The Spinster Life Podcast Amie Kelbing

If you're a childfree person who's been told "You'll die alone!" buckle up because Kat Vellos and I are about to reveal the secret to living a life surrounded by people who love and care about you -- friends!
I had an amazing conversation with Kat, a friendship expert and author of the book, We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships.
You can read Kat's writing in over 100 countries and she’s been interviewed by The New York Times, NPR, Communication Arts, The Good Life Project, and many more. Sign up for my Substack Newsletter to get new Spinster Life Podcast episodes, including my full conversation with Kat, delivered directly to your inbox
Here's how to connect with Kat:
Here to Make Friends
Kat's Newsletter
Get Kat's book! We Should Get Together is the handbook for anyone (childfree or not) who’s ready for better friendships, yesterday. It’s the perfect book for anyone who wants to have dedicated, life-enriching friends, and who wants to be that kind of friend, too.

More Spinster Life:
Instagram
YouTube
Substack


Get full access to Hotter & Weirder at hotterandweirder.substack.com/subscribe

The holidays are tough, but especially for single people. Too much family togetherness and too many questions into your personal life can instill dread in the heart of even the staunchest singelton. So how can you get through it? I asked solo life expert Mary Delia Allen for her hot take on self-care during the holiday season.
Here's Mary Delia
If you’re a visual person, you can check out this video on YouTube:
More Spinster Life:InstagramYouTubeSubstack


Get full access to Hotter & Weirder at hotterandweirder.substack.com/subscribe

Happy Single Holidays! And I don’t mean eating a Swanson turkey TV dinner by yourself on Thanksgiving. I’m talking about the two international holidays in November celebrating singleness in their own unique institutional way, St.Catherine's Day, and Singles Day 11/11. So let’s contrast and compare the two and examine how they’re both great and problematic in different ways.
You can watch the full video on YouTube:
More hat videos:
Stephen Jones Video
More Spinster Life:InstagramYouTubeSubstack


Get full access to Hotter & Weirder at hotterandweirder.substack.com/subscribe

I’m not a big Halloween person, but one gruesome thing I enjoy year-round is true crime stories. First, who doesn’t love a mystery? And second, stories of murdering husbands reveal the not-so-sunny side of marriage and one of the upsides of staying single. True crime stories also help me feel safer, revealing troubling patterns of behavior to watch for in any situation.
Betty and Glen Wolsieffer were an All-American couple living in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Until Betty was found dead on their bedroom floor on August 30, 1986, and Glen's story of a masked intruder started to fall apart. Learn how ladders, dew, and infidelity at the Red Roof Inn ended in the gruesome demise of a housewife as I create art and tell you the story of the shocking privilege of the cheating dentist.
You can watch the video version on YouTube, or check out the finished artwork on Instagram.
Sources:
Forensic Files Episode
Handsome Devils Episode
Forensic Files Now Blog Post


More Spinster Life:InstagramYouTubeSubstack


Get full access to Hotter & Weirder at hotterandweirder.substack.com/subscribe

What do you think when I say hormones? You probably think about the symptoms of PMS like mood swings and bloating, and you probably think of estrogen. But hormones are so much more. These complex chemical reactions inside our body not only bring on changes like puberty or menopause, but play a crucial role in helping us sleep, regulating our moods, and just..keeping us alive. That’s right, hormones aren’t just sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone, hormones are involved in every body process necessary for life. 
So reducing menopause to an estrogen issue ignores all the other pieces of the puzzle, all the other hormones that play a role in the aging process, and doesn’t do anything to help understand what’s going on inside your body. 
Let’s get educated about hormones with Moyra Gorski as our guide. She loves educating women about their bodies and helping them make changes to feel better and get the life they want. 
Here’s Moyra:Website
Journal to Joy
Moyra’s 8 Tips to Aging Well
More Spinster Life:InstagramYouTubeSubstack
Moyra is also my special guest on YouTube this week. Check it out here:


Get full access to Hotter & Weirder at hotterandweirder.substack.com/subscribe

**post updated 10/6/23**No discussion of cat ladies would be complete without discussing how the crazy got into the cat lady stereotype in the first place, and, how hard it is to remove it today. Even for cat ladies themselves! Today I’m talking to Lucy Meggeson, host of The Spinsterhood Reimagined Podcast, and Haley Shapley, Author of Strong Like Her, to continue our conversation about cat ladies.
Haley shared some fascinating facts about how images of cats were used to discredit women fighting for the right to vote. In the eyes of the anti-sufferage movement, cats were useless, silly, feminine beings who belonged in the home, who needed the safety of the domestic sphere, and who didn’t deserve to be seen and heard. Just like human women. Here are some of the memes:


This last image actually tells the fascinating story of how government tried to silence suffragists and the cruel game of cat and mouse they played with suffragettes (the name for suffragists in the UK.)
Read more about the history of anti-sufferage memes:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-bizarre-history-of-anti-suffrage-cat-memes_n_5818f36ce4b00f11fc5c38b5
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/12/04/the-feminization-of-the-cat-in-anti-suffrage-propaganda/
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/teaching-justice-anti-suffrage-postcards.htm
https://aphrabookclub.com/post/crazy-cat-lady-the-history-of-cat-memes-rooted-in-feminist-history/

Here’s Lucy Meggeson:
Instagram
Podcast
Lucy’s Last Appearance on The Spinster Life Podcast
Here’s Haley Shapley:
Instagram
Strong Like Her
Haley’s Last Appearance on The Spinster Life Podcast
More Spinster Life:InstagramYouTubeSubstack


Get full access to Hotter & Weirder at hotterandweirder.substack.com/subscribe