0:01

Hey, Tom Sharpling here, the host

0:03

of the best show. And if you've never heard

0:05

of the best show before, everything you need

0:08

to know is right there in the title. Each

0:10

week we put on the best live podcast

0:12

you're ever going to hear featuring live

0:14

callers, celebrity guests, music,

0:17

plenty of surprises. Who knows

0:20

what's going to happen? Last month alone, we were

0:22

joined by Conan O'Brien, Patricia

0:25

Arquette, Jeff Tweedy from Wilco,

0:27

Nathan Fielder, Sunan Archives, John

0:29

Oliver. The list goes on and

0:31

on. So what are you waiting for? Join

0:34

us live every Tuesday night on Twitch

0:36

at 6 p.m. Pacific time and

0:38

find us the next day on the Forever Dog podcast

0:40

network and wherever you find podcasts.

0:48

Just a reminder that Big Mood, Little Mood with

0:50

Daniel M. Lavery happens twice a week. Plus

0:53

members get an additional mini episode

0:55

or a little Big Mood every Friday. Sign

0:58

up now to listen at slate.com slash

1:00

mood.

1:07

Hello and welcome

1:09

back to Big Mood, Little Mood.

1:22

I

1:24

am your host, Daniel Lavery and with

1:26

me in the studio this week is Chelsea Weber-Smith,

1:29

a queer non-binary poet and podcaster

1:32

working to understand American culture at

1:34

large. They're also the host of American Hysteria,

1:36

a podcast that explores how fantastical thinking

1:39

has shaped our culture. Chelsea, welcome

1:41

to the show.

1:42

I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you so much. I'm

1:44

so pleased that you're here. I explained this earlier

1:47

off stage, but in case anyone listening thinks,

1:49

wow, Danny sounds really stuffy. You're

1:52

right. I'm stuffed up. I have a cold.

1:54

I'm recording from home and all my bees sound like deez and vice versa.

1:57

It's adorable. It's something.

1:59

I'm getting through it the best that

2:02

I possibly can. But I'm

2:04

feeling reasonably well and able

2:06

to hopefully advise people, how are you

2:08

feeling? I enjoy the fact that your shirt

2:10

is split in half color-wise

2:12

like Too Faced from. Yeah, thank you. Thank

2:14

you. Yeah, I usually take my inspiration from

2:16

Too Faced. But yeah. You're

2:19

a stylish guy. I do, I know,

2:21

I put this on and I was like, this feels right, you know, it's

2:23

kind of a bowling shirt a little bit,

2:26

which I think is a great look. So thank you for

2:28

noticing. I mean,

2:30

having come of age in not

2:32

only the 90s, but Southern

2:34

California for a decent chunk of the 90s, the

2:38

bowling vibe, Renaissance

2:40

was everywhere, not just in like

2:42

Gap commercials and the swing dancing craze, but

2:45

just how everybody dressed. Shashas were big,

2:48

big bowling shirts were big. Talking

2:50

like you were in the movie Swingers was big. It

2:53

was a lot to take in and I took

2:55

it in. I can tell you took

2:57

it in. I

2:59

did my absolute best. So that's, I guess

3:01

the like energy I'm gonna try to bring is like all the

3:04

ska guys that I knew in my years. Yeah, yeah. I

3:06

feel like they had a pretty good handle on life. They

3:08

were like, pursue the good, avoid

3:11

the bad. We just did a series on

3:13

Jackass and the history of skate

3:15

culture in the 90s and

3:17

how that, I just feel like that's kind of wrapped

3:20

into what we're talking about here. Complicated culture,

3:23

very interesting to study. Yeah, it

3:25

feels, there was like a beautiful

3:27

fake mini documentary a number of years

3:29

ago called Pool Jumpers that was just

3:31

about treating guys throwing a ball

3:34

and jumping into the pool as they caught it

3:36

as if it was like Lords of Dogtown,

3:38

like just incredibly like valorized

3:41

slow motion, sun kissed shots and

3:43

just like,

3:44

it's truly, truly I think a great work

3:46

of art and I revisit it every summer. I'm obsessed with this

3:48

idea. I love jumping in a pool

3:50

and catching a ball growing up. I think that's

3:52

a big part of my gender identity is jumping

3:54

in a pool, trying to catch a ball.

3:56

They changed the game. They really changed the game. Well,

3:59

I'm... I'm really glad. I feel like this is a good basis

4:01

for our first question, which is fairly thorny. This is

4:03

like a complicated question of like

4:06

parental relationships. And I don't

4:08

know how either like skateboarding

4:10

guys or jumping into a pool is going to inform our

4:12

answers, but I have a lot of faith in us. So I'll

4:15

go ahead and read the problem and then we'll figure out

4:17

how we might want to tell someone to try to solve it. Okay.

4:20

The subject is dismayed only child.

4:23

I'm a woman in my early thirties and my parents

4:25

have been in a dysfunctional marriage for 40 years.

4:28

Growing up, I saw codependency, my father's

4:31

rages and my mother's alcoholism, constant

4:33

passive aggression, and a tendency

4:35

for them both to triangulate me, their only child.

4:38

I moved across the country five years ago and

4:40

my mother confided in me about how things

4:43

quote, really are at home, including

4:45

physical intimidation and screaming withholding

4:47

love and affection and disrespectful treatment. I

4:50

saw a lot of this myself, but it created

4:52

a greater urgency in me to help save her from their

4:54

marriage. They're both financially struggling

4:56

and each has cited this as the reason they can't or won't

4:59

divorce. But even in the face

5:01

of a significant cash gift from her wealthy brother

5:03

a few years ago, neither of them did anything

5:05

meaningful with that money which has since dwindled.

5:08

After that first conversation, she would tell me that

5:10

she isn't going to leave him and that I needed to keep

5:12

the fact of my knowing these things a secret from

5:14

my dad. This has led to a half

5:16

decade of secrets, lies, and emotional

5:18

suppression. I hate that she insists

5:21

I have a relationship with my father based on false

5:23

pretenses when all it does is enable him. Even

5:26

after I set boundaries with her about leaning on me

5:28

for emotional support about her marriage, she

5:30

still brings up these conversations when she's feeling

5:32

desperate and this leaves me feeling completely shattered.

5:35

All the while my father goes on thinking that his relationship

5:37

with me is fine, that his behavior is justified,

5:39

and that he's really the victim in this situation. I

5:42

know I can't fix their marriage, but I don't know

5:44

how to keep going on like this. I

5:46

no longer want to play the role of dutiful daughter and part

5:48

of me wants to blow the whole thing up by telling them I'm not

5:50

going to participate until they separate, but

5:53

that's an ultimate in my know I can't demand.

5:55

How do I reconcile all of this? How do I make

5:57

peace with knowing I can't fix this for them, but also

5:59

want to

5:59

a relationship with some of the only family I have.

6:04

Oof. Yeah. I

6:06

mean, I like to kind

6:08

of keep my own sort of life

6:11

separate from what I do publicly, but like

6:13

this is definitely a question that resonates

6:16

in my own life. I'll just say that.

