We do not have a guest this week, it's just us!*
Flipping the page, we muse over the scribbles and chords that charted our course to becoming writers. From childhood musings to the raucous challenges of adulthood, every word we've penned pulses with life's rich tapestry. Listen as we unfold the layers of our creative evolution, from piano keys and letters to Santa, to the vibrant tales that now dance upon the pages of our lives. It's a reflection ripe with nostalgia and an earnest discussion of how persistence in our passions keeps the ink flowing, even amidst life's relentless pace.
Our stories both began in the MidWest but took many different twists and turns to bring us to the backroom of The Palace in Brooklyn, where we record this podcast. In this episode, we don't hold back as we talk travel, imposter syndrome, mental health struggles and friendships with brutal honesty.
*Please be patient with us as we improve our recording and editing techniques and equipment. We appreciate you all hanging in there as we continue to learn and grow.
Palace Reading Series
Follow us on Instagram! People at the Core Podcast
Email us! peopleatthecorepodcast@gmail.com
We do not have a guest this week, it's just us!*
Flipping the page, we muse over the scribbles and chords that charted our course to becoming writers. From childhood musings to the raucous challenges of adulthood, every word we've penned pulses with life's rich tapestry. Listen as we unfold the layers of our creative evolution, from piano keys and letters to Santa, to the vibrant tales that now dance upon the pages of our lives. It's a reflection ripe with nostalgia and an earnest discussion of how persistence in our passions keeps the ink flowing, even amidst life's relentless pace.
Our stories both began in the MidWest but took many different twists and turns to bring us to the backroom of The Palace in Brooklyn, where we record this podcast. In this episode, we don't hold back as we talk travel, imposter syndrome, mental health struggles and friendships with brutal honesty.
*Please be patient with us as we improve our recording and editing techniques and equipment. We appreciate you all hanging in there as we continue to learn and grow.
Palace Reading Series
Follow us on Instagram! People at the Core Podcast
Email us! peopleatthecorepodcast@gmail.com
From the Greenpoint Palace Bar in Brooklyn, new York, writers and bartenders Rita and Marissa have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar. This is People at the Core. Here we go.
Speaker 3:All right, hello Marissa, hey Rita, how are you?
Speaker 2:today.
Speaker 3:I'm pretty good. Yeah, can't complain. Had a good night's sleep. Oh, that's good.
Speaker 2:Thanks Me too. Well, you're on some jet lag here, aren't you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it might be regulating out into some semblance of normalcy whatever that means for me, that's good.
Speaker 2:Why don't you tell everyone where you work?
Speaker 3:I was in Taiwan for three weeks Just got back a week ago. This is the longest I've ever felt weird. I was there for three weeks. My husband's parents were born in Taiwan, who live in California, and he has his entire life. They moved there right before he was born and so we decided to do a trip and invite them to join us briefly. It was kind of a family reunion sort, so it was really nice. They met us in Taipei and then I met a whole bunch of his family and they fed us non-stop I'm talking like 11-12 hours of non-stop eating. So it was awesome. That sounds amazing actually.
Speaker 3:It was delicious, was great, and and we got both sides because we spent time with the family and then we left everybody and then looped the whole island just the two of us, so everything from forests to big cities to coastal beaches. It was, I mean, it was a trip of a lifetime. And I am naming myself Ambassador Taiwan, though my Mandarin is non-existent. I could barely order coffee and I had all different ways of saying it and people were patient.
Speaker 2:That's good. Give me something in Taiwanese. Is that correct? In Mandarin In Mandarin right.
Speaker 3:Long story short. Taiwan was occupied by multiple groups of people. The Japanese were one for a long period of time. So, yeah, the original language was a Taiwanese dialect, I mean it was. And when also China came over and had a dictatorship kind of thing there, they made everyone speak Mandarin. So the number one language of the island, yes, is Mandarin, officially, because they are Republic of China. I won't go into politics, but people do speak Taiwanese, gotcha Okay.
Speaker 2:But it's not like the main.
Speaker 3:No, all signs. I mean save outside of small rural places. All signs and things are in.
Speaker 2:Mandarin Interesting.
Speaker 3:It is. I learned so much. We bought books on history and I'm a big nerd for research, but yes, Ni hao. Hi Hello, bonjour, bonjour, como sa va and xie, xie.
Speaker 3:Thank you, uh, nihao hi hello um and uh, thank you, there was a lot of thank you, and just smiles yeah, yeah, you can have, but we but I had a lot of conversations with Google Translate which I've never used in real time. I would type in or speak my phrase and then we'd show them back and forth whoever I'm conversing with. As well as fuck, ai is pretty rad because they have Google Translate camera and I would hold it up to labels of things.
