Latest / Not Right Now / Go to Bed Angry

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Go to Bed Angry · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  [upbeat music] Hey, I have three kids. They eat so much. We try to eat real food. We try to cook when we can.
• 0:10
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• 1:54
  [upbeat music] Wives love it if they fuck something up, and then you ask them why they did that. That's always like a good probing question. [laughs] Try it. See how that goes.
• 2:06
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this. We'll be talking about slash crashing out over topics like- Mom, what's a coup during morning carpool?
• 2:21
  Air quality alerts, and yes, you do have to wear deodorant. It's not an advice show. 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.
• 2:33
  And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important Not Important. You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website, notrightnow.show..show.
• 2:43
  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.
• 2:52
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questionsatnotrightnow.show.
• 2:57
  [upbeat music] I made these beautiful short rib tacos that took like two days to cook, and I was putting them on the table, and I made like an Asian slaw and some like cilantro lime rice, and James asked Steve if next week they could have real tacos.
• 3:20
  So, um- Can I ask a question about this? 'Cause I've been thinking about it. In a world where, again, we're trying to be self-aware, is this your fault?
• 3:26
  Like, why the fuck did you make tacos for two days for these idiots? I did something stupid, which was that I paid attention to something they had liked earlier.
• 3:35
  Yeah, so I had all my stupid little notes that said, "Boys liked, boys enjoyed, you know, I enjoyed."
• 3:40
  And also, you don't have to deal with this 'cause you're a vegetarian, but like short ribs are very fatty meat, so there's a lot of labor in terms of scraping off the fat 'cause I'm not a boomer.
• 3:49
  So I was extra mad about things. You deserve to be. Yeah. Well, I was telling my friend last night, I was like, it was one of those mom moments where I was like mad, and then it kept growing. Mm.
• 3:59
  I was like first like just, you know, just lightly pissed, and then it grew. No, you gotta keep building. W- right when they think it's over- Mm... and they're like, "Oh, all right.
• 4:09
  Finally, we get a moment," that's when you really kick it into fucking gear, you know? Yeah. Don't let them... Don't ever let them rest.
• 4:15
  That's a good opportunity for the, "And another thing," where you bring up something that they thought was buried weeks or months or even years ago, and they're like, "I haven't left a towel on the bed in forever."
• 4:24
  You're like, "Well, guess what? I'm still fucking hanging onto it." That's always fun.
• 4:28
  Not the same thing as like hand making short rib tacos, but we literally had a family meeting where we sat down, and part of the discussion was, "Okay, I know it's confusing that grandma's got her groceries and her stuff in the fridge, and she likes to make you some meals, but you guys are particular, and we have our stuff."
• 4:42
  So we took the fridge from our house, and we put it in grandma's garage. And I was like, "That'll just be like any groceries I get for us, that'll go out there."
• 4:50
  And, you know, they're like looking around, trying to figure out how to make their lunches in the morning. And I'm like, "I get it. We'll get the stuff. Write down the list.
• 4:57
  Here's the nos, as we've discussed, and what else? Get it, put it in the fridge, in the pantry," and the next morning, just exasperated fridge closing. "What's the matter? It's only seven oh two."
• 5:08
  And they're like, "There's no food." Not the things you specifically requested in your own fridge, you motherfuckers. No.
• 5:14
  I would be curious to know how living with your in-laws is the same or different as living with like your first roommates, you know, the rules and the passive aggression and- But isn't living with your kids that way?
• 5:23
  Dana and I talk about it all the time, which is you go from growing up with siblings maybe or a sibling, which has its pros and cons, and some people it's mostly pros, some people mostly are all cons.
• 5:33
  And then maybe some siblings get left alone with their parents if the older sibling graduates, right? Mm-hmm. And now you're like, "Oh, this is all on me."
• 5:40
  And then college, maybe some roommates, could be weird, could be great. Single, graduating, maybe a roommate so it's affordable, and then you're like, "I'm done. I'm gonna live on my terms on my own." Mm.
• 5:51
  "I'm gonna take the hit. I'm gonna decorate this fucking place I want. If the dishes are in the sink, that's on me." And you learn some things.
• 5:58
  And then you have babies, and it's fine because you're still in charge, but then all of a sudden you look around and you're like, "I got three roommates who don't fucking do anything," again. I live, uh, with three men.
• 6:06
  Well, four if you c- include the dog. We don't demean Ollie on this show.No, although he deserves it. He ate some of my one plant that I have and peed on the floor, so you know, he's not necessarily on the good boy list.
• 6:18
  But in college, my senior year, I lived with five girls, and by far I would rather live with three men than five women. Like, five young adult women.
• 6:27
  There was one night I was out of town, and they let some- They had a party, and they let someone throw up on my bed and didn't clean it up. Like, that kind of stuff.
• 6:34
  At least my kids, I can, you know, I have the fortitude to yell at them. You know, I can withhold, I can boss them around. You know, you have to worry about, you know, being a young adult.
• 6:45
  So this is still better even though I did have a little tiny studio apartment on Lakeshore Drive when I was in my 20s, and it was so great 'cause you could see the lake, you could see Wrigley Field, and it was just like a perfect little nook just for me.
• 6:56
  And a part of me was like, "I wish I was like a rich lady who just had a pied-à-terre in the city to, you know, when you need a place to stay downtown." But- That's basically what this office is for me- Mm.
• 7:06
  Is it is my escape. No, Grandma's been great. I think I mentioned it before. If I was 84 and had been living by myself for 20 years, I would have some really weird shit when a family of five moved in with me. Yeah.
• 7:15
  You know, like, I would have some lines in the sand that I was gonna be very disagreeable on. Hers are very few, and what are you gonna do? So they're still the problem. She's fine. They're the- Do they call her Grandma?
• 7:25
  And do you also call her Grandma to her face, or what do you call her? It's a really good question. She is Grandma, and my mom is Gaga. Oh. I believe. That started early.
• 7:35
  As you know, like the first one, whatever they get out of their mouth is what the grandma is. She insisted on Grandma, and that's what it is.
• 7:40
  Sometimes I go by Grandma, sometimes I go with Grandma's name, and it, it depends on the season, you know? Oh. Versus- And what do you call her? Just by her first name to her face or nothing? Well, that's what I mean.
• 7:50
  For me- Okay. She's always Grandma to them. Show some respect. But yeah, sometimes I'm Grandma. It depends. You know, it depends. Okay. What's the Halloween plans, by the way, and- Yeah... who's dressing up as what?
• 8:00
  What's the scene? No, those are all really good questions. Halloween is tomorrow apparently.
• 8:07
  Um- I was saying, like, we shouldn't talk about Halloween 'cause, like, it'll be past date, but let's face it, by the time this comes out, people's decorations will still be up, pumpkins will still be decomposing, candy- Oh, yeah...
• 8:16
  the, the candy I mean, you remember when we first met, my 12-foot skeleton was still up. And by the way, ugh, I didn't put it in storage, and Dana's so mad. It's literally, like, in the house that has been deconstructed.
• 8:26
  It is the only thing in a bin, and the kids are like, "When are we gonna put it up?" I'm like, "It's tomorrow, so we'll put it up next week" in front of Grandma's house. Okay, perfect. Grandma will lose her shit.
• 8:35
  I couldn't tell you what dumb thing the 12-year-old gonna be. Mm. He's like, "It's this and this." I was like, "You know what? I regret this whole conversation."
• 8:44
  Uh, girl, I think she's being a football player with a few friends, but not, like, an outfit. Oh, no. Not a... Not the complete thing. Okay. But it's gonna be in, like, the 40s, so good luck. Don't care.
• 8:54
  And nine-year-old was like, "I don't know. I guess I'll be the Mandalorian again." I'm like, "But you're a foot taller, and your costume's in storage."
• 9:01
  So, you know, my United States Postal Service shipping alert for his Mandalorian costume still says, as usual, it hasn't come yet.
• 9:11
  Have you ever seen a child at your door and been like, "Well, your costume is ill-fitting, so I judge you and your parents"? Yeah, 100%. Okay. I was under the impression I was gonna do one of my...
• 9:21
  So last year, because this is, we're just fully in Wicked season again here. Last year, Halloween, I was Glinda, and then for our hometown premiere, which we do this big hometown premiere, it's super fun.
• 9:34
  This year's gonna be twice the size. It's, like, almost double the size of my wedding. Last year, I was at the premiere, which was super fun. Mm. Those are both in storage.
• 9:42
  I think I know where they are, though, so I could get to them. But yesterday, I was informed by my daughter that actually Dana and I are both gonna be bakers and that our dog, Lucy, is gonna be, like, a cinnamon bun.
• 9:53
  That's adorable. Something of that nature. That's great. I guess so. So as usual, in the what fights do you choose, I was like, "Okay."
• 10:00
  When you dressed up as the witches, did you do full drag, like makeup and wigs and everything, or just the outfits? I gotta tell you, I didn't do makeup because one, this, which I had no interest in shaving.
• 10:10
  I used to shave this every summer when the kids were growing up 'cause I was like, "It's hot, and it's a chance, this and this." I fucking hate it. I'm done. Yeah. Like, I'm done.
• 10:17
  It's not going anywhere, so makeup makes that harder. Obviously not impossible. Plenty of drag folks do that, and good for them.
• 10:24
  I was, like, the pizza face kid forever, all over, and any amount of shit on my face, it's a fucking nightmare, and it doesn't just look bad, which I genuinely don't care about. You're the only person in my life I see.
• 10:36
  It's that it feels fucking terrible, and I was like- Yeah... I don't have it in me. So- Yeah... everything but the makeup. Okay. All right.
• 10:43
  I would do eye stuff and things like that, but anything here is a nightmare, which is part of the reason I have this. Okay. All right, fair enough. And I guess you're not buying candy 'cause it's not your house, right?
• 10:52
  Did you or- Not my house. Not a ton of trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood, so we actually go to a friend's neighborhood, which is pretty banging, and that's good. And it's safe, and so the kids just...
• 11:01
  Now, they just run. They disappear, and we kind of walk around. Yeah. Have you been inside a grocery store recently? [upbeat music] Okay, so I want to tell you all about one of my f- favorite tools I have.
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• 12:39
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• 12:51
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• 13:02
  [upbeat music] I try to go more often now. I just think you should go to see the Wicked stuff just 'cause it is...
• 13:08
  Every time I go, I see so much Wicked merch, and I think of you guys, and I just wonder if you see it around. I have seen it. So for our...
• 13:18
  I'm looking at, somebody sent me a picture of Below Five, which apparently is a store. Five Below. That's great. Thank you so much. Of a rack there, which it looked fucking insane.
• 13:30
  I am aware of some of it, not only 'cause you can't miss it, 'cause it really is like Star Wars, and it's Halloween season, which is genius on their part. But also, so for this hometown premiere, we try to...
