EPISODE 24
TRANSCRIPT
0:00:11.0 S1: Welcome to Dear romance writer, were three writers who always deliver happily ever after is offered questionable advice for all of your relationship, work and life problems, our dear every plant is under the weather this week. I'll feel better, Avery, we really miss you. And you're not here, but
0:00:27.5 S2: We have a wonderful gas today. I'm zero, I'm Ron parish. And joining us all the way from the UK is four-time retails, author salicylic. Welcome, so much for being here. I'm really excited to have you tell us a little bit about yourself, first of all, thank you for inviting me, 'cause it is always lovely to see your crisis, and it feels like way too long since we've been together in person to... I am a contemporary romance writer. Like you said, I live in the UK. I write tattoo rockstars, Navy Seals in hero badass. But slightly marshmallows is not always... I sometimes do evil things to the people... Sometimes I time for it. But yeah, that's what I write.
0:01:19.8 S1: That's awesome, she's amazing. So if you guys haven't read her, you've got to pick up what's your latest book, what's the latest book that you're
0:01:25.5 S2: Really... So the latest book that came out is one day like this, which is based on an elbow song, this is a Manchester Road on the brink of started, so I've written ones who have already made it, but this is a band still doing the graph, driving the van up and down the country trying to make a bit, and in that book, it's kind of a tick tock star, I made up a tiktok app called shame, and a person on the app uses their song for video and it goes wild, and that's how they get their big break. That's awesome. And the second book, next time I fall, which is based on an old Peter satirist one day like this was based on an elbow song, next to fall as an old Pete terror song is out and... Not very long, 12 days now. M-16. Okay, awesome. Yeah.
0:02:15.3 S1: Excellent. Sonoran, you just got back from Jake, were there, Miranda were up there at the end of September, but you did a fall trip to Cape Cod. How was that? It must have been beautiful.
0:02:30.2 S2: Oh my god, it was amazing. I've never been to camp had before, and I love moody landscapes and everything to do with Halloween and winter beaches, and it was like my cup run it over it so much hiking and walking a beach coming, and then we were there for... There was this Nourse that note whole Eastern Seaboard. And the entirety of a cod lost power for a couple of days. Oh, wow. And then... We were there over Halloween and went to Provincetown for Halloween, and it was very delightful. So many people. It was great.
0:03:15.3 S1: It's such an amazing town. I wanted to spend more time there. Did you get to go to EDGAR house when you were
0:03:21.5 S2: There? It got knocked out and the power got knocked out, so we didn't get to go...
0:03:25.7 S1: I was close. Next time.
0:03:27.9 S2: Next time, and because of the store or we did some wicked beach coming, I got some beautiful bees that had washed in from the ashes that are these gorgeous colors, like really bright colors, so you can see them from far off and they mark lobster traps and things that are for boats and they all watched a shore and that you can't tether done. They're not useful anymore. So I grabbed some of them, I also came back with a little souvenir, which is a new tattoo... Wootton, that is gorgeous. That's amazing. Kind of crunchy and healing still at...
0:04:05.3 S1: That's gorgeous. I love the boys 'cause they reminded me of trades, but they're like, You know what I mean, they're
0:04:12.2 S2: So...
0:04:12.7 S1: So yeah. They're just beautiful. Leland.
0:04:16.3 S2: You loved it. Right, you want as well?
0:04:18.5 S1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we went to Salem as well, which was... And they were gearing up for Halloween. So we were there like right before Halloween, you were there for Halloween. I'm very jealous.
0:04:30.0 S2: Very good. We actually shot a horror movie, part of a harm would be on Halloween night, which was very...
0:04:37.3 S1: That's amazing. That sounds amazing. You get at...
0:04:40.3 S2: 'cause you and I have trumped the... Many agree. Yeah. Did you hit some brave? Of course, I did. Thank you for asking it. They're everywhere there. They're every... Everywhere, and they're pretty old. As American graders go, I think the one that... The oldest one I saw, I was like 17, 94, which I know in the UK is like modern times, but that's pretty much
0:05:03.9 S1: A song from the mid to late 1600s, the having around just... Yeah, I don't even know where we were, but we were just driving around, I was like, Oh, really old cemetery. Because you know how the stones get really thin and the writings were... You can barely make up the letters and the numbers...
