Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello, Hello, it seems like the Spider has become
Speaker 1: this thing that catches the fly. You're welcoming me into
Speaker 1: the studio.
Speaker 2: Am I the fly? No, I guess you're the fly.
Speaker 2: I'm the spider. Feels pretty good. So so what Yeah,
Speaker 2: As hopefully our listeners know by now, if they're paying attention.
Speaker 1: Well, whoa, whoa. I was sensing a little attitude.
Speaker 2: Don't antagonize the listeners.
Speaker 1: That's rule number one in broadcasting.
Speaker 2: As our dear audience should know, we have been encoring
Speaker 2: some episodes this summer, and usually at the end we'll
Speaker 2: have a little update with the guests about what's happened. Since, yes,
Speaker 2: this is going to be a little bit different, I
Speaker 2: got to interview someone I was really really excited to
Speaker 2: talk to. She makes one of my favorite shows. It's
Speaker 2: called Pen fifteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talk about it.
Speaker 2: We talk about it like, yeah frequently we do.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: When it was running, we really we talked about it
Speaker 1: a lot. I have to say. It's probably one of
Speaker 1: my favorite shows too.
Speaker 2: For those who don't know the show, it is made
Speaker 2: by Anakonkole and Maya Erskin, who are two real life
Speaker 2: best friends and they play versions of themselves at thirteen,
Speaker 2: so it's about their middle school experience. They are playing
Speaker 2: themselves as adults, and then they are surrounded by literal children,
Speaker 2: people who are actually thirteen playing their classmates.
Speaker 1: For the first episode, that concept felt like a big
Speaker 1: hurdle maybe to kind of like get into the story.
Speaker 1: But I was like over it and into it like
Speaker 1: five minutes in. Yeah, you stop thinking about the fact
Speaker 1: they're adults. Yeah, it's like a magic trick that they pull,
Speaker 1: and it's beautiful and so funny.
Speaker 2: It's really good. That's right. I really think anyone who
Speaker 2: hasn't watched it, I would highly highly recommend it. And
Speaker 2: I was very excited to talk to Anna and Yeah,
Speaker 2: we thought it could be a cool conversation to put
Speaker 2: with this episode because both of us are revisiting that
Speaker 2: same age, in her case very literally recreating scenes from
Speaker 2: her childhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you guys end up talking about the episode
Speaker 1: and her show.
Speaker 2: And about just our perspective middle school experiences.
Speaker 1: So let's get to listening, shall we.
Speaker 2: Let's get to listening. I'm Khalila Holt and this is
Speaker 2: Heavyweight Today's episode. Late right after the break, I'm walking
Speaker 2: to work one morning when I spot Laife heading towards me.
Speaker 2: From the ages of twelve to fourteen, Life was my crush,
Speaker 2: the object of my junior high obsession. I still google
Speaker 2: him occasionally, but he's completely absent from the Internet. I
Speaker 2: have no idea what became of him. It's like he
Speaker 2: just disappeared. So when I see him on the street,
Speaker 2: I feel my heart speed up. I wonder if I
Speaker 2: should say hi. I wonder if I say hi in
Speaker 2: what tone I should go Life, Life, oh Liafe. But
Speaker 2: then as I dropped closer, I realized that the man
Speaker 2: I thought was life is not life at all, and
Speaker 2: in fact is not even a man. He's a teenager.
Speaker 2: This makes sense given that I've not seen life since
Speaker 2: I was fourteen years old. Still, having your heart speed
Speaker 2: up at the sight of a teenager is a sure
Speaker 2: way to feel like a creep. And just like that,
Speaker 2: to quote Carrie Bradshaw, Liaife is back on my mind
Speaker 2: all these years later, and I remember the exact type
Speaker 2: of pen layfro with. I remember his birthday. I remember
Speaker 2: how he kept his wallet on a long chain, the
Speaker 2: first time I'd ever seen such a thing done, and
Speaker 2: wore a quicksilver sweatshirt with holes worn through the sleeves
Speaker 2: that he'd stick his thumbs through. He was pale, with
Speaker 2: blue eyes, short and slight.
Speaker 4: I remember him being kind of like wayfish, almost like
Speaker 4: kind of almost like a furial.
Speaker 2: Crushes do not exist in a vacuum. They require gleeful
Speaker 2: gossip with your friends. And so I call Itchia, who's
Speaker 2: been my best friend since elementary school, to talk about
Speaker 2: our old classmate Lafe.
Speaker 4: He had this like light blonde hair that he died
Speaker 4: and was not a long like down to here, but
Speaker 4: hair long like like a bottling.
Speaker 2: But like shag. And then yeah, there go the man's bob. Once,
Speaker 2: while away on a school sponsored trip, we phoned Leife
Speaker 2: from our hotel room, me, Lucia, and our other friend Emily,
Speaker 2: but three of us huddled together on the scratchy Marriotte comforter,
Speaker 2: stifling our giddiness as we dialed. I don't remember if
Speaker 2: we actually talked to the thing I remember is that
Speaker 2: we called.
Speaker 5: We talked to his mom.
Speaker 2: Our friend Emily asked if she could speak with Laife.
Speaker 2: It's Emily, she said. Emily said, Leife's mom go upstairs
Speaker 2: and talk to him. Then she hung up on us.
Speaker 2: Turned out he had a sister named Emily, so weird.
Speaker 2: Luccia's stepmom was a photographer, and she once mentioned that
Speaker 2: if Laife and I ever started dating, she wanted to
Speaker 2: take our portrait. I don't think she knew I had
Speaker 2: a crush on him. Laife was just so short and
Speaker 2: I was so tall that I think she found the
Speaker 2: idea of us as a couple funny. I was already
Speaker 2: six feet tall by the end of eighth grade. I
Speaker 2: got pressured into playing basketball, but I was so meek
Speaker 2: that I usually just stood there while some terrifying girl
Speaker 2: shoved by me with the ball. I don't like to
Speaker 2: look at pictures of myself from that time. Standing next
Speaker 2: to other kids my age, I look like the teacher
Speaker 2: or like someone's off putting sister home from college. None
Speaker 2: of my pants fit correctly, and my socks were always
Speaker 2: pulled up too high. I used to listen to the
Speaker 2: song eleanor Rigby and panic. In my interpretation, it was
Speaker 2: a song about how no one wanted to date poor
Speaker 2: old eleanor Rigby, just like no one wanted to date me.
