How We're Coping

10/9/20- In this latest season of the pandemic (end of season 3?), we're trying to find joy where we can: guava cocktails, vintage golf clothes, journaling, repetition, boredom, and the future. 

Transcript below.

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Spotify.

CREDITS

Producer: Gina Delvac

Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman

Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn

Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.

Associate Producer: Jordan Bailey

Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed

Merch Director: Caroline Knowles

Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci

Design Assistant: Brijae Morris

Ad sales: Midroll

LINKS

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Guava cocktail recipe by Natalka Burien, author of Daughters of the Wild:

  • ¼ thinly sliced jalapeno

  • 2 oz guava juice

  • 2 oz tequila

  • ½ oz lime

  • ½ oz agave

  • ½ oz cointreau

  • Shake all ingredients together over ice (adjusting for jalapeno/spice level) and strain into your glass

Recent Episodes
Farewell

We say goodbye, in the final episode of Call Your Girlfriend. In typical fashion, we're going out talking about how friends have been helping us get through the pandemic, the never-ending furor over Joe Rogan, and what podcasts we're loving. If you're looking to subscribe to something new, check out Do You Know Mordechai, Sweet Bobby, and Like a Virgin. Plus, what we're going to do next, and some of your voicemails.

I'm the Bad Guy Sometimes

We're not dead yet! Aminatou talks with legendary podcast, poet and essayist Nichole Perkins about navigating relationships as a Black woman, desire, boundaries, longing, and much more as we chat about her new book, Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be.

See You on the Nostalgia Tour

Is there anything you miss from before the internet? Reading, focus, getting lost, filing cabinets, are just a few of the things New York Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul discusses with us. Her new book is 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet.

Big Announcement

A different kind of newsy episode with Aminatou, Ann and Gina.

Money, Grief, Kids

We talk with one of our favorite writers, The New Yorker's Ariel Levy, about dynastic wealth, how we experience grief, and big surprises in life, including the joys of getting older and having children. Her podcast that chronicles maternity wear icon Liz Lange, of the New York Steinbergs is The Just Enough Family.

So You Want to Change the World

Can’t be that hard, right? We pass the mic to Nereya Otieno, one of Ann’s 2021 writing fellows, who sits down with two women who have started initiatives to improve the lives of a select few in hopes that it can spark a radical shift.

Tastemakers

We talk with Mayukh Sen about seven immigrant women who remade American cuisine and his new book, Taste Makers. Plus, racism in the worlds of food writing and publishing and who gets to break out.

Making Older Friends

Women over 50 are too often erased, including on this very podcast. Grace Bonney has been collecting inspiration and advice from women of more advanced experience in her new book, Collective Wisdom. She's gathered interviews and intergenerational conversations with over 100 trailblazing women, who describe the ups, downs, and lessons learned while forging their unique paths.

Grief Companionship

Grief can come in so many forms and impact us in unexpected ways. Illustrator and designer Ngaio Parr knows all too well, having lost four family members in four years. Retreating from family and friends? Strange physical symptoms? Suddenly seeing things everywhere that echo a lost loved one? All these normal forms of grieving can be confusing in a world that's all too ready to have you move on. To help, Ngaio has designed and illustrated The Grief Companion, a deck of cards with beautiful abstract watercolor images with prompts, insights and actions, for the moments when you can only do a little bit at a time. Plus, we discuss how to be there for friends who are grieving.

Bandsplain

Yasi Salek's podcast Bandsplain has us listening to music like teens again, with obsessive curiosity about whole albums and the quirks and life stories that draw us into the artists we come to love, or learn more about canonical artists we never understood.

The Silent but Deadly Fart of Racism

George McCalman is an artist, a writer, an illustrator, and a designer. This man does it ALL. He spent many years as a magazine creative director, shaping the look and feel of publications such as Mother Jones, Readymade, Afar. Then he opened up his own studio, McCalman Co, where he collaborates on branding, design, and editorial projects.

Change is Always Coming

How fixed are we in our ways of being and doing things? We're always confronting change, but how much can we choose it? These are some of the big ideas through small moments Jade Chang tackles in her Audible Original, You've Already Changed Your Life: A Recipe for a Revelation. Jade is a friend of the podcast, deep thinker, and author of the excellent novel, The Wangs vs. The World.

SCOTUS vs. Abortion (sponsored by Rewire News Group)

In a special episode brought to you by Rewire News Group, we go deep on the conservative push to regulate and ban abortion in Texas and Mississippi with Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of the Boom! Lawyered podcast.

Disability, Fragility, Vulnerability

Emily Ladau and Kelly Dawson return to dispel dull narratives around disability and go beyond the 101. How coping with fragility creates resilience. How friendships deepen with the knowing and trust that disabled people share. What allyship looks like to them as physically disabled women. The hypocrisies of non-disabled people's reactions to COVID, and, in its wake, how we can all look more closely at what it means to live a full life.