Speaker 3:Yeah so then I get a loose understanding of what it is. Um and that was. It was just a tool I've never used in my life, yeah, and also why I wanted to be in a place where I had to rely on some just sort of basic instincts and non-verbal communication. And it was cool I had. I had great interactions with people without really having a shared language.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, I mean, I think that is so cool because it. I don't know why. It just reminded me of you know, when I was 20 21, we went to Italy to meet relatives that we'd never met before.
Speaker 3:Oh cool, and they didn't speak, a cool.
Speaker 2:And they didn't speak a lick of English. We didn't speak a lick of Italian.
Speaker 1:This was before cell phones really. I mean, we had flip phones maybe, but yeah, I'm old guys.
Speaker 3:You had a flip phone at 20?.
Speaker 2:No, I had a pager. I'm saying there maybe was flip phones, I didn't have one.
Speaker 3:The cool, the doctor's type things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly. But I just remember sitting at this like large table with these people that I'd never met and not being able to communicate with them at all.
Speaker 1:I mean we had food and drink? Yeah, we had.
Speaker 2:You know you point and smile, or like you know, did gestures of, of, of. I'm attempting to go to the you know where is the bathroom? Kind of thing or where is a cigarette ashtray or, but there was no, you know, interaction really.
Speaker 3:So that's so cool that technology can bring us to this level now it was yeah, it it wasn't yeah, like I said it was, I'd never used that, I've never experienced that. Um, I would say that other time. I mean, I mostly have been traveling through places where I can get by with my Spanish. If it's a French country or something like that, I can understand a bit of French or at least read, and then I've been, you know, spanish-speaking countries, so it was nice to just be completely. Well, ken speaks Mandarin.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's nice so that was helpful for things like renting scooters, but everyone was, so I didn't feel judged or burdened and I did make an effort, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think that goes a long way. It's cool the label reading, though, because, as you know, Marissa brought me back some snacks from.
Speaker 1:Taiwan, and you know I'm definitely allergic to shellfish.
Speaker 2:So I always get nervous when I'm traveling out of the country, especially with the language I don't know, you know, I don't want to be rude, but I also don't want to die. So I mean, you showed me how cool that was to just use your phone and look at a label and it translate for you. I mean, that's a game changer for people like me. Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And mine was more like functional fun. What is this fun little mystery package of aluminum with bright colored faces all over?
Speaker 1:it? I don't know.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it was a really cool experience and that may lead to us spending time there to us spending time there. You know, my husband, ken, came to Mexico with for me in part. We wanted to do it, but one of the motivations was to him for have him improve his Spanish and be really immersed in that. And it's really hard to do, just you know, in your normal life if you're not exposed to a language and just to do a class or a notebook or have one person's interpretation of sounds.
Speaker 3:So I'm like maybe I can't do six months, I probably need a year. Mandarin is very hard for my ears, oh gosh, I mean listen.
Speaker 2:I lived in Paris and French was hard. I mean, I can read it kind of, I can kind of understand it, but you know it's funny when you talk about that it's submerging yourself into. I really thought I was, but I had this crutch. You know, my best friend at school spoke very fluent French, so I just got so accustomed to her interpreting and communicating, so I really didn't learn that much and I had taken French for years, but it just never really came back to me.
Speaker 1:I just you know that part of my brain wants to retain terrible TV shows for some reason or like really mundane facts versus holding on to an actual language.
Speaker 2:But it is hard when you have someone that your husband, you know there to translate for you. Yes, it kind of takes away from the experience, Not in a bad way, no.
Speaker 3:I was like this is not, I'm not learning Mandarin in three weeks.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Like, let's just be present and enjoy the experience. And it was. I mean, as you know, I'm a chatty Cathy sometimes, so it was nice being quiet. Yeah, it was nice being quiet and using my skills of observation and watching people and their facial expressions, how they interact with each other. It's it's not a silent film, but when you don't have words as a writer to rely on, you're going back to the base, human and being quiet and paying attention.
Speaker 3:It's really grounding yeah um, and so I felt that it was an enriching experience in other ways not tapping into my love of language and linguistics, where I got to use all my other senses and be really present because I had to it. It was a sensory overload.
Speaker 2:Well, so let's go back. I just want to talk for a minute. So if you guys can tell, today we do not have a guest, it is just Marissa and I, mostly just so you as the audience can get to know us, but also just to put it out there who we are and what we do and why we do what we're doing right now. But you mentioned as a writer, so what it's such cliche, but what was that moment that you decided that you wanted to be a writer?
Speaker 2:or knew that you should be a writer.
Speaker 3:I knew before. I knew what it was. So I've I've said this, told this story before, but I was young enough that I wasn't writing sentences. I had a Mead notebook, a little spiral like the size of a postcard, and I was sitting in my dance studio, I was taking ballet, jazz. I was a young child and I would sit in a corner and I would just scribble like squiggly lines, like deep thoughts, and I didn't know what my deep thoughts were and I didn't know what my stories were.
