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SMNTY Interviews: Meredith Goldstein · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is any and Samantha.
0:06
Speaker 2: And welcome to stuff I've never told you production. iHeart radio,
0:18
Speaker 2: and today we are so thrilled to be joined by
0:22
Speaker 2: a guest. Despite technology coming in their way, trying to
0:27
Speaker 2: stop us at every turn, it won't stop us. We
0:30
Speaker 2: are so happy to be joined by author, journalists podcaster
0:36
Speaker 2: Meredith Goldstein. Welcome so much, Welcome so much.
0:40
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. Thank you for letting me
0:42
Speaker 3: reboot my computer fifty times before we started.
0:45
Speaker 2: If that doesn't happen, then it's not a podcast.
0:47
Speaker 4: So all right, true, you know it's gonna be a
0:49
Speaker 4: good episode when it has so many delays.
0:51
Speaker 1: We're just building it up now.
0:53
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
0:54
Speaker 3: The anticipation is just, yeah.
0:56
Speaker 2: It's palpable. It's palpable.
0:58
Speaker 5: Yeah.
0:59
Speaker 2: Well, we're so happy to have you. Can you introduce
1:02
Speaker 2: yourself to the audience.
1:03
Speaker 3: Sure.
1:04
Speaker 5: So.
1:04
Speaker 3: I have been the advice columnist at the Boston Globe
1:08
Speaker 3: for about fifteen years, which is wild, and I've also
1:12
Speaker 3: written some books. One is about that, and some fiction books.
1:15
Speaker 3: But I am originally basically from Maryland and moved to
1:19
Speaker 3: Boston and have been in Boston so long that I
1:22
Speaker 3: am starting to think like a Boston person, whatever that means.
1:25
Speaker 3: And yeah, and that is my background. And I also
1:28
Speaker 3: host a podcast based on the advice column.
1:31
Speaker 2: Yes Love Letters, and you cover so many interesting topics
1:36
Speaker 2: on there. And I'm very excited to get into this
1:40
Speaker 2: because honestly, I find advice columns in the history of
1:43
Speaker 2: them fascinating. And you have been doing this for a
1:46
Speaker 2: long time. How did you get into being an advice columnist?
1:50
Speaker 3: Well, certainly I did not go to journalism school to
1:52
Speaker 3: be an advice columnist. I don't know what I really thought.
1:55
Speaker 3: I was going to be an arts writer, and my
1:57
Speaker 3: parents were musicians, so I thought, oh, well, I can't
1:59
Speaker 3: play muse well, but maybe i'll be a rock critic.
2:01
Speaker 3: And then I was like, I don't want to go
2:03
Speaker 3: to shows, and I don't want to go to shows
2:06
Speaker 3: I don't like. Our critic at the time took me
2:11
Speaker 3: to like a White Zombie concert and looked at me
2:14
Speaker 3: and said, and I was so miserable, and she said,
2:16
Speaker 3: if you don't like this, this job is not for you.
2:20
Speaker 3: So that was a really good lesson. And I was
2:23
Speaker 3: writing a lot of feature stories about the way we live,
2:26
Speaker 3: which we would have called like a living story of
2:28
Speaker 3: living arts you know, old school media talk, right, And
2:33
Speaker 3: at the time, I mean this sounds so dated, but
2:37
Speaker 3: Facebook was new, at least new for non college students. Texting,
2:41
Speaker 3: I mean, we were still on flip phones. We were
2:44
Speaker 3: in BlackBerry mode. I think we were like coming into
2:46
Speaker 3: the smartphone era, and texting was much more something that
2:52
Speaker 3: you could do without it being rude to do that
2:55
Speaker 3: instead of call, whereas like, of course, you know, in
2:57
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, if somebody calls me, I'm like, what's wrong,
2:59
Speaker 3: whereas like at that point, I'd be like, you're just
3:01
Speaker 3: going to text me and not call me. So it
3:03
Speaker 3: was just a completely different time, and I was writing
3:06
Speaker 3: a lot of stories about how technology was changing, how
3:09
Speaker 3: we interacted, how the rules had changed, how demographics had changed,
3:14
Speaker 3: all from that sort of feature perspective, and that led
3:17
Speaker 3: me into thinking, well, the globe is, you know, in
3:21
Speaker 3: a city that is deeply obsessed with itself. What if
3:23
Speaker 3: Boston had its own advice columnist? And of course at
3:26
Speaker 3: that point, the Internet was even newer, so it didn't
3:29
Speaker 3: occur to me that people were going to write in
3:30
Speaker 3: from all over despite the fact that we were very
3:33
Speaker 3: much Boston. And same with the podcast. It's like podcast
3:36
Speaker 3: listeners know I'm sitting in Boston, but they come from everywhere,
3:39
Speaker 3: and it's like nice to know somebody's based somewhere, but
3:42
Speaker 3: we're all having the same discussions. Yes and so so yeah.
3:47
Speaker 3: So basically it's just you know, like people say, are
3:49
Speaker 3: you qualified to do this? Did you get a degree
3:51
Speaker 3: in this? I'm like, no, If I got a degree
3:53
Speaker 3: in this, I would be a therapy. I would not
3:55
Speaker 3: be telling people what to do. And this is just
3:58
Speaker 3: a lot. You know, there's a big historyjournalism of journalists
4:01
Speaker 3: on occasion becoming people who give advice, and it is
4:06
Speaker 3: a I think it's like a nice snapshot of the
4:09
Speaker 3: world we live in. This is always the shtick I
4:10
Speaker 3: give to newspaper editors or media company editors who are like,
4:14
Speaker 3: why are we spending money on this or why are
4:16
Speaker 3: we devoting any resources to this? And I will tell them,
4:19
Speaker 3: if you want a time capsule of history, go to
4:22
Speaker 3: the advice column in whatever it was at the time,
4:26
Speaker 3: and you will get a sense of how people lived,
4:28
Speaker 3: not just the news, but how they lived.
4:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, we actually not us, but previous hosts did a
4:33
Speaker 4: whole episode on Dear Abby, if I remember correctly, and
4:37
Speaker 4: just kind of the change and shift there was with
4:40
Speaker 4: her work and how significant it really was, especially for
4:44
Speaker 4: women and the culture of women and what they were
4:47
Speaker 4: trying to figure out and who to ask because there
4:49
Speaker 4: was a how much shame and feeling like they may
4:51
Speaker 4: have failed in certain things including love or family and
4:54
Speaker 4: all that, and being able to ask a stranger with
4:58
Speaker 4: a non biased look was a fun penomenon.
5:01
Speaker 3: Well, it's also like when you talk about shame and gender,
5:05
Speaker 3: I would say only recently have I felt that advice
5:10
Speaker 3: columns are getting their due. So this is a thing
5:13
Speaker 3: in a media company that will get consistent readers that
5:17
Speaker 3: make people feel like they're part of a community. And
5:20
Speaker 3: even ten years ago or so, or certainly when I started,
5:23
Speaker 3: it was like silly to some people. And I'm not
5:25
Speaker 3: saying it's the same as our Spotlight team after, you know,
5:30
Speaker 3: for which they made a movie about, right, But I
5:32
Speaker 3: am saying, we don't do this with sports, right as
5:36
Speaker 3: far as I'm concerned as a non sports person, Every
5:39
Speaker 3: year a baseball team plays in Boston, and they might win,
5:41
Speaker 3: and they might lose, and they might change their personnel,
5:44
Speaker 3: but it's the same and it's a hobby, and that
5:47
Speaker 3: there is a financial world behind it that is deeply important,
5:51
Speaker 3: and people feel a spiritual loyalty in certain ways, and
5:54
Speaker 3: those are the reasons it's interesting. But I can say
5:56
Speaker 3: the same of advice columns and the industry of relationships.
6:00
Speaker 3: So why someone an editor might I roll advice column
6:04
Speaker 3: versus a sports column. There should be down difference, but
6:08
Speaker 3: there is, and that's because of gender and who traditionally
6:11
Speaker 3: is interested in this topic. But the good news is
6:13
Speaker 3: is I feel like in the past five years or so,
6:16
Speaker 3: I think that has changed where you know, money talks
6:19
Speaker 3: and you know, let's be honest, like a demographic of
6:23
Speaker 3: buying people is women of a certain age, and suddenly
6:29
Speaker 3: it's like, well, everybody likes to make money and get
6:32
Speaker 3: and get audience. So suddenly like it's not the worst thing,
6:35
Speaker 3: you know, It's like, oh, well, what if we don't
6:37
Speaker 3: belittle this, so we're getting there.
6:40
Speaker 4: Yeah.
6:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one thing that I've found really interesting when
6:45
Speaker 2: I was reading up about you in the non creepy
6:47
Speaker 2: work way, is that something you spoke to is you know,
6:53
Speaker 2: we've struggled with this too. Sometimes you feel like, oh,
6:55
Speaker 2: I'm not qualified to do something, and I know when
7:00
Speaker 2: you like pitch the idea you were going through sort
7:02
Speaker 2: of a rough time in your life of you know,
7:06
Speaker 2: going through breakup yourself, and I thought it was interesting.
7:12
Speaker 2: It was a quote from your memoir I believe about
7:14
Speaker 2: your friends saying, you know, when people look down on
7:16
Speaker 2: the grief you feel when you have a breakup, like
7:19
Speaker 2: people don't take that very seriously, but it is a
7:22
Speaker 2: real pain. And I thought it was sort of a
7:24
Speaker 2: profound thing of someone choosing not to have you in
7:27
Speaker 2: their life anymore, and that is really painful. So how
7:32
Speaker 2: have people outside given you advice that has maybe shaped
7:36
Speaker 2: what you've done, and just how have you come to
7:39
Speaker 2: terms with you know, sometimes it's hard to take your
7:43
Speaker 2: own advice. Sometimes you might not have the answer.
