Episode 45 - GenX Speaks Series: MJ Eldridge - MJ aka Mommie Artwork

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GenX Adulting Podcast

Episode 45 - GenX Speaks Series: MJ Eldridge - MJ aka Mommie

August 23, 2025 • Brian & Nicole • Season 1 • Episode 45

In this episode we welcome MJ Eldridge, also known as MJ aka Mommie on social media. MJ shares about her childhood growing up in Rhode Island in a log cabin in the woods, and regales us with relatable and hilarious GenX latchkey kid stories. Her love for performance started at an early age, as well as an interest in invention. After a year at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York as a theater major, MJ traveled to New Mexico then settled in Denver, where she met her first husband. A move to Michigan led her to a position at Homedics, where she found an outlet for her incredible ingenuity. We touch on motherhood and postpartum depression, as well as the many ways women are not served properly in healthcare. We discuss how the female experience can’t exist in the workplace, and how sharing the challenges of perimenopause and menopause can be a double edged sword for women. MJ candidly shares about her experience returning to the dating scene post-divorce, which can only be summed up as one long jump scare. We learn about her work with start-ups, which includes her extensive knowledge of the international supply chain and doing business with China. It is obvious that MJ is a valuable asset to any company she’s working for or for any client who hires her on as a consultant. There is no question that she is a phenomenal resource when it comes to product design, manufacturing and the logistics of shipping products around the globe. She is a true expert in the complex space. After her second divorce, MJ returned to Rhode Island to work for a sustainability company, and she extensively covers how the tariffs are affecting businesses. We discuss the journey of self-discovery that many GenX women are currently on, as well as the three P’s that men operate off of: Pay, Praise and Pleasure. MJ shares how “MJ aka Mommie” began on TikTok, as well as her new project, the “Mediocre at Best!” podcast, where listeners will have access to MJ’s wit, humor and brilliance in longer form. We absolutely loved having not one, but two days with MJ in the studio and truly enjoyed such great conversation. We look forward to becoming loyal listeners of Mediocre at Best!

Check Out MJ at:
https://www.tiktok.com/@inappropriatemommie

Reach MJ at:
mjeldridgee@gmail.com

Check Us Out at:
https://www.genxadultingpodcast.com/

#genx #genxpodcast #podcast #interview #genxtalks #china #logcabin #theater #midlife #menopause #music #parenting #postpartum #motherhood #latchkey #dating #healthcare #AI #chatgbt #supplychain #hobbies #startup #business #tariffs

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#generationx #genx #podcast #marriage #relationship #interview #mom #family

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[MUSIC]Welcome to GenX Adulting, andtoday we have MJ Eldridge with us,better known as MJ akaMommy on TikTok. Welcome MJ.Hey, how's it going?We're so happy to have you here.I think it's good to be here.I've been waiting for this one.Ever since I saw you on TikTok, and then Iknew you were coming on,I was like, I can'twait to get deep with her.So I'm excited about this one for sure.Yeah, me too.Our first question isalways, what year were you born?1974.Okay, so you're GenX?Yes, I am smack in the middle.I do think that there's versions of GenX.In my mind, there's the Fleetwood Mac GenX,and then my version of GenX ismore Duran Duran GenX, I guess.I know it's everybody, but there's olderGenX is more of the Fleetwood Mac time.I never thought aboutthat, but you're so right.Totally. Makes sense.We're 1971.So Duran Duran, like all ofthat, Madonna, Culture Club,that is more that time for us,even though Fleetwood Mac was there,but that was more going on when we werelike two, three, four,five, I guess, right?Right, right.So it was like more of my parents.It wasn't my parents' music,but it was my parents' radio.You know, it was their station.So in my mind now, it is funny justbringing up Fleetwood Mac,because just recently Istarted listening to it,because when I was a kid, I was like,that's like old people music.And it's just been very recentthat I've even listened to it,which sounds crazycoming from a GenX person.For sure. It's awesome.Yeah, I love Fleetwood Mac.I know it's really good.And then I'm kind of embarrassed that I wasjust like, oh, that's disgusting.But yeah, when I was when I was young, Iwas one of those alternative kids.I listened to Debech Mode andREM and, you know, the Smiths.And yeah, that's that's who I aligned with.And even now, even now I'll listen to likeDeaf Leppard and Guns N' Rosesand be like, oh, I never knew that songbecause I was too much of an alternative.Yeah, really, because I love Depeche Mode,but I was also into like, you know,like you said, Deaf Leppard, Guns N' Roses,Bon Jovi and then Madonna.So I was kind of like just the radio,whatever was on the radiowas like all across the board.But you were like really into that new way.I call it New Wave. Right. Right.So I grew up in RhodeIsland and in Rhode Island,Brown Brown University hadtheir own radio station called WBRU.And that was all like thesuper alternative music.And if you were like aWBRU kid, that was it.OK, that's cool. You were a student.You're cool. Yeah, I was socool with my with my Doc Martens.I like turtleneck. You know, yeah.Yeah. It's goth, I think. Right.Or as close as we would havebecause goth wasn't a thing.That was more like the millennial likemillennials, I think was really right.We I was like proto goth, I guess.It was, you know, like I did try to I didtry to dye my hair black.And I remember I went to the to the CBS andI got like a box of hair dye.But I have so much hair that only like allI could afford was one box.And I didn't know Iwould need more than one.And so I had like half dyed black hair.That's hilarious. Thatwas the look, though.No, that was pretty cool.But so like other ones.OK, so where were you born?So I was born in a place called Windsocket,Rhode Island, which isback then it was like,well, in 1974, when I was born,it was starting to really decline.But in like the 1940s, it was the biggestcenter of French Canadiansin all of the United States.Like most everybody spoke French.My entire family is from Montreal.Like it was all the Canadian immigrants hadcome down from Montrealto work in the fabric mills.And yeah, so it wasvery, very French centric.And so, yeah, that's where I grew up.And but then, well, Ididn't grow up in Windsocket.I was born there.And then I moved to a place calledBarerville, Rhode Island,which is ironicallywhere the Conjuring House is.Like I know way. Yeah.I like the actual Conjuring House.I grew up down the street from becausethat's where my my grandma lived.And so which is bizarre if you think aboutit, because like no man's land.So I grew up in a logcabin that my dad builtlike by himself, like the Unabomber, likejust out in the woods.And I hated it.Like people always say,oh, wow, that's so cool.You know, to have grown up in a log cabin.I'm like, am I can I swear on here or?Oh, OK. Like I was always like in myfucking Abe Lincoln, like this.Yeah. Yeah.Like I would go to myfriends' houses who had like drywalland I would be like, oh,like your your posters lay flat.Like all my posters werelike, you know, like I did.Dark.I mean, it's dark.So dark. Yeah.And then it was also for years, it wasactually cold because people don't realizelike logs take a while to settle.So like you could see outside now.That's all the logs.Wait, don't they normally fill in between?Like when they do it now, right?Because they do it like because people wantit because it looks cute or whatever.Don't they fill those logs?So they do like now with better materials.But back then, my dad had like the stickytar paper type of tape.And like even the logsaren't perfect. Right.So even though that there's there's gaps.And so I was always freezing.And my house was like kindof half built for a long time.And so, yeah, it was.Were you off the grid?Well, I mean, weren't we allhe had electricity andwater, you had like running water.Yes. OK. OK.We did have running water, but we for along time, we didn't have doorsbecause my dad didn't build the doors onthe inside of the house.So we just had like curtains for thebathroom door and our bedroom doors.And then for a longtime, we had coal, heat like.And so my brother and Iwould have to shovel coal.And then we had this stack like it was.There was no reason for this.Like the world had advanced like there wasabsolutely no reason to live like this.So what do you.OK, so was this both your parents werethere or was it just with your dador your mom? Yeah, my mom and my dad.So my dad was a firefighter and my my mybrother is a firefighter.My youngest daughter was afirefighter now for a while.Like we kind of have that in the family.And so in Rhode Island, the way thefirefighters work is like they dotwo days, two nightsand then four days off.So my dad had time tolike build this house.And so that's that's why Ihad to build a cabin. Yeah.I could get outdoors.A dream that he had always had from young.I wanted to live on.So prior to this, we actually lived in avery cute subdivision.I was really little like we moved therewhen I was four years old.And but we had lived ina very cute subdivision.My mom loved her house.And my dad was like, like he felt, I think,oppressed, you know, orwhatever by the neighbors.And he's like, I.My mom denies this to this day, but Iremember her telling me that he saidthat I'm going to take an axe to thesewalls if I can't go build us a log cabin.And so, yeah, it is true.So wait, how did they meet?My mom and dad met inhigh school in Windsocket.And my mom tells a story that she wouldlook for my dad in the hallsto just think about how much she hated him.She's like, I hated his face.He always looked so smug all the time, youknow, because and he was talland he was handsome like hehe had dark hair and blue eyesand was tall and handsome and smart.And my mom just hated hisguts. I love this. I love this.OK, so they didn't date in high schoolbecause they hated him, right? Right.And then it wasn't it was prettyscandalous, honestly, like theyit was like a year or two afterhigh school that he was datingone of her friends and they went to a partytogether and he pulled my mom asideand he's like, yeah, I really like you.I don't really like her.And so, oh, God.And then they they gotmarried six months later.And yeah, in all reality, myparents just like to bone like.That is it.They just wanted to bang.Like, I swear to God, that'sthe only thing they had in commonbecause because they ended up gettingdivorced when I was like 14 years old.And like most of my life, they were alwayslike at odds, you know,because my mom is very she's asweetheart and she just wantedlike a little familylife and all this stuff.And then my dad is like, I'mgoing to chop this house downand build a log cabin.And then, you know, hewas he was a partier also.So there was that.But yeah, I think at the beginning and ifmy mom, if you're if you do listen to this,I think you and dad just like to bang.That that drama, that tension, all of that.And then instead of kind of just likewriting it out there, like,let's get married aftersix months, six months.Wow. And then do they getlike an apartment togetherafter they got married ora house or what do they do?They lived my so we're French, like I said,so I like my uncles are called Monanc.So like my man, Andy and hiswife owned an apartment buildingand they live like in the upstairs.OK. And then they bought a house.And I want to say that their mortgage waslike 96 dollars a month.It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah.And this would have been what, like, well,how long were they marriedbefore you were born?I think three years, maybe.So like 1970, 1971.Yeah. Yeah. Crazy.Isn't that crazy for acheap back. Oh, absolutely.So was your are you older or your brother?I'm older and then my brother is 48, 40.He's about to be 40. OK.So you're both ex.OK, so the spacing is like two and a halfyears, two and a half years.OK, so they get married.They have you they have you in theapartment or they have.OK, they have you in the apartment.And then they get do theyhave your brother there, too,or do they move into their home?Burbs the house in the suburbs.OK, where my brother was born.And they're having their nicelittle family in the suburbs.And your dad is feeling the walls close inand it's like, I got to get out of here.I got to go make uslive in this piece of shit.Where's your mom?I'm trying to understand in the world.Your mom, like what's that?What? Oh, she was so upset.She was endlessly upset because like thenshe's living in this housethat is like neverfinished, you know, because yeah,we had to move in.And in the meantime, we sold the house inthe suburbs and we moved to in socket,which had already likekind of turned pretty ghetto.And where we were living was that'sprobably not OK to say,but like it was not nice anymore, you know.And and so we lived there fora year in this small apartmentwhile my dad built the house.And then we had to move in.And it wasn't I don't know ifit's still done, to be honest,like we sold the house when I was 17.It no, no, no, no, no.Like my my dad passed away in 2012, but wesold the house when I was 17.And so OK. OK.So you guys go live in this apartment.Were you in school during this time?I was still you guys didn'thave to change schools or anything.So you go to your mom's leaving neighborsin this nice little life.Was she a stay at home mom?Yeah, she was. But OK.No, this is an argument Ihave with like these old schoolstay at home moms, you know,because every stay at home momI knew back then had a joblike they my mom always had a joblike where she would she would pick upwaitressing shifts,you know, here and there.Like just to get alittle bit of extra money.She was always she's like, I can always gowork breakfast, breakfastand, you know, make some money.And all the other stay at home moms I knewlike they were selling Mary Kay.Like they had shit going on,you know, they were a side hustle.Always. Yeah.Something. And also backthen, I think in general,I make sure and say that because we alwaysget somebody it's like not my mom,but in general, a lot of moms were home.So there was also a village of support.So if you needed someone to help maybe withyour kids for an hour or twoor you needed there just wasthat more community feelingand women had moresupport, I think, from each other.Right now. And so I thinksometimes for boomer parents,they don't totally understand the grindthat Gen X moms,millennial moms are going throughbecause that community isn't as availablefor us and for themillennial moms as it was for them,because we're having to do all the thingswithout that support.So I just think parenting in general is washarder for us and for and is harder.But you can't afford anything now.So it's just like if you goto compare it, you just can't.But I don't think youthat, you know, no, not at all.And then also like the rules have changed.Yeah. You know, like there it's not justthat there aren't other people aroundto watch your kids.It's that we decided, I think, and I wrotean article about thisa few years ago about like how we inventedhelicopter parenting.That's on us. Absolutely.And we're the ones who didsuch a hard 180, you know.And so I when my kidswere little, I stayed at homefor three or four years and I would onlylet them watch a half hour of TV,you know, and then therewas no like go play outsidebecause all of a sudden we went mental andgot scared of the entire world.Yeah. Right. And so I'm like, I'm juststaring at these childrenlike 24 seven. And it was so stressful.It was so stressful.It's a reaction. Right.Because I think there's so many of us whoare like, well, we're going to createthe childhood we always wanted or we'regoing to be the person we neededor we're going to, you know, be moreattentive to what we experienced.But we did. We went the pendulum wentcompletely the other way.So we did totally create that.You know, I there's I always say there istwo types of genetics parents.There's the types that did that.And then there's the types thatlike it was good enough for me.It's good enough for my kids.And then you're starting to see thechildren of those two types of parentingand then observing the relationships thosekids have with their parents.And it's very different.I will say even onepositive of us attentive helicopteris that we tend to have a decentrelationship with our kids overall.Maybe they can't makea doctor's appointment.I get that at twenty five.But they talk to us and there's a lot of nocontact going on on the other side.So it's a trade off, I guess.You know, I hadn't made the connectionbetween the no contact peopleand that maybe they werelike, what was good enough for meis good enough for you parents as well.I hadn't made that connection at all.That's a good point. Yeah.It's where. Well, and it's something thatas we've had guests come onand share things we've learned and thenhave seen it from comments,from listeners, for followers.And we didn't either.It's something we've learned through thisprocess, like, oh, we didn't even knowthere were two types going on.I kind of always assumed we're allhelicopters because everyone thatI was around the other moms anddads were all kind of like us.I didn't even know.Maybe there was that one random.We were like, they don't watch your kids.Yeah, you know, watch their kids.I mean, like, oh, my God, their five yearold is on a canoe in the lake.You know, you know, but thatwas like that one random family.And they're like, oh,you know, but there's more.They do exist. There's a lot of them.And so now you're starting to see as theGen Z's are in their 20s,the relationships thatare going on, you know, andor even the younger, what are they pissedat their parents or something?Yeah, they have some of the same issues.We some of us have.But we all kind of helpedour parents or whatever.We're in that sandwichgeneration where we still not everybody.We don't know.The Gen Xers that are nocontact with their boomer parents.Yeah, that's a very common thing.But, you know, it's justweird to see younger millennials,young millennials and older Gen Z's alsokind of following in some of that.And that tends to bethat one parenting style.So I don't know.OK, so I didn't make the connection either.Yeah, it was something we learned.But OK, so you guys are in that apartment.I'm trying to picture your mom.Left this left is now in what.How do you say the name of the town again?What when when which?Yeah, I just looked it up.Is it up byMassachusetts, North of Providence?OK, yes. Yeah.How many people are in one time?Like how big is it?It looks kind of out there.Yeah, right.No, when Saki.So when Saki is just like the city where Iwas born and it's not rural at all.So I moved to Baroville and Baroville.That's the rural, verylike deep in the woods area.And I graduated in 92 inBaroville with only 100 kids.Oh, wow.Yeah. But when Saki was morelike the city for you guys,it was definitely the city.Yeah. OK.So she's there for a year kind ofcontemplating, OK, mylife is about to change.I'm going to go live in a log cabin.I can't even imagine.And then you guys move into this townbecause you were there inthe suburbs to same town.No, so this was we were in another placelike it's also close together.It's Rhode Island.So our little suburb house was in thisplace called North Smithfield,which is like in betweenwhen Saki and Baroville.And is it larger than Baroville?Baroville?My point.Well, it's definitely like when growing upafter that, we were always like,oh, the rich peoplelive in North Smithfield.Like, OK, it was for rich people.So another change for her.So she also waschanged into a smaller town.Yeah. In a log cabin. Yeah.Has she ever talked to you about thattransition she went through at that time?I know that she was just always mad.And she was this isgoing to sound really funny.But again, you know, being raised likeFrench with like a Frenchmy mamae and all this stuff like they're soparticular about cleaning.And like the woman isalways like having to cleanand make sureeverything's perfect and presentable.And she was always trying to clean the logslike she was trying to wash the logsand they and they they were not like thepretty finished logs,you know, like in someAspen Cedar Chalet, you know,they were like rough, hewnlogs and it was just dark.So it's just trying to clean up.That's hilarious.It's like is it almost like ifyou went and you cut down a treeand then just built a house with thosetrees without doing anything to it?It's like taking out the branches.So there is.There's things I'm literally picturing asquirrel might have been mad.No, so it so they sellthese houses and kits.OK. And you can getdifferent versions of them.And this was like it musthave been the cheapest versionbecause the logs themselves were just liketreated so they wouldn't rot.But they weren't likeshellacked and shiny and pretty.So OK. So and that's reallyall you kind of knew, right?Because what were you you said for?Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was four years oldwhen we moved in there.But I did remember my old neighborhood.I have a very weird, goodmemory from like two years old.Like I do remember being in thathouse when I was really little.And and also our summertime babysitter wasin that neighborhood.So we would go back and like I could see Icould see our old houseand be like, this could have been my life.I could have had pavement like because wehad we live on a dirt road.Right. And so like wecouldn't even ride a big wheel.I'm telling you, youcan't ride a big dirt road.You just peel out all the time.Like there's a part of me that's jealous.I know I would love all men.All men are jealous.Like you secretly youlike George Washington it up.I know Brian would be happy living on ahill in a log cabin with me and dogs.And no one else. I stilldon't know anyone else ever.I know I know a lot oftowns like where there's no onethat I think we're goingto get murdered any moment.He's like, oh, I could livehere for the rest of my life.And like, you're insane.Anyways, OK, so you and your OK.So when you said summer babysitter, likewould you guys go back to your oldneighborhood and be with the summerbabysitter for the day while you're?Yeah, well, that that was whenmy mom we got we were probablyI was probably like eight or nine when mymom did go back to work.She didn't like stay at home forever.So it was when she worked and we had asummertime babysitter.And so you'd get to gorevisit your old life.Oh, yeah, I'd be like, look at this.You can like write with chalk on this car.Like I still remember the day that theyrepaved because it was in a cul-de-sac.Right. You could just rideyour bikes in the middle.And then they came andrepaved in that fresh tar smell.Yeah, this this is living.Nice and smooth.Oh, it's so good.I was like, wait, when you smell that inyour adult life, does it?Oh, did you remember?And bring the rightback, bring the right back.Good times.So your dad must have stayed.Did he remain a fireman there?Yeah, like meeting from the cabin back tothe station type of thing.Yeah, so we actually lucked out becausewhen Sockett was not a good placeto grow up, right. And so andthere I want to say it was like two yearsafter we moved that they madethe rule that you had to live in one socketto be on the fire department.And so we he gotgrandfathered in and then we got lucky.That's great. Yeah.I would. Right. My cousins, if they watchthis, they're they're going to be like,wait, that's mean because I go to mycousin's house and I'd be like,I am glad I don't.So when your mom went backto work, what did she do?She worked in a bank.Oh, OK, cool. Yeah, she did mortgages.All right. Yeah.So when you started going to elementaryschool and through middle school,were you an athlete or wereyou an art or theater or music?Was there anything that interested you?Because it's a smalltown, it's a small school.Did they have any resourcesto offer you guys like that?I actually really lucked out, I think.So I was not an athlete.I was a chubby kid who was like failing thepresidential fitness testlike type of kid like I Iremember, you know, the wholethe whole whatever you call it, trauma fromthe presidential fitness.Yeah. Yeah. I remember the gym teacher, Mr.Grello, like screaming at me like, you canwalk a mile in 15 minutes.Oh, my God.I definitely do youremember all of these things?I remember the little skinny girls couldreally do that flexed arm hang.You know, forget about it.Like, yeah, weird thing I was good at.And I only realized now it'sbecause I have very long arms.I could do the sit and reach.And yes, I like everybody. Yeah.I have really short legs.So I killed everyone.I went over like byeight inches or something.And I can look. This is the thing I can do.Yeah. Remember that.What do you think? Don't do it.I can't even know he's sohe can't pass his knees.Forget it. Yeah. I remember.I don't even know. I know.I don't know if they still do.I think they'rebringing it back in the back.Yeah. Trump just said hewants to bring it back.OK, you know, gone for a while because Idon't remember my kid.I think our older son did it.But they don't.There's no recess atschools anymore, either.There was at their school atNathan Kyes, but no, at Dylan's.There wasn't. You're right.I think for middle school, for middleschool, they took recess.But I think we did. Wedo that in middle school.Was that elementaryschool, the presidential thing?We did it all all through high school.Yeah. From our entire lives.Gosh, I guess we did do it in high school.Any those got about thereference to the asshole gym teacher?Because we all had one back then.And these kids today, theydon't have the asshole gym teacher.No, you're not allowed.You're allowed to yell those things on thekids like these to pick on us.Oh, my God. They were so me.Oh, yeah. And you can'thave mean coaches or any.You know, everyone gets very upset now.So OK, so did you have wasyour elementary school divided up?Like we were K through sixand then seven through nine.I was junior high. You were middle school.Were you junior high or middle school?Junior high. They my brother is when theyopened the middle school in the town.So did you have seven?Did you go K throughsix, seven through nine?What we had, because the townwas so small, was that we wentI actually went to kindergarten in a tinylittle red schoolhouse.Like that was like it's only like a oneroom little red schoolhouse that was old.And then we had multiple different schoolsbecause as much as Burrillvilleis a rural place, it's made out of likeseven differentvillages, which is like a veryor maybe nine. I don't remember.It's a very New England thing to havethings split up this way.So I actually went tomultiple different schools.Like there was I went to firstand second grade in one school,third grade in another school, fourth,fifth, sixth in another school.And then the high school was actually ajunior, senior high school.So we were in seventh gradewith all the way to seniors.Like they everybody was in the samebuilding, which wasterrifying because they're like,you know, full blown adults.And I'm like, you know, yeah.Hard enough for like a ninth grader toassimilate and get along with 12th graders.Right. Right.Well, I feel like back then high schoolboys look like young men.They look like men compared to how the highschool boys look now.So if you're in seventh grade back then,you're looking at seniors andthey look like how someone at twenty fiveor twenty six looks now.Yes. You know what I mean?Like, yes. I don't knowif it's like the hormone.I don't know if it's the food.There's a whole bunch of theories on whythe Gen X men in high schoollooks so different than even the millennialmen and the Gen Z men in high school.If you look at our imaginations, because Iwas thinking that itwas like, oh, I was young.So I thought that they looked old. Right.But now with my job, I work with collegesand I was just at theUniversity of North Carolina, NorthCarolina, Greensboro yesterday.And I was looking aroundat these kids and I'm like,every single one of theseboys has like patchy facial hair.Like none of them can grow facial hair.And I was talking to my friend about it.She's like, I think it's the hormones, youknow, and the food and stuff like that.It's disrupting. And I'm like, OK.There is a whole thing that people.Yeah, there's something because I will sayGen X men in high school,they did look like men.They totally look like mustaches, beards.They were bigger. Idon't know how to explain it.They just looked more burly.We were a grocer.Probably. You're just dirtier.Yes. Big.You weren't bigger.It was just layers of dirt.This tower.You have a lot of teenshorts and a T-shirt.Well, true.It's very stylish today.Yeah, depending on where you live.OK, so you're you're 12 or 12.Yes, seventh grade andwith 18 year old men.Uh huh. Uh huh.OK, so during that time, did you have anyinterest in any extracurricular activitiesor were you super academic?Oh, my God, I was such a nerd.But I also I the stories when I think back,how I actually was, it seems crazy becauselike I would do crazy things like,do you remember that song?The In the Morning Angel song, like likejust call me Angel in the morning.Yes. Yes.So when I was in first grade, I tookspelling slips and wrote the lyricsof that song, then copied them all for myentire class and passed them outso we could surprise our teacher and singthat song because it was her favorite song.No, every everyone hated me.Like I was such a nerd.And so so then horrible, though.Yeah, as an adult, at thetime, they're like, who is this?Because I went by Missy back then I wasMissy Eldridge and Missy Eldridge hadlike short hair and we need to talk abouthair like well, we could talk about that.But I had short hair.I was fat.I was tall because I was also very big formy age, like taller than everybody.And I was a huge nerdand I had a big mouth.And I like it's the recipefor like just endless bullying.But I was relentless.Like I was relentless.Like I. OK.In fourth grade, in fourthgrade, I wrote a play and.Made a deal with the principal that I so II directed the play, I started in the play.I cast my friends in the play.It was a Christmas play.And I made a deal with the principal tocancel recess one day and have allthe kids watch my playinstead of going to recess.That is amazing.This is insane.I'm sure there were kids that were pissedthat they had to watch the play, right?Instead of going to recess, skip.That's a big deal.You know, I love this.This is amazing.Did your parents know this about you, thatyou were going to schooland just sassing it up and arranging?Because I drove them nuts.Like I was always like when I was so thisall kicked off from Romper Room.So remember, you're three years old and youwould sit there and watch Romper Roomand wait to see if shesaid your name. Right.And then I was like, though, those are kidson that show, mom, like they'rethey're kids like me. I'm a kid.They're a kid. How can I be on the TV?And so I could read when I was very little.And so I would find the newspaper.I would get the newspaper and I would lookfor auditions and I would like circlethem and beg my myparents to take me to auditions.So I didn't like they didn'tdo anything because they're likethey're boomer parentsand they're like, fuck you.And I'm not dreaming you anywhere.Such a dream.Such a dream.Nothing wrong with you.And this may be amazing talent.Yeah.They're like, absolutely not like I'lldrive you there, butI'm not picking you up.And then I'd be like, oh, OK,but I can't hitchhike, you know.And so so anyway, I did end up doing a lotof like local theater.But again, again, I wastall for my age, goofy looking.I didn't even mention this.I couldn't breathe through my nose until Ihad surgery when I was like 30 somethingyears old. And so here Iam auditioning for theseplays like singing and all this stuff.I can't sing. I can't hear.I'm like, my nose is also.Wait, did you did it affect like yourstation tubes, like you had fluid in yourears and affect your hearing?And would you have earaches and stuff?I had to get this is a very genic story.I had to get tubes in my ears when I was inkindergarten because my ears actuallygrew shut on the inside.And so my mom was always just screaming atme to turn down the music or turn downthe TV until like they didthe hearing test in school.And they're like, yeah, she's deaf.Your daughter is deaf ata handicap level, lady.She's like, oh, no.Oh, yeah.Yeah, it's just therewouldn't have been major shame.It was like if it happened to one of us, wewould have been like, you know, that's myjob.Or hey, they do. Yeah.It's like, it's fine. You'refine. She's fine. She's fine.Yep. And so I had to get the tubes in andthen I would get earinfections all the timebecause like I love to swim.But I had to have a very special set uplike I had to haveVaseline and a cotton ball andthen like these speciallymade earplugs like on top.And then I had to have a bathing cap whenyou are like a tallfat kid with like EstherWilliams freaking bathing capon your head like at the pool.So anyway, I would end up with earinfections all the time.And my grandma was like,I know how to fix this.And so she would blow smoke in my ear.Cigarette smoke.Oh, I was thinking theYeti thing or whatever those.No, you're legit.Marvel like Chesterfield Kings.Yeah.And blowing smoke in my ear.Did it work?And then she would seal it up.She would reseal it up with like anotherVaseline cotton ball.So you had nicotine in there.She's blow smoke tryingto capture real quickly.That's awesome.Oh, my God. You're like, I'm dizzy.Yeah.I probably have 16brain term words right now.It doesn't know.Do I smoke?Yeah, I don't get it.Yeah. Oh, no.They only got you got todo it through her ears.Right.How long did you have?Were you dealing with these ear issues andinfection issues and all that?I think for three or fouryears, I had the tubes for a while.So I got I got themout in like fourth grade.So that's a long time to have tubes.Yeah. Yeah.Her older son had to have tubes because hehad you station tube issues and they wouldget clogged and all that.And he had tubes.I want to say at five and then he was donewith them by six or seven.Yeah.My youngest had tubes, too.So yeah.But that's a long timegoing into fourth grade.Yeah.And then do they know why you couldn'tbreathe through yournose until you were 30?Yeah.So I found out because mystories don't sound real.Like now that I'm saying them all out, likenone of it sounds real.But so it was after I had my kids, my mydaughter, I have twodaughters, Aspen and Vivian.I was at home at night and my ex-husband,he was he played pickup hockey.So he was like gone.And this was in 2005.We had cell phones,but also like not really.Yeah.Yeah.And I was sick because Iwas always, always sick.Like my whole life, I wouldhave some kind of stuffed up nose.And I'm sitting there on the couch justlike they're in bedand I'm blowing my nose.And all of a sudden I feelsomething like skin out of my nose.And I look in the bathroom, I have a wholebubble of skin coming out of my nose, likepart of my body.And I freak out.I call my mom and she's like, well, you'vegot to call the hospital because I'm homealone with the kids.Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.I can't like push it back.Oh, my goodness.Call the hospital.And they're like, youblew out your membrane.I'm like, what membrane?Like what are you even talking about?Oh, my gosh.I had to have my neighbor come over, watchthe kids because I couldn't get a hold ofmy husband.He was at hockey and I drove myself to thehospital and it turned out all this time Ihad been growing like the biggest nasalpolyp anyone had ever seen.Like the doctors all brought the otherdoctor friends in to likelook at my scans and allof this stuff.And so then I had like the rotor rootersurgery or whatever that they give you.And I've been amazing ever since.I was like, this is what breathing is likebecause when I was a kid and you would seelike movies where people get kidnapped andstuff like that andthey would put like ducttape over their mouth.I was like, how did they not die?I was like, movies are lies.Right.Because you probably felt like how when wewould if we would get a really stuffed upnose, you felt like that all the time.All the time.Wait, and no pediatrician.I mean, I shouldn't be surprised, but nopediatrician caught thisthrough your whole childhood.No.What did they just keep saying?You just have a sinus infection?They thought I had allergies, you know, andI and I did haveallergies and I but I livedinside a tree.Like yeah.Yeah, I was allergic to my entire house.Like so you had this problem before youmoved into the house.You know, I don't remember atime where I could like breathe.So I think I just I did have allergies andall the resulting like endless nose blowingmy entire life made the polyps like bigger.I think I think that's wild.So how incredibly lifechanging after that surgery.Oh, it was amazing.I still I am still so happy every daybecause of it because I can I can breathe.You can go to yoga and then they're like,you know, you've beenthrough your mouth andout through your nose.I'm like, I know how to do this.Yeah, I can do it.I can do it.I don't know.The rest of it take that for granted.Yeah.Breathing.You know, now that you're doing it, you're.Yeah.I know.Breathing.Breathing.Breathing is flex.Yeah.This.This motivation to come to school with yourown creations or yourown ideas or direct peopleto do things or create things that continuethrough high school or was that more justwhen you were young, young?Oh, no.All through high school.I ended up I was in everything like I wasin all the plays at school.I was in the community theater.I was in band.I played the French horn for eight years,you know, just being super nerdy.And then I graduated top of my class.Like I was just very, very nerdy.Really involved.Yeah.And then I went to Hofstra.I had a free ride for theater.But I only lasted a year.Like I had that was like a crazy situation.Wow.Wait.So you graduated in a class of 100.And back then, I don't know about for you,but for me, like no one talked about goingto college.It was just like I think we had a collegecounselor and I think I met with her once.It wasn't like how it was for our kidsgraduating and how it is now.Right.Didn't anyone guide you through theapplication process and to get thatscholarship and everything?So I was thinking about this the other day.I don't I honestly don't know.Right.I was in I don't know if youguys had this at your school.I was in that gifted and talented program.So we had a very active one at my school.And so all of my friends who were equallyas nerdy, it was justlike a given that theywould go to college.And I do think that on the East Coast,there's just more of a college attitude.Right.Yeah.This is this is whereBrown and Harvard and MIT.You're up there.Yeah.Yeah.And so but my parents, this is where thelittle bit of drama comes in.They they just want like they were thefirst in their familyto graduate high school.Like when I say I'm from like immigrantswho, you know, didn'tspeak English and whatevergraduating high school was a big deal.And then I was the first inmy family to go to college.And so there was therewas a bit of a dust up.So even though I so my mom took me, youknow, I found I don'tknow how I did it, though,like to be honest,like looking at it, right?If we didn't have a big deal, a free ride.Yeah.So like Hofstra Hofstra.We've been to Hofstra.We've been to Hofstra.So that's that's so cool.So what but this is the partI don't remember how I did.Like I I think I broke to the schoolssomehow found out what I was interested in.Like without the computer, Idon't know how this happens.Right.And so I auditioned at Boston University atIthaca in upstate New York at Hofstra andat Emerson.And I did go by myself to the Boston andand Emerson auditions.I took the train and did that.But my mom drove me to Hofstra and Ithacato do those auditions.But then this is where it all falls apart.So I had gotten that free ride to Hofstra.But when it came time and I'm very curiousto know if other Gen X people went throughthis or if it was just my parents, myparents refused to signany student loan paperwork.They're like, we're not giving thegovernment our money becauseI got a free academic ride,but I still neededmoney for room and board.Right.Right.Like even though they were divorced, theycame together to tell me we're not becauseif you don't pay back the loans and it's onus and all this stuffbecause they were thatwas the one thing like I had a job since Iwas 12 and I paid for I paid for my Frenchhorn lessons.Like I paid for everything, asI'm sure a lot of Gen X kids.What did you do?Well, did you was a babysitting or Iwatched I washed dishes in a diner.OK, so that's that's back when.They can wash their age later.Yeah.Yeah.You worked from 12 and what kind of otherthan like your Frenchhorn lessons, what otherthings were you responsiblefor paying for three years?My mom would give me money for schoolclothes, but I wouldbuy like anything else.Like if I wanted, you know, makeup orhairspray or anything record.Yeah, it's definitely that.So you would have tocover all that through.And then like oftentimes school stuff, too,like whether it was field trips or like,you know, band stuff for band, likeuniforms or like any of theclubs that I joined becauseI was a varsity tennis for a while.So I paid for like all of that.You know, for you were not like when I whenI got to high school,I did I did play tennisand volleyball.So, OK, OK.So you that's, you know, that's so foreign,though, to kids that we raised, right?Because we pay for everything.Like never would I ever think to make myson cover any of that.Like, you know, we just write it's adifferent experience.I did make my kids pay formakeup, you know, to girls.And so I'm like, I'm not buying yourmakeup, although I willtreat like I still to thisday, they're 22 and 21 and I'm just andthey live on their own and all this.And I'm just always like, here's 50.I just owe them money.I know that would havelike made me shit myself.Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.And for like extra like with my daughter,when she was working, she started working,I think at 15 or 16.Then, yeah, she if she went toSephora, I would buy her own.But I mean, the brainsix, I she we covered.Yeah.I got her hair spray.That's you know, Imean, that type of stuff.Right.Like that.There's very few kids in any Gen X or theGen Z generation oryounger millennial, I thinkthat would have had totake care of all that.I think that's such a foreign concept.I'm sure there are some, but, you know, Ithink a lot of us did.I didn't work likethat, but I was expected.I think I startedbabysitting at 11 or something.And that was my spending money for likecandy or any mall, the mall.But I don't know if you worked because youwere always in sports.I always worked.I worked from a ridiculously young age.What are your cousins?My cousins.Yeah.I also work for this insurance guy when Iwas like nine or ten should never have beendoing it.Digging holes.Yeah.Like that.And filing.I don't know, you know, totallyinappropriate today's standards.But no, I worked.I also had I had my dad's.What was it?A shell card so we couldgo to the shell station.Yeah.And, you know, buy soda or whatever.Oh, that's like rich.Yeah.That was like a 98 cents in Jersey.In Jersey.Yeah.So it wasn't the worst thing.And that's where they pump it for you even.Yeah.Yeah.I'm from Oregon.So gas has been expensive my whole life.Oh, it was like 98 cents here too.And it was funnybecause it was like 98 cents.And then we had like theself serve or the full serve.Right.And I remember when I was 16 years old,having the distinctthought like, this is the oneluxury you'll always be able to afford.And you will getsomebody to pump your own gas.And then they took it away.Yeah.Yeah.It's not even an option.In Jersey, they still pump gas for you.I know.I've heard about that mythical place.And Oregon is the only two states.Oregon and Jersey.Yeah.We have a couple here, butlike, I don't really know.Like I know that there'sone out by my mom's house.And you're not allowed to get out in touchin New Jersey and Oregon.You're allowed to get outand touch the gas pumps.You just have to sit therelike a princess and wait.That's the way it should be.Yeah.But then I feel like I have to tip themwhenever they tip the guyand we're like, do we tip?We're not sure.And I grew up there.We didn't tip those, you know, so for it.So to go back to your parents divorce.So you were at that awesomeage of 14 when that happened.Well, that's eighth grade, right?Eighth, ninth grade, something like that.So were you shocked?Was this, did this makesense to you at the time?Or were you and yourbrother completely shocked?No, we wanted him to out like we, it wasn'tbecause he was abusive or anything.It just like my mom and dad were like, mymom was so upset at him all the time, likeour entire lives.And he was never around because he waseither, you know, workingovernights at the, at thefire station or so afterthe house was built and stuff.And this is common for all firefightersaround here, work that schedule.You have another gig.And so we owned an oil company for a while,like one of those homeheating oil companies.And so he was always doing that.And when he wasn't doing thosethings, he was out at the bar.Like I think, I thinkmy dad never drank water.I think he just drank, he was90% Budweiser and 10% coffee.There's water in Budweiser.Yeah, right.He had to get some hydration.Yeah.By that point, we're like, thank God, youknow, like, yeah, Ican't say that it was bad.Like it wasn't abusive.It wasn't screaming and all of that stuff.It was just stop.Stop bitching.You guys hate each other.Yeah, it wasn't more just tension, justconstantly tense and notlike, were you, were you, wereyou actually kind of hypervigilant and kindof walking on eggshellsbecause of the tension,would you say?When my dad was around, it was weirdbecause he was alwayslike, when I was little, wehad a very good relationship.My dad and I, like, he would always talk tome about books and, you know, whatever.And I would help him like down in hisworkshop and stuff like that.And then as, as, you know, we got older, hejust had less of an interest.I just think my dad wasnever meant for family life.And it was just like, I do, I do feel for,you know, boomers andsilent gen people sometimes,you know, that so many of them were justlike, you have a family,get married, have kids.And like, so many of them wanted nothing todo with us or anythingto do with family life.But they couldn't, theycouldn't just be, you know?And so I always felt sad for my dad aboutthat because my momconversely, all she wantedwas, you know, she would have had 900 kidsor, you know, and soit was just a bad match.Well, and back then, and even for, I don'tknow, we kind ofchanged before we got married,we had this conversation, but I don't knowif it's normal for Gen Xers, but definitelyboomers.There was no conversationabout how do you see raising kids?How do you see our roles in our marriage?How do you be sharingthe domestic load at home?Are we both working?Is one of us saying?And they also came from a culture of youget married and you havechildren, it's what youdo, but they also were that hippie freelove culture too thatwas very about themselves.And then, and we just talked about thiswith another guest andthen they went through,a lot of them went through that and thenthey were get marriedand have kids and becomedomestic.So like you're saying, I think so many ofthem wouldn't have had children or gottenmarried, but it really is only in the last,I think 10 years, 10years of that where thatconversation is narratives even starting tobe discussed where it'sokay to not have children.It's okay to not get married.It's okay to stay single.I mean, that's really new where it's totalk about that in anormal way because even GenX women, we kind of all thought that's whatwe're supposed to do too.Yeah.And I think that oftentimes people don'treally realize that about us, about Gen X.Like they look at us like, oh, you guyswere the different generation.Whereas in reality, we're really not.Like I, my, when I was young, I neverfantasized about having kids.I didn't play with baby dolls.You know, that wasn't like my thing, but Ialso knew it was just going to happen.You know, there wasn't like, like I wasalways going to get married.I was always going to have kids and Ididn't ever think I wouldn't want that.Because nothing else wasdiscussed really of other options.It was just kind of how life goes.Right.And then, and I think now, especially withyounger millennials and Gen Z, they reallyare changing that whole narrative.And, and also I think if they do choose toget married, they'regoing to have such bettercommunication before they even get married,especially the women.And this is what I expect.Like, you know, and we had that, but Idrove that because I camefrom such a dysfunctional,crazy childhood.I didn't want to repeat it.I was determined to break the cycle.We got married at 23.And even then I was like, I'm not going to,I need to change something here because Icame from such chaos.And so that's what drove that conversation.But if I had come from a more normalbackground, I never wouldhave said, let's talk abouthow our roles and stuff.So I don't know if that was normal, evenfor our age to have before getting married.It wasn't for me.I'm really bad at as a whole at knowing howI'm going to feel about something until Ido it.You know, like I'm bad atjust like trying on hats.I call it like, like, and it wasn't untilI, you know, met my, my ex-husband and likegot married.And, you know, I was like, of course, like,I'll stay home when the kids are little.That's the right thing to do.You know, and I was actually, I was veryconservative back then,you know, like I was a, I wasa completely different human being.And because I was like, this is the rightway, you know, I'm just so type A and I hadno idea that I would want to die.Like I tell my kids all the time and theyget mad, you know,when I tell them, but I'mlike, when I, because they were only 16months apart and I stayed at home.I had moved to this a whole other part ofthe story, but like Ihad lived all over whenI was young, um, after I graduated highschool and then I moved toMichigan because my ex-husbandwas from Michigan.And so I knew nobody had no like familysystem and I have thesetwo babies, you know, backto back and I, I wanted to die.Like I never slept.I was just like, well, yeah, and none ofthat had was discussedbefore we got married andhad kids for us women.Like I think we as Gen X women are talkingabout all that now, hoping that the youngerwomen will know this look,it's okay to talk about this.It's okay to feel like this, get help or,you know, but that was very taboo to eventalk about like postpartum depression oryou were not justabsolutely enjoy after havinga baby.Something was wrong with you.My mom, my mom would tell me her line waslike, Oh, I was in my glory, you know?And then my ex-husband would say, you don'tknow how good you have it.And I'm literally Aspen's first memory ofme is when she was two years old and she,and she wouldn't take a nap.And I was just on the floor of her roomcrying face down on the floor.And that's so relatable though.You know, I think every mother has gonethrough that, but weweren't, we weren't supposedto talk to each other about that at all.Right.So thankfully I think that's changing.So when your parents got divorced, did yousee a change in your mom?Oh, all the, all we,the house could breathe.Like everybody just could take a breath.But in all honesty, I, I hardly saw my momafter that because she worked two and threejobs.Like she was really tryinghard to keep us in the log house.Like she got the log house in the divorce.She didn't get any childsupport or anything like that.But so she was still paying the mortgageand all of that stuff until, um, until mysenior year of high school and she justcouldn't do it anymore.But I was, I was so busy with all of myextracurriculars and all ofthat stuff and working all thetime.Um, because by the time I was in highschool, I worked at thispizza place and correct meif I'm wrong, but like,cause I did all these things.Like I was, you know, student council and Idid tennis and all this stuff.But like, were our practices maybe like anhour or 45 minutes when it came to sports?Like I feel like my kids, they're all oftheir sports was like,there's no way that theycould have a job.You know that because it was like endlesspractices that went on for hours and hoursand hours.But I was, I was going to school and then Iwould go to tennis practice, but tennispractice would be over at like three 15 orsomething like that, like in high school.And then I would go home, take a quickshower and go to my job for four o'clock.Yeah, no, that doesn't exist because I knowfor our kids, they have all been in sportsand that would happen after school.And I think they would behome by six or something.There, there was like, I'm after, it waslike three hours orwhatever from the time schooland until they got home.No, I mean, cause they didn't haveacademic, they have todo homework and stuff too.I mean, cause it's different now.There's actually, I don't remember as muchhomework, but now theyhave so much of that.I know like when I was in high school, wewould go right afterschool, go to like footballpractice, but be done tomake the bus at like four 30.It was like the after schoolbus would take everybody home.So it was boxed in, but our youngest nowplays lacrosse andfield space is such an issuethat he comes home.He's home for a few hours.Then we're driving them somewhere forpractice or practice.Yeah.So now it isn't as easy.I don't think.But I do know he's had teammates, olderteammates that a gamewould end or a practice wouldend and they'd be driving to their job andthen they'd be working to like 10, 10 30.And I'm thinking, when are these kidsgetting their homeworkdone, studying sleep?So I think they'reburning the candle at both ends.If they're an athlete and trying to work.Yeah.Yeah.And a lot of them have to work, you know,because everybody, everybody's broke.Yeah.Parents are broke.You know, like everybody's broke prettymuch what you'redescribing though, is you grewup fast.You are that Gen X or who grew up fast andwere, you know, you see the memes.I was 30 when I was 10or, you know, kind of thing.Yeah.You actually had aheavy responsibility load.Really?We definitely were typical latch key, youknow, we came home and this is funny too.My mom will get mad at me for saying this,but I'm still going tosay it because we argueabout it.We love you, mom.We would come home from school and we wouldhide the key in one of the slots.You know how the logs have slots.Yeah.I'm the key in the slot and we would behome after school and mymom insists that it wasfine because our neighbor who we calledonto you event was like watching us.I was like, I never freaking saw that ladymom anywhere near us.And I think it's in her mind, she's justlike, because she lived in the house, like,yeah, yeah.We lived on property.So it wasn't like next door was like twofeet away where she waslike looking in our windowor something like that.But can we talk about like the strugglemeals we would makeafter school because I did.So on top of, you know how the kids call itan ingredient house now, like you live inan ingredient houseversus, you know, snack house.We were definitely an ingredient house.Like we, I was constantly like looking incookbooks, like tryingto put something together.And I did set my kitchen onfire by making donuts after school.Donuts like here I am with the grease.Yeah.Here I am.The firefighters kid.I have this big grease fire going right.And I completely forgot everything.Yeah.Yeah.Everything your dad's taught you.What you're supposed to do, put a lid onit, you know, do whatever.So I threw, I was likebaking soda puts out fire.So I threw baking soda atit and just made it bigger.And then I took the wholeflaming pan and I put it in the sink.And you know how back then we would havethose mats and thebottom of the sink melted thatset the curtains on fire.I was hosing the curtains and then like,you know, with the sink hose.And then I just went outside and crieduntil my parents came home.But it sat on the porch and cried.Yeah.And it's a cabin.Did some of the logs also catch on fire?Were you able to go?Yeah.That's crazy.That is crazy.No, but that's definitely a good Gen X liketrying to handle things.You survive as boomerswould say, but did you die?You're fine.Yeah.I live to tell the story.But my other my other favorite likestruggle snack that Iwould make and I would eat thistoday.I would take Ritz crackers and I would Iwould put a little dollopof ketchup, a little dollopof mustard in a slice of pickle and alittle square of cheese.And I would bake them in the oven.I would make like sounds good, like littlelittle fake burgerslike with no with no burgeron it.That actually sounds good in a weird way.It sounds really good.I'm drunk.Yeah.I'm drunk.I don't drink a lot anymore.But next time I'm drunk.Pickle is what I said, I think.I sent you a picture.I'm going to send you a picture.I said that actually is you know, it'd begood if you actually did make a little likemeat patties like maybe I could make themfor like a party party appetizers.It sounds more like astoner meal than a drunk.You need to make a TikTok on that.Yeah.What I eat in a day.Yeah.As a latchkey kid like that.That actually would be really fun.I would be firing thebackground for a choice.All of us Gen Xers, we should start puttingwhat we ate in a day as latch cures and putour weird things and I think that'ssomething I think that's something.I think that's a really good idea because Iwould in high school I would get a dollarlike to bring the school for lunch.And it was in my school.We had a soda machine, butwe weren't allowed caffeine.So all that was in it waslike Minute Maid orange soda.I don't know if you guysremember Minute Maid orange soda.And so I would get for 50 cents a MinuteMaid orange soda andthen I would get a Susie Q.Do you guys know what Susie Q's are?Yeah, with the frosting inside.Yes.Yeah.That's what I would eat.That's what I would have for lunch.And then I would go home from school and ifI wasn't you know making some concoction,I would eat like I could eat like an entirebox of honey bunches of oats.Oh yeah.That was I would eat it till my jaw locked.Oh yeah.Oh yeah.Oh for sure.Oh the cereal.Oh.So much cereal.Even though the sugar cereals back thenwere like really bad oryou'd put more sugar ontop.Yeah.Would you do for walking charms andseparate the marshmallows out?Do you ever do that?That was for rich people.Like looking at charms and that was thatwas like for special treats for sleepovers.Like we would get lifecereal or honey bunches of oats.Yeah.Or or grape nuts.I loved grape nuts.Yeah.And then hot heated in the microwave.Oh I never did that.Oh my god it was arecipe on the back of the box.Remember?Because we would just sit there.We had nothing to do butwe ate the back of the box.And so on the back of the grape nuts box itwas this you would heat them with milkand butter and and brown sugar.Oh my gosh that sounds amazing.It's almost like cream of wheat vibe butwith grape nuts kind of.I love cream of wheat.Oh I love cream of wheat.It was so and there's another thing too.Almost almost like a grits kind of concept.Yeah.Your parents are divorced but they decideto unite to say we're not going to help youwith college basically.Yeah that's right.We're back here.And so and so what happened in a becausethis was this was like three weeks beforeI was due to leave to move into college andlike when all or maybe like a month.And so I had a boyfriend at the time.So in a fit of rage I moved all my stuffout of my mom's house andmoved into my boyfriend.His parents let me stay with them and theysigned my student loan paperwork.Yeah.And so but I only like I said I only lastedat Hofstra for a yearbecause I first of allit was a mind fuck for me to have the thefree ride for theater.They gave it to one boy and one girl.And here I was just like this kid fromBarerville Rhode Islandand then I show up at Hofstrawhich you know in New Jersey like thesekids had been onBroadway like other kids in myclass like they had like headshots and theyhad been in commercials and all this stuff.And I was like what isthis why I do not belong here.Like you know I made yourimposter syndrome so bad.And then also I was so stressed out aboutmoney like there is and I do think that isa very Gen X thing.You know you know that one song it's beenmaking the rounds again that one it's likeshe calls her mom and she's like I'm hungryI'm dirty you know but everything's fine.I don't it's like an old like like kind ofpunk song from the from the 90s I guess.No but now that you said it I'm going tostart seeing it on TikTok I bet.Yeah but I don't know Iknow it's not coming to me yet.So I think I think for me and I don't knowabout you guys you're still together whichis good.But I think I was so scared all the timelike because I was out ofthe house I had no fallbackfamily like money you know like and I thinkthat our kids andmaybe millennials too justcannot understand like the sheer terrorthat we were alwaysliving in like where it waslike I couldn't call my parents for moneyyou know like there that wasn't happeningand I always wonder if it was like myfamily that was like thatyou know or if it's kindof like a universal experience but it wasdefinitely like once you're out you're outyou know like there was like my mom wasalways like I don't havea revolving door so byeand that really I'm a very literal personso that like sunk in with me so once I wasout before I went to college I was notcoming back and then I wasjust like raw dog in lifeyou know like I could have put togetherlike money to you knowand and thankfully whenI left Hofstra I did move back with myboyfriend's family for likeanother six or seven monthsbefore I I I was working I dropped out ofcollege so I was working andI and then I was working asa waitress and got an apartment I had aroommate you know so beforeyou went to Hofstra did youum have like did you live in the dorms didyou have a roommate um soat Hofstra I they um theyhad dorms but they were suites so um I Ithe other weird thing and Ithink that I don't know that itwas just not meant to be my roommate didn'tshow up like whoever wasscheduled to be my roommateso I had the room to myself and then I haduh suite mates whoshared a room and then anothera senior was in there and then so we hadthese little suites and weall shared a bathroom it wasactually like a super nice setup yeahthat's nice like Nathan's place at FSU sothere's two roommatestwo roommates and you had a common likebathroom area yeah okay didyou become friends with themum I I did uh a little bit but I would itwas I always was sad thatI didn't because college isso scary you know like you're just likehere I am from a tiny townyou know and whatever and thenall of a sudden not only am I at collegebut I'm in the city you knowbecause where Hofstra is and umI was just terrified I was terrified allthe time I mean it had tohave been such a culture shockoh it was so bad it's like almost likegoing to another country andI'm way just totally differentculture going on because not only are youleaving and going tocollege for the first time like asyou said is scary for just any normal kidfrom where you're comingfrom and you weren't justfrom a small town you're from a small townand you live in the woods ina log cabin you know what Imean it's just it there's levels to it thatyou take that young womanand then you stick her inHofstra and you're so great you get ascholarship and you know andeverything's wonderful go enjoyyour beautiful college life and you're kindof like I have no skillson how to do this no andlike I hadn't even met a Jewish personbefore I show up at Hofstraand Hofstra is like half Jewishpeople right so like they have all theseholidays and all this stuffI'm like what's even happeningno idea yeah I grew up like extremelyCatholic too so there there wasthat and I oh my god I was justscared yeah you were you were just treadingwater it sounds like and Imean were you able to at leastwas it a positive outlet for your passionfor theater did youhave positive experienceswhen it came to your major um no I thinkbecause it was always justlike my imagination you knowlike it was just my imagination of what Ithought being on a stage islike being you know in um ina movie or whatever like I just lived in mymind you know out in thewoods and um and I didn't umI didn't like a lot of the classes in theend you know where it wasall these like things that Ithought were very dorky like these dorkylike you do a lot ofdorky things when it comes toacting classes and I was just likeuncomfortable all the time I'mall like I'm like why are we likegroaning you know and crawling around onthe floor and marrying peoplelike I I literally I was likethis is embarrassing whatever we're doingis embarrassing was therea lot of like improv andstuff like that so no I I have done improvnow though so after I gotdivorced in my 30s I joinedan improv troop and I loved loved that thatthat was probably myfavorite thing I've ever doneever um and they didn't have that at allyour freshman it waslater for a year or so maybeyeah yeah yeah probably not of introclasses yeah yeahstuff yeah real real dorkyhow did your parents react when you saidI'm not going to continueon for another year were theyokay with it we weren't really talkingbecause oh so you kind ofwent no contact after thatfor a little a little bit like so I I didgo no contact my mom didend up being the one to dropme off at school but our relationship wasextremely strained and I Ihardly had talked to my dadanyway you know so um it wasn't like anykind of