Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 238: How Quarantine Has Affected Our Family Dynamics | Ear Biscuits Ep.238

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

From rising tension to dogs becoming distant, being in such constant close proximity to family has brought about some changes within the household. Listen to R&L discuss how their relational dynamics have been affected during quarantine in this episode of Ear Biscuits! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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card of up to $200 on select phone activations with major carriers. Visit your nearest Best Buy store today. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. This week at our respective tables of varying lighting in our own homes. We're gonna be talking about relational dynamics during quarantine. I'm telling you, man, we're gonna open a can. Well, not a can of whoop-ass, I'm talking about,

this is like, what's a can of worms? That's what I was thinking about. How many cans are there? Hey, listen, I can open a can of whoop-ass. You want me to come over and whoop your ass? I'd like to see you try. I need to whoop somebody's ass right now. I'd love to see you come over here and try.

Talking about relational dynamics, there's a couple of times I just, I'm just walking around my house and I just like, I just, I just, Sometimes I hug hugged my kids and it's turned from like an affectionate hug into like, how hard can I squeeze them before they start to panic?

I don't know if that's a good thing to admit, but I mean, it's not like Lando's eyes My wife was whispering to me. What are you whispering about? If she's gonna talk, tell her to speak up. Yeah, see, this is what happens. See, this is it. Shepherd's on his call with his teacher,

and I'm doing this. There's tension in the air, man. I mean, that's what quarantine's all about. It's about tension in the air and. There's whoop-ass, there's worms, and there's what else? I mean, is there another can? and there's what else? I mean, is there another can? I've opened cans of knowledge for people before.

Oh gosh. Give me a break, man. You know what, it's expired. I'm gonna open a can of knowledge on you. That's not one. Nope, we're still at two, that's not one. I thought you were gonna say a can of beans, but that's too literal. Oh yeah.

Too literal. Yeah, sometimes I do go to cans of beans. I have been trying to do dry beans on my own, but I do have cans as a backup. The interesting thing about cans of beans is that I find myself trying to get my beans to taste as good as the canned beans. Right. It seems that

that is the goal of every bean recipe is just to taste as good as the canned beans. Right. It seems that that is the goal of every bean recipe is just to taste as good as canned beans because those people at Bush's, man, they figured it out. Dude Perfect is selling their own beans. When you found out about that, did it make you mad? Yeah, it was like a trick shot to the heart. It made me a little mad. I was like, hold on, we should be selling beans.

Does this mean we can't sell beans? I think we should undercut Dude Perfect. We should, what's it called when you're like, when you back into, when someone goes up for a rebound and you back into them and then they fall? Let's use their terminology. That's boxing out. Let's box them out on their own beans.

Let's buy their beans and undercut them. That's a difficult, okay, you're using, you've got like three analogies going now. I'm not seeing, I also have tension, and now look at me, I'm taking it out on Dude Perfect. The people on the internet that are like, the ones that invite the least amount of ridicule, all of a sudden I'm picking a fight with Dude Perfect.

This is what's happening. I mean, I've been looking forward to this conversation because Rhett, I look forward to our Ear Biscuit every week because it's one of a handful of lifelines that I have and Ear Biscuiteer listening. If you feel like this show is a lifeline in this quarantine, don't put so much pressure on us, but I'm glad to hear it. But I'm trying to figure out,

there's another part of me that I think it could be therapeutic to get this out, but I got, there's some stuff in this past week, a little bit more that I don't know, as we start to talk about relational dynamics in my home, I just might, I guess I'm gonna go there. I think it'll be, I'd like to verbally process. I'm, you don't have to open a can of knowledge.

No, I think we're both gonna go there. You can open a can of ear. Okay. Open a can of listen. Ear cans, that's just another name for it, big headphones. I think we're both gonna go there. I think this is about, you know, this is a little commiseration, both with each other but also with the mythical beasts

and it's interesting because i see people talk about like oh it was cool when you guys talked about movies because it was light-hearted and or when you talked about hobbies during quarantine it was light-hearted and uh i needed that and i'm not saying this is not gonna be lighthearted, but we're all processing together. Yeah. And so it's gonna be what it's gonna be. Whatever kind of cans need to be opened up, whoop ass, knowledge, beans. Ear. What was the other one?

