494. Tubthumping with Anxiety, and More New Year’s Wishes!

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 494 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and Amanda is joining me today to catch up on her list of Things To Look Forward To, which includes some things that are done, and we are going to talk about book recommendations, videogame recommendations, angsty books, trimming your bangs, and we have some New Year’s wishes from Elyse and Pudding and Jane B.

Hello, and thank you, as always, to the Patreon community. You can find more information about our Patreon at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Every episode has a transcript because of the Patreon community. And hello and thank you to Michelle, Rachel, and TC, who are the newest members of our Patreon group. Thank you for joining us!

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[music]

Sarah: Let’s start this podcast with the question of should you cut our own bangs?

Your hair looks great!

Amanda: I did the bangs myself!

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: Because the, the person forgot that I wanted bangs, but my normal stylist was going out of town this week, so, like, okay, we can put you with somebody else. I’m like, FYI, I have very thick, curly hair, and usually I need extra time! And my stylist knows to add on like an extra fifteen, twenty minutes to the appointment?

Sarah: I just picture her standing behind you with, like, hedge clippers, just, like, all right –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: All right, it’s time!

Amanda: The person was so focused on this part that they forgot this part, even though I reminded them, and their next appointment had arrived –

Sarah: Ugh!

Amanda: – and was waiting, so I, like, texted my roommate, and I’m like, she forgot my bangs, so looks like I’m doing it myself!

Sarah: Oh my gosh, you cut your own bangs!

Amanda: With kitchen scissors.

Sarah: Oh my gosh! And they look great!

Amanda: ‘Cause I don’t have shears. [Laughs]

Sarah: They look great!

Amanda: Yeah, so, shout-out to Brad Mondo’s bang-cutting video.

Sarah: Oh, you watched videos in advance? That’s like being semi-professional!

Amanda: I, I watched it as I was doing it over my bathroom sink.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So tell me about getting your nose pierced! How did it go? It looks so good! I love that the rings match!

Amanda: Yeah! So weirdly enough, when I got my nostril pierced, I replaced the jewelry ‘cause I wanted a rose gold hoop, and that’s actually where I wound up getting my septum pierced was at the same place, so it’s, like, literally matching jewelry.

Sarah: Oh!

Amanda: So it was a comedy of errors that Monday. We’ll, we’ll take you on a journey.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: I have had this booked for about a month or so. End of November is when I made this appointment.

Sarah: Oh yeah, you lined up a whole bunch of things to –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – look forward to; we talked about this in a previous episode.

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: So this has been lined up for a while. My appointment’s at 12:30; I’m waiting for my bus. I get a phone call while I’m waiting for the bus that they’re canceling my appointment –

Sarah: Argh!

Amanda: – because they decided they’re not doing any under-the-mask piercings. Before it was like no oral, mouth piercings –

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: – but they were doing nose piercings. So they changed, and I’m like, ah, fucking shit! Like, I’ve, I’ve been psyching myself up for this piercing. I’ve been looking forward to it.

Sarah: I, I get their reasoning, but wow –

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: – that’s short notice. Like, you’re already on the way.

Amanda: I’m like, I’m dedicated to making this happen. So I start googling at the bus stop appointments for nose piercings, and some places still aren’t doing septum piercings, totally fine, but I find a place that’s kind of like on the way that has an opening at noon.

Sarah: Ooh!

Amanda: And it’s eleven, 11:40.

Sarah: Nice!

Amanda: So I make the appointment, and I’m like, all right, I can get there in twenty minutes on the bus. So then I got it done, and –

Sarah: How was it? Was it super painful, or was it –

Amanda: So painless. So painless.

Sarah: Really! Like it didn’t hurt at all!

Amanda: If anyone’s curious, it may, the septum may look more painful, but it’s not going through that thick center part. It’s more like up here –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – where it’s super thin –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – at the tip of your nose.

Sarah: That’s so cool! Are you happy with it?

Amanda: So happy with it, yes. My only complaint is I have to wear masks and no one gets to see how cute it is –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – so. But so happy with it. So glad I did it. You know, bummed I waited so long, but I think it looks great, and –

Sarah: It looks fabulous, and, and, and if you like how it looks it is, it is only your opinion that matters. Good for you; that’s so awesome!

Amanda: Yeah. So happy with it. And I’ve had it about a week, so I got it last Monday, the 3rd.