purposeful nocontact it was just you knowyeah not talking yeah and and then it didend up though um again thiskind of goes back to us notknowing stuff like I was screwed for a verylong time I did notgraduate college until I was 28years old because you you can't you can'tget student loanswithout your parents like evenuntil you're like I think even now untilyou're like 26 years oldyeah so I would have had tobecome like legally emancipated like allthis stuff so I had to likepay as I went until I could youknow get my own loans at 26 so you leaveHofstra you move back inwith your boyfriend's parentsyou get a job waitressing and um and thenhow long until youstarted um taking classes againover that time um I went to Rhode IslandCollege um for acouple of semesters and thenby then I had broken up with that boyfriendand I had a new boyfriendand um he had a master's andhe wanted to move out west he had friendswho lived in New Mexicoso we left Rhode Island andmoved to New Mexico when I was over youthen uh 20 okay so that'san adventure yeah so we weI did not last in New Mexico so we uh onour way there because wedrove cross-country and sothat's cool we stopped in Denver he had afriend in Denver and westayed with him for a while andthen we went down to New Mexico and we wereonly there for like two orthree months because I waslike I we're in Santa Fe New Mexico whichis very beautiful butextremely expensive like even backin the 90s um they don't have apartmentbuildings there because it'sall about the aesthetic and soyou had to rent like a little adobe houseand um renting a house butit was like fifteen hundreddollars it was something crazy wow so umand it was just a little toagain fish out of water typeof situation so I was like let's go back upto Denver and we we movedto Denver and I was therefor five years oh with your boyfriend no soI I broke up with himbecause I uh I worked with myex-husband and I I developed a massivecrush on him like anundeniable crush and I was likeI've I've got a breakup with this boyfriendso what were you doingin Denver where were youworking I was selling furniture so I wasand this is even crazier umI was 20 years old sellingfurniture I was the top salesperson oftenat the at the furniturestore and I was in 1994I was making like 45 thousand dollars ayear because and whichwas I I was like I am richyeah you're you're like 20 21 20s that'sgood money yeah exceptit was also very stressfulum because it was straight commission so ifyou didn't sell anythingyou didn't make any moneyand so um prior to getting on the podcastwith you guys I was justthinking about like being Gen Xin general and like I don't think I've everjust breathed my entirelife you know even now at 51I still feel like especially with thewhat's going on in theeconomy and all this stuff I'm likeI will breathe when I'm dead like therehasn't been a second whereI'm like okay looks like we'redoing okay folks you know like yeah no GenX Gen Xers have beengrinding their entire childhoodyeah teenage years 20s 30s 40s especiallyGen X women women havegrinded through perimenopausein their 40s and didn't even know they werein perimenopause so theywere having all these symptomsand being treated for all these symptomsthat really rooted toperimenopause if somebody wouldhave figured that out that would have beennice and then now we're inour 50s and looking aroundand realizing I have not stopped to evenlook around and how insanethat is and now I'm halfwaybecause I always say I hope to live to be100 I'm viewing it halfwayhalfway um but I'm halfway andit's I feel like this is the first timewhere I've actually taken abreath and looked around and Ithink a lot of Gen Xers not just women Ithink a lot of Gen Xers feelthat way because we've justbeen because that's how we were raised justgrind through you just gothrough you just go throughit do you mean that like literally or canyou can you unplug and kindof decompress on a weekendor if you take time off or anything likethat or you literally stilljust kind of going and goingand going I I just mean about breathing ingeneral you know like Ilike I was saying likebeing 18 and out of the house and likehaving to survive on my own Ido think that's why I marriedmy husband like really young you know andum because I was just likeplease like I need somebodyby my side you know yeah I don't want to dothis by myself and then umand then you know we weretogether 11 years and then we got divorcedand then I'm a singlemom you know and then I youknow and I'm the career my career beingwhat it is is very volatileand um yeah so even like Ihear what you're saying like do I haverelax on the weekend showlike sure but I just mean like ingeneral yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeahand I think it's it's uhvery common for all of ustoo and I think it's also one of thereasons so many of us havedrank like you know I had a goodperiod of my life I was a functioningalcoholic meaning I wouldhave at least two glasses of wineand night easily without even thinkingabout it Friday and Saturdaywe would party throw I thinka lot of us dealt with that to come downfrom the you know thetension I guess I guess I've justlearned that I'm a functioning alcoholicyeah I definitely am havinga couple of glasses of winelike uh like because I always joke I'm likeI do not need to staythis aware like what am Ifighting Jason Bourne you know like I donot need to be this awareat all times like I do it allokay but then you know it also has helpedus it's just been a justthe cherry on top the giftis social media because in 24 seven newsnetwork because at leastgrowing up we didn't have thatbut then they handed that to Gen X and nowwe're really plugged inand now we're really worriedabout everything because then it's like nowwe're super aware ofit so I think that justinject like for us we have to make aneffort to um plug or elsewe'll go crazy we'll learnbe in our mind I'll just be you knowwithout so but I thinkthat has not helped us at allwith that no no definitely not and I am toomuch I think it's I go backand forth you know I'm likeI should stop paying attention you knowlike stop stop payingattention but also I just feellike the minute I do you know like all moreshit is gonna keephappening you know I know it's theweird thing of note of trying to it's thebalance of wanting to beaware and and do good where youcan but also understanding so much is notin your control and howmuch of your mental health areyou willing to sacrifice right for that andit's that constantbalance and struggle and I thinkand I don't know if that's genetics or ifthat's just every I'm notsure but I feel like Gen Xbecause Gen X as much as we're like wedon't care we drink fromthe garden hose but we do whathappened in our lifetime we're veryempathetic and we're very wewill mind our business but ifyou need our help we're the first ones tostep up we're not nosy butwe'll be there for you sowe do care but we also have have we kind ofalso can stand back andjust kind of let things happenbecause we're it's a weird thing reallywith our our personalities Ithink I don't know we've gonethrough so much like I always think it'svery funny when themillennials are like we went throughthe recession at 9 11 I'm like where we arealive like we were here tooyeah but add to that I don'tknow AIDS add in you know like thinkingthat Russia was gonna blowus up our entire lives likeadd in acid rain do you remember acid raineverybody forgot about that and the wholeof nose only are like yes I just find it sofunny that there I was like yeah I rememberbecause I was here as well taking care ofyour houses yeah yeah wewere younger we were stillpaying it and figuring it out the spaceshuttle and then do you didyou guys ever go through umlike I remember laying in the back of mymom's pacer in a gas line andthere was no air conditioningjust sweating because the gas lines andlike the late wasn't thatthe late 70s they had the redflags or the green flag at the gas stationyour town so you guys arejust a little bit older thanme okay and that that window being born in71 and versus 74 likeokay that's distinctlythat would matter without seat beltslooking out you might havebeen in like a car carrierapparently apparently the first car seat sowhen my mom did bring mehome from the hospital it wasshe was holding me yeah but then but then Idid get a car seat butapparently car seats were justkind of like um almost like folding chairsyou know that you haveoutside like the first car seatsand she she was she tells me that she waslike waiting at at um topick something up or somethingand she's like sitting in the front seatand she could see me in therearview mirror and then shelooked up again and she couldn't see meagain and she's like whereare you and she looks back andI'm walking across the back seat with thecar seats trapped in my backget myself free that's amazingGen X that is so Gen X I'm oh my gosh thatis so fun yeah that soundsabout right sounds about rightokay so you meet your husband he wasselling furniture too thenright yes okay so how longfrom the time you guys started dating tillwhen you got married um Imet him when I was 20 but Iwas still dating the other guy and so Ibroke up with him I want tosay maybe we got married whenI was 25 so okay yeah so we knew each otherfor quite a while beforegetting married couple yearswasn't like my parents you know yeah likesix months now was hefrom Denver no he was fromMichigan oh that's right and said that okayso he just happened to be living in Denverhe moved because his friend Bill moved outthere and they had he hadvisited to go snowboardingand we all snowboarded back then that waslike yeah because I waslike a real cool girl you knowand so I could talk for hours about mebeing such a freaking pickme because I was the world'sbiggest pick me and um and so he moved outthere because he he wantedto do something but he alwayslike wanted to move back to Michiganbecause he was one of eightkids like his parents were like abig Catholic family and so he wanted tomove back to Michigan we'rein Michigan um he grew up inTroy Michigan which is like um just outsideof Detroit we ended upliving in a tiny town calledMilford Michigan because oh it's funnybecause if you think about mytrajectory like growing up onthe east coast right beautiful new Englandthen I moved to New Mexicofor a little bit beautifulmoved to Colorado gorgeous and then we goto Michigan and we driveto go to Michigan and weend up at his parents house at night andthen the next day drivingaround Troy I just sobbed I waslike this is the ugliest fucking place I'veever seen it once I was sosad it was nothing but stripmalls and it was all flat and never I hadnever seen anything likeit and so um at the time hehad so he had moved with the furniturecompany the furniturecompany actually forced me to quitthey they were like you guys can't bedating and we never had a rule againstdating he didn't evenwork in the same store as me he worked in adifferent location andum but they forced me toquit so he moved with the furniture storethat had made a locationin Flint and I worked in anarbor and it just so happened that we weliterally looked at an actual map andpicked a town that wasright in between the two and that's where Iended up raising my kids and how'd you likewhat in arbor um so I love Ann Arbor my myoldest went to theUniversity of Michigan so um yeah Ilove it there I was just why did they makeyou quit not him I took onefor the team because by thenyou know because I'm the girl I don't knowand also by then he he waslike an assistant managerokay yeah and the other little guy but hewas a little bit higher upyeah okay so did you guysget married in Denver or Michigan inMichigan and did you getengaged in Denver though like whenyou moved you knew you were going to getmarried so it was acontroversial topic at the time becauseI did not want to move unless we wereengaged and he didn't wantto get engaged until I movedthere and decided I liked it because hedidn't want me to likehightail it out of there and soI ended up being like okay you know I'll dothat and so we got engaged in in Michiganand then um and you lived in Milford didyou keep and then yousaid once you had your firstdaughter you started to stay home uh yeah Istarted so I had had asemi-traumatic miscarriagelike around 15 16 weeks like I had alreadyseen the heartbeat youknow all that it was it waskind of traumatic and um so and I had avery stressful job at thetime and when I got pregnantagain um I I quit like relatively earlyinto the pregnancy becauseI was like I don't want toyeah have a stressful job and so um Istarted staying homebefore Aspen was even bornand you still selling furniture in AnnArbor is that what you weredoing no no I was working umI was working for a place called MobileDentist which I know doesnot sound stressful at allbut we um we really stressful we would umgo to all the schoolslike throughout the state andwe would take care of all the kids who likehad Medicare or Medicaidand um and couldn't liketheir parents you know very like uh youknow kids who needed assistance and wewould do like all theteeth cleanings and all of that at theschools but Michigan's a big place sooftentimes like I wouldmy call time would be like 3 45 in themorning to like go drive toyou know Paul Paul Michigan orsomething crazy yeah and see kids all dayand then you know do itagain the next day that isa stressful job so I I understand why youyou quit yeah yeah it waslike a crazy and stressful officetoo like the culture was terrible yeah howlong between um yourmiscarriage and your daughter beingborn um so I uh I want to say a year maybeyeah it was kind of crazybecause I um I got pregnantthe weekend of 9 11 um because uh becauseuh we were supposed to go toGreece for our um anniversaryand 9 11 happened we were supposed to go toGreece on 9 12 and 9 11happened oh wow and I felt soguilty because I cried a lot about notbeing able to go to Greece andthat's very selfish of me butI um so instead we took like a little uhroad trip to Chicago and umdo you remember that peopleback then were like standing on the side ofthe highway with like withcandles and like flags andall that and so we we drove through a lotof random people doingthat and then I ended upgetting pregnant that weekend and had themiscarriage like in at theend of November beginning ofDecember and um but then I want to say Iwas pregnant for Aspen inthe spring by by that yearand then your second daughter was 16 monthsafter so you were pregnantpregnant pregnant yeah yeahAspen was six months old when I gotpregnant for Viv yeah so and you'd had thistraumatic miscarriageand then you're pregnant again and thenpregnant again and it haveand living somewhere with nofamily and I had bad postpartum too like II remember that was thefirst time I ever wentto therapy because I I remember after Viv Igot really scared of theknives in the house like II was I was like I don't want to touch theknives because the thebabies were so small that I couldhurt them like I was just like I was scaredof my own hands like Iremember feeling that way umbecause we had a big uh brick fireplace andI remember this waswith Aspen actually cominghome with Aspen and I was like I could justhug this baby like it wastoo much you know it wasjust like overwhelming and I I had to gooutside and like take walksaround the house because I waslike like my hands are scary is that howyou would describe postpartumto people is that you're justfilled with intrusive thoughts I guess Ihadn't thought about itlike that but yeah that rightbecause that that makes sense because thatis just an intrusive like I'mobviously not going to throwthe baby right and that's what thetherapist had told me at the time he hesaid the difference uhlike you're not evil or anything like thatthe difference is is thatlike some people like theevil people are the ones who do it like youjust like are thinkingit we're just having thoseintrusive thoughts and it I don't know ifyour therapist was theytold you this or if I don'tknow if you know this is is it related tothe hormone fluctuationsI have to be because I Iremember having that after I had themiscarriage right becausethis is what also like drives mecrazy about like uh and this is a tangent Iguess but like people whoare like um anti-abortion andall of that stuff to like the when theyalways have this like talktrack that like women arejust like having abortions rather than likeyou know um using birthcontrol it's like your bodyis instantly ruined like the the second youget pregnant you are ina whole new chemical soupand and like I felt pregnant still after mymiscarriage for months like for it like foryour your body to clear that out likeyou're it's an incrediblething like people don't talk aboutthat portion enough you know where you're apregnancy is a wholenew chemical experiencethat doesn't just like flush out the minuteyou know it's so funnythat you say that I had neverthought about that because I did have anabortion at 22 and um and Iwas six weeks so I got it earlybut no one talked about any of that but Iknow in my I can rememberfor months after that I was sofucked up in the head I thought more fuckedup than my normal fuckedupness and I know I you justyou just cleared that up for me that's whatwas going on as my bodywas the hormones everythingwas fluctuating and trying to get back tonormal because I'm no longerpregnant but um but my bodydoesn't know that like it's still trying tofigure that out and I'm 22and I'm still in college andI'm losing my mind and that's that's whatit was yeah yeah it's likeyou're like how you lose yourmind before your period anyway yeahwhatever and I had that horribleI've had a hysterectomy in 2020but up until then even I had horrible pmsoh my god horrible me too Ihad such bad periods I hadI had a hysterectomy um in 20 what year isit 25 I had in 24 and umand oh my god my whole lifelike was just like it's so crazy and I knowuh I know he finds allthis actually very interestingsomeone framed the miscarriage and yourbody's still pregnant theway you just summed it upwhich makes perfect sense and I guaranteeno one's thinking about ityeah and I'm a guy so it doesn'timpact me nearly as much but for you aswomen in our daughters itdoes impact the men who are withthose women it's as a personal level thatit's it's wild to thinkof it the way you framed itbecause I think you're spot on and I don'tknow if anyone's talkingabout it maybe if you go to youryour doctor no that I don't know it's likethe doctors are even worsesomehow like yeah they'lltell you to shake it off yeah like the I Ihave a lot of friends whoare like oh I'll only go to afemale gynecologist or whatever and I justended up going to menbecause I found the the women to beworse because they have like I feel likethey have internalizedmisogyny from having to likefight their way through the medical systemyou know it even gets takenseriously as women doctorsthat they're they're worse in a lot of waysyeah that's a good pointno I've definitely I've comeacross somewhere um in fact I didn't havemy OB do my hysterectomy Iwent to a different OB whowas a man because I didn't feel like I wasbeing totally hurt and Ido love her but um at thatmoment I wasn't being hurt and so I neededa second opinion andone of my um another womanI know who just had one said oh I went tothis doctor and I love himgo see him and I did lovehim and it was and he was very empatheticyeah different way yepso um I don't know I had afemale gynecologist when I had mymiscarriage and um oh it wasso wild it was so wild that II went to the appointment um without my uhex at the time and itwas just like because I washaving some issues like I was bleeding onand off and all that stuffand but we had already seen theheartbeat and all that so we're like okayit's cool and then I wentto this appointment no moreheartbeat and I'm like by myself with thiswoman and then she's likewell you can go home and letit happen naturally or I can like get youin to for a dnc tomorrow Iwas like let it like I wasjust gonna go home and what just like bleedout slowly you knowpretty much weeks and I was sodevastated I was like you have to take itout immediately you knowand then um so I had thednc and all that stuff and it was just likesuch a traumatic time andum and then months later Iwent in for like a normal checkup and sheum you know how they findabnormal cells like on yourcervix sometime or whatever and she wantedto do um some kind of biopsycalled the loop you know andI this is early days of the internet and soI was like well I want toget pregnant what does thisdo to me you know and it was like well thatcan compromise yourcervix and you know maybe youwould have another miscarriage because thecervix isn't you know solidor whatever and um I was likethat bitch like that bitch because I wantto be pregnant and how dareshe want to just chop me upyou know and so um I found anothergynecologist a guy and um for a secondopinion he's like yeahyou don't need that and then this guy hehad um his dad had beena gynecologist and theyhe had taught him to keep all of his toolsheated like he had aheating pad inside the drawer soall of his stuff was all heated and he likeshowed me on the tvlike what the cervix lookslike and all this stuff and um it was justa great experience mygod I mean how low is thebar that when you said he kept his toolsheated I almost wanted tostart crying like what a gesturehe just how do you know what they put in ohno I get it I made theinstant connection I was likethat's pretty good no but I mean what agesture and and that andthat's the bare minimum if youthink about it come on but these womendoctors aren't doing thislike this I know I don'tunderstand like I don't know anybody likeno no no no no no well andthink about it there's so manythings that we have to go through wherethey don't give us any painmed oh you could have it likewhat like if they do a biopsy or if theyneed to do um because I didhave that I had that they dida biopsy and that is painful or if theyhave to um just differentI would just have somethingbecause I have a little bit of prolapsegoing on so I'm having tohave them look at that and umwhen I was there for that appointment she'slike we're just gonna checkyour bladder and I'm thinkingoh and I just was there just to talk to herand we're just gonna putthis thing up through throughinside and and through your urethra orwhatever right that's whatit is and um or is that guysno we have a urethra right yeah yeah allthe news it's just gonna belike women don't have thatit's worth if they have to be in the jungleand it's like we're justgonna put up your urethraand they did and I'm like and and now I'molder I'm like wait are youdoing anything for pain shegoes well we can put some laticain I'm likeyeah whatever you havewell 20 years ago I would havebeen like I'm like whatever you can doright do it but even thatthere was no real pain and I hadand I love it it's always take a deepbreath deep breath just relaxjust a little pin yeah just alittle pinch yeah so many things that arejust a little pinched but Iknow that if men had to do itthey'd get pain medicine it drives me crazyit just you know it makesme think it's good to beagain he always says I guess good to begood to be a guy becausethis is what you guys go throughwhat you women go through is crazy no wellyeah did you hear aboutthere is a whole podcast aboutit this um woman nurse who was stealing thefentanyl um that shewas yeah she was supposedto be giving it was at a fertility clinicand she was supposed to begiving it to the patients andinstead they were just doing bags of salineand so all these women arecomplaining about all thispain and they're like shut the fuck up youknow like this doesn'thurt and because nobody getsbelieved you know and yeah I'm saying Ididn't know that ever Iknow a nurse stealing fentanylI didn't like read into it on the side typeor you see it no she wasselling it she's selling ityeah asshole no no kidding my god talkabout internal massage Imean that's like internalmassage to it as well yeah absolutelyabsolutely right right soyou're home you've got your twobabies yes um and you're you're you'regoing through thepostpartum thing um when did thatwhen did you start to feel okay I'm okay acouple years okay andmainly it was the lack of sleep Inever slept because I also believed um webelieved so many things youknow like gen x was just notthat advanced uh the way everybody is todayand um like I was of theattitude well my husband'sworking and I'm at home so he should neverget up at night and henever did hello me too I neverslept I fell asleep driving twice like withthe babies in the car andit was my youngest Vivianshe um she did not sleep because this isthis is a whole other thingyou know how uh it was allback to sleep for us you know and but whenwe were little because wedidn't want sids right we don'twant our babies to die but when we wereyoung it was just likehowever you sleep sleep on yourstomach you know whatever and our parentswere like if they live theylive or whatever so here'shere's Viv who um was a thumb sucker in thewomb but then we're doingback to sleep and so therethey're noodles right so she couldn't gether thumb anymore becausewe're also like swaddlingher because that worked for her sister yeahso she cried for thefirst five months of herher life like did not sleep and not take abinky that was also mebeing type a and I'm like I'mnot giving these I'm breastfeeding I'm notgiving them passies youknow like all of this stuffbecause I'm like I'm fucking doing it youknow that's what goodwomen do right that's what andyou know it was all this competition too oflike there's a good onethere's a better because gen xwomen in general were raised to competeagainst each other witheverything like not the gen thegen z girls are really supportive andgirlhood and you go girl weweren't like that we were likeI'm competing with that woman for a man I'mcompeting that withthat woman for how good ofa mom I am compared to her it was sodifferent I never thoughtabout it that way but you're rightlike the like my level of like pick me ismyou know because it wasa competition everythingyou're everything and we should do it alland we better do it all welland whoever did the best isthe winner of what yeah exhaustion burnouthonestly kids firstmemory is you crying you knowway but to the outsideworld you looked great yeahI think the illusion the illusion you'rerocking the illusion no no Ihe also worked and I was homepart of it my chaotic childhood I just wentinto that 1950s life andall because it was the exactopposite of anything close that I ever hadand I just needed I neededthe stability I needed tomake the cookies and all that stuff but Idid I was young 23 and umso I did really I was like Ishouldn't wake him up he's so I and I thinkthat's very common withgen x women we just were likethey're traditional like they're doing evenif they were working evenif the woman was workingshe still would take it all on because noone ever talked to usabout you don't have to do thathe should be doing half especially ifyou're both working heshould be doing half of whatyou're doing in the home that has changedthough I work with two guyswho've had younger kids andthey'll tell me how they're sharing thatload at night they'remillennials they're millennials yeahI will itself admit I didn't get up no noyeah yeah he's so I hadto get up and do the worktype of thing you did and I was home sorational I'm not the thing to get downI was exhausted and I was burned out andall the things I was goingthrough you know I didn't knowI will say I did not have postpartum so Ican't speak to it um thatwas the one thing I didn't getbut I got all the other stuff yeah me tooyeah so but I do thinkit's awesome whenever I hearabout millennials that I think they've beenhuge in the culturalshift of all that well even mybrother so he's gen x right yeah so I'm 51and he's actually about tobe 49 I lied he is 48 andbut but my nieces are 10 and 6 so okay hehad kids like way later you know and umthe way that they worked it was that whenthe baby would cry andneed to be fed in the nighthe would go get the baby bring it he wouldchange the baby's diaperbring you know the baby to hiswife to be fed and you know they were bothworking at the time butlike that that alreadybig huge shift you know um partnership yeahbut we were the first Iwas just talking about thisthe other day we were the first to be likeoh we're pregnant like wedid that to ourselves yeahyeah we gave away all of our credit likewe're just like we're rightat that yes I totally didn'tthink about that about that that's so trueyeah what to expect whenyou're expecting bullshitmaybe I know I liked that book that bookhelped me a lot but yeahuse the word we you are notremember gather pregnant yeah maybe yeahyeah maybe maybe I neverthought about we should haveheld on to that no because that we did awhole we did a wholedisappearing act because we we saidwe are pregnant right so we exist less aswomen but also at work wewere just like because we'rewe're all working now and we're like oh I'mjust like a man who's justfatter temporarily you knowthat's it like that's kind of how we actedabout it you know yeahyeah I'll go pump in a broomcloset like I don't this didn't exist likethis didn't happen yeahum and that and we we wereforced essentially it like were we forcedor did we like not force itlike we are always too scaredof like not we couldn't get fired but wecould always not be takenseriously anymore you knowlike all like we have to act like none ofthis is happening yeah wealready do it like with ourperiods and whatever yeah like I had somany dramatic periodmoments on the job yeah workwhen I went back to work oh my god thefemale experiencecompletely was not honored in anyway for Jenna especially as Genex womenwere really like I guessour our moms were the firstto really go into that workforce in the 80sso when we grew up itwas natural that we're allsupposed to work um it was odd to be homelike I will say when Istayed home that was odd um so bythen it was like you're saying we were justsupposed to act likemen in the workforce inorder to get promotions be respected beincluded you know and all butthen but then that our femaleexperience we had to shush and quiet downand just stand over go overthere you don't exist becauseif if I breathe if you come out at all it'sgoing to screw me here yeahyou know so but I think it'strue do you think it's changed at all fituh no actually and this mightbe a little bit controversialI did make a video about this but like Ihad been seeing a lot of umcontent and there was actuallysome law that they were trying to pass inthe UK to like get womendisability or whatever for menapplause you know like for like having youknow all the issues andI'm like oh my god stop likewe're we're not there you know that's theproblem with it likealready I'm at the age where it isoh what's coming for me now agediscrimination you know like nobody wantsto listen to some oldbitch you know and whatever and andtechnically for me and you andwhat uh like this is our peakearning years because it is the peakearning years for men but yet we have allall these women and itkind of makes me mad I know that doesn'tsound like that doesn't soundokay but it makes me upset tohear all these women just like talkingabout oh I have brain fog Ihave all this stuff I'm like don'tput this in men's head they're going tofucking fight with you totallythree such a no-win situationbecause oh bad we don't want women feelingcrazy that they're aloneand crazy they we want them tobe educated like these symptoms need to betreated get on someHRT if you're a candidateyou'll start to feel normal diet all thedifferent supplementsall the things so we wantthem to have the resource for theinformation so they don't feelisolated and alone but we don'twant it to be weaponized against us by menthat's it weaponized likeI've had lost the word that'sexactly it though imagine you're you're a51 year old woman and thenlike the CEO because I workwith all startups now the CEO of uh not mycurrent startup but couldbe CEO is a 37 year old guylike oh he's gonna he's gonna scrollthrough tick tock and learnabout me having you know brainfog and you know he's doing blame somethingmaybe on brain fog andit's not just worse you seethey're gonna fire you or not hire youbecause of your age becausenow you're a liability I agreewith you it's you got to be careful whatyou wish for and that'swhat you do though becauseit's a no-win situation it's the culturalworld in that sense well II pretend I'm just like ohI've had hysterectomy so I don't have anyproblems oh there you golike no like like I guess you'rehaving to show you feel well you have tohave damn know what I meanbecause I don't need to have anyexperiences at work I will just be a robotlisten depression yeah youcan come on at 6 p.m tonightthat's all right you have to hide yougranted I saw that I haven'teven thought about that yeahyeah that's oh that's just a that's a toughone that's that's alsoinclusive of of just ageismright as as all of us get older and it's achange you know that justhappens but you take the