• 13:41
  I know you and I have talked about, like, less stuff over and over. Yeah. But we try to make it fun for the kids and stuff. So we get some merch, and Universal send us some merch.
• 13:49
  And then last year Dana did, like, a raffle wheel basically. Mm. And each kid, like, got something. Yeah. So we got a closet full of stuff. Cool.
• 13:55
  I'm not buying, like, junk, but you know, like, little fun things that the kids... Like Fiero dolls and... No, I mean, it... I think it's fascinating the tie-ins.
• 14:02
  Like, there's some, I wanna say, like, Entenmann's cake, you know, when you bake it and you open it up and you see if it's green or blue, or green or pink inside. I would fuck up an Entenmann's cake. Like...
• 14:10
  [laughs] I've been dairy-free for 20 years, but I would risk it all for an Entenmann's, like, cheese-filled thing. Wow, interesting. Yeah. Men like Entenmann's.
• 14:18
  Like, when I'm feeling really generous, I bring the donut sampler. You know, with the... Some of the glazed donuts. Not for me, just when I want some goodwill, you know? Yeah, just give me the crumb cake all day.
• 14:27
  Interesting. It was funny 'cause...
• 14:28
  And we'll talk more about this maybe later on, but I was away with a friend this weekend, and she's very crafty, which I am not, and she was handcrafting her daughter's K-pop demon hunter's costume.
• 14:38
  Whereas Paul, our 13-year-old, first he wanted to be a Daft Punk guy, and I was like, "Look forward to seeing how this turns out and how people will know that you are Daft Punk and not just-" Mm. "...
• 14:48
  you know, like a motorcycle rider." This didn't come to pass. Now he says he's gonna be a surfer. We don't own a surfboard or anything that resembles a surfboard.
• 14:57
  We have an ironing board, and it is gonna be a high of 53 tomorrow. But I don't... Again, I don't care.
• 15:02
  And then James is my preferred one Halloween-wise because we have s- costumes left over, and he just found a hotdog costume, and he put it on, and it suits him so well. You're like, "You were born to wear this." Mm-hmm.
• 15:13
  Like, it's his little, like, penis head with a little sausage, you know? So he's got that. So I like him at least for, he picked a costume that's an actual costume that we own. But, uh, yeah. What are you gonna be?
• 15:24
  Well, I have a Halloween poncho that I bought several years ago that was way too expensive. It's looks like a skeleton, like a spiderweb kinda skeleton things. I'll put that on.
• 15:33
  But I was thinking about dressing like Paul and just asking Steve, "Give me your biggest hoodie. Let me find, like, some workout shorts and then borrow Paul's Crocs." Yeah. Maybe have a Gatorade water bottle.
• 15:44
  How would Paul handle that gentle mockery? He would probably tell me to s- stop, but also might be pleased by it possibly. I don't know. I don't think he would mind it, 'cause I wouldn't be, like, teasing him per se.
• 15:55
  I'd just be, like, dressing like him. And I do often borrow his clothes sometimes. Not often, but sometimes I'll pop something on, so it's not completely unusual. You're such a boy mom. Well, it's my right.
• 16:05
  What are you gonna do if you don't own... If you... The clothes are there, and they fit. If the Croc fits, wear it, so. Yeah, no. Can I ask you a question? What is Taki water?
• 16:13
  Oh, so Steve, my husband, took James, our younger one, to Steve's office yesterday 'cause they're working on creating this little village out of cardboard, these little houses. I don't really know what it is.
• 16:24
  I think it's something for Steve to work on his camera with. And James had eaten a bag of Takis. You know what Takis are? They're- You've told me. I don't remember. Yeah.
• 16:31
  They're- They're the chocolate stick things or they're the hot fries? That's Paqui. Ch- Fucking... Uh, Taki is like a rolled up sour and spicy kind of Dorito basically with the same powder.
• 16:41
  And so James had eaten his thing of Takis, and Steve looked over, and James was sitting on the couch trying to pour the Taki powder, this, like, red powder, into a water bottle filled with water to create Taki water.
• 16:53
  And Steve said, "Don't," in his own nice way, "Fucking stop doing that." And he got up and walked out, and came back and saw that there was Taki water all over the couch. And he was like, "What the fuck is this?"
• 17:05
  And James said, "Well, I did that before you told me to stop." So Steve said, "You and your-" Do you ever wonder how we got this far? So there's this great book I think you would love.
• 17:14
  It's called Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Evolution, something like that. Wonderful, incredible scientist, writer, researcher Kat Bohannon. It's funny, too. It's great. She reads the book.
• 17:25
  It's fantastic. It's a thick one, and it's great. But basically, what you learn, first of all, i- if you have been present
• 17:34
  for human having, being pregnant, trying to be pregnant, being pregnant, and/or delivering a baby however works, you understand, like, it's 2025, and it's still fucking perilous.
• 17:45
  But she makes a really good effort to describe, like, compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, we're a fucking nightmare. Like, it is- Oh. Everyone else is, like, fine. Like, it's totally easy. Right.
• 17:56
  And when you consider that and how dumb boys are, just so dumb, 'cause it's the rule of if this, then what else?
• 18:06
  Not only I'm gonna make this Taki water, I'm gonna make it on this couch, and I'm gonna say, "Well, I spilled it before you told me," so then it's not eligible for being in trouble. If this, then what else, Claire?
• 18:17
  Like, how did we get here?Well, you know, sometimes it makes me wonder if it's possible that the phrase, "Girls run the world," is not actually accurate.
• 18:24
  Like, how do we fuck up so bad as a sex that we are so superior in every way, and we also- Every way... have no power? What is happening? So I also am just like, "Oh, I wonder how that water tasted. Did it taste good?"
• 18:36
  [laughs] But yeah, that's just another, you know, genius thing to, to handle as a mother. Very proud of my kids.
• 18:42
  You ran that incredible survey a few months ago, which was, like, everyone's favorite survey, and I believe it had a bottle of water on it, and it was like, "Whose job is it, is it to get rid of this?" Yeah.
• 18:50
  So imagine that's the bottle full of Taki water. Mm-hmm. And imagine when it's in the same spot, it's summer, so it's warm-ish. It has been there for, let's not be egregious, four days. Hmm.
• 19:03
  Real answer, how much for you to drink that bottle? What's the temperature outside, and how sunny has it been? It's warm. I mean, it's 80s. It's been sunny, so it's really warm.
• 19:12
  Two, also at least one of your boys, you don't know if it's both and you don't know which one, has also drank out of it occasionally, so there may be some backsplash. So real answer- I w- How much?
• 19:24
  You gotta drink the whole thing. The awful thing is that I don't need 50 bucks. Like, we're gonna have to start going up higher. Let's say at least 100, probably more like two, three. 350. I'll say 350.
• 19:35
  You could maybe get a hotel room with that. So yeah, I'll say 350. I have to swallow it? Yeah. It's the warmness of the bottle, of warmed up, cooled down, warmed up plastic bottle.
• 19:46
  The Taki part is actually, like, secondary to that, and also the baby mouth aspect of it, knowing a disgusting little kid has been sucking on it, so.
• 19:53
  It's like when they would give you the little water bottles back, the little Baby Now jeans when they were little, and there's just chunks, and you're like- Yeah... "Where did the... What, what is that?"
• 20:01
  Why are you saying that's not still happening? Do you know how many water bottles are rolling around in my house downstairs? Like, Paul had that one I told you. He has a bottle called Cirkl.
• 20:10
  I think it's spelled like C-I-R-K-L or something.
• 20:12
  And like, it has, like, some flavor tabs so that the water is water, but then when you drink it, you taste the whatever the fuck it is, and he's been slurping it and slugging it, and Steve was so sick of the noise, and then of course Paul [laughs] has to piss all the time 'cause he's just been slugging this water.
• 20:28
  Anyway, this was, like, the hot shit, and now it's just rolling around the floor downstairs, like, along with all of our other things, so par for the course.
• 20:35
  I just saw a friend of mine who has three sons, so I was like, "Well, at least I have it easy and I don't have a third one on." Mm. But she told me, I'd be curious to know what you think about this.
• 20:43
  So my kid's class is pretty small, and as far as I know, like, they all get along pretty well, but my friend who I saw, she works in the school, and she said that she saw a kid trying to give my son a wedgie, like, in the playground.
• 20:56
  Old school. Okay. Yeah. She said my kid did not look upset, but she was, like, worried about him 'cause this other kid is much bigger.
• 21:02
  And so she very much was like, "It did not seem like he was in distress," but I've been thinking about how I would bring this up with Paul possibly, just to be like, "You okay?"
• 21:12
  You know, I was thinking about just saying, like, not announce it, 'cause you always know that some big shit is gonna come when I'm like, "Can I talk to you?"
• 21:19
  Yeah, I was thinking about just saying, you know, "Your friend's mom noticed this. Just wanna check in everything's okay." I don't know. I don't...
• 21:25
  I, 'cause I know that with teen boys, like, if you go in too hard, they back off, and I don't wanna imply- Mm-hmm... that he's, like- Mm, mm-hmm... gonna take them, but.
• 21:33
  I try to do as much as possible for any conversation the driving side by side thing, where- Mm... eye contact doesn't need to be made for their benefit and for mine, whatever the conversation. Yeah. But it is hard.
• 21:44
  I told you, like, Dana got upset 'cause she got burnt. She went right in, and they were like- Mm... "Absolutely not." Yeah. "We're not doing it this way," and now maybe not at all. I think she's- Yeah...
• 21:52
  definitely earned her way back, but she was scarred, uh, which is understandable. Yeah. My kid is, he's young for this grade. This kid is old for his grade. Mm-hmm.
• 22:00
  This kid is taller than you, possibly, in eighth grade, and I do know... I mean, I think you've... I don't know if you've talked about this, but I've read about this.
• 22:07
  I think it's not easy to be, like, the really big kid when you're young. Like, it, it's not much easier- Uh... probably than the big, the super small kid.
• 22:15
  Relatively easier, still not easy, for entirely different reasons. Yeah, it's not super fun. But that doesn't mean you don't use it sometimes, which is shitty. Mm. For sure. No, bullying, bullying has no place.
• 22:26
  Wedgies are great. To be clear, if you're gonna bully, like, wedgies are pretty great, but. I'm surprised they happen. I feel like you would think at a school there's...
• 22:34
  You can psychologically torture someone, but touching underwear, like- Yeah, but this is, like, our conversation about the Roblox versus would you rather them be
• 22:43
  predator-ed or would you rather them, like, break their ankle falling out of a tree offline? Like, I would rather- Yeah...
• 22:48
  my kid get a wedgie than, you know, like, have their penis doxxed and sent all over the school or something, you know? Yeah, or hearing that they...
