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Loving Heated Rivalry A Totally Normal Amount · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  How many times a day, on average, do you wish that you were abducted and went missing for just a while? [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.
• 0:17
  We'll be talking about slash crashing out over topics like- Gender identity and why they won't wear a coat. School shooting drills and forgotten PE clothes. It's not an advice show.
• 0:28
  It's a you're not alone and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kinda show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches. And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important Not Important.
• 0:39
  You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website, notrightnow.show..show.
• 0:45
  And if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet, and then drop us a nice little five-star review.
• 0:54
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions@notrightnow.show. [upbeat music] Hey, team. Claire and I have a guest today.
• 1:11
  We are excited to hang out with writer, novelist, parent, and professional overthinker Emily Gould, who has documented, boy, internet fame, and friendship, and motherhood, and partnership, and marriage, and midlife chaos with pretty incredible honesty and precision for the rest of us.
• 1:30
  And yeah, it was a blast to have her on the show. So, thanks for listening.
• 1:34
  [upbeat music] When you are, like, binging on something or maxing and you're like, "Fuck it, we're just going to, like, having a food party," what are you having? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 1:42
  It's a good question, and it's an important part of getting away because as you were talk... You were listing all the different things you get for your upcoming annual getaway, including Trader Joe's knock-offs of
• 1:53
  hybrids of other things, cheese curls and stuff. Logistical questions before the, we get to my version. Sure. One, are you responsible for doing all the shopping and ahead of time? Is that sort of agreed upon?
• 2:05
  No, we compare notes. Oh, a big one is pimento cheese dip as well. So my friend, she's getting some... She's bringing some cut up vegetables, which sounds like whatever.
• 2:16
  That's, like, a logistic I don't have to deal with. I don't have to pack them ahead of time. And yeah, we'll have to get some plates. Like I said, cheese, crackers.
• 2:23
  We'll also have Culver's for lunch that second day after we have some DoubleTree, you know, br- breakfast buffet. So, you know.
• 2:30
  I take a statin now, so I figure I can eat as much cholesterol as I want, and it's- I think that's how it works, right? I'm immune. Yeah. You're covered now. If I don't eat it, it probably hurts.
• 2:41
  Like, it's probably my cholesterol gets dangerously low. So I need to- Mm-hmm... you know, do the best I can. So yeah. Are the boys...
• 2:49
  This is the one where the two boys who are, quote unquote, "best friends" get to go, right? Are they- Yeah. How much of this food do they get to access, or is this strictly adults? They...
• 2:58
  Oh, they get their own share, and it is so gross. They have, you know, like, Doritos spilling out onto the bed and pizza on the floor. Ugh. And yeah, a toothbrush.
• 3:10
  La- last year I saw a toothbrush, like, face down on the hotel carpet floor. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And, uh- Mm-hmm. [laughs] I wanted to say, this is, like, kind of... You're like, "Whatever, this is your time.
• 3:21
  Go for it." So yeah, they- It's like pre-frat life, basically. Yeah. And I, like I said, like, these two call each other their best friends. They've never had to face a moment of adversity together.
• 3:34
  All they know is pizza, and pool- Mm-hmm... and hotel- Mm-hmm... and shared Lego sets and things like that, so um- Right. This is very far from, "Do you wanna see a dead body?" Like, they haven't gone through anything.
• 3:44
  Right. Yeah. It's like if you thought being married was like being engaged. But that's fine.
• 3:50
  And then my friend and I, she and I catch up a little bit, but also we s- we'll sp- sit on our respective hotel beds and just look at our computers as well.
• 3:57
  We'll, as to quote Best In Show, "We can talk or not talk for hours," and it's great. That's the beauty of it. Best In Show, so timely right now. Right. For a thousand reasons.
• 4:06
  Uh, we'll have to come back to mine because our guest is joining us. We- We should ask her our question as well. 100%. Hello. Hi. Hey. How you doing? How are you? Just taking a deep breath. Sorry, I, I was just...
• 4:18
  I have a daily newsletter, so. I wanna hear what you're working on, but if it, if you wanna catch up, Quinn and I were just talking about I'm going away with a girlfriend.
• 4:27
  We have this annual trip where we take our two oldest boys, and we meet up at a hotel. And we have c- we have shared, like, joining hotel rooms. And we eat as much, like, Trader Joe's snacks as we want.
• 4:38
  So I was just asking Quinn, like, if he's on a food vacation or, like, a binge, a planned binge, like, what his food of choice would be.
• 4:44
  So if you wanna think about that and answer, that's, uh, what we're currently talking about. Do you want me to go so that Emily has time to think about her answer? Yeah, let Emily- Okay, great... catch her breath.
• 4:52
  So y- Like, get her, get her to talk... I appreciate all your detail. Well, let me ask one last question. Do you get through everything that you bring? No. No. That would be foolish. And that's not...
• 5:00
  I don't need to be a completist. Plus, like, it's- Perfect... good to have food. The other thing is that there's another hotel night the second day- Mm-hmm... with the younger kids.
• 5:07
  So I have to s- like, save a little bit of room in my stomach for day two, so, um- Also, let's be honest, besides the cut vegetables that your friend is bringing, nothing on that list is expiring anytime soon.
• 5:18
  So it doesn't really matter. No. Sh- No. [laughs] No, absolutely not. So when you are having a food party, what are you having? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 5:27
  So my best friend, Nate, and I, friend of the pod, we're actively are... We had one scheduled for two weeks ago, but the ice storm fucked the whole thing up. So we're trying to schedule for a couple weeks from now.
• 5:37
  Pretty excited. We typically just go to an Airbnb and do nothing.
• 5:42
  Sometimes we do, like, puzzle games on Steam or something, but by the time the gummies kick in, we've lost track of the puzzle and this for, like, you know, Rummikub or anything like that.
• 5:52
  It's all well-intentioned until the gummies kick in. But food-wise, so we don't really do anything ahead of time.
• 5:58
  We have realized we both get enormous joy out of instead of meeting at the Airbnb, he lives about four hours away from here, we meet at the closest grocery store beforehandAnd just literally like ride on the back of the cart and throw things into it.
• 6:13
  And it's just- Sure... it's great because I'm a monster and I just eat fucking cut vegetables basically, and chocolate chip cookies. But this shopping is just chocolate chip cookies. There's a lot of bagels.
• 6:23
  He always, uh, he does, I should... This is so lazy of me. He makes, hand makes every ounce of a handmade lasagna ahead of time, and he makes it vegan for me, and each time it's different. It's fucking incredible.
• 6:36
  So that's like the base layer of most of our weekend. Sometimes the lasagna goes on a bagel, sometimes it's by itself. Mm. Wow.
• 6:44
  Always finished off with a bowl of, in my case, again, like coconut-based ice cream because kill me, that would, you know, you should lose a foot to diabetes for this thing. But again, like you said, it's just
• 6:56
  let it happen, you know? Emily, I know that you cook. You're a good cook. I know you are homies with Alison Roman, but like if you are, you know, having a, like a store-bought food party, either- Mm-hmm...
• 7:07
  with friends or at home or whatever, like, what do you, what is your poison normally? Like sweet, savory? This isn't like hosting a dinner party, though. I think what we're talking about is like- No...
• 7:15
  there's no rules... food party. Okay. Not cooking. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. So I'm not a good cook anymore. My cooking skills have atrophied because my kids only eat the same five meals in a rotation.
• 7:30
  Actually, one of my kids only eats two of the meals, and for the rest of the meals- Mm... they eat either chicken nuggets or Annie's mac and cheese, and those are literally the only things they eat.
• 7:41
  So yeah, cooking is not really a thing for me anymore. I did have an amazing food party for myself actually, it seems so long ago, but I guess it was actually technically speaking last week.
• 7:53
  I went to Baltimore by myself to work on my book in a friend, Laura Lippman's spare house in Baltimore, which is just an amazing sense. And this is like saving my life.
• 8:05
  Laura Lippman deserves to have a parade thrown in her honor, basically. But yeah, whenever I go there, I try not to do any domestic duties whatsoever. I mean, I clean up after myself, and I like shower, but that's it.
• 8:20
  So I always get like two cases of Spindrift, a bunch of cheese and crackers, and like cured meats, and like yogurts for breakfast, and a lot of coffee obviously.
• 8:34
  And I'm really addicted to this Califia Farms almond coffee creamer, so that's like a necessity of my life, as are the two cases of Spindrift obviously. And then for dinner, it's like pretty sad.
• 8:47
  I'll make spaghetti with jarred tomato sauce or a frozen pizza. All of this is gluten-free, by the way, because I have Celiac, so it's extra sad. And a carton of ice cream.
• 8:58
  That is what's in my grocery cart f- for the week.
• 9:01
  I also like to go, 'cause I don't live in the suburbs, I like to go to like drugstore aisles in New York City grocery stores and get like whatever fucking, you know, like eye, under eye patches. That's a great idea.
• 9:13
  I need to write that down for my get- That is a good idea. Do those work? No. I'm sure they don't. They feel nice though. They feel good under your eye. But that's all that matters- Yeah... right? Yeah.
