438. Later, 2020! With Kiki and Amanda

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there. Happy New Year to you! I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. This is episode number 438, and we are saying good-bye to 2020 and saying hello to 2021 with Kiki and Amanda. We’ve been gathering in groups across many time zones – lots of math – to say good-bye to 2020. Bad internet in South Africa got in the way of Lara joining us, but she sent a question for us to answer. So we are going to talk about nonfiction that made us cry/laugh, audiobooks, TikToks, puzzles, Cyberpunk clothing glitches, and side trips include depression, anxiety, treatment, and Poopsie Sparkly Critters and Cutie Tooties. I think I got those names right. There is a lot of laughing in this one; it is a very silly episode, so Happy New Year from us to you!

Please do not miss the show notes for this episode, because I am going to link to the picture of Amanda’s clothing glitch inside Cyberpunk. It’s amazing and super Not Safe For Work. Go over to the show notes; treat yourself to some hilarity at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast. And, you know, now that I think about it, there’s hilarity in the other parts of the site too, so, you know, come hang out with us!

This episode is brought to you in part by Headspace. Headspace is your daily dose of mindfulness in the form of easy guided meditations in a very easy-to-use app. Whatever the situation, Headspace can really help you feel better. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, Headspace has three-minute SOS meditations for you. If you need help falling asleep, they have wind-down sessions that their members love, including Amanda. And for parents, Headspace even has morning meditations that you can do with your kids. Headspace is one of the only meditation apps advancing the field of mindfulness and meditation through clinically validated research. Their approach to mindfulness can reduce stress, improve sleep – yes! – boost focus, and increase your overall sense of wellbeing. I have finished the three-level course on meditation and anxiety, and I am now working through a course on acceptance and resistance. And I, I sort of struggle to come up with words that describe how effective I am finding the Headspace app, because I sound really doofy when I try to articulate it, but I appreciate the experience and the tools that I have learned so much. They have made me much more chill. Headspace is backed by twenty-five published studies on its benefits, six hundred thousand five-star reviews, and over sixty million downloads. Headspace makes it easy for you to build a life-changing meditation practice with mindfulness that works for you on your schedule, anytime, anywhere. You deserve to feel happier, and Headspace is meditation made simple. Go to headspace.com/SARAH – that’s headspace.com/SARAH – for a free one-month trial with access to Headspace’s full library of meditations for every situation. This is the best deal available right now, so head to headspace.com/SARAH today!

Thank you and Happy New Year to our Patreon community. If you have supported the show with a pledge, you are making every episode accessible and you keep the show going each and every week. Thank you so much for your support, and if the podcast has made you a little happier in the past year, I’m glad to hear that, and I’m really honored to be in your eardrums. If you would like to support the show, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

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I love doing the end-of-year episodes. They are always among our most popular in the year, and I hope you enjoy this one with Kiki, Amanda, and me. On with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: I don’t know if Lara will join us. I hope that she can, but the internet in, where she is in South Africa is super crap right now, and it might not be able to handle Zoom, which I understand! I mean, sometimes I can’t handle Zoom.

Amanda: Lara, we’ll miss you if you don’t make it, and –

Sarah: Yeah, we miss you, Lara! All right, so, Kiki, Amanda –

Amanda: Mm!

Sarah: – thank you for doing this!

Amanda: You’re welcome!

Sarah: I’m, it’s so nice to see everybody, too. Like, hello! Have we ever met in, like, face-to-face?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I don’t think so!

Amanda: I’ve met, I’ve met Kiki.

Kiki: Yeah! We sort of live in the same area, so I, I have met Amanda. We go to book clubs together sometime, but I don’t think I’ve ever met you face-to-face, Sarah, so hi! [Laughs]

Sarah: Hello! Hello – the voice comes out of this head.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Kiki: This is also nice because I was like, wow, I’m Zooming with people I don’t work with! This is so nice! Wow!

[Laughter]

Amanda: A social Zoom!

Kiki: Yeah!

Sarah: Yeah, I don’t have to worry about what my hair or my, you know, from my sternum up looks like? I can just wear whatever the hell I want?

Kiki: Yeah. Although, to be honest, I’ve gotten to the point of working from home – ‘cause I’ve been working from home since the beginning of March at this point –

Sarah: Yep.

Kiki: – so I’ve got to the point where, like, I’ve taken meetings with my supervisor in my bathrobe while I’m sitting in my bed, and I’ve been like, this is what’s happening! This is what’s going on right now.

Sarah: Yeah!

Kiki: – for you to know that this is where we are. [Laughs]

Amanda: Nope, my roommate, who has been working home since March as well, God bless her, still puts jeans on every day, and I’m like, why? Why do you, why do you put, why do you do that?

Kiki: Couldn’t be me. Mm-mm.

Amanda: No! Mm-mm!

Sarah: One of my favorite pictures from this year is when Adam, my husband, had to do a work conference, and he works for the federal government, so it was like a federal government virtual conference. [Laughs] And it was summer, so he’s wearing a shirt and a tie and a jacket, shorts, and slippers. It was so great. I was like, this should be everyone’s uniform. Just business just from here.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: All right. I am, first, so curious: what book or piece of media got you through 2020? Kiki, you want to go first?

Kiki: Do I go first?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: We’re going to put you on the spot! Ha-ha-ha!

Kiki: I have notes; I’m prepared.

Sarah: [Gasps] Notes! Oh my God, this is like a work Zoom!

[Laughter]

Kiki: So I, I think – I’m, you know, you guys sort of know this – I had a really hard reading year. I had a just bad, hasn’t been this bad in a really long time. I would pick things up, read them for ten minutes, and then never go back to them. Like, I just, I would be reading four things at a time and, like, couldn’t, I couldn’t finish things. And eventually I found that I, I, what was, was working was audiobooks, so this was like a big audiobook year for me. Specifically one audiobook – [laughs] – which is, it’s actually not a romance. It’s Samantha Irby’s We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, which is, it’s her second collection of essays; it came out a couple years ago. And I listened to it, between May and September, I listened to it three times all the way through! [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay, that’s awesome.

Kiki: Yes, which is a lot, a lot of times for an audiobook in such a short period of time. But, so it’s narrated by the author, and it, I was trying to think of, like, why it meant so much to me? Besides the fact that, like, it’s hilar-, she’s a hilarious writer, and also her life just seems like it’s been deeply hilarious in ways that mine never will be.

[Laughter]

Kiki: Also, I think it, it just has this feeling of, like, when you see a friend, a really, really good friend after a long time of being apart and you just start, like, swapping stories, both of, like, things that you, like, haven’t been around to experience with them and, like, old stories that, like, you all know what happened, but they’re still really hilarious when you hear from them, and, like, I, like a lot of other people, didn’t get to see any of my close friends this year –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Kiki: – and it’s, I think, like, that feeling of, like, just like having some, like, being with someone that you kind of know and, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Kiki: – is telling you stories, like, kind of meant a lot to me! It felt, it felt like, like having someone in the room with me while I was, like, doing my fifty puzzles every day. Like –

[Laughter]

Sarah: And it was familiar. This was someone familiar, whose voice was familiar, telling you stories that, for you, were familiar, ‘cause you’d already listened to them. And voice is very intimate! It makes total sense!

Kiki: Yeah, absolutely, and it was, it was – ‘cause the other, the other thing that she’s able to do just, like, fantastically, I think better than anyone else that I’ve, like, read a memoir or series of essays by, is that she’s able to, like, switch from, like, like, very comical, very embarrassing moments to, like, really emotional things in a way that is, like, holds them both very gently – so, like, she could, like, one chapter will be about her shitting her pants on the side of the road in the middle of a snowstorm, and then –

Sarah: As you do.