7:46
Speaker 3: I think the readers and the letter writers themselves have
7:49
Speaker 3: taught me so much because we're not supposed to know
7:52
Speaker 3: the answers all the time, and we're also not supposed
7:56
Speaker 3: to tell people what to do, which is I think
7:57
Speaker 3: really important to say, because even though I'm in advice
8:00
Speaker 3: and I am more likely to give a definitive what
8:02
Speaker 3: if you tried this, when we give advice in our
8:04
Speaker 3: real lives, we don't Actually we should not say do
8:07
Speaker 3: this if you are saying that to a friend or
8:09
Speaker 3: family member, a loved one, do this, you are doing
8:12
Speaker 3: it wrong. And it's so much about listening and asking
8:14
Speaker 3: questions and helping someone get to a conclusion and telling
8:17
Speaker 3: them what you might notice in them and how they're
8:20
Speaker 3: prioritizing sharing information or not sharing information. And you're never
8:25
Speaker 3: going to escape that process when you're making a difficult
8:27
Speaker 3: decision for dealing with change. So I think it's it's
8:32
Speaker 3: you know, I had to accept pretty quickly in this
8:35
Speaker 3: that I've never been married, i have been dumped, I've
8:38
Speaker 3: never been a parent. That does not mean I can't
8:41
Speaker 3: help people who are going through things that I've never
8:44
Speaker 3: been through, and vice versa. You're talking about dear Abby.
8:47
Speaker 3: You know Anne Landers to her sister, which they notoriously
8:51
Speaker 3: did not get along. And I'm an Anne Landers girl
8:54
Speaker 3: for a number of reasons, one of which is that
8:55
Speaker 3: I'm friends with her daughter, who also became an advice calumnist.
8:59
Speaker 3: But she was married like four times, and so you
9:04
Speaker 3: could say, well, you kept getting a divorce, what do
9:06
Speaker 3: you know? What do you know about? But her experiences
9:10
Speaker 3: shape her how she sees the world, and I've always
9:15
Speaker 3: seen that as this is a person who knew when
9:18
Speaker 3: to leave. And this is a person you know. I
9:22
Speaker 3: think when you're younger, or when you haven't thought about
9:25
Speaker 3: it a lot, you're sort of thinking, oh, well, success
9:27
Speaker 3: looks like this. Failure looks like this, And that's just
9:31
Speaker 3: something I had to take out of the equation that
9:33
Speaker 3: there is no relationship failure. There's no I mean, certainly
9:37
Speaker 3: you can fail someone, but there's no one doing it
9:40
Speaker 3: right and doing it wrong. And there's absolutely no one
9:42
Speaker 3: who doesn't have to ask a lot of questions. So
9:46
Speaker 3: I think the readers in asking their questions, even when
9:48
Speaker 3: they're so smart and know exactly what to do the
9:50
Speaker 3: processing of it, I'm like, oh, well, I'm allowed to
9:52
Speaker 3: process it too, And they have made me much have
9:58
Speaker 3: a lot more confidence about, well, I'm going to try
10:01
Speaker 3: this in my own life and if it doesn't work,
10:02
Speaker 3: that's okay, Like we'll all be okay, hopefully hopefully.
10:18
Speaker 2: Well, you were talking earlier about like texting and the
10:21
Speaker 2: internet when you first started. I saw recently you wrote
10:24
Speaker 2: a piece on AI and like, what's going on there? So,
10:28
Speaker 2: how over the length of time you've been doing this,
10:31
Speaker 2: how have you seen the landscape change?
10:34
Speaker 3: It's so radical in terms of the difference. First of all,
10:39
Speaker 3: back in the day, it would have been rude to
10:40
Speaker 3: ask somebody out by text fifteen years ago, like that
10:43
Speaker 3: would have been weird and you wouldn't even be sure
10:45
Speaker 3: that the text got there. But like ten years ago
10:47
Speaker 3: it might have been rude once again, Like now it
10:50
Speaker 3: seems invasive to make phone calls unless that's something scheduled
10:54
Speaker 3: ahead of time. There's almost like a consent neated of
10:56
Speaker 3: like what if I called you know, and certainly FaceTime.
10:58
Speaker 3: And remember the first letter I received from someone who
11:02
Speaker 3: had met someone by sliding into their DMS on Instagram.
11:07
Speaker 3: We did not call it that. Then they were like
11:08
Speaker 3: they messaged me on Instagram, and I was like, what
11:11
Speaker 3: a weird stockery thing to do? Like I was just
11:13
Speaker 3: like floored by the idea that some stranger would enter
11:18
Speaker 3: your direct messages in your social media account. Now that's
11:21
Speaker 3: like obviously right, like this is a thing that happens.
11:25
Speaker 3: I am often asked when I talk to people, is
11:29
Speaker 3: all of this technology good or bad? Like there's this
11:31
Speaker 3: black and white wave thinking about has it improved our
11:34
Speaker 3: lives or made our lives terrible? And of course it's
11:37
Speaker 3: middle right, Like you know, when My late mother was
11:40
Speaker 3: younger and single after her divorce, she could have used internet,
11:45
Speaker 3: like in the world to find people outside of her
11:49
Speaker 3: own community. She didn't have that. We didn't have that.
11:51
Speaker 3: So the minute there were online dating websites, her world
11:56
Speaker 3: got so much bigger and so much less lonelier, you know,
11:59
Speaker 3: just to know what else was out there. On the
12:02
Speaker 3: other hand, sometimes I'm sitting in a bar and everybody's
12:05
Speaker 3: on their phones and I'm like super bummed about the
12:08
Speaker 3: lack of like paying attention that we do. So it's both,
12:13
Speaker 3: but it is. I would never say it's bad, and
12:15
Speaker 3: I would also say that I would take the bigger
12:19
Speaker 3: world even despite all the catfishing, despite all the nonsense.
12:25
Speaker 3: It's like nonsense in a different place. Dating is hard,
12:27
Speaker 3: It's going to be nonsense wherever you go. But you're
12:30
Speaker 3: kind of looking for those great experiences, whether it's at
12:32
Speaker 3: a crowded bar party, on a website, on an app.
12:36
Speaker 3: It's like kind of all just looking for needles in haystacks.
12:40
Speaker 3: So we might as well have different options.
12:42
Speaker 4: Right, Like, the methods have changed, but the results are similar.
12:46
Speaker 3: The results kind of are similar, and I think the
12:48
Speaker 3: perception is similar to like people romanticize these organic meat cutes,
12:55
Speaker 3: right you see in movies of running into and like
12:58
Speaker 3: I will always say to people like, what are the
13:00
Speaker 3: what are the odds that you're going to meet someone
13:02
Speaker 3: on an app that you like? If you do, that
13:06
Speaker 3: is the romantic the most romantic thing I've ever heard
13:08
Speaker 3: in my life. The happenstance of that is incredible, And
13:13
Speaker 3: it is basically the equivalent of an Ane Hathaway character
13:16
Speaker 3: getting into a cab and somebody getting in from the
13:18
Speaker 3: other Meg Ryan character like getting in from the other side,
13:20
Speaker 3: and you're like, ooh, we're sharing a cab now, Like
13:22
Speaker 3: that is the same, the same level of I can't
13:26
Speaker 3: believe this happened, whereas like meeting somebody through a friend
13:28
Speaker 3: is actually like kind of obvious to me, like it
13:31
Speaker 3: might happen, it might not. But when people get worried
13:34
Speaker 3: about the narratives of how they met, I'm like, updating
13:38
Speaker 3: is like so complicated that if something comes from that,
13:42
Speaker 3: that's amazing, it's wonderful.
13:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.
13:44
Speaker 4: I always think about how people don't understand the greater
13:48
Speaker 4: uh not risk, but you're taking a little more of
13:51
Speaker 4: a gamble when you do put yourself out there with
13:53
Speaker 4: an intention versus just happenstance of like, oh okay, this
13:57
Speaker 4: might work, like we have a few things in common. Okay, hey,
14:00
Speaker 4: my I'm so and so your friends and so, you know,
14:02
Speaker 4: like it's it's a little different. But with all of that,
14:05
Speaker 4: obviously you have a plethora of questions and stories and
14:11
Speaker 4: so many things I'm sure under your belt and in
14:13
Speaker 4: your mind.
14:14
Speaker 1: Are there any stories that stand out to you?
14:17
Speaker 3: The stories that stand out tend to be for the podcast,
14:19
Speaker 3: because unlike the letters, where it's a letter and I
14:22
Speaker 3: kind of can't see the person and that's probably for
14:24
Speaker 3: the best, and they're anonymous, these people in the podcast
14:27
Speaker 3: tell these entire stories from start to finish. And I
14:31
Speaker 3: love the breakup stories because often the breakup story is
14:35
Speaker 3: the greatest story ever told to me. I think that's
14:38
Speaker 3: supposed to be the Bible, and they're probably breakup stories
14:40
Speaker 3: of the Bible. But i'mounna say any breakup story is,
14:42
Speaker 3: because often it is lost and then rising like a phoenix.
14:48
Speaker 3: It always there's this hopeful other side of it that
14:52
Speaker 3: should be there, and if it isn't there, we will
14:54
Speaker 3: find it.
14:55
Speaker 5: Right.
