April 13, 2020 • 39 mins
As we navigate this continually changing landscape, we’re back with another C&C episode. This week, we’re sharing updates from our lives as we do our best to find balance and a little bit of breathing room amidst the chaos — and even create some positive change in the ways we know how. Also: making a care budget, redefining Slacktivism, and staying sane on social media.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of My
Heart Radiom. Hey, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott
Campbell and you're listening to The Limit does Not Exist,
a podcast for human then diagrams, coming at you every
(00:21):
single week and hosted by us in this time that
is well indescribable. We are here with another C and
C episode. It feels right to us to check in
with you and each other as much as we can
as we navigate this continually changing landscape and try to
(00:42):
find some safety insanity. Today we'll share updates from our lives,
including a socially distant fight I got into while trying
to find my zen and how I finally got back
to my roots and also took care of them. It's
all about how we're funding balance in a little breathing
room amidst the chaos, and how we're staying connected to
the real world and creating actual change through the Internet.
(01:05):
So Christina, let's just jump in, shall we? Let's do it? Hi? Christina, Hi, Kate,
how are you well. I got into a fight with
two runners yesterday. Oh my gosh, I saw your tweet,
(01:29):
so you know I am trying to be responsible I
am socially distancing. I'm staying inside except for absolutely necessary.
But I need exercise. I have to walk. I can't
just do laps of my six square foot apartment. So
once a day, I strap on the baby and we
take a walk in Prospect Park. And we have this
great little two mile loop that I have discovered that's
(01:51):
like all all these like off the beaten path trails,
like I do not go in the high trafficked areas.
I have like this perfect loop that keeps me away
from other people. I'm supposed the Prospect Park is open
that you can, so keep this up. As the weather
gets nicer and they're going to be shutting down the parks,
I promise you. I try to go when it's raining,
when it's cold. I picked the worst time of the
(02:13):
day in order to keep the people down right, I'm
doing my part. I love that yourself care is also
self sacrifice. That feels so right for right now. So
Arden is on my my front. We're walking through and
we're stopped at a stoplight where like we have to
cross one more street to get into the park, and
you know, this is a pretty big roadway area, and
(02:34):
so there's like multiple islands as you like split up
the lanes, and of course you're not waiting for the
actual light to change, You're just waiting for the cars
get out of the way and jaywalking because right, so
like you run across one lane and you hang out
in an island, then you wait for the next side
and you run right. There's not a ton of space
on the island, is the point of this very long introduction.
(02:56):
So I'm standing. I've kept my distance on both sides
from everyone. But as I'm standing there, my sister calls
and I go to answer the phone, and these two
runners come up and they stand right next to me.
The woman's shoulder touches my shoulder, and I know that
feels like overreaction, Kate, but like, I haven't been touched
(03:17):
by a stranger in weeks, and it felt it felt
like she was just like Viola. It does not feel
like an overreaction. It feels like a total violation in
the midst of a global crisis of And she and
her friend were not wearing masks. They were panting heavily
because they're running. I'm wearing a mask, but my baby
is not. She's five months old. She's not going to
(03:38):
tolerate a mask, and they are absolutely breathing in my
baby space and I lost my ish. Yes, Mama, the
six ft applies to you. They start running across the
street and they turn around realizing they've just been yelled at,
and they can't figure out who just yelled at them
(03:58):
because I'm wearing a mask and I have a five
month old strap to my front and I look adorable,
And so I use my forehead muscles because I have
not had botox and I have very expressive forehead us
to demonstrate to them that I am the one upset
with them because they can't figure out who they have wronged,
and so I let them cross the street. It put
(04:21):
me in a mood. I had to shake it off,
and then I came home and wrote a very angry tweet.
I really appreciated your tweet. It was angry and also
very concise and impactful. I was just like, what part
of six ft does not apply to you? Like you're
still a human being, you still are spewing droplets? Six
Absolutely absolutely, I don't know what it is, but I
(04:43):
absolutely support you in the reaction that you had and
for Arden to see her mom standing up for her
like a total badass. You know. I was just Oh,
I ended my tweet with something like by God, I
will end you and or and I think it was that.
I was like, it's like, I swear to God I
will And that is absolutely the like fire burning in
(05:09):
my my soul that I felt in that moment. It
was rage. It was it was primal, it was to
the core. It was nothing less than all of those things.
We can't hike in l A. The hikes have been
closed for a long time, and people are of course
violating that. I will not be one of those people,
because this is not the time to do that. So
(05:31):
I have just been like walking around the neighborhood. And
first of all, it's really difficult to walk at the
speed that I usually like to walk with a mask on.
So I'm impressed that you're able to. So I'm full on,
like mouth breathing, panting behind this mask, and when I
get home, I like have to wipe down my face.
You know, it's going to be interesting. Typically in a recession,
(05:53):
lipstick sales go through the roof because people can't afford
to buy anything else, and so they're like, well, I'll
treat myself to this dollar lipstick because I can't buy
a new dress and new pair of shoes, a trip whatever.
It will be interesting because in a recession, while everyone
is wearing a mask, no one's going to buy lipstick.
What's the new lipstick? Is it eyeliner? It's so true.
(06:14):
I don't know the color touch up. Yes, anyway, you
were walking and you don't like the masks. I took
you off your story with me. It was just that
something about that. You know, people have been pretty good here,
but it has been very, very crowded in the neighborhood,
and some people are better than others. It's just that's
(06:34):
the truth. I'm reaching that point where I'm about to
scream at strangers of like, what part of the news
are you not watching? I know, I know. I have
a friend who openly screamed at someone the other day.
She's like, I just lost it. She's a cancer survivor.
She understands immunity. She's like, do your part, so are
(06:58):
you deep breaths. I'm I'm hanging in there. I am,
you know. I mean again, that question, of course, is
becoming more and more impossible to answer. But I'm hanging
in there. I got my roots touched up, which was exciting. Yeah,
so you know, it was such a wonderful way to
(07:20):
also support my salon because my salon, Lucas Salon in
Los Angeles, lovely little spot. They put together these really
thoughtful color kits for everybody with their you need your
formula specific. Yeah, with my specific formula spoiler alert, I
get a little help for this color. The woman who
(07:40):
runs the salon just quarantined herself in the salon. She
had a mask and gloves on. She took all of
the kind of formulas from the other colorist and then
you were given a time and you drove up and
then there was a whole exchange where she was there.
I paid through Venmo. She left it out on a
table outside and then I was able to drive away
(08:00):
and then my wonderful hair stylist I picked it up
on a Saturday afternoon and I planned to do it
the next Sunday morning, and he texts me. He's like, Okay,
you have to do it in twelve hours because color oxidizes,
And I was like chemistry, right, oh my god. So
at this point it's like late on Saturday, you gotta
do it. I gotta do it. I was super tired,
and then I watched they put together this wonderful little
(08:22):
tutorial video which I watched and was like, oh, I
shouldn't be drinking wine while I do this. This actually
is more involved than I had given Brian credit for.
But Brian, my colorist, was just like texting me back.
He was like drinking his boyfriend's sake. He was sending
me The sassist text was a hilarious and I was like,
if I still have hair on my head after this,
(08:43):
it will be a miracle. But if I don't, whatever,
I'll rock that. I'll just put on some statement earrings
and It'll be fine. So I got through. Yeah, I'm
so proud of you. I mean, it's important for your
roots to look grate. You're doing a lot of Instagram
video these days. Tell me, tell me what inspired this,
(09:03):
and tell our listeners about the night light show I am.