Speaker 3:But I would watch the older girls doing homework and like feverishly writing in their notebooks like what are they doing? They look like they have something they really need to say and it's so important and it's just like non-stop. And so I would just watch them and I realized I was my little anthropologist writer, observing them and taking notes without actually forming the notes. So I think the mechanics were there before I understood what that was. And then I, you know, tried to pursue many things in life, but writing has always been something I did without thinking.
Speaker 3:So I wrote a memoir and most of it is based from these very intense journals that I kept because I was alone. That I kept because I was alone and that was my best friend, my therapy, my yeah, and I just wrote and I didn't even realize and I stepped away from it for a couple years and then I looked back and I'm like I have dozens and dozens of these books filled with thoughts, poems, observances, confessionary tales, and it's just, it's not been a choice. And then later, you know, through school and things going and intentionally writing, and then having those moments where you go back and you're like I didn't remember that, like something took over me and somebody wrote this and, oh, I like this, this is a really good sentence and I feel connected to it. But I have no memory of creating it, of writing it, and that's how I kind of knew oh, this is, this is something, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure. I mean, mine was very similar sort of. You know, I haven't thought about it Maybe I don't know if I've ever thought about it, but I would say mine started songwriting. You know, my parents put me into piano. Both my brother and I, into you, know playing musical instruments at a very young age, I'd say like four or five or playing the piano and my brother being epic at it.
Speaker 3:I mean, isn't he the?
Speaker 2:savant. Yeah, he could just play by ear. You know he'd sit down and just play whatever was on the radio. Or you know you could play Beethoven and he'd sit down and play. I mean it was just crazy and I would just have to like sit there with my tongue sticking out of my mouth, practicing over and over hot cross buns or you know like.
Speaker 1:I can still play like yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:I can still play like da-da-da-da-da-da the Entertainer, but that was about it. That was like one of my only songs, but I was so fascinated with the songwriting aspect of it, so I would sit there and I would make up these songs and write the lyrics down, and my letters to Santa were fucking epic right. Just so long. And so I want world peace and to solve hunger and my dad just being like what the fuck can you just ask for a cabbage patch?
Speaker 3:kid like everybody else you know what I mean? Yeah, I think that's where it really started.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, I kind of had some bad things happen to me and found drugs and sort of escape for, you know know, most of my teens, but still that writing aspect was there. I was still writing a lot, you know. And then my 20s, you know, I started dating all these musicians and these rappers and they were so focused on their trait and I really wanted to focus on mine too. And that's when I really started taking it seriously and just writing. You know, I joined, taking it seriously and just writing. You know I joined, I started bands and started writing songs but then, more so, started writing short stories and and those stories kind of morphed into non-fiction stories and fiction and just really fell in love and never turned back after that.
Speaker 3:And then, and then you opened a bar, and then you opened a bar, and then I opened a bar.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've opened a salon, I've opened bars, yeah, but I think the hours of this establishment and this kind of life can be challenging.
Speaker 3:To keep productive creativity moving, you know.
Speaker 2:Definitely. I think that you know anyone that has a full time job. I think it's hard to write, but, but that's not an excuse, Right? And we've had all these amazing writers on here that really take the time to write every day. Yeah, you know, and I, and I, I'm so envious.
Speaker 1:And I know that I have the time.
Speaker 2:It's just about making the time right. Yeah, to do it. But you get so caught up in your day-to-day Like, oh, my dog's so cute, right now I'm going to hang out with him. Or like, oh, I'm so tired, I'll write in an hour, yeah.
Speaker 3:Or like oh no, something came up. You know, I have this internal battle. Sometimes it's like for what, for what? Like? Why are you pushing yourself For what? And like? Then you get caught in the trap of beyond the necessity and the joy of writing, it becomes imposter syndrome, and then it becomes like a chore and then you become excuses. And how is this? You know, I don't know if you battle with that.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%, I mean, I go from in my mind, thinking I'm the greatest writer in the world to I'm the worst writer in the world to a writer that doesn't write you know, so like like not to toot our own horns here, but we run a reading series, palace reading series. It's become pretty successful. We had a great turnout. Marissa does all the booking I'd say you know what I mean and the curating of it, but it that's very inspiring to me.
Speaker 3:That's definitely made me want to write after every again yeah, after every event, we have such a different group of people each month come through and I always find like one juicy bit or juicy sentence from from everyone's work, that is, some are similar to mine and some are completely opposite spectrums and it just opens doors and is motivating and inspiring, and so we keep going through it. Um, yeah, but that also was nice for me as the writer to have some sort of productivity. That is about supporting the community and thinking about my own work, because it's like well, what am I going to present next month?
Speaker 2:um, exactly, it motivates you to like. You know, I think we're both accurate when we say we're running out of material and everyone is so inspirational that it's like you want to your writing brain does want to one-up that, not one-up it.