0:05:20.9 S2: Yeah, I wanted to do a stick tattoo that's based on some of the designs of those old grade as they're so beautiful.
0:05:29.3 S1: Awesome, alright, well, let's get into our letter this week, it's actually from a BuzzFeed article that a very fan that has a topic I don't think we've discussed before, 'cause we're coming up February or VR year doing this podcast, we'll have to think of something really special to do to sell everything now. I know, I know we've covered a lot of ground, but I don't think we've done this, I will read it and we will discuss... So it says I am 29 female in a long-term relationship with my partner of seven years, seven years of seven years... 39. Male, this is the guy I will marry when we started dating at the very first serious talk, he made it clear he didn't want any kids. Me being 21 at the time was like, Yeah, sure, kids, not for me, or... So I thought, I'll come to a point where having children has become very real and it plays on my mind constantly, I feel like there's a hole that needs to be filled, I've brought it up several times with my significant other, don't get me started on the reasons why he's against a child, but I respect his feelings, This could perhaps be another thread on its own, I feel guilty in a way, he's made it clear on his feelings pretty much from day one.
0:06:39.7 S1: I personally haven't gone through what life... Life, to figure out what I want it in life, he slowly come around from a hard No to a soft now to a now, which is when we hit certainly to now, which is when we hit certain milestones, I need to have X number of dollars in the bank, you need to have home settled, etcetera, etcetera, that would provide us with the necessary to support to raise a child. Very sensible. I've been careful not to force his hands, ultimately, I need this to be a joint decision, I'm not signing up to be a S-H-S-A-H-M, which I'm not so sure. Yeah.
0:07:12.8 S2: Mom.
0:07:13.3 S1: They had home on. Okay, gotcha, thank you, thank you. The reality is, he's only considering this because of me, I have a very deep fear that if we go ahead with this, he will somehow resent me if parenthood is as bad as he's pictured it, do I learn to be content with what we have now, or do I take a risk. This is such a huge issue that I feel like comes up a lot for people.
0:07:36.0 S2: So there's a lot to dissect there as well, there's a lot of different pieces from your biology if you get older to have children, to balancing different people's needs. And so there's a lot to unpack. Yeah, what's your... Okay, can I get just like a can of... Instant response. One sentence. What's your first reaction? Just to see where we all stand because I'm a... Hell no. Don't have this baby. Yeah, my gut says You cannot convince... You can't be half pregnant. There is them to compromise when it... Aristophanes, all in, and you have a child for the rest of your life. I just turned 50, and my dad still backs me up when I back off the driveway, my dad goes into the road and sort of waves me off to make sure I'm... Okay, right. So a life-long commitment. Yeah, they'll be stuck in his driveway if you didn't do that, so you're all in, but you're not... There's not a middle ground, so my God says No. But less to discuss.
0:08:45.2 S1: I know there are people who are afraid of having kids, literally afraid of having kids for one reason, either they were brought up a certain way and they're afraid they're gonna treat their kids that way, or they don't have the self-confidence that they're gonna be a little take care of another human life. If it's something like that, maybe they can chat and talk about those issues, if it's a... I don't picture children in my life for some other reason, work, career, personal choice, whatever it is, that's a whole different thing. So I feel like there's not a lot... She's saying he's got his reasons, but she never says what those reasons are, but I do feel like if someone's really that reluctant to have kids after they've been together for seven years, and it's still like a... I don't know that this is the path that they should take, at least not together.
0:09:34.8 S2: So... It was the night he was 19. You know your mind by like 21, she's right, she went along with the time, she didn't... So she was like, Oh, I'm 21. I can imagine that being an issue for the next 10 years, but once or 13 and you know, you know your mind, you have your routines and your...
0:09:59.5 S1: What you like, your life. Right, yeah, yeah. And she's 29 now, so he's getting... She's probably like, Okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm getting to the time where I've gotta do it. So yeah, it's a tough conversation.
0:10:14.3 S2: Yeah, I just... I mean, I'm 39 and I'm trying to imagine changing my mind right now about not wanting to have kids, and I can't even imagine it... I mean, I also didn't want kids when I was 21, so I've always known that, but I really feel like going into a relationship knowing that you have a fundamental disagreement, or continuing forward in a relationship where you know you have a fundamental disagreement, she's asking the question like, should I just keep things how they are, or should I take a risk? And I'm like, the risk to me is to your relationship, if you try to push this, so if you wanna have a kid, that's great, go have a kid, but I would be very surprised if you will have a kid with your current partner and stay together and raise that kid together, 'cause that's not like if you've talked to him around from a hard No to a soft now to a maybe, but we need X, Y or Z. It's already taken seven years to get to this point. What are you waiting for? What do you think he is gonna be next?