Speaker 2: When I was thirteen. One day I was sitting by
Speaker 2: the gym after school with my friend desiree. When she
Speaker 2: told me, I picture you getting a boyfriend in college.
Speaker 2: She laid out this whole hypothetical where me and my
Speaker 2: future boyfriend reached for the same book at the library.
Speaker 2: At the time I was offended college, other girls at
Speaker 2: my school, desire included, already had boyfriends, the middle school
Speaker 2: version of a boyfriend where you were afraid to touch
Speaker 2: each other and broke up after a week. But still
Speaker 2: I had to wait till college. But as it turned out,
Speaker 2: I did not get a boyfriend before college, nor in college,
Speaker 2: nor even for several years after college, And so I
Speaker 2: concluded the problem was not my circumstances. The problem was me.
Speaker 2: I was not datable. After meeting me for the first time,
Speaker 2: people might say, oh, she was funny, but they'd never say,
Speaker 2: is she single. I was simply not a person that
Speaker 2: anyone could think of romantically. At college parties, boys would
Speaker 2: grab my friends and start dancing with them, and I
Speaker 2: would stay for a while, dancing alongside them, like I
Speaker 2: was part of the good time, but eventually I'd walk away.
Speaker 2: It was weird for me to keep standing there smiling
Speaker 2: blankly at the wall while they were making out. By
Speaker 2: now I'm in my thirties, and I actually do have
Speaker 2: a boyfriend. Sam and I have been together for four years.
Speaker 2: We live together, We've taken trips, know each other's moms,
Speaker 2: list each other on emergency contact forms, and yet still
Speaker 2: I can't shake this feeling that I'm behind, that there's
Speaker 2: something wrong with me, that I started too late, and
Speaker 2: now I can never catch up. Sometimes Sam tells me
Speaker 2: stories about the girls he used to hook up with,
Speaker 2: or about his high school girlfriend, or the girlfriend he
Speaker 2: lived with before he lived with me. I know that
Speaker 2: he's not trying to get back together with any of
Speaker 2: these people. I know he does invested in our relationship
Speaker 2: as I am. Still, when he tells these stories, I
Speaker 2: feel so inadequate that I want to cry. A couple
Speaker 2: times I have cried, and he has been confused, and
Speaker 2: suddenly we're in an argument because I don't know how
Speaker 2: to explain why I'm crying. I want charming stif stories
Speaker 2: like that one of rhapsodizes about my past of young
Speaker 2: love and mutual discovery. Instead, my past is a wall
Speaker 2: I smiled at, and the only stories I have about
Speaker 2: people I've hooked up with are vaguely unsettling to repeat.
Speaker 2: I liked Leife at a time before all that, back
Speaker 2: when it still felt like romance might happen for me,
Speaker 2: like any interaction could be the start of a love
Speaker 2: story for the Ages. One time I brought whole Food
Speaker 2: sushi for lunch and felt self conscious because I'd seen
Speaker 2: the Breakfast Club in which Molly Ringwald is mocked for
Speaker 2: bringing sushi for lunch. But Leif walked by my table
Speaker 2: and said, is that sushi? And I said yes? And
Speaker 2: he said I love sushi. And I said would you
Speaker 2: like a piece? And he said really? And I said yes,
Speaker 2: And suddenly I was proud to have a lunch of
Speaker 2: whole food sushi. Laife talked constantly about a band called
Speaker 2: Billie Talent, a semi yelly alt rock group with lyrics
Speaker 2: about my I started listening to them because I knew
Speaker 2: Laife liked them, and from there became an obsessive fan myself.
Speaker 2: Once I ran into Laife at a Billie Talent concert,
Speaker 2: I pretended not to see him because I didn't want
Speaker 2: him to think that I'd followed him there, But he
Speaker 2: came over and said hi to me. There were little
Speaker 2: moments where it almost seemed like he could be flirting
Speaker 2: with me. We followed each other on the blogging site zanga,
Speaker 2: and for a while there was some sort of glitch
Speaker 2: where Life was unable to comment on my page. When
Speaker 2: the glitch was fixed, he was so excited that he
Speaker 2: left me one hundred comments in a row. Comment forty
Speaker 2: two said, on the forty second day of Christmas, I
Speaker 2: gave to Kaylee one hundred comments, lots of typing and
Speaker 2: a pear tree. I still have a journal from that time.
Speaker 2: In it, i'd write Laife all these vague letters. It
Speaker 2: is humiliating to read these letters now, to the point
Speaker 2: where I refuse to quote them here. Suffice it to
Speaker 2: say that I constantly referred to him as dearest. Surrounding
Speaker 2: the letters are my thoughts about myself, mostly how I
Speaker 2: wished I were a different person entirely, someone charismatic and
Speaker 2: sought after. Sometimes I'd have this huge swell of self
Speaker 2: hatred that I didn't know what to do with. Once
Speaker 2: I tried to caught myself, but the kitchen knife I
Speaker 2: chose was not very sharp, and so it was harder
Speaker 2: than I thought it would be, and I gave up.
Speaker 2: When I find someone who wants to date me, I
Speaker 2: thought this feeling will go away. I hoped that life
Speaker 2: might be that someone. I'd talked long fantasies about how
Speaker 2: we'd get together, and sometimes I'd realize what a good
Speaker 2: mood I was in, and then I'd realize the good
Speaker 2: mood was because of something I'd made up, something that
Speaker 2: hadn't really happened at all. In the winter of eighth grade,
Speaker 2: I finally decided enough with the secret pining. It was
Speaker 2: time to let Laife know how I felt. And so
Speaker 2: I took action. And by took action, I mean that
Speaker 2: I delegated action to other people. There was a stairway
Speaker 2: right next to our classroom that was just a single
Speaker 2: flight and closed by doors on each side. It was
Speaker 2: in this room of stairs that my friends Lucia and
Speaker 2: Emily cornered Laife and told him that I liked him
Speaker 2: while I ran home and hid. Afterwards, I asked them
Speaker 2: what he said. They told me he said okay. That night,
Speaker 2: in a fit of panic and despair, I got online.