Sarah: Are you going to get more piercings?

Amanda: I don’t think so. There’s no other piercings that I’m super curious about. Like, I’m fine with just like the single hole in my ear. Yeah, nothing else really, I’m really interested in. I might, like, if I’m feeling very fancy, maybe get the other nostril done, so just have a whole thing?

Sarah: Oh wow, the decorative jewelry you could put in.

Amanda: I know. They had some very fancy septum ones with, like, rhinestones and, like –

Sarah: Yeah! I’ve seen them.

Amanda: But for an everyday one? Right. For a special occasion, maybe I’ll switch it out, but.

Sarah: You could also just put a little chain between your nostril and your septum and then, like, hang things from it, like a –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – like a big, like a big red Christmas ball.

Amanda: Like my laundry.

Sarah: Yeah, just dry off your knickers on your face.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: That wouldn’t attract attention. I mean, you’re wearing a face mask.

Amanda: It’s true.

Sarah: Right? I’m curious how the stuff to make, give you things to look forward to is working for you, because I have to say, my anxiety has been so loud –

Amanda: Really?

Sarah: – this week and last, this, last week and this week, yeah. I was, I was thinking, you know, okay, start of the year, I know it’s coming up, I’ve got plans, everything’s scheduled. They’re having a meeting this week to discuss whether or not the schools should be open or closed, but are they having the meeting in person? No, they are not; they are having the meeting virtually. [Laughs] Just –

Amanda: That’s kind of telling.

Sarah: And I’m like, you’re running out of adults to run the school. You don’t have enough grownups! You don’t have enough grownups to drive the buses, let alone staff the classrooms.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Every day there’s at least one class, possibly two, where there’s no teacher, so the kids go to the gym and just, like, sleep. Like, this is, this is ridiculous!

So I, I don’t know why this has activated my anxiety. It’s not like it’s a globally dangerous situation that endangers my kids and my community and people around me.

Amanda: Why, no!

Sarah: And it’s not like the, the structural leadership has said something and then taken it back and not delivered us a new plan! It’s not like I have any idea what’s happening! I can’t imagine why this makes my anxiety so loud, but oh my God, my brain is so –

Amanda: Hmmm.

Sarah: – loud. And one of the ways my, my, my anxiety shows up – sounds like I have this really strange houseguest that’s just arrived on my porch, just showed up, yes! – is that I get songs stuck in my head at volume like –

Amanda: That’s right!

Sarah: – twelve. And they’re not good songs. It’s usually, like, I’ll hear a snippet of something, and then my brain’ll be like, oh, I know all of that song! Let’s put it on and turn it alll the way up! So what do I get stuck in my head? Fucking, like, “Tubthumping.” Did you ever try to go to sleep while a bunch of British people are screaming in your head that they get down and then they get up again?

Amanda: So you’re saying you get knocked down, but do you get up again, Sarah?

Sarah: Yes, ‘cause I have to pee, ‘cause I’ve been awake for three hours and I haven’t been able to sleep ‘cause “Tubthumping” is too loud in my brain!

Yeah. So I’m curious how having things to look forward to is working for you.

Amanda: It’s only been one month, but I feel like it’s working well, and it gives, like, I don’t know if perspective is the way, right word, but, like, thinking about going and seeing my brother in March, I’m like, it’s not that far away!

Sarah: Nope!

Amanda: Like, it’s just, like, the second thing on my Thing To Look Forward To list now.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: Like, I just have to get through February, and then it’s March!

Sarah: If you’d like, I could put it in another perspective. That’s one, two, three, four, five, six – that’s seven Books on Sale newsletters.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I am exploring new coping mechanisms for this particular week. I’m also reminding myself that even though this sort of looming dread feels familiar, it feels very familiar in a bad way, this is just for now? But I started listening to this audiobook, and it’s not that long? Like, I feel kind of bad that I wasted a credit on it because it’s not that long? [Laughs] I feel like, you know, you pay that monthly fee for your credits –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – you want to get the biggest audiobook in all the land!

Amanda: How long is it?

Sarah: It’s like six hours.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: And I listen at about 1.5 speed – sorry, narrators everywhere – and so it’s not that quite, you know, it’s not quite that full length, but it’s called Chatter.

