Meet Me in the Medium Place
Changes coming to the ol' ANNIEGRAM
The other day I was deciding what podcast to listen to while doing a puzzle (I am so very cool), and having a hard time finding one that fit the current media brief of:
“Can’t Be Too Serious (Because Life is Serious Already) But Also Can’t Be Too Flippant (Because Don’t You Know How SERIOUS Life is Right Now???)
Anyone with me?
It’s like I was listening to self-help feeling exhausted/annoyed that people were asking me to try HARDER than I ALREADY am, but then listening to comedy feeling resentful/bitter at how effortless and breezy everything seemed for these happy, chipper, famous funny assholes.
SIDENOTE: One of those famous funny people, Amy Poehler, truly does have a fabulous new podcast. But I need you to tell me your trauma, Amy Poehler! I beg you! And this haircut doesn’t count! I love you but I must have relatable foundational context to keep you on the throne of The People’s Princess of My Heart!!!!
ANYWAY, what I ended up settling on is one of my all-time favorite podcasts My Brother, My Brother, and Me.
I realized MBMBAM fit the bill because A) I know how communally socially aware and personally socially anxious the brothers are, so B) I was able to receive their banter and bits from a place of good faith.
It was as if knowing that they are just as traumatized by current events (and, not gonna lie, life in general) made it easier to laugh with them.
So, why am I telling you this random lil snippet of emotional puzzle podcast processing? Well, I wanted to communicate some changes to the ANNIEGRAM:
It’s gonna be shorter.
It’s gonna be mostly just fun stuff.
It’s gonna move from Fridays to Wednesdays. (Because let’s be honest, Humpday—despite its name—is a mostly bummer day that needs more party vibes.)
This might just be a seasonal change as I take a summer vacation from self-improvement. The truth is, I love me some lifehacks/goals, and I’m always going to want to grow and learn and evolve…
but I’m kinda tired of writing about it, and I think you might be tired of reading it.
I want to see what shifts could happen* in my perspective and soul if I focus not on what I can change or improve but on simply what is, what I like, what I see.
I want to send out random blurbs that aren’t obsessively edited, or weird little poems that don’t have perfect rhyme structure, or songs that were badly recorded on a dying 2014 Macbook air.
And if I’m reading my own feelings and the nation-wide “room” correctly, I think we all need some light, breezy, “Medium Place Media” coming from people who we know are still rage-sobbing behind the scenes. (Which, y’all know, I DEF-O AM).
So that’s it. No tips for productivity or creativity for 2+ months, baybee! No trying to heal or understand or fix broken brains, suckahs!
Instead, I’m going to share the funny and the light-hearted and the simple and the mundane— soul-quenchingly sweet little apocalyptic palette cleansers from me to you.
May the ding of future missives in your inbox fill your heart with delight like the jingle of the neighborhood ice cream man on a 80 degree summer day. Onward we go into a hot gurl summer of easy beach reads from the ANNIEGRAM!
Thanks for coming along, I love you.
Annie B.
THREE GOOD THINGS
What’s gonna happen to 3 Good Things if the ANNIEGRAM becomes an All Good Things newsletter? Will I do away with this section entirely? Will I fill it up solely with bean recipes? ONLY TIME WILL TELL. But anyway, here’s a bean recipe.
You know what The Fates decided you needed to see today? Some 80’s John Goodman commercials. Ya welcome
Do a double-feature of Twister and Twisters and then check out the real thing by following real-life storm chasers.
Here for the medium place!