• 22:55
  Like, my friend's school, that someone drew a hate symbol on the wall with a bodily, I wouldn't say fluid, a bodily substance. And yeah, so things could be worse. And nobody gets through life without getting...
• 23:07
  Like I just mentioned, I got bullied in college 'cause someone threw up on my bed and thought it'd be funny, so, you know, I guess nobody gets out alive, so.
• 23:13
  I guess I just thought his brother, his little brother, would be the main bully in his life. Hmm. Yeah, Henry definitely bullies Oliver a bit, for sure. It's kinda fun. Okay, so back to Halloween real quick.
• 23:22
  What is the- Yeah, no, hit me, 'cause I know you hate Halloween. You've... Well, I don't hate Halloween. I, it's not my favorite.
• 23:27
  I hate it less than Thanksgiving, but I know you're such a healthy, you know, like, Maha guy. Like, what do you... You seem like you're probably eating, like, yogurt-covered Craisins as your candy. What is your secret?
• 23:39
  I'm like the, you know the meme about the guy with the Domino's? It's me, like, deciding to eat vegetables only 15 years ago, and then we got to Maha somehow, and now there's no vaccines anymore. You know, it's funny.
• 23:49
  One of my kids yesterday, I don't care which one, said, "Hey, Dad, what do you think of this trunk or treat thing?" Mm. And I said, "Here's my take, and it's gonna be annoying, kids."
• 23:58
  I said, "There's a lot of streets in America, especially right now, not awesome for kids to be wandering around in the dark by themselves, and every kid should get to trick or treat." It's just fucking fun, right?
• 24:07
  It's time outside with your friends. So I think any opportunity to do that, and it's, like, a community block get-together, if you're a suburb or whatever, sure, great. Yeah.
• 24:14
  I was like, I don't love that they're everywhere. Why the fuck does my neighborhood have one? Mm. That's just, like, extra dumb candy shit for kids with zero effort required.
• 24:22
  So I think that is dumbSo my take is, yeah, Halloween, great. Go get your candy. I hope somebody's giving out full bars somewhere. Well, what are you eating? Like, when your kids come home- Oh...
• 24:32
  they're gonna have a lead tongue when they go to bed while they're not watching. First of all, now they keep track. It's a fucking nightmare. And also, like, fuck it.
• 24:39
  They should see you taking it, and eat it in front of their face, and say- Yeah... this is, like, just scratching the surface of what you owe me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just the tip. Yeah, no, 100%. That's...
• 24:49
  I'll take that tack tomorrow night. That's just what it is. I think I gotta go peanut butter cups first. Mm. For sure, and if there's a double in there, that's great. I'm just taking the whole thing.
• 24:58
  Or would it be more fucked up to take one and leave the other half? I don't know. There's- That'd be, like, diabolical. Yeah. There's layers to it. I've always been a Snickers guy.
• 25:06
  Milky Way doesn't have enough texture for me. Whatever the f- coconut ones are fucking gross. And I like- No. Yeah... like Samoas are my favorite Girl Scout cookie. I'll do s- coconut. I'm not a, like...
• 25:14
  For somebody who works above a old-timey candy shop, I don't love c- I don't need sugary shit. Yeah. To each their own, but um- I know you. You're probably handing out, like, a handful of grapes from your house. Yeah.
• 25:25
  No, I'm giving out, like, you know, athletic greens. No. No. That, that stuff is probably just as much fucking poison. Yeah, I don't know. I... That's... Chocolate. It's, like, anything chocolate.
• 25:34
  But chocolate and peanut butter- You're not a fruity, fruity chewy guy. No, I don't need it. I don't need it. So that's it. I'll take down that stuff. I don't... I'm not gonna say no to a Butterfinger, right? Mm-hmm.
• 25:44
  What are the other options out there? Well, I went to give out candy. I decided to try to offset my own cravings, so I bought, like, the gummy, chewy things, so, like, Nerds- Mm-hmm... and Plenty. Ooh, whatever the...
• 25:57
  Anything chewy and fruity I don't like. So that's what I got. So you got what you don't like. That's a veteran move. That's strong. Well, I know it's gonna be coming in, for sure.
• 26:06
  I remember last year, I think I really lost the thread, and I was just mainlining, you know.
• 26:10
  And you go from the large chocolate, you know, Reese's cups, and then as, you know, your standards lower, they get smaller, and so, you know, in the- Just fist, fistfuls. Yeah. In the basement, you know.
• 26:19
  And so I was like, this year I'm gonna try to not eat as much candy. We'll see. But forgot that Paul, my older one, is a sweetheart, and he always brings me...
• 26:27
  He knows I like Reese's cups, so he'll bring me one, like, as tribute. And I feel like I must always eat it if he gives it to me, you know? Yeah, that's the least you can do. Yes. I have a couple questions. Mm.
• 26:35
  One, have you fucked with Justin's peanut butter cups? I see those, but no. I- The dark chocolate ones? I don't like dark chocolate, really. Maybe they make milk chocolate ones now. I don't know. Okay.
• 26:45
  And I think they do almond butters. They do does almond, yeah. But the dark chocolate peanut butter ones are fucking good. Expensive, but as a treat, real nice.
• 26:51
  They also sell the bags, the little ones, and I put them in the fridge. Oh. And those you can just fist. This, the moral of today's podcast is fisting. Oh. Which I've n- also never understood. I'm on this fucking diet.
• 27:02
  Mm. I gotta go to a premiere in 11 days, Claire. I can't take down two buckets of fucking candy right now. Well, candy doesn't make you fat. It's just sugar.
• 27:11
  So it's only bad for you, but I think you could eat candy and not actually gain weight. It's just, you know, the chemicals. And that's my theory. That's fair.
• 27:18
  But I think it's about volume, 'cause once you get to volume, it's... Like, well, I'm not eating one peanut butter cup. I'm either eating all of it- You gotta save it... or none of it, or all of Charlotte's candy.
• 27:27
  You gotta bank that candy, actually, and save it for, like, when you're coming home from the... Oh, that'd be, taste so good when you're, like, coming back from the premiere. Mm-hmm.
• 27:36
  And I think you should pack a little, you know... And it'll taste better if it's your own candy that you brought versus, like, buying it like a, you know, like a shmo at the 7-Eleven.
• 27:44
  [upbeat music] So we're on a big cleaning streak right now. As you can imagine, I'm very annoying about it to my children. But we're trying to dial it down to the essentials at home.
• 27:56
  So whether you're an appliance, a piece of furniture or clothing, whatever, you gotta earn your spot.
• 28:04
  Everything's got a place, everything has utility, which is hard with kids who constantly bring things into the house, and all their stuff.
• 28:11
  And it's really hard when you're trying to feed them constantly, and there are various appliances that are advertised to you that can literally do one thing, that honestly can't justify the counter space.
• 28:25
  But I'll tell you what does. It's the Mill Food Recycler, and holy cow, does it ever. It doesn't even go on the counter, by the way. It goes on the floor like a sexy trash can.
• 28:36
  It plugs into a standard outlet, and voila, no more food waste. Got peels, bones, stalks, whatever, leftovers?
• 28:45
  Put 'em in there, and then while you sleep, the Mill automatically turns on, dries, and grinds them, and it doesn't smell at all. It's crazy. Again, let's rehash.
• 28:54
  Not only does it not stink up the house, or two, cause leaky trash bags, which are disgusting, and three, send leftover food to the landfill to turn into waste, and then methane, and then rising oceans.
• 29:08
  It actually makes you feel good because it grinds up all of your food waste into these adorable grounds you can use in the garden, you can give to a local farm, you can put 'em right in the green bin.
• 29:19
  You can even ship back to Mill via postal service pickups like it's Netflix in 2003. Anyways, a delight, a game changer. You guys can get $75 off right now when you go to our special site.
• 29:32
  I'm gonna read it to you, but you should know the link is right in the show notes, and you can just smash your finger against it. It's mill.com/lp/important-not-important. Can I remember that? No.
• 29:46
  That's why we put the link right in the show notes.
• 29:48
  So anyways, huge thanks to Mill for doing the right thing and trying to cut down on food waste, most of which comes from our homes, for sponsoring our work, and of course, thanks to you listeners for always supporting our partners.
• 30:01
  [upbeat music] Yeah, I'm not doing that. Dana brought this from some version of her childhood, and we've adapted it over the years, that our children can trade in their candy for money. Have I told you about this?
• 30:11
  No, this is smart. Mm. Mm-mm. Interesting. I had never heard of this, but... And I was a little bit like, "Let 'em eat their candy," and then this makes so much more sense. And then Henry gamed the system.
• 30:20
  So I don't remember what the exact breakdown is, but it's basically like-You can trade in any amount versus these tiers. So full size whatever, so that's two peanut butter cups, or full size- Hmm...
• 30:32
  Snickers or whatever, that's a dollar. Then there's snack size, right, is a quarter, and then something is a dime. Okay. And whatever that something is, at some point Henry realized he had hundreds of them one year. Hmm.
• 30:49
  Yeah. And he was like, "Well, I'm trading all this in." This kid made like 50 bucks. He was like, "I don't eat this fucking candy." Like, he doesn't give a shit. But it really works. So you sit there- Yeah... with them.
• 30:57
  You're like, "Spread it all out. You guys can trade whatever you want. I don't care. If you wanna toss stuff out, here's the deal." I was like, "But start with the stuff..." It's like Marie Kondo. Does this spark joy?
• 31:06
  Right. Put it in the giveaway pile. And then do a second round. These kids went good. They made 20 bucks, something like that. Yeah. It's very helpful.
• 31:12
  I- And then you are like, "I'm gonna go through this way, the stuff you got rid of," you know. I mean, I like the idea of it. I also hate the idea of me losing money because I'm like, "Who's profiting?
• 31:25
  What's the upside?" Like, what are we- I'm profiting 'cause they're not... Like, it's less time for the next week or so where they're fucking candy monsters.
• 31:33
  See, I have a kinda system where we'll let the candy be out for several days, and they all kinda hide it, just to have it out of sight, out of mind.
• 31:40
  And then I'll sort of quietly scoop off portions to send to school or, like, maybe the fire station or, you know. That stopped working for us years ago. Now they're counting every piece. Yeah. They don't fuck around.
• 31:50
  Well, you know- I used to be able to make it all disappear...
• 31:52
  Steve and I used to laugh 'cause a long time ago, before we had kids, we were in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for a Fourth July parade, and they were tossing out candy, and we were catching it.
• 32:02
  And my friend's mom said, "Now, Lisa, don't forget, candy is fun to collect, but not to eat." And Steve and I were like, "Candy's fun to collect. Like, whatever."
• 32:12
  And then cut to now, by far, like, the kids go home, and they eat... A- actually, Paul's smart. He eats a lot of it before he gets home just to, you know, like, just eat it before someone sees it and maybe- Mm-hmm...