Believing Anita Hill

Dr. Anita Hill made history in 1991 when she testified to the Senate Judiciary committee about the sexual harassment perpetrated against her by Clarence Thomas. After the all-white, all-male committee led by then-Senator Joe Biden heard Dr. Hill's testimony, Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the US Supreme Court.

In the 30 years since, Anita Hill has spent her career as a law professor hearing from survivors of gender-based violence, ranging from harassment (which she expected) to assault. In her new book, Believing, she connects the dots between the systems that empower abuse and minimize vulnerable people, and the culture that keeps us as bystanders. From that history, she tackles the policy solutions we'll need to reform the system from the inside and the social courage we'll need to muster to transform it.

Where Should I Send My Kid to School?

A simple question with loaded answers.

On today's episode, we unravel a few of those knots with Courtney Martin and Dr. Dena Simmons, whose interracial friendship has weathered distance, accountability, academic rigor, heartbreak, and mutual support. They met over a decade ago when Courtney profiled Dena for her book about young activists, Do It Anyway. At the time, Dena was a classroom teacher. Since then she has earned her PhD and is writing her own book about breaking up with whiteness, the forthcoming White Rules for Black People.

Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation

Don't today's conspiracy theories make UFOs and JFK conspiracy theories seem quaint, almost sweet? Dr. Stacy Wood breaks down how independent communities of belief have accelerated online. It's not only the fault of social media, but as we reorganize how we search and find information, Facebook, YouTube, Google, and others are all part of how we have become so entrenched in our beliefs.

Finding Your Voice

Comedy and art criticism don't exactly sound like parallel career paths. But after bouncing from a freelance hustle to a fancy art world job to improv classes, Christina Catherine Martinez realized she wanted to do both. We talk about how she navigates making a life and a career as an intellectual and a comedian, how alike those performances are on social media, and how power and money infect everything.

Sex Work is Work

As OnlyFans flips and flops on the sex workers that built its platform, we revisit our interview with Lorelei Lee on the history of sex work legislation. Lorelei is a writer and performer who discusses how sex work is neither purely exploitative nor purely empowering. Instead, like all work, it's complicated.

Sustainable Style

Miranda Bennett has long been one of our favorite designers. We discuss how she got started making and selling clothes, how she balances running a sustainable business with keeping the lights on, and tips for shopping sustainably (even though we know there is no ethical consumption under capitalism).

Summer of Friendship: Forever35

Our summer of friendship continues with Kate Spencer and Doree Shafrir, hosts of the podcast Forever35. While we love their conversations about serums and budget-friendly makeup tips, we come and stay for their deep friendship, which started on the internet and was partly cemented at a CYG live show.

Bad Behavior

From Matt Damon to Andrew Cuomo to gender testing at the Olympics, we do a quick survey of men in the news behaving badly.

Boundaries

We talk about finding and maintaining boundaries, why the world makes it easier for some people than others, how boundaries help us be in community with others, and how grateful we are for boundary possibility models like Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka.

Summer of Friendship: Foxy Browns

More from our Summer of Friendship series, where a few of our favorite podcasters tell us how they met, times their friendship has been stretched, and how they grow together. This week, dear pals Camilla Blackett and Priyanka Mattoo of the Foxy Browns podcast.

Summer of Friendship: Two Old Bitches

As we continue our Summer of Friendship series, a few of our favorite podcasters tell us how they met, times their friendship has been stretched, and how they grow together. This week, Idelisse Malavé and Joanne Sandler aka Two Old Bitches!

Summer of Friendship: Claire and Erica

As part of our Summer of Friendship series, a few of our favorite podcasters tell us how they met, times their friendship has been stretched, and how their off-air an on-air friendship is different. This week, iconic bestie entrepreneurs Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo of A Thing or Two.

Hot Vax Summer of Friendship

Aminatou and Ann's book Big Friendship is available in paperback July 6, so to celebrate we're doing our second Summer of Friendship series. We catch up and kick off chatting through our recent forays back into the world, which friends we're seeing, how we work through the emotional distance with close friends and acquaintances, and how we're approaching boundaries and travel while it seems possible.

Bi Bi Bi 2.0

Jordan and Gina round out Pride with a followup to our Bi Bi Bi episode from 2018. We hear from Divinity (@officiallydivinity) who identifies as bisexual, gray ace, and aromantic and how those labels coalesce for her. Divinity has amazing things to share about friendship. love, sex, connection, and becoming your brightest, fullest self. love you.

Lockdown Lesbian Love Story

Queer women aren't exclusively looking for longterm monogamous love - but some are! As part of our Pride series, a lockdown lesbian love story featuring musician Abby Diamond and actor and director Rachel Cora Wood.

Detransition, Baby

We talk with Torrey Peters about her breakout novel, Detransition, Baby, full of queer characters finding and defining family, and why she dedicated it to divorced cis women. Plus, a bunch of great reading recommendations for books by trans authors.

TRANSCRIPT: HOW WE’RE COPING

Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend!

Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.

Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.

