Dear Hank & John - 236: Connoisseurs of Our Own Embarrassments

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

How do I stop being embarrassed by mail? How do I edit my grandpa's book? Is it selfish to cry on your birthday? How do I live in a place with bugs? What is something that took you an embarrassingly long time to find out? John Green and Hank 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 Jon. There was a first thing that dear Jon and Hank... It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions. Give you the abuse advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and ASC, and William Bowden Jon. You know, I've been telling a lot of dad jokes recently on this podcast, but I've decided, for obvious reasons, that I'm just gonna only be telling inside jokes from now on.

Okay. Okay. Oh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Giggle, but it's here for has gone way down because also the the cry bar is also low. Oh, man. Any old TV show if if there's anything that's happening in a TV show, it doesn't really matter where people are connecting with each other. Yeah, there I go. Sarah and I went to virtual church yesterday. Mm-hmm. And during one of the songs, they had the entire church choir singing the song via Zoom, and it would go from like person to person alone in their apartment to this person in their apartment to our beloved friend Luna, who we haven't seen in six weeks, and on and on and on. And Sarah and I were just bawling.

Bawling. Yeah. While our kids were looking at us like, what is wrong with you? It's just a Zoom call. It's just verch. I'm not going to engage with your use of the word verch. I'm going to try to pretend that it didn't happen and find a way to go on with my life, respecting and admiring you like I always have.

Good, thank you for allowing me that grace. John, it's good to have a brother who will handle you in your moments of weakness. Help but call it verch. Yeah. I'm really good at but call it merch. Yeah. I'm really good at compartmentalization and I'll just put that in the same cabinet where I keep you're saying, hundo pee. Yeah.

And by my years of having a fake British accent, John, I wanna answer some questions from our listeners. Yes. Yes, I desperately want to answer some questions from our listeners. This first one's from Cassie who asks, dear Hank and John, so I moved home from school to live with my parents and brother during this virus.

I have lived with them on and off throughout college, and they're great. One problem, though, I am embarrassed to order packages in the mail. I don't know why, but anytime I order something, I feel like they're gonna judge me for spending money, even though they never do that. How do I get over my irrational fear keeping it classy, Cassie? Are you keeping it classy with

bulk toilet paper from Amazon, but the the kind that they use in commercial spaces, not the kinds you can get at the store because that's you could get that kind. Because we do judge you if that's what you're ordering. Cassie. No, this is an interesting question to me, Hank, because it made me think about how when I was Cassie's age, and in fact, like for the vast majority of my life, my primary emotional response to the universe has been one of mortification or else fear of mortification. Yes, the constant thought that others are thinking thoughts about me. Yes, and that thought that others are thinking thoughts about me. Yes, and that I'm embarrassing myself. I feel all the time like I'm embarrassing myself, and then

occasionally I will get information that confirms that. And that information is the information I remember best and most vividly of anything that has ever happened to me. Like I can list my modifications to you one by one as if I were some kind of mortification child prodigy. Yeah, hear that. Like, hear that and I never let them go and I was thinking about one of these this morning, a thing that happened when I was in high school thinking about a modification that occurred

that I will never talk about publicly because that is how mortifying it is. Oh my God, is it really that bad? It's so bad. Can we cut away from the podcast and you just tell me what it is and then we come back and tell people whether we're bad. No, I can't even tell you. You will not be able to compartmentalize this and you will think less of me.

Wow. Okay. All right. Then I don't want to know about it. I can't handle that right now. I was thinking about a modification last night while I was trying to go to sleep like the time that I made a video about increasing agricultural yields. And I kept referring to hectares as hectakers. Yep. I think about that all the time. Uh huh. That was a bad one. But my vacate moment during an oral presentation

in college. Oh, I mean, vacate is a brutal one though, because it's a word that we read so often and say out loud so rarely. Never. Yeah. I was also thinking about the time that I ate the New York Nix's barbecue sandwich without their permission. I'm sure I told you that before. I've heard that one.

