Phone-a-Friend: Shani Hilton of BuzzFeed News
1/1/16 - Happy New Year! In this phone-a-friend edition of CYG, Amina calls content queen Shani Hilton to discuss houseplants, why the workplace is still not ready for black women’s ambition (ugh) and BuzzFeed’s coverage of HBCUs and unjust fines in Texas. Plus, Amina’s white DNA, what has happened on Grey’s Anatomy since we all stopped watching and life lessons from Shonda Rhimes.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
LINKS
Thomas Keller’s 3 ingredient recipe for roast chicken
History of the Chinese money plant
Criminalizing poverty and fining kids who don’t show up to school in Texas
TRANSCRIPT: PHONE-A-FRIEND: SHANI HILTON OF BUZZFEED NEWS
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman and it's 2016!
Aminatou: Happy New Year!
Ann: Happy New Year. Ugh, I mean . . .
Aminatou: I love the new year. I'm one of those people.
Ann: I love the new year because I'm also a January baby and January is, on every measure, fresh start time. I love that.
Aminatou: It's true. Shout out to all the Capricorns in our lives. Goat people.
Ann: Capricorn women dramatically over-represented in my life.
Aminatou: Yeah, that's true. My brother is a Capricorn too. It's amazing. So many.
Ann: Yeah, and even like -- yeah, just tons of January babies. I think whenever I did the math on what month everyone was having sex to create all these January babies I was like hmm, not a lot going on in that month. I don't remember what month it is.
Aminatou: Was it like April or something?
Ann: Yeah, something like that.
Aminatou: I'm like I don't know how to count backwards.
Ann: I don't know either. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Somebody do the math and tweet at us.
Ann: I like how I'm like this one time I figured it out, like I can't do it on my fingers right now.
Aminatou: A long, long time ago.
Ann: Yeah.
Aminatou: Yeah, that's amazing, you know? So this week is a phone-a-friend episode and I really wanted to start the new year off kind of on a banger and call up one of the most accomplished and amazing ladies we know, Shani Hilton.
Ann: Who is from the future so appropriate for a new year episode.
Aminatou: I mean, Ann, you already know this. Shani's so amazing and the way that she just lives her life is so delightful. And so it's a real pleasure to talk to her. We talked about her boss lady moves at BuzzFeed and just general self-care. She's really into gardening right now and all of the weirdo TV that we're watching. And, you know, just how to be a cool, chill lady. Her vibe is so rad.
(1:48)
Ann: Yeah, it is true. It's like the number of people I know who are -- who kind of have . . . I mean she has a super-important, powerful job but also is not a crazy person. You know, is a down-to-earth woman who cares about all these other aspects of her life and lives a really full existence. She is just the best.
Aminatou: Exactly, you know? And our nickname for Shani has long been Shani Luther King.
Ann: [Laughs] Integrating the media.
Aminatou: She's singlehandedly responsible for how many black people there are in journalism and she's just a really down-to-earth person who lives with a ton of integrity and is -- you know, she's good at everything she does. I love her.
[Theme Song]
Aminatou: Hi Shani! Thanks for joining us today, or me.
Shani: Hi, Amina. What's up?
Aminatou: Not much. It's been a long day. I've been feeling a little sick so I've just been drinking all sorts of weirdo portions that Jenna recommended. It's weird.
Shani: Jenna has the hookup on weird things that you should consume to make your body better.
Aminatou: Yeah, she's like 100% a witch. I love it. What are you up to today?
Shani: Currently I am roasting a chicken and drinking white wine which means that I am officially Diane Keaton in a Nancy Meyers film.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Do you have a favorite roast chicken recipe?
Shani: I do this super, super, super simple one like the Bittman . . . or is Thomas Keller? No. Oh, god. Thomas Keller I think? It's just chicken.
Aminatou: Yes, I know the one you're talking about. Yep.
Shani: Salt, at a high heat. I stuck half a lemon in the butt this time so we'll see what happens.
(3:55)
Aminatou: Yeah, that's the Thomas Keller one. It's like salt and prayer.
Shani: Yes, salt, prayer, and heat.
Aminatou: [Laughs] That's basically it. But yeah. I don't know, I wanted to talk to you about a lot of things today but mostly you're a good lady friend. You know, you live your life so well.
Shani: Oh my god, you . . .
Aminatou: [Laughs] The first thing I want to talk to you about is your love of gardening and tweeting about gardening. Will you tell me a little bit more about that?
