Federalist. Please like and subscribe wherever
you get your podcasts. We have a channel specifically for
the Kylie Cast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. So if
you are only subscribed to The Federalist Radio Hour, or
you're wrong with Molly Hemingway and David Harsani, two of
our other great Federalist podcasts, be sure to subscribe to
the Kylie Cast as well so you never miss an episode.
Leave us a five star review. It's one of the
easiest and best ways you can help out the show,
and even better yet, if you're just listening to the show,
go check out the full video version on my personal
YouTube channel or The Federalist's channel on Rumble, and then
of course like and subscribe there too. If you'd like
to email the show, you can do so at radio
at the Federalist dot com. I would love to hear
from you today. I have a really fun interview for
you with my friend Evi Solheim. Evie is a Christian
wife and mother and freelance journalist, but she is also
the new director of the brand new Chesterton Media Fellowship
at New Guard Press. New Guard Press is an awesome
online magazine of young professionals who seek to provide thoughtful
and insightful commentary on some of the highest order things
and how those things relate to our current cultural moment.
My conversation with Evie really runs the gamut. We talk
about her new gig and her other writing work, as
well as marriage and motherhood and relationships and of course
her latest thrift finds what she's reading these days, and
how crunchy and devoted to Maha she really is. All
of that and more on the Kylie Cast, Ev Solheim,
it is so great to have you on the Kylie Guest.
Speaker 2: It's good to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me. It's so funny
to even say your name as that, because even though
I've seen it a million times, I didn't know you
as Ev Slheim. I knew you as Ev Fordham.
Speaker 2: And I remember when you were kazy not heg.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, oh, how things change. We were just
reminiscing before we started recording that we've known each other
for a handful of years now, but I really don't
remember even how I met you. You've just kind of
always been a presence in my professional life. So so
fun to have you on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, though in a good way, I hope, in.
Speaker 1: The best way, in the best way. Yeah, it's just
this like fixture. You are a fixture of DC and
of yeah everything great about conservative media. So which, speaking of,
you have a new gig. You are now the director
of the Chesterton Media Fellowship at New Guard Press. So
we're going to get into that in just a second,
because that's big news. But for people who you are
not a fixture in their life, why don't you just
tell listeners kind of who you are, where you come from,
and how you got to where you are now.
Speaker 2: Yes, all all keep it as short as I can.
But yeah, I'm a North Carolina native. I went to
Patrick Henry College, which many people may not have heard of.
Many people may have, but I studied journalism there and
that's what I wanted to do. I did some time
in local news, I even did and turning at the Federalist,
and I really did love working in breaking news and
politics and just kind of cutting my teeth and getting
to just know the characters in politics, right, politics and
business and media and all of that, but it was
really fun to kind of, you know, start my family,
move a little further out from DC and kind of
get to play with freelancing and get to play with
you know, editing and kind of become kind of an
informal connector in like the DC or slash conservative media movement,
which has been really fun. And you know, people always
have opinions on being a mom and career, and I
feel like it's different for everybody, But a really fun
thing about freelancing after becoming a mom is like I've
had so many topics in spired by being a mom.
So even one of my favorite pieces I've gotten to
do was I interviewed people who had illegally attended home
births in my home state because they have pretty strict
laws on that, and it's just like people are willing
to talk to you, and you know, maybe their names
is not on the record, but it was a really
interesting piece and people seem to get a lot out
of it. But yeah, that's what I'm up to. I
have a newsletter about politics and pop culture called The
Girl's Guide, And yeah, I'm also happy to answer questions
about my new gig with New Guard Press.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, let's talk about your new gig with new guards.
So it's called the GK the Chester Didn't Media Up Fellowship.
What exactly is it?
Speaker 2: Yes? Oh my goodness. Well, and this is something I
feel like you can relate to because you've been in
media for a while, but we all remember our days
starting out. It's really hard to get your foot in
the door, and you know you are young and you
don't necessarily have a mile of clips and links to
speak for you. So really do Guard Press. I've been
watching them for a while and I really appreciate that
they are kind of that stepping stone for up and
coming writers and up and coming journalists. They want to
publish young people, they want to let them get into
topics that matter, and so I was just keeping an
eye on them and you know, thinking they seemed really cool.
I had editor in chief Libby Krieger on my newsletter.
I talked to her just about life and tips for
interns and things like that, and just kind of kept
up with them. And then I'll shout out Intercollegiate Studies
Institute because I love them and they had a big
role in my coming to journalism. They had a big role,
and I think, you know New guard Press and our
founder Bradley Haley, you know, getting their feet under them.
But I'll shout out II because it just happened to
be at their last like in person event in DC
that I get to connect with Bradley and we're like, oh,
we agree on a lot of things. I have a
skill set they're looking for. I really have a heart
for you know. I just love helping people kind of
level up their writing and kind of feel empowered, like, Okay,
I have a story, how do I want to tell it?
And that's something I literally do in my free time.
So I was like, oh, well, twist my arm, why
don't you. I'd love to come help run this fellowship,
And it's going to be really small. We're going to
be helping some students in recent grads play saw beds
for six months and they will get you know, a stipend,
and they'll have the support of New Guard Press, you know,
boosting their articles. They'll have me to help them kind
of build their brand. I'll be interesting to hear what
you think, because obviously you and I came up in
the digital journalism age, but a huge part of helping
train writers and commentators is just getting them comfortable putting
themselves out there, not just as words on a page,
but as a personality, as a social media presence. So
that's also going to be part of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing that I think is really interesting about
New Guard Press is that it's essentially like buy gen
Z for gen Z. I mean not completely. Of course,
it has some millennial flavor in there too, and it's
not just for gen like this is for anyone.
Speaker 2: But we don't age discriminate, right, right, don't age discriminate.
But no, you're you're hitting the nail on the head.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, no, I just I think it's cool
because I think so much of the content that gen
Z consumes is digital now and mostly not digital writing, sadly.
A lot of it is digital clips. You know, they're
on TikTok, they're watching like reels. It's the doom scroll
or like the endless the infinite scroll of video content.
And so a lot of people are getting their news,
their culture content, like really, so much of what they're
absorbing is in that kind of short form video format,
and so it's so refreshing and helpful I think for
gen Z writers not only to have a good place
to work on cultivating their writing about topics that really matter,
which I would love to hear more about the topics
that New Guard Press covers because it's not a news website,
it's like an online magazine. But also to have a
better way for them to consume content like that, and
of course we do a lot of that at the
Federalists too, but there's still a place for long form
culture writing, you know, long form journalism that's not just
quick soundbites, because of course that's what's easy to package.
But we need to be good readers if we want
to be good writers. And I think New Guard Press
is a great platform for people to consume good content
like that.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and and one thing, you know, maybe I'll
trademark this when I get time, But you are who
you reference and who are your references. And I love
the references that the writers at New Guard Press bring up.
They are thinking deeply, they are reading deeply, and so
even just the Chesterton Media Fellowship, you know, I remember
first being introduced to GK. Chesterton through like probably father
Brown Stories, reading some excerpts of Orthodoxy, and I think
middle school, which is young, but you can think about
those topics, you know, And so Bradley is a superfan
of GK. Chesterton, and you know, that name was kind
of in his mind, and I was like, oh, I
think it's good. I think it's good. You know. Our
tagline is cultivating Swordsmanship of the pen because I have
this feeling that there are so many good writers or
thinkers out there, but I feel like there's this disconnect
of sometimes the most thoughtful and the most well read
people are also the most humble and circumspect, and they're
the ones who are going to be the last to
jump into the fray to say, hey, I've figured it out.
Not even that you have to have everything figured out.
But I really love that New Guard Press is not
trying to be like we're going to have a response
to every news item that happens, you know, twenty four
to seven in twenty four hours. It's letting kids think
a little more deeply, letting them pull out of that
like rapid fire news cycle that can get you in trouble.