That would always crops up. It's always there when I'm trying to go to sleep. That that one's in the rotation. Yeah. John, you're as similar to one of mine where the first of my went to a to sleep. Well, that that one's in the rotation. Yeah. John, you're just similar to to one of mine where the first of my went to a Vietnamese restaurant, they bring out the garnishes, like all the bean sprouts in the cilantro that you then put into your fah when they bring you the soup. And instead of waiting for the fah,

I just ate it like a salad in front of a girl who I liked. Well, you don't know. What do I know? Some people just eat cilantro, beans, sprouts, and jalapenos. But a new one popped into my head last night while I was cycling through worries and reasons why I dislike myself and so on.

Which was one time very early in my writing career at a librarian conference. Person came up to me and they said, I really loved the first half of your book, looking for Alaska. But I thought the second half was one of the worst hundred pages of fiction I've ever read. Wow. And I just felt, I felt the way that Cassie is going to feel if her family makes fun of her package purchases. I felt, oh my God, I felt small. I felt like really overwhelmed

so I couldn't think of the perfect comeback, which is of course, well, I really liked the first half of your comment. And I totally understand being afraid of that. Actually Hank, a surprising number of the questions we got this week were kind of focused on mortification. And I wonder if this fear of embarrassment or fear of shame kind of comes up more in times of isolation.

Well, or in times of, you know, new interaction. So we're in new social spaces. Yeah. And I certainly know that that's the case when I am in a country I'm unfamiliar with. I'm constantly afraid that I'm violating some norm or doing some taboo. Or when I remember when I first went off to college,

it was just like, I don't know what the rules are here. And I don't know what somebody's gonna think if I act in a certain way that might be very normal for me. And so like every decision I'm making, I'm questioning. And that's, I think that that really says a lot about humanity, like the fact that this is such a universal thing. It says a lot about how collective we are as a species. We are cooperators and we are always looking to figure out

like sort of like what are the rules in this situation because we want to follow the rules. Yeah, and we want to fit in. Like we want to be part of the group. We want Cassie's going home for the first time in a while and wants to make sure that like, oh, like these people think that I'm okay. But the thing is Cassie, they do, they do, they do think that you're okay and they love you. And it's important to understand

where this fear is coming from. I also think it's, by the way, like, you know, don't over, don't over indulge. Don't overspend right now. I mean, unless it's at dftba.com. Is it the right time? Is it the right time in history for a dftba.com plug? What I will say is that our warehouse is currently closed, but we are taking orders and we will fulfill them when the warehouse reopens, which hopefully is not too distant in the future, but we do not know exactly when it is. So the answer is, the answer is yes, it is the wrong time for a DFTBA plug. But Cassie, your family loves you and you have to trust that, but it's gonna take time to trust.

Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with mentioning this actually. Sometimes if I mention the things I'm afraid of being mortified about or the things I'm afraid people are gonna find embarrassing, what I'll find is two things. First off, the other people in my life are not thinking about me. They're thinking about themselves. They've got their own stuff going on. Yeah. And two, they understand and can reassure me,

usually, not all at the time, but usually. Yeah. And I will say also, Kathy, I have this exact one. We all have very many different things that we are concerned about, but I have this one where like even now, I'm afraid that Catherine is going to judge my purchases on Amazon. And maybe that's because I need someone to be like looking over my shoulder, telling me, you sure you need that thing? Or, but like, I think mostly, I'm worried that she's going to be like another box in the house. We have another cardboard box that we have to deal with. And that's just another chore. Every time you order something, you have to do something with it.

But I've been setting up a new computer, and so I've been buying lots of boxes. I am also setting up a new computer, because I dumped my computer, Hank. It's one of the most fulfilling and relationship endings of my entire life. I bought a Dell computer like it's 1997. Holy crap.

And I'm a business person wearing slightly oversized slacks. Doesn't have a place where I can put an SD card. No, then I'm not interested. Uh, Johnny, what I do more than one question this episode. No, let's just do that one. Let's keep going. I'm enjoying it. No, yeah, let's move on.

Uh, how about this one from Megan who writes dear John and Hank. My grandfather is writing a book and I'm helping him edit it. The big issue is that English isn't his first language, which is the language he wrote it in. And he dictated the book rather than typing it. So several people who've read it say they only understood what he wrote because they could hear his voice in his head while reading it. Should I help him rewrite it so it's readable by people who don't know him personally,

or should I preserve his unique speech patterns for posterity? Editing is Megan Mecrazy. Megan. No. Oh, I forgot to read the PS, which is really good. Oh, PS, my grandpa's book isn't done yet, but Hank's is available for pre-order now. Oh, hey, thank you. July 7th, 84 days away, as of the recording this podcast. So less than 70 when you're hearing it. That's fine.