Shani: So I used to have a dog and she hated living in New York so I took her to California and she lives there now and is very happy with my dad. But I missed having living things and I also lived in a hole on the lower east side where we had no light. We had really bad, short windows with northern exposure which is the lowest light you could get.
Aminatou: Your couch was so good to me though, real talk. [Laughs]
Shani: [Laughs] I mean we loved having you there. And then I moved to Brooklyn to an amazing apartment that had very tall ceilings and full southern exposure with tons and tons of light and I was like oh, I'm losing my mind. I have to get all the plants I can fit in the lighted area or the lit area of my apartment. And so I bought lots and lots of plants and I just kept thinking like . . . like I'm still currently stalking a particular plant that is very trendy and hard to get.
Aminatou: Ooh, what is it?
Shani: It's called the Chinese money plant.
Aminatou: What?
Shani: Scandinavian more recently because some Scandinavian missionary went to China and found it and brought it back. And the way it propagates, you just propagate it, so you take a cutting and you plant it and you give it to a friend. And so all the Chinese money plants in Scandinavia are from this one missionary's cutting and that's how it spread. So anyway, it's really hard to get. It's really pretty cool-looking. I'm working on it. I keep emailing this one nursery. [Laughs]
(6:00)
Aminatou: [Laughs] You're such a plant nerd. I love it so much.
Shani: They wrote me back. They were like "Check back in the spring," and I'm like ugh. Anyway, I love plants.
Aminatou: Well the exciting thing is once you get one I know I'm getting one so that's perfect.
Shani: [Laughs] Perfect. So yeah, I love having living things in my apartment, and living things that don't require too much attention. I've only killed a couple of them.
Aminatou: Okay, so you're saying for someone like me who stocks up on succulents that there's hope?
Shani: Yes, succulents are actually way trickier than people think they are.
Aminatou: What?
Shani: It's really easy to over-water them, especially now that we're going into a colder time of year when they're dormant. So really don't water them until you touch the leaf and it's very squishy and soft because then you know it needs water.
Aminatou: Let me tell you my succulent trick, don't water them at all.
Shani: [Laughs] Or that.
Aminatou: Three years running, baby, they look great.
Shani: I over-watered my string of pearls plant and it is not happy with me right now so I'm trying to dry it out. I may not water it for two months and we'll see what happens.
Aminatou: I'm so impressed you know all the names. I'm like cactus number one, baby-looking cactus, weird thing.
Shani: [Laughs] I even know the scientific names of some of them which is kind of scary.
Aminatou: That is scary. You know, well, that's why I love you.
Shani: Love you too.
Aminatou: Upgrade my life all the time. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is recently BuzzFeed did this great, great, great feature on HBCUs. For people who don't know, these are historically-black colleges and universities. And I think you're my first friend who went to an HBCU.
Shani: Really?
(7:48)
Aminatou: Yes. I think you're even the person who taught me what the acronym was.
Shani: [Laughs] It's really funny, actually. I mean HBCUs don't currently graduate that many black -- like where black kids are getting educated now, it's largely through online colleges for better or for worse. Some are great and some are very bad actors. But HBCUs, you know, I think are enrolling a few hundred thousand students a year between the hundred or so of them there are. So it's a small but very passionate force. And pretty outsized I think in kind of the world of work and media. It's really easy to bump into another Howard grad for me. I feel like I bump into Howard grads all the time.
Aminatou: Yeah, I feel like you guys run media as far as I'm concerned. I'm like there's this tiny Howard mafia of people who just run everything.
Shani: Okay, I'll take it.
Aminatou: I mean in fact I met two white girls who went to Howard and they're also running things everywhere they go. I'm like this is very terrifying.
Shani: Nice. Nice.
Aminatou: One of the things that was really fascinating for me in a lot of the conversations that we've had about HBCUs is seeing how many ambitious women there are that go there.
Shani: Oh, yeah.
Aminatou: And how it's its own kind of . . . you know, it's like its own power lady world, and how black women actually have been leaning in forever and ever and ever, like all the statistics way this that black women have outsized ambition; it's just that the workplace is not ready for us.