But then through the fellowship, I'm going to train them
to kind of be comfortable with the pieces where you
sit and you think about the topic and okay, let's
figure out what our comfort zone is when we do
have to have that twenty four hour turnaround of like,
what are our thoughts on this? What does scripture say?
What does the lessons of history say? You know, things
like that. So you are how you reference And the
kids who are writing it New Guard Press are so smart.
They're bringing up great references. You know, they're throwing in Nietzsche,
They're thrown in through Cydidies. They're like, you know, they
have deeply thought through like theological theological topics. You know
more than me. I'm going to learn from them. But yeah,
I was just really really exciting, a really exciting project
that I'm having.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and I think it's it can be hard
for young writers too, because in some ways you need
to get comfortable finding your voice. And I'm curious even
how that transition was for you, because i know you
were more on the news side of things and then
transitioned to writing more of your own opinion, which can
be a hard thing to transition to and from. But
a lot of young writers it's like you're trying to
break through. You have these ideas, you're trying to learn
to communicate them in a way that's compelling. And persuasive,
but in many avenues or many like realms of policy,
and you have not earned your opinion yet, if that
makes sense, like nobody's going to listen to, nor really
should anyone necessarily listen to, you know, a nineteen year
old's hot take on like the Ibrand war or some
other foreign policy thing. But that doesn't mean that you
can't have a really thoughtful, biblical, biblically based take on
one of the Oscar nominees or like some other piece
of cultural significance where it's not it's not like a
super niche policy arena where you need to have gone
to law school or you need you need to have
a really longer form depth of understanding than just you know,
coming of age in the two thousands and then having
hot takes about foreign policy or something like that. But
there's so many other topics and other realms where young
writers need to be able to practice communicating these ideas
where they absolutely have earned the right to bring a
biblical worldview to a topic like this.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, and one thing is I mean, I'm
gen z, I'm an elder zoomer. I'm an elder zoomer
ninety seven, But I'm gen Z, and so people a
lot of times seem to speak for gen Z or
generalize about gen Z and so empowering gen Z writers
I think is important. Not that then they're gonna say, oh,
I alone speak for my generation. But we've noticed that
there's even just a huge disconnect and how like big
tech is regulated and how much big tech affects teens
and young people. And it's like, well, are people who
are regulating it or are lawmakers? They don't have the
lived experience of a twenty one year old, you know,
they might read I've read some really great op eds
from people who are under twenty just kind of talking about,
you know, how they found porn or how they were
affected by cyberbuling things like this. And so it's not
that you know, oh you're young and you're affected. You
choose how it goes. But you're a piece of the puzzle.
You deserve to have a voice. We need to we
need your puzzle piece to figure this out. You know,
good lawmakers want to know how is gen Z really
living digitally being affected by our digital world and social
media and big tech and things like that. Can you
tell that's a topic on my mind we can talk
about that leader. But but no, I think what you
said is so true. You know, if you're nineteen, you
haven't most likely gone through all of law school yet,
and you're like, oh, I've decided exactly what's right and
wrong with the constitution, Like that's that's not Probably probably nobody,
nobody solely can speak to that, you know, to to
something that huge. But yeah, I want them to feel like, Okay,
I'm going to take my little slice of what I know.
It's a combination of what I've learned, my experience, you know,
what I know through God's you know, natural law revealed
things like that, and they do have things to say,
because yeah, it was for me. I you know, I
pretty much came out of the womb wanting to be
a journalist. My parents will say, I ran a neighborhood
news page paper. I had so much fun, and I
worked in local news. But it was very much, you know,
your typical straight news format, a lead that's all tangible,
you know, tangible things. This store opened on Friday at
the corner of Sixth and Maple. You know, the owner
all the w's when, where, yes, exactly, and so that
was like my job was to who, what, when, where,
and you know, it progressed to where I was doing
things like interviewing Rudy Giuliani, interviewing UH representative ISA. It's
interesting we have Joe hint Is in the news, and
I remember profiling him when he was first running for
Congress at Fox. So it's like I get to talk
to all the most interesting people who are going to
continue making news, but I'm not inserting my opinion. You know,
an interesting thing is people talking about you know, there's
bias even in what you choose to cover, and I
totally agree, you know, covering what I think is interesting
and what I think is worthy for you know, it
was the Daily Caller audience, then it was the Fox audience,
and then now it's you know, multiple outlets that I
write for as a freelancer. But yeah, the switch into
opinion and analysis was hard for me because I was
very much trained of just the facts. Yes, but I'll
be interested to hear what you think. Kind of something
that was rolling around in my mind by the time
I was ready to transfer into more of like opinion
and analysis in addition to straight news. Was just like,
if it's called commentary to use someone's actual biological pronouns,
Like if you're covering a transgender story, if that's considered
ideological or a form of commentary, then I guess I'm
a commentator, even though I've identified as straight news my
whole life. Like I'm gonna call someone who is a
born a man and then decides he's a woman to
get less of a prison sent It's like the weird
stuff happening in the UK. I'm gonna call him a he,
you know. And if that makes me an ideological commentator,
so be it. Right, I'm staying grounded in truth. Labels
can change, don't I don't know. I mean, just right,
what you think about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we're all commentators now, right, if that's
the standard, you know, And I read the New York Times,
and I read the Washington Post and even now you know,
increasingly the Wall Street Journal and other papers, and it
absolutely is commentary. Any most of what's coming out of
the straight news side of these publications is commentary. And
you can tell based on where they put the information
that's most important. Is it at the top or is
it at the bottom. What kind of pronouns do they use,
how do they characterize things? You can tell on the headline,
you can tell in the subheads, you can tell you know,
throughout the article. And so I think, like you know,
it's not that there does not exist straight news anymore,
because I'm sure you can find it if you really
look for it, but I think it's become more siloed
by what set of facts do you operate under, because
we're really living in two different worlds, you know, a
world where men are men and women are women, or
men can become women and women can become men, and
that's that seems like that's a pretty low bar for
whether you're operating within the realm of truth. But sadly,
most of the corporate legacy press is not operating under reality.
And so of course yeah we are. We are commentators
as well, no matter no matter what we do. I
guess I've always kind of been on the commentary side
of things because I have been at the Federalist so long.
I never was a straight news or breaking news reporter,
and I started more on the on the editorial side
of things. I've always been more interested in taking other
people's work and making it better than I have been
in you know, doing who what When where? Type journalism.
Although of course that's super important. I see the value
of it. I'm just not wired that direction as much
as I am taking other people's work and punching it up.
But but yeah, I love how you were able to
make that transition from news to commentary and now how
that can help inform how you help the New Guard
fellows to help make their work better and give them
a voice because you did such a good job of
finding yours. So let's yes, let's move away a little
bit from the strictly journalism side of things, because you're
not just a director of the Chestert and Media Fellowship.
You are also a Christian wife, mom, substacker, freelancer, all
the rest. So let's dive into some of those topics.
I would love if you could just share a little
bit about how you personally became a Christian.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's a that's a great question for me.
A lot of it is just kind of growing up
in the church and kind of actually growing up in
a more liturgical tradition and now kind of having my
husband and I have kind of returned to a more
liturgical tradition. So I actually grew up in the Methodist
Church and all my family has been Methodist, which is
interesting now that there's like the schism, and I actually
haven't even kept up with it that much because most
of my family was not Methodist by that point. But
you know, just kind of grew up in the church
and just being really fascinated by like, you know, the
sacraments and being really fascinated by, like I think I'm weird.
I like the Old Testament more than the New Testament.
Like I just loved like reading like old Testaments. I
was that kid who was like, I want to read
my Bible like cover to cover every year, and I
wish I still had that energy. I need that energy back.