This is fine. So what do you, what do you do you think? Well, it depends on with any creative project. You have to understand what your goal is. What is the problem you're trying to solve? What is the thing you're trying to do? And so I wouldn't want to come in and presume you know what your grandfather's goal is right now. And so understanding that, whereas you might be imagining it differently than it actually is, you might also be imagining your own goals in place of his. And that has been a problem that I've had in my life sometimes, where I think I know what

someone wants because it's what I want. And that ends up being very different from what they actually want. So that's first step for me in a collaborative project or like when I'm trying to help somebody understand what they are trying to do before I apply my own my own thoughts to that. I 100% agree with you, but I also do have an opinion on this. I mean, I think you should have a conversation with your grandfather where you say, Hey, do you want this to sound like you or do you want this to sound like, you know, a book book voice sounds. Yeah. But I think the reason to, in so far as possible, preserve your grandfather's voice is that it's

obviously highly specific. And that's interesting. Yeah. Like that in and of itself is interesting to read in English. It's hard to find what we call voicey books, like books that have such a specific voice that it really feels new and different to a reader. And so I think that could be a cool thing. Yeah. I mean, as long as it is understandable, those sometimes, that's the sacrifice, that's the line. Yeah.

Even if it's on the cusp of not understandable, yeah, it still can be really interesting. That's something you're preserving as well, you know. Right. It's not just the stories, it's also the way that they are told. Yeah, so that would be my personal lean, but I would also talk to your grandfather about what he wants from the project.

Editing as Megan McGrasey. Hank can relate to that. Yeah, I can feel those feels. This next question comes from anonymous who asks, dear Hank and John, is it selfish to cry on your birthday? Today was my 13th birthday and it was less than ideal. I was supposed to get my hair cut and died to celebrate becoming a teen, but we can't do that. So we bought a box of dye and lightener, but they can't even process the order for two weeks. So I might have to wait a month to dye my hair.

I also got laughed at for taking some of your advice and making a queen of England mask for the birthday song. People just thought it was me trying to be cool. Well, there's nothing wrong with trying to be cool, first off. And secondly, it wasn't you trying to be cool, anonymous 13 year old teen, it was you were sitting at being cool.

Absolutely. And if they left, it was because they were jealous of your great idea and excellent execution of it. I also accidentally insulted my sister's friend. This is one of the chief mortifications and one of the players in, I'd say 25% of my you played mortifications is accidentally insulting someone or making them feel like I belittled them in some way. So I cried my heart out and then I started to wonder is that selfish? This is from anonymous human. You may have there's a song from the past that you may want to listen to.

It's called it's my party and I'll cry if I want to. Yeah, because it's you found it. It's your anthem for your 13th birthday which is it's a great song. Yeah, this will always be a birthday you remember for being sucky and sometimes birthday suck. Yeah, I mean, my initial response to this question is, is it okay not to cry on your birthday? Especially. Yeah, if you got through this day without crying anonymous human, I do not understand you. Like I'm crying a little bit thinking about this. I suck. First off, I've cried on most of my birthdays, even reasonably good ones that didn't occur

in the middle of a global disease pandemic and unprecedented uncertainty. Yeah. And I wasn't turning 13. It's just a hard time regardless. This sucks. And the universe arranged for you to have a disastrous birthday. But it is not the end of your teen years. It is the beginning.

And you're gonna have a lot of good times. There will be times after this that are wonderful. Your sister's friend will almost certainly forgive you. And if she doesn't and it was an accidental slight, then she ought to forgive you. Even if it wasn't an accidental slight, as long as you're remorseful, she should forgive you. And your queen of England mask, frickin' rocked. It was awesome. And I'm sorry that you followed our dubious advice, and it led you down it down to a dark, dark pathway. I wish I could tell you that was the first time that's happened. Never listen to us anonymous 13-year-old. We have no idea what we're doing.

