Between Living & Dreaming Podcast

A white girl on my feed called ube "oob." Confidently. With the energy of someone who had just discovered something.I felt offense. Fascination. And then — uncomfortably — pity.In this episode, I read my essay "You Met Me At A Very Chinese Time": On Fantasy, Inheritance, and the Girl Who Called It "Oob" — a meditation on the "very Chinese time of my life" trend, what it has in common with 17th century European chinoiserie, and what it means to watch your inheritance become someone else's aesthetic.This isn't really about cultural appropriation. It's about something quieter and older — the way fantasies require the people behind them to stay unavailable. And what that costs the people who were never just an aesthetic to begin with.It's also where I coin a new term: fracture recognition. Because solidarity has become its own kind of surface. And what actually holds us might be something more honest than that. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

At a Galentine's Day gathering, my friends put on Heated Rivalry. Within minutes, the room shifted. They were flushed, electric, completely locked in.I was interested. But not in the same way.In this episode, Kimmy explores what the massive female response to Heated Rivalry reveals—not just about the show, but about how women experience desire. Why did millions of straight women lose it over two fictional hockey players? And what does it mean when you don't?This isn't about whether the show turns you on.It's about whether you've ever been asked—or asked yourself—what conditions your desire actually needs in order to show up. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

“I’m just looking for the bare minimum.”It sounds reasonable. Grounded. Self-respecting.But what does that phrase actually mean?In this episode, I unpack why “bare minimum” has become modern dating shorthand—and why it might not be as neutral as it sounds. We’ll explore how the phrase can soothe shame, signal standards, or quietly turn hurt into moral certainty.Is it clarity? Protection? Or something that replaces discernment altogether?This isn’t about lowering your standards.It’s about understanding what you’re really naming—and what kind of relational space that language creates. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Kimmy Wu reads Between Ambivalence & Certainty, a reflective essay from Between Living & Dreaming.Inspired by a breakup scene in Materialists, this piece explores the quiet devastation of relational moments where no one is wrong—and something still ends. It’s an inquiry into ambivalence, capacity, and the grief that emerges when honesty becomes a verdict rather than an opening.This episode reflects on:- what it means to name a boundary without assigning blame- the difference between endurance and staying in dialogue- why compatibility is often treated as a conclusion instead of a process- the subtle losses that can accompany even “reasonable” choicesThis is not a film review. It’s a meditation on unfinished love, relational imagination, and the cultural impatience we have with uncertainty.If this piece resonates, you can find more writing and audio essays on Substack at Between Living & Dreaming, and follow the podcast wherever you listen. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode/essay, Kimmy reflects on a moment at a friend’s wedding that surfaced a familiar but rarely named ache: the realization that some gatherings can never be recreated, even with the same people, in another beautiful place.Through the lens of adulthood, friendship, and community, she explores how closeness shifts as lives expand across cities, marriages, children, and changing seasons. What once arrived effortlessly now asks for intention. What once felt abundant now requires care.This piece is a meditation on the bittersweetness of shared experiences, the grief of evolving friendships, and the quiet, ongoing work of staying connected. It’s an offering for anyone learning how to love their people across distance, time, and change—and a reminder that closeness doesn’t disappear. It evolves. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when “being nice” becomes a way of avoiding honesty?In this episode of Between Living & Dreaming, Kimmy reflects on a viral dating-show moment to explore the illusion of harmlessness—when good intentions are used to sidestep discomfort, accountability, and truth. What looks like care can quietly become control, leaving one person holding the emotional weight alone.This episode is not a condemnation of men or masculinity. It’s an invitation—for men, and for all of us—to examine the invisible scripts that shape how we handle discomfort, power, and responsibility in relationships.Together, we explore why avoidance is often mistaken for kindness, how patriarchy distorts our relationship to guilt and repair, and why intimacy isn’t built on being harmless—but on being honest.The episode closes with reflection prompts for anyone learning to navigate accountability without shame, and connection without erasing themselves. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

“I used to think that if it didn’t hurt, it wasn’t love.”In this episode of Between Living & Dreaming, Kimmy explores what she calls the Endurance Economy—a cultural logic that teaches us to equate love with suffering, loyalty with self-erasure, and worth with how much pain we can tolerate.Drawing from a therapy session and lived observation, this episode gently but firmly challenges the belief that love must hurt to be real. It unpacks the difference between endurance and resilience, examines how suffering is unevenly distributed along lines of power, and asks what it would mean to practice a more just, accountable, and easeful kind of love.This is an invitation to question the stories that taught us to survive love instead of rest in it—and to imagine relationships rooted not in sacrifice, but in mutual care, honesty, and repair. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