Ann: And I am Ann Friedman. On today's agenda we talk about this latest season of the pandemic we're in. Is it season two? Three? Maybe the end of season three? And all the things that means for us: guava cocktails, vintage golf clothes, exploring our own cities, journaling, repetition, boredom, and the future.

[Theme Song]

Aminatou: I don't know what I sound so excited about but here we are.

Ann: We are not excited. [Laughs] You know I know we always joke about not being professionals but that excitement in your voice is how I know you truly are a professional. You're a pro.

Aminatou: [Laughs] Oh, that's a lot. How're you doing over there?

Ann: I mean this is a hard question to answer at this point in time.

Aminatou: Give me the superficial answer. You know the one that you ask people that you don't really know how they're doing and you hope that they won't actually tell you the real thing. You're just like hmm, just tell me you're doing great. [Laughs]

Ann: Oh, these days I say something like "Getting by. Getting by."

Aminatou: [Laughs]

Ann: How are you? There's always that tone, the uptalk at the end like it's still a question, like I'm going to answer your question with a question. I mean what about you?

Aminatou: Oh my gosh. You know, I'm still here. I'm still here. You know, I've had better days but we're hanging in there.

(1:55)

Ann: Oh man, I also do . . . I feel we should be honest with everyone listening to this that there are obviously many important and worthy things happening in the world right now and when we went down a list of them we were like we can't. [Laughs]

Aminatou: Yeah.

Ann: We don't actually want to talk about our horrible president and his health. We don't want to talk about this election. We don't want to talk about six months of being in a pandemic. We don't want to talk about grief. What else don't we want to talk about?

Aminatou: I mean everything. I don't want to talk about anything. You know I wonder if . . . because I find it's not just true on the podcast; I think I am having this really visceral reaction to . . . well obviously visceral reaction to the pandemic. But I'm finding that even with my friends the idea of any time you see someone that you haven't seen in a long time or even the people that I see regularly, the fact that we're talking about the same things over and over again, that really just grinds my gears you know?

Ann: Yes.

Aminatou: I'm living -- I was on a walk with a friend the other day and she said, she was like "Man I would die for some low-level celeb gossip right now." And I looked at her and I was like wow, you are right. I want something so frivolous and something that is just so meaningless because everything just feels heavy all the time. So the minute that I left the walk with her I did the thing that I hate doing the most which is going to dailymail.com to look at the carousel. Like what's going on in other people's lives?

Ann: [Laughs]

Aminatou: And I have never been so dissatisfied with that side of the shenanigans before. Nothing is hitting correctly. So I know I have hit a new bottom when I don't care about Z celebs, the weird things about their lives.

Ann: It's funny, I only experience Daily Mail as mediated through the Who Weekly podcast. It's not a direct -- like celebrity culture is not something I address directly; it's all fully translated to me through you or other friends or Lindsey and Bobby on the podcast. It is not part of my direct routine. But man that is so true though, these things that you're like oh wow, tiny pleasures. Tiny pleasures that are not . . .

Aminatou: [Laughs]

(4:10)

Ann: That are not related to my domestic existence. That's the other part too of oh, celebrities are out in the world. It's not like me having a hobby to get me through or me tricking myself into feeling excited about making yet another dinner which I feel like is a large part of my life right now.

Aminatou: Man I am so over -- like I'm so over just surviving. Who knew that all of life . . .

Ann: [Laughs]

Aminatou: It's true. All of life is where is my next meal going to come from? And cooking has taken . . . something that I generally enjoy doing, like not to a fanatic level or anything like that. I've always felt cooking is a very neutral good. And now I just despise it. I despise it so much. And just all of your life revolves around surviving. It's like okay, gotta get some groceries. Gotta make three meals a day. And it's made me such a resentful kind of asshole, and I say this as someone who is so fully privileged to have one person who cooks most of my meals anyway in the week. So it's been this really hilarious just I'm like wow, these are the . . . this is the basic pyramid of needs and I'm over all of it, just over all of it, which is such a privileged asshole way to be.

Ann: I don't think you're a privileged asshole and I also deeply relate to that sentiment. My cooking has sort of turned into this bifurcated thing where on one hand I have recipes that are so easy I can do them with my brain off and this is what I do when I just need to eat, a function of my body. You know what I mean?

Aminatou: Right.

Ann: I have like a one pot kale pasta that I make which is very -- you know, it's like literally you put it all in the pot and it's done. That's the sort of automated cooking thing that I do more and more of. Then on the other end there's like let me pick something that is needlessly elaborate just because I want to . . . I'll be like ooh, it'll take two hours tonight. I'm trying to psych myself up for something that has long since stopped being fun and creative.

(6:12)

Aminatou: I know. I've been doing a lot of baking, like talking about psyching yourself up for something. And you know me, I don't live for baked goods but I love baking as a way to work out your frustration. You can't freestyle baking. You have to really -- it's literal science, you have to follow the steps.