14:55
Speaker 3: And so those are the stories that stick with me
14:58
Speaker 3: about someone telling their story of letting go and then
15:03
Speaker 3: finding something else. I am particularly interested right now, and
15:07
Speaker 3: I think everybody's interested in it in a conversation about
15:11
Speaker 3: polyamory that everybody's having. I think in the media of like, oh,
15:14
Speaker 3: here's this thing, which, by the way, has existed for
15:16
Speaker 3: a really long time and has been practiced for a
15:19
Speaker 3: really long time, and according to all of these media companies,
15:23
Speaker 3: you know, you would think that everyone is in a
15:25
Speaker 3: polyamous relationship and that it's new. But I've had people
15:29
Speaker 3: on the podcast talk about, well, what does that experience
15:32
Speaker 3: look like? And that's really important to me because it
15:35
Speaker 3: can be really confusing and ambiguous for others, but there
15:40
Speaker 3: are lessons from it that can help us navigate our
15:44
Speaker 3: our boring monogamous are basic monogamous relationships like and I
15:51
Speaker 3: think that's important. So I think for me right now,
15:54
Speaker 3: it's like the stories on the podcast of like, I'm
15:56
Speaker 3: not even answering the question these people are answering the
15:59
Speaker 3: questions for me, where I'm like, how are you doing
16:02
Speaker 3: this and what have you learned from it? Actually, we've
16:05
Speaker 3: got an episode of the podcast coming up unrelated to
16:07
Speaker 3: bali Emory that is about sports significant others. The wives
16:12
Speaker 3: of famous athletes, and this is something living in Boston
16:16
Speaker 3: where I'm like, where athletes are truly celebrities. And and
16:19
Speaker 3: we'll talk about the Red Sox Wives. The Red Sox
16:22
Speaker 3: Wives attended a fashion show, like they're like like this
16:24
Speaker 3: group that moves around in one pack. And I've always thought, like,
16:28
Speaker 3: how do you keep your identity?
16:29
Speaker 1: Like do you like that?
16:30
Speaker 3: Do you like people call that? I don't know, maybe
16:32
Speaker 3: you know. And talking to some of these people. We
16:34
Speaker 3: talked to someone who is a basketball wife and someone
16:37
Speaker 3: who is a baseball wife, and the story they actually
16:43
Speaker 3: tell is about how to find your own spotlight, how
16:47
Speaker 3: your partner can help you do that, and how to
16:50
Speaker 3: let your partner have the spotlight and how you share
16:53
Speaker 3: and anybody can learn from that. So I was surprised
16:56
Speaker 3: at how much I related to these experiences that are
16:59
Speaker 3: nothing like my own.
17:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is true. We've had that on here
17:03
Speaker 2: so many times. I remember we did an episode two
17:05
Speaker 2: parter on BDSM and I left like, oh gosh, I
17:08
Speaker 2: can learn so much.
17:09
Speaker 4: Right in this community, Like oh, okay, you're doing this right.
17:13
Speaker 4: We need to learn this be not.
17:15
Speaker 3: A part of the BDSO right, My god, one of
17:18
Speaker 3: my first stories at the Globe, and maybe this led
17:20
Speaker 3: me into the work that I do too. Was that
17:23
Speaker 3: people in a smallish town city in southern Massachusetts had
17:29
Speaker 3: been arrested at a BDSM party for assault. Basically, from
17:36
Speaker 3: my memory, law enforcement went in there, saw people looking
17:41
Speaker 3: aggressive with each other and thought bad stuff was going on.
17:45
Speaker 3: Of course, this was all consensual and part of a community.
17:47
Speaker 3: And then of course it was this public shaming of well,
17:50
Speaker 3: who was there, who got arrested, who was assaulting? I
17:53
Speaker 3: put that in air quotes other people and I met
17:55
Speaker 3: with this group after and they told me all about
17:59
Speaker 3: their lifestyle. I remember one of the things they did
18:02
Speaker 3: was they were showing me sex toys versus things they
18:05
Speaker 3: bought at home depot, and I could absolutely not tell
18:07
Speaker 3: the difference. It was just really you know, I was
18:10
Speaker 3: probably a twenty five year old reporter at the time,
18:12
Speaker 3: and it was or maybe you know, this might have
18:15
Speaker 3: I might have even been younger. This might have even
18:18
Speaker 3: been when I was still working in Providence. But all
18:20
Speaker 3: these stories led me to be really interested in different
18:23
Speaker 3: lifestyles and how people how people like to live.
18:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
18:31
Speaker 3: So.
18:32
Speaker 2: Do you have a general idea of how general topics
18:36
Speaker 2: like shake out in terms of frequency, Like I think
18:39
Speaker 2: I read somewhere that you At one time, snooping was
18:42
Speaker 2: the big thing. People were like writing it about do
18:45
Speaker 2: you have an idea about what's going on?
18:50
Speaker 3: So yeah, in the beginning when I started the column,
18:52
Speaker 3: everybody was snooping. Everybody who wrote in was like, I
18:54
Speaker 3: checked my significant others texts or email.
18:58
Speaker 1: That definition like what snooping?
19:00
Speaker 3: Like they would like like get the code, did their
19:03
Speaker 3: partner's phone and read text? They would you know, this
19:07
Speaker 3: is less frequent.
19:09
Speaker 5: Now.
19:09
Speaker 3: There are a few reasons I think for this. My
19:11
Speaker 3: guess one is that we have better security, So there's
19:14
Speaker 3: like a two you know factor authenticate, Like it's just
19:17
Speaker 3: harder to break into people's stuff. And you know, I
19:22
Speaker 3: am absolutely someone who's cell phone, uh like code to
19:27
Speaker 3: get it is my birthday, so everybody, you know, it's
19:31
Speaker 3: just amazing to me where I'm like, oh, like this
19:33
Speaker 3: is this dummy like has a birth and that's that's
19:36
Speaker 3: exactly what I chose. But I kind of have nothing
19:38
Speaker 3: to hide.
19:38
Speaker 1: But one exactly kind of.
19:43
Speaker 3: But for me, it's like one one one. Yeah, so
19:47
Speaker 3: I think it's harder to do. But the other thing
19:49
Speaker 3: I think is that we are able to track each
19:52
Speaker 3: other in other ways that we weren't before, So like
19:55
Speaker 3: there's too much information. There's like, okay, there are certain
19:58
Speaker 3: people on social media who might make note of where
20:01
Speaker 3: they are, what they're eating, and who they're with throughout
20:03
Speaker 3: a day. So I think there's this thought of well,
20:05
Speaker 3: I'm probably gonna know anyway, or maybe it's the absence
20:09
Speaker 3: of information that is making me not trust this person.
20:12
Speaker 3: Not information. It's like, well, where were you from seven
20:15
Speaker 3: to nine? There was no like Instagram story then, there
20:17
Speaker 3: was no real then, So I think it's just like
20:23
Speaker 3: and I think people are exhausted and snooping is hard.
20:25
Speaker 3: I mean, it still happens, but it's not with the frequency.
20:27
Speaker 3: Like I felt like every letter writer back then was
20:29
Speaker 3: like I did this, and then it became this conversation
20:32
Speaker 3: of like, which is worse right, the fact that you
20:33
Speaker 3: snooped finding whatever you found. I'm assuming there were so
20:38
Speaker 3: many people who did snoop and found nothing that never
20:41
Speaker 3: wrote to me. So I just feel like it was
20:42
Speaker 3: probably pretty like a systemic problem in society at the time. Now,
20:47
Speaker 3: I think, you know, dating fatigue was happening before COVID,
20:51
Speaker 3: so like right before COVID, everybody was like, I can't
20:54
Speaker 3: keep doing this. I can't keep doing like I am
20:56
Speaker 3: doing this. It feels like work. It feels like a job.
20:58
Speaker 3: I feel like when I'm not I'm missing my soulmates,
21:02
Speaker 3: but when I am swiping, I'm not seeing my soulmates.
21:04
Speaker 3: And I it is this labor and it's exhausting and that,
21:08
Speaker 3: and then COVID happened, and it was obviously this like
21:11
Speaker 3: tragedy around the world. And yet I would hear from
21:14
Speaker 3: people who'd be like, well, at least I am given
21:16
Speaker 3: permission to just sit with this. And everybody who's single
21:20
Speaker 3: is just gonna be single right now, and everybody who's
21:22
Speaker 3: not is not. And I also think it gave single
21:25
Speaker 3: people a chance to really think about what it would
21:29
Speaker 3: feel like to be coupled or have partners at all.
21:33
Speaker 3: In that moment. I mean, I was somebody who in
21:34
Speaker 3: twenty twenty was single and living alone was like, oh
21:38
Speaker 3: my god. Like people would call and be like, are
21:39
Speaker 3: you okay? You're alone, and I'm like, yeah, I'm alone.
21:41
Speaker 3: It's so hard with my TV and my kettle coren
21:45
Speaker 3: that got delivered to me and my I mean, I
21:47
Speaker 3: was very lucky. I remained employed. I was doing work,
21:49
Speaker 3: but I was not lonely, and I felt bad for
21:53
Speaker 3: everyone else. It also felt like the safest thing that
21:57
Speaker 3: I you know, I felt incredibly privileged to live alone
22:01
Speaker 3: and not have to, you know, worry about anybody coming.
22:04
Speaker 3: So then it was the COVID era of I know,
22:07
Speaker 3: my husband's going to the grocery store without a mask.
22:09
Speaker 3: I know it. And like those letters where it was
22:13
Speaker 3: just negotiating safety, negotiating you know, who, do we allow
22:19
Speaker 3: someone to come over who's not vaccinated? Do we like?
