Synced: Long End of the Stick

So many mosquito bites. Are you getting some?

So many.

I'll put the trash and I'll come back with like 30 mosquito bites.

It's awful. Didn't used to be like this here. Really?

Yeah. It's like climate change.

It's like three years, I think, of mosquitoes in LA now.

Three years? I mean, it's like these cockroaches in my apartment. They put the little boxes with the poison so that they go poison their families. And it feels wrong. Mine are little, which makes you think that it's better, but it's not.

They travel from Germany?

I guess. Yeah. They flew here? They flew here. Yeah.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room.

My date? What?

No. No. I'm late.

Oh, but you're always a little-.

I know.

That's what I want to talk about.

Exactly. I'm perpetually late now. I used to be so punctual.

And what's- Change. Is it the estrogen?

I haven't started that yet.

Okay.

No. And it's not like it's new as of two weeks ago. It's like maybe a year-ish and some change old. I feel like the older I get, the less punctual I am. It's a weird identity shift.

Does it feel empowering?

I feel guilty because I know what it's like to be on the other side of it and have strong feelings about it. I've now dropped that feeling. When other people are late, I don't care, because I just understand lateness in a new way. But I feel some guilt in case they feel like I used to feel. You know what I mean?

Got it. I think 10 minutes is fine. I think more, though consistently, is bad. In my head, there's a 10 minute grace period when you're coordinating and you're meeting anyone. If they're 10 minutes late, that's fine.

That's bad. Yeah.

Unless there's a thing.

This also makes me feel guilty. I'm not late. if I have a meeting or something. It's if I know there's some leeway.

Got it. So right now, you know there's some leeway. Yeah. Yeah. And what if you came in and we were like, then would you not be late if there were consequences?

The consequences are your passive aggressiveness? They're probably not. I'd probably just be like, well...

Because you know that me and Rob don't mind.

It's not even that. It's not like, oh, this person won't mind. It's the situation. It's like this situation, it's not like I have to meet you right now because we only have 10 minutes and 10 minutes, is it? and that's that.

But I think that, again, I don't want you to be late, because then we'll start doing the thing where... Everyone comes late. Yeah. And then that's when it becomes dysfunctional. But I feel like you shouldn't be coming in with this, you know, military...

So far, AI has not got there yet.

I don't know if I should learn how to drive. I think I have the long end of the stick. Is that what you say? Oh, yeah.

I guess. Well, I've never heard that part of it. Short end of the stick.

Yeah. So I figured I have the long one.

What do we think that means? Like, if two people are holding a stick and they pull and break it and it's like, which one?

Like the bush bone in a turkey.

Oh, is that what it's from? Why wouldn't they call it short end of the bone? I think we should just take that. That's better.

I just love... You know, when you hang out with a person who's German, like my cockroaches, and they'll just say things a little bit off. I'm like, that's so much better.

Yeah. So what's been going on the last couple of days?

I feel like a lot has been going on with you.

Well, I stopped drinking as of yesterday.

Yeah. I was thinking about you last night. How's that been?

It's been only one day.

Last day. What did you do on your last day of drinking?

Drink. I mean, drink. Yeah. Actually, not that much, but it was a little later. In the day?

Is that why you were FaceTiming me at like 1230??

Well, we were all texting.

You were in bed and we talked for a long time. And I went to bed at like 130.. I'm like, this is late. It was late. So you'd been out?

Yeah. I was at dinner. Night. I mean, I got home at 10.. Okay.

If it's late for you.

It's late for me. I like to be in bed by eight. Eight? Not really. It depends, but kind of.

Did you make your dinner? No, you went out for dinner.

I went out for dinner. But it was delicious, and I had a martini, and I also had an espresso martini. It was a great last night. It was a great goodbye to summer. That's really how it felt.

I feel like you've been doing that every week for the last month or so.

Yeah, I know. I know I have.

What is this about? It's just fun. Are you afraid of fall? No.

Summer is just fun. It is. And I love fall. Actually, fall is my favorite season. I love it.

Candles.

Candles, for sure. Although, I'm very particular about a pumpkin candle.

Really? Yeah.

Sometimes they smell way too sweet.