Chatter is about the voice inside your head, the ways in which we talk to ourselves, and it talks about tricks for disengaging when that voice is detrimental to us and ways to contextualize and basically turn it down? The coping strategies are really interesting. Like, one is, if you’re stuck ruminating on a situation, like your brain is replaying a negative thing that’s happened over and over and over, which my brain loves to do, basically it’s following a familiar neural pathway, and one way to get your brain to sort of step back and disengage from that neural pathway is to imagine that situation happening to someone else or to you as not-you. Like, to, like, if you were a fly on the wall watching this situation. You know, if you’re going to ruminate on it, switch the perspective, and suddenly the emotions that come with it may go down and be less acute, which I think is a really interesting strategy.

Amanda: Hmmm!

Sarah: And so when “Tubthumping” stops playing in my brain, if that happens I know what to do. But in the meantime, I drink a whiskey drink, I drink a vodka drink –

Amanda: – a vodka drink.

Sarah: – I drink a lager drink.

Amanda: Lager drink. I drink a cider drink?

Sarah: I drink a cider drink.

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: I sing songs that remind me of the good times.

Amanda: I’m picturing, you know, like, in a movie or like a movie trailer –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – as the action builds, so does, like, the music –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – that they play in the background?

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: I’m just picturing that, but it’s “Tubthumping” –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – getting louder –

Sarah: That is literally what it’s like.

Amanda: – and louder.

Sarah: When I am quiet, my brain’s like, oh, time to crank up the volume! Like, really? Really?

Amanda: I picture you, like, running through hallways –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – and it’s just the ominous tub –

Sarah: I get knocked down! I get up again! Running through the halls like Kermit flailing, yes. The cats and the do-, cat and the dogs are very confused! Are we playing chase? What is a Tubthumping?

Amanda: [Laughs] What is a Tubthumping?

Sarah: I don’t know! I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know. What is tub –

Amanda: What is tub – ?

Sarah: – thumping? I’m a little afraid of my search results for this one.

Amanda: A tub-thumper is a, a vociferous supporter of a cause.

Sarah: Oh, so, what, you have, like, a washtub and you bang on it like a drum?

Amanda: Eh. A noisy, violent public speaker. So –

Sarah: Okay!

Amanda: – someone who gets drunk and rants, I guess.

Sarah: I can do that!

Amanda: There you go!

Sarah: Not a problem! I’m, I’m very happy to do that.

Amanda: You learned something here today!

Sarah: I did! We did learn – now I can just lecture my inner soundtrack of anxiety. Do you know that tub-thumping actually is a loud, vociferous, violent protester?

So are you reading anything? We have, we have two late-arriving New Year’s –

Amanda: Mmm!

Sarah: – voice memos. One is from Elyse, and I’m curious if you – ‘cause we’re sort of going back to the –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – end-of-year episode where we offer recommendations and wishes – do you have any new books you want to tell people about?

Amanda: I’m reading right now, I’m, I’ve gone down a Katee Robert rabbit hole, which I mentioned in our previous episode –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – end-of-the-year episode.

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: So I’m, I, I was tired of waiting for the e-book library hold of The Marriage Contract to come up, because I would inevitably miss the notification –

Sarah: Mm.

Amanda: – that the e-book was ready, and by the time I saw it, it would have been returned. The wait times are long and somewhat erratic, so I just bought, like, a used copy of the pa-, of the mass market online, and it’s on my desk, and what I’ve been doing lately – so for Christmas, my roommate got me a box of bath bombs?

Sarah: Oh, what a nice gift!

Amanda: I know! At night I will take a, a sleepy-time edible –

Sarah: Ooh!

Amanda: – do a bath bomb in the bath, and see how far I can read before I’m, my eyes start to cross or I keep reading the same paragraph. It’s like a –

Sarah: Nice!

Amanda: – beat-the-clock scenario.

Sarah: Nice!

Amanda: And then, once that happens, I just sit in the hot water. But yeah, so I haven’t made it very far, admittedly, but that’s what I’m reading right now.

I’m mostly looking forward to – so there’s a sequel to a videogame that I really like that comes out next month.

Sarah: Oh, is it Cyberpunk 2083?

Amanda: No, I don’t need my tits on display again like that.

Sarah: But they were just busting out! They were, they were –

Amanda: New year, same tit glitches!

Sarah: [Laughs] They were tub-thumping!

Amanda: No. So the, the game that I like is Horizon Zero Dawn. It’s really cool.

Sarah: Oh, I heard about this, the sequel!

