Pour Me A Story, Vol. 26

feat. Danika Worthington, digital memories, powerful water fowl and more

greetings folks, and welcome back to another edition of Pour Me A Story. apologies for last week’s semi-hiatus: as I mentioned, I wrote so much for my job that I ran out of time to organize an interviewee and couldn’t muster the energy to do so if I tried. but we’re back! and this is a terrific post if I do say so myself.

it’s been another full and busy seven days on this end. we got some good news earlier in the week when we were able to schedule our second vaccination appointments, which is a tremendous relief. it’s really incredible to read about the sheer number of shots they’re putting in arms all across America every day (3 million! a day! holy shit!) and it feels as though we’re finally figuring it out after all this time. it’s not over yet pals — keep wearing your masks and washing your hands — but there’s hope ahead.

I’m also back to running this weekend (fuck) with a 5K I signed up for mere hours after finishing the half-marathon back in March. I did it as some sort of motivation to keep myself working out, but my body hasn’t responded the way I expected it to post-half and so my “training” has been minimal. I’m not expecting any kind of lightning-fast times, but it’s for charity so the least I can do is get out there and give it a shot.

Anyway, We Have Company

this week we’re joined by Danika Worthington, a true badass and cat mom whose acquaintance I first made when I worked at the Denver Post back in 2017 and 2018. my first true memory of Danika was on a Saturday morning shift on my fifth day of work ever, when the guy training me spent the day watching movies on his computer. Danika was watching a women’s soccer game and seemed very invested, which as a certified Sports Guy I could get behind. then I got off work, went home and got changed to go for a run when I saw I had a DM from Danika inviting me out for a beer. I immediately changed into regular clothes and proceeded to have dozens of beers, did some karaoke and ate some pizza with her and my fellow coworkers. anyway here she is.

AC: hey Danika! how’s things going this fine Thursday?

DW: Hey Adrian! Pretty good pretty good. I didn’t get enough sleep last night so I’m dragging a bit but that’s life. I’m sure you have no idea what that’s like now that you’re a parent

AC: I absolutely cannot relate to that. Side note: who the hell invented the term “slept like a baby” because that shit is false advertising to the extreme. Anyway, here’s a softball question to get going. You’re now about two weeks into the new gig -- can you tell the people reading along at home a bit about it, and tell ME about how your life has changed in the past two weeks? Told you it was an easy one.

DW: For sure. I just started as the Social and Presentation Editor at The Colorado Sun, it’s an independent news org that was created by a bunch of local journalists in 2018. I run the social, help write the newsletter and create graphics for stories. I’m also getting ready to help our reporters learn SEO and audience engagement.
I’m still getting my feet under me but it’s been fun to really think about ways to tell a story and how I can best present information to a targeted audience. I came from The Denver Post where the main driver was pageviews. So now I’m rewiring my thinking a bit to focus on how we can get people to become members. It’s just super interesting to think about our mission on a high level and then translate that to the ground level with tweets, lol.

But honestly the biggest change is starting the work day at 6 am. The downside is I have to go to bed really early. The upside is that my cat is apparently super cuddly in the morning.

AC: based on plenty of reader feedback over the past few months, pet photos are non-negotiable, so I’ll be grabbing some choice Kiki shots from your Twitter to embed here. that’s fantastic though, and as you’re already well aware I’m very excited for you. something I’m VERY curious about and just absolutely cannot picture: what the HELL does a “first day of work” look like in a time when you don’t go to the office for your first day of work?

DW: It is so weird! I was late on my first day because I couldn’t join the Zoom call. Technology betrayed me.  

The hardest part of a new job is getting to know a place and your coworkers’ vibes. Like, what’s the best way to approach this person or how do we as an organization feel about x, y and z. Normally you pick up on someone’s deal when you bump into them in the break room. Since there’s no break room these days and it’s a small company, I’m doing one-on-one zoom and phone calls with people. I basically ask them a bunch of questions to get a read on them and the place. They also have never had someone in my position before so it’s a way for me to suss out issues and convert people to my way of thinking without overwhelming them. It’s also just good to know what people’s workplace problems are so I can see if I can help address them. 

And on a super practical note, learning the right slack channels is hard! I’m used to physical newsrooms, right? So if I didn’t know something, Id at least know where to physically wander over to in search of someone who knows. When The Post moved remote during the pandemic, I couldn’t physically walk over but the pathways were in my brain so I knew who to message. 