6:18

And it's, I mean, thorny

6:21

is what you said. It is so difficult.

6:23

Yeah. And like on the one

6:25

hand, the letter writer is abundantly

6:27

aware like this, marriage

6:30

has been dysfunctional for longer than I've been alive.

6:32

It's been like crisis mode

6:35

seemingly the whole time I get

6:37

on some level that I can't change it. But then that's

6:40

also paired with a really strong desire

6:43

of like, but tell me there's something I

6:45

can do. Cause I just really want to get

6:47

in there and bust them up.

6:48

I know. And I mean,

6:50

gosh,

6:52

the struggle of wanting to

6:54

save the people you love, I think

6:56

is a big part of this

6:59

question. And probably so many

7:01

of the questions that folks have who

7:04

have parents and dysfunctional relationships.

7:07

It's interesting to me that

7:09

this person brought

7:12

up codependency. Cause that's something that

7:15

I have, I actually go to meetings

7:17

called codependence anonymous, which is part

7:20

of, you know, the AA family, which obviously

7:23

has plenty of issues. So this is neither like

7:25

a go to AA or don't

7:28

sort of. You're not personally endorsing. No,

7:30

I'm not personally endorsing it. It worked well

7:32

for me because I like group therapy, but

7:34

yeah, I think that so much

7:36

of that is about trying to let go

7:39

of control.

7:41

And that is a terrible feeling.

7:44

It's like, you know, I don't

7:47

know how to fix

7:49

other people's relationships and

7:52

to, you know, as much as I want to take

7:54

away people's pain and the ways

7:57

that they're unsafe. It's like,

7:58

man, I don't know. I had

7:59

to kind of deal with the situation recently,

8:04

not unlike this, and that kind of

8:06

forced me to let

8:08

go of that control eventually. It was kind of months

8:10

of like,

8:11

I need to do something to

8:13

fix this. And it's like, I felt that I was

8:15

kind of the only one that could fix

8:18

something like this, right? And it's like, I

8:20

had to get to the point where

8:22

I reconciled the fact that these are two adults,

8:24

whether they're my parents or not. And

8:27

I didn't know beyond that

8:28

what

8:31

I could actually take responsibility for

8:33

and what I had to kind of leave behind.

8:36

And the enabling is a big question. I

8:38

think that's sort of the biggest question

8:40

here is like, what do you do with

8:42

your relationship

8:44

to these people? Not how do

8:46

I

8:47

save them or fix their relationship, right? And I mean,

8:49

that's sort of what this person's asking.

8:52

Yeah, yeah, I think there's this

8:56

sense of, on some level I'm aware that

8:58

both of my parents have triangulated me and

9:00

then that kind of morphs into, but my

9:02

mom really does need me to save her.

9:05

And like, I'm kind of the only

9:07

one who can do that as opposed to,

9:09

again, like Letter Raider. I

9:12

feel like I've been a little bit more ruminated on this one

9:14

just because I think the Letter Raider like has all the information

9:16

and is pretty conscious of

9:18

the same things that we're discussing. It's like,

9:21

you know that she got a lot of money a

9:24

few years ago and didn't use that to

9:27

file for divorce. You know that

9:29

it is possible for people in straightened

9:31

financial circumstances to also get divorced.

9:34

That doesn't make it like easy or fun, but

9:37

if you really want to make it happen, you'll

9:40

make it happen and she doesn't. And

9:42

it can be just challenging when you see someone

9:44

who does want to

9:46

complain seemingly endlessly

9:49

about a situation they're in

9:51

and are just as dedicated to taking

9:53

no steps to changing it. It can feel

9:55

like either I can stay with you in crisis

9:57

mode

9:57

and be constantly panicked and constantly.

10:00

like on edge. Or I

10:02

can like close off my empathy

10:05

and just say, you've made your own bed now, lie

10:07

in it.

10:08

Get over yourself. You deserve this. And

10:11

it's difficult to figure out anything in

10:13

between that can still acknowledge like your

10:15

mom doesn't deserve this kind of treatment from your father, even

10:18

if she is also like engaged

10:20

in like bad patterns herself or

10:23

enabling him or asking you to enable him

10:26

in ways that are totally wrong. She

10:28

could be doing things that are not right without it

10:31

being therefore just like, well, go fucking

10:33

deal with it. And yet it is also

10:35

true that five years of being really anxious,

10:38

trying really hard, trying to make persuasive

10:41

points, of trying to change her mind has not

10:43

made your mom say, you know what, that's a really good point. I'm

10:45

going to leave him. So I do think letter

10:47

writer, the place to begin is

10:52

you've been trying really hard. If trying really hard,

10:54

we're going to work coming from

10:56

you. I think it would have worked at this point. So

10:59

I think your goal of

11:02

trying to make peace is not necessarily what I

11:04

want for you in the sense of like, feel peaceful

11:06

about calling your mom all the time and pretending,

11:09

but in terms of not continuing to do what you

11:11

have been doing, I think that is a good and a reasonable

11:14

goal.

11:14

Do you have a sense

11:16

of, is there an option for the letter writer

11:19

besides either keep doing what you're doing

11:21

or, you know,

11:22

email your dad and say, by the way, old

11:24

man, I fucking hate you and I'll never talk

11:26

to you until you leave mom. Like what do you think might

11:29

exist in the middle of those two things?

11:31

You know, I think

11:32

that what exists in the middle

11:35

is how you redefine your relationship

11:37

to each person, right? And you can

11:39

say like, because you're enabling both parties,

11:42

obviously, which isn't a fair assessment

11:44

necessarily, because that has such a negative connotation.

11:47

Like you're enabling this

11:49

person, like it somehow becomes like

11:51

your fault, right? Which I think is kind of unfair

11:54

language in a way, but like, you

11:56

are allowing yourself

11:58

to be in a particular

11:59

type of relationship to both

12:02

parties. And that's like, I know

12:04

saying parties as your parents, but it

12:06

does feel like that in a sense. It's like, you

12:08

know, you're

12:10

speaking with your

12:12

mom about everything, right? That she

12:14

wants to kind of unload on you

12:16

about her relationship, which is something that

12:19

you could say,

12:20

you know, hey, I can't

12:23

hear this from you because it's

12:25

so difficult, because I love you so much.

12:27

And you know, you can say I want you to

12:29

get out of this relationship, but like,

12:31

I can't play this middle person. And you

12:33

know, with your I mean, I think it's about like, what do you really

12:36

want out of your relationship to your parents?