• 9:23
  I, it temporarily distracts you from what else is going on, and- It might be good. I guess if you're like about to put makeup on right afterwards. I did that.
• 9:32
  I went to a school dance last week, and school dance, a school party, it was a fundraiser. But I had the eye patches on, and I had also gotten a facial a couple days before, and they upsold me like on the spot.
• 9:44
  They're like, "Do you want this extra collagen doohickey?" And I said, "Yes." And the lady was really nice. She was like, "Here's the packaging. There's still a lot of collagen in it if you wanna put it on your face."
• 9:54
  So I did 'cause I was like, "I'm gonna get my money's worth." So I was putting laundry away with my eye thing on.
• 9:59
  I think we're just at the point now, and I got a good talking to from a friend of mine a couple years ago about this, where we all know like the supplement game is a fucking nightmare.
• 10:08
  And if you take any of it with real medicine and they're just like, "Hey, here's how much is in this, here's how much is in that," totally unregulated.
• 10:14
  But for other things, for the face stuff and like a, a foam roller by any other... Any of these things, if they're not gonna measurably hurt you, great. I don't care if they actually work. It's do they- Mm...
• 10:25
  feel good in the moment? And my buddy, this guy, he's a Nike master trainer. His name is Joe Holder. I'll wait if you wanna look him up 'cause he's basically like the most beautiful human you've ever seen.
• 10:36
  I think, Claire, I've made you do this before. But his whole gist is like- Yeah. No, I said thank you for this picture. You're welcome.
• 10:40
  His whole gist is you're old and need to do, quote unquote, "recovery" as much as you do everything else. He's like, "If it's not like actively harming you, great. Just if it helps you sleep, great."
• 10:51
  So- I pay for a fancy neck cream, and Emily, maybe you have one of these, where it comes with a rose quartz scraper so you can scrape your neck, and that's why my neck is so beautiful is 'cause I constantly scrape it with this rose quartz thingy.
• 11:06
  Yeah. And I keep it on the windowsill- Your neck actually-... so that it stays cold... your neck actually is beautiful, and so now I feel like I have to buy this. So thanks for advertising- I'll send it to you...
• 11:16
  those things for free. [laughs] This is like Claire's Tupperware sh- shill. Emily, tell us about the newsletter you just put out, and also if your book is fiction or nonfiction.
• 11:24
  Tell us a little bit what you're working on.
• 11:25
  So I do a daily newsletter for New York Magazine called Dinner Party, which I guess the original idea of it, I didn't invent it, Cory Seka invented it, was that it would be like if you're at an imaginary dinner party or if you actually are going to a dinner party this evening, it's like, here are some talking points.
• 11:43
  Like here you, everything you need to be sort of like up to date on happenings in the world about whatever I'm interested in. I have a great deal of freedom, for better or for worse.
• 11:55
  But sure, a little sick of hearing about heated rivalry at this point, but jokes on them 'cause I will be ever in my- Yeah. Not gonna work... I'm gonna be in the nursing home being, being like, "Remember Corner Story?"
• 12:10
  Yeah. So that's my job, and I also have another part of my job, which is actually writing features for the magazine. And then my book, three years overdue, but they don't, they've been really nice about it.
• 12:22
  They don't care. Is-A memoir. It's sort of an expansion of an article I published a couple of years ago called The Lure of Divorce, and it's about a time in my life when I, you know, kind of had like a...
• 12:37
  I mean, a lot of people say like, "Oh, I had a midlife crisis," but I had like a [chuckles] the kind of midlife crisis where you have to go to the hospital. And a whole bunch of stuff happened.
• 12:47
  Definitely thought I was getting a divorce, ended up not getting a divorce. Still with my husband. Love him, great guy.
• 12:54
  And yes, I'm just sort of writing about, like, marriage, mental health, being in a man-woman marriage in America in, you know, how long have I been married? I guess like 2014 up until now.
• 13:11
  Like, it's basically my older son's lifetime has been... 'Cause he's, he's 10 and a half, so it's like he's really lived through
• 13:22
  an entire we didn't start the fire before he learned how to, like, not wear a diaper, basically.
• 13:27
  Last week we had Mark Graham and Megan Grame on, and we're talking about kind of the older days of blogging and things like that, and I'm just curious how writing comes to you lately compared to, you know, pre-kids, pre-Trump, pre all that stuff.
• 13:41
  Does it come out of you, come to you the same way, or does it, you know, give a different relationship towards putting your thoughts down and putting them out in the world? Oh, wow. That's such an interesting question.
• 13:52
  It almost feels like things should have changed for me more than they actually have.
• 13:56
  I always wanna think that I have evolved and changed a lot as a human being, and then I'll look at something that I wrote, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, and I'll be like, "Same bitch."
• 14:09
  [laughs] So yeah, I mean, I think, I think when I first started writing, I was pretty gratuitously mean a lot of the time, and it was sort of a posture.
• 14:18
  And now I try to hold back a little bit so that my meanness can be more targeted and have more of an impact when I deploy it. At your children? That's smart. And my husband. That's what I usually save mine for. Mm-hmm.
• 14:30
  Yeah, no. Yeah. I mean, of course, obviously. I assume I exist to just absorb friendly fire at this point, whether it's warranted or not. Most of the time I'm like, "That works." I agree.
• 14:40
  In fact, Steve, this is not exactly mean, but I was... Like, I save it for Steve, and if I can make him laugh, like, in shock, then I feel good.
• 14:47
  As we speak, Nancy Guthrie is still sadly missing and we don't know what's happening to her, and I just think it's been the discourse around...
• 14:54
  I think the true crime heads are really over the top, 'cause people think that there's gotta be something, like, even more fucked up than just this horrible kidnapping.
• 15:03
  And I told Steve, I said, "What if Charles, like, the Lindbergh baby was alive and he kidnapped Nancy Guthrie," and that he- Into it... he, like... Yeah. So that's, like, where I save my edginess.
• 15:13
  But yeah, I, no, what, I don't have good stuff for the newsletter, per se. Can I ask you both an honest question? How many times a day, on average, do you wish that you were abducted and went missing for just a while?
• 15:25
  I'm gonna say- I hope-... honestly, to me, it's, like, two, and I'm think I'm being honest about that.
• 15:31
  I mean, I don't wanna be glib about things like suicidal ideation, but I do sometimes just wish to sleep forever, if that's, like, another nicer way of putting it. You know, I don't have the adrenaline to be kidnapped.
• 15:42
  Like, that seems like that would be really exhausting, so. But you don't have to do anything. What do you mean, what do you mean the adre- Well- You don't ha- You just, "Sure, I'll get in the van."
• 15:49
  I don't- You don't, or they'll probably put you in the van. You don't need to do anything. I guess. I don't... Yeah, I haven't thought...
• 15:54
  I think I've read too much about kidnapping, maybe 'cause I'm a woman, but about, like, how to open a trunk from the inside, you know? Mm-hmm.
• 16:00
  Or how you leave your DNA inside, or you scratch their f- in the face so you have DNA under your fingernails. Like, I don't know. I've, I've thought about it maybe a little bit more.
• 16:08
  Emily, I don't know if you've thought a lot about- Sure... kidnapping, like, what you would do or how you would fight back.
• 16:12
  I mean, I mean, I've seen every episode of Law & Order: SVU, so it's not like I've never thought about it.
• 16:18
  Are we talking about, like, a sensory deprivation tank type of experience, where you get, like, the black bag put over your head and then you get put in a cell, and, like, they just bring you food or whatever?
• 16:27
  If someone's bringing me food, they can take me wherever they want, to be completely honest. Like, I- It's-... I'm just like, where can my kids not ask me questions? I want... I just really want to look at my phone now.
• 16:38
  I mean, I kind of just want what I had last week's bite- Mm... to be honest, which apart from the part where I had to, you know, try to write a book, it's really amazing. I just read, write classic novels.
• 16:50
  No, just kidding. I read infinity amounts of Heated Rivalry fan fiction on AO3. All right. Let's talk about Heated Rivalry. Oh. I know that you love it. I have friends- Please stop. I- No. Don't make me do that.
• 17:04
  Well, I would- It's enough... I have- Yeah... I have another friend who's really into it. Shout out to Christina Rentz, and she loves it, and people who love Heated Rivalry love talking about Heal Rival- Heated Rivalry.
• 17:15
  Yeah, we don't love it- And I'm not really-... in a normal amount at all. Yeah. We have a disease. A- and I'm not drawn to it. I don't know if it's just, like, I don't want dicks in my...
• 17:23
  Like, I'm kinda surprised that you live with so many guys and you still, like, willingly are going towards more, like, dick content. But did you feel like there was other...
• 17:31
  Were there other forms of fiction, like rom-com, you know, homosexual rom-com fiction that did it for you prior to this, or did Heated Rivalry just touch something?
• 17:41
  You know, I know also Keith, your husband, has, like, a real thing for hockey, so I don't know if that's, like, part of it as well, like the, you know, hockey being turned on its, on its dick, basically.