doublehit I don't think you guys I don't thinkyou guys deal withageism in nearly the same wayI think you do but like in different uhlike um fields you knowlike like let's say you're likeyou know you're more of a laborer orconstruction worker whateverthen yes like but then if you'relike in a white collar business like youcan work forever you knowlike you're you're looked at atdifferently but I think that I don't knowabout you guys but I haveforever in my life given up theidea of retirement but also it's alsobecause just because of how Iam like I would never want toretire poor and so like because to me I'mlike what's the point ofbeing home if all I can dois I don't know like putter in a gardenI've yeah hate gardening Ijust have to stay in my houseI would rather work and and the idea oflike having just adeclining balance yeah until deathlike freaks me the fuck out like and so Iwould rather work until I dieI think that's a gen x thingI see that all over gen xers don't plan onretiring and I think it's fornot just for monetary reasonsbut I do think we there's a weird thing andif we keep working wewon't die or if we keepkeep doing these things we'll keep livingand thrive like keep init keep plugged in keep insociety I don't think we want to go sit inthe chair and watch TV andwait to die or sit on theporch in the rock they're like we were likeno what's next what arewe gonna do next you knowhead of us once they retired I don't knowyou know they didn't liveon forever and ever theydied oh yeah so I don't plan on retiring noI don't think that's a thingso then um how long you gotyou said you guys were married 11 yearsyeah so when you went backto work what did you do so Iwhen I went back to work I I really reallylucked out and this is likemy whole how I got lucky inmy whole career so I um uh I had alwaysbeen like a tinkerer and alike an inventor and so I umI ended up um because I did like marketingstuff prior to so I haddone like copy copywriting andand things like that and um I had this isuh sounds like a crazystory but um I had alwaysmade like inventions and when my dad andlike in his littleworkshop and stuff like that I wasalways coming up with ideas like that whenI was a little kid like thefirst thing I ever inventeduh we lived on a dirt road so I made umlike a drawing of likescreen windows for cars I waslike because I wanted to have the windowsopen because we didn'thave AC but like I didn't wantdirt and stuff to fly in the car and likelike filters for carsyeah yeah but I was like sixyears old when I made that and so I hadalways been making stuffand I at this point I had madethis prototype for um it sounds like crazystory so anyway um youknow how women would in the inthe like the late 90s early 2000s wereusing those big velcro rollers like Ipeople probably stilluse them you know that big velcro hairrollers you know I'm talkingabout like to put in your hairoh yeah yeah yeah and so I didn't use themobviously but I saw these women at the gymand like they're they would bring all theserollers with them and theirgym bag would just be full ofrollers and I was like there's a better wayto do that so I made um aprototype I went to Joannefabric and I bought this velcro and a hotglue gun and I madevelcro rollers that were justlike in squares and you could like rollthem up different sizes soyou could just put them in apacket you know what I'm saying yeah and soI had made thatprototype but then I am like uha nobody living in the you know in MilfordMichigan and I didn'tknow what you did nextyou know like I don't know how you getsomething made or do you geta patent nothing like that soit just so happened that there was acompany called Hometixwhich maybe you guys have heardyeah so that company is in Michigan andthey had an opening forlike a marketing positionand so when I went I was like I'm gonnabring this prototype withme that I made and I endedup getting a job as a product an assistantproduct person instead of like a marketingcopywriting type of job because I showed itto the guy who Iinterviewed with who was like thethe COO of the company who ended up beinglike my my the biggestmentor in my in my life and so Iworked my way up through that company asfar as I was gonna get likeI was only gonna get so farbut I have um I ended up with a bunch ofpatents with them like fora while there I was makingmost all the sound machines that exist youknow like the little likenoise machines they get forbabies yeah like that I I was making allthe almost all the onesthat were on the marketat the time you were inventing them thesound machines uh-huh likeI had um I had a few thatwere just straight up like my my productand I would work with theengineers to you know designthem and then go back and forth to China towork with the factoriesand all of this stuff and Ireally like looked into this job by likebringing them that prototype I had with theno no no but what's funny is somebody elsedid and this is this iswhat's interesting about theentire world like even now on TikTok nottoo long ago I got an adfor a product I inventedlike no because they'll just steal it likein China that's how itgoes like if you don't likeit's very hard to like protect things but Iwas like no way that's mything I like one of my oneof my first products that I made with thecompany but um so surrealI can't even that's such aunique life experience what you justdescribed yeah I think soI'll send you I'll text you thebecause I made a video about it it's oldlike it's from a while agonow yeah and um so anyway uhafter I left there um yeah I had so manyamazing experiences there like we thecompany had a privatejet you know I would I would fly uh toChina like all businessclass and we always stayedthis was before Trump was the Trump that weknow now but like he hadjust beautiful hotels and sowe would always stay at all the Trumphotels and I had I hadsuch a fancy life um and thisis working here what early 30s yep and soum Aspen and Viv uh werelike five and four I think maybewhen I started working there and so you'retraveling then well thisis what happened and soI didn't really start traveling until afteruh my ex and I gotdivorced and I tell everybodythe only reason why I have my career isbecause we had 50-50 custodyif I ever gotten divorced I would not havemy career because it was always likelike I had to come home like what you'resaying you know like even ifyou're working you're stillmom who is doing everything yeah and so Iwould schedule all of mywork travel on the days thatI didn't have the kids and um and that'sthat's how we were ableto build your career andparticipate in all aspects of it so howcome you guys gotdivorced um honestly it we justultimately were not compatible and um andlike it was all me it wasall me he was gonna sound sobad um I I don't think he actually liked melike I I honestly thinkit was more like um what dothey say in Sex in the City like when thetaxi light is on yeah andlike um my daughter uh shealways brings it up it's like the taxi cabtheory or something likethat but it's not that yeahlike when you're ready the next woman thatshows up is the one they'regonna marry and that was meand even when we were dating before we evenleft Denver I was like youdon't like me you know likeyou know like and I tried to break up withhim I was like I swear toomuch I'm too wild you knowlike all this stuff like you don't actuallylike me and he was like nono no he never fully acceptedyou like he was always kind of trying tochange you that's what howI felt right and so um andyeah so that's I was like yeah do you doyou think your professionalsuccess had anything to do withit definitely didn't help like me wantingto go back to work becauseI I was dying at like I wassaying about being a stay-at-home mom and Iwas like I'm I can't dothis and probably going fromdying to thriving though and somethingsounds like that yeah itreally you know um and people it wasit was very guilt-ridden at the timebecause people would belike well why did you even havekids which is a crazy assertion to make youknow nobody says that to aman um and and I rememberwhen I first started working there like theguys that I worked withthey were like because I'd bethere late you know because I was thrivingand like loving life andthey're like don't you haveto go home you know and I was like well myhusband's home you know what they yeah yeahyou know like don't you have to go homeyeah no no no exactlyexactly and so um yeah yeah so thenyou did you file were you the one that ohyeah yeah I was I was thethe one I was just like I can'tum yeah the I couldn't we had um there'sprobably more stuff that Idon't want to get into but wehad a lot of political disagreements umwhere he had over timebecome very very conservativeand and we went to therapy and I rememberthe one time thetherapist said you know like somecouples grow together like this and thenother couples grow likethis and I I was like thatthat's what's happened so then when you gotdivorced I assume you had to stay living inMilford right with the girls so um I I justgot an apartment likedown the street and I let himhave the house because I was like just youknow how it is well maybeyou don't know how it is butyou just like want it to end you know and Iwas just like whatever youhave the house and um andso I got an apartment down the street andum we always lived uh evenafter I bought um a houseand whatever we lived down the street fromeach other so the girlsdidn't have to change schoolsand everything was very smooth for them yesyeah and you guysco-parented really well togetheryeah I I mean in the end like we um he likehe does not like me umand it's not like and uh andbut it was we were always there for thekids and um he was actually he is anawesome dad and um hehe was probably better at a lot of thingsthan I was as a mom youknow when it came to like asthe kids got older um with me traveling allthe time for work andstuff he was always the one whowas like taking the kids to like theirsports and and all that stuffand he got super involved mymy youngest is actually like a third degreeblack belt in uh wowTaekwondo and um and he was likegot and she was like at one point when shewas 12 she was like theinternational champion tochampion in her belt class but that waslike travel that wastravel though you know yeah yeahflorida traveling to you know canada youknow all that type of stuffthat's so cool yeah and he andthe way we kind of split it though was thatI would stay home with myoldest you know and then hewould travel so it wasn't like this bigfamily expensive affair and um yeah I uhprobably you guys when you got divorced I Ithink one of the pros ifyou have if your ex-husbandI'm speaking as a woman is going to be agood father or is a goodfather one of the pros ofdivorce is they step up have to step up andare more involved withtheir children and it ends upbeing such a positive experience for theirchildren that relationship with their father because themother isn't there to fall back on so theyhave to do even more withthem and as a result theirrelationship is even better in some waysyou know because they I thinkso they they have so many ofthose little nuanced experiences togetherbecause there isn't themother there yeah if he's goingto be a good dad that doesn't always happenright you know no if hewas he was a great dad um andhe still is a great dad yeah that's greatso then you so you guys get divorced you have your ownplace that actually probably was prettycool right getting your ownapartment oh my god it wasokay yeah no it was umher own place in and our house that wouldbe perfect oh my god itwas honestly like I was justlike wow like it was very stressful youknow don't get me wrongbecause back then I was still like ayoung product person I was not making a lotof money you know whatever so it was very stressfulbut um but yeah definitely having my ownplace but then also it wasjust like coming back aliveand dating again was absolutely crazybecause I've been with my exsince I was 20 years old you knowI'm like 30 like yeah it was like 34 at thetime so and that would havebeen when apps were datingapps were like what were the dating appsthen so it wasn't apps yeah oh okay yeah so it wasyeah oh okay yeah so this all happened likevery quickly like itwasn't apps on the phone it wasmatch.com on the computer oh yeah yeah andthere were a few othersthat are now gone likemaybe it was called chemistry and thenthere was um e-harmony whichI did not do but it was beforeit was prior to tinder and like all ofthose so what was it likegoing back in the dating worldand having meeting men and all of that likedid I learn every singlelesson and this goes to likewhat we were talking about on on text butit was like um at first atfirst I was very much like ohI'm gonna find a love you know or whateveryou know because like Ihad just picked wrong for meyou know like we were ultimately notcompatible and I had pickedwrong and I blamed myself youknow you got married too young you know allthis stuff so the world ismy oyster like I I was I hadmet my ex so young that I didn't like Ididn't have bad ideas aboutmen you know in general likeI didn't I didn't have any kind of badtaste in my mouth I waslike oh it's gonna be a fuckingcarnival up here so I was like so excited.You're rubbing your hands together unlessit's because like if I if I love anythingon earth it's making outyou know give me some good oldfashion dry hump and like that's my houseand so anyway I could notwait to get back out there andI and I realized like things had changedyou know like when it cameto um sex when it came toexpectations when it came to like anythingand a lot of it for a longtime I was very much likeum we're just older you know like whenyou're with somebody fromyou guys know from very youngyou're kind of like this is how we do itthis is what we like we knoweach other whatever yeah wellthis was when I first came upon like theexpectation of hairlessness you knowbecause like yes you knowGen X we went into our marriages full bushyes it was just likecleaning up a bikini line you knowso you know like you know scare people outin public but like yeahif that was it and then allof a sudden it's like oh yeah take thisdown to the studs like that's crazy yeahtrue well like not only now to the legs andthe arms every we'rehairless cats basicallyyeah bazillion wax like what yeah I thefirst time I did that Iwas I'm pouring sweat the waxcan't even attach because I'm just likepouring sweat and then shelike rips it off and I'm likebleeding like oh my god I'm French we havelike big hair bowls youknow like so like we are hairypeople and I'm like never doing this againyou know like to put here Iremember I had to put likemy legs up like had my like I'm givingbirth like when you getbirth and you have to holdit was like I'm like okay you know you'rejust like Gen X you'relike whatever you say I'll doI'm a people pleaser but I yeah and thenand then people likestarted getting it lasered and allthat stuff oh I know too I never went thatfar because I'm thinkingout like now I think bushesare coming back I think they are yeah Ithink Gen X women wandering around withlike a calloused hoodohwe look like the Gen Z'sthat can't grow a full beardit's gray and she's out there likeyeah well we just we just well no but theyoung men they like youdidn't go through this and Idon't know if millennials brought it theymanscaped the Gen Z too yeahI have my I uh he'll kill meI won't say it because he's my interestingmother my mother you doingwell he's Gen X so they theydon't barely shower so he's like oh goahead now can you imagineshaving your balls like that isinsane but I think they do and I think theyhold their leg up too it'sso dangerous like it's likenothing but like it's like a finished paperyou want to havechildren you know don't do itit's permanent but an artery exactly no butokay so so you're in thedating scene you're a hairlesscat and then how's it going oh then andthen also there's like so Ipurposefully this is where Imade so many mistakes like I purposely waslike I want to datesomebody who's also been divorcedyou know same experience I want to datesomebody who also has kidssame experience right like I'mjust thinking about this completely wrongbecause I'm not dating awoman I'm dating a man you knowand and so and then I wanted somebody whodidn't want kids again youknow I didn't want to everhave more kids right and so um I'm just Iend up dating just anabsolute bushel of like busteddivorced men like men who like we inMichigan too yeah right like exactly likefor the record it's beautiful and I livedthere so oh like we wethey're everywhere I've got afamily in Troy a family mil for I have myfamily name of town I have afamily there but um I didn'tgrow up there I just would visit my dadwhen they got divorced when Iwas two I'd go spend like sixweeks because of summer and like everyother Christmas so I didn'tgrow up there but you knowa mission I know for a year after we weremarried so he went througha Michigan winter yeah likeit's like Canada cold um so he knows heworked in Michigan duringthat year so we are familiar withit right right so I'm dating and like allof these men like I didn'tlearn this until learning rightagain like I said I have a hard time notlike learning stuffuntil I experience it and allthese men had been divorced by their wiveslike because women arealways the ones who file fordivorce and why did they do that eitherbecause he cheated or he ateshit like that's like one ofthe two reasons like yeah because like awoman and I do I do thinkthis is hard like you knowin the online world and whatever women arenot just throwing outamazing men you know and theyjust aren't and so I learned the hard waythough you know likebecause you believe oh my ex wascrazy you know and I like on and on and onand um and then it likeboils down to just like thelike the sex world had gotten freakingweird and I was thinking aboutthis prior to our conversationand I'm just like for a while there I Ithink I just thought wewere just older and now likelike I said about being with somebody sinceyou're young and I was like oh this is whatolder people do you know so all of a suddenit's like do you mind if Iget graphic no oh no we'retalking about everything oh okay so likeall of a sudden you'regetting choked you're you knowexpected to do anal like the menu ofservices yeah like compared towhat we had when we were youngyou know which was basically like oh 69 waslike that was crazyand um and doggy and thenand being on top and then and then uhregular but that was ityeah it sounds more interestingand if she where she was going like yousaid 69 but that that was itright you know was like scaryand weird and not expect like that wasn'tsomething that was partof the natural repertoirethat was more fetish or like you would sayhe asked for he askedfor anal can you believe itbut then it's now like I think just that'sthey brought it in andmaybe it was around that timeit was brought in well and I do think it'sbecause um like we weretalking about just the um the pornyeah like I went from the Gen X life oflike what we knew aboutporn and I think you'veseen my video on it and basically like weknow you know like you uhwhen we were kids who saw pornthe pervs and the trench coats who went tothe triple x theater rightand that was when we werereally little and we were like those guysare so gross like we wetalked about it that way they'relosers who can't get girlfriends they don'thave wives they'redisgusting perverts and then as wegot older obviously we got VCRs you knowand and in the 80s too Iwas thinking about this likewe have naked ladies in movies yeah so likeyou were we were alwaysseeing boobs and bush you knowlike on and around and about to get killedby somebody yes andeverything and everything you wereseen was natural it wasn't all it wasn'tthis expectation of bigthings you know it was likereal boobs not I have nothing against fakeboobs at all but everythingwent so fake that and we'llprobably get the bet that I think young menexpect boobs to all looklike fake boobs yeah they don'tright I mean so but then the young men thegen x men when theywere watching those moviesat least it was all real so when they sawwhen they saw the real thingit wasn't like a jump scarewhich it might be for the young men butthey're like why aren'tthey all up here why are theyno why is one bigger than the other whyaren't they perfect yeah whycan I tie them behind her neckso we do it allyeah pretty much yeah so then you knowobviously we get VCRs rightyeah you still had to as a manpublicly out yourself if you wanted towatch porn you had to go to a triple xtheater or you had togo to the blockbuster not even blockbusterlike the little familyvideo or whatever and go behindthe curtain but they had your license theyknew who they had yourcredit like they on record yourented you know like two milfs fisting youknow whatever it was andyou had to risk that you hadto be seen as the creep who went behindthem and and other menwould judge other men for thisyou'd be like okay you're a loser you haveto wank it because youdon't have a girlfriendand then you know obviously playboys andall that existed and umyou know like so we found mybrother and I found my dad's playboy stashin the basement once youknow when I was like visuallyscandalized and then I remember my brothercame home and he hadlike a porn tape like he hadgotten from a friend and he he like showedit to me because my brotherand I were super close he'slike you have to see this this is crazy andI I wanted to throw uplike I was I was like 12 or 13years old um and I we put it in the VCRafter school right you knowwatch key kids yeah and umI was like that's what sex looks like I wasso upset it traumatizedwell because it was also likethe angle it burned into my mind it waslike literally from thelike the guy's butt like goingin it's like it's visual for men men wantto literally see themedical act like they do actuallyyes see the penis going in the vagina itlike turns them on wherewomen are so much more nuancedlike we like the idea of what's going on tosee it ever you know we'renot visual like that but Imean we've talked about I've told you youknow we've had theseconversations where I'm likewe like that's why I find dick pics to besuch a weird thing becauseno woman wants that we reallydon't know but men men would want it butmen don't want it becausethey're like the most yeah I don'tI don't get guys you don't get guys to senda dick pic yeah fuckingcrazy to me yeah yeah soyeah all all that they had like throughouttime until the internetwas static images or if yougot a VCR tape but then also like what wereyou even doing with it likesitting in the living roomwatching it with your family you know likeno like you like you hadto figure out the time yeahbe alone and struggle was real struggle wasreal but the struggleneeded to exist that is my pointbecause now so I re-enter dating and all ofa sudden these guys aredisgusting and expecting meto do disgusting things you know like whatI literally I don't wantto be choked I don't wantto be slapped I don't want to be like Idon't want to be peed on youknow like all this crazy stuffthey like I shouldn't would they just yeahwould they just try it orwould they at least communicatewith you so I I've talked about this withlike all of my friendstoo and we all think thatit happened to multiple of us differentstories of like theelement of surprise you know likewhere it's just like um oh I I slipped itin you know like by accidentall of a sudden you're likesurprise annealing girl or whatever or orlike I remember being in ashower with a guy and he'sjust like oh I'm peeing on you you know andI'm just like what ishappening and and like it'salways like this surprise element whereyou're just like takenaback I think that's part of theuh the turn on too probably it's like it'salmost like not an assaultbut it's almost it is it is afree rail to the salt um and it's no no umwhat do you call it consentor anything but um I thinkthat's part of the hotness maybe in thatmoment for them is um thatthey they can just force iton and it's also they're they're seeing howfar they can go how farcan I go with her oh she'lllet me do this I'm gonna try the next thingyeah I couldn't even imagineyeah it was it was horribleit was a horrible time because also I feltlike well I should beopen right because I again II was so naive like I just honestly waslike oh they have my bestinterest in heart or they'rethey're gonna think I'm having a good timewith this you know andwe're gaslighting yourselfyes totally yeah totally I was just likeyeah this is probablygreat you know this is probablyfeel good or whatever and um and then I Istarted um realizing theother thing and this is the otherbig lesson was that um I thought these guysuh dicks didn't workbecause they were old likebecause a lot of them had ed problems rightreally this is oh mygod yes and so and thisI'll get into it a little bit more but thisis so common and I waslike okay either of of coursegen x I turn on myself and I'm just like ohmy god he thinks I'm uglyyou know or whatever yeahbut then it was like over and over and overand over again and itstarted being very consistentwhere guys could not get off unless theydid it to themselves soI'm like wait what age are wetalking I'm in my 30s these guys are likein their like 30s or 40sand in my mind I was like wellthey're just getting old maybe they needviagra you know or whateverand um I didn't think about itit wasn't no it wasn't until I startedtalking to my girlfriendsabout it and I still talkedso this would have been in like um 2013 ishyou know so this is likewell into um uh like onlineporn you know whatever and I realizedconsistently that these guyswho had been separated from theirwives and started dating again they likebinged it you you ever seethe family guy where quagmirediscovers porn no oh this is very funnybecause like it is it isfunny so quagmire discovers pornand like he doesn't leave the house andwhen he comes out hisone arm is all jacked likebig muscle arm and that's like what I thinkabout with these guys youknow like they were separatedin divorce now and they got to be alone youknow in the house and then all of a suddenthey're also gen x guys who like fullyfully just got to go totown yeah binge endlesscontent for free like yeah and weird shittoo though and weird andthen you keep going downinto these further rabbit holes of likeweirder and weirder stuffthat it takes to like get youthere and um and I wrote about it like inbecause I was writing onmedium there for a while and Iwrote an article about it in like 2017 orwhatever and it wasbasically like they're they gethabituated to like the psi of their ownhand you know so like theycan't even be with a real womanand like get off again because of thevisuals like they've put thosevisuals of like women who havehad medical procedures and and all of thatstuff into their mind andum and it's what's really sadnow um is a bunch of things like I think asgen x that we have a veryunique perspective on thisbecause we got to see the evolution like wewere with guys in highschool when it was just makingout and fun you know and everything was amystery and now the kids inhigh school they're I don'teven know I don't even know it's honestlyso disturbing and I get Iget really upset about itbecause I would love for us to do somethingabout it as society likeI think we should be doingsomething to especially stop the kids fromseeing this stuff but itreally seems like nobody isdoing anything and here's what I realizedit is because after Istarted experiencing this becausethe men would also send me videos that wasthe other thing likethey're like oh let's see youknow oh does this turn you on is this whatyou're into you know andendlessly sending me videos andI'm like what the fuck is happening and soI I started talking to myfriends about it becausewe all had like younger kids at the timeand the moms did not knowthey didn't know because theyhad been married and with their husbandsand all this stuff they didnot even know what the kidshad access to because even logically theycouldn't believe it was freeyeah yes why would this justbe free yeah and um and I was like look onmy phone like just here itis you know like yes whateverand they were appalled but I hate to say itall their husbands knewyeah and and that's just itso what I realized is that it's always themoms who are doing whatmothers against drunk drivingwhere like when we were young it was youknow whatever tipper goredoing the whole explicitlyrics thing it was nancy reagan with justsaying drugs you know likeit's women who stop this shitbut what's unique about the porn situationis that it's tooembarrassing for us and and and what Imean by that is that um if I talk about itlike I get called everyname in the book you know andthen you're at like a certain age whereyou're like oh you're justan old broad who's not gettingany or you get accused of being like superreligious right ratherthan just being like noI don't think your kid should smoke crackand I also don't thinkyeah be watching step sistersfuck when he's 10 yeah I agree 100 likethat is like we have todo something to stop it andeverybody is just like what can we do Idon't think there's asolution though because in Floridathey do ask for age verification now oh dothey interesting butthere's vpns to get around ityeah or there's just sites that won'tcomply and there's just no wayto block it but so I don't youknow I mean I hear you I don't disagree butwith AI now now there's AIporn well yeah I definitelythink one thing that would help is that andI think that they're doingthis in the UK um is justgive kids dumb phones you don't getsmartphones if like I want totrack you or whatever you justyou get a dumb phone I don't care if you'relike we all need to agreeyeah I'll need to agree I knowbecause I love I what I love about the mykids when they've hadphones and our youngest stillhas when he's 15 is the family group checkbecause we all communicate with each otherthroughout the day so that's awesome I lovebeing able to track himand we still track herwe have our 20 year olds are the ones intheir 20s location we don'ttrack them but in case youknow there's safety whatever um so I likethe tracking I like to beable to communicate withthem but I'm fine with everything elsebeing off of our youngestphone and because yeah he hasyou want to access yeah he has full accessto uh porn and I know myoldest so for my oldesthe was he's 28 so phones just really cameon the scene when he was inmiddle school up until thenthere were no phones and I think it wasseventh grade when they allstarted discovering porn ontheir phones and I know for my 15 year oldI think I started herewhisperings of it maybefifth grade yeah and young it's too youngit warps their mind itbecause to me it's likea kid in a candy store like yeah it's yourfavorite thing you knowlike I like it is yourfavorite thing and my even my brother willsay he's like had I hadaccess to that as a kid Iwould have never left home yeah I would beone of the kids in thebasement like yeah because he wasjust that 40 you know and he had like acouple of posters in hisroom and that was like yeahand so I do tie this all to you know thewhole male lonelinesscrisis that we talk about andall of that stuff because I do think boyshave largely lost theirmojo like if you never haveto work to see a boob if a boob is just inyour pocket and has beenthere yeah it's great likeso much of what men have always done andpursued women for were likethose moments and that accessand you know all of that stuff it was likeit was a great thing youknow like we were like oh firstbase second base you know all all of ourgenics periods and everything yes it's thethere's no slow burn technology I've saidthis before technologyand phones have removed theslow burn because even the pursuit theydon't even have to pursue inthe same way it's all throughtheir phones there's no uh crossing theroom to say hello you knowit's great it's and you canand my older one he's very anti get kidshaving social media andall that and he's like it'smessed up because you know you can they'rethey're they text you textback and forth even with thedating apps but you're giving everybody somuch time to create theirresponse so it's like theperfect response and then when you're faceto face it's like thecommunication totally breaks downbecause you weren't that person who wasbeing able to come up with that perfectresponse you had timeto think of it so then you lose the abilityto think quickly and havethat natural banter becauseyou've been doing it all through technologyand had all had been giventhe privilege of having allthis time to come up with the perfectwedding response so thatskill isn't practiced does thatmake sense yeah you know so I think that'sbeen the breakdown butI'm sorry you were gonna saysomething no I'm just curious there's aquestion for both you guysand then something you saidjust spurred the thought for me but whengrowing up as gen x womenwere sexualized right there wascharlie's angels there was the cover of thesupermodel emerged then butporn was still hard to getyet to