12:38

It's like,

12:38

if you want a relationship

12:41

that is just sort of

12:44

surface level, which I think a lot of our relationships

12:47

to our parents are like, we may not get that

12:49

depth. And we may not get that understanding. We

12:51

may not get the things that we want. But if it

12:54

appears that the letter writer does

12:56

want a relationship to both parents,

12:58

and I just think it's going to be like, okay, what

13:00

type of relationship do you feel like

13:03

gives you your integrity? Well,

13:05

at the same time, you

13:07

know, is

13:09

as non enabling as you can be, which

13:12

I think these are just like, big

13:14

questions. And I don't think there is a particular

13:17

answer, I think each situation and even

13:19

each moment calls for sort of a different

13:22

way of being, but then

13:24

that also shifts it back on to you. And you've been, you

13:27

know, doing five years of this type of

13:29

stress. And you know, and it

13:32

is it hasn't it hasn't worked like you mentioned,

13:34

Annie. Yeah. And so there's the freedom

13:36

in acknowledging failure, which isn't, you

13:38

know, it is not itself a fun thing to do. But the

13:41

thing that comes on the other side is, I think

13:43

you can say to yourself, I don't actually need my mom's

13:46

permission to hate my dad. And I don't need

13:48

my mom's permission to

13:50

potentially say something about this to my dad. True. Firstly,

13:53

because I think what she has asked of you is wildly

13:55

inappropriate.

13:57

But also, I think it comes to like if somebody else asks

13:59

me not to say something and they're distressed. I

14:01

have to do whatever they want no matter what.

14:04

Untrue. They just want you to do something. You

14:06

still get to decide. Now, that doesn't mean

14:09

you need to call your father and give him a play-by-play

14:11

of all the things that your mother has said about

14:13

him over the last five years, but you have plenty on your

14:16

own behalf that you can say. And

14:18

again, I don't necessarily

14:20

recommend that you call him up and read him a laundry list

14:22

of all his faults, but it just really sounds to me

14:24

like

14:24

you don't like your father, you don't want to have

14:26

a relationship with him, you would like to end

14:28

that relationship. I want you to do that.

14:30

You don't need your mom's permission. She's not going to like

14:33

it, but she doesn't like anything right now.

14:35

She's pretty committed to unhappiness. And

14:38

I think one of the things I want you to be able

14:40

to free yourself from is the belief that

14:42

if I act in just the right way or do

14:44

just the right things, my mother will become happy because

14:47

of my hard work.

14:49

And I hope and wish

14:51

that at some point your mom will prioritize her own happiness.

14:53

I believe that it is within her power to do so, but

14:56

it can't come from you, especially not as

14:58

her kid, and especially not when she's had

15:00

a habit of inappropriately leaning on you to

15:02

help her manage and offset her

15:05

anger and fear and sadness

15:07

about this terrible marriage that she's in.

15:09

So I think for you to give yourself permission

15:12

to decide what kind of relationship you want with your

15:14

father, which it sounds like is kind of none, that

15:16

doesn't have to involve having it out with him. It can.

15:18

It can also involve just going dark. You

15:22

get to make that call. And you

15:24

say even

15:24

after I set boundaries,

15:27

she still prompts these conversations when she's feeling

15:29

desperate, which leads me to think the problem there is

15:31

when she feels desperate, you don't know. When she

15:33

comes across as desperate, when she expresses desperation,

15:36

you don't know how to keep that boundary up. You crumble.

15:39

Again, none of that's to say like, you

15:41

idiot. I just mean that's the act that's

15:44

happening. And so I need you to

15:46

figure out what am I going to do the next time my mom

15:49

calls me in desperation? Because of course that's going

15:51

to happen. Don't be surprised. Don't

15:53

feel like this is a crisis or emergency.

15:55

This is the normal thing that she does all

15:57

the time. And that doesn't mean you don't.

15:59

care about her. It doesn't mean that you're cold. It just

16:02

means you acknowledge the desperation does not

16:04

actually match up with a need for change.

16:06

The desperation is what she does to

16:08

make it possible to stay in this marriage. And

16:11

so I think to have a really clear cut plan of the next time she

16:13

sends you a panic email at two in the morning or

16:16

calls you freaking out, you

16:18

need to be able to have like another friend or a therapist

16:20

or somebody you can reach out to and say like,

16:22

my mom's going to do her usual thing, her usual

16:24

bid for

16:26

support, and I'm going to do something different

16:28

this time. And I'm scared to do it because it'll make me

16:30

feel like a bad daughter. It'll make me feel like I'm hurting

16:32

her. It'll make me feel like I'm leaving her to be harmed

16:35

by my big scary dad.

16:37

And I'm going to need help not feeling like a

16:39

monster setting a reasonable boundary, but

16:41

you can do it. You don't need her permission to do it. She's

16:43

not going to like it. She's not going to thank you for it. She's

16:45

going to try to stop you.

16:47

And so I just want you to know going in, that's what's

16:49

going to happen. Yeah. Because

16:51

then you can plan for it. And then you can figure out

16:53

how do I hang up on somebody who's crying? That's

16:55

a hard thing to do. It's not always, by

16:58

the way, I don't want to stress like

16:59

if anybody calls you crying, just be like, fuck

17:02

you. I have to take care of myself. I mean, when

17:04

it's your mother and she's been doing this for years

17:07

and does not actually want to change, then it's time

17:09

to make that call. And, but

17:11

you can do that. And I promise you it will

17:14

not hurt her in the way that she might want

17:16

you to think that it is.

17:18

It is in fact consistent with loving her and wanting

17:20

the best for her to say, I am your kid. I

17:23

cannot also be your marriage counselor. I cannot have

17:25

any conversations with you about my father. None.

17:28

You have to go somewhere else. And so if

17:30

you bring it up,

17:31

that's the end of this phone call. And I just, again,

17:33

like you can maintain that boundary without

17:35

her help, without her agreement, without her

17:37

participation, frankly, without her consent.

17:40

Like I think that's actually an important idea to introduce

17:42

here, just because I feel there's so much bending

17:45

over backwards for your mother. And this fear of my mother

17:47

is always in danger. My mother is always at damsel

17:49

in distress and I can never get out of crisis

17:51

mode as long as she's feeling activated.

17:54

And she's always feeling activated, which basically

17:56

means you never get to get out

17:58

of crisis mode. mode and you deserve

18:01

that chance. So that's the thing

18:03

you have to do rather than the ultimate of you

18:05

two. Like right now, it feels like the only way I

18:07

can imagine peace in my life

18:09

is if the two of them separate.

18:11

And I get that. But

18:13

the only way you're going to have peace in your life is if you

18:15

figure out what

18:16

do I need to get peace even assuming

18:18

my parents never ever separate and things stay this

18:20

way until the day that they die. Because peace

18:22

is still possible and worthwhile for you,

18:25

even in that case. And I'm reminded

18:27

of the fact that a few weeks ago I was out for a walk and

18:29

I saw a copy of Codependent No More like

18:31

propped up against an apartment building like someone was giving

18:33

it away. And I just had that feeling like, man, either

18:36

someone really like broke through a cycle

18:38

or someone fucking gave up today. I know.

18:40

I don't know which one it was.