It's called night Light yes, which I always caveat by
saying it sounds a little bit like a Christian radio show,
which it is not. You know, Christina h just this
kind of idea came to me a weekend ago of
just you know, I don't know, it feels like it's
(09:25):
like the most kind of core idea to me, it
kind of feels like going back to the youngest version
of me, who was always just like putting on little
skits and things in my living room when I was
a kid, And it sort of came from an intention
to provide a warm glow. And that is like intentionally broad, right,
(09:45):
because that could look like anything from day to day,
but just kind of like this little safe harbor in
the sea of digital chaos, sort of by sharing some
like truly analog pieces of inspiration and entertainment. So that's
looked like anything from reading poems I always like to
play a little bit of music, to talking about Rilka's
(10:08):
exploration of sadness, to unboxing the Johnny Depp box that
my love drenched psychotic thirteen year old self put together
years ago. Don't forget the readings from You've Got Mail.
Those were my favorite. You've Got Mail is my chicken
soup movie. I've probably watched it, I don't know, like
a hundred plus times at this point. It always provides
(10:30):
me comfort and fun. Fact, when I was in grad school,
my m F a classmate Kyle, I wrote this like
little short piece of theater that reference You've Got Mail,
and he came up afterwards and he was like, I
love that movie and I was like, what you you
who writes like very good raps and like you're You're
like you're just like you love Nora Ephron, you know,
(10:50):
and we kind of bonded about this. So I was like, hey, Kyle,
will you come on and read every email from You've
Got Mail with me? Which I curated online. It's actually
very difficult to find them because there's a lot of
incorrect scripts out there, and so I was like writing
in lines from my memory. But anyway, we got on
and we read the emails, and what was so lovely
(11:12):
is that a bunch of Kyle's friends tuned in and
one of them is a doctor in New York on
the front line, and he wrote in and said, this
is the thing that provided me the levity that I
needed to be able to return to my shift. Oh
my gosh. Yeah. So, Christina, it's like this idea that
I had that it's eclectic on purpose, It's largely extemporaneous
(11:34):
on purpose. The only rule that I have is that
whatever I share has to be something that I just
love and really want to share and to invite friends
on who want to do the same thing. I didn't
even know if people were going to come and watch,
but the fact that they have and they've kept coming,
it's just really goes to show. I think that if
(11:55):
I were to have set out and be like, I'm
going to do this variety show, we Knight it's on Instagram, which,
by the way, the only reason I'm calling it a
variety show is because my friend Spencer, who we've both
worked with, was like, Kate, it's like kind of turning
into a variety show. I was like, yeah, I guess
it is. But if I had set out to be like,
I'm going to do this thing that's gonna make people
feel better and it's going to effect in this piece
(12:16):
of art like a it probably wouldn't have happened and
be it would have felt contrived. And so that's it.
I'm doing that every night, and really it's a way
for me to connect with my friends and hopefully the
truest way that I can do that through a screen
right now. And it's also just giving me a little
bit of a lifeline because I love doing things live
(12:39):
and that's a way to do that now. Gandhi said,
that even a single lamp to spells the deepest darkness.
And hopefully this is a tiny, tiny way to bring
a little Dandhi into my day. Quoting Gandhi, I like
it uting Gandhi, so Christina and I would say a
(13:11):
much more seemingly organized front. You have been affecting some
real change here or trying for sure. Organized is how
I deal with anxiety. You know this, We've talked about this.
When in doubt clean it out. It's uh, you know
(13:31):
I've I've cleaned my apartment from top to bottom. I
conduct everything within an inch of its condoing ability, and uh,
and that got me through like the first six days, Christina,
I was thinking about my version of that phrase, and
what I came up with is when it feels too big,
put on a wig. That's what I got. I gotta
(13:52):
love it. I love it. I got to this point,
I don't know, like a week and a half ago.
A bunch of my projects are on hold or kind
of got postponed. And definitely I have this new awesome
full time job starting but until July, and I've got
a little bit of time on my hands and certainly
taking care of a baby and cleaning my apartment and
(14:15):
baking all sorts of baked goods, so many baked goods,
lots of baked goods. That certainly does take up time,
But I felt like, I'm an organizer. I'm someone who
likes to connect people and networks and like solve big problems,
and I wanted to do something. I literally, like kind
of said that out loud and put it out into
the universe. And at four am the next day, because
(14:38):
I wake up at four am to pump for my
baby every night, at four am, I was pumping breast
milk and got an email from one of my husband's
college friends who is a doctor on the front lines
here in New York, and she said, Hey, do you
know where I could get tablet computers for patients to
(15:00):
say goodbye to their families because we aren't allowing loved
ones in hospitals anymore. It's too dangerous. They're too crowded.
So these people who are dying of COVID nineteen are
dying alone and in many cases are not able to
say goodbye because when they get dropped off at the
hospital up to two weeks earlier, they didn't know that
this is how this was going to turn out and
(15:22):
just got wrenching, I know. And she's like, do you
know how to convince rich people to give money? Because
that's not a skill I learned in medical school. And
I was like, actually, fun fact, I do know how
to do that, I said, And you know, one of
my friends actually just got this exact same request from
a nurse at a different hospital just yesterday. Let me
(15:45):
paying her and see if we can team up and
try to solve this for more than just the two
of you, because if two of you are asking, then
probably every hospital could use this. Yes, So we sinked
up the next day. We ended up pulling in like
four other female executives from the tech world in New
York and San Francisco, and within under a week, in
(16:08):
six days, we got a go fund me up. We've
raised over a hundred thousand dollars. Our goal is a million.
It's incredible. We have over a hundred hospitals already on
our lists with requests for tablets, including most of the
public hospitals in New York, a lot of the really
kind of safety net institutions that don't have the fancy
(16:29):
buildings and don't do the galas with big name donors
and could really use this type of support. So we
are trying to get twenty thousand tablets and smart devices
into hospitals across the whole country, fifteen per hospital. We're
kind of bundling them up. One of the executives has
a company called Lupin Tie that they do corporate gifting,
but that means they have a whole warehouse, they have
(16:50):
logistics support, they can ship things, So we're using their
entire back end to receive, bundle, and ship out these
devices to hospitals all across the country. It's amazing, and
it's called COVID tech connect right it is. This is
in many cases how patients will say goodbye to their families.
(17:11):
But we're hoping that being able to stay connected to
their families might actually be that little bit of I
don't know, spirit muster that keeps them fighting. I mean,
imagine being isolated for up to fourteen days, not just
in your apartment with your dog and your comfy slippers
and your food, but in a hospital room with strangers
(17:36):
bustling all around you. You can't see their faces because
everyone's covered head to toe in protective equipment. You know
you're not touching other people's hands, you can't speak to
your your family members, and then being on the verge
of like am I going to make it through the
night or not? I can see how it's really easy
to lose spirit in that moment. So we're hoping that
(17:57):
at the very least it's a way to say goodbye I,
but maybe at the very best, it's a way to revive, um,
you know, a spirit and keep someone fighting to get
out and to make it through. Absolutely, it's incredibly depressing
and it makes me cry a lot, but it um
it feels good to know that we are able to
(18:20):
use our network and the things that we're good at
getting rich people and corporations and not so rich people.
