Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, Hi, Hello, Hi, hey, hi hello Hello.
Speaker 2: How's it going?
Speaker 1: When I was? How old was I? Maybe? Did you
Speaker 1: ever use AIM?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: How old? Can I see how old you are?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I'm thirty?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so you've used AIM? I like, I used
Speaker 1: to have a lot of conversations that just went like, hey, yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: what's up?
Speaker 2: Forever no substance, n m JC.
Speaker 1: Cool, you know, and they're all gone. I don't know
Speaker 1: where my AIM chats are. I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: still I don't think I can still log into AIM.
Speaker 1: My I'm trying to remember what my my childhood, uh,
Speaker 1: like you know, we all had like like stupid emails.
Speaker 1: Mine was doctor Worm forty five at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Wow, it like, where did the forty five come from?
Speaker 1: I don't know where the forty five came from? But
Speaker 1: do you know where the do you know where the
Speaker 1: doctor worm came from?
Speaker 2: No? Okay, it was I was just more interested than
Speaker 2: the forty five, I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the forty five is more mysterious. The doctor worm
Speaker 1: is a little bit more. Well, there's a they might
Speaker 1: do you know what the band they might be Giants. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they have a song called doctor Worm and it's about
Speaker 1: a worm who's a doctor that plays the drums. And
Speaker 1: I liked that song, so I might doctor worm. What
Speaker 1: was yours? What was your childhood email?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was KitKat like the candy QT the letters
Speaker 2: then nine to five, which is the year I was born.
Speaker 1: KitKat qtie. That's good. That's a good I'm honestly, I
Speaker 1: am genuinely surprised that that wasn't taken KitKat Q.
Speaker 2: But I added ninety five to it, So KitKat qt
Speaker 2: probably was kim.
Speaker 1: But of all the thirty, of all the however old
Speaker 1: you were at the time, twelve year olds? True, that
Speaker 1: would probably because everyone puts now the forty five isn't
Speaker 1: isn't the year I was born? That would make me
Speaker 1: eighty eight years old? That would make me eighty years old.
Speaker 1: But uh, I'm surprised that wasn't taken. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: Kick kat qt ninety five.
Speaker 2: It's all right, it is. It is not as embarrassing
Speaker 2: as it could have been.
Speaker 1: You know, I wonder if by talking about this on
Speaker 1: the podcast will get emails to people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm connecting too, Yeah, Illy, As soon as I
Speaker 2: said it, Yeah, as soon as you asked, I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I better give the crappy one so that if I
Speaker 2: get emails it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: What is your name?
Speaker 2: Cat Kat?
Speaker 1: Did you tell me that already? No? Okay, good, I
Speaker 1: think I'm losing my mind. Actually I'm not.
Speaker 2: No, you're not.
Speaker 1: You're not I'm not.
Speaker 2: You're good.
Speaker 1: Actually, I actually I mean this. I feel very sane
Speaker 1: in this moment. I feel awesome. I feel good. How
Speaker 1: do you feel? Do you feel sane in this moment?
Speaker 2: I feel I'll be honest, it's a little surreal. I've
Speaker 2: been trying to call you for a few days and
Speaker 2: actually knew that today would be the day that we talk,
Speaker 2: but still tried, you know, the past couple of days.
Speaker 2: So I'm just still a little bit reeling that you
Speaker 2: actually answered two questions.
Speaker 1: One have we ever spoken before?
Speaker 2: We have never spoken before.
Speaker 1: And then two, how did you know that today was
Speaker 1: going to be the day?
Speaker 2: I hate to say it, but it was just a feeling,
Speaker 2: just a gut feeling. I have been having some life
Speaker 2: stuff going on, and today I am chilling at the hospital.
Speaker 2: My brother's getting discharged, and it's just a good day
Speaker 2: to be on the phone.
Speaker 1: Do you are you typically correct in your gut feelings,
Speaker 1: like have they have your premonitions typically came true.
Speaker 2: Man, that's a good question. I'm gonna say no, because
Speaker 2: I texted you a few days ago and was like,
Speaker 2: today's the day we're going to talk, and then we didn't.
Speaker 2: But upon further inspection, it was not the day we
Speaker 2: were going to talk. I just knew that we were
Speaker 2: going to talk at this season of my life where
Speaker 2: I'm going through this stuff with my family.
Speaker 1: You know, it is kind of funny because if you're yeah,
Speaker 1: it is kind of funny because like if you every
Speaker 1: single day go today is the day, you'll eventually be right.
Speaker 2: So exactly, you know, And that's kind of how I
Speaker 2: was feeling. I was like, you know what, today's the day,
Speaker 2: Today's the day. And then eventually it was right, And
Speaker 2: now I can be satisfied that I called I made
Speaker 2: it in. Today's the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or you won't. Sometimes sometimes you'll say to day
Speaker 1: is the day, and it will never be your day.
Speaker 1: You know that. It's like kind that It's like, friends,
Speaker 1: hasn't been your day, your week, your month, your year,
Speaker 1: your decade, you're century you'r if I guess if the
Speaker 1: soul exists beyond death. What would you call that? That's
Speaker 1: not a lifetime? What's like, what's like a step above
Speaker 1: a lifetime?
Speaker 2: M wow, great question. Oh gosh, like a soul cycle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it hasn't been your soul cycle. But if that
Speaker 1: was in the Friends theme song, people would be like, this.
Speaker 2: Is too woo for Definitely it would not have been
Speaker 2: the Friend's theme song had it talked about soul cycles.
Speaker 1: No, that would be too much. Well, you know, listen,
Speaker 1: I'll be fully honest with you. Is I think I've been?
Speaker 1: I just yeah, I don't know, just to like set
Speaker 1: a context for me personally. Is I think I've been? Yesterday?
Speaker 1: I think I tried to record this podcast yesterday and
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I listened yesterday and yesterday and I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is not He's going to try again tomorrow and
Speaker 2: we're going to talk tomorrow and it'll be better.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I I there's a thing when I record this,
Speaker 1: I I by the way, I promise, I promise. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to just talk about myself this whole time,
Speaker 1: but I just gotta get this stuff.
Speaker 2: No, you're fine, I'm this is great.
Speaker 1: Is that I tried to There's like I've been doing
Speaker 1: this for five years now, and and there is uh several, several, several,
Speaker 1: maybe even hundreds of times where I've sat down to
Speaker 1: try to record this podcast and I am I'm not
Speaker 1: feeling it, and I'm not in the right physical or
Speaker 1: mental existence to do it. And yesterday was one of
Speaker 1: those days. And you were there, you saw it, you
Speaker 1: saw it on the twitch stream. Yeah, but today, I
Speaker 1: don't know if the vibe ance is kicking. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's the fact that it's noon and not
Speaker 1: nine pm. But yeah, I'm ready to uh yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm hit me with whatever you got, let's get Let's
Speaker 1: give it. I will give Let's give this a try,
Speaker 1: Let's give this conversation our best try on both ends,
Speaker 1: and see what the fuck happens. So what's up, kat So?
Speaker 2: I am in Maryland. I am not from Maryland, but
Speaker 2: my parents and my little brother live here. And my
Speaker 2: little brother is like incredibly medically complex. Do later if
Speaker 2: you want, but he was hospitalized for an infection and
Speaker 2: is getting out today, which is amazing. But I came
Speaker 2: to visit him, and this is the first time that
Speaker 2: I'm seeing my mom since we got in a huge
Speaker 2: fight at Christmas.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Well, so I'm like, awesome that I get to see
Speaker 2: my brother, and I just have a lot of anxiety
Speaker 2: in my body because this is the first time since
Speaker 2: then that I'm seeing everybody.
Speaker 1: And everybody is your mom and your brother, is anyone else?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my mom, my stepdad, and my brother.
Speaker 1: Are you cool with your stepdad?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're cool.
Speaker 1: Can I ask what was the fight about?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can ask for sure. You know, it was
Speaker 2: like a culmination of a lot of things. I want
Speaker 2: to say it was about the basement flooding, and I
Speaker 2: didn't like jump up to help right away, but really
Speaker 2: it was about my mom not feeling cared for in
Speaker 2: our relationship and feeling like, ever since I chose this
Speaker 2: polyamorous lifestyle, that I don't have room in my life
Speaker 2: for her. While simultaneously I am dealing with like, I
Speaker 2: have a lot of insecurities about my life choices and
Speaker 2: things that I think that my mom would disapprove of,
Speaker 2: and so when she tells me that she does indeed disapprove,
Speaker 2: I'm just like, Okay, I don't want to sit here
Speaker 2: and like tell you that it's okay and convince you
Speaker 2: that it's okay. Because I already did that for myself.
Speaker 2: I don't have the bandwidth to do it for you too.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a that's a very introspective. Uh. You went
Speaker 1: from it was about the basement flooding too, it was
Speaker 1: about all these deeper things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the basement flooding was just the catalyst
Speaker 2: to get us yelling at each other, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's no, it's never just about the basement.
Speaker 1: It's never just about the fucking the way ever stupid thing.
Speaker 1: But so you said, it's about your mom doesn't feel
Speaker 1: cared for enough.
Speaker 2: I think so. And I'm putting words into her mouth
Speaker 2: because I've been avoiding the conversation, so we haven't had
Speaker 2: like the direct conversation. But if I could project and
Speaker 2: read her mind a little bit, it's that like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: So to give you even more context, in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: my husband passed away and my mom like came up
Speaker 2: to Chicago to live with me for several weeks and
Speaker 2: like really helped me, took care of me. And then
Speaker 2: that's been five years and I have grown and gone
Speaker 2: through a lot of therapy and made new friends and
Speaker 2: have new partners and just like have a totally different
Speaker 2: support system now, and I think my mom is feeling
Speaker 2: like cut out of that. Not that she's cut out,
Speaker 2: but I definitely rely on her less now than I
Speaker 2: did five years ago.
Speaker 1: Does your mom have like her own life? I mean,
Speaker 1: she has her study, she is, she is, she's.
Speaker 2: Married, she's married. She has my brother who's twenty five,
Speaker 2: and she and my stepdad are his like full time
Speaker 2: caregivers and will be until he passes away, which could
Speaker 2: be Well, we were thinking it could be this week,
Speaker 2: but now he looks fine, and so we're thinking like
Speaker 2: weeks to months. So, like she's with him a bunch.
Speaker 2: She has a job that she's really successful at. She
Speaker 2: has book clubs. She's hosting a baby shower girl in
Speaker 2: her book club. Like she's got stuff going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting, No, it sounds like she's got a lot
Speaker 1: of shit going on. But like, I don't why is
Speaker 1: she feel like is she just like guilting you about shit?
Speaker 2: So, like, my mental health has been really rough the
Speaker 2: past year and a half, And from her perspective, it
Speaker 2: is rough because like relationship turmoil from being polyamorous and
Speaker 2: dating multiple people. And from her perspective, my choices are
Speaker 2: contributing to my mental health from my perspective, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, more accurate because I am the one living
Speaker 2: my life. I know that the choices that I'm making
Speaker 2: are getting me out of the mental health issues. But
Speaker 2: I think from her perspective, and also because like I said,
Speaker 2: I don't need her as much now, so I'm not
Speaker 2: relying on her as much, so she's not getting as
Speaker 2: much information about my life. I think she just has
Speaker 2: like such a limited perspective that she felt the need
Speaker 2: to tell me, like, hey, you are doing it wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the thing when you have like
Speaker 1: when your fucking kids are I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: When your daughter is thirty years old, you're uh yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean if you were sixteen and you had seventeen
Speaker 1: boyfriends or whatever, then maybe, yeah, maybe maybe maybe your
Speaker 1: mom is a little bit more justified and chiming in.
