Dear Hank & John - 229: You Don't Know When the Sickness Is Coming (w/ Sarah Urist Green!)

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

Should I go to a concert if my recent ex will be there? How do book blurbs work? Can a two-person book club even function? How do I become a better writer? How do I entertain myself while stuck in a department store? Should I feel guilty about making less money than my partner? How do I help my parents understand that Amsterdam is safe? John Green and Sarah Urist Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]! Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn Subscribe to the Nerdfighteria newsletter! https://nerdfighteria.com/nerdfighteria-newsletter

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear Sarah and John. It's a podcast where two brothers are in this case, two spouses give you dubious advice, answer your questions and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon with a strong emphasis on the news from AFC Wimbledon this week. I'm joined by my wonderful wife Sarah. Hi Sarah. Hi Sarah. Hi John, thanks for having me.

Thanks for being here. For those who don't know Sarah, she's an art curator and the creator of the YouTube channel, The Art Assignment with PBS Digital. And also, the author of the fourth coming book, You Are An Artist, which is a wonderful book. It's so great, full of creativity prompts. And it makes you feel like you really are an artist.

It comes out April 14th. Well, thanks for boosting me, John. I appreciate that. Yeah, you can pre-order it now wherever books are sold. You can also get my brother's second novel, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor. I'm really excited to read that one. I'm in the middle of reading it right now, so I feel like I can't say anything because I don't want to.

I feel like if I say anything, I'm going to make trouble. Hank's going to come back to the podcast after a week away and he's going to be mad at me. By the way, Hank is out of town, speaking of which, before we get to the question Sarah, I should let people know that Hank and I are going to be on tour in early March in Columbus, Ohio and Arbor, Michigan and right outside of Indianapolis, our hometown. You can get tickets at Hank and John.com slash appearances or just go to hankanjohn.com and look very, very hard for the tiny tab that says appearances.

Well, that's really good to know. Actually, I'm not sure I knew that. Well, I'm here to deliver messages about my travel schedule to the people and also to my wife. So, who have we received letters from this week, John? Many, many people whose emails were not able to respond to, but a few whose emails we are able to respond to, like this person, Lisa, who wrote in to say, dear, John and Hank, my ex and I broke up last week.

I'm starting with a breakup question, Sarah. It gives us a chance to tell our breakup story. It was incredibly complicated and painful. And while we both hope we can still be friends, it's still too fresh and new to try being that right now. I have a solo ticket to see a mountain goat show next week, and I know he'll be there with a friend. I'm afraid it will hurt too much, but I'm also afraid I'll regret not going. What should I do?

Not smiling like Mona, comma, Lisa. Oh, Lisa, it's rough. It's rough, man. You're in a fragile place, and my first response was don't go. Don't go. The mountain goats are pretty stable as a band. Yep, they've been around a long time. They're gonna tour again.

They'll be back through. I would see if you could sell the ticket or just consider a donation to a good cause. Or give it to a friend. Yeah. Maybe an enemy of your ex. Yeah, I mean, I think by going, you want to see your ex. Mm-hmm. And if that's the case, I mean, that's fine. But I think you need to be honest with why you're going. Well, you're honest in the question, when you say it's still too fresh to try being that right now.

Yes. And that's why you kind of have to avoid being in the same place at the same time. At least that's my opinion for a while. So when Sarah and I broke up, Sarah and I want to like three dates, and then we broke up and then Well, we didn't we I wouldn't call it a break. Right. Well, that's what made it work though. We stopped having dates

We were having dates and then I awkwardly had to I didn't have to cut it off I shouldn't have it was the wrong decision and I was punished for it No, it was fine. It was good. It was actually really good for us in the long run. None of this is helpful to Lisa, but what made it awkward was that we weren't really dating. So when you were like, we can't really date anymore. I was mostly like, I didn't know that we were dating as such.