Speaker 3:But you know, challenge yourself absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know you're not one-upping the writer. I don't want to outright this person. I don't think that's even possible it's not a possibility, right, but it inspires you to want to one-up yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because you're like oh, I want to write something. That this person made me feel like how inspired I was. You know, we've had a couple writers who've actually inspired this next project that I've got slowly creeping away at, which one of them is a series of more short story essays. Rather than thinking about the mega picture, it's like, oh, I can be tangible, I can be small, and small can be juicy and just as effective.
Speaker 3:As you know, Ken's always, my husband's always telling me to pull back you don't need to give all the information to everybody all the time, so I'm learning some restraint, which I think is a skill I need to develop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, well, I mean, it's interesting too, because our writing careers are almost like the antithesis of each other, where you've written the giant one right, and now you're starting to write smaller pieces. And I've written all the smaller pieces and now I'm trying to write smaller pieces. And you've written, and I've written smaller pieces and now I'm trying to write the giant one. Absolutely, you know, but it's just, you get caught up in that pattern of writing, right?
Speaker 3:because you have to create your routine right to hold yourself accountable, and then you have certain goals that are related to the bigger project and blah, blah blah. You know all that shit. So what exactly are you working? I know it's a novel and I know you're a big reader. Yeah, um, you're incorporating some of that, um, well-read knowledge and references into this.
Speaker 2:I am but it's you know, I've got the concept down. You know because I've been working on this novel on and off for about 10 years to be quite honest, the couple of chapters are what got me into school in Paris, but I've rewritten it so many times that now I'm sort of we talked about how I kind of want to practice it. On some. Each chapter is a short story that leads into a novel right.
Speaker 2:It's a lot harder said than done. Yeah, you know, I read our first, my first chapter. I loved it and I haven't really. I've revisited a few times, but not enough to rewrite it at this point.
Speaker 3:Stepping away. And you know, everyone has their own practice, whether it's small bits or outlines or full throttle, and I feel like you and I are kind of the same style of we feel juicy bits about something, so we get all of that out and then we figure out where it belongs after it gets birthed from us, after we vomit it out, and then we'll find a place for it. But to keep thinking about the whole picture as you're in that space of it wanting to get out, I find that that's hard and doesn't serve my, my process right exactly and everyone does have their own process, you know.
Speaker 2:So, like we've talked to a lot of people on the show um that are very diligent about writing every single day and I think that is brilliant and I love that. Unfortunately, I just haven't been in that place in a very long time so you know, what ends up happening with me is I just let that well empty and then fill it up and then empty it and fill it up, which?
Speaker 1:is probably not the the healthiest style of writing I mean getting away from judgment.
Speaker 3:You know that's. You know you're talking about writing while not writing. Like I do most of my writing walking my dog, like Like I process things, or I'll get an idea and I just again technology, I'll just do a little voice note to myself and then, like it's incoherent, and then I have my keyboard set to English and Spanish and sometimes I get this whole like juicy five-minute idea and then it was in the wrong language on the keyboard. So that's fun to interpret later. But to give yourself permission, yes, to hold yourself accountable and create a routine, but also give yourself grace, like I think that's really hard. You know, writing is super solitary and when you're your own worst enemy, that doesn't do anybody favors. Yeah, I agree, and I think it's been. For me it's been really helpful with you. You know, you helping edit my stuff when I submit things Just got my last rejection. Submittable board is clear.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay Well that's good, okay, so now we can move forward.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've been there a million times. Those pieces are free up to go other places now yeah, right Wasn't holding on for the big ones, um, but you know, having having somebody else to bounce words off of or to just know the experience, I think is helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I agree, you know what they always say. You know, behind a great writer is an even greater editor, right, and and I and I just mean that in the sense of just having a person in your corner that is willing to read your stuff and be honest with you and open with you, and that, to me, is probably the best advice I can give someone is to just write, write, write, write. Find a friend, find a family member, find you know if, because it's listen, it's hard to get an agent and an editor we all know that you know but find somebody that will just tell you the truth, and that truth doesn't mean anything other than their opinion, but sometimes all you need is a second opinion to view things differently, right, you know?
Speaker 2:I mean you and I are very, very, very different writers.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of a dee-dee-dee and you're more of a dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, you know, and that's a beautiful thing because we learn a lot from each other.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but then you have these big ideas behind things and I think that I can be a little more literal in my flowery sentences. So I think there's balance and complexity. One hundred percent. Oh, I love it, I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah sentences. So I think there's there's, there's balance and 100. Oh, I love it. I love it, yeah. Oh, we're having a moment cute, we're gazing into each other's eyes drinking tequila at 1 pm you know, it's yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean it's spring and it's 25 degrees.
Speaker 2:So yeah, exactly, it is cold in New York today.