Speaker 1: But by by thirty, it's like, you know, whatever you
Speaker 1: have to say about my life is you know, you're
Speaker 1: entitled to your opinion about it, but you have no
Speaker 1: you have no sway. It's like what's the Bob Dylan song,
Speaker 1: The times are a change in par fuck? Do you
Speaker 1: know the there's a line, it's about crap. Well, I
Speaker 1: want to look this up. Hold on, sorry, I want
Speaker 1: to look it up. I'm looking it up. It's just it's, uh,
Speaker 1: the times, they are a change in the classic classically
Speaker 1: from uh the opening of the Watchman movie. Have you
Speaker 1: seen that? Yeah, yeah, okay, he goes, it goes. Come come,
Speaker 1: mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what
Speaker 1: you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond
Speaker 1: your command. Bam. That's what that's what we got. That
Speaker 1: that's what we got. That's that's what's going on here,
Speaker 1: speaking the truth. So yeah, I mean your mom, your
Speaker 1: mom's got to listen to Maybe you should send her
Speaker 1: that song. Maybe maybe maybe you text her. Maybe you
Speaker 1: text her that song, and you're like, that's that's what
Speaker 1: you gotta accept. That's her journey is accepting that that
Speaker 1: that little part of the song. Yeah, you know, And
Speaker 1: I get why that would make her hard to hang
Speaker 1: out with if she is has an accept Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and it's too because like my mom and I
Speaker 2: were really really close, like I said, like she lived
Speaker 2: with me for a little bit when my husband died,
Speaker 2: and then even before that, like she was only twenty
Speaker 2: when I was born, so we really grew up together
Speaker 2: and like, are really close or we're really close question work,
Speaker 2: I don't know, and so it's weird for me too,
Speaker 2: Like I have a lot of grief about the state
Speaker 2: of our relationship currently and I'm like, ah, this is
Speaker 2: not how I would prefer it, and that doesn't change that. Like,
Speaker 2: I just don't have the emotional bandwidth to convince her
Speaker 2: that I'm making the right life choices.
Speaker 1: You can't you could, well, you literally can't, right right true?
Speaker 1: What well? I guess, Like, I mean when when when
Speaker 1: you talk to her about these things, how does that
Speaker 1: conversation go? Like are you like, hey, mom, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: never gonna I know you have your ideas of how
Speaker 1: I should be living my life and you're entitled to
Speaker 1: he I have ideas about whatever it is that you want,
Speaker 1: but I would I just di I don't want to
Speaker 1: hear them anymore.
Speaker 2: She's like, but I'm your mom, and you need to
Speaker 2: hear what I have to say. You need to hear
Speaker 2: my perspective. But I'm like, but I don't need to.
Speaker 2: You need me to and that's different. Yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 2: I did, like I did sit and listen to her.
Speaker 2: Like last let's see, in October, she flew out to
Speaker 2: see me and we talked like pretty intensely and emotionally,
Speaker 2: and I just straight up told her like I sat
Speaker 2: and I listened and I was like, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to change my mind, Like this is not a
Speaker 2: continu a conversation that I'm willing to continue having with
Speaker 2: you for you to tell me that polyamory is wrong
Speaker 2: for me, Like, I'm just not open to hearing your
Speaker 2: perspective because you don't know, you haven't done the research,
Speaker 2: you don't have the experience, like you have your own
Speaker 2: insecurities around it, and that's I just don't want to
Speaker 2: deal with that and I don't have to. And she
Speaker 2: didn't like that.
Speaker 1: Hmm. Yeah, that's a bummer. That's a bummer. I wish
Speaker 1: I had anything. I wish I had anything better to
Speaker 1: tell you other than that that's a bummer. Yeah it is,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, I don't know, because you you're like,
Speaker 1: if you like anyone out there, if you have a
Speaker 1: if you have a parent who's like unconditionally supportive of you,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like striking fucking gold, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And uh, it's hard to deal with it. If it's
Speaker 1: if they're if they're not, I'm I'm not a real therapist,
Speaker 1: or I'm not I don't even think I'm a fake therapist.
Speaker 1: I'm just doing a part I get. You know what,
Speaker 1: I guess if you call yourself the therapy gecko and
Speaker 1: you and you pretend to give people, yeah, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm yeah. Anyway, Well, well, uh, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: Have you ever talked to a real therapist about this?
Speaker 1: And if you do, what do they have to say?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I talked to my real therapist all the time.
Speaker 1: What theist say?
Speaker 2: She basically reminds me, like to use my tools and
Speaker 2: that I don't have to let anybody make me feel
Speaker 2: any kind of way, which is actually funny because that's
Speaker 2: advice that my mom has given me my whole life,
Speaker 2: usually about other relatives. And then just like reminding me
Speaker 2: about some other therapy stuff, like wise mind, which is
Speaker 2: you have like the emotional part of your brain and
Speaker 2: then you have the logical part of your brain, and
Speaker 2: wise mind is bringing those two together and making decisions
Speaker 2: from both, and so reminding me like, don't just look
Speaker 2: at the details on paper, don't just look at how
Speaker 2: you're feeling about a situation, like use all of it
Speaker 2: and take all the data and make your decisions accordingly,
Speaker 2: and just like reassuring me and my sense of self
Speaker 2: also because we've done a lot of work on that
Speaker 2: since my husband passed away.
Speaker 1: What's your so like, I'm very what's your relationship like
Speaker 1: with your stepdad? I know we kind of talked about
Speaker 1: it a little bit, but like is he like because
Speaker 1: because the stepdad is is a bit of a central
Speaker 1: figure I think in this of like, you know, like
Speaker 1: does he play a voice of reason? Is he on
Speaker 1: your side? Is he like, hey, you know, give give
Speaker 1: the kid a break? Is he what's his kind of
Speaker 1: Not that it really matters in the like fasting of all,
Speaker 1: not that it really matters in the processing of all
Speaker 1: of this, but I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: I don't really know. I think for the most part,
Speaker 2: he just like stit out of it at Christmas, like
Speaker 2: try to me between us and remind us, like, hey,
Speaker 2: don't say anything that you're gonna regret. I feel like
Speaker 2: at that point it was too late though, I was
Speaker 2: already figuring out how I was gonna suddenly fly home
Speaker 2: and leave the trip, but for the most part, he's
Speaker 2: like encouraging to both of us to do it our
Speaker 2: way whatever that looks like.
Speaker 1: So tell me, I guess, like, aside from what's going
Speaker 1: on with your mom, tell me about tell me about
Speaker 1: the polyamory stuff. What's uh, what's been your what's been
Speaker 1: your journey with that. I think about this stuff a
Speaker 1: lot because like I don't know, like being on I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think these are not refined thoughts. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna think aloud for a second, but it's like I
Speaker 1: think there's something to be said about, like because I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how I want to live my
Speaker 1: own life, and it's like, uh, there's something to be
Speaker 1: said about like committing to one person and then like
Speaker 1: you have like doing the work of like figuring it
Speaker 1: fucking out with like one person, and like you know,
Speaker 1: the idea, the idea is you pick someone and then
Speaker 1: you grow with them and you fight with them and
Speaker 1: you work it out and you you continue on. But
Speaker 1: but the idea that like, like I don't believe like
Speaker 1: soulmates makes no sense to me. The idea of like
Speaker 1: there was there's one person who's one person who's perfect
Speaker 1: for you and you happen to meet them out of
Speaker 1: the infinite amount of people that like, that's there's no way.
Speaker 1: There's is no fucking way. And I also I also
Speaker 1: believe in you know that like like the like the
Speaker 1: abundance of love and all that shit of like, well,
Speaker 1: I have you know, tons of friends. Why can't that exist?
Speaker 1: Why can't that you know, uh uh be? Why can't
Speaker 1: I have infinite love for multiple people? And the truth
Speaker 1: the truth is, I actually I don't think to say
Speaker 1: which of those things is to say, like, Okay, the
Speaker 1: path of commitment and we're gonna, fuck I'm just choosing
Speaker 1: this and we're gonna do it. There's there's growth there,
Speaker 1: and there's positive things there versus the acceptance of like
Speaker 1: I'm going to live with just the utmost abundance of
Speaker 1: love and I'm actually going to uh learn how to
Speaker 1: juggle and be in like, you know, multiple abundant what's
Speaker 1: the word. There's a fucking thing I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of like like like uh like anti possession kind of ship.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna learn how to be I'm gonna learn
Speaker 1: how to be so fucking loving to so many people
Speaker 1: that I have no desire to possess them in any way,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think and I think both both
Speaker 1: kind of lifestyles. There's no neither of them are uh
Speaker 1: you know correct, TM, They both kind of They both
Speaker 1: bring with them their own sense of you know, struggles
Speaker 1: and their own senses of of of benefits. So I'm
Speaker 1: curious for you which what how you know what your
Speaker 1: journey has been like on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So my husband I were monogamous and Christian,
Speaker 2: like super Christian. I was working in the church and
Speaker 2: he was super involved in the church. And when he
Speaker 2: passed away, there was also like some just like bullshit
Speaker 2: drama that happened at the church, and so the church
Speaker 2: ended up closing. Also, luckily, I had another job lined
Speaker 2: up because I was trying to get another drip up anyway,
Speaker 2: and so I transitioned to working in marketing, which, like
Speaker 2: I was doing marketing for churches anyway, and then I
Speaker 2: avenge started dating very very casually, And in dating casually,
Speaker 2: I was dating a lot of people who were either
Speaker 2: polyamorous or in open relationships. Because people who casually date
Speaker 2: are casual daters, right, It just makes so a lot
Speaker 2: of the people that I was dating we're also dating
Speaker 2: other people. And I was just like, well, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: I could try this. I dated a guy for two
Speaker 2: years in Greece and I actually like flew back and
Speaker 2: forth to see him a bunch, and at first we
Speaker 2: were just super casual, like friends with benefits, but we
Speaker 2: were pretty into each other and if I was going
Speaker 2: to be there, we would hang out. But we weren't
Speaker 2: like going to get married or anything like. We weren't
Speaker 2: committed as long as it served both of us. But
Speaker 2: then after being together for like a year and a half,
Speaker 2: I was like, well, we've put in so much time,
Speaker 2: like we should be more serious than this, Like we
Speaker 2: should be committed committed. But for him, that looked like
Speaker 2: more exclusivity than I was comfortable with, because by that
Speaker 2: point I had already met other people in Chicago that
Speaker 2: I really liked spending time with, hanging out with, dating,
Speaker 2: cooking up with, and I wasn't willing to give up
Speaker 2: those connections. And there was one in particular that Greek
Speaker 2: boyfriend was especially like insecure about, and he was asking
Speaker 2: me like, hey, if we're going to be committed and serious,
Speaker 2: I don't think that you should still be with this person.
Speaker 2: And I was like, but I love this person and
Speaker 2: I want to be with this person and definitely so
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do that. So we broke up.