• 17:50
  Yeah, and he's Russian, so there's that. There are a lot of possible explanations for this. So my feeling is that even though I am attracted to these two
• 18:06
  men who are doing it with each other, it's actually really gay of me to be attracted to them in that way, and let me explain what I mean by that. So
• 18:15
  the series is made by a gay writer and showrunner, director, Jacob Tierney, but based on books that are written by a woman, Rachel Reid, as so much, likeM-M romance is.
• 18:30
  And so when I was talking to a friend recently who was like, "This show made me come out to my parents as bisexual.
• 18:39
  Like, I feel like more gay than ever, but it's so confusing because I also am really attracted to these men," I'm like, "Well, the thing that you have to remember is that these are men who have the psychosexual interiority of women."
• 18:55
  So- Mm.... it's kind of like, it's like a v- it's like a very queer lust even though it is simultaneously a very heterosexual lust. I don't know if that answers the question. Yeah.
• 19:07
  I mean, Tierney did an incredible job, but there's no doubt, like, so much of it's in the book. It's lovely, and that is a very different thing if the source material is written by a dude.
• 19:15
  I mean, and there are M-M romances that are written by, like, not binary folks, but I... It's a really small shelf of those books that are written by men.
• 19:24
  And I was talking to someone like, who's like, "Well, because, like, men don't read or write genre fiction on, for the most part."
• 19:33
  I mean, unless the genre we're talking about is, like, thrillers or sci-fi or mysteries or, you know, like the sort of, like, women-coded genres of fiction. I mean, it's probably just that simple.
• 19:46
  You know, I think, like, gay men who watch the show and are like, "I don't see myself represented at all," will be like, "Let's pen the necessary corrective," and like, "Sounds great. Let's do that."
• 19:56
  Now has it gotten you more into hockey in general? Yes. Like, do you find yourself, you know, watching the sport more now?
• 20:02
  Yeah, I mean, every time Keith is watching hockey now, which is happening a lot because the Olympics obviously, he's like- Go on... "Look, look, look, they're all gay. They're all gay." And I'm like- Yeah...
• 20:12
  I mean, I don't know if I can, like, suspend my disbelief to that extent, but I mean, I have actually always... Of all the televised sports, like, hockey is the one that I have always, like, least minded watching, so.
• 20:23
  And part of it's just, like- Mm... it's pretty straightforward. Like, as, like, a character on the show actually says, like, [laughs] "You just have to score more goals than the other team."
• 20:32
  [laughs] It's, like, not that hard. Mm-hmm. Whereas, like, football, it's like I don't know what the fuck is happening. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. No, football is needlessly complex.
• 20:40
  And base- Confusing and- Baseball, forget about it. Baseball. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is true. There's a million rules that, like, always pop up that you don't, that you don't understand, but... Well, I love that for you.
• 20:49
  I'm glad that you have something that you love so much. I'm glad that... I bet that Keith is glad that you are slightly more interested in hockey now.
• 20:56
  I've also been thinking about you with the Olympics because of Ilya, I forgot his last name, but the quad god, has the same name as your son.
• 21:03
  And I don't know if you knew that, Quinn, that her kids, she has a son named Ilya. Are you guys- Oh, this is very exciting... excited about the quad god and his floppy hair and his ice skating capabilities? Yeah.
• 21:13
  Ilya is always excited by Ilya representation of any kind. Ilya very recently has started to use they/them pronouns. I probably should have tipped you to that earlier, but- Okay...
• 21:25
  that's, that's kind of a n- new, new development, but not earth-shattering development. Everyone who we've told so far has been like, like, "Yeah." Mm-hmm. Sure.
• 21:37
  I'm so sorry to bring up Heated Rivalry again, but you know that one of the characters on Heated Rivalry is also named Ilya, right? Mm-hmm. No, I didn't know that. Yeah.
• 21:46
  I, I really- I thought that's where you were going, Claire. I thought you were trying to like- No, I have a real blind spot with Heated Rivalry... make all the penises touch.
• 21:51
  My God, I'm gl- I'm- Crossing all the swords... I'm literally blushing right now. Like, don't make me have to talk about my crush in public. Yeah.
• 22:00
  Like, friends have even asked me, like, "Is it weird for you that, like, this character who we all think is so hot has the same name as your child?" Mm-hmm.
• 22:10
  And it's like, no, because I don't really file people with the same name in the same, like, filing cabinet in my mind. Because if I was gonna do that, then, like,
• 22:21
  I would be in the same filing cabinet as, like, Emily Ratajkowski, you know? Like, and also- Mm-hmm... infinity other people named Emily, so.
• 22:29
  There was a great SNL skit, I can't remember who the guest was, who was running for New York State Congress under the name Jeff Epstein. [laughs] And it's just a campaign video. It's fucking incred- it's incredible.
• 22:40
  That's amazing. No, I did not realize that about Hea- Heated Rivalry. You have to save that, save that for, I don't know, next time I get COVID or something like that.
• 22:46
  I have a friend whose child is trans, and their kid is really into Drag Race, and they've gone all in, and their dad is almost like a ser- He's almost like a parody of supportive dad.
• 22:57
  Like, it's not enough that their kid is into drag. The dad is now like, "Can you make a career out of drag?" You know, like- It's too much... just almost going too far.
• 23:06
  And so the dad heard that Heated Rivalry was, like, the shit, and I think he kinda thought all gay things are all the same. Oh my God, yeah. So the dad was like, "Let's all sit down and watch Heated Rivalry."
• 23:16
  Yeah, and he quickly was like, realized that's not the same thing as Drag Race at all. Mm. And not all, like, things are created equal. But love to, love a supportive dad who tries at the very least.
• 23:28
  But yeah, that sounds like... I remember watching the movie Wild, the Oscar Wilde movie, with my parents in the room, and that was awful.
• 23:35
  So, you know, certain things are not meant for kids and parents to watch at the same time. I had the worst experience like that. I must have been
• 23:43
  like the age that Rafi is now, like 10 or 11, and we were all watching Big together, which in- Mm. Big is kind of not okay, actually. Yeah. Agree. Oh. Yeah. A thousand ways. I just didn't know if you were...
• 24:00
  I was trying to think if there was some, like, specific explicit scene in it, and then I was like, I don't think so. There... No. But overall, not okay. Putting his hand- On her, on her breast. Oh, sure...
• 24:09
  he touches her boobies, and it's, like, a 13-year-old boy in a grown Tom Hanks's body, and I got up to go to the bathroom, and my mom was like, "What's wrong, honey?" And I was like, "I just really have to pee."
• 24:23
  And she was like, "Honey, sit back down. They're just making love."It's actually amazing that I've- Oh... ever had sex in my life after that happened to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is, that is some- That's amazing...
• 24:38
  capital- I had an i-... capital T trauma right there. Also, I can hardly bring myself to say the words. Making love has to be the worst possible way you can- Oh... refer to the sex thing.
• 24:50
  I would say Big and also Back to the Future are hard ones to watch- Mm. Mm... if you are the mother of boys especially. Those are real, like, you're like, "I don't wanna go here."
• 24:59
  And I'm not even, like, that much of a prude, but you're like, this is, like, thought experiments that I didn't wanna go into. I had an idea for a...
• 25:05
  I was gonna try to write a Shouts and Murmurs piece, or whatever the humor piece... Is that Shouts and Murmurs? Yeah. About whether there were big men, like, walking around town and women...
• 25:16
  Like, a conversation about whether you're married to a man who's actually his own age, or whether he's a, like, a big little man. You know what I mean? Like, your husband- Mm... is actually 13 years old and...
• 25:25
  But I was like, that's a concept, that's not a piece. But that's hilarious. That's how my writing is. I'm like, here's an idea and I'm not gonna even try to, to flesh it out beyond- That's it... that thought. It's...
• 25:35
  I don't know. I feel like it could be a short story. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I say, like, the gag is, like, all men are 13, but I feel like we've all... There's so much content that explores that, you know?
• 25:45
  Speaking of little guys and little people, not guys necessarily, but what are your kids up to these days? Give us, like, the state of the union on what Ilya and Rafi are, are into, up to.
• 25:55
  Oh, so for, like, Hanukkah/Christmas, I was basically, like, Rafi likes Stranger Things and Ilya likes, uh, Squishmallows and Labubus. Mm-hmm. So yeah, the two genders. Squishmallows and Labubus. Mm-hmm. Stranger Things.
• 26:13
  The amount that- Yeah... 10-year-old boys like Stranger Things is really... It's a very large amount. It's kind of a flex. I feel like it's a big boy thing. You know, big kid.
• 26:23
  Oh, like, "I can handle this scary show where they say curse words." Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, the show that he really liked before he liked Stranger Things was Only Murders in the Building, which, such a- Aw...
• 26:36
  like, New York lonely boy- So sophisticated... show to like. Yeah. I'm like- Yeah... I thought this show was just for- Yeah, seriously... boomers, but actually I guess it's for boomers- Mm-hmm...
• 26:44
  and 10-year-old boys who are excited by murders, cursing, and maybe- Meryl Streep... low-key Selena Gomez, yeah. That's... Dear, that's adorable though.
• 26:57
  I like that, 'cause that's much more interesting than Paul had the flu last week. He's still getting over it, which is...