Yeah. But I just, I feel so bad for you that your birthday was during this. My daughter's seventh birthday is almost certainly going to be during this this and she's going to have a virtual birthday party and it's hard. You're 13 and that loss is still real and you should be allowed to grieve this and part of that is crying. The good news is that there is, that there are many more teen years and many more years in general during which to have good birthdays and some of them will be great and some of them will be bad. And that won't stop happening. Yeah, but you'll have some great birthdays.

And in fact, we all are. And maybe that's a good thing to just stop and consider for a second. Yeah. So maybe when you need a little lift, close your eyes and think of the great birthdays that you have coming because you do, you do have them. They are out there. On the way. And they're gonna rock. This next question comes from Sarah, who asks, dear Hank and John, I will likely be moving to a new city for a summer job

that I am very excited and grateful for, but I have a concern. The city I'll be moving to is in the Midwest, and I know in the summer it gets lots of bugs, mosquitoes, cockroaches, beetles. I'm from the Rocky Mountain area, and we don't have many bugs where I come from, just deer and bears.

I hate bugs, they terrify me. How can I live in a world with so many creepy crawlers while still maintaining my sanity? How does bugs pray work? What if one gets in my apartment? Help, I'm scared, Sarah. What if one gets in my apartment? I'm scared, Sarah.

I'm scared, Sarah. I'm scared, Sarah. Oh, yeah. I am now, I live now in the Rocky Mountains where we do not have as many bugs. And the idea that you can have a home, and I'm sorry to say this to you, but that you can have a home without cockroaches is weird to me, that there are just, this, this town is filled with thousands of cockroach-free homes. Yeah. It's wild. It's wonderful. It's a beautiful revelation.

I'll say this about the Midwest. Hank and I grew up in Florida. Yeah. And so I think we have a little bit of a different perspective on this. Growing up in Florida, where it's not in any way unusual for either a scorpion or a cockroach that is the length of an adult human palm to crawl out of your shoe while you're putting the shoe on. That's such an ordinary occurrence in Florida that I didn't even think of it as anything but a little bit of a shutter if it was a scorpion, because I don't really wanna get bit by a scorpion.

Yeah, right, it's bad, but it's not unusual or anything that you're gonna do something about. Like, obviously people do past control, but you know that there's gonna be roaches. Yeah, there's always gonna be roaches in Florida, but when we moved to the Midwest, I actually felt like there was a dramatic reduction in bugs. Yeah. I felt like I was living in some kind of bug-free heaven. Now I agree, Hank,

when I go visit you in Montana, it's a whole different level. But I don't think the Midwest is that bad when it comes to bugs. We do have these stink bugs that have come over from Asia and are very difficult to deal with. We don't have a lot of cockroaches, at least in my house, and I've lived in a bunch of different houses in the Midwest. Some nice, some really bad. So I don't know. I wouldn't be that worried about it.

Now if you're moving to Florida or Australia, then like worry. In fact, the main reason I don't want to move to Australia is that I'm scared of all the stuff, like all the creepy crawlies, all the animals, they got a lot of snakes. Yeah. If it weren't for that, Australia would be top of my list. So Sarah, as far as information that may be useful to you, that I might have as a former Floridaian, there are two types of bug spray, basically. There's the bug spray that you put on yourself, and that is good for keeping mosquitoes away when you are outside, and then there's the bug spray that you put on bugs. There are several different types of bug spray that you put on bugs, but that spray is designed

to kill the bugs. And it's often used for bugs that are more of a menace, like wasps and that kind of thing that might cause physical harm. But then there are all kinds of bug management, pest management strategies that you can find at your local ace hardware from spider traps to roach motels to ant traps. And look, if you're in the Rocky Mountains,

my guess is you've not never dealt with spiders. We've got plenty of those in our basement, all over this town. And it's very similar to that, where you know that they're going to be there and you try and manage your, try and manage their existence as much as you can because a house spider and a hobo spider

look ever so similar. The only way that you can tell is the hobo spider will lunch toward you, while the house spider will run away. And I just don't know who taught them that, but I would like for them to unlearn it because it is terrifying. Yikes. Yikes.

They got a bad bite. This next question comes from Nikki writes, dear John and Hank, this is another mortification question, Hank, but it's a great one. I've recently been made aware that you cannot, in fact, grow a pickle. Yeah. They are actually cucumbers left in vinegar.