Amanda: So the, the sequel is Horizon Forbidden West, and that comes out February 18th.

Sarah: Ooh.

Amanda: So one of the primary reasons why I bought my PS5. As for reading, it’s been pretty slow. I’ve mostly been burrito-ing myself up and playing videogames. It’s –

Sarah: Do not blame you. I am looking forward to two books that are coming out soon. One is A Letter to Three Witches, and then the other is –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – Not the Witch You Wed. It’s like Halloween part deux.

Amanda: Not the Witch You Wed, yes! That’s, I think I have an ARC of that. It looked very interesting.

Sarah: It’s a rom-com about a witch and a werewolf, and I didn’t know that those were words I wanted in that order, but those are words I want in that order!

Amanda: Sarah, you’ve enjoyed witch/werewolf books plenty of times.

Sarah: I have, but I haven’t seen a new one in a while.

Amanda: Oh, okay.

Sarah: And you know what? I just realized, this is like, you know, there’s witch books coming out end of January, beginning of February, and it’s almost time –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – for Valentine’s, which is pink Halloween candy! It’s pink Halloween!

Amanda: Pink Halloween candy!

Sarah: It’s pink Halloween!

Amanda: [Sighs] I almost bought myself –

Sarah: So I get mini candy bars!

Amanda: – a big, a big assortment at CVS the other day, but I didn’t. I’m like, just wait for it to go on sale, you dummy. You don’t need it now. Just wait.

Sarah: I think you’re worth full-price CVS chocolate, because it’s not like you were at, like, you know, a, an upscale custom chocolate manufacturer. You were at CVS! Buy the chocolate.

Amanda: Well, I was like, I have a box of Swiss cake rolls in my freezer. Let me wait until –

Sarah: And, what’s your point?

Amanda: And I bought some Girl Scout cookies.

Sarah: I also ordered Girl Scout cookies from my neighbor this week.

Amanda: There were some at the subway when I was coming back from I think work one day, from, at the store? And I’m like, ooh, okay.

Sarah: Ohhh yeah!

Amanda: And so I bought three boxes, and I –

Sarah: Well, obviously.

Amanda: – I will die on the hill that Thin Mints are overrated.

Sarah: I –

Amanda: As a former Girl Scout, I’m allowed to say that.

Sarah: So which ones did you buy, because I know they don’t have the Savannah Smiles anymore. This is an –

Amanda: They don’t!

Sarah: – an annual angst: there is no more Savannah, nor smile.

Amanda: So I bought my, my typical Samoas, or as they, as they call them up here, Caramel deLites. I bought, they had like a bag of these, I think they were gluten-free, but it’s like chocolate chip and caramel cookies with sea salt?

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: Those were, I, yeah, I went out on a limb and I did those, and then they have a new cookie called Adventurefuls, which is like a crispy brownie cookie with like a car-, like a dollop of caramel crème on top. So I bought those three.

Sarah: Ohhh! I’m going to have to ask my neighbor –

Amanda: They’re very good.

Sarah: – about that. I didn’t know there were new ones!

Amanda: I mean, you might not have access to the new ones!

Sarah: I did read a book that I want to tell you about.

Amanda: Okay, I’m ready.

Sarah: All right. The title is That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon.

Amanda: I’ve seen this one!

Sarah: Okay.

Amanda: It’s like an illustrated cover?

Sarah: Illustrated cover. It is –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – by Kimberly Lemming, and –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – I would like to share with you the first line.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: Ready?

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: I’ll practice my audiobook narration. [Clears throat]

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: “Chapter one: I had only two things on my mind: cheese and how to get home.”

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Story checks out, right?

Amanda: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve seen that one going around on like Twitter, I think?

Sarah: It’s on KU; it’s like 193 pages. You can read it in an afternoon, and the author, Kimberly Lemming, is, her, her dialogue style and her writing style is just adorable and so funny and so charming. She also says in her bio that when she’s not writing diverse fantasy romances she’s shoveling chocolate in, in her maw until she passes out on the couch. I, I feel like we should hang out!

Amanda: Cheese, chocolate.

Sarah: All right, you ready for a voice memo?

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: All right!

Elyse: Hi! It’s a slightly congested Elyse and my fifteen-year-old foster-fail Siamese Pudding, who has been helping me recap The Bachelor and Bachelorette –

Sarah: Hi, Pudding!