Speaker 2: And then my partner, Javan and I have been together
Speaker 2: and are doing well and we date together and separate
Speaker 2: and have other partners also, but we live together and
Speaker 2: like do life together, share finances, share an apartment. He's
Speaker 2: feeding the caps while I'm gone. I love our relationship.
Speaker 2: Our relationship is amazing and beautiful and wonderful. I just
Speaker 2: rambled a bunch.
Speaker 1: No, No, that was great. That's great, all right, By
Speaker 1: the way, I like, I really do, I really, I
Speaker 1: I really do get I feel where you're confront because
Speaker 1: like people, you know, I think people mistake like, oh,
Speaker 1: I could never do that with nobody, can ever do that?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Yes, so that's yeah, probably I was going on, yeah,
Speaker 3: oh I could never do that with the pretense or
Speaker 3: the undertones of and neither can you.
Speaker 1: Right, right, But I don't know. We live in we
Speaker 1: live in an abundant world where everyone can kind of
Speaker 1: fucking do whatever they want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's I mean, one of my core values
Speaker 2: is to do it for the bit, Like everything can't
Speaker 2: be so serious and sure. That's not to say that
Speaker 2: like my dating life isn't serious. Like I have a
Speaker 2: lot of very serious, committed relationships. It's the commitment and
Speaker 2: exclusivity are not mutually exclusive.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting concept. Tell me, tell me more about
Speaker 1: what you mean by that.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm wholeheartedly committed to my partner, Javon, and that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that I can't be committed to other people. Also,
Speaker 2: it's like you were saying about friendships. It's like you
Speaker 2: don't have one friend and that's the only friend that
Speaker 2: you do stuff with. You have a bunch of friends
Speaker 2: and for a bunch of activities, right, Like there's one
Speaker 2: friend you go to the movies with to see an
Speaker 2: action movie, and there's another friend you go to see
Speaker 2: a rom com and it's just like the same kind
Speaker 2: of thing, but for dating and incorporating sex and romance
Speaker 2: into those relationships also m h m hm. And there's
Speaker 2: no reason that you can only do that in one relationship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to. I have to ask though, because
Speaker 1: it here's the one thing is that there is a
Speaker 1: the one thing that you I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: one of the many challenges to the lifestyle I assume
Speaker 1: is that you have a finite amount of time in
Speaker 1: an you twenty you have twenty four hours in a day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's the most difficult thing about I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for for most people, it's like, I mean, polyamory
Speaker 1: isn't like forget about anything logistically. I mean, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: forget about anything emotionally. It's just like logistically between you know,
Speaker 1: having to work for however many hours you got to
Speaker 1: work and having to do laundry and brush your teeth
Speaker 1: and go to that, you know, just do everything. I mean,
Speaker 1: how do you have genuine question, how do you have
Speaker 1: time to have all these commitments and all these relationships.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm probably the wrong person to ask, because I
Speaker 2: left my job and started my own business partially to
Speaker 2: free up my time, partially because I was just ready
Speaker 2: to do that. But so there's that. So I work
Speaker 2: a lot less now, and the work that I do
Speaker 2: is significantly more meaningful. And then it also honestly helps
Speaker 2: that I am dating people who are dating each other,
Speaker 2: because then we can hang out together versus when I've
Speaker 2: dated people who are not dating the people that I'm dating.
Speaker 2: It's like a lot more logistically challenging just to find
Speaker 2: time and I feel like that's the like, not argument necessarily,
Speaker 2: but like that's what I end up like getting frustrated
Speaker 2: with partners about is time management, either on their end
Speaker 2: or mine of like, Okay, well I've set aside this
Speaker 2: time for you and you didn't take me up on it,
Speaker 2: or like we had this date planned and you double
Speaker 2: booked or I double booked or whatever it is. It's
Speaker 2: like time management is like the most annoying part.
Speaker 1: That's so no the thing you said about, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: like if you have two boyfriends, but the two boyfriends
Speaker 1: are also boyfriends, that's not perfect. That's perfect because you
Speaker 1: can go because that means you can go do whatever
Speaker 1: the fuck thing you're gonna do. And then your boyfriends
Speaker 1: are boyfriends ended up with each other, you know you
Speaker 1: have to worry about.
Speaker 2: Uh uh, well, like last night, right exactly last night,
Speaker 2: like I flew out to Maryland and so my girlfriend
Speaker 2: was over at my apartment with my partner, and she
Speaker 2: like stayed over and then got up this morning and
Speaker 2: went to work, and I'm like, wow, how great that
Speaker 2: my partner was not home alone, Like how wonderful that
Speaker 2: he had company?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and company that I love and trust versus like
Speaker 2: company that I don't know anything about.
Speaker 1: What's your What business do you do?
Speaker 2: I am a business consultant. I helped creative people organize
Speaker 2: their self care, passion project or small business.
Speaker 1: Interesting, how long have you been doing that?
Speaker 2: I started in January?
Speaker 1: And how's it? How's it going?
Speaker 2: It's going great. I love all of the clients that
Speaker 2: I'm working with. I'm doing a lot more well on
Speaker 2: one coaching than I was expecting. I was expecting to
Speaker 2: do more like small business consulting, where I have like
Speaker 2: contracts with small businesses, But actually a lot of the
Speaker 2: work that I'm doing is just like one on one
Speaker 2: calls with people who are doing some form of passion
Speaker 2: project and they just need help like with project management
Speaker 2: or resources or training stuff like that. So I have
Speaker 2: a client that I'm helping develop a marketing strategy for
Speaker 2: her self published children's book. I have a client that
Speaker 2: I'm helping her outline her like branding guidelines for her
Speaker 2: own business because she doesn't quite have the budget to
Speaker 2: pay someone else to do it. But I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I can do it, but it's better if I teach
Speaker 2: you how to do it. So I'm doing that.
Speaker 1: Stuff like that that makes sense. You know, you're very
Speaker 1: easy to talk to, so it makes sense that you
Speaker 1: have this like one to one kind of coaching job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it suits me. I enjoy it a lot. And
Speaker 2: I don't know. I have been in therapy like all
Speaker 2: of my life, literally all of my life actually since
Speaker 2: my brother was born because he's special needs, the like
Speaker 2: therapy center for him where he would do like his
Speaker 2: physical therapy. They also offered mental health services to the siblings.
Speaker 2: So I started therapy like super young and have just
Speaker 2: like I don't know, absorbed at all. And I like
Speaker 2: passing on knowledge, not just about like business stuff, but
Speaker 2: everything like holistic care. And I really think that self
Speaker 2: care like is part of your work and your business.
Speaker 2: It's like the crucial part. It's the part that everything
Speaker 2: is built off of. So I'm glad that I get
Speaker 2: to do that for other people and with other people.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead let me. I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on in the twitch chat, but if you're down,
Speaker 1: I'll see if the twitch chat has any, uh any
Speaker 1: questions are you a real gecko? I'm not going to
Speaker 1: answer that. You should.
Speaker 2: Speaking of are you a real gecko is when you're
Speaker 2: a little like intro theme song plays or your outro
Speaker 2: theme song, and it says, budd, he's not really. We
Speaker 2: say a gecko, Oh.
Speaker 1: I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta update that
Speaker 1: intro song. I get a new one.
Speaker 2: I know that's not the words, but it's fun.
Speaker 1: So okay, here's a question. Someone asks if STDs are
Speaker 1: ever a concern.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So we're just like really open and
Speaker 2: talking about testing and also using barriers, and we just
Speaker 2: have those conversations a lot more than other people.
Speaker 1: Someone asked, uh, what was the transition like from being
Speaker 1: employed to self employed?
Speaker 2: Fucking terrifying. I have like a good savings account that
Speaker 2: I built up for this, and it still like hurts
Speaker 2: me emotionally to dig into it. Like I know that
Speaker 2: that's why I have the money, and I'm like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, like I'm going to burn through my savings.
Speaker 2: It's like that's literally what it's for. Yeah, it's really
Speaker 2: just like the mindset shift of like I am fully
Speaker 2: responsible for my income versus when I was working at
Speaker 2: a business, it was like there was a little bit
Speaker 2: of like sales and lead generation in my job, but
Speaker 2: I wasn't doing all of it. Whereas now I'm doing
Speaker 2: all of it, Like, if I need a new client,
Speaker 2: it's my responsibility to go out and find a new client. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that, Like I knew all of that going in,
Speaker 2: but it's still quite a lot to juggle and to
Speaker 2: get used to.
Speaker 1: Are you you started in January?
Speaker 4: Are you?
Speaker 1: Are you? Are you in the green?
Speaker 4: Not yet?
Speaker 1: What's been your like process for gathering clients and whatnot.
Speaker 2: So it's funny when I moved to Chico back in
Speaker 2: the day, like five years ago I did it or
Speaker 2: six years Oh my gosh. I raised support as a
Speaker 2: missionary to do that, And so I had like a
Speaker 2: pitch deck that I would show to people from the
Speaker 2: church and say, here's why you should invest in my
Speaker 2: position at this church, and here's the impact that I'm
Speaker 2: going to make. I just like took that framework and
Speaker 2: created it for my business. And so I made like
Speaker 2: an investor deck. I scheduled call with a bunch of
Speaker 2: my friends and family and just anybody who would get
Speaker 2: on a call with me, and then I asked them
Speaker 2: to do something, whether it's like book a call with
Speaker 2: me to move forward as a client, refer me to
Speaker 2: someone else, or shout me out on social media, and
Speaker 2: then I just did that over and over again until
Speaker 2: I got a client load I was happy with.
Speaker 1: I guess that kind of the missionary thing leads into
Speaker 1: this other question, Are you still a Christian?
Speaker 2: That's a tough question. I don't think so. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of value in the community
Speaker 2: that you get from the church. Like I have a
Speaker 2: lot of really close friends, like family friends from the church.
Speaker 2: I think church can be awesome. I think it also
Speaker 2: can be awful. The like party line from Christians is well,
Speaker 2: it's not God that makes church awful, it's people. And
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, I get that, And I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm more spiritual. I don't think I'm Christian. I'm not
Speaker 2: like Jesus saves or anything anymore. But I'm also not
Speaker 2: anti church.
Speaker 1: You know the dude. I yeah, people listening to this
Speaker 1: podcast know that this year for this this year has
Speaker 1: been unintentionally been for me the year of the existential crisis.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I've been thinking a lot about I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about things that I have not really I mean that,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone thinks about like, you know, what the
Speaker 1: fuck is this? And you know, how did consciousness get
Speaker 1: to be and what happens after we die and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. But this year, for this year, I got
Speaker 1: like really, yeah, it's called existential depression. Like I got
Speaker 1: really into it, and I think it's the other day
Speaker 1: I was like thinking about it and I was like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: I actually do think I'm like I was, I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: is there actually fucking might be a god? And I
Speaker 1: not in like a not in like a obviously like
Speaker 1: the god as it's kind of like the way it's
Speaker 1: been like weaponize. Yeah. Yeah, like I hired being like
Speaker 1: like the way it's been like weaponized to like you know,
Speaker 1: uh other people and to fucking you know, like I
Speaker 1: don't think, like I don't think I believe in heaven
Speaker 1: and Hell, although I don't who knows I At this
Speaker 1: point it all all roads leads. All roads kind of
Speaker 1: lead to there being no definitive answer. But when people
Speaker 1: talk about like, I'm not bothered when people talk about
Speaker 1: like God and Jesus because I think God and Jesus
Speaker 1: are just like they're just allegory and I don't know
Speaker 1: if allegory is the right word. They're just placeholders for
Speaker 1: like a higher power. And when you really think about,
Speaker 1: like what a fucking miracle and like what insanity it
Speaker 1: is to like be conscious you you it almost like
Speaker 1: the fact like they're being a high there there must
Speaker 1: be a higher power which and it's not necessarily like
Speaker 1: a dude in the sky or.
