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Summer Rewind: This Is Me At My Best · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  But I remember the first time I had my supper club group of friends over, and someone brought out a bowl, and it was the first time since my son was born, and I was hosting.
• 0:09
  And I was waffling over whether to get high while he was sleeping in his crib, and she said, "Claire, it's not like you're gonna put him in the oven."
• 0:15
  Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this. We'll be talking about/crashing out over topics like- "Mom, what's a coup?" during morning carpool...
• 0:28
  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.
• 0:40
  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.
• 0:51
  And if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet, and then drop us a nice little five-star review.
• 0:59
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions@notrightnow.show.
• 1:05
  [upbeat music] What I wanna know is how your DC people are doing, who work in government and whatnot, who's worried about their job, and their funding, and flying in DC airspace, things like that.
• 1:33
  All of the things. It's amazing 'cause you... It seems lazy to think, "Well, this thing that happened today can't be totally chalked up to these asshats." Right. And but then, [laughs]
• 1:49
  turns out probably, maybe- Mm-hmm... at least somewhat. It's like the, "Did climate change cause this fire?" It didn't fucking help, I'll tell you that much. It's like my kid this morning, "The Dimetapp didn't work.
• 1:59
  I still have a headache." I'm like, "Maybe it would be worse," and he's like, "Maybe go fuck yourself." Oh. I don't know. They're not, they're not great. Yeah.
• 2:05
  And, uh, obviously, the ones with kids, and nobody likes losing their job. It's so easy to shit on government of various sizes, and shapes, and forms, and much of it is earned, just like capitalism.
• 2:17
  But on the other hand, there's some really incredible lifelong public servants who served in the last version of this administration for as long as they possibly could, and then other ones, and now we're back at this one.
• 2:28
  And a version of the same thing as last time, which is, "Okay, I'll stay and fight," and other ones which are like, "I just got what appears to be a phishing email from E- Elon Musk telling me I can type the word retire, and I'll get severance starting today."
• 2:45
  And you're like, "No, no, uh, maybe I should get the fuck out of here."
• 2:48
  So the point is, like, we're all anywhere from four to eight to 1,000 years older, and that means you have different responsibilities, and you're parenting real kids, and you have people to feed.
• 3:01
  Maybe your spouse is working more, or working less, or not at all, or if you have one, or parenting your parents. And it's the same. It's different. Everybody's, I think, exhausted. Yeah.
• 3:13
  I have a friend whose husband works in gov- I think they both work in government. She said her husband's job was under threat last time this person was in office, and now he's back to fearing it again.
• 3:22
  And something I've come to
• 3:24
  more appreciate is what hell job searches are these days compared to five or 10 years ago, when you are working with an algorithm that has been trained to look for jobs a certain way, and you may not be trained to job search to speak to that algorithm.
• 3:43
  Not to mention, maybe you actually like your job and/or you wanna be one of the good ones who sticks around to cause the good trouble. And it's not even, like, DC stuff.
• 3:51
  My friend's, uh, sister is a nurse in the VA, and she got that fork-in-the-road email, and I am just appreciating anew how much I don't understand how government works.
• 4:01
  And I feel like sex ed and civics, we should get mandatory refreshers on every five years or so. And also, it's that, are they doing this on purpose to confuse us and overwhelm us?
• 4:12
  What is happening behind the scenes that we're too busy focusing on right now? Not to sound like galaxy brain, but- No, it's not galaxy brain.
• 4:20
  From last time, from understanding what happened while they were, at least on the federal level, somewhat out of power to this time, and the folks behind the machine, which is how government's always worked.
• 4:31
  The chief of staff is the person who's run the country for 75 years, so it's very complicated. But I think there is both a
• 4:40
  master plan that has been long developed being executed at a lot of levels, some of which by relatively intelligent, evil people, and in a lot of other ways, by morons who
• 4:55
  are not interested in how it functions. You can only tear down so much before you're like, "We forgot to put somebody in charge of the FAA."
• 5:03
  So I think the answer is yes to all of it, which is, yeah, there is a master plan. They wrote it down in a fucking textbook and, and- Yeah... made a PDF of it two years ago, and they're doing a lot of it.
• 5:12
  They can only do so much. Yes, the answer is yes. Yeah.
• 5:15
  And like you said, your friend at the VA, and nonprofits, and all this stuff, and, and even our work, we're looking at it going, "Okay, we have to be very strategic about where we can be effective for our purposes, but also because people trust us to tell them where they can be effective, and we don't wanna waste their effort."
• 5:33
  And some of that's just gonna be waiting and seeing what the fuck is happening. I have some other questions that are current events related. I also wanna know, are you ready for bird flu?
• 5:41
  'Cause I've been seeing, my Instagram is saying it's time to get serious about bird flu, and I'm like, "All right. Ready. Let's do it. Let's get serious." Let's, let's fucking do it. How do I start?
• 5:49
  I'm not gonna touch the dead bird if I see it on the sidewalk. Done. I won't start a chicken coop. I don't know what else to do. Everyone can check out my conversation with Naheed Bhadelia.
• 5:59
  She is the best as a person and among the best in the world at this, and the most basic takeaway is- It's not a pandemic yet, but it's definitely not as great of a place as it was last year.
• 6:13
  [laughs] Like, it's not going well, and that was the week before everybody took office. Stay away from birds, unfortunately. Don't get new birds.
• 6:23
  It's the stuff that's like a bummer where you're like, "Don't refill my bird feeder?" It's like, yeah, don't, just don't touch that shit, 'cause also we don't know how it transmits yet.
• 6:29
  I was just telling my friends, we all saw those Instagram posts about, I got my parents this bird feeder with an e-cam and cam birds and, and I'm like, [laughs] those were the things. That was it.
• 6:39
  That was like the, the Trojan Horse. Mm-hmm. The Trojan bird. Mm-hmm. Was grandparents with bird cams. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll put the link out there for this. Again, I try to be pretty,
• 6:50
  have a sober accounting of these things as, as much as possible, which often can, can seem [laughs] galaxy brain or like hysterics, but that's how things go sometimes. It's not great.
• 7:00
  There's some things we're better prepared for and others we're not. Yeah. And also, I think we've forgotten how to handle sickness right now. We both had sick kids this week, which we can talk about. Mm-hmm.
• 7:09
  I have one home right now. Mm-hmm. I have another one at school. He probably shouldn't be at school, but- Mm-hmm... priorities. I've dealt with this. Yep. Yeah.
• 7:16
  And my son had to miss the science fair today, which he's literally been working on- Oh, no. After all that? Fuck. Yeah, since... He's been working on this since August, and- [sighs]...
• 7:24
  the teacher, I emailed her yesterday. I'll gloss over the science fair details, but I said, "I think he's sick. What should I do?" And she recommended that he come in sick, present, and go home. Mm.
• 7:33
  And he's too sick for that. Oh. Like, I would feel bad for him. Yeah.
• 7:36
  But my friend who's judging it is a nurse, and she was pondering wearing a mask to judge it, and then she was worried that she might get blowback from conservative parents who are former anti-mask types.
• 7:47
  And I was like, "I think you're still allowed to not want to be sick. I don't think that's a political stance. You shouldn't have to worry about that." But we had COVID a few weeks ago. You guys have had what?
• 7:57
  All kinds of stuff. Every, all of the things. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think we know what to do anymore and what is appropriate in terms of protecting our kids, protecting our teachers- [sighs]... protecting ourselves.
• 8:07
  I think we've completely lost the, the plot in terms of protocol. Yeah. And I'll try not to spend the whole conversation [laughs] like this, but that's my not right now face right now, uh, about seven different things.
• 8:20
  Yeah. W- we have forgotten a little bit.
• 8:22
  We also structurally, in a lot of places, made it, for example, illegal to wear masks in a lot of places under the auspices of facial identification and all kinds of shit like that. But that was obviously all on purpose.
• 8:38
  So there's a lot of institutional things that we're actually not capable of doing at the local, state, and federal level that we were capable of doing for at least a little while last time, whether those were blunt instruments or not.
• 8:51
  But a- a- a- as far as ourselves, from what I understand, and again, I, I feel very privileged to be able to talk to people like Dr.
• 8:58
  Padalia, who are like, "Look, the same shit that worked, that we figured out that worked 100 years ago, is still the basic things that everyone should be doing.
• 9:08
  And before you even get to the moral parts, it's like you should wash your hands, and you should probably do it with soap and water because, for example, with norovirus, hand sanitizer won't do it." Soap and water, man.
