Pour Me A Story, Vol. 18

feat. Rebecca from Twitter, kids' TV shows and more

greetings pals, happy Friday, or whatever day it is when you choose to open this newsletter! thanks for joining me for yet another edition of Pour Me A Story, where [fill this out before you send it with some snappy one-liner.]

last week I foreshadowed that, by the time this hit your inboxes, we may have had two brand-new teeth in our household, courtesy of the ever-growing baby. well, they didn’t quite show up on that schedule, but they’ve started to peek out of her gums over the past couple days and when I tell you it’s the most adorable thing I’ve seen. and heard — because she’s starting to figure out she can use those little nubs to bite stuff with.

I guess she’ll be asking to borrow the car next.

Anyway, We Have Company

my guest this week is a fellow South Florida expat who also escaped from the journalism game, although not a former coworker. it’s funny how life works. while I quit the news business to sell shoes Rebecca, a.k.a. @mrsmcglover on Twitter, does strategic planning/marketing/fundraising for a national nonprofit, which is certainly more admirable in the grand scheme of things.

AC: hi Becky! how are you doing this fine whatever-day-it-is?

RM: I'm doing great! This is a wonderful morning here, I am working from home, sitting on my bed with my dog while my husband runs a fancy work presentation for a zillion people on the couch in the living room. This is still strange to me sometimes, but honestly, we just make the best out of it, day to day. It's hard to stay upbeat every single day and sometimes I just lay in bed staring at the ceiling and I think that's fine. We need that sometimes, too

AC: I totally get that. it's so unprecedented even after almost a year of operating day-to-day like this, and despite everything I think we can all be proud about the way we've all adapted to this very unclear world. so if you gotta lay in bed and stare at the ceiling some days, that's fine! how's work now that you've been away from journalism for a while?

RM: I love what I do now so much! It's such a fun and rewarding job and I actually do just as much if not more writing now than I did before. It's just in much more evenly paced environment and I have a lot more control over my own work and what I create for organization I work for. I actually started working in the nonprofit sector when I was just out of college. I worked for several high profile organizations, and I've always said I probably would be the CEO/Executive Director of some organization now if I had stuck with it, because I was on that path. I was moving up through the ranks, and then one day, I just decided I needed to try something I've always wanted to try. And that was journalism.

I was living in San Francisco at the peak of the 2008/2009 financial collapse and I saw everyone's lives falling apart. It was only a matter of time before it hit my industry. Plus, I wasn't very happy where I was in my life. I was lonely and felt unfulfilled. And I thought, well, if I'm going to go broke/lose everything, I'm going to do it doing something I truly love. So I started a new chapter, trying to make it as a writer. It was either the stupidest thing or the best thing I ever did with my life. But within a year I had a full time writing job, within 2 I was an editor, and within 5 years I was working for national sites with millions of readers. A truly wild ride!

AC: a leap of faith that absolutely paid off in spades! now I was trying to think of where we first crossed e-paths, and I'm PRETTY sure it was around 2016 when I was working in West Palm Beach. is that right? do you have a background down there?

RM: I grew up there, yes. I think we were mutuals with Leslie Streeter, who like me, was a huge Burt Reynolds fan (RIP). Burt and I went to the same high school (albeit years apart) and I was a Bandit fan since I was a little girl. Leslie met him a few times, IIRC, so we bonded about that. And the Post was the paper I always wanted to work for, so I was HELLA jealous of all of you. There's something about your hometown paper that you never let go of. To me it will always be the coolest publication in the world. We got it every day on our doorstep.

I know people hear "Florida" and they immediately see that Bugs Bunny saw gif but really, to me, it was the most amazing incredible beautiful strange place to grow up. We didn't have a lot of money, my mother worked as a live-in housekeeper/cook, so the Palm Beach that I knew was very different than what people saw when they watched Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. We lived in mansions and my mother worked for some of the wealthiest people in the country. To me there were just "Mr So&So" or "Mrs Such&Such." She drove me school in a Rolls Royce once! But we had to save pennies in a jar to buy my school supplies.

This is probably where I SHOULDN'T tell you that she *almost* took a job working at mar-a-lago for YouKnowWho.

AC: oly shit, that's all incredible. when you first said "the Palm Beach that I knew" I related to it in the sense of, "everyone hears West Palm Beach and thinks of the island, but I lived in a slightly-better-than-crappy apartment complex and worked two jobs to pay the rent, so it's not the glamorous lifestyle you might imagine." Palm Beach is just another planet entirely. do you go back to visit? are there things you miss from south Florida?

RM: Exactly. My mother used to say this a lot; Palm Beach only survives on the backs of the people who work their asses off to pamper a handful of people and make sure they (god forbid) never ever have to see a speck of dust or book on a shelf askew.
I have a group of friends who I knew as far back as kindergarten and there's maybe 5-6 of us and the thing is literally ALL OF US moved away after high school. New York, LA, Boston, Chicago (me)...it's like we couldn't wait to get away. But I absolutely miss it so much.