0:11:28.4 S1: He's gonna keep on the goalpost to... He might keep moving the goal post and like, okay, wait, I eat your house, Okay, wait till we have this... Okay, wait, do we have that? It could be that you try not to...
0:11:38.4 S2: You'll never be there, then let the point
0:11:41.2 S1: He might be doing the thing where you don't wanna say no because you know your partner really wants this thing, and so you just keep it... You keep putting it off and putting it off until it's not an option anymore, frankly.
0:11:52.7 S2: And it makes to be so sad because I feel really bad for both of these people because I can only imagine that being with someone who you think is the person you wanna spend your whole life with, you've been together for seven years, and knowing that you have this fundamental thing where one of you is gonna be deeply unhappy either way... Bucks, that is so sad. And so for me, the question is like, which do you value more the way your life is now, what you know, or gambling on, not knowing how your life is gonna be when you go have a kid, either by yourself or with someone else.
0:12:30.7 S1: And what she's asking do I learn to be content with this relationship and just us, or is the risk like forcing him... Not forcing, but controlling him into having a kid or leaving the relationship and finding that somewhere else, it's not a great choice either way.
0:12:49.4 S2: It's a story, I think it were kind of for us, I think you do need to address it. I don't know, and I think that's the thing that I feel is missing in the letter, so I'm a reverse situation of this, I was 29 when I met my much younger husband... You can tell he Bottas. I said husband, but I was 29. I was thinking if I'm going to have children, I want to have them on them while I'm still young enough, and I also, I was very wary of the risks increases you get older and all those kinds of things, and so I'm 29 and I was... I remember him telling me he was nearly 23 and I was like the fight, you said It's not only 23 to... It's when you're 22 and a half, right? And so I do think you do need to have a really honest... I'm gonna sit down opposite from you and I know your towels, I know when you're trying to dodge something, I want to have children, and I don't see myself wanting to wait longer than this period of time, and you're only this old... Do you feel that this is some way you can get to...
0:14:03.5 S2: And I think when you start to hit and you start to think, Well, I don't wanna say no, 'cause that person might leave if I say no, but they might leave because... I keep putting it off and putting it off. I do think you need to have that sort of, I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna look you in the eye across the table, and I'm gonna ask you about, right, do you want to have tune with me or is this just a way to push this decision off and to your point in early, as I think, if this is just a... I had a rubbish childhood, my parents were on great role models, I have friends who have children, and I feel like their life is a disaster when I look at that thing over there, that's not what I want. Then yes, you can have a conversation about all of those things, but if the answer is just out right now, I don't actually... Then they owe it to each other to have that sit down face-to-face, I'm gonna ask you the question and as I guess on
0:15:01.2 S1: Aransas, a yes or no answer. Exactly.
0:15:06.0 S2: And I think if it's not an enthusiastic yes, it's 100% not... Certainly, there's nothing wrong with being uncertain up until the moment that you decide to do or not do something, but once it aside, if you're not excited about having children, like You're gonna be a bad parent and a bad co-parent, and so if your husband or your partner is not actively excited about having kids, you are bringing them into a home of... That's not a partnership. You're setting yourself up to be a single parent, perhaps unexpectedly, you're... Yeah, it's just... That's not a little risk, this is not like, Do we get a dog? And if you are into it, maybe our friends want a dog, you know... Right, right. Less say in the left that she doesn't want to the best stay-at-home mom, that's not where I just signing up for that. There's an inference there which says they're going to have to split this...
0:16:13.0 S1: Right.
0:16:13.4 S2: It's Melanie, have the BIM, happy to stay home. I'm happy to take care of the baby full-time, that could be my role and responsibility, and I'm happy and willing to do that for us, there are people who make that choice every day, and it's a great one and it works out perfectly fine for their family, but she's also saying in the letter she's not signing up for that.