Shani: Oh, it's so true. I was reading this insane study and I'm not going to cite any statistics because I don't remember them exactly but the point was essentially that which is black women desperately want to be managers. They feel very confident in their ability to manage. They feel very secure. And so when people are like "Women don't step up enough and don't throw their hat into the ring," and this is true, it's played out in my own life where I've seen the black women I know, not just the ones who went to Howard but all of them pretty much in my circle are very ambitious, very eager, have a little ego, want to run things, and they come and they headbutt with a culture that's not prepared to support them. And so it's been kind of irritating in some ways to see these kind of blanket narratives about women in the workplace when what we're really talking about is white women and we're not addressing the fact that women of color, black women in particular, who have long, long, long for generations worked -- been in the workplace, whether that was in somebody's home or restaurant or whatever -- are now ready to take on management roles and the pathways aren't there.
(10:30)
Aminatou: Yeah, right? It's like this lack of mentorship but it's so true. It's like black women have had their foot on the gas since the beginning of time. We just . . . ugh, whatever, we're fine. One of us will change it. It's cool.
Shani: [Laughs] We both will.
[Ads]
(13:55)
Aminatou: The other thing that you really kind of opened my eyes to also at HBCUs is how many non black-American people go there.
Shani: Oh, yeah.
Aminatou: The international presence. When we lived in D.C. down the street from each other and close to Howard University every once in a while I would see all these African kids with so much swagger who were all obviously Howard students.
Shani: Yeah.
Aminatou: And I really wish that I knew that that had even been an option for me.
Shani: That's so interesting. I mean I think that, yeah, the African kids, the Nigerian kids, the Ghanaian kids in particular rolled deep. A lot of them had been educated in the UK for secondary school and then came to Howard for college. Just like very confident. It was actually kind of maddening but I knew this one guy who would brag about "I can count back my ancestry eight generations."
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Shani: "To the Nigerian prince I'm descended from."
Aminatou: Oh my god, that's such an African person thing to say, you know?
Shani: I'm like how nice for you. Congrats. [Laughs] I can probably go back like two generations on my father's side?
Aminatou: Oh man.
Shani: Because they don't keep records of slaves that well.
Aminatou: Cold-blooded.
Shani: Cold-blooded.
Aminatou: I mean I can go back in my family until . . . eighth century I think is what we have, because our family basically brought Islam to west Africa. But here's the other thing, Shani, everybody lies.
Shani: Oh, of course.
Aminatou: When I did my 23 and Me genetic testing, I'm going to give you a little bit of context. My grandparents on both sides of my family, they're very tribalistic. I'm not even going to say they're racist. They only care about our tribe.
Shani: Okay.
(15:45)
Aminatou: And so it's been -- and my grandfathers both passed away but my grandmothers were very vocal about a lot of my cousins marrying outside of our tribe and specifically white people. In this generation there are a lot of interracial marriages and the grandmas just were not having it. And they would always call back to this time when the lineage was pure and all this garbage. So this is the thing I've grown up hearing my whole life. Anyway, fast-forward, I do 23 and Me. Dun, dun, dun, 20-plus percent of my DNA is some sort of Caucasian/white.
Shani: Oh my god. Oh my god, that . . .
Aminatou: So stressful. So, so, so stressful. So somebody's obviously lying.
Shani: Was your world turned upside down where you're like I don't even know who I am anymore?
Aminatou: Yo, like honestly I'm still processing it. You know I have an affinity towards white people and especially white women and now I understand where it comes from.
Shani: [Laughs] It's genetic.
Aminatou: It's genetic. Like my deep attraction to white people is genetic. But, you know, it's so fascinating to me because it's true. It's like African people, especially those of us who live -- who are privileged enough to live in the west, because that's the other story they don't tell you, it's like when we end up at schools in America it's because we come from fairly privileged backgrounds, you know?
Shani: Oh, totally, money. That's how you get there.
Aminatou: Listen, I don't want to say that.
Shani: Look, I'll say it. I saw some really well-dressed Africans on a daily basis at Howard.
Aminatou: Well my parents were very working-class, but you know, every cow in our family accounts for how I went to college.
Shani: [Laughs]
Aminatou: So, you know, it's that kind of story. But yeah, I don't know. And now my other grandma passed away before I was able to share this news with her and now I only have one living grandma and every once in a while she'll say these very problematic things and I just want to throw this like "Where's this 20% white DNA come from, grandma?" in her face. [Laughs]
Shani: [Laughs]
(17:48)
Aminatou: But she's too old to talk about it with and so it's stressing me out and I'm like maybe we'll never do. Because they don't do ancestry.com for African people.