work for it yes it feels like andthis is the question itfeels like it's no longeras okay to sexualize women but the porn'seasier to get and it's moregraphic yeah I think we'reliving in a very uh a time that makes nosense because like yeahlike on that front becauseI've often said on some videos like um howdo we still have a movierating system like why botherhaving an r-rated movie when we have kidswatching you know sockpuppet yeah you know and likeknowing what a cream pie is like whenthere's yeah yeah what thefuck and um and so I I thinkthat at the same like what you're saying islike this is why and I knowthis is getting too in thedeep weeds of like online discourse but Ithink this is why we seeso much manosphere contentbeing obsessed with women's body counts sojust think about it thisway these guys it is now 2025so since since the 2000s because you couldlook at porn on yourlaptop you know it didn't needto be a cell phone and so all these guyshave habituated theirminds to believing this is howgirls act like this is how they act withsex they're doing allthese men you know and thatis what has been impregnated into theirminds since they wereeight nine years old and theystarted you know looking at this stuff sothat's why they're all likeoh you have so many bodiesyou're disgusting and that's why they'relike like just like oh avirgin you know is like you're notgonna be like this girl that I I believeexists because that's theother thing when they'relooking at stuff like OnlyFans and they'relooking at you know porn it is an endless aseemingly endless variety to where youthink this is every womanI've just I have looked atevery woman on the planet so like everywoman is doing this and Ithink that that is why you knowthese guys have like so what you wereasking about like notsexualizing women and all of that stuffI think it's just like uh they they end uphating women instead youknow they're they're like allthey want to do is sexualize us but thenthey're being told like that'sinappropriate and that'swhy they're so like angry about me too andI'm just gonna get Ican't go near a woman becausewhat I would do would be inappropriatebecause everything they sawand learned was inappropriateyeah not how to actually act they have beenwatching you know a aa sister screw her stepbrother because you know he he was lyingnaked on his bed and shejust pushed the door open likeyeah like yeah and and I do think um uh I'msorry I get this so heated about this but II do think that um this is also why theythey can't connectbecause they see that it's realpeople like they don't learn like this isliterally the WWE you know like you need tothink about this is fake this is fakereactions this is fakeactivities you know like she doesnot like what is happening to her you knowlike these videos of womenjust being like slammed onconcrete and like men coming at all anglesyou know and all thisstuff like there's so muchhorrible stuff and she's coming off likeshe likes it but theydon't realize it's acting yeahbecause it's really happening you know yeahand so it's not like agreen screen or somethingand I think it has warped them way morethan we dare to admit and Iget very frustrated listeningto podcasts that often talk about um younggirls getting affected byInstagram you know like allall these you know social media is justhurting young girls and we're notaddressing how this isaffecting boys yeah and I I truly believein a lot of ways this iswhy like you know girls arepulling ahead they don't have this interestlike they haven't been lostin the sauce you know likewhich like I said I do believe this has alot to do with boys mojo youknow for them wanting to getout of the house and pursue a woman pursuea good job all of that stuffit's always been because ofsex it's always been this is why I want toget a fast car this is why Iwant to make a lot of moneyyou know but but I think it's been so it'sbeen for it's been for sex it's been forI want to get that a woman I want to get agirlfriend I want to get a wife I feel likethat's been more of an end game more of arelationship tied to it like you're like II don't know I could be wrong but I feellike it wasn't just to tofuck multiple multiple multiplewomen choke multiple women you know haveanal with multiple womenI feel like at least backwhen we were growing up it was yeah whenyou're younger datinggirls or getting girls but theneventually even those men had the end gameof girlfriend wife youknow and I do think it wasmaybe I hate to say this they were justraised a little bit betteryou know like if you think abouthow our silent gen and boomer parents werethey're like they alwayshad the threat of pregnancyright so we were raised even even though wehad access to birthcontrol we had access to abortionwe didn't really like I I couldn't just goI lived in the woods Icouldn't just go find agynecologist and I definitely did not knowwho it would be some witchyou know a hill who wouldgive me an abortion so I didn't know andand and also we were raisedvery religious too so I wasI was terrified like I had sex for thefirst time when I was 17and I swear to god I had everymethod of contraception contraception likeshoved up there I hadcondoms I had a sponge I hadspermicidal jelly like I said at all I waslike that was a chemicalsoup you're like I was soterrified for round two you know jokingvery funny you knowpeace on you when we're donebut I the shock though I yeah because yougo from even you know withyour ex-husband you know it'sprobably more traditional oh for experienceand then you get out thereand it's like and I'm surehe treated you respectfully right in yourmarriage right so in that atleast in there that area sothen you get out there and you have thesemen coming to you soaggressively because they'vebeen able to have access to all this shitit had to have been I meanyou had to have been like wellit sounds like you were worrying with okayum I just don't know andso I'm gonna do this becausethis is how it's supposed to be and I'msure it's fine everything'sfine I'm sure it's fine but alsothe other part of you is probably like whatthe fuck what the fuck isgoing on and so how do youhow do you balance that how do you find anyum like any way to gowith that how what did you dowith that I I went along with a lot of itbecause a lot of it happenedit happened and then I wouldthe next day or the later that night belike what the fuck was thatbecause it was just happeningto me you know and I was like I had alreadysaid like you know likeoh like okay you know likewe're gonna sleep together or whatever andthen everything wouldjust unfold you know yeah andit would just get weird yeah and then shitgot weird and um the sameguy like after somethingwould happen would you cut it off then andbe like okay no or wouldyou give him a chance becauseyou're like well maybe this is how it'ssupposed to be yeah I wouldoftentimes I would tell themlike no you know after I'd be like I didn'tlike that or whatever butI was I was having a time Iwas yeah I was uh I was being uh I wasdoing all the things Ididn't do when I was youngeryeah like yeah they're they're every man inMichigan that you knowthey there are six degrees of Kevin Baconaway from having fucked meheyit's amazing but really did see what wasgoing on out there I suredid like I said I love nothingmore than making out yeah you know like allall the things and so Iwas like let's go have funyou know and I yeah I had just it was likeI had sprung out of jailbecause I had also been likeuh you know I didn't have my kids half thetime yeah so I joined aband I was doing improv I waslike dating like it was my job you knowlike one year one year Iwent on like I had a spreadsheetI went on like 72 first dates like yeahlike yeah and and likeobviously didn't hook up with 72 guysyou know um but uh yeah so in that in thattime because now datingis so different like it'scoffee dates and it's splitting the bill orthere's this wholelike the young some of theyoung men are like if I pay then she shouldcome home with me andthere's all this stuff going onback then was it so fairly traditional likewhere the guy took you outand he paid and it wasn't ascomplicated or was it something to get awayI really don't knowwhere this whole notion of umwomen feeling like if a guy pays for yourdinner that you're supposedto sleep with them yeah likeI honestly don't know where that's comingfrom. I think the baby camefrom some of those um I don'tknow what they're called but those podcastswith the men you weretalking about the manosphereyeah I think I feel I don't know so just tobe clear I don't knowbut I think I feel like itcame out of that a little bit you knowbecause it's new and I don't have asuggestion. Yeah it'slike the high value man concept of wellit's it's weird it's thisweird flip of I should also betreated the same way men treat women andyou take me out and youopen the door for me andit's I don't understand these men that wantto be treated like womenlike which don't like thereshould be pride in acting like a man andbeing in your masculine andletting her be near femininebut not an impressive weird way just inlike a normal man-womanrespect enjoyable way. The amountof young couples I have seen at the gasstation where the woman isout of the car pumping the gasand he's just sitting there like apassenger princess I want totoss a match like burn thiswhole place down like get out and pump orgas. It's a fast I don'tget it it's fascinating thoughbecause you do see that where women workand men stay home and playvideo games and the women takethem right or they get out and they pumpthe gas and the dude's justsitting there right I think ofthem they're fucking losers to me ohthey're losers I'd be mad at my daughtersthat was going on I wouldbe real pissed. You're not talking aboutthough like if it was asituation where she's the breadwinner and he's choosing to be astay-at-home dad he's awesomeat it. He worked it out he'sdad who stays home with kids and all that.You're talking about the guythat's just sitting playingvideo games and letting her do everything.Yeah that's a majorproblem. Yeah that's a majorproblem. Yeah so I don't know I don't Idon't understand this atall and I and I always sayit's up to the girls you got to stop yougot to stop letting themand then people get mad at mewhy is it always up to the girls I'm sorrythey're these men are goingto take what they're beingallowed to take they're not going to stopso it's up to the girls.It's 100% up to the girls.That's what I say that nicely. No it isbecause you let people treatyou however you're going tolet people treat you. I mean I can takeadvantage of you if you don'tlet that happen. Parents needto raise their sons to do better so as amother I you know I don'topen the door. There's plenty ofboys out here though. There girls have tosay nope. Even my 15 year oldhe I stand he get every I willnot touch groceries I don't touch the doorand the reason I do this is because I'mbecause I'm like I'm the queen it's becauseI want them to treattheir future partner that way.Yeah I'm trying to raise a man who treatsthe does those specialthings for her because that'simportant in a relationship. I think yeahmy daughters like I saidthey're 21 and 22 and myyoungest she's been with her boyfriendsince high school and and he'sa great kid and you know alwayslike even will get out of the car go aroundopen her car door youknow like all of that stuffalways has he's awesome and then my myoldest she's you knowdating sometimes and whatever andwe we've talked about everything all ofthis stuff and you know Ithink a lot of young womenare always at risk of gaslightingthemselves like you were saying earlierlike you're like okayI think I saw this like she was just datingthis boy for like a littlewhile um just a couple ofmonths but like on the first date he likedidn't you know um walk herto her door you know and allof that stuff and she was just like oh he'sjust he's only 22 too somaybe he he has to learn youknow like what I like and all this stuffand I was like okay let'ssee how that goes and thenfast forward a couple months she's likeabsolutely not why did you whydidn't you stop me in my tracksI was like I can't you know I'm gonna tellyou what I'm gonna tellyou but if by accident he'sgonna end up being my son-in-law I can'tjust like shit on thekids yeah on the entire timeit's so true yeah you you do kind of haveto learn and I dothink the hard part is likeyou know how you feel you know how as a asa woman you know howyou were raised you knowhow you saw your dad act or whatever andthen you're you want to havea boyfriend you know you'reyou you're horny and young and you know andyou want to get marriedsomeday and all this stuffand so you just forgive a bunch of behaviorthat you shouldn't I wasso guilty of that oh my godthere were so many things in my life that Icould have been like ohhell no you know but then youknow I've learned my lesson now like nowfast forward because I gotmarried again after my uhmy first marriage and then I'm divorcedfrom him too and I I've notdated since and I won't likeit's been like four and a half five yearsor something like thatand I you will not catch meon an app you will not catch me on a datelike but you're just doneyeah yeah I feel and my familygives me a hard time um because they'relike oh well you know don'tclose off your heart like mymom is such like a fantasist like she'sjust like whatever you knowmaybe god god has somebody foryou and I'm like mom like I can't tell herI've already fucked theplanet well at least all ofMichigan and and so I'm like how many moremen am I supposed toentertain on earth like I can'tI can't and uh so yeah how long have youbeen done done for like uhsince I broke up with my lasthusband uh like five years so when did youokay wait I want to goback real quick when what didyou do in a band you said you joined a bandI was a singer so couldyou always sing was that partof your theater well remember remember Icouldn't because I had I had like the nosebut but I could hear and so I played thefrench horn like I said foreight years and um you haveto you have to be able to like sing throughthe french horn to playthe french horn like it's aspecific it's a specific thing um differentthan like otherinstruments where you just like pressthe the keys down and you make a sound likefor the french horn youhave to like you only havelike you only use like two keys so you'reactually using your voicewhen you play the french hornyour voice it's like you have to hear thatyou're in tune and you'rekind of making the sound alsoit's hard to explain um and and so but youdefinitely have to it'snot like a piano whereyou tune a piano and then you hit a key andit's the right sound youhave to kind of listen to itso I could always like hear you know hearif I was in tune here if Iwas out of tune and I knewlike when I had my my nose issues that Iwas always just horribleand flat I just couldn'tmake the right sound yeah and um so afterthat I challenged myselfum and joined the band andwas a singer there for a while how'd youget connected with theband like it was it was Istarted at um taking voice lessons and soit was like a connectionthrough the the voice lessonwas this after your divorce yes because Igot to do things yeah oneof your new things you gotyou had your new apartment and then youwere buying new things soyou started picking voicelessons and then through that did you meetpeople that were starting aband um yeah it was all partof the school so it was at the school andthey had they had otherlessons there they had other soit was all girls in my band and they hadlessons you know for bassand guitar and drums and allof that stuff so it all got banned yeahyeah and it was really funand um but there it did get towith everything even with improv and stuffmy uh my career overtooklike I had to travel toomuch I had to get up too early you know allkind of being an adultright yeah yeah were you doingthe improv along with the band or was thatlike separate I did theimprov after I was after theband I was like I gotta do something elseyou know so so you're doingthe band you're doing improvyou're traveling for work um you're datingin this weird world yep how long did youdate in this world until you met yoursecond husband um fiveyears okay it was a one yeardates yes yeah I met him on match okay theweek after I turned 40 um and uh then wewe've got married we flamed out real fastlike we should havenever gotten married butat the time I was like um I I definitely wewanted to livetogether but I wasn't going tolive with a boyfriend considering we bothhad kids right and I waslike we need to be a familyyou know and again like very likeromanticized ideas you knowbut we're going to be a stepfamily I'm going to be a stepmom and all ofthis stuff and um yeah hewas my best friend like hewas definitely we were we were each other'sbest friend but he it wasnot it was an impossiblesituation like there was just too much likeuh partying you knowand he like this is whenedibles and stuff became legal in Michiganand like I truly believelike they're just too strongthey're scrambling people's brains you knowand I think he like and hewas undiagnosed ADHD likeall sorts right it's not good to mix thatno yeah how long did youguys when did you get marriedlike how long from the time you starteddating to when you gotmarried three years oh okay that's along time and then how long were youmarried five okay so you alsoalso Covid happened and thatreally made everything yeah because thenyou're all together thatwhen that happened how do youco-parent oh my god it was that was alwaysthat was such a bad timeyeah because it was like umI never thought about that how did peopleco-parent during Covid so wehad times where we ended uphaving everybody all at once like becauselike if the step kids theirmom got Covid they weren'tallowed to go back there for you know sixweeks or however long it wasand um that really was a lotof the nails in the coffin you know it wasduring that time um it wasjust a very stressful timeand then I also realized that my um mystepson was kind of goingto be a failure to launchtype of situation and I hate this is thisis gonna make me sound bad but I justcouldn't I was like Ican't have this 20 something year old in myhouse that I didn't raiseyou know like there's there'ssomething um that I was just like I can't Ican't and so it just allkind of fell apart really umyeah I think I was just gonna say Covid's agood test right it's eitherit either works or it doesand that helped right that's or you knowexpedite that decision I guess okaylisteners your eyes arenot deceiving you we are still with MJEldridge but this is the nextday we had a time stop and soit's kind of a part one and now you're inpart two so I am wearingdifferent clothes MJ is indifferent clothes Brian is in the same uhoutfit he wears pretty muchevery episode yeah not the sameexact I have changed and showered he has hehas but if you go byBrian you'll never know whichepisode it is so we are in kind of part twoso we're back with MJwelcome back yeah it's good tobe back well I feel lucky we get two dayswith you so where we leftoff was Covid hit and thingskind of went a little bit downhill withyour second husband um youguys got divorced and thenwhat happened then what with your life wellokay so we we split up likewe tried at first to do likethe uh together living apart type ofsituation now ultimatelythat that just didn't work butit took us a while to get divorced becauseagain I'm the woman I haveto do it and during that timewas um I I decided that I should go moveback east right because Igrew up here and my wholefamily is here my mom's 77 you know and Iwas like my kids uh were outof the house essentially somy um oldest was uh at going to theUniversity of Michigan myyoungest um she was uh graduatedhigh school but she was gonna go live withher dad you know so becauseI was like I have to take twothings actually I had to take advantage ofthe market and sell ourgiant house like that wasthe number one thing that was reallydriving me because youremember housing was like awesome atthe time like all the prices were throughthe roof um I did notneed I had you know myself inthis house it was like 4 000 square feetlike something stupid andso I decided I should startlooking for a job back east so I um foundthe job with the companythat I'm with and I moved backeast my um my oldest when she was off fromcollege she would come outhere and um stay here and uhwork out here and whatever but yeah so thatwas in like um 2022 yes bythe time you moved were youguys done and divorced no no no you knowthis is funny so um it tooka while like for me to filethe paperwork you know and all that stuffbecause you know I'm movingand whatever and then I finallygot around to doing it and then um you knowthe court date got said itwas uncut like no contestswe didn't have kids or whatever togetherand so um so so then whenit was finally final I was inArizona for work and um I had to get a latecheck out because likeall the courts would doeverything on zoom you know because ofCOVID and so um I'm like sitting therewaiting for the judgeand then my ex-husband showed up it waslike his proudest proudestmoment I swear to god he was onface like doing it on facetime or whateveron his phone and hewas sitting on a jet skilike he's outside on a jet ski gettingdivorced on the phone andthen and then me I'm in thishotel room and I'd asked for a late checkout but they're like during the thingthat's like housekeepingI was keeping like banging on the door I'mlike if this is anemblematic of my entire life withthis guy that here I am stressed outworking you know sitting in a hotel roomand he's just like ona jet ski oh my gosh well I saw you youwere like and this iswhy and this is this is itwere you like hold on I'm getting divorcedI'll be out into you outit was actually so fast Iwant to say it was like seven minutes orsomething it was so fast sohad you been working in Michiganat that same company where you had done theinventions no no so Ihad left home medics um2014 2015 and then I started doing startupsso it was interesting my mytime at home medics was allcoinciding with the crash right so like umand most of our uh clientslike a lot of our customerswere like remember old businesses likelinens and things and bedbath and beyond you know andall these places start like linens andthings closed and thenbed bath and beyond startedreally struggling like everybody startedstruggling so um my companystarted truly struggling andbecause I was like a junior person theykept they were firing allof the guys who made a lot ofmoney you know like so like all the themanagers and all of thatstuff so slowly over time I gotto learn like every single aspect of thebusiness because I had to doall the jobs you know so I'mmaking products but then I'm also learningabout um all of the thelogistics and the shipping andyou know like and you know working directlywith the customers and all of that stuff souh when I left there I started working withstartups and so now I'mon my my fourth startupthat I'm I'm working with now because I canlike I can I can take astartup like teach them how toset up all of their um all of theiroperations all of theirproduct development all of theiryou know logistics their sales like all ofthat stuff because I had tolearn because of the crashyou know like I I lucked out it was it wasrough at the time becausewe had two major rounds oflayoffs that were very devastating becauseyou have a lot ofsurvivor guilt you know yeah yourfriends going too right yeah yeah like thefirst round my boss umactually he got fired and thenthey hired him like temporarily to comeback and teach me how to dohis job oh my gosh how awkwardyeah yeah but I think he works there againlike I've heard that hewent back there so um it it'ssuch a unique place and like that world ofmaking products and stuff islike it's just a very uniquemicrocosm and there's not a lot of placesyou know that yeah thatyou can really do that soon that though um not that you'reunderselling it but I think what whatyou're describing too isthe international supply chain so youprobably is it kind of likethe you design it in the USgo to China probably Shenzhen and orsomething like that and getit made and sourced then you'vegot to deal with the internationallogistics of it coming over on boats andfiguring out the timingand then distributing it throughout allthese retailers rightyeah and that and you so youknow that and you're now you're helpingstartups do that yep yepthat's cool that's it in a nutshellI've I've been to Shenzhen many many timesyeah but um but yeah likeI've been all over Chinaactually um but because it is interestinglike they're all whereeverything is made is veryregional you know so it's like Shenzhen,Xiaomen are all like theelectronics and stuff like thatand then you go further up north to likeNingbo and places like thatthat's where like a lot ofthe handicrafts are made and um so like youknow like plates andvases and stuff like thatand uh so it's just it's crazy what'shappening now you know frommy point of view and if you'veseen me talk about like the tariffs and allthis stuff like the levelto which people like me whodo that but not only like the way we'refucking ourselves isliterally remarkable because we wedon't make anything like that in thecountry anymore and um soyeah and you know it's verynerve-wracking because now you know I'vebuilt my entire career onmaking products and all thisstuff fortunately I still I have all thetech side because a lot ofthe products I've made have hadapps associated with them so I can still Ican do technology youknow startups as well but wewe need things as people you know yeah weuse things every daytargeted Walmart full of thingsyeah Amazon I was I was in I got to go toShenzhen once I was helping set up asourcing office therepeople don't hear don't realize howoriented the Chinese cultureand society is there right to makeall this happen you don't just it doesn'tjust appear they've got awhole world focused on Idon't know I guess it's it's kind of apull-through system in someways right you figure it out thenyou pull it rather than just design stuffor or dumps product and pushit so it is one of the pullright like so we um we taught them wetaught we yeah so we it wasa wild time to even have seenChina go from you know when I started goingover there in like 2020 until like you knowCovid like shut us down in like 20 2010 to2020 so in 10 years time tosee how society had changedin China just because of our western moneythat we are pouringinto all of these you knowelectronics places and everything like thatand like just thinkabout like the infrastructurethat Apple created with all of their Appleproducts and that's just a small it's a bigportion but it's small relative to everyother you know uhelectronics company that makes in Chinait's small people and it is it is veryinteresting that I think alot of people don't realize thatyeah okay in the US we make these things wedesign them and everythingbut then like when you go toanother country whether it's like China,South Korea, India, Taiwan,any other place like yeah youcan say this is my design make this but youhave to also kind of teachthem like not how to makeit because you'll you you know source afactory that hascapability like you see that they'vemade something similar okay like we knowyou make speakers great doyou make speakers that havebluetooth though because if not I need tofind somebody who makesbluetooth you know so uh andthey have this raw capability but then youhave to teach them um aboutthe aesthetic that you needthat will translate to the US market andthey've gotten a lot betterat that like years ago theyyou could tell something that was like astraight Chinese productyou know that didn't have thatlike American sauce on it and um and we'realways putting the Americansauce on things you know yeahand the packaging and like what theproducts are called all of thatstuff yeah um yeah so you knowI've noticed it's gotten better even onAmazon the way they'redescribing things andbecause you I right away you know as aconsumer you if thedescription wasn't you could tell youlike it was English instead of full-blownEnglish everything has gotten moreAmericanized which issmart marketing wise so well it's becausethere's a whole subcultureof people like me who workedexplicitly with Chinese makers who want tosell into the Americanmarket so you'll take somebodylike me who has my skill set and you'llhire me to work withstraight with the factory to be likeyou know what no you should use thesecolorways instead this is what what'spopular right now youshould you know you call it this write thison the box you know allsorts of stuff like thatso they've gotten hip to that and they usepeople like me to sell onAmazon and write the copy andstuff like that so for the startups are youworking with startupsin America or startupsand okay so and those companies hire you asa consultant basically as a liaison betweenthe China and their company so I havealways been hired youknow full-time like permanentright I I I do some consultant work on theside um but I I'm at mycurrent company I'm the head ofoperations and product development and thenover the years I kind ofhave a team of people who gowith me you know each place that I go whereyou know I have um a guywho does all my sourcingand engineering work and you know he worksdirectly with the oursuppliers on the China side we havesomebody in China who is um a Chinesenational who will go visitthe factories we we've had to umsince Covid China was closed down waylonger than everyone else sosince Covid we've really justdeveloped a system where we don't even haveto go anymore because wehave um we have good peoplewith boots on the ground over there and umthat's what I've been doingand it's you know it's notnecessarily um it's not a glamorous ideallife like it's verystressful working with startupsum but I my family thinks I'm crazy they'relike how do you not havelike some stable job I'm likewhat is a stable job you know yeah you knowmy mom my mom is like Idon't know I think she thinks Ishould have like a pension somewhere I'mlike well I don't maybegovernment workers still but otherthan that those are out the window I thinkmaybe the railroad workersstill get them because hehas a cousin that works for the railroad inJersey I think they maybe the longshoremanmaybe police and firemen I think there'sstill some yeah yeah the idea of a pensionit's not even like millennials and Gen Znever would even think ofthat no they probably mostof it to 401ks yes you know that kind ofstuff yeah yeah yeah thepension yeah it's so funny mymy daughter was here a couple of weeks agoand we were havingdinner with my mom and we weretalking about my mom was like the lastperson at the bank whereshe worked to get a pensionand I looked at Aspen and I was like do youknow what that is and she was somad that I said that was like but I I feellike why would you know yeah that's trueshe's like I went to school I was like sothey teach you about ancient historythat's a big class mom I have two top Ihave two questions I'm gonnaforget so don't forget yoursbut so when someone hires you they're kindof hiring you and yourteam then everyone movestogether like an amoeba but yeah a littlebit so like the the peoplewho I reach out to like Ithey're not like my team that I pay youknow but it's like thisgroup of people who have followedme around from place to place to place thatI always know that I canbe like hey this is our needdo you want to jump in do you want to bidon this project you knowwhatever and my one guy we'vebeen working together for like 15 years nowso and he and we hardlyever like we talk on text wetalk on email we never talk on it's thebest relationship I'veever had I'm not gonna lieyou might be on the phone thanksexactly how involved Iwant to be with a manyeah that's probably priceless and part ofyour success too isthat you have people youcan trust and that you've completely vettedand has been on you knowyeah it's gotten to the pointwith him like he's a little bit older Iwant to say he's he'sprobably like 60 now and I'm likedude like if he doesn't text me back likein a day I'm like I need toknow what our death plan is foryou like I need to tell like if somethinghappens to you if you gethit by a bus like who am Icalling and and he's like don't worry Itold my wife she's gonnacontact you and I was like okayand he's in China no no no he's here he'shere now he was stuck hewas so he married a Chinesewoman and he was in China for years and heessentially got stuckthere during COVID likewhere he would love to like move out butthey and he would tell meand he would be like don'tlike say like he would be nervous to textit to me like because youknow the government and stuffand um but they were so strict like theylive in a high rise there'stons of high rises over thereand their whole high rise if one person gota whole high rise lockeddown nobody can get outand then they were also like scanningpeople the minute you walkedin and if you had a fever youhad to go leave and get quarantinedsomeplace else you couldn'teven