When we were at Target waiting all that time, we smelled so many candles, and I noticed that you didn't get any. I was like, look at this one. You were just supporting me, but not... Did they all smell bad to you?

Yeah.

We go all the time.

Liz goes...

I go a lot. A lot. I spend a lot. I mean, I almost got sex trafficked, because I go so much. What do you mean?

Remember? No.

What?

That woman? Wait. Anna and Julia were talking about how there's sex trafficking people at Target. They start by having a conversation with them, and say like, oh, I love your top. It's so cute.

We don't. It doesn't matter. What is the benefit of giving your number to a stranger on the street?

We had been talking for a while, and she was really nice, and she had just moved to the neighborhood. I'm putting that in quotation, because I don't know if that's true now. But she was like, oh, I just moved here. I'm just buying stuff here, like, you know, new things for my place. And she was just like, really nice.

Thank you for adding in the kind. That's not always true.

No, it's true, because you're not just like, you're not critical. I think you point out things.

Well, I just want you to be safe. You scare me, Liz. You're in a category of people that do scare me a little. Oh. I think.

I mean, I have been reflecting on this and thinking about the way that I can become a little bit of a... Not a target, but yes, a little bit. Oh, ding, ding, ding. Ding, ding, ding. Target.

You met her there.

I met her there and I, you know, oh, you need to send your son to school. And then, at a certain point, I realized, oh, I'm just being taken advantage of probably.

How do you know? You don't know.

The thing, it's like hard. Anyway, I don't want to analyze all of those situations, but I did start, and again, maybe there are people who relate to this, where you realize like, oh, I need to, yes, be open and kind, but I also need to have a radar of some sort, which I guess I didn't come with.

Just a little bit of armor.

A little bit of armor, yes. So it's something I'm actually working on because of you.

Yeah, but okay, just also know, because the reason we FaceTimed, well, we were FaceTiming because we were on a work chat and I was like, wait, we just need to chat. And then you're like, okay, don't be mad, because I'm walking. And it was, as you said, like 1130.. And I didn't yell at you then.

Yeah, I know, but that was an urgent situation.

But why couldn't you get it in the morning?

I left my laptop outside on the patio. Oh, outside? I can't.

Oh, my gosh.

Anyway, and this is turning into like, Liz needs brain medicine.

But ding, ding, ding. Ding, ding, ding. We were at the target.

Getting my brain medicine. Yes, we were.

But that's how we were there, but anyway, and then you couldn't end up getting it, which was so annoying. So frustrating. And another sidebar topic, people cannot get their medicine.

Yes, it's complicated. I just think of people who can't get to the pharmacy or their caretaker. You have to have a certain kind of ID and I didn't, I don't know, I don't drive. It's like a lot of barriers to participating in this life. In LA.

No, I didn't.

No, you didn't get the candles. You got little pumpkins. I did. Did you start decorating for the fall?

I haven't done it yet. I was supposed to do it last week and I didn't. But this weekend, since I won't be drinking, maybe I can fill the day with decoration.

So how are you approaching this? It's like cutting anything, cutting out coffee, cutting out sugar, right? You're like, wow, this thing that I think is not a big thing is a big part of my life.

It's a huge part. And I'll just be super honest, even in the 10 minutes we've been talking, I've thought about it.

You like, want wine right now?

I want, not now, I want it later, and I know I can't have it. And it's like, oh God, because we have kind of a short day. We did have an interview scheduled later for armchair and then we canceled it. So I have more time in the day than I expected. And that would have been exciting for an afternoon, glass of wine and computer work.

I was going to say, it's habits. And so it doesn't take up that much brain space. It's just the automatic thing that you do. And suddenly you have to use like a different part of your brain of like, okay, I can't just do the thing. So what else am I going to do?

That's what they say.

That's what they say. So what are you going to replace it with?

I feel like probably a lot of caffeine, and then that's probably not great either. Although I don't have a caffeine issue. Well, now. I mean, what if I build one? Oh my God.

No, I thought about you this morning because we were walking on your birthday and you got a full matcha. We are such different drinkers. I have to pace myself so that I don't finish my drink too quickly, because I just want to drink it all. And you were not only like halfway done while we were walking away. You just like tossed it, half of your matcha latte.