I mean a lot of our donors to go fund
me are are giving ten bucks twenty bucks, which is
just awesome, you know, harnessing the collective power of everyone
feeling like they want to do something and this is
a really tangible something that you can do. I think
(18:40):
it's really remarkable, especially since we've all been learning about
learning in real time about how crucial connection is for
all of us, and we are learning how to do
that through screens, which is a learning curve for some
more than others, but it's essential. And another thing, Christina,
(19:01):
I was just thinking about you being able to self
identify that you are such a strong organizer and kind
of tapping into that. Over Here on the flip side,
I just sort of found myself going like, what is
the thing, What is a thing about me that feels
really like unique to me? That's the thing that feels
(19:24):
like if I could contribute, it's in this way. And
I just had to sort of start to listen to
friends who were telling me like, hey, you bring me
so much light or I find you so entertaining. I
didn't feel like a light or feel like entertaining. In fact,
I've just been you know, like feeling the weight of
all of this. But I kind of went, all right, well,
let me just like do that, let me sort of
(19:46):
tap into that. And so, because I think there's just
this big question right now, what can I do? What
can I do? And of course there's so many things
to do, but I think it's also a helpful question
to think about what can I do that feels like
maybe not only I can do, but that is really
sort of singular or specific to me. And and usually
I think that that thing is also the thing that
(20:07):
lights you up. And when it lights you up, you'll
light everyone up for sure, because I think on the
one hand, you feel like staying at home you're doing
nothing right. And then on the other hand, you start
looking for ways to contribute, and you start seeing the
list of needs and the fundraisers and the and and
it just starts. It can feel overwhelming, right, there's just
sort of like, well, everyone needs everything, and if I'm
(20:32):
not helping everyone, is that selfish? Is there anything left
for me? It was a great vice article about creating
a care budget. Yes, I love that you found this. Yeah,
so Girls Night In is this incredible community. I love
them that has been focused on self care and alone
time quality alone time and they send out this wonderful newsletter.
(20:57):
You should totally subscribe if you're into that. But they
recently just sent us this really great framework for how
to think about taking care of yourself, taking care of
your family and friends, and then contributing in whatever way
you can to your community without feeling overwhelmed. Yeah. It
was kind of like this little time package of resources
(21:17):
right without without feeling overwhelmed. Yeah, so I thought this
idea of like a care budget which is not just
money but also time and also just like psyche right,
your attention, your emotional bandwidth of really thinking about who
can you support each day? What do you need to
support yourself? What do you need sleep wise, nutrition, alone,
(21:40):
time to make sure you're fully charged and capable of
doing what you need to do, and then like, what
can you do to ensure you're doing the best job
you can For those of us and still employed while
recognizing that we are not working from home, we are
at home in a crisis attempting to work. As a
great tweet that has now gone viral many times, that tweet,
(22:03):
it's such an important distinction, it really is, It really is.
So it was just a really nice way of thinking
about I think the way you said it, like what
is the thing that lights me up that I uniquely
can contribute, whether that's sewing masks, donating money, organizing time,
amplifying other people's projects. Right, if you've got a large
(22:25):
audience on social media or in other ways, can you
curate some of the efforts that are going on and
really help make them more visible? What are the things
that you can contribute? And maybe it's just you know,
baking some bread, and taking them to your neighbors in
a socially distant way. I actually think that a great
place to start. What you just touched on is what
(22:45):
would make me feel better right now? And is that
something that then I could share with a few people
right Like, so, say, baking makes me feel really good?
Who could I share that with? Or like supporting someone
feels really good? All right? Well, then who are a
few people that I could support? Something else that you
(23:19):
just made me think of is that there's just a
lot of layers right now, the primary layer being that
we are in a crisis collectively and then individually. There's
so many layers on top of that. Do you have work?
Are you looking for work? What is your family need?
What is your partner if you have one need? What
are your children if you have them need? And there's
(23:41):
a lot of recalibrating and something that I've been kind
of noticing has been happening this week. I don't know
if you feel this or not, but I've just almost
been feeling all of the speed that was sort of
there before all of this happened. I felt it really
sort of coming back on top of all of the
new things that this pandemic is bringing with it, and
(24:05):
that together is just overwhelming. And so I think finding
a way to sort of take a pause just long enough,
just long enough to kind of find a little space
within all of the responsibility to check in and game
plan a little bit. Like I love in this article
Christina about a care budget. I love that there's this.
(24:28):
They sort of do the sample version that's broken up
into a few sections of things I can do right
now or once, and that the first thing is figure
out how to get my prescriptions filled. I love it.
The first thing is a self care thing, like are
your prescriptions there? Help my grandparents set up Skype? I mean,
I know that my family will help my parents get
on Zoom this week, and that was awesome. And then
(24:48):
what are things I can do daily? Again, the first
thing is eat three proper meals? Am I eating right?
And then down the list check in with friends individually?
What can to do a few times a week weekly?
So I do think it's beneficial to, like anything that
needs to be tackled, to do a little bit of
strategizing here. I do feel a little bit of that
(25:09):
speed coming back. In New York, we have had a
couple of good days in a row in terms of
the numbers, and there's some people wondering is the curve flattening?
Is there a light at the end of this tunnel?
And you can see people starting to think about like
are we going to be allowed out at the end
of April, at the end of May, and like when
can we fly again? You know, like things are just
(25:30):
starting to like steamroll again. And in the meantime, there's
a whole bunch of other people, especially people with children,
that are like, no, it's getting worse. This is a
harder week than the first one. That's right. You can't
just assume because people have stopped talking about how hard
it is that it has gotten easier or that we've
gotten into some routine, right, So they're just it feels
like a lot of competing energy as people are trying
(25:54):
to suss out like what does this mean long term?
When are we getting back to quote normal spoil alert?
We aren't like ever, right, Like maybe according to Austrian
Airlines and you know some study they just did, so
like be prepared for this to not be normal for
(26:17):
a very long time. Yeah, And I think it's fine
for it to take time to find your footing. There
are whole new sort of structures and systems sort of
coming into place right now. And what we know is
that speed for speed's sake, going fast for the sake
of going fast is not the sustainable thing. It's like
(26:39):
taking time to pause. How can you kind of work
on your own systems, which are going to be completely
different from anybody else's, to just sort of find a
little bit of I wouldn't say like routine at all,
and that can be thrown out, that's fine, but to
just sort of find a little bit of peace. Because
the other thing, Christina, is that there's so much inful
(27:00):
stuff happening online. Being online is such an easy way
to be comparing yourself to everyone else, right And so,
oh my gosh, this person just did a Facebook live stream,
So why am I need to do a Facebook live stream?
And this person just put a class together in twenty
four hours, so I should be putting a digital class
together in twenty four hours. I literally can't be on
(27:20):
Instagram without a little pop up saying this person is
gone live. This person is gone live. I was like,
can you stop going live? I know, I love like
when I get annoyed by that, and I'm like, oh
my god, but I'm going live night. It's a week.
One of the reasons why I decided to do it
at eight p m PST every night is that I'm like,
this is what I'm doing, and if friends of mine
want to see me, they know that they can come,
(27:42):
then they don't have to be on here at any
other time. I'm not gonna be like popping up live
like truly. And also it's going back to the intention
of well, why am I really doing this versus I'm
going because I gotta go live. We all got to
go live, I mean, for good or for bad. Right now,
online is our interface with the rest of the world.