go home like it was veryvery very hardcore yeah I saw some stuffduring that time on TikToklike people would kind of getsome videos out and it it definitely it wasa totally different worldyeah things happened heretoo but China well they have leveled up onthat and they have apps ontheir phones and if you'vebeen exposed or near exposure you would getkind of not a social scorebut you'd get kind of thered green yellow type of thing yeah I knowsomeone who had that andthey weren't directly exposedbut they were at the mall the day someoneelse was exposed or showedup so now you're within theblast radius even though you might havebeen there three hourslater because they're trackingeverybody right they know where everybody'sgoing they're watchingeverybody's phones it's a tripbut yeah but that's kind of going on whatwas your question though Iinterrupted you no it's coolI've kind of probably two questions one isum like I say I've beenthere and I'm there as a guyI'm six two kind of big um as a woman go inthere how was that tonavigate you know for me in Shenzhenit's probably the only spot I've ever beento where as we're driving I'm lookingI couldn't watch because it was crazy I waslike we're gonna die we'regonna get in the cab it wasjust like not watching but it's definitelya male-dominatedsociety right you know how howare you interacting with that is you kindof further up you got Iwould go I would be thereby myself first of all I don't speakChinese second of all andI this is gonna sound crazyum I found it to be very relaxing to justlike first of all I foundit relaxing because like notunderstanding the language it is kind oflike being in a white noisemachine like you can't evenlike you're just calm you know and andrelaxing and I know thatsounds crazy because I know whatyou mean about driving around there and allof that stuff and I wasjust like look at all thisI feel it always I would always say I feltlike I'm unstuck onearth like I'm unstuck in theuniverse where it's like do my after twoweeks I'm like do my kidseven exist you know like youfeel like you're in this other likealternate universe in a lot ofways where everything becauseI would have I would always have a driverright that I would gethired before I would go thereso that was always good and the driverscould always speak Englishvery well and whatever andI would feel safe with them and then um butI would be you know aton a factory floor for 12hours straight it's freaking exhausting andI would often say thatum I'm very claustrophobicright and so um but I was fine doingelevators and stuff in China because theyeverything is taken care of more and likethere's it's all pretty coolyeah people and people havejobs that are like the smallest job butit's a job like somebody'sown job there'll be one ladywhose job is to just sweep like a 10 by 10area and that's all she'sdoing and so but the otherthing of it is is that I think the jobitself was so exhausting and I was soexhausted all the timethat there was no way I could feel anxietylike I was just burnedout you know and um but thenthere were times that I had like reallygood times like um this oneguy Greg who I I as part of mymy posse that comes around with me um I methim up there and he'she's an American and umXiaomen is actually a beautiful place likeXiaomen is um down liketowards Taiwan like you could seeTaiwan across the um water and um we weredown in Xiaomen and theyhave all these outdoor barsand it's like it's like a resort-ish areaand um and so they we wentand this is it's so crazybecause we went on this like these rides inthe park in the night andI was like we could justit was like one of those big shot thingsthat shoot you up youknow yeah slowly come downand we were stuck up there for like half anhour and I was like is itbroken are we just gonna thesun's gonna come up and just burn my faceoff you know in the morningand what it was just that theguy uh the guy running the ride wanted togive us a good experience oflike sitting up there for along time and looking around but wehonestly thought that wewere just trapped but okay sinceyou guys are like la la la meanwhile you'rehaving an anxiety attackyou're like broken yeah andAmerica is broken because next right nextright next right there'sno like going up above soyeah yeah yeah but I will say so I'm tallI'm five seven you know Ihave this big hair and whateverso I always just felt like a like a monsteranyway like whether I'm inTaiwan or China I'm just likebecause the ladies there are so small likeyeah they're you have likethat's why when people orderclothes you know off of xian or whateveryou have to get like theyneed to come up with justAmerican sizes because like their extralarge is like I don't knowour extra small okay I have toreal quick say something so my so Brianbecause his dad's from WestVirginia and he's got familyfrom West Virginia and he spent summers inWest Virginia he has WestVirginia in him right he'sa huge Billy Strings fan I don't know ifyou know who that is butit's like he's he's like he'sawesome jam band bluegrass but so he has apart to him that's very WestVirginia where this is goingso he he loves overalls so he'll wear likedenim around the house nothe's not allowed to go outso allowed to go out not even in the frontafter they're black hehas black he has a tan herhe has stripes yeah and so for his birthdaymy daughter she texted mefirst and said is it okayif I get him overall shorts and I'm likefine he ordered extralarge off Amazon it's it's alike a woman's small like we're dying he'slike I can put these onbut part of me is going to behanging out of them that's reminded me likeliterally I don't knowif I could fit into themI'm returning them this week I feel likethat was a product thatgot pushed and not pulled yesthat is the sizing error there is like andthey have a man on therewhere I'm like it they don'tlook like that picked it this is not thisis didn't match up so thatwas one of those areas thatgot through and it's not accurate they wentby piney sizing orwhatever yeah yeah and I I willsay this like I I also love the food umlike back when I firststarted going a lot of the um so Iwould go with like other people when Ifirst started going and alot of the Americans werescandalized by the food you know they'relike I can't eat and theywould be the ones that theyou know anybody from the factories wouldbe like oh do you wantto find a KFC they alwayscould find a KFC or like a McDonald's butme I'll eat I'll eatanything and I love it and II'm like yeah I'll eat that fish's eyeballyou know like I'm hereI might as well you knowwhy am I doing it uh I don't really likethe eyeballs um but andlike chicken feet I hadchicken feet did you like it I it's atexture thing for me likeyeah me too so the the Chinesewill eat what I consider to be like snottexture they're like a lotof their food is like uh saltysnotty like that type and which is grossbut that's that's a bigtexture that they enjoyand that's like the the chicken feet thesauce on the chicken feetis always really good but thefeet themselves are like very thatgelatinous you know yeah Ididn't like it and it actuallyit raises another question so when you'rethere because you know wewere out to dinner had thisbig round table there's a bunch of us and Ithink it's the lazy susan thing that's beenthat's our old gen x term yeah yeah so thatthing's rolling around andhere comes the chicken feetand I'm like all right I don't want tooffend anybody try thisthen I'm like you know and Ifinished it and they're like you like itI'm like not really and theyso we spun it and they'd loveit yeah you went in on it it's a culturething though right that'sthe thing that's what they'relike yeah yeah there's no waste probably nowaste whatsoever yeah youeat it all and I also reallylike um their style of eating they eat thesame foods breakfast lunchand dinner there's not likebreakfast food and like a sandwich forlunch and then a dinner foodit's the same stuff and I lovelike all of it I love congee I lovedumplings I love it's somuch better than I don't likeAmerican Chinese food because it'scompletely different um butyeah I so are there like howwhen we breakfast at a certain time andlunch and dinner do theyalso have similar timings fortheir meals yeah yeah they they definitelydo like they're they'restill like going to get lunch youknow in the middle of the day leave thefactory whatever and go outto lunch and I'll say it'slike a little bit nicer at least the way wewere treated um you gotyou sit down and have lunchyou know it's not just like let's sit in aconference room and I'llshove a sandwich and have aworking lunch like right yeah there's a lotabout like American workculture that I do not care forand like a working lunch is one of themlike yeah yeah eat and peaceor I don't want to eat at alllike yeah look at your powerpoint Jaredwhat I noticed though isthey would and this is moreoffice work as opposed to factory but theywould the day would startlater which was awesome soinstead of being in at eight it's likelet's meet tomorrow at nineor ten and then to your pointat some point you go to lunch you go andyou sit down and it goes onfor a little while it does itdoes it then but then they work later sothey may go from like nineto nine something like thatright and then they have the family timebut they start later theywork later and longer yeah butit's I don't know it's different it's alittle more I'll sayrelaxed but maybe it isn't I'mbut if they're working till nine so thatthey not if they have youngchildren are they not seeingtheir kids and stuff like they are but itfelt it my impression wasit the whole culture waswork was later it started later it endedlater it was elongatedlike school starts later thenI felt like it I don't know but yeah Ican't really say about Ididn't come across a lot ofkids in the factories I know that's ironicright because everybody saysit's nothing what kids yeahit's it's not kids at least it wasn't bythe time I started youknow going there becauseuh a lot of American retailers put a end tothat because they would dofactory audits and all ofthat stuff and we're like they would say tohis suppliers like me likewe're not going to buy fromyou unless your factories can pass theseaudits and the audits werevery strict about you knowthe age of the workers and and also like umthere's I'm not going touse the right terminologybut basically there's always this risk oflike indentured servitudetype of practices happeningespecially like in Taiwan and stuff wherelike the some factorieswill use like um people fromCambodia or Vietnam or whatever as like ohyou work off this tobecome a citizen or earn yourhousing or whatever and those practices areobviously very frownedupon and so the auditsfrom you know Target um Disney honestlylike they a lot of thefactories always wanted to be likewe're approved by Disney that was like abig um a big thing and umyeah and the Home Depots and allthat stuff they they really improved theworking conditions in a lotof ways like I'm not glorifyingI'm not saying it's great but um it's notyou know children likeit's not forced labor no atleast not in like the the big brands thebig brands and where I wouldgo like on the further westI'm sure there's lots of bad practicesstill happening did youfind that is there pride inare they uh do they find pride in whatthey're making to sell inAmerica like are they reallywanting it to meet the standards and likeyou said have thatAmerican sauce are they trying todo they want to get it just right and arethey oh yeah oh yeah likethey'll they'll work they willwork tirelessly to make sure that you thatthey get it right because it's socompetitive that likethey know like even when they're pricingsomething out for you thatlike five cents off anotherfactory will steal that business right sothey're they're supercompetitive with each other and theywant the business they want to retain thebusiness um and so theywill they will keep thequality up and and as you can see I think alot of people don'tfully realize um how long youhaven't really bought anything made inAmerica you know like I Ithink people there's so manypeople who comment on my videos if I talkabout the tariffs and allthis stuff and they'll justsay just buy American I'm like you haven'tbought anything made inAmerica since like 1998yeah you literally have not even like yourcar that's made in theUSA half of it's coming fromsomeplace else like even even if you buysoap at the farmer'smarket like the ribbon thatthey put on it is from China you know likewhere we're we're toast onthat front and so a lot ofpeople will still say well oh my god it'slike poor quality it'snot it's everything you havebecause everything you have junk like I Idon't think it is you knowso right well it's gotten alot better you know yeah because we keptworking with it because itwas always worth it for us thethe bottom line is that they have so a lotof people I don't thinkrealize this either that theum the labor force in China is also migrantworkers a lot of timesthey're just still Chinesethey're just migrating from the countrysite China's a big placeand they're migrating fromthe country and going to the city to workand a lot of them now aredoing really well so whenChinese New Year's happens and you knowthey get three weeks off andthey go back to their familieslike 40 50 don't come back anymore like sothey're they're actuallyhaving a labor shortage becausethey're able to do really well working inthe factories and thenthey go back and they don'tcome back and they can just live off ofwhat they made and then goand then travel again and it'swow it's very similar to migrant workershere in the United Statesyou know coming up to likebe day laborers or you know work in a fieldor whatever it's a verysimilar culture exceptthey're just all still Chinese yeah yeahthat makes sense so when youwere there you never felt umto Brian's this is a piggyback off yourquestion you never felt likehow us how women in Americain general like I don't feel comfortablerunning at night alone I'mon alert like that feeling ofyou could be hurt by a man at any timedoing anything walking toyour car in the parking lotwhere I'm always on high alert I have mydaughter always onhigh alert all that stuffand I think that's fairly common for womenin America did you notfeel that at all over therehonestly I think because I I feel likebecause like I said I'mfive seven which is likeall for China for China yeah and I feltlike I could take any guylike and and they're they'renot they they don't do stuff they don'tlike cat call you they youknow they don't have guns likethey're like it's just it's not even morecivilized believe it or notyeah it just it just is andlargely like this one time um I had landedin Shanghai and theShanghai airport's really coolby the way but there I had to funnel outthrough this area wherethere was a like green line forone set of taxis that would take you to onecompletely differentregion and a red line foranother set of taxis that would take you toa completely differentregion and I just guessed Iwas like well rolling the dice let's seewhen I just got in thetaxi line got in with this guythis guy couldn't speak any English youknow and then we I had tocall the hotel and whatever butmost of the time I would say if theyweren't being nice to methey were just mad at me likefrustrated with me because they're like godthis dumb broad like thisuseless American is in mycab and now my day sucks and I honestlyfeel like yeah I was justlargely ignored and I like thatwhat is the general vibe towards Americanswell if I will say this um if you're just aa business person coming in to do businessand um and essentially bringing them moneygood very nice everybody's happy to see youand uh and it's very goodbut according to my you knowco-worker you know who are my partner wholive there they can beextremely racist towardsAmericans because if you think about it ifyou think about it inum just in terms of uhgeneral like shortages or whatever theyhave a shit ton of peoplein China they want Chinesepeople to have the jobs not not whitepeople you know coming in andum because they have a lot ofpeople to support and a lot of mouths tofeed and all of that stuffso he he did uh experiencequite a bit of of racism like he was hewasn't able to work that'swhat was his role becausethat's what feels role dependent so he umhe he did sourcing rightso he would work with mebut um he married a Chinese woman and hisrole was beingstay-at-home dad while he was thereyeah because he wasn't able to so he wasn'ttaking a job really frombut they wouldn't have knownthat he couldn't he couldn't yeah they weretreating him like hewas but he wasn't he wasone of the ones that he's just taking careof the kids right yeah andthis is what I know from himI you know I never experienced anythingmyself I know that thereare people who are uh who haveyou know migrated to China like Americansum who live there and andwhatever I do think it's alittle bit different in like the citycenters you know like if you live inShanghai there's a lotof international people always walkingaround Shanghai so yeah Ithink it might be differentin different areas yeah so the startupsthat you work with arethey all selling stuff is thatkind of just to simplify it I know I'msimplified it but is that assomeone who knows nothing aboutwhat that industry or anything is that theconcept behind the startupsyou work with so I've done alldifferent ones so uh the first startup Iwas with we were doingvitamins um and so I did vitaminsfor a while then I had my own startup forlike half a minute whereI was making um these thatnever went anywhere but I counted becauseit was part of my journeybut I had made uh earbuds thatwere uh also earrings that you could justlike because uh you knowlike I uh ear pods like fallout of people's ears all the time so theselike look like jewelryand because I have um all myconnections they sounded just like air podslike the quality wasexactly the same and I did a wholekickstarter and whatever to try to get thatgoing and I just needed toomuch money like I needed like250 000 and that was too much money at thetime and so great ideathough yeah you know it wasit was very interesting and enlightening tomeet with potentialinvestors because um they were likebut this is only for women I'm like yeahtampons are only for womenlike what are you talking aboutlike women are half the population and theycan also be for men whohave peer stares you know orhonestly people are so integrated intotheir headphones now peoplewould probably pierce theirears to have them you know like not fallout and and the thingbecause I made electronics for solong I was so frustrated with the world ofelectronics like allof electronics are madefor men or made with this like blandaesthetic that essentiallyappeals to nobody yeah I wouldcall it um cool gray six syndrome yeah uhthat's a a pantone number that is just likeit was determined at the time to be likethis will be a fine graycolor to make everythingso it applies to a man or a woman and Ijust think there's somuch room in electronics tomake beautiful electronics that wouldappeal to women nicelooking speakers like I have thisno shade to the speaker it sounds good buthow boring is thisthing like it's just likewhatever just like it could be cute youknow yeah yeah yeah and soum that's my soapbox aboutelectronics but um and then after that I uhI made cosmetics so Iworked for a startup in Detroitcalled um the lip bar and um there now itwas that was a really goodtime I was there for fouryears I was um I was the it was all women Iwas the only white womanum and uh it was a very biglearning curve for me but we went fromessentially a practically adirt floor uh warehouse in Detroitto like when I first started there we hadthey had done like fourhundred thousand dollars in salesand she got her first million of investmentand when I left uh wehad done like 10 millionand we had grown out to target and walmartand mire and all that yeah so I left thatI left that job to move back east and nowmy current company uh isa sustainability companyso we make reusable containers um forcollege campusesessentially like takeout containersso that is so cool so did you have that jobbefore you went out backto Rhode Island or did youor did you move for that job I I moved forthe job um because I youknow hey we're trained byour parents you can't quit a job unless youhave another job and anddespite the story of my lifethat I'm telling you I am not a rich personI need everybody to knowthis like you can you can havepatents you can have like made products andall this stuff I havestill just been working to makewhite men rich like that's all I've done mywhole life so if anybodywants to make me rich like feelfree no well going sorry oh no no um sothat's why when after Idid my startup I purposefullyuh worked for Melissa Butler at the lip barwho was a woman of colorand I was like I only wantto work for women CEOs my my current ceo isa woman and I'm like atleast trying to you knoware you finding a difference in the way thestartup is run between awoman ceo and a male ceono they're all crazyokay they're all crazy okayon the product front getting a productdeveloped offshore like thatin China we could do it anywhereprobably but China's it's not just likesending a CAD file overwith color choices right yeahwhat goes on there we and I'll give alittle background we had auh an inventor on as a guesta young he's a millennial right he's amillennial young firstmillennial like no the youngestmillennial yeah he got scammed uh he I'llplug his product he's gota great product it's calledchappy and it's a container it's a vacuumsealed container that youput your chapstick in so itdoesn't melt in the summer oh that's smartyeah very smart and hemade it for uh deodorant forcosmetics for women water bottles but theidea the concept was like ayeti for your chapstick ishow he started it yeah you're a super smartkid um I call him a kid heprobably wouldn't like thatbut he is a kid to us right um so how doyou how do you do that youyou probably do need to haveCAD designs right you got to choose thePantone color or whatever andyou've got to find a sourcingoffice or a partner and you've got toprobably send them somemoney how do you do that likewithout getting scammed like without yeah Imean how would someone dothat and I'm really not askingfor myself but I think for listeners it'san interesting conceptbesides hire you and makeyou rich that's the answer rich for freeyeah it's funny I do it Ido it for free all the timethough like I'm actually working with umsomebody off of TikToklike uh who um where we becamemutual friends and she wanted to make somemerch essentially you knowso um and actually not thehell but maybe the pitfalls because I don'twant you to give away thesecret sauce I do want youto I want something to pay me a lot ofmoney it's so funny I I havetold so many people when peoplefind out what I do and then I make productsand and whatever andthey're they're always likeoh I have an idea you know becauseeverybody who's like weused to have a poster that saidthat anybody who's ever taken a shower hashad an idea yeah and um andthey're like I have an ideabut I don't want to tell you because you'regonna steal it I'm likelisten motherfucker you know howhard it is to make products I am notstealing your idea and I willtell anybody my ideas and lots oftimes I'm just like listen I'm not makingit so I want it though soyou know yeah yeah like pleasesteal my idea I've proven already how notto get rich at doing thisand so so anyway yeah there'sthere's no secret sauce to to worry aboutbut I will say that umhaving somebody like me anAmerican who has a Chinese national workingfor you will help you notget scammed like I there'sno there's no secret to that because Ican't say go fine like okayyou can go on Alibaba as a tostart and you can start looking around atum people who are makingsomething similar to whatyou have in mind like for example the uhthe kid that you had on themillennial obviously wouldstart looking for people who are makingyeti like products rightlike and and and say I have thisidea and then you have to before you revealyour idea you have tolike essentially do like asourcing list you know figure out theircapabilities figure outtheir location you can doquite a bit you do have to have somebackground knowledge though ifyou can't physically go thereand even if you do physically go thereoftentimes the factories willshow you their showroom rightbut you have to be like no I need a tour Ineed to go see everybodyworking I need to make sure theconditions are good and all of that and youreally kind of need umsomebody who speaks Chinesesomebody who's also on the ground who cankind of take you aroundand that that really helpsunfortunately like my my current ceo beforeI came on board gotcompletely scammed like shegave the fact she did a an initial p.o sheplaced an order for a bunch of umcontainers and um shekept being told oh look it's on the wateryou know here's thebuilding link all of this stuff andthen the day it was supposed to show upnothing nothing shows that'swhat happened to him exactlyis it really oh my god it's so devastatingand there's nothing you cando like there's no recourseno no anything so um there are groups whodo what I do I do what I doso if anybody's watching thisyou know they can email me or whatever andI can help you like I wassaying so um the woman whoI'm helping right now uh even if you don'tit depends on the natureof the product right likeso if you have something complicated thathas particulardimensions you know that needs cator whatever obviously you should get somecad made but even if youjust have an idea and youand you're like man I we were just workingwith this one guy who whathe did uh which I was likeoh we've really advanced he had an idea andum he had uh ai make renderings of it likewhere back in the day it used to be I wouldhave to give my my cad tosomebody who could make me arendering right like a person this guy justput his design idea intochat gpt and got a photorealistic rendering product yeah I was Iwas very surprised by thatso you can do that and then umum and then what you do is you can takethat idea give it to somebodylike um my partner that I workwith who is able to then make the the cadright because you it's hardto find people who do thatthat is a that is a big hole in the marketI was trying to get myoldest daughter to do this foreverbecause there are people who learn how todo product design butthey're always funneled intoautomotive right so they end up like justdoing like automotivecad and stuff like thatwhich does not translate into making cadfor a speaker like thisyou know and so um it'sdifficult skill to find to find somebodywho can make like productsbut then and the other thingthat works often is that even like with umthe uh the kid that youwere talking to even if likehe's like okay so it's like a yeti it keepsit cold he could sendthem like here's the materialyou know like here I need it to be you knowdouble walled stainlesssteel I need it to you knowbe vacuum sealed I like this finish findsomething else that it could be atoothbrush that has thefinish that you want and that that allhelps make the soup to helpthem make the product and thenand then what happens is that you startdoing some prototypingback and forth the prototypingis just made out of you know SLA orwhatever it won't be madeout of the finished materialbut this is all very expensive you knowlike I feel sad for him likehe he probably lost a bunchof money yeah um because I'm sure theywanted deposits fortooling and they want you knowall of that and so um you do need you doneed a group that you cantrust for sure so do you doconsulting like if we have a list listenersthat like oh I want to Iwant to hire MJ to help me doyou have the time in your life where you doconsulting for peopleso you do freelance typeof stuff I guess okay all the time I I'vebeen doing that for and I Idon't know why I'm so lazylike I I should try harder to do stuff buthonestly when I I'vejust um I don't try veryhard and um that you know that's why I wassaying you know mediocre atbest like I only I only tryso far and um and so anyway but um yeahI've been consulting nowprobably for 10 years and I'vemade a lot I've helped people make productsof their own on the onthe side and the thing of itis the hard thing about being an inventorbeing somebody who hasideas and all of that stuff isthat it costs a lot of fucking money yeahit really really doeslike so many people have saidto me why don't you just do your own thingand I'm like I need half amillion dollars for for theelectronics that I would like to do butlike though the projectthat I'm working on now herher project is um relatively low FOB and sothat that's the the cost out of the factoryand then um the other key part is that theminimum order quantity islow so she only has to order athousand pieces that makes this a lot moreaffordable to get intoand um and I think thatand again this is maybe soap bucket soapbox ish but we've had somany people in the United Statesbe able to build little businesses you knowwhether it is like theirown little shop downtown orat the farmer's market or even like awebsite or an Etsy store orwhatever these businesses aregoing to get so screwed by these tariffsbecause they just cannot they they cannotthe it's just honestly so bad and it's onevery single country you know like there'sdo you say that meaning like they're rawmaterials because I do knowsomeone who does some siliconeuh molding and that's a concern a lot ofhis source materialsare coming offshore welleverything is everything's off show so herehere's my real life exampleand I've made a video on thisbefore so the reusable containers that Icurrently make are stainlesssteel they're stainless steelwith a silicone lid we are 100 plastic freesuper proud about thatright so in uh January I had uhan order of 8 000 pieces and the tariff was2 percent right that'sthe tariff rate that I'vehad on these things for the last four yearsand um so that order of 8000 pieces the tariff was850 dollars I just had another order comein in July same amount 8000 pieces but with the new10 percent on China another 10 percent thatwas the flat tariff ratethe 50 percent on stainlesssteel right so now we're up to 70 percentit's compounding and thenand then the 2 percent thatexisted my tariff that was 850 dollars inJanuary was 30 000 dollarson the same exact product nowif you are just an Etsy shop yeah what areyou gonna do you know andyou were like chugging alongand and that and that's and yeah I'm usingEtsy shop but you're alsosay Melissa Butler at thelip bar which is still a small business youknow it is a woman-ownedcosmetics brand yeah in targetstores and then all of a sudden you you youcan't have all your productsjust go from being you knowuh a 14 lip gloss to having to be 35dollars yeah to absorb this and um thesethese things can't befound in the United States yeah but theythey don't have areplacement so even if I wanted tomake my stainless steel containers in theUS I can't I can't and notonly that on stainless steelit's on raw materials too yeah and we bringall that stuff in so didyou have to pay that yepso you want to say did you raise yourprices then not yet so thisis what we've been doing umwhat what you can do and um if peoplearen't sure this is very nerdynow but um so I I brought thisstuff in I put it in a free trade zoneeverything in Rhode IslandRhode Island the whole statehappens to be a free trade zone what thatmeans is that I don't paythe duty at the port like Inormally would I pay it when the goodsleave my warehouse though soI did that to buy some timeessentially I've had to ship out like10,000 pieces or I'msorry not that not 10,000 1000pieces from that order but I've had to paythe tariff then so okayso you're not having to payit because you're in Rhode Island when youget it right then you cankind of piecemeal it outwell I can because of how my customers workright but like if I owedthat whole 8,000 to Walmartright I'd have to pay it right away becauseyou're extending your cashflow yeah I'm still paying itwell I'm also hoping because the tariffrates change based on whatit is that day then so I'mhoping that somebody comes to some senseyeah I don't know I don'tknow it's interesting becausethe tariffs for someone like say a Walmartthey knew they were comingso they just bought surplusand probably stored it in the free tradezone like you're talkingabout um they kind of gamethe system or they got it they bought itwhen the tariffs were lowgot it through the trade zonesand into sitting in their distributionnetwork somewhere knowingthey're going to sell it at afuture date but they're not paying thathigh tariff that's comingbehind it I mean possiblyum I don't I don't honestly know whatWalmart is up to you but youknow the distribution centersare like generally places of liketurnaround right so oh they need to rollthat inventory quick yeahso to say that they have a whole bunch ofstorage available yeah but then alsoWalmart doesn't make their stuff they makesome stuff like they havetheir own house brand