18:41

Man, yeah, I love that you brought that up because I

18:44

was going to recommend just sort of that, that

18:46

whole genre of writing of

18:48

codependency and just learning. It seems

18:51

like the letter writer may already be

18:53

sort of educated in codependency, but I think

18:55

it's just like whether you go to Codependents

18:58

Anonymous or you just learn about codependency,

19:00

it's like it really gives a

19:02

person an ability to see their own dysfunctional

19:06

relationship to others, which is

19:08

like, you know, we're looking at a massively

19:11

dysfunctional relationship, but you're also our

19:13

letter writers also experiencing a dysfunctional

19:15

relationship. And that

19:17

is unfortunately the only

19:19

like,

19:20

unfortunately, the only way to deal

19:23

with these types of situations is to what

19:25

you can control and letting go of the things

19:27

that you can't. And that is so hard.

19:29

It is not an easy thing, but I do think that

19:32

understanding the codependent

19:35

relationship that we have, especially with people

19:37

who we grew up with and who gave

19:40

us kind of our dysfunctional traits.

19:42

I do think understanding that relationship and

19:45

how you can alter it in

19:47

ways that give you peace

19:49

and that allow you to say, okay, this isn't actually

19:51

my responsibility. And I think that's the hardest part is

19:54

you're like, this feels like I am the

19:56

only one who can fix this situation

19:58

when in fact,

19:59

you are not and you cannot.

20:02

And that is again, a loss of control

20:04

that is very terrifying but eventually might

20:06

be liberating too.

20:08

Yeah, I think so too. I feel like I could talk

20:10

about this one for hours, which

20:12

is probably a good sign to move on to

20:14

our second letter. But yeah, I

20:16

just really, I think the thing that feels the most familiar to me

20:18

in this letter is this like, I

20:20

can't understand why stating the

20:22

obvious, describing what's happened,

20:25

explaining what I think needs to happen, why

20:27

like logic and reason aren't working here.

20:31

Reason and logic can almost become like a form

20:33

of insanity in this kind of situation. Like we can

20:35

just explain it for the 9,000th time. Obviously

20:39

she will do something different. Cause like, if you admit, I'm

20:41

in a terrible marriage, there's no sign

20:43

of it getting better. I'm very unhappy. Of

20:46

course anybody would then admit the next

20:48

thing that has to happen is I've got to get divorced. But

20:51

your mom would in fact, no matter how persuasive

20:53

or logical or reasonable you sounded

20:56

saying all those things would agree with every single point

20:58

and then come up with another reason to explain

21:00

why she can't leave.

21:02

And she would keep coming up with those reasons. And it just

21:04

feels like it can't be, that

21:06

can't be, I must just not have explained it the right

21:08

way. There's gotta be some other way. And it's

21:10

just like letting go of that fantasy that you can

21:12

convince someone to abandon an irrational

21:15

proposition is really difficult

21:17

to do.

21:18

And part of why I'm glad you brought up support

21:20

groups and anything that involves being with other

21:22

people who have been in similar situations

21:24

is so helpful.

21:25

I think for me, that's more helpful

21:27

than therapy and everybody's different. But

21:29

I do think like hearing people experiencing

21:32

the same set of emotions

21:34

and the same fears and like

21:36

overcoming them can be a really beautiful thing and

21:39

really like heartening for sure. So.

21:42

Hey, Tom Sharpling here,

21:45

the host of The Best Show. And

21:47

if you've never heard of The Best Show before, everything

21:49

you need to know is the best show in the world.

21:53

And I'm sure you can find it on the website at best.com.

21:55

And I'm sure you can find it on the website at best.com. And

21:57

I'm sure you can find it on the website at best.com.

21:59

right there in the title. Each

22:02

week we put on the best live podcast

22:04

you're ever going to hear, featuring live

22:06

callers, celebrity guests, music,

22:09

plenty of surprises. Who knows

22:11

what's going to happen? Last month alone we were

22:13

joined by Conan O'Brien, Patricia

22:16

Arquette, Jeff Tweedy from Wilco,

22:19

Nathan Fielder, Sunan Archives, John

22:21

Oliver. The list goes on and on.

22:23

So what are you waiting for? Join us live

22:26

every Tuesday night on Twitch at 6pm

22:28

Pacific Time and find

22:29

us the next day on the Forever Dog Podcast

22:32

Network and wherever you find podcasts.

22:55

I will take myself at my own word and move on

22:57

to our second letter, which is exciting because I

23:12

think

23:16

this is one of the first times I've occasionally

23:19

read a letter with someone who is describing a

23:21

person in their life who had either neo-pronouns

23:23

or the pronoun it, which I love. This

23:26

is the first time I think that I've read a letter

23:28

from somebody talking about somebody with no pronouns. So

23:30

it's obviously just a lot of first names and

23:34

I'm excited to see how that feels.

23:37

The subject is

23:38

crop rotation, relationship rotation.

23:41

I, she, her, am dating Ethan. No

23:44

pronouns. I love Ethan.

23:46

I tend to live perpetually in the future and

23:48

Ethan drags me to the present and literally stops

23:50

to smell the flowers. This relationship

23:52

also sparked a desire to have children I had

23:55

previously repressed. We

23:56

both want to, but there are several barriers.

23:58

Ethan

23:59

doesn't- have a job and lives on benefits. While

24:01

that's fine for our relationship, I do worry

24:04

about how it would affect us as parents.

24:06

As the breadwinner, I'd have a responsibility

24:09

to provide that would restrict my ability to

24:11

change careers or work flexibly. I'd

24:13

want someone really dependable, but I think Ethan sometimes

24:15

has the tendency to run away. Ethan

24:17

just returned from a two-month stint at a religious

24:19

farm and is looking to return for another

24:22

nine months next year. Ethan

24:23

also frequently travels around the country

24:26

visiting family and friends, seeing gigs,

24:28

or going on religious retreats.

24:30

There are other things I'd want Ethan to work on, like conflict

24:32

avoidance and direct communication. But

24:34

when we try to talk about this, Ethan says the farm

24:36

is helping accomplish this, or that the future we both

24:38

want can never come true and we should just break up now.

24:41

These musings don't seem serious, but they do upset

24:43

me.

24:44

I'm not sure what to do here. I think going

24:46

in with a list of things that I want Ethan to change

24:49

reinforces Ethan's feelings of inadequacy, but

24:51

I do want kids and I won't do it without some conditions

24:53

being met.

24:54

Wanting kids is of course also no guarantee of

24:56

having kids,

24:58

and I can imagine being with Ethan without kids,

25:00

but I wonder if we'd eventually grow resentful of each other

25:02

for denying the other a chance of parenthood.

25:04

I love Ethan, but at 30, I can feel

25:06

my biological clock ticking and I don't have

25:08

much time to waste. Certainly not nine months

25:10

away at a farm. Do you have any advice about how

25:13

to handle the situation? I

25:15

think it's kind of lovely to have

25:17

this on the heels of our last letter where we were talking

25:19

about how difficult it can be to persuade someone

25:21

to abandon an irrational position. When

25:25

I read a sentence like,

25:28

my partner says, whenever

25:30

we discuss a problem that we can't solve,

25:32

that we should just break up,

25:34

I know it's not serious.