Well, I have no idea what the conversation was actually like. Oh, what I remember, it what the conversation was actually like. I remember it was brutally awkward. So awkward. And I basically shared that a guy I used to see had re-emerged and wanted to see if we could make a go of it. And I had been on a few dates with a great guy named John Green, but I felt like I needed to see this other thing through.

Which was, which, which you probably did. And I'd sought through. And now, and now we're married. And we've got children and everything's fine. It all worked out really well, really well. I mean, arguably much better than it would have if we hadn't had that period.

Because it was during that period when we started corresponding more writing each other. This is not helpful for Lisa. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. We need to. that you should plan something else to do that night, even if it's like going to a yoga class or something that's like, doesn't make you feel aware of your single ticket status. Like I think you do something else. Yeah. And go see the mountain goats next time with someone.

Yeah, and maybe email your ex before the next mountain goat's concert and say, listen, you got the last one, I get this one. No. No. You don't think so? No. Sarah's a huge believer in just cutting it off. Yeah, I mean, I think it's nice to imagine that you could have a friendship, and I think that sometimes you can. Sometimes you can. But often you can't. Yeah. And just trust that the mountain goats will have another tour and that you can see them again. Okay, John, I'm especially curious to hear your response to this letter from Grace. Dear Hank and John, how do the blurbs that go on book covers work? Do you have to ask well-known authors to say something nice about your book or do they

volunteer? Are you guys asked to blur books a lot? Can you read the book before you agree or do you sometimes have to pretend to like a book you hate? Now that you are both authors, would you ever ask the other to blur your book? No, that's the one thing I could answer very quickly. I can't imagine Hank ever asking me for a blurb, and I can't imagine me ever asking him for one.

We're way too close for that. Like, we care about each other too much to involve that particular kind of work. But in general, it is a little bit like a grade school Catillion where you have to like put yourself out there to ask somebody to blurb your book and you have to prepare to get rejected. Yes, you usually be rejected. You want to ask, you want to do like a buckshot approach where like you ask like 40 people

and maybe you get three or four. And it's a very, I think it's a very vulnerable exercise for most people. It is. Nobody at least so far as I know,, blurbs a book without reading it. And so it's not like you're in a position where you blur books you don't like. It's just that, you know, for years and years, I would be asked to blurb hundreds of books a year, which is impossible on every conceivable level. And so for a while, I just had a policy of no blurbing.

And then slowly, there have been books that I just had a policy of no blurbing. And then slowly there have been books that I just cared about so much that I felt like I might be able to help. In general it's a very unstructured thing. There are supposed to be some rules around it, but those rules are never honored, so they're hardly worth mentioning. And a lot of times it just comes down

to being able to get the book into the hands of the right author and getting them to read it and hoping that they like it. I've been on both sides of this many times. Do you actually read blurbs on the back of books and just to clarify, the blurbs are like the little quotes on the book that are by people you may or may not have heard of? I look at them. I will, I will peruse them and be like,

oh, all right. I'll peruse them. I have to say I don't take a ton of stock in them because I know the process through which they are created. Once you know how the sausage gets made, it makes the sausage a little less delicious. Right. And like this person didn't just emerge out of nothing. They were approached, they were asked to read it, they read it, they had a deadline to submit their quote. They came up with the quote. Maybe they're friends. You know, there's a lot of things

that could go into it, right? The blurbs that work for me are very short. Yeah. Like a phrase. And there's only a few of them. Like when I open a book and there's like 25 to 30 blurbs from different sources, I'm like, all right, all right. Come on, let's get to the actual book here.

Yeah, I have no idea what makes people buy books, but everybody really should buy your an artist which comes out on April 14th. Doesn't have any blurbs, doesn't it? No, blurbs, I didn't ask anybody. Great decision. All right, Sarah, we have a question from Debbie, who wrote us about a two person book club.

