Monocycle With Leandra Medine

There was an article that ran in The New Yorker a couple of weeks ago called "The Personal Essay Boom is Over." In it, writer Jia Tolentino reflected on the writing genre's heyday -- citing sites that no longer exist, like xoJane and Gawker as having heralded the uncomfortably intimate or conversely curiously insignificant style of storytelling. The headline alone, of course, scared the shit out of me given that I don't think I even know how to have a thought about a third-party without somehow bringing it back to me. So much of what I write rides on the events of my life -- I wear my guts on my sleeve. I can't help it. I'm not even sure I want to help it. And when it comes to the writers who are enlisted to represent the Man Repeller ethos, it is my belief the best kind of editorial leader is willing to let her writer explore their identities -- to express what's on their minds within a controlled environment. This week on Monocycle, our editorial director, Leslie Price and I talk about the personal essay b

Have you started listening to this week’s episode of Monocycle yet? I’m listening to it now as I write this intro and want to ask that you disregard the way I’m inflecting in the first 20 or so seconds of the episode. I don’t know why my voice is doing that thing! I sound so phony. Baloney. But maybe that is exactly apropos given this week’s topic: ~identity~ (I know, when is it ever not about identity, right?). But the thing I keep coming back to as I listen and remember how I was feeling and what I was thinking when I recorded this fucker earlier in the week is the below scene from a movie that truly and devastatingly slipped under the Academy Award’s radar. I don’t know either! A lot of what I argue in the episode pertaining to the question of whether you can outgrow your identity has to do with clothes because I imbue so much of who I am into what I wear (I wrote a piece last week that dealt with some of this). I have insofar not come to any eye-opening conclusions; the best I have done is suggest that I

Ask and ye shall receive! Following a special episode of The Chatroom with Drew Barrymore, which went live a few weeks ago after months and months of toiling with the expansive range of topics that were covered during our conversation in December, the longer-form podcast episode is here for your ear (plugs). If I'm being really honest, sitting down with Drew following a particularly tumultuous month was like Xanax for my soul -- there is an undeniable warmth about the way in which she looks at you (and into your soul, frankly), a true earnestness when she not just sympathizes but also empathizes with what you want to say, and you always get the sense, no matter what she's talking about, that it's coming from the heart. Have a listen and then nod in agreement as I say: We are all Josie Grossie. This episode of Monocycle was edited by Samara Breger. Logo illustration by Kelly Shami.

It sounds scary as hell because when nothing is new, nothing is changing either, and when nothing is changing, you're stuck. And being stuck is painful. But I see the metaphor like this: I've been clutching a wall near the bottom of an emotional pit called rock-bottom for the past four months and have been trying so hard to crawl out when what I really need to do is just let myself fall, chill down there for a minute, and then, once I've relaxed, start trying to get out. Or something like that. So this episode is about why I've been quiet, but I guess it's also about letting yourself feel how you feel and be how you are (isn't it always?) and not getting so frustrated when you're not where you thought you would be (see what I mean about the one-note thinking?). Pls say you understand! Related Stories: The Thought Process of Being Negative I Tried Hypnosis to Get Out of My Own Head I Tried a Mood-Lifting Food Diet The Baby I Lost, the Person I’m Finding Welcome to Laugh it the Fuck Off Month Monocycle is

Holy candied nut! Can you believe we've approached the 50th episode of Monocycle? Some of them have been so stupid! Others have been regurgitations of articles that have gone up on Man Repeller (this was a test, which according to the last episode, is falling flat -- point noted!), but the majority, really, have been stream of consciousness monologues that I want to turn into dialogues because it can't be that all the thoughts I maintain are unique to just me, right? The thoughts I think, the feelings I feel...as different as we are, we're also the same. Joy is joy and grief is grief and as much as the latter sucks, it is also incredible that we have the capacity to show empathy or compassion to each other. This has nothing to do with the episode, by the way, which was recorded while I sat nearly-naked on a marble bathroom floor in Paris earlier this week. I was feeling SO BLUE and I'm not sure why (though honestly, my life has felt more like its on hold in a deep blue vacuum than anything else since pregnan