25:36

It's like, why do you know that?

25:38

Because it sounds to me like your partner has

25:40

said a couple of times that you two should probably break up

25:43

and your only response to that is, you don't

25:45

mean

25:45

it. What if they mean it?

25:48

Sorry, what if Ethan means it?

25:50

Yeah,

25:51

that's a good point. I mean, if Ethan's

25:53

willing to go on nine month religious retreats

25:56

at a farm of some kind.

25:59

then it does feel like if that's

26:02

something that Ethan feels like

26:04

they're going to need continuously throughout

26:06

their life as what amounts

26:09

to a seeker. I feel like Ethan is

26:11

a straight up seeker. I say

26:13

this as a fellow seeker,

26:16

and I think it can be really hard to

26:19

try to... I mean,

26:21

how do you get someone to... I

26:24

mean, it's not like you give that up when you're

26:26

a parent, but you got to give some of that

26:28

up. Ethan

26:31

lives perpetually in the

26:33

moment. Great trait.

26:35

Absolutely love it. Really difficult

26:37

for parenthood, I would say.

26:39

Yeah, I mean, I was

26:41

a little surprised reading this letter because

26:43

I often can kind of just come down

26:46

and they'll get real category and

26:48

be practical, and whoever's the most practical wins

26:50

my favor.

26:51

Ethan kind of sounds like fun. I kind

26:53

of think the world needs people like Ethan,

26:55

and I kind of appreciate this approach to life.

26:58

I think it's kind of neat. I don't

27:00

love when we talk about difficult issues

27:03

saying, oh, let's break up and then not doing anything

27:05

about it, but we all have flaws.

27:07

So I guess

27:09

I'll just say, you know, letter writer, people on benefits have

27:11

kids. People who are unemployed have kids.

27:13

It is not itself like an irrevocable

27:15

barrier,

27:16

but people who

27:19

say

27:20

our future will never come true, our desires

27:22

are incompatible, and we should break up,

27:25

and

27:25

that's a pretty bad sign.

27:28

This makes me think the odds of you and Ethan having

27:30

children together is very, very low, and

27:33

the odds of you and Ethan breaking up in the next six months is

27:35

very, very high,

27:37

and that this will be for the best.

27:39

I think, frankly,

27:41

Ethan has told you pretty

27:43

clearly,

27:45

you know, your sort of list of things

27:47

that you want.

27:48

The answer is no. I don't want

27:49

to do that. I think that the futures that we want are incompatible,

27:52

and I think we should break up. I

27:54

think you didn't like that answer, which I can certainly

27:56

understand, and so you're sort of dismissing

27:59

it with... like, ah, Ethan didn't really mean it. How

28:01

do we have this conversation?

28:03

But I think you've had this conversation.

28:06

I think you've got an answer that you hated. And

28:08

I'm really sorry. I wish the answer had been,

28:10

I

28:11

am interested in changing these things. I am

28:13

interested in meeting you in the middle.

28:15

But I think Ethan said, no.

28:18

And so the question for you then is, do

28:20

I want to have children with someone

28:22

who wants

28:24

to leave for another nine months

28:26

to go be at a religious farm and

28:28

like, bop around the country and do

28:30

cool itinerant Johnny Appleseed stuff. But

28:34

unclear if it

28:37

would mesh much at all with co-parenting

28:40

or do I want to not have kids and the stuff

28:42

about like, I don't have nine months to waste. My biological

28:45

clock is ticking is telling me, even

28:47

when you say like, I can imagine

28:49

being with Ethan without kids, that doesn't have quite the same

28:52

like emotional strength and resonance as clock's

28:54

ticking. I don't have nine months. I've repressed

28:57

my desire to have children. It sounds to me like you kind of

28:59

really want to have children and that Ethan's

29:00

been pretty cool, but

29:03

that if you had

29:05

to make a choice, you would maybe want to prioritize

29:07

saying this was an amazing, weird,

29:11

wild, interesting relationship. It's

29:13

time to move on.

29:14

Yeah. And I mean, it sounds like it unlocked a

29:16

part of you that is powerful and,

29:19

you know, maybe

29:23

more like in the moment and in the

29:25

world and you've probably experienced some

29:27

beauty that you didn't experience before.

29:29

But like,

29:30

yeah, you might just have to take that

29:33

with you because that's still a part of you.

29:35

You know, it's just a part of you that's been unlocked.

29:38

And I think it's really hard to let go

29:41

of the feeling that certain people

29:43

can give us when they have these kind

29:45

of, I mean, magical personalities,

29:47

maybe, you know, a bit of like a pixie

29:50

dream Ethan here, I think

29:52

for sure. And that's

29:55

like,

29:56

you know, I used to

29:58

travel around a lot. I was like, I hate it.

29:59

hitchhiker in the summer. I was definitely

30:02

like, if there was a religious farm,

30:04

I probably would have gone there. If it

30:07

was a new age religious farm, I probably

30:09

would have been there, not now, but in the past.

30:12

But I can definitely say that like, if

30:14

someone's telling you like,

30:16

I'm a loner, I'm a lone wolf, you

30:19

know, I,

30:19

you're probably going to want to listen to them because

30:22

I definitely dated people that did not want to kind

30:24

of listen to me about that. But

30:26

does it appear that Ethan

30:29

has also talked about wanting to

30:31

have kids? Wait,

30:33

we both want to have kids. Okay, so

30:35

they do both want to have kids. But yeah, I mean,

30:38

like you said, if the moment

30:40

you bring it up, there's such a intense

30:43

response. I

30:46

don't know if you're ever going to feel the security

30:48

that it is obvious that you also want to

30:51

feel, which is very, very fair when

30:53

you're bringing children into a situation.

30:56

Yeah, yeah. I think just for me,

30:58

the clearest point that comes out of this letter

31:00

is,

31:01

you know, that classic Oprah line, if someone tells

31:04

you what they are or what they want, believe

31:06

them. And it's just like Ethan has said about

31:08

as clearly as you can, the

31:10

things we want are incompatible. We

31:12

should break up now.

31:14

Take Ethan seriously. Because

31:15

I feel like if you don't, there's

31:17

a letter you could be writing in five years

31:19

that's just

31:20

like, and everything I really hoped

31:22

wasn't going to happen fucking happened. And

31:24

I

31:24

didn't want to believe it. So I didn't let myself believe

31:26

it. And I went forward hoping that I could like build

31:29

a different kind of relationship based on good intentions

31:31

and my hope of the kind of person I believe Ethan

31:34

could be if Ethan suddenly adopted

31:36

all of my values.

31:38

And that just sounds like a fucking heartbreak and

31:40

a difficult road to hoe and a really difficult

31:43

situation to become a parent in. So I also

31:46

like I can understand wanting to pursue

31:49

parenthood with time in mind, but

31:51

I also don't want you to think like, Oh, 30 is

31:54

so late. I've got to get a hustle on.