(28:02):
And what's interesting about that is so of the six
women working on COVID Tech Connect, I know one of
them in real life, like one of them I have
hugged and touched and had meals with and hung out
with in real life. And the other four I know
solely through the list through a professional women's network I'm
part of. And we've done this entire project from all
(28:26):
these different states, all these different time zones, and we've
done it all through the Internet, through Zoom and Google
Drive and Slack and WhatsApp group. Right. It made me
laugh the other day when I thought about how, for
a very long time our generation has been sort of,
(28:47):
you know, pejoratively judged for quote slack activism. Can you
tell me what that term? Me? Yeah, So it's our
parents and our grandparents generation. They look at the marches,
the protests, the wars that they have fought, and then
they look at us retweeting hashtags from our sofa and
(29:10):
they're like, so, the thing is online outrage does not
actually mean things change. So slack activism was a term
created probably about a decade ago to talk about kind
of the online hashtagging and outrage amplification that doesn't turn
into real action. It's kind of the perfect term for that,
(29:31):
it is. But what's ironic about that is right now,
when we can't march, and we can't show up at
our elected officials in town halls, and we can't leave
our our sofa's, for the most part, we're using slack
and a bunch of other online tools to actually organize
and activate, you know, real change. Our generations the one
(29:56):
comfortable with all of these tools and you know, native
with this, and I don't know, I feel like let's
redefine slacktivism with a positive light because we're getting things done.
I love it. You know, it just goes to show
you never know, right, Like, we never really know what
something is or how it's going to be used as
(30:18):
a tool. We can make guesses even hypotheses about it,
but we never know what's really going to be there
and come into place. And I'm so struck by that
to Christina. I mean, I remember five years ago when
I was trying to convince tutoring clients of mine to
do online tutoring with me because I wanted them to
(30:38):
be able to get a depth at that in case
I was going to go away and do a play.
And I remember it was kind of like, this is strange,
no one is doing this. Why are you doing this?
And now I am so happy that I spent the
time then this is pre Zoom, by the way, but
spent the time then to figure out, oh, I can
get a little writing pad with a stylist to be
(30:59):
able to do this online and and how how can
I really like make this efficient? And now here we are,
And happily Zoom has a whiteboard in its functionality. But
here we are, and so if it can give this
in our community of the show any comfort in that
those things that may seem weird even superfluous, may become
(31:20):
very valuable at some point, Like keep going in those directions.
I love that the number of dance parties that seem
to be popping up between Instagram and Zoom and I mean,
now there are whole clubs that I'm not being invited to.
Have you heard about this stage you can get like
private Zoom rooms. You have to pay for quote table service.
There's no table, there's no service. You're not getting alcohol.
(31:44):
You're just getting an elite experience, an exclusive experience that
people are paying actual real No. I cannot, I cannot.
That could not be less me if it tried. I
just love that I'm even being excluded during the pandemic.
It's just so on brand for But it just goes
to show like this is what I'm talking about, is
(32:06):
very easy for things to kind of go dormant for
a while and then just like map right over to
new circumstances. And so I'm just trying to be very
very sensitive to that. No, the one that I've heard
of is that one of my good friends has a
birthday this Friday, and she's doing something called Get Down
and Give, where she's doing a dance party on Zoom,
(32:26):
but you'll also be donating to a charity for her birthday.
And I was like, that's such a cute idea, very cute.
But Christina, You've also found a number of really incredible
applications of selectivism recently in my new definition of it. Yeah, So,
I mean, it's just it goes to show how right now,
especially when online is our interface with the world, there
(32:47):
are some really incredible ways to make a real difference
in a lot of people's lives. So there's one the
journalist Yasha Ali got started on go fund me for
hourly tipped workers, who obviously are some of the folks
that have been hit the hardest by all of us
leaving restaurants, leaving cabs and you know, retreating to our sofas.
(33:10):
And he started this go fund me and then he
has been tweeting it, sharing it with his friends, getting
challenge grants, you know, getting a lot of people to
step up, and has been really kind of persistent in
making sure people remember that there's an entire community of
workers who literally aren't getting paid right now, and yes,
(33:33):
maybe they'll get a check at some point from the U. S. Government,
but like, they need food this week, and he's raised
over a million dollars this go fund me purely through tweeting.
And I don't want that to sound small, because he's
really been hustling for this and making sure that people
know just how important this is. So I think that's
(33:55):
a perfect example of SLA activism at its finest. But
there are a few others will link to as well.
There's one incredible small business owner, Deepti Sharma, has a
company called Food to Eat and pre Pandemic. It was
a company that companies could hire to cater their lunches
for their employees, and she would partner with women own
(34:18):
immigrant owned small restaurants and pile all of these orders
together and deliver really delicious food. And then of course
if no one's working in offices, there's no business for her.
That means no business for these small mom and pop
restaurants that had come to depend on her. So she
pivoted her business model to really focus on how do
we feed frontline workers, how do we feed like who
(34:40):
does still need to be fed? And how can we
use the infrastructure right, the relationships that I already have
set up with these restaurants and get food to those folks,
and because those folks are not the ones who are
necessarily able to pay right now, putting together fundraisers to
help support that as well. So it's really smart ways
(35:01):
of people saying what's the thing that I can do
and how can I apply that in this particular setting
for a population that's at risk and that needs by hope.
And I think these are are great examples of what
you can do from the Internet to make a real
tangible difference in a lot of people's lives right now. Yeah, Christina,
(35:24):
that's incredible. And back on the Zoom front, and I'm
reminded of that David Rabe play in the Boom Boom Room.
It makes me want to just to rename it in
the Zoom Zoom Room, because you know, so many different
theaters and arts organizations are really starting to use Zoom
to do live readings and things like that. In fact,
(35:46):
there's this Fast Company article that talks about Theater Unleashed,
which is a Los Angeles based theater company and a
number of different artists who are able to keep things
that really sustain their organization like mon the reading series,
or even musicians who are able to give lessons via
Zoom and sort of stay afloat that way. And I know,
(36:08):
for me, I'm a part of three upcoming readings, and
the functionality on Zoom for being able to have the
audience sort of wait outside and then be watching versus
being on stage and then sort of be brought in
for the talk back portion is pretty incredible. Yeah, it
really is. There's a lot of like thoughtful functionality there
that's already in place. And not to mention educational organizations,
(36:33):
Oh my gosh, I know that so many schools are
using Zoom, but also in Los Angeles specifically nonprofits like
l A which provides after school tutoring young storytellers, which
provides writing mentorship. The fact that these online platforms are
helping these organizations continue to keep going is is really remarkable.
(36:53):
It really is. So I gotta tell you my favorite
application of Zoom please. Recently, so John Krasinski has a
fantabulous fake news broadcast called Some Good News and it
is a delightful show. It is. It's fantastic. My friend
sent me episode two. There's a pretty wonderful Easter egg
(37:17):
in the second half of the second episode. I'm not
going to tell you what it is. You have to
go watch it. I was about to spoil it. Yeah,
well I'm you're better than I am. So she sent
me this and she's like, Oh, you're gonna like this.
It was relevant to a joke that we had had
going on about choir and saying choir over zoom. I
was like, what, I don't know what she's talking about.
(37:39):
But I just started watching the episode and it was
such a delight The good news truly is good news.
I was grinning like an idiot, and then the easter
egg pops up and made it even more delightful. So
I have now subscribed to some good News and I'm
going to watch it as much as I can because
(37:59):
it is truly my favorite use of zoom right now.
I agree that is a delightful watch, highly recommended. So
we want to know what you have found to be
delightful on the Internet or off, how you're coping, how
you are self caring, and how you are contributing to
making your world at least a little bit lighter right now.
(38:22):
You can reach us on Twitter or Instagram at t
L d n E pod, or you can always email
us at hello at t L d an E podcast
dot com. That's right, or you can leave us a
voicemail at eight three three high t L d n E.
That's eight three three four four eight five three six three.
Then dial eight oh three and we'll link to everything
(38:44):
we mentioned here plus a few more. You'll find all
of those fabulous links at our show notes at t
L d an e podcast dot com. Slash one eight
Team h. Thanks so much to our producer Maya Coole
and to you for tuning in. As always, please subscribe, rate,
(39:08):
and review on Apple Podcasts if you like what you heard.