Speaker 2: Like mean to me, just like the design of like
Speaker 2: the earth one place where our like human being is
Speaker 2: able to exist and has the right oh zone whatever
Speaker 2: in the air and the like, all of that to
Speaker 2: me indicates like some sort of higher power designing things
Speaker 2: or orchestrating things.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but I mean there also is like you
Speaker 1: could take a nihilistic approach to it and be like
Speaker 1: it's all just a random, chaotic, uh cosmic mistake. But
Speaker 1: still but but even but even but even if it's
Speaker 1: all a mistake and it's all random, it's like, well
Speaker 1: so the that's that still doesn't explain a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, So I don't know, but yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the fact that it's like so I don't know anytime
Speaker 1: like when like uh like even like prayer, like I
Speaker 1: like I pray now you're like I find I've talked
Speaker 1: about this before, Like I'll do this thing like when
Speaker 1: I'm like traveling like if I'm uh going through airport
Speaker 1: security and uh, you know, is that moment when you
Speaker 1: you like you don't have any of your stuff and
Speaker 1: you don't have your phone and you're just standing there
Speaker 1: and you're waiting, I'll like clasp my hands and look up.
Speaker 2: And it's like wow, wow, actually pray.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like pray. But it's again, it's not like
Speaker 1: it's not like Jesus or it's just like we randomly
Speaker 1: somehow got to evolve into these like con into fucking
Speaker 1: conscious beings. It's so insane. There are there obviously there's
Speaker 1: like you know, scientific whatever of like the neurons create
Speaker 1: consciousness or whatever, but there's there's still so many questions
Speaker 1: that like can't be answered, and the answer is not
Speaker 1: necessarily like there was a God and he created the
Speaker 1: life and he wants you to you know, never have
Speaker 1: sex and never you know, direct like that stuff that
Speaker 1: that stuff is all fucking stupid. But like the idea
Speaker 1: that there's something more conscious than us makes total sense.
Speaker 1: So I just I sub that in.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: I don't get annoyed when people talk about Jesus or
Speaker 1: anything like that, because I just sub it in with
Speaker 1: like they're seeking a higher power, they seeking answers. You know,
Speaker 1: it's only annoying when people use it, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, sorry, Yeah, it's annoying when they like try
Speaker 2: and force it on you exactly, they're like, oh, well
Speaker 2: you should change your X y Z because I believe this.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, we can stop this conversation now. Versus
Speaker 2: if they're just telling me about their belief system, I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh cool, tell me.
Speaker 1: More, right, right. Yeah, it's annoying when they do that,
Speaker 1: when they try to push it on you, or when
Speaker 1: they like use it to be like, well yeah again,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess, yeah, I guess. Actually all forms
Speaker 1: of like religious powered hatred are just like extremities of
Speaker 1: trying to force your religion upon other people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and I hate that that religious powered hatred
Speaker 2: is veiled under the guys those religious powered love. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: we're just telling you this because we care so much
Speaker 2: about you, like you clearly don't because you're telling me
Speaker 2: this mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Although you know, it's fun and and I although to
Speaker 1: be maybe it's wrong to be sympathetic to this degree,
Speaker 1: but I also I was thinking, I was maybe it's
Speaker 1: wrong to be sympathetic to this degree. But I was thinking.
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, you know, if I
Speaker 1: were convinced that if I were convinced unfallibly of these things,
Speaker 1: then of course I'd be like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have the best news in the world I have.
Speaker 1: Of course, yeah, of course. Uh. Louis c K has
Speaker 1: this joke where he's like, you know, like like people
Speaker 1: who are like anti abortion, like like they like in
Speaker 1: their minds, they think that you're killing babies, and so,
Speaker 1: of course if you think that people are killing But
Speaker 1: of course, if you're convinced that you think that people
Speaker 1: are killing babies, you're going to stand outside of the
Speaker 1: fucking planned parenthood. Doesn't make it right, but of course
Speaker 1: that's what you're gonna do if that's what you're convinced of. So,
Speaker 1: you know what, I none of these are all just
Speaker 1: you know, things to think about.
Speaker 2: I guess, but yeah, I don't know either. You talk
Speaker 2: a lot about like recording your thoughts on the internet,
Speaker 2: and I feel very similar. I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: all of this is recorded, and I'm going to change
Speaker 2: my mind.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, Yes exactly, but whatever, I'll here's what Here's what
Speaker 1: happened is I'll change my mind. Tomorrow somebody will be like,
Speaker 1: well and hear you said this about this, and I'll
Speaker 1: be like, well, you know whatever I'm it makes Honestly,
Speaker 1: it makes me. Yeah, yeah, it makes me very I'm
Speaker 1: very happy and I feel very you see, you really
Speaker 1: get where I'm coming from on all these things, and
Speaker 1: that makes me. That makes me feel feel very seen.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate this conversation very much.
Speaker 2: You're so welcome. And I know that you don't see
Speaker 2: it this way. But we spend a lot of time together.
Speaker 1: This is true. It's true. You spend a lot. It's true.
Speaker 1: We have a yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I listen. Do you talk a lot? So it
Speaker 2: makes sense.
Speaker 1: Hold on, we might have another let me let me
Speaker 1: see if we have any more any more? Just questions
Speaker 1: from the chat. Uh. Someone wants to know how many
Speaker 1: partners do you have?
Speaker 2: I would say three right now. I have a nesting partner,
Speaker 2: we have a girlfriend, and have a platonic partner who
Speaker 2: I've been with for ages, but we're long distance.
Speaker 1: Right now, let's see, Oh, how did you meet your partners?
Speaker 1: Someone wants to know.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Javon and I met on Tinder. We were
Speaker 2: just like looking at and then we actually really liked
Speaker 2: each other and like fell in love, which was a
Speaker 2: little problematic because we both had other partners at the
Speaker 2: time who weren't super chill with us falling in love.
Speaker 2: And then I met our girlfriend through Jon he already
Speaker 2: knew her. I don't know how they met, I assume
Speaker 2: on the app. And then my platonic partner we were
Speaker 2: friends in college.
Speaker 1: When you say you had partners that weren't chill with
Speaker 1: you falling in love, are you, is it like do
Speaker 1: you have agreements with them where it's like, look, have
Speaker 1: sex with whoever you want, but like I want to
Speaker 1: be your Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, someone wants
Speaker 1: to know your thoughts on Playboy CARDI on what play
Speaker 1: Playboy carti?
Speaker 2: Playboy CARTI? I don't know. I have none.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, I don't have any either. All right, Well, well,
Speaker 1: kat I, I, is there anything else that did we
Speaker 1: cover all bases? If we didn't, we can come down
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 2: I mean, I would love if you're cool. Isn't to
Speaker 2: tell you a little bit about my brother because he's
Speaker 2: like my fucking hero?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Oh, also, yeah, I do want to hear about
Speaker 1: your brother. I also, uh, don't let me forget, but
Speaker 1: I wanna. We'll do this at the very end. I
Speaker 1: want to give you. Don't let me forget about this.
Speaker 1: I want to give you the opportunity to shout out
Speaker 1: your business. I don't know if you have an email,
Speaker 1: Instagram or whatever, but uh yeah, go ahead. Tell me
Speaker 1: about your brother.
Speaker 2: So his name is Thomas. He has this genetic disorder
Speaker 2: called FG syndrome, which it doesn't matter what it's called,
Speaker 2: but it basically his body and his brain like don't
Speaker 2: connect the way that they're supposed to, and so that's
Speaker 2: caused a whole bunch of issues throughout his life. He
Speaker 2: we call him bionic Boy because he has so many
Speaker 2: like medical devices attached to him used to his spine.
Speaker 2: He has a muscle relaxer pump under his abdomen, like
Speaker 2: under the skin that sends muscle relaxer straight to his
Speaker 2: spinal system. He has he's on like bagged nutritions instead
Speaker 2: of a feeding tube.
Speaker 6: It just goes.
Speaker 2: Directly to his bloodstream. It's really fucking cool. He likes
Speaker 2: to play piano, he likes to read books, he loves
Speaker 2: to watch movies. He was on a really big Marvel Kick.
Speaker 2: But then I think he finally got tired of Marvel
Speaker 2: after watching like all of the movies in chronological order
Speaker 2: and release order, like one hundred times over, I think
Speaker 2: he's finally moved on to other action movies. Now, let's see,
Speaker 2: he's quadriplegic, so he doesn't have functionally quadriplegic. He doesn't
Speaker 2: have like full range of motion of his limbs. He
Speaker 2: can like turn pages in a book and like press
Speaker 2: keys on a keyboard, but he doesn't have very much
Speaker 2: control of his motor skills. He's wheelchair bound. He's nonverbal.
Speaker 2: He can communicate with like yes no with his eye
Speaker 2: movement or like he'll raise his eyebrows for yes or
Speaker 2: lower them for no. But for the most part, we
Speaker 2: just kind of read his mind.
Speaker 1: Does he does he like type or write or anything.
Speaker 2: He did type for a while, but it's like so
Speaker 2: much physical effort for him to be able to type
Speaker 2: that there's just very little that's worth it to him
Speaker 2: for the energy of communicating.
Speaker 1: Is he's twenty five right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well he'll be twenty five in September.
Speaker 1: Sorry if you mentioned this, Sorry about is he Is
Speaker 1: he been like this his whole life? Or was it
Speaker 1: something that developed, it's.
Speaker 2: Gotten like worse through his whole life. So it's like
Speaker 2: every year he's had some sort of medical complication, not
Speaker 2: necessarily every year, but pretty much every year, and so
Speaker 2: it's like usually one thing at a time. So when
Speaker 2: he was little, little, like there was barely anything wrong,
Speaker 2: so to speak. And then as he or his body
Speaker 2: just like couldn't keep up. Like if you're in a
Speaker 2: wheelchair and you don't like walk around and move your muscles,
Speaker 2: then your muscles atrophy. So his body has just been
Speaker 2: like falling apart his whole life.
Speaker 1: What was your what was your guys relationship? Like like uh,
Speaker 1: growing up, we actually.
Speaker 2: Didn't realize that he was not also mentally handicapped until
Speaker 2: he was like fourteen, So that was the first time
Speaker 2: he ever typed a sentence before that. Like we were chill,
Speaker 2: but I didn't know he was in there, you know,
Speaker 2: so like we would hang out, watch movies, whatever. But
Speaker 2: like I was like, how quick can this relationship be?
Speaker 2: Like I don't know. We thought he was a vegetable,
Speaker 2: and then it was like, oh my gosh, he's not
Speaker 2: a vegetable. He's a real kid. He's in there and
Speaker 2: can talk and tell us things, And I have a
Speaker 2: lot of guilt for like not being around more, but
Speaker 2: I'm trying to just let go of that and be
Speaker 2: around as much as I want to instead.