Speaker 2: I logged onto Zanga, and I wrote a veiled, angsty
Speaker 2: post about what a huge mistake I'd made. Laife saw
Speaker 2: the post as I knew he would, and he I
Speaker 2: amed my friend Karina about it. And here is where
Speaker 2: something amazing happened, because, in this conversation with Karina, Laife
Speaker 2: said he would date me. He said he thought I
Speaker 2: was cool. He was going to ask me out on
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day. Seeing couples perform how much they liked each
Speaker 2: other made me feel inferior. So I hated Valentine's Day
Speaker 2: with a showy passion. Each February fourteenth, I'd wear all
Speaker 2: black as a sign of protest. Laife's thought was that
Speaker 2: this romantic gesture might help me to reclaim the holiday.
Speaker 2: I know all this because at the time, Karina promptly
Speaker 2: copy and pasted the ims with Life into an email
Speaker 2: for me. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I
Speaker 2: was so happy. Finally, I thought, finally, the thing that
Speaker 2: only happens to other people, it's now happening to me.
Speaker 2: On Valentine's Day, I got up and my mom drove
Speaker 2: me to school. People were giving out candy and paper hearts.
Speaker 2: I tried to look nonchalant. I went to science class,
Speaker 2: I went to lunch, to recess, to math, to basketball,
Speaker 2: and then school was over and I went home. Laife
Speaker 2: did not say a single word to me all day.
Speaker 2: I have no idea what happened or why he changed
Speaker 2: his mind.
Speaker 4: Huh did you ever talk to him about it?
Speaker 2: I rehash all this on the phone with Lucia. Never
Speaker 2: did we speak directly about it, like we spoke through
Speaker 2: you and Emily, through Karina on im and like through
Speaker 2: my veiled zanga posts. Interesting and having been my best
Speaker 2: friend for all these years, Lucia into It's what I'm
Speaker 2: building up to. So you want to try to find
Speaker 2: him more? Yeah, but I'm afraid. I tried a drafting
Speaker 2: a letter, and I was like, do I just sound
Speaker 2: into safe anyway? So do you think this is completely
Speaker 2: insane to do?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm sure you wrote. You're a very good
Speaker 4: writer and a thoughtful person, so I'm sure.
Speaker 2: The way you approached it was good. Since googling Life
Speaker 2: had always failed me, I turned to a public records
Speaker 2: database that I get through work. I was hoping to
Speaker 2: discover a possible mailing address for Life, and I did,
Speaker 2: looks like maybe he lives in Arizona. And I saw
Speaker 2: he had like a from twenty twenty court thing from
Speaker 2: defacing a political sign. Well, I guess you don't know
Speaker 2: which direction. I know it's a good direction. I want
Speaker 2: to talk to life directly, the way I never did
Speaker 2: back then. I want to know what he really thought
Speaker 2: of me, and why he never asked me out on
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day. All these years, I've believed this story about
Speaker 2: how people don't see me romantically. But if I can
Speaker 2: to the beginning of that story, if I can see
Speaker 2: myself differently at thirteen, it could reframe everything that came
Speaker 2: after I name dropped you in the letter name dropped
Speaker 2: me because I'm so well known well. I was like,
Speaker 2: we used to live together, but now we both live
Speaker 2: with our boyfriend, so that he wouldn't think I was
Speaker 2: like trying to date him now Highlafe, I wrote in
Speaker 2: my letter, I don't know if you remember me, but
Speaker 2: we went to Near North together. I had a huge
Speaker 2: crush on you, and I was hoping you'd be up
Speaker 2: to talk to me about what you remember from that time.
Speaker 2: I hang up the phone with Lucia and I walked
Speaker 2: to the mailbox. I send off my letter. But then
Speaker 2: several weeks to go by and nothing. Did Laife get
Speaker 2: the letter and decide to ignore me? Or do I
Speaker 2: just have the wrong address. Usually when reporting a story,
Speaker 2: I tried calling at this point, and I did find
Speaker 2: a phone number for Laife. However, the idea of dialing
Speaker 2: it makes me want to lie down in the middle
Speaker 2: of the street and simply pass away. And so, just
Speaker 2: like I did at thirteen, I recruit someone else as
Speaker 2: an envoy.
Speaker 1: And who is it? Someone else? You?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's you.
Speaker 7: Okay, So I'm sort of like that whole quorum of
Speaker 7: girls all in one adult man.
Speaker 2: This is a regular host of this program, Jonathan Goldstein.
Speaker 2: I want him to call Leife on my behalf to
Speaker 2: see if Laife got the letter. I would be open
Speaker 2: to speaking with me.
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, I don't think that'll be awkward at all.
Speaker 7: Let me get my pattern down here. Hi, there was
Speaker 7: this girl. Her name was Khaleila hol.
Speaker 2: You should say Kaylee first. I think you would know
Speaker 2: me by Kaylee.
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Kaylee Holt's boss.
Speaker 2: What you say like that? It is really weird.
Speaker 1: That is weird.
Speaker 7: No, Hi, you don't know me, but I was enlisted
Speaker 7: by an old school chum of yours.
Speaker 2: Oh, don't say school, an.
Speaker 1: Old flame, a paramore.
Speaker 2: My confidence is decreasing with every passing second.
Speaker 7: I won't embarrass you in front of your crush.
Speaker 1: Are you joking, choking on this bon bun.
Speaker 2: As my boss asphyxiates on a piece of candy. I
Speaker 2: weigh the pros and cons of just making the call myself,
Speaker 2: but in the end I make the same choice I
Speaker 2: did back then, better to send an incompetent in my
Speaker 2: stead while I hide at home. I obsess all day Thursday,
Speaker 2: I obsess all day Friday. Jonathan doesn't offer me a
Speaker 2: single update. I can't even tell if he's made the
Speaker 2: call yet. Than the week begins and I still have
Speaker 2: no idea what he's done. Okay, but whatever you did
Speaker 2: do it worked because Friday night checked my email and
Speaker 2: I had an email from Laife saying that he would
Speaker 2: talk to me.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 7: Okay, well, let me just say I am almost one
Speaker 7: hundred percent certain that I had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2: Well really, because it happens that day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is suggestive.
Speaker 2: Jonathan tells me that he had indeed tried calling Leaife's number.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's the call.
Speaker 8: You ready?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, Hello, is Laife there?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Could I speak to him?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 2: This is her?
Speaker 1: This is Laife.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure I have the right person.