• 32:23
  wants to take it from you. You go down to the basement, I have pictures of them, and it's like Inception. Yeah. It's all... And I like candy is fun to collect, actually. It is. It is fun. I totally get it.
• 32:32
  We sit out and spread it around, and it's all fun, and now it's a Friday night, so to- I don't have to yell at them. They gotta get up at 6:00. Yeah, it's fine. But I don't mind if this cuts it in half, I'm fine with it.
• 32:43
  When you were a young adult and, like, in high school and college, were you, like, a Halloween party monster?
• 32:48
  'Cause I remember in college in Georgetown, like, M Street would be just a total shit show of, you know, the sluttiest costumes and the drunkest guys.
• 32:57
  And there's always that guy who's wearing a big fat, like, big fake set of tits, you know, like, 'cause nothing's funnier than being a woman.
• 33:03
  And then there's a guy who dressed like a huge cock just walking down M Street with his balls dangling down by his feet. Yeah. I'm gonna be honest, like, I remember more of...
• 33:12
  And this is some combination of I'm very old, alcohol, and, like, contact sports. Like, I remember more of my youth when I was, like, a vampire four years in a row- Oh... than high school through college.
• 33:24
  I don't know the answer to that. It's pretty sad. I, I feel like there are certain things where I feel like I would be... You would think I'd be a more creative person, and then things backfire. Like, for instance, my...
• 33:34
  I never wanna read out loud to my kids at night 'cause I'm tired, which you think would be, like, the opposite 'cause I love to read.
• 33:40
  Or I don't write my kids' lunch notes, and you think that would be easy for me 'cause I'm a writer.
• 33:45
  And then for Halloween, I think I just had too many costumes not execute or feel like I was like the Daria, like, mad in the corner where my roommates were, like, sexy, slutty, whatever the hell.
• 33:57
  And so I- S- sexy Jane Goodall. Yeah, where's like... Right. Like, but I'm like a Halloween hater because of that for a while. Mm. I get it. I get it. I mean, it's always been fun.
• 34:07
  So I think part of the thing is, and again, the fact that I can't remember a lot of this probably is, like, you know, getting wasted. I'm sure it was. One, we didn't really have cameras.
• 34:16
  And two, it's like in college, you know, yeah, i- in the fall, like, I was swimming from August to fucking April, and we could only go out on Saturday nights after a meet. Oh, no. That was it.
• 34:27
  No other nights 'cause we were in the water at 5:00. So maybe they gave ourselves, like, the morning after Halloween, but I don't really remember that being the case, so probably pretty boring.
• 34:38
  But it was also in a fraternity, so God knows. One of my favorite parts of getting older, and I noted this on the subject, but it's really true.
• 34:44
  There is a certain time of a woman's life I've noticed where she quits trying to be... Like, first there's the sexy, you know, there's, like, the sexy costume or the friend costume.
• 34:53
  Then I notice a couple of friends of mine really lean into, like, truly the witch aspect. Like, I have a friend who's dressed as the witch from Snow White, you know, Ursula, looking great.
• 35:02
  And then something happens where [laughs] all my friends start dressing like men and going in real hard with the muscly chest thing.
• 35:09
  Someone sent me a picture of her friend dressed like Richard Dreyfuss from What About Bob? And it made me so happy. Incredible movie.
• 35:15
  I saw another woman that I think is beautiful, and she always seems so well put together, and she was dressed like Napoleon Dynamite. And she, like, even had, like, his whole, like, mean.
• 35:26
  And I was like, "I love you more than I ever thought I could." Mm-hmm. Like, there's something about switching like that makes me really happy. No, I think that's great. I think that's great.
• 35:32
  Yeah, I would love to be more creative. To me, it's what is the line of achievable, I'm gonna do it, and will embarrass my children. Mm. Because as I keep explaining to them, this is the natural course of things. Mm-hmm.
• 35:44
  It's like, this is what I'm gonna do, and you're gonna have to get used to it, and try not to be embarrassed by things. Like I said, I was super insecure growing up. I get it. I would've been horrified.
• 35:51
  But either I'm making that a lot worse for them or a lot better, and time will tell. We'll find out. I presume maybe you're giving out some candy tomorrow if your mother-in-law, you know, takes a break.
• 36:03
  Are you making kids say thank you and trick or treat, or are you just a nice guy who gives out candy- Yeah, what are you fucking talking about?... anyway? Do you know how much...
• 36:09
  So I was coaching Henry's baseball team, the nine-year-olds, and every parent brings a snack afterwards, and it's very thoughtful.
• 36:14
  But money is short these days, and so, you know, for parents to bring anything, it's amazing. Uh, we're well past the bring healthy snacks at this point. It's like, Jesus Christ. It's like, mm.
• 36:23
  And these kidsPack up their shit, run over there and grab the bags and run away, and I'm like, "Get the fuck back here and say thank you to those parents and then thank them for bringing you."
• 36:32
  And they're like, "Well, all right. The whole experience is ruined." Are you kidding me? No, I don't fuck around. I have been online less. I'm trying to, actually. It's a lie. I've not been online less.
• 36:40
  I would like to be online less. Um- The way you just backtracked on that was incred- just live.
• 36:45
  I am on social media less, more or less, but I was like, I forgot how this time of year there's always the social media Halloween bits and pieces where, like, for instance, it's like, put up the sign for the purple...
• 36:56
  I don't know if you guys have the teal pumpkin. Do you know what that is? That's for the kids with food allergies.
• 37:00
  So if you put a sign in your window that has a picture of a teal pumpkin, it says that we have non-food treats. And, you know, so you get like maybe glow sticks or temporary tattoos.
• 37:09
  I did that for the last several years 'cause the internet told me that you need to provide a non-food treat. Not a single fucking person ever took me up on it. So I had all these dried up skull tattoos.
• 37:21
  Then the other internet of it all is like, it's ableist to make kids say trick or treat or thank you because, like, many kids, like, can't do it, which I know that's true, but I feel like it's not so widespread.
• 37:34
  I think you could tell when you get a kid who cannot say trick or treat or thank you. And anyway- Read, just read the room. Just read the room... that's the internet of it all, of Halloween.
• 37:41
  I'm not gonna corner each one. Again, we talked about, you know, the shame thing. Like, and if they're three are standing there and two say trick or treat, I'm not gonna be like, "Let's go, Zorro. What the fuck?
• 37:50
  Speak up." But, you know, I'm like, "Yeah, say thank you." I'll yell at my kids. I know they can say trick or treat. Like, that, 100%.
• 37:57
  If they're running away from that door, they just grab some shit out of a bucket and turn around and run, you are going right back. Yeah. And you are gonna... Remember, as I always tell them. God, they hate this shit.
• 38:06
  [laughs] I say, "Who's the thank you for? Is it for you or is it for them? Give it to them." God, they fucking hate it. I love how you... Anything not fun. I truly admire it. Oh, I'll ruin anything. It's pretty...
• 38:18
  And that's without talking about climate change. So speaking of taking anything and making it not fun, let's be realists for a second. How is trick-or-treating gonna go down tomorrow night in the fine city of Chicago?
• 38:28
  Good question. Yeah, ICE was in the neighborhood yesterday, in my kids' school, and vibes are bad.
• 38:33
  Chicago, you know, that's why they have trick-or-treating, like, at stores and things like that, 'cause, like, for the folks who don't, you know, maybe don't feel safe or don't have places like that. So, yeah.
• 38:43
  ICE was at your fucking church, like, two days ago. No one is immune to this. No. I don't wanna be a downer about it. I just wanna be a realist that I think a lot of parents are.
• 38:52
  And again, this will come out afterwards, and I would love to hear about your experiences, if any, which would be great, if folks have anything like that.
• 38:58
  What did you talk to your kids about, or their friends, or watch out for this?
• 39:01
  It's interesting 'cause I have a friend who, she's a witch and she lives in Chicago and her family's very progressive, and they have a son that they adopted from Korea, and he is, he's thir- 14 now, and he, just of his own accord, he loves law enforcement people.
• 39:15
  He just likes them a lot, and he's dressed up like a SWAT, you know, guy. And she has such mixed feelings about this for various reasons, but she also was like, "You know, like, he's a good, nice kid.
• 39:27
  Like, this is what he wants to dress up as." But she has... You know what I mean? It- No, these cocksuckers have ruined everything for everybody. Yeah.
• 39:35
  And I mean, luckily for us, like, we have a friend and neighbor who is a former SWAT, and he is, like, a great guy and a cool guy, and it's like one of the good guys, you know?
• 39:43
  So it's, like, nice to know someone who, like, can speak that language and can talk about what it's actually like to work in law enforcement like that and know that they're not just, like, an asshole who has been waiting to get paid to abuse someone.
• 39:54
  And I think there's a lot of people who are like, their kids might wanna dress up as something, and you're like, "Eh." But that's very much, I think we talk about consistently about how your kid is not you, you know?
• 40:03
  And, you know, your kid might be basic bitch or cringe and whatever, and maybe you can't really explain to a five-year-old who wants to dress like a cop or whatever, or I don't know, G.I.
• 40:14
  Joe, like, why that makes you feel weird as a woke parent. That might not, I don't know, be appropriate for your little kid. I don't know. Like I said, surfer and hot dog. We are really getting- Correct... off easy here.
• 40:24
  Yeah. No, check the box, for sure. To pivot back to the not right now of all of it- Uh-huh... how was your vacation in the woods by yourself without anything? Uh, it was amazing.
• 40:34
  My friend and I, we go to this place called Postcard Cabins. They used to be called Getaway. Now Marriott Bonvoy owns them, which is a drag, but they- Did they ruin it? No.
• 40:44
  First of all, it used to be called Getaway, which was so much more fun, 'cause you'd be like, "We're gonna go on our getaway," and now you're like, "Postcard Cabins," like.
• 40:51
  But they are these sort of, like, IKEA trailers arranged in a little campground sort of area, and you pay, and it basically costs the same as a hotel room.
• 40:59
  But it's like a tiny cabin with huge windows, and you see only trees, and it has heating and air conditioning and a beautiful bed and a hot shower, and it comes with a fire pit, and the fire pit comes stocked with wood, and there's some pots and pans.
• 41:13
  And so it's, I always call it camping, but without all the bullshit.
• 41:17
  But she and I, we always, like, race to get there the second that we have check-in time, 'cause it feels like you are just wasting time if you let even 10 minutes go by.
• 41:25
  But you go, and you bring your food, and it was amazing. I don't know, like- And you're in separate, you're in separate Postcard cabins? Okay. We're in separate cabins.
• 41:32
  The cabins are named after the grandparents of the people who run the sites. So mine was Dottie, and hers was called Ed. So we would go and wake up and maybe watch a show, read, you know, look out the window.