• 9:19
  And your kids might be annoyed at that 'cause they got used to the pump of the thing, but too bad. Please don't blow your nose into the air. Don't, just don't do that.
• 9:27
  And obviously, Claire, you have a problem with that, but if your kids could not do it too, that would be great. If you are gonna wear a mask, one, because it's the Good Samaritan thing to do.
• 9:35
  And Allison, if you're listening, she said... And Christ, if I could teach it to everybody, like you said, we need to revisit things every five years. She said, "Nobody's gonna get this from me." Mm.
• 9:46
  And boy, that's, that would be real helpful to just plaster everywhere, which is like, of course I don't fucking want it, and I definitely don't want my kids or grandparents or babies or whatever to have it.
• 9:58
  No one's gonna get it from me. And so, yeah, wear your mask. Like if, you know, that was part of sending my kid to school today. I needed him out of the house 1,000%. Gave him a mask. I said, "Here's your Diametab.
• 10:10
  I'll give you more later." He didn't have a fever. We did the home flu test, all the stuff. And you do as much as you can to protect them and yourselves, but also 'cause my wife is like, "Do not fucking get sick."
• 10:20
  Mm-hmm. Whatever. She's like, "You can ignore him for a full day, but you are not allowed [laughs] to get sick." Are you a, a good soldier when you're sick? I'm sure I'm a pain in the ass like most days.
• 10:29
  I'm very lucky that I, for whatever reason, don't get sick that often. So when I do, it's usually not ideal. But I had the real flu four or five years ago, was in the hospital for a few days. And I remember the doctor...
• 10:41
  This is pre, pre-COVID maybe. Who knows? And I remember the doctor looking at me and going, "You're really lucky, like you're in really good shape 'cause this is not great."
• 10:49
  That was one of those years when the flu was really bad. And I was like, "See, it's not just dad flu, whatever the fuck they call it." Mm. Of course that's true, but yeah, it was not great. So I don't know, man.
• 11:00
  I probably do a little too much, "Hey, champ, buck up. You'll be fine." And they're like, "I feel terrible," but... Yeah. My husband is sick, but he's out of the, the town right now.
• 11:09
  And you're in a different stage of parenting when you're like, you know what? Sometimes it's easier with one fewer human around. Totally.
• 11:14
  And I think I can be more sympathetic to him over text message while he's out than if he were home and he was third in line of the sick people.
• 11:23
  But that's also the thing of like just parenting in general, which is I would rather have you... And we always deal with this from working from home stuff.
• 11:31
  If both of us are there or whatever it is, I would rather have you out of the house or out of the state than within proximity but not contributing, right? Yeah. And just because you're just like, "But could you?
• 11:43
  Could you just come over here and deal with this macaroni and cheese problem?" Yeah. What is something you said not right now to either with your mouth or with your brain in the last 12 hours or so?
• 11:54
  What is something I really had to push? They've been... My wife is out of town. They've been strangely well-behaved for 48 hours, which means it's all gonna come crumbling down at some point. Oh, yeah.
• 12:07
  I think it was, "How come you didn't get- The specific Fage yogurt. This is the plain, and I wanted the vanilla.
• 12:18
  And I just sat there and thought to myself, again, you don't wanna go to, like, the starving kids in Africa thing. I just mostly skip that, and I, I just think to myself just, "Are you fucking kidding me?" It's hard.
• 12:27
  Like I s- I struggle not to immediately go to, "Here's the deal. I'm not gonna order any groceries for three weeks. We're gonna eat what we've got, and that's the deal.
• 12:35
  We'll strip it down to nothing, and you can either have peanut butter or no peanut butter, but this is the peanut butter we fucking have." And sometimes I do do that.
• 12:42
  I try not to react in the moment to that because I think when the child in question said that, I was in the middle of making three breakfasts, three lunches, feed the dog, all the stuff, and they often want them simultaneously.
• 12:56
  And I'm like, "The, uh... It's impossible." What about you? Let's see.
• 12:59
  Well, the biggest one I would say is that on the way to school, after my son told me he would like the Lunchable with the big chicken nugget, 'cause Thursdays there's no hot lunch and I don't make lunch, so we do Lunchables 'cause we're trash people, and they don't...
• 13:13
  I don't even know if there is a big Lunchable. But he said, "Did you get a call from the assistant principal?" And I said, "No, why?"
• 13:20
  And he said, "It's hard to explain," which is my least favorite thing in the world, which means it's not that hard to explain, he just doesn't wanna talk about it.
• 13:27
  And I guess he was overheard saying the F word apparently by some little rat fink narc girls who told on him, so he was brought to the principal's office during recess, which is great for ADHD kids.
• 13:41
  Definitely skip recess. And the assistant principal said basically that they couldn't prove it, and they couldn't get to the bottom of it. But my son was receptive to it. And for a second I was like, "Which F word?"
• 13:52
  'Cause there's two separate conversations. And then I was like, "I don't fucking care, honestly. We'll talk about this later, but what am I gonna say? Don't say that."
• 13:59
  Like, and I've had two calls about finding a new psychiatrist for him this week because we gotta better titrate his medication. Science project, Catholic Schools Week, Trump.
• 14:09
  Are the fires still happening in California, or are those all done? I haven't put that to rest yet. And Valentine's Day is coming, so I was like, "I can't."
• 14:18
  So my, "Not right now," was like whatever word he said or didn't say, I can't think about that too much right now.
• 14:24
  Let's back up to that moment, 'cause this is what really stuck with me when you texted me about this earlier, 'cause I felt it in, as my wife said, like in my cells when you said he said just apropos of nothing, walking to the car, whatever, "Hey, did the assistant principal text you yet?"
• 14:41
  Stop right there. Describe to me that feeling because you're not a first time... You didn't start parenting yesterday. That's the whole thing. Go, take me down that road. Before you even responded or he responded.
• 14:52
  Truly, if, if you had caught me on any other week where people hadn't been sick and there weren't... Battle of the Books, I didn't even mention that.
• 15:00
  I would've been probably devastated and truly concerned, and this time I think, yeah, I was mostly like, "I hope it's not a hate crime." Honestly, that is the main thing.
• 15:10
  If it is simply just being bad, like lowercase bad, like I can handle that. My standards have changed.
• 15:16
  I can't tell you how much I used to take it extremely personally, like it was a reflection of me and my everyday efforts. I thought teachers thought I told my kids like, "Hey, say fuck. Say it as much as you want."
• 15:27
  It's fun. It's funny. I think I more feel bummed right now about how much negativity this kid has been getting lately.
• 15:34
  I feel, like, pretty okay about the fact that we have movement on it, and we have a plan, and we're gonna see this new doctor.
• 15:40
  But my husband said the other day, "I wish we could enjoy him more," and we are just not really at an enjoyment stage right now. And
• 15:48
  I have the perspective to know that it is a stage, and it is gonna get better, and, uh, we're gonna talk about coping allegedly in a little bit.
• 15:55
  I take the right medication, I think, to help me keep from lying on the floor, which I do when things are really, really bad.
• 16:03
  But yeah, so in a weird way, I was like, "Well, this is not great, but just throw it on the pile. Throw it on the pile of everything else." That, what was it? "I wish we could enjoy him more"?
• 16:14
  One of, one of my children is same exact thing, but thankfully we have pros and cons. We got past that. His issues were more when he was younger, so it's so much easier, so much better. But instead, I now walk around.
• 16:30
  We've got these great digital photo frames, which I can't recommend enough, by a company called Aura, A-U-R-A. Okay. Not cheap, but they're an amazing way to just let your pictures or old family photos, whatever, live.
• 16:40
  Got them all around the house. And so instead, I walk around, and I see pictures of me and him during his more difficult period, and I'm like, "Boy, I would pay
• 16:49
  $67 million to go back and be a better parent during that time," but I guess I fucking can't. And so he's got whatever issues he's got because of how badly I handled that.
• 16:58
  And again, as my old therapist used to say, I'm shoulding all over myself. Yeah, so that's my version.
• 17:03
  Instead of being in the present moment, I'm like, "Boy, it would've been nice to have enjoyed that," and it's probably my fault. No. I think honestly old pictures and videos are such...
• 17:12
  Like, I've done some research on why they trigger these feelings, and it's just simply you can't not feel that certain way.