Speaker 1: What is your middle name.
Speaker 6: Seek doodles.
Speaker 1: No, No, that isn't. That isn't the life that I'm
Speaker 1: looking for.
Speaker 6: I'm on a toilet rin.
Speaker 1: Though, Okay, is there anybody else in the house.
Speaker 2: In his email, Lafe proposed that we talk in nine days,
Speaker 2: which is kind of a weirdly long time. I can't
Speaker 2: help but worry that he'll bail last minute, that this
Speaker 2: will be just like Valentine's Day all over again. So
Speaker 2: in the meantime, hoping she might remember some clue about
Speaker 2: what happened back then, I text my old friend Karina,
Speaker 2: the one who broke her this whole Valentine's plan with
Speaker 2: life on I AM.
Speaker 8: When you texted me that it was you, I was like,
Speaker 8: oh my gosh, Like, did something.
Speaker 2: Happen she calling me to say that miss Bergen died,
Speaker 2: Miss Bergen being our longtime principal, which.
Speaker 8: She did, by the way, he didn't I didn't hear that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, may she. I felt deranged, texting Karina that I
Speaker 2: wanted to speak with her about life a random kid
Speaker 2: from her eighth grade class. But Karina responded, I legitimately
Speaker 2: thought about you in life last week, So, just like
Speaker 2: we used to in junior high, the two of us
Speaker 2: chat on the phone about a boy and then he
Speaker 2: I am you shut up?
Speaker 8: Did I send you the conversation?
Speaker 2: Yes? So then I and buried in an old AOL account,
Speaker 2: I find that email from Karina with the whole conversation
Speaker 2: between her and Life laid out.
Speaker 8: I would like, absolutely love to see it.
Speaker 2: Let me send it to you. I will. Life screen
Speaker 2: name was chaotic detortion, which I think is just chaotic
Speaker 2: distortion spelled wrong.
Speaker 8: Okay, let me read this okay at ten seventy pm.
Speaker 2: Nice and as Karina reads, here for you, dear listener
Speaker 2: is a dramatic recreation of that I Am exchange, with
Speaker 2: two young actors playing the roles of Karina and Life.
Speaker 3: Hey, Hey, Life, what's up? Kayley's talking about what I think?
Speaker 2: She is?
Speaker 10: Right on?
Speaker 3: Zanga, hold on, let me see Kaylee likes me, right, Did.
Speaker 11: Lucia and Emily tell you something?
Speaker 3: Yeah? After school the other day? Yeah, she does well.
Speaker 3: If she comes on, will you tell her something? Yeah?
Speaker 3: If she comes on, tell her that I'll go out
Speaker 3: with her.
Speaker 10: But my health is always screwed with my life, so
Speaker 10: I'm probably not going to be able to be one
Speaker 10: hundred percent boyfrid material.
Speaker 2: Laithe had some sort of illness the whole time I
Speaker 2: knew him, but I never knew how sick he was
Speaker 2: or what he was even sick with. He sometimes had
Speaker 2: to leave school early, he was on crutches for a while,
Speaker 2: and there were days when he just looked frail. But
Speaker 2: at thirteen, we didn't think to ask any questions. Back then,
Speaker 2: Karina just thought it was sweet he was considering his
Speaker 2: health in his role as my future boyfriend.
Speaker 11: All but do you like her?
Speaker 3: This is kind of awkward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all these years later and that, yeah, I makes
Speaker 2: my heart start pounding. I was wrong, I think see
Speaker 2: I was wrong. He liked me, he said he liked me.
Speaker 2: But then it goes on.
Speaker 10: Ohmg, don't tell her. I'm not crazy about her, but hey,
Speaker 10: she likes me. I don't hate her or anything. And kaylee'school,
Speaker 10: Yeah she is.
Speaker 11: So you want me to tell her that you'll go
Speaker 11: out with her? Why don't you just talk to her
Speaker 11: on Monday?
Speaker 3: Do you think I should?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 11: Because I mean I don't think she would believe me,
Speaker 11: and it would be nicer if you told her. Are
Speaker 11: you getting her something on V Day?
Speaker 3: I guess when is Valentine's Day?
Speaker 11: Next next Tuesday, Omga, you should tell her on V
Speaker 11: Day because she hates V Day.
Speaker 3: WHOA, yeah, oh will.
Speaker 2: I always thought it was Laf who came up with
Speaker 2: the Valentine's Day plan, but it was actually Karina. It
Speaker 2: wasn't a romantic gesture at all. It was the gesture
Speaker 2: of a thoughtful friend.
Speaker 8: But I don't remember anything after that. I didn't even
Speaker 8: remember that. He didn't end up saying anything, like he
Speaker 8: didn't end up saying anything to you at all.
Speaker 2: No, we never talked about it, No, Kaylee, he did.
Speaker 8: I'm pretty sure he mentioned his health again. Maybe I
Speaker 8: like followed up and he was like, honestly, my health
Speaker 8: just like really isn't the best.
Speaker 2: So did life not ask me out simply because he
Speaker 2: was too ill? Was his not asking actually a romantic
Speaker 2: gesture something worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy or did he
Speaker 2: just not like me? I'd ask Slaf to talk on
Speaker 2: Zoom and I pray I won't break out or have
Speaker 2: a bad hair day, because you know, I want to
Speaker 2: look good. The morning of I put on an eyeshadow
Speaker 2: that someone once told me was flattering, and wear a
Speaker 2: T shirt for my favorite band because I figure it's
Speaker 2: cool to like music. Then I head to the studio
Speaker 2: and test the my her phone. Hello, Hello, all right,
Speaker 2: that's working. I feel ill. I feel physically ill. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, Okay, I can do this. Here we go
Speaker 2: on the zoom camera. You can't even see my t
Speaker 2: shirt or flattering eyeshadow. So that was a lot of
Speaker 2: wasted effort. I see that Leaife is in the waiting room.
Speaker 2: I press the admit button and he appears on screen.
Speaker 11: Hi.
Speaker 13: Hey.
Speaker 2: In spite of his deeper voice and tattoos, life seems
Speaker 2: the same, like there's no discrepancy between the person I imagined
Speaker 2: all these years and the one I'm actually looking at.