I'm on like a one proverb a day energy and
I'm like, keep me from being the fool Lord. But
oh my goodness, But I mean that was just I
was really lucky that, you know, I had parents who
took me to church, and you know, grew up in
a you know, in a tradition where you're you're born again.
So I think I asked Jesus into my heart when
I was like five. But you know, I was just
a kid who loved to read, and I love to
read the Bible, which I did not did I understand
what was going on in when I was ten? No,
I did not understand. But I have seen some really
interesting stuff from people kind of pushing back against Oh,
you have to find the perfectly calibrated like book or
you know, if you're being more specific, like Bible book
or theology book for your kids. No, let them read
stuff they don't fully understand, because it's been a joy
to kind of return to things, you know, with my kids.
That's been an amazing part of being somebody who's you know,
lucky enough to be raised by Christian parents. Now I'm
raising my kids. It's like we read our little illustrated Bible,
and then somehow it always something we read in there
is lining up with whatever we're doing at church, which
is always so fun. But we're reading their little Bible,
and it's like I'm able to get something out of that,
you know. So I think it's really beautiful, and I'm
really grateful we're in a I think we're in First
Samuel right now, my kids and I. So it's all
the like, say, the book I'm reading with them, it's
like a completely sanitized version of even Goliath. We just read,
and I'm like surprised. They even used to word like
Goliath died, and my kids are both like good story.
And I'm like, y'all don't have any questions and they're
like no, you know, so it's fun. But yeah, just
just really really blessed in that way.
Speaker 1: So cool to get to see the Bible through their eyes,
you know, because it's been so long since we saw
the Bible that way. So very cool to get to
to relive it through.
Speaker 2: Even if the illustrations are not super historically accurate, you
know what, they're cute, we're going with it. I don't
know if they were wearing like red, purple and bright blue.
I don't know if they were vegetables. That's a whole
other topic, but it is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Od, Hey, if we're getting to the capital t truth,
then the wardrobe is of secondary importance there. Yes, yeah,
So how did you meet your husband Nick?
Speaker 2: Yes? Oh my goodness, well Politico already scooed you on this.
I'm sorry sorry to say, no, I mess it Nick.
My husband Nick was profiled in political while back, and
they threw in a detail about how we met. But
you know this was pre COVID. Do you remember DC
pre COVID. H what it's time to be alive, just
having fun, meeting people, you're allowed to go places. Anyways,
we had the best time in DC time. Yes, yeah,
Oh my goodness. There was so much fun stuff to do.
I think it's a really fun city to live in
when you're young. I really do think that there's so
much cool stuff to do. I would just go to
museums by myself, not often enough, but I just do it.
You know. There was so much to do.
Speaker 1: I was never born.
Speaker 2: Much to do, never bored. Yeah, if you're bored, that's
your own fault in DC. But yes, So there was
just a Twitter group chat back when it was called Twitter,
and I think you and I were both in it.
My husband was in. It was just huge and people
would basically plan like get togethers, which were mainly trivia.
So we met in like twenty nineteen, you know, to
play trivia, just this big group of kids. We'd all
descend on this one bar that I checked. The bar's
now DEFUNCD. It closed during COVID, but we would all
descend on the bar and play trivia and I was
into it. I'm obsessed with trivia. I was like, I'm
gonna win, and my husband was just there to see me,
so he actually wouldn't even stick around for trivia. He
would just hang out and then he would leave. And
I was like, we need you, we need your baseball
knowledge because that's like my one weakness and I don't
know anything about baseball. But it was, Yeah, it was
a good time. And so it's just kind of a
low pressure way to get to know each other and
all that kind of good stuff. And by the time
COVID happened and we realized like, oh, we actually really
like each other, like we want to see each other again.
We don't want to be social distancing for each other
for the rest of our lives. You know. It was
it was, It was really good. But I really loved
the friendship aspect of it that we had. And maybe
this is terrible for me to say, because we were
just friends. We didn't date for six to eight months.
If I'm like ever speaking to like some interns or something,
I'll be like, don't worry, or no, I'll say I'll
say I'll say, I'm so sorry to tell you, but
you may have already met your future husband. You just
don't know it yet. And normally they're like, you know,
the boys that are intering class are gross. I'm like, okay,
well you never know. Hey, it's true.
Speaker 1: That's how some of the best relationships are forged. I
think is just with that friendship that just turns into
something a little more than that.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's stuck.
Speaker 1: And was Nick a Christian before you guys met as well?
Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, I mean that's a huge part of
his stories. He's a missionary kid, so I won't tell
his whole story, but he didn't even he didn't even
spend his teenage years in the US, Okay, so pretty
much ten to eighteen. Yeah, he was in Central America,
and so normally I let him talk more about that.
But I mean that's a huge part of who he is.
And he has a great Spanish accent. People are their
jaws drop when they hear him Spanish accent. That's crazy.
But yeah, so so it was. It was really nice
that that was also obviously a huge part of how
we connected, and going to church together and things like
that me literally changing I think I was. I was
working Sundays at the time, but I would get off
in time to go to an evening service at church.
And then COVID happened and churches just shop them out
of services. They did, and I was like, oh, I
literally have to quit my job, like I need to
go to church on Sunday. So that happened. That was crazy.
Quit your job.
Speaker 1: Too, saying it is something that I still just can't
even believe happened. What crazy that was.
Speaker 2: And I wrote a lot about that as but it
was just there were just less people in the city
and they were like, we're just going to go down
to our one service. And I was like, oh, I
have to quit my job so I can go to church.
But the Lord rewards you, that's all I'll say. The
Lord rewards you. So very lucky I found another opportunity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the most important thing, So that has to
that has to fit in first. Yeah, let's see, So
what now you have two children? What is your favorite
thing about being a mom?
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness?
Speaker 1: And also how did how did your faith and your
husband's faith affect your approach to like deciding to have children,
and then how has that, how has that changed your life?
What's your favorite thing about it? Just all the mother
heard questions come in your way?
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Well, another thing Nick and I will talk.
We'll talk about so very interesting. We've been asked to
be like profiled by for like pro natalist stories and
like stuff like that, like people trying to write about that,
and I'm not even going to get into like that label.
I like the label. I'm like, yeah, babies are great,
you know, I know something's come with baggage. We're both like,
we don't know how to convey how privileged we both
are that we have parents who are still together and
like inculcated like we are, just we're starting from such
a like a plus up, which is not to say
if you don't start from that that the Lord can't
you know, lead you, redeem you all those kind of things.
We just felt so blessed. I think the beautiful thing
is I have so many friends who didn't have the
advantage of parents who were together or took them to church,
and they are discovering that with their spouse and it's
so beautiful. So I love it. Oh yeah, but you know,
I think it's beautiful. Everybody's story is different, but we
just feel so blessed, and we're like not sure. We're
like we we don't want to just sound smug and
like boss people around, like do it our way or
you're not doing it right. Like we're just really blessed.
You know, both our kids have grandparents who we completely
trust to love them and lead them and nurture them.
And it is you know, the longer you live, you
realize that's rare and that's a huge blessing. So anyways,
I get emotional very easily. But so we've just been
really blessed. And you know, I've got a three daughter
named Margo, and I've got an eighteen month old son
named Sawyer. So I still consider myself very much like
a beginner mother. If you even notice in my writing,
I don't write a ton. I don't write a ton
about motherhood. I don't give a lot of advice. I'll
write about my experience. I'll be like, hey, so I
learned that in order to interview people for my straight
news stories sometimes I have to say, hey, there'll be
a baby on this call, and guess what they're actually
chill with it. So that was actually like a whole
call of I wrote, is it okay if my baby
joins this call? Luckily, I was reported that I wrote
this around the time I was reporting something that had
to do a lot with like maternal fetal medicine. So
I was literally like getting on zoom with like people
whose whole jobs are like keeping moms and babies healthy,
and they're like, a baby, I love babies, hi, dude,
you know. So it's just like, you know, you pick
your topics too, and it's like yeahing to somebody who's like,
all I do is think about how much I love
taking care of babies, and you're like, Okay, great, that
was just a fun experience I had where you're talking
to people who are important professionals, but they also share
this love and their pro family and right and stuff
like that. So we have fun.