0:16:37.0 S1: Which I... You will have to step up in some way... Yeah, right after that, she says The reality, he's only considering this because of me, so those two statements right there, it's like... Yeah, I think she knows the answer to the question that she's asking, she's just looking for some sort of validation or back-up or someone to say, Oh no, you're totally wrong, it'll be great, or something.
0:17:04.2 S2: I think I have... And this is like, You can't... No matter what deal you and your partner make, like say, he comes around and he's like, Okay, sure, if you wanna do the bulk of the... Put them in day care so you can have a job, but if you wanna do the bulk of the child care, then I guess I'm into it like you can strike any deal that the two of you want, but you can't tell that to a kid like you can come to the child, Hey, I really wanted you... And your dad only wanted to you a little bit, so 90% of the time when you need to love of infection or something, come to me and 10% of the time go to your dad and not work that math out on a child or any living creature. And so once that kid is in the picture, especially once they can talk and think and understand, there's nothing that you can control about how much emotional or practical time your partner has to give to the kids. There is no like, I'll walk the dog every day, I promise you won't ever have to clean up after it, I swear you barely know we're here also, do you wanna hold up your and your child's life into a small little origami note that you pass and then stick in your back pocket and don't have a life together.
0:18:24.5 S2: I think it's terrible. I think, honestly, you should just go have a baby by yourself, you may end up in a situation that she thinks she wants, and she'll end up in the situation where she thinks she's kept him and she's got a baby, and then she will realize the dysfunction of managing those, because it's not even a pyramid, she have a relationship with him and she'd have a relationship with their child, but there wouldn't be a relationship necessarily between him and their child and that then she's sort of looking at it and she's got what she wanted, but it's a desperately unhappy situation, all the flip side of that is, I have a very close family member who did this, she Marat, this person in the hope that they would change their mind and they wouldn't get to this place. In the letter, it says, there's no guarantee. He's gone from a hard note to a soft now to a... It's still a no. There's hurdles to get over, but I still know to... They get to those places. Marrying somebody, giving more of your life to that person in the hope that they come around to the idea...
0:19:37.5 S2: That's also equally difficult. And I think if there's this, if you want something as big as a family with this person, I don't know how hold your relationship can be with that person, if you don't get it. Right. You need to be in a relationship. What you said, role and either go and have a child by yourself all you know, give yourself the time to heal, 'cause leaving a relationship after seven years is very merry enough to do, to spend some time finding you again in the mix of all of this, 'cause I think there's a bit of an age gap between these two as well, you know, he was obviously older or when they met and she was quite young, to kind of be curious to understand what their friend-like group looks like, is it mostly his friends, it'd be good to look at what their hobbies are, are they mostly his hobbies, 'cause she of blended her life into His... Spend some time and figure out herself first, and then decide, does she want a baby on a room, does she wanna baby with somebody else to she... There were a lot of different ways this could happen, thirst, a whole hinge on this guy.
0:20:43.9 S2: Yeah, yeah.
0:20:45.1 S1: And even if he says, Okay, yes, let's do it. And then the kid is six years old, and he's like, You know what, I thought I could do this I can about... You know what I mean? There, you're bringing another life, another personality and other set of emotions into the world. It's not just about the two of you. So yeah.
0:21:04.7 S2: Yeah, I totally agree. I think that... I was about to say, I don't need to sound harsh, but actually I do mean to sound harsh, you are responsible for what you bring into the world, not to an unreasonable degree, you're not responsible for every single action that someone comments, but you are responsible to give that child, the absolute best that you have the capacity for, and giving a child a parent who doesn't want it is not the absolute best that you can give, and some people don't want kids because they don't like kids, but some people... And some people like kids and you think, Oh, if I could just get them to meet their kid, they would love it, right. But there is another reason to not want tips, and that is that you like your life without kids, I haven't fallen to both categories, I'm not a big fan of kids, and I do not want my life to revolve around them, and so it would take changing both of those things for me to ever want a kid, but even if your husband, your partner has gone to a soft now, 'cause he's like, Yeah, kids are cool.