Ann: I know, that's why I'm so bad at it. [Laughs]

Aminatou: I know. But for me it's why I enjoy it because I'm just like okay, great, I don't know how all these ingredients react. Even if the weather changes five degrees your bread is into question if it's going to work or not. So I've been doing this very elaborate like everything that I usually like to source at a bakery I've been making at home, like finding the knockoff recipes of all the things I like, and my entire kitchen is covered in flour. I am always cursing to no one in particular. But I've really enjoyed making baked goods and sending that to friends or dropping it off at a friend's house or whatever. And it's been really nice but I have to say I'm very bored by all of it. I was like wow, I finally have time to make all the things in my Pinterest board and here we are. None of it is satisfying.

Ann: I have to say in the early days of the pandemic I was lamenting the loss of surprise and spontaneity in a much more active, everyday way. And I realized recently that I had reached the point where I have stopped even actively missing it. I've just sort of been like okay, when I look at my calendar of what's happening workwise today that's all that's happening or maybe I have a scheduled check-in with a friend but that's it. If I don't see it written down it's not an interaction I'm having.

(7:55)

And I recently -- so my backyard has a very active guava tree in it which is maybe for some people extremely exciting. But for me, someone who is kind of 50/50 on guava and it's been 100 degrees out the hot guava waft coming from my patio has prompted me to go actively pick it and then drop off bags of these guavas for friends I know actively like them. And I have to say I might keep this practice even when we're post-hot guava season of just texting a friend and being like "Are you home?" and dropping something off and having a ten minute conversation on the porch that I hadn't accounted for earlier in the day. Like wow, the excitement. The excitement of that I have to say is really a late-stage pandemic joy that I'm trying to do more of.

Aminatou: Oh man. I have a really good guava cocktail recipe for you that Natalka Burien who owns Elsa in Brooklyn shared with me recently. And truly I think it's a cocktail you will really like so we'll link to it in the show notes but also Ann I think it might solve some of your guava problem. But we'll see. We'll see.

Ann: You know it's also a blessing because it's spurring me to see friends I have to say. I have really made taking the guava lemons and taking the guava lemonade is what I feel I have done with this situation. [Laughter]

Aminatou: It is true we were all more innocent in season one of the pandemic, you know? It was like okay.

Ann: We really were.

Aminatou: Yeah, season one was all like Tiger King and baking bread and growing our green onions back and stuff like that and now I'm fully over it. I'm trying to focus on the things that are a little different in this season of life and that I'm actually enjoying, and when you were talking about your hobbies earlier I was like you know I finally have real hobbies for the first time. I never could answer that question, people who just have hobbies all the time. I'm like sorry, I watch TV and I read and I travel. Those are not like real hobbies but those are my hobbies, and sometimes I do puzzles. But now I'm fully an actor in-between jobs. [Laughter] So I feel like all I have are hobbies and it's been kind of . . . I'm like that's kind of enjoyable. I'm into it.

(10:15)

Ann: I have to say I love this for you. I love you turning into a hobby queen. It is honestly also -- I love watching you, the zeal with which you are applying yourself to your new hobbies. It is a thing of beauty.

Aminatou: [Laughs]

Ann: It's like I have kind of the same hobbies. It's funny, hearing you run down pandemic season one I never had a bread baking phase because I know that is not my strength. I am a kitchen freestyler and not an exact science person and I am still regrowing scallions. Those things have not changed. But the doubling down on my hobbies, it's like I'm now four quilts deep in this pandemic.

Aminatou: Wow, wow.

Ann: Really fully -- I know, baby quilts but still. I can also feel the hours, like computer hours and sewing machine hours, have the same effect on my aging back. So that's how I know, I'm like maybe I need hobbies that put my body in a different shape. That's really where I'm at. I need a good physical hobby. I'm not a sports person. I don't know what that would be, something other than walking around.

Aminatou: We've already discussed you, NSGU, no sports growing up, which is truly my favorite way of categorizing people. Yeah, you know, the outside hobbies are really -- they're good but again weather is a limitation, air quality is a limitation, like things you and I are both contending with. But I think my mental health is really hanging by the string of the outdoor hobbies. I started doing this running program called Couch to 5K which so many people do. For many years I had tried doing it and every time I was failing but I think this is my time now because the technology has finally gotten good. I don't have to use a stopwatch or any kind of weird thing; there are just a hundred apps that will do it for you. And the app that I use is made by the NHS so it's this British voice just going "Run, walk, run, walk." That's my bad British accent.

Ann: [Laughs]

(12:10)

Aminatou: And it just turns out that I was like oh yeah, running intervals? Yeah, I was like this is fine. I can finally do this. I hate everything about running, like I hate everything about it, and every time I'm done I'm like wow, I can't believe I did that. So I'm excited about graduating that soon. It's a nine week running program and it's hard but it's fun. But also I was like this is finally -- this is the time. I have never had this much time before and I finally conquered my awkwardness about running outside. Now I just truly do not care. Someone street harassed me recently. It was low-key kind of thrilling because I was like wow, nature is healing. The assholes are out. [Laughs]

Ann: The assholes are out. The catcallers are back.