You were like, did you not like it? Yeah. And I was like, no, I loved it. I only drink half.

Yeah. I was like, I've never drank half of a latte. I've never drank half of anything or eaten half of anything. I have the opposite impulse, but you have a lot of control.

I don't know if this is just some sort of hereditary thing. For a long time, caffeine, I was essentially allergic to it. I could not have it.

It would happen.

I felt so crazy on it, like almost drunk, really, like a little disoriented. I think really what was happening is I was really anxious, but it was manifesting in some like panicky ways. that felt very physical for most of my life. Then I went to Europe, changed everything, and I had a lot of cappuccinos and stuff there. When I went to London a couple of years ago and ever since then, I've been able to have it and it's been fine.

It makes no sense. I love this, though. It makes no sense. Look, it's my reality. You had caffeine.

I think theirs is different. I know.

But then why can you drink the one here? It's not like you kept drinking European coffee.

No, because my system slowly got accustomed to it. It didn't feel so jarring, like American caffeine, but I got slowly accustomed. And I go to good places. We go to, like basically European coffee places. Japanese.

Japanese.

Other worldly places. And so I can drink it now, but I don't have an addiction at all. There are days where I forget, like I didn't have it yesterday and I wasn't like, oh God, I just forgot. I don't have the need for it other than like, it's fun to have a little cup of something, but I don't feel like a lot of people do, which is as soon as you wake up, like I need it in my veins, before I can even talk to people. Is that you?

Oh my. I mean, but I quit. You've quit a lot.

And we should talk about that. I quit a lot of things. You're also not drinking.

I'm not drinking coffee and alcohol. Remember when I made that decision and then we had just recorded and we walked by all time and we both, you also said, I'm not, because you thought you had like killer cholesterol.

I thought I had 400 triglycerides.

And then we both looked at all time and we both looked at each other and we're like, do you want to go? Like, and we just, it was really hard. And at the beginning, I think that's what scared me actually, is I was like, wait, why can I not do this? And I'm not like Ms. Sober, life.

Be all and all.

No, I think that's the way, also in Canada. But yeah, I feel like I bought into a lot of it, where I'm like, oh, I'm doing this thing. And you know, someone told me to do that thing. And then, when it doesn't work, you end up blaming yourself. You end up being like, I didn't do it right.

Or like, what's wrong with me? that it's not working?

And it worked so wonderfully for this other person. when it's like, that's a 60 second social media post. Exactly. Right? About one moment when they're feeling good.

You don't.

Wait, do you hate club soda?

Club soda on its own?

Have we never talked about this?

What?

You don't like it?

Is that a thing? People just drink club soda on its own?

Wait, how do you not know this?

Is it on TikTok?

The LaCroix, like all of that's club soda.

No, that's a, what is it?

A seltzer? Flavored water.

Club soda on its own is in that plastic bottle.

That's great. I love club soda.

You love that?

I love club soda.

But that's like what you use to get your stains out. It is what you use as a mixer, but on its own.

I have 24 packs of club soda in my fridge right now. I love club soda.

Oh, my God.

Do you not?

No. It's a stain remover.

I don't. I'm kidding.

I thought it was mainly just for mixers.

No.

I mean, I love Perrier. It's not the same. Also, it's flavored.

You have such a more sophisticated palate, because I would never be able to tell the difference. I mean, I guess I could, because I drink so much seltzer that I'd be able to. We should do a taste test. That'd be funny. Oh my God.

It's not for me, by the way.

I mean, I don't. If they want to sponsor us, we'll take it.

If they want to sponsor us, we love it. Yes. We love it.

What is at the core for you of drinking? What do you associate with it? Because it's not an addiction, but it has a use.

It is. It's filling some sort of void, for sure.

Let's call it need, because void makes it sound negative. There's something that it's bringing you in your life and identifying and labeling. that I think is hard, but really crucial. And then it allows you to come up with other things, right? Right.

I very much associate it with being social. And I think a big part of it is the break in the day. Okay, work is now over. Although I say that, but then no-.

You were going to do computer work.

Yeah.

But it's more fun computer work.