Kiki: Happens, you know? And then the next one is about the, getting the call, like, on her eighteenth birthday that her dad has died, and, and it, it doesn’t, neither of those th-, you know, you would think that maybe that would make one of those stories feel vulgar or feel like it wasn’t, like, handled well, but it’s, it’s handled so beautifully?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Kiki: And I think that’s a really special thing, and I think that, like, in a year that, for me, that was like trying to hold, like, a lot of, a lot of sorrow and a lot of anxiety and also, like, a lot of joy? I did have, you know, moments of a ton of joy this year – it felt like it, like, encapsulated both of those things really well.

Sarah: Aw! That’s really lovely!

Kiki: Yeah.

Sarah: Can I make a suggestion of an audiobook that I am currently enjoying?

Kiki: Yes, please!

Sarah: Okay. So Tara reviewed Shit, Actually by Windy, Lindy – Windy Lest – Lindy West?

[Laughter]

Sarah: And the audiobook, also read by the author, is hilarious. And it does the same things that you’re talking about. I mean, it’s basically movie recaps, where she recaps a specific ‘80s or ‘90s movie like Back to the Future; Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; Garden State. You would love her essay on Garden State, Amanda; it is, it is incredible. But she’s, not only is she reading it, but she’s also locating these things in a context of (a) writing it during the pandemic and finishing it during the pandemic and (b) locating these movies when they were released then and how they hold up now? And so she’ll go between – [laughs] – the idea that, you know, some movies are just silly, silly fun and they hold up, and then sometimes you learn the director is a sexual predator and it really changes the way you think about that, that story. Or, you know, you look at something that everyone else says is good and you think, yes, but we’re also holding up the story of a white guy having white guy fantasies and, oh, isn’t it horrible to be a white guy who has a feeling.

Amanda: Zach Braff. Zach Braff in Garden State.

Sarah: Yeah, and – and she points out, and I can’t unsee it – [laughs] – Zach Braff’s mouth is a perfect circle?

Amanda: Oh boy, now I have to look at photos!

Sarah: He’s like a lamprey?

Amanda: Do I want this search, like, in my Google history of zach braff mouth? Like, do I want that? [Laughs]

Sarah: No, but you can look at Tom Cruise’s disturbing teeth, because he has one tooth dead center.

Amanda: Oh my God! Also, I think Tara –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – shared some, like, screenshots of when she was reading it? And, like, one of them is like, Lin-, Lindy West is like, there’s only one good movie, and that’s The Fugitive. [Laughs]

Sarah: That is the entire premise. In fact, the book is judged on how many DVDs of The Fugitive.

Kiki: [Laughs] Oh my God!

Sarah: Like, eight out of ten DVDs of The Fugitive. Oh, and her whole essay on plot holes in Harry Potter.

Amanda: Oh God. Okay.

Sarah: Like, yeah, sure there’s a Black character, but tell me anything else you know about Dean Thomas.

Kiki: Yeah.

Amanda: I think I might have that on audio.

Sarah: It’s so good as an audiobook? So one of the things that I started doing this year to help, because I’ve always worked from home, I’ve worked from home – well, not always – but I’ve worked from home for ten years, and now everyone is home with me, and if I want to be by myself, the best place to be by myself is my office, but then, then I fall into the trap of I am working all the time! Which, not healthy for my brain. I don’t want to live at my workplace, even though where I live includes my workplace, so I –

Amanda: It’s downloading now, Sarah.

Sarah: Good, good, good! You make good choices; I’m very proud.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: So when I’m, when I’m sewing or when I’m quilting, I listen to audiobooks, and there were points where I had to put the rotary cutter down and wipe my eyes, I was laughing so hard while listening to this. It is brilliant, and it does that same thing that you were talking about, which I, I just love when people are both funny and deeply poignant and nuanced at the same time.

Kiki: Oh, yes. I’m very, I’m, I, that will be put on my list, ‘cause I listened to Lindy West’s first book on audiobook also this year, which was phenomenal, just, like, out of this world, so that is –

Sarah: Yeah.

Kiki: – on the list.

Sarah: Awesome. I’m trying to find a picture of Tom Cruise’s teeth for you, and I’ve decided that this is just going to cause my computer to be very confused and I have to stop, but if you google Tom Cruise’s –

Amanda: My search history has Tom Cruise teeth.

Sarah: [Laughs] This is going to be such a weird episode, I love it! Ha. All right, Amanda, what got you through 2020, media-wise?

Amanda: I’m going to cheat –

Sarah: Was it, was it, was it the videogame where your boobs glitch out of your shirt?

Amanda: Oh my God! Just tits out all the time. I’m trying to do business.

Sarah: [Laughs] It’s really amazing!

Amanda: We can, we can put, like, a photo in the notes.

Sarah: Yes! It’s –

Amanda: I’ve, I bought Cyberpunk, a game that I was looking very much forward to, and since I created my character, my boobs glitch out of my clothes?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: So it’s just like nips out of my jacket?

Sarah: It’s really incredible! She sent me a picture, and I was dying.

Amanda: And clothing, like normal clothing is what you wear as your armor, so obviously you want the best armor, and when I played, my character’s wearing a fedora, a jacket with her boobs glitching out of it, and then basketball shorts, and that is what is the most armor. But I don’t know if you can see this.

Kiki: Oh boy. Oh my goodness.

[Laughter]

Amanda: Glitching right out of my jacket. Just –

Kiki: Tits out for videogames, you know?

Amanda: Yep. I was like, oh boy.

Sarah: I feel like that really sums up 2020, though. A fedora, a jacket, tits out, and basketball shorts. I mean, that person’s more put together than I am!

Amanda: And it’s like, it’s like, how am I, how am I supposed to conduct business –

Kiki: [Laughs]

Amanda: – looking like this? It’s Casual Friday in Night City. We just cut holes out of all of my clothes.

Sarah: [Sniffs] I need to get a tissue and wipe my eyes!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Just the mental image! [Laughs] Oh God!

Kiki: Oh boy. Oh boy.

Amanda: I feel so bad for the team who made it, but oh. And then, like, whenever I look in the mirror in the game, all of my hair disappears. So. [Laughs]

Sarah: You know all the things where the heroines in a book will look in the mirror and describe themselves so, so that the reader unders- – now I’m just picturing, I looked in the mirror and my hair was gone. I suppose that’s just how I was meant to be.

Amanda: And it was gone. [Laughs] And it’s gone.

Sarah: But yet, when I walk away it’s there, I can feel it, but when I look it’s not there. I think this might be a metaphor of some kind.

Amanda: One of my friends refunded the game, ‘cause they were offering refunds, and he’s like, listen, I spent like twenty minutes on finely tuning my mustache for my character, and every time I look in the mirror it’s gone!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: I was like, how do you feel now that you’ve returned it, Christian? He’s like, Amanda, I feel free! Free.

[Laughter]

Amanda: I was like –

Sarah: So Cyberpunk is not getting you through the end of 2020.

Amanda: I mean, not in the way I had hoped.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Pew, pew!

Amanda: [Laughs] Just boobs out, wielding a katana. I, I, I am Florida –

Sarah: [Laughs] Wearing basketball shorts!

Amanda: – I am Florida Woman in Cyberpunk 2077. Like –

Kiki: [Laughs]

Amanda: – Florida Woman, boobs out, fedora, basketball shorts, wielding a sword.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: That’s what it’s like.