31:56

It just needs to be Ethan because Ethan's the person

31:59

I'm with right now. And I. don't have time to go meet somebody

32:01

else, that I think would lead you to make

32:03

some bad rushed decisions. So I think

32:06

this is like that classic fridge magnet. Some

32:08

people come into your life for a reason, some

32:11

people come into your life for a season, and some

32:13

people come into your life to leave footprints on

32:15

the sand because they carried you when

32:17

you were struggling and mixing it up with the footsteps

32:20

magnet. But you know what I mean? Like

32:22

this is a classic. Ethan was with you

32:24

for a season. Ethan does not want to

32:26

be a co-parent, you and

32:28

me equally yoked, heading down the

32:31

plow of life,

32:32

given and taking an equal measure. Ethan

32:34

wants to

32:35

hop on down the road. Yeah. Yeah. And

32:38

like, it's so nice to dream

32:40

of having a child. And I think

32:42

that that's maybe where Ethan is at is

32:44

like, oh, wouldn't it be lovely to have

32:47

a child? You know, and I feel that

32:49

way too. But once you get down

32:51

to what it actually means,

32:53

I don't know how you're going to nail

32:55

Ethan down for this. It's

32:58

like, just because someone says

33:00

they want

33:01

a child doesn't mean that they

33:03

are equipped at this time to do

33:06

all the things that, you know, and

33:08

that says nothing about Ethan's financial

33:10

situation. It's about where they're at

33:12

kind of emotionally and mentally

33:15

and spiritually, I

33:17

guess, you know, it's like if you are feeling that

33:21

you have a limited amount of time, which I would like to

33:24

say 30 is very young, at least in my opinion, I

33:26

think you have a lot of time to kind of figure

33:28

out what you really want. And I think that Ethan spurred all these

33:30

big feelings

33:31

that maybe feel like they need an immediate

33:37

response because they're so big. But I think

33:39

just maybe taking space, even if you're

33:42

not ready to fully break it off, I think that

33:45

space taking would be a really good middle

33:47

ground to just say, okay, like,

33:49

Ethan and I need to take a month where we're not talking.

33:52

And I just need to like get my head on straight, figure

33:54

out what it is that I want without

33:56

the power of like my love for this person clouding.

33:59

those kind of basic

34:02

decisions that you have to make that are not

34:04

based in emotion, unfortunately.

34:07

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it

34:09

also just may

34:10

be that Ethan's idea of parenthood

34:13

is incompatible with yours. I don't even necessarily

34:15

think it's the case if you want to be a parent in a way that

34:17

Ethan doesn't so much as Ethan might

34:19

want to become a parent and be on

34:21

benefits and fucking hit the road with the kid

34:24

and just like bop around the country and see

34:26

what happens. And that would feel like a totally

34:28

like

34:29

impossible level of uncertainty

34:32

and precarity for you.

34:33

And, you know, just

34:35

no amount of wishing or hoping in the world is... There's

34:37

some positions where there's just not a good middle ground.

34:40

Like there's

34:40

plenty of people where it's like, well, we have

34:42

some big differences, but overall there's

34:45

enough of a middle that we can like

34:47

live within a reasonable Venn diagram. And there are other

34:49

people where it can genuinely be the case, like you're not a bad person.

34:52

I'm not a bad person, but there's no sustainable

34:54

middle between us. It's just not going to work.

34:57

And I think this is a pretty clear cut case of that.

34:59

So I would just say, yeah, there's no two ways

35:01

about

35:01

this one. I

35:04

think

35:05

you should save yourself a lot

35:07

of time and have like a friendly

35:08

but poignant breakup with Ethan

35:11

now where you feel like, oh, this is so sad. I'm

35:13

leaving wanting more as opposed to in five years when you're

35:15

like, God, I hate you. And you're kind of a deadbeat

35:18

to our kids. And you're

35:20

like ruin my life or something, right? Yeah. And

35:23

I just feel like a single parent, but in a way worse way than if I had just

35:25

become a single parent without you. And

35:28

also I'd never want to see a fucking farm again. Like

35:31

you've ruined farms for me. Yeah,

35:32

especially religious

35:34

ones.

35:35

I am really curious

35:37

about what your experience

35:39

is with religious farms.

35:45

Cause

35:49

I think

35:50

the closest I can come to either of those

35:52

is when I used to live in the Bay area, I would

35:54

often go down to the pie ranch, which was like a working

35:57

farm slash ranch just north of Santa

35:59

Cruz. that hosted square dances

36:02

that was kind of amazing.

36:03

Oh yeah, big square dance fan here,

36:05

yeah.

36:06

For some reason I only wanted to go to square dances

36:08

there. I don't think I've ever otherwise been square dancing,

36:10

but like this beautiful barn right on the beach

36:13

with baby goats was like, yeah, I'm gonna do

36:15

that. And then maybe another three hours

36:17

down the road on Big Sur, there was a monastery

36:21

of, I always mix up like Cistercians and

36:23

Carmelites,

36:24

whoever follows the rule of St. Romel.

36:28

Anyways, there was a great monastery down there that

36:30

would like rent out little shacks on the beach for

36:32

like 60 bucks a weekend and you can

36:34

go on retreats, but they were never so close

36:37

that I was doing farm and religious retreat at the same time.

36:39

What about you? What's the closest

36:41

you got? Let's see. I would like to just say

36:43

I too love square dancing, but only

36:45

the punk version of it that I experienced

36:47

when I lived in Charlottesville. I mean, of course they

36:50

do, sure, why not? Yeah,

36:52

and I mean, it would be really cool because it would be like collars

36:55

and their bands would travel around and it would just

36:57

be like house party square dance, which was a

36:59

totally different and very like queer vibe,

37:02

but you don't always think of with square dancing, but there is

37:05

a vibrant underground community. But

37:07

let's see religious farm. Yeah,

37:10

I feel like I once went to this new

37:12

age farm because

37:15

I was reading like probably

37:17

some book about like a Sufi poet

37:20

and someone was like, oh, you need to

37:22

go see- You could just say Ruby.

37:24

Yeah, no, it wasn't. It

37:26

wasn't. It was one of the other ones. I

37:29

don't even know. It might've been like a philosophy

37:31

book. It was some like mystical

37:33

text. I could have been a branch

37:36

of any religion, but it was a mystical

37:39

text

37:39

of some kind. And I was told to like go

37:41

to this farm and see this man named

37:43

Sean Monzicki who taught me about past

37:45

life regression. And

37:48

not really a scene

37:50

I would find myself in now, but I was in my early

37:52

twenties. But yeah, it was like very

37:54

much a cooperative community

37:57

of people living on a farm.

37:59

in San Point, Idaho. And I'd say that was my

38:02

closest to a religious farm. And

38:04

yeah, the vibe was not

38:06

really for me.