Exactly. I think that's what it is. It's like I have a lot to do all the time and I could be doing work all the time. And in some ways I should be doing work all the time. I shouldn't.

Okay. That's great to know.

Well, in the summer, sometimes it happened way earlier. Yeah. Summer. Right.

I think that's also normal. Like it's different.

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I mean, there's two things that jump out to me. One is, again, time of day. And I think that's really interesting of how can you create a different ritual that breaks the day. And for me, weirdly, that's why I like working out in the evening and especially during the pandemic for me. Anyways, I was working from home.

Martinis.

No, I had some drinking. But the other thing that jumps out to me, which I relate to as well, and when I cut out caffeine is when I really realized that. And I'm not saying this is it, but the first day that I did it, I was like, oh my God, I hate my work. I realized that that coffee in the morning was the thing that would allow me. I just stained myself with black tea in my white pants.

It has a lot of it. Wait, really?

Black tea, yeah. Not as much as coffee.

No, no. No, but a fair amount. But it's like the high, it's the tea with the most caffeine.

Yeah, I know. Well, I just dip it in and I take it out.

So it's just mainly coffee.

Yes. Okay. Which still is a big deal to me, because I was so hopped up on coffee that tea meant nothing to me. I was like, tea is my enemy. I was resentful.

Yeah, of course.

And I was modifying my mood with a substance in order to accomplish tasks or even be in social situations that I didn't want to be in. And so it's realizing, okay, if I can't modify my mood, or again, you can modify it in other ways, right? This won't sound fun at all, but music is a way, I'm sorry. There are like massages, right? Yeah, that I like.

Yeah, you carry your work around with you at all times.

And so I find that I use food too of like, I'm going to give myself this food reward. And it's like, what if I just let myself not work, that I don't have to use something as a marker, but that I can make that decision for myself. Does that ring true?

It does. I think that's very astute. But there's a part of me that's like, well, then I stopped working. And then what? Because I'm not going to go have a social thing.

We can go do a bunch of things. We could go see movies.

I do wonder, I have a little bit of a fear of this. I wonder if my shopping's going to really skyrocket. I think for a second it will.

I think so too. And I think that's okay.

Me too. I'm excited.

See? That was upside. Don't be so hard on yourself and be like, okay, I have to do this thing perfectly. Then you might replace it with other things that you're like, oh, this doesn't totally work for me.

What is the point? Okay. Really?

Yeah. Yeah.

What is the point of life? If you are having any indulgence, I like those things. I like shopping. I like drinking. I like going to get a coffee.

It is. Yeah.

And I'm a very indulgent person. Yes. And I really like that about my life. I don't find that to have consequences as a whole. Although the drinking, maybe I said it here, I don't remember, but there's a reason.

What do you mean?

Because I was like, well, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll drink today and I'll start this tomorrow, because today I have this thing. And then I was like, no, tomorrow, then there'll be another thing. There will always be something. There will always be a reason for me to drink, because I am social and I have a lot of social engagements and opportunities.

Yes. And again, sticking to it will give you a positive feeling too, right? So there's negative feelings of I can't do the thing I want to do, and it's not giving me the feeling that I usually feel. There was this big study on smokers and the people who were able to quit, they put these two groups and separated people. And the group that was more successful is the group that was told to focus on the positive parts of quitting.

I have so much more energy or whatever.

Exactly. But not just like, oh, I felt it, like reflecting on it, because your brain will spend more time thinking about negative things.

It's 10 times more.

Exactly. Your brain will think about it for longer and more quickly. So, recalling the positives, I think is a big one, which again, I'm not sure there were that many from that night. Maybe like, oh, I didn't wake up hungover the next day and I didn't feel worse afterwards. I think for me, that's a big one.

I think I was just annoyed that I couldn't have it.

Couldn't have it. Okay. Got it.

Yeah. And that I had built this rule for myself arbitrarily, and then I was like, oh, but I want it. Why can't I have it? I made this up to begin with. And you can justify your way out of absolutely anything.

Wow.

Yeah. Cause I was feeling a little anxious yesterday too. I was like, oh yeah, this is that thing. So it's all fascinating. I mean, it also could just be actual physical withdrawal when your body is used to a thing and then you stop giving it.

