WE ARE SO BACK!

A reintroduction, plus a surprise (as a thank you) inside ❤️

Big back2school energy

Hey! This newsletter is back and (hopefully) better than ever. I survived my first week of grad school—it was surreal, thrilling, difficult, exciting, disorienting—and now I’m so ready to dive bomb into this next era of my life. I am literally already learning how to diagnose people with mental disorders, which feels… wild???

First, you may have noticed: This newsletter is now called Little Freak. This name was much agonized over even though I don’t actually think it matters very much? I chose it because it makes me laugh, and it’s also one of my favorite Harry Styles songs. Earlier this spring, I ran a different / more serious name by my husband, and he immediately threw it in the proverbial trash can. We were lounging in our Chicago hotel room the morning of the Lily Allen concert, and I rolled my eyes and shot back, “so, what, should I just call it Little Freak, then?” I was honestly kidding, but the way Paul’s eyes lit up was completely serious. He laughed and said it was perfect. That it describes me, the subject and author of this newsletter through all its iterations, perfectly. I took it as a compliment of the highest degree.

“Little Freak, Jezebel
You sit high atop the kitchen counter
Stay green a little while
You bring blue lights to dreams”—Harry Styles

Little Freak is, well, she’s me. (If you’re here, you’re probably a little freak too, especially when you’re around people you trust not to record videos of you being weird and putting them on Instagram?) One of my internet-turned-IRL friends told me once that I’m “way weirder in person,” and I have to agree. So one of my goals in this iteration of the newsletter is to really let you see all the strangest sides of me? Life is short; let’s have some fun.

She’s me I’m her in a different font

So, allow me to reintroduce myself! I’m kelly—36, Cancer sun / Scorpio moon, came of age during the Twilight / Gossip Girl / Grey’s Anatomy era, which unfortunately means I love love triangles and identify with being “not like other girls.” I’m a former marketer, present internet writer, and future therapist. Also an aspiring author, youngest sibling, overachieving millennial, person who prefers looking at her own name in lowercase, and music fanatic who wanted to be a pop star as a teenager but ended up addicted to concerts instead :)

This excerpt from Ruby Warrington’s Women Without Kids explains the kind of person I feel that I am wholeheartedly:

“Said “witches” represented a world of female subjects that capitalism had to destroy: the heretic, the healer, the disobedient wife, the woman who dared to live alone. Women whose life choices went against the requirements of the developing capitalist machine.”

While we’ll (very likely) never be entirely free of capitalism, everyone has the ability to temper our own participation in it, in whatever way we prefer to resist. One of the ways I resist the capitalist hamster wheel of death (and by extension, the patriarchy) is by choosing to never have kids; the other is quitting a career in DTC retail marketing to pivot into a job where I will be directly helping people weather the horrors of modern life. Your life choices may vary, but if you’re here, the sentiment is probably the same? It may finally be time for me to buy a “fuck the patriarchy” keychain.

So, with that said: Little Freak is a 2x weekly newsletter about pop music (my favorite and most preferred vice) and mental health—a documentation of the next three years as I’m back in grad school training to become a therapist.

My friends still call it “my blog” because I am a millennial and that’s exactly what it is, and always will be. 🙏

Always & Forever

Here’s what Little Freak is made of:

THE FRIDAY NEWSLETTER

Every Friday you’ll either get an essay about something interesting re: mental health I learned in grad school that I feel may be helpful, a piece of cultural or philosophical commentary, or a new music review. (Some of these will be partially paywalled depending on their content, but I am aspiring to keep the majority of these free!)

THE SUNDAY NEWSLETTER

On Sundays, a week-in-review issue will land in your inbox. These will be more casual than Friday’s newsletter, full of what I’m doing, reading, wearing, consuming, listening to, buying, etc., each week. These issues, like my former monthly ins/outs lists, are a chance for us to connect and freak out about whatever in the comments every week. They now come with a voice note!

TAYLOR SWIFT TUESDAYS(?)

I’m strongly considering an extra super casual Tuesday issue that is mainly for the other Swifties in the house :) You submit a question or a prompt—like “what song would you want to play at your funeral” or “what song do you picture Taylor listening to after she heard the Harry and Zoe engagement news” or “what song from 1989 has the power to conjure instant tears”—and I’ll answer with one of Taylor Swift’s 289 published songs and a little mini essay. (Then obviously you share your song-answers in the comments, too, so we can be obnoxious together.) Is this a fun idea or no?? This would only show up in your inbox if you’re a paid subscriber so as not to spam everyone. I would very much enjoy it, but I need a vibe check, lol. (We could expand this beyond the Taylorverse if you’re more interested in music discovery??? People tell me literally all the time that I introduced them to Rosalia, which is/was an honor and a pleasure.) If you are excited about this idea and you have an idea to submit already, please do that here!

THE BOOK CLUB / PODCAST

The podcast is on hiatus for now while I adjust to being a student again, but I hope to bring it back in 2027. Season 1—a 20 part slow read through Sheila Heti’s novel Motherhood wherein I interviewed my friends about being parents, not being parents, and everything in-between—is probably the best thing I have produced for Substack thus far. You can listen to a free issue here.

This was my last supper outfit (AKA my very last dinner & drinks with a friend before school started lol RIP to my free time) ☠️

I’ll be writing this newsletter on the days I’m not in class, which is 2-3x per week for roughly the next three years. I am doing this all without the assistance of caffeine, as that is a lesson I learned the hard way the last time I was in grad school. Here we fucking go I guess!!! ❤️‍🔥

THANK YOU for being here, thank you for staying through this pivot, thank you for joining us, thank you for your enthusiasm, etc. etc. I am constantly in awe of how cool everyone here is, which I am reminded of pretty much every time we interact. YOU ARE ALL SO GREAT AND I MEAN THAT.

As a (real) thank you, I’ve made annual paid subscriptions 30% off for the next 48 hours.

A paid sub will give you full access to the Sunday newsletter (and Taylor Swift Tuesdays, if we do that) and probably more down the line. COME WITH ME TO GRAD SCHOOL AS I LEARN HOW TO HELP PEOPLE LIVE BETTER LIVES OR SOMETHING!! 🥲

This newsletter is only made possible through the generosity of paid subscribers—without you, it would simply not exist, and I mean that literally. It is my #1 goal forever to make it feel worth your while and your money. If this newsletter is one that you find yourself opening every week, either now or down the line, I hope you’ll consider paying for it? 🫶🏻

So, welcome to Little Freak! As Missy Elliot would say… we’re about to get (o)ur freak on. xx

P.S. This newsletter is more colorful and fun if you read it in the Substack app or on a desktop! ❤️ (If you’re reading this in your email inbox, if you scroll back up to the very top, there’s a button that says “READ IN APP” if you so choose!) x