0:22:09.9 S2: I don't mind, our friend's kids or whatever, there's still a very real other half of the equation of wanting a kid, which is like, your life is never going to be the same, and Rome, that's a great... Never gonna be the same. It's a super reward. And never gonna be the same. And for some people, even if you love your kid, you reach a breaking point where you're like, Well, this is not the life I wanted, and I can leave because I'm an adult, and so I'm going to leave, I just... Yeah, I just think this is a terrible idea of, you're all on the same page. Yeah, but what if we flip the question his head though, so let's imagine I once got a great piece of advice, this person who used to work with in the corporate world at Scarlet, you do a great job of walking milling someone else's shoes as yourself, which means... I struggle to really put myself... I try to think I'm in somebody else issues and I'm like, No, I'm not really walking in issue, so what if we flip this on its head and say, What would you have to do to feel comfortable that he'd actually come around it? I think she would have to have him be the one to suggest it as his own idea, coming from his own desire as opposed to a capitulation.
0:23:36.0 S2: Yeah, I think that's what...
0:23:37.9 S1: If he was like, You know, I was spending time with my brother's kids and they were so wonderful and I realized I actually aged dad and so let's go for it. If that was the way he was coming in, I think then you breathe a really... Because anything else was going to be... He's giving you a car. He's giving you a ring, like he's giving you something that you want, it's not necessarily anything that he has an emotional attachment to, and so... Yeah, that's just a recipe for trouble. I think...
0:24:08.1 S2: Yeah, I think I need to understand where the obsession with the hurdles come in it, so I understand if you want to have children, it's a big financial obligation, right. It's... But plenty of people in lots of different financial situations and circumstances very successfully have children and raise happy families. Right, so owning your own home, not having any credit card debt, being able to follow full vacations a year, none of those things directly correlate to you having a great relationship with your child and being able to raise it in a healthy, happy... Home environment, right. So I think for me, if I was to welcome Ian, this person's shoes, I think I'd need to understand why they felt those hurdles or barriers were important, what it... So maybe if as a child, they moved from rent and Montreal on to rental home and it made them feel very unstable, then you could understand why it will be important to them, say, I'm not bringing a child into that condition. I would want to have a house to feel that I'm giving a child a good start, I could get my head around that if it's just a...
0:25:28.5 S2: No, I think We need 5000 worth before start. Then I would not be... I would not understand those reasons...
0:25:38.7 S1: Yeah, I think anything that stretches back to what you experienced as a child is something that you can work through together, if it's a hard note still at the end of that conversation, that's fine, at least you understand why it's a hard... No, if it's a... I like traveling to the Pyrenees every year, and I love going to Hawaii for vacation, and I love backpacking across Europe, and I can't do that if I have a kid, that's a whole different thing, that's a whole lifestyle change. And if he's not willing to make a lifestyle change and there's not much you can say to that, that's just a no. A no. So yeah, it's... I have a feeling they've had some of these conversations are touched on some of these things before, and she just either didn't want to hear or didn't hear the answers that she was looking for, and so she's still sort of like rationalizing it, tannin a place to get to where she wants to be. So
0:26:32.6 S2: She's looking for a Hillary Passat. That one line I haven't bought of... Yay, I can crown source. The path to persuasion. What's the thing I'm missing that would... Make him change his mind.
0:26:50.9 S1: Yeah.
0:26:51.4 S2: Yeah, yeah, and it's so sad 'cause I'm thinking of it about it from her partner's perspective as well, which I'm imagining if he wrote the letter and I... And was like, I... 39 has been with my partner 29 hole for seven years. When we first started dating, I was super clear with her that I had no interest in children and we agreed, now, all these years later, she's the love of my life, I thought I was gonna spend the rest of my life with her, and now suddenly she wants to have kids or not suddenly, but now she wants to have kids and she's trying to talk me into it, I want her to have everything that she wants, but this is not what we read, and she's changed the game and I'm... That's fucking tragic. Such a sad thing for the... Just had a bit of a misogynistic response to that, that I feel like I may be... Age differences are really interesting from a relationship standpoint, right, everybody agrees, as long as everybody is consenting and everybody is healthy and safe, then great have an age gap as big or small as you'd like, but I do think the...
