Playlist Fiend: Diet Soda Society

More often than not, I’ll find a song that I love so much, right off the bat, that I need more of that kind of song. Spotify generally does an OK job of “song radios” where it’s like, “Oh, you like this song? Got it. The next several songs will be that vibe. Pinky Swear.” Then the next few songs are that vibe… then it flips and the algorithm glitches or something, and suddenly instead of some smooth R&B, I’m listening to a T-Swift song that someone sub-categorized as R&B.

There’s nothing wrong with T-Swift, I’m a shameless fan – but if I’m in the mood for some Giveon… don’t give me T-Swift. Just don’t. That ain’t the vibe.

Another con to the Spotify “song radios” is that they operate off of Wi-Fi/data. Which can be incredibly inconvenient if you’re not in the comforts of your home Wi-Fi. This con is pretty massive con for me.

So due to my Spotify trust issues and necessity for convenience, whenever I’m struck with a new-to-me song, I instantly deep dive and create my own playlist that echoes the vibes of that song. Another pro to me doing this is not only stumbling upon even more new-to-me songs, but also having the power to put some of my fave bops on there as well. In creating these playlists, it’s actually this insane scouring of Spotify that takes place…

  1. Whichever artist’s song started this manic-playlist-creation, I dive into their Spotify first.
  2. I tear apart their other songs from various albums to see if there are any similar to that one song I now love (usually there is only 1-2 additional songs that maintain the vibe, shockingly enough).
  3. Then I continue down the profile and go through the pre-made playlists that already feature their music, and from those I pluck music by various artists that fit the vibe just right.
  4. Last step is when I scroll down to the “fans also like” section and tear those artists apart… picking jams that fit best.

It’s a whole process to be honest, I can be in the zone for as little as thirty minutes or 2-3 hours, depending on how deep the rabbit hole is and how familiar I already am with the genre. This whole playlist process is almost therapeutic to me, it gives me a weird creative outlet to just dive into with results that keep me satisfied for ages.

The latest song that sent me down the rabbit hole, was Diet Soda Society by The Maine off of their album, American Candy. It came out in 2015, but I’m only just discovering it, five years later, courtesy of my roommate, Zoe!

Zoe and I have been friends for ages, but it was only upon moving in together this fall that we found out that we both have a comical obsession with Diet Coke. Together, we’ve began splitting 12 packs of DC, and finding out very quickly that Whole Foods brand DC is NO BUENO!! It tastes… smoky?

But anyway – back to the whole point of this article…

The other day Zoe had sent me this song (“because DC“), which I quickly became obsessed with. By quickly, I mean, the song hadn’t even finished before I was like, “PLAYLIST MUST BE MADE SO I CAN LIVE IN THIS ANGSTY VIBE FOREVER.“

So, checkout my latest playlist: Diet Soda Society and let’s vibe together.

Emily SmithLeave a comment

BABs of History: Lizzie Johnson

“BAB?? What’s a BAB?”

It’s a not a what, it’s a who – and she is a Boss Ass Bitch. This article is the start of a new PKC series where knowledge is shared on BABs throughout history that shockingly didn’t make it into our mansplained school curriculum.

First up is educator, entrepreneur, activist, and Taurus: Lizzie Johnson, the “Cattle Queen of Texas.”

Lizzie was born in 1840 in Missouri, but she moved to Texas at such an early age that she really did most of her growing in The Lone Star State. The daughter of teachers, she was quick to follow in their footsteps and became an educator at her parents institute for sometime before opening her own school in Austin. While Lizzie valued playing a part in educating the future leaders of America, she craved a life that was simply more. Her need for change, her general need for more, led her to a bookkeeping gig for numerous cattlemen that all held high status and great wealth in Austin. After a short time of being nose deep in these prominent cowboys’ accounting books, she thought, “Well I can do what these guys do, easy.”

And she did.

By her early thirties, Lizzie had bought her first ten acres of land and was among the first women to wrangle her own cattle along one of the major routes through Texas – the Chisholm Trail. Her success was revolutionary, her path was trailblazing, and while she was building this empire, she was still an educator and did not stop teaching at her school in Austin until well into her forties. Lizzie Johnson challenged societal norms, pushed through gender roles set before her, and was an activist with a passion for both women’s rights and additionally prison reform.

In the midst of expanding her business, Lizzie fell in love with widower Hezekiah Williams. But before she would marry him, our BAB, Lizzie, required a prenup that stated she would remain in full control of all of her finances and all of her property – Hezekiah couldn’t touch it without her say so.