Shani: Isn't that like the This American Life where the guy found out -- the black guy found out he had no black DNA?
Aminatou: No . . .
Shani: And his family was like "No, you're black," and he's like "Wait a second, my DNA does not say I'm black."
Aminatou: Oh my god, so stressful. Yeah, no, it's so crazy. Mostly also I'm doing -- I talk about this on the podcast a lot because my hope is that Dr. Gates will want to study my [Laughs] heritage because, I don't know, I watch that show all the time and my favorite is all the people who are so adamant about knowing where they're from. Like Oprah was so convinced that she was Zulu and is just like "My ancestry is Zulu," and yeah, the Harvard people and Dr. Gates were like "Hmm, try Sierra Leone." It's not real.
Shani: I should do that. I feel like maybe I'll decide that I'm a Maroon from Jamaica. That's on my mother's side.
Aminatou: Yo, you might find out you're a quarter Polish or something.
Shani: Oh god.
Aminatou: Yeah, it's like I did it and didn't really think about it, and then I was like oh, this actually can create a lot of problems.
Shani: [Laughs]
Aminatou: There's also a social networking thing that's tied to it. They regulate it a little tightly but when it started it was kind of like the wild west and people could just send you friend requests based on how close you are to them.
Shani: Oh my god.
Aminatou: And this one woman who we're cousins fourth removed, she's like a full redhead German. And I'm like I don't have the emotional capacity to figure out how we are related at all but that really stresses me out too.
Shani: [Laughs] Secrets will be revealed.
Aminatou: Yeah, I know, secrets. African people secrets, man, they're everywhere.
Shani: I love it.
Aminatou: It's so crazy. What else is going on with you?
Shani: I'm thinking about news basically on a daily basis. That is my life, besides tweeting, is . . .
Aminatou: [Laughs]
(19:50)
Shani: Is just thinking about how to build a really great, strong, big, relevant news organization. That's what keeps me up at night.
Aminatou: Is there anything you can tell us that's not like, I don't know, super-secret work that you're doing?
Shani: Ooh, that's a really good question. You know, I think BuzzFeed really . . . I want it to be a place where reporters feel really supported and just kind of the best possible place to work if you're a reporter, and just getting things in order so that we can be that place. I feel like we are and I just want to continue to be that, so I don't know. I'm bragging. I'll stop.
Aminatou: No, I love it when you brag. Maybe that can be a separate podcast. It's like Bragcast.
Shani: [Laughs]
Aminatou: But I guess, you know, if we're going to brag, what are really cool stories you feel that your reporters have worked on this year that are things you're really proud of?
Shani: I feel like we've just done such fascinating work with Texas and their habit of imprisoning people who can't pay fines. More specifically we did an amazing series about students who missed class for whatever reason whether it was family problems or illness.
Aminatou: These are like high school students?
Shani: High school kids, 15, 16, 17. You miss X number of days you are expected to pay a fine. If you can't pay that fine you go to jail.
Aminatou: Truant fee.
Shani: And because of our reporting the governor of Texas signed a law that changed truancy from a criminal offense to a civil offense which is huge but on the other hand it's like that should've never been criminal.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Shani: And then we're kind of also working on a series about how people who rack up traffic fines have the option to either pay the fine or sit in jail and judges are supposed to give them the option to do community service if they can't pay the fines but a lot of judges don't even bother to ask or they're like "You have a cell phone so you must be able to pay your fines and if you don't you're going to jail."
Aminatou: Oh man, Texas shame.
Shani: I don't know, there's just so much . . . but country-wide there's just so much to uncover and I think that has been the most exciting part of my job is working with reporters who are uncovering bad actors and injustice large and small, and obviously big is great, but small, you're changing the lives of a few people. That's kind of crazy and kind of great.
Aminatou: That's really cool. Can you brag to me about something personal?
(22:20)
Shani: Oh, something personal? Hmm.
Aminatou: Because I feel like you're racking up awards left and right. You're also just like, you know, you're like a woman about town.
Shani: [Laughs] I was really delighted to be honored to be on this Marie Claire list for 50 most connected women in America. It's kind of funny actually to be in my position, because I don't write that much. It's really easy when you don't write to really slip behind the scenes and not be seen, and having my work recognized by people who are paying attention is really -- it's nice.
Aminatou: That's really cool. I mean well-deserved. Can you tell us what the headline was for it?
Shani: Oh, god, I think . . . [Laughs] This is a setup.