Aminatou: Yeah, the catcallers are back. But it was also this very beautiful moment where I was like oh, this is what people talk about when they talk about their running community. Like this person said something really gross to me. My instinct whenever somebody says something disgusting to me on the street is I never know how I'm going to react. Sometimes I'm fully like "Fuck you" and then other times I just want to cry and hide. I can never tell, like however vulnerable you are in this moment. And this was so fun for me because this person called me essentially a fat cow and immediately I was like "Tell me something I don't know." Then the other runner on the bridge was like "Fuck you, man."

Ann: Yeah.

Aminatou: It was just this awesome -- I was like thank you stranger, we are having a good day here, but truly I was like I'm in love with New York. But yeah, that is not something I thought in a million years I would be. And I've also been taking a golf class which is very LOLOLOL for me. But being outside and hitting balls, it turns out these business school bros are onto something.

(14:00)

Ann: Executive realness. I feel like learning to golf is the essence of executive realness. [Laughs]

Aminatou: Ann I cannot wait to take myself out on 18 holes of golf. I was like this is such a good goal to have and I can do it. And it's been really fun too in my lessons because there's so many women who do it, something that I'm like well duh, of course there are a ton of women who do it. But it's just nice to be at the driving range and you're like look at all these boss ladies. Also it turns out that in order to make me do a sport outside you just have to tell me there's a semblance of a costume. And so the minute I started looking into golf clothes I got so excited. I was like what? Excuse me, there's a whole outfit culture with this? I am down. So it's like that, then I spend half my time on Etsy and eBay trolling for old corporate sweaters and stuff so shout-out to my Bear Sterns sweaters. [Laughter]

Ann: My god.

Aminatou: But truly I have found something that I am surprised to like this much.

Ann: I really -- sorry, the image of you in a vintage Bear Sterns sweater swinging a golf club and having it perfectly connect with a golf ball? This is the most pleasure I have felt in weeks, like just thinking about that. Like truly wow. Just wow.

Aminatou: Listen, sometimes -- it turns out that golf is really hard. My swing is trash, everything is bad. And also the person that is training me is hilarious because he also makes you look at yourself in a simulator.

Ann: Oh my god.

Aminatou: And the other -- you know, it's like you versus Tiger Woods. So he's always like "Amina, look at how Tiger is doing it." [Laughs] Every time. And every time I laugh hysterically because of course Tiger Woods is doing it well sir. This is not going to happen. But it's fun now to be like okay, I've had enough lessons that I remember when I used to hit the ball ten percent of the time and now truly I was like okay, I know how to do this but my swing is trash. I can work on it. It's just nice to get better at something. I've also been surprised at how much I like doing things that I'm bad at. It's the same joy I get from cleaning something that's very dirty where you're like oh yeah, this is just changing.

(16:15)

Ann: Improvement. You like to see improvement.

Aminatou: I like to see improvement. And it turns out I really -- like my story of myself is I only liked to do things that I was good at and I didn't like to take risks or chances or whatever. And I was like yeah, maybe that's true, maybe it's not true. But it is really humbling and really nice to be like I am really bad at something but it doesn't matter because I'm objectively getting a little bit better every day. It's the post-book, what's the next big project that I'm doing? Then in the meantime just taking all these classes and doing new things. It makes me feel like I'm keeping my brain active. And also it's just nice to be outside until east coast winter gets for real.

Ann: I know. It's like I'm kind of on the opposite weather schedule where I have been stuck inside for weather reasons but probably by Halloweenish I will be much more of an outdoor creature than I am right now. You are the opposite. We are going to cross on our way outdoors to indoors.

Aminatou: Listen, work on your golf game. Maybe next time I see you this is something we can do together.

Ann: Oh my god, listen, I have mild scoliosis. Like my father slipped a disc trying to play golf when I was a kid and I think I got it into my head that bodies like mine are maybe not golf-appropriate.

Aminatou: Ann you could be an iconic golfer. Truly if we could go back to applying for college this is the scholarship we should've pursued.

Ann: You know I will say this for golf: the fact that it is mostly just walking in-between the swinging parts is very appealing to me.

Aminatou: Iconic. Iconic.

Ann: Whew. Okay, let's take a quick break.

[Ads]

(19:48)

Ann: Love to walk. Truly love to walk. That has also been something that I have been good about in season two/three of the pandemic, wherever we are now.

Aminatou: Oh we're fully in three Ann. This show is about to go into syndication.

Ann: [Laughs] Our season two was publishing a book, like that was our personal season two of the pandemic. But yeah my season three is also randomly picking neighborhoods I don't know very well and doing my walk there as opposed to my neighborhood. That is also something that has brought me a lot of joy in a city that is more spread out where being able to kind of look at different neighborhoods and be surprised a little bit is truly getting me by. Like other people's neighborhoods, the thrill of that.

Aminatou: I know. You know a product that I really wish excited and I hope that someone who's listening to this will just fix it for me, someone who works at Google Maps or Waze or something, is I would die for a walking guide or a driving guide that is neighborhood-specific that still will have all the turn-by-turn information that you need to do.