Sarah: [Still laughing]

Amanda: But I’m going to cheat, because Kiki only had one and Lara’s not here, so I have three. [Laughs] So I’m just cheating. Like Kiki as well, I did not do a lot of reading. This was a very difficult year. I lost my dad over the summer, had a bit of a mental breakdown two weeks ago, so it’s not been pleasant for me. So I haven’t been doing a lot of reading. But I recently started making snacking cakes from this cookbook.

Sarah: Such a good decision!

Amanda: It was a staff pick at the bookstore, and snacking cakes are, like, single-layer cakes. There’s not much fuss to them, and I made a buttered walnut cake with maple coffee icing, and put –

Sarah: I’m going to have to tag this episode so explicit.

Amanda: Yeah!

[Laughter]

Amanda: And a lot of my bookstore, like, family has been super helpful, so I cut up little pieces of this Bundt cake and wrapped them up and put little stickers on them and, like, gave them out to my coworkers.

Sarah: Aw!

Amanda: And, like, that felt so nice, to, like, bake something and give it to people, and I have plans to make an apple spice cake with brown sugar whipped cream for Christmas? But the, all the recipes are super easy and adaptable. Like, in the, the book it’s like, listen, don’t have a Bundt pan? That’s fine! Here are cooking times if you have a loaf pan, if you have a brownie pan, if you have, like – like, it’s cool; don’t worry about it. Like, don’t have walnuts? Just shove some pecans in there; it’s fine. Like, don’t worry about – like, it’s pretty casual, and I know, like, baking can get a little overwhelming sometimes?

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Amanda: So I loved how adaptable and casual and just, like, approachable all of these recipes are?

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: And the last section is essentially how to make the perfect vanilla cake, and then the author just gives you a bunch of different toppings. Like, you want a strawberry glaze? That’s in there. You want, like, a fancy whipped cream? It’s in there. Like, so you can kind of customize it. It’s so good. I’m so excited, and I don’t feel overwhelmed that I have to buy these really niche ingredients that I’m going to use once for a recipe and then –

Sarah: Oh, for sure.

Amanda: – whatever.

But that’s the only book recommendation! The other two are, one is a TV show: Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. It – you know, shout out to my friend Kay on Twitter who convinced me to watch this – it is so wholesome, but raunchy, but funny and sweet, and I just loved it to pieces. It’s about a college football coach from, I think, University of Kentucky? Who gets picked to run a, to manage a, and coach a football club in England, knowing nothing about soccer/football. It is so good. Everyone is, like, it takes, like, common toxic tropes, like you have the older woman in charge being jealous of, like, a, a younger woman, but, like, they turn out to be really good friends and support each other, and it’s super sweet! And one of the first, I think in the first episode, there is a, I think Nigerian player, Sam? Who is so precious, and he’s homesick, and so Ted Lasso, the coach, decides to get the team together to get him a cake and presents and stuff that reminds him of home, and Ted goes to give Sam these little green army men? ‘Cause that’s what Ted’s son gave him to, like, remind him of home and protect him and stuff, and Sam was like, ‘preciate this, coach, but me and, like, American military don’t – [laughs] – and, yeah, Ted’s like, yep, imperialism, got it; I will take that back, thank you. And Sam’s like, Nope! Like, it’s so, like, on-the-nose about these things, and I’m sorry it’s only, like, an Apple TV+ exclusive, but it’s, like, seriously, sign up for the free trial, watch all of the episodes. They’re like a half an hour long; there’s ten episodes. Like, five hours of your time: so worth it.

And the last one is the Birds of Prey movie. That was the last movie I saw in theaters.

Sarah: That was this year?

Amanda: Yeah, that was March! I think it was March.

Sarah: Wow!

Amanda: Let me double-check. Maybe I’m wrong! Am I wrong? But I –

Sarah: No, I think you’re right! I just don’t – I mean, time is now a piece of taffy.

Amanda: February, it came out in February.

Sarah: Wow, that was this year!

Amanda: Yeah, I saw it in theaters with Eric, and then I went by myself and saw it and bought, like, all of the candy and –

Sarah: Aw!

Amanda: – like, chicken tenders and a slushy and just sat there with myself. And it’s on HBO Max, which I bought because I want to watch Wonder Woman when it comes out. And so I –

Sarah: Choices.

Amanda: And since I’ve got HBO Max, I think I’ve watched it like two more times, just, like, alone in my bed nest with blankets and – I think I reviewed it, but it’s just, it’s got ladies just kicking ass, and it’s so fun and colorful and bright, and it brought me a lot of, a lot of good feelings, of which I did not have many this year.

So those are my three –

Sarah: All very wholesome!

Amanda: Does that surprise you? I mean, we just got done –

Sarah: No!

Amanda: – talking about, like, tits out in videogames.

Sarah: Very wholesome. Very wholesome basketball shorts.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I have a question, Kiki: what color is on your nails? ‘Cause they look fabulous.

Kiki: Oh, thank you! It’s like, I don’t, I don’t have the, the actual bottle here with me, but it’s like this, this very nice, like, dark, like, blood red? This is –

Sarah: Yes, I noticed, and they’re gorgeous!

Kiki: – that I’m very pleased with. I have got, I used to be very good at, like, having my nails painted and all of that stuff, and then I just have been living in my bedroom for the past year, essentially, and nothing mattered anymore. But I’m trying, I’m trying to get back into it. Oooh! Yours are good too!

Sarah: So mine is a chrome polish that will, like, as I, as, as I, as I move through different lights, it’s either dark red, black, light green, or silver. It has sort of, sort of like, you ever see, like, motor oil in a puddle? Kind of –

Kiki: Yeah.

Sarah: – looks like that? It’s the first type of this polish that I’ve gotten from ILNP and I love it!

Amanda: I’m sad to see the Hanukkah nails are gone!

Sarah: They were chipping! All of the, all of the candle flames chipped off. I did, I did eight candles on my fingers for Hanukkah. Little, little teeny tiny –

Amanda: They came out good!

Sarah: Thank you! They were –

Amanda: They came out well.

Sarah: My right hand wa-, where my left hand was great –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – ‘cause I’m right-handed, my, my right hand was an Impressionist version of candles.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: They were just sort of like, bleah! [Laughs]

Amanda: What do you see, a candle or two women kissing? What is it?

Sarah: Right? I see basketball shorts, that’s what I see!

[Laughter]

Kiki: Okay, since Amanda gave a couple, I actually –

Amanda: Go ahead!

Kiki: I, I, ‘cause I was like, you know, I want to try and, and rein it in –

Amanda: Nope.

Kiki: – and –

Sarah: Why? Why? Why would you –

Amanda: Wave it off.

Sarah: Why would you do that? It’s 2020: we have no reins.

Kiki: No reins. Reins have been given up. So I think this is particularly relevant, because, Sarah, I know that you are, like myself right now, Psy-Changeling-ing through –

Sarah: Oh!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, let, let’s, let’s talk, ‘cause I’m in the middle of Tangle of Need.

Amanda: Chagelinging right now.

Sarah: I, I, I, Changeling-ing, yes. We are Changeling-ing, and I am in the middle of Tangle of Need. I’m about to move back into Heart of Obsidian, which I’ve already reread this month, so, yeah. Tell me all about it!

Kiki: So. I read Nalini Singh for the first time this year. I –

Sarah: [Gasps] Yay!

Kiki: Yes, cry out from the audience, right.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Kiki: But I’m, I’ve, you know, I, I’m either very on top of things or, like, I get to things like twenty years after the –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Hey, you know my philosophy: if you haven’t read it, it’s a new book.