I'm 17, and this gap in my vegetable knowledge has resulted in merciless teasing from my family. My question is, what is one thing you recently learned that you felt embarrassed for not already knowing, not quite monage, Nikki. So I have a bunch of examples because again, I remember my modifications more clearly than I remember anything else that's ever happened to me like more than I remember my

wedding day, which featured minimal modifications, thankfully more than I remember like the birth of my children. But boy, those modifications, they're right there. One time, Sarah and I were in the drive-through to go to Wendy's, and we were talking about if we were gonna move to New York together and get engaged in everything, then we would need to have a Chester drawers.

And I was like, yeah, I mean, we just pick up a Chester drawers from Goodwill or whatever. And she said, what now? And I said, a Chester drawers. And I was like, yeah, I mean, we just pick up a Chester drawers from a good will or whatever. And she said, what now? And I said, a Chester drawers. We can pick up like a Chester drawers. Yeah, a good will salvation army. They've always got tons of them. And she was like a chest of drawers. It's a chest that contains drawers job. Oh, that does make sense. That is what it is. Uh-huh. I once went to a movie theater to see the life aquatic with Steve Zissou, the movie.

I think it's Zissou, whatever. I walked up to the box office and I said, I would like two tickets, student price, because it was college, for Steve Zeece who was aquatic adventure. And the woman who was selling the tickets just left at me for like 20 minutes. And I mean, Catherine still makes jokes about Steve Zeece who's aquatic adventure. We don't even talk about that movie. We just talk about my mistake. I have another example. There's a very famous Langston Hughes poem. It's a great poem. I first read it when I was in college and the poem, it starts out like this.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? And when I read that poem for the first time, I was like, wait, what? Why would they leave a raisin out in the sun? It doesn't make any sense. Like I figure you just pick them in your package. That's very similar. Yeah. And that's how I found out via Langston Hughes that raisins are grapes. They are. That's how that's how we make them. Yeah. I used to think that when you were spending time like waiting for something to happen, Raisins are grapes. They are. That's how we make them. Yeah. I used to think that when you were spending time

like waiting for something to happen, that you were eating the time away, like you would like be biting, biting my time. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Just biting my time over here. That means what it sounds like people are saying.

Yeah. No, that's not about that. I don't even think that one's particularly mortifying. Yeah. Well, this is the situation. So the jockey fun at your lack of pickle knowledge. And I wish I could say that there was like some way you were right and like there are some kind of pickles that you do grow.

But no, all pickles, pickled eggs, pickled cucumbers, pickled radishes, pickled pigsfeet. They, they come out one thing and then you turn them into pickles. But this jovial, good, natured, fun-making is something that I have found different people have very different tolerances for. And some people really like it. And it is a kind of fun that they like participating in on both sides. And there are some people who like one side of it, and not the other, and some people who like neither side of it. And that's something to be conscious of when we

do, when we have these sort of jockey relationships where a lot of it is like the gentle ribbing of friendship, that different people approach this in different ways. So I think that it's like not something that is intrinsically hurtful and that we definitely need to avoid, but I also think that there's something we need to be careful with. But when it is something that's bothering me,

I try to remember that like this is from a person who usually means it in an entirely good natured way. And I no longer bristle at Steve Zeus who's aquatic adventure. Right. Well, when it's done correctly and in the right spirit and between people who have a lot of trust and love built up, it's a weird expression of love. But it works as an expression of love. This is something that I found especially toward the end of my high school time. People might say the same thing about me that they'd said two or six or eight years earlier,

but it would hit very differently because I knew that those people loved me and I knew that they really cared about me. And that love was unconditional and that the fact that I said that Christian Slater never made a bad movie was a hilarious error and not like a sign of me being an inferior person. And yeah, and sometimes like these things, these mistakes that we make are these little foibles are things that we don't feel very bad about.

And it's like not a big deal. And sometimes like, it looks identical, but it is actually something that we are properly mortified by. Yeah, because it's about whether it hits you in a place where you're really insecure. Yeah, yeah. But it's also partly about being able to be close enough to people, hopefully, that when they cross the line, you can just be like, nah, that one's not for me.