• 17:19
  And I'm the same way with this kid because he was objectively, like, such a cute baby and toddler, and so fat, and dimples, and- Mm-hmm... cute little face.
• 17:27
  But also he was the kid who would look over his shoulder and smile at you while he ran into the street. Mm-hmm. And that's hard to enjoy that. Mm-hmm. And it's hard not to freak out about that, and what are you gonna do?
• 17:37
  Just do the old hug him till he behaves? Mm-hmm. 'Cause that doesn't work. But the picture shows just a moment in time that doesn't reflect everything. Well, that's the thing.
• 17:45
  It's like somebody's curated Instagram, right? There's no videos of them just screaming, [laughs] like flashing by in the photo frames. Yeah. Or you saying, "I love you less every time you make me come in here."
• 17:56
  Like, I am not saying that's something I've said. I've certainly thought it and maybe paraphrased that. For a, for a while, my wife used to say that.
• 18:03
  She silently ended everything she said to them with the word "cocksucker." That was the end of the sentence in her mind, but it wasn't to them. You, you'll just reply about, "How come you didn't do this?"
• 18:13
  She's, "I don't know. Maybe 'cause I fucking provide for this entire family, cocksucker." It fits in everywhere. It is truly interesting where this, the alleged call from the vice principal.
• 18:22
  By the way, he was extremely nice. I sent him an email, and he was like, "We decided not to send him home with a think sheet," thank God, because he has two other longterm projects to work on.
• 18:31
  His Battle of the Books team didn't even make the top five, thank God. [laughs] Because we just don't need that. I could cancel the- Just a slaughter... whole fun, good job, whatever your name is. Mm-hmm.
• 18:43
  Like the book at the library.
• 18:44
  But yeah, in a weird way, I feel like amazed at how far we've come in terms of priorities, and hopefully in a few weeks we'll be in a place where I can more appropriately be mortified and horrified by such reports, as opposed to being like, "Well, I don't have time for that right now.
• 19:01
  Not right now." Not right now. A new podcast [laughs] brought to you by self-loathing and, and choices you can't take back.
• 19:09
  Well, my goal for today is that I wasted so much time yesterday on Reddit refreshing the Leopards Ate My Face Reddit page. Have you been on that page yet? No, but I can only imagine, and it's gotta be...
• 19:22
  It's the ultimate I told you so, right? Yeah. Except we all get punished. I compare the last Trump administration and this one to, to Ghostbusters II and the ooze. Mm. You know?
• 19:32
  Whenever you touch it, whether you take a bath in it or it just, you touch it with your finger, you don't feel good afterwards. So even the schadenfreude, you walk away just feeling gross.
• 19:42
  And so I was like, "I can't believe I wasted so much time with that."
• 19:45
  And it's not even as much time as I used to spend on the last administration, but this time, at, at least today, I'm gonna not delve into that, 'cause it's like, yeah, we all know there's people now who have regrets, and unfortunately the couple of examples out there are not gonna change anything.
• 20:01
  But it also just comes back to us. Like we are still though, you gotta give yourself a little grace, like re-training ourselves about how to operate in this.
• 20:12
  And again, it's different than it was in a lot of ways with families and kids and jobs and communications and social shit, but a lot of it is the same, which is you gotta protect yourself and your energy and your time.
• 20:22
  And that doesn't mean don't look at leopards eating faces, but set a fucking timer or something. Yeah.
• 20:27
  By the way, can't recommend enough, there's an app I've been using for a very long time on my computer, and it's pretty recently, past couple years, on your phone. It's called Freedom. It's a Mac app. It's fantastic.
• 20:36
  Yeah, I know Freedom. Unfortunately, I also know how to turn off Freedom. You know you can set it so you can't turn it off now? No, I didn't know that. Did you get around [laughs] did you get around that, you sicko? Yes.
• 20:50
  Yeah. Yeah. And like a kid who was like gonna get around the parental controls. Mm-hmm. I know, I know my... I can't trick myself. Yeah. No, I know. I, we all, we all have our various productivity.
• 20:57
  I like Tomato Timer when I just need to do- Sure... 25 minutes. I have a foot massager under my desk that times out after 30 minutes.
• 21:04
  Sometimes I'm just like, "Just gonna work and get a little half an hour massage-" Sure... "and that's all I need to do." But you are good. That's clever. I just...
• 21:12
  The other thing that has been interesting is that I'm getting a lot of good news from newsletters right now, like Popular Information on Substack- Mm-hmm... Garbage Day, Today in Tabs.
• 21:21
  However, Substack, which my newsletter's on, also sent out, I don't know if you saw yesterday, a new proclamation of its dedication to freedom of speech.
• 21:29
  And freedom of speech has a lot of different connotations now than it did five years ago, right? Mm-hmm. So that doesn't feel great. Come on over to Beehive. We'll take you. Who has a, a...
• 21:42
  Not right now, digital transformation. [laughs] Oh, I know. Like not just for me, but for all my readers. Get into it.
• 21:48
  I am moving Evil Witches over to a main platform so that I will at least own all my content in case Substack gets deleted or whatever it is.
• 21:57
  But media, I haven't looked at The Washington Post or New York Times homepage since November 6th. But yeah, that was all another thing that just made me feel icky. And again, I'm a small publisher.
• 22:08
  I'm just, I'm nothing and nobody, but then you get that feeling of, "Well, should I get off this? Should I make a stand and lead the way once my kids are back in school?" [laughs] Right.
• 22:18
  Once, once I do these other 40 things and my foot massage starts working. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's when the foot massager, like won't start that you're like, "Well, that's it." That's when I'll cry.
• 22:27
  I cry once every three years- Mm... and that will be one of the times when I cry. So speaking of crying, like if there ever is something that's evergreen with parenting and, and all this shit, it's obviously coping.
• 22:38
  It starts with the very
• 22:40
  earliest truthful, misleading, fundamental, it's a lot easier or harder than it sounds, advice to sleep when the baby's sleeping, which would be great, and sometimes you just can't 'cause you're so tired.
• 22:55
  But sometimes your coping is, "I'm gonna watch this TV show and nobody fucking talk to me. That's what I'm gonna do. I know I need to sleep. Doesn't matter."
• 23:02
  Maybe you were or still are a smoker or high or drank or, who fucking cares? Whatever it is. We've all got our vices or poisons, however you wanna put it.
• 23:12
  We're all self-aware enough to know which ones are actually bad for us and which ones are just a waste of time. But let's talk about our history of coping as parents. Tell me how this has gone for you.
• 23:25
  What has your journey been like? Well, I had a really great relationship. Like, I actually have no regrets. I don't drink anymore, but I don't regret sort of some of the most essential drinks.
• 23:37
  I'm saying that tongue in cheek, obviously, but I feel like I didn't really learn how to drink and mean it until after I had kids. You didn't really understand what it was like to unwind, to unplug.
• 23:48
  I remember taking my son to a play date. He was an infant, so there was no playing.
• 23:52
  He was sitting, at best, to a friend's house who had had her son at the same time, and we had been pregnant at the same time, and opening a bottle of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, OG, the best, like mom wine.
• 24:04
  And just to look at each other and stare at each other and just unload.
• 24:08
  This woman and I had gotten married at the same time, so it was a real journey to go from having it be a priority that we didn't have tan lines on our backs to- Mm-hmm... now sorting through all of this.
• 24:19
  I remember the first time I went out with like, I'll call her my witch, like my OG witch, when I came out and I was like I think really what I was saying is I hate maternity leave, and I feel wrong, and I feel lost, and I hate my husband for reasons he can't control.
• 24:33
  And we had drinks, and she just was like, "Yes, yes, let it out," and just the catharsis of that. And then I remember, I am recently off weed. I hope for the long haul, TBD. We can talk more about that later.
• 24:46
  But I remember the first time I had my supper club group of friends over, and someone brought out a bowl. And it was the first time since my son was born, and I was hosting.
• 24:56
  And I was waffling over whether to get high while he was sleeping in his crib, and she said, "Claire, it's not like you're gonna put him in the oven," which like made me laugh.
• 25:04
  [laughs] And I still, like, that's one for my record books, you know, that I think it's good for... It's good to use no matter what the drug is or what the situation is. Oh, that's so fucking good.
• 25:15
  Those were the main coping mechanisms. Right now, it's antidepressants, and it's trying to take care of myself, and getting outside, and exercising, and honestly, pooping. Anyway, that's the short answer. How about you?