It really helps us get the word out to fellow
human ven diagrams. Until next time, remember the limit does
not exist. The Limit does not Exist is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
(39:30):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of My
Heart Radiom. Hey, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott
Campbell and you're listening to The Limit does Not Exist,
a podcast for human then diagrams, coming at you every
(00:21):
single week and hosted by us in this time that
is well indescribable. We are here with another C and
C episode. It feels right to us to check in
with you and each other as much as we can
as we navigate this continually changing landscape and try to
(00:42):
find some safety insanity. Today we'll share updates from our lives,
including a socially distant fight I got into while trying
to find my zen and how I finally got back
to my roots and also took care of them. It's
all about how we're funding balance in a little breathing
room amidst the chaos, and how we're staying connected to
the real world and creating actual change through the Internet.
(01:05):
So Christina, let's just jump in, shall we? Let's do it? Hi? Christina, Hi, Kate,
how are you well. I got into a fight with
two runners yesterday. Oh my gosh, I saw your tweet,
(01:29):
so you know I am trying to be responsible I
am socially distancing. I'm staying inside except for absolutely necessary.
But I need exercise. I have to walk. I can't
just do laps of my six square foot apartment. So
once a day, I strap on the baby and we
take a walk in Prospect Park. And we have this
great little two mile loop that I have discovered that's
(01:51):
like all all these like off the beaten path trails,
like I do not go in the high trafficked areas.
I have like this perfect loop that keeps me away
from other people. I'm supposed the Prospect Park is open
that you can, so keep this up. As the weather
gets nicer and they're going to be shutting down the parks,
I promise you. I try to go when it's raining,
when it's cold. I picked the worst time of the
(02:13):
day in order to keep the people down right, I'm
doing my part. I love that yourself care is also
self sacrifice. That feels so right for right now. So
Arden is on my my front. We're walking through and
we're stopped at a stoplight where like we have to
cross one more street to get into the park, and
you know, this is a pretty big roadway area, and
(02:34):
so there's like multiple islands as you like split up
the lanes, and of course you're not waiting for the
actual light to change, You're just waiting for the cars
get out of the way and jaywalking because right, so
like you run across one lane and you hang out
in an island, then you wait for the next side
and you run right. There's not a ton of space
on the island, is the point of this very long introduction.
(02:56):
So I'm standing. I've kept my distance on both sides
from everyone. But as I'm standing there, my sister calls
and I go to answer the phone, and these two
runners come up and they stand right next to me.
The woman's shoulder touches my shoulder, and I know that
feels like overreaction, Kate, but like, I haven't been touched
(03:17):
by a stranger in weeks, and it felt it felt
like she was just like Viola. It does not feel
like an overreaction. It feels like a total violation in
the midst of a global crisis of And she and
her friend were not wearing masks. They were panting heavily
because they're running. I'm wearing a mask, but my baby
is not. She's five months old. She's not going to
(03:38):
tolerate a mask, and they are absolutely breathing in my
baby space and I lost my ish. Yes, Mama, the
six ft applies to you. They start running across the
street and they turn around realizing they've just been yelled at,
and they can't figure out who just yelled at them
(03:58):
because I'm wearing a mask and I have a five
month old strap to my front and I look adorable,
And so I use my forehead muscles because I have
not had botox and I have very expressive forehead us
to demonstrate to them that I am the one upset
with them because they can't figure out who they have wronged,
and so I let them cross the street. It put
(04:21):
me in a mood. I had to shake it off,
and then I came home and wrote a very angry tweet.
I really appreciated your tweet. It was angry and also
very concise and impactful. I was just like, what part
of six ft does not apply to you? Like you're
still a human being, you still are spewing droplets? Six
Absolutely absolutely, I don't know what it is, but I
(04:43):
absolutely support you in the reaction that you had and
for Arden to see her mom standing up for her
like a total badass. You know. I was just Oh,
I ended my tweet with something like by God, I
will end you and or and I think it was that.
I was like, it's like, I swear to God I
will And that is absolutely the like fire burning in
(05:09):
my my soul that I felt in that moment. It
was rage. It was it was primal, it was to
the core. It was nothing less than all of those things.
We can't hike in l A. The hikes have been
closed for a long time, and people are of course
violating that. I will not be one of those people,
because this is not the time to do that. So
(05:31):
I have just been like walking around the neighborhood. And
first of all, it's really difficult to walk at the
speed that I usually like to walk with a mask on.
So I'm impressed that you're able to. So I'm full on,
like mouth breathing, panting behind this mask, and when I
get home, I like have to wipe down my face.
You know, it's going to be interesting. Typically in a recession,
(05:53):
lipstick sales go through the roof because people can't afford
to buy anything else, and so they're like, well, I'll
treat myself to this dollar lipstick because I can't buy
a new dress and new pair of shoes, a trip whatever.
It will be interesting because in a recession, while everyone
is wearing a mask, no one's going to buy lipstick.
What's the new lipstick? Is it eyeliner? It's so true.
(06:14):
I don't know the color touch up. Yes, anyway, you
were walking and you don't like the masks. I took
you off your story with me. It was just that
something about that. You know, people have been pretty good here,
but it has been very, very crowded in the neighborhood,
and some people are better than others. It's just that's
(06:34):
the truth. I'm reaching that point where I'm about to
scream at strangers of like, what part of the news
are you not watching? I know, I know. I have
a friend who openly screamed at someone the other day.
She's like, I just lost it. She's a cancer survivor.
She understands immunity. She's like, do your part, so are
(06:58):
you deep breaths. I'm I'm hanging in there. I am,
you know. I mean again, that question, of course, is
becoming more and more impossible to answer. But I'm hanging
in there. I got my roots touched up, which was exciting. Yeah,
so you know, it was such a wonderful way to
(07:20):
also support my salon because my salon, Lucas Salon in
Los Angeles, lovely little spot. They put together these really
thoughtful color kits for everybody with their you need your
formula specific. Yeah, with my specific formula spoiler alert, I
get a little help for this color. The woman who
(07:40):
runs the salon just quarantined herself in the salon. She
had a mask and gloves on. She took all of
the kind of formulas from the other colorist and then
you were given a time and you drove up and
then there was a whole exchange where she was there.
I paid through Venmo. She left it out on a
table outside and then I was able to drive away
(08:00):
and then my wonderful hair stylist I picked it up
on a Saturday afternoon and I planned to do it
the next Sunday morning, and he texts me. He's like, Okay,
you have to do it in twelve hours because color oxidizes,
And I was like chemistry, right, oh my god. So
at this point it's like late on Saturday, you gotta
do it. I gotta do it. I was super tired,
and then I watched they put together this wonderful little
(08:22):
tutorial video which I watched and was like, oh, I
shouldn't be drinking wine while I do this. This actually
is more involved than I had given Brian credit for.
But Brian, my colorist, was just like texting me back.
He was like drinking his boyfriend's sake. He was sending
me The sassist text was a hilarious and I was like,
if I still have hair on my head after this,
(08:43):
it will be a miracle. But if I don't, whatever,
I'll rock that. I'll just put on some statement earrings
and It'll be fine. So I got through. Yeah, I'm
so proud of you. I mean, it's important for your
roots to look grate. You're doing a lot of Instagram
video these days. Tell me, tell me what inspired this,
(09:03):
and tell our listeners about the night light show I am.