We become fluent in the languages our culture rewards—efficiency, achievement, independence.But few of us are ever taught the language of belonging.In this episode, Kimmy reflects on the quiet paradox of modern relational life: we have endless ways to name our personalities, attachment styles, and inner wounds—yet so little language for the roles we play in holding our relationships and communities together.Building from her earlier essay, The Invisible Labor That Holds Us Together, this piece asks a deceptively simple question: What happens when the relational roles we inhabit remain unnamed? And who benefits when the labor of care, attunement, and emotional stewardship stays invisible?Drawing from therapeutic practice, linguistic theory, and cultural critique, this episode introduces the idea of relational granularity—the capacity to name not just how we feel, but how we show up for one another. It explores how language shapes value, how invisibility enables extraction, and why naming care is a necessary step toward dignity, redistribution, and collective repair.This is also a window into the deeper vision behind Thirdspace: the creation of a shared lexicon of belonging—not to categorize or diagnose, but to make the unseen seen, and to give language to forms of care that have long gone unrecognized.Belonging, this episode reminds us, isn’t a destination.It’s an ongoing conversation—one that requires shared words, mutual recognition, and the courage to name what we’ve been carrying. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

Most of the work that holds our relationships, families, teams, and communities together is invisible.In this episode of Between Living & Dreaming, Kimmy reflects on emotional labor—the quiet, unpaid, and often unnamed work of care that sustains connection, prevents rupture, and keeps relational systems alive. From remembering birthdays to noticing emotional shifts to being the one who always initiates, this labor rarely gets recognized—until it’s gone.Drawing from clinical insight, feminist critique, and her work as a founder, Kimmy explores:- Why emotional labor is not a personality trait, but real labor- How its invisibility benefits existing power structures- Why care work is unevenly distributed along gendered and cultural lines- What it might mean to treat emotional labor as shared responsibility, not silent expectationThis episode introduces the core question behind Thirdspace: what if connection had better systems of care? What if the labor that holds us together was visible, valued, and more equitably shared?This is an invitation to see what’s been unseen—and to imagine relational infrastructures that support reciprocity, sustainability, and belonging. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

We love stories of healing with clean arcs—the before and the after.But what often goes unnamed is the middle.In this episode, Kimmy reflects on the quiet, exhausting terrain between insight and embodiment: the space where you’ve done the work, learned the language, and named the patterns—yet still find yourself struggling to live differently.Drawing from clinical insight and personal experience, this piece explores why knowing isn’t the same as being. Why understanding your worth doesn’t automatically dissolve old habits. And why integration often feels less like liberation and more like rehabilitation—slow, repetitive, and emotionally taxing.This episode names the fatigue of healing: the effort of re-patterning long-held defenses, the vulnerability of living without old armor, and the disorientation that can follow moments of real growth. It reframes the in-between not as failure, but as practice—and exhaustion not as regression, but as evidence of deep internal reorganization.If you’ve ever left therapy feeling raw instead of relieved, or wondered why growth feels harder after you “know better,” this episode is for you.Healing doesn’t only live in the before and after.It lives in the between.And if you’re there now, you’re not behind—you’re becoming. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when ambition shows up differently in a relationship?In this episode of Between Living & Dreaming, Kimmy reflects on a quiet but common relational tension: the ambition gap—when one partner moves through life with structure, certainty, and timelines, while the other moves more intuitively, relationally, or emergently.Through personal reflection, therapy-room observations, and stories across different kinds of partnerships, this episode explores how differences in ambition can subtly turn into pressure, shame, or power imbalance—especially in a culture that rewards clarity, speed, and linear success.Rather than framing this as incompatibility, Kimmy invites us to consider ambition as a difference in rhythm, not worth. She asks what it means to honor multiple ways of becoming without collapsing difference into deficiency—and how couples can stay in conversation when their paths don’t neatly align.This is an invitation to examine what you truly want, name it without apology, and explore whether your relationship can hold both structure and unfolding—without asking either person to disappear. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