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 6: I'm great, I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm doing you know. Unfortunately, faced with the person I
Speaker 2: imagined all these years, I suddenly can't remember how to
Speaker 2: have a conversation. It's like I've lost twenty years of
Speaker 2: social skills. What what what's your life?
Speaker 6: My life? Well? I yeah, I don't know. I just
Speaker 6: do uh life things. You know, eat food, go to
Speaker 6: the grocery store. I've got a dog. You know, what's
Speaker 6: your dog of?
Speaker 2: Like, what's your dog's name?
Speaker 6: Ronan?
Speaker 2: Good given that I'm incapable of asking any question more
Speaker 2: specific than what is your life or who is your dog?
Speaker 2: Life takes the lead.
Speaker 6: They've been doing like a lot of activisty stuff in Tucson,
Speaker 6: and that consumes more of my time than I probably
Speaker 6: should let it.
Speaker 2: In fact, the nine day delay lay fasts for was
Speaker 2: because of his activism. A few weeks earlier, he was
Speaker 2: at a protest with the Stop Coop City movement when
Speaker 2: he was tasted and slammed against the ground by a
Speaker 2: police officer. He's been recovering from a concussion at this point.
Speaker 2: We're forty minutes into the conversation and I've somehow managed
Speaker 2: to avoid asking Laife any questions about eighth grade at all,
Speaker 2: Even though he knows we're here to talk about how
Speaker 2: much I liked him, Bringing up that time still makes
Speaker 2: me nervous. What do you remember about me?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I uh, I remember you being very tall and
Speaker 6: maybe a little awkward. But maybe it's just because of
Speaker 6: the crush or whatever.
Speaker 2: No, I was awkward, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: Like I know that you told me at some point
Speaker 6: that you had a crush on me. We have like
Speaker 6: a vague memory of like there's like that stairwell Lucia
Speaker 6: telling me or something like that, like in the stairwell.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I ramble through my memories of what happened after
Speaker 2: that stairwell moment, and finally up to the question that
Speaker 2: I really came here to ask you were going to
Speaker 2: ask me out on Valentine's Day, but then that never happened,
Speaker 2: and I don't know why.
Speaker 6: Oof. I'm sorry, Yeah, I don't remember. Like the Zanga
Speaker 6: post sounds vaguely familiar.
Speaker 2: Can I send you, because I, in fact have these
Speaker 2: ims between you and Karina? No way can I email
Speaker 2: them to you?
Speaker 6: Yeah? See what cringeysque things I have to say.
Speaker 2: Leife mostly reads through the ims in silence, but at
Speaker 2: one point he makes a face and again goes oof.
Speaker 2: When he's done, he self consciously.
Speaker 6: All right, well that was that was That was fun?
Speaker 2: Do you you have no memory of this?
Speaker 6: I don't know. Vaguely, I guess like it's obviously obviously
Speaker 6: it happened.
Speaker 2: I mean, would be weird if I typed all this.
Speaker 6: Suffen, Yeah, yeah, it'd be pretty weird.
Speaker 2: What part were you oofing at?
Speaker 13: Oh?
Speaker 6: Just I mean, don't tell her. I'm not crazy about her,
Speaker 6: but hey, she likes it was just like that.
Speaker 13: Yikes.
Speaker 6: I don't really know what happened. Obviously we didn't date.
Speaker 6: I don't I don't think totally forgotten.
Speaker 2: I mean that would kind of be worse if we did.
Speaker 2: Dan gone from your memory.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that'd be yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, it seems like you did not like me.
Speaker 6: I do remember you being like very funny, but uh yeah,
Speaker 6: I do agree, though, I think I like wasn't like
Speaker 6: into you.
Speaker 2: To use the eighth grade parlance, But then Lafe phrase
Speaker 2: is a key thing. I've been wondering about the explanation
Speaker 2: that he gave to Karina at the time his mysterious
Speaker 2: health issues.
Speaker 6: I was like very very very sick. I was like
Speaker 6: in the process essentially of getting diagnosed with Crohn's disease.
Speaker 2: Crones is an autoimmune disease. Life's intestine was attacking itself,
Speaker 2: making it hard for him to do basic things like
Speaker 2: walk or eat. In the years I knew him, though,
Speaker 2: Laife didn't know he had crones. He didn't know what
Speaker 2: was wrong with him. He was just getting worse and worse.
Speaker 2: It took over two years of waiting rooms and misdiagnoses
Speaker 2: before he finally got to a doctor who helped him
Speaker 2: at that point he was so sick, but the doctor
Speaker 2: pulled his mom aside to say that she thought Leife
Speaker 2: might die. They immediately admitted him to the hospital, where
Speaker 2: he stayed for three months. I'm not a monster, so
Speaker 2: of course I'd never say that I'm happy someone was
Speaker 2: so ill they almost died. But hearing all this, I
Speaker 2: can't help but feel kind of relieved, because if life
Speaker 2: was that sick the whole time I knew him, then
Speaker 2: it wasn't about me not being good enough. There probably
Speaker 2: just wasn't any space in his brain for dating and
Speaker 2: crushes at all. So I put this to.
Speaker 6: Liife, I for sure had crushes.
Speaker 2: Well there goes that theory. Can I ask you how
Speaker 2: to crush on?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Yeah, I know I had a crush on Soca.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you that. Actually, that's what
Speaker 2: I always suspected. You got me figured out circa up
Speaker 2: at our school one year from Ireland, and all the
Speaker 2: guys instantly loved her. Somehow, in that one year she
Speaker 2: dated three or four people. I, as someone who'd never
Speaker 2: dated anyone, found this profoundly unfair, Like what about the
Speaker 2: rest of us? In my moments of insecurity, I always
Speaker 2: used to think there's no way Life likes me, because
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure he likes Cerca. So while on the
Speaker 2: one hand, it's validating to hear that my read was right,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, it's devastating to hear that my
Speaker 2: read was right. I move on to my next theory.
Speaker 2: Do you think that any of it was height related?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 6: I don't think so. I don't think so.
Speaker 2: So what was my problem? I ask Laife if I
Speaker 2: had some defect that prevented him from seeing me romantically,
Speaker 2: and although he really thinks about it, an come up
Speaker 2: with an answer.
Speaker 6: I'm just trying to think if like, there has ever
Speaker 6: been anyone where I like, I'd love to date this person,
Speaker 6: but they've got this defect.