0:27:59.3 S2: The age gap really reveals itself when the person is 19, 20, 20... There's a reason we have Yana and adult romance, because you're a very, very different stages in your life where you may have even decided these things, and so this guy finds this 10-year young woman who knows all the different reasons why they could be completely appropriate, they work together, and they had really great chemistry, they stare each other, they mentally stimulated each other in a billion things in common, or it could be he just got off getting a 10-year-old teen, 10-year younger trophy girlfriend, and so he got this young malleable impressionable not sure what she wants to do with the rest of the life while he was nearly 30 and... So I don't know, there's a power dynamic there, which I don't want to say this is what definitely happened, but there is a power dynamic, there were 21 years of age, you could be very easily led by some use 31, establish has a career, a... Whatever, and you just go along to be coming into ourselves to Hanson that... That's not what I want in life. And so I think to you were playing the lectern diverse, I was like, Oh, wait a second, it could be that this guy who's just older and kind of told her that was the way the world was gonna be...
0:29:38.0 S2: It could be.
0:29:39.5 S1: Yeah, it could be. Totally could be. But I think her saying at 21, this is what I want, is saying This is what I want. I mean, she was sort of enough to tell him what he wanted and then decided, but not right now. We can talk about this later. So the later is here, and this is where they are at
0:30:01.9 S2: The core in the clock actually moved forward.
0:30:04.6 S1: Imagine that. Yeah, well, I wish them the best. Hopefully, they will do what's right for each other and also for the child that I think will come into the world one way or another, either with him or on your own or with someone else, but if she really... Once children, I think she'll do it. She'll just have to find a way to do it that makes sense for her, and then they could all... If this as
0:30:31.8 S2: If it ends up out in the world, the podcast, and somebody knows who the bus speed article was written about, I feel like I need more in town. We always want more avocation. Did they sit down... What did they decide to... Anyone to do it here? Allophone.
0:30:50.3 S1: He's a follow-up, let us know. So, alright, that was quite a discussion. So on that note, we're gonna go to our chat topic, which is what calms you down when you're really stressed out and upset, 'cause I feel like this is really upper...
0:31:09.8 S2: Oh my gosh, we can I do mine as a visual... Yeah, yeah, so
0:31:13.1 S1: You guys will have to go to YouTube to see all the kid on the lab
0:31:17.6 S2: Escaping on my lap, her and cat makes me... It's like I can feel their feeling buzz through my entire nervous system. I love it so much.
0:31:31.5 S1: You do scarlet with your method of relaxation and stress
0:31:36.9 S2: Relief. I have a very active brain, like it fires all the time, and I am terrible in one of those people who re-hash is a conversation I had 10 years ago in the shower, trying to be too Lintel at the time. So I do find that working out, I have this very strange low pay relationship with working out, but I do find that working out is a really good one for me because I just get so cold to in just remembering to breathe and not die. I do have that chance to turn off the brain, and I've just been working through a book called The Desire Map, and the tagline is Goals With Soul, and the idea is you think about... Instead of thinking of goals as I'm going to write a book, I'm gonna travel to this place in... The thing you do is you once yourself around feelings, so what do you want to feel? And the idea is you bring those feelings into the now, and so one of the words that I said was, I wanna feel nourished physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, I want to be nourished. And so now I think about my workout is getting nourished, and it's completely changed how positive I feel when I go and do it, so...
0:32:54.9 S2: Yes, my thing, and thinking about it as something that nourishes me mentally and physically makes it easy to go to...
0:33:04.6 S1: Oh wow, I like that. What's the book called? Again.
0:33:08.5 S2: It's called The Desire Map. I was like, I don't remember the office name, but it's a famous book, and tons of people have done it, it's like the woman who wrote the book, she's got massive called following and that kind of thing. She's is a really great book. I highly recommend it.
0:33:26.7 S1: We'll have to find it and put it in the show notes. But for me, I guess music is always my go-to for anything when I'm stressed out if I need inspiration or whatever, so sometimes I will just close the door and lie in the dark and put on an album that I love, like one of those ones that just lives in my blood, so it could be something that I've listened to and repeat a nose, and then I haven't listen to it for a while, I'm like, Okay, I need to go revisit that piece because it puts me in that head space that I need to be in or it shuts everything out, or if I need to cry, or if I need to laugh or whatever it is, I'll go find that piece of music and just immerse myself in it that...