Speaker 3:New York. So I saw speaking of grounding us in New York. I saw a little meme and it said the 12 seasons of New York. It was winter, fall, spring, winter, devious spring winter, pollen gates of hell I mean. But it's. It's true because ken was like I think it's pollen. See, I was like, yep, we're bordering pollen season when we just got back and we're sneezing in the park and it was a lovely day and then it turned freezing cold and then it paused. So shit's real. Yeah, it is real.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm from minnesota, so well, I'm originally from missouri but from 13 on spent in minnesota, and that I mean that meme would go nine months winter, summer, winter and don't you guys have?
Speaker 3:I mean, it gets dark here. I mean there's a month where it's like 4 30 or something, do you guys? Yeah, exactly, but we have a lesson. It's also like 20 below.
Speaker 2:You know you walk outside, your nose frees together and your eyes freeze shut, but I will say it hasn't been that way, their weather has been very close to ours lately now we're talking about now politics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, we're not doing that. We're not doing that okay, on that note.
Speaker 3:Why don't?
Speaker 2:we, as our show continues on, we do a lot of playing around with these box of questions that Marissa can tell you about a little bit.
Speaker 3:So we've been doing these random questions. Nobody knows what they are. Categories range from love and relationships, personality, family, culture, work, death, all that fun stuff. So it's kind of a Rochambeau Ooh, Rochambeau Nice Can't spell it, but I love it Just kind of throw everyone off to not have a premeditated question. So I, with your permission, Rita, will pull a question.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, Just learning a little bit about your host guys.
Speaker 3:You know we'll share. We'll share a session. All right, Rita, Is there anyone you regret losing touch with?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's interesting. You know well, I've actually thought a lot about that question. When I'm laying in bed with my dog, I realize, the older I get, when I look back in my past, that I'm quite a nomad. I sort of flow in and out of these group of friends and I don't want to say that I mean, how do I word this correctly? It's not as if I I leave a group of friends, but but I, I'm a nomad.
Speaker 2:I kind of go in and out. You know, I don't I'm one of those people that has like really no connection to anyone I went to high school with, and I'm just now starting to connect with a few of them here or there.
Speaker 2:But I remember in high school having these, this core group of friends, these best friends that I spent every waking minute with, and, and you know what I mean. And then I kind of got sober after that. Um, had a really bad thing happen to me in my teens and that sort of divided me between them. And then my 20s came around and I got a whole new group of friends. I moved to Minneapolis from the suburbs and I got this another core group of friends and a few of those I definitely am still in contact with, but a lot of those people I left as well.
Speaker 2:And then in my 30s I moved to Paris and to Portland Maine and I gained a lot of great people I left as well. And then in my 30s I moved to Paris and to Portland Maine and I gained a lot of great friends there and then kind of lost in touch with them and moved to New York. And now I have all of you guys and, and I can't imagine a life without you. So I've noticed this pattern in my life and I don't know what it is and I try, and when I think about it, really reach out to at least one, let's say one to five from each, each era.
Speaker 2:Each era exactly Each era that I try and still hold on to, but it is interesting to go from spending your day-to-day life with a person and then not talking to them for 10 years, right, yeah, 20 years, yeah. And you know, for instance, I've touched base with some high school friends and they'll remind me oh, do you remember so-and-so? Do you remember so-and-so?
Speaker 3:And I don't. I am the same thing. I'm like I. I show me a picture. Yeah, I mean, I don't at all.
Speaker 2:And you know, my brother Reed was in. Uh, he just texted me the other day and he said oh, I was getting this film developed. And this guy was like, saw me in the pictures and said oh, you know, Rita, I used to go to her parents' house every year on the Fourth of July because my parents would throw this huge Fourth of July party for me and my friends. No idea who it was, oh I'm sure your dad was.
Speaker 3:Oh, I would love to go to a Fourth of July party with your dad as host.
Speaker 2:Does he do fireworks dad as a host? Oh my god, fireworks he. Okay, he was known for walking around in a american flag swim trunks. Okay, and then a portable amplifier and he would just walk around with the guitar, electric guitar and a film camera and go up to women and play Foxy Lady, just for the audience.
Speaker 3:To remind those who don't know, her father is an expert theologian historian who's written, I don't know, seven books of theological philosophy. So this is a beautiful layer to this yeah, yeah hysterical, human. Exactly, and you will, you will meet him at some point. Listeners, I promise when's his next visit?
Speaker 2:I don't know that's a good question. Yeah, we'll get him out here, yeah, yeah, well, it'll still be people of the core, because he's a people of my core. Um, how about you?