• 25:28
  What were the chemicals or processes that kinda helped you? Yeah, for sure. I've been fully dependent on exercise my whole life, and I think part of that was by design and choice. I was like,
• 25:40
  I played seven varsity sports in high school. I played two sports in college. I swam in college for most of the year and then played baseball. That meant getting up at 4:30, in the water at 5:00.
• 25:50
  When it's dark, doing it again after. It just, it never stopped. And so I think I was pretty well programmed that way. But obviously, there was a fair amount of drinking for sure.
• 26:01
  I mean, in college with swimming, you really couldn't... I mean, you could, but it made it even that much harder.
• 26:09
  Like, you really couldn't party from Tuesday to Saturday really at all, which I know that doesn't seem like much of a trade-off for a lot of people.
• 26:16
  Well, for at least when, where I went to school, Colgate, which was great, was in the middle of nowhere, and it was less than zero most of the time. Like, that's what people did to cope.
• 26:24
  So there was a lot of binging on the other side when you could.
• 26:29
  And then I lived abroad, and I lived in New York, and my group that I worked with at ESPN was like, f- at the time, four guys under 28, and we partied, and it was great.
• 26:43
  And there was a lot of drinking, and that continued. Then w- my best friend died of cancer. Lot of drinking.
• 26:50
  Moved out to be out to the West Coast with my then long-distance girlfriend, now mother of my children, and kept doing that and was fully depressed. And then we basically couldn't have kids. Kept drinking.
• 27:03
  Spent all of our money on IVF. They told me the couldn't have kids wasn't my fault, despite the drinking, which was pretty shocking, honestly.
• 27:10
  But we actually never found out what the problem was because fucking whatever. Now we have three. And kept going with that, and honestly, it tapered off mostly because we didn't keep much around the house.
• 27:23
  Not for any particular reason. It was mostly 'cause we just didn't go out anymore. We had three kids in three years finally, and that was it. And then
• 27:31
  I gave my wife for some birthday or holiday or Christmas or something, a friend ran a really nice catering company, and I said, "Hey, I would love to take her to cocktail classes.
• 27:41
  She's really interested in the ritual of it. We can't go anywhere. We got all these tiny kids." And he's like, "Oh, I got a guy. Just pay him cash. He'll come over to your house. He'll just teach you. He's great."
• 27:50
  And we did that, and so she got really into making cocktails, and that was great. And we'd drink them, and we'd have them on, like, date nights when we did that and, and all that kind of stuff.
• 27:57
  But eventually, like, I just got so fucking tired on a clean day. I was like, "I, I can't." Like, it's just, it's just too much.
• 28:08
  And then I didn't really have anything except anxiety and stress for a while, and again, that's a not great dad period for sure.
• 28:17
  And then, not to celebrate it 'cause you're off of it, but also 'cause I'm fully aware it's a crutch, like that's when gummies took off in LA, and I had never been a weed person at all.
• 28:28
  I had really horrific asthma growing up, so I couldn't do any of that shit. But gummies, man, that was easy. And I'm somewhere in the middle. It doesn't crush me immediately, and but it doesn't take seven of them.
• 28:39
  I'm probably in the sweet spot. And now it's like I do that, which is really helpful. I've got clonazepam when I need it, but hopefully not much 'cause I understand that that's addicting, I guess. I don't know.
• 28:51
  Oh, and Prozac, sure. Oh, I'm on Zoloft. My husband's on it as for anxiety, and I'm on it for depression. Well, that was the thing. So I'm at 40, and they said basically when you go above 40, that's for depression.
• 29:05
  This is more for depression. They said the 40 I'm at, at least for me, they're like, "That should handle most of your stress." Depression is not my deal right now. Has been. It's stress.
• 29:14
  But it's really, it's this gummy at night, and I've joked before, but it's totally true. Five feet from here, I got a bag of... I've been getting these, the Feels gummies. I don't know if you've heard of those. Uh-huh.
• 29:23
  So anyways, they're one of the ones that are in the loophole of you can order them online because they're hemp. Uh-huh. And they're great. They just
• 29:31
  take the edge off enough that I can eventually go to sleep, but before that, I can not just get through. This is like where you'll make fun of me again.
• 29:38
  [laughs] Like get through bedtime and dinner, but also, like, have it be kind and nice. Yeah. Sometimes, not all the times. Meaningful. But if I don't- [laughs]... I don't know, man. It's not great.
• 29:48
  So that's basically the journey. Like, I exercise when I can. Yeah. I'm not anywhere in the shape I was in. I can't rely on it as much as I could. Why would you hold yourself to that standard?
• 29:57
  I know a mom who holds herself to the standard of being...
• 30:00
  She has three kids, and she is not the weight she was before she had ki- You know, and it's like, yeah, you're, you've generated a whole different body since then. Yeah, I don't have that excuse, but I'm just...
• 30:09
  I don't know. I don't know.
• 30:11
  Well, the drinking thing is really interesting to me, 'cause I don't know about your history, but I grew up seeing my parents have cocktail hour every night, and I remember it seemed very grown-up to have a signature cocktail, wanting to like a Manhattan.
• 30:23
  My mom drinks a Gibson, which is a... martini, but with an onion instead of an olive. And I am an all or nothing personality.
• 30:32
  At first it was food for me, and I had to go to therapy to learn how to eat in normal quantities and not just eat my feelings. Mm-hmm.
• 30:40
  And then drinking, it was during COVID that I realized that, what's that saying of one is not enough, or no, one is too many and 1,000 is not enough. Mm-hmm.
• 30:50
  And I would binge drink on an empty stomach, but I would get high because I told myself that would take off the hangover. It didn't work somehow.
• 31:00
  And the anxiety, I think, was what really started making it extra bad, was waking up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and berating myself and saying, "You're such a stupid bitch and you're gonna die from cancer that you gave yourself, and you did it to yourself again."
• 31:16
  And I happened to get this book in the mail by this woman Ruby Warrington.
• 31:20
  I got it through email, just like a press edition about the 100 day sober reset, and I'd done things like dry January and whatever it was, and taken a month off, but this was 100 days.
• 31:30
  And she had these different prompts and thought exercises. And one of the things that stuck with me was like, if alcohol is working for you, why are you always trying to drink less? Hmm.
• 31:40
  And I realized that I was always trying to moderate and it simply wasn't working anymore.
• 31:45
  And, and the premise of the book was, like, after 100 days, this will change the way you think about alcohol, and you may come back to it with a different perspective, or you may never come back.
• 31:54
  And I, I never came back, and that wasn't even my goal to begin with. You can't help but then start s- realizing how normalized alcohol is.
• 32:03
  And I have a lot of feelings about, my husband likes, there's a local brewery in town called Sketchbook, and Sketchbook is awesome and they make non-alcoholic drinks.
• 32:13
  I'm really lucky to live in an area where it's easy to not drink. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of great non-alcoholic options.
• 32:18
  But he likes a kind of beer called Orange Door that's a huge IPA, like a real punch you in the m- mouth. Like, it's doesn't- Mm... taste like strawberries or anything like that.
• 32:28
  And he can drink several of those, and he's a big guy and he'll say, "I'm not drunk," and he's not, but you're like, "But you should be." Mm-hmm. Like, you actually... That's kind of, like, not great.
• 32:38
  And he does a lot of work in advertising for Coors and, and the Super Bowl's coming up. Ask me how I feel about advertising during athletic events while your kids are watching, and then catering to veterans.
• 32:49
  Oh, the whole thing's funded by alcohol and the Department of Defense. Yeah.
• 32:53
  And it's just been interesting because the surgeon general just came out saying we should put cancer warnings on drinks, and I was like, "People are not gonna wanna hear this," and people are mad.
• 33:01
  People don't want, they don't wanna hear it 'cause they're sick of being told things are killing them.
• 33:05
  Which I understand, but also, I'm like, I do feel like alcohol is a little bit like to- tobacco where we got sold this image of it's sophisticated and it's fun and it's party and it's harmless, and people are sick of being told that whatever they're taking in is bad for them or bad for the environment.
• 33:23
  So, you know, I have my own soapbox.
• 33:25
  I'm just glad that I at least don't wake up at 3:00 in the morning berating myself anymore, and my kids don't have a mom who, like, hates herself as much as she might have at one point. 'Cause it's- Yeah...
• 33:37
  it's not an easy gig with under the best of circumstances.