Speaker 1: But it's so awesome too to be able to do
the type of work that you're passionate about while also
being a mom, because so many women don't have that luxury.
You know, if you work a very it takes a
very particular type of job where you can freelance or
work remote or whatever to be able to balance those things.
And I know it's really difficult for a lot of
women who you know, want to want to be there
as much as they can for their children, they don't
they don't want to just dump their kids off at
daycare and you know, and go to work to then
pay for said daycare. But you know, you and I
are so privileged in that way of just being able
to work jobs that we love from home that are
so conducive to being working moms, and that is just
so talk about being blessed. That is a huge, huge
blessing that not everyone has. But I love being able
to do both of those, both of those passions that
you have at the same time.
Speaker 2: That's super. Yeah, I think that's a huge miss or
not miss disconnect in the mommy wars is people like
if there's just a certain subset of jobs that are flexible,
there's a certain subset that are not, and it's like
people just start talking past each other about these things,
you know, so anyways, we don't have to go off
on that tangent. But yeah, there's just such a huge
variety and it's it is a blessing. Yeah, to have
a job that can literally get books sent to my
house and I read them and I say good or
bad I do this, and then somebody pays me for
my opinion. Like, yeah, I'm kind of living the dream.
What a perfect gig. What a perfect gig? Twelve year
old even would have been like you you email can
do that? Calling? You just cold emailed them from the
email account we have now as a twelve year old. Yes,
I did do that, and I do do that. I've
used the same Gmail for like twenty years. Oh gosh, yeah,
like coming on twenty years. Help, probably more like fifteen years.
But yeah, do as I say, not as I do.
I have a very unprofessional email account, and I'm like, hello,
person who does this is a true story publicity for
Donna Tart, Please please do this. You know it's just
like crazy word. But anyways, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I just had an interview with Brad Wilcox from
the Institute for Family Studies and we talked about some
new research that's out regarding the dating landscape, and so
I just want to ask you about this because we
just talked about your dating experience and now becoming a mom.
But we talked about the number of young people. I
think it's the range was twenty two to thirty five,
So you're looking at young millennials or older gen z.
That's kind of the cohort we're looking at here. So
we would fall into that bucket, and many also of
the writers at New guard Press and elsewhere where, the
majority of them actually are seeking meaningful relationships, deep intimate relationships,
not hookup culture, not you know, swipe left, swipe right.
They like, they want to find a spouse and settle down,
but they're having a really hard time doing that because
the numbers of people who want it versus the numbers
of people who are doing it successfully, the math ain't mathing.
Speaker 2: They do not align.
Speaker 1: And so what piece of advice would you have for
young women or young men who do want this really
good thing of finding a spouse who shares their worldview,
shares their faith, and possibly having children, but hasn't quite
found that yet.
Speaker 2: So I wrote an opinion piece for Newsweek years ago
called gen z wants to Slow Down Dating or something
like that. I don't remember what they named it, or
I might have named it. I don't remember. I'll have
to look. But so I I was just kind of
writing about, like, is the dating landscape that we kind
of have nostalgia for in the US, Like is it gone?
And the answer is yes. I think I started out
quoting there's like this tweet that's like when you're a
married millennial looking at the dating scene realizing you caught
the lost chop er out of nam and it's like, yeah,
it's that serious. So like if someone isn't that funny
and also sad, Like if someone's feeling discouraged, you know,
it's probably not You probably are having You probably are
having a natural reaction to the way dating and marriage
is being treated right now and how it's being approached.
Like you're probably having a natural reaction. The good thing
is there are good people, and there are things you
can do to maximize your chances. Like I find people
talking about the economics of dating or the economics of marriage.
I find all that really interesting. But it's like when
you're gonna come down to your individual self and your
individual journey, Like I sound so clicheten I've written this
in a calum before, but I'm like God writes the story,
like God writes the story. I hate that people put
numbers on people and you know, you know, try to
just reduce everyone down to like these very material or
very tangible attributes they have, because that's just really not
what love is about. And obviously the most important thing
is finding someone of character. So so anyways, I feel
like a lot of the ways that we talk about
in analyzed dating are really interesting on the aggregate. But
if you're going to try to kind of forge a
path for yourself, like you just have to remember that
God writes the story. Like, You're not like a set
of numbers that like predetermine who you're allowed to date
or marry or who you'll get.
Speaker 1: Like that's just silly, right, You are not a statistic
You are not You are an individual.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's it's so interesting to me And I'll
actually be writing a little bit about that in an
upcoming piece. Yeah, I think it's just important. I'll shout
out a friend of mine, Steve Kapustka. He just published
a piece with Daily Wire about getting himself just out there,
just making friends, just meeting people. Because we've created a
world where a lot of people if you're young and
gen z and you live in a city, you could
you you can do you know, DoorDash, you can do
self checkout, you can you know, feel like you're talking
to people because you're watching YouTube on your phone while
you eat dinner. You know, we've created a world where
people don't need other people. And so I really appreciated
his recent piece about like getting out of the I
think it's getting out of the loneliness epidemic or something,
but just talking about you've just got to get out there,
You've just got to go do stuff, you know, And
so I appreciated that. I'm trying to think, yeah, well,
I mean, you're sorry.
Speaker 1: Like your story of meeting and dating and marrying your
husband as similar to mine, and I know it's similar
to a lot of other people's too, And it really
does rely on communities of friend who connect other friends,
and it's like not that there. I also know a
lot of people who have met their spouses, met people
of like faith and character on dating apps, Like there
are other ways. There are good ways to meet people,
and not every formula works the same for every couple.
Just because you had success on a dating app doesn't
mean that somebody else is going to or vice versa.
But it really is so helpful to be in a
community of people, especially when there are a lot of
singles in the same group, because just because a friend
of yours that's in the group might not be a
good partner for you, you might bring in one of
your girlfriends who that is a good partner for and
now this person is pre vetted, you know. And I
see that happen all of the time. I my friend
group where I live now, it was a lot of
my college friends, and then when I moved out to
DC for a few years before COVID shut that down,
which in hindsight, thank god, I mean, it was such
such a fun time. But I'm also so happy with
how he led me out of there. But during the
time that I was out of the friend group because
I was in Washington with a new friend group, there
was this boy that got added to the friend group
and he wasn't a good match for the girls that
were in the friend group at the time. But when
I came back, it was like, wow, this is perfect,
Like this is a match made in heaven.
Speaker 2: Here we are.
Speaker 1: This is great, and now I have this free, vetted person,
you know. And I think it's very similar to the
Twitter group, the group chat and you and Nick meeting,
where you know you never know who the right the
right combo of people is going to be, but it
requires you to be in groups of people in real life,
making friends, mingling and introducing new people to the group
constantly so that you know you introduce a friend to
a friend and you just you just never know. I
think we need to bring back matchmaking so and dating
people who are your friends. I love that. I love
that piece of advice that you give your interns about
maybe you've already met the one, maybe you've already met
the yae.
Speaker 2: So sorry you're ruined it for you, So sorry to
tell you. Yeah, And that even reminds me. I wrote
a Girl's Guide. So the girl Guide my sub stack,
which I'll I'll share, I'll explain how people can find
it later. But I was going to get to that next. Actually,
so go off. Sometimes I write girls Guides for the
men because we have a very it's a group of elite,
elite male readers in the Girl's Guide, and only I
know who they are because I'm in the dashboard. But
there's some elite male readers. And so I wrote kind
of a piece, I kind of I made a sports analogy.
