NEWS | Sandy Allen

Sunday Content #47

I haven't had my own Twitter password for well over a year and it's really been a blessing. My extremely part time assistant in Chicago sometimes posts tweets I write — for example I'm hiring a social media manager for a new podcast I'm launching, so I tweeted about that.

But I no longer go on Twitter. I can't even if I want to (I no longer want to). I no longer bathe in its vile and occasionally very funny stream. People still send me funny tweets sometimes, though I no longer know every little thing that is being discussed at the moment. Back when I worked at BuzzFeed I used to joke, if for example we lost Wifi for a few minutes, that now we all didn't know which memes were cool. Now I truly don't know which memes are cool and I'm not upset.

Perhaps it's simply that working in media a few years totally blew out my desire to deal with Twitter. As did the Nazis. As did anticipating having a book come out, given that I am, fundamentally, a big ole baby, a total wimp. As an adult I've gotten better at working around my own moods, especially when for example I take an edit. But I knew I probably couldn't handle encountering whatever I might encounter if I were on twitter still.

Anyway Whoopi Goldberg is wise. Here's how she responded when Stephen Colbert asked whether she reads about herself on social media.

No. Nah. I did once. I did in the early days because I thought I could engage with people and then I thought 'Well I can make myself feel really really bad, why am I going to someone who doesn't know me to make me feel like crap, when I can do this myself?'

He then asked how she deals with anxiety. She balked a little at the question. Eventually said "I just try to find a better part of me."

Lately I've been working on a very difficult piece. I've been waking up too early. I've slept fitfully, dreamt little, forgotten to exercise, written too may emails (both actually and in my mind). I've been trying to remember that my body loves yoga. I've been remembering to go outside with the puppy every two hours. We stand in the snow and the rain. I've been trying to let the puppy ground me in the moment rather than letting me fly away into space. I've been baking bread.

In the evenings I've been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and in that instance, I do deeply appreciate .... SPACE.

Speaking of space, here's Saturn. He grows 10 pounds an hour.

He sleeps 400 hours a day, primarily like this on his back, legs splayed as if in goddess pose

The Brown sisters, hosts of one of my favorite podcasts these days, How to Survive the End of the World, are on last week's Call Your Girlfriend giving some wonderful advice for the New Year. Especially loved thinking about the power of the small adjustment: https://www.callyourgirlfriend.com/episodes#/permission-slip-2019/

This mashup of two of my favorite podcasts made me want to share my favorite podcasts rn...

I listen to the aforementioned shows most eagerly these days, as well as Dear Prudence. Lately I'm loving The Wing's new podcast by Alexis Coe No Man's Land. I've been such a fan of Eve Ewing's new show, Bughouse Square. I love Nancy. I LOVE Still Processing and am thrilled it's back and the first episode of the season, about apology, was great: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/podcasts/still-processing-apology-kevin-hart.html

When I want to LOL there are a few shows I appreciate, namely Why Won't You Date Me? and Who? Weekly and The Read. When I'm craving interviews, I check out Longform, Fresh Air, On Being, Death Sex & Money. I loved Yo-Yo Ma on Song Exploder: https://songexploder.net/yo-yo-ma

In recent months I have listened to and read 1.5 billion interviews with Samin Nosrat and don't plan on stopping now. My favorite was Call Your Girlfriend. Buy the book. Watch the show. I've been cooking just about my whole life but Samin upended everything I know about cooking — in a good way. I make her granola and her crispy spatchcocked chicken weekly.

My favorite new albums lately are:

Rosalía - El Mal Querer

Tunde Olaniran - Stranger

Prince - Piano and a Microphone 1983

Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer (it's literally impossible to get sick of this album)

Noname - Room 25

Mitski - Be the Cowboy

Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel

Other than that, I've just been listening to Stevie Wonder and Stevie Wonder and Stevie Wonder...

Here is a cover of his "Visions" by the incredible Cécile McLorin Salvant:

Love,

Sandy

p.s. I'll be coming to Iowa City, Brooklyn, St. Paul, Oakland and Chapel Hill on my AKOMP paperback tour (and perhaps more!). All tour details will be out on social media soon and you can always find the latest at my events page: https://www.hellosandyallen.com/events

p.p.s. Want a glow-in-the-dark AKOMP guitar pick? Send a mailing address to mirraculas @ gmail and my assistant Alex will mail you one :)

p.p.p.s. Follow Mirraculas Paradise on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirraculasparadise/

p.p.p.p.s. ICYMI: my peach tree was discovered by a bear, who ate many of our nearly-ripe peaches, and then my husband made a station that played Reply All day and night to keep the bear away, which worked, and then his tweets about it blew up and then it was featured in Business Insider and then Radiolab and now, amazingly (this really never ends...), per their teacher, preschoolers who listened to the Radiolab episode were inspired to draw these artworks:

Maybe twitter isn't bad after all?

On Media Coverage of "Mental Health"

Two Essays about Being Nonbinary

The Power of a Small Adjustment