Get to know my rats.
plus, your advice for each other and a captivating intergenerational exchange on climate
We are still in the fun rollout phase of our relaunch at Slate, and this week, we wanted to show you around the place and introduce you to some of our new colleagues. The new episode this week is about advice for big transitions. Many of you sent in stories and advice questions, and joining me to respond are three of my Slate coworkers: Lizzie O’Leary, host of Slate’s tech news podcast What Next: TBD, Slate’s senior writer Mark Joseph Stern, and Ronald Young, Jr., co-host of Slate’s podcast Working and creator of the award-winning series Weight for For It. I’m excited for you to hear each other and to get to know them better.
I’ve also been making the rounds to re-introduce myself and the show. I wrote about my series of life-changing encounters with psychics for Slate’s site, and I got to be a guest with Ronald on Slate’s podcast Working to talk about the arc of my working life, including my early days as a political reporter and whether I ever call myself “a creative.” (I do not.) I also recently popped by Dear Prudence, Slate’s flagship advice podcast, and in an interview with The Cut, I described my routines at home and my family’s new pet rats - “Mango, Poppy, and Pinky (but Pinky might also be Oreo; we’re still debating it.”
Breaking news! Since press time, we have landed firmly on the name Oreo for rat #3…and purchased the above rat purse?! (They are snug in there — and there are air holes! — but rest assured, I will not be venturing out with this. It is a stay-at-home rat sack.)
Death, Sex & Money also got to re-introduce ourselves to….Times Square. Heyo!!!!
Your Advice for Each Other
Last week, I shared a listener question about whether to move out of a house with heavy memories from a past relationship.
A few listeners weighed in, including this man who made a move back into a home with history:
I immediately thought of my current home. I bought this house in 2008 with a previous girlfriend and within a year had a really difficult traumatic heartbreaking break up. She moved out and I moved out because I couldn’t be in the space any longer, so I rented it for a few years….I was recently married and my wife was pregnant with our first daughter. We live in a city with a very difficult housing market so moving back into this house which had more space in a quiet neighborhood made all the sense in the world….About 10 years have gone by and I have learned that I still live with the mixed feelings and memories , the sad ones and the happy ones that occupy the same physical space. Sometimes it’s confusing, sometimes it’s frustrating, sometimes it feels cathartic or therapeutic, but that feeling has never really gone away, I’ve just learned to manage and contextualize the confusing, simultaneous feelings. something about sitting with that duality feels grounding or comforting, like I’m being forced to face some painful regrets, and work through them in an intentional way.
So for your listener, I would say: if she can stay in that place and move forward and not feel stuck then that is an option. But if she can’t, I understand that, perhaps a new location will give her a fresh start.
And another of you shared this:
I moved into the bright white studio apartment after my 15 year marriage suddenly… ended. We had just bought a house together, my sweet grandfather had just passed away and I was just barely holding it together. I decided to live alone for the first time in my life. I thought I would move in and discover who I was and then emerge a year later, ready for what was next. The pandemic spun a very different story, expanding my discovery year into over 4 years.
I finally moved at the end of last year, fully knowing that I would take every one of those textured scars and dusty memories with me, but needing space away from the same walls that I fell against when I was distraught, the floor that caught what felt like millions of spilled tears, the windows that I stared out of when the rest of the city was sleeping, the constant visual reminders of one of the most painful and truly isolated seasons of my life. This new home has textured walls too, but they are a different, subdued shade of white. The scars, the memories, the whispers are still with me, but they are softer now that I have a different view….Whatever you decide to do, it takes courage to reach out and I’m so thankful that you did.
A Different Kind of 90s Playlist
If you have been a regular listener to Death, Sex & Money, you know that I am a sucker for cross-generational exchanges that dig in. These days, my favorite variety is when one in the pair is 90+.
Last week, I saw Willie Nelson in concert in Berkeley, a few days shy of his 91st birthday. I cried first when he sang “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,” and then many more times after that. We didn’t actually get to speak, but he spoke to me nonetheless. (There’s a great review here from Willie’s show in San Diego with the same setlist.) The one Willie lyric that has stuck in my head in the days since is this line: The world's getting smaller and everyone in it belongs. It’s from the song “Write Your Own Songs.” I just love the way that warm and loving invitation is embedded inside a verse that’s all defiance:
Mr. Purified Country don't you know what the whole things about
Is your head up your ass so far that you can't pull it out
The world's getting smaller and everyone in it belongs
And if you can't see that Mr. Purified Country
Why don't you just write your own songs
I didn’t capture Willie’s Berkeley performance of this on video, but here he is singing the same song in 2021 at Farm Aid.
Another notable birthday this week is Joanna Macy’s, the noted Buddhist scholar, author, and environmentalist, who is turning 95 on May 2. There’s a wonderful new podcast series about her work, made by my friend and colleague Jess Serrante, a climate activist and coach.
This series captures Jess and Joanna’s friendship and their rich conversations about the emotional and spiritual work required of us while we confront the reality of climate change. I helped out on some edits with Jess, and even though I was familiar with much of the tape, listening to the first two polished episodes has knocked me back and changed me.
Do check it out. It’s called We Are the Great Turning.
Until next week,
Anna
Come see me in person
**THIS WEEK** Washington, D.C. on Thursday, 5/2 — Come out and think about democracy, economic policy, and our relationships with one another on Thursday! I’m interviewing Natalie Foster about her new book The Guarantee: Inside the Fight For America’s Next Economy at Politics & Prose. Info here.
San Francisco on 5/23 – I’m interviewing Miranda July about her sexy new novel All Fours live on stage at City Arts & Lectures. Info and tickets here.
New York, NY on 6/11 - I’m talking with Kara Swisher about interviewing, among other things, as part of the Tribeca Festival. Tickets are available starting today. Get yours!
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4/30 You’re at a Crossroads. We’re Here to Help.
Rats can be awesome pets. I inadvertently became a pet dad to 3 rats a few years ago. My wife got obsessed with ball pythons and they only ate “fresh” rats. Well, one of the rats we discovered was pregnant so we ended up keeping that one as well as three of her babies. It was a little crazy having one enclosure for feeding rats and another for pet rats. I wrote about the whole thing in a post last year that you can read here.
https://open.substack.com/pub/earworm/p/ub40-rat-in-mi-kitchen?r=1046qe&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I definitely felt like a stay-at-home rat sack during those bad pandemic days