Ann: Where you're just like turn left, this neighborhood was red-lined. Turn right. [Laughs]

Aminatou: Totally, this is what I want. This is what I want. Because I have been walking around neighborhoods in New York that I have historically not known and all I do is just waste so much time looking up houses and looking up -- there's so many weird quirks in Brooklyn and it's been so nice. I just want someone to make a product that is exactly that. I am here to do tourism via car or tourism via my legs and I just want someone to narrate to me what is happening or what the history of this specific neighborhood is.

Ann: I fully agree. I was in Beijing last fall and someone recommended to me an app where people can upload walking tours themselves, like locals who are experts, and the app is GPS coordinated so it knows when you've hit a certain spot on the tour and it will just start talking and say like this building used to be whatever or this structure was built in this year and this is what it was built for and this is what it's used for now. I loved it, it was great. The one that I did was recorded by a journalist who had lived in that area for a long time so it was a little bit of history, it was a little bit of recent history, it was a little bit of a local's perspective. It was a little bit of the kind of travel guide recommendations you might want if you're visiting a place.

(22:15)

But when I went to look for other parts of the city in that same app and other places it was just so spotty. Like clearly it's not used enough to really be what we are talking about, but oh man, I would love that for my city or cities I'm visiting. Yes.

Aminatou: Yeah, I want it for everywhere. Yeah. Ann this is the longest we've gone without seeing each other.

Ann: I know. I really like . . . [Sighs] I hate that. That's where I really get very, very sad when I think about the kinds of experiences that I think I missed in season one of the pandemic, like things I really thought about like the fact that you and I were not sitting side-by-side in a hotel bed watching bad TV or ordering takeout together or whatever.

Aminatou: I know. Our trip that we were going to go on before book tour, we are still going on that trip the minute the world is open.

Ann: I know. But I mean I guess where I was going is I used to really actively think about that, you know? Of like ugh, if this pandemic weren't going on I would be getting on an airplane and going to see you or I would be visiting my friend who has a very small baby that I want to meet before this kid gets too old. Or I want to see my grandma, or I want to have a dinner party with my friends who live in town.

Aminatou: A dinner party, whew.

Ann: What a dream right?

Aminatou: The forbidden dream. [Laughs]

Ann: Truly. Like truly.

Aminatou: Literally I got goosebumps. You said that, I was like nothing sounds more verboten than that right now.

(23:45)

Ann: I have to say that I honestly -- I can say that to you in kind of a high-level way but if you ask me to describe in detail kind of that scene or what it might feel like to walk into my friend's house while they are like -- and we're about to sit down for dinner together with a handful of friends who are not podded up together, actually it's almost like it's too painful. It's gotten to this stage where instead of fantasizing about what I'm missing I'm just like nope, not going to think about it because I don't know when I get that again. I'm just going to not think about it. And it's something I'm really trying to force myself out of. I'm trying to force myself to envision walking into a crowded bar and my friend has saved me a seat and we're going to sit and chat conspiratorially and eat French fries because lord knows they don't travel, you've got to eat those in person.

Aminatou: Oh my god.

Ann: And we're just going to feel that energy of being around a lot of people, like the details of that I don't want to let go of. I want to be able to feel joy in hoping for that and not hope in some big sense of like the pandemic is fixed but in these very tiny moments that I really, really miss.

Aminatou: I know. I miss so much of that stuff, you know? And because like 1) there's obviously a familiarity to it and there was such a safety to it but I think that where I'm at, and it's probably 100 percent a self-preservation mechanism, is I can't even allow myself to think of that because I also think that whenever life goes back to normal -- I hate that phrase, whenever it's back to normal or whatever -- I just think everything will be different. Nothing will be how it used to be. And, you know, probably masks will be a part of our life forever moving forward in some sort of regularly, you know, really assessing do I need to go to this large-scale event or whatever? These are all things that if we are smart people that's probably going to stay with us for a while.

(25:50)

But I don't know, then there's the part of me that gets really excited at a different kind of possibility because for as much as this time is very hard and to be clear it has brought on so much suffering for so many people around the country. I think for those of us who that has not -- it's not been the case or we're lucky enough that our . . . you know, the load that COVID has given us is much lighter there's also for me just this feeling of oh, my life is very different and I don't hate all of it. Even this silly thing about picking up hobbies or being grounded at home. For me this is the first time in a decade that I have been at home this much. I cannot think of a time where I've just been at home. My entire life used to revolve around how do I retain my diamond status on Delta. You know, I never want to get on a plane ever again.

And yeah, there's just been something really clarifying and also, I don't know, really nice about -- like obviously I want to see everyone in my life but I think for the people I get to regularly see where I feel really #blessed, LOL, about the fact that we get to go so deep because we are stuck together and we are forced to make these really intense decisions around who is in your community and who are you seeing and what are you doing? And I think even with work I feel that way. I'm like okay, work is not going to exist in the way that it used to, like what does that mean for me? And how do I get to apply my creativity? What do I want my relationship with being in an office or going to work or making things, what do I want all of that to be? And it's obviously a huge privilege to be able to consider all of those things and I don't know that I would've been forced to think about them in the same way if we hadn't all been grounded this year, you know?