Can we take a moment to applaud this revolutionary act that no doubt caused a ripple in the community? A woman in the 19th century not relinquishing control of her life to her husband?! Blasphemous!

This BAB said, “My blood, my sweat, my tears, my brain – my money.”

And honestly Hezekiah must have been a dope dude, because he signed it and they were happily married, boosting each other along their respective ambitions until his death in 1914. Her husband’s death absolutely crushed her, resulting in her to live her remaining ten years as what locals called her: a miserly recluse. I refuse to end her story on a sad note, so you should most certainly know that by the end of her life, old gal, Lizzie, had acquired 160 acres of land and amassed $250,000 which would convert to nearly $3 million today! And more notably, in 2013, she was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Museum.

. . .

What can be learned from Lizzie Johnson is that following familial traditions is okay up until the point which you find yourself unsatisfied. Don’t ever ignore the hunger inside you craving more, don’t ever try to tame your fire to make others feel comfortable – sort out what you want and create a realistic path of how you’re going to get there, then make it happen. Most of all, Lizzie is a prime example of all of the limitless possibilities that can happen when you know your worth.

. . .

Sources: Smithsonian Mag, WITH, Wide Open Country, TSHA

Emily SmithLeave a comment

Social Media: The Wild Frenemy

Social media is wild, absolutely wild. It’s a force of nature that we treat as the annoying storm that never passes, but really, it’s a waking tsunami filled with inspiration, motivation, and community. It’s indubitably the ceaseless war between left and right, positivity and negativity; it’s your side, my side, yet is it ever the truth? Social media has the power to grow the smallest of feats and the ability to take down even the strongest of foundations.

Social media is everyone’s frenemy.

It’s that person you keep close to you out of fear of what will happen when out of sight, it’s the person that sometimes when you let your guard down with them you find they’re actually not that bad, but it’s also the person that you do let your guard down with… and it’s exactly what you expected: your words get twisted and shared, your meaning lost, and your venting rant falls into the ears of a snake, it’s now something that can never be erased… the way others view you now tainted.

I grew up in a weird transitioning stage of technology. My first phone was a Cingular flip phone, with no camera, I had a trove of VHS tapes, portable DVD players were the shit, and I got a Facebook when I was in sixth grade (2006) then a Myspace the following year – oh, was my mom mad about the socials.

In these early years of social media and multimedia messaging, parents and teachers alike were quick to preach to us all, “What you post and what you text lives on the internet forever, be careful!” As we grew up, ‘be careful’s morphed into, “Your job looks at your social media as much as they look at your resume, think about your future!”

So, I’ll say it again – social media is wild.

It has single-handedly fired up civil rights movements, kept these movements relevant, and it’s created community. Everyone can find a community on social media, they can learn about causes they never even knew to care about, they can find an account to follow with the right inspiration they’ve been looking for. Across the board between Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, the limit does not exist with how you can shape, reshape, and reshape again, what your feed and what your personal brand looks like.

If you feel your socials are one note, or too political, or too this, or too that… change up your algorithm.

Go through the accounts you follow, the people you’re friends with, and follow/unfollow – get things off your feed that don’t bring you happiness, advance your knowledge, or aid in personal growth.

Instagram was an easy cleanse – I unfollowed a lot of the random meme accounts and celebrities and then asked myself what I wanted to see, what I needed to see, during moments throughout the day when I take my IG scroll breaks. Do I want to see what food people are eating? Or how about the same dumb meme with knock-knock-joke level humor shared one million times across like 10 accounts? Heck, no! I wanted some finer scrolling content, thank you.

I wanted quality, inspirational, powerful content. After each scroll break, I wanted to feel rejuvenated and ready to take back on the world. I wanted girl power content, I wanted spiritual content, astrology out the ass content… I followed accounts like The Female Hustlers, Black Female Therapists, Oh That Witch Again, and Taurus Scopez.

With Facebook, I felt a bit more conflicted on how to cleanse as I’m not typically one to randomly delete people – which is the standard way to cleanse these days. I generally feel that deleting people isn’t really erasing the problem, and I also think it’s important to try to put yourself in other’s shoes whenever possible. So by not deleting people, I get to do this, attempt to somehow see the world through their eyes – what they come across on their timeline, decidedly resonate with, and then go as far as to share onto their own platform… it says a lot about them. What one shares on social media is very telling about how they are as a person.