So I was like, Okay, this is for the dudes,
this is for them, This is for the dudes, this
is for them. And I did get some good feedback.
But it's called be a generalist, not a specialist. You know,
if you really are a young man or young woman
who's like, hey, I just not I need to find
my feature spouse tomorrow. But if I want to marry somebody,
I need to get comfortable dating and I need to
get comfortable you know, operating with the opposite sex, you know,
and chatting and you know, extending invitations and having you know,
mixed group uh you hangouts. So I wrote, I don't
even remember what all my bullet points were, but you know,
be a generalist. You know. I was talking about some
different athletes who ended up being great at one sport,
which I think could be the analog for marriage, but
they played a lot of different sports that strengthened them
in a lot of different ways before they got into
their main sport. And so I'm like, don't be like
the only way I'm going to meet my woman is
on hinge or the only way I'm going to meet
my woman is Friday night at the bar, Like you
need to be more wide ranging. Another one of my
points I think was, you know there's so many famous
sports smeltdowns, like videos of famous sports smeltdowns when they
like miss the catch or like they missed the like
buzzer beater, like don't do that like, don't do that
if things don't go your way in the game of dating,
which I hate to call it, and you know, if
things don't go your way, you know, you just got
to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off. The best
athletes are like, you know what, I'm gonna train harder
and I'm gonna get back out there.
Speaker 1: Ye oh, you know, which is interesting too because in
the IFS data that I was just talking about that
I've talked to Brad Willcox about, one of the main
reasons why young people were not dating was that they
reported not being able to bounce back from a failed relationship.
So that's such great advice of just you know, you
only need to meet the one, which means any other
dating you do will actually be unsuccessful. Like that you
will likely have far more failures than you will have
successes unless you you know, get a hold in one.
And that's that, you know, But like it's actually okay,
and it's a good thing to have a failed relationship
because that just means you you're not with the one,
like you got to you gotta find the next one.
So you have to be able to dust yourself back,
pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on and
not let one failure. But even that is the wrong word,
because it's not a failure to have a relationship not
work out, to have to just move on to the breakup.
Speaker 2: Of breakup isn't the breakup. It's for sure for sure,
especially if you're somebody, just because you have to remind
me were you were you Hillsdale? Where'd you go? I
was not Hillsdale.
Speaker 1: No, I wish I were Hillsdale.
Speaker 2: Because we met after Okay, because I went to a
tiny Christian college and I feel like every few years
the dating culture there would change, but it was pretty basically.
The dating culture was like you would be friends for
a while and then you'd date, which I think does
have a lot of merit. The joke was that a
lot of times, if a girl and a guy, because
it was a it was a pre law school, so
everybody was in moot court and mock trial except for me.
I was running the school newspaper, I was running around,
I was interviewing the boys I thought was cute. That's
a whole other tactic. But anyways, the joke was like
if a guy and a girl got paired together for
mot court, they were going to date because there's something
about like having a shared purpose and spending time together
and it's like that does bring out those feelings. It's
very interesting, right, They had dating culture at tiny Christian
colleges as like a whole I'll write a whole book
on it. Yeah, yeah, I did the same, Odd's Harvard.
I'll write it.
Speaker 1: And it's a weird subculture.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, twelve point seven percent of US credit card
balances are how late? Watch Dot on Wall Street podcast
with Chris Markowski. Every day Chris helps unpack the connection
between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet.
American's credit card balances are experiencing late fees to the
highest level since twenty eleven. More and more people are
falling behind as people are over ninety days late. Not
a good sign. Whether it's happening in DC or down
on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check
out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski
on Apples, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Okay, so everybody should go subscribe to the Girl's Guide
because it's a great, great read. Is it still on
a bi weekly basis.
Speaker 2: Yes, bi weekly. I think I'll have one out this Friday,
just kind of, you know, making sure I share the
news about the Chesterton Media Fellowship with all my subsect leaders.
Speaker 1: Awesome, it's one of my favorite things I get in
my inbox. So everybody really should subscribe to The Girl's Guide.
Well worth the read. There's lots of interesting, good, good
stuff in there. How did that start? Because originally the
Girls Guide to DC, which was also super fun, So
how did that come to be here?
Speaker 2: There's been a whole evolution. I mean, basically, I was
working at a a at a corporate news site, and
I was like, you know, I don't think working and
breaking news is going to be my forever. I really
love fashion, I love pop culture, I love film. I
am also interested in politics. You know. That was my
day to day. But I was like, it would be
so fun to start something that kind of like melded
all of this and I and I enjoy humor. You know,
not everyone in my family thinks I'm funny. Not all
of them will laugh, but sometimes I get a pity laugh.
So so I also enjoy like kind of riffing on
the news things like that. So it's like, oh my goodness,
Like the title just came to me The Girly Girl's
Guide to d C, which even people didn't realize girly
girl was tongue in cheek because I'm like, I just
learned how to put on an eyeliner, Like I'm not
that girl, Like I love, I love girly things, but
I wouldn't say I identify as like a super girly
girl or like glam or whatever. But anyway, so I
titled the Girly Girl's Guide to DC. I had multiple
women inform me that they weren't girly girls so they
couldn't read it. And I was like, oh, you don't
get it, Okay, I'll change the name. And I was
living in DC at the time. I was still single
and stuff, I was not married, and so I changed
it to the Girl's Guide to DC. And yeah, the
fun thing was, you know, a big part of what
I do is every newsletter has an interview with an
interesting woman, and my criteria for picking her is my
one criterion is probably just what I want my little
sister to take advice from her, Like that's my one criterion.
So at this point it's now just the Girl's Guide.
Because I'm no longer in DC, I'm not trying to
like limit my news to certain geography. We've got readers
from all over. I've interviewed people from Australia actually, but
so just still keeping up those interviews with really interesting
women who are good role models. I riff on news
pretty much, any pop culture news. You know. I'm covering
Addison Ray, I'm covering Lana del Rey, I'm covering everything,
you know. I'm keeping up with that, even though you know,
it's getting a little harder now that I don't know
what six seven means. I don't know what the words me,
but I'm doing my best. Pop culture is not for
me anymore, but I'm trying having fun with it. But yeah,
just keeping on going and I share my thoughts on
just you know, whatever I think people need to hear
that week. But yeah, thank you. I'm glad you still
do it. I'm so apprais, I really do.
Speaker 1: I love it. Every time it's in my inbox on
a Friday, I like open it and a tab to
read as soon as I'm done with whatever work thing
I'm working on. And it's just there's always something I
enjoy the interviews. There's always a lot of good pop
culture stuff, but then also just fun things about your
hobbies like thrifting and other things like I'm always learning
something and I've I've taken gift advice from it as well.
There's often gift guides or like recommendations. There so really
really good stuff and it's very clever, it's very witty.
I love it, even the titles that you come up with.
I'm just like go Eby. It's it's it's super fun.
Everybody should go subscribe to it.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yes, I think you can find it. It's
under my maiden name if you look up the Girls
Guide substack. I think you can find it as g
I R. L aposhaps But it's also I think evfordum
dot substack dot com because it's still registered under my
maiden name. Which that's a whole other brant I have,
which is, don't register things under your maiden name. If
you're a writer, you have to change everything. Yeah, do
your misname do something fun. Anyways, that's a whole nother band.
Speaker 1: It's the worst, truly the worst.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I did actually look it up right before we hopped
on and I googled it and it was the first
thing that came up under the Girl's Guide substack, so
it should be pretty easy for people to find it.