Kiki: A new book, yeah! And so –

Sarah: Yep.

Kiki: – and I think very early in the year, Slave to Sensation was on, like, a daily deal or something, and I was like, I just got it, and then it just sat there for a couple months, and I had tried to pick it up a couple times and just like, what? What is happening? I’m so –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Kiki: – confused!

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Kiki: I was just confused for like the first two chapters.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Kiki: Too much. It was too much for me. And then randomly, one of the times that I picked it up, I just tore through it, and I feel like it changed my whole life.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Aw!

Amanda: It’s weird how, like, sometimes you really do have to get the timing right for a book, and then when you’re done you’re like, why did I wait so long?!

Kiki: That was exactly – it was just like the right moment –

Sarah: Yep.

Kiki: – and it just, I, I just, like, I couldn’t stop reading it.

[Laughter]

Kiki: So it was – and it, you know, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty old at this, relatively old at, at this point, and so there are some things, it’s, like, very much like an early 2000s paranormal –

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: Oh! Oh, oh yeah!

Kiki: It has certain, certain stuff –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Kiki: Hasn’t, hasn’t aged phenomenally, but it just, it, I don’t know what it was about – I think, I, I can sort of pull out certain things, like, it’s, like, kind of about isolation and, like –

Sarah: And empathy?

Kiki: – in a, in, in a way that I think, like, was, is really poignant, specifically for this year. And it’s, like, about, like, no restraint on, like, you know, female desire and, like, you know, holding yourself so close that you don’t fall apart in a way that I think is like, you know, I think also something that, like, I was experiencing a lot this year? And it just, there was just something about it. I’m actually rereading it right now.

[Laughter]

Kiki: That just, I feel like really turned, like, turned something back on for me?

Sarah: Mm-hmm! Yep!

Kiki: That, like, it was a book that, like, really pulled me out of a slump and, like, got me to be able to, like, got me excited about reading things again in a way that, like – so I started really reading romance when I was, like, dealing with, like, a really bad depression and, like, I just needed to read something where I was like, I need to know that this is okay at the end. I need to know that everyone’s happy at the end and everything is good, and I need to, like, be somewhere where, like, if everything else in my life is a mess and is falling apart, at least I know –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Kiki: – that these two people are happy at the end. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes, and you get that, that, that empathetic dopamine hit from reading about people being happy.

Kiki: Yes, and I think what happened for me this year is that, like, Slave to Sensation, like, did that again for me, where, like, it was the book that was, I was like, oh! This still, it still works. ‘Cause I’d been feeling a little like, like, slightly broken?

Amanda: Oh yeah!

Kiki: And, and, like, you know, reading romance is my thi-, it’s the thing that has always worked for me, and –

Amanda: And when you can’t do it, you’re like, what’s wrong with me?

Kiki: Yeah! And so it felt really good to, like, plug into something that was like – [sings] – ahhh!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I get it.

Kiki: So that’s my, that’s my other one for this year that, that I think really got me through it, so.

Sarah: Have you, have you started any of the other books in the series?

Kiki: Yes. I am, I’m, so I’m both reading on my Kindle Slave to Sensation and listening to – what is it? – Caressed by Ice.

Amanda: I did not enjoy Caressed by Ice, and –

Kiki: You did not?

Amanda: – I know some, like, that’s some people’s favorites? But it did not, it did not do it for me. I think it, it does hearken back to, like, early 2000s paranormal, but that’s what I, that’s what I grew up reading as an early romance reader. But yeah, it just didn’t do it for me. So if you’re struggling with it, don’t feel like you’re like, why, what am I not getting here? I didn’t like it.

Sarah: My, my husband and my son consider me as having committed war crimes by skipping the books in the series that I didn’t feel like reading?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m like, I don’t feel like, I don’t care, eh, skip. Ahh, I’m just going to, I want to read this one. I’m not going to make myself slog through two books that I’m not interested in.

Amanda: I, I think they’re right. I think that’s in the Geneva Convention rules somewhere. [Laughs]

Sarah: Right, I’m going to be, I’m going to be sent to the Hague.

Amanda: The Hague. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, I’m in deep shit. Once the quarantine is over, the Reading Police will be coming to my house.

Amanda: Oh yeah.

Sarah: Better have a warrant and, yeah, I’m in trouble because I’m like, I don’t feel like reading this; I’m going to skip it. I mean, what’s going to happen? The Psy are going to do this thing and the changelings are going to do that thing, and then there might be an alliance with this other group where we have two capital letters in the name. Can’t only have on capital letter; got to have two capital letters in all the changeling names –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – it’s the rule. And, you know, there’s always a neglected nipple? Always.

Kiki: [Laughs]

Amanda: Well, not in Cyberpunk! I’ll tell you –

Sarah: No! Oh –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – your nipples are not neglected; they are, they are very present?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: They have been practicing meditation: they are extreme –

Amanda: Maybe too present!

Sarah: They are very present!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh my gosh! So I was going to say, the, the, the thing that’s getting me through right now, as I said in the prior podcasts, the thing that got me through 2020 was Cadfael, Murderbot, listening to Murderbot, relistening to Murderbot – and by the way, the Psy-Changeling audiobooks are really, really good.

The thing that’s getting me through right now is rereading the Psy-Changeling series. I don’t know what it is either, and I have been working on trying to figure it out in writing. Like you, why did this grab me? Why is the thing that’s working? It’s fine that it’s working; I’m not mad, but I’m just like, why is the thing that’s doing it for my brain right now? I don’t understand! I usually don’t like possessive alpha heroes; they read to me as insecure. I don’t give a shit about, you know, I must own you. No! Ew! Gross! Uh-uh! But is this working for me? Oh, oh yeah. It’s working. I, like, oh! Next one.

And, and the other thing I did this year that was a great kindness to, to Present Sarah is that Past Sarah went out and signed up digitally for different county libraries that I have access to, so now I have borrowing privileges at multiple libraries, so I have, I’m, the whole Nalini series is at one library. I can just go one after the other and return them, and I’m so quick? Like, I’m going through these books real fast.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I got the five-book omnibus, and I was like, all right, day three, let’s up, next book, next book. Okay, yeah, mm-hmm. They’re all in the library! I can get them one after the other; it’s fabulous!

So that’s – like you, it’s, I don’t know why it’s working, but it’s working! So I’m good!

Amanda: It’s like, don’t question it. Just, like –

Sarah: No.

Amanda: – don’t question –

Sarah: Don’t look too closely! Just let it go; just don’t look too close. Yeah. Yeah, don’t look directly at the book; just read it.

Amanda: Just read it.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

All right, so Lara brought a question; she sent it to me earlier today, ‘cause I asked you each to bring a question for the rest of us. Lara wanted to know, what small surprising thing made 2020 just a little bit easier? For her, it was TikTok. She said she has been following sex workers and – I’m pulling up the message right now – buh-buh-buh-buh-buh – she says she has been following disabled activists, chronically ill people, sex workers as they share the ordinary parts of their days, and she says it feels like talking to a friend. And I was like, oh, I’ve never – I don’t have TikTok, I don’t use it, so I’m like, oh, that’s, that’s cool!

Amanda: I feel like, I’m thirty-one, so I feel like the minute I sign up for TikTok it’s going to be like, no! [Laughs]

Sarah: Real –

Amanda: Get out, old!

[Laughter]

Amanda: Like, as an old person, I shouldn’t be on this app. You’re completely right. What was I thinking?