It's called night Light yes, which I always caveat by
saying it sounds a little bit like a Christian radio show,
which it is not. You know, Christina h just this
kind of idea came to me a weekend ago of
just you know, I don't know, it feels like it's
(09:25):
like the most kind of core idea to me, it
kind of feels like going back to the youngest version
of me, who was always just like putting on little
skits and things in my living room when I was
a kid, And it sort of came from an intention
to provide a warm glow. And that is like intentionally broad, right,
(09:45):
because that could look like anything from day to day,
but just kind of like this little safe harbor in
the sea of digital chaos, sort of by sharing some
like truly analog pieces of inspiration and entertainment. So that's
looked like anything from reading poems I always like to
play a little bit of music, to talking about Rilka's
(10:08):
exploration of sadness, to unboxing the Johnny Depp box that
my love drenched psychotic thirteen year old self put together
years ago. Don't forget the readings from You've Got Mail.
Those were my favorite. You've Got Mail is my chicken
soup movie. I've probably watched it, I don't know, like
a hundred plus times at this point. It always provides
(10:30):
me comfort and fun. Fact, when I was in grad school,
my m F a classmate Kyle, I wrote this like
little short piece of theater that reference You've Got Mail,
and he came up afterwards and he was like, I
love that movie and I was like, what you you
who writes like very good raps and like you're You're
like you're just like you love Nora Ephron, you know,
(10:50):
and we kind of bonded about this. So I was like, hey, Kyle,
will you come on and read every email from You've
Got Mail with me? Which I curated online. It's actually
very difficult to find them because there's a lot of
incorrect scripts out there, and so I was like writing
in lines from my memory. But anyway, we got on
and we read the emails, and what was so lovely
(11:12):
is that a bunch of Kyle's friends tuned in and
one of them is a doctor in New York on
the front line, and he wrote in and said, this
is the thing that provided me the levity that I
needed to be able to return to my shift. Oh
my gosh. Yeah. So, Christina, it's like this idea that
I had that it's eclectic on purpose, It's largely extemporaneous
(11:34):
on purpose. The only rule that I have is that
whatever I share has to be something that I just
love and really want to share and to invite friends
on who want to do the same thing. I didn't
even know if people were going to come and watch,
but the fact that they have and they've kept coming,
it's just really goes to show. I think that if
(11:55):
I were to have set out and be like, I'm
going to do this variety show, we Knight it's on Instagram, which,
by the way, the only reason I'm calling it a
variety show is because my friend Spencer, who we've both
worked with, was like, Kate, it's like kind of turning
into a variety show. I was like, yeah, I guess
it is. But if I had set out to be like,
I'm going to do this thing that's gonna make people
feel better and it's going to effect in this piece
(12:16):
of art like a it probably wouldn't have happened and
be it would have felt contrived. And so that's it.
I'm doing that every night, and really it's a way
for me to connect with my friends and hopefully the
truest way that I can do that through a screen
right now. And it's also just giving me a little
bit of a lifeline because I love doing things live
(12:39):
and that's a way to do that now. Gandhi said,
that even a single lamp to spells the deepest darkness.
And hopefully this is a tiny, tiny way to bring
a little Dandhi into my day. Quoting Gandhi, I like
it uting Gandhi, so Christina and I would say a
(13:11):
much more seemingly organized front. You have been affecting some
real change here or trying for sure. Organized is how
I deal with anxiety. You know this, We've talked about this.
When in doubt clean it out. It's uh, you know
(13:31):
I've I've cleaned my apartment from top to bottom. I
conduct everything within an inch of its condoing ability, and uh,
and that got me through like the first six days, Christina,
I was thinking about my version of that phrase, and
what I came up with is when it feels too big,
put on a wig. That's what I got. I gotta
(13:52):
love it. I love it. I got to this point,
I don't know, like a week and a half ago.
A bunch of my projects are on hold or kind
of got postponed. And definitely I have this new awesome
full time job starting but until July, and I've got
a little bit of time on my hands and certainly
taking care of a baby and cleaning my apartment and
(14:15):
baking all sorts of baked goods, so many baked goods,
lots of baked goods. That certainly does take up time,
But I felt like, I'm an organizer. I'm someone who
likes to connect people and networks and like solve big problems,
and I wanted to do something. I literally, like kind
of said that out loud and put it out into
the universe. And at four am the next day, because
(14:38):
I wake up at four am to pump for my
baby every night, at four am, I was pumping breast
milk and got an email from one of my husband's
college friends who is a doctor on the front lines
here in New York, and she said, Hey, do you
know where I could get tablet computers for patients to
(15:00):
say goodbye to their families because we aren't allowing loved
ones in hospitals anymore. It's too dangerous. They're too crowded.
So these people who are dying of COVID nineteen are
dying alone and in many cases are not able to
say goodbye because when they get dropped off at the
hospital up to two weeks earlier, they didn't know that
this is how this was going to turn out and
(15:22):
just got wrenching, I know. And she's like, do you
know how to convince rich people to give money? Because
that's not a skill I learned in medical school. And
I was like, actually, fun fact, I do know how
to do that, I said, And you know, one of
my friends actually just got this exact same request from
a nurse at a different hospital just yesterday. Let me
(15:45):
paying her and see if we can team up and
try to solve this for more than just the two
of you, because if two of you are asking, then
probably every hospital could use this. Yes, So we sinked
up the next day. We ended up pulling in like
four other female executives from the tech world in New
York and San Francisco, and within under a week, in
(16:08):
six days, we got a go fund me up. We've
raised over a hundred thousand dollars. Our goal is a million.
It's incredible. We have over a hundred hospitals already on
our lists with requests for tablets, including most of the
public hospitals in New York, a lot of the really
kind of safety net institutions that don't have the fancy
(16:29):
buildings and don't do the galas with big name donors
and could really use this type of support. So we
are trying to get twenty thousand tablets and smart devices
into hospitals across the whole country, fifteen per hospital. We're
kind of bundling them up. One of the executives has
a company called Lupin Tie that they do corporate gifting,
but that means they have a whole warehouse, they have
(16:50):
logistics support, they can ship things, So we're using their
entire back end to receive, bundle, and ship out these
devices to hospitals all across the country. It's amazing, and
it's called COVID tech connect right it is. This is
in many cases how patients will say goodbye to their families.
(17:11):
But we're hoping that being able to stay connected to
their families might actually be that little bit of I
don't know, spirit muster that keeps them fighting. I mean,
imagine being isolated for up to fourteen days, not just
in your apartment with your dog and your comfy slippers
and your food, but in a hospital room with strangers
(17:36):
bustling all around you. You can't see their faces because
everyone's covered head to toe in protective equipment. You know
you're not touching other people's hands, you can't speak to
your your family members, and then being on the verge
of like am I going to make it through the
night or not? I can see how it's really easy
to lose spirit in that moment. So we're hoping that
(17:57):
at the very least it's a way to say goodbye I,
but maybe at the very best, it's a way to revive, um,
you know, a spirit and keep someone fighting to get
out and to make it through. Absolutely, it's incredibly depressing
and it makes me cry a lot, but it um
it feels good to know that we are able to
(18:20):
use our network and the things that we're good at
getting rich people and corporations and not so rich people.