Speaker 3:um, it's really interesting because I feel we have similar trajectories in our lives and the friend pods go through physical, geographical changes and, coming from you know, I was born in Michigan and I think both of us coming from Midwest beginnings we know people who have been in the same place their entire lives. That is the same place that their parents are from, and they have different social circles and different friendships because of that, because they haven't left and I guess I really never had that, nor did I totally feel connected around that when I was in it. You know you talk about high school like I had different groups of friends, but I wouldn't sorry if I offend anyone, I don't know, but I didn't really have a solid best friend group. I was friends with a lot of people and had different close relationships with them, but I think my boyfriend kind of took over everything. I had one friend in particular growing up that in my later teen years when I left home I moved into her house with her mom and they paid her mom $100 to sleep on her couch and I would half-ass vacuum and do dishes and whatnot but her mom and I would smoke Salem cigarettes and watch Highlander and my friend wanted nothing to do with that and I was like that was the best for me. So that friendship, we stayed connected via the socials but we lost touch many years ago but acknowledged each other's existence and that times in our lives we were the most important people and necessary for each other. Um, so I I think fondly of that friendship, uh, but I think we are very different people. I don't know, yeah, I don't think we have to analyze that um, but I appreciate that relationship.
Speaker 3:But then, moving forward, you know I moved to Mexico and my core group of people there, honestly, that was my college of life. It was the first time I really really hung out with a lot of people around my age and you know it was past high school and we were figuring out who we were and no one was in school. You know we were, you know 19 school, you know. You know 19 to early 20s, 18, early 20s no one was in college.
Speaker 3:It wasn't the American kind of equivalent. We were working in bars, we were doing shit, we were living on our own, no one had like or them living with like 10 degrees of family. But it wasn't like the typical North American youth or like early 20s and that shaped me and those people are still part of my life and I'm really super excited because, covid, I got to go back and it was, you know got a 20-year reunion for a lot of people that I hadn't seen, and so I don't feel a sadness anymore because I got to hang out and see people and meet their children and their wives and husbands and all of that. So I'd say pre-COVID, I would say yes, that I wanted to reconnect with these people who were formative in my formative years and I know this is going on a different tangent, but I think another thing about growing up is that I've tried to maintain connections.
Speaker 1:I know I can be better 100%.
Speaker 3:Covid taught us that we reached out randomly. We had Zoom meetings with people that we hadn't talked to in years and playing games and doing weird stuff. But I've also cut ties with people who are just toxic relationships it didn't make me feel good. I don't know out of obligation to whom I agree.
Speaker 2:I think that comes with age too.
Speaker 3:I'm really happy to be where I am, so I could be better. And I'm too. Yeah, I'm really happy to be where I am, right, so I could be better, and I'm sure there's somebody I'm forgetting.
Speaker 2:Well, I will say I don't know why, but it did remind me Like I feel very. We both went to the school of life right in our 20s.
Speaker 1:You know same thing.
Speaker 2:I was just bars musicians working at tattoo shops, working at coffee coffee shops, working at restaurants and bars and whatever. Um. But I will say this I feel very fortunate little name drop brag is. When I moved to new york I didn't realize how famous a lot of my friends were I know you've until you know I feel like a star fucker, like everybody.
Speaker 3:I really do, but people forget what amazing musical scene minneapolis has.
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, it's just because you know to go back because of winter, because there were nine months out of the year that we couldn't do anything I got to meet these people that just made I mean it was so fucking inspirational and for me to come. You know, we always call it like Minnesota famous, right? Yeah, oh, you're Minnesota famous Because everyone in that music group would, or musical collection would know you, but then I moved up to New York.
Speaker 3:Is it a venue that has all the stars?
Speaker 2:First Avenue and most of my friends have stars on that wall and it's just awesome and it was really awesome to move out here and be like my friend blah blah blah and people be like you know them well, even here.
Speaker 3:Oh my god we had um, uh, jeff, ricky, uh, from thursdays yeah come. He just wrote a novel and we had him come and read some of it.
Speaker 2:You call it Thursdays Thursday.
Speaker 3:Thursday sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go. You did great. No, it's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he was amazing and you're like, oh, I'm friends with the drummer, or whatever from the band and we were like, oh, I sort of know you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just like. Yeah, association, what I know. It's pretty crazy, but it's interesting that you can find. You know, I guess that's what I'm always attracted to. Like to go back to the nomad loner thing is I'm just always attracted to people that are creating. Whatever it is they're creating, you know whether it's a restaurant or a music or art or pottery, I don't fucking care, I just love.
Speaker 2:I'm so attracted to that kind of brain, yeah, and that kind of brain, yeah, and that kind of of drive, and sometimes, because I don't always have the drive, you know, I have a lot of depression, I have a lot, you know, diagnosis, bipolar, um, severe bipolar, and so I see that and I just want to latch on, yeah, and be inspired by it you know I'm on a lot of medication now, so I don't latch on as much as I probably did my 20s. I found a balance exactly, but I know it's interesting, it's fun, it's fun to look back.