Yeah. And also, I think part of the function of this gentle ribbing is to show that like the times when we are mortified, we shouldn't be. Right. And so if we can joke about it in a friendly way, it does eventually defuse that. For example, since this episode is entirely about mortifications and these are always there, I used to go to Rocky Horror Picture Show all the time and I knew a lot of the callbacks to Rocky Horror and like had a really good time doing it and it was a big part of my identity. And then at the end of the year, all of the all of the different Rocky shows from all over Florida would come together at a central place and we'd like watch it together in a big theater at Halloween. And I waited

until like the end really to like do a callback, like because some they're they're just like two kinds of callbacks. There's like the ones that you're doing along with everyone. And then there are the ones that you're doing that are like a little more rare. And so like you are shouting by yourself in a crowded theater. So it's a performance. And you're trying to make other people laugh. And I flubbed the line. Like I straight up flubbed the line. It was like the line was,

and Leonardo DiCaprio still died. And I said, and Leonardo DiCaprio did a lot of the, and that was just it. Like that's how it came out. And like I was mortified. And nobody laughed. Everybody cringed a little bit. And you know, my friends have said

Leonardo did Italy, died of Lido to me, a non-zero number of times and every time like it stung a little less until now that's that's a thing that I can remember and not be entirely mortified by. Though certainly I do think about it, not never, which is why I, for example, did not have a hard time coming up with it just now. Right. It's wild. How many of, we are kind of sewers of our own embarrassment. And the funny thing is that nobody else thinks about them.

No. No, certainly not in a negative way. Yeah. Do you know how often the members of the New York Knicks think about the time that I made myself a sandwich with their food? Never. They have thought about it. Never.

Never times. Yeah. They, they, in the last month, all New York Knicks have thought about that a grand total of zero times. But to me, it's a huge mortification. And so I think you're absolutely right, Hey, I think the underlying theme here is really if we can be with people we trust, and we can be in community with people who love us

and whom we love, and we feel secure in that love, then we can say, I feel embarrassed about this, could you not bring it up again? Or we can even say, like, it's starting to get funny. So I guess I'm okay with it now. Yeah. But if you're not in that position, then the thing about mortification is that it feels almost like a re having to relive this really awful moment of your life, a really embarrassing moment of your life, having to relive this really awful moment of your life or really embarrassing moment of your life, having to relive it over and over again on someone else's schedule.

Right. And that's hard. And it's hard to get out of, too, because in that situation, you don't feel close enough or you don't feel secure enough in the relationship to be like, yeah, I don't love that joke. Yeah, especially like I think that these things can be used as a kind of abuse, you know, right. Yeah, especially like I think that these things can be used as a kind of abuse, you know, right, where they pretend it's gentle ribbing, but it's in fact clearly being used to make someone feel smaller to move a little. Yeah, like so many things, human communication is delicate and complex.

And I think that, you know, in your average, like human conversation, you have as much complexity as like the entire rest of the solar system combined, and we are not always understanding exactly the impact that we have on each other. But I will, John, we have to hit our sponsors, the first of which is of course the New York Knicks barbecue sandwich. The New York Knicks barbecue sandwich, atoms of which are still inside of my brother, John. I only took one bite before I was fully shamed. But then what was I going to do? I couldn't put it back.

I'll just cut off the area that I bit and today's podcast is also brought to you by the first half of looking for Alaska. The first half looking for Alaska, apparently very enjoyable. And this podcast is also brought to you by Dell. John, dude, you got to Dell. I mean, laugh all you want. It's an iPad and a computer. And of course today's podcast is brought to you by an anonymous teenagers 13 year old birthday, an anonymous teenagers 13 year old birthday. We are rooting for you. There are tens of thousands of people right now

who are sending you well wishes through the ether. And I hope that that makes the first days of being 13 a little better. This is a project for awesome message from Kevin and Grace to Dean and Alex. Congratulations to two of the most wonderful people in the world getting married this year. We are so lucky to have you both in our lives and are excited to watch you take

this next step in yours. You are national treasures. Watch out. Nicholas Cage is coming for you. I love the idea of national treasure five being a movie shot in the age of social distance. So it's just Nicholas Cage holding an iPhone at his own face Trying to track down Dean and Alex, but when he does, you know, he still can't get within six feet of them. Yeah, he was be like, hey

I found you. All right, I think it's time for the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon And if I paused before I said all-important, it's because it's becoming less and less important each week. Yes. The news from AFC Wimbledon is that we don't know when football will return, just like we didn't know last week. And also, we probably won't know next week. And I suspect we won't know the week after that. Seems correct. Until we have a better sense of the shape of the curve of infections, we're not going to have any football. And that seems appropriate. Can I ask a question?