Do you drink every day? I mean, I think. Okay. Okay. So that's part of it.

Most. I mean, there are days off, but for the most part in the last few months, yes. Right. Which is a lot. So it's good that all of this is happening.

Just be curious.

I also don't want to like overthink everything. No, no, no, no, no.

I'm not telling you to overthink. It's just when things come up, just be like, oh, that just came up. Don't analyze it. Yeah. But just notice, because again, this is an interesting moment.

Have you noticed since you stopped when you go on dates, is it awkward?

It was at the beginning, because I had that same thing at the beginning of the first few minutes of even being with people that I love or that I'm meeting up with and I'm not nervous about, or whatever, I would have that like, oh, I can't take the edge off or whatever it is in that moment. But now it doesn't happen anymore so far. And to me, that's the positive benefit. that's been exciting, that I'm focused on. And I feel that same way.

Yeah, that's true.

It's just, again, giving me a lot more to reflect on.

So do you tell people before you're going on the date, I don't drink? Or do you get there, do they order a drink and you just say, like, I'll have a sparkling water? Like, how does it play out when you're with someone on a date? It's obviously different when it's like a friend, but when you're on a date and you're not drinking, but you know they will or want to, how do you handle that?

Well, I think the first thing is that the date is going to be different, right? So I used to go out for a drink and now it's like either go out to get food or again, you'd do an activity. And so the sort of thing that I do will be a little bit different, so that if we're eating, it's not as much of a big deal. And at the beginning, when I stopped drinking, it was for this health issue that I was trying to figure out. So I was very restricted in what I could eat and drink.

That is easy, obviously. Yeah. But I think I wonder about dating. when you know they do drink and probably have the expectation of drinking. Then it's just weird, like, is it okay on a first date for them to drink and you not to?

I mean, it happened with a friend of mine that drinks a lot, or we always get a drink and he's more of a drinker. And if you don't care, they don't care. And this person was like, oh my God, I can't believe you're like not. And we were out late. And again, I had a dessert.

But what about, even just emotionally, if it's a first date, is it weird that one person is lubricated or altered a little bit and one's not? Does it make the whole thing complicated? I just feel like it's weird when people are on the exact same page. I kind of feel like either both people can't be drinking or both people are on a first, maybe one through three date. I would imagine you're not going to slam beers if you're not drinking though.

Yes.

It's not even slamming beers. Like. I know what it feels like to have like one glass of wine in my body. I'm not even close to drunk, but something else is happening internally for me than for the sober person in front of me. And that's fine.

These are such big questions because I did go on a date, this was a year ago when I was not trying to stop, but I was like exploring and this guy did slam like four whiskeys or whatever. Oh, wow. And it was a great date, but then, like, yeah, he kind of made out with me and I was like, oh my God, this is so...

It was aggressive.

Well, if I had had four whiskeys, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it. Exactly. But I was like, oh, wow, this is really different. And I will say it comes back to me sometimes being too trusting or too open where anyone is interesting to me. after two drinks.

Oh, I have a plaque there now.

You do.

Right when I stopped drinking. Only for now. See, I have to go back to it eventually because of my plaque.

You do. And also there's tater tots. There's tons of great stuff. That's true. But there was clearly this first date going on next to us and this guy just dropped the whole drink, like spilled it.

Yeah. Maybe we could go to Target instead.

Yes. That's actually...

That sounds like a really, really fun date. actually.

That's so fun. You can learn a lot.

I know.

From someone at Target.

Or Barnes & Noble. As we've talked about. The date, I want to go on.

Yeah. But I'm proud of you. I think this is great, that you're just open to the experience. Yeah. And you'll learn something.

Yeah. Now, your date. You also went on a date recently.

I did go on a date with a person I met on a plane. I feel like that's exciting. Yeah.

That's a me-cue.

That's a me-cue. Because anyone on a plane that's in your vicinity, that's of your age group, is immediately hotter.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. It's a thing. If the person sitting next to you is remotely attractive and of your age group, it's like we're soulmates. Wow. But we weren't next to each other.

That's very broad. One act of kindness doesn't mean people are good people.