This week's episode of Monocycle reflects upon a cleanse I endured over January wherein I did not buy a single thing, save for a jar of Castelvetrano olives and apple cider vinegar. That's dramatic; I also bought cleaning supplies and coffee and even one massage. The "cleanse" was mostly for clothing/shoes/accessories and the results surprised me (for lack of a better way to end this sentence). Evidently, more is not more; it can emotionally trap you in its abundance. I felt curiously liberated from my stuff and like I was better at tapping into what I already have and therefore no longer in pursuit of anything new (this became a metaphor for thinking) and...and...and...listen and we can continue this conversation. Welcome back to regular programming! Sincerely yours, Malcolm Gladwell Related Stories: The Things You Learn When You Stop Shopping for a Month I Clean My Closet Once a Month: Does that Make Me Compulsive? Monocycle is edited by Nicholas Quazzy Alexander. Logo illustration by Kelly Shami; pho

WEH-HEL-COME BACK! TO! MONOCYCLE! This week's episode reinforces the inauguration of Commitment Month on Man Repeller, a theme we take neither lightly nor literally. What you'll find once you tune in is a mangled narrative that extrapolates a couple key points from the "welcome" post that went live on Wednesday. The welcome posts are essentially our version of an Editor Letter, but the podcast episodes that often follow tend to delve a bit further into those letters. What can you can expect includes asking the following questions: Does Valentine's Day on Instagram make you feel alone? How far is too far to go with mindfulness? Is self-care (the worst term on earth!) truly for our betterment if we find ourselves overwhelmed by all THE THINGS we have to do? Can't we just live -- roll out of bed, maybe brush our teeth and get on with our days? There's more, but won't it be more rewarding to hear it for yourself? Chin chin and congratulations, people. We made it through January! Monocycle is edited by Nichola

You might remember a dramatic meditation that I wrote, which essentially made the case to abandon the pursuit of becoming cool in exchange for simply accepting who I am. I read it back to myself after it went live and felt like it came off somewhat kumbaya. Originally, I wanted to write the story for the simple reason that it seems like people are aspiring towards this weird umbrella word (cool) that doesn't actually mean anything because it's so subjective and mutable, but once I got to sitting and writing and simultaneously thinking, it came out as something else. So this week's episode of Monocycle is a new way to critique my own mind (if you thought I couldn't get more vain, surprise!). It appraises a story I have written, agrees with the clauses that still hold subjectively true, corrects the ones that could have been misunderstood or just articulated more clearly (my mind is a windy road, and I'm sorry you're so regularly subject to the ride), considers the comments under the story (so often best and sm

This week's episode of Monocycle is a real doozy. It's the first time in a long time that I stuck my head into that sound booth without a clear idea of what I would say once I was in there. Then words started pouring out, words I can't even recall having uttered. Did I listen to this episode several times over the course of the editing process? Yes. Obviously. Do I remember a single damn thing I said? No. I think my eyes have been staring a large computer screen too closely for so long that it is impacting my memory cells. Is that an unfounded excuse? Absolutely. Will I stop asking questions only to answer them immediately? Maybe. The bottom line is this: our theme of the month is Ch-Ch-Changes, but it's not a Man Repeller theme without a dash of irreverence (I can't believe I just wrote that in women's interest glossy type, but I'm not going to delete it because, you know, it happens to the best of us) so when we resolved we'd change, what we meant was exactly by staying the same. The point of this isn't

Hi ppl! We're back together. Again. And because tomorrow is the last day of this year (am I alone in asserting that even though we're all here and alive as evidenced by my writing this and your reading this and therefore truly in no position to complain, some drastic element of the year fucking sucked?), here is an episode about resolutions, not to be confused with goals. Things covered in the episode include: +The fact that this was recorded while I was sitting in the passenger seat of a rental car in Los Angeles +Why following a somewhat tumultuous but overall subservient relationship with resolutions, I don't want to make them anymore +The one time I kept a resolution (hold on to the same Metrocard for one whole year), how it made me feel (fine), and see previous bullet point +My control issues (I'm so vain) +Grief (which is seemingly the only thing I can talk about these days) +Letting go (another theme you might be tired of hearing about) +Abie +How relieving and gratifying it feels to say to yo