So so let's talk about a little bit of your
hobbies now, just because I'd rather get into some more
fun stuff, let's talk fashion. I would love to know
how you discovered and developed your own style.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Uh So, first, I'm gonna tell a
really sad story, which is a reporter from a really
major outlet reached out to talk to me about fashion
recently and I missed it because I don't check LinkedIn.
Oh man, I don't get notifications. LinkedIn is angry at
me for some reason. They think my email doesn't exist,
and so I don't get no, And I was like,
oh no, I would have loved to talk to this
reporter about like conservatives and fashion and like whatever the
heck's happening there. Some I'm so sad, So check LinkedIn, guys,
check your LinkedIn message. I never check it. There'd be
some interesting stuff. I got it like a day after
her deadline. I was like, you know, so sad, but yeah,
I'm somebody who like I mean, I grew up homeschooled.
I was not a fashion plate, like the definition of
not a fashion plate. But I almost think that's better
that you're not immersed in like trends. Basically, my mom
is somebody who's like pretty crafty. She can sew. She'd like,
you know, sw us and out that we were little,
or like taught us how to sew. We would like
sew really simple skirts like stuff like that. So I
was somebody who just like I didn't really care about
fitting in at school because all my friends were homeschooled,
and lord knows what we were wearing, you know. I
was just somebody who just like messed around. I liked
vintage fashion. I really liked I don't know if this
was the case for you when you were growing up,
but silver was in, gold was out, and I was
I was like, oh, I'm a gold girl. I'm so
so I like very much. Was like, I'm a gold girl. Uh.
And now I'm like reading articles, are you gold or silver?
I'm like, now I'm both because I don't have time
to worry I know matching.
Speaker 1: I have to be both because my color, like my
tone is cool, so I really should be wearing silver,
but gold is what's in. And my wedding ring is silver, Well,
it's white gold, but I wear gold, and so I
have to tie it all together with my watch, which
is silver and gold. I think we make it all work.
But I'm like, if I were really, if I were
really going, based on my undertnes, it should be silver.
But I just can't get rid of the gold earrings.
I just it's my favorite.
Speaker 2: I think they look great. Oh my gosh, I think
a lot of those rules are a little too. It's like,
if it helps me kind of pull things together, that's
great joy.
Speaker 1: If you like to look at it.
Speaker 2: Yes, it sparks joy. Oh my goodness, earrings spark joy.
I love ear Shout out at Clara joe y'all look
her up. But she's another gal who was in DC
at one point and sells ear rings. So I'm not
wearing any today to clip with my AirPods, but so
thoughtful good problem before. But normally, if I'm doing a
media apparance, I'd be wearing her earrings. But yeah, no,
I was just somebody who, like I had like photo
books of old Hollywood starlets, and it's like you're looking
at how well made clothing was and how tailored it
was and how fitted and you see the quality of fabrics,
and I was like, I love this, Like I don't
really know it or understand it or have it in
my closet, but I love it. And so I was
really attracted to just like learning more about fashion and stuff.
Was I practicing it? Not really. I was thrifting and
thinking I was and trying to find stuff that wasn't polyester.
But the beautiful thing is, you know, I feel like
there's still so much good stuff at their stores. Like
I always I'm like, don't be grossed out. Even the
grossest ones have some gems. And that's my favorite part
is going to a really nasty, organized stref storm, being
like I found a Jim look at this vintage vintage
top or this vintage So just kind of like observing
because I think the downfall of fast fashion probably happened
when you and I were like coming through, probably as
we were hitting our teenage years. It's like everything started
to become you know, you had fast fashion like at Target,
and it was relatively quality. You know, the seams were
in the right places, they didn't unravel immediately, and I
feel like things have really fallen off, and it's really
hard at a normal price point to find quality stuff.
I don't feel like I'm the only person saying that,
but you know, I think it's really interesting. There's so
many places you can educate yourself online. You can learn
more about materials, how to care for them, what materials
you'll probably enjoy wearing, what materials will probably work with
your lifestyle. Best kind of ways to you don't have
to learn how to become a seamstress or a tailor,
but ways to spot if a garment is well made.
Ways to just kind of accept like, Okay, like maybe
I love this trend, but I'm not going to like
a dress that hits me at X part of my leg,
Like I'm gonna want it shorter, I'm gonna want it longer,
and just kind of accept that, like you're just always
going to be more comfortable or feel more confident in
certain silhouettes. And even just the fact that you could
take one dress and it looks horrible on you, you
take it to a tailor and they just get everything
to fit right. Like our society has lost tailoring, yes,
and that can be a huge mismatch in how people
feel confident in their clothes. It's not your fault, like
the clothes we wear are just like they're not made
to make you look your best. They're not made to
enhance and compress and hold in and accentuate. It's just
kind of like here's a fabric cylinder, you know. So
I feel like women also get really discouraged because you know,
you could be handed two different dresses and maybe they
have the same label on the size, and they can
make you feel too completely different ways about yourself because
one is made to flatter you and you know, move
with you, and the other one is not. So I
just encourage people to just kind of there's just so
many resources online. You can literally watch YouTube shorts about
this and just kind of realize like, oh, it's not
my fault that I don't like walk into the store
and feel confident in everything. It's that you really have
to learn to be a curator. So yes, anyways, ran over. No,
I love it. It's an interesting it's such an interesting topic.
Speaker 1: Do you still sew? Do you do much alteration on
your own clothes?
Speaker 2: So not a time because I'm such a because I'm
such like I'll say it, I'm a thrifting addict. I'm
basically like if it, and I have I wouldn't say
I have an obscene amount of clothes, but I have
a close collection, and so I'm pretty much I know
my measurements. I know that I'm going to be too
lazy to take it over to my mom's a mess
around with the sewing machine, or take it to a tailor.
I also I've had to get some like bridesmaid stuff
tailored recently, and I was not impressed. I'm like, why
am I paying you? As a like I could have
done this, what that? But so I'm at the point
where I'm like, I'm just gonna buy stuff if it
already fits me, because I already have so much. But
I think, especially if you're in like any kind of
a metro area, you can find a good tailor and
it will help you become much more confident because things
will just be made to fit your body. Everybody's bodies
are so different, and we have different like comfortability levels
with you know, the hymn lines, we like, the necklines,
we like, you know. And so I feel like there's
been so many girls who are just finding cool materials
and cool like kind of raw inspiration at thrift stores
and taking dresses into tailors and getting things just made
slightly different. I watched a video the other day and
a gal like just slightly changed a neckline and it
like changed the whole dress and you're like wow, And
so not everybody's going to be able to develop and
I like that. But if you're able to find in
a tailor or just kind of realize, like, let me
lean into what really does make me feel confident, I
feel like that's that's a way win.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, this is a related topic, but not totally on
a scale of one to ten. How crunchy are you.
Speaker 2: In the Maha?
Speaker 1: You know, era, you.
Speaker 2: Know have figured it out? Okay, No, because even I
love to write about Maha. That's been a really fun
thing for me to write about. But I also appreciate
the people and the commentators. I'll shout out. I'll shout
out Laura Dellano who wrote her memoir Unshrunk, which everybody
should go read, and she kind of exposes a lot
of lies that we have been told and sold about
the pharmaceutical industry and she tells her own story which
is really raw and really real. But you know, we
can't replace, you know, reliance on pharmaceuical industry with like, Okay,
we're taking all of their advertisement and mass messaging. And
now we're taking like the self care industry, which I
think crunchy world is a part of in some ways,
and we're taking all of that messaging. Like you really
have to, you know, understand where you are and what
you can handle and what you can do. It's been
such an interesting world to be a part of. But yeah,
I mean crunchy levels. I had two children at home,
never give a birth in a hospital. People think that's crunchy.
I'm also the first person to say, probably part of
it's luck. I just kind of like knew. A lot
of women in my family were like, oh, like I didn't.