• 33:39
  Well, that's what I wanna come back to here, 'cause you've made more of a, I guess, you, you- [laughs] your transition's kinda gone in the opposite of mine in, in some ways.
• 33:49
  Are there things about parenting that used to trigger you to go, "Time for a drink?" Yeah. Or, "Time for some weed?" And do they still do that, and how do you cope with them now, if so? Or are they different?
• 34:01
  Like you said, it's a fucking tough gig. How do you cope now in the moment? Oh, now in the moment? Geez. The moment we're talking about right now is a really weird time, right?
• 34:11
  And I think with my age, and I, I deal with perimenopause. I don't know if your wife is in that special area yet. Yeah. We're dabbling. It's really wild and it's misunderstood.
• 34:25
  Well, it's misunderstood because we don't research it, but yeah. Why should you? Why would one? But the mental health aspects are just, it's way more precarious and precious.
• 34:34
  And as I continue to say, this job is hard enough.
• 34:37
  And when you work for yourself and you don't have a boss telling you right there, if you don't get your job done, you're fired and you're not getting paid, and it's your own motivation, and you live in your workspace, and your workspace is where you live, and you're constantly being, you could choose to clean your house or do your work or- Mm-hmm...
• 34:54
  cook your food or m- make something special for your kids, the energy is very precious.
• 35:01
  Uh, for me with weed, the reason why I quit drinking during COVID was because I think all the wheels came off in terms of when we drink, right? Mm-hmm. Because- Mm-hmm...
• 35:08
  there's no longer leaving, you're no longer driving home or catching an Uber or having these, like, kind of sensible we're taking a break from drinking times. Like, you can start drinking at 10:00 AM during COVID.
• 35:19
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you could have a hangover and sleep in 'cause nothing matters. You're not going anywhere, you're not seeing anyone.
• 35:24
  With weed, unfortunately, it's always been the same since I worked for myself because my kids go to school and I can smoke a joint walking the dog. Nothing matters because I was a very high functioning pothead.
• 35:34
  And to me it was not really about I can't get stuff done, but more and more feeling bad about it, frankly. Yeah. And just, I was like, I'd like to live my life with fewer regrets. So what am I doing? I'm spending money.
• 35:44
  That's what I'm doing. 'Cause I'm saving probably $1,000 a month now without buying weed.
• 35:49
  So tomorrow, if, if everyone's well, I'm gonna go spend, I don't wanna say how much money, to get a special scalp treatment at the med spa, mostly 'cause they're gonna massage my head for an hour.
• 36:00
  And I was like, "That sounds really good," and that's what I am gonna do.
• 36:04
  And yeah, I'm trying hard to not be a capitalist pig and just pull the trigger on everything, but that is, yeah, food, I can't eat all the food I wanna eat. I can't get drunk. I can't get high.
• 36:16
  We bought some concert tickets. Having things to look forward to. Mm-hmm. I think those are the things... Oh, and bedtime. I love going to bed and I'm not gonna pretend I don't.
• 36:24
  My husband will say, "Do you wanna watch a show together?" I'm like, "I'm gonna start my process and start- Mm-hmm... going to bed and I'll catch you on the flip side." Yep. "Home slice." Yep. So. See you tomorrow. Yeah.
• 36:33
  Yeah, it's funny 'cause we almost[laughs] We talked for a while about naming the show Screaming in the Shower. Or f- whatever fucking works for you. Screaming into a pillow, screaming in your car. We all do it.
• 36:44
  It's just like, there's the silent screaming that everybody loves to talk about happens my entire day, all day. My Colonial Williamsburg Wi-Fi has been going out all day, and I'm just like, "Sure. Why not?
• 36:54
  The asbestos isn't bad enough." And that is, like, the very particular in the moment stuff for me, and at least my wife and I have gotten a lot better about, like, "I need you to exit, and I'll just deal with this.
• 37:07
  Not that I'm gonna do better or it's gonna be easier, but this is not going well for either of whoever's involved right now, but especially you, and I can see where this is going. Get the fuck out."
• 37:16
  And it's funny because that also parallels, like, when we first got together, I was really exercising, and I remember it used to bother her how much I would have to leave because I wasn't parenting in that time.
• 37:30
  And now she's like, "I'm gonna need you to go for a run and get the fuck out of my face." And I'm like- Oh... "That sounds perfect. That sounds great for everybody."
• 37:37
  One, I would love nothing more than to be relieved of this situation, even though I'll make myself feel bad about it in five minutes.
• 37:43
  But two, yes, I also can see that this is a spiral, and so I'll go scream into my headphones or whatever it is. But yeah, it's the making yourself feel bad about it, and then your kids are like, "Hey, are you okay?"
• 37:56
  And you're like, "How much time do you have?" Yeah. Fucking no.
• 37:59
  [laughs] For me, like, the weed thing with parenting was backfiring in that I- instead of settling in and enjoying my time with my kids, I'd be reading my kid a book and thinking about how much I want this to just be done so I can go smoke another pre-roll in the backyard.
• 38:14
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I was like, "That's not how this is supposed to be. This is not-" Mm-hmm. I hate being, like, such a great mom that I guess I would rather...
• 38:21
  I know that you should probably be with your kids more than you do drugs or- No, but we all fucking do that.
• 38:26
  It, it's literally in the About section of your blog, which is like, "It's impossible, and you just wanna get away," and then you're scrolling and looking pictures of them and going, "Oh, man."
• 38:34
  Well, I like talking about it with other parents.
• 38:35
  Like, I have a friend, I don't know if she hears it, but she'll know who she is, and if you met her in real life, you would never peg her as this kind of person, but she and her husband like to take molly together and just go for walks in their neighborhood.
• 38:48
  Fucking awesome. It is awesome. I'm jealous of her for having the, like, the replenishable serotonin levels because I don't know how you can cash that out so frequently and have a new supply there ready to go.
• 38:59
  And I have other friends who are Phish fans, and they go follow them around, and the ways that people who will spend money on big concerts, go s- take their kid to see Beyoncé or Taylor Swift and things like that.
• 39:10
  So I know that we all have our different means. One question I have for you, I'm curious about whether your parents were, like, what they passed down to you in terms of normalizing drinking and drugs. No, for sure.
• 39:21
  It was, you know, the whole once you get older and realize your parents are people type of thing. I would see myself being short with kids or whatever it is and think to myself, "Well, that's not great.
• 39:32
  Could've handled that better, but it happens," but also, boy, drinking really makes everything worse, and it was not great. The- these gummies, I was so specific.
• 39:39
  I was like, "I don't wanna get high, and I don't wanna be, like, sleepy. I just need a gentle take the edge off." And they're like, "All right, coward," right? I'm not trying to get bombed.
• 39:48
  I've been there, but I'm very aware of what the other side of that can look like. Yeah. And again, that's... And so we all grew up doing that, and it was great. And then you're just like, "No, this is really bad."
• 39:59
  And you go to the liver doctor, and he's like, "I mean, it's fine, but it's not great great," you know? Yeah. Can't prescribe this. Yeah, no, it's very interesting, especially with women and drinking.
• 40:09
  That's been the take I've been reading a little bit about Dry January is it's been seeing a little bit of pushback about how Dry January is patriarchal, and I, I feel like I'm not qualified to get into that discussion because if you look at the temperance movement, it was, like, in response to domestic violence.
• 40:23
  So I have a hard time being like, "Don't tell me not to get drunk."
• 40:27
  But when you are pregnant or you're a mom, I joke, like my son, something else that's going on, he's sick and he's been getting ear drops 'cause he has these wicked earwax issues that I kind of joke.
• 40:36
  I'm like, "Maybe it was that one beer, that one extra beer I had when I was pregnant." 100%, that somebody rolled their eye about at you at the time. They're like, "Oh, you're killing your kid."
• 40:44
  But that's why his ear hole is smooshed, is 'cause I had a drink. But yeah, as moms, you really get that guilt put in.
• 40:50
  And I used to, when I was drinking, and I would never say this to a mom, but I would roll my eyes when I hear about moms being like, "I'm not drinking 'cause I wanna be the best mom I can be." Like, oh, good for you.
• 40:59
  Aren't you such a great mom? But now, as we discussed, it's not just about my kids. It's, like, my process of being there for the kids, and it is just much more difficult for me when they respond to a shorter-tempered...
• 41:12
  This is me at my best. Well, that's what my, my thing is. Like, it's I don't not drink or take this gummy so I can be, like, the best dad I can be.
