09. Haunted Hotels, Irish Castles, and the Ghost Who Pranked My Husband

09. Haunted Hotels, Irish Castles, and the Ghost Who Pranked My Husband

Ghosts don't need you to believe in them. That's kind of the whole problem. This week we're talking about the places that hold on to things. The rooms that feel wrong. The moments that sit in your chest in a way that logic never fully reaches. And a few specific instances where something happened that I genuinely cannot explain and have been thinking about ever since. We're going to Ireland. We're going to a haunted castle. We're going to a wedding where something covered my lens mid-shot and nobody was there. We're talking about the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, a service elevator that dropped a full floor, and the ghost of White Rock Lake and everyone she might actually be. And then we're going to talk about my husband's sunglasses. Which moved. Across the floor. After I specifically asked whatever was in our house to leave my kid alone and prank him instead. I stand by that decision. In this episode: * The Lady of White Rock Lake  * Ashford Castle, Ireland — and what entered my frame on the dance floor * The Adolphus Hotel, a haunted ballroom, and a service elevator I will never fully forgive * Saging my house and accidentally redirecting a haunting toward my husband * This week's song: Cosmic Love by Florence and the Machine Maybe there's a perfectly logical explanation for all of it. Or maybe some things really do linger. I'm not sure which answer scares me more.

08. They Called It Urban Renewal. The People It Happened To Called It Something Else.

Before White Rock Lake was a lake, it was a valley. Before the park and the running trail existed, that valley held a community. And before it was a community, it was freedom — for people who had just been told they were free for the first time.   This episode was recorded six weeks ago. A lot has happened since. Including the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act in a 6-3 ruling that didn't take anyone's ballot ...it just made sure it doesn't count. We need to talk about that too. This is the episode about what gets passed down when nothing gets passed down. About drowned cities and bulldozed neighborhoods and the compound interest on stolen futures. About Seneca Village and Lake Lanier and Overtown and Rondo and Cape May. About what Negro removal looked like, how many times they did it, and why the racial wealth gap is not a mystery, it has an address. Hundreds of them. No commercials today. SHOW NOTES: A note on timing: This episode was recorded approximately six weeks before its release date. In that time, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais effectively gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act , the provision protecting minority voters from discriminatory redistricting. An updated opener and closer reflect the current moment. Topics covered: * White Rock Lake, Dallas TX and the freedman's settlement of Egypt * The history of urban renewal as federal policy (1949–1974) * Seneca Village, New York City (1857) * Forsyth County, Georgia / Lake Lanier (1912, 1950) * Overtown, Miami, Florida * Rondo, St. Paul, Minnesota * Cape May, New Jersey and Harriet Tubman * Louisiana v. Callais and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act (April 29, 2026) * James Baldwin and Negro removal * The racial wealth gap as manufactured, documented policy This week's song: Fast Car — Tracy Chapman Add to the WHERE WAS I playlist on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5YhLXMVhdV7YGTJ4p9kM6t?si=3afba2c3ab3c42cf] Further reading: * Amber Ruffin's segment on Black towns hidden underwater * James Baldwin's interview during the filming of Take This Hammer (San Francisco, 1963) * The history of Seneca Village and Central Park * Campaign Legal Center: votingright.org * Black Voters Matter: blackvotersmatterfund.org Thoughts? Corrections? Things I missed? Leave a comment on Spotify or email: wherewasipodcast.jenn@gmail.com [wherewasipodcast.jenn@gmail.com] WHERE WAS I with Jennefer Wilson drops every Wednesday.

07. What Is Nostalgia Trying To Tell Us?

You remember the Pizza Hut shaped like a Pizza Hut. You remember the smell of Blockbuster... plastic and popcorn in a way that cannot be fully explained but you know. You remember standing on your tippy toes reaching for a movie case that was already empty and grieving it in real time under fluorescent lights. That wasn't nostalgia. That was your nervous system working exactly the way it was supposed to. In this episode we go to Milwaukee, we bet on a building, and we ask the question nobody wants to answer. Who decided that beautiful things were too expensive to keep? We talk about what greed actually took from us. Not just Blockbuster. Not just the mall. Not just the Pizza Hut roof. It took the places where we became ourselves. It took the third places. It optimized the humanity out of everything and called it progress. This episode also contains a 24-hour cupcake ATM, a phantom step, and a measurable drop in cortisol. Slow down....we kind of have to. Show Notes: Barry Schwartz / The Paradox of Choice — Psychologist at Swarthmore College. Documented that unlimited choices don't make us freer — they make us more paralyzed, more anxious, and more dissatisfied. Too much choice can lead to clinical depression. Cortisol + Nature — Meta-analysis of 31 studies across 12 countries found that 20–30 minutes in a natural setting produces the biggest measurable drop in cortisol of any duration studied. Benefits are enhanced when green space includes a water feature. Sprinkles Cupcakes — Founded by Candace Nelson in 2005. Sold to private equity in 2012. Closed all locations December 31, 2025. Nelson found out two days before. Maine — One of two states that prohibits highway billboards. Most forested state in the country. This week's song: I'd Miss the Birds — Joy Oladokun

