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Hello!
I am back at work, after six months of healing, nursing, singing, dish-washing, not sleeping and sleeping. It was such a privilege to get to be home with my daughters as we all got used to each other. Thank you, WNYC and California paid parental leave policy, for making it possible for my family!
And now, the obligatory kids pic:
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(We don't believe in personal space in our family.)
One part of being on leave that was really fun was being able to casually lurk without any obligation of engaging. I listened to all the guest hosts on Death, Sex & Money and loved every single episode. Can we all agree that the team did an incredible job with our maternity leave lineup? Yes, yes we can. Thank you, team!
I also lurked on the internet, and liked watching how, while I was more or less dormant, some pretty big things were happening in the lives of some of our former guests. Here are a few updates that I thought you'd like knowing:
- Amber Scorah, whom I interviewed with her partner Lee in 2016, has written a memoir about leaving behind life as Jehovah's Witness. Here she is talking to TERRY GROSS about her book, Leaving the Witness: Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life.
- Lawrence Bartley, whom I talked to with his wife Ronnine after he was released from prison in the spring of 2018, is now working for the Marshall Project, where he's launched a magazine about criminal justice specifically for incarcerated readers called News Inside. And, as an extra cool surprise, he texted me when he was in Berkeley for a journalism conference and we got to meet up!
- Also, Chris Gethard, the comedian who I interviewed along with his wife Hallie Bulleit in 2014, has brought both a child and a new cable access show into the world. His Instagram is doing a great job capturing the Twilight Zone-ness of very early parenthood.
- Steph, who talked with her dad Steve back in March for our episode about being laid off, told us that her parents have recently sold her childhood home in Ohio, and that Steve has found part-time work at Home Depot. As for Steph, she's recently moved in with her boyfriend after two years of long distance and says they're "getting acclimated to creating new routines together."
- Another father-daughter update: maternity leave guest host Sarah Smarsh reports that her dad, Nick, is taking some time off this week to be together with their family in Wichita for the holiday...and he's also getting itchy to move on to his next job:
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- And speaking of work transitions! As we'll explore in next week's episode, Uma Kondabolu, who's been on the show twice with her comedian son Hari Kondabolu, retired in March after nearly thirty years in healthcare. What's next? She's figuring that out.
Being away from work these last six months, and now being back, has me thinking a lot about moments of big shifts and transitions in life. I've had a few while we've been making this show, for sure, so I love hearing from our guests—and from you—about how life keeps unfolding for all of us. Please let us know about any other guests you're curious about, and of course, if you've got big things happening that you're working to unpack. (This video from your fellow listeners may provide some nice company.)
I'm so glad to be back.
—Anna and the Death, Sex & Money team
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We Came, We Danced, We Conquered
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Last week marked the first ever Dance, Sex & Money class...and guys. It was so. much. FUN! Under the '90s-moves guidance of our fearless leader and colleague Emily Mann (whose voice many of you recognized from our underwriting spots on the show!), we funky-chickened and cabbage-patched our way through a hot NYC Thursday. Thanks to all of you who came—here are some pics from the night. (And if you couldn't join in on the fun live, check out the archived video here.)
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Look at those moves! You all are so great. (📸: Matthew Septimus)
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Your Responses: Drinking Questions
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Nearly 150 of you sent in stories about the role drinking plays in your lives, and we've spent the last week recording interviews with many of you for our upcoming episode on alcohol. You've told us about everything from being in the thick of problem drinking to loving the community that alcohol has given you. And we've heard from many, many of you who are landing somewhere in the middle:
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"My relationship with alcohol is complicated, as I think many people can sympathize with. My father is a mostly functional alcoholic. My mother does not drink at all. I know that my father's drinking contributed to the problems in my parents' marriage that eventually led to their divorce when I was 14. I don't have a good idea of what a healthy relationship with drinking really looks like.
I like alcohol. I like how it tastes, and I like the buzz I get with a drink or two. I do not like being drunk, and try not to get drunk very often, but sometimes I drink too much by mistake because I enjoy the taste and drink too fast to realize how inebriated I am. I never drink and drive. I usually prefer to drink at home or at a friend's house when I have planned to crash there. I try very hard to be responsible.
I also struggle with my depression, especially in the last year or two. On really bad days, I either want a drink or I want to eat myself into oblivion. I struggle with my weight and with overeating. I don't drink every day. I will go weeks without drinking. But if I have wine or some kind of liquor in the house, I have a hard time not drinking it. Feeling guilt around eating or drinking too much does nothing to curb my consumption of either. What it does is make my depression worse.
I would not call myself a problem drinker. But I can see that tendency in myself. I am too much like my father in many ways not to have that in me. It is still there, waiting to become a problem. I can feel the urge to over-indulge in me, waiting for me to let my guard down or break down far enough. I do not have anything concise to say about alcohol or drinking, because I am myself so conflicted about it. It doesn't consume me everyday, but it niggles at the back of my mind. Another little thing to worry about."
—Perri, 27, NY
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Listen to This: Audio We Love
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Were you one of the approximately three million people who spent a good chunk of 2018 whipping out your MoviePass card at theaters around the country? The rise and fall of that illustrious, ill-fated enterprise is the subject of a recent episode of our pal Lauren Ober's newest venture, the podcast Spectacular Failures. In it, she valiantly tries to decipher how the $9.95/month all-you-can-watch subscription service expected to keep its books in the black (spoiler alert: they didn't), and what happened when the company finally, gloriously crashed to Earth and lost 90% of its members last summer. RIP, MoviePass. We hardly knew ye.
And that's not the only podcast about failure that we're loving right now. We've also been listening to Nice Try, a show all about utopias and how throughout time, people all over the world have tried, and failed, to make perfect places. One of our favorite episodes is about Levittown, and about how the suburbs have always been the place where the American dream of homeownership clashes with the American reality of institutional racism.
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If you're celebrating this weekend, have a happy and safe 4th!
Here's a gratuitous Bruce GIF for you.
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Death, Sex and Money is supported in part by the award-winning open-source podcast 70 Million, by Lantigua Williams & Co. Hear powerful stories about how people and communities are trying bold solutions to mass incarceration and find free resources at 70millionpod.com.
(70 Million is funded by the Safety and Justice Challenge at the MacArthur Foundation.)
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