• 41:18
  Like, of course there's moments where you think about that, and then you're like, "It, uh, we're not gonna measure up to that." It's, I don't wanna be the other thing, and there's the gray area there.
• 41:27
  Well, I, I have said that since I stopped drinking, I regret being angry a lot less.
• 41:32
  Like, I remember, like, you go through these physical shifts, and I remember after I had my first kid, it was, like, e- exactly almost a year after to date, and I had just lost finally the last of the 50 pounds I'd gained with him, which shouldn't matter, and it's not a goal for women, but it mattered to me.
• 41:49
  And we went to a wedding, and it was our first night, like, out, and I was wearing a dress. And I had white wine like I always did, and it was like out of nowhere we were fighting, and we were so mad at each other.
• 42:00
  And it took me several years, and I've talked to other moms about this specifically. It's like wine makes you mad, and it makes you angry. And I would get mad at all men.
• 42:09
  I'd start with my husband and kids and be like, "Fuck every man ever in the world, I hate them."
• 42:15
  And I would just be in the kitchen making coffee thinking about how much I hate all men, and it was 'cause I had had, like, three glasses of wine, and the, it just hit differently.
• 42:23
  Now when I get mad, I'm like, "Well, I had a reason to." Like, I'm not, it's not fake. You know what I mean? It wasn't brought on by something- No, no, no. 100%... that I brought onto myself, so that's nice.
• 42:32
  I feel fewer regrets is a nice way to, to feel.
• 42:35
  But I wanna know- Not to generalize, and I don't wanna make assumptions about you, but as a heterosexual man, sometimes guys are not always super into the idea of meds or therapy for their mental health.
• 42:50
  And I'm curious whether that was, like, a long journey for you to accept, you know, taking medication or getting therapy, or whether that was easy for you to get into. Yes, all of the above. I think I certainly never...
• 43:04
  I think it could come off, and I'm sure my wife would tell you, it could come off as me, at best, poo-pooing medication.
• 43:10
  My intention was, whether I knew it or not at the time, was we know there are so many other things that can also help mental health. Even if there's so little about mental health truly that we understand.
• 43:22
  It's so easy to be like, "It's a chemical thing." It's like, well, it turns out it's fucking sometimes. It's so complicated. And obviously, then we make it worth it with environmental stuff.
• 43:30
  People are like, "I get sad when I drink." You're like, it's a depressant. It is. Yeah. We know that.
• 43:34
  But so I think personally then, knowing all that, I was really sure I would always be able, long-term and short-term, that week, that if I just went for a run, I was managing it and I was good.
• 43:48
  I'm clearly doing okay with this because I'm doing these things that, again, that are approval, probably could've been worse.
• 43:54
  But as much as we always joke and not joke about [laughs] like how hard three under three was, then they start walking and it gets more complicated, and opinions and questions and life and all this, and you have your fights and you get older.
• 44:07
  And presidential administrations, and I changed my career to climate change. And yeah, basically it was like a, it was like a year and a half, year and a half ago, something like that.
• 44:17
  There was a list of very stressful things that were pretty much out of my control. Nothing was really getting it done to manage that. I just...
• 44:26
  I remember I was sitting right here, over there, and so I've got buddies in this little office back here, and I got another buddy down the hall. It's like a fraternity, kind of. Tired old dads.
• 44:35
  And my resting heart rate's usually like 45, something like that. And I remember sitting at my desk and being like, "That feels high," and looking at my dumb watch, and it was like 90.
• 44:45
  And I was like, "Hmm, I've been pretty stressed." A little tightness here or there. And then all of a sudden it was like 170 sitting there, and I was like, "I don't feel well."
• 44:56
  And went down the hall, knocked on my buddy's door. He's on the phone selling steak knives, whatever he does, and I was like, "You gotta help."
• 45:01
  So ambulance comes, gets me, all this, and they were like, "Yeah, listen man, not like a heart attack, heart attack. However, like this is not great, and stress is not great, and it's so great you're exercising.
• 45:13
  It's not enough. So while you try to deal with the other things that maybe you, some you have control over and some you don't." And, uh, obviously identifying those is helpful if you have the luxury to do it.
• 45:23
  They're like, "In the meantime, let's not have the real thing and start this." And I was like, "Great, you can give me whatever the fuck you want. I don't care." [laughs] I'm like, "I don't care."
• 45:32
  So they gave me, again, what, uh, the, the Prozac I think I started 20, moved to 40, and again, the Klonopin when you need it. I got the gummy, and that's all that, and I still try to do the exercise.
• 45:41
  And by the way, still anxiety and stress. I don't know how much worse it would be. And there's definitely things I've learned to manage better. Again, some things are out of my control and can be pretty stressful. But
• 45:52
  yeah, as far as, like, the masculinity side of it, I think it was just more it became...
• 45:57
  It was less like, "Oh, I'm too tough for this," and more it was made clear to me by my body and elsewhere that everything I was doing wasn't cutting it anymore. Uh-huh. Essentially.
• 46:10
  And again, my best buddy died, a couple guys from my college swim team have died. My, my younger brother almost burned to death at one point.
• 46:17
  I've had enough, like, scares that the one thing I definitely don't deal with [laughs] at all is death at all. I'm mildly terrified of that.
• 46:25
  So having even a remotely close encounter was enough for me to be like, "Needle whatever you want into my arm."
• 46:30
  I genuinely don't give a shit because the I'm managing it well enough without that just goes out the window real fast. 'Cause I'm just like, well, I don't wanna go anywhere. Yeah.
• 46:40
  And so now, it may be too far, but I don't think so. I definitely look at any sort of stressful situation and go, "Can I control this? And if so, can I just do away with it somehow?
• 46:50
  And if not, what can I do about it and leave the rest?" But if it's something I can't control, I gotta figure out some way to cut it out because we're not doing it.
• 46:57
  It has been a journey, probably a little different than some. It helps I've got a bunch of various versions of mental health folks in my life. I've had some really good therapists over the years. Yeah, I don't know.
• 47:10
  It is a, it is a journey though, man. But I'm really glad, like, I haven't had to be in the place of, like, "Listen, you really need to stop drinking."
• 47:17
  That was easier to do away with, and s- now it's let's do some proactive things instead. Yeah. I should ask my husband what it was that finally convinced him.
• 47:26
  I think it was his th- therapist that he's currently seeing who convinced him to go on anti-anxiety, 'cause he has anxiety pretty bad, and we had some fights about my lack of, hmm, empathy and kindness over it because it, it would just spill into his everyday life, and he would say, "If you had a mental health emergency like this, I would be nice to you."
• 47:45
  And I [laughs] would say, "But I wouldn't let myself be at this point where-" Mm-hmm... you would have to be involved to a certain extent." And he had had...
• 47:53
  And I think we'd had a couple of come to Jesus conversations where I was like, "I'm not playing right now. This is for real."
• 47:59
  And he had had a bad experience with antidepressants when he was younger, and I just think, I don't, again, this is just a generalization.
• 48:06
  I think guys are really scared of changing or becoming different, and I don't really understand why, 'cause it's like everything changes you. Going outside changes you. Eating- Yeah... changes you.
• 48:16
  Like, but fortunately he has a doctor who he likes, and, and he listens to her, and he takes his meds. The flying used to be a big one for him, and he would take anti-anxiety pills and drink.
• 48:28
  I remember once he called me from a plane 'cause he passed out on the plane and he couldn't find his wallet, and he told me the airline attendants were mad at him. And I was like, "This is bad.
• 48:38
  This is bad news, and you're gonna get on a list, and then it's not cute, and they're not-" Mm-hmm... gonna help you."
• 48:42
  And so he just flew to Florida, and he was saying it was just great how much less buildup there was to it. Mm-hmm. He said how much less worried he was, and I'm very happy for him.
• 48:53
  And the bar- Unfortunately, it can be low. I have a friend whose husband is always trying to beat the therapist. He's always trying to say- Oh, yeah... like, "I know, I know what you're trying to do." Yeah.
• 49:03
  And she's like, I, [laughs] like, "I'm not trying to trick you." No. Cliches often exist for real reasons, which is just like we're morons, you know? And however it's built.
• 49:14
  And I remember talking about medication even before I got in it, and people are like, "It might affect your sex life." I'm like, "On, on the list of concerns, my friend." Like [laughs] Yeah...
• 49:24
  I, and I can see, again, y- you see it happen that people are affected by that or this, or will I have the energy or the focus or the drive?