FYI this is me lowkey admitting that I psychoanalyze what most everyone posts 😉

Ultimately, my Facebook solution was to actively go through and make sure I was following, like actively going to profiles and hitting the follow button, those friends who have a good rep in terms of posting a wide range of content. My second solution was to find private groups to join. My top favorite groups that keep my Facebook feed filled with Grade A quality content are The Solo Female Traveler Network and Road to 100 Countries. Both pages keep my feed adequately filled with people’s personal travel stories, their tips, and overall inspo to get out, travel, face any fears and knock down any barriers.

So as wild as social media is, I think we must face that it’s something you can’t really ignore or pretend doesn’t matter in this day and age. You just can’t. So, take this frenemy by the horns and own it – make it what you want, because while you can’t ignore it, you can certainly tell it what to do.

. . .

Side note – with a post about social media I feel I should throw in that I hope you’re following PKC on Instagram & Facebook 🙂

Emily SmithLeave a comment

I Stopped Meditating Daily and All Hell Broke Loose

Like, for real. You know how you always have good intentions when beginning a new habit, then feel kind of shitty when you fall out of it? Well… it was nothing like that at all. It was 1,000x worse — and I couldn’t be more thankful.

In a previous blog I mentioned how I was furloughed from work for three months earlier this year. During those three months I meditated every-single-day and it was magical. I felt more peaceful, present, less reactive, and more. I had unlocked my higher self and finally knew what it felt like to live in the high-vibration state I had only read about in books. Truly, it was life-changing and I was committed to doing it for at least 10 minutes daily moving forward.

LOL. How cute of me to think I could do something like that! Honestly, I’m adorable.

Now, I don’t want to blame this on going back to work because at the end of the day, it’s my responsibility to keep up a personal habit. However, I am a Taurus and would like to take a moment to base my entire personality off of my zodiac sign.

*ahem*

Tauruses thrive in comfort and are very stubborn. Meaning, me going back to work after being at home getting my mental shit together three months prior = recipe for disaster, baby! I got back to work and still managed to get my meditation in for the first week or so. But you know how it goes, it only takes missing ONE DAY to get completely thrown off balance. For me, anyway. Going back to working 40 hours a week, I would come home, veg out, crash, and do it all again the next day. Then on my days off I was in such a tizzy I honestly didn’t know which way was up!

We can’t always change what’s happening around us, but we can change what happens within us.

Andy Puddicombe, Headspace co-founder

About three weeks ago I was at the gynecologist for a yearly check-up. “How are you?” she asked. My mind swelled with thoughts which sent me into fight-or-flight mode, and of course I chose to fly. “I’m fine…” I gurgled.

“Lindsey, I don’t like that answer. How are you really?”

Here’s a mental image for you: there I was, lying back in my chair, hospital gown on, feet in stirrups, bracing myself for a pap smear, having a mental breakdown at the gyno. No better place to cry while your baby maker is on full display, I guess.

I went on to explain to her the mental struggles I was having the past month (even though I have 27 years worth of grade-A content for her!). How I was doing extremely well during my months off work, meditating daily, working to become a LIFE COACH… I felt so unworthy and small in that moment. I finally cracked as she told me I have to stop trying to be the one to save myself, that I can get professional help and that is o-k. All the work I’d done earlier this year barely scratched the surface, but I’m glad I was able to etch off that top layer.

She discussed the medication route as well as the therapy route, which I excitedly chose to do both because I needed help ASAP — and still do. The noise in my mind gets so loud sometimes I feel like my ears are going to bleed.

“Why didn’t you do _____ today?” “If you don’t get the dishes done your ENTIRE apartment will stink.” “You do know you’re a failure because you’re not using your college degree, right?” “Why didn’t ____ laugh at my joke earlier?” “Are you being present in this moment?”

“Are you listening, Lindsey?”

“Hello?”

It’s loud. It’s so earth-shatteringly loud in my head and I know I can do better. I can BE better. I am so thankful for getting out of the loop with my meditation, because that breakdown at the gynecologist saved my life.

I’ve been taking anti-depressants since that day and have already had my first therapy appointment. Since that day, I’ve been setting aside time for ME to meditate, read a good book, or do absolutely nothing. There is nothing wrong with taking medication if it helps you operate in a “normal” way, and I can happily say I’m already feeling much more balanced since I started. Having a day off and putting away my phone, doing nothing is completely fine. Needless to say, I’m chomping at the bit to read this again in a year and give myself a huge pat on the back for all the progress I’ll have made.

If someone can’t respect the time I take for myself, they don’t deserve to know me in the first place.

Besides, I’m a Taurus. And I do whatever the hell I want.

Lindsey MorrowLeave a comment