Everybody, a quick note.

Proxy is having its first ever live proxy conversation on March 31st at 1 p.m. Eastern Time on Zoom.

We're taking on a not-so niche emotional conundrum, the problem of not knowing your neighbors and not knowing how to change that.

Like, what are the actual mechanics of building community?

How do you approach someone without making it weird? How do you get other people excited to chip in?

I'll be surprising our guest with a proxy who successfully brought neighborliness back to their block.

Their story involves a mysterious manila envelope, slipped under a door,

a cat falling from an apartment, and the rats are of New York City. It's going to be an experiment.

My first time doing this. This lunch Zoom hang is for paying Patreon members. You will get the Zoom link in your inbox the morning of

March 31st. And if you are not a member yet and you want in, just go to patreon.com slash proxy

podcast to sign up. Hope to see you there. Hey, everyone, welcome to proxy. If you're new to the show,

I promise I don't just play episodes from other podcasts.

We'll be back with new cases mid-April. If this is your first time listening, I highly

recommend starting with bisexual wife guy. That'll give you a good sense of the show.

For everyone else, I'm very excited to share today's story.

So one of the reasons I started this podcast is because when I got laid off from NPR a few years ago,

it really helped to talk to people who'd also been laid off,

to talk to an HR rep who could explain what might be happening behind the

scenes. In other words, it helped to talk to a proxy. And even though these people weren't directly

involved with my layoff, they helped me see things in a new way, gave me a bit of closure.

Today's story comes from Andrea Dunlop, a novelist who started a podcast to try to understand

something that happened in her family, and in the process, talked to a lot of proxies.

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