Elyse: – and we’re here to wish you the best of reading in 2022 and to recommend some books!

So the first two books I want to recommend are books that are going to make you kind of silly-smile; like, even if you’re in public you’re grinning because they’re just adorable and you love it. That’s the People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry and also The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood.

The second two books are books when you need a cathartic, like, cry. I know sometimes in the past couple of years I’ve struggled to feel my feelings; these books helped. They definitely have Happily Ever Afters, so don’t worry about that. That is Once in a Lifetime by Abby Jimenez [sic: Life’s Too Short] and Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne. So these books do have Happily Ever Afters, but they are very emotional, let you get some of your feels out there, and sometimes we all need that.

And that’s it! Pudding and I wish you the best of reading for the next year; the best of crafting, knitting, whatever makes you joyful; and that’s it!

Amanda: Elyse brought her soothing ASMR voice to that one.

Sarah: She did! She really did bring her soothing voice.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Do you ever read books to get the cathartic cries out?

Amanda: No! What I usually wind up doing is it’ll be like 1 a.m. and I’m watching really powerful auditions from like The Voice or American Idol. That’s what I do to get the cries out is watch, like, you know, Susan Boyle’s audition from Britain’s Got Talent.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: And that, that’ll trigger the waterworks for sure. But, like, it’s hard, it’s hard for me. I don’t do a lot of rereading; we’ve talked about that.

Sarah: Right, we’ve talked about that. You’re not a rereader, whereas I ended the year –

Amanda: No.

Sarah: – by rereading the Call of Crows series, book one and two.

Amanda: And so it’s hard sometimes to look at a book and judge whether or not this is going to get me right in the feelings.

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: One book that really did that, and I still have trouble thinking about the book and talking about the book, and I don’t know if I’ll ever reread the book, is The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang. The heroine becomes a caretaker for, I think it’s her dad – it’s been a minute – for someone in her family, and they haven’t had the best relationship, and as someone who had to also do that –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – last year? It’s a very, very raw wound I still have.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: So that, like, made me ugly-cry like nobody’s business. And, like, I’m happy I read the book? Helen Hoang’s writing is always beautiful, still a huge fan, but it was a difficult book to read, to get through, to talk about, to, to do anything with for me personally.

Sarah: Yeah. Did you know before you read it –

Amanda: And I –

Sarah: – that that was in there, or was that a surprise?

Amanda: So I didn’t know that part of the plotline necessarily? It’s, like, vaguely alluded to in the book description or, like, the, the jacket copy, but I didn’t know, like, the full depth of it.

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: I know there were definitely times where I was like, I think I need to, like, take a break –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – for a second?

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: But I did not know that going in. I don’t know if I would have read it at that time if I knew necessarily that’s, that was such a big –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – part of the story. But I, like, I don’t like feeling my feelings?

[Laughter]

Amanda: So I definitely avoid media that I know will make me sad. You know, but sometimes you, you’ve got to unplug it for a second and watch America’s Got Talent inspirational singing videos late at night and then, you know, just get it out, and then the well starts filling again. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, takes the pressure off. I know you gravitate –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – towards angsty fantasy, though, right? Like, you –

Amanda: Yeah, but it’s not like a, I don’t get, like, emotional with it. I just like –

Sarah: Extremely high levels –

Amanda: – dramatic high stakes, yeah.

Sarah: – sexual tension.

Amanda: Because sometimes, like, it doesn’t make sense to me why the hero and heroine aren’t together.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Like, if you just are consenting adults and you talk about it or whatever, like – I think that’s why the trope Friends To Lovers and, like, the sort of like forbidden romance between like a sibling’s best friend or whatever –

Sarah: That one never, I never got that one.

Amanda: – doesn’t, like, work for me, because, like, if you’re adults, I don’t understand the obstacle, like, where the obstacle is keeping people – and sometimes there’s really no, like, obstacle. It’s just kind of like how do people navigate, like, this new relationship that’s not a friendship, you know what I mean?

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: How do they navigate being in a romantic relationship? And to me, that’s boring.

[Laughter]

Sarah: See, I love internal conflict, so that is totally my jam, but I do not like Sibling’s Best Friend for two reasons. One, if this is your best friend and you’re friends with this person and you like them, why wouldn’t you want your sibling to be with someone like that? I mean, if they have a problem, that’s separate from your relationship with them. No one says you’ll have to move into together and live together permanently, but why wouldn’t you want your friend to date your sibling? You, presumably, these are people who you care about that are in your life. But the, the, the real reason for it is very misogynistic.