Speaker 1: Does he have a nice relationship with your stepmom and
Speaker 1: your mom?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think so. I think they so. During the pandemic,
Speaker 2: it was pretty rough because there was the shortage of
Speaker 2: healthcare workers and so it was literally just my mom
Speaker 2: and my stepdad taking care of him twenty four to seven,
Speaker 2: and they all got burnt out from each other. Now
Speaker 2: they have like nursing care in the house again, and
Speaker 2: so I feel like the relationship is much better, not
Speaker 2: just between like my brother and my parents, but even
Speaker 2: between my mom and my stepdad. Like I feel like
Speaker 2: they finally get a break from caregiving.
Speaker 1: Now, wait, where are you right now? By the way,
Speaker 1: I hear a lot.
Speaker 2: Of people, I'm in the hospital lobby.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, you mentioned that. What forgive me if you
Speaker 1: mentioned this already? But what's up with your dad?
Speaker 2: My dad is a chill guy. He and my mom
Speaker 2: got divorced when I was young and my brother was young,
Speaker 2: so my brother is his biological child. Also, he's remarried.
Speaker 2: He lives with his wife in small town Indiana.
Speaker 1: And uh are you is he? Do you guys? Like,
Speaker 1: are you guys cool? And you're cool with his uh
Speaker 1: his wife and everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we're cool. He wasn't around a ton when
Speaker 2: I was growing up because he had work stuff and
Speaker 2: I was with my mom, who's his ex wife, And
Speaker 2: I have a lot of just like grace and understanding
Speaker 2: for that. And I talk a lot lately about how,
Speaker 2: like my dad, my relationship now that I'm an adult
Speaker 2: is so much better. And then my mom kind of
Speaker 2: jokes like, well, that's because you lowered your standards, but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it is because I lowered my standards because like my
Speaker 2: dad never asked to have me, like they just got pregnant.
Speaker 2: He did the best he could and left his wife
Speaker 2: and still like showed up for me. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: did lower my standards. I'm cool with that. But he
Speaker 2: and my brother haven't really been able to see each other,
Speaker 2: like since my mom and them moved out here to Maryland.
Speaker 2: They used to live in Indiana. Also, m m.
Speaker 1: Hmmm. I'm trying to think, was there anything else you
Speaker 1: wanted to you wanted to mention about your your your brother,
Speaker 1: your family or you know kind of anything at all
Speaker 1: before uh we get into uh I want to let
Speaker 1: you do your plugs?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, gosh, I don't think so. I'm just I'm
Speaker 2: so thrilled we got to talk today.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, here what's okay?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: What where do? If people want your your coaching services
Speaker 1: or yeah, any of these stings.
Speaker 2: If you want help with your self care or your
Speaker 2: passion project or your small business, you can follow me
Speaker 2: on Instagram at Cat Makes Stickers. That's cat lob K.
Speaker 2: From there, you can check out my website if you want,
Speaker 2: or just follow. I also well buy the name. You
Speaker 2: can tell make Stickers as my like lead generating thing,
Speaker 2: so you can also see the stickers I've been designing
Speaker 2: and working on.
Speaker 1: Cat Makes Stickers. There's no no no x's or underscores
Speaker 1: or numbers or anything. Just Cat Makes Stickers straight. Yep,
Speaker 1: pretty good. What kind of stickers do you make?
Speaker 2: Whatever? I feel like just like fun stuff. Today I
Speaker 2: was working on a sticker of my mom's pets, but
Speaker 2: in the style of like the Stardeo Valley Pets.
Speaker 1: Here, hold on, I'm gonna I'm gonna is it? Is
Speaker 1: it embarrassing? If I check this out? While we're on
Speaker 1: the phone. No, okay, cool, Uh stickers, Cat makes stickers cool?
Speaker 1: Oh you gotta Oh this is cool? Oh hell yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh you got the Powerpuff Girls. Oh hell yeah, you're
Speaker 1: really doing it. This is sick.
Speaker 2: I'm trying, man.
Speaker 1: This is like for helping folks.
Speaker 2: With like yes I am, I am really doing it.
Speaker 1: This is this is like helping folks with like ADHD
Speaker 1: and shit like that. Okay, sick, sick. No, well, look,
Speaker 1: I'll say this just by talking to you, is that
Speaker 1: I I I really enjoyed talking to you.
Speaker 2: Cat.
Speaker 1: You're very I can just you know, from the hour
Speaker 1: ish that we got to talk, I can tell you're
Speaker 1: very empathetic, understanding persons.
Speaker 2: So wow, I I I'm gonna quote you on my website.
Speaker 1: You know what I full you can, I will, I
Speaker 1: will endorse you. I will. This is I will give
Speaker 1: I have a full I don't know if what we
Speaker 1: I guess what we just did counts as some form
Speaker 1: of a one to one conversation, and so I will
Speaker 1: give you. I will give you a an official endorsement.
Speaker 1: Put me on the put me on the back of
Speaker 1: whatever CDs you put out, or anything like that. Yeah, yeah, Cat,
Speaker 1: is anything else you want to say to the people
Speaker 1: of the computer before we go.
Speaker 2: You know what, No, I feel good.
Speaker 1: This was great, perfect, Thank you Cat, having a good
Speaker 1: rest of the day.
Speaker 2: You too, Bye bye.
Speaker 1: That was a great conversation. I I I love I
Speaker 1: love talking to that person. That was That was great.
Speaker 1: That was really great. No, definitely, I hope she gets
Speaker 1: some busy that would be That would be super cool
Speaker 1: to me if she got some business off of this,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cool. One of my favorite things now is like,
Speaker 1: if somebody I love, like, if somebody shouts out their
Speaker 1: ship on the podcast, I'll like, after I released the episode,
Speaker 1: I'll wait a few days and then I'll go to
Speaker 1: their Instagram and I'll like, I like, I'll see the
Speaker 1: look at the comments and there'll be a bunch of
Speaker 1: people being like, GEX sent me here, and I'll be like,
Speaker 1: that's sick. I did that with the There was the
Speaker 1: there was of course the cave guy, and then there
Speaker 1: was the woman on the boat. And yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1: It's cool watching uh like their followers go up and ship.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, shout out, shout out CAT makes stickers.
Speaker 1: That was a good conversation. Yeah. The more I don't
Speaker 1: know the more the more. I I don't know that
Speaker 1: was I don't know if I have any post call
Speaker 1: thoughts Aside from that, I think everything everything that was
Speaker 1: said is is was good. That was good. Hello, Hello, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's your name?
Speaker 4: My name is Scott.
Speaker 1: Scott what a Yeah?
Speaker 4: And I started a weed journal in chat GPT last night,
Speaker 4: and like it's really weird because I feel like I've
Speaker 4: been more honest with it than like most of my
Speaker 4: therapists I've ever had.
Speaker 1: You started a weed journal in chat GPT. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make some I'm gonna make some guesses as
Speaker 1: to what a weed journal is. First guess, a journal
Speaker 1: that you do while you are high on weed.
Speaker 2: Essentially?
Speaker 1: Okay? Is that wait? Essentially? Or what's a weed joke?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I haven't I have to do a
Speaker 4: bunch of shit already. So I'm like keep track of
Speaker 4: what I have, keep track of what I've smoked in
Speaker 4: the past, and like what I've said about it, and
Speaker 4: then kind of like asking me questions about like why
Speaker 4: I'm smoking and how I'm feeling and stuff, because you know,
Speaker 4: I know a lot of people in the show say
Speaker 4: they feel like they smoke too much weed and I'm
Speaker 4: kind of trying to figure out if I smoke too
Speaker 4: much or if it's actually helping.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you so you tell it that, like you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I smoked this strain and this is how I'm feeling,
Speaker 1: and it's like, okay, got it, memory updated?
Speaker 4: Yeah, pretty much?
Speaker 1: Okay, and then you journal with it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, to give my life prompts checking in
Speaker 4: at like fifteen minutes after a smoke and in like
Speaker 4: an hour after a smoke.
Speaker 1: All right, has it been gone?
Speaker 4: Uh. It's kind of like getting me to kind of
Speaker 4: like experience it more because I kind of always felt
Speaker 4: like I don't really get like the stereotypical life high,
Speaker 4: you know, like the giggles, the munchies, you know, couch
Speaker 4: flock shit like that. But I still have, you know,
Speaker 4: been smoking and you know kind of just does to
Speaker 4: make it through the day and stuff. So I think
Speaker 4: kind of paying attention to it more is making me
Speaker 4: feel the effects more. And it's also like, I don't know,
Speaker 4: just exposing some of my insecurities the way I'm like
Speaker 4: reflecting on some of the aspects of my life. I'm
Speaker 4: trying to you know, with more when I smoke or
Speaker 4: you know, like I said, smoking too much stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Uh are you saying that uh Ai is exposing your
Speaker 1: insecurities or weed is exposing your insecurities.
Speaker 4: The way I'm conversing with AI is because I guess
Speaker 4: I don't have the social pressure of it being an
Speaker 4: actual person, so I'm kind of like it's more like
Speaker 4: thinking to myself or like you know something like that.
Speaker 4: Kind of.
Speaker 1: Yes, interesting, Well, yeah, I mean that's what by the way,
Speaker 1: you know, look, I've gone back and forth, you know,
Speaker 1: in my real life, like with my friends debating about
Speaker 1: AI and you know, reading about you know, environmental things
Speaker 1: and whatnot. But like, but I get like, but I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I use I use I use it every day. I
Speaker 1: use it every day to like do this ship and
Speaker 1: it does like help you think. My friend refers to
Speaker 1: it as journaling squared and I can't exactly explain what
Speaker 1: he what that means. But then when he said it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, that makes perfect sense. It's like thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: but having something like reflect back at me. It's not good.
Speaker 1: Don't use it. I don't think it's good to use
Speaker 1: as a friend or a partner. I think that's where
Speaker 1: people can get tripped up because you don't want to
Speaker 1: do that. But you know it's not it's not it's
Speaker 1: a good partner for you know, helping helping you think,
Speaker 1: not necessarily. I this is just my experience. I don't
Speaker 1: want to I know this stuff is like controversial, but
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, for me, it it it. It doesn't
Speaker 1: like think for me, I'm not like, I don't fart
Speaker 1: into it and then it farts back something and I'm like, great,
Speaker 1: I don't have to think anymore. I use it as
Speaker 1: a tool to help me think and reflect and introspect
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And I assume that's what you're doing with
Speaker 1: this we.
Speaker 4: Journal Yeah, that journaling square makes a lot of sense
Speaker 4: to me. Like I feel like journaling is like two
Speaker 4: open ended, Like I don't know what the hell to
Speaker 4: write about, so like having telling it to ask me
Speaker 4: questions and then kind of summarize that information back to
Speaker 4: me at some point, you know, to say trends or
Speaker 4: you know whatever. Like so it's kind of like it's
Speaker 4: doing the analysis of me, doing my own analysis of
Speaker 4: myself kind of.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna I know a fuck. I know
Speaker 1: this is controversial and maybe I'm an idiot for saying
Speaker 1: this publicly, because I might eat my words many years
Speaker 1: from now. But this is just my thought process of it,
Speaker 1: because my friends say that. I had a friend who
Speaker 1: said that we are the last generation that will have
Speaker 1: critical thinking skills because of AI, and I think, I
Speaker 1: think that's a bold statement to make. And he may
Speaker 1: be write and maybe there are people who are more
Speaker 1: researched on this than I am, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: For me, I think it's not replaced. I I mean,
Speaker 1: you could look at it. It is like a thing
Speaker 1: that is again like helping you think because you're thinking
Speaker 1: with it. It's not like it's not telling you. I
Speaker 1: mean if you look if you're like if you use
Speaker 1: it to write poems for yourself and then you post
Speaker 1: the poems on Instagram and you're like, look at these poems.