• 27:01
  I'm really sick of, but he, on his sickest day, he watched, like, six hours of Beast Games, which, don't ask me any of the rules or whatever happens.
• 27:11
  All I know is that MrBeast only talks at a scream the whole time, and that's all I... And he had an island. He had an island he could give away, and that was all, like, my, the only thing I took away from it. An island?
• 27:21
  Yeah. This economy? Like, I mean, I don't mean the literal- Yeah... economy. I just mean the Epstein of it all. Like, come on, guys. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean.
• 27:31
  And it did seem Epstein-y, where you're like, ooh, it looks seedy and not nice, and, you know, if we're gonna have an island- It's like a Fyre Festival island... you might as well have a nice island. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 27:41
  I wanna, like, go... This is a weird transition, or not a good transition, but whatever. We're talking about your writing, talking about life in general and parenting.
• 27:49
  And I know you haven't done this for a little bit, but I think it's so fascinating that you, for a little while, were doing a parenting advice column for New York Magazine. Someone else is helming it now, right?
• 27:58
  Are they still running it? It recently got revived under the aegis of Alison Davis. And it's not a parenting advice column, although it did answering a lot of parenting questions during my reign.
• 28:10
  But it's kind of like, if you're going through it. Okay. Yeah. Going through anything. Yeah.
• 28:15
  For a part of my life, I kind of bl- wanted to be the advice columnist, and then I happened to have the honor and pleasure of Amy Dickinson, Ask Amy, helped me.
• 28:26
  She gave me the chance to answer a question from someone who wrote into her column saying, "Help, I can't take my kids grocery shopping 'cause my kid is always, like, a monster when I take him shopping.
• 28:35
  Like, what do I do?" And I realize you have such a little amount to answer, and you might say so much more in person to someone, but it's so different between writing it in a quick little column.
• 28:46
  And this was, you know, even in this case, it was relatively minor, you know? But I still felt their pain. What didn't involve something as hard as money or heartbreak or cheating or mental health or things like that.
• 28:57
  And yeah, I just wanna know what that was like, what kind of questions you got, anything that, like, stuck with you after all that time. Like, what was harder about it you, than you anticipated?
• 29:06
  Talk a little bit about your career as an advice columnist. I guess one of the things that I realized pretty early on in the game is that the advice that you give is not for the person who asked the question.
• 29:18
  You're writing with them in mind, obviously, but it's much more for the people who will see your advice,
• 29:26
  and maybe they've experienced something sort of spiritually akin to what's going on in the question, and they might be able to take something from your advice.
• 29:35
  And that relieves you of the pressure of feeling like if the person doesn't take your advice, then you've failed.
• 29:43
  Because I know just from, like, staying in touch with some of the people who asked advice column questions, especially those having to do with, like, "My boyfriend did X, Y, and Z. Should I dump him?"
• 29:54
  Like, there were two questions that I answered from the same question asker that were along the lines of, like, "My boyfriend X, Y, and Z. Should I dump him?" And my answer both times was like, whatever
• 30:07
  Liz Lemon's catchphrase was when she briefly had a- That's a deal breaker... that's a deal breaker, lady. Anyway, they're engaged. Oh. So, you know, it's not a sprint though, it's a marathon.
• 30:21
  Could still call the engagement off. Could still get a divorce. But also the thing I said earlier about, like, the advice not being for her. Like, it's for- Yeah... it's for everyone who reads it. Yeah. It's fun.
• 30:32
  It's fun. It's pretty low lift. Having an advice column, I reallyFind writing a daily newsletter to be more draining than having a bi-weekly advice column. I don't know how you do that. I volunteered for it, too.
• 30:46
  I'm so dumb. As soon as Corey told me that he was quitting, I marched into David Haskell's office, and I was like, "I volunteer as tribute" And he would like pretended like he was gonna say no.
• 31:00
  I just knew I would be really good at it, and to me, that seemed like a- Oh... good enough reason to do it.
• 31:05
  But if I were giving advice, advice column style to my former self, I would probably tell her, "Just because you are good at something doesn't mean you have to do it."
• 31:16
  And also, doing something because it's pleasurable... I think we talked about this with dinner time maybe, that just because you like cooking doesn't mean that doing it every day 'cause you have to makes it fun.
• 31:27
  That's how I feel about writing and cooking, things like I used to do once in a while as a gag, you know, or as a treat, and then once it becomes your grind, it's not as much fun.
• 31:35
  You know, I've ru- I've ruined so many things for myself by professionalizing them. It's a lesson I- Quinn... I will never learn.
• 31:42
  Quinn, what's something that you used to do for fun that you ruined by doing it too well or taking it on too much?
• 31:47
  Claire, I'm in an office above a candy shop in Colonial Williamsburg 'cause I wasn't allowed to keep my toys at home. You know, I come home, and my children just don't greet me. I don't remember what fun was.
• 32:00
  I mean, I used to... I, I love cooking. I still love cooking, but kind of the same thing. I wouldn't say it was, like, beaten out of me and more just they can only be like, "I'm not gonna eat that. I don't like that"
• 32:11
  without- Mm... having ever had it before, before you just go, "I'm out. We're just doing frozen edamame every time." Like, I don't know what- Yeah... to tell you.
• 32:21
  You can fight that for a little while, or like everything else in marriage and parenthood, you can just give up. Yeah. And it's so much easier to give up and requires so much less.
• 32:32
  I told my [laughs] wife the other night, she's like, "You're being pretty quiet at dinner." I was like, "Yeah, I'm, I'm trying not to yell at the kids, like what you've asked me not to do." Other time I was like- Mm...
• 32:41
  it's addition by subtraction. I'm just not- Mm... participating, and everybody's better for it, clearly.
• 32:46
  You know, bedtime going south, I just remove myself from the situation because it's not that I'm not helping anymore, it's that I'm not not helping anymore. Right.
• 32:55
  And th- if they need some shit, they can come find me in m-my, you know, fantasy book as I lay on my heating pad in bed. So, I don't know. It's a typically loaded way of saying like, I don't know what fun is anymore.
• 33:08
  Paul, our oldest one, he's 13 and a half almost exactly, and he, he's been...
• 33:13
  Being that age hasn't been that bad on him, but he has been kinda moody lately, and I don't know if it's 'cause he's sick or it's hormones or just whatever. But my husband doesn't react well to it for some reason.
• 33:25
  I don't think he remembers being a teenager, or I have just this theory that he hated being a teenager so much that he just, like, doesn't like it from my s- living through it again.
• 33:34
  And so our son has not been, like, a nice... He's been kinda cranky and taking his time in the morning.
• 33:40
  So this morning I woke Paul up a little bit early so he had a little bit extra time so that he could get his ass down and have breakfast.
• 33:47
  And so he was eating breakfast, and I pointed out to Steve, I said, "Look at how Paul's eating his breakfast, and he's already dressed." And he said, "Good job, Paul."
• 33:57
  And I was just thinking, I bet we all congratulate our kids on the most basic, fundamental, like, wins or failures to fuck up.
• 34:05
  And so if you could point out something that you did slightly better than normal that you would want credit for, what would you demand that your spouse or the world at large say, "Look, you know what?
• 34:17
  I brushed my hair today. Don't I look nice?" Or, "I remembered to brush my teeth for the full two minutes last night. Don't I get a little pat on the head?" Like, what would you just demand some kind of recognition for?
• 34:29
  There's this idea of in the self-improvement world of, uh, you know, in sort of the manosphere stoicism and stuff of, which some of it's great, some of it's ridiculous, but, uh, you know, it's like be strict with yourself and, you know, patient with others in the sense.
• 34:42
  You, you judge yourself by your intentions, but you judge everyone else. Anyways, the point is, I, I think I deserve credit. I don't think my children deserve any credit. It's the reverse. Like, you're eating breakfast?
• 34:52
  Like, you actually put your fucking bowl away? I don't know, man. I don't understand why that should be rewarded at that po- at this point. Oh, I agree. I don't. I just wish, you know, I...
• 35:02
  Especially a kid with ADHD, you have to kiss their ass so much, like, for just the most funct- Yeah. Like- Oh, yeah. Who are you praising at home, Emily? Who are...
• 35:10
  Yeah, who's getting the boosts that, you know, they should just be doing it?
• 35:13
  Well, Rafi obviously, but, you know, my whole thing with parenting Rafi is that, like, the hardest thing about parenting him is that it's like looking in a mirror all the time.
• 35:23
  If that's the diagnosis, we all have ADHD then. No, but I- Right... I don't wanna be the person who- And we're all under the desk immediately... enjoyed that. Um- But yeah... but it was...
• 35:29
  I mean, I think it was a little bit more like watching him struggle with things, I'm like, oh, I've developed, like, elaborate mental workarounds for all of these things, and maybe life doesn't have to be that hard.
• 35:40
  When did you first realize you were looking in the mirror with him? Because I get it, and it's a rude awakening. God, I wanna say the minute he was born. He's just had the same personality for- Really?...
• 35:50
  his entire, entire life. Yeah. Yeah. Like, ev- like, everything about him. And Ilya has just been also his opposite in every way.