She wrote Dear John and Hank, a coworker and I are the only two members of a book club that is very limited in scope. We are trying to read all of an author's works in the order published. The problem is our reading styles are very different. He tends to read a few chapters every night, whereas I read more infrequently,

but in much larger chunks. This is created a leapfrogging situation where we are somehow never able to talk about the book because one of us is always ahead and bound to spoil it for the other. What do we do about this? I suspect it might become more like homework if we try to designate reading assignments for a specific time, but isn't the point of a book club to talk about the books while you are reading them? So Debbie, we definitely have advice on this because John and I have participated in our own two-person book club. And my own theory about book clubs, especially two-person book clubs, is that they exist for a moment in time. And when the right conditions are present, you can have a successful book club with the right people, but then it may vanish.

And you can have like a big goal, like what you've done. But I believe in assignments and deadlines. I think you got to do it. I agree that you need to make an assignment. I think the big takeaway from our two-person book club is that we were in love. We were not totally aware that we were in love, but we were. Yes. So we mostly wanted to hang out. Yes. And it was a way for us to hang out and to have something interesting to talk about.

And it was great. What did we read, John? We read a Confederacy of Dances. We read The Human Stain by Philip Roth. I think we read Beloved or Sula. And I don't remember anything else that we read because the thing about the two person book club, Sarah, is that it was not really a two person book club. It was a way for Sara and John to hang out and talk to each other about stuff that mattered to them, which is I think what book clubs usually are.

Like, the book is a way into having a bigger conversation. And that's why I don't think there's anything wrong with having reading assignments, because that's going to be the starting point, but then you're going to delve deeper. It's going to be about your own lives and your own experiences. Like I remember when we were talking about Confederacy of Dances, we were both talking about growing up in the South and like what New Orleans was like in the 90s when we were visiting it and how different that felt from, you know, the New Orleans that we were reading about. And the book was important, but it was, it was you that I was interested in. I mean, not, I don't just mean romantically. I mean, I was interested in learning about your perspective. I was interested in hearing your observations.

Right. And I think like that should be your focus with this two-person book club. But I think you can, I don't think you need to talk about the book while you're reading it necessarily. I think within recent memory is helpful. I prefer to talk about a book when I'm finished. So it's not spoiling anything for anyone, but when it's still fresh enough that you remember anything of it. So I think if you and your book club partner can like figure out some dates and put them on the schedule but be understanding if they need to move, hey, it's not bad. Our next question is dear John and Hank but mostly John, how in the ever loving held you work out when you have kids.

I cannot find the energy or time or money to do this. You've been working out consistently for over three years per the latest vlog brothers video. How did you start this? How do you continue it? Just please how? Rhymes with Madonna, Roshana. This is a great question.

It was a lot harder when our kids were smaller and we also depend on each other is the short answer. So I work out and Sarah watches the kids or Sarah works out and I watch the kids. I think that the only other way to do it is to wake up before they do, which is brutal. That's never worked for me. It's really hard. So my theory about this is something has to give. Okay. about this is something has to give. Okay, so I decide I am going to cut into work time today, and I have a job that I can

determine my own schedule to a large degree, and I'm punished by like later having more work that I have to do after the kids go to bed or something like that. But for me, if I don't cut into work time and work out during the day, it doesn't happen, because I don't want to take time away from my kids. So it's hard. It's really hard. It's also hard to find time to cook or prepare good food every day.

It's hard to take care of yourself when you have little kids and the less support you have around you, the harder it is. But if you can find that 30 to 40 minutes, whether it's early in the morning, I know some people who work out after their kids go to bed. Dr. Carroll sometimes does that.

Which is amazing to me to have that kind of energy level at like nine o'clock. But if you can do that, that also works. I also think, you know, it doesn't have to be crossfit. It can be a walk. It can be stretching on the floor of your living room while you're watching TV. It can be a lot of things that, like, self-care and moving your body doesn't have to be extreme. Yeah, that's a huge misconception, I think.