(27:50)

So I don't know. I'm like maybe that is really foolish but I think that this is also just confronting me with a lot of decisions that I need to make for myself, you know? About how do you want to live? Who do you want to live with? How do you want to work? And what are my values and what are the things that are really important to me? And I feel that I've been forced to really give it some serious thought in a way that before I was not.

Ann: I think that that's true. There is definitely this feeling of kind of doubling down or clarifying what has already existed, that's true, and I think it's funny because I'm thinking about your example of the Delta Diamond status right? I definitely did travel a lot more and it is something I'm still missing. I don't feel like I've actually -- I always was someone who was like I need to ground myself at home for a significant period of time after a trip. My relationship to home and what I need from it, that feels kind of the same and it's almost like for me the clarifying part or the part that feels future-facing is how do I actively want to shape this? If I consider this to be my norm.

And not even in a new normal like what if we're all still in a pandemic sense, but in a way that home is kind of your norm, right? Like this is your baseline. The people you see every day, the habits you have every day. You know, what part of that is or isn't serving me or making me happy? That's kind of more where I'm at. It's really interesting, this phrase the new normal. Like what will it be in the future? I'm like it already is. This is already normal, you know what I mean?

Aminatou: Yeah, this is it.

Ann: How do you feel about the norm is really . . . and I know that that is something that I say as a person who is not responsible for keeping a child at Zoom school and not someone who's a full-time caregiver. There's a lot of things that make this sort of more like my future norm as opposed to not just my present norm. But yeah, I am really feeling a lot of that as well, some gratitude of okay, this has really just been like letting the dust settle so I can see what's in this water.

(30:05)

Aminatou: Whew. I wonder what the writers of the next season will have for us. Oof.

Ann: Oh my god.

Aminatou: Because let's be real, Ms. Corona was a villain and then she infected everyone in the White House and then she became a hero so the character development has been shocking for me. I don't know, I'm like where are we going next? It's like all kidding aside I think there is really something about having finally submitted to the idea that this is just going to go on for a lot longer than we had planned. That for me at least has been very -- it's been more soothing than stressful where it's like okay, great, I'm not waiting for some magical date where there's a vaccine then the world is open again. It's like no, no, having to learn how to be a resilient person is just work that you have to do every day. Because today it's coronavirus; tomorrow it's probably going to be something worse than that. So what are all of the systems that we're learning right now for coping that will be good for life moving forward? And focusing on that has weirdly been -- that does not set my brain on fire and I appreciate that.

Ann: I know. One thing I've been thinking about lately is how some people I know were keeping more of a daily coronavirus log like what did they cook? What did they watch? How were they feeling in season one? And now I have much more of like a huh, I really -- because every day looks so much the same it's hard for me to access. It's really hard for me to remember how things felt day-to-day in an earlier phase and I'm kind of wishing that I had done a better job of even a couple of notes or even keeping track of how things felt back when we were all more worried about surface transmission. How did things feel when we suddenly made a transition to all agreeing -- well, all of us who are interested in science -- all agreeing that masks are a good idea? Things like that that feel like now, again, kind of normalized or things that are part of my life as you say for the foreseeable future. I find myself kind of curious about the more recent before times, like not before the pandemic but who was I in phase one? I really am kind of wishing I'd kept some more notes.

(32:15)

Aminatou: Yeah, it's interesting. My journal practice, it is consistent but it's very haphazard. I don't really write. I'm not like "Here's how I feel." It's mostly just keeping lists of things. So I have been keeping a list of all the movies I've watched and I'm noticing that the tenor of the movies now is a little more chill. I'm watching less intense movies than I was and I've been keeping a log of just anything that I've eaten or drank that I really liked and that's been really fun too. Where it's like okay, here is what's happening. And the only thing that I . . . the thing I think I remember so much about the beginning of this was just this complete sense of fear because of not knowing how to do very basic things. And I think that when I think about the early days of the pandemic that fear is what is the most dominant thing where it's like okay, great, even if another pandemic comes or we have to all go back into the strict lockdown of early March I really don't feel the terror will be the same because we know how to cope with it, you know? There's no how are we going to get groceries? Are we going to catch it from the bottom of our packages or whatever? Or can you run without a mask on? You know, all of these questions are kind of settled in a way.

(33:44)

And so I feel . . . I don't know. The thing that I keep thinking about for me so much is that. It's like what was my relationship to fear and what was my relationship to this moment? And I find that now I'm obviously still tense and so much is unclear. But that fear that I felt the week of March 13th is something that I hope to never feel. I hope to never feel that way again in my life. And so, yeah, not having a record of that in a journal actually makes me feel really good because that is not a feeling that I want to access ever again.