Kiki: My thing about TikTok is I, I really over, I like when other people, like, post TikToks to other mediums so I don’t have to get the app, because I just, I don’t understand it?

[Laughter]

Kiki: – the first –

Amanda: Find ‘em on Twitter or something!

Kiki: I feel like it’s like, it’s, I, I turned twenty-five this year, and I feel like it’s the first, like, big app thing where I’m like, I don’t, I don’t get it! Like –

[Laughter]

Kiki: – final step into, like, real adulthood?

Amanda: It’s a new feeling for you, Kiki! Get used to it!

Kiki: I don’t understand what this big app thing is! I don’t get it! Why is it fun? Like, there’s somewhere, I’m like, why? Okay, this is just a, a girl dancing in a house?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Kiki: Is it interesting? Like, there’s some, I think like Lara’s saying that, like, are actually, like, you know, doing really important, like, you know, teaching and things like that, but then there’s this whole other part of TikTok that I’m like, I don’t, I don’t understand the appeal.

[Laughter]

Kiki: So it was a, it was a real defining, I think, grown-up moment for me, where I was –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Kiki: – I don’t know about this.

[Laughter]

Sarah: My kid, my kids are thirteen and, and fifteen, and they’re like, yeah, TikTok is dead. I was like, well, thanks for letting me know! Tell me what the next thing is, ‘cause I didn’t even bother to sign up for that one.

Kiki: Yeah.

Amanda: I’m trying to think, like, what small thing?

Kiki: Yeah. I think my thing is, I started doing puzzles? I was, you know, part of that big, the puzzle wave –

Amanda: Yeah. [Laughs]

Kiki: – from the beginning of, of the Quarantimes, and I think that they actually sort of were doing for me sort of the same thing that romance is doing for me when I first started it, where I was like, I can’t do anything else; like, everything else is a mess, but I can sit down and put together this fucking puzzle.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I will create order out of this disorder right here that I paid for. It’s –

Kiki: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – my disorder. I’m going to put it back into place. Oh yeah, I see it!

Amanda: Do you have a puzzle, a puzzle aesthetic, Kiki? Do you, or, like, are there some that you’re like, I need to have every –

Kiki: I like, like, like, houses or, like, scenes or, like, things like that. I have one, I actually, I actually brought it from my apartment in Cambridge so that I could do it in the two weeks that I’m here, that’s like a Sound of Music, and it has, like, the house and then, like, the, like, the river. It’s beautiful, and it’s, like, very calming when it’s all put together, and so I like sort of like houses and landscapes and, and things like that.

Amanda: One of my friends dropped over some, dropped off some puzzles for me, and there’s this one of, like, it’s like lines of color in, like, an abstract pattern. Like, I started doing it; I’m like, this is too hard! I’m not getting –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – I’m not getting, like, the small, little sense of victory when I put a piece in place, ‘cause it’s always wrong! It’s like, I don’t – but, like, that was her favorite one. I was like, Gail, this is too hard of a puzzle for me. I’m sorry. I appreciate –

Kiki: You have to sort of, you have to get the right, like, difficulty level where, like, it’s not – because otherwise, it’s like a cri-, it’s like a crisis thing where you –

Amanda: Yeah! [Laughs]

Kiki: – can’t do this either! I can’t even put this puzzle together!

Amanda: I’m defeated by a puzzle!

Kiki: [Laughs] But, yeah.

Sarah: Puzzle pressure is real.

Kiki: Puzzles, I would, what I, ‘cause what I would do is I would have the puzzle going on one part of my desk, and I’d have my laptop, and I would just be watching some like twenty-minute sit-, like Gol-, I would watch Golden Girls. [Laughs] I watched a lot of –

Amanda: Fuck yeah!

Kiki: – that, and I would just be doing that, or I’d be listening to Samantha Irby’s dulcet tones – [laughs] – and putting together my puzzle, and then at the end of the weekend I would, like, have this puzzle, and I would be like, ah! Everything is fine. So I think that’s, I think that would be my, my one small thing.

And the other thing is my antidepressant; that was also – those are small, and they help, so.

Sarah: Amen to that!

Amanda: Shout out to antidepressants!

Sarah: If you cannot make your own neurotransmitters, store-bought is fine!

Amanda: I, yeah. I, I went, I think I went on a new one in February, and already we’ve upped the dosage, so we’re, we’re on our way!

Kiki: Yeah. I am actually, I was, this is very, very new to me. Visit Kiana’s Depression Hour. I’ve –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Kiki: – had depression for like, depression, anxiety for like, like ten years of my life at this point, and I’ve always just sort of been like, yes. You know, getting through it best I can, and in the last like two years I’ve had medical professionals be like –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Amanda: Are you, are you getting through it?

Kiki: – you don’t have to live like this! I was like, yes, I do. And then I – and this fall was finally like, finally I was like, yeah, let’s just medicate me up, and it was like, oh my God, I don’t have to live like this?

Sarah: I know!

Amanda: Welcome!

Kiki: [Laughs]

Amanda: Welcome to the family!

Sarah: Yep. Oh yeah. I got put on an anti-anxiety medicine this summer because I was, I’m not, not able to sleep. I would wake up in the middle of the night panicking, and I explained to my doctor, you know, if I’m at seventy-five percent capacity I can handle my shit.

Kiki: Yeah.

Sarah: But I need more than seventy-five percent to handle all of the shit that’s going on, plus the fact that my kids are home and not able to see their friends and, you know, they’re teenagers; this is super crap. And, you know, everyone is home all the time. We get on each others’ nerves ‘cause we’re human, but we can’t go anywhere ‘cause there’s a pandemic, and, you know, I’m like, I’m at like sixty percent capacity, and the more sleep I lose, the worse I am. And so I got put on an anti-anxiety medicine that helps me sleep? Ohhh! Oh, I go to sleep, and anti-anxiety meds are the good shit.

Kiki: So my other thing is that I have polycystic ovarian syndrome and premenstrual dysphoric disorder – ooh! – which – [laughs] – means that I am no fun sometimes –

[Laughter]

Kiki: – and that my body’s stressed. Ooh, it’s trying so hard, but it’s just not doing so great. And so I, I, you know, have a lot of different things that we sort of need to, to, to treat, and I had basically the same conversation with my doctor where I was like, when I, I have a certain threshold where I can do, I can do my meditation and I can do my mindfulness and do my yoga and remind myself that, like, I have to eat nutritious, like, I need to eat regularly.

Sarah: Yes, all those things that are five percent effective that combine to be a good forty percent combined. Yeah, oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Kiki: And I was like, but I’m below that threshold, and so I can’t, I can’t do those, like, I just need to, I need to get to that threshold where, like, I can then take over and be like, let’s do all the small things, but when I’m, like, taking a day off of work because I just need to lie in my bed for a day, like, you know, we need to – so I had that, that same conversation where I was like, I just, I need us to get, we need to get to a better normal threshold. [Laughs]

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: I was thinking about this, but I need, I need to get a visual aid, because if I describe this, I mean, it’s crazy enough as it is. One second. I wasn’t prepared for this question, but I know where it is.

Sarah: Okay.

Amanda: I have gone down the YouTube rabbit hole of, like, children’s toys and, like, unboxing things? [Laughs] So I –

Sarah: I just want you to know, I added to the calendar for January, tell us about your current YouTube obsession, ‘cause mine is –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – pretty niche and weird too, so I want to hear about everybody’s.