Speaker 3:But that's what I think my relationship with you. I think you feed into my desire to want to motivate myself and to create things, but I also want to motivate you yeah and then it just it circles back and forth and definitely it's a little sous vide machine.
Speaker 2:We're just like cooking yeah I love it, it's perfect, it works out great all right, let's do um. I think we have time for one more question. All right, if you want, what do you think? Mama jams, we can't use up all the questions because we need. I know we need everyone to be, of our series uh-oh, okay, here we go.
Speaker 3:Okay, who's gonna go first? Well, you know it already. Huh, I know, yeah. I mean, unfortunately, this is the game. Okay, would you consider having psychotherapy, and what would you hope to discover from it?
Speaker 2:I've had so much psychotherapy.
Speaker 3:So when I was in we both have experiences with hospitals Mine was younger and doing the Rorschach tests and getting psychoanalyzed. I have been psychoanalyzed and the funny thing is I forgot which one it is. I either see the trees, not the forest or the forest, not the trees.
Speaker 2:But you don't know which one it is.
Speaker 3:I think, it's the trees, not the forest.
Speaker 2:I do hyperfixate.
Speaker 3:But then I also get overwhelmed about all the hypotheticals, ie the whole fucking forest, forest yeah. I don't see the trees so I don't know which day they caught me on speak they did, they did tell me I was bipolar. I am NOT not to dismiss any of those diagnoses that are necessary and correct. I was just 14, yeah, and not happy.
Speaker 2:No, and you know living a not so normal life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know. Yeah, my parents had divorce. It was a weird home situation.
Speaker 2:I was just she's getting nervous right now. Oh, I'm touching things.
Speaker 3:Speaking of psychoanalyzing me, when Marissa gets awkward she starts to touch things, so I tried to remove. So was that the last time that you were ever put in the hospital for yeah stuff, okay, um, there was a couple back-to-backs but yeah, yeah it was. It was an era gotcha, but it was in my youth and I did find a therapist who was state mandated, who was like I believe you.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 3:It just took one person to say I validate how you're feeling. You don't. You're not crazy, you're not any of these things that people are telling you, and that was life-changing. To like be seen by a professional to just be normal and not perfect yeah, and have permission for that and that was really wonderful. Um, not like everything got better, but it was. It was better for my mental health to be told that it was okay. I was valid in my feelings and I think that that's something everybody needs. It's a game changer isn't it?
Speaker 2:I mean for years.
Speaker 2:My story is going to be a lot more extensive than that, unfortunately, but but yeah, just to feel validated, you know, I mean, I agree, for me it was. I knew I was different from the very beginning. I mean I started faking my own death around the age of five to like 10, 11, 12, faking it, you know, just pretending to drown in the pool, literally rigging a thing. So it looked like I was hung, like, like I said, my coat hanger, yeah, the coat hanger. And then you know, my other big one was covering myself in bacon bits and ketchup and I pretended I was eaten alive by ticks. And my dad said I laid in the hallway for like three hours just like convulsing, hoping someone would pick me up and take care of me. The mind of a writer, yeah right, right, exactly.
Speaker 2:And then and then just going, you know, having to see doctors my whole life and a lot of them being like, oh, she's just a teenager, oh she's just, you know, going through puberty or or she's whatever it was. It wasn't until I got properly diagnosed in my 40s I'm I'll be 45 in a week. That's insane.
Speaker 3:It's completely opposite. What happened to my small town? They told every kid my age they were depressed and put them on psychotropic drugs. Everybody in my high school I'm talking about 13 to 15 years old were on shit. 16 years old were on shit and it was one fucking person.
Speaker 1:We all had therapists and it was one fucking person.
Speaker 3:We all had therapists, but it was only one doctor that was referred to to actually administer the um to write the scripts. Well, I should not. I was on lithium that's, that's fucking insane. That's wild, that's insane. Yeah, yes, I had some questionable choices that I made, but to be put on, that was insane. Yeah, I agree, I mean that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I was probably put on drugs, maybe starting at, well, 13, 14. You just overshared a lot, I know we did, that's okay, you just said that I was working on coming back. I think you're doing great, I think you're doing great.
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, I'm impressed with. No, I shouldn't say that I take that back. I was going to say I'm impressed with how we deal with mental illness. Now, I mean, we have come a very long way, but there's still a very long way to go.
Speaker 3:And I think having open conversations and not feeling you know, I don't talk publicly about this and this is the most public thing I could do on the internet uh, but I'm not ashamed of that, and I do think that terrible decisions were made by people in power in the medical, mental health world that were negative, and then you were the opposite side of that where, through the investigative works of people, you have found a balance, and so it's a necessary world. But there are two very different sides to that. Yeah, I agree I don't have any answers.
Speaker 3:We're just sharing two sides of the coin.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's just so interesting how different they were, you know, and how the outcomes are very different too.