• 41:46
  And then maybe around lunchtime we'd text and say, "Hey, you wanna come over and hang out for a little bit?"
• 41:51
  And there's a beautiful little man-made pond nearby, so you take a stroll over there, and you listen to the birds.
• 41:57
  And, like, truly what I love is you get so used to the rhythm of picking shit up, washing clothes, filling the dishwasher, emptying the dishwasher. It becomes second nature.
• 42:06
  That, to just not do that, to just be still, to not talk to anyone, that was truly the best part, was, like, there was, I think my la- second to last day I built a fire, and I love building a fire.
• 42:19
  Like, I like tending it. So it's so simple, you know? And then I just stared at it, and I was like, in another world I'd be getting up and, like, getting a drink, getting a book, this and that. I'm just staring.
• 42:28
  I'm not doing anything, and that is so...Having the quiet, having my own space, being completely autonomous, it was beautiful. There's nothing better to me. I need it so much.
• 42:38
  I've got some questions on best practices here, 'cause you've done this a few times, all with the same person? I did it once with Steve, and I like Steve, but he's a big man. That was one of my questions.
• 42:48
  It was harder to share the space with someone, and I have gone by myself without sharing someone, so I- But otherwise, gotta be the right person, and they should have their own space. Yeah. She...
• 42:57
  About this a lot, because my friend lives out in the western suburbs, and she says she, there's a lot of women who find the concept of traveling by yourself, let alone, like, staying in the woods by yourself, inscrutable.
• 43:08
  Either in terms of fear of being murdered or not knowing what to do with yourself or feeling guilty, you know, if you can't leave your family alone.
• 43:16
  So we always reflect over, like, feeling glad that we know to do this for ourselves, that we can do this, that our spouses are not calling us every minute being like, "Where's the," you know, "Where's the ice?"
• 43:30
  And we always end up accidentally reflecting on how our spouses are good parents as well. I think that's probably a good thing for the parents.
• 43:36
  And then of course for the parents, like, it's a pain in the ass to do all the... You know, to be alone. But as we always mention, like, it's kinda easier sometimes without two parents there. So- Yeah...
• 43:46
  the dads are home being heroes, you know, but at the same time- Sure... like, doing fun shit.
• 43:50
  What percentage of a day do you two spend doing things together or at least being adjacent to each other, not in your cabins, versus what percent is, like, on your own time? Probably 15 to 20% together.
• 44:03
  Just like either walking down to the pond together or sitting by the fire. But otherwise, it's just nice to, like... We always say, like, "What did you do today?"
• 44:11
  And she did some writing, you know, and I'm reading Anna Karenina, which I'm, like, very proud of, so I read some more of that huge book, you know, and we cheer each other on.
• 44:20
  And sometimes working on creative stuff, like she took over the show that I used to run.
• 44:25
  'Cause some years ago I was saying, like, "I don't have it in me," kinda lost my joy, and she's like, "This is crazy, but what if I took it over?"
• 44:30
  And I was like, "You would be perfect, 'cause you would do it really well- Mm-hmm... and you would give a shit about it." So- Mm-hmm... so sometimes we accidentally talk about creative stuff as well, some.
• 44:39
  She has two daughters who are slightly younger than mine, so we always end up kind of, like, comparing each other.
• 44:44
  I always try to convince her to write a book because she had an experience as a caddy, a golf caddy, which I don't hear a lot of women's stories about that, but she's reluctant- Mm...
• 44:54
  to write it, but I'm gonna force her to write that book one of these days. That would be a book. Do you each go...
• 44:59
  And again, this will be different for everyone, but I think traveling with friends, you realize these are great friends. These are great friends we can travel with because- Mm-hmm...
• 45:05
  we might have the same expectations or energy or whatever. But you're saying like 20% of the time together, that's great.
• 45:12
  Do you each go in with an intention where you're like, "On this trip, I'm gonna be reading Anna Karenina"? No. We don't... I personally don't try to do anything.
• 45:19
  Many years ago, I used to be more about trying to get stuff done on these kind of trips. But I mean m- like intentional leisure. Mm. Oh.
• 45:25
  Like, it doesn't have to be work, but where you're like, "I'm looking forward to this book, and that's when it's gonna happen." Yeah. I, I bring the book. I have a backup book in case I decide that one's not good.
• 45:34
  Crossword puzzles for the in-between time.
• 45:36
  I brought one serious movie I download- They don't have Wi-Fi, so you have to download anything ahead of time that you wanna watch, so I downloaded this very quiet, kinda artsy movie with Paul Mescal called Aftersun.
• 45:46
  It was very much a mood. But then I knew I'd want something stupid, so I also had several episodes of Below Deck Mediterranean, and that was a good one. But yeah, my goal was to, like, do as much active, non-anything.
• 45:58
  I'm not working out. Yeah. You know, walking is for digestion and for sunshine- Mm-hmm... not for exercise. So yeah, I was like, "It would be a waste."
• 46:06
  If anything, I'm most pleased when I'm not doing anything, when I just stare out the window, you know. Mm-hmm. Or stare at the fire.
• 46:12
  That's when I'm like, that's when I'm really getting my money's worth, 'cause I don't do that here. Two nights? Three nights. Three nights? That's awesome. Mm-hmm.
• 46:19
  Well, check-ins are 4:00, so day one is bullshit, you know? So, um- Especially at this time of year, yeah.
• 46:24
  And let's just say if we were the kinda people who, like, maybe took a, you know, like, a sort of chemical or something like that, it's just nice to have one last day of getting it out of your system before you have to hit the road and concentrate on driving, so that's a big part- Totally...
• 46:35
  of it as well. No, that's smart. That's smart. Yeah. 'Cause you don't wanna...
• 46:38
  W- If you were to do something like that, you don't wanna have to temper it by being like, "Oh, I gotta fucking pack up at 7:00 in the morning and then get the fuck outta here and go deal with kids." Why?
• 46:46
  You've ruined the whole thing. No, it's amazing, 'cause like, we will hang out and come home in, to my room at midnight, and I'll take a shower, you know, and then blast music.
• 46:54
  It really is like living by yourself for a couple of days, which is not for everyone, but it is for me, for sure. And you know, traveling with people can be tricky. I used to do a retreat with some friends.
• 47:04
  We haven't done it for a couple years, but one year w- that was kinda tense, and I got mad because three of our friends don't have kids, two of us do.
• 47:13
  I perceived that some of us were doing some more housework in the house we were renting than others, and I accidentally sent a group text to everyone I was with, and I think I meant to send it to someone else, saying, "Why are the moms doing all the fucking work?"
• 47:24
  And then I realized that it had gone to the women I was staying with, and I just had to own it, you know? I couldn't be like- How did that get... How was that handled?
• 47:32
  I just said- Did you hear everybody's phones going off throughout the house? Two of them were like, yeah. You know, like, I just said, like, "I'm sorry. I fucked up. I was mad. I said it," you know.
• 47:41
  And one, I think it took a little bit of time to recover, but yeah, me- But also, do the dishes, Sally. What the fuck? Yeah. Don't make the moms do the dishes. Take turns.
• 47:51
  That is the rules, that if you are cooking, you're not- Sorry, not sorry. No, not at all.
• 47:55
  And it was a good, like, coming of age, 'cause I feel like as I got older in life, like, sometimes you backtrack or try to hide things or say you made a mistake or someone hacked me.
• 48:03
  And then this was time to be like, "You know what? I was mad, and, you know, I apologize if this came out rough, but this is also how I felt." And like- Yeah. Wouldn't have had to happen... that's it. Do the dishes.
• 48:13
  Yeah. Flush the toilet. It's not complicated. I wish I had said that in college to the five hookers I lived with. They're not hookers. They're all, of course, like, high-achieving women, but- Still.
• 48:21
  We're holding onto that. Yeah. We're hol- We're holding onto any of that stuff.
• 48:24
  Um- Does Dana travel by her- I know she has to travel for work, but would she do something like that, go do something, you know, on a far-flung- Not necessarily 'cause she is, you know, a workaholic a bit.
• 48:34
  Like, it's hard for her toShut it down. So we gotta really be pretty intentional, whether it's with me or also with the kids. Her trips ever since we moved four, four years ago, which is crazy are really like
• 48:48
  and I think we've talked about this, but what she tries to do is she for a couple months ahead of time says to everybody "I have to come for one or two things.
• 48:57
  Let's add five things to that and make it instead of three days, five days." Mm. 'Cause three days traveling there is a pain in the ass as it is for her. Yeah. So five, sure, fuck it, who cares?
• 49:06
  'Cause like you said, I got it at home. It's just logistics. Like I... it doesn't matter. We'll miss her, but go do you.
• 49:11
  Because what she does is, and she even did this week, she literally stayed with three different friends, and she'll never stay in a hotel, 'cause she's like, "Why?" Right. Like, one, it's expensive, and two,
• 49:21
  it's an opportunity to, again, either stay with two friends or one friend or three. Yeah. She will spend more time with that person who has a job and works just by being around them at bedtime and breakfast- Mm-hmm...
• 49:35
  than she would have in six months of us living there. Yeah. When you're driving around, getting your hair done, meetings and shit, and kids and all that- Going to Walgreens together, that's a good hang, I think...
• 49:45
  yeah, she knows you don't need to call. Mm-hmm. Like, you wanna say hi to the kids, great, but we're not gonna fucking bother you unless, like, we absolutely have to for some reason. You know, and I've got...
• 49:54
  A- again, it... this was just our 15th anniversary last week. You learn this stuff, right? And we've learned it over the time. Like, it used to be really hard.
• 50:01
  When she was making Home Before Dark in 2018 and the kids were, like, three, four, and five, she would leave on Sunday afternoon, fly to Vancouver, 6:00 a.m.
• 50:11
  shoot on Monday, and then with the 12-hour turnarounds, basically they wouldn't finish shooting till, like, Saturday 4:00 a.m. She would get on the plane, come back, arrive at their soccer practice at 3:00 p.m.
• 50:22
  Kids would let out all their emotions. Yeah. And then Sunday morning she's like, "I gotta go." Yeah. That was a fucking nightmare. And one of those would be hard. They were young. They get it. But that was the life.
• 50:31
  Now, it's like, "Go get 'em." Yeah. "Have fun with your friends." I called the other day. She's like, "I'm at dinner with my friends." I was like, "Don't pick up the phone." Yeah. "I don't care."
• 50:37
  So- You probably was worried something was going on. Like, yeah... so that's her version of that. I genuinely don't think she could shut it down like that. We can shut it down together. Mm. And we kinda did last weekend.
• 50:46
  But even then was, like, paired to a work thing. And that's fine. Mm-hmm. I used to hold it against her in a really shitty way, and she used to hold the opposite against me. And then you grow up.
• 50:55
  Well, it's 'cause your kids are little, and you're exhausted. And there's expectations, and now it's like it doesn't fuck- nothing matters, Claire. There's no rules. There's no moral... There's nothing.