But when it’s all virtual, I have no desk I can walk over to. It’s a lot harder for my brain to make those connections of “this is where I go to ask about this” when I’m not starting from a real-world base. I honestly just couched a lot of things on Slack by saying, “not sure if this belongs here...” and people pointed me in the right direction. 

But anyhoo, getting used to a new work setting while still physically in the same setting is weird as fuck.

AC: that’s a very good point though, like even just body language and tone of voice can be so instructive when interacting with new coworkers for the first time, so building that first impression from behind a screen must be incredibly challenging. but I have faith in you. so it feels like we’re on the way out of This Whole Mess, and I know you (and possibly Alex?) have got your first shots which is terrific news. looking back over the last year, what has this whole experience been like for you guys?

DW: We have both gotten our first shots! It’s been both incredibly awful and incredibly great, the latter being really bad to say considering how awful this year was to so many people.

The Post was doing furlough weeks which turned into a blessing in disguise. No pay was shitty but it was the first time in my adult life when I had whole weeks off with nothing I to do. And that led to a lot of great introspection. Like, what do I actually enjoy doing? What skills do I want to develop? Am I happy at work? What systems am I complicit in and how do I change them? How are my relationships? Is it possible to cook eggs without breaking at least one yolk? (No.)

I was doing therapy which really helped me learn how to work through these questions. And taking the time to work on myself turned me into, like, a significantly more self-assured and confident person??? Finding positive sources of validation??? Identifying and removing toxic situations??? It’s a concept!

Honestly, Alex has been super supportive through all this. And, I mean I’m biased, but I think I’ve shown her the same level of support. So it’s been great for our relationship. Hell, we even got engaged during this. (Admittedly that was already on the books pre-pandemic but let’s not dig into details.)

Alex got a not-so-great bout of COVID at the start of all this. And she’s had some long term symptoms with some surprise periods of just intense exhaustion. So that’s been scary. But thankfully she’s working with a doctor and so hopefully it’ll all turn around soon here. 

Can I flip the table a bit? You had a BABY during all this. How has it been for you and your Alex???

AC: as I think I’ve mentioned before, no matter what our situations in life look like, whether we’ve kept or lost jobs or homes or relationships or health, we’ve all been through a traumatic and difficult event and there’s a collective survivor mentality there. we can feel as though our year was difficult even though we may have been in a much more privileged position than others. and I’m glad you’ve come out the other side (well almost) feeling as though you’ve been able to grow.

I would say things for us have been a really steep learning curve, it would’ve looked a lot different without a baby to take care of. there have been tough moments and stress and lack of sleep and fear, but we’ve managed to stick it out and support each other’s needs as best we could. did you pick up any quarantine hobbies? there was a lot of banana bread in our house early. And I uhh started a newsletter. 

DW: Well said. And yes, I have! I actually cook now instead of just putting the Trader Joe’s shrimp Gyoza on the stove. I try to doodle and do “art.” I’ve also found myself becoming addicted to video games, playing them nonstop for 72 hours and then not touching them again for weeks. Alex is the gamer in the house so she’s been encouraging me along the way. I tried to pick up the piano but I only played it twice and now it’s just $300 that sits in the corner of our guest room. But hey, we can’t win them all.

AC: to be quite honest, Trader Joe’s involves plenty of “cooking.” and I don’t blame you for not picking up the piano, it’s probably fuckin 300 pounds. what video games have you been playing? I tried picking up The Last Of Us but who knew that playing a video game set in a post-pandemic-ravaged society during a pandemic would be difficult to stick with?

DW: Hahahaha I’ve been rotating between Breath of the Wild and Life is Strange so two *very* different vibes.

AC: at the very least, Life is Strange’s title is fitting. okay two more softballs and I’ll let you go because this was NOT the hour that I promised it would be. guest of the week gets to choose the song of the week, something that’s fitting or you’ve been jamming to lately or...whatever!

DW: This is a tough q. And people always have great suggestions so no pressure. But imma say Beach Bunny’s Cloud9. I have been repping a hat of hers recently so decided to dive back in and this one just makes me dance and scream along.

AC: and if there’s one thing we could all use, it’s a good scream. perfect. okay last one! this is where you get to plug something close to you or important or whatever. sky’s the limit!

DW: Given the bullshit going on for trans youth, people should consider supporting Intransitive. It’s an organization founded by trans folks in Arkansas who are working toward trans liberation.

AC: I love this, thank you for sharing. And thank you for sharing some of your Thursday evening with me!!