22:21
Speaker 3: Letters about really really complicated negotiations. And I remember asking
22:28
Speaker 3: a sex writer about this, because the negotiation of polyamory
22:37
Speaker 3: and open relationships and just consent in general could could
22:44
Speaker 3: be useful all of a sudden in conversations about who
22:47
Speaker 3: do we let in the house, what do we tell
22:48
Speaker 3: each other? What is the protection we need? Like it
22:50
Speaker 3: felt parallel in these weird ways. Now, I think people
22:57
Speaker 3: are just tired and confused, and sometimes they're really happy,
23:00
Speaker 3: but they're like, I don't have to do anything any
23:03
Speaker 3: particular way. Not everybody feels that way, but a lot
23:07
Speaker 3: of people do, so like that's amazing, but it also
23:10
Speaker 3: brings up well, then what do I want to do?
23:12
Speaker 3: You know, like do I want do I want to
23:15
Speaker 3: get married? Do I want to be looking to it?
23:16
Speaker 3: I think we're not going to know for a long
23:19
Speaker 3: time what this pandemic did to us emotionally, but I
23:21
Speaker 3: think for a lot of people that reset their obligations.
23:26
Speaker 3: I mean, certainly we saw that with people quitting jobs,
23:28
Speaker 3: with people moving, but I think in relationships it was like, well,
23:32
Speaker 3: you know, this was following a path for a reason,
23:34
Speaker 3: and what if everything just got like put into an
23:37
Speaker 3: edge of sketch and like shake it up?
23:40
Speaker 4: I mean yeah, I think the pandemic really chilled a
23:42
Speaker 4: lot of people that either you're really great at being
23:45
Speaker 4: alone and this is fine, or you're really suffering and
23:48
Speaker 4: you have to fix things immediately when you can. So
23:50
Speaker 4: I feel like it's definitely like highlighted what is something
23:53
Speaker 4: that you can and can't do?
23:55
Speaker 1: For me, I figured out I really like being alone.
23:58
Speaker 1: We don't need the gas.
23:59
Speaker 3: I mean, like I started seeing someone after that after
24:03
Speaker 3: realizing I like to be alone. You know, you've got
24:05
Speaker 3: to mess things up?
24:08
Speaker 1: What do I have to be? Let's try this right?
24:11
Speaker 4: Which I like, you know, and I think it's really
24:13
Speaker 4: interesting because if you've as you've been doing this for
24:16
Speaker 4: a while now, and you've changed even yourself your medium
24:19
Speaker 4: a little bit. I know you're doing both still, but
24:21
Speaker 4: like coming from writing and printing to podcasting and having
24:26
Speaker 4: conversations with people and getting a bigger view and a
24:28
Speaker 4: bigger like stories, I guess do you feel like I'll say, like,
24:33
Speaker 4: as a podcaster, I came from like one field to
24:35
Speaker 4: this field and feeling like I'm learning so many different
24:37
Speaker 4: things that I'm like, oh, this is a different perspective. Okay,
24:40
Speaker 4: I'm gonna learn it this way. I'm gonna take this in.
24:42
Speaker 4: Do you feel like some of these things have helped
24:44
Speaker 4: you personally or I changed your perspectives?
24:48
Speaker 3: My perspective is like in a yes, especially you know
24:52
Speaker 3: with the podcast, like yeah, yeah, I mean my like,
24:56
Speaker 3: I don't even know. I think when I started the column,
25:00
Speaker 3: I had a pretty big chip on my shoulder about
25:01
Speaker 3: being single, like I I chose it. I mean, it's
25:07
Speaker 3: not like bazillion people were asking to be my significant other,
25:10
Speaker 3: but it felt like I also knew I wasn't trying,
25:13
Speaker 3: but it felt like a lifestyle choice and it felt
25:15
Speaker 3: like one And I think this is a common thing
25:18
Speaker 3: to feel when other people are coupling up all around you,
25:21
Speaker 3: where I was like, I'm doing it on my own.
25:24
Speaker 3: I went to Ikia by myself. I pay for it,
25:27
Speaker 3: but like, I'm figuring out a way to do this
25:31
Speaker 3: and it feels important. And it was and it was,
25:34
Speaker 3: but there was a level of bravery I attached to it,
25:38
Speaker 3: and it is real, but I was discounting the bravery
25:42
Speaker 3: of my friends who were coupled or in whatever relationship
25:46
Speaker 3: they were in. As I got older and talked to
25:49
Speaker 3: more people and did more of the column and then
25:51
Speaker 3: with the podcast, I saw how much negotiation that took,
25:56
Speaker 3: and how much self awareness it took, and how much
25:58
Speaker 3: accountability took when you're really kind of only accountable to
26:02
Speaker 3: yourself and to the people around you when you see
26:04
Speaker 3: them and not in a partnered relationship. It's fine and
26:11
Speaker 3: it's great, and it does take bravery to do that,
26:13
Speaker 3: but after a while you get really good at it.
26:14
Speaker 3: And I took no bravery at all. It was like
26:16
Speaker 3: it felt again. Covid told me that I was like,
26:18
Speaker 3: this is so deeply easy that maybe I could challenge myself.
26:21
Speaker 3: And I think I would not have that perspective if
26:23
Speaker 3: it weren't for the column and in the podcast.
26:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
26:37
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of the podcast, let's talk about that for
26:40
Speaker 2: a second. You've also been doing that for a while.
26:42
Speaker 2: What made you decide to take this these letters and
26:47
Speaker 2: try doing it in a podcast form?
26:49
Speaker 6: Well?
26:50
Speaker 3: This was interesting, so I would say I did not
26:54
Speaker 3: I did not want The owner of the Globe was like,
26:57
Speaker 3: can you make this a podcast too? That seems to be.
26:59
Speaker 1: A thing I want to right.
27:01
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, but I did not listen to
27:04
Speaker 3: podcasts really, and I did not want to do just
27:08
Speaker 3: let's talk about a letter, because I you know, Cheryl
27:12
Speaker 3: Strade was doing that, and I was like, she's famous.
27:15
Speaker 3: Like I didn't want to do a thing that somebody
27:17
Speaker 3: else was doing in a way that already existed and
27:20
Speaker 3: existed well. And also I didn't know that I had
27:23
Speaker 3: that much more to say about the letters in particular
27:25
Speaker 3: than what I had answered. But I did miss as
27:27
Speaker 3: a journalist interviewing people, and I remember saying, as somebody
27:32
Speaker 3: who was not listening to podcasts, had never listened to Cereal,
27:37
Speaker 3: saying to the people at the Globe, I want to
27:39
Speaker 3: be the Ceial of breakups And they said, what does
27:43
Speaker 3: that mean? And I said, I don't even know because
27:45
Speaker 3: I had not listened. I knew, I knew what it was.
27:47
Speaker 3: But what I said to them was I want to
27:50
Speaker 3: have people tell their own stories that can help other people.
27:54
Speaker 3: And every season I want to have a theme, and
27:56
Speaker 3: that is what we've done so far, and they're short
27:58
Speaker 3: seasons with one thing. So the first season was breakups,
28:02
Speaker 3: and I was like, I want people to be able
28:03
Speaker 3: to listen to eight episodes and have it as a
28:06
Speaker 3: handy guide that they can tune into whenever they get
28:10
Speaker 3: dumped or break up with somebody. And that whole season
28:13
Speaker 3: it was people telling stories. You know. We had one
28:15
Speaker 3: story I loved about a woman whose ex boyfriend was
28:20
Speaker 3: following her, still connect to her, to her on Venmo
28:23
Speaker 3: and talk about technology and had driven himself into a
28:27
Speaker 3: panic watching what she was paying people for shows up
28:31
Speaker 3: at her doorstep. But is like, I know you have
28:33
Speaker 3: a new boyfriend. I can't deal with it, and she's like,
28:36
Speaker 3: I don't. And long story short, she's in a running
28:41
Speaker 3: club and was paying somebody every Sunday for like the
28:44
Speaker 3: excent which she had after the run, the guy who
28:47
Speaker 3: brought the credit card.
28:50
Speaker 6: But it was like that.
28:52
Speaker 3: In that episode, it was the lesson about like, well,
28:54
Speaker 3: let's be careful of the stories we tell and the
28:56
Speaker 3: narratives we tell as we try to get over this,
28:58
Speaker 3: because we can get to a place where we're like, oh,
29:00
Speaker 3: I know everything's falling apart and like this person has
29:02
Speaker 3: already moved on and I was never important to them,
29:04
Speaker 3: and that wasn't the case obviously, but through these stories, yeah,
29:08
Speaker 3: like I feel like it's a pretty good It goes
29:10
Speaker 3: from well do you have to get under someone to
29:13
Speaker 3: get over someone? Like that's episode one to I believe
29:17
Speaker 3: what our finale was about, like can you be friends
29:19
Speaker 3: with some How can you be friends with someone after
29:22
Speaker 3: a breakup? When is it appropriate? When is it not appropriate?
29:25
Speaker 3: And the next season was about how to meet someone?
29:28
Speaker 3: And the next season was about how do you know
29:30
Speaker 3: some of these bigger questions? And we had a season
29:33
Speaker 3: about money, so where you know. One of my favorite
29:36
Speaker 3: episodes is someone talking about their husband's secret thirty thousand
29:39
Speaker 3: dollars of credit card debt and how they survived that.