• 51:03
  And so we're just like, if this is how I can take care of you, great. Yeah. And yeah, for her, I'm just like, "Great. Who are you staying with? Ha- have a great time. Bye." Yeah. Yeah. "Come home when you come home."
• 51:12
  We- She's barely getting home for Halloween, and I'm like, "I think it's fine" Yeah, but yeah, this Halloween, kids don't...
• 51:18
  They're not gonna be like, "Well, I didn't get a lot of candy, but my mom wasn't home, so it was a bad Halloween." No, it's... So that is her version. I could totally do it.
• 51:24
  Like I've told you, my best friend and I will disappear and go do shit. But my brother gave me a Postcard Pack Cabins gift certificate when it was Getaway, and I haven't used it yet. Uh- You have to, you have to use it.
• 51:34
  It is so nice. Like- I gotta find one near me. Two questions for you, one is an observation. I totally log off with my family.
• 51:40
  Like, Paul had a football game, and Steve gave me, like, one score update, but to be honest, God, I was so glad not to be at football. I'm sorry, it just was.
• 51:48
  And then, you know, my friend checks in with her family and chats, and I'm like, "Why check?" Like, you're breaking the seal, you know? Like- Don't break the seal. Like- Don't break the seal. No.
• 51:56
  Give a mouse a cookie, man. Yeah. And I know they don't really miss me.
• 51:59
  And I don't mean that in they're glad I'm gone, but, like, when I come home, no one's like, you know, "Oh, God," like, we, "this is all a disaster without you here to hug us," you know?
• 52:07
  But that is part of it, is just being out of touch.
• 52:10
  'Cause so much of parenting right now for me is just handling logistics and email and saving dates, and, like, tomorrow is the get to school for the Halloween parade, then quickly take the kids home to my pa- parents' house so they can ring the doorbell, and then go back to trick-or-treating.
• 52:23
  And then Paul has a Halloween party after trick-or-treating. And my one, my friend and I go walking, we stop for a second, and I'm just, like, listening to the wind in the trees. [laughs] Uh, like, I just...
• 52:32
  I was like, the quiet, you know, and just being by yourself. But my question for you is what did you guys do for your anniversary, and did you give Dana some sexy lingerie, you know? Like, her push present.
• 52:42
  I hope that stuff was burned a long time ago. [laughs] What a fucking dipshit. She had to be in Austin for the film festival. We'd never been down there. Neither of us really makes an effort to visit Texas.
• 52:50
  Sorry, listeners. Deal with it. They'd probably be like, "Understandable." Yeah, deal... I don't care. This is, again, beauty of being old and tired, don't care. She had to be down there for two days.
• 53:00
  Real first sort of Wicked Press stuff. Great. It was on our anniversary, so I said, "Do you want me to come?" She's like, "Please do." Went, 'cause I love watching her talk. It's actually great. It makes me really happy.
• 53:10
  No one else is asking me questions. I get to see the joy it brings her, et cetera, et cetera. And then I was like, "Okay, well, that is, like, a Thursday." I said, "I know shit is crazy."
• 53:20
  I always ask the woman who produces with her first, and I just say, 'cause Dana's schedule, can't keep track. I just say, "Can I have Friday?" Oh. "Can that be mine?" She'll check, and she'll tell me honestly.
• 53:31
  And she said, "Yeah." So I said, "Friday and Saturday." So I booked us this little resort spa place. And so we just went from Austin to that, 'cause when else are we gonna go there? Oh.
• 53:40
  And yeah, I mean, slept 10 hours a night. Awesome. Crossword puzzles. She was in the spa the entire time, which is great for her. Mm. I got some exercise in and read three books, and that's fine for us.
• 53:51
  That's good for us. It was two nights, and we'll take it. Would I want a week again? Yeah. But we haven't done that in a while, but it's been a bit much. Yeah. Wicked has so consumed, like, a genuine...
• 54:01
  Like, last month, it was six months of the year, if we're lucky, gonna be that again this year. Next year we'll talk about doing some more time. Just- Uh-huh... next year's actually her 50th.
• 54:09
  So I- Is she thinking about doing something, like a big thing? We've talked about it generally over the past few years, and there's ideas, but I think it's been hard to kinda picture. And but now I'm like, "I gotta...
• 54:18
  You wanna do something, we gotta figure that out." So I'm game for whatever. So again, maybe that takes up that time next year, but it's fine. It's fine.
• 54:25
  So one chat I had with my friend was that she was saying the window is closing for her and her husband to have more kids.
• 54:32
  She was, like, contemplating that she could maybe get one more out of it, and her youngest is six, and my friend is 43.
• 54:41
  And I don't know, I was off the wagon this weekend, so I was a little bit stoned, so maybe I was, like, just being-Whatever.
• 54:47
  I would probably say this anyway, but she was contemplating a third baby and we were sort of talking about how when you're older, if you have a newborn, you gotta start from scratch socially 'cause your old friends are not, you know, they're not doing potty training, and they're not doing car seats, and all that kind of stuff.
• 55:01
  But first thing that came to my mind was, "Do you really wanna go back to a rear-facing car seat?" And she was like, "Oh, all right. You know what? Nevermind."
• 55:09
  I'm like, that was the one- It's the stuff you forget about, all the things you internalize when you're in it and then you forget about. It's crazy. Do you wanna put wipes on auto delivery again? You know?
• 55:18
  Do you wanna get, like, furniture, major furniture that you will only keep for a couple of years, like a glider? I don't know if you guys still have your...
• 55:25
  Uh, you must have had a, like, at least one glider, right, between your three kids? Yeah, we had three kids under three. It was fucking chaos. Did you keep it or is it gone? Did you get rid of it?
• 55:33
  I think we gave it to some friends. Yeah, you gave it to some poor bastard. We tried to... We kept some keepsakes, but we tried to ditch all that stuff. Yeah.
• 55:39
  But imagine having to, having to start with that all over again, you know? Or daycare. I mean, not- Daycare's, like, a real thing. I mean, I'm talking like just appointments.
• 55:47
  Like, going to that many appointments, I don't think I could have it in me. You know, I love other people's babies and it's wild to me. Love babies.
• 55:54
  Yeah, of course everyone's babies are better than your own babies 'cause, you know, it's like eating at a restaurant. You walk and leave the mess behind.
• 56:01
  The rear-facing car seat's a big one because here's the thing, and I don't know if you guys went this far, you forget when they're the babies you don't take them out of the car seat. Mm-hmm.
• 56:08
  You take the car seat out and it's 4,000- Lugging it... fucking pounds, and then you're like, "Doc, why does my back hurt?" 'Cause you're 43 and you had a baby. Yeah. [laughs] Each and every. And look, more power to you.
• 56:19
  I get it. We did IVF, the whole thing. If you really want it and you can't, and you've wanted to, great. Babies are amazing. We need more babies. Or it's all over. It doesn't matter. And best wishes.
• 56:29
  But yeah, it's fucking hard. Yeah. Being a first time parent and wondering what kind of strollers to need and, like, how money, you know? And j- like, you need a jogging...
• 56:39
  I mean, I guess that would be one good thing about doing it all over again, is, like, there'd be some, like, piddling shit that you would be like, all right, I would never get, like, a, a hair r- uh, and comb set like I got for Paul.
• 56:50
  Like, that was on my registry. 'Cause, like, I have brushed that child's hair maybe four times in my entire life. The other day Dana said, "Henry, I gotta ask. You did just take a shower. I watched you go in and out.
• 57:01
  Like, why is your hair that texture?" Mm-hmm. "You just took a shower." He's like, "Yeah, I don't know. I just took a shower." And then she goes, "But did you use shampoo?" He's like, "Oh, no. I never use that.
• 57:11
  It always gets in my eyes." [laughs] And she was like, "What do you mean never?" He's like, "I've never, like years, I've... I do not use shampoo." We're like, "Ah, okay, got it." Mm-hmm. Sure.
• 57:19
  That's why your head smells like hair oil. Yeah, James has had B.O. right from the shower and I've had to say...
• 57:26
  I let him use some very fancy bath gel of mine 'cause I just didn't want the scent, and I was like, "But you need to use the soap for your butt hole." I have a friend, and I was like, "This is actually a good idea."
• 57:34
  Her kids were doing such a shit job cleaning themselves. Really? They're boys.
• 57:38
  She said, [laughs] "If you don't start cleaning yourself correctly, I'm gonna put on a swimsuit and get in the shower with you and show you how to do it," and that... Is that good? I'm gonna say that to my children.
• 57:48
  It's gonna be s- It's-... so upset. I can't wait. If you make it hard, I'll make it hard. Like, I've got... I don't care about anything.
• 57:55
  Can I ask you a [laughs] disgusting, maybe pers- maybe this will make it on the pod or not. Nothing matters. Go. Okay. Was it weird to learn to take care of a girl's body parts when you had a girl baby? No.
• 58:07
  I just wanted to make sure I did it. It wasn't weird to me. No, I genuinely... I was am- among the first of my friends to have kids, but not the first.
• 58:15
  And a couple friends had daughters, and I just literally was like, "How does this work?" Like- Mm-hmm... "How does this work?"
• 58:19
  And they were like, "Just you gotta make sure you wipe front to back, genuinely, or else," like we talked about with the jerking off, like, it becomes your problem, and they're miserable, and then they're crying for another reason, so just do that.
• 58:31
  No, I don't think so. Again, there's basic stuff. They're just fucking babies to me. I mean, boys are- Uh-huh... almost more of a pain.
• 58:38
  Like, if you don't point that penis up in the diaper, or, I mean, if you don't point it down, nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting 'cause I, I...
• 58:46
  We haven't had to go through this, but I have friends who, that either didn't circumcise their kids but then they had to later on because they had the foreskin issues. Mm.
• 58:54
  And I know at least two friends who had to re-circumcise their kids 'cause the first one didn't take. This is fucking Braveheart? Jesus. What a nightmare. But other than that, yeah, I, I mean, I don't wanna get into...
• 59:04
  Circumcision is a nice light topic. But having grown up around a brother and around a dad, I don't love a penis.
• 59:11
  It's not my favorite thing, but I was like, well, I know, you know, I know how it kind of works and what it looks like. No, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah, no, I don't know.
• 59:18
  It seemed less complicated almost because, uh, I, I was like, this is as simple as this situation's ever gonna be. Oh. You know, now I'm... N- no one talks to me about it.
• 59:27
  I remember Louis CK, prior to when we knew everything about him, I think he did a bit about how no one tells you when you're a dad that you have to clean poop out of a girl's vagina, and that was something that I was like, ooh, that's one experience that I'm glad, I'm not sad to have missed, but I was like, well, that's a- Yeah...