I mean a lot of our donors to go fund
me are are giving ten bucks twenty bucks, which is
just awesome, you know, harnessing the collective power of everyone
feeling like they want to do something and this is
a really tangible something that you can do. I think
(18:40):
it's really remarkable, especially since we've all been learning about
learning in real time about how crucial connection is for
all of us, and we are learning how to do
that through screens, which is a learning curve for some
more than others, but it's essential. And another thing, Christina,
(19:01):
I was just thinking about you being able to self
identify that you are such a strong organizer and kind
of tapping into that. Over Here on the flip side,
I just sort of found myself going like, what is
the thing, What is a thing about me that feels
really like unique to me? That's the thing that feels
(19:24):
like if I could contribute, it's in this way. And
I just had to sort of start to listen to
friends who were telling me like, hey, you bring me
so much light or I find you so entertaining. I
didn't feel like a light or feel like entertaining. In fact,
I've just been you know, like feeling the weight of
all of this. But I kind of went, all right, well,
let me just like do that, let me sort of
(19:46):
tap into that. And so, because I think there's just
this big question right now, what can I do? What
can I do? And of course there's so many things
to do, but I think it's also a helpful question
to think about what can I do that feels like
maybe not only I can do, but that is really
sort of singular or specific to me. And and usually
I think that that thing is also the thing that
(20:07):
lights you up. And when it lights you up, you'll
light everyone up for sure, because I think on the
one hand, you feel like staying at home you're doing
nothing right. And then on the other hand, you start
looking for ways to contribute, and you start seeing the
list of needs and the fundraisers and the and and
it just starts. It can feel overwhelming, right, there's just
sort of like, well, everyone needs everything, and if I'm
(20:32):
not helping everyone, is that selfish? Is there anything left
for me? It was a great vice article about creating
a care budget. Yes, I love that you found this. Yeah,
so Girls Night In is this incredible community. I love
them that has been focused on self care and alone
time quality alone time and they send out this wonderful newsletter.
(20:57):
You should totally subscribe if you're into that. But they
recently just sent us this really great framework for how
to think about taking care of yourself, taking care of
your family and friends, and then contributing in whatever way
you can to your community without feeling overwhelmed. Yeah. It
was kind of like this little time package of resources
(21:17):
right without without feeling overwhelmed. Yeah, so I thought this
idea of like a care budget which is not just
money but also time and also just like psyche right,
your attention, your emotional bandwidth of really thinking about who
can you support each day? What do you need to
support yourself? What do you need sleep wise, nutrition, alone,
(21:40):
time to make sure you're fully charged and capable of
doing what you need to do, and then like, what
can you do to ensure you're doing the best job
you can For those of us and still employed while
recognizing that we are not working from home, we are
at home in a crisis attempting to work. As a
great tweet that has now gone viral many times, that tweet,
(22:03):
it's such an important distinction, it really is, It really is.
So it was just a really nice way of thinking
about I think the way you said it, like what
is the thing that lights me up that I uniquely
can contribute, whether that's sewing masks, donating money, organizing time,
amplifying other people's projects. Right, if you've got a large
(22:25):
audience on social media or in other ways, can you
curate some of the efforts that are going on and
really help make them more visible? What are the things
that you can contribute? And maybe it's just you know,
baking some bread, and taking them to your neighbors in
a socially distant way. I actually think that a great
place to start. What you just touched on is what
(22:45):
would make me feel better right now? And is that
something that then I could share with a few people
right Like, so, say, baking makes me feel really good?
Who could I share that with? Or like supporting someone
feels really good? All right? Well, then who are a
few people that I could support? Something else that you
(23:19):
just made me think of is that there's just a
lot of layers right now, the primary layer being that
we are in a crisis collectively and then individually. There's
so many layers on top of that. Do you have work?
Are you looking for work? What is your family need?
What is your partner if you have one need? What
are your children if you have them need? And there's
(23:41):
a lot of recalibrating and something that I've been kind
of noticing has been happening this week. I don't know
if you feel this or not, but I've just almost
been feeling all of the speed that was sort of
there before all of this happened. I felt it really
sort of coming back on top of all of the
new things that this pandemic is bringing with it, and
(24:05):
that together is just overwhelming. And so I think finding
a way to sort of take a pause just long enough,
just long enough to kind of find a little space
within all of the responsibility to check in and game
plan a little bit. Like I love in this article
Christina about a care budget. I love that there's this.
(24:28):
They sort of do the sample version that's broken up
into a few sections of things I can do right
now or once, and that the first thing is figure
out how to get my prescriptions filled. I love it.
The first thing is a self care thing, like are
your prescriptions there? Help my grandparents set up Skype? I mean,
I know that my family will help my parents get
on Zoom this week, and that was awesome. And then
(24:48):
what are things I can do daily? Again, the first
thing is eat three proper meals? Am I eating right?
And then down the list check in with friends individually?
What can to do a few times a week weekly?
So I do think it's beneficial to, like anything that
needs to be tackled, to do a little bit of
strategizing here. I do feel a little bit of that
(25:09):
speed coming back. In New York, we have had a
couple of good days in a row in terms of
the numbers, and there's some people wondering is the curve flattening?
Is there a light at the end of this tunnel?
And you can see people starting to think about like
are we going to be allowed out at the end
of April, at the end of May, and like when
can we fly again? You know, like things are just
(25:30):
starting to like steamroll again. And in the meantime, there's
a whole bunch of other people, especially people with children,
that are like, no, it's getting worse. This is a
harder week than the first one. That's right. You can't
just assume because people have stopped talking about how hard
it is that it has gotten easier or that we've
gotten into some routine, right, So they're just it feels
like a lot of competing energy as people are trying
(25:54):
to suss out like what does this mean long term?
When are we getting back to quote normal spoil alert?
We aren't like ever, right, Like maybe according to Austrian
Airlines and you know some study they just did, so
like be prepared for this to not be normal for
(26:17):
a very long time. Yeah, And I think it's fine
for it to take time to find your footing. There
are whole new sort of structures and systems sort of
coming into place right now. And what we know is
that speed for speed's sake, going fast for the sake
of going fast is not the sustainable thing. It's like
(26:39):
taking time to pause. How can you kind of work
on your own systems, which are going to be completely
different from anybody else's, to just sort of find a
little bit of I wouldn't say like routine at all,
and that can be thrown out, that's fine, but to
just sort of find a little bit of peace. Because
the other thing, Christina, is that there's so much inful
(27:00):
stuff happening online. Being online is such an easy way
to be comparing yourself to everyone else, right And so,
oh my gosh, this person just did a Facebook live stream,
So why am I need to do a Facebook live stream?
And this person just put a class together in twenty
four hours, so I should be putting a digital class
together in twenty four hours. I literally can't be on
(27:20):
Instagram without a little pop up saying this person is
gone live. This person is gone live. I was like,
can you stop going live? I know, I love like
when I get annoyed by that, and I'm like, oh
my god, but I'm going live night. It's a week.
One of the reasons why I decided to do it
at eight p m PST every night is that I'm like,
this is what I'm doing, and if friends of mine
want to see me, they know that they can come,
(27:42):
then they don't have to be on here at any
other time. I'm not gonna be like popping up live
like truly. And also it's going back to the intention
of well, why am I really doing this versus I'm
going because I gotta go live. We all got to
go live, I mean, for good or for bad. Right now,
online is our interface with the rest of the world.
(28:02):
And what's interesting about that is so of the six
women working on COVID Tech Connect, I know one of
them in real life, like one of them I have
hugged and touched and had meals with and hung out
with in real life. And the other four I know
solely through the list through a professional women's network I'm
part of. And we've done this entire project from all
(28:26):
these different states, all these different time zones, and we've
done it all through the Internet, through Zoom and Google
Drive and Slack and WhatsApp group. Right. It made me
laugh the other day when I thought about how, for
a very long time our generation has been sort of,
(28:47):
you know, pejoratively judged for quote slack activism. Can you
tell me what that term? Me? Yeah, So it's our
parents and our grandparents generation. They look at the marches,
the protests, the wars that they have fought, and then
they look at us retweeting hashtags from our sofa and
(29:10):
they're like, so, the thing is online outrage does not
actually mean things change. So slack activism was a term
created probably about a decade ago to talk about kind
of the online hashtagging and outrage amplification that doesn't turn
into real action. It's kind of the perfect term for that,
(29:31):
it is. But what's ironic about that is right now,
when we can't march, and we can't show up at
our elected officials in town halls, and we can't leave
our our sofa's, for the most part, we're using slack
and a bunch of other online tools to actually organize
and activate, you know, real change. Our generations the one
(29:56):
comfortable with all of these tools and you know, native
with this, and I don't know, I feel like let's
redefine slacktivism with a positive light because we're getting things done.