youknow like the weight drugs versus Advil butum they have tons ofsuppliers and tons of seasonalitylike you go into Walmart and it's like allthe every everythingchanges you know in spring,summer, fall, winter and so that's whereI'm just like now that thefall reset is happening you knowhow we all get super mad that we startseeing like pumpkins inAugust when it's 40,000 degreeslike that's what's happening now and sothat was that was nothing tobe planned for right becausethat was all done last year yeah yeah Ifeel like I started seeingit beginning of July even thefall stuff depending on the floor yeah yeahI see if we're going tothe store I'd die to avoid ityeah it's just randomly like I go to Costcoa lot um I love Costco umbecause just uh my childrenI've grown up where the or I raised my kidswhere they're their friendswe were an open house theycould just come here so I always had tonsof snacks and drinks andfood like the last like 28 yearsbecause my oldest son's 28 so I've justbeen in the habit I haveto buy bulk even though nowmy older two are gone I'm still buying themI need to at some point injust but my point is is I sawHalloween stuff in Costco mid-july wow ohyeah yeah it was alreadystarting and I saw some atick tock of a woman who kind of keeps aneye on holiday stuff for Idon't follow her it was thefirst tick tock but she said what she'sseen is you know if you gointo uh home goods or marshalsor something and they have like theclearance wall or whatevershe's saying that there'sthere's Halloween fall stuff on theclearance wall from last yearand then it's taking up like athird of the store and then another sectionof the store is thenew stuff and she's likethis is the first time she's seen that andshe said her advicebecause this is why people followher she's like as soon as Halloween's overget out there becausethey're going to have so muchsurplus of stuff on even triple clearancethis year like she'snever seen and I don't know ifthat's related to tariffs or related toanything but she said she'snever seen such a surplus ofstuff before so I know it's an interestingconsumer pressure maybe Idon't know I don't know yeah soI do think that there will just beshortages I I do think that what mostbusinesses are going to dois just pull up stakes and not order likethey'd rather have no itwould because the the tariffsare so margin destroying like that you'drather not order it andbecause you can't take the hitlike most most margins that I've everworked on you know for likeelectronics and stuff is like30 points right so you can't what are yougonna do like give it awayand so yeah I think peoplewill like businesses will just stop buyingfor now until this slowsdown or stops or somethingthat's an interesting thing because I cansee Walmart having theability to to squeeze theirsuppliers and say we're sharing in thisburden or you're taking thebrunt of it but that's Walmartnot everybody's Walmart Etsy right Etsyshop compared to WalmartEtsy person has no no leverageright but what I'm saying is is that evenWalmart like these numbersare so out of control that youyou can't go to your supplier as you'repicking out of business wellor you can't even say let'sshare it let's do anything there there isabsolutely no way thatWalmart and the supplierwill not have to raise costs on theconsumer but like there'sno getting around it becauseif you're going from having you know athree most tariffs before like our ourworldwide tariff ratewas on average about 2.8 percent because wewant to encourage freetrade you know and sonow that's gone to like I've heard like theYale economist personis saying it's 18 percentI truly believe like I listen I'm such anerd about this I don'tthink they realize theiradditive nature of this I think thatthey're they don't know yet that isstacking on top not onlyare they stacking on top of the tariffs thenew ones they're on topof the old ones that Trumpdid the first time around that Biden didn'tget rid of so when I wasat the lip bar that's whenTrump was he first did rounds of tariffsthat he put 25 percent on abunch of stuff coming out ofChina not everything you know but it was abunch of different classesof goods and that's when andthis is what's funny that's when we werebuying components inChina and bringing them in theUnited States and we were making the makeupthe actual cosmetic fill inthe US so we would buy thecompacts and the lipstick cases all that inChina bring them here I hadto move production to Taiwanbecause if I took the components from Chinato Taiwan and thenbrought Taiwanese makeup intothe US I only had three percent tariff so Iactually took businessaway from the United Statesbecause especially with cosmetics if you'redoing and maybe you'refamiliar but drugstore cosmeticsare very different from like Sephoracosmetics stuff like the the pricestructure that can behandled so if you've positioned yourself asa drugstore makeup brandyou can't just all of asudden be like okay this is a $40 lipstickyeah at Walmart thatwouldn't work so we had no choicebut to re-root everything around. What'sinteresting is this is another plug for youso you could be hired by somebody whatyou're describing you really have an expertunderstanding of the logistics and how tooptimize the the the supplychain where to source fromunderstanding what what the differenttariffs are the additivecomponents of now they're taxingstainless steel it's not just the finishedproduct but there's astack-on effect. I find this I thinkthis stuff is fascinating and you mentionedthe fall reset a lot ofpeople don't think of it inthat terms I kind of I get that I think inthose terms because thatfall reset is being orderedprobably what in January or earlier orearlier ahead rightyou're freaking out next year'sproduct now now and so it's it's just afascinating thing I thinkthe whole global supply chainis fascinating and you're someone who couldsomebody could hire youto help navigate all thatyeah for sure develop a product now I don'tknow where to go anymoream I making my shit on Marslike what's the tariff rate at the moon Idon't know have you seenany movement right the theintention of all of this is to raiserevenue and to bring product into the USand make it here rightand that's great grandiose I'm aligned tothat however theimplementation of that is extremelydifficult right because we don't do thisstuff anymore and you don'tjust it doesn't just appearout of vapor if you've built your entirecompany using contractmanufacturing that was your premiseand if you're a new company in the UnitedStates in the last 25 yearsthat's exactly what you didlike unless you had unless I don't knowyou're you're you'remaking like leather belts out ofcowhide on your own ranch you know what Imean and so you built anentire business on contractmanufacturing you have to keep thatbusiness afloat during thistime yet you're paying instead of850 in tariffs all of a sudden you gottapay 30 000 in tariffswhere's the extra money to build afucking factory yeah yeah and nobody and Iand here in the in the USuh venture capitalists nowhave been very like well tuned into lookingfor a unicorn that is atech startup and all they'reinto right now is AI and I keep saying AIdoesn't have arms and legsyeah it's not making shit andso oh and what's also funny is that uh whenI first moved back tothe east coast uh before Ibought my house I lived in a factory like Ilived in not like a bomb Ilived in a converted factoryright because all of the factory buildingshere that used to be forall the textile mills thisis where all the textile center was lots ofjewelry factories andstuff like that they'reapartment buildings right so part of thatrejuvenation of a lot ofold rust belt urban centersthey converted the old factories into nicecondos same thing inDetroit same like that's part ofrevitalization of downtown Detroit is allthese old buildings beingturned into apartment buildingsand so where are we going to do it andwho's giving us the moneyto do it because my companyI I've never worked for a company that wasjust sitting on millionsof dollars like in a justemergency factory fund yeah yeah you knowso there there isn't an option and thento make it even worse it still won't becheaper it still won't beless you know it's becausewe have to pay American workers we have topay American insurance wehave to pay you know allall of that stuff that doesn't existoverseas and my my gut what Ibelieve I I do think and this isnot necessarily me giving the president thebenefit benefit of thedoubt but I do think thathe's an old man who remembers tariffspossibly being impactful inthe 80s because that that couldhave helped that could have helped a lot oftoy companies not leavethat could have helped youknow stuff like that that could have savedsome industry in the 80sand I think he just doesn'tknow that we don't make stuff well what'sthe last time he's been in atarget you know or picked upsomething that says made in Vietnam on ityou know and right I Ihonestly I I think a lot of peopledon't know that we don't make anything yeahsome somewhere some there's a secret likeblender factory you know and like whateverjust sitting idle and beingso mad at all the you knowChinese blenders yeah do you think theydon't know or just don't givea shit well okay you have toknow what I mean do you like so many peoplehave commented on my videossaying just buy American Ido think that I think there's just a lackof understanding andthey think that you knowChinese products are just getting shot intothe country you know andthen just showing up atWalmart or that Walmart's doing it yeahlike everything inside aWalmart is from Walmartsomehow I I there's a massive disconnectbecause I'll often askpeople I'm like well who do youknow who works in the vacuum cleanerfactory yeah yeah like nobodyyou know and I think the countryis so big that maybe they think you knowArkansas people don't realizeyou know everybody thinks theWalmart is a retailer which they are rightthey're the largestretailer but they're truly thelargest logistical company in the world tooyeah yeah yeah the largestsupply chain when I thinkof a made in America I actually would thinkof like how you just saidlike some a person makingbelts from cowhide on their like if thefarmers market if I buysomething made in America liketruly made in America I know I'm spending alot of money becauseit's almost like a a specialspecialty item I'm I'm I'm and I'm willingto spend that I thisbelt or this box or whateverit truly was made from a tree on land andthey carved it and I'mgoing to spend 150 dollars forthis box it's almost like art yeah you knowand so it those things I dothink exist like people aremaking you know clay pots and their thingand although maybe theclay came from China I don'tknow but made it was made by an American inAmerica so let's justnot maybe not all artisanalproduct right maybe not every item was madein America but anAmerican made it so I think thereare those things and I think peoplesometimes will say made it by it and Isupport that I do supportsupport people Americans who make things soI'm 100% on that on boardI just want to make thatclear but if you say by American you'retalking more about thattype of stuff and yes supportthose people support people that are makingthings in America butthey're not making a blenderthey're not making a dishwasher they're notmaking a maybe a platea clay plate but thatplate might cost you 15 dollars a platebecause this is a piece ofart they made with their handsso that I think is a disconnect sure youcan buy American butyou're not going to go getplastic plates that were made in America togive your put your kidslunches on does that make senseyeah I think that's disconnect a little bitI it's completely adisconnect but I also think theone silver lining that I think couldpossibly exist is that we'llcut back on the consumerismlike we we I'm not a big consumer like Imade a joke the other dayI'm like if you scroll backthrough all my videos you're probablyseeing me wear the sameeight shirts that I've owned forthe last like four years like I'm not a bigshopper yeah and and Ithink a lot of our our culturelike through social media is also likeadded into by theconsumerism by the availability ofthings like now you can have a whole genderreveal party that has awhole packet of accessories thatgo with it you know like we'll do all thesethings we do uh I don't knowwhy I'm stuck on babies butlike we do like sprinkle baby showers rightnow like instead of youjust get one baby shower youhad one kid and that's it I know and that'snot foreign to mebecause when we were growing uphaving kids you had your one baby showerand then that was that waskind of it yeah and then you andthen you just have everything for yourwhole life and then but ifyou think about it now like allthese little things all these littleinstagrammable moments or whatever theyhave accessories they haveshit to buy to make this party make thispicture like and I I dothink this was the end times whenit was like the peak consumerism of see howdid you see videos ofpeople decorating the inside oftheir fridge why I would see videos ofpeople like buying likeorganizers yeah there therewere there were the organizers but then Isaw people like putting like little likedirectory picture frames up and stuff likethat like inside no yeahbut even even all thoseorganization things you know like consumeconsume yeah and it's allplastic and it's all it's allshit yeah on the planet forever yeah yeah Ido think thatinadvertently between the less trashif there's nothing to buy you're not buyingtrash and that's part ofthe reason why I got intosustainability now at this stage in mycareer because I realizedoh all this shit that I madeis just actually shit like I don't care ifit was I was making aircleaners for a while those aircleaners are in all landfill like nobodyfixed them like I've justpolluted the planet for thelast 15 years you know and so I thinkbetween not having stuff tobuy but then also less traffic onthe ocean less container ships going backand forth less containeryou know riding on a on amac truck you know but it'll be devastatingto the economy and thatand that's the problem rightbecause people people need jobs yeah whatyou're describing isfascinating right you've got thiswhole global shift with the tariffs butthen you have this hugeinfluence of AI to veryone's more controllable right maybe youcould say back off on the tariffs andthat'll get us back tostatus quo but then you've got the AIdisruption so it's you knowthe world's crazy I do think theAI thing is um a bit overblown and I onlysay that after years ofbeing like being told everyeverything that is like the next majordisruptor you know likebluetooth is changing everythingyou know wi-fi is now changing everythingthe internet itselflike I remember do you guysremember when uh we really first startedbeing online so this waslike that for me um back inlike 1998-99 my ex-husband and I we had ourpc in the house and wewould like take turns on ityou know like to go online and whatever andI remember going onlineand I'd be like I'm onlinewhat now like everybody's like oh onlineonline it's so great andI'm like okay now we're allconnected and we can you know we havesocial media and whatever butis it like online doesn't washmy dishes AI is not going to wash my dishesit's not going to feedmy cats like it's notgonna cook my dinner it's just not and Ithink it like eventuallyokay it can compute fast andI do like using chat gpt I know it's verycontroversial I do likeit I did tell it to stopblowing smoke up my ass though I was likeyou're like because I gaveit my resume I was like lookat my resume tell me you know like what youthink and it was socomplimentary I was like you arefull of shit like calm down man like I am Iam not Gandhi you know andum so but I I think that thereis a huge difference between AI doing AIstuff and then beingsurrounded by robots like wow andand not only that and I've said this beforeand people find it a bitcontroversial I think robotsare never going to be cheaper than peopleit is cheaper to have awhole bunch of Chinese peopleworking in a factory with their fine motorskills you know likeokay maybe you can havea robotic surgeon you still need a humanperson guiding the robotyeah everybody's like they'regonna get better they're gonna get betterokay but are the robotsgonna make robots like is it justgonna be robot in there yeah I don't knowif you've looked into like agenteck AI it's kind of gettinginto that right where you start to buildthese agents that's theagentic part that are autonomousthat start to have human reasoning andstart to make decisions it'sit lives in the computer yeahyeah yeah you know what's funny is that umhow we had talked aboutporn earlier and men and pornand young men in porn well with the AI umwhat how AI is AI isaffecting women in some similar waysor it's just at the beginning and I'll becurious to see how this pansout but women are having AIboyfriends or getting validation through AIum but truly creating AIboyfriends and getting theiremotional needs met through chatgbt andother ways um and boys aretoo men men are men are too butmen need the physical pleasure women needthat emotional connection that we want thatemotional connections and that validationor young women at least in that journey oftrying to find a partner and all that orwanting to find a partnerso um so it's almost I'll becurious to see how that pans out becausethat could also create asmuch as the men are disconnectingbecause of the overload of the physicalstimulation from porn thattheir physical needs are gettingsatisfied through porn and they'restruggling to connect witha real woman if the women'semotional needs are getting so perfectlymet by AI then regular menare never gonna they can barelymeet it right I agree that that's why I hadto tell it to you knowcalm down and because it's socomplimentary yeah it honestly is I'm likethis is disturbing like itbut it feels good right andyou're you've had life experience you'reself-aware you're right but ifyou take a 24 year old or a 28year old you know who has maybe gonethrough these dates withmen and been treated horriblyand shot down and then you have this AIlike filling that voidand and all those that's tome that's very dangerous oh it is men willnever be able to meet thatever no I'd be willing to betyou're on you're spot on I do I develop soI do some nerdy shitI'll make scripting andpython development html stuff like thatright and I use co-pilotand I'll be like make me ascript that does this and it'll be likesure thing Brian hopeit's been a great day for youlet me pull that out and and give me just asecond that kind of thing soit's like it's just kind ofweird you know there's a loneliness manloneliness male epidemic theAI could fill the lonelinessthat women are could be feeling like thedisconnect between thesexes right now for the reasonscould be getting filled through technologyI think dangerous yeah Icould totally see it wasonly men with porn we were worried aboutnow there's technology thatcan fill the needs of a womanemotionally that's just a recipe and thenyou have robots so we'reactually heading towardsterminator well then you if you if you typesomething into saychat chat gbt or co-pilotthere's tons of llm's the large languagemodel AI models right youcould say something likeyou could you could search what are thesymptoms of menopause nowit's got that and then you comeback a week later and you'd be like how doI what's the bestmedication for you know headacheit'd be like oh hi Nicole I know thatyou're in menopause atthis moment and I hope you'refeeling good and you're getting rest andall this bullshit andyou're like oh my husband doesn'tsay this you know yeah yeah 100% but nobodydoes you know likewhere we're we don't reallytreat each other with much kindness youknow all the time like we dowith our kids right I wouldsay we're very solicitous to our childrenand maybe to our parentsto some extent but on adaily basis I think a lot of us aren'tgetting like seen andeven though like the llm's orwhatever don't see you it feels like itlike I was um I was workingon um I've had this idea foruh a movie script rolling around in my headfor a while but I'venever written one like again Ionly take it so far and so I uh I put it inthe chat gbt and then itwas just like oh this isamazing like I was like really like tell memore and uh and I was likethat's when I had to tellit to be like okay you you gotta knock thisshit off because it'salmost like a drug in a way it'sopening it yeah yeah it's like that firsttime I ever smoked acigarette you know yeah yeahyes do you have a lot of hobbies so I wouldsay right now um my mymain hobbies are um writingum and and then doing my tick tocks youknow um and then atthis point I'm kind of likespiraling a little bit not gonna liebecause I'm trying to do all thesedifferent things but withmy job I travel so much that it likeinterrupts any potentialcontinuity yeah like oh I'm gonna goto this class you know and it's everyMonday or whatever um that'sthat's really been kind of ascrew in a lot of my and I I also have togo to Boston two days a weekto the office and from herethe the whole journey is two hours each wayand so so it kind of justthrows my life into disarrayyeah yeah what do you guys do for hobbieswell I'm doing I find itfunny because I don't thinkGen X women in general have had time forhobbies you know I have tobe thinking about it like Ithink it's more men that have hobbiesbecause we've given them thatspace to have hobbies becausewe've done everything you know so when I Idon't have a hobby I Iactually hit 50 actually I do havea hobby now I did not have a hobby I'm awriter so when I had timethrough my life I did writebut I utterly and completely devoted everyounce of my soul intoraising children and a lot ofthat was rooted from my own childhood andI'm very like I've gonethrough healing and all thatI loved being a stay-at-home mom I lovebeing a mom I love being awife we have a helicopterpad yeah yeah so I I I didn't need I didn'thave the need to workoutside the home because thestability I found from creating a homefulfilled every ounce of melike it really truly did so Iwas like totally fine like I'm astay-at-home mom and I'm completely finewith that because I reallytruly am in the meantime I'm also grindingthrough life and probablyignoring a whole bunch of traumathat I stuffed down and didn't deal with sowhen I turned 50 is when Iyou know my older two areleft for college I'm my youngest my ourbonus baby as we call himum is getting older didn'tneed me his hands on anymore and all of asudden I could look aroundand breathe and I was like Ihave no idea who I am because I'm a mom andI'm Brian's wife Iwrote a book back in 2009but other than that I have no idea what Ilike yeah I like thegrateful dad I think I told youthat I commented on your words or somethingbut I don't know what Ilike if you asked me what Iliked I could not have answered you now soI spent I'm 54 now so Ithink my hobby the last fouryears is figuring out who I am so I went ona healing journeybecause I realized if I staythe path I am with the alcohol I consumebecause I was inperimenopause in my 40s and coping withthat with alcohol because I didn'tunderstand I'm in perimenopause I justthought I'm going crazyI'm gaining weight I'm uh have anxiety andmaybe some depression andbrain fog I also have thyroiddisease so I call my 40s just this I'msurprised I made it throughI'm always I'm surprised withevery decade I'm always like oh I made it Imade it through my teenageyears like I totally didn'tthink I was making it through that and thenI'm like I made it throughmy so everyone's like wowthe 40s though I will say that's why I'malways like talkingperimenopause perimenopause butum so I cut down my alcohol significantly Ichanged how I was eating I actually finallyimplemented a true lifting weights becausethat's so important our ageI always I hated that and Ialways put that off walking um trying tolearn how to meditatewhich is so challenging for meand really trying to get into yoga soreally trying to focus onmyself health wise and thenthis pod and I also reclaimed my energywhich we actually have ahoodie that I wear that says thatfrom because within our marriage um I hadgiven over so much of myselfuh that I needed to balancethat because he naturally was used to megiving over so much ofmyself that and men just don'tsee that they really don't and so I had toreclaim and then basicallyset boundaries and kind of saylook this is where I am right now this iswhat I will accept and thisis what I won't and if we'regonna work you need to adjust that and andand we would talk aboutthat and um and that was alearning curve for him you know because Iwas there were things I justI'm not going to do anymoreI'm not going to put up with anymore and Iwas putting up with itbecause I was just part ofthat journey but then I just hit and thatcould be perimenopause thatcould be menopause becauseyou stop giving a fuck about pretty mucheverything because of the hormones theestrogens dropping and all that I alwayssay that's probably acatalyst and and and reclaimingbut um so there was a shift with us andthen we started doingthis podcast so I would sayit's a very long answer but and it's soconvoluted but that has beenmy hobby is just figuring outwho the fuck I am I know and I think it'sso crazy like I you knowum some people say thatoh working out is a hobby or whatever and II work out every day Ihave ever since I was 22yeah and I always say that that that likesaying working out is yourhobby or um or meditating oror journaling or whatever is kind of likesaying brushing your teethis your hobby yeah but womenget so stripped down when you're a wife anda mother that basicallytaking care of yourselfhas become glorified as a hobby you knowlike going to yoga is a hobby going to yogaI'm sorry is not a hobby because that isself that is taking careof yourself it's like sayingyou know washing my ass is my hobby yeahand um and so I think thatthat so much has gotten we getso stripped back to being like a husk of aperson yeah that like I andand and I think about thiswith Gen X women a lot too and um justbecause I was such a pickme as I was saying earlierlike you're such a pick me to start offwith when you're young notmaybe not you but I was no noI'm one of my pick me moments definitelydefinitely to the point whereI don't even know what I likeyeah because I I spent my whole life beinglike yeah I lovesnowboarding I'm cool you know oh II'll go see the Grateful Dead 400 timesyeah I'm cool like I'm acool chick I'll watch baseballlike yeah fuck all that shit in the greatality yeah but then butthen it was so deep inside methat I'm like well what what do you likeyeah yeah and um and Idon't I don't know if men fullyrealize that um we're on some fake ass shitwith you guys like we'rejust like you know yeah wecleave to the man yeah and and to wherewe're like um and and I willsay like my uh ex-husband umhe would like actively make fun of stuff Iliked all the time too youknow so um you know whetherit was a tv show um or music or whatever orlike like I don't know getting ready doingme like where I think a lot of men may likehave carp launch to likemake fun of all the stuffthat women do because it's girly or I don'tknow because we're womenand uh and and then um I'vethought about this too like how men alwayssay that women shop allthe time you know like ohwomen's only hobby is shopping it's becausewe buy everything foryour life yeah like we madeyour house we bought your food like sorrywe had to spend money at astore to do it yeah or or webought your mom's christmas gift ormother's like right and thekids don't even get me started onholiday like women are the magic makers yepwhen I'm not sayingbefore any listeners write in Iknow there's always those few men that arelike amazing unicorns Iget it but not always yeahnot all men no women are the magic makersand in the holidays I I willI will fight that because Ifight anyone who says that's not truebecause it is true and nothinggets me more mad than on socialmedia when I see that she doesn't haveanything in her stocking oh Iknow I want the flat stockingto my phone and strangle her husband I'mlike I I don't even okay Iwill say this like from theday we've been together he's always beenawesome about all that likemy talking's been overflowedI've gotten way too much talk aboutconsumerism the birthdaymother's day so like I'm definitelymarried to someone who um hit all theimportant points like Iwasn't slighted in any way or ifI had a dream when I wrote my book he wasright there supportinganything I wanted to do yeahhe's always been incredibly good I was in aslumpt away and he was incrediblysupportive totally soyou know because I'll see that peoplesaying just divorce and Inever had that point where it waslike just divorce them I never had that butthere were still thingsthat needed to be addressed andbecause us being gen x and because of allthat I just you know theyhad to be righted I wasn'tgoing to go into my second half giving overas much of myself as Ihad and thankfully he alsowanted to stay in this marriage and waslike okay so I need toadjust some things and and you'vetalked before about your maturity jump andand it's it's likefeeling seen like I need to feelseen in these ways and if you can't see mein that then we have aproblem and so there's justand that's like communication but um Ithink so many women are genx women feel this way likewho am I whether they've been astay-at-home mom or worked and been a mombecause a working mom isdoing both those jobs and I'm a bigbeliever in that um so it'syou either way are culminatingto this quote unquote midlife lookingaround and saying okay whatwhat about me and the self-carething shouldn't be a hobby but it becomesone because we haven'tbeen doing any self-care for30 years anything it's like you knowMaslow's hierarchy ofneeds you know like you have tostart at the bottom you're like okay I'vebeen breathing yes servingyou know this is the bottompart of my pyramid and now I need to moveup and uh go like brush myteeth and move my body youknow and then I can you know eventually getto self-actualize orwhatever but I also think thatwe live in a culture where what do womenlike in general rightbecause all of our our likes andthings that we do have been built on like alot of it has to fit into some level of servingsomebody you know and so what can you evendo okay you can sit thereand maybe knit somethingbecause you can throw it down real quickand go up and you know takecare of a baby or whatever soyour little hobby of like something likethat can exist because youcan throw it in a bag and gocook dinner but like you can't do that whenyou're going to play 18holes of golf you know and so youcan't go on like a scuba diving photo shootyou know you can't justbe like okay now I'm anunderwater photographer as my hobby yes asa woman maybe what youcan do is make some TikToksof you cleaning you know and then you'reyou know and so our ourworlds are are limited byeverybody that we take care of and I'vesaid before that I feel like alot of men don't realize thisbecause I I do say um that men operate offthe three P's I don'tknow if you've seen my videosI think I have seen that one that's howfamiliar yes yeah which is uhthere it's the the three P'sof male motivation which is basically likepay praise or pleasureright and so if they're notgetting one of the three they're not goingto do it right and whichis like okay like even eventhe outdoor work that men do there ispotential praise for that andmaybe because oh your neighborsees oh yeah yeah exactly yeah not gettingpraise for cleaning a toilet rightbut I do believe because I don't like my mybrother's amazing guy Ihave like my uh cousin'shusbands are all amazing and I I don'tbelieve all men are bad but I do thinkthere's like blinderson so they don't since you're able tooperate with three P's inmind for most everything like paypraise or pleasure you think women do thesame so you you tend tothink oh she really likes cookingdinner she likes doing all the Christmasshopping she likes doingall of this because otherwiseshe wouldn't do it because I wouldn't do ityou know and I'm sure ashell not doing it and I Ithink they don't realize how much we dobecause ain't nobody elsedoing it you're still rightnobody else is gonna see it yeah you justnailed that it's so truebecause it's so true oh my goshand and we will do it because we know itneeds to get done becausewe love our children becausewe love our partner because we we want tocreate this family we'll dowhat needs to be done now Ido think men will say we go to work becausewe know we need to make moneybecause that needs to be donebecause that pay your mind is betterit's also easier I will be the first toadmit you know we've beentogether a long time we'vethree kids there's no fucking way I couldhave woken up at three inthe morning and you knowrock the kid back to sleep and then go befunctional and be happy that would drive mefucking crazy right but you knowtell us what you can do no that's what I'msaying it's like there'sroles right we've talked