38:09

And I left, but I'd say that's

38:11

my closest religious farm. And if someone

38:13

tells you, oh, you're reading a mystical text, you should

38:15

go to a second location with a hippie. Gotta

38:18

be careful. Yeah, but

38:20

I do think it is also important

38:22

to spend at least some

38:24

amount of your life in places and situations

38:27

that make you think I might roll my eyes at this.

38:29

It's not good if you are someone who always

38:32

rolls your eyes and avoids everything that makes you roll your

38:34

eyes. There you end up eventually getting

38:37

boring. So there's some

38:40

magical in-between zone where you can't be too

38:42

credulous or

38:43

too into everything. That gets risky. But

38:46

if you never go somewhere where you're gonna roll your eyes,

38:49

it's a little bit like my friend's husband

38:51

always says, if you never miss a flight, you're spending too much

38:53

of your life in airports. Wow. That's

38:55

a great say. Not that you should be trying to miss flights,

38:58

but if you're always like, yeah, I had three hours to

39:00

spare, you're spending too much time in airports. And

39:02

so similarly. That's great advice. On

39:04

American hysteria, we use the term

39:07

flexible skeptic. And

39:09

I think that that can be helpful in

39:12

situations like this too. It's like,

39:15

keep your debunking hat

39:17

on, but also don't

39:20

let that ruin your life and

39:22

ruin your sense of wonder and make

39:25

you think that you know everything because none of us do.

39:28

And there's lots of mystery in this world and that's a beautiful thing.

39:31

There certainly is. Yeah.

39:34

I

39:34

love this idea. Also I checked and it's the

39:37

Kamal Deliz.

39:38

And I never feel confident about how

39:40

I pronounce them, which is partly why I'm always in my head,

39:42

like just calling them sistercians. You're

39:45

probably close to Esalen in

39:47

Big Sur, I would imagine. Another

39:50

rich new age non-far. Right.

39:53

No, cause these are like absolutely

39:54

just like died in the wool Catholic

39:56

monks. Okay, love it. Which is like,

39:58

you know. I love a monk. And I just,

40:01

for whatever reason, like I

40:03

don't go to church, I'm not like a member

40:05

of an organized religion, but if I'm going to

40:07

a monastery, I'm like, I want these guys

40:10

to be like fucking old fashioned religious.

40:12

I don't want any of this like hippy dippy,

40:15

like love is love stuff. I want

40:17

you to have like specific concrete

40:19

beliefs that I mostly don't agree with. Yes.

40:23

I felt so struggling with this. I was up like

40:26

in upstate a while

40:28

back and I passed a church with a sign

40:30

outside that

40:31

said something like, sometimes

40:33

you just need a hug

40:35

on like the little church

40:36

sign. I was like, this is so

40:38

much worse to me than if it had just said like,

40:40

God hates fags.

40:43

Is it worse? No, I'm being facetious.

40:46

But like,

40:46

I hate that kind of sentiment so much. Like,

40:48

why are you a church? Like what's going

40:50

on? Why not just be a farmer's market that

40:52

sells candles? What is this like totally

40:54

tepid, meaningless content

40:57

free sign? Like I want you to put a Bible

40:59

verse up there. I want you to have

41:00

something that you're doing, even if I oppose

41:03

it like politically with my entire life.

41:05

Like don't just be vibes.

41:07

You know, commit to the bit, right? Yeah,

41:10

yeah. Be something, be something.

41:12

At least I'll respect you if you're something. But

41:15

putting up on your little church sign that people need hugs,

41:17

stop

41:18

it. You're a church. I don't know what Bible you're reading. There's

41:20

not a lot of hugs, unfortunately. Or even like,

41:22

if you want to go in the Bible and find like

41:24

a nice sentiment about like affection

41:27

and friends,

41:27

good news. There's shit in there

41:30

that you can use. You don't have to like come up

41:32

with your own little like, people like hugs ideas.

41:34

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

41:36

Anyways. Then you're just standing with a free hug

41:38

sign and that's a whole other

41:40

issue. Exactly, and it's just like,

41:42

yeah, is it 2007? Are we doing this

41:44

again? Are we gonna sit in

41:45

the middle of like Washington Square Park with a little typewriter

41:48

and give people free poems? A lot of people

41:50

still do that. Do they still? Oh,

41:52

well, good for them.

41:53

It's good, it's good. We need poetry.

41:55

Yeah, it's like I'm not against doing free

41:57

things. I just, there's some sort of like.

42:00

ambiguous degree of

42:04

like

42:05

emotional heft that I need

42:07

to know as trying to before I can relax. I get that.

42:10

Anyways, I do have a really sweet update

42:12

to read if you don't mind sticking around for that. I'm

42:15

really enjoying

42:16

this. So this one is, I'm writing

42:18

to give you an update on my letter Lost

42:20

in Transition that you answered on the May

42:23

23rd episode.

42:24

I actually, by the way, I'll just preface this

42:26

with that was somebody who had written in to say

42:28

they were thinking about giving their boyfriend tea

42:30

because they had started transitioning with their boyfriend hadn't

42:32

yet, but they were a little worried that it might be like,

42:36

I'm pretty sure the phrase power dynamics

42:38

came up at some point and I was like, do it. It'll

42:40

be fun and hot. So that was my advice was

42:42

give your boyfriend drugs. It's fun and hot.

42:45

Love it. I actually ended up starting my boyfriend on testosterone

42:47

before the episode even aired and

42:50

he's been on T for about two months now. I

42:52

mean, of course it's everyone

42:54

I've ever known who has started T,

42:56

not everyone, but a lot of them have gone from,

42:58

oh, what's

42:59

that over there? Is that some tea? Is

43:01

that tea?

43:02

Maybe I'll take it in a year or three.

43:04

And then it's like, oh, you've got extra. I'll

43:06

try some right now. Okay. Let's

43:08

just do it. Let's just go for it. It's

43:11

really beautiful. It's a lot of like, oh, no, wait,

43:13

oh, wait, I'll think about this. Like carefully in a

43:15

field for three years. And it's like,

43:18

no, I won't.

43:19

I've actually been thinking about it stressfully

43:21

for eight years and not telling anyone that I'm sick of waiting.

43:24

It's

43:24

stupid. So enough, I will go back

43:27

into the letter. He's been on T for about two months

43:29

now. He went in recently for STI

43:31

testing and also mentioned that he'd been doing

43:33

DIY HRT. And so they

43:35

added some testosterone related tests

43:37

to his blood work. I haven't yet heard anything about

43:40

the results, but I assume all is good.

43:42

The staff at the STI testing place also had

43:44

some suggestions on where else to try to get transition

43:47

related healthcare.

43:48

But my boyfriend actually had more information than they did.

43:50

They only recommended places that he's already gotten in

43:52

touch with, including some that are now closed and some

43:54

that are accepting new patients.

43:56

Yeah, that is also often my experience. I

43:58

think a lot of people are worried about it.