I love it. You know, it just goes to show
you never know, right, Like, we never really know what
something is or how it's going to be used as
(30:18):
a tool. We can make guesses even hypotheses about it,
but we never know what's really going to be there
and come into place. And I'm so struck by that
to Christina. I mean, I remember five years ago when
I was trying to convince tutoring clients of mine to
do online tutoring with me because I wanted them to
(30:38):
be able to get a depth at that in case
I was going to go away and do a play.
And I remember it was kind of like, this is strange,
no one is doing this. Why are you doing this?
And now I am so happy that I spent the
time then this is pre Zoom, by the way, but
spent the time then to figure out, oh, I can
get a little writing pad with a stylist to be
(30:59):
able to do this online and and how how can
I really like make this efficient? And now here we are,
And happily Zoom has a whiteboard in its functionality. But
here we are, and so if it can give this
in our community of the show any comfort in that
those things that may seem weird even superfluous, may become
(31:20):
very valuable at some point, Like keep going in those directions.
I love that the number of dance parties that seem
to be popping up between Instagram and Zoom and I mean,
now there are whole clubs that I'm not being invited to.
Have you heard about this stage you can get like
private Zoom rooms. You have to pay for quote table service.
There's no table, there's no service. You're not getting alcohol.
(31:44):
You're just getting an elite experience, an exclusive experience that
people are paying actual real No. I cannot, I cannot.
That could not be less me if it tried. I
just love that I'm even being excluded during the pandemic.
It's just so on brand for But it just goes
to show like this is what I'm talking about, is
(32:06):
very easy for things to kind of go dormant for
a while and then just like map right over to
new circumstances. And so I'm just trying to be very
very sensitive to that. No, the one that I've heard
of is that one of my good friends has a
birthday this Friday, and she's doing something called Get Down
and Give, where she's doing a dance party on Zoom,
(32:26):
but you'll also be donating to a charity for her birthday.
And I was like, that's such a cute idea, very cute.
But Christina, You've also found a number of really incredible
applications of selectivism recently in my new definition of it. Yeah, So,
I mean, it's just it goes to show how right now,
especially when online is our interface with the world, there
(32:47):
are some really incredible ways to make a real difference
in a lot of people's lives. So there's one the
journalist Yasha Ali got started on go fund me for
hourly tipped workers, who obviously are some of the folks
that have been hit the hardest by all of us
leaving restaurants, leaving cabs and you know, retreating to our sofas.
(33:10):
And he started this go fund me and then he
has been tweeting it, sharing it with his friends, getting
challenge grants, you know, getting a lot of people to
step up, and has been really kind of persistent in
making sure people remember that there's an entire community of
workers who literally aren't getting paid right now, and yes,
(33:33):
maybe they'll get a check at some point from the U. S. Government,
but like, they need food this week, and he's raised
over a million dollars this go fund me purely through tweeting.
And I don't want that to sound small, because he's
really been hustling for this and making sure that people
know just how important this is. So I think that's
(33:55):
a perfect example of SLA activism at its finest. But
there are a few others will link to as well.
There's one incredible small business owner, Deepti Sharma, has a
company called Food to Eat and pre Pandemic. It was
a company that companies could hire to cater their lunches
for their employees, and she would partner with women own
(34:18):
immigrant owned small restaurants and pile all of these orders
together and deliver really delicious food. And then of course
if no one's working in offices, there's no business for her.
That means no business for these small mom and pop
restaurants that had come to depend on her. So she
pivoted her business model to really focus on how do
we feed frontline workers, how do we feed like who
(34:40):
does still need to be fed? And how can we
use the infrastructure right, the relationships that I already have
set up with these restaurants and get food to those folks,
and because those folks are not the ones who are
necessarily able to pay right now, putting together fundraisers to
help support that as well. So it's really smart ways
(35:01):
of people saying what's the thing that I can do
and how can I apply that in this particular setting
for a population that's at risk and that needs by hope.
And I think these are are great examples of what
you can do from the Internet to make a real
tangible difference in a lot of people's lives right now. Yeah, Christina,
(35:24):
that's incredible. And back on the Zoom front, and I'm
reminded of that David Rabe play in the Boom Boom Room.
It makes me want to just to rename it in
the Zoom Zoom Room, because you know, so many different
theaters and arts organizations are really starting to use Zoom
to do live readings and things like that. In fact,
(35:46):
there's this Fast Company article that talks about Theater Unleashed,
which is a Los Angeles based theater company and a
number of different artists who are able to keep things
that really sustain their organization like mon the reading series,
or even musicians who are able to give lessons via
Zoom and sort of stay afloat that way. And I know,
(36:08):
for me, I'm a part of three upcoming readings, and
the functionality on Zoom for being able to have the
audience sort of wait outside and then be watching versus
being on stage and then sort of be brought in
for the talk back portion is pretty incredible. Yeah, it
really is. There's a lot of like thoughtful functionality there
that's already in place. And not to mention educational organizations,
(36:33):
Oh my gosh, I know that so many schools are
using Zoom, but also in Los Angeles specifically nonprofits like
l A which provides after school tutoring young storytellers, which
provides writing mentorship. The fact that these online platforms are
helping these organizations continue to keep going is is really remarkable.
(36:53):
It really is. So I gotta tell you my favorite
application of Zoom please. Recently, so John Krasinski has a
fantabulous fake news broadcast called Some Good News and it
is a delightful show. It is. It's fantastic. My friend
sent me episode two. There's a pretty wonderful Easter egg
(37:17):
in the second half of the second episode. I'm not
going to tell you what it is. You have to
go watch it. I was about to spoil it. Yeah,
well I'm you're better than I am. So she sent
me this and she's like, Oh, you're gonna like this.
It was relevant to a joke that we had had
going on about choir and saying choir over zoom. I
was like, what, I don't know what she's talking about.
(37:39):
But I just started watching the episode and it was
such a delight The good news truly is good news.
I was grinning like an idiot, and then the easter
egg pops up and made it even more delightful. So
I have now subscribed to some good News and I'm
going to watch it as much as I can because
(37:59):
it is truly my favorite use of zoom right now.
I agree that is a delightful watch, highly recommended. So
we want to know what you have found to be
delightful on the Internet or off, how you're coping, how
you are self caring, and how you are contributing to
making your world at least a little bit lighter right now.
(38:22):
You can reach us on Twitter or Instagram at t
L d n E pod, or you can always email
us at hello at t L d an E podcast
dot com. That's right, or you can leave us a
voicemail at eight three three high t L d n E.
That's eight three three four four eight five three six three.
Then dial eight oh three and we'll link to everything
(38:44):
we mentioned here plus a few more. You'll find all
of those fabulous links at our show notes at t
L d an e podcast dot com. Slash one eight
Team h. Thanks so much to our producer Maya Coole
and to you for tuning in. As always, please subscribe, rate,
(39:08):
and review on Apple Podcasts if you like what you heard.
It really helps us get the word out to fellow
human ven diagrams. Until next time, remember the limit does
not exist. The Limit does not Exist is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
(39:30):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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