aboutthis you fall into these different rolesand some they'refunctional but they do wear you knowthey wear on you yeah especially for womenyou start feeling seen andyou are only seen as yourrole not a woman not not the woman that youfell in love with not thegirl that you first met youknow not your wife who you've committed toyou're just that role andthat's where I think women getso lost and so then when their childrenleave the home and theydon't have that hands-onresponsibility anymore they don't have therole and that's whenthey're like okay who am I I meanI know I'm here still with you but wait youknow what happened sowhat do I do now you know andum and thankfully because I know I've hadboomers come in and be likeyou think you're the only onethat went through no I'm sure they're verystoic and they grindedand they got through it butthat's the point Gen X doesn't want to wedon't want to just Gen Xwomen aren't going to be stoicand grind through this part we're going totalk about perimenopauseand menopause and all theshit that goes along with it we're going totalk about self-discoverygetting to know ourselvesagain because we're entitled to do that andI'm sorry no one made youfeel that way no one madeus feel that way but we're claiming it andwe're hoping the youngerwomen learn from this so we'regoing to be part of the change just becauseyou didn't talk about itdoesn't mean we shouldn'tand I'm not only that we're not going todrop dead anytime soon likethey did like a lot of themwere like okay I'm going to make it to 65you know and yeah andwhatever and then and also a lot ofthem were already in a grind of taking careof grandkids and we're notyou know and so I think weunlike any other generation really beforeus you know we're notdropping dead and we're not takingcare of grandkids I know a lot of us aremaybe taking care of olderparents and stuff like thatbut we have time to think we have time toto figure out what it iswe want to do and I willsee even though I was always a working momafter you know the firstinitial three or four yearsum I still was lost when they left I waslike okay I'm still accidentally spending$200 a week on groceries yes it's me in thecat like what am I buyingI keep just putting stuffin the freezer I'm like yeah I don't knowhow to cook small oh wellthat's right that's a shift Idid though I cooked Sunday through Thursdayfor almost 30 years and umand I made a decision liketo a year and a half ago I'm like I'm donewith I'm done figuringdinner out every nightI'll do it sometimes but punch out so butwhen I do cook now I haveno concept how to I cookand I cook like the Costco all that chickenI still cook all of itand I could cut it up andit's all going on and now we're eatingchicken for seven daysbecause I don't know how to makeanything small yeah but that's that's alsobreaking those habits soI'm sorry you were gonnano well what's fascinating to me is Ithought I was asking an innocent questionthe hobbies that was like three hours agoyeah I did mention aboutone of your hobbies is TikTokso we should talk about AK MJ AKA mommywell let me go back to thereason I asked is becauseI thought we were gonna relate on somethingand then boom sorry youmentioned how you'll getso far and then you don't finish or you'lldo this I do that but I'mgosh I'm gonna plead thefifth but I have some hobbies that I dothat with so his justabout his family um notoriouslyare hoarders and his mom is a hoarder andhe's very much like getsanxiety if there's too muchstuff everywhere because of that but what'sso funny is he hoardshobbies so Brian'll have like10 hobbies no doubt going on and then heowns all the things that gowith that hobby so if it'sfishing he has all the fishing stuff youknow if it's music he hasall the instruments you seesome of these instruments we don't playthese you don't play them nobut we have to have them allokay no we don't have to I tried you triedbut I always say thehoarding projects through thehobbies you know but also his brain isconstantly as one of thosebrains that never stops in a wayever so I think the hobbies are an outletfor him it's actuallyrelaxing to go to a hobby fromthat's kind of where I was going with youyou're in operations you'relogistics these are prettytechnical things is your brain constantlygoing so you get so farthen you're like well now I'mdistracted I go somewhere else well I thinkI have always gotten to thepoint where I've done it tolike a level of satisfaction like when Iwas when I was in the bandwe we played out a couple oflike festivals like not like like littletiny festivals and andthen we ended up playing atthe hard rock in Detroit when that wasstill there and I was like allright I'm like I need to go tobed you know like this was this was enoughlike I I feel like with Ithink I've always maybe feltlike you have to keep going at it and maybethis is just likecapitalism in general or somethinguntil like it's gonna make you money orsomething like that and thenI will say though with the theband stuff that my ex-husband and I afterwe would we would play garageband he was very good guitaristand he was in bands in the in the 80s and90s and stuff and he stilldoes it now like he still likedrops in and bands and so we would hang outat you know Wednesday nightwhatever just like singingand you know we had guitars and amps andwhatever um and so stufflike that but I always feel likeI have to take it to like some nth degreelike back when I wasdoing improv it's like okayam I gonna go do a stand-up set or whateverand I'm like no I want togo to bed yeah I don't Idon't know I don't know I never I I guessmaybe it is like collectinghobbies you know like whereand a lot of it was um bucket list stuffwhich ties into my tiktokbecause so I had on my bucketlist like I'm gonna be a published author Ihave I have you know I'venow I'm a published authorI've got you know patents I've got like allthis stuff was originallywritten on a bucket listlike being in the band you know doing allthat and then I added duringcovid I added become tiktokfamous onto my bucket list just to fuckwith my kids I was and Iwas like but you know what momdoes with her bucket list right and they'relike so embarrassedthey're like oh my god my mom'sgonna be on tiktok and then um and then Ijust started makingtiktoks to essentially fuck withthem and um I had a tiktok that I stitchedum with extra expatriarch I don't know if you knowhim um he's a he's a white guy with a beardum anyway he had asked thequestion uh for women likeum what was it it was something like whatwas marriage like for youor whatever for women whohave been married who are divorced what wasmarriage like and Imade a video just tellinghow I felt and that video got like 1.5million views or and all ofa sudden I was had all thesefollowers and yeah it was just on and I waslike just messing with thekids that was literally itand and so I was like well I guess I dothis now kind of keep thisup and um that was a wild timewhen that first happened I'm sure you guysknow too like when youfirst have like when yeah yougo to bed and you wake up and all thenotifications and whatever it hasn'thappened it was happening Iwould say two three years two years agomore often I would end upwaking up to like 500,000 viewsor whatever not anymore not anymore tiktokis not well tiktoks changeeven doing this like I said nextweek will be a year and I feel just in theyear tiktoks changed yeahdefinitely and ever sincecut down and came back it's been differentyeah so it's like there'ssomething that's going on umbut you definitely have a solid followingyou have a loyal fan base Ithink you know because I'vewatched your videos every time one of yourscome up come up I watch itum and you seem to have afew regular commenters that come on and soum are you posting daily Idon't I'm so bad about it seethis is I'm taking it just so far and I Idon't what will happen isI'll get in the mood yeah andand there will be um so maybe this is likea couple of times a weekand I'll get in the moodand maybe I'll do like two or three videosthat day what I do isI'll stack up comments that Ineed to reply to like I'll save commentsand be like okay I shouldreply to that and I'll do I'lldo a bunch um and that and then I'll goabout my I I am so bad atthis because all the things thatthat they say you should do like you shouldpost at least once once aday or twice a day or whateverand I can't I can't like the days I have togo to Boston there'sthere's no way I'm not I'm notgoing to be the person who's like makingvideos on the train youknow um I'm just not and umbut I think that's part of your success isit's authentic you'remaking videos when you trulyare inspired to make a video you're notjust making a video tomake a video yeah I thinkthat's what comes through so but you knowit's the quality versusquantity which I think I enjoymore from creators on social media ingeneral because sometimesI can tell when you're justmaking this someone's making a video justto get that content outversus no this is truly they'reinspired to talk about this whatever it isso um I think what it'sworking for you how long haveyou been doing it now um it started when Iwas still living inMichigan so um four years okaybut it wasn't until I moved to Rhode Islandwhere I had that first viralvideo so I think I was doingit for probably eight months a year beforethat okay hit and I I wasjust like talking about stufflike when I felt like it and um not tryingto I don't know be abrand or have a positioningand then I fell into talking about men andrelationships because of that one videobut then I still would um explain you knowstuff this tariff stuffI've been explaining now foryears um and because it really has affectedall of our costs you know andso it's a big reason for thethe consumer um inflation that that we'veseen you know and soanyway um yeah I've always beensurprised I'm like how why are peopleinterested in the bullshitthat comes out of my face I thinkbecause you're just being honest you'rebeing real and you're nottrying to sell them somethingyou're not trying to influence them youknow you really aren't likeyou have your opinions butyou're not coming across as you shouldthink the way I think you'rejust saying these are the factsas I see them and here they are you knowand I think it's more ofa straight shooter conceptwhich is very gen x yeah yeah that's trueyeah you definitely arehave a gen x vibe about it sonow did doing the tick tocks um your ticktock career hobby whateveryou want to call it personahas is that what's led you to want to do apodcast or is that aninspiration coming from somewhereelse I would say I wanted to do a podcastbefore I did tick tock okayI didn't have a good enoughidea and then also the kids were still athome and stuff so Ididn't have the time but eversince um ever since I I heard I learnedabout podcasts like I toldyou you know 15 years agolistening to Joe Rogan for the first timebecause my brother's likelisten to this and I was like howdo you how do you even find that you knowlike where do you go andthen back when I was doingimprov too I remember um guys at the improvplace they had starteda podcast and I was likepodcast like why are you in a pod you knowlike I didn't evenunderstand and I still don't kindof know where that name came from like whyI think it's from no I sawsomething it was from um AppleApple it came from Apple something withtheir like there had thatAirPods and something withit did yes it somehow the room it came fromApple now I can't remember yeah that's beendoing it forever that you realize that toyour point you couldn'tfind podcasts right where doyou go yeah Apple's been doing it foreverApple had something in thephone they put about podcastsright they came out with the software youcan listen to showsfrom Apple on your phoneon your computer that so somebody couldn'tcan correct me if I'm wrongbut I I did read that yeahI didn't know that it wasn't TikTok becausesometimes I say I read something but it wasactually TikTok I actually read this I readit with my eyes withwords you were even listeningto a book oh and I read it so um what'syour plan as far as uh your podcastmediocre at best whenare you hoping to start launching that wellhopefully in the fallso so that's the goal nowum I've I've done all my my back work youknow as far as like thisis what some of the episodesare going to look like like this is veryvery raw so like I haven'teven talked about it on TikToklike at all and so um but yeah the theconcept behind mediocre atbest is exactly what we werejust talking about which is like being genx taking everything justthis far like doing allthis stuff and I feel like as a woman as aa gen x 50 something yearold woman like you are onlymediocre at best you know what I mean likeyou can only and and it'sa joke like the whole thelogo is with an exclamation point too butit came from this is funnyit came from I was walking tothe train and um it was like early morningand whatever and I'mwalking to the train and thislike homeless dude outside of the mall inProvidence he's likehey mediocre at best ladymediocre at best like I got cat called bymediocre at best and Iwas like you know whatnothing's ever been truer man like you havethat oh my god you have called me out and Iand ever since then I'm like I'm gonna geta t-shirt that says that Iand I feel that in my soulyou know I do because and I also feel likewe've made such a cultureof just extolling all of thislike idiotic like grind mindset andeverybody's just gotta likeall you gotta do is you know getup every day at 330 in the morning and getinto your oxygen chamber youknow and take a cold plungeand eat wheat germ and and it's just likeyou know what fuck ityeah maybe I'm gonna have adrink and I'm gonna I'm gonna find somebodyto bum a cigarette off oflike a like a disgusting freaklike how do you like me now I love thatlove that it's like theantithesis of everything that'sgoing on all all of that and then you'll bethere with your past liketaking a smoke and be likecome on over here it's fun over here yeahcan you imagine having acigarette like I like that'slike so far outside of my my realm I Iremember like in the 90s ohyeah having like a beer anda cigarette in a bar and I wasn't like asmoker I was I was that one who wouldalways bum a cigaretteyeah I was a smoker so if we were partyingI'm smoking yes so if I goto the hotel and hold it inand then you let it out yeah I think vapingis a million times worseI wish kids were smokingcigarettes vaping is a whole chemicalprocess of crap at least andI'm not saying cigarettes arebetter at all I don't think kids should besmoking period but if they'regoing to I'd much rather seethem smoking a cigarette than vaping roll adrum before you do yeah Icould do that yeah there's mygen x advice kid they're old ones realcigarettes actually justsmoke it's going yeah you could dothat too instead of all the the otherchemical stuff stay awayfrom the chemical stuff kidssay if it grew in the ground you're goodbut um I think that soundsawesome I love it I can'twait to see like where it goes because Ilove that um it's raw it'shonest and I do think you'regoing to be kind of the counter to so muchof the we're gonna do allthose things just to andand that type a attitude that a lot ofpeople especially midlifeare starting to have and soyou have to have that balance of you knowlike I said I cut down on myalcohol but I do still havea drink sometimes like we actually went todinner last night and Ididn't order wine he's like noalcohol no no booze tonight so that tellsyou I do still order it.Am I in the boat you're talking about therelike I'm building a cold plunge we walkyeah he's yeah so I balance out a littlebit. I call it my cancerprevention push out mode we're all gonnaget cancer right so I'mtrying not to feed it I'mtrying to hopefully not starve it outthere. I still like all ofthat I still like a saunaor whatever but if I just think about mylife as a whole and thelevel of grind that I've been onlike flying all over the world trying tomake it in corporate Americaor whatever and I'm just likestill double middle fingering my way likeow you know because like Istill like only got so farand I think that I should embrace it thoughand that's kind of whatit's about you know like it'sit's about just relaxing and having a goodtime and and stopping thatthat grind I'm like maybethe opposite Mel Robbins you know. We lovethat platform MJ we justfigured it out right herethat is a great vibe I'll tell you a lot ofpeople are looking for that Ithink it's great it's almostlike look we are who we are and we've donewhat we've done and fuck itlike I'm not gonna you knowwe're not gonna have a perfect body we'renot gonna have perfectskin we're not gonna have youhave perfect hair but the rest of us don'thave perfect hair we'renot gonna eat perfect likewe've been grinding as we've given over ourfucking souls yes andso we're reclaiming someof it back and fuck it I love that I thinkit's a great balance toobecause there is something tobe said about the cancer push-off but youcan get gen x also can getobsessive about things and likereally into something you know so I don'tknow if that's a gen x thingor whatever but if you go toofar that way then you're like stress thatout I'm not saying you butin general like then you'redon't worry I'm not saying no I want a coldpunch I think I would likeit yeah but oh do you evercold punched I I've definitely cold punchedin a um there's a placearound here where you canit's a whole cycle it's like you go in thehot sauna then you go inthe tub and then you get acold punch literally awesome yeah love itthat's cool see I want asauna he okay so here's a littlewe're trying to not have it look a littlewest virginia in the backyardbut he did buy a freestandingfreezer and he's going to create a coldplunge and he's gonna Brianalso is a big do it yourself foranother hobby where he if I find somethinglike in pottery barn he'slike I can make it oh yeahsure so I'm gonna build a frame around itto match our pergola thathe built in the back so he'sgonna make it look real nice but right nowit's just a freezer in ourbackyard so we're like goinside a freezer yeah you can buy you knowa horizontal freezernot a stand-up oh my headyou're like a kid in the in the in thetrash dump like getting trapped in arefrigerator no no nono this is the most claustrophobic thingI've ever heard of no no andthen they close the door andyou're just no it you would get you wouldopen the lid get into thecold plunge the lid stays openum oh you turned your freezer into yes yeshe's making it into a coldplunge and he's gonna havea filter on it and a temperature thing andso he'll lift up the lidand that's what I'm in theprocess of sealing it now yeah and once Iseal it I'll build the framearound it and all that it'lllook pretty no yeah it sounds like itsounds like a great way torepurpose yeah yeah absolutely soand that's cool that's bad it's all balanceright yeah can't be toocrazy like you did havea pint of Ben and Jerry's last night I goback to the mountain ofcold I've had a point the lastfive nights I think okay but you'll lovethis he hasn't gained apound no of course not of coursenot yeah well you know I breathe in some ofthe ice cream and Igained five pounds yeah off hisyes yeah I'm screwed I'm screwed for theweek you know but the reasonI was asking about the hobbiesbecause I'm I go there the halfway notpretty close but like sofor instance I have a nicehydroponic garden in the backyard kind ofcrazy it's I use raspberrypies to control it a bunchof shit right but in someone's like youshould productize that youshould go sell that and forme it's like no that takes away the funright I don't want to gothat extra step I want tohave fun I need to I I'm turning my brainoff as much as crazy as thatsounds I'm turning my brainsoff my brain off with this highly complexthing I built you know and Idon't want to productize itI don't read the whole thing yeah that'swhy I was curious just youknow not to circle back on thatbut I have a feeling you could probablyrelate to that oh I knowyour stand up or your you knowthe improv the improv the band if you takeit too far now you're on thehook to go to the hard rockin Detroit every Friday or Saturday that'snot as much fun yeah exactlyexactly it ruins the balanceyeah it fucks up the balance yeah I need tohave um I maybe overall Ijust have commitment issuesI can't commit to a man I can't commit to ahobby I can't commit to alocation like it's fine I justlike fit about the planet I'll do whateverthe fuck I want for youon that this and it's maybeit's personal maybe not I don't know um nowthat you've shut off menand you're done do you thinkthat I don't know if holding out hope oranything that's not theright word but what if it happensnow that you're like fucking I'm done andyou've got that energy ofI'm good I'm at peace I don'tneed a man and now mr. wonderful strolls inand you're like oh shithere we go are you okay mommy mom called you and asked you to ask thatquestion I've got her on speedokay Louise listen um I don't know how thatwould happen I honestly don't because likeI don't know how it would happen I I feellike I've been out and about the world foryears now as a single person and aside fromlike if I go out to eatnormally like if I'm travelingfor work or whatever and I'm by myself Ialways sit at the bar rightbecause I'd like to talk tothe bartender or whatever and I alwaysthink it's weird to just sitat a table by myself and umthere have been men who have tried to talkto me at a bar but I'mlike ew you're a gross guy ata bar and then I'm like well you're also ata bar I'm like I don'tcount right so uh so anyway umI don't know how it would happen first ofall and um second of all II and this is gonna soundbad you guys seem to be in like a reallygreat relationship andwhatever but I can't imaginelike putting myself through it I guesswhich is like how is thisgonna be how how I'm gonna goout on dates I don't find it that enjoyableI guess anymore like inbetween my first and secondhusband I dated like it was my job and Ihad so much hope and Ibelieve that like my person isout there and all this stuff and but theactual date portions werealways I I would wake up thenext day and be like thinking oh I had agood time and then realizeno I was I was the good timeI was like entertaining somebody I was likeand they were like beingreal good chat GPTs you knowand like reflecting back at me like oh thisis interesting or whateverand um and I I gotta say II don't know if I could find somebody who Iultimately wouldn't feellike I was always doingmore than I was getting back it's just beenmy history and but butthat being said when youdecide to also your kids aren't at home andalso you don't have a manaround and you're not tryingto find a man it has left a hole that Icould drive a truck throughbecause like a man was a hobbyfor a thousand years right so I just setthat hobby on fire youknow and that's gone and umso I'm just like twit on my balls like Idon't I don't even knowI don't even know justtrust us the podcast will take up all thattime I know this does seemlike very complicated themore I've because I've had to like dig inand learn about it andall of that stuff I was likeoh is this gonna be too hard you can youtotally can do it there's noquestion but it is there itis um there's more commitment than people Ithink really morecommitment than we realize for sureyou know and it's way it's really technicalif Brian is verytechnical if he wasn't we couldn'tdo this I'm thinking I might hire a kid todo that like there's certainparts of it that just won'tI won't have the attention span for youknow like the technicalediting portions and stuff like thatand I know that so I've already been likelooking for a kid yeah to dothat that's local to me thatI can talk to yeah no that's a good ideabecause that it that'lltake a huge weight off of youand allow you to focus on the the meat ofthe podcasts and not bestressed out with all theediting and the technical stuff you know sobut either way even sothat you have the timeit sounds like to devote to this and itwill take it'll fill a lot ofthat time if you keep it justyourself it's actually kind of easy if youstart to branch out and doguests whether in studio oronline it's that gets a little bit moreexponential yeah I'lldefinitely have have guests on becauseI think it would be boring to just listento me I don't know I meanat least a good six months inthis a lot of just you talking honestly andthen you guys just spentyour whole weekend with meI love it I practically live with you now Ilove it I love it and andon that note before I ask mylast question do you have any more becauseI always have to checkwith them because afterwardshe'll say I had another question so no Igot my that was my mainquestion and the only thing I'llcircle back on that is I could relate if weweren't together I don'tthink I'd be out there andit just sounds like a lot and I'd beprobably hobby mania mode yeah and andmaybe it is our age tooright like I don't have you know I've gotI've got some functioningovaries in there but that'sall I got left you know and then they're ontheir last legs yeah like Idon't have the drive that Iused to yeah it will say since I've saideverything else that I I getsad sometimes thinking about itlike I'm like am I gonna die never havingmade out again like that'sweird to think about or you knowthat is sad but I also think that I couldjust like knock on aneighbor's door and make out withthem if I wanted to actually I had a I hada thought on this I'mmaking out no I was thinkingabout this because I don't ever not thinkthe concept of dating andyou're dating guys that weredivorced and you had mentioned that youknow all it's women divorcemen I found that interestingtoo that men don't divorce and I thinkyou're spot on but it'slike you're out and the peopleyou're meeting are guys that women havekind of said no good whatabout a widower it's men arewidowers right correct yeah that might bethe that might be an uh nichethat you haven't tapped intoso I'll just starthanging out at the funeral homeI'll just get in the processions you knowwhen they go down the highwaythey're big juries like just read theobituaries every week and belike okay I gotta go over hereno you know what I never thought about thatbut yeah they those onesweren't cast aside no that'strue but they're sad they're be sad butmaybe it's been likefive years and they're okayuncle was a widower very dedicated husbandfather became a widowerand he was a great guyhe was a world war two vet and just uh tooold actually yeah I know I meanpeace nownow that we put that out there now tell usin the next year I betyou she meets some widoweroh god that'll be the one and all he wantsto do is make out okay I put it out thereokay and then leave you alone I think youhave a lot to offersomeone I'll leave it at thatit's trying to fuck with you another man ohno no I won't say thatI'm just easy um well because I think eventhough Brian said likeif we weren't together butmen do want sex they really do and you're aman that does like sexand so I think eventuallyyou would go out there to get laid I reallydo because I think thatdrives them you know theywant to be taken care of they love the thehouse that a woman makesthey love like cooked food andclean laundry they they love those servicesa lot of times yeahyeah yeah you might stillwant your services so I would I'd find ithard if there weren'tthe right services for sureyeah yeah but uh I do but I do think it'sharder for men to be single because they dothey still and I know there's gonna bewomen that right and theyget mad at me that womenlike sex too I know women like sex I likesex but I'm not drivenby it but I think men justbiologically I'm not blaming them are so Ithink even 60 70 80 yearold men still are looking atwomen and feeling I want to have sex youknow where I think that alot we're easier to staysingle in our older age than men I could bewrong but I know no Idefinitely think like maybe likea 70 80 year old guy doesn't necessarilylike want sex but he wantsto be the guy who wants sexyeah and that's like a huge part of youridentity right as a man likeand and I do think it's kindof a shame I could talk forever on thattopic but just like that Idon't think necessarily that menare as driven by sex as they're told thatthey're driven by sex andthat they they might like somemen might like back like back off or not orlike because it's just inthe zeitgeist too much likethat's what their guy friends talk aboutthat's what like one waythey relate to each other andwhatever if they don't have like hobbies orsports or whatnot and Ithink maybe they would notbe that maybe it's not a thing of a deal asthey're told it it shouldbe well no you're touching onsomething it's interesting it's it's theyou're always from thetime you realize what it isyou're pursuing it yeah right and so oldhigh old habits are hard toprobably break so when you're75 or 80 yeah that you know the what is itviagra right okay I canstill do this and also whenyou're young porn and and societyespecially gen x men nakedwomen in movies and all thatum it's fed it's that's what I'm sayingyeah it's a work conditionto want it yeah yeah thatmaybe you'll have to come on or write thatas a topic for yourpodcast oh yeah covering thatbecause that's a very interesting topic youknow to to cover so allright any more questions no noI'm good okay so my last question is alwayswhere do you see yourselfin five years oh um well infive years I um I hope we will have soldour company that's alwayslike the goal is to exitand then I won't ever work for anybody butmyself again my goal is toultimately do the consultingthat you're talking about and I would liketo keep working withstartups and um but onlyhire me as a fractional coo right like Icome in for six months toa year I get you all set upwith all your systems and processes andthen I go someplace else Idon't want to like have the workpolitics and all of that stuff and um I dowonder where I'll live likeI think about it now like amI just going to keep this house you knowlike what what am I going todo and I don't know I like tokeep all that flexible but the only thing Ihave any remote ideaabout is that I will work formyself in five years because if I'm stillworking for somebody else fucking kill megreat goal and I you're such a wealth ofknowledge I completely see that happeningthere's no question and on that note if wedo have any listenersthat want to reach out to youuh we'll just for our listeners we'll getthe right contactinformation from MJ and have it in thenotes in the description so people can geta hold of you if they do soeven if I and I do give it away too muchbut even if you just maybe have somequestions or whateverbut I I do need to start working on I don'tknow charging people forall that because I'm helpingeverybody for free yeah especiallyespecially like helping womenentrepreneurs um uh and so if youhave questions and stuff like that I'llyeah you know reach out Iwould say you have a uniquehighly sought after skill set and it's youshouldn't give it away for free absolutelyyeah I'll do it I'mstill married to him sayI said this is why I'm still married to youyou're just as nice aschat gbt yeah that's likeliterally what chat gbt said like word forword that's the newnickname I think you should chargeI I get what you're doing it's global it'sbig it's needed it'scool stuff and it's a uniqueskill set not everybody gets it and you'rean expert are buildingthat business now so in fiveyears it's charged that's what my psychicsaid I I saw a psychic lastweek for the first time ina thousand years and she said all all ofwhat you just said I'm I thinkthat we're aligning with chatgbt and the psychic there you go that'sthis is your third oh that'sbecause you know things comein three so oh okay there you go on spyingon us so of course it'sgoing to run for a momentit's just connected into the suit yeahabsolutely but we mj we can'tthank you enough for sharingyour story with us for sharing your storywith our listeners I knowthere's going to be so much inhere that so many people it resonates withso many people that helpspeople feel seen that they canrelate to that they learn things from soagain I know it was twodays with us and we you're verybusy and you travel you're traveling andyou've got a lot of thingsgoing and so we can't thankyou enough for giving of your time I mean Ihad the best time um andI'm gonna come over and I'mgonna get in the cold plunge yes there yougo but wait till itdoesn't look like it's just atoilet on my back my backyard that he haddon't leave me I'm gonnaput a child on the flooroh I'm gonna put a crunch on the floor andfor all our listenersplease check out MJ on TikTokMJ aka mommy and it's spelled M-O-M-M-I-Echeck her out on TikTokkeep your eyes open for herpodcast mediocre at best again it'll be MJEldridge mediocre atbest and if you have anyquestions for MJ please leave them we'llmake sure she sees them soshe can answer you and againall of her contact info and where you canfind her will be in the show notesand thank you again for listening and wewill see you next time bye