29:44
Speaker 3: And what was amazing was I said, oh, it's only
29:46
Speaker 3: thirty thousand dollars and the person said, that tells me
29:49
Speaker 3: a lot about you, which is not that I have,
29:52
Speaker 3: there's thirty thousand dollars to pay up a credit card debt,
29:54
Speaker 3: but the fact that I wasn't. My thought was at
29:56
Speaker 3: least it's not one hundred thousand dollars. And they were like,
30:00
Speaker 3: how much credit card debt do you have? But it's
30:01
Speaker 3: so interant you tell on yourself right where I'm like, oh, well,
30:04
Speaker 3: thirty thousand dollars you could probably get at over the
30:06
Speaker 3: course of your life, whereas like there were two hundred
30:09
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. Maybe I don't know it was it was
30:12
Speaker 3: really it exposed doing that season, like even our producers
30:16
Speaker 3: like what we how we felt about money? By the
30:18
Speaker 3: way that the person it is the first episode of
30:21
Speaker 3: that season, and part of the thirty thousand dollars of
30:24
Speaker 3: credit card debt was LARPing paraphernalia purchased, So it's never
30:31
Speaker 3: it's never what you think right where it was like
30:34
Speaker 3: is it? What was it?
30:35
Speaker 5: Was it?
30:35
Speaker 3: And and then it was like, well a sword, an
30:38
Speaker 3: elf costume, it's like But another episode from that season
30:42
Speaker 3: was about a woman tells us two people tell a
30:46
Speaker 3: story about why getting a prenup was the most romantic
30:49
Speaker 3: thing they ever did, and they talk about their courtship
30:53
Speaker 3: and just like now they have. They both come from
30:57
Speaker 3: you know, pasts where there was trust broken and now
31:01
Speaker 3: they basically can show up every day saying we could
31:04
Speaker 3: leave at any moment and be okay. We would be okay,
31:08
Speaker 3: which means that when we show up every day, it's
31:09
Speaker 3: because we want to, it's not because we have to.
31:12
Speaker 3: And they really get into that. And so like I
31:15
Speaker 3: have found that the best advice does not come for
31:17
Speaker 3: me at all. It's just like me asking these people
31:19
Speaker 3: how they got there to whatever conclusion they got to.
31:22
Speaker 3: So yeah, so that with the podcast, like I would
31:25
Speaker 3: have never thought, you know, in twenty eighteen when we
31:29
Speaker 3: started it, it would become like my precious gem of
31:33
Speaker 3: like the work I do, and you would probably not
31:36
Speaker 3: be surprised, but then you're like, oh, you get to
31:37
Speaker 3: hear people and they tell you these things and then
31:40
Speaker 3: you get to apply those things to your life. So
31:42
Speaker 3: I'm really grateful that, you know, the owner said go
31:44
Speaker 3: do this thing, because then I got to go do that.
31:48
Speaker 5: Right.
31:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, Are you an extrovert?
31:49
Speaker 4: Because I feel like I don't know, Meredith, because you
31:52
Speaker 4: sound like me, but then also not me.
31:55
Speaker 3: I don't I'm not an extrovert. I am an extroverted introvert.
32:00
Speaker 2: Thing like that.
32:00
Speaker 3: I mean, I I bet I need to power down
32:03
Speaker 3: a lot.
32:03
Speaker 1: You're an ambil art, Is that what that is?
32:05
Speaker 3: Yeah? I when I'm on, I'm on, and I have
32:08
Speaker 3: a friend who says, you've always got two hours in you,
32:10
Speaker 3: and then it's just it's the button is Then they
32:13
Speaker 3: were done. They were And actually that's actually probably a
32:15
Speaker 3: great for recording podcasts, where the lead up and the
32:18
Speaker 3: coming down with that and then we're done.
32:21
Speaker 4: So you got about thirty more and more minutes if
32:23
Speaker 4: you want. I'm just gonna try. We're gonna use it
32:25
Speaker 4: up before your next one. We're like, yeah, we did it.
32:27
Speaker 2: Sorry, you can't have it.
32:30
Speaker 4: I asked this because it sounds like me as well
32:32
Speaker 4: as like I love being alone, but these conversations are amazing,
32:36
Speaker 4: and I want to have these conversations.
32:37
Speaker 1: Because they do teach you so much.
32:40
Speaker 4: I joked when I first started podcasting about how I'm
32:43
Speaker 4: just here to make friends because I'm alone. This is
32:45
Speaker 4: like I'm gonna make friends, like make them be my
32:47
Speaker 4: friend by talking to me for an hour about all
32:51
Speaker 4: of their knowledge.
32:52
Speaker 1: Like that's the way. That's the way I feel like it, and.
32:55
Speaker 4: You know, it sounds like again we have a similar
32:57
Speaker 4: you and any more so than me because I've made
32:59
Speaker 4: a four myself onto a podcast. That's where she was
33:01
Speaker 4: told to do a podcast as well. But how has
33:05
Speaker 4: this podcasting world been treating you so far?
33:09
Speaker 3: I mean I doing the podcast and having to do
33:15
Speaker 3: some navigating about like what that world is has also
33:18
Speaker 3: been wonderful, and it's interesting. I don't listen to podcasts generally,
33:20
Speaker 3: they're a lot like mine. I'm a big rewatcher of
33:23
Speaker 3: shows with the shows I love, and so this idea
33:26
Speaker 3: that there are podcasts out there that are and I
33:28
Speaker 3: tend not to love the ones with the stars of
33:30
Speaker 3: the show rewatching, I'm not really interested in that. What
33:33
Speaker 3: I want to know is, like I listened to a
33:37
Speaker 3: Vampire Diaries podcast called the Empire Diaries AMP and that
33:43
Speaker 3: was like my parasocial relationship like during twenty twenty, where
33:47
Speaker 3: you know, it's like women who are a lot younger
33:51
Speaker 3: than me experiencing a show I experienced when I was
33:53
Speaker 3: older than them, and like or I listened to a
33:58
Speaker 3: Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast Sligher Fast ninety where they're
34:01
Speaker 3: just like going and now they're going through the magicians, right,
34:03
Speaker 3: and I'm like, okay, Like, so I have found the
34:08
Speaker 3: world as a listener to it's like, what a what
34:12
Speaker 3: a cure for loneliness to just hear people who could
34:15
Speaker 3: be your friends talking. I mean, I know there's some
34:17
Speaker 3: parasocial weirdness with that too, but whatever, it's fine. And
34:22
Speaker 3: I'm sure people have that with my podcast, and people
34:24
Speaker 3: have it with your podcast certainly, right of like these
34:26
Speaker 3: are my friends and now and and I know them
34:28
Speaker 3: and and and in some ways they're right and but
34:31
Speaker 3: that's the part of it I really like of just
34:35
Speaker 3: I think you don't get that necessarily always with a
34:37
Speaker 3: column or with something you read, but there's no matter
34:41
Speaker 3: the format. Like so it's it's been nice to be
34:44
Speaker 3: on both sides of that as both the listener of
34:46
Speaker 3: podcasts and a maker.
34:48
Speaker 4: Now I have to ask, and I feel like this
34:49
Speaker 4: is going to be an obvious question, so please don't
34:51
Speaker 4: hate me. Because there was an article that popped up
34:54
Speaker 4: about you being the actual Carrie Bradshaw and we have
34:57
Speaker 4: done a full on rewatch of Sex in the City
35:01
Speaker 4: and we also did laugh about the fact that she
35:02
Speaker 4: jumped from the newspaper to podcasting world herself. Of course
35:05
Speaker 4: her podcasting world's like, that's not that's that's really so.
35:10
Speaker 3: My my biggest professional sin is that I have not
35:13
Speaker 3: watched the reboot and I will one day. I was
35:15
Speaker 3: waiting for a really big snowstorm at Boston and then
35:17
Speaker 3: it never happened. So there's It's funny because if you,
35:21
Speaker 3: I think, if you google my name and Cary Bradshaw,
35:23
Speaker 3: there's one headline that's like, she's the Carrie Bradshaw Boston,
35:26
Speaker 3: and the next headline is She's no Carrie Bradshaw. And
35:29
Speaker 3: of the two, I think number two is I'm no
35:32
Speaker 3: Carrie Bradshaw. I rewatched that show and I'm like, what
35:35
Speaker 3: a selfish.
35:35
Speaker 6: Weird person and a villain.
35:38
Speaker 3: She is a villain. And I remember they sent me
35:41
Speaker 3: to do a preview of the movie the first Game,
35:44
Speaker 3: so I got to interview all of these stars, right,
35:46
Speaker 3: and I remember Sarah Jessica Parker saying, I would be
35:49
Speaker 3: scared to death of this part. Like she said to me,
35:50
Speaker 3: like I would not. I am not this person, And
35:54
Speaker 3: she actually said that of all of them, Christian Davis,
35:58
Speaker 3: her lifestyle was the most most like Carry Bradshaw in
36:01
Speaker 3: that I think at that point she was single. She's like, listen,
36:03
Speaker 3: I'm married to Matthew Brogbrick and I have kids. And
36:05
Speaker 3: I like, like, I am not. This is a person
36:08
Speaker 3: I can't access and I might be frightened of her.
36:11
Speaker 3: And that made me feel a little better. And that
36:14
Speaker 3: was actually I think I did that story, maybe even
36:15
Speaker 3: before I was reading to column. But yeah, no, that's
36:19
Speaker 3: not it, I hope. But but but I think, you know,
36:25
Speaker 3: media comes back around again, right, you love it and
36:27
Speaker 3: then you're like cringed, like it's super cringey, and then
36:30
Speaker 3: you come back to it and you say, you know what.
36:32
Speaker 3: The episode where she registers for shoes is pretty great
36:34
Speaker 3: because I remember being in that moment of I can't
36:39
Speaker 3: keep celebrating everybody else all the time. I and I
36:43
Speaker 3: have heard right that her of course she goes to
36:45
Speaker 3: a podcast, right, which is great, which.
36:48
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, yeah, of course they jumped into this,
36:51
Speaker 4: and I'm like, but look, I guess it happens after listen.