06. Hilary Duff, Lizzie McGuire, and Everything She Survived to Make Luck or Something

In the last episode, we found out what was underneath the mall. In this episode, we go back and get our girl. Because Hilary Duff was never a footnote in someone else's story. She was inside the machine ... the Limited Too catalogs, the Disney channel, the industry that turned her into a product before she finished middle school — and she felt all of it from the inside. The body comments at 17. The eating disorder she carried quietly for 20 years. John Mayer decided she was an object of desire exactly three months after she turned 18. The sister she lost not to death but to the world we're all living in right now. And then she made an album about all of it. On her own timeline. For herself. With her husband producing it and telling her it didn't have to go anywhere. It went to number three on the Billboard 200. The Lucky Me Tour sold out with 175,000 people in the waiting room. We were always in the waiting room. We just didn't realize it. In this episode, we see her... really see her ... and then we celebrate her. Because if we have the chance to celebrate another woman, we have to take it. Now more than ever.   Show Notes: Luck or Something — Hilary Duff, released February 20, 2026. Atlantic Records/Sugarmouse Inc. Produced by Matthew Koma. The Lucky Me Tour — Hilary Duff's world tour, June 2026–February 2027. Hilary Duff on Hot Ones — Season 2026. Watch it. You'll laugh. We're not ruining it. Lizzie McGuire x Limited Too — 2002 back-to-school collaboration. 9 million catalogs. First licensed line for Limited Too. First direct retailer license from Disney Channel. As discussed in Episode 5. This week's song: Adult Size Medium — Hilary Duff

05. The Truth Behind Our 90s Girlhood and the Malls That Shaped Us

You know the smell. Bath & Body Works from three stores away. The carpet. The popcorn. The particular feeling of walking into Limited Too and believing — truly believing — that you were the main character and you deserved to feel that way. We did deserve to feel that way. That part was real. What we didn't know was who built it for us. And why. In this episode we walk through the mall together — Limited Too, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bath & Body Works, the AIM era, the catalog pages, the shopping bags on our walls — and then we find out what was underneath all of it. One man built almost every store we grew up in. He gave power of attorney over his entire fortune to Jeffrey Epstein. He hired the man who would be indicted for sex trafficking to run Abercrombie & Fitch. And Disney put their name on a clothing line for seven year olds with his company in 2002. We were just at the mall. On a Saturday. With our moms. This episode is about what was stolen. And what they don't get to take.   Show Notes: Les Wexner & L Brands — Founded The Limited in Columbus, Ohio in 1963. Built an empire including Limited Too, Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lane Bryant, Express, and Henri Bendel. Limited Too x Lizzie McGuire — 2002 back-to-school licensed clothing line. First licensed line for Limited Too. First time Disney Channel licensed a show directly to a retailer. 9 million catalogs photographed on the set of Lizzie McGuire, targeting girls ages 7–14. (Just Style, July 2002; LaughingPlace.com) Wexner & Epstein — Relationship began mid-1980s. Wexner granted Epstein power of attorney over his entire fortune in 1991. Ghislaine Maxwell described Wexner as Epstein's closest friend. Wexner's name appears more than 1,000 times in the Epstein files. Epstein posed as a Victoria's Secret talent scout to lure victims. At least two women filed police reports. Wexner testified before Congress in February 2026 and denied wrongdoing. (Rolling Stone; CNN; NBC News) Mike Jeffries — Hired by Wexner in 1992 to run Abercrombie & Fitch. Indicted in October 2024 on 16 federal charges including sex trafficking. Accused of using his position as CEO to recruit young men for sex parties around the world. Abercrombie & Fitch named in civil suits. (NBC4; ABC News; NPR) White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch — Netflix documentary, 2022. This week's song: Mature — Hilary Duff