Aminatou: Totally a setup. I want to talk about it. What was the headline for your title?
Shani: You have to say it.
Aminatou: I mean I vaguely remember. You were like the content creator or the content queen? Which one was it?
Shani: It was the content queen.
Aminatou: The content queen. I know! But I felt like that was a deep homage to Kim Kardashian, you know? Who's like our number one content queen. Two Ks.
Shani: Oh, I love it. Oh my god, Kim. She's the best.
Aminatou: Ugh, I'm so proud of you Shani. Okay. Now because we've waded into Kim what are you watching on TV currently?
Shani: Currently I'm watching Sex and the City which is not current and I've been watching Outlander which I did see -- I binge watched at our friend Mandy's house, another important woman in our lives, but now I'm kind of watching it more slowly because there are like ten Outlander books. It's kind of a ridiculous show. It's about . . . can I even? It's about a woman from 1940ish, 1945, who gets thrown back in time to 1700-something. So it's like weird time-shifting. But the series is basically like her being threatened with rape, her boyfriend/husband being threatened with murder, her saving his life, rinse, repeat. But it's kind of a fascinating show.
(24:30)
Aminatou: So two things. One, I did not know Outlander was books.
Shani: [Laughs]
Aminatou: Everything -- yeah. I'm just like I don't have time for books to TV, but I am caught up on Outlander the TV show. And the thing about it that's fascinating to me is how steamy the sex is.
Shani: So sexy.
Aminatou: It's just basically like a show that, you know, it's all about the female gaze and I was like oh, this is everything Game of Thrones does wrong.
Shani: Oh, totally, because it's like you have this obviously beautiful model, Katrina . . . I can't pronounce her last name; it's Irish. But the main actress. And she's tall and gorgeous, but it's not about her body. She's like a Madewell model, you know?
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Shani: You see yourself being her because she is so cool and gorgeous but you don't linger on her body in the same way that you do with the sexy, hunky . . .
Aminatou: I know, but you definitely linger on the men's bodies.
Shani: Yes.
Aminatou: And even the way -- I'm thinking about this one particular sex scene, the way that they're just setup. Like you could just tell that it's made for women.
Shani: Right.
Aminatou: It's like the camera pans towards the body. It's a little more patient. It's a little more insistent. It's like, yeah, the camera foreplay is serious.
(25:50)
Shani: It's real. It's like how in, god, that movie with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone where it lingers all over his sexy muscled back.
Aminatou: Oh yeah, god, what is that movie called? It's so bad. With Steve Carell. Yes.
Shani: [Laughs] We'll remember. We'll put it in the links.
Aminatou: Yeah. It's called like Hey Girl. [Laughs]
Shani: [Laughs] Anyway, it's like one of those things where you can tell it's really made for women to watch. It doesn't care if men think she's sexy. And I mean she is and she's beautiful but it's kind of delightful to watch something where your eye's not being led to a woman's ass at all times.
Aminatou: That is amazing. Are you watching anything else?
Shani: I'm still watching Grey's Anatomy, hanging on.
Aminatou: I love it. What's going on on Grey's? Give me an update. I stopped watching Grey's . . . McSteamy had just started dating Lexie.
Shani: Oh my god, RIP McSteamy. RIP Lexie.
Aminatou: Wait, they died?
Shani: They both . . .
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Shani: What, four years ago?
Aminatou: Was it like a plane crash? I feel . . .
Shani: A plane crash.
Aminatou: Okay. Wait, did McSteamy die in the plane crash or did he die from the plane crash?
Shani: No. It was never made clear what exactly he died of. Like he was in the crash, he was rescued. Like the next season they had a couple episode with him in it and then one day the chief is looking at him. He says "I think he's having the surge you have right before you die," because he was very energetic, and then the next day he died.
Aminatou: So you're saying he died from Shonda Rhimes being tired of him?
Shani: [Laughs] Or him being tired of the show.
Aminatou: Hmm. That's not how it works.
Shani: But anyway, RIP McSteamy, RIP McDreamy. He's also dead. This is like -- this season is all Ellen Pompeo on her own as Meredith Grey with her like dead husband's sister and her mom's unknown daughter living . . .
(27:55)
Aminatou: What? There's another daughter?
Shani: A black daughter.
Aminatou: What?
Shani: [Laughs] So Meredith has a black sister now.
Aminatou: Isn't there also a black doctor that Jesse what's his name plays?