Speaker 2: You know who he falls for. Life says has always
Speaker 2: felt beyond words, especially in the eighth grade. Well, how
Speaker 2: do you feel about talking? Am I freaking you out?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 6: Not at all. Okay, it's fun to catch up and
Speaker 6: like hear what you remember. It's really nice to talk
Speaker 6: to Yeah, you too, killy, and talk to you soon,
Speaker 6: all right, talk.
Speaker 12: To you soon.
Speaker 2: I'd felt good while I was talking to Leife. He
Speaker 2: was cool and nice, as he'd always been, and yet
Speaker 2: as soon as we hang up, I suddenly feel really sad.
Speaker 2: I sit there for a while alone in the studio,
Speaker 2: and then, as I always have in times of stress, Hello, honey,
Speaker 2: I call my mom. I filler in on the conversation
Speaker 2: and how the only logical conclusion seems to be that, yes,
Speaker 2: I was right, I am in fact undateable.
Speaker 5: Who wouldn't want to date you?
Speaker 12: You're awesome?
Speaker 2: Thanks, And I mean, I know i'm your mother, but
Speaker 2: that is also true. I feel like that's true in
Speaker 2: terms of like people wanting to like be my friend,
Speaker 2: but I don't feel like that's true for like dating.
Speaker 9: You feel it not just from when you were younger, but.
Speaker 2: You feel it even now.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that makes me feel kind of sad. I'm sorry,
Speaker 9: don't be sorry.
Speaker 2: It makes me feel kind of sad, and it makes
Speaker 2: me feel mad at people that don't see you. I
Speaker 2: don't Oh. Yeah. I think I'm having a hard time
Speaker 2: characterizing it because I do feel like weirdly emotional, but
Speaker 2: also like he was nice and the conversation was good,
Speaker 2: you know, So I don't want it to seem like
Speaker 2: I thought he was like being an asshole or anything
Speaker 2: like he wasn't.
Speaker 5: I don't hear that from you at all.
Speaker 2: I don't hear anything about any judgment about him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you trying to piece it together for you? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: give yourself a little space. I give myself several weeks
Speaker 2: of space. And then as I keep trying to piece
Speaker 2: it together, I decide there's one more person I want
Speaker 2: to speak with. Very excited to talk to you. So
Speaker 2: thanks for being up to do this weird thing.
Speaker 12: Yeah, no, it is weird, and I definitely feel weird
Speaker 12: about it.
Speaker 2: This is Circa, the Irish girl that Lafe and the
Speaker 2: rest of the entire fucking class was into. Because in
Speaker 2: case it's not weird enough to reach out to my
Speaker 2: crush after nearly twenty years, why not also reach out
Speaker 2: to my crushes crush. I always suspected he had a
Speaker 2: crush on you, and he said, yes, did you know.
Speaker 12: That M like Jesus, like he would like he would
Speaker 12: like burn CDs for me and stuff.
Speaker 5: She knows.
Speaker 1: I feel like he also gave.
Speaker 12: Me a sticker that said George W. Bush is a
Speaker 12: punk ass chump, So.
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, I had an awareness.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to Circa because I think of
Speaker 2: her as the anti me like, here's how Circa's Valentine's
Speaker 2: Day went. In junior high, she walked up to her
Speaker 2: boyfriend at the time holding a Hers She's kiss and said,
Speaker 2: do you want this or do you want a real one?
Speaker 2: I wanted to tell me how she achieved such romantic success,
Speaker 2: what she had that I didn't have. I had laid
Speaker 2: all this out and my initial message to her.
Speaker 12: So I said this to my husband and he was
Speaker 12: kind of like, well, it's obvious, isn't it. Like you
Speaker 12: were just new and it And I think that's exactly it.
Speaker 12: Like you guys had all been together from the age
Speaker 12: of two, do you know? So I literally was just
Speaker 12: new and different. I honestly think it was that simple.
Speaker 2: I think that's part of it. But I feel like
Speaker 2: there was something about your personality too, Like I feel
Speaker 2: like there was some like charisma or like confidence or
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like I think.
Speaker 12: That that has got to be fakeatily make it though,
Speaker 12: doesn't it? Because looking back and looking at the challenge
Speaker 12: that was laid at my doorstep, I probably just leant
Speaker 12: into some kind of confident persona.
Speaker 2: Sarah only attended Near North for a single year, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't an easy transition because of her mom's job.
Speaker 2: She was upbraided at twelve years old and plopped down
Speaker 2: in a foreign country. Her dad, all her old friends
Speaker 2: stayed back in Ireland. She remembers the day she came
Speaker 2: to visit our school for the first time.
Speaker 12: And I remember crying, and I remember saying, I don't
Speaker 12: want to go there. My memory isn't a feeling invincible
Speaker 12: or anything like, quite the opposite, like.
Speaker 3: Like overwhelmed and shut down.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 2: It's that sense of panic. Sirka thinks that made her
Speaker 2: act so confident when she started school with us. It
Speaker 2: was her way of managing Still, in the year I
Speaker 2: knew her, she often felt insecure, and dating didn't make
Speaker 2: that feeling go away anyway you cut it. Boyfriend, No
Speaker 2: boyfriend junior high is hard, Sarka tells me she's been
Speaker 2: married for about a year and a half. Now, how
Speaker 2: did you guys meet? We went on Tinder. I'd ask
Speaker 2: Slafe the same question about how he met his partner.
Speaker 6: Actually through Tinder. We are a tender success story. My
Speaker 6: boyfriend threw tender too, nice.
Speaker 2: Sarca life me. Even though I always felt like they
Speaker 2: had some power, I lacked. Almost two decades later, we
Speaker 2: all ended up in the same place, living with people
Speaker 2: we met on Tinder. Back when I talked with my
Speaker 2: friend Karina, I'd asked her what her impression had been
Speaker 2: to me when we knew each other in junior high.
Speaker 8: Oh my gosh, Kayleie, I adored you. I remember you
Speaker 8: being very intelligent, you were very funny. I know you
Speaker 8: like you were, you were tall, just you know, at
Speaker 8: that age, I feel like you always look at everyone
Speaker 8: else and like, don't form your confidence or like embrace
Speaker 8: every bit of yourself until later in life, and I
Speaker 8: remember being like, she has so many things going for her,
Speaker 8: Like I. I hope that she because comes more confident.