“What should I be looking for?”Friends ask me. Clients ask me. Even strangers ask—usually after they find out I’m a relational and sex therapist. In a dating culture flooded with advice, checklists, and contradictory “green flags,” it’s easy to lose sight of what actually sustains a relationship beyond the spark.In this episode of Between Living & Dreaming, Kimmy offers a different way of thinking about compatibility—one rooted not in preferences, but in capacity. Drawing from therapy-room insight and lived experience, she explores why dating feels harder now, and what truly matters if you want something that feels safe, alive, and enduring.Rather than focusing on surface-level traits, this episode walks through ten relational capacities—from conflict repair and emotional availability to joy, autonomy, and aligned commitment—inviting listeners to reflect on how they show up, not just who they’re drawn to.Because chemistry may open the door—but capacity is what turns attraction into a home.This episode is for anyone tired of optimizing for the “right” partner, and ready to build something real, mutual, and sustainable. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

A viral trend invites people to ask AI questions like: What’s my curse?The answers feel poetic, piercing, and strangely accurate—like a modern oracle speaking directly to our wounds.In this episode of Between Living & Dreaming, Kimmy explores what’s really happening beneath our fascination with algorithmic insight. Why do these moments feel so revelatory? And what’s the difference between something that hits and something that actually heals?Using the rise of AI “truth-telling” as a starting point, this episode examines our cultural obsession with shortcuts—optimization over aliveness, metrics over meaning, compatibility over intimacy, insight over integration. Kimmy reflects on how complexity, nuance, and ambiguity have become uncomfortable in a world that rewards speed, certainty, and coherence.From a therapeutic lens, she asks what gets lost when self-knowing is reduced to a sentence, a label, or a prompt—and why real transformation requires relationship, readiness, and time.This is an invitation to step away from the oracle of the algorithm and return to the long way: the slow, relational work of becoming, integrating, and being known—not just named. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

“How do I know if I’m being curious—or just too nosy?”In this episode of Between Living & Dreaming, Kimmy explores the quiet tension many of us feel in early relationships: wanting to know someone more deeply while fearing we’ll ask too much, too soon.Through conversations with friends and reflections from the therapy room, this episode examines the difference between curiosity rooted in care and curiosity driven by anxiety, comparison, or control. It looks at why questions about a partner’s past can feel intimate, risky, and even destabilizing—and how cultural scripts, gendered expectations, and attachment patterns shape what we believe is “okay” to ask.Rather than offering rules about what’s appropriate, Kimmy invites listeners to reflect on how and why we ask. When curiosity builds connection, it can deepen intimacy. When it’s fueled by fear, it can quietly turn into surveillance.This episode is an invitation to approach knowing with consent, grounding, and gentleness—remembering that loving someone doesn’t require owning their story. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

This episode is part of Between Fantasy & Meaning, a series that explores desire through a therapeutic lens—not as confession, but as reflection.In this episode, Kimmy examines a surprising and quietly magnetic fantasy: watching men split wood. What begins as a fleeting attraction opens into a deeper inquiry about embodiment, competence, presence, and the kinds of strength our bodies long for in an increasingly disembodied world.Rather than treating fantasy as kink or indulgence, this episode explores it as symbol—a message about what we’re missing, remembering, or yearning to return to. Through cultural, psychological, and existential reflection, Kimmy reframes desire as a form of insight: a compass pointing toward vitality, balance, and rest.This is an invitation to get curious about your own fantasies—not to act them out, but to listen to them. To ask what they reveal about how you want to live, love, and be held in a world that rarely lets us slow down.Because fantasy isn’t random. It’s a language. And sometimes, it’s how the body remembers what the mind has forgotten. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

“We just want to have better sex.”In this episode of Between Living & Dreaming, Kimmy unpacks one of the most common—and misunderstood—reasons couples seek sex therapy. Many arrive hoping for techniques, positions, or communication scripts. What they often discover instead is that sex isn’t the problem—it’s the mirror.Through a clinical vignette and therapeutic reflection, this episode explores why sex is rarely just about performance, and how desire is shaped by emotional safety, trust, attachment, cultural conditioning, and the nervous system. Kimmy challenges the myth that better sex comes from doing more, and invites listeners to consider what sex might be revealing about the space between partners.This episode reframes sex therapy not as instruction, but as integration—an invitation to come home to the body, to honesty, and to connection that doesn’t rely on performance to feel alive.Because intimacy isn’t something you fix.It’s something you learn how to hold. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

We talk openly about heartbreak and grief—but disappointment is often treated as something too small to name and too uncomfortable to hold.In this episode of Between Living & Dreaming, Kimmy explores disappointment as a quiet but powerful emotional experience—one that lives in the space between what we hoped for and what actually happened. Drawing from clinical work, personal reflection, and cultural insight, she examines why so many of us were taught to minimize disappointment, and how that avoidance can quietly erode intimacy, self-trust, and connection.This episode looks at:- Why disappointment feels risky to name- How unnamed disappointment turns into withdrawal, resentment, or self-silencing- The fear of disappointing others—and what it costs us- How learning to sit with disappointment can open the door to repair, clarity, and deeper intimacyRather than something to outgrow or bypass, disappointment is reframed here as evidence of our capacity to hope—and an invitation to relate more honestly to ourselves and to one another.This episode offers a gentle challenge: to name what didn’t happen, honor what we wanted, and stay present with the tenderness that remains. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

The final count says we didn’t win. And yet, it didn’t feel like we lost.This episode is a shared reflection written in the quiet aftermath of a political campaign—not to relive the race, but to honor what doesn’t show up in vote totals: the courage to try, the cost of showing up, and the meaning that remains when the outcome isn’t what we hoped for.Co-authored with Dr. Calvin D. Sun following his 2025 run for Manhattan Borough President, this episode unfolds as a letter between friends—one who stood at the center of the storm, and one who bore witness from just outside it. Together, they explore loss without collapse, effort without erasure, and why trying—especially in public—is its own form of defiance.This is a meditation on:- What it means to try in systems that weren’t built for you- Why some victories are invisible but enduring- How legacy is shaped through presence, not titles- And why hope doesn’t end when the campaign doesThis episode isn’t about winning an election. It’s about choosing meaning over metrics, courage over cynicism, and continuing the long game—together. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

We like to believe love is pure—free of needs, free of negotiation, free of transaction.But many of us learned to survive by being useful, desirable, or indispensable—and that history doesn’t disappear when we start dating or building intimacy.In this episode of Between Living & Dreaming, Kimmy explores the quiet ledger many of us carry into relationships: the ways we measure effort, investment, and worth in hopes of feeling safe, chosen, and secure. Drawing from personal reflection, clinical work, and cultural history, she examines how transactional relating often emerges not from greed or calculation—but from survival.This episode reflects on:- How capitalism, immigration, and meritocracy shape our ideas of love- Why wanting security doesn’t make us shallow- The emotional cost of keeping score in intimacy- How unconscious transactions can be redesigned into conscious reciprocityRather than shaming the strategies that once kept us safe, this episode invites a gentler question: what would it mean to build relationships rooted in transparency, choice, and tenderness—where care is offered, not owed?A meditation on love, worth, and the courage to believe we were enough long before we ever proved it. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

“I’ve finally found someone who makes me feel safe,” they say. And then, quietly: “But I’m not as turned on—and I don’t know why.”This episode explores a tension many people experience but rarely name: the moment when emotional safety arrives… and sexual desire feels less automatic.Is something wrong if the relationship feels secure but not electric?Why does consistency sometimes dull the spark?And what happens when the “green flag” partner offers care, presence, and attunement—but not the intensity we’ve been taught to associate with passion?Drawing from attachment theory, nervous system science, cultural conditioning, and clinical insight, this piece unpacks why desire is often wired to novelty, unpredictability, and survival-based bonding—and how that wiring can make safe love feel confusing, flat, or even disappointing at first.Rather than framing this experience as failure or incompatibility, this episode invites a deeper reframe: that desire in secure relationships often isn’t something we fall into, but something we relearn—through intention, embodiment, play, and unlearning the belief that excitement must come from anxiety or pursuit.If you’re navigating the space between safety and aliveness, between calm and craving, this is an invitation to slow down and stay curious. To grieve old sparks without pathologizing the present. And to consider that a different kind of eroticism—one rooted in trust rather than tension—may still be unfolding.This is the in-between.Between what once felt exciting… and what may yet come to feel deeply alive. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

Lately, many men in their late 20s and 30s—newly partnered, newly married, or preparing for parenthood—have been carrying a quiet, weighty question: “What kind of father will I be?”In this piece, Kimmy writes a letter to the men who are asking that question—often silently, often without a blueprint—while reckoning with the emotional legacies they’ve inherited and the ones they hope to reshape.Rather than focusing on logistics or perfection, this episode sits with the deeper work: grieving the care that was never received, learning how to be emotionally present when no one modeled it for you, and choosing integrity over performance in a culture that taught men to provide and protect, but not to nurture.Drawing from clinical insight and cultural reflection, this letter names emotional presence as something practiced—not innate—and invites men into a different paradigm of strength: one rooted in curiosity, responsiveness, repair, and the courage to ask for support.This is an offering to the men who are trying to break cycles without yet having the language for how. To those who are learning to stay with questions rather than rush to answers. And to those who are discovering that fathering—like healing—often begins not with certainty, but with presence.You don’t have to get it right every time. But you can return. You can stay. You can listen. You can repair.That’s how safety is built.That’s how a different legacy begins. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

This is not a soft episode.Written in the wake of rising state violence against immigrant communities and inspired by a client’s story, this piece is a reckoning with fear, guilt, paralysis—and what it costs us when those forces shape our choices.In this episode, Kimmy reflects on a moment many immigrants and children of immigrants know intimately: witnessing harm, freezing in place, and carrying the aftermath in the body. Not just the question of what did I see?—but what did I do… or fail to do? And what does that silence mean when belonging has always felt conditional?Drawing from clinical work, personal history, and cultural analysis, this piece explores the psychology of provisional belonging—how surveillance, assimilation, and inherited displacement teach us to trade humanity for safety, and silence for survival. It names the legacy trauma passed down through generations, and the quiet ways fear continues to govern who feels allowed to speak, act, or resist.This episode also holds space for complexity. For those who feel frozen. For those who are angry but unsure where to put it. For those who cannot show up loudly or publicly, but still care deeply. It affirms that guilt is not proof of failure—it is evidence of care. And that rage, when tended rather than suppressed, can become a bridge between grief and action.This is a call not to perfection, but to presence. Not to perform resistance, but to refuse numbness. To remember that belonging is not a reward granted by power—it is a collective birthright.History will not remember the comfort of bystanders.It will remember who chose to stay awake.If you can speak, speak. If you can act, act. If you can support quietly, do that.But do not look away. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

In session this week, a male client asked a question I hear more often than we admit: “Am I being thoughtful—or am I being avoidant?”In this episode, Kimmy reflects on the quiet shame many men carry when their inner lives don’t move fast enough to match the certainty they believe is expected of them. Through a clinical vignette and cultural observation, this piece explores what happens when men pause instead of proclaim—when they choose honesty over performance, but fear that uncertainty makes them unworthy of love.This episode examines how men navigating emotional growth are often caught between conflicting pressures: traditional patriarchal expectations that demand decisiveness and control, and progressive spaces that sometimes mock softness, hesitation, or emotional nuance as weakness. Drawing on therapeutic work and feminist critique, Kimmy asks a necessary question: when we say we want emotionally available men, do we know how to stay with them when their vulnerability isn’t packaged as confidence?Rather than framing men as the problem, this piece names patriarchy as the architecture that constrains everyone—and invites a broader vision of masculinity that includes gentleness, slowness, and being in process. It argues that healing doesn’t come from shaming individuals, but from expanding our relational language and practicing accountability with compassion.At its heart, this episode is about micro-repair: the small, everyday moments where we choose curiosity over ridicule, presence over pressure, and dignity over dominance. These moments—especially across gender lines—can become sites of cultural healing.What if emotional courage, not certainty, is what our relationships need most? Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe

Wherever I land, I begin with a small ritual: a single sip of coffee to mark that I’ve arrived—not just in place, but in spirit.In this episode, Kimmy reflects on a journey to Peru shaped less by itinerary and more by presence. Beginning and ending in solitude, and held in the middle by friendship, this piece explores what becomes possible when structure loosens, and we allow ourselves to move at the pace of connection rather than certainty.Through moments of unplanned intimacy with two friends—conversations about fear, desire, grief, and the experience of being seen beyond projection—this essay meditates on the rare safety of non-defensive listening, and the healing that can occur across gendered lines when vulnerability is met with steadiness rather than correction.This is not a travelogue, but a reflection on the magic of the in-between: the pauses between plans, the conversations that arise when no one is performing, and the quiet rituals that help us arrive more fully in our own bodies. From shared meals and late-night truth-telling to a silent embrace at Machu Picchu, this piece honors the kind of presence that doesn’t require answers or outcomes—only willingness.At its heart, this episode is about allowing yourself to be seen without a script—and discovering that safety doesn’t always come from certainty, but from being held in the moment exactly as you are.Sometimes, that’s the most powerful and magical spell of all. Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Between Living & Dreaming at kimmywu.substack.com/subscribe