36:55
Speaker 3: I've been shown I have been shown clips of her
36:57
Speaker 3: reading like ads and I I have read and ads
37:01
Speaker 3: ads before, which is like a luxury to read an
37:04
Speaker 3: ad right in some ways, But it is that I
37:06
Speaker 3: have enjoyed that clip. I hope I am a Nanne
37:11
Speaker 3: Landers of Boston and new media. You think about how
37:14
Speaker 3: old and not carry Brutch although it is amazing. On
37:20
Speaker 3: some episodes, I will say I can't help, but wonder,
37:24
Speaker 3: and you know, we'll say, oh, I couldn't help, but wonder.
37:27
Speaker 3: Or I have an ex boyfriend who used to do
37:29
Speaker 3: impressions of that show and he would just say, meanwhile,
37:32
Speaker 3: mid Downtown, that was it, that was all over. But
37:37
Speaker 3: he had only heard it in the background and he'd say, meanwhile,
37:39
Speaker 3: see this amount that was going to get.
37:41
Speaker 2: Up to yees.
37:42
Speaker 4: And this is why I'm like, I feel like we
37:43
Speaker 4: need to have you back on, because that's what we do.
37:45
Speaker 4: Part of what we do is to do and we
37:47
Speaker 4: watch and sometimes we have guests. I'm like, I want
37:48
Speaker 4: to have you on as a guest because I need
37:51
Speaker 4: you to know that, like I would need the like
37:53
Speaker 4: what the hell is this?
37:54
Speaker 3: Like what I have read romance novels about advice columnists,
37:59
Speaker 3: which I love because they're always like some weird thing
38:01
Speaker 3: of oh, like you fall in love with your letter
38:02
Speaker 3: writer and like that's it's never that's never happened. Oh yeah,
38:05
Speaker 3: there was. I will try to find it, but I
38:08
Speaker 3: always want to know, like, what are the depictions of
38:10
Speaker 3: advice columnists? I rewatched Original Charms not long ago, and
38:15
Speaker 3: you know, Phoebe becomes an advice columnist.
38:18
Speaker 6: And then dates and then dates the publisher of her newspaper,
38:24
Speaker 6: who is Eric Dane or whoever. It's like, it doesn't
38:26
Speaker 6: make any sense, but I love that too, right, And
38:31
Speaker 6: I love that she's doing it on a show that
38:34
Speaker 6: I adore but makes no sense, but because she's an EmPATH,
38:38
Speaker 6: because she has like a magical empathic ability to sense
38:41
Speaker 6: what people need to hear. So I love fictional depictions
38:44
Speaker 6: of advice givers. They are hilarious.
38:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, for us, it's like watching podcasters and were like,
38:51
Speaker 4: that's not how.
38:52
Speaker 2: You so, because we don't get to criticize stuff like
38:57
Speaker 2: that often. But I like it when I'm finally able
38:59
Speaker 2: to be the one that's that's not how it works.
39:02
Speaker 3: I mean, I do, I have not I'm not caught
39:04
Speaker 3: up with only murders in the building, but I do
39:06
Speaker 3: remember something in that first season of Somebody in a
39:09
Speaker 3: Closet and I was like, well, at least they're in
39:11
Speaker 3: the closet. At least they're like, like we know this
39:14
Speaker 3: to be the case, right, especially of that era of
39:16
Speaker 3: like we're just gonna be surrounded by our suits and shirts,
39:19
Speaker 3: and so I like it when they show.
39:22
Speaker 4: That coss played behind any But yes, literally that's what
39:26
Speaker 4: I was thinking about only murdered in the buildings. Because
39:28
Speaker 4: they do that and then they come out to the stage,
39:29
Speaker 4: I'm like, wait, what they had it right?
39:32
Speaker 1: And then they just left perform.
39:33
Speaker 4: I guess a lot, and I think podcasting has changed
39:36
Speaker 4: because we're still in the closet, but I've seen a
39:38
Speaker 4: lot of the like other podcasts are being all out
39:41
Speaker 4: in couches, being comfiyed, and I was like, how can
39:43
Speaker 4: I get there?
39:44
Speaker 3: Well, it is you know these I have a friend
39:46
Speaker 3: who is much more into visual podcasts where there's like
39:51
Speaker 3: a set and they are watching this on YouTube, and
39:54
Speaker 3: I think a lot about that. She would always talk
39:55
Speaker 3: to me about my basement and say, like we could
39:58
Speaker 3: renovate it to be the set, Like the set what right?
40:01
Speaker 3: Like I never thought that I could be like lying
40:03
Speaker 3: back in a couch and being like, let me tell
40:05
Speaker 3: you because because it's not the format of what I do,
40:07
Speaker 3: so edit it right. So it's but I get it.
40:09
Speaker 3: But yes, the closet feels I am still we are.
40:13
Speaker 4: All still in the closet, right, But with all of that,
40:18
Speaker 4: I'm sorry I had to go in too, Ti, right,
40:20
Speaker 4: because there's so many good things. But did you have
40:22
Speaker 4: a learning curve from switching over to print to this
40:25
Speaker 4: digital media?
40:27
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, yeah. The biggest thing what you have both
40:32
Speaker 3: experienced intimately now maybe the listener will not know, is
40:36
Speaker 3: that I have really bad allergies and I blow my
40:38
Speaker 3: nose a lot. So really, what I I mean, this
40:42
Speaker 3: is not something that can be helped. But I suppose
40:44
Speaker 3: maybe with the right medication it could. But I think
40:48
Speaker 3: even just treating my voice better, you know, like I
40:52
Speaker 3: am not adele, and I am not like, oh my
40:55
Speaker 3: voice is an instrument and I need to hydrate. But actually,
40:58
Speaker 3: as it turns out, you do need to take care
41:00
Speaker 3: of yourself. And I would record something and the producer
41:03
Speaker 3: would say this sounds terrible, and I'd be like, well,
41:05
Speaker 3: like stayed up really late and I had a glass
41:07
Speaker 3: of wine and I didn't drink water, and so really,
41:10
Speaker 3: just also to start with realizing that it does matter.
41:13
Speaker 3: Even if you're not, you know, doing a Vegas show,
41:16
Speaker 3: you are going to be listened to you know, it
41:22
Speaker 3: is really being present with interviews despite a lot of
41:29
Speaker 3: other stuff. I am much more likely to notice that
41:32
Speaker 3: a refrigerator is buzzing. I am not a big sound
41:37
Speaker 3: person now I think about it. In fact, I highly recommend.
41:40
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've seen the documentary The Greatest
41:43
Speaker 3: Night and Pop on Netflix. It's about the making of
41:46
Speaker 3: We Are the World, We Are the Children, and it's wild.
41:49
Speaker 3: It is a wild documentary about how they put this
41:53
Speaker 3: together and how you have all these egos in a room,
41:55
Speaker 3: how do you keep them not fighting? And it's like
41:58
Speaker 3: over the night their bo gets and they start to
42:01
Speaker 3: like go a little biserk. It's it's a very funny,
42:03
Speaker 3: great documentary. But my favorite part is when Cyndi Lauper
42:08
Speaker 3: is like, are people laughing at me? And what she's
42:12
Speaker 3: hearing is her bracelets and a mic. She's hearing like
42:16
Speaker 3: a so and of course, now is somebody who does
42:19
Speaker 3: a podcast? I'm like, oh, like, I'm very aware of
42:21
Speaker 3: does somebody have is somebody? If you can't see right now,
42:26
Speaker 3: I am hitting my Some people talk with their hands
42:28
Speaker 3: and they hit their legs. So that's really where I'm
42:31
Speaker 3: just thinking. More like a like a producer. But but
42:35
Speaker 3: these are not something. But it's the same thing, right
42:38
Speaker 3: of Like we used to not have to worry about
42:40
Speaker 3: social media. We just like wrote a column and somebody
42:42
Speaker 3: hit published. But now it's like, well, who's going to
42:44
Speaker 3: see it and how are they going to say and
42:45
Speaker 3: who's going to respond to it?
42:47
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Oh well, I have to say, as someone
42:53
Speaker 2: who has listened to Cereal, you did. You did what
42:56
Speaker 2: you wanted to do. You've accomplished being aerial of.
43:01
Speaker 3: Get somebody out of jail. I didn't get like a
43:04
Speaker 3: trial for somebody.
43:05
Speaker 2: But but you know, yeah, you know, it's just it
43:08
Speaker 2: sounds great. I love it. The theme. It sounds like
43:12
Speaker 2: the theme this season is focusing kind of on like
43:16
Speaker 2: supporting characters almost like friends or exes or therapists. Do
43:21
Speaker 2: you take about that and why that was important to you?
43:24
Speaker 3: I wanted to do a season about help. I mean,
43:27
Speaker 3: the whole thing is about help, right, the whole podcast.
43:29
Speaker 3: But I wanted to talk about where we get help,
43:31
Speaker 3: so that we know where to look for it, you know,
43:33
Speaker 3: learning from other people about like obviously a therapist might
43:37
Speaker 3: be able to help or but I want to know
43:39
Speaker 3: how and I want and I also want to know
43:41
Speaker 3: when it's not helpful. And so I did a call
43:44
Speaker 3: up for people like what what are your stories of
43:46
Speaker 3: help and who helped you or what helped you? And
43:50
Speaker 3: you know, the answers I got were some of them
43:52
Speaker 3: were expected, some of them were unexpected. You know, we
43:55
Speaker 3: just did most of our episodes, but probably about more
43:59
Speaker 3: than half are not locally. They're more national. But I
44:03
Speaker 3: did ask the governor of Massachusetts if she would be
44:06
Speaker 3: on because she is our first elected woman governor. But
44:10
Speaker 3: she's also the first lesbian governor in the country and
44:14
Speaker 3: she has a very public like romance for that reason,
44:19
Speaker 3: her partner people are interested. People are mean about it.