0:34:08.5 S2: I treated, I read this really interesting article about how we are losing the ability to listen to music, because very often music now is accompanied by video scrolling, Twitter, it, we're on tiktok, and it all comes out to some bursts, and because we're constantly reaching for phones all the rest of it, the idea that you would... When I was younger, you would go and do exactly what you just said, you would go out the day the album that you really wanted came out, and you put it on and you sort of close the blinds, turn off lights and you would truly listen... You would listen to every beat of music, you would listen to every single lyric, and you would do that with your full attention because you were reaching for your phone or whatever, and this article is full, really interest information about how... Being able to do that, being able to just sit and listen to a piece of music with your eyes closed without thinking about other things and just fully paying attention, it does great things for your brain waves. There was a whole bunch of science and they ask delta and gamma waves and things, but it does good things, take a brand, it's a real scale that we're at risk of losing a...
0:35:27.0 S1: Thinking, we talk about this in the music industry a lot, the death of the album, the album as an entity doesn't really exist anymore, people do singles, lots and lots of singles, and because albums don't sell, people listen on Statham on Spotify, they create playlist. The singles will come out, and so only really big artists will put out an album and then that'll go platinum, whatever, but it's like a handful of people now, but when I was a kid, you would get the album and artists spent so much time putting that album like the sequence of the songs, the liner knows, the artwork, whatever it was, it was just like, it was this all-encompassing thing, and now we've kind of lost that, so I think that's part of it, like the experience of experiencing... The experience of experiencing an album, like a song, one, and even when I was really good, flip the record over or flip the tape or whatever, and get to side B, it was like I was... It was like a whole... I was like an intermission, when you flip it over and you're going to next act or whatever, and we don't have that really anymore, when artists do it now, it's like a novelty, when they start sequencing songs, you must...
0:36:33.8 S1: I think it was a little mouse, his album came out and it's a concept album, and he was like laughing at people who put his out on shuffle because it's meant to be listened to in a certain order, but people do that, they put on a playlist or an album, and then just put it on shuffle like... It doesn't matter what order I'm listening. Yeah.
0:36:51.1 S2: It's sad. And that is such a strange way to listen, not carrying what order the things go in some health shift and to shuffle on an album that... I know.
0:37:02.8 S1: I hate it. Hate Spotify does it automatically. As soon as you start playing something that's in a shuffle, it's like, why... But then the people listen, can you imagine reading a book like a starting at chapter 11 and going back in Chapter Three and go into Chapter 40, why would you use that with a record
0:37:19.3 S2: Year? The other thing I do is take walks, I find nature deeply, deeply soothing, and it's one of these I've struggled my entire life with the sense of not wanting to do a thing, even though I know it's a thing that I like and will benefit from, because I want to have my current state persist, it feels like that I'm saving energy or something by just not making a huge move, and so finally at the age of 39, I have gotten myself to the point where when I feel really stressed or really just dangled and like go outside with your friend, you always feel better. You idiot, Leslie, go do it. And one of the things that Tim and I were talking about when we're in Cape Cod this past two weeks is like the air feels like three times more oxygen filled and picture... So you can go out in the city and it's like, I love... There are lots of poses, I love being outside and Philly, there's like the Woodson sanitary near my house, I love just walking around and people watching, but the air doesn't feel the same, and then when you really get out into the country, there is something where I take a deep breath and it feels like, Okay, you know that feeling where you're really hungry and you drink ice water and you can feel it trickling all the way down into your stomach almost...
0:38:52.0 S2: Yeah, that's what it feels like. What with air, I take a breath and I can feel it like MOS through my lungs and all of the key blood and just... It's sucking it in with a straw, it's even take that long, it's like five minutes outside, and I'm just like, Oh gosh, this is what it feels like to be relaxed, and there's just something about nature that it is not patterned after stress, and so I find it difficult to feel stressed while I'm in it...
0:39:27.4 S1: Yeah, it's funny, whenever we cross the bridge to go visit my parents, they're in Jersey, out in the country, not really, but it feels like they're in the country, but Mr. X will go is sleepy. What is all this oxygen out here?
0:39:42.8 S2: What Haymarket is this strange... Not peace. Nelly, husband and I, we started three years ago going on the British canals on narrow boat. Yeah, and so the boats are anywhere from... I mean, the ones we've gone on our 58, 69 feet that may be left the 69 for obvious reasons, you can't be a romance writer, not fine a 69 for both funny. But the maximum speed on the waterway is four miles of her, and so you don't go very far, very fast, and the canal networks are sort of a big on era of industrialization is the way I've written moved cotton coil up and down the country. And so, mostly around these canals, unless you go through the major cities, like there's one right through the center of Manchester, which is fine, but most of them when you go out into Franklin into whales forever, there's no cell reception either, so you get on the spot and you go four miles an hour through this corridor of water that is just a tree-lined and sort of expensive, and I have that same feeling that you were talking about, room where you just feel sort of all the stress she's floating out of you because you can't get stressed at 4 miles an hour with no Wi-Fi like You outcast you.