• 49:31
  I'm like, "I don't have any of those, so I'm not really worried about losing them." [laughs] Like, I'm past that.
• 49:35
  It's interesting, 'cause my younger son, we have a family therapist, and now we're, next week we're gonna see a new psychiatrist. So for him, mental health is... And he's the one who needs it the most.
• 49:45
  But I hope my older son... Like I'll s- we'll try to say like therapy is for everyone. Yeah And it's not a, an emergency kind of a thing. I'm not proud to...
• 49:54
  Like we have, I have my medicine therapist who usually just calls to make sure my medications are right, and she just asks me weird, like, questions and tells me what a great job I'm doing. Mm-hmm.
• 50:04
  And then I have my talk therapist, and I talk to her every couple of months and, and whatever. She's like a, someone I just pay to listen to me complain and that's it. And now we have- But if that's what works, great.
• 50:13
  Yeah. Doesn't not work. The family therapist, which is good for having my husband and m- me be on the same page with this ADHD kid so that we are not arguing all the time over what to do with him. Mm-hmm.
• 50:25
  And now this other doctor. So yeah, we could... When you talk about how we cope and I talk about spending money, a lot of it is spending money on therapy or medication.
• 50:34
  Like, what, like an ultimate privilege is saying, "Fuck it," and paying out of pocket for ADHD medication instead of calling around to 12 different Walgreens. Yeah. They were like, "Your insurance isn't here anymore."
• 50:45
  I was like, "Guess what? Don't care. Need those pills tomorrow." Don't you love sp-... That's when you get mad at your kids when they're like, "It's so fun to be an adult."
• 50:51
  And you're like, "Do you know what I'm spending money on? It's not Nerds Gummy Clusters." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I know. I know.
• 50:57
  And then of course, in my work you get mad at everything else because you realize it's im- impossible. No, it sucks. And it's so wrong, 'cause my kids are not even, like, this kid is so privileged.
• 51:07
  And by design we made it this way. But I have a friend who adopted two kids who have special needs who are Black, and one of them has significant behavior issues.
• 51:16
  And they're like, "This is exactly what we've been worried about, is that this kid who's already marginalized is now getting this reputation at school." And like
• 51:24
  they should be at the front of the line for the medications. Whatever they w- whatever they, whatever the things are, you know? [laughs] Whatever it is. Yes.
• 51:30
  And then here come the doctors online who are like, "ADHD doesn't exist," or whatever, "It's over-prescribed." And you're like, "I'll fucking over-prescribe you." Punching the faith.
• 51:39
  Do you live in a very drinking parenting community? 'Cause we switched into this school where it is really drinking heavy, and I'm glad that I know myself and now I've observed, okay, if I want my own LaCroix...
• 51:51
  If you want beer, they got it. If you want LaCroix- Yeah... BYOC, you know? Mm-hmm. So two things about that are interesting. O- one is, no, it's pretty good. We moved back here, again, I was born and raised here.
• 52:03
  We moved back three years ago, and I have two really good childhood friends who moved back before I did, and they had time to make other amazing friends.
• 52:14
  And they were like, "When you come back, we got these folks and they're great." And I was like, "Okay." And they're amazing. And there's zero judging out of these people about anything. It's great.
• 52:23
  And most of them still drink, but they, it couldn't be better or cooler or whatever it is.
• 52:28
  The other part is, and I really learned this through my drinking journey, through COVID, and spending, like, 15 years in and around Hollywood, is I am really an introvert. And
• 52:42
  it turns out drinking was both helpful but also very clearly a crutch for me to be able to handle just about any social situation that wasn't, like, three best friends in a small room.
• 52:55
  And then COVID and kids, the short answer to, "Is this a good area?" Is like, "I don't know. We don't go anywhere." Like, my light version of coping is at the end of the night I'm like, "Oh, the gummy's 45 minutes in.
• 53:05
  My wife just wants to get in the bath for legit three hours."
• 53:09
  Occasionally we'll hang out and do the thing, but we both fully support the fact that I just need to watch some spaceships blow each other up and then read about dragons. And like you said, go to bed.
• 53:18
  And I would take that... Is it antisocial and I made myself feel bad about it? Yeah, more when we were in LA and, like, people still went out- Oh... and did stuff even with young kids.
• 53:27
  Now, and especially, honestly, here's the other thing, and I know this is the expanded answer, but again, one of my best friends here, another one down the hall, I see them during the day. Mm. And that's a win.
• 53:37
  And I didn't have that in LA when I worked by myself in my little office for 10 years. Yeah. So I get a lot of what I need, and then I don't feel as much the need to do the thing. Yeah.
• 53:49
  That was, I think for me, for a while, the adjustment to small talk with parents, that was... I just remember, again, I have, and I have no regrets.
• 53:57
  There was something just really delicious literally and figuratively about getting together with parents who had the kids the same age, throwing them in the yard, like, they're like pissing in the yard literally. Mm-hmm.
• 54:07
  And we are getting wasted together. 100%. And, and it was really bonding experience, and it was pleasant, and it was like war buddies kind of thing.
• 54:14
  And then post-COVID a lot of new families came into the kids' school, 'cause our kids go to Catholic school, and Catholic schools opened before the public schools.
• 54:22
  So I was like an ambassador parent, and it was excruciating to make the small talk.
• 54:27
  I remember we had a beach meetup, and it was pretty soon that I was off booze and I would have to take walks, like, just to take a break because, like, the small talk and just standing there- Mm... was making me crazy.
• 54:37
  And then same thing with this new school. It's gotten a lot better just that I know myself. I don't feel compelled to like... I'm not here to make friends. Like, I have friends.
• 54:48
  If I pick up friends along the way, that's great. And also I've gotten the, over myself enough to be like, nobody's actually out there being like, "What's she all about? Is she cool?"
• 54:57
  No one, everyone- Exactly where we are. Mm-hmm. Thinking about their own bullshit. Mm-hmm. And if they are being judgy like that, great for them that they have extra bandwidth and fun for that.
• 55:06
  Now, is weed legal in Virginia or not yet? Sort of.
• 55:11
  We have-- It's been a bit of a clusterfuck getting this to pass something really significant here, especially constitutional amendments, which we're trying to do for reproductive rights and marriage equality.
• 55:23
  It has to pass in two consecutive state congresses, which is you gotta really be sure, basically. And the answer is yes, it's legal to an extent, or I guess it's decriminalized to an extent.
• 55:39
  There is no retail yet except for there's a couple retail options, but still the doctor's prescription thing, and it has to be products that are made in the state because they've just not approved the marketplace thing.
• 55:51
  Which is why it's really helpful when I was like, "Oh, I can get this one online." Oh.
• 55:54
  I mean, at one point, I was going to an ocean swim, and I bought some out of a vending machine in the Atlanta airport, and I was like, "I don't know." Not, not- Like, fuck it, I'm traveling by myself. Like, I don't care.
• 56:05
  It's so legal here now that you can go to Binny's or just even there's a couple little, like, kinda corner stores around here where they sell for some reason THC drinks. I think it's the, what, God, what is it called?
• 56:17
  Delta-9. That they don't even have to put child protective tops on them, and my tolerance was so high that I could take a 25 milligram drink and that not even be it. Yeah, I, I had a lot of shame about that.
• 56:31
  But that's how my drinking was. I could drive a school bus after a, a bottle of anything brown. Yeah, and you're like, that's not probably great. No. And on the one hand, I think it's great that b- it's decriminalized.
• 56:42
  People should not be in jail for we- for getting high and getting weed. I miss the old days of you get what you get, and if your guy is around, and he's got the stuff, then you don't know what a strain is. Mm-hmm.
• 56:53
  You don't know anything like that. But I have a lot of mixed feelings about vaping. I think there's a big difference between smoking some plastic versus some kind bud.
• 57:03
  And I know a lot of people whose kids g- get high at school or take gummies to go to high school, and I was just talking to a friend who-- And I'm not even judging her, but she said her son, who's a sophomore in college, has anxiety, and she was saying sh- she would buy him some gummies, which was just crazy to me.
• 57:18
  Like on a next level of, like, parenting assistance, I would say. So I have mixed feelings about it 'cause you can spend so much...
• 57:25
  Like I said, I was spending, I was buying pre-rolls because I told myself, I was like, "Well, that measures out how much I can smoke," and they are so expensive.