Shani: Yeah, Jesse Williams.
Aminatou: Okay.
Shani: He plays Dr. Avery who his mother is Debbie Allen and . . .
Aminatou: All praise to Debbie Allen. Okay.
Shani: She's so amazing and she directs a bunch of episodes and she's amazing.
Aminatou: Shani, I feel like you're about to make me get back into Grey's Anatomy.
Shani: It's gotten real good. A lot of people are very mad that Shonda killed Derek but I actually think it's been a great refresh.
Aminatou: Uh, if Derek, a.k.a. the actor who plays Derek, had been okay Shonda would never have had to kill him. I read about that in People Magazine.
Shani: We did see some rumors about him not acting right, but you know.
Aminatou: Please, she just killed him with a quickness.
Shani: [Laughs]
Aminatou: It's fine. Are you reading the Shonda Rhimes book right now?
Shani: I am. I actually just finished it today.
Aminatou: Oh, tell me everything. My copy is in transit somewhere so . . . [Laughs] I will be reading it very soon.
Shani: I think it's really delightful. I mean I think if you don't care for Shonda's way of writing which comes through in her shows then you might find it a little annoying but I think overall she touches a lot on things that matter to modern women, and not just young women but women in their 30s and 40s and older. She writes about being a mom. She writes about deciding she didn't want to get married. The dude was not into it. She writes about the workplace and how if you have one ball and you are succeeding at one thing you're failing at another and that's just the reality. Like if you are at your kid's recital you are not at the final scene of Sandra Oh as Cristina Yang. It's just a nice, kind of refreshing real talk that reaffirms I think a lot of things we already know.
(29:50)
Aminatou: I really like that stuff because I heard her say that in an interview too about work/life balance and really knowing that if you're doing one thing then it means you're dropping the ball about something else and I really wish everybody would hear this message.
Shani: Yes.
Aminatou: Because it's like work/life balance is such snake oil.
Shani: Yes.
Aminatou: And it's really, really, really frustrating.
Shani: Yeah, and I think she does a good job of pointing out how messed up it is to ask these questions of women or ask questions about diversity of people of color without denying that this stuff is important. And she doesn't -- she has a bunch of chapters but she doesn't have a chapter that's on race. She weaves it in throughout the whole book because she's black and it's a part of all of the aspects of her life.
Aminatou: Yeah. That's like that great story about her, right? When somebody's -- I think there's like a speech about her or something and they send her the remarks and it's like "Shonda Rhimes is the highest-earning, best black show runner -- female show runner," and she crosses out female and black.
Shani: Right, right. Because it's like she's actually just the best. She's just the best.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Shani: That's -- I mean I think we both strive towards that and people want to put you on lists for being black or for being female but actually I just want to be the best and crush all the competition under my boot heel.
Aminatou: Ugh, Shani, you're crushing everything. Can I tell you one last Shonda Rhimes thing that's my favorite thing?
Shani: Please.
Aminatou: Because I suspect that she's a good boss. I've been #blessed to see her email signature and this is what it says. "If this is a work email I will not read or answer after 7 p.m. If I'm your boss, may I suggest put down your phone?" I'm like thank you for being a good boss to all the young people around you.
Shani: That's pretty great. I do feel like I wish I could live that life but news is slightly less forgiving. But being an adult has made me think a little bit more about what I can pull off and how much time I need to recuperate and taking time for myself and not just going where I'm going. And she does talk a little bit about that, like taking 15 minutes a day to play with her kids instead of rushing off to the next thing. And it's really hard sometimes to take those 15 minutes, but you know, I try.
(32:10)
Aminatou: It's okay. One day we're all going to be working for you, Shani Hilton, so it's just perfect. Thank you so much for coming on.
Shani: I loved it. I love you. Say hi to Ann. So glad to be in the mix.
Aminatou: I will. You're the best.
[Interview Ends]
[Music]
Ann: What a woman. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Right? She's the best. She's the best. Internalize everything about Shani and just live your best 2016.
Ann: I hope everyone was taking notes in your Moleskine journal for planning your goals for next year.
Aminatou: So good. Well, I'll see you on the Internet, boo-boo.
Ann: See you on the Internet all year long. All right, you can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download our show on the Acast app, or on iTunes where it would be awesome if you left us a review. You can also tweet at us at @callyrgf or email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. And you can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. This podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.
Aminatou: Gina!
Ann: Gina!
Aminatou: [Laughs]