• 36:00
  Like, Keith was telling me, like, as they were walking home from school yesterday, he was telling some story about Rafi from, like, when Rafi was little. And Ilya was like, "Tell a story about me from when I was little."
• 36:12
  And I guess this is also a classic, like, second child thing, but it's just like, buddy, like, basically, like, you were born, and then we kinda didn't hear a peep out of you for, like, the next four years.
• 36:23
  We actually have to really struggle to, like, give Ilya enough attention because Rafi is just so... He's exactly like me. He's like, "Oh, this, this conversation is not about me?
• 36:35
  Like, I- I'm either tuning out or I'm making it be about me." Yeah. And you're like, "Let me teach you some tricks"Yeah. I, he's that tweet, "I'm uncomfortable if we're not- if this is not about me." Mm-hmm. Yeah.
• 36:47
  Mm-hmm. And I'm- Yeah. Yeah... yeah, so I'm basically like, I have at least, like, learned how to deceive other people [laughs] into thinking that I'm interested.
• 36:56
  I do wonder if my kids realize that, like, they're not the main characters in my life. Like, I wonder if they- Hmm... are aware of that, you know? Oh, that's a- that's a good question.
• 37:03
  But I also know they don't think about, they don't think about that. I know I don't exist to- I know I'm a non-entity to them most of the time. It's kind of, what was the Mad Men quote when he
• 37:12
  s- what's-his-face steps into the elevator? Don Draper. Yeah. "I don't think about you at all." That's it. That's it. I'm like, "Oh, g- how was your school day?" And they're like, "Good."
• 37:18
  I'm like, "Man, I missed you all day. I thought about what you were doing this and this," and you can see in their eyes, they're just like, "Why are you still alive?"
• 37:24
  Like, Jesus Ch- They're like, "I haven't thought about you since the second I stormed out the door this morning." I guess I just get treated like the background maid. I, and it starts- Mm-hmm...
• 37:33
  in the morning when I ask James, "What do you want for breakfast?"
• 37:35
  And I already am mad at that I even have to do that because, like, in a perfect world, he would've already fixed himself breakfast, and that he will decline to answer 'cause he hasn't decided yet, you know?
• 37:46
  And I'm like, "Don't you understand who I was once? I have a master's degree. I have published books. Like, I have a podcast." Uh-huh.
• 37:53
  "And I have to wait for you to d- to discern, you know, whether you'll allow me to fix you a bowl of cereal or one piece of toast that was in this morning. One piece only. All right, sor- like, o- noted."
• 38:05
  I said noted 'cause n- noted is code for fuck you, but I heard you. That's, like, how I track that.
• 38:11
  Ours is different, where we, my firstborn, when we're gonna have a second one, I was like, "He will let us know what kind of kid our firstborn was" And it was, the answer was he was easy, and then we had the spirited.
• 38:22
  I think we talked about this, right? Using the term spirited as a... And I always say it with a hard T 'cause it's more fun that way, for when a kid just
• 38:30
  sucks you dry and, you know, again, makes you praise him for being just, like, the most mund- like, just doing the least as a human being, and you're like, "Thank you so much for, you know, acknowledging my feelings" or something like that.
• 38:45
  This conversation is making me realize that my husband does this to me, actually. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's sincere.
• 38:54
  I would like to believe that it's sincere, and not that he's not, like, managing me, but I'll be like, "Oh, I did, like, X, Y, and Z today," and he's like, "So hardworking." Yeah. But here's the thing.
• 39:05
  D- does it really... You're like, "I hope he's not managing me." I'll take it where I can get it. [laughs] Like, I don't care how sincere it is at this point. Like- Yeah...
• 39:12
  clearly nobody else gives a shit, so if one person's like, "That's really great," I'm like, "Fuck yeah. I'll take it." Aw. Yeah. If you said it out loud, you want someone to say it.
• 39:23
  You're not gonna hear Keith be like, "Blah, blah." Like, he knows that it takes, like, it takes... You're a woman in 2026 who's perimenopausal, and you're a mom, and you live in New York. Anything you do deserve praise.
• 39:34
  So- Correct... you know. Yeah. Enjoy. Literally last night he was like, "You took the subway into Manhattan. Like, you worked at your job, and then you came home, and you made dinner." Like, and I'm just like, "Yeah.
• 39:51
  Yeah, I did. I did do all those things." Fuck yeah. Yeah. No, that is not condescension.
• 39:56
  All of that is, I back up Keith, either ironically or not ironically, you do deserve recognition for all that, especially anytime anyone makes dinner ever deserves a thank you.
• 40:06
  Steve does a good job thanking me [laughs] in front of the boys, 'cause Steve's dad was a, we- I've talked about this a lot of times, but Steve's dad is one of those, like, chronically picky eaters who not only rejects food, he will reject sitting at the table with people.
• 40:19
  He'll kind of make a point of not joining dinner, and, like, will reject food so much so I appreciate that Steve will, like, make a point of thanking me for the effort of making dinner in front of the boys.
• 40:29
  Like, even if they don't realize it or not. So I'm glad Keith is giving you your due.
• 40:33
  Emily, we talked about this once a while ago, but how much, especially Rafi, but how much do the kids know about your writing or follow your writing?
• 40:41
  Like, both you and Keith, but, like, how much are they reading what you do, and, you know, what are your policies right now on writing about the kids or talking about the kids?
• 40:48
  So I give them photo approval for stuff that I'm posting on, like, Instagram. I feel like that's the bare minimum that I should be doing.
• 40:58
  We have sort of made mistakes that we can't take back at this point with vis-a-vis Rafi.
• 41:07
  Like, Rafi has a very skewed sense of his own importance in the world because he's like, "There's a book about me. Like, there's a whole book about the first six years of my life."
• 41:22
  He has read not entirely positive reviews of that book 'cause that's what comes up when you Google- Mm... his name. I think we should probably have a therapy fund the same way that we should have a college fund for him.
• 41:38
  But at the same time, I'm like, he's a pretty... I mean, you know, this is just, like, luck of the draw stuff.
• 41:44
  I don't credit anything that we have done or not done, although we have on and off taken him to, like, a really good therapist.
• 41:50
  He's just, like, a, a pretty cool customer with a pretty unshakable sense of his own, like, who, like, who he is and, like- Mm... how he sees the world. And I'm not, I'm not super worried about him.
• 42:03
  I do worry more about Ilya c- in part because, like, there is no book about Ilya, and there's never gonna be a book about Ilya. Like, there's a book called Raising Rafi.
• 42:11
  There is never gonna be a b- book called Illuminating Ilya because, like I said, even as a baby, he was just kinda like, "Hey, so whenever you get around to it, I, no big deal, but my diaper's wet, and could I also have some milk, please?"
• 42:28
  Right. "Okay, just whenever you have time. Like, no worries if not." I don't, yeah, we don't really have, like, rules or policies. We probably should.
• 42:35
  I'm not thinking about that stuff with my, like, first draft of this book 'cause I just, like, can't. I can't think about- I know... that stuff right now.Dedicate this book to Ilya.
• 42:43
  Put it, like dedicate it to them- I can... and there it is. I already said I'd dedicate it to Laura Lippman. Well, you can give Ilya, put Ilya before Raffi in the acknowledgements- Oh, for, for sure... at the very end.
• 42:52
  You know? Yeah. And you can tell Ilya that they were mentioned in this podcast, so they're not completely given short shrift. They are also exposed as, you know, all of our poor children have been.
• 43:02
  That's the- And- That's the thing... you know, so They would not even, they would not even care. They would not even care. No. 'Cause they don't, they really don't care about external validation.
• 43:10
  Well- I know, I, like I had a home birth, so I know for sure that Ilya was not switched at birth. But otherw- if that were not the case, I would be genuinely concerned 'cause we just l- Oh...
• 43:21
  we just look at him all the time and we're like, "Seriously, genetically, how did this happen to us?" Like, this person- Yeah... has nothing- Well-... in common with any of us.
• 43:30
  He is the only person in our household who has like any executive functioning whatsoever. He's always like, "Guys, what are we doing this weekend?
• 43:37
  Guys, we need to make a list of all the stuff that we need to do before people come over. Like, who's vacuuming?" Wow. He's like, "Mom, hasn't it been a while since we changed the sheets on my bed?" Amazing.
• 43:48
  Um- I'm glad you have someone in your house. I'm glad you gave birth to the home, like the house manager. Like you gave birth to a family advisor, basically, that you have someone like that. You deserve it. Yeah.
• 43:57
  I mean, he's gonna be the one who's supporting all of us in our old age. Unless, of course, Raffi, you know, makes good on his potential to be a wildly successful child str- streaming- You know, they all do-...
• 44:11
  whatever star They have their own, their own like, their strengths. Like Paul can put James to bed, but James will be the one who like...
• 44:19
  I don't agree with this necessarily, but I, I went through this emergency with my mom in December, and I had to call 911 and all this shit, and James was the one who was like, "Mom, you're kind of a hero for saving Granny's life."
• 44:32
  And I didn't need that, and I don't necessarily agree with it, but that's the kid.