I literally had my child too fast to have an
epidurl It was fine, you know. So I'm somebody who's like,
I've never had an epidural. Also, maybe there'll be a
time when I do want one, Like let's just be
open here. I've been blessed that, you know, both my
children were born and we were healthy. Uh. And I
honestly feel like I am a crazy person for doing that.
And I think if you approach it is like, yeah,
I am a crazy person, you know. Uh, you know,
it kind of cuts down a lot of the like tension. So, yeah,
I had two gets home. I've written about it, I've
I've spoken on podcasts about it, you know, I've it's
it's a topic I want to cover more, just because
people are really unhappy with with hospital birth. Birth centers
I feel like are great, happy medium, but they're also
for a lot of people in a lot of areas
or at a lot of price points, they're not super accessible.
So that's another interesting thing. You know, even quality midwives
that can be hard to be accessible depending on where
you are, depending on what your budget is. You know,
most likely your insurance isn't going to cover it. So
it's it's tough, you know. I'm sure you're thinking through
all these things and it's just you know, interesting stuff.
But yeah, the crunchy that probably puts me up here.
The fact that I will I threw in hand my
kids McDonald's fries to eat in their car seats that
are both front facing, that probably puts me down here. Uh.
The fact that I will not wear polyester probably puts
me up here. But then it's because it's more of
a sensory thing and not even like a like, I'm
so that moves you back down. That moves me back down,
because it's purely sensory. It's not like I'm like, ah,
the microplassics. I'm literally like, I am sweating. This doesn't
look good on me. No, I've actually been so weird
about polyester since I was a child. God is way ahead.
I was a head of curve. I was like, Mom,
do not put me in that. I'm like five ers.
I'm like, m m, don't put me in that fleece.
I can't take it. But yeah, it's it's an interesting
it's an interesting world and and so crunchy world. I
feel like crunchy world. I am a big fan of
Alex Clark. I think a lot of her podcasts are
really informative, and I think kind of her messaging so helpful.
I think a lot of her messaging about Maha as
a voting block I think is really fascinating and I
think it's worth people tuning into that. I interviewed Mark Gorton,
who is at the time I'm pretty sure he still
is co president of the Maha Institute, a big funder
of the MAHA pack like RFK, Junior Booster and I
kind of post that question to him, like is Maha
voting block like last summer, and he was like, yeah,
yes it is, you know. And so it's really it's
really an interesting world to follow because you know, obviously
people are identifying a lot with r F K Junior
and that world, they're also identifying a lot with Trump.
Some of them are becoming I'm trying to think of
the word disillusioned, which I'm kind of like, welcome to politics.
But it's it's a fascinating world. So I'm excited to
do some more reporting about it. But I feel like
people kind of fever pitch of like, hey, let's all
be purest I feel like that probably that bubble has
probably burst, Like it's still really good for people to
remember that, like you know, you can chart your own course. Yes, yes,
you know it's hard if you haven't like grown up
that way, but you can take small steps and like
do that that's healthier for you. And yes, literally taking
your kids on a walk, like you know what, you go,
you get the Mah stamp, you get the crunchy stamp.
And yes, I'm not periphery of these things, but if anything, I.
Speaker 1: Think, yeah, getting away from the you know, purest mindset
of it is so helpful because you really can chart
a healthier path for yourself and it's not an all
or nothing. And I mean I try to be as
holistic and non toxic as I can, and that just
is constantly evolving. I was raised in a home where
we kept our leftovers in plastic and then probably popped
them in the microwave in that same plastic. And I
mean it was like very very toxic home. We cooked
on tefla and like it was you know, very We
trusted doctors, we you know, were totally like into normal
pharmaceuticals whatever. And I think a lot of that at
the time was just you just don't. We just didn't
know any better than that. Yeah, And now you know,
it started with getting rid of all of our plastic tupperware.
Now we store everything in glass. And then it was okay,
we're not going to cook on nonstick anymore. Now we're
going to use cast iron and stainless steel. And you know,
my latest is because I love, I so love a
Yankee candle, it's been getting rid of my toxic candles
and moving to something that's more non toxic than that,
you know, air purifiers, and so it's just like little things,
and every time you make one swap, you integrate it.
It just becomes part of your everyday life. And then
it's like, Okay, this is the norm now, so it's
not hard to make that swap anymore because we're doing
the thing. And then you make the next swap. And
another one was seed oils, like we cook in beef
tallow now or avocado oil or some other oil, and
I just don't even think about seed oils anymore, whereas
before it was like I couldn't imagine not, you know,
baking with vegetable oil, and now it's like, I just
the thought doesn't even cross my mind because we've made
this swap, but the thought of doing it all at
once is really overwhelming. So it's helpful not to think
about being crunchy in terms of all or nothing.
Speaker 2: So I think, so, yeah, I can be evolving because
even because even a big part of it is just well,
I'll shout out your former federalist colleague trist and Justice
for his book, which I enjoyed, which, of course I'm
not remembering the title, which is unhappy. Yes, I will
review an entire book and then I'll go I don't
remember the title. It's horrible, Blenny, it's horrible, but I remember,
you know. But but just talking about how far a
field of the way we're supposed to be treating our bodies,
we're treating our bodies in industrial society, and you can't
you can't reclaim everything because guess what, there's also advantages
to industrial society. I like not getting eaten by a bear.
I think that's really good for me. So so it's all,
you know, it's all you know, it all balances out.
But yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: Okay, speaking of books, because I this is gonna be
my last thing, and then I have to let you
go because we I mean, we could talk for hours,
but we we've taken enough time. So I want to
do a couple of rapid fire questions to close out.
What is the best book that you've read in the
last six months? And what are you reading right now?
Speaker 2: Oh my, well, let's start with what I'm reading right now,
because oh it's hard for me to pick. Okay, I've
got some I like to call them like my yeah,
my like review copies. So I've got a couple books. Unfortunately,
I don't know if this will show up right for
your viewers. But so we've got Girls by Freda India.
So that one is coming out in the US this summer.
It's already out in the UK, I believe. So they
were kind enough to send me that for review. And
then in the American Conservative, where I do a lot
of book reviews, I'll be doing like follow subscribe Influencer
Kids and The Cost of a Childhood online and this
one fascinating good journalism. Read it. She's on substack for
Tesla Latifi. And you know, one thing I really love
about doing book reviews, and I love about you know, tech,
And I'm sure the federalists would be like this too.
You can if it's not fiction journalism, it doesn't matter
if someone's coming from the left or the right. There's
gonna be interesting nuggets in there. So you know, for
Tesla Latifi is probably somebody who well she does. She
does kind of like throw in some lines about Trump
in her book. But it's like, Okay, well you write
for Rolling Stone. I'm not surprised you do good work.
Like let's let's roll oh, let's let's hear, let's see
what you're you're doing. And an interesting thing about this
book is, so she's interviewing children who grow up as influencers.
Their parents are influencers, you know, oftentimes they're kind of
the centerpiece of the influencing and how that's kind of
our new right, our new commercial Like instead of watching
commercials on TV, people tune in to these influencers, right,
that's not even new anymore. But so a lot of
them are adults now, and so she's talking to the
adults about what they experienced. She's navigating journalistic ethics in
order to interview current child influencers, which is a really
tenuous lined across because you know, you're having to go
through parents and you're having to make sure you're you know,
above board and in all those ways. So she interviews
people who are under eighteen in the book too, and
I think she does a good job setting all of
that up. But yeah, it's it's it's interesting because it
gives you, as like a parent, thought of how you
want to share your children online things like that. But
it also really gets into like, Okay, if I'm tuning
into a family vlog, I'm giving money to you know,
YouTube or meta or whoever it may be. I'm giving
them all my data. Like, it's just a very eye
opening you know, if it's free, you're the product, your data,
what you're likely to buy, who you listen to. Like,
that's what these big tech companies are interested in, and
they're really interested in keeping this whole child influencer, family,
influencer industrial complex going. So anyways, I won't give out
too much of kind of what my take was in
my book review, which might make people mad when they
read it. They might get mad at me, but I
welcome it. I welcome all feedback, and I welcome all
clicks because at heart I am a yellow journalist. Not
I'm kidding. You better shut that out. No, I'm kidding.