Amanda: Oh yeah, it’s a lot of infantilizing of the heroine –

Sarah: Yeah, exactly.

Amanda: – who’s often, like, the younger sister –

Sarah: Yeah, how dare you –

Amanda: – or whatever.

Sarah: – how dare you, you know, compromise my – oh, fuck off! I don’t like that at all.

Amanda: Yeah! It’s usually like a brother or some male family member –

Sarah: Infantilizing –

Amanda: – infantilizing – treating, treating the sibling like property –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – essentially, like she can’t make her own decisions or, like, as if you have some kind of claim on how she lives her life.

Sarah: Right. If the problem is that the sibling who is not in the partnership would be mad, that’s a problem. I fully get not wanting to be in a relationship with someone who is related to someone you’re friends with, especially if that’s like a second family to you; you don’t want to fuck that up. I get that. There’s a lot of ways in which I can see it working, but most of the time it’s how dare you compromise and sully my beautiful sister? Like, no, nonono, no, no. That’s her vagina; she can do whatever she wants with it. Leave her alone.

Amanda: I feel like one conversation, to me, is enough to cover the conflict, and then, like, there’s no book after that.

Sarah: You don’t have to sneak around. I find, in terms of engaging with books that are angsty? I find that – and, and I realize that not every situation falls into this sort of binary, but either I’m reading a specific book to engage with a specific feeling, because, I mean, I always say romance traffics in empathy. You’re being invited to feel these emotions in a safe space, so, you know, the tropes that you like are the tropes that you connect with specific emotional experiences, and if I know, like, somebody says, oh, this book is super angsty, most of the time I don’t want to read the angst –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – because for me, right now, I’ve got enough angst. It’s all right at the surface.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s playing Chumbawamba. Like, I’ve got enough angst of my own. When I’m looking for something, when I’m looking for something to read, I’m looking for something to take me away and give me some distance from that, because it’s all I have at the moment? So I don’t want to engage directly with it, so if somebody handed me a book and said, oh, you’re going to love this; it’s really angsty; I’m going to be like, I’m going to save that for another time!

Amanda: I am a person, and I recognize that I feel things very strongly. Like, I –

Sarah: Oh, me too! Yes!

Amanda: – I don’t have like a middle-of-the-road emotion most of the time. It is very strong, I feel things very acutely, and it’s interesting that, like, when you’re in that mindset you’re like, I don’t want any more of this, whereas when I feel –

Sarah: Yeah, I’ve got plenty!

Amanda: – when I feel things very strongly, I want other pieces of media where people are feeling things very strongly –

Sarah: Oh, that’s interesting!

Amanda: – where it’s, like, kind of mirroring my own way that I process emotions in very, like, acute, intense ways.

Sarah: So when you said earlier that you don’t like to feel your feelings, most of the time that’s the case, but when it, when you do want to feel your feelings, you want media that matches that exactly, but you want to –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – deliberately seek it out, not have it sneak up on you.

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: Like, you’re engaging with that on purpose to engage –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Yeah, that makes sense, ‘cause like I said, it’s either, it’s –

Amanda: I, yeah, definitely, like, on my terms.

Sarah: – it’s not always a binary for, for, for most things, but I think a lot of the times, the approach to angst, angsty books is I want to engage with these feelings for a reason, or I don’t want to engage with them because I’m looking to be taken away from the angsty feelings.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s why I like, I don’t mind spoilers, and I don’t mind knowing how something ends, and I don’t mind knowing how it’s going to turn out. That actually takes a lot of stress off my brain if I’m in an anxious place.

All right, I’ve got one more –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – message, so hang on.

Jane Brewster: Hi, Sarah and the Bitchery community. Happy winter solstice. I’m Jane Brewster, and I’m a psychotherapist and a romance reader, and I live and have a private practice in Alexandria, Virginia. And to state the obvious, it’s been a tough couple years, and there are a lot of people who really are struggling with their mental health right now, and we therapists are no exception. So I have been coping by doing a lot of comfort pandemic reading and rereading and rereading the rereading.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jane: And for the very first time in my reading life, it’s all been urban fantasy and even high fantasy for me. Ladies with big swords and bigger magic, which is really weird, because my whole romance-reading life it’s been historicals and contemporaries. But I have really wanted to be in another world, so based on a Sarah Wendell rec, I read through Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling books maybe three times in the last two years?