We're heading into Thanksgiving!!!! Kind of, at the end of next week, and I've never needed some fucking time off more. But I'm also getting kind of anxious about the family time that awaits -- not because I don't love spending time with my family, those people are my people, but because lately, I have been arguing so much with my mom and I can't quite shake the resentment I am starting to feel. Intellectually, I recognize what I need to do the cut the tension that frankly, I am instigating, but emotionally, it's like I've become a six-year-old with a vengeance all over. This makes sense in my head because she is my mom and as such I often feel like I have carte blanche to act like an asshole/baby around her, but guess what? She's a person too! I didn't realize that until recently, but I get it now. The thing is, I'm caught at the intersection of don't care and don't want to believe it. So I've been thinking a ton about a) how selfish I am, b) how incredibly complex the relationship between a mother and her

Hi ppl. I'm either sorry or really happy to acknowledge the lack of consistency with Monocycle lately (the apology or gratuity depends on entirely on how you feel about this podcast), but given the events of the past several weeks and the singular event that preceded the past several weeks, I have both been a fire breathing dragon and a severely sad human incapable of stringing together a sentence with my mouth (no problem with a keyboard, though!), but here we are. Back. Talking on the telephone only it's not actually a phone, it's an audio recording that you listen to and maybe speak back to even though I can't hear you (unless you comment, in which case, I totally can). This week's episode is a sort of check in. It's been two weeks since my pregnancy termination procedure and I have been having a lot of conversations with myself, least not being the ones about: +Interrupting self-deprecation +Actually learning how to let go +Self-compassion +How to handle grief (I don't know, I just talk about it) +H

In this week's episode of Monocycle, Malcolm Gladwell tackles the notion of consumption in 2016 -- how we eat, how we engage with our Internet tendencies and whether or not, in spite of statistics that suggest millennials are acquiring less, we are addicted to material gain. I'm just kidding, Malcolm Gladwell is not in the building. It's just me, Leandra, talking into her tiny booth about consumption. I do break up the topic into the three aforementioned categories: food, shopping and Internet but probably also go on to diminish any credibility tagged to my points given the sweeping statements that are subsequently posited about our generation, and how we're different (for better or worse) because. Of. How. Much. We. Consume. All. The. Time. For a while, it sounds kind of cynical, but then I reel it back in with a dose of diet cherry coke and optimism because frankly, if you only learn one thing from Man Repeller/Monocycle/me, I hope that it is this: cynicism is much easier than optimism, so do the right thi

Before Breast Cancer Awareness month ends, here is one more point of awareness in the form of a Monocycle podcast interview with Fashionista.com's executive editor, who was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer when she was 21. Given the overwhelming financial resources that have been allocated towards research, we are uniquely positioned at this juncture to feel less helpless at the hand of breast cancer. As mentioned in a round table that ran earlier this month, though, it is precisely these resources that have taken us this far, and will continue to move us towards the goal of a world free of breast cancer. So, if you would like to donate, please click here. If you can't, that's okay, just be there when your people need you -- and have the courage to reach out when you need your people. Related Stories Breast Cancer Awareness: The Man Repeller Round Table Logo by Kelly Shami - legsny.com/ Edited by Nicholas Quazzy Alexander

In case you have missed tuning into the monologues that occur inside the (membrane) walls that define my head, welcome back! Here we are! With a fresh new episode of Monocycle that outlines a recent question mark I've been shopping around -- how different are comfort and complacency? Can they be regarded as one and the same? It is such a unique and profound luxury, but more and more I have been wondering whether I am adjusting appropriately to this newfangled time. Have I become more comfortable? Absolutely. But is that comfort bringing on this curious sense that I might be complacent -- that is, uncritically satisfied with myself? Or is this just, like any other adjustment would require, a time of transition? LISTEN UP, PEOPLE! TO THIS AND MORE. Related Stories: I Hate Being On My Phone All the Time Monocycle: Episode 35, Learning to be Content As Your Own Boss 5 Things Running Man Repeller Taught Me 6 Things I’ve Learned About How to Manage People In partnership with Squarespace Logo by Kelly Shami -