Ear cans, listen, cans of listening. But even before that, worms. Worms, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, one of listening. But even before that, worms. Worms, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, one of the originals, one of the original cans. Yeah, that's right. Now we're gonna spray those cans down and then we're gonna wipe those cans down

and then we're gonna move them to a disinfected area and then we're gonna proceed to open them one by one. Before we get into talking about, well, actually, I mean, this is a relational dynamic. I mean, I think I wanna start by talking about my relational dynamic with the most important member of my family, and that is Barbara. Of course.

And our relational dynamic has changed during this time. Our relational dynamic has changed during this time. Barbara is, first of all, I think Barbara is confused that I'm around so much. Yeah. And I think that I've lost a little of my spark for her. Oh. I mean, one of the things that I've noticed is that, I mean, I hate to admit this, but it's very true.

My wife is the favorite of Barbara. In fact, Barbara loves my wife so much that she will, the thing that she's doing right now is you know how I get down on the floor every single morning to do my back stretching routine? Of course, yes. And traditionally, that has been Barbara's cue to get down on top of me.

She doesn't do that anymore? That's what she does. Well, now what she does is when I get on the ground, now Barbara sleeps at the foot of the bed most nights. Barbara stands up, looks at me, and then goes and starts licking Jessie's face. So it's like, oh, now I need to go have human contact, but why jump down there with that bearded maniac when I could kiss this clean-faced woman?

And that's what's happening. Have you talked to her about it? Have I talked to Barbara about it? Yeah. Well, I begin to beg. I have a thing that I do. I start going, Oh, Barbara.

And what does she do? Oh, Barbara. She looks at me and then she begins to nestle into Jessie even more. Oh, she's afraid. There she is right there. She just came over here to look. She's like, yeah, yeah, you responded to me right now.

You want some love? You can't have any. Jade, come here. Jade, I'm having a similar thing with Jade because if you watched our Mythical Society car vlog, we do those once a month, well, before all this happened. I shared that like Jade is not sleeping in the bed with me anymore because she would get up

in the middle of the night to drink water and she would only do it if she had an escort, which would be me. It would wake up me and Christy. And sometimes she would need to go to the bathroom. So we started crating her in order to retrain her to go all night without food or water or peeing and then just do it in the morning, Jade. But then over this break,

she started sleeping, not in the crate, but with Lincoln. And I'm really starting to feel jealous because we're letting the kids sleep in later. So like it's 1020 right now. Lincoln got up like 20 minutes ago, which meant Jade didn't get up until 20 minutes ago. I don't know if she's peeing in his bed or what. He just took her out.

But so like all that quality time I used to have on my dog, I really miss Jade. Now I kind of want to put her back in my bed. But now Lincoln is starting to say that he's the favorite. The dynamics are changing here, even with the dogs. Well, I think it's representative of larger things that are happening. But one of the concerning things that's happening

with Barbara is, of course, you know, Barbara is a small, bushy dog. I don't know if that's the correct term, technical term, but she's got a lot of hair. That's a breed, yeah. She needs to be groomed. And she's got some, I don't remember what she is, but she's a mutt, but she's got something in her that her hair would grow very, very long.

Like even down to the floor. Whoa. But she's got some poodle in her, so it's curly. So I don't know what would happen, but it would throw out and it would be very big. So she gets regularly groomed, but of course, nothing like that. I mean, regular grooming is not happening for me,

as you can see, and also for anyone in this house, including Barbara. Now, I don't care. Yeah, me too. And I don't care that she's got dreadlocks and there's other things happening in her hair and it's like, I was just like, let it ride, you know what I'm saying?

Okay. And we'll fix this at the end of this. Gives us something to look forward to. But Jessie wasn't having it, so she bought a grooming kit on Amazon. Like Clippers? Yeah, and proceeded to begin to shorn our dog. And let me just say, I think it's worth paying the groomers

to get your dog groomed based on what Barbara came out looking like. There was just something about the- Can you get her? I wanna see what she looks like. Well, it was really, it only lasted for about 48 hours. It's like now you can't really tell, but- It wasn't that short. She did something with the groomers,

they know about balance, right? So you've got like, she's got these furry legs and they're kinda supposed to sort of maintain their width as they go down and then maybe even flare out a little bit at the end. It kind of gives a dog sort of like, it looks like they got sort of a bait. These are things you don't ever think about

until you do it wrong. So Jessie went with like a tapered jean look. Oh. Like an 80s tapered jean look. Jessie is like watching me talk about it right now. She got the peg pants. It gave Barbara like a top heaviness. It looked like she was about to tip over at any time.

Yeah, and I was like, how's this dog even standing up straight? And for- It's a hair illusion. I also realized how shallow I am because I didn't like Barbara for about 48 hours. I