• 44:36
  The one who like gives us the hardest time and we have to spend the most therapy money on is the one who will say that kinda thing, you know? Or what was he saying?
• 44:43
  Something about Donald Trump where he was, oh, about ICE. I forgot, but he was like, he's, it's like they're behaving what they're accusing everyone else of doing. And you're like, "How did you become like this?"
• 44:54
  You know, even though you are the most selfish, wild, like self-centered person, you can have all this wisdom and empathy at the same time, like when we're not paying attention. So, you know.
• 45:06
  I, I tried to offer the kids the chance to quit Evil Witches. I think I kinda wanted the excuse to stop doing it, basically. I mean- And I was like, "Do you guys want me to stop writing about you?"
• 45:14
  Like, Paul's in high school, or he's about to be in high school, and I was like, "Do you guys want..." And they were adamant. They wanted me to keep going.
• 45:21
  Like they don't, it's not like they read it, but they know I do it, and they just like it. Like they like the idea of it. And they're like, "No, don't quit." So I was like, "Okay, do you read it?
• 45:29
  'Cause I don't always say nice things about you guys, but you know, I guess you'll figure that out later on." So, I don't know. Quinn, what's up with your kids?
• 45:37
  Are, you don't really write about your kids too much, but when you do, are you rolling it by Dana? You guys are pretty private about them on social media. You guys are like good people.
• 45:46
  Well, a lot of that started honestly, when we were in LA, so much of your life when you were there, and there's pros and cons to this.
• 45:59
  I always compare it to DC, which is it's very incestuous, your work and your life and your friend- your personal and your work.
• 46:05
  And you have a lot of long-term friends if you're lucky, but you also, like, you know, the, some of the projects if you're lucky enough to work, which doesn't really exist anymore, you know, they're so intense for a period of time.
• 46:15
  Like TV show could be a while or it could be a month. Yeah. You know, a feature could, is a few years, depending on what your role in it is.
• 46:21
  And the point is you end up spending a lot of time with folks who are getting photographed and doing things like that all the time. And that was a big part of when our kids were little.
• 46:32
  We, you know, my wife went back to work after a week, partly 'cause she's a workaholic and partly 'cause she was running a TV show and they made her do that, which was awesome. So awesome.
• 46:42
  We were lucky to have help, but the point was like the kid was on set, and then the other kids were on set. And we had one moment, and this is not this actress's fault. She's a dear friend. We were living in New York.
• 46:55
  My wife was making a movie, and someone got pictures of our friend with two of our very small children. We had three under three at one point, Emily. So it was like babies on babies.
• 47:07
  As my wife used to say, she was like, "But I already have a baby. How could I have- [laughs]... another baby?" And then there was a third one.
• 47:13
  It, one of these folks with picture with our baby, and then, uh, it was on, I don't know, it was on Twitter. It was on something.
• 47:20
  And someone else, some random person posted like a shitload of pictures of this person with our kid, basically. Oh. And I was like, "Oh,
• 47:31
  people have pictures of like our very small children saved to their com- like collecting, saved to their computer machines." And this is 11 years ago now.
• 47:42
  But still we were like, "We're just not gonna do that as much as we can." One, we don't post that much anyways, but two, we were just like, "I don't know.
• 47:50
  Feels kinda fucking creepy, and we'd like to give them a choice eventually on that stuff." And, you know, we fuck it up here and there and stuff, and obviously this is different, and I do it less.
• 47:59
  I mean, I also partly do it less frankly because the rest of my job is like, there's a lot of politics involved and stuff like that, and that's obviously not great at the moment. But that's kinda how it evolved.
• 48:10
  It's different here, certainly, but that's kinda how it evolved. So it is what it is. Again, different here. Yeah. But then, you know, Wicked for Good is... Well, no, we took them to the Wicked premiere,
• 48:22
  and I think we took pictures with them. And we were like, we didn't... They were old enough. I get... Well, Wicked was last year, so they were like nine, nine, 10, 11, 10, 11, 12, something like that. We were like,
• 48:35
  "How do we let them experience this very important part of Mom's work?
• 48:39
  That they, that has basically been half their fucking life," 'cause she's been working on it for so long.Without them like getting photographed in some way or, or, or whatever. Does that make sense?
• 48:49
  Like, we want them to be able to go to this thing and see these people they've been hearing about and be a part of this 'cause they were a big part of it, you know? And so we did that, but we still don't... I don't...
• 48:58
  It's, uh, it doesn't matter. They're just gonna make AI clones of them at this point. [laughs] You know, whatever. We've done a pretty bad job of, like, respecting our kids'.
• 49:05
  Well, I don't wanna say respecting our kids' privacy, being circumspect about it, because Steve has, like, been making videos about them since day one- [laughs]... and putting them on YouTube.
• 49:14
  And then during COVID, Paul had an assignment one day to do a weather report.
• 49:20
  You know, it was like a homeschool thing, and Steve went above and beyond with the production of it, and people loved it so much that we started doing it daily, and people would recognize them on the sidewalk, be like, "Are you the weather report kids?"
• 49:31
  And the kids thought, like you, Emily, like with Raffi, for a while, they thought they were, like, legitimately famous 'cause they were, like, famous within a small circle of te- people, but...
• 49:40
  And James, I think, is gonna be in a commercial soon for Steve's, like, day job, and I don't know.
• 49:46
  You know, we try to be good at, uh, or, like, thoughtful about certain things, and this is one of those things where w- you know, it's like, well, I don't make money off them directly, like, with their face being like, "Here's me making food for them," and being like, you know, I don't know, nature's mom.
• 50:02
  Right, uh-huh. Like how kids love. Right. Yeah. So I'm, I am obviously superior in that way, so- Sure... I'm not gonna worry about it for now. But here's the thing.
• 50:10
  It's all, this is where, like, I always say to people, and I feel like half the texts I send you are like, "Claire, it doesn't matter. There's no rules anymore." It's all relative, right?
• 50:19
  10 years ago, I was like, "Oh, I'm upset that someone has, like, these pictures of my very small babies on their computer with this person." And now it's like the privacy,
• 50:29
  the privacy that, that doesn't exist anymore for anyone in every single factor of your life in 2026, from fucking flock cameras to- Wow...
• 50:38
  to people just trying to literally just drive by an abortion clinic, and the cell phone provider sold their data to everyone.
• 50:44
  We're just so far fucking past that, so it's like good, keep the good intentions, I think, but also acknowledge, like, it is not great. Yeah.
• 50:53
  Well, we, it also helps that, I think, Emily, are we the same where our kids have a different last name from us too, so that makes you feel, like, sort of slightly separated from them?
• 51:01
  I know Keith has written about Raffi, so there's that. But, you know, you're like, "Well, there's a little church and state difference going on there."
• 51:09
  I also remember Keith's book mostly being about him being a dad, and then the blood spurting from you when you were giving birth to Raffi, and I think much less about whatever Raffi was going through at the time.
• 51:21
  So for what it's worth, that's his legacy to me. Yeah. You really haven't known hell until you have experienced the fact-checking process for someone else's first-person essay.
• 51:35
  Having experienced the fact-checking process- Right... for one's own first-person essay is really bad, and I have done it many times now.
• 51:45
  But someone else's, you're just sort of like, I got so mad at that fact-checker, I hung up on her.
• 51:51
  And then it was funny, she, like, came back into my life much later in a different guise 'cause she had, she had quit The New Yorker, and she had started working on her own print at Riverhead of books translated from Chinese, which are all, like, really good.
• 52:06
  So I was doing an interview with her, and she was like, "Emily, like, I don't know if you remember this, but I'm the fact-checker you hung up on." Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
• 52:19
  No, it's like, it's like all good now, and I'm glad that we got an opportunity to- Yeah... smooth things over, but I think she, I think she did even sort of understand at the time that it was really not about her.
• 52:31
  I was gonna say, she would absolutely le- should not take that personally, and if anything, I'm jealous of you that you had a really good reason to hang up on someone.
• 52:39
  Like, I don't hang up on anyone aside from, like, a spam caller, and maybe I'll sort of hang up on my dad or brother, but that's not exactly the same.
• 52:47
  Like, I feel, you know, everyone hangs up on a relative sometimes to, to some extent. Mm-hmm. So Quinn, I don't know if you saw this, but Emily wrote a good painful story about, like, the middle age drop-off.
• 52:57
  I think you said age 40... What did you say in your piece, 42? What was the, the age drop-off- 40, 40-... where it's like we all get much older... 44, the aging cliff. Okay. You age in hyperspeed- I-...
• 53:07
  apparently by, during the year that you are 44 to 45. Okay. Yeah. 'Cause I'm 46 right now, and someone sent me that piece, and I was like, "Oh, these young bucks, you know, they don't even know."
• 53:17
  But I just wanted to ask you guys how the state of, what is, like, the most acute side of middle age for you guys right now?
• 53:25
  Like, where, you know, what is your, what is making you feel the most of your age at this moment in time? Besides the fact that I told my kids the other day I just wanna be left alone with my books? [laughs] That's good.
