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From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdad, I'm Prada Johnson, we did it, we made it to another

weekend. Coming up, I talk with Wesley Morris from The New York Times about the power of a good cry.

I'm here for those tears. I'm here to understand what those tears are doing. You know, I'm here to ask

the question, you know, why are you crying? Plus, Pachinko author Minjin Lee talks about her

philosophy as a writer. Somewhere along the line, I've decided that somehow telling stories,

either in fiction or in non-fiction, we can approach a new reality. But first, let's do some

decompressing after the week that was. With us this week, we have Nyla Budu, the host of the

Axios today podcast. Nyla, welcome back. Hello! Also here is Vulture TV critic Catherine van

Aaron Donk. Catherine, great to have you. Hello, thanks for having me. Okay, so I want to start this

week with the fact that mask mandates are lifting across the country. I think this is a really

confusing one. Obviously, they are no longer required here in Chicago. This is something that I'm

pretty conflicted about. Now, I want to be clear. None of us is a public health professional, but

I'm really curious how each of you is personally navigating this moment. Catherine, I'm especially

interested to check in with you. You have a couple kids. Are they vaccinateable? So I have a,

I have an almost eight-year-old and a four-year-old. So my almost eight-year-old is my four-year-old can't

be yet. I, too, am conflicted. I certainly do not share some of the sentiment that I have seen

going around that like, you know, it's pretty much over and like, we need to learn to live with it.

I'm not a learn to live with it back to normal person. My glass is usually half empty. If I'm

going to be honest, at the same time, I live. I am fortunate enough to live in a community that is

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