And what is recommended is to do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week, which is like doubles tennis or walking four miles an hour. This doesn't have to be, you know, sprinting on a treadmill or going to an orange theory class, although those things can be great. You can do yoga on YouTube. There are so many great exercise classes on YouTube now. You can just follow along on the floor, all body weight, don't need to leave the house. Finding the time to do that is hard. Like a lot of things, the initial activation energy to get it all figured out is really hard. And then if you can just stay on the schedule, it gets easier every week. But.

Yeah, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've tried to do a home workout with our kids around. Oh, God, yeah, the knockback. And they're always like, hang in there like, I'm gonna climb on your back. Right, it's like, you think doing this plan is hard, Dad, wait till I'm on top of you and you're still trying to do the plank.

Yeah, but it is true. Your children, as they get older, will provide you more and more time to yourself. And so I think just do the best you can and have hope for the future. I also sometimes bench press my kids. That works. Yeah. All right, Sarah, I want to ask this question from William who writes, dear John and Hank, I like writing, but as you may see in this letter, I'm not so good at it. Well, that was a great first sentence, William. I think if anything, you're selling yourself short. That was a high quality.

So, you've formed sentence. It was a good sentence. You could have put a comma between I like writing comma, but as you may see in this letter, comma, I'm not so good at it. That's my only criticism of that sentence. Other than that, I think it's solid gold. Wanting to improve, I write every day and my personal journal read many books,

think about ideas, et cetera. Doing such activities led me to a question. Is writing a never ending process that needs refining or does there come a point at which you can relax knowing you have it in the bag? Oh. Not the second one. Yeah, you know, I mean, you never have it in the bag. Not the second one. Yeah, you know, I mean, you never have it in the bag. I write

scripts for the art assignment, the video series I make, and I just wrote my first book. And I've been writing, I wrote in my role as an art historian in more academic writing before that. And writing is always a slog for me, always. I'm researching at the same time. I have to hue to facts. So I've always had this feeling that's unfair, that John in writing his fiction can just sort of like grab it will, whatever ideas he pleases

and tippy tap them into his computer. Let me tell you, I wish that were true. But I also have written nonfiction on the Anthropocene of Jude and else where including the artist I'm in at times. And I think nonfiction writing is different, but I don't think it's harder. Oh no, I know, I'm teasing. But it isn't something that you arrive at. Well, so I agree with that, that it doesn't get easier.

But I do think, for me, writing is more like a muscle. Like, if you build a muscle, I remember when I finished grad school, I had written so much that I was like ready to write. I think if you go a long time without writing, it gets bigger and bigger and harder, and like it's something that you have to do and use. So I guess in some ways, I think it might get easier the more you do it. I don't know that it gets easier, but I think you get better. There's something that I can't remember who said it.

I think it might have been Gregglemond, but somebody said that with cycling and many other exercises, it doesn't get easier. You just get faster. And I do think that you're a much better writer than you were in graduate school. And that's because you've learned a lot about how to communicate ideas using written language in the last 15 years. And I think I'm a much better writer than I was when looking for Alaska was published, although I know lots of people would disagree. But for William, I think the fact that you like to write is great. Like a lot of people don't derive any enjoyment from it at all.

And if you can at least start on the fumes of enjoyment and push yourself forward, keep going. Yeah, and enjoy that process. I mean, yes, it is a never-ending process that needs constant refining. And there's something frustrating about that. But there's also so much joy in that, I think, or at least there are so many joyful moments.

Moments where things click together, whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction, where you feel like, oh, that is how I wanted to express that idea. Or at times, I didn't even have language to describe that idea until I wrote this down. This advice doesn't feel dubious at all, John. This feels like very sincere advice.

Well, you're just, you're both a more sincere person and a better advice giver than either Hank or myself. Actually, both you and Catherine are. Like when I listen to your project for awesome, only spin-up podcast to your Catherine and Sarah, I always think like, this is significantly better than what Hank and I produced. You are very entertaining though.