Ann: Yeah, I recently . . . I was talking to a friend about how I really wanted a novel, to be reading a novel that kind of captured this experience of life repeating or the days feeling the same or, you know, it being hard to access other paths or other futures. And she recommended to me this novel Life After Live by Kate Atkinson which was a very popular book when it came out in I think 2013 or 2014. And the premise is that the main character dies a whole bunch. You can basically see all the different ways a human life can end. She dies as an infant and then we restart back at her birthday, then she dies as a young child and we restart back at her birthday and kind of make it through a life with all these fits and starts.

It has this repetitive nature to it because you kind of have to go back to the beginning every time, and none of these are spoilers. This is really just the structure and premise of the book. I'm finding it very, very comforting. I love having a point of reference that is not Groundhog Day for the experience that everything can feel the same and also it's definitely not and you are moving forward and you are gaining knowledge. Everything you were saying about clarifying or moving through that very acute phase of fear at the beginning, this novel is helping me work some of that out for myself.

Aminatou: I love that. Now I really want to read that.

Ann: I'm going to send it to you when I'm done. [Laughs]

(35:45)

Aminatou: Can't wait. Love. That's literally what I was hinting at. Thank you for . . . [Laughter] My friend Sara always says "Are you picking up what I'm putting down?" And that was 100 percent a moment of picking up what I was putting down.

Ann: I am putting down this book into a package so you can literally pick it up. That is what's going on.

Aminatou: Oh man. I think actual health scare and pandemic aside, virus aside, this moment in life really reminds me of really intense periods of boredom when I was a teenager. And I think especially that weird, you know, I feel like that moment between 18 and 20. I feel like 19 was probably the most aimless year of my life because you're an adult but you're also not an adult. There's so much transition happening. And I feel very similarly to that time in my life where it's really easy when you are not suffering like the rest of the country in that you have more security than the rest of the country to really think about this time more as an okay, I'm aimless and this is the kind of boredom that I know will go away. And really try to use some of those hours for daydreaming as opposed to just surviving. I feel it is a moment of regression, of emotional regression, you know? And I think the hobbies are 100 percent a part of that. That's why everyone is tie-dying and baking and doing the great regression moment for all of us.

But I also think that there is something about it that for me it's giving me a kind of emotional nostalgia that I am trying to understand, you know? Of okay, when you are not busy being on the treadmill of intense capitalism all the time what do you want for yourself and what kind of world do you want to live in? And I have time to consider that in a way that I just did not before.

(37:50)

Ann: I love that. It's funny because hearing you talk about hobbies as regression, like for me in a weird way spending more of my time cooking, baking, sewing, observing my neighborhood and checking in with friends, I'm like this feels like a fulfillment of my Midwest femme identity. It almost feels like a future or something than a past. I definitely -- I did kind of have hobbies as a kid, but I don't know, I was more just flopping around my room listening to music. I wasn't doing things the way I am now. It's funny the different kind of youngin we were. But yeah, for me it's more like I feel like I'm cultivating skills for potentially very much later in my life. You know, final season of the Ann Show where I'm like you know what? Life has slowed because I'm older and my body has slowed if I'm lucky enough to make it to an older age. And what I do is I bake and I sew and I catch up with friends and I walk around my neighborhood. It almost feels like what you were saying earlier about this being practice. I do feel some of those feelings about taking comfort in older bits of culture or things I like from my childhood, but weirdly it almost feels more like a future to me, like a future future way years down the road.

Aminatou: Ugh, I love this. I love this as a place to end and it's making me feel a little hopeful. Can't wait to be old with you, play a round of golf and watch you quilt and watch bad TV. That's all I want for the future.

Ann: Can't wait. I can't wait for you to get me into golf and me to get you into quilting. This is the only place for this to end up.

Aminatou: Listen, I love quilting for you. I don't know that my eyesight or my patience is something that will ever be compatible for this. [Laughs] But I cannot wait for when you move on from doing baby quilts and I get an adult quilt so I wish you a hundred more years of quilting.

Ann: [Laughs] All right, well maybe I'm going to force you to make it with me. That will be your test to say have you adopted this hobby after we play our rounds of golf.

(40:00)

Aminatou: Listen, I love to give feedback on fabric. So that alone I feel like I can contribute to. We've got this.

Ann: Yeah, you can consult. Yes, uh-huh.

Aminatou: We've got this. Ugh, Ann Friedman I miss you a lot. You're the best.

Ann: I miss you too. I miss you too. All right, I will see you on the Internet yet again forever.

Aminatou: [Laughs] Worst tagline in the history of podcasting.

Ann: I hate being pressured!

Aminatou: I know.

Ann: I want it to be wrong. I want it to not feel accurate.

Aminatou: I know. I want to be like I'll see you on the couch. I truly dream of the day where I just truly am like I want to be on the same couch doing the same crossword and having a cup of tea together. That's all I want. That's all I want.

Ann: Aww, okay. I'm going to hang up before I cry. I also want that. I will see you on the couch at some point, maybe in years and years.

Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf. Our producer is Jordan Bailey and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.
Call Your Girlfriend