44:22
Speaker 3: People are nice about it, but they're like nosy about it.
44:24
Speaker 3: And in a way that is totally understandable in a
44:26
Speaker 3: way like I can't tell you very much about the
44:29
Speaker 3: past partners of governors in my state, maybe like one
44:33
Speaker 3: or two, but like, this is something I think about.
44:35
Speaker 3: Also because I am aging into her age group, like
44:39
Speaker 3: she's in her fifties. I'm in my forties, right, So
44:41
Speaker 3: I was like, I want to know what it's like
44:42
Speaker 3: to be like the first lesbian Massachusetts governor, you know what,
44:47
Speaker 3: and her, so who helps them. Her answer was music.
44:50
Speaker 3: It wasn't a person, it wasn't a thing. They go
44:53
Speaker 3: to a lot of shows. They're big Brandy Carlisle fans.
44:57
Speaker 3: They do like the Indigo Girls. They did joke about that.
45:00
Speaker 3: But I you know, for one person or second episode
45:04
Speaker 3: of the season, who is a guy who was supposed
45:08
Speaker 3: to have an arranged marriage and the help was his
45:10
Speaker 3: dad being like, oh, you're probably not going to do that,
45:12
Speaker 3: I guess, and it like changed the course of his life,
45:15
Speaker 3: his dad sort of giving him casual permission to not
45:19
Speaker 3: assume that had to happen. And now what like now
45:23
Speaker 3: he can do Now his whole life is different. So
45:27
Speaker 3: one person talks about getting help from an ex, and
45:31
Speaker 3: so I really wanted to say, well, like there's so
45:34
Speaker 3: much negativity, right, like all the people who make life
45:37
Speaker 3: difficult for us, and all the things, the institutions, the
45:40
Speaker 3: financial issues that make life difficult for us, who's helping?
45:43
Speaker 3: What is helping? And I've learned a ton So in
45:48
Speaker 3: the case of this episode, these episodes with the athletes wives,
45:51
Speaker 3: I wanted to know who helps them and I got
45:54
Speaker 3: some interesting answers.
45:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that, And I think something we've been
45:59
Speaker 2: to talking about throughout this, as you said your column,
46:05
Speaker 2: your podcast, it's people all over who are reading it
46:08
Speaker 2: or listening to it, who are commenting and writing in,
46:12
Speaker 2: and that can be like a really lovely thing. I
46:15
Speaker 2: know you've talked about after your mom died you kind
46:19
Speaker 2: of reached out and getting these answers from them. My
46:21
Speaker 2: dad died during the podcast and I talked about it
46:24
Speaker 2: and I got these amazing answers, and it's incredibly lovely.
46:28
Speaker 2: There's also the dark side of trolls, which I know
46:31
Speaker 2: you've talked about as well. So what has been your
46:33
Speaker 2: experience was sort of this like beautiful part and this
46:36
Speaker 2: ugly part.
46:37
Speaker 3: It's weird, right, and it's changed so much. I think
46:41
Speaker 3: I had less troll issues in the beginning, or people
46:44
Speaker 3: who even when they were being trolley, they didn't think
46:47
Speaker 3: they weren't trying to be trolley again. It's sort of
46:49
Speaker 3: like that question of is online dating is apup date
46:52
Speaker 3: and good or bad. I'm like, it's it's everything right,
46:54
Speaker 3: and so you're going to get people who are truly
46:59
Speaker 3: using this connection. We all have to be miserable, and
47:04
Speaker 3: sometimes it is because they truly believe they have something
47:07
Speaker 3: to say and that the world has gone wrong for them,
47:09
Speaker 3: and then you have other people who want to use
47:12
Speaker 3: it to connect and like, and then now we have
47:16
Speaker 3: this issue where they might not even be be real people,
47:20
Speaker 3: so like that that's something new, where like the troll
47:22
Speaker 3: might be like a bot coming from some other place,
47:25
Speaker 3: you know, And so it's really hard. And all I
47:28
Speaker 3: would tell people is like, you may need to limit,
47:32
Speaker 3: Like you have to make that choice, right do. I
47:34
Speaker 3: read the comments today and every now and then I
47:39
Speaker 3: am delighted by the comments, not just on my column
47:42
Speaker 3: but on stories recently are probably our most famous sports
47:48
Speaker 3: columnist had to have heart surgery and he's on medical
47:51
Speaker 3: leave and we had to report about it because then
47:53
Speaker 3: we had to say, like, why is this person suddenly absent?
47:57
Speaker 3: And he's very controversial in Boston because he'll say mean
47:59
Speaker 3: things about sports teams or whatever. He you know, I'm
48:02
Speaker 3: not a sports person.
48:02
Speaker 5: I don't know.
48:03
Speaker 3: I love the guy, don't know what he's talking about.
48:05
Speaker 3: But I was so afraid when I clicked on the comments,
48:08
Speaker 3: and I did click on the comments, and then some
48:10
Speaker 3: people were like, I can't stand him. I hope he's
48:13
Speaker 3: feeling okay.
48:16
Speaker 1: Like I always the way I thought was going to go.
48:18
Speaker 3: No, it was like I hate him and I miss reading,
48:21
Speaker 3: I miss hating everything he said, and then it would
48:23
Speaker 3: be like I love him, you know, And it was
48:25
Speaker 3: it was this moment of hate love this guy. He
48:30
Speaker 3: is a part of my ritual, and for his sake
48:32
Speaker 3: and my sake, I can only wish this person the best.
48:35
Speaker 3: And I think also like when you deal with health,
48:38
Speaker 3: that's like, no, most people don't wish that on each other.
48:42
Speaker 3: And and but it was a moment where I was like, wow,
48:46
Speaker 3: look at the world not being terrible and so but
48:49
Speaker 3: but but it was a choice I knew clicking on
48:51
Speaker 3: that thing. I was like, why am I doing this?
48:52
Speaker 3: Do I want to do this? I don't know, And
48:55
Speaker 3: I was delighted. So I think it's just this self
48:57
Speaker 3: regulation and self protection of like when do you want
49:01
Speaker 3: to risk it if you're not seeing what you want
49:03
Speaker 3: to see, letting you don't have to keep looking and
49:07
Speaker 3: you can move on to the next thing.
49:10
Speaker 2: It's difficult. We've had our struggles for sure.
49:14
Speaker 5: Yeah.
49:24
Speaker 2: Well you also are an author. Yes, you've done a
49:30
Speaker 2: diverse so you've done like a memoir, you have young
49:34
Speaker 2: adult books, So can you talk about that your works
49:38
Speaker 2: and how that has been doing all these different things.
49:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've written two young adult books, and I think
49:43
Speaker 3: that's because, like I think, when you're dealing with relationship issues,
49:47
Speaker 3: you think about like a lot of the topics of
49:49
Speaker 3: young adult books. And it's like, there's a lot of
49:51
Speaker 3: young adult books about death of parents and big relationships
49:56
Speaker 3: ending and illness. Right, you think about the era of
49:58
Speaker 3: the fault in our Stars and and I remember doing
50:01
Speaker 3: a story for the Globe about like, well, like you know,
50:06
Speaker 3: what is this, what is this about? And it's like, well,
50:09
Speaker 3: if the authors, if a lot of the authors are
50:11
Speaker 3: approaching middle age or our middle age, like this is
50:13
Speaker 3: the stuff they're dealing with in their lives, sick parents,
50:17
Speaker 3: life changes, and like you're not allowed, at like forty
50:21
Speaker 3: whatever to do like a primal scream that often at
50:24
Speaker 3: least not publicly right, because you're a grown up and
50:26
Speaker 3: you deal. But as a teenager you can, and you
50:31
Speaker 3: forget that as an adult you still have first you
50:34
Speaker 3: have your first loss of a loved one, perhaps if
50:37
Speaker 3: you haven't already. And I think for me writing two
50:42
Speaker 3: stories about breakups and grief, you know, losing a loved
50:47
Speaker 3: one because they died, and also losing relationships or finding relationships.
50:53
Speaker 3: Like the voice seemed really fun to be able to say, like, well,
50:56
Speaker 3: at seventeen, I could really scream this out in a
51:00
Speaker 3: way that I am doing now, but just no one
51:02
Speaker 3: is seeing it. So and so those are that you know,
51:05
Speaker 3: and and the last one is Things that Grow, which
51:08
Speaker 3: was really you know, my first young adult book pretends
51:11
Speaker 3: to be a book about love that is really about
51:14
Speaker 3: the death of a parent. And my second book pretends
51:16
Speaker 3: to be about the death of a grandparent, but it's
51:17
Speaker 3: really about love and romance. So Things that Grow is
51:22
Speaker 3: not a bummer despite being about a grandparent dying. But
51:26
Speaker 3: but the memoir was also like the globes Idea. They
51:28
Speaker 3: wanted it in the same way they wanted a podcast.
51:30
Speaker 3: They wanted a love letters book, and the publisher said,
51:33
Speaker 3: we don't want a compilation that everything's fringing online, so
51:36
Speaker 3: we want a memoir. And I was like, yeah, but
51:37
Speaker 3: I'm not that again, nothing to say, But then of
51:40
Speaker 3: course you sit down and you do and and so
51:43
Speaker 3: it was gave me the chance to talk about, well,
51:45
Speaker 3: here's what I was doing while I was pretending I
51:47
Speaker 3: had answers for people. You know, my mom was dying.