That's kind of you to say. I'm not sure that that's true at all. Sarah, we got another question. This one's from Tom who writes, dear John and Hank, I find myself in a situation which could benefit from your dubious advice. Some backstory. This morning, my mother offered to take me with her to work so I could hang out in my small city where the library she works at is located.

I agreed and after she dropped me off, I decided to take a bus to a target about 20 minutes away, making sure to save $2 for bus fare back. I did some shopping and was enjoying myself until I realized I had absent-mindedly spent my last $2 on a coffee and therefore I cannot get a bus back. I can't drive and even if I could, I have no car. It's 3.30 and neither of my parents gets off work until 6, leaving me stuck at target and fully broke for at least 2.5 hours. I of course thought of the pot as I remembered Hank once spent 15 hours in a target as a punishment and I would like some advice for fun, free ways to spend time in this pleasantly lit capitalist purgatory.

Oh, Tom, this is great. You know, when I heard this question, I just, it gave me like this rush of excitement, I think, only like a middle aged adult can feel about the idea of having like unstructured time between 3.30 and 6. Oh, what I wouldn't give for two and a half hours alone in a target. It'd be glorious. I mean, first of all, I'd like to point out that you can leave target. Okay, like you can walk outside.

Maybe it's cold, but hopefully you're wearing a jacket or something. You walk around the target. Maybe there's something in the neighborhood of the target. There could be something in the back. There's definitely going to be a cool dumpster. Yeah, I mean, there's got to be other stuff going on. So, you know, you can leave the target and walk around as long as you're being safe. I think it's fine. And then, I mean, inside the target, John, what would you do? The first thing I would do would be I would walk to the book section and I would pick out any book that I wanted to read. And then I would sit in the little cafe area where you eat your pizza hut personalized pan pizza.

And I would read that book for two and a half hours. And then when my mom came back, ironically, from working at the library, I would put the book back on the shelf and everything would be fine. As an author, I can tell you that authors don't get mad about that. We are just delighted that you read the book.

Yeah, I might play a version of my Skimall Airplane catalog game. You're dating yourself. That doesn't even exist of my SkyMall airplane catalog game. You're dating yourself. That doesn't even exist anymore. SkyMall doesn't exist. But so there used to be, and for a lot of the listeners, I'm sure they're familiar with the concept. There used to be a catalog and every seat in every airplane that had like ridiculous things like a cat ramp for your cat to be able to climb up under your bed. It would, you know, or like a special neck air conditioner, personal air conditioner that you wear around your neck, that kind of thing. So I would always entertain myself by playing a game

where you got to pick something on each spread, okay? Right. I play this game so many times with Sarah over the years. Every page, you've got to pick what would you buy on this page of the Sky Mall catalog now the reasons no no no not buy have for free Okay, right. Well the reason that this never the reason that Sky Mall went out of business is that Sarah Despite playing this game for 20 years never made a Sky Mall purchase No, no, but so I think you could do this in Target like you say, okay, on this aisle, what would I buy? Or what, if I could have it for free,

what would I take? Yes. And you know, you don't want to cause trouble for the Target employees, but you could actually shop, make your dream cart just for fun and then like leave it somewhere. I'm sorry, I can't do that.

That's a terrible idea. That's a terrible idea. That's a horrible idea. Just make that dream cart in your mind. Well, and you slow no actually, I know. You could do that and then slowly put them back. You got time to kill. I guess that's true. Yeah.

Yeah, I would enjoy. I honestly, I feel like every time I go to Target, it takes me two and a half hours just to buy the three things I said I was gonna buy. Right, you go in for granola bars and La Croix and suddenly you've spent everything you own. Yeah. Oh, I know.

You could also try on lots of clothes. Oh, yeah, that's a great idea. You know, try on like the most ridiculous clothes you could find. Yeah, try to find some good workout pants, Tom. But I think, I think Tom, in some, like, enjoy, look around you. Notice things. Think about the lighting in the target.