• 59:42
  I'm sure that's a mind fuck for some guys. I guess so.
• 59:46
  I don't know how genuinely, like, practically in the moment when you're talking about do you wanna go back to a rear-facing car seat, you're so fucking tired and you're so in it. Mm.
• 59:54
  Is the first time you change a diaper, which they never tell you, doesn't smell bad because they haven't started eating real food yet. Right. And then that's when it gets bad.
• 1:00:01
  Like, it's just the way of your life at that point. I don't know how that is any different, m- much less any worse than...
• 1:00:08
  I was telling Oliver the other day, we were walking through a parking lot, and somehow we got to yada, yada, yada, like, the way you used to shit all the way up your back into your hair on planes. Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:18
  And he was like, "Yeah, but I mean, I never did that." I was like, "Every time." Yeah. "And we planned around it." He's like, "Why did you have extra clothes for me?" What do you think?
• 1:00:25
  'Cause it takes 45 minutes in the bathroom. And ev- I don't think you understand. And extra clothes for you. Everything is ruined. Yeah, and extra clothes for me. Yeah. I was like, that's it.
• 1:00:32
  So I don't know, like- Yeah... wiping poop out of a vagina. Getting a shitty onesie off over a baby's head. Yeah. Like, I'm shocked.
• 1:00:40
  And I was like, you're like, either I'm gonna have to c- rip this shit-ass thing over the baby's head or I'm gonna have to get scissors and cut it off, but I can't operate scissors while the baby's naked.
• 1:00:49
  Because I'm in an airplane bathroom. He's like, "Why didn't you just put me under the sink?" I was likeYou're right. Why didn't I just function? Leave the kid in the car. Like Jesus Christ.
• 1:00:58
  Anything- There's also a much greater chance that I would, just based on how my brain is lately, like there's a good chance I would leave a baby in the car, like the, at this day and age. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:01:08
  I've probably got a baby in the car right now. Three of three. So you have one just to- That's three of three... you know, an extra.
• 1:01:13
  Yeah, no, that didn't, but I mean, you still gotta get poop out of ball crevices and p- penis, again, again, with the circumcision. Good luck with the poop around that. It's all a nightmare. Yes.
• 1:01:21
  But it's what you signed up for. It gets so much harder from there, to be clear. All right, and so what else were we gonna talk about today besides candy and Shitty Vaginas? Uh, family costumes.
• 1:01:31
  We don't do family costumes. I wanna do it one time. That's my goal. This is how I'm, like, running a marathon. I wanna do it once. We have two families in our lives who fucking nail it.
• 1:01:40
  Every year I'm like, ha- the buy-in from everyone, the level of detail and commitment, and it's fantastic. I would love to do it once. Really?
• 1:01:50
  Well, that's passed for us, and now I'm back to just being a hater, where I'm like, "Well, that's for the Instagram. That's not really, like, for your family.
• 1:01:56
  That's for you so that you can put it on Instagram so that your friends will be like, 'You guys are awesome.'" You know? I guess, but we don't put our kids... For us, it's about celebrating the arts, Claire. Mm.
• 1:02:04
  You know? And people expressing themselves. Okay. Yeah, the culture and everything like that. Now, I've seen some good ones.
• 1:02:11
  Like, one of my favorite ones was from Trunk or Treat a couple years ago, and there was a dad dressed like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, and then the mom was, like, you know, dressed like Madonna. Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:20
  And the baby was wearing, like, a little baby Savannah Peaches, you know, shirt, like jersey, and that was incredibly cute. That was a good one, where, you know- I'm down for that... mm. God, that movie's so good.
• 1:02:30
  Yeah, it is good. That movie's good. My boys love that movie. Oh, it's so good. Yeah, our friends have done, like, Goonies. They've done Bond villains, you know, some great ones. Yeah. One time. Okay. But I don't know.
• 1:02:39
  Nobody talks to me. So it doesn't matter. S- Steve and I, we were laughing 'cause yesterday morning we had one of those, like, dumb married couple fights where, "I fucking hate you. Like, get out of here.
• 1:02:50
  I don't wanna even... I won't even say goodbye to you when you leave the house." Mm-hmm. He said, like, "I'm leaving now." And I said, "K."
• 1:02:56
  And we kinda rehashed the fight later on, and I was saying how stupid it was, and we were laughing. But Steve was like, "No, it's deadly serious."
• 1:03:02
  He had gotten up, and he was tired, which he always is, and he doesn't sleep well. And I said, "You should see a sleep doctor. You might need a CPAP machine." And he said, "No, it's my anxiety. It keeps me up at night."
• 1:03:13
  And I said, "Well, maybe you should take your anti-anxiety pill in the morning instead of at night." And he said, "I try to." And I said, "All right, fine."
• 1:03:21
  He just, like, went to angry for some reason 'cause I was like, "I can't believe it's my load, this lot in life to hear this man talk about how tired he is every day," which was not actually a, like a hard thing.
• 1:03:32
  But sometimes certain, you know, Wednesday mornings, it is not what you wanna be doing. So we were, like, mad at each other, and then later on we're like, "Okay, that was a dumb married person fight," you know?
• 1:03:41
  But since Dana travels so much and you seem like a much nicer person, do you guys have those kinda... What are that like with- Yeah. No, I'm, I'm, I'm usually the problem o- one way or another.
• 1:03:51
  Either I have started the fight by existing or because I will in my head go, "Don't say that, don't say that, don't say that," and then I say it and I go, "Here we go. What did you fucking expect? You're an idiot.
• 1:04:03
  Try to do less." Yeah, we... I mean, totally we have those things. And it's almost always 'cause we're just so fucking tired. Not to come back- Yeah...
• 1:04:11
  to you telling the story about Steve being tired, but it's just both...
• 1:04:13
  You're just exasperated about 400 other things, and yes, this thing is annoying 'cause you've chosen to live with this person for the rest of your life. Best wishes.
• 1:04:19
  And some of these things are annoying, and they add up, or they're annoying in the moment, or they're just like you didn't think through it or whatever it is.
• 1:04:25
  Or, you know, mine will not always be, but, like, she already knows she fucked something up, and I will remind her. Yeah. And it's like, why do, why? No, you- You know what's a good one?
• 1:04:36
  That's totally unnecessary Wives love it if they fuck something up and then you ask them why they did that. That's always, like, a good probing question. [laughs] Try it. See how that goes. Yeah.
• 1:04:47
  It's always the dumbest shit, and we, too.
• 1:04:50
  Like, I, half the time now, for I think both of our sakes, I just walk out, and I'll go on a walk around our neighborhood, and 10 minutes into it, one of us will call the other and be like, "It's fucking stupid." Yeah.
• 1:05:01
  I mean, it's... And they're not as bad as... If people are listening who have younger kids, it's so much worse when your kids are very young 'cause you are so tired and- Oh, God, yeah... and you have so little control.
• 1:05:08
  And it takes a lot of energy to articulate yourself and to wait, like you said, to, like, take that walk or to just know to shut it, you know, not to have the last word or to bring up the old thing.
• 1:05:19
  But when you are tired, you don't have those skills. And so that's why it seems like you're fighting so much more. It's impossible.
• 1:05:24
  Yeah, to folks listening, is there an element of it's better to talk it out than to just give up? Sometimes. Sometimes. Like the other night, all the kids were mad at me.
• 1:05:34
  Again, probably my fault and probably their fault. Dana had to listen to all of it.
• 1:05:38
  Like, one of the things we're dealing with, and I think I mentioned it, is that now our house for a year is also where she works, which was a fine situation for her for three years, and now we're here, and the kids are like, "Well, but she's right around the corner."
• 1:05:51
  I'm like, "That's not her fucking fault. That's her office." Yeah, no. There's no version of us, like, figuring out somewhere else Mom can work. Go fuck yourselves. When the door's closed, don't go in.
• 1:05:59
  We're fighting about this and all this, and I'm trying to protect her. I'm mad at them, but I'm also like, "But it is dinner time. Could you get off the phone for 10 fucking minutes so we can deal with these two?
• 1:06:06
  I'll still put them to bed." Whatever. It's all dumb.
• 1:06:08
  And eventually I literally just in the middle of it just walked into the bedroom and gently closed the door, and I got under the covers, and I was like, if they need me, and then I woke up in the morning.
• 1:06:16
  'Cause no one wanted to talk to me anymore, and it was better if I wasn't part of it. Yeah.
• 1:06:21
  Whether it was, like, the fight with her, with him about this and this, I was like, "I'm gonna remove myself 'cause I know I'm not making it better, and I'll make it worse because fuck them, and I'll make sure they know that."
• 1:06:31
  I don't know. I just- No. No I don't know. I don't believe in the rule of never go to bed angry. Like, I think sometimes you just gotta go to bed, and you won't be angry in the morning, and the sleep takes care of that.
• 1:06:41
  Like, why drag out some argument, especially when you're like, "I know I'm just tired, and I'm sick of you guys." There's no talking through it. It's just we need some- But by the way-... rest...
• 1:06:49
  even if half the time it is a legitimate grievance on anyone's part or it goes both ways or whatever-It doesn't matter. Right. It doesn't matter. We're so old, Claire.
• 1:06:59
  N- we don't have hopes and ambitions, and, like, none of this sh- it doesn't fucking matter. Yeah. Even if you have a grievance, congrats, put it in the box. No one's gonna read it. Go to bed. Yeah.
• 1:07:07
  That was part of the reason why I was so glad to get out of town, 'cause Steve and James were having... They were just, like, not...
• 1:07:12
  Like, Steve had just lost that, that layer of protective fat th- that helps you handle a 10-year-old boy- Yeah... with ADHD. Yeah.
• 1:07:19
  And so he was just, like, falling for the bait constantly, and I was as sick of Steve as I was of James. Yeah. And I was like, "I'm gonna get out of here, 'cause I'm sick of hearing you guys.
• 1:07:26
  And also, I'm sure that one fewer person in the house is gonna make everything easier."
• 1:07:31
  And it seemed like it was, but, you know, it was the old James forgot about a project, and he fucked it up, and then Steve's helping him with it, but he's mad. And I was like, "Just let James off and- It's a toxic brew.
• 1:07:42
  Yeah. A- and some of it's inevitable, and you're gonna just deal with it, and that'll be what your kids talk to their therapist about, among many other things. But yeah, I just try to remove myself.
• 1:07:50
  I know I'm very rarely, like, the helpful linchpin of the operation. Do you have rules about w- arguing in front of the kids? Dana really hates it. I totally get it.
• 1:08:00
  And they p- as you know, they pick up on fucking everything. So yeah, and then again, it'll usually be my fault. Oh. But again, I don't know. Even just saying out loud, I'm just like, "Just walk away."
• 1:08:09
  Well, we do argue in front of the kids sometimes, and I mean, it's, as I say out loud, I'm like, "It's, it's not toxic arguing," just in that no one's drunk, or there's no fighting below the belt.