• 53:37
  That's sweet. Very honest and scathing about it, or that I've, I've told you this, Claire, before how, how earlier this year one of my kids was like, "Why do you make that noise whenever you get up and sit down?"
• 53:47
  I was like, "What the fuck?" He was like, "The groaning. Whenever you get up and you sit down." I was like, "First of all, again, fuck you. Second of all, because I've earned it, man. I've been through it."
• 53:55
  And then I was like, "Oh, God, I'm fucking old." Um- Can you make the noise now? Can you- Not intentionally... do it for us? No, but it- Okay... but many times a day, apparently.
• 54:03
  Enough to have sincere questions about it. At one time, probably misinterpreted as something else. It is not. It's pain. It's just pain, but earned, earned pain. I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm ti- I'm just tired.
• 54:16
  Emily, how about you? Where are you feeling the most, the most middle age-y? Um, I work with a lot of young people, and- Mm... recently I was in the elevator with my boss's assistant, who is 23,
• 54:29
  and I was just making chitchat with her, and I was like, "Oh, where do you live?" And she was like, "Oh, I live on the Lower East Side." And I was like, "Oh, yeah, I used to live on the Lower East Side.
• 54:37
  I lived in the Lower East Side when..." I was just like, I was doing the math, and I was like, "And that is two years before you were born."And when it was in black and white. [laughs] Correct. Exactly.
• 54:50
  Maybe it was sort of glamorous to her. Maybe she was imagining me hanging out with, like, Patty Smith, or at the very least, like, the cast- I was gonna say- The cast, the cast of Friends... open different streams.
• 54:59
  I'm like, I'm like in a Nan Goldin photograph in her mind, basically. And- I think for me, I mean, most of the time for me it's like the College of William and Mary's 10 feet this way, and I...
• 55:07
  When I go to the coffee shop, it's kids are like, "Class of 2042," and you're like, "That's not a real year." Yeah. Totally. What year were you born? Emily- That's not real.
• 55:15
  What was it like- What the fuck are you talking about?... to be in Times Square when they declared War, World War II was over and that guy kissed that, that nurse? Yeah. Right. I was the guy in the picture. Yeah.
• 55:24
  I just remember the ticker tape falling, and everyone was so happy that the war was over. It was just a really, it was an amazing time to be alive. Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is, it is very humbling.
• 55:36
  Like, I still love, even, it makes me happy to like tell, to think about how young people now will be old someday, and like how...
• 55:43
  My son Paul asked me a couple years ago if Beyoncé was still alive, and that made me, like, that delighted me. [laughs] Oh my God, I was watching the Grammy's red carpet with Rafi and...
• 55:53
  Not the Grammys, sorry, the Golden Globes red carpet with Rafi, and he has like such a handle on who the Gen Z celebs are, I guess from YouTube- Wow...
• 56:03
  and also from watching Stranger Things, 'cause like most of them are from Stranger Things. And at one point was like, "Who's Julia Roberts?" And I was just like- Yeah. And like, look- What if-...
• 56:14
  she's been out of the spotlight for a minute, but it's by choice, by the way. It's another thing to say, "Is Beyoncé still alive?" What are we doing here?
• 56:22
  I feel like there's, I feel like there's- What, what was your reference from Rafi for Julia Roberts? Well, that was a- There's no, that's a hard one to have a connection...
• 56:25
  that was the thing, it's like there actually is no movie that would currently appeal to you that stars Julia Roberts. Like, I know they've seen Hook where she was Tinker Bell. Terrible casting, by the way. Mm.
• 56:34
  My friend Val, who's a film- Yeah... scholar suggested The Pelican Brief. Maybe that will be their- Wow. Steve is really into- Erin Brockovich?... the Oceans movies.
• 56:43
  That's what my mom, uh- And the, like the Oceans movies are not... Yeah. Oh my God. And they're not too problematic- Yes, Oceans... I would say. Yes. Totally. Next family movie night. Oh, that's a good idea.
• 56:52
  Fights about family movie night, though. Like, we'll try to, we'll try so hard to find something- Yeah... that everyone can agree on, but it's just like seven in 10. What has been successful?
• 57:00
  Oh, I'm trying to remember the last thing that we all, like, genuinely enjoyed together.
• 57:05
  Oh my God, this is really kind of pathetic, but it's probably the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, even though Jo- the Johnny Depp of it all is a little tough. But... You don't have to apologize for...
• 57:18
  We all have something that we've watched that we like, you know, we... It's okay. We, we gotta make a compromise somewhere. I made James watch- Like, you know, this, you know, there's so- Yeah.
• 57:27
  Well, you are not complicit-... ethical consumption... you're like, "By watching this movie, I question Amber Heard's testimony. Like, and I'm fine with marital rape." Mm-hmm. Like, you know, it's okay. Mm-hmm.
• 57:35
  Like we've all, we've all been there. Yeah, your children weren't adopted by Woody Allen. They just enjoyed the movie with the lobster scene. We actually haven't been- We made James watch-... yeah, done the Woody Allen.
• 57:44
  Like, maybe we should. I don't know. They're growing up in New York City, like it's an important part of the culture of... Ooh. Diane Keaton. There's a lot of New York movies. Yeah, true.
• 57:55
  So you can show Diane Keaton, you know, Father of the Bride, and she, that'll get the Diane Keaton in there or, uh, and First Wives Club or something like that. We, um- We got them into Nicole Holofcener.
• 58:03
  We made James watch- Dad introduced N- Nicole Holofcener movies- Yeah... to the kids real early, I think. Yeah.
• 58:10
  But I do think about, like, my favorite portrayals of mothers of boys, 'cause I have a real bee in my bonnet, a boy, about the boy mom.
• 58:17
  I know you're not strictly boy mom, but like the whole boy mom narrative, 'cause I'm like, why do people act like- Emily loves being called a boy mom. I just am like, why do people...
• 58:26
  I don't know who these boy moms are who like made it, made it seem like we, like, love living with men when it's like everyone blames you for everything, you know?
• 58:35
  And it can be desperately lonely, and yet they're like, the internet is like, "These crazy mothers of boys just think their boys are so awesome." I don't know any of them, but, but... And you hurt my feelings.
• 58:46
  Julia Louis-Dreyfus has a really sweet relationship with her son in the movie that made me, like, I thought was a really sweet, you know, I was like, th- she's also one of my legendary, look at her, she raised two boys and she, like, seems like she got out alive and is happy and looks good.
• 59:01
  So I see her as like a lodestar. [laughs] But we did make James watch The Cutting Edge last week as, like, some Olympics programming- Oh... that, um- So good... Mark, uh, Mark Graham encouraged us to watch.
• 59:12
  It's an interesting age in an interesting way, but, um- Does it hold up? You know. I haven't seen that in a long time. Super '90s. It is very Taming of the Shrew.
• 59:23
  Like, where the one part that I didn't like was that she says, "I don't drink," and then they have a drinking scene and she goes from never drinking to having six shots of tequila. Mm, mm-hmm.
• 59:33
  And she's mad at him 'cause he, she wants to sleep with him and he says no, and he gets all, like, a bee in his bonnet over what a mean drunk she is. And you're like, "Well, that's your fault.
• 59:41
  Like, you got her drunk, so you can't be mad at her for being an angry drunk." But otherwise, she looks so beautiful in the movie.
• 59:48
  Her eyebrows are so full, and her teeth are, like, slightly brown in this way that like teeth will never be ever again in film or TV. And so yeah, it was sweet.
• 59:58
  Her, she's got a lot of turtlenecks that are, like, the, you know, and a nice vest.
• 1:00:03
  Like, Emily, I don't know if you, when you were a child, if you ever had, like, a fancy vest, you know, at a certain time in your life in the late '80s or '90s, but yeah, one of those. But yeah.
• 1:00:13
  Often, though, we defa- we default to The Simpsons, like when we can't agree on a movie or it's too late to start a movie, like that's what we usually go to. So... Yeah. A friend once said to me- Well-...
• 1:00:21
  "The Simpsons is like Shakespeare. There's something for everyone." That's a good philosophy.
• 1:00:27
  Well, I will say my middle-aged, uh, symptoms right now are everyone's parents are dying or about to die, or my skin is crepey.
• 1:00:36
  I'm starting to notice those little, like, patterns in my skin where I'm like, I think you need to get, like, peptides or something like that. Yeah, and it's only gonna get worse, so looking forward.
• 1:00:45
  I'm like, this is the best it's gonna be currently. Mm-hmm. But your skin looks great, Emily, by the way. I don't know if you're using the laser mask or whatever it is that you're doing. Yeah.
• 1:00:52
  So I like to, for my skin, I like to be, like, 30 to 40 pounds overweight. That's one of my tips.For being sort of a youthful plumpness to the skin.
• 1:01:05
  Um, and the other thing that I find really good for the skin is smoking, like, half a pack of cigarettes a day. Is, is- Oh... my top beauty tip right now. So yeah. That's exciting. We, at the school fundraiser, my...
• 1:01:23
  One of my mom friends, who I've known since high school, was saying that she wants to bring back cigarettes, and so that's sort of b- been in the discourse, so- Pretty, pretty easy to do...