Amanda: I’m on the, like, middle-aged women who collect dolls now; that’s where I’m at. And it’s –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: So there are these, you know what blind box or blind bag toys are, right? Where it’s like a mystery? So there, there’s this company called Poopsie, and this is one of them, called Poopsie Sparkly Critters, okay, and everything –

Sarah: Spit or poop?

Amanda: Okay, yeah, spit, spit or poop, yes, yes, correct. You did read that right. Everything has a poop theme. So these, this was, this is my creepy little banana baby.

Kiki: [Laughs]

Sarah: The holy fuck is that?

Amanda: And it comes in here.

Sarah: Now we know why bananas and unicorns don’t mate.

Amanda: But what you do with these little things is you put water in their head –

Sarah: Oh my God, no!

Amanda: – and you shake it up, and it will either spit or shit out slime. And they come with, like, little poop-themed injectors? Like, this is a kombucha, but it’s called health poop Kakabucha. They’re all poop punned, but I have been, like, obsessed with these things. So there’s, like, a little star baby that I have; there’s, like, a little dragon. This is my little weird – this is the creepiest of them all, I think, is the little banana baby that shits out slime. So.

Sarah: I don’t know what to say!

Amanda: They just bring me so much joy! I can’t –

Sarah: Well, I mean –

Amanda: – explain it!

Sarah: – how, how could they not? They poop slime!

Amanda: They’re, like, adorable; they have little lashes. Like, I made my friend Emma watch as I unboxed them. Look at those dang eyelashes!

Kiki: Eyelashes are incredible.

Amanda: Yeah! And they have, like, little mini ones where they come in a sparkly poop container that you squeeze until its ass blows out, and you get slime and a little creature that comes out of the poop.

Kiki: I need one of these immediately.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I need you guys to be listening when I try to explain this to my husband, that I learned about something – so it’s a figurine, and it’s a Poopsie Slime!

Amanda: Yes. So the, the canned ones are Poopsie Sparkly Critters, and the ones that are in –

Sarah: [Whispers] Poopsie Sparkly –

Amanda: – [laughs] – the ones that are in the glitter poop containers are called – what are they called?

Sarah: Poopsie Slime Surprise?

Amanda: Is that what it is?

Sarah: Make crunchy donut slime with –

Amanda: No!

Sarah: – Poopsie Slime Smash!

Amanda: No, they’re called Cutie Tooties.

Sarah: Oh my God!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Can we talk about the, the product development meeting that went into this, this –

Amanda: Also, they have, like, a character sheet?

Sarah: Oh, of course they do!

Amanda: Sorry. I am –

Sarah: When I was young, we had Cabbage Patch Kids; this is a whole other thing.

[Laughter]

Amanda: We have, like, poop-themed categories like Doodies of the Forest, which include, like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – you could get a little, a little fox or a little bear.

Sarah: Oh my God.

Amanda: There’s, there’s Turdz of Paradise, which are, like, jungle animals.

Sarah: Oh my God!

Amanda: Yeah, you know! Just normal stuff that a thirty-one-year-old woman would have.

Kiki: This is incredible.

Sarah: This is absolutely amazing.

Kiki: Also, for –

Amanda: So –

Kiki: – the record, when you showed it, I was like, oh, I’m going to get my boyfriend one of those for our anniversary. I don’t know why; it was just the first thought that popped in my head when you –

Amanda: He’s going to love it!

Kiki: The perfect gift for so many –

[Laughter]

Amanda: For the man who has everything!

Sarah: Poop Slime! So –

Amanda: Just, yeah, like, little – I also started getting into, like, the tokidoki, like, little unicorn figurines too? But, like, little, bizarre, blind bag mystery toys have brought me so much excitement? Like, the weirder the better.

Sarah: Wow.

Amanda: Yeah. [Laughs]

Kiki: I love it.

Amanda: I, like, didn’t want to tell anyone about them, and Emma keeps referring to them as my shame toys?

[Laughter]

Kiki: Oh!

Amanda: And I’m like, maybe don’t call them that, please!

[Laughter]

Kiki: Very different connotation.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So I don’t know if you, if you knew that – I didn’t know this until one of Adam’s friends from high school bought himself a Tesla.

Amanda: Oh boy.

Sarah: In the Tesla vehicle, you can make it fart, and it will make the fart noise come out of the different speakers in the quadrants of the car to make it sound like whoever’s sitting in that seat just cut one! And I was like – so, you know, Adam visits his friend and they were driving around in his Tesla. They’re like, you know, kids with a new videogame: they’re all playing with all the features, and of course they’re going to talk about the fart machine, and I’m like, can you just back up a second here?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: This means that there was probably a meeting, more likely more than one meeting, where a bunch of engineers sat in a room and talked about how to build the fart noises. Like, how do we quadrant the noise so that it, it explodes from the right area so that you think your, your friend, your friend will think they farted?

Amanda: I wonder, I wonder if they used, did they use the term fart, or did they come up with some, like, weird, clinical, like, science name for it so they didn’t feel bad?

Kiki: Oh yeah.

Sarah: [Laughs] So the Tesla toots. I, I, I would like to think that the meeting for the Tesla toots and the meeting to create these toys were held in the same place –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – possibly with the same people?

Kiki: Like there’s just some sort of governing body that –

Sarah: Yes, of poop! [Laughs]

Amanda: You have to, like, check in with it, or, like, what if it’s just like a marketing firm that just specializes in –

Sarah: Yes! But you don’t get to know their name. I’m sure it’s absolutely hysterical!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh my God!

Amanda: It’d be like –

Sarah: That’s amazing!

Amanda: – BM Marketing –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – so it sounds, it sounds professional.

Sarah: Ohhh!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Wow.

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: That’s incredible.

Amanda: I know. I’m embarrassed I spent money on it, like real human dollars on these weird little dolls, but they’re just so weird! And I love –

Sarah: If it makes you happy, then who cares? That’s what money is for!

Amanda: Okay, yeah, I suppose.

Sarah: I mean, that is literally what it is for.

Kiki: No shame toys here.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: No shame, no shame toys –

Amanda: No shame toys.

Sarah: – even if they do poop slime. That’s fine.

Amanda: Oh boy.

Sarah: All right. Amanda, what is your question?

Amanda: My question?

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: I feel like my question might be tangentially related to Lara’s in that, like, what quarantine hobby have you picked up? In terms of, like, crafting or, have you, like, tried anything new because you just have so much time on your hands?

Sarah: I started giving myself really careful, good manicures and taking care of my nails, which is –

Amanda: The Monday, Manicure Mondays?

Sarah: Manicure Monday, although sometimes the day slides. Like, Hanukkah ended on Thursday, so I did my nails yesterday, or Friday. Today’s Sunday; I did my nails on Friday. I’ve ordered really nice supplies for myself. I have a little, I have a little special brush that I use to, like, clear the polish off of my cuticles.

Amanda: Ooh!

Sarah: It, like, it looks really, really good, even with my left hand doing the work.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: And I, I don’t know if you know this, Amanda, but I have taught myself how to quilt.

Amanda: Yes! And I’ve gotten so many compliments on –

Sarah: I made Amanda a quilt for her ho-, for her ho- –

Amanda: You might be able to see it; it’s, like, covered in, like, stuff, but it’s on my Instagram.

Kiki: Aw!