Paris Fashion Week ended on Wednesday. I'm not entirely sure if the season felt quieter or less exciting than usual because I wasn't there, but watching it unfold on social media and through the lens of the some of the critics who I most admire made me think about a lot of stuff. Stuff like...what actually comes first? A good collection or a good review (meaning, do the writers inform how we will feel about certain clothes, or can they speak for themselves?) When the clothes are good enough to speak for themselves, do you ever feel that sense of just not...caring? What is that? Why do we feel that? What differentiates the designers who move the needle and inform the zeitgeist and those who just make really nice-looking clothes? Or are we experiencing fashion fatigue? If we are, what should we do to combat it? We are definitely undergoing some version of a revolution in fashion, so maybe we just need a more positive perspective to lead the charge. It's too soon to be so cynical, isn't it? Amelia makes a cam

Not to beat a horse that has been killed multiple times already but in this week's episode of Monocycle, we reopen the conversation around the dreadlocks at the Marc Jacobs Spring 2017 runway show. It's not to throw more shade, or say anything that hasn't already been said, but rather, to talk about two larger problems. The first is, of course, cultural appropriation and the overarching blindspot of the privilege that occurs outside of a minority. It's a huge coup that this is becoming less tolerable and acceptable as our society evolves, but I wonder, as the outrage machine continues firing up, when we've constructively added to the conversation vs. just made noise. Designers, artists -- all creatives, really -- build their collections on reference. There is no art, at least as we know it, without the act of riffing, but the solution isn't pulling ideas from the sky, shutting ourselves off to the incredibly rich cultures of both yore and now. On the contrary, it's proper accreditation and more importantly,

Have you ever felt that terrible, nauseating pit in your stomach? It makes doing anything other than focusing on the pit feel impossible. I used to get it every time I found out my ex-boyfriend was dating someone new. Recently, I started getting it every time I found out that someone is pregnant. I never knew how to process the pit as anything other than heartbreak but I'm starting to realize that it's more than that -- it's envy, so in this week's episode, we unpack that like it's a carry-on suitcase full of grenades. Related Stories: A Pregnant Pause Monocycle: Episode 26, Not Pregnant Thinking About Babies? Pregnant? Just Gave Birth? How to Exercise in 10 Gifs In partnership with Squarespace. Logo by Kelly Shami - legsny.com/ Edited by Nicholas Quazzy Alexander

Sometimes I feel like my brain is a variety show and your cable network is out of whack, which is to say that you only catch slivers of each section. The fact of the matter is, I'm only delivering slivers of each section, so I'm sorry I just blamed your network. Self-deprecation aside, this episode is all about real world re-entry following a lazy, delightful summer. When you work in fashion, the week that follows Labor Day has this unique ability to make you feel as though you are practically starting your first day of high school, which we talk about a little as a starter thought to open up a larger conversation about fashion week. Note that this episode was recorded BEFORE fashion week started and requires feedback. So, take it away! Related Stories: Back to School: Welcome to New Beginnings Month on Man Repeller Do You Read Fashion Week Reviews? The Strange State of Social Media Etiquette at Fashion Week Fashion Week Is Here And The Clothes Are Easy WATCH: Leandra Introduces Herself To Our New Nolita Nei

In this week's episode of Monocycle, Leandra discusses how to be content as one's own boss and the importance of leaving home life at home and work life at work. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace, the easiest way to create a blog or website. Use the offer code MONOCYCLE at check out for 10% off your first purchase. Related Stories: 5 Things Running Man Repeller Taught Me Monocycle: Episode 4, Self-Sabotage Are You Happy? Logo by Kelly Shami - legsny.com/ Edited by Nicholas Quazzy Alexander