Think about the arrangement. Think about like what you're designed to see and what order while you're in target. Actually, Tom, now that I think about it more, just leave target, go for a walk. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by going for a walk, going for a walk. It is an option, even in late stage capitalism. This episode of Dear Hink and John

is also brought to you by Lisa's tickets to the Mountain Goat. So I think it's just one ticket. All right. This episode of Dear Hink and John is also brought to you by Lisa's single ticket to the Mountain Goat Show. It's available. Today's podcast, of course, also brought to you by Book Blurbs.

Book Blurbs. Meh. Yeah. Sometimes helpful. I'd like to see a book blurb that just. Meh. Yeah. Sometimes helpful. I'd like to see a book blob that just says, Meh. All right, so we got another question. This one comes from Abby who writes, Dear John and Hank,

how do I deal with the guilt I feel of making a third of what my husband makes? I feel like I'm not contributing what I should be. Thanks, Abby. Oh, Abby. I mean, this. Oh, Abby. I mean, this is tough, but your worth is more than your salary. Number one.

Yes. You contribute a lot more to a relationship than just what sort of dollar amount you bring in. And there are a lot of different types of labor in a relationship. But not just that, it's a partnership. Right. And so we try very hard not to even talk about it that way

as the money that one person is making or the money that another person is making, it is for us anyway, it's a marriage. And so it's how much money we're making. And that's the way that we do it. And it's worked for us. I know that lots of people do it different ways. I mean, some people maintain separate checking

and savings accounts through 50 years of marriage. And that works for them. But this is what works for us is to really think of it as a partnership. And the ways that we contribute to that partnership are legion. Working for money is one of them, but there are lots and lots and lots of others from parenting to doing the work around the

house to dealing with, I mean, there's just so many things. I have taxes, taxes. Talking to your neighbors who have a problem with something. Yeah. There's like so many different, or who talks to the family members, who, who remembers to get somebody a birthday present. There are so many different or who talks to the family members who who remembers to get somebody a birthday present There are so many different parts that's me. That's always me. I'm on the on the remember in the family Not naming But I mean I think I think Abby if there are all there are always or often

Embalances in relationships and if there is something are always or often imbalances in relationships. And if there is something true to that, like if it's not just a salary feeling, like I'm sure there are a lot of relationships where there is a true imbalance of labor where one person may be doing more. But I would also like look at the reasons for that. Like is one person in a relationship suffering

from depression or experiencing mental health issues that are preventing them from sort of contributing to their fullest extent. And I think it's tough. But if it's just a matter of one person making more or less, I think that should not be, that should not be something that concerns you and keeps you up at night. Yeah, I think some of that is about diversifying your identity as Hank likes to say, so that you're not just what you do professionally and so that you're value in the world, you understand that your value in the world is not just the ways that you contribute

to the capitalistic machine. You have lots of value in the world and it's measured in lots of different ways. And in a relationship, ideally, you're together for a long time, so things often change. In 10 years, you could be in a much better place financially and in your career, and your husband may be struggling. So I think the tables can frequently turn. And if either of you, if you're not making as much money as a family together, as you need to be,

that should be a conversation between the two of you about what to do and what, where to go from here. I think that's a great point, Sarah. And in a marriage, you, you never know. I mean, the weird thing about marriage is that when you make the promise, you don't understand what promise you're making. You can't understand what insickness and in health means

because you don't know when the sickness is coming and you don't know when the health is coming. And that's one of those kind of borderline miraculous things to me about marriage is that you're making a series of really big promises that you don't really know what they are yet. And I think there are lots of ways to have real equality in a marriage. If you feel like you don't have equality in the marriage, that's a big issue. And it's a conversation, that's to me like a sign that it's necessary to have a conversation, a big or a series of conversations. And Abby, I hope that you can and do talk to your husband