Speaker 1:You know, right now.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I'll be 45 in a week. I'm on antipsychotics. I just got off my antidepressants in a year, which was great for me. Is that good in a year?
Speaker 3:which was great for me. Is that good? Oh, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2:I know that I needed them at the time, but I was on them for four or five years and then I knew that I needed to get off of them. That's great, but will I live the rest of my life on medication? 100%?
Speaker 1:And I'm okay with that.
Speaker 3:That's okay.
Speaker 2:It's better than what I was, but it is funny when I get off my medication. People you know. Our chef here and my business partner will my business partner instantly goes ah oh, my god, she's gonna freak out. She's gonna because my ups are so high and my downs are so low, you know. And then our chef will be like oh, this is gonna be awesome, she's off her meds because I get really crazy and wild. But for every up there's a down.
Speaker 3:That's like jet lag, exactly, I mean, that's. The only thing that I can empathize is that feeling where I was up for 24 hours, I slept for three hours and then I keep going not using drugs, because I also know what that feels like. Yeah, just natural, fucking weird that's a really great analogy.
Speaker 3:And then so tired like I can't but not even just like a little kid in the back sleep kind of nodding off, but like literally I don't know if I can get up and move from the couch to the bed and I'm just mentally like thinking about it and like trying to stay awake to be able to do that and you're just like what the fuck is this?
Speaker 2:oh, I mean, that was my bipolar is. I would get kidney infections because sometimes I wouldn't leave my bed for like three days. And I don't mean like, oh, I wouldn't leave my apartment. I mean I physically wouldn't leave the bed, like I couldn't physically get up to go to the bathroom, so I would hold my urine for days days until it would just be blood and I'd have to go to the hospital.
Speaker 2:But then there were other times where I wouldn't get into bed, you know, I could stay up and stay out not on drugs, sometimes on drugs, sometimes not on drugs for days and not sleep at all and feel like a million bucks, you know. So it would just kind of these ebbs and flows were so intense, yeah, whereas now I still feel I'm really on, I love my doctor now, yeah, and I'm really on a lot of I love my medication that I'm on. It's a brand new drug. I can only get it from one pharmacy that has to special deliver it. I mean, it's like $1,000 a month that I don't have to pay.
Speaker 1:It is agreed.
Speaker 2:But now it's like that perfect start. I feel like a normal person, like if I don't want to get out of bed, I don't have to, but I can get up and go to the bathroom. Yeah, you know, I can walk my dog. I didn't have a dog back then Thank.
Speaker 3:God, I think Wilbur's been great for you too, just having this oh loves you no matter what, doesn't judge you, but also needs to like shit and piss.
Speaker 2:Exactly exactly. I mean it's kind of been a game changer for sure, because I'm responsible.
Speaker 3:I need food, I need to go to the bathroom. You're not going to sit in your apartment fucking. What was it, pilot, who would fill jars with urine?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Leonardo DiCaprio played him in the middle. Why can't?
Speaker 2:I do that, the av. Oh yeah, remember yeah.
Speaker 3:So at least, yeah, oh yeah, he had what is that fear of leaving the house?
Speaker 2:What's that called again?
Speaker 3:Agoraphobia. Agoraphobia the crowds, crowds. Fear of crowds is agoraphobia.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, but I think it's something Somebody out there will know what we're talking about and be like he's idiot.
Speaker 3:I was like I'm not going to Google stuff today. I'm not going to Google things Well on that note we got deep. To be honest, we sat here before and we were chatting. We're like, oh, we need to stop talking because we're going to record. And then it got the preface of what are we going to talk about, and we both sat silent.
Speaker 1:We were like this is going to be weird.
Speaker 3:The first time we're awkward is thinking about not being awkward. And then, of course, we get into real deep, real overshared, some juicy bits and all the trigger warnings and all that fun stuff.
Speaker 1:You hate trigger warnings. I hate trigger warnings, I do too. There's no, there's no trigger.
Speaker 3:Life is my fucking trigger warning sorry y'all no disrespect, but yeah, um been through enough I've. Yeah, I was never warned um.
Speaker 2:I love you I love you too. I'm so glad you're back. I missed you and I missed this, and we missed you guys too.
Speaker 3:No, we're excited and we need to just chat about who else we're going to have these conversations with and I'm really excited for what's to come.
Speaker 2:Me too, alright well it was good talking and we can't do, the fuck, kill me, because it's just us and you're going to come up with an idea. Yeah, we might have to do that next time. It's just us and you're going to come up with an idea. Yeah, we might have to do that next time. It's more fun when there's another person, Exactly because it's us just Because we always go for the same. So it's kind of like they cancel each other out, right?
Speaker 3:So all right To be continued.
Speaker 2:To be continued.
Speaker 3:We will fuck, kill or be.
Speaker 2:All right, say what is thank you in Mandarin Xie xie, xie xie.