Speaker 2: My past self was tall and awkward and the boy
Speaker 2: I liked didn't like me. And all these years later,
Speaker 2: I'm still tall and still awkward, and I still often
Speaker 2: feel left behind by romance. But then again, the junior
Speaker 2: high me would never have had the courage to have
Speaker 2: these conversations at all. So maybe I did become more confident,
Speaker 2: and some people do want to date me. I'd want
Speaker 2: to date me. These days, I don't think too much
Speaker 2: about Valentine's Day. It turns out that I don't like
Speaker 2: being one of those performative couples anymore than I liked
Speaker 2: watching those performative couples this year. On February fourteenth, my
Speaker 2: boyfriend made dinner. I did the dishes. Happy Tuesday, He said,
Speaker 2: Happy Tuesday. I said. Then we watched TV. It was
Speaker 2: nice now that the fern ures returning to its goodwill home,
Speaker 2: now that the last month's rent is skiing with the
Speaker 2: damage to post, take this moment to dissolve, if we message.
Speaker 3: If we tried, she felt.
Speaker 2: Around for five two months.
Speaker 3: From things accidentally.
Speaker 2: Hello Hello, so as promised. My conversation with Anna Konkle,
Speaker 2: co creator of Penn fifteen, we talked about how emotional
Speaker 2: and viscerally bizarre it is to return to that middle
Speaker 2: school space again as an adult.
Speaker 13: I mean it was so humiliating. Yeah, Like the first season, especially,
Speaker 13: nobody knew what it was.
Speaker 5: The crew didn't know what it was.
Speaker 13: So people signed up to come on set and a
Speaker 13: lot of them haven't even read the script and they're like,
Speaker 13: what the fuck did I sign up for?
Speaker 5: Like day one, Maya's and her.
Speaker 13: Bowlcut masturbating, like okay, wait, we're really going to try
Speaker 13: to play thirteen, like this is so embarrassing, and then
Speaker 13: being surrounded by the real kids and stepping on stage
Speaker 13: and be like.
Speaker 5: Were you haha, you don't really think we are We're thirty.
Speaker 13: The night before it came out, I just got in
Speaker 13: like the fetal position on the floor and was like,
Speaker 13: this is.
Speaker 5: So embarrassing, Like what did you do?
Speaker 13: And you know what the truth is is it felt
Speaker 13: embarrassing for years after actually, like people would come up
Speaker 13: to me and say like, I love it, and I'd
Speaker 13: be like.
Speaker 2: What are you doing today, Like yeah.
Speaker 5: I couldn't hear it. It just I felt so naked.
Speaker 13: How was it for you making this versus when people
Speaker 13: started listening to it?
Speaker 5: Or have you had and waves of.
Speaker 2: This writing it and putting it together and like playing
Speaker 2: it for people here was actually like positive, Like I
Speaker 2: felt like, oh, I'm really expressing what I felt and
Speaker 2: it's connecting with people. And then I feel like once
Speaker 2: it was out in the world, it was a bit
Speaker 2: more of a mixed bag than I was expecting.
Speaker 5: I mean, how people felt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like there were people who really connected with it,
Speaker 2: but there were a lot of people who hated it.
Speaker 13: Really I loved it, I mean, but obviously I'm gonna
Speaker 13: love it, I guess.
Speaker 2: I mean that is something I was curious about cause
Speaker 2: I feel like there were people who just I don't
Speaker 2: understand why middle school would be important or why you
Speaker 2: would want to think about it or go back to it,
Speaker 2: Like have you run into that at all? Are there
Speaker 2: people who just don't think about it?
Speaker 13: There's something about it that makes people really uneasy. Yeah,
Speaker 13: from the pitches of us first talking about it, so
Speaker 13: many men in particular actually like had to get up
Speaker 13: from a table or would be like I'm getting nauseous.
Speaker 5: Sorry, hold on. Maybe it's like physiological disassociation. Yeah, that
Speaker 5: a lot of people can do.
Speaker 2: What was it like like working with the kids, Like
Speaker 2: do you feel like you had to translate to them
Speaker 2: or did they kind of get it?
Speaker 13: Most of the kids, when they're actually thirteen, aren't at
Speaker 13: an age that they're going.
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah, I get why that would be. They're like,
Speaker 5: I didn't do that yesterday, right, if that's true? Just
Speaker 5: so in.
Speaker 13: It, like seeing the social dynamics play out on set,
Speaker 13: that was very meta. There would I won't say who,
Speaker 13: but it would be like, oh, okay, he's the most popular.
Speaker 3: He's the most.
Speaker 13: Popular yeah, like all the guys are texting her or whatever,
Speaker 13: and and we always found the right kids.
Speaker 5: I thought the kids in your podcasts were great.
Speaker 2: Thanks to my My dad runs a community theater in Iowa,
Speaker 2: and he helped me cast those kids. That was very sweet. Yeah,
Speaker 2: did you do community theater growing up? Yeah? I was
Speaker 2: never very good, but I because my dad like ran
Speaker 2: these like kids summer camps and stuff. I did always go.
Speaker 5: That's a lot of pressure for your dad to run
Speaker 5: it and then like auditioning for your day.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I wanted to be more of a
Speaker 2: like a star because I wanted to be like close
Speaker 2: to my dad, you know.
Speaker 5: But I relate to that too.
Speaker 13: I remember going on like some work trip with him,
Speaker 13: and I remember like going to a pub and they're
Speaker 13: being karaoke and a girl went up and sang yeah
Speaker 13: Nowhere Man by the Beatles, and he was like, wow,
Speaker 13: she's incredible. He almost like cried and he was clapping
Speaker 13: in a really intense way. I don't remember what song
Speaker 13: I sang next, but I sang a song and I
Speaker 13: remember like finishing and like waiting for the same eyes
Speaker 13: and being like I'm.
Speaker 5: Right here, Dad, and be like no, that was good.
Speaker 5: I had been estranged from my dad.
Speaker 13: I mean, this is another actually crazy layer to the
Speaker 13: whole show. It's like I hadn't seen my dad in
Speaker 13: five years, but I'm like acting with the TV version
Speaker 13: of my dad and the one that I missed. Yeah,
Speaker 13: and about a year before we started writing the last season,
Speaker 13: my dad and I had sort of been like communicating
Speaker 13: more and trying to fix things.