That's true. I'm sensitive to energies. And so I get very positive energies for people. But you're right that some people can be using that. I mean, they just weren't that elderly.

See, again, you're like taking one piece.

I mean, like social security. Like. I just mean like. you have great health care. No, no.

Like, sure. Like what? The amount of times you give out your personal information.

So we ended up meeting up. I was like, let's get coffee, because again, I don't want to assume. And I, like, he's writes about masculinity and like wanted to send me his writing. And so I was like, oh, this will just be like a cool little meeting. But then we like, talked for like five hours and then I forgot my laptop.

Real life.

Real life meets. Yeah. Not looking down on your phone all the time and just being like available to potential connections is kind of fun.

Did you read that article about that scammer in New York? His name? Let me look it up because it was fascinating. It's like an Anna Delvey type situation, like the Tinder swindler. He's kind of a Tinder swindler type.

And he was just dating women, pretending to be rich?

He was dating women. Oh, that's so scary. Pretending to be rich. Kind of interesting. He's from the Orthodox community.

Wow.

Oh, his name's Kyle Deschanel. Did you date him? No.

Yeah, we went on a few dates. I follow him on Instagram.

He's a big New York guy.

Deschanel.

Yeah. Kyle Rothschild Deschanel. Is he cute?

Isn't Rothschild a very...

It sounds it, but that wasn't his real name. Okay, so this is in Vanity Fair. It's called Kyle Deschanel, the Rothschild, who wasn't. It's worth reading. It's bizarre.

See, I, okay, this is what's wrong with my brain.

I- Well, no, that's also wrong. What I'm doing is wrong too. Sure, okay. Right.

We're on opposite ends of a spectrum and we need to find equilibrium. Yeah. I haven't been doing this as much because I'm more chill now, but I used to walk in a coffee shop and be like, where is he? I would think my soulmate is here. Like who is it?

It also just feels exhausting personally.

It is. And so I'm not that way as much, but when someone comes up to me or when I meet someone new, I assume that they're great. And then if they prove me wrong, then eventually I'll think, okay, I don't really like them. But even in the past, if they help someone with a whatever, then they'll do something weird. I'm like, oh, that's not them.

Oh yeah. It's definitely the opposite. Not a murderer, but I definitely imagine everyone to be bad, I guess, and then they have to prove to be good as opposed to you. It is interesting. We are so different.

Was he cute?

Liz, this is my whole, like, that shouldn't matter. At 930 at night, a strange man. You have to have a little more guardrails up. Even if, let's say they were cute, they can still be bad. Ted Bundy was notoriously like hot.

Okay. But 930, if it's, yeah, 3 AM, it's not about the time.

It's about how visible people are. And it's not like at 930 at night in LA on the street we were on, people are out. So he says, I see around the neighborhood a lot. I looked like, um, and he said, oh, do you need to go? And I was like, yeah, I have to go.

No. I think we have a different understanding of 930.. And again, maybe it's, I'm kind of new to the city, but 930 to me is not, yeah, if it's 1 AM or 3 AM or like very late, okay, maybe don't just accost a person just for fun. But a 930 doesn't feel that late to me.

But it's not about late. It's about what is around and how people are not out at 930 in LA in this part of town.

Okay.

They're not. Okay. If we're on West Hollywood, where everything's all lit up and it's a main street, this isn't that.

Okay. So if it was light outside.

If we were by the restaurant, that's a different thing. There are people. Okay. You cannot talk to a woman by herself in an area that's remote, in dark. What do you think?

Isn't there constant traffic?

Depends if there's a show at the Greek or not.

Okay.

No. The street is residential. I don't think that was the best time for him to have done that too, as someone walking by themselves. A small woman. Dark at night.

I'm sorry.

You have to take that into consideration that women walking this earth is different than stopping a man walking around. And I know you don't necessarily connect with that, which I find that really interesting as, like you, Liz, someone who knows a ton about.

Assault.

Assault, for real. And you have to treat women differently in those situations and just, their sense of safety is different. And the chances are much higher for us of getting assaulted. So, of course, we're going to walk through life that way. And there has to be a recognition on the other side to not put women in the position to feel scared.