DW: Of course! Anytime 🤙🏻

(editor’s note: Danika and I subsequently spent the next 45 minutes sharing embarrassing bathroom-related stories from our time at the Denver Post that will not be posted in this space. I only mention it because it made me stifle braying laughter as I copied our interview from iMessage into Substack. okay that is all.)

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Digital Trips Down Memory Lane

one July day back in 2018, I stepped out of the Denver Post office for a lunch break. prior to this job I rarely took a lunch break, but by that point in my Post career, I was desperate for time away from my desk. I used to time it so that I’d return from lunch around 1:15, which meant there was less than an hour remaining in my shift, which seemed much more manageable than if I were to take it at, say, noon.

anyway this particular day I got back to my desk, scrolled Twitter for a couple minutes, fired off a casual tweet based on a tech reporter’s prompt, and went to a meeting. I didn’t think much of it until I got on the bus to ride home, when I noticed the innocuous two-word post (which intentionally misinterpreted the prompt and made fun of my predilection for bar food) had started to pick up likes and retweets at a rapid pace.

the tweet proved to be enormously popular, which might seem good in theory but is actually very annoying in practice. anyway the point of all this is that the tech reporter, Lauren Goode, and I were forever inextricably linked via this absolute dumbshit post. now we’re internet pals who occasionally share a mozzarella sticks joke online. the internet is fucking weird, man.

anyway, Lauren is a writer for WIRED and shared a really thought-provoking piece this week about the trail of digital memories — photos, marketing emails, “on this day” posts — that has followed her since she called off her wedding in 2019. go read it, I’ll wait here.

…

okay now that you’ve read it, you’ll realize that it’s the type of thing that follows every one of us who’s lived a Very Online life in the past decade or so. I’m fortunate in the sense that I don’t use TimeHop and I rarely log in to Facebook anymore, so I don’t see those long-buried “on this day” memory notifications, and those that I do see are pretty tame and don’t tear open old emotional wounds. I’ve done a good enough job of curating my social feeds over the years that they’re not filled with memories I’d rather not see, but there are still infrequent reminders of things that seemed to have happened two or three lifetimes ago.

almost immediately, though, it had me scrolling through my phone’s camera roll, which currently goes back to the summer of 2019, and reliving the almost-year of the baby’s life through photos. and it’s just so difficult to fathom that the tiny fragile peanut from last May, or the squishy little human just learning how to use her arms and legs, has turned into this walking, almost-talking, grilled cheese-eating child that she’s become.

this is totally the opposite of the point that Lauren’s story makes, so that’s kind of an awkward segue, but life changes so damn fast, folks. don’t forget to go back through those photos that you think you’re keeping for a reason and make sure you actually look at them.

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Worthy Consumables

it’s long appeared that Hollywood and the entertainment business at large is almost entirely out of ideas. I don’t have evidence to back this up, but I’m estimating that a whopping 67 percent of TV shows and movies released in the past 10 years have been reboots or remakes of the same stories we’ve been watching for years.

no franchise is safe. we’ve seen Cobra Kai (which is good!) bring The Karate Kid into the 21st century. we’ve seen approximately 75 leading men take on the role of Batman, which is disappointing because Christian Bale is the best one of all. there’s even a reboot of 101 Dalmations coming that gives an origin story to Cruella de Ville. sure?

so it was inevitable that the rehash machine was going to get around to one of my all-time favorite childhood properties: The Mighty Ducks. this is a movie series that made me pretend to play ice hockey with two taped-together pieces of wood as a stick and the plastic cap of a shipping tube as a puck when I was eight years old, in Australia, where there is no ice, let alone ice hockey.

it’s now back as The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. it’s one of those TV series that’s clearly aimed at my age bracket rather than kids who might enjoy a show about a scrappy upstart sports team learning a thing or two (while careening towards an inevitable showdown with the well-funded, well-equipped, talented team of bullies.)

we’ve only watched one episode so far, and it’s as predictable as you can imagine, but nostalgia is a powerful force. and listening to Emilio Estevez, who reprises his role as Gordon Bombay, say the words “hockey” or “ducks” is basically ASMR for me.

anyway it’s probably not going to be Ted Lasso-level feelgood, but so far it’s an easy and familiar watch. give it a shot if you’ve got Disney+.

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Parting Note

as per Danika’s request, here is Cloud 9 by Beach Bunny (not to be confused with Bad Bunny, whose music I’m equally unfamiliar with!)

thanks again for hanging with me this fine Friday, you guys. catch you next week for another edition!

— adrian ✌🏻