Sarah: Wow!

Jane: And then went on to Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series and the Discovery of Witches books and TV series and Sarah J. Maas’ Court of Thorn and Roses books, to name just a few. The more books in a series, the better, so I never have to come back to reality.

But my favorite writers of the genre, though, though, are the husband-and-wife duo who write the Ilona Andrews books, especially their Kate Daniels world. The most deeply comforting book of the year has been the one in which they revisit the Kate Daniels world ten years after finishing the series with their Aurelia Ryder book, the one about Kate’s adopted daughter Julie. So Ilona and Andrew Gordon started posting chapters on their blog last year because a nurse with COVID fatigue and anxiety begged them for something to be excited about, and like that nurse, it was such a delight to me to be back in that world with each blog post. Then in January of this year they published it as a full book! Was it a great book? I don’t even know! It was just so wonderful to revisit old characters, I was thrilled with every page. But yes, the romance has been left hanging, ‘cause they are famous for their kind of slow-burn romances, but that’s okay with me because it’s a promise that we’ll return to that world when they’re done with that second book.

And because I’m a psychotherapist and I’m concerned we’re going to be unpacking the traumas of 2020 and 2021 for many years, those of us with a history of trauma will be the hardest hit, and I wanted to tell you about the most brilliant and useful book for my work that I read this year, which was called Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors by Janina Fisher, and it’s written both for therapists and for clients, and it’s helped me with my own trauma and greatly enriched the work I do with my traumatized clients. It’s been a great boon to feel like I’ve been able to be super, super helpful to my clients, thanks to Janina Fisher, and super, super helpful to myself. It focuses on the value of internal self-compassion, which can’t be any kind of bad message ever to have. It’s the most important message, in some respects.

So I wish everyone a peaceful and healing new year, and I will close with a couple of silly psychotherapy jokes –

Sarah: Oooh!

Jane: – because Sarah really wants those. So number one:

How many psychotherapists does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Just one, as long as the light bulb wants to change.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jane: And two:

How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb?

Sarah: Ooh, ooh, I know this one!

Jane: Just one. All he has to do is hold it in place while the world revolves around him.

Happy, Silly New Year! Thanks so much. Take care.

Sarah: [Laughs] I imagine this year has been very, very hard on mental health personnel who are working so hard to try help everybody who needs help.

Amanda: Oh yeah. I feel like they’re also inundated –

Sarah: Oh gosh, yes.

Amanda: – with people looking to, to start going to therapy. Which, it’s never too late to go to therapy! But yeah, I can imagine there’s probably a shortage of –

Sarah: Ohhh yes.

Amanda: – therapists taking clients right now.

Sarah: Oh yes, and it’s very hard to find that perfect triangulation of local, covered, has new patient openings.

Amanda: It’s also hard to find ones that you actually, like –

Sarah: Connect with.

Amanda: – have, have, like, a good rapport!

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: It can be so frustrating. I remember when I was looking for a therapist again, I found one that I loved? One, the healthcare system and finding people within your network is like solving a riddle. It is –

Sarah: Oh yeah, it’s like a twenty-five-tab project.

Amanda: It’s like a, a real-life escape room.

Sarah: I am very grateful for all of the mental health professionals trying to help other humans with their brains.

Amanda: Whoo. For sure.

Sarah: That’s a –

Amanda: Shout out to my therapist Katie. Thank you so much!

[Laughter]

Amanda: I met with her earlier today. It was great! I hadn’t talked to her for like a month because of the holidays, so.

Sarah: Oh man, you had a bit to catch up on!

Amanda: Oh yeah! I’m like, all right, where do I start? Where do I begin?

Sarah: Well, would you like this in ascending order, by order of size, by date modified?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: How would you like this information?

Amanda: By person?

Sarah: Yeah. Oh my Lord.

Amanda: For me, if I don’t think I have anything, like, I’ll just start kind of like recounting things, and then at some point she’ll stop me –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – and, like, she’s like, okay, let’s talk about that for a second.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: Then, like, next thing I know we’re unpacking, like, years of trauma that’s tied to this one interaction –

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: – that I’ve had –

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: – you know, in the last two weeks.