I mean, I've never done like a self-defense class, but a big part of self-defense is you're going to learn the physical way of defending yourself. But the first thing you have to also do is show that you're not an easy victim. And so they usually will have you literally yell in front of a mirror and be like, no, like yelling and really being assertive. in that power of like, you're not going to... I will not go down easy.

I don't know that that's fair to people who've been assaulted. Yes. Because I don't know that it's fair to say, like some people are easy targets and other.

people aren't. I don't mean to say it hasn't happened to me, because I'm not an easy target. Sorry. No, no.

I guess this is just my entire point. It's just like, don't put women in a position to feel like they might be a target. They might not be a target. I'm just using him as an example. I do think men walk around not understanding that fear.

Yes, I think that's true.

And why should they? Especially him. He was a tall, physical man. He's not thinking, oh, she's scared. But I want men to start thinking.

Yeah. And I guess my point is just, I want women to be walking around, not out of fear, all the time. I think that's also where I'm coming from. Because I remember being very young and taking the city, the bus, and seeing this little ad, like I was like nine or 10.. And it said like, if you're a woman, you can get dropped off between stops.

I understand that.

Yes. And I am aware that then that also doesn't protect me in any way from anything happening. But I think I'm sort of resistant to it because I'm like, no, I don't.

It's definitely not fair. And I think it's unjust. Maybe I should just learn jujitsu. But even still, even if I feel completely like I could take anyone at any time, I stand by my point of just understand the position that women are in and take that into consideration. Sure.

And I think that's a good thing. All of us, right? Being aware of your actions. Yeah. I think is a really important thing that makes us better people in community.

Yeah. Okay. Moving into some questions. I do want to bring up something. Okay.

Children don't owe their parents every single, we don't owe each other every single piece of information.

Yeah, we don't. It's more complicated, I think. I mean, we knew it was complicated even when we talked about it, but then it made me feel like I just wanted to address it again, to say that's an extra complicated one. It's really personal.

It is. One daughter might be happy and the other one might be sad. And can I tell you how I think about our listeners' questions so much throughout the week? The same thing happens to me where the one about the boy, we don't like her new boyfriend, and I've thought about it, and then things will happen during the week and I'm like, I love these questions so much.

Me too.

And thank you so much for sending them, because we don't just think about them when we read them. They stay with us.

Yes. And I think hopefully they stay with a lot of our listeners. I've heard that from a few people of, oh, that one question. Yeah. Thank you to the sync squad.

Yes.

Okay. Let's do a couple. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. One of the questions.

Oh, wow. Did Rob put that in?

Yeah, probably.

Passive aggressive.

Well, I want to give a little context on that, because Dax and I have had a lot of fights about this, which is why I've now come to this newer conclusion in life that it's okay to be late. Because for a long time, especially at the beginning of us working together, he would be late, and I took it so personally.

I think I've always identified you as someone who, because of maybe those episodes like where I was, like, oh, it's really important to be on time.

Oh, because we talked about it a lot back then. That is true. And he was kind of like, it's not personal. It's the, you know, I have this in the morning and this. And I was always like, but you can add time in to prioritize my existence, basically.

Right. Or that you're not important.

Which is sort of how I internalize it. Yeah. Or you're not important.

I think that's how most people perceive it that way. Right. Right. If someone's late, we take everything personally. We do.

But then, once you've done it a couple times, you do recognize like, oh, it's really not that. It's really that I, just like, I'm going to be a worse person if I don't sleep for an extra eight minutes. Like for this person or for this meeting or whatever. I don't know. It's okay.

I'm late too.

I mean, this is from Vanessa. No matter what my good intentions are, I fail every day at being on time. Anywhere from one to six minutes late. You obviously care if she's monitoring the time, you know. I promise I care and value people's time, but it's a bad habit that I'd like to break.

I mean, I have thoughts. First of all, one to six minutes late is not late. Even if it's every time, I think that's fine. Five minutes is okay, unless it's a five minute meeting. I think grace periods for everything.

That's, in theory, great. She's obviously tried to do that, and it's not working. So are there practical tools for being on time? What's a time management?

You don't have less time than other people. You're just not managing your time in the right way, right? For sure. And so I, again, in my calendar, would create time for travel, for getting from one place to another. I started managing the time that it would take me and really putting a lot of thought into it, rather than just kind of letting it up to, not chance, but it wasn't working when I wasn't really managing it.