Speaker 5: And then he called me and found out he had cancer.
Speaker 2: Oh man, and.
Speaker 5: Filming started.
Speaker 2: Whoa.
Speaker 13: So I was like trying to manage nurses and all
Speaker 13: these other things and be there as much as I
Speaker 13: possibly could, flying back and forth and filming the show.
Speaker 13: But there were these scenes that were like overlapping with
Speaker 13: these huge moments where like my dad went to hospice
Speaker 13: and I had to go back to la and film
Speaker 13: the scene where Curtis moves out of the house and
Speaker 13: gets an apartment and he has like a midlife crisis
Speaker 13: and gets this seabring convertible.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we're in.
Speaker 13: The convertible, like the camera's right on us as we're
Speaker 13: driving at night with the top down and the air
Speaker 13: the cold air blasting, which is like what my dad
Speaker 13: and I always did. And he had had that same seabring,
Speaker 13: and we're having the talk about him moving out just
Speaker 13: as my dad's gone into hospice, like moving out of.
Speaker 2: The world, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: And I just lost it. Talk about feeling like a
Speaker 5: kid as an adult.
Speaker 13: There was something about the extremeness of what we were
Speaker 13: trying to do, like, oh, we're building sets that look
Speaker 13: like our real houses.
Speaker 5: It was like stepping into a memory.
Speaker 2: Were there particular scenes that were particularly intense to shoot?
Speaker 13: Definitely the first day of filming at my house, Anna
Speaker 13: Cone's you know house I had given so many specifics about.
Speaker 13: It was nicer than my real house probably, But you know,
Speaker 13: my parents in real life divorced, they told me in
Speaker 13: seventh grade or eighth grade, and I've just had such
Speaker 13: a hard time accepting their divorce and walking in and
Speaker 13: seeing the house with like both of their things, like
Speaker 13: the drops being like together, like the loon blanket that
Speaker 13: I had described my dad having, or the kind of
Speaker 13: lounger you know that he had that went to his
Speaker 13: apartment and what my mom got to eat, and it
Speaker 13: was like it was all intermingled. And then on the
Speaker 13: bookshelves or all of these like half funny half devastating
Speaker 13: pictures of me between two loving parents and they're my
Speaker 13: you know, set parents. So it was like silly, but
Speaker 13: I just wanted to cry. I was like going back
Speaker 13: to when to the good times, you know, and it
Speaker 13: was a better version of the good times than what
Speaker 13: I had.
Speaker 5: Really have a lot of pictures the three of us.
Speaker 2: I mean, like after doing the show and like being
Speaker 2: in those moments again, do you see anything in that
Speaker 2: time differently? Like did it change your perspective at all?
Speaker 13: H I think it's interesting how people at that age
Speaker 13: have such different relationships with their own sexuality, Like that
Speaker 13: part in your podcast, in the episode where the sort
Speaker 13: of popular girl goes up to the guy and gives
Speaker 13: him hers she kiss and says, like what does she say?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 2: Do you want this or do you want a real
Speaker 2: one that's like the Like I was like, well, I
Speaker 2: don't have that DNA, Like I don't understand, And then
Speaker 2: she sort of went on to say, I think I
Speaker 2: created this persona, right, but how much is that persona?
Speaker 13: And how much is that just a different physical comfort?
Speaker 13: I was always like such a goodie two shoes in
Speaker 13: that way, and like kind of known as a prude,
Speaker 13: and I.
Speaker 5: Was just not physically.
Speaker 13: Interested in guys like that, and if somehow they were
Speaker 13: like sensing because my friends were more comfortable with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's a good point. I think similarly, I
Speaker 2: was not the most comfortab with it either, Like I
Speaker 2: would have these infatuations with people, but Tybia just meant like,
Speaker 2: we're going to have this mental connection where we understand
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, like it was romantic.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 13: I remember when we first conceived a pen and our
Speaker 13: agents or something being like, you need to add like
Speaker 13: character descriptions, and we just knew how we'd play them,
Speaker 13: but we hadn't been putting words to it. And that
Speaker 13: was one distinction that I finally was like, she's romantic.
Speaker 2: Do you remember what else you said in your character description.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I would find it so hard to have
Speaker 2: to like sum myself up in a character way, right, Yeah.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I think like tall bad posture. I think that
Speaker 13: I would have had the like hand over my stomach
Speaker 13: that I always did loyal to a false friend probably
Speaker 13: like gets her identity from how much she admires Maya,
Speaker 13: and the fact that my admires her back gives Anna confidence.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's another thing I feel like you guys
Speaker 2: captured so well. Was just like the energy that having
Speaker 2: a friendship like that gives you where you're like feeding
Speaker 2: on each other and amping each other up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was the saddest part I think about it.
Speaker 13: Ending was like that innocence of friendship as actors and
Speaker 13: adult best friends of going like right now we get
Speaker 13: to live in this world where playing thirteen is like
Speaker 13: you are just glued at the hip and as you
Speaker 13: get older, you know, so many of us will lean
Speaker 13: on their romantic act to you know, like to a
Speaker 13: romantic partner.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's part of what's sad sometimes about
Speaker 2: being single as an adult is that everyone does lean
Speaker 2: so much on their partner and you're like, wait, where
Speaker 2: I now, I'm not anybody's number one because they're number one?
Speaker 2: Is the person at their west? Like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 13: I think it's something I've really struggled with, to be honest,
Speaker 13: and adulting is that expectation same?
Speaker 5: You know, I'm lucky that May and I think are
Speaker 5: a little bit aware of it and we will go
Speaker 5: to the doctors with each.
Speaker 13: Other, like, you know, there's things like but I think
Speaker 13: it's not the norm.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much to Anna and to everyone who helped
Speaker 2: put this episode together, and for all my fellow pen
Speaker 2: fifteen fans out there. You can listen to my full
Speaker 2: conversation with Anna if you subscribe to Pushkin Plus. I
Speaker 2: was very excited to get all this insight into making
Speaker 2: the show, and I don't want to hoard that insight
Speaker 2: from other pen fifteen heads, So go to pushkin dot fm,
Speaker 2: slash plus to sign up. We'll be back next week
Speaker 2: with our final encore of the summer, and then the
Speaker 2: new season of Heavyweight begins September eighteenth, inst