Speaker 1: I think that's stupid, like doing shit like that, and
Speaker 1: people do shit like that, and people use it to
Speaker 1: like do create. I like, like using it to like
Speaker 1: do creative work, I think is lame. I think that's antithetical. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think using it to like create artificial
Speaker 1: art is dumb. And I don't I actually I don't
Speaker 1: know if it will ever even get to the point
Speaker 1: where it creates good artificial art. And if and if
Speaker 1: it is creating good artificial art, it's doing it with
Speaker 1: the guidance of a human who is refining it and
Speaker 1: prompting it in ways that are art full, I suppose,
Speaker 1: but in the way that it sounds like you and
Speaker 1: I use it to like kind of as a sounding
Speaker 1: board for reflection. I think, is yeah, is is you know,
Speaker 1: is useful?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I don't know, it might yes, sorry, go ahead,
Speaker 1: go ahead, just.
Speaker 4: You listen to this podcast called Pessimist Archives. I think
Speaker 4: it changed the name and the format then that's why
Speaker 4: I off. But like it kind of started off as like,
Speaker 4: you know, saying like, well, I think the first episode
Speaker 4: was trying to find out like when was America great,
Speaker 4: like that we're trying to make it great again, and
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, it went back to World War
Speaker 4: two or whatever, and then they were saying times were
Speaker 4: great then, and then you know whatever I want. I
Speaker 4: think it went like all the way back to like
Speaker 4: medieval times, and they were like, you know, essentially the
Speaker 4: conclusions like everyone always thinks that times were better in
Speaker 4: the past. And I'm also like, I think you know,
Speaker 4: like kind of the reaction to books is similar. Original
Speaker 4: reaction to books was kind of similar to like the
Speaker 4: initial reaction to computers and stuff like that. So it's
Speaker 4: it's weird kind of like loop generational loop, uh where
Speaker 4: kind of everyone thinks what's super one the better.
Speaker 1: I'm willing, you know, I'm willing to be checked on this.
Speaker 1: Let them, let the let the fucking record show. I'm
Speaker 1: willing to be checked on this. But I just while
Speaker 1: while you and I are talking about it, I I
Speaker 1: really what you just said resonates with me super hard.
Speaker 1: I really think every I think every generation thinks that
Speaker 1: the previous generation is stupid. Isn't that what keeps Isn't
Speaker 1: that what keeps happening? Like like like all those like articles
Speaker 1: being like, well, millennials don't want to work anymore, Millennials
Speaker 1: spend all their money on like avocado toast. It's like
Speaker 1: the boomers thought the millennials were stupid, and then the
Speaker 1: millennials think the gen zers, and then we think that,
Speaker 1: like does doesn't that just keep happening? Isn't that like
Speaker 1: a cycle of like, yeah, everyone every generation thinks the
Speaker 1: previous generation is fucked and stupid? There's certain and like, look,
Speaker 1: I mean there's certain things that are like I think,
Speaker 1: like undeniably true. These aren't but these aren't black and
Speaker 1: white things. You can't just maybe they are. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I say all this stuff, and then someone
Speaker 1: sends me a link being like, hey, there's empirical data
Speaker 1: to show that suicide rates are up and oppression is
Speaker 1: up and anxiety is up. So we have actual data
Speaker 1: to show that times were better before. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: ah shit, maybe, I.
Speaker 4: Mean it's all relative.
Speaker 1: I guess it's all relative. I don't know. You could
Speaker 1: probably have some fucking chart. Yeah, actually, now I think
Speaker 1: about it, Yeah, there are probably a lot of there's
Speaker 1: probably a lot of like again, empirical data that can
Speaker 1: be like no, no, no, these aren't feelings. We can actually
Speaker 1: prove logistically that the quality of people's lives were better
Speaker 1: in this period of time. And and and then I
Speaker 1: look at stuff like that and it makes me. It
Speaker 1: makes me less optimistic, but I don't know.
Speaker 4: Something done. It's also like, well, what about you know,
Speaker 4: if you think about you know, America in the fifties
Speaker 4: or whatever, like it might have been better for white
Speaker 4: people but not black people.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: So it's like that goes back to it being like relative.
Speaker 4: It's like there's never going to be well. I mean,
Speaker 4: I feel like the idea of peace has like gon
Speaker 4: out the windows since like nine eleven, So, you know,
Speaker 4: I feels like there's never going to be like a
Speaker 4: you know, utopian world where everyone you know, even though
Speaker 4: that's kind of the goal, and hopefully one generation you
Speaker 4: know that even if they say some stuff is shitty,
Speaker 4: you know, like then the next generation will still have
Speaker 4: other stuff that they push forward even if they bring
Speaker 4: some stuff back. So it's like hopefully, you know, the
Speaker 4: averages progress forward in the end, but it doesn't really
Speaker 4: feel like it always.
Speaker 1: These are big questions.
Speaker 3: Mmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a big questions to think about. Maybe I
Speaker 1: should get some like experts on the podcast. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm always just like spinning my own wheels on
Speaker 1: a lot of this shit I'd love to like because
Speaker 1: you know, the more I research and more I like,
Speaker 1: look shit up, I'm like okay, because I'm always like,
Speaker 1: all right, there seems to be smart people who come
Speaker 1: up with like two smart well researched people can come
Speaker 1: up with different visions for the future. You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. People are saying like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: man like people people are saying like the dollar is
Speaker 1: going to collapse and the end of the world is here.
Speaker 1: And then there's people being like, you know on the
Speaker 1: thing of like well yeah, yeah, everyone every generation says
Speaker 1: that the previous generation was fucked, and then you can
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, but this time it actually is different
Speaker 1: because X, Y and Z.
Speaker 4: But every generation also thinks the world is gonna end.
Speaker 4: Remember back in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, remember when the fucking trailer for that
Speaker 1: movie came out. I was terrified. I really thought the
Speaker 1: world was going to end in twenty twelve.
Speaker 4: I remember being like on the beach by day and
Speaker 4: just like kind of looking out at the horizon and
Speaker 4: being like it is just a weird vibe for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I want to have this.
Speaker 1: I want to have this conversation because I'm trying to
Speaker 1: check because I'm like fighting, I'm always fighting with myself
Speaker 1: of like I want to believe that, like I want
Speaker 1: to believe that like the world is how you see it,
Speaker 1: and that perspective is everything, and that that applies on
Speaker 1: like a individual level as well as a societal level.
Speaker 1: But I'm also there's also people who could be like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're actually a big, dumb, fucking hippie and all this
Speaker 1: shit is happening and we don't need your hippie fucking
Speaker 1: nonsense right now. We need X, Y and Z. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know, I'm wrestling with that ship.
Speaker 4: But then, like your own perspectives can lie to you too,
Speaker 4: you know, like when you're talking on like depressed is
Speaker 4: like you know then, I mean in that moment, I
Speaker 4: guess that is your world, but you know, kind of overalled.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, depression can lie to you. It can tell
Speaker 1: you that, oh, I can tell you a lot of
Speaker 1: your your thoughts, and your brain can lie to you,
Speaker 1: and so and you can I I I see, I
Speaker 1: don't see why optimism can be I mean, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: optimism can be uh checked and uh dissected and pulled apart.
Speaker 1: But so, I mean, on the same coin, so can pessimism.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, may be fine, Everything's gonna be fine,
Speaker 1: right probably maybe who knows what's going on in your life.
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about you, and we've been talking
Speaker 1: for fifteen minutes. I only know that you smoke weed
Speaker 1: and talk to chatchybt.
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know. I'm tying. I got married Blake
Speaker 4: a little less than a year ago to the person
Speaker 4: i've been less since we're sixteen, so it'll be like
Speaker 4: we've been together half of our lives.
Speaker 1: The Lahaiam very good. How old are you now? I'm
Speaker 1: thirty two, thirty two and you're married to the lady
Speaker 1: you've fucking met when you were sixteen. Yep, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about your life because you are, like your
Speaker 1: romantic life is the polar opposite of the previous callers
Speaker 1: romantic life, and so I'm curious on your you have
Speaker 1: like the exact opposite uh romantic life stories. So I'm curious.
Speaker 1: And we got to hear her you know, struggles and
Speaker 1: her benefits to that, and so now I'm curious you
Speaker 1: took the opposite route of like, I am going to
Speaker 1: commit to this person that I met when I was sixteen,
Speaker 1: and I've now it's been sixteen years of commitment. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: So what's going on? What's going on with you? Tell
Speaker 1: me about that lifestyle.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's kind of one of those things where
Speaker 4: like I see why that sounds kind of crazy to people,
Speaker 4: but like it just feels natural to me personally. We
Speaker 4: actually met on like a Reptar fan page on Facebook.
Speaker 4: I like made a comment referencing a song by this
Speaker 4: band that references Reptar, and she like noticed it, knew
Speaker 4: the band as well, and then saw that, you know,
Speaker 4: we're from generally the same area. So she added me
Speaker 4: as a friend, and literally my first words to her
Speaker 4: where do I know you? But then from there it
Speaker 4: turned into like a couple hours long conversation. A couple
Speaker 4: of weeks later, we were at the same concert and
Speaker 4: like saw each other but didn't actually interact. And then,
Speaker 4: you know, we lived like an hour away from each other,
Speaker 4: so we were, you know, in high school having our
Speaker 4: parents drive us back and forth on weekends to like
Speaker 4: see each other. Once we finally started dating months later,
Speaker 4: and yeah, I mean there we had like a really
Speaker 4: big fight a couple you know, like a year or
Speaker 4: two into our relationship that you know kind of led
Speaker 4: to some really hard times and I probably still kind
Speaker 4: of feel the effects of it as well. And then
Speaker 4: there was a point, you know, a couple of few
Speaker 4: years ago where she was kind of going through some
Speaker 4: mental health issues and you know, sort of wanted to
Speaker 4: take a break, which you know, I gave her, like
Speaker 4: her space, but she wanted to you know, potentially go
Speaker 4: on a date or kiss someone else and stuff. And
Speaker 4: that was kind of like where I drew the line.
Speaker 4: And I don't think she necessarily wanted to do that.
Speaker 4: I think it was kind of you know, not like
Speaker 4: a midlife crisis, but kind of something like that and
Speaker 4: more related to you know, mental the butsher was going
Speaker 4: through mentally. But yeah, so I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 4: we've lived together, we have three cats and a dog,
Speaker 4: we've owned a house together. It's uh, I mean yeah,
Speaker 4: like you said, it kind of goes through all the
Speaker 4: a lot of the stereotypical kind of like beats, but
Speaker 4: like I said, it feels it just feels natural.