about this feeling. Yeah, as usual, our advice boils down to communicate, have conversations, be open about this stuff. It's hard to talk about money, and it can be hard to talk about money from inside a marriage, and it can be hard to talk about feelings of inadequacy or resentment. All that stuff can build up over time. If you don't have those conversations, though, it just keeps building up. John, I feel like this has been a very serious episode. It's been a little heavy. So let's lighten it up a little bit. Let's go with this question from Sydney. Dear Hank and John, my little sister who is 17 now, but will be 18 by the time of her trip, is going to Amsterdam this spring. Our parents are very worried because they've gotten it into their heads that it's a very

dangerous city and that she's going to be drugged and you know how parents are. Since I know you've both been multiple times and as have I, Sarah, not just hang. In fact, yeah, Sarah's been way more time in Amsterdam than hanged it. We used to live there. Yeah. Since I know you've both been multiple times, do you have any stories or experiences from Amsterdam that I can share with my parents to make them feel better? Not like Australia, Sydney, S-Y-D-N-I.

Okay, so John and I have spent a fair bit of time in Amsterdam. Yeah, we lived there for a few months. Well, I always feel like it's a bit of an exaggeration. I feel like it's, we lived there for a few months. I mean, I slept there every night for a few months. Yes, yes, but it's not like we're way, anyway. We've spent a fair bit of time in Amsterdam, and I will tell you, Sydney, that anything negative

that happened to me there was my own fault. And it's like, I miss it. So we could stop there. We could just say that. Let's just say anything negative was my own fault We don't need to get into the granular details here of what we may or may not have done it various times in Amsterdam or I Tristan occur Oh, oh yeah, oh, I've tripped on a curb sure. Yes, I thought you were referring to the time that I ate a pound of peanut m&m's in a four-hour period

Right referring to the time that I ate a pound of peanut M&M's in a four hour period. Right. You could have been avoided. I could have made it. I could have made it forced you to do that. I could have made a different choice. Yeah. So I think Amsterdam, like any place, like you need to take proper precautions and not walk around with a bunch of dollars hanging out of your pocket and like basic safety stuff

I got. But it's a well populated safe city. There is crime in Amsterdam. There is crime in most major cities. You could also look up the crime statistics of Amsterdam versus other major cities. Yeah. So Sarah, and I now have some statistics. The crime rate in Amsterdam is much lower than it is here in Indianapolis. It's more than twice as low. And in some cases, three times lower.

Right. Sydney, we don't know where you are, but you could tell your parents that statistic. Yeah, just tell your parents, listen, going to Amsterdam's dangerous mom, but it's not like I'm going to Indianapolis. By the way, now I'm a little worried. No, yeah, thanks. Okay, Sarah, the time has come when we discuss the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbleden. Do you have any news from either Mars or AFC Wimmelden. Do you have any news from either Mars or a AFC Wimmelden this week? I wish I did, but I don't. I'm sorry.

I feel like you know the result of AFC Wimmelden's game because I know that you paid such close attention while Alice and I were watching the game. They tied. You got it. They tied. They tied. We tied at nothing. It was a thrilling game.

And Alice made me wear her lucky glove because she became very concerned in the last 10 minutes that Wimbledon were going to give up a goal. And to be fair, I was also quite concerned. What was her lucky glove? It's like a little oven mitt. Oh, from her play kitchen? Yeah, from her play kitchen. She calls it her lucky glove.

I haven't told her that it's not really a glove. It's more of a mitten, but I don't we we haven't gotten into that. Have you really tried it out to see if it works? Maybe you need to wear it or not wear it and see what happens? No, I'm not gonna I'm not trying to get into any of that business. That seems dangerous. AFC Wimbleton tied nil nil against blackpool. That's a game that we like could have stood to win, but here's the thing, Sarah. This year in League One, three teams are going to be relegated down to the fourth tier of English football. And all three of the teams below us are more than eight points below us. So all we need to do is be better than those three teams for another 13 games.