• 1:01:32
  you, as always, are a trendsetter. Yeah. I- Okay... yeah, I quit, I quit vaping. That's how... It turns out that's how you quit vaping. [laughs] You know what? You're not hurting anybody.
• 1:01:43
  Well- You're keeping the economy alive. Yeah. Oh, it just doesn't matter, does it? No. Every- Ooh, yeah. You look great... every, every single day, Ilya... Of course, Ilya. Ilya is like, "Mom, I don't want you to die.
• 1:01:55
  Mom, your lungs are turning black." And I'm like, "Yeah." What do you want from me?
• 1:01:59
  But it's so c- But it makes me look cool and my mom, after her medical incident, I made my dad surrender the cigarettes in our house to me, and I had all these cartons of Carlton Slim 100 menthols.
• 1:02:12
  And I actually, like, Quinn, you'll appreciate this. For a second, I tried to give a col- a college try of being like, "Does someone want these?" Mm-hmm. It seems like a shame to just throw away all these cigarettes.
• 1:02:21
  This is quite a lot of money. Trying to recycle. And I kind of was like, well, does anybody want some cigarettes? If I put them on the garbage can, someone take them, and then some, like, know what...
• 1:02:30
  Some lame-os are like, "What if a child found them?" I was like, you know what? If a kid finds these, like, good for them.
• 1:02:34
  But I let Paul take some cigarettes out and, like, hold them and play with them and open them, so that's my cool mom moment.
• 1:02:42
  I don't know if it will make an influence on him, on his tobacco use or not use, but it's like, why not? Free cigarettes, go for it. Yeah, at least he's not stealing from you, right? Not yet. We'll see.
• 1:02:53
  Emily, anything on your mind that you wanna put out there? This is your one time to get your name out there and to finally put your thoughts out- Mm-hmm... in the, uh, in the world. Express yourself.
• 1:03:01
  Please- Everything you've been piling up... please watch Heated Rivalry. Like, just do it for me. Mm. Just, you know... Okay, whatever. I don't wanna yum your yuck, but it would, it would be cool if you- Oh, well...
• 1:03:13
  if you watched it. I guess there's no reason not to subscribe to Dinner Party. It's free. You don't have to subscribe to New York Magazine.
• 1:03:23
  It will incentivize you to subscribe to New York Magazine, 'cause you'll click a bunch of links in it, and then you'll hit the paywall, and you'll be like, "Fuck.
• 1:03:30
  I should subscribe to New York Magazine," so- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm... that's how- That's a well-designed sequence I, we get, we get New York Magazine- That's how they get you... delivered to our house. We love it. It is...
• 1:03:37
  I wish it was weekly again. I love the crossword puzzle, 'cause I'm also middle-aged. Freaking love New York Magazine, ride or die, and absolutely subscribe to Dinner Party. Subscribe to it. Keep print alive.
• 1:03:48
  And Emily, when is your book, like, supposed to be due? When are the... Like, when should we start looking forward to it? Dude, I, at some point in my life probably.
• 1:03:56
  I said at the top of the year that I was gonna try, try to have a draft done this year, so that is, that is my goal. By 2030 the latest- Um-... we can expect it to be published... that's not a real year, Claire. Mm-mm.
• 1:04:07
  I know. Yeah. None of us are real. I know. That's when Paul is graduating high school. Like, he has a T-shirt that says Evanston Township High School Class of 2030, and I was like, "What is that?"
• 1:04:15
  [laughs] That's, like, a letter... It's, like, a year with a letter in it practically. It doesn't make any sense to me at all, but thank you for giving us something to look forward to.
• 1:04:22
  Thanks for coming and, and talking with us, and watch Heated Rivalry so you can talk to Emily about it at your leisure. If you haven't heard about it, you wanna tell people what Heated Rivalry is?
• 1:04:30
  We've been just glossing over it this entire time. No one's heard of it in- Oh, it's a show about hockey. Really important- Uh-huh... to know that it is just primarily about hockey, and you gotta know a lot about- Mm...
• 1:04:41
  like, the rules of hockey to really understand it and get into it. Hockey. And made in Canada, so they used a lot of Canadian- Sure...
• 1:04:48
  actors and Canadian artists on the soundtrack, really good soundtrack, and can't really think of anything else pertinent to know about this show. Nothing else.
• 1:04:57
  What if I'm just, like, somebody maybe not into hockey, but I'm into, like, cottages? Is there a way in for me in this show at all? Eight. Like, I'm a This Old House kinda guy.
• 1:05:06
  Yeah, I mean, I think especially if you have an interest in sort of, like, modernist real estate, if you like a floating fireplace, this show has a lot of that to offer. Sure, sure.
• 1:05:13
  Kitchen, kitchen counters, beds, lots of beds. All day. Yeah. Other surfaces also come into play. Nancy Meyers by any other name, really. Yeah.
• 1:05:23
  Watch it with your dad, for sure, or really any member of your extended family. Any boomer dad is perfect for th- really. Yeah... it's just, like, the ideal audience here.
• 1:05:32
  You know, they could maybe learn some things about themselves that they never realized before. But will, but will they? Do you usually watch it alone or with Keith, just curious? Are you crazy?
• 1:05:41
  [laughs] I know how you guys work. Um, I actually have heard from people who have had the experience of watching it with their husbands and having their husbands be into it. One friend's husband got a boner.
• 1:05:53
  I don't know if this is outdated, but the Kinsey scale, like, goes from zero to six, and zero is you are the most heterosexual, and six is you are the most gay, and I'm, like, a, I would say, like, a 2.5 to a three on that scale.
• 1:06:08
  Mm-hmm. It depends on the, it depends on the day. Mm-hmm. It probably depends on, like, what part of my menstrual cycle I'm in, but yeah, like, 2.5 to a 3. Keith, I would say, is a zero. I've asked him so many times.
• 1:06:18
  Wow. Mm. It's like, "So in the locker room, did you guys ever, you know, help each other out? Or, you know, like, when you guys were, when you-" Lay your penis on someone's butt crack...
• 1:06:26
  when you were founding N Plus One, late nights, did you guys ever explore each other's bodies?" No, they did not do that. Seems like a wasted opportunity. That is fan fiction.
• 1:06:36
  Claire, where are you on that scale on, on an average day? Think about your answer. I'm just gonna say that Keith made it through the first 14 minutes and 22 seconds of Heated Rivalry. That's pretty good. Yeah.
• 1:06:47
  Based on what I know. Yeah. When walking around during the day, I'm probably what is less than zero, and I don't mean that in terms- Mm... of, like, being so heterosexual with being, like, off the scales.
• 1:07:01
  But at, like, at night by myself, like, maybe more like a two. Mm. But that's another story. That's for another time. But- Sure... depends on- That's not for a parenting podcastYeah, exactly.
• 1:07:12
  Depends on the time of the day and where I am and where my blood is flowing. So how about you, Quinn? Sure. I was on a college swim team, so I've seen more dicks and butts than anybody has ever seen. So- Right...
• 1:07:23
  I think that's just like a baseline in the sense that they don't bother me at all. I've never interacted with them, but I appreciate everybody doing their thing. I've seen so many dicks. We're gonna need a number. Yeah.
• 1:07:34
  Oh, what did... Could you explain the scale one more time, please? Or just zero to 10? Uh, no, it's zero to six. Uh, zero is the most straight, six is the most gay. Oh, zero to six? Yeah. Fascinating scale.
• 1:07:45
  Yeah, two, three, I guess. I don't know. You know, not f- Well- Not three. I don't know. Two. Two. Okay. Good for them. Good for them. Sorry, one more penis question. Emily, are you still watching The Pit? Oh, yeah.
• 1:07:59
  I have seen up to 11. Straight up- I mean, and you watched this season? Straight upper straight- This season... privilege. Yeah, I have s- I've seen- Oh, okay... I've seen more pit than most.
• 1:08:08
  So, what did you think about the erection, like, scene? Did you like that penis? Did you feel like that was a good representation of a penis? Were you- Hmm... just any thoughts on that? Like, how does...
• 1:08:18
  It, it was good in terms of gender parody, because I think last season we got to see, like, a vagina look in its worst, and the baby's out. Yeah.
• 1:08:27
  Or its most empowering and life-giving, depending on how you wanna look at her. Most beautiful. Yeah. We can agree that it is not a horny way to ex- encounter a- I hope not...
• 1:08:37
  um, [laughs] it's, well, yeah, something for everyone. But anyway, y- and it... Yes, that was not, that was not a horny way to encounter a penis at all. Yeah. It was certainly quite a large penis. Yeah. I...
• 1:08:51
  It was like the... My word for it was proud, the way it was, they displayed- Mm-hmm... that penis, and it was, you know... I mean, it was a nice looking penis, but also I don't...
• 1:09:00
  I live with one p- child, I won't say who out of privacy, but one of my kids has no body shame, and I see a lot of him and a lot of it, and I... So I don't need more in my life. But anyway, that's all for another time.
• 1:09:12
  When we do our penis pod, we'll go into further- Can't wait... depth on, on all of this. Can't wait. It will also almost be called Screaming in the Shower.
• 1:09:18
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