0:41:13.4 S2: And my son is 15, 16 soon, and he's multi-tasking on several gadgets, is going to school, work on his laptop, but he's got his phone with his best friend Don, and I was... I... Patty's got some gaming stream, right, but when we go on a boat for a week, he'll read 10 books, he just sits there and just plow through book after book after book, and you can just see that sort of high school tension just disappearing. It's an amazing thing. One of my great joys in life is bringing out what books I'm going to read and what order on the canal boat, because you just know you have this expansive time where you can just sit and fully immerse yourself. Yeah.
0:42:00.0 S1: Well, we got the beat for me, that's for me on the begin, I listen to audio books and just watch the water, and it's like, Yeah, you can't do anything, but you can get in the water, but I really just like to sit there and watch the waves and listen to music or an audio book or something. I feel
0:42:16.3 S2: Like to the boys, come to me, you can do a book signing, we should find a canal, go rowing. You and I have talked about this right at Tycoon writing retreat. Oh my god, count me in. I like for motor, somebody does need to sit down to the back taller, but we can take it in turns and just sit on write books and it sounds like have amazing. Let's do it, I'm in. Awesome. I'll bring the team. Great. Oh, I'll bring the weed, which I should... I should, I mentioned that is actually another great de-stressor for me... Yeah, I don't really drink anymore, but I love marijuana like a JIM...
0:43:12.5 S1: Yeah, I guess we know we have our ridiculous whiskey collection here in the house, Axelrod, but I don't partake that often, it's like a spurt, you know what I feel like in someone's gaining like for two weekends we'll be like whiskey tastings at home or have someone over to Wisconsin, and then the barges sits there for a month or two to a touch, and he's like, Why are we having some whiskey, I don't know, because it's always so relaxing to just have a little dry in more...
0:43:40.3 S2: I love Jim, that macro to the series set, Agen distillery. That's awesome. Three siblings, you take over their father's Ron downhill, 'cause this selling obviously, isn't amazing when you come up with a name for something you're like, Oh yes, that are... 'cause I love that day. Yeah, well, and that feels like a great segue, do you wanna tell... So we've got the love to still... Do you wanna tell listeners other... Where can they find you? Where should they follow you all the time. All the fun. Salishan, you're testing my knowledge, 'cause I can't remember all of my name profiles, but I just started on tiktok solace, Adam daughter who was too young to have our own tiktok account, but on a tiktok account so badly she can taste it, is I call him my editorial dictator. So she helps me pick content, she sets up ring lights, she tells me what I should be wearing, she teaches me lines if I have to learn them, and she recorded to them and she puts all the text in, I have to go in afterwards and check the spelling, but she sets everything up, me and I pay a pound or tiktok, so...
0:45:02.8 S2: Wow. Yeah, so entrepreneurs, Saco Auto. And if you want to see my absolutely joyful, but incredibly anal Corcoran need Instagram feed. I am speleological, I get immense pleasure from colouring to the point where if I have something that's off color brand, so for example, when I'm talking about race in reds or whatever, I will put the postal... I will leave it there for a few days and I will delete it again 'cause I know everybody's seeing it, and then I was let because then it breaks my coffee, so you... You can go and check out my matching a-Calico. My gosh, you're adorable. Thank you so much for being here, Scarlet. It was such a toy ever since we started this podcast, I have known that you had to come give everyone... And thank you everyone for hanging out with us for another episode of Dear romance writer, remember, send in your questions for us, you can iterate higher dot com, and we have a whole little form that you can fill out, it's totally anonymous. You can also hit us up on any social media platform, Diana, send us any questions you want, we cannot wait to give you some more questionable advice, this trio or today, do a...
0:46:29.9 S2: Well, now, trio TrustFile ever after enthusiast. Thanks everyone. So you SOE. So thank you so much for subscribing to Dear romance writer. Remember to keep something in those letters in dermatitis dot com, we can't wait to tell you what to do. Your romance writer is part of the frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you love aimed, podcast.