Sarah: Yeah. I, so I have rules for this hobby. Adam got me a sewing machine for Hanukkah 2019, so I’ve had the sewing machine for a year. I have made a fuckload of masks. I have made shopping bags; like, reusable shopping bags. I have fixed things, I’ve hemmed pants, and then when the quarantine hit I was like, I want to make cozy, fuzzy things. I want, I think I want to learn how to quilt. But the rule is, it’s only for me? Like, I don’t put it on social media; it’s not – because, for me, social media is my job, and I need a thing to do that isn’t work, so I, I put on audiobooks, and I put on, like, YouTube that I just listen to, and I just sit there and I sew lots of fucking straight lines, and it’s really great.

Kiki, what about you? Puzzles?

Kiki: Puzzles.

Sarah: Puzzles.

Kiki: I also have – I haven’t done it in a little bit, but I, I’ve always really wanted to paint? I’ve always really wanted to be a painter. I have these very grand fantasies of myself as a retiree, as if I’ll ever be able to retire.

[Laughter]

Kiki: I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to afford to retire, but I have these fantasies that I can and that I am like a, a woman who has all these canvases in her house and who paints, and I’ve deep, deep dreams, but I’ve started small – [laughs] – and have, like, sort of started just, like, painting landscapes?

Sarah: Yes! That’s awesome!

Kiki: Yeah, which has been, has, has been very nice, and I remember actually, like, the first – so it was act-, my, my, you know, boyfriend brought me, bought me these paintbrushes and this paint, and it was very sweet, and we’ve had a couple, like, painting dates where we, like, went to a public library near his apartment and just, like, we’re, like, painting the scenery. It’s very cute. And, but the first sort of primer to that, like the first thing I did, I was really excited to, like, have all this new paint, and I just sort of, like, sat at my desk and was, like, painting something very – and I, it was bad. Like, it was, it’s not good. To be clear, I’m not a talented painter.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Kiki: But it, it actually felt really good?

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Kiki: Doing something and being like, oh, I am not good at this?

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Kiki: – care?

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Kiki: Like, it was so, it was this really nice, like, freeing thing where I was like, I am not good at this, but doing it still feels really good?

Sarah: Yep!

Kiki: And, like, it, it was like this, like, very, like, sort of revolutionary thing for me to be like, I am happy doing this thing that, like, is not competitive and, like, I’m not trying to make a career out of it. But I’m, and I’m just sort of like freely doing it, so, like, that, I, I’ve taken up painting a little bit. I also have re-taken-up knitting. [Woohoo! – garlicknitter]

Sarah: Very cool.

Kiki: Early, very early this year, or maybe even last year, I actually took, I took a little crochet class, and then I –

Amanda: Did you, did you take it at Gather Here?

Kiki: Yes, I did! [Laughs]

Amanda: That, that’s –

Kiki: I actually think because I heard you talk about it on the podcast –

Amanda: They’re so great!

Kiki: [Laughs]

Amanda: I took a, like, a knitting refresher course, ‘cause I knew –

Kiki: Yeah.

Amanda: – how to knit, but I haven’t, I hadn’t knit in a while, so I took their beginning knitter class. I want to get into one of their embroidery classes so badly, but they fill up so quickly!

Kiki: Yes.

Amanda: They are fantastic! I’m so glad!

Kiki: Yeah! I, I’m pretty sure that I actually heard you talk about it, and I remember, like, writing as a note in my phone.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Kiki: But yeah, so I, I took a crochet class and then sort of put it down, but I’ve always, I want to be a person who knits and crochets. But I am not good at crafts.

[Laughter]

Kiki: I am not good at yarn crafts, but I, I’ve sort of like picked up knitting again and am actually making my brother a scarf for Christmas and, like – so it’s been very good to, like, try and com-, like, complete something like that. So painting and knitting are, are sort of the, the hobbies that I’ve picked up in, in these Quarantimes, so.

Amanda: [Laughs] So for me, I started doing resin art with, like, lots of glitter and flowers. I’m not super great at it, because I’m impatient, and so far I haven’t been able to get, like, when I do, like, layers, they’re not seamless. You can tell, like, where I poured another layer, so I have to, like, work at it. I just love, like, shoving a shit-ton of glitter in some resin and pouring it into a shape, and it just looking so pretty and dainty, and Eric and I went to, like, a, a farm that does, like, apple-picking and stuff, and they had, like, pick your own flowers, so I got to pick those, and, you know, I’m pressing them, so it was, I enjoy doing that. I look like a crazy person doing it, because, like, you have to wear, like, a big ventilator mask, like one of the heavy-duty paint ones, and you have gloves and just, it, my face gets sweaty, and it’s just not an attractive hobby? But I’ve been enjoying it a lot. And I have lofty, lofty plans for, like, things that I want to do.

And also, I guess, like, hair care? So I have very curly hair, but I have straightened it most of my life ‘cause I’ve always hated it. But, out of sheer laziness, I was like, what if I just didn’t do that all the time? So I started getting really invested in the Curly Girl Method for curly hair! And it’s not as time-consuming as you would think; you just have to, like, double-condition – but this is the most that I’ve let my hair be like its natural curly self in a long time. And –

Sarah: Look at that!

Amanda: And it’s, like, really growing on me, like, having it down and curly and just not taking two hours to straighten it, ‘cause I do have a lot of hair. And I get so many, like, compliments on it, and I don’t know, it feels a little freeing not to have to straighten my hair all the time and be like, you know what? It’s fine. So I think it’s just, like, trying to manage and put, like, moisture back in my hair.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: So I’ve been doing a lot of deep-diving into the curly girl, or curly hair subreddit, which has been very helpful.

Sarah: I think that’s something that I’ve definitely thought about this, during the Quarantimes? I was saying this morning to my husband that this is such a privileged position, that there are parts of the pandemic where I’m like, wow, I’m really glad that the answer to everything is no, because pandemic, instead of no, because I really don’t want to.

Amanda: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, I don’t have to –

Amanda: It’s a great excuse.

Sarah: I don’t have to do the emotional leveraging of, of energy and, and, and, you know, the, the, the delicate bandwidth exchange of no, I don’t want to do this, but I don’t want to tell you that it’s because I don’t want to. I just don’t want to. [Laughs]

There’s that, and then there’s the whole thing where I’m like, I really don’t give a shit what my eyebrows look like anymore.

Kiki: Oh –

Sarah: I just don’t care.

Amanda: I, I do miss an eyebrow wax, I will say, because, like –

Sarah: It’s a little indulgent thing!

Amanda: – getting, like, a fresh wax makes me feel like a brand-new person, you know? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, totally!

Amanda: But, like, my eyebrow place is, like, so out of my way?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: I’d have to take public transit –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – to get to my eyebrow place, and, like, God, I don’t want to do that.

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: But, like, it’s fine, but I would kill for a nice eyebrow wax –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: – where I don’t have to be on a bus or the subway.

Sarah: The more we get past my last haircut date – which was February, for the record, and I got all this going on now – the more we get past the, the last time I did things, I’m like, I’m fine.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: There’s nothing wrong with me exactly as I am. And your hair is fabulous, by the way. The curls –

Amanda: Thank you!

Sarah: – look so good!

Amanda: I mean, you can’t see, it’s up in a ponytail now, but – I had to pineapple for bed!

Kiki: Yes, the pineapple!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Kiki knows!

[Crosstalk]

Amanda: – the pineapple!

Kiki: I’m, I, because I obvi-, I, I don’t, I actually don’t know if people know this, but I am, so I’m Nigerian-American; my father is Nigerian, my mother is white; and so I, every, you’ve been talking about your Curly Girl Method, yes. Every time someone comes fully to the curly side –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Kiki: – yes, welcome! Come to us! [Laughs]

Amanda: One thing I haven’t done yet, they’re like, oh, you need to, if you wash at night – and I’m a night washer – they’re like, oh, get, like, a satin pillowcase or, like, a satin – I was like, I haven’t made it that far yet. I’m, I’m a little resistant. I was like, do I need a satin pillowcase? So I’m just trying to, like, pineapple as much as poss-, as high as I can get it, and then doing it that way, which has worked out so far.