Maybe you set an alarm for 10 minutes early. If you have to leave at 9.45, you know, leaving at 9.45 is actually a good amount of time. At 9.40 or 9.38, you set an alarm so that there's a sound reminder that actually might just put you into a gear of like, oh fuck, I gotta hurry, I gotta hurry. And then by the time you walk out, it's probably 9.45.. Having an actual sound or something, because I totally get of like, I'm good on time, I'm good on time.

Yeah. I guess my question would be also like, what makes you late? For me, it was finding my keys or finding all of my items, or a big thing is, especially when I live on a 6-4 walk up, I would literally forget something. So I'd have to run back up and be like, I forgot to take my pill or I forgot sometimes literally my phone. We need a little bit more information about, yeah, what is the sort of cause of tardiness?

Yeah, I think that's good. It's like understanding, even if it's like, oh, I always end up making breakfast and then maybe decide on a breakfast that's quicker, or to go breakfast.

Creating options because, like even this morning, I did wake up on the early side, but then I mean, I think this might be a thing for a lot of people. When you have more time, you end up being later.

I have so much time.

Yes. You're like, oh, I could do this. I could do that. And you're like, oh, my God. So I had more time, but I was like, oh, I'll have a little thing to eat.

Because you're always on time. Yeah, you are. You're early. I mean, it's kind of Liz's thing where I plan to be 15 minutes early. In my head, if we have a nine o'clock recording, I know I want to be here at eight, which means I'll probably get here at 830..

Yeah, right. I give myself half an hour, even though it takes me 15 minutes to walk. And usually, again, I won't end up leaving exactly, but because I've told myself I'm leaving at 830, if we have to be here at nine, I'll end up leaving at 840 and I'm still early. I do think the 15 minute thing is a good thing to just try and practice. And again, this ex-boyfriend I had was like, you're just the person who's early.

It's extra hard with the car, because you also overestimate. You're like, a car gets me there in four minutes. It doesn't. It gets you to wherever you're going to park. And then, by the time you get your purse out and you have to walk, there's added.

A man.

It's everything.

And he's eating a protein bar after we talked about protein bars.

Yeah. Ding, ding, ding. Do you want to join us for a question? Oh, sure. But finish your food, because misophonia still exists.

Right.

And I even said, I thought about it on my way here. I'm not flopped anymore. I'm fine with late. And so now that I'm fine with late, I just don't even notice it, or I don't care. Right.

Yeah, that's fine. It's not late.

It's embarrassing when you work 13 feet from where you sleep. Right. But I actually think that compounds it.

It does. The closer you live to the place that you're supposed to be at, the later you'll be.

Yeah. Anytime on Parenthood we had a location, it was like across town, and maybe I don't drive there often. I've got to assume the worst, right? Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I got to give myself 50 minutes and then probably it takes 35 and I'm early.

I am a little bit like Rob. I don't think five minutes counts and even 10 minutes. I think everyone should have a five to 10 minute grace period. And I always give myself more time. I catastrophize.

It's a good place for pessimism.

Exactly. Yeah.

We think we're all supposed to be just optimistic. No, no. You got to have a dose of both in different areas.

And actually there's research that more optimistic people are more late, because again, you're more optimistic about how much time it takes to get somewhere.

I generated that research. I don't know why you're telling me. It's you. Exactly.

We have proof. You're the peer reviewed.

Well, I also reviewed it under pseudonyms, but still it's legit. Yeah. Because someone was asking a question like how offended. But you know how to be on time is the question. And we started this episode with me saying, there's an elephant in the room.

Right.

Like when your lackey buddy in the group shows up late, everyone's just like, he's a dipshit. Everyone knows that. He's always late. But when it's like the captain of the football team or whatever high status person, you're like, oh, they think their time's more valuable than mine or your boss. Right.

I kind of agree. Even I think about it with friends, where if it's not like a consistent thing, if someone's running a little bit late, I won't read into it. And you're right that if I read into it, sometimes, it means that there's something else going on. that maybe I do feel like. in the relationship there is this hierarchy.