Keep it in there, but people read it. Tell me
if you're mad about what I say, but that'll be
out soon. Okay, great, we have girls, which kind of
going back to your dating your dating question, I won't
take too much of your time, but an interesting book
on how kind of our online culture is reflecting and reflecting,
refracting and kind of distorting our irl culture, including dating.
So yeah, okay, yeah, really good stuff, and keep.
Speaker 1: Your eyes open for her reviews of those books, because
she doesn't write great reviews, so read the books, but
also yeah, look for her reviews. Okay, a couple more
rapid fire, these are going to be quicker. What is
your favorite thrift find right now?
Speaker 2: Ooh? So I just got into eBay because you can
find better stuff, and so I like, I will like
visualize what I want, and I was like, I want
like a Christmasy red like plaid, but like pretty long
like shirt dress because I feel like anything with a
collar you feel more polished. So I found this like
vintage Elizabeth Lauren like red plaid one hundred percent cotton dress,
and then I found like the perfect belt to go
with it, and I look like I'm from the eighties
and I don't care. It's a good look. But unfortunately
I bought it after Christmas. I think that's why I
was able to get a steal on it, so I
have to wait until next year to wear it to
Christmas parties because it's like it's like it looks like
Christmas wrapping paper, but like in the best way. So
that's a fun one. I'm counting eBay today. I'm being generous.
I'm counting eBay is thrifting.
Speaker 1: Wow, eBay, I love that you are so into eBay,
like decades after everyone else was into each exactly.
Speaker 2: I love that, exactly what my eBay arc love.
Speaker 1: What are you watching right now?
Speaker 2: What am I watching right now? Ooh, you know what?
I actually do watch Avid Elementary. Okay, you know what
I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about, but I don't watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's good. I just started watching season five.
I will just put that on in fold laundry, Okay.
And I like that. The gal I don't remember her name.
I should remember her name. I only know her character's name.
But so the gal who plays the main character, I'm
pretty sure writes the sitcom like she's kind of a showrunner.
I'm pretty sure. No, it's it's Quinta Brunson is her name. Okay,
So she's around, she does s and l I think,
and she does all kinds of things. But so she
writes it. Ah, the guy who played Everybody hates Chris,
the guy who played Chris and everybody hates Chris years
ago is also he's the best part of it. But
I'm enjoying it. I don't feel like season five like
they've kind of put everybody through everything they can put
them through Season five has been a little bit like
off the wall, like what people really do? This? Would
they really get into like a blood feud because someone
keeps running the teacher's lounge dishwasher with one dish and
it is that really the plot point where I go
with But watch some of the early seasons, I think
it's funny. I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see your favorite candle scent.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so I'm gonna confess that I actually grew
up in a really crunchy house and it was like
an anti fragrance house. Okay, like genuinely.
Speaker 1: You're you're so ahead of the curve.
Speaker 2: I was. So I literally literally grew up in like
an anti fragrance house. I'm like, so now I'm like
really weird about fragrances.
Speaker 1: You were so ahead of a curve, I'm you your
crunchy score, it just went so far back up again.
Speaker 2: Parting it to my mom and I both think that
we just like genetically don't have much of a sense
of smell. So it's also like not something we miss
a lot, Like I'm just not a smell person.
Speaker 1: So you also had COVID nos way before anybody else
I did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, COVID hits, and I'm like, y'all are just experiencing
what my word, Yeah, I have a sense of smell.
I'm trying to think of what I like. I will
like like a warm vanilla sugar. I'll like a whiff
of that. I'll like a whiff of that. But then
it's it's like a too rich dessert. Then I like
smell it for more than two seconds and I'm like, oh,
I'm sick. So it's a good time. But yeah, now
join me in my horrible, sad world of no fragrance.
Speaker 1: Hey, okay, well are trending that way?
Speaker 2: So yeah, it makes you happy.
Speaker 1: Okay, how about your go to coffee shop order?
Speaker 2: Oh so we have a local shop out where we
are that just got macha. Oh my gosh, macha recently, yes,
And I was like, oh, this is not your Starbucks macha.
This is really good. Had like some honey and some
vanilla and mixed in there with the milk, and it
was iced and it was a day that was actually warm,
and I was like, oh, this is really good. I'm
moving to La. I'm gonna be marijuana girly or whatever
that is. I was like, this is good.
Speaker 1: I have always liked Macha, but that has my go
to drink at my local coffee shop. They make him
so well and I cannot get enough. It is I've
had it.
Speaker 2: They put there, he was put our friend owns the shop.
He was putting his whole soul into making sure it
was good. I was like, alulyah, I love that.
Speaker 1: Okay, very last question before I let you go, what
is your favorite Twitter follow?
Speaker 2: Oh goodness, Oh that's maybe one.
Speaker 1: Of your top one of your top ten.
Speaker 2: I will shout him out because I just think it's
a question that people have, and I feel like he
or an issue that people have. I will shout out
Bobby fi On, who came on my husband's podcast recently,
Moment of Truth, and he's at the American Housing Corporation,
and so they are like actually figuring out, like hey,
let's make pro family housing, and let's put it in
places where people want to live and work, and let's
make it affordable. So his Twitter goes crazy. They do
lots of you know, explainers and events and all kinds
of stuff. So like, I find it very fascinating. I
think it's fascinating with people just get in there and
start doing things so I'll shout out Bobby because he's
he's actually got his face on there. I'm like, actually,
some of my favorite Twitter followers are probably just like
people who like their profile picture is like iced coffee
and they're like, I had a bad day and then
they have like a foot You're like, oh, I'm laughing. Thanks,
thanks reincarnated spirit of Norm MacDonald. You know. But yeah,
I'll shout out Bobby. Bobby's got a good X and
he's really positive, and I feel like it's just nice
to have somebody with a positive vision, right, which is
to tie it all back up what we're doing at
the Chester Two Media Films. Yes, yes, so positive vision. Yes.
Speaker 1: Where can people find the fellowship or apply to the Fellowship?
Where can they follow you online? Besides the Girl's Guide,
which again everybody needs to go subscribe to the Girl's Guide,
But where can they find you? Where can they find
the media Fellowship?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'll give myself first. I'm at ev Solheim
so E V I E S O, L H G
I M. That's on Instagram, that's on X and yeah,
follow us on New Guard Press. You can get in
touch with me. I'll give you my email. E v
E v I E at New Guardpress dot com if
you want to apply to our fellowship. We've already got
a pretty strong class that we're gonna be parsing through
in the coming days. But it never hurts to put
yourself out there, So get in touch with me if
you think you'd be a good fit and you'd like
to do a six month fellowship and have your offense
placed at impressive outlets. And yeah, just follow New guard
Press on all their things. They're on LinkedIn, they're on Facebook,
they're on Instagram, they're on x and they love reader
feedback and welcome submissions. So awesome, TB.
Speaker 1: It has been so fun talking to you. I'd love
to reconnect and just yeah, just shoot the breeze and
hear more about what you're doing now. Congrats on your
new gig, thanks for joining me and everybody go follow
ev on all of the platforms that she just said.
Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode
of The Kylie Cast. If you haven't done so already,
please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Leave
us a five star review. It is truly such an
easy way that you can help out the show. As always,
I will be back next week with more so until then,
just remember the truth hurts, but it won't kill you.