51:50
Speaker 3: I was going through a breakup. I was feeling really
51:53
Speaker 3: grateful for my friends. I was watching them date. I
51:57
Speaker 3: was evaluating my mom's life a different way, and and
52:04
Speaker 3: then matching that with the letters that corresponded to those experiences,
52:08
Speaker 3: which I think, you know, I hadn't even realized how
52:12
Speaker 3: much they were linked.
52:14
Speaker 2: I have to say, I'm connecting so much to you
52:17
Speaker 2: right now. We also wrote a book that was not
52:19
Speaker 2: our idea. It was great.
52:21
Speaker 3: I love what things are in your idea because then
52:23
Speaker 3: for somebody else's idea, you're like, well, if it doesn't work,
52:25
Speaker 3: it was their idea.
52:27
Speaker 1: This is on them, this is what they wanted. Moving on.
52:31
Speaker 3: Their idea. Yeah, but you know, therapeutic.
52:35
Speaker 2: To do for sure? Absolutely absolutely, Well again, we would
52:41
Speaker 2: love to have you back. Clearly, there's so much we
52:43
Speaker 2: could talk about because we're just we could talk so
52:47
Speaker 2: much about pop culture. But before you come back, I
52:51
Speaker 2: did want to end with a question because we're about
52:53
Speaker 2: to watch Twilight.
52:56
Speaker 1: Twilight, how dare you watch the second one?
52:59
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've got we've got someone who knows about
53:01
Speaker 2: it and someone who never has. I don't know anything
53:04
Speaker 2: about it. I'm so I'd just like, give me some
53:07
Speaker 2: advice some thoughts.
53:09
Speaker 3: So years ago I took a class or I shadowed
53:13
Speaker 3: a class at Harvard about vampires, and there was a
53:17
Speaker 3: scholar who linked the portrayal of vampires at different eras
53:22
Speaker 3: to the political landscape, the financial landscape, Like, if vampires
53:26
Speaker 3: were portrayed as hot and sexy, this was going on
53:28
Speaker 3: in the world. If they weren't, this was going on
53:30
Speaker 3: in the world. All very smart stuff. Here's what I know.
53:35
Speaker 3: I did really fall for Twilight during the last recession
53:39
Speaker 3: in two thousand and whatever, right in what it was,
53:42
Speaker 3: seventy eight, whenever it started to come out, So maybe
53:44
Speaker 3: there is something about that. But I also just think
53:48
Speaker 3: that Robert Pattson is a really attractive man. And I
53:53
Speaker 3: think that New Moon, which you were going into is
53:57
Speaker 3: also a testament to the movie is just being entertaining
54:01
Speaker 3: because he's not in a lot of it for reasons,
54:04
Speaker 3: and then he is. It is a movie that made
54:06
Speaker 3: me want to go to Italy, and I had never
54:08
Speaker 3: really thought about it. It is a movie. It is
54:13
Speaker 3: just a It is a beautiful piece of film. Criterion collection.
54:18
Speaker 3: Pick up the phone, and I just think you're really
54:22
Speaker 3: going to enjoy yourself. I think you should let yourself
54:24
Speaker 3: have that.
54:25
Speaker 1: See this.
54:26
Speaker 2: This is FASc movie because it goes back to what
54:29
Speaker 2: you were talking about before, where things like come back
54:31
Speaker 2: around you know, yes, because oh yes, because.
54:35
Speaker 3: We were remembering one other thing which I want to
54:37
Speaker 3: tell you, which is that in that era, I would
54:41
Speaker 3: watch all the director's commentaries for these movies, and I
54:44
Speaker 3: remember the director of New Moon saying that Robert Pattinson
54:49
Speaker 3: looked bad when he was kissing, so they shot any
54:53
Speaker 3: kissing from Christian Stewart's like her face would be face
54:58
Speaker 3: to the camera. And so I'm very conscious now of
55:02
Speaker 3: that when I watch any film with Robert Pattinson, where
55:04
Speaker 3: I'll be like it does he look weird? Are the
55:06
Speaker 3: kids like? It was just such an interesting director thing
55:08
Speaker 3: to say, where he was like, it looked better. It's
55:10
Speaker 3: it's actually a delightful director's commentary too, just about music
55:14
Speaker 3: and yeah, yeah, well you.
55:16
Speaker 2: Wrote about the gender swapped one too, right, which the
55:20
Speaker 2: Twilight gender swap.
55:23
Speaker 3: So that would be do we still have that was
55:28
Speaker 3: for I think we still have the original.
55:31
Speaker 2: I don't know in that. Yeah, I'm learning. I'm excited
55:36
Speaker 2: to learn.
55:37
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes. Popped up on my TikTok V the
55:43
Speaker 1: gender swap version. I was like, what is this?
55:45
Speaker 4: Because I I was also two thousand and seven, I
55:49
Speaker 4: think right around the same time you were you were
55:51
Speaker 4: reading it. I was being through and I was like,
55:52
Speaker 4: what is this? I thought this was a kids book?
55:53
Speaker 4: And now I'm in love, Like I want to read
55:55
Speaker 4: all these books? Yeah, and then watch all the movies.
55:58
Speaker 4: And then the movie I was like, oh, okay, wasn't
55:59
Speaker 4: it as good as I thought? Like, especially the last one.
56:01
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I mean we get to like when
56:04
Speaker 3: we get to like CGI baby, it's you don't really
56:07
Speaker 3: just have to go in it.
56:08
Speaker 1: But like you're invested, but you can't like comment on it.
56:11
Speaker 3: It was never surprising to me that middle aged woman
56:13
Speaker 3: fell for it at the time in such a big way,
56:16
Speaker 3: because the first book is just a like a person
56:20
Speaker 3: asking a woman a lot of questions. So much of
56:22
Speaker 3: the book as him being like, what do you like?
56:24
Speaker 3: What's your favorite?
56:24
Speaker 4: This?
56:25
Speaker 3: What do you And it's like, God forbid, somebody listen
56:27
Speaker 3: to me for five minutes. It was really like the
56:29
Speaker 3: pornography of somebody being present and interested in And it
56:34
Speaker 3: was no surprise to me at the time when I
56:35
Speaker 3: was in my thirties that every woman I knew from
56:37
Speaker 3: like forty five to fifty five was like, this is
56:40
Speaker 3: the perfect man. He's just interested.
56:43
Speaker 1: Is he five hundred years old? Yes, one hundred years old.
56:46
Speaker 1: Is that a problem, But he's but.
56:48
Speaker 3: He's paying attention and he's like listening to the answers
56:51
Speaker 3: I give as opposed to it. So yeah, but anyway
56:54
Speaker 3: you will. Yeah, I'm jealous. You get to do it
56:56
Speaker 3: all over again for the first time.
56:58
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for the first time.
56:59
Speaker 4: And then we have our producer, Christina was a super fan,
57:02
Speaker 4: Like I was in it, but she was in it
57:04
Speaker 4: in it and she was about she's about ten five
57:06
Speaker 4: to ten years she's ten years younger than me. Yeah,
57:09
Speaker 4: so she was really caught up in it. So it's really, really,
57:12
Speaker 4: really a delight to have these different perspectives. And I
57:14
Speaker 4: love that you understand where we're coming from.
57:18
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you're so right. It goes back
57:20
Speaker 2: to the thing you were saying about middle aged people
57:23
Speaker 2: writing young adult novels. It's true, like when you're younger,
57:26
Speaker 2: you can do these things.
57:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, but when.
57:28
Speaker 2: You're older, we have to keep yes. Yeah, yes, Well,
57:36
Speaker 2: thank you so much for taking the time before we
57:38
Speaker 2: let you go is there anything you want to shout out?
57:42
Speaker 2: Any projects? Where can the listeners find you?
57:45
Speaker 3: They can find the podcast at love Letters and I
57:48
Speaker 3: think they'll love this season. And if you've been broken
57:51
Speaker 3: up with start with season one. I mean, I'm probably
57:55
Speaker 3: not as good at podcasting then, but it's a breakup
57:57
Speaker 3: season and of course it goes on from there and
58:00
Speaker 3: uh yeah, you can find the column at love Letters, so.
58:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, awesome. Well, also all the books.
58:08
Speaker 3: Yes, you can go to meredithoaldteam dot com and truly
58:11
Speaker 3: explore the range of products you can buy, things you
58:15
Speaker 3: can see.
58:17
Speaker 2: Yes, I always love when we have a guest and
58:18
Speaker 2: I'm the one at the end that's like you also
58:20
Speaker 2: did this too?
58:23
Speaker 1: Sure, I'm busy.
58:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.
58:29
Speaker 2: You need to come back sometime or we just have
58:31
Speaker 2: pop culser nerd out.
58:33
Speaker 3: Okay, excellent.
58:34
Speaker 4: Do we want you to back for at least Rewatch,
58:36
Speaker 4: maybe the Twilight, maybe the final finale?
58:40
Speaker 3: Action? Yeah yeah, a little, a little as a tree.
58:45
Speaker 2: I can't wait. If you would like to find us,
58:49
Speaker 2: you can. You can emails a stuff and your mom
58:50
Speaker 2: stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on
58:52
Speaker 2: Twitter at mom Step Podcast or on Instagram and TikTok
58:54
Speaker 2: and stuff will never told you. We have a tea
58:56
Speaker 2: public store and we have a book. Yes, you can
58:57
Speaker 2: get wherever you get your books. Thanks, It's always to
58:59
Speaker 2: our super produced with Christina, executive producer My and your
59:01
Speaker 2: contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
59:04
Speaker 2: Steffan never told yous a fiction My Heart Radio. For
59:06
Speaker 2: more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check out
59:07
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio ap Apple podcast or where you listen to
59:09
Speaker 2: your favorite shows