I miss how beautiful it is. One of the most stunning landscapes in the country. People think of the beaches, but there's the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee and so much wildlife. Snorkeling in the Keys, swimming in the mangroves, having a manatee swim up to you and check you out nose-to-nose, air boat rides where you're more afraid to get cut by the blades of the sawgrass than of the baby alligators swarming around the boat, drinking Cuban coffee at 3 a.m. so you have enough energy to make it back from Miami Beach before your mom wakes up and realizes you took the car to go party again lol. My mom's punishment was always to make me vacuum out her car and do you have any idea how hard it is to get sand out of a station wagon that makes 5 trips to the beach every week?

My husband and I are planning a long road trip out to Florida some time next year. We're going to take a month off and drive through the US (he's never done that!) and I'm going to take him to all my old stomping grounds.

AC: oh wow that's such a cool trip idea. I got to do that on a smaller scale in late 2019 when Alex and I went back to Maine for my first time since I left there in 2015, and it was surreal to be back in a place you have such strong emotional memories of. I don't love driving long distances but I think when you're taking your time and aren't on a schedule, it's a whole different ballgame. is Chris from California?

RM: Yes, he was born and raised in LA County. Funny thing, we both had the same sort of career path. He had a corporate gig and when the crisis hit in '09, we also decided to try his hand at writing. Would you believe that we both ended up working at different newspapers in the same state, maybe a few hours apart, about a year or so before we met? I always say this, whatever path the universe put me on with writing, I never ever regret one minute of the bad times because ultimately it led me to my husband. That's the best to come from all of this.

AC: the universe really does have a funny way of working out, doesn't it? I based myself here in Denver when I first immigrated, then went to Maine and Florida for jobs, and the latter was miserable for me for professional and personal reasons. then I was asked to interview for a job at the Denver Post that I don't even remember applying for, and within two weeks I'd accepted an offer with a huge raise to move back to the city I wished I had never had to leave. four years later I'm here with a partner and a baby? it's really wild. what route is this road trip going to take? you have so many options!

RM: Oh we're coming to Denver, you know. You know I want to see that baby! I drove through Denver one time and it scared the shit out of me. It was one of those "A large boulder the size of a small boulder crushed a car exactly like the one you're driving, Becky!" news days, too. I was like "THIS CITY WILL KILL US ALL." We're trying to hit up both places where we have friends and places we haven't seen. We have old friends in Texas we dearly miss and I have some scattered family and friends in Louisiana and Alabama.

AC: hahaha yeah I do not really like the mountain driving, mostly because it feels like there's so much pressure both internally to be safe and externally to make sure I'm not putting someone behind me in a position where they can't make it up the incline. I had a scary experience on my birthday weekend in 2013 driving to Aspen (had to get out and push! up a mountain! in non-hiking boots! while it was snowing!) and that probably informed a lot of my feelings about it. but I digress. I know you guys are both good cooks and good eaters, have you made any kitchen discoveries or new cooking revelations since we started staying home forever?

RM: Chris didn't really cook a lot before so for him he really took the opportunity to dive in and learn as much as possible about it. He knew how to cook before and never really shunned helping me out but he just didn't know a lot about it. But this really gave him an opportunity to explore the pleasures of cooking. He looks forward to it now, as a meditative process. For him, it's an hour of just focusing on something that's not work or the pandemic or some related stress.

I absolutely love to cook so it's always been something he's hovered around, being curious about how I make all this food. He's much more detail/process oriented than I am. If a recipe says 1/8 of tsp of salt, the man gets 1/8 teaspoon out lol. I'm not a recipe cook, I cook like my mother, just off of smell, sight, taste, so it can be hard to learn from someone like me. He'll look up a recipe for something and I'll glance at it, mostly for ingredient ideas and then I'll go totally off script and he'll stand there like I just decided to let the dog drive the car or something. He makes me laugh so much, the way he treats everything so seriously is such a delight. He's made beer before but this year he got really into brining/pickling. He loves the science behind that. And then he made some mead and some other fermented beverages. We're like bootleggers. Also, he's a much better baker than I am. He bakes beer bread which is fucking delicious. Even when I use the breadmaker my breads come out a little janky.

I'll tell you something else, and this is me being very honest and blunt about how the year has been for me. I absolutely reached a breaking point. Maybe towards the end of the summer? Remember when everyone thought we'd be back to normal by August and then we realized this was far from over? I just shut down. I didn't want to clean or cook or decorate or do my hair or makeup. I just went into a sad place. I just sat here doomscrolling, watching TV, trying to work. My husband took over everything in this house and never complained or said one thing about. He cooked, did every bit of laundry, scrubbed the floors, made the bed, took care of the dog. He gave me that time to just nope out of everything. I don't know what I would have done without him.

