I spent the first year of the pandemic picking my battles. My partner and I tried many new things together: cooking pierogies, shaving our arms, playing the ukulele, getting so high you get lost in your own tinnitus, buying too many house plants, Animal Crossing. In one way, we succeeded in doing all these things, because we did do them and time did pass. In another way, failure was a universal constant. When that happens, it is probably not helpful to tell someone that you will scream if you have to hear "Hallelujah" on the ukulele one more time.
But in the context of a massive crisis where so much is out of your control, what does it mean to be helpful? What is good when the world is upside down? When the usual compasses stop working, many of us revert to bizarre reflexes and weaponized boredom. And who are we to judge?
The best way to experience today’s episode is to tap into that mindset. Did you try homebrewing in 2020? Try on a fresh kink? Fight with your relatives? Doomscroll? Switch careers? Good, your bingo card has been assembled. You are ready to experience the tale of Brian and the loves of his life: his girlfriend Christy, his fishmonger, and his fishmonger’s cousin.
Tobin Low returns to the pod this week! Tobin is an editor for This American Life. Previously, he co-hosted Nancy, a show about the contemporary queer experience, and also served as a producer for Radiolab on the first season of More Perfect. His work has appeared on Marketplace, Studio 360, and the Codebreaker podcast.
Tobin brought Kelsey a story about a microcelebrity with bad vibes. Then Kelsey brought Tobin all the way back to the summer of 2020, for a tale of fish without salt, fish with salt, and community care.
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