Yeah. So there's a difference, you know, like right now we don't want anybody near anybody, but there's a difference between like having players on a field and having like, you know, 20,000 people in a stadium. Yeah. Is there a reason why you can't have football games played with just the players and no stadium? No. In fact, that gets done regularly as a punishment to fan clubs for being naughty. Oh.

So there's a history of that. And the assumption is that if football resumes, it will probably resume in empty stadiums. Wow. But for now, even that requires not just the players and the coaches, but it requires, you know, like, sure, the people who distribute and wash the kits. And it requires all the personal trainers and it's impossible now, but I think that's the path forward is some form of, and like I know that football is not important. Yeah, I'm a big believer in what Pope John Paul II said of all the unimportant things. Football is the most important. I think that is exactly correct. It is the most important,

unimportant thing. But I do think that it would be a lift to people to be able to watch football. I know it would be a lift to me. So I hope that they figure out a way to do it, but obviously, obviously, the well-being of the social order comes, you know, a long way before the well-being of the third tier of English football. Well, John, this week in Mars News, Mars itself remains entirely unchanged, except in the ways that it always changes, for example. That's the best, that's the best like news of the pandemic era that I've heard the whole time.

Mars is the same. There's no coronavirus on Mars. It seasons do change. So Mars has a tilted axis just like Earth and the difference between Mars and Earth is that its orbit is much longer and more elliptical. So the seasons are longer and also like wilder than hours. So during an equinox, a planet's northern and some southern hemisphere switched their orientation relative to the sun.

So like they're going from from like one from like the northern hemisphere facing the sun to the southern hemisphere facing the sun. That's when they switch. So they're at equal points then. And that is what happened on April 8th when Mars went through its fall equinox, which marks the point at which the northern hemisphere is entering fall, and the southern hemisphere is entering spring. And because of Mars' elliptical orbit, the planet happens to be closer to the sun when the southern hemisphere is also closer to the sun,

which makes its southern summers much, much hotter and full of big dust storms. So keeping track of the seasons is really important to space agencies all over the world because they need to know when dust storms are gonna happen, what they're gonna look like and how they might affect like rover solar panels and that kind of thing.

During the week of the Equinox, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter, we're all super close in our sky. They're the closest they've been in 20 years. And they will still be close to each other in the sky for the next few months if you want to look up and see some of our biggest planet friends wandering through the sky hanging out together, not actually but from our perspective. Oh, that's one of my favorite things to do. Henry and I love to do that. So we'll go outside

and and and catch that view. Yeah, happy Equinox to all the Mars Rovers. Happy Equinox to Mars and thanks Mars for still being there and still being mostly the same. Just to go on your Mars stuff. I thought I feel about spring happening here. Actually, I'm like, look, all the plants are doing their spring things.

Yeah. Except then we had a blizzard on April 10th. And my tulips look like they might not recover. And I also might not recover. Yeah, that's devastating. We have one tree that blooms for like five days a year. And if it rains on the first day, it only blooms for one day a year. Yeah.

And so it started to bloom. And Sarah was immediately like, it's going to rain tonight. And I was like, no, it's not. The universe wouldn't be that cruel. And I was like in the middle of the sentence when the thunderstorm started. Oh my god. So. The tulips are unimportant as is football, but they are important to me right now in this moment. I would like to get some tulips this year.

Yeah, here. Yeah. Well, Hank, thank you for potting with me and thanks to everybody for listening. We are thinking of you out there. We hope that you are safe and well. We're thinking about you and hoping that wherever possible you are avoiding or at least minimizing mortification. But also, please bear in mind that you are forgiven for all your modifications. I can't let mine go, but I hope you can let yours go. This podcast is produced by Rosy Anna Halsey-Rohassen Sheridan Gibson. It's edited by Joseph Tuna Mettish. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trockrovardi. The music

you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great gunna rola and as they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.