Speaker 1: Isn't that the core? I love this? But this is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite episodes of the podcast lately because
Speaker 1: isn't that Isn't that so cool that two completely different
Speaker 1: lifestyles can both feel deeply natural to respective individuals. It's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you were here when I was
Speaker 1: talking to the previous person, that's cool to me. Okay,
Speaker 1: what the fuck was I going to say? What do
Speaker 1: you do for a living?
Speaker 4: I work for a place orders for a company that
Speaker 4: makes musical accessories and also distributes like pro audio stuff
Speaker 4: who are like owned by a big parent company that
Speaker 4: like trades on the British Stock Exchange or whatever. So
Speaker 4: when I started at the job, it was a family
Speaker 4: owned company and had been for like four years, and
Speaker 4: then they sold like a year after, less than a
Speaker 4: year after I was there, And so it's been a
Speaker 4: lot of dealing with the corporate bullshit, Like, you know,
Speaker 4: every time we have a town hall meeting, we have
Speaker 4: to hear about the investors and how they're doing versus
Speaker 4: you know, oh yeah, we're so good working on our
Speaker 4: total package rewards even though we're not going to give
Speaker 4: you a raise, you know, shit like that. So that's frustrating.
Speaker 4: And I actually tried to start a union at one point,
Speaker 4: but only one other person was actually had the bass
Speaker 4: to try to join me.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I know I moved on from this topic, but
Speaker 1: I actually remembered what I was going to say, is
Speaker 1: that I I think I've read I don't know if
Speaker 1: this was a tweet or if this was like something
Speaker 1: I saw on Instagram.
Speaker 2: But like.
Speaker 1: Someone said something of like I think breaking up is
Speaker 1: like not not for everybody. Of course, this doesn't work
Speaker 1: this way for everybody, but like for like long term couples,
Speaker 1: like breaking up is like part of the relationship in
Speaker 1: a way, like having a little like I know lots
Speaker 1: of couples in successful relationships that like broke up or
Speaker 1: like went through really hard times, and you I think
Speaker 1: you start to realize that like going through not always
Speaker 1: because we do live in a chaotic, random world and
Speaker 1: sometimes a breakup truly is a breakup, but it does
Speaker 1: seem that like you know, going through uh, like a
Speaker 1: tough time or a disagreement is like a not not disagreement,
Speaker 1: but I mean, you know what I mean, Like it
Speaker 1: is a fundamental part of like the relationship process, you know,
Speaker 1: because because that's that's it's it's because yeah, kind of
Speaker 1: like we were talking about the previous caller is like you know,
Speaker 1: if you're committing to somebody and you have there's like
Speaker 1: there's just gonna kind of be like natural points of friction,
Speaker 1: unless if you get really lucky and really aligned with
Speaker 1: a lot, which a lot of people do. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're committing yourself. There's just naturally going to be
Speaker 1: ah friction, I think.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's one of those things where like,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's kind of cliche, but like can make
Speaker 4: or break you, you know, like it shows how how
Speaker 4: much your committee, you know, shows whether or not you feel,
Speaker 4: you know, like life would be the same without that
Speaker 4: person or better or worse, you know. Kind of. I
Speaker 4: think it's, you know, also sort of a life directing
Speaker 4: thing where it's like you kind of have to because
Speaker 4: something's changing so drastically in moments like that, you know.
Speaker 4: I think that's the you know, something like that day.
Speaker 4: But it could be like, you know, kind of like
Speaker 4: a wake up call type thing type put time to reassess,
Speaker 4: you know, and just kind of figure out your priorities.
Speaker 4: I guess, what.
Speaker 1: Is your name again?
Speaker 4: Scott?
Speaker 1: Scott, Scott, the Wed Journal guy.
Speaker 4: We'll forever be known as that.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to if I have any other questions to
Speaker 1: ask you, Scott. Let's see, how long have we been talking.
Speaker 1: We've been talking for about twenty three minutes. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you what okay, well, all right, let me ask you
Speaker 1: this the Weed Journal, the reflections, you know, I think
Speaker 1: we talked a lot about like I think I think
Speaker 1: I went on too big of a rant about AI
Speaker 1: in general that I actually forgot to ask you on
Speaker 1: a personal level, what if any conclusions you have come
Speaker 1: to as a result of this weed journaling.
Speaker 4: I mean I pretty much just started it like yesterday.
Speaker 4: So so far it's kind of been just like reflecting
Speaker 4: on why I wanted to start it, which, like I said,
Speaker 4: I think is kind of tied to both how I
Speaker 4: feel the effects and uh just like insecurity about the
Speaker 4: fact that I do smoke as much as I do.
Speaker 4: I really think that like the nineties propaganda against smoking,
Speaker 4: like I'm fucked with my head, you know, like I
Speaker 4: I cannot imagine smoking a cigarette, and like I feel
Speaker 4: like guilty smoking weeds sometimes. Uh So it's kind of
Speaker 4: a weird place to be into.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, I do too. I came to this.
Speaker 1: I'm my I'm still on my weed journey. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to pretend like I'm like, well I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this, uh, like I'm on, I'm I'm on a
Speaker 1: big like medication journey, like trying to find like like
Speaker 1: like work with like psychiatrist and shit, trying to find
Speaker 1: like medication that works for me. And I went on
Speaker 1: this thing of I was, I had this thing of like, uh,
Speaker 1: I came to a pretty hilarious realization for myself where
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I don't want to have to
Speaker 1: be on a drug every day. You know. That was
Speaker 1: I think one of my big anti like SSR I
Speaker 1: uh talking points. And then I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I fucking smoke weed every single night. I'm already on
Speaker 1: a drug every day.
Speaker 4: You know, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: And once I came to that point, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: fucking duh. So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's also kind of ironic to me that, like
Speaker 4: I was, I was straighted until I was like twenty three. Look,
Speaker 4: I didn't even have a drink of alcohol or anything,
Speaker 4: and I was kind of like part of my identity,
Speaker 4: not you know, not to the point where I was
Speaker 4: like only going to see you straightedge bands, DIY shows
Speaker 4: and shit like that, but you know, I labeled myself
Speaker 4: as straight edge and like would tell people that if
Speaker 4: they offered me a drink or whatever, and so yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know. It was kind of a weird shift
Speaker 4: transitioning from that to you know, having a drink or
Speaker 4: two here or there, having a smoke here and there,
Speaker 4: and now i'd you know, smoked a couple of times
Speaker 4: three times each day. So yeah, that's I guess that's
Speaker 4: happened over the last like eight or nine years. And
Speaker 4: even I stopped a weed for maybe like a year
Speaker 4: and a half. I had some shit where like I
Speaker 4: was passing out and my heart stopped. Uh, not necessarily
Speaker 4: related to the weed, but the first time it happened
Speaker 4: was like when I was smoking and eating too much.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's just yeah, it's been. It's definitely been
Speaker 4: an interesting and continues to be an interesting like a
Speaker 4: trip kind of figuring out what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 4: And I'm kind of on the same with like the
Speaker 4: medication as well. Like I was on luxopro for a
Speaker 4: while and it was really worse, but then it was
Speaker 4: giving me like bad side effects, so I weened off
Speaker 4: it on its life. It really like it was like
Speaker 4: the lowest I've probably ever been and now about to
Speaker 4: start prozac and see how that goes. So it's kind
Speaker 4: of it's yeah.
Speaker 1: Scott, what let me think, is there any is there
Speaker 1: anything else you want to cover or do you think
Speaker 1: we did it.
Speaker 2: I think we did it all right.
Speaker 1: Cool. It was good talking to you, Scott. I hope
Speaker 1: I hope that you continue to live a nice.
Speaker 4: Life you as well as a get go in the computer.
Speaker 1: Have a go in, Scott. That was so perfect, What
Speaker 1: a perfect episode to have. I loved the I loved
Speaker 1: that contrast that was. That was juicy to me because like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I went on the whole like polyamory
Speaker 1: verse monogamous commitment rant, and then both callers embodied lifestyles
Speaker 1: that were opposite yet yet were very natural to them.
Speaker 1: That's so it is so fascinating to me and so
Speaker 1: interesting that they both happened to call in right after
Speaker 1: each other. So that was I liked that. Do I
Speaker 1: have any other post call thoughts about Scott? I liked
Speaker 1: his voice and he was a nice guy, and that's it. Hello, Hello, Hi,
Speaker 1: what's your name? Lars? Lars? I'm going to warn you
Speaker 1: about something. Okay, I think over the past hour and
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, I don't know how long the last two
Speaker 1: calls took, I have I think I have hit my
Speaker 1: limit on deep existential philosophical conversations. Okay, Oh you sounded
Speaker 1: so disappointed. I could tell in your voice that you
Speaker 1: sounded really.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, absolutely not no, that sounds great.
Speaker 1: I also feel like I'll just well, did you have
Speaker 1: something you wanted to talk about?
Speaker 6: Maybe like a couple of things?
Speaker 1: But yeah, go ahead, go ahead, fuck it.
Speaker 6: Okay, So I heard you were talking about relationships earlier.
Speaker 6: I don't know if you still want to do that.
Speaker 6: I got out of an eight year relationship recently.
Speaker 1: Okay, And how you doing.
Speaker 6: Doing all right? I actually just got into a new
Speaker 6: relationship with a trans woman.
Speaker 1: Okay. Where'd you meet him? Bumble bumble? Yeah? And how's
Speaker 1: it going?
Speaker 6: It's going great. I mean she's fantastic. Yeah, I have
Speaker 6: no complaints.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, what when did you break up with your
Speaker 1: previous person?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 6: A couple of months ago probably, And I moved where
Speaker 6: I was living in March, and we broke up a
Speaker 6: couple of months before that, so probably in December or something.
Speaker 1: Very nice, very nice. Okay, Wait, you said you said
Speaker 1: you said a couple of things. What would the other
Speaker 1: thing be?
Speaker 6: Oh? I called, I emailed you actually earlier and you
Speaker 6: read my email on the stream?
Speaker 1: What's email?
Speaker 2: Who?
Speaker 1: Which email were you?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 6: The douche Canoe story.
Speaker 1: Douche can.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we put a bunch of douches on this guy's
Speaker 6: door for years. We like pranked him and he was
Speaker 6: like he didn't know who it was for like years,
Speaker 6: and then he found out it was his girlfriend who
Speaker 6: was actually now his fiance.
Speaker 1: That's kind of that's good, Like I'm trying to remember that. Uh,
Speaker 1: what do people do? People still use douches?
Speaker 6: I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever seen a douche in
Speaker 1: my life.
Speaker 6: Or like this plastic thing that's like, I don't know,
Speaker 6: it's got like a two.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is yeah, maybe this is a personal question.
Speaker 1: But have you ever used one?
Speaker 6: No? Not personally, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they're not like part of every day hygiene.
Speaker 6: No, I think they aren't for special occasions.
Speaker 1: Okay, what does it actually do?
Speaker 6: It like cleans everything out, you know, make sure that
Speaker 6: you're nice and clean.
Speaker 1: Interesting do most women use douches?
Speaker 6: I think both. I think everybody used to uses douches
Speaker 6: on occasions.
Speaker 1: Oh, like you could like you can put them in
Speaker 1: your ass. Yeah yeah, okay, yes that makes sense.
Speaker 6: My girlfriends here right now actually is us laughing?