Kiki: My question, I think, sort of leads into sort of, I think, about what we’ve just been talking about, which is sort of, what’s something that you’ve sort of very happily let go of this year?

Sarah: Oh, good question!

Amanda: Oh God!

Sarah: Such a good question.

Kiki: So for me, it, it actually has been sort of like a constant consumption and, like, needing to keep up with things? I think I read two new releases this year, guys.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Kiki: Like, I, like, just, like, had this, this, like, come to Jesus moment where I was like, books are still going to be there!

Sarah: Yep!

Kiki: Everything, every-, it will still be there when I am –

Sarah: Yep!

Kiki: – in a better place to receive it. Like, I, I don’t need to constantly –

Sarah: They don’t expire!

Kiki: – thing. I don’t need to! I can, see, I will come upon things when I come upon them. Like – so that, for, for me, I think, has, has sort of been, that’s been really nice for me to – ‘cause I feel like sometimes, especially with romance, because there’s so much coming out all the time, there’s sort of like a sort of, a need to, like, always be with the things that are coming out? And it’s been very freeing for me to sort of let go of that this year.

Amanda: So this is a, I, this is a tough one! I want to say – and this might sound, like, harsh, but, like, other people’s problems?

Sarah: Oh no, that’s not harsh.

Kiki: Not harsh. [Laughs]

Amanda: I have muted a lot of things. I have stopped following a lot of things. I have stopped following a lot of people. Because, like, we’re all going through our own shit, and I really don’t have any sort of space left to handle the, like, emotional exchange of other people’s problems.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: Like, I know there’s some solidarity and being supportive, but at the same time, like, you know, after talking to my therapist about it, she’s like, it’s okay to be selfish with your time and energy and emotions.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: And so, like, don’t feel bad if you have to, like, mute this thing or take a break from this person or, you know, like, it’ll, it’ll be fine if you don’t get on Twitter for two days; nothing bad will happen. [Laughs] Kiki’s like, yeah! Yep! Feel that one!

Kiki: I, I’ve deleted Twitter off my phone for a couple months I think this, this year –

Amanda: Good for you!

Kiki: – but – ooh! It was incredible. It’s back –

Amanda: Yeah.

Kiki: – ‘cause I’m weak-willed at the end of the day?

[Laughter]

Kiki: For a couple, couple months.

Amanda: No, like, a couple weeks ago, or was it last week, when I lost my shit, to put it mildly, I didn’t get on Twitter for like four days.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: And I didn’t even feel a need to get on Twitter, and it was, like, so nice! So just kind of like being more precious with, you know, the emotional energy I expend to other people has been something that I’m trying to do a lot more of, because, like, I can only take so much, and we all do our own, like, catastrophizing in our own heads. I don’t need to –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – like, bring in someone else’s catastrophizing on top of that?

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: So that’s one thing that, like, I think it’s a process in letting go, but one that I have started.

Sarah: For me, being able to really hone and divest myself of things that are not essential.

Kiki: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Like, I needed to preserve my energy for my house and my family and my children and my pets, and, you know, parenting is a lot of management, and it’s a lot of management of multiple moving pieces, and I was looking at my calendar for this time last year. I was out of the house every evening, driving people to different places. I would give anything for my kids to be able to do that stuff again. I would be, I would be so happy if it were safe for them to go out. I personally am going to be very, very careful about what I let back into my life, because when I divested myself of everything that was not urgent and absolutely important, I was better able to focus and work on the things that I needed to pay attention to. And I liked that! I liked having energy for very specific, limited things, because I knew this was going to be hard! And I’m, I’m kind of grateful that all of the work I did on my mental health over the past few years has enabled me to recognize that I have a background anxiety level that is just going all the time, and I may not be presently thinking about something, but it’s going to go to the behind-the-scenes anxiety level, and it’s going to increase the static of, of, of operational energy that’s going to deplete me. Does that make sense? Like, that’s just going to happen! And I, and I have to be aware of it. Okay, I’m aware of it, so I need to compensate for it and acknowledge that it’s there and reduce the things that are in the front of my brain, because I am going to have to cope with all of that. Which I did by waking up at the three in the morning and panic-, panicking about things, which I don’t recommend; it’s not fun!

Amanda: Well, I think that’s one thing that a lot of people have realized this year is that –

Sarah: Anxiety is real! [Laughs]

Amanda: Yeah, and it’s like, it’s always happening. Like, your brain is processing stuff –

Sarah: All the time! Yes!

Amanda: Yeah, that you’re not consciously dealing with, and so, like –

Sarah: It’s true.

Amanda: – yeah, it makes sense why you’re tired all the time, because your brain is handling a million things.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s like how grief makes you tired. You’re processing an enormous amount of emotion; that’s going to make you physically tired! Emotions have an energy cost! And – [exhales] – walking around in a state of ex-, ex-, existential dread and fury and, you know, for me, low-grade homicidal tendencies?

[Laughter]

Sarah: That’s, that’s kind of draining! I’m tired at the end of the day, con-, you know, trying to curb my murderous impulses. It’s, it’s hard! It’s really hard! [Laughs]

Amanda: I just make a little nest. I’ve gotten into, like, nesting, where – I bought the pregnancy pillow that Maya suggested, and it has changed my life.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: I just, like, position it around my body with, like, lots of blankets, put on whatever I want to watch. Like, that’s what I do at night –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: – is just nest.

Sarah: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Weighted blanket? Big, big bonus. Weighted blanket is –

Amanda: I, I just have like four blankets on my bed at any given time.

Sarah: That’ll do!

Amanda: Yeah.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I hope you laughed as much as we did, because we had a real good time recording this one. And if you are thinking, I kind of need to see pictures, yes, yes, you absolutely do. Go to the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, episode number 438, and you will find pictures and links and links specifically to whatever the heck a Poopsie Sparkly Critter Cutie Tootie is, because you should join me in laughing at this; it was absolutely delightful.

Thank you to Kiki and Amanda and Lara, even though storms got in the way. It was lovely to chat with you, and I hope we get together again sometime this year. Maybe even in person! How weird would that be?

If you are thinking, I know this music, yes, you are right, you do know this music. It’s the end of the year, and I’m not going to put these on YouTube, ‘cause YouTube flags the music as copyrighted, which it is, but I have permission. This is Adeste Fiddles from Deviations Project, and if you would like more of this funky, fabulous holiday music, go to the show notes. I link to the album, and it’s wonderful. And I love featuring it every year; it’s so much fun.

And now I will end this episode with a terrible joke, because that’s what I do, because I’m terrible. And sometimes you send them to me because you are just as wonderful in terrible ways or terrible in wonderful ways? But either way, jokes are great. Are you ready? This one’s real bad.

Did you hear about the person who figured out that their wife is a ghost?

Did you? Did you hear about the person who figured out that their wife is a ghost?

They’d been suspicious since the moment she walked through the door.

[Laughs] Yeah. I love that one.

So if you want to send me a joke, you can send it to me at [email protected].

Happy New Year to you and to yours. May it be safe and warm and healthy and delicious for all of us. Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll be back next week with more end-of-the-year episodes, this time with Claudia and Carrie and Shana.

We wish you the very best of reading. Have a great weekend.

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[sweet holiday music]