• 57:32
  It's like 20 bucks a pack of five on sale, and you stock up on more than that, of course. And yeah, people pr- definitely smoking and driving, which I also am not, not fine with.
• 57:43
  And whatever, it doesn't really matter what my thoughts are on it, but I just, just, I do think legalization...
• 57:48
  I just remember, I know a woman who's like a kook, and she's really so anti-weed that she tracks all of, like, school shootings are all 'cause of weed legalization, things like that. Mm-hmm.
• 57:58
  And I'm like, "Okay, you're insane. I don't wanna hear that." It's very concerning, or it's kind of a bummer when you're like, maybe not cool. Like, maybe not as cool as we wanted this to be, you know?
• 58:08
  Of course it wasn't going to be. Nothing is perfect by any stretch. Is it better than alcohol? Probably, but also we haven't been allowed to research it because the way it's been classified for 50 fucking years.
• 58:20
  So the real answer is, like, we should probably find out, but it's not gonna happen anytime in the next few years, unfortunately. No.
• 58:25
  But we should because, going back to what you just said, like, your friend buying some, like, some gummies for her friend and/or, like, my gummies are so high in my closet and so hidden, but we leave out alcohol everywhere.
• 58:39
  Right. And when you come home from college and you seem, like, even 1% stressed or really in any situation, doesn't everybody be like, "Want a drink?" Uh-huh. So one, we should not normalize that as much.
• 58:53
  We probably could normalize weed a little more, but we fucking don't know. Yeah.
• 58:57
  So the point is, like, what is the difference between that, "Okay, let me get you a gummy so you chill out and, and don't jump off a bridge," but, "Here, kid, let me buy you guys some wine for your dorm"? We don't know.
• 59:06
  I'm gonna write, I'm gonna send out, uh, a newsletter about this next week because I'm not out there as a pothead because my parents are still alive, and I, like, think it might be time to be more out there about being real that some people do have addiction issues with weed and that there is withdrawal, and the withdrawal is very unpleasant.
• 59:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 59:23
  And of course, I think with drinking, I think we've finally happily gotten to a place where people quit before they have backed themselves into an alcoholic rock bottom, like, definition, which I think a lot of people used to wait.
• 59:35
  You almost, like, used to feel like you shouldn't quit or don't need to quit until you're an alcoholic. Until that night in jail, right? Yeah. But with weed, you're not train spotting.
• 59:43
  You're not strapped to the bed throwing up with a baby crawling across the ceiling.
• 59:47
  But also, if you ever suddenly had to go without weed after you've had it really regularly, it's really unpleasant, and it causes physical and mental health symptoms that are unpleasant and can be really hard to deal with, and I don't think people really talk about that yet.
• 1:00:01
  Because what a gag it was in Dare to be told, like, weed is a gateway drug, and the first time you smoke a spliff- Oh, yeah... you're gonna be on the highway to hell. Pregnant, on the highway, all the stuff.
• 1:00:10
  Like AIDS- Yeah... the whole thing. But by the way, it's the same thing with anxiety drugs. You actually can't just stop those cold turkey, whether you want to or not or you forgot them or something.
• 1:00:20
  It's actually dangerous. It's really not good for the chemicals and everything. They don't tell you that either as much as they're helpful.
• 1:00:27
  And like anything in parenting, it's constantly just like, what are the fucking trade-offs here? I feel glad that I've been able to cut some of the big ones out, but it's every day. Yeah.
• 1:00:36
  And I would be like, I guess I would- Yeah... I wouldn't say this to my friend, for instance, but, like, knowing myself, I would be hesitant to give my kid gummies because I'd be like, "What if he's like me?"
• 1:00:47
  And he just takes to them way too much. Mm-hmm. And he's, like, spending way too much money on them, and then spending so much time regretting that he was t- taking them. I did get a medical license more because...
• 1:00:57
  Well, I'll tell you the two reasons why. One, because it's cheaper to get it medically, and two, I told myself that if my son caught me getting high- I could prove that it was medicine. Mm-hmm.
• 1:01:07
  Which is like, in retrospect- The things we tell ourselves? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And also, the process of getting a medical license is really funny. It's like- Oh, I've done it. It's incredible...
• 1:01:16
  it's like the opposite of getting ADHD medication- Mm-hmm... where you're like, "This is disturbingly easy." The nurse will text you now, right? Yeah. They got your name. Yeah.
• 1:01:24
  And they're like, "Here's your certificate." [laughs] Yeah. And we've talked with my kids a little bit about this stuff, 'cause at some point I was having THC drinks, and they were like, "What is this?"
• 1:01:32
  And I'm like, "This is for grown-ups." I'd be worried about what you're- Sure...
• 1:01:34
  you know, it'd be like giving your kids their first drink at home and being those cool parents who are like, "Well, better to drink at home." And it's like, I don't know, maybe, or maybe not.
• 1:01:42
  And that's what's so complicated, right? And it's like you get to college, wherever, or your first work, and you discover everyone was raised differently from you. And like, holy shit, and the trade-offs to that.
• 1:01:50
  But again, there's those trade-offs of like, they're gonna drink. Would I rather them drink at my house using booze that I know I bought and not driving around?
• 1:01:59
  Or would I like to think maybe they're at someone else's house not doing that? Is that true? I don't know. California has fucked up the weed market so bad. And even more, it's laced with this, laced with that.
• 1:02:11
  They're buying it from a guy who's got a fucking backpack, which when we were growing up, wasn't as crazy. And now it's like, who knows?
• 1:02:17
  And parents are now like, "Fuck, my kids are getting this from Jimmy's cousin's dad's brother's ex," whatever it is, from a fucking bag. They're gonna do it. What do I do? What do I do here? What do I do here? Yeah.
• 1:02:28
  And the I and I of it, too, is I worked on helping a company apply for some licenses in Chicago, in the Chicagoland area.
• 1:02:34
  And there's the whole thing about rich white men getting richer by setting up these dispensaries in poor areas- Sure... and paying people peanuts to work in these stores that could be robbed at any time.
• 1:02:46
  And you're telling yourself you're helping the community, but you're not. You're lining the rich, you know.
• 1:02:52
  And yeah, I've done some writing for the cannabis industry, joking to myself, "I might as well get paid after I put so much money into it." And it, it's ironic how not fun it is.
• 1:03:01
  Like, how complicated it is, and depressing it is.
• 1:03:05
  Like, there was a company that I was w- like a startup where they were merging health records with, like, cannabis strains so that if you went and, like, were like, "I have this amount of anxiety, and I've had these heart issues and depression," they'd be like, "Great, this is the strain that's been shown to-" Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:20
  But it was so in flux that people who had just come on and they didn't even know what the company's mission statement was. And it was just very soulless. And I mean, what else is new? Obviously- Mm-hmm...
• 1:03:30
  we know all this already, but it's still not chill. You're like, "Maybe this isn't great." Like, maybe it's not as, like, awesome as we thought it would be.
• 1:03:39
  And it's like that gif from, oh, God, what is that comedy show where he g- like, the Nazi goes, "Are we the baddies?" Yeah, is that, uh... No, what was it? Mitchell & Webb. Yeah. Yeah. "Are we the baddies now?"
• 1:03:49
  Yeah, no, it's... Yeah, it's a real clusterfuck.
• 1:03:52
  Yeah, I'm still precariously in the deciding whether or not my kids can have an extra cookie stage, and I don't long for the next stage of what they want and having to navigate.
• 1:04:07
  I asked my 12-year-old, I said, "Have you ever heard of Zyn?" And he's like, "What's that?" And I said, "It's these tobacco packets that you put in your mouth." And he said, "Mom, how old do you think I am?"
• 1:04:15
  And it was really cute, but also, I was like, "Listen, I guarantee you there's kids your age who maybe are in a different school or have older siblings who are doing this stuff.
• 1:04:25
  I'm glad you are such a sweet little precious angel that you think it's hilarious that I'm talking to you about this." That shit changes overnight.
• 1:04:31
  And like everything else from parenting, you're kind of like, [laughs] again, it's that feeling where...
• 1:04:36
  We, we spent a week in the hospital with our first kid for various reasons, and I still went home and was like, "Why would someone give me a baby? Who would do that?
• 1:04:46
  I'm completely, I'm still completely unprepared for it." And each of these things- Yeah... because it does change overnight. Like, you're- Yeah...
• 1:04:52
  you're worried about, "Do I let them sit in the front seat of the car yet?" And then all of a sudden they're just like, "I'm out of Zyn."