Speaker 1: Where do you? But where do you. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like I've never seen one. I've never like dated anyone
Speaker 1: who used one or anything like that. I've never I mean,
Speaker 1: I've used a bidet' I've watched with a bid day.
Speaker 1: Let's sit answering you a day in a douche.
Speaker 6: Days are in a toilet. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 6: I think the douches get more up in.
Speaker 1: There the the days are sick. I got to get
Speaker 1: a day I had. I used to have a sponsor
Speaker 1: of the podcast. It was like, Tushy Bedey, I think
Speaker 1: I gotta get a bedat sponsor. Yeah, do you have
Speaker 1: a do you have a suggest Who should I? Who
Speaker 1: should I reach out to? Oh?
Speaker 6: I don't know any brands Off the top of my head.
Speaker 1: Was Tushy. Well, okay, I'll, I'll okay. I'm glad we
Speaker 1: had this conversation. I'm going to try to find a
Speaker 1: bidet sponsored so they can send me one nice okay.
Speaker 1: What else? What else? How's the weather where you are?
Speaker 6: It's pretty overcast? Yeah here in Washington.
Speaker 1: Washington's Washington. Does Washington get cold?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it gets pretty chilly in the wintertime, But right
Speaker 6: now it's a mild, humid, kind of rainy day.
Speaker 1: Dude. I think I've been to Seattle five times.
Speaker 6: Five times. I've seen you one of those times I went.
Speaker 1: I went once in twenty twenty one to do one
Speaker 1: of my very first live shows that was like a
Speaker 1: DIY live show, and then I went in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two for a tour, and then I went in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three for a tour, and then I went in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four for a tour, and then I went
Speaker 1: again in twenty twenty four to do my Reptile Rave.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've been to Seattle five times.
Speaker 6: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 6: How was your Reptile Rave?
Speaker 1: It was fun. It was fun. We did one in
Speaker 1: Seattle and then we did one in New York. It
Speaker 1: is fun. Although you know what's funny is I do
Speaker 1: remember when I did my New York Reptile Rave. I
Speaker 1: was like standing up on the stage while we were
Speaker 1: they were the DJ I was playing, and I was
Speaker 1: from I had a moment where I was looking out
Speaker 1: and I was there and I was like, wait, why
Speaker 1: did I do this? I don't like I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: like raves. I just wanted to. I just like doing
Speaker 1: things that's the main reason I like doing things in person.
Speaker 1: You know, I have fun. I today, I really enjoyed
Speaker 1: doing the phone call podcast. I really enjoyed. I'm enjoying
Speaker 1: talking to you. I enjoy talking to the previous caller
Speaker 1: and the color before that. But I may I feel
Speaker 1: as though I mainly thrive, uh, you know, in in
Speaker 1: the in the universe. And I think that the rave
Speaker 1: was an excuse to be more in the universe, you know,
Speaker 1: just have a party, just be around people. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll do more ship like that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I like I like stuff, I like people, I like experiences.
Speaker 2: What do you like?
Speaker 1: What do you like?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 6: I like to be home alone and do art respect respect.
Speaker 1: Do you and your girlfriend do art together?
Speaker 6: We do? Yeah, digital art and I do more like
Speaker 6: physical art. So then we put like our art together.
Speaker 6: She like does something digitally and I'll put like textures
Speaker 6: on it.
Speaker 1: Do you do you act like you're better than her
Speaker 1: because you do physical art and she does digital art.
Speaker 6: No, we respect each other's art equally.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, that's it would be fair if you did.
Speaker 1: I was talking to my friend about this yesterday. Uh, like,
Speaker 1: I think it may philosophically, it makes absolute sense. Why
Speaker 1: if you're vegan, why you would think if you're vegan
Speaker 1: and you think you're better than everyone else, First of all,
Speaker 1: you're right, and the second of all, you're you're entitled
Speaker 1: to that opinion because it's so clearly I don't know
Speaker 1: why I'm bringing this up, but this is just the
Speaker 1: concept of thinking you're better than one. It's so clearly
Speaker 1: unethical to eat animals when we don't have to, and
Speaker 1: so if you do that, you're just you're I think
Speaker 1: you're literally better than everyone else. Yeah, I don't do that.
Speaker 1: I eat. I've I've killed thousands, and not personally, but
Speaker 1: I've contributed to the murder of thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: chickens and cows and pigs throughout my life, and I
Speaker 1: will and I will continue to do that for I
Speaker 1: will just continue to do that for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. I will never even attempt to go vegan
Speaker 1: or vegetarian. And if I ever meet a vegan or
Speaker 1: a vegetarian and they say to me what you were
Speaker 1: doing by eating meat is wrong and I am better
Speaker 1: than you, I will I will agree. I will agree
Speaker 1: with them. I think I think it's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's pretty fair.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know. I don't want to. I
Speaker 1: guess are you? Are you better that I think you
Speaker 1: might be? I think not. I'm trying to. I think
Speaker 1: if you don't use a computer, you're probably better than
Speaker 1: everyone else. Like if I, if I if I were
Speaker 1: completely off of social media, I would absolutely be all
Speaker 1: the time. I would be thinking I'm better than everyone else.
Speaker 1: There's a I've because like I've had times where like
Speaker 1: by by times I mean time, I mean I did
Speaker 1: this once. No, I no, I do this fairly often.
Speaker 1: I do this fairly often. Where like if I'm on
Speaker 1: if I'm on this, like I'll have like a forty
Speaker 1: two minute subway ride and I'll be like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna turn my phone completely off, oh wow, and
Speaker 1: put it in my backpack and just observe and just
Speaker 1: not be on my phone and just like kind of
Speaker 1: be in like a I'm gonna use this as like
Speaker 1: meditation time to just not be doing anything. And the
Speaker 1: whole time I'm you're looking at everyone else and you
Speaker 1: look up and everyone else is on their phone, and
Speaker 1: it's great because you just you just get to soak
Speaker 1: in being better than everyone else. Yeah, for that, In
Speaker 1: that in that moment, I'm the most enlightened and awesome
Speaker 1: person on the train, and it just it feels great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I can't tell. I don't think I can do
Speaker 1: that my whole life. If I could, I would be
Speaker 1: insufferable all the time. If I could be if I
Speaker 1: could live the kind of life I think. I think
Speaker 1: if you have the like will power and conviction to
Speaker 1: live the kind of life where you're abstaining from any
Speaker 1: and all things that could be remotely considered unethical and
Speaker 1: you're not and you don't eat sugar, and you don't
Speaker 1: go on the internet, and you just live like like
Speaker 1: a completely holistic life, I think you. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you deserve You've earned being the ability to be
Speaker 1: pretentious about it.
Speaker 6: I think mm hmm, yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, if
Speaker 6: you can do all that, I guess.
Speaker 1: Dude, if you can do all that and then you
Speaker 1: walk around think you're better than everyone else, you I
Speaker 1: think you deserve it. I think that's the prize that
Speaker 1: you get for being able. I and I and frankly,
Speaker 1: i'd rather have wait, hold on, I'm gonna blow your
Speaker 1: mind right now. Okay, I'm gonna blow your mind. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna blow your mind. Frankly, I would rather just you know,
Speaker 1: eat the meat and uh like, use the internet and
Speaker 1: do the things because I'm abstaining because I because that
Speaker 1: would by doing those things, I'm abstaining from thinking I'm
Speaker 1: better than everyone else. And you know what that makes
Speaker 1: me do? It makes me think I'm better than everyone else.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's a loop.
Speaker 1: It's a loop. My abstinence from thinking I'm better than
Speaker 1: everyone else subconsciously makes me think I'm better than everyone else,
Speaker 1: which is really awesome when you think about it. That's great. Anyway,
Speaker 1: what's your name again, Mars? Mars? Is there anything else
Speaker 1: you want to say to the people of the computer
Speaker 1: before we go?
Speaker 6: I hope you all are having a great day and
Speaker 6: gagnation beautiful.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mars, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Bye.
Speaker 1: Well, there we go. We did it. We did a podcast.
Speaker 1: What a great episode. I want to thank Vivance for
Speaker 1: helping me make this episode. I want to thank the
Speaker 1: I want to thank the I want to thank Diarrhea
Speaker 1: for not having me have it right now. I want
Speaker 1: to think what am I gonna eat after this?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna eat some sushi. I have a little
Speaker 1: bit of sushi in my fridge. Okay, thank you all
Speaker 1: for listening to this podcast. This was a good This
Speaker 1: was a good episode. I was talking at the beginning
Speaker 1: about how sometimes I sit down to record and I
Speaker 1: just can't do it. And when that happens, I usually go, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't do this anymore. I can't do this podcast,
Speaker 1: Like this is my in my brain telling me I
Speaker 1: cannot do this anymore. And then the next day I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, let me try again. But I'll do it
Speaker 1: in the morning, right after having some coffee or some shit,
Speaker 1: and then I'm in the zone and I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I think we can do this shit. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: but and then tomorrow I'll probably be like everything sucks forever.
Speaker 1: I think that's life. Life is like. When things are
Speaker 1: working well or your brain is in a positive mode,
Speaker 1: you're like, Oh, everything's gonna be great forever now. And
Speaker 1: then when they're in a negative mode, you're like, all right,
Speaker 1: this is it. This is how my brain will function
Speaker 1: and how my life will be for eternity. But really,
Speaker 1: you're just going in and out of all that shit.
Speaker 1: I don't know for me, personally, it's how my life
Speaker 1: has gone so far. I'd like to have a nicer
Speaker 1: baseline anyway. Okay, thanks for listening to this podcast, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the ads, thanks for calling, thanks for
Speaker 1: being here. And we'll do another one. Well, this one
Speaker 1: comes out on a Wednesday. We'll do another one on Sunday.
Speaker 1: I might do an IRL on Sunday.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it depends on how I'm feeling, all right, gek Bluss, Hello, folks,
Speaker 1: it's Lyle here. That's the end of this episode. But
Speaker 1: get this, I'm releasing a bonus episode this week. That's right,
Speaker 1: an entire extra hour of the podcast that you can
Speaker 1: listen to by becoming a premium member of Therapy Gecko
Speaker 1: over at therapy Gecko dot supercast dot com. Supercast subscribers
Speaker 1: get access to bonus episodes, they get a completely ad
Speaker 1: free podcast feed of the regular show, they get recordings
Speaker 1: from my live shows, members only streams, and they help
Speaker 1: support my ability to continue doing this podcast. So here's
Speaker 1: a clip from this week's members only bonus episode.
Speaker 5: I kind of just wanted to, uh get your take
Speaker 5: on what I do, which is very similar, I think
Speaker 5: to what you do, which is put a fully rat
Speaker 5: costume on a little animal costume, put myself out on
Speaker 5: the internet, uh, and kind of use that persona to
Speaker 5: explore my mental health journey.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Okay, so let's I want to I want to
Speaker 1: get a full scope of this. Here, you dress up
Speaker 1: as a rat on the internet.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: If you want to hear this full conversation, you can
Speaker 1: sign up to become a premium member at Therapy Gecko
Speaker 1: dot supercast dot com or find the link in the
Speaker 1: episode description that's therapy Gecko dot supercast dot com. All right,
Speaker 1: I have nothing else to say. Go on taking your
Speaker 1: phone calls every night. Never be get Goost on his ride.
Speaker 6: He's teaching you to housing live your life, but he's
Speaker 6: not really an expert.