• 1:08:18
  And I'm like, you know what? I think it's actually important for kids to see, as long as, again, you're sort of fighting by gentleman's rules, that, like, you- Well, 100%, we'll do that.
• 1:08:26
  Conversations are all just be like, "This is not an argument. Like, we're just trying to figure this out, and we're tired, and it's complicated." Like, they need to see you work. Like, this shit is hard.
• 1:08:33
  I, as I told you, I will frequently pull up my entire calendar on a big screen and go, "Kids, I understand you wanna go to Jeff's house on zero notice, but this is what I'm fucking dealing with every day." Yeah.
• 1:08:42
  And, you know, sorry, sometimes we're gonna wrestle with it, you and me and her and this. That's it. You gotta deal with it. It's not easy. Yeah. No, I guess I believe... I feel like my parents never said sorry to me.
• 1:08:53
  And not like parents... That sounds very entitled. But even when I feel like they owed me, you know. And so I try to show kids, like, it's okay to be mad and okay to even be a jerk some...
• 1:09:03
  It's not okay to be a jerk, but if you can come back and say you're sorry, like, that is more important than n- never fighting. No, that, I think that shows you more grown up than not fighting.
• 1:09:11
  And again, when I say, like, I extricate itself, it's 'cause it, not that I won't, like, I don't wanna say I stand my ground or, like, reinforce whatever, but I'm just like, we have reached the point
• 1:09:21
  where it only gets worse, and nothing is achieved here. Yeah. And that's when I just do the Homer into the bushes thing. Yes. And nobody misses me, to be clear. I s- I saw a sweater for sale on Instagram that is...
• 1:09:33
  I would never buy it 'cause it's so cheesy, but it's the Homer disappearing into the woods. It's a green fleece jacket, and then the Homer is, like, sort of embedded- Mm-hmm...
• 1:09:42
  into it, so it looks like he is, like, disappearing- Right... into the jacket. I was like, "It's pretty good." That's me from society. Whenever you grow a beard, which again...
• 1:09:49
  Well, actually, I am growing a beard, a light beard right now, 'cause I am taking hair regrowth medication. So I have a little- That's exciting... more facial hair. Maybe you can tell. Does that stuff work in 2025?
• 1:09:58
  I think so. I had been seeing more of my scalp, and it was really shiny, and I didn't care for that.
• 1:10:03
  And then whenever I take a shower, I was thinking about you, 'cause I was like, "You probably have a lot more hair in your house than I do.
• 1:10:09
  You probably know better than my husband does the feeling of washing dishes and then feeling, like, a long hair- Oh, yeah... attached to your hand." Yeah. But I would take a shower.
• 1:10:18
  My little habit is I pull it through so that I stick it to the shower wall. Oh, yeah. Twirl it up- I'm familiar with that... and then throw it in the garbage. But I was pulling up, like, chunks. And, um- That's great.
• 1:10:27
  Yeah. Thank you. But I have more arm hair, more face hair, more nostril hair. It's really coming in all over, which is fine. Winter's coming, so. Well, I guess that's the trade-off, right? But it's like- Yeah...
• 1:10:36
  it's nice that's something that they seem to have made progress on.
• 1:10:40
  Maybe not solved, but- Yeah, for m- for men, it's, like, almost a mistake that I'm even pointing out, but- No, but I mean just in general, like, on the list of things that are complicated, making hair follicles work again.
• 1:10:48
  We could figure that out, right? Yeah. I'll take it. I for sure will... I'll take a medicine to solve any problem.
• 1:10:54
  Like, I'm grateful that I don't take Ozempic just so I don't have the time to investigate it and get it and give it to myself. Mm-hmm. But I'm also like, hell, whatever the hell, I'll take a pill- Doesn't matter...
• 1:11:03
  for my skin, for my hair, my heart, you know, like, my ovaries, whatever. Let's get into it, you know? Yeah. Don't... Or my other thing is just, just take it out. Whatever the organ is- [laughs] Yeah...
• 1:11:12
  that's not working, just take... I don't wanna deal with it anymore. Like, I just- Yeah. Not right now, but for, like, my kidney. Did you get a vasectomy? Is that too much? Is that too personal?
• 1:11:21
  No, I don't care about that. Guys gotta talk about this shit. I did not. I offered to and was told, "Don't," which was interesting. This was, like, five years ago. And I was like, "Did I just call your bluff?"
• 1:11:31
  And she was like, "I don't know, it just feels final." I'm like, "I don't know." I told you, we have one in the freezer that's, like, 15 years old, so it shouldn't matter.
• 1:11:40
  I don't know if it's because she just doesn't want me out of commission for two days, or it just feels- Mm-hmm... like jinxing the operation, but I'm like, they're 10, 11 and 12 now. Like, they're, I think we're good.
• 1:11:48
  Like, again- Yeah. Now- I'll... You know what I'll say to her? Yeah. "Would you like to go back to a rear-facing car seat?" And she'll take the scissors out herself probably, 'cause she hated those things so much.
• 1:11:56
  That would be- "You picked the heaviest car seats we could possibly buy." I was like, "They're the safest ones. That's why they're so heavy."
• 1:12:02
  "Well, I can't lift them, so you're gonna be the one that gets them out of the car." I'm like, "I'll be the one who gets them out of the car." And I'm like, "Back hurts." And she's, "Fuck you." Yeah.
• 1:12:10
  And now they're older. And also, I don't think you can actually... I think all car seats are kind of the same too, I think I've learned. I feel like it's not legal to sell a car seat that doesn't work.
• 1:12:19
  Like- Well, we had a really good fight once. She's got a little hoarder in her. Just a little bit. Well, stuff is good. Stuff can be nice. Well, 'cause I'm a f- I'm so... God, I'm such a pain in the ass, Claire.
• 1:12:30
  Purging, but also... God, this is shit is- Holier than thou purging. You could just see her eyes glazing back in her head. This was years ago. I walk up the doorstep from work, and
• 1:12:41
  there's a couple random car seats on our front door. They're old. They're older, used clearly. Mm-hmm. But, like, in, in okay condition. And I know either the second they've been in any sort of accident- Mm...
• 1:12:54
  or they're past this expiration date, you're not supposed to use them at all. Mm. Toss them like- Right... like a bike helmet, whatever. Most people don't. I acknowledge that.I go in, "Hey." I tried to be gentle.
• 1:13:03
  Told myself, "Don't fucking do it, bud." And I said, "Some car seats outside." I was like, "That's... So are they for someone else? 'Cause we've got enough for all three kids in two cars."
• 1:13:11
  Well, she- "Oh, well, my friend was giving them away, so I thought I'd take them just in case we need them." Yeah. One, we don't. And then I s- it was like the don't say it thing. I said, "Okay, but just
• 1:13:21
  so you know, it does say if the manufacture date," whatever it was, five years, 10 years. Just so you know. Whatever it is. Mm-hmm. "So technically we're not supposed to use them." And it was just silence.
• 1:13:32
  Oh, it like- And I was like, "Oh, I fucking-" Before she thanked you? Oh, sh- I mean, I could just hear her, like, going through her head every mistake she has made in choosing me as her partner. Uh-oh.
• 1:13:42
  Knowing I was gonna say that. Should never have brought them home because she knew I was gonna say that, but now she's gonna fucking keep them because I s- I mean, the whole thing in 10 seconds- Yeah... of silence.
• 1:13:50
  Meanwhile, I'm just like, "What an idiot." Like, "What a-" Yeah... "fucking idiot." She's like, "I'm gonna go get some more car seats now, too." All at once. I mean, car seats are fucking huge.
• 1:14:01
  That is, like, I could see... And you do have an expired car seat, you should be allowed to take it, I believe, to your police station, and I think they recycle them. Throw away. Target used to. Again- Car seats...
• 1:14:10
  I'm old. It was a long time ago, but a- anyways, it's like, just- No. I... God, you really got me onto, like, a spiral about car seat.
• 1:14:17
  I never actually technically learned how to install a car seat properly, so thankfully- They've only made it. Congratulations. [laughs] Thankfully, like, all the things worked out f- well.
• 1:14:27
  I have a friend who s- became an expert in cleaning car seats 'cause her kid had horrible motion sickness, so he would always throw up all over himself and the car seat, and, like, the deep clean of the car seat, you know.
• 1:14:37
  And I remember I thought we were smart 'cause we got hand-me-down car seats, but then of course you hear, "Well, you never know," you know, and then I would never take that risk.
• 1:14:44
  And we're getting hand-me-down shoes, and someone saying, "Uh, I wouldn't. Isn't it gonna fuck up your kid's feet?" Which is, like, hilarious with- That shit. So yeah.
• 1:14:53
  I mean, I kinda wish I could have another kid just so I could do it again and be like, "I don't give a fuck." I'm batting 1,000. Yeah. Yeah, don't give a fuck. Yeah. Buy, get the crib, stuff it full of things. Yeah.
• 1:15:02
  Make it made out of- Blanket, pillows... make the, the pieces too close together. Yeah. Let's risk it all. Yeah. Yeah. Leaving you in the car, and you're asleep face down.
• 1:15:11
  Are you gonna do all the- We made it through the Little Ice Age. I'm sorry. The fucking... This is gonna be f- this kid's gonna be fine, probably. Yeah, maybe. You never know, but yeah. I could not do that all again.
• 1:15:20
  It is too hard. Life is too sad, like, too hard. I don't have the need to, like... That's why we're gonna get a puppy, I think, so that we can have the bullshit, and I can be mad.
• 1:15:28
  But, like, you can yell at a puppy a little bit, and n- no one will tell you you're- But as my buddy Drew said, the first of us to has kids, he said, "You know what the difference between a dog and a kid is?"
• 1:15:37
  I was like, "'Cause this could go anywhere." And he said, "When you have a dog, it's a puppy for two years, and then if you do it right, it's just a dog for 10 years, and you're good.
• 1:15:47
  But with a baby, every six months you're like, 'I'm nailing it,' and then you're not, and then until they're 40." Yeah. So best wishes. That's a young man's game, young woman's game. And we are closed for business.
• 1:15:57
  That is certainly sure. Yeah. I have a friend who's my kids' age, and she said the dental hygienist asked if she was gonna go for a girl. We were laughing. We were deciding we had to laugh. [laughs] It's like we're...
• 1:16:08
  As if even if you had a baby at 45- Like in kidnapping? Like what?
• 1:16:11
  Well, as if you have a girl, and the girl is all of a sudden gonna be, like, net negative work 'cause she's gonna be coming along like- Yeah, let's unpack that whole question. Yeah. Perfect.
• 1:16:22
  No, I always love that question too, and you're like, "Also, I almost died when I gave birth, so fuck on that."
• 1:16:29
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• 1:16:46
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