And we will, for like the fourth consecutive season, somehow manage to stay in the third tier of English football, even though we have the smallest stadium, not just in the third tier of English football, but we would have the smallest stadium in the fourth tier if we were relegated. So despite a really low playing budget, AFC Wimbledon continues to find a way to stay in the third tier, but the truth is AFC Wimbledon are just going to struggle in the third tier of English football until they get home to plow lane to the new stadium. And so lots of people are working hard to try to finish that stadium and raise the money needed to finish it while keeping the club in the hands of its fans.

Okay. Well, John, I actually have found out some Mars news for us. And it's pretty exciting. You might even say, it's Mars shaking, John. The first official result from NASA's Quake Hunting Insight Mars Lander came out and it's recorded about 450 Mars Quakes, so it is a word. 400 to 50. To date. So Mars is seismically active. Wow. That's pretty exciting.

That is very exciting. That is something that Hank has been focused on a lot over the last couple of years. I almost feel bad that he didn't get to share the news. Believe me, he'll talk about it next week, don't worry. But one of the reasons it's a big deal is because it means that at least on some level, when I used to refer to Mars being a cold dead rock in space, in fact, it is not totally dead, at least in the sense that like stuff is, lots of stuff is happening. There are Mars quakes, not just a few of them, apparently, but 450 of them.

This makes me think that we need another word for a planet quake, for something that isn't Earth quake or Mars quake, but some sort of neutral quake term. Well, on that front, also, we often refer to dirt as earth. Mm. Right. And to like, earth works. And in fact. But we do also have the word dirt, which we don't have. That's a good point.

Or maybe there is a word for it. But are we gonna call the surface of Mars Mars, or are we gonna call it like Martian dirt? Martian dirt. Soil. Another word for it. But are we going to call the surface of Mars Mars or are we going to call it like Martian dirt? Martian dirt. Soil. Another word for it. You're right.

Now that I think about it, we would do just fine without the word earth to describe dirt. Maybe that's what needs to change now that I think about it. I hope Hank doesn't hear this conversation. He's going to be horrified. But what the scientists are saying is that Mars is somewhere between Earth and the Moon in terms of seismic activity. So less dead than the Moon, more dead than Earth, which by the way, I'm not reading that things haven't really gone smoothly for the insight. Oh no, they've been trying to get this.

Yeah, it's been unable to get to its prescribed depth because Martian dirt is slippery. Is that why they say it's really slippery? Well, one of the things that's so weird is that so they're trying to figure out how to solve this problem using a version of the insight lantern they have on Earth, where they're trying to figure out how to solve this problem using a version of the insight later they have on Earth where they're trying to do various things to see if that works and then they like ask the Martian one to do that. It is really hard obviously it's hard to get any conditions are different it's hard to get anything done when you can't like have a person there look at it.

And one of the things I've learned in the last four years doing this podcast area is that Mars is very, very far away. Yeah. I know. It's much further away than I initially understood it to be. You thought it was just past the moon? I didn't think it was just past the moon, but I thought maybe it was about as far as the moon is maybe three times.

Double the moon? I thought it was double the moon. I thought it was like double the moon. You didn't. I mean, I wouldn't have if I thought hard, but I never thought hard about it. Right. Right. It was just far. Right.

And that is one of the many ways in which I am grateful to my brother who will be back next week. But in the meantime, Sarah, thank you so much for potting with me. It has been a great pleasure. Thank you for having me, John. It was fun. If you want to hear more from Sarah, you can visit the Art Assignment, or you can get Sarah's book, You Are an Artist, It Comes Out in April. It's so good. I'm so

excited for you to read it. And thanks to everybody for listening. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune of Meta. It's produced by Rosy on a Huls Rojas and Sheridan Gibson, the music that you're listening to right now. And at the beginning of the podcast, it's by The Great Gun of Rola, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.

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