Sarah: So clearly that pushed your, pushed your button. How, how, how deeply installed was that button?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So what videogames do you recommend to wrap things up, ‘cause we already talked about books –

Amanda: Ooh, yeah.

Sarah: – so if you have a, a videogame rec for somebody to start working.

Amanda: If you love, like, a really narrative, very good – like, if you liked The Witcher? Like, Sarah –

Sarah: Oh?

Amanda: – loves The Witcher.

Sarah: I do!

Amanda: If you like that similar kind of style, like deep narrative stuff, you know, with some combat and, you know, that sort of thing, I am loving the new God of War. So the second one comes out sometime this year.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: But the God of War – not the, not the original-original, but the new one, I think it came out in 2016? Think is what it is – very, very good. Lots of mythology. The guy who voices Kratos, who is the God of War, I think his name is Christopher Judge. Very deep, soothing voice.

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: I could listen to him narrate whatever for hours. He was an actor on Stargate SG-1. Just playing the game for Kratos’s voiceover work is wonderful.

I don’t want to, like, spoil anything, but Kratos and his son, following the death of their mother/wife, it’s Kratos’s job to kind of like herald his son into, like, adulthood. But there’s kind of like that, that trope of, like, you know, he’s kind of having trouble without his, like, partner’s, like, gentle, maternal, like, hand. He’s more like a hard-edged kind of guy. So he’s having trouble –

Sarah: Ah, so, his morality chain then.

Amanda: Yes, he’s trav-, he’s having trouble feeling his feelings –

Sarah: Oh man!

Amanda: – Kratos is, and, like, both of these men in different stages of their life are kind of dealing with, like, the grief of the loss of, like, wife and mother –

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: – and kind of going on this grand adventure together with lots of mythology. The game is just very beautiful to look at. And it’s also fun because you’ll meet different characters in mythology, but they won’t come right out and say who or what they are, so I’m having a lot of fun kind of piecing those things together and, and figuring out where these, like, people or elements are being inspired by, like, the mythology that I know.

And Guardians of the Galaxy: if you want something fun with, like, a killer fucking soundtrack?

Sarah: Oh, I’ve heard it’s good!

Amanda: Lots of ‘80s music.

Sarah: I’ve heard it’s really good.

Amanda: It is a delight. It is so much fun.

If you want something more casual, I just bought a game called, I think it’s called Wytchwood, W-Y-T-C-H? You are this witch who, like, wakes up because there’s an ornery goat just –

Sarah: As you do.

Amanda: – fucking around in your house. And so if you like a crafting sort of, more narrative game, you’re like a witch who has to collect things and make potions to, like, regain your memories and stuff and, like, help out the locals, and there’s a, an ornery goat!

Three different games for, depending on your gaming mood.

Sarah: Have you seen Innchanted?

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: I ha- –

Amanda: Is it inn, I-N-N?

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: Yes, I have.

Sarah: Yes. I have it on my wishlist; I’m very curious about it.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: You run a magical inn. It’s, it’s got online co-op. So PC Gamer says if you want a game like Overcooked but without the bit at the end where you’re no longer on speaking terms with the other players?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: You’re running a magical inn with your friends, and there’s an evil wizard, but it’s all based on Australian indigenous tales?

Amanda: Oooh!

Sarah: So the worldbuilding is going to be really something. I’m very, very curious about that.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this podcast. Thank you to Amanda for hanging out with me. Thank you to Elyse and Pudding and to Jane for the messages. I love doing the end of the year recap, especially with all of your good wishes.

I will have links to everything we talked about in the show notes; never fear. And if you would like to cut your own bangs, apparently there’s a YouTube for that. I’m definitely not going to do that; I am not that brave.

I am curious, though: do you like angsty books? Do you love books that help you feel your feelings cathartically? I would love to hear about it. You can email me at [email protected].

As always, I end with a terrible joke. This week is no different because I would never let you down this way. I have already run this joke by Tara, who says that it is entirely terrible, so you ready?

How do you stop Canadian bacon from curling in the frying pan?

How do you stop Canadian bacon from curling in the frying pan?

You take away their little brooms.

[Laughs] You ta- – [laughs more] – I love it so much! That is from MajorPain2006 on Reddit, and I love it so much! [Still laughing] I want to know who you tell this joke to, ‘cause it’s a good one.

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you back here next week.

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

[Laughs] Little brooms!

[mellow music]