AC: that’s like the perfect yin-yang of cooking personalities, the perfect match! amazing. I’m probably closer to your style than his. I’ve tried making beer before but I just wasn’t good with the science and the specificity of it, and my home brew beer was subsequently fuckin awful and inconsistent. the college kids I sold it to enjoyed it though, so whatever. okay last one then I’ll let you go. this is the part of the show where you get to plug something you enjoy or is personally important to you. sky’s the limit!

RM: Definitely link to my pinned tweet and STAN COZY MYSTERIES!

One thing I do want to add is that if you're a young (or older lol) person who is struggling in journalism/news pr got laid off from a publication/site ynd you don't think you can quit or go into another industry because you don't have the training/education, you absolutely should know how valuable you are! I felt awful when I got laid off the last time. I thought there were no other options for me. But I quickly found out that those skills (research, writing, talking to people, meeting high pressure deadlines, etc etc) are EXTREMELY highly prized right now. A lot of these venture capital vultures who gobbled up papers want you to feel utterly worthless, that no one else but them would ever hire you. They want you to feel like you need them. But you don't! There are places dying to get their hands on you and they'll pay you a lot to get access to your skills. And I don't mean you have to go work as a spokesperson for some evil corporation talking to the press about why a bunch of babies dying from your tainted formula isn't your company's fault either. There are so many great advocacy organizations, campaigns, nonprofits, government entities, etc that do important work that really could benefit from your experience. Don't work that 70 hour week with no overtime being shamed by your boss because you asked for an extra 30 minutes at lunch to go see a doctor.

Oh yes, please don't forget to promote my beautiful dog, who was a professional dog model but has now retired.

AC: I'm going to have our fact checkers go through this thoroughly to make sure your dog was in fact a professional dog model. but you better supply a photo because last time I mentioned someone's dog but didn't post a photo I got yelled at. and that is a terrific message for all the journalism folk out there who think it might be hopeless and that they're unable to get out. I know I had a tough time trying to find non-journalism work but it turns out those skills ARE valuable! and that's a nice thing to feel, not to mention better hours and working environments. well thank you so much for sharing some of your time with me this afternoon!

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There Are No Monsters That Live Here

Scott over at the Action Cookbook Newsletter did a great piece this week about screen time for kids, and the particular show that his youngsters are enthralled with to the point that it inspires their non-TV playtime as well.

screen time moderation is a real and perplexing issue for parents in 2021, and frankly I’m a little jealous that Scott’s kids watch something with some form of narrative. we don’t turn to the TV very frequently in our house, in part due to the fact that the baby is not quite 10 months old, but sometimes it’s a last resort when bubba’s having a tough day or dad has a meeting he needs to pay attention to before naptime.

the one show we’ve found sparks interest in the little one is called Little Baby Bum, a colorful universe of people, anthropomorphic animals and buses with grinning faces. each segment is a song, the vast majority of them are reasonably educational, and some even touch on subjects I never would’ve thought to teach a child (like “if your friends want to hang out, but you don’t feel like it, that’s perfectly okay.”)

we found a mommy blog that took a “humorous look” at the show but I feel like I could’ve done better, and there really are some weird and fascinating little bits and pieces that play on my mind long after the baby is in bed at night. I’d say I would just do it in this space, but I don’t know that this is what the audience wants. speak now or forever hold your peace!

Worthy Consumables

so often we (rightly) criticize corporate brands that make a big deal about Black History Month when they're quiet about basic human rights every other month of the year. this year is the first time I've had a corporate/brand platform (being the blogs I manage for JD Sports and Finish Line) and I wanted to do it right, even if it was just a small thing.

in a broader sense, leadership has been good at listening to my team’s assertions and advice about how to support social justice initiatives since last summer, and the company has followed through on its commitment to listening, educating and donating.

but I wanted to support Black History Month in my own way, even though my channel reach on the blog is small compared to our social accounts. so I pitched to my leaders the idea of hosting a series of written pieces covering topics from history that deserve a wider understanding and awareness, and it was OKed.

so each Thursday throughout February I’m publishing a piece by a Black writer with the intention of offering some information that our reader demographic may not have already known. last Thursday, Jasmine Watkins wrote about Henrietta Lacks, while this week Zito Madu explored the importance, and the exhausting nature, of standing against racism. both pieces are well worth your time to read.

Parting Note

this weekend I have to run 12.5 miles, like in one go, and this is the first song on the Nike Run Club app’s Long Run playlist.

this is a huge departure from my usual style, but I’ve found lately that running to music that isn’t something I’ve heard 500 times and grown comfortable with is a good way to stop paying attention to the music. kinda like white noise, I guess.

thanks for hanging with me again through another accidentally-long issue, pals. I’ll catch you next week.

— adrian ✌🏻