43:59

about any kind of like informal or DIY

44:02

HRT. Cause they're like, what if I'm missing a lot

44:04

of critical information? It's like,

44:06

you can just like anyone else, Google

44:09

UCSF transmasculine

44:12

HRT guidelines.

44:14

That's frankly probably better than you're gonna get a lot of

44:16

places.

44:16

Absolutely. There's no

44:19

beautiful hand holding doctors.

44:21

His mom who lives in his home country has been a huge

44:23

ally

44:24

and she's actually in a local group for parents of trans

44:26

people. Through this group, she got in contact

44:28

with an endocrinologist who then saw my boyfriend virtually

44:30

about a week ago. That endocrinologist emailed

44:33

him a requisition for blood work but it's not

44:35

in English and he hasn't done anything with it yet.

44:37

When he goes back home, this doctor is willing to

44:39

see him and prescribe testosterone. Unfortunately,

44:41

he can't leave Canada right now because of some

44:43

bureaucratic and immigration issues with his visa.

44:46

Otherwise, he's really happy

44:48

to be on T and pleased with the changes so far. For

44:50

the last year or so, I've been filling my prescriptions as fast

44:52

as possible to try to get two vials every two months.

44:55

When in reality, it takes me about three months to finish a vial.

44:58

My stockpile will last us both for a while and I plan

45:00

to continue replenishing it. Thank you so much for the

45:02

thoughtful and encouraging responses to my letter.

45:04

Great, this sounds beautiful. I could wish that your

45:07

boyfriend wasn't having to deal with bureaucratic issues

45:10

and all that and I hope the blood work

45:13

comes through. But yeah, it sounds great. Sounds like a pretty serious,

45:16

fun

45:17

plan. I co-sign all of it.

45:19

Awesome.

45:21

And I personally can take legal and medical

45:23

risk for anything that

45:26

might go wrong. So feel free to

45:28

sue me if anything bad happens to you or him.

45:31

But yeah, that's great. That's

45:33

fantastic. I hope he's able to see another doctor

45:36

and get his own script at some point in the future. But it's like, the

45:41

risks that come with starting HRT are

45:43

pretty straightforward. You can still talk to your doctor

45:45

about them even if you are taking HRT from a non-doctor

45:48

source. And I'm so glad he did that. That he would be

45:50

like, oh, I'm not allowed to say it. You should tell your

45:52

doctors what drugs you're taking. Great.

45:55

And boyfriend drugs, as always, that's

45:57

how I like to end every episode.

45:58

And if that's...

45:59

anyone out there wants

46:01

specifically one drug, you know where to find

46:03

me.

46:04

Thank you so much Chelsea

46:07

for being on the show. It was a delight.

46:09

And if you ever want to come back or

46:12

try a little testosterone,

46:13

shoot me in the mouth. You're my man, huh? I'm

46:16

it, I'm the guy. Everyone

46:18

needs to have one guy that they're like, oh, I got a guy. He's

46:21

my tea guy. Yeah, got it, got it, got it. He's my tea guy,

46:23

he's my tea guy. Well, maybe

46:26

we'll see. Maybe I'll take you up on it. But

46:28

otherwise. Well, we'd love to have you

46:30

back on the show. I would love that. It's nothing else. And

46:32

yeah, thank you so much for having me, Danny. I appreciate

46:35

it. Of course, have a great rest of your day and I'll talk to

46:37

you soon.

46:38

Thanks for joining us on Big Mood,

46:41

Little Mood with me,

46:44

Danny

46:47

Lavery. Our producer is Phil Serkis,

46:50

who also composed our theme music. Don't

46:52

miss an episode of the show.

46:53

Head to slate.com slash mood

46:56

to sign up to subscribe or hit the subscribe

46:58

button on whatever platform you're using right

47:00

now. Thanks. Also, please

47:02

leave us a review on Apple podcasts. We'd

47:05

love to know what you think. If you want

47:07

more Big Mood, Little Mood, you should join

47:09

Slate Plus, Slate's membership program. Members

47:12

get an extra episode of Big Mood, Little Mood

47:14

every Friday, and you'll get to hear more advice

47:16

or conversations with our guest. And as

47:19

a Slate Plus member, you'll also be supporting

47:21

the show. Go to slate.com forward

47:23

slash mood plus to sign up. It's just $15

47:25

for your first three months. If

47:28

you'd like me to read your letter on the show, maybe

47:31

you need a little advice, maybe you need some big advice,

47:33

head to slate.com slash mood

47:36

to find our Big Mood, Little Mood, listener

47:38

question form, or find a link in

47:40

the description on the platform you're using right

47:42

now.

47:43

Thanks for listening. And here's

47:45

a preview of our

47:48

Slate Plus episode coming

47:52

this Friday. Depending on how close you are,

47:54

you could also, if she does it the next time, you could just

47:56

say, you know, Grandma, I've noticed that the last

47:58

couple of times we've talked, Anytime I've

48:00

mentioned leaving the house, you just seem

48:02

terrified. And I'm really concerned

48:05

because that seems like an inappropriate

48:06

level of fear. And

48:09

as you know, I've lived here for years. I know my neighborhood

48:11

pretty well. I'm not making it up when

48:14

I say that I have lived safely

48:16

and without being attacked for years. So

48:19

I'm not just like living with my head in the clouds. I

48:21

actually, I mean, I'm not suggesting you say

48:23

the phrase lived experience to your grandmother, but like

48:25

I actually know what I'm talking about.

48:27

And your level of fear is really surprising. Are

48:29

you okay? And I don't mean that in like

48:32

getting one over on her or like, ha ha,

48:34

I've defeated you because I like rhetorically

48:36

spun around the fear to be on you.

48:39

But I think to really ask, do you find that you're

48:41

more afraid of things than you used to be? And

48:43

genuinely being open to hearing her talk

48:46

about that, I guess is some of what might

48:47

also be going on that's just harder for her to articulate

48:49

is unless she's a very unique

48:52

woman in her eighties, she's probably a little

48:54

bit less independent than she was 15 years ago.

48:57

And she probably understands the world a little bit less than she did 20 years

48:59

ago.

48:59

To listen to the rest of that conversation, join

49:02

Slate Plus now at slate.com

49:04

forward slash mood.

49:07

Hey, Tom Sharpling here, the host

49:10

of the best show. And if you've never heard

49:12

of the best show before, everything you need

49:14

to know is right there in the title. Each

49:16

week we put on the best live podcast

49:19

you're ever going to hear featuring live

49:21

callers, celebrity guests, music,

49:24

plenty of surprises. Who knows

49:26

what's going to happen? Last month alone, we were

49:28

joined by Conan O'Brien, Patricia

49:31

Arquette, Jeff Tweedy from Wilco,

49:33

Nathan Fielder, Sunan Archives, John

49:36

Oliver. The list goes on and

49:37

on. So what are you waiting for? Join

49:40

us live every Tuesday night on Twitch

49:42

at 6 p.m. Pacific time and

49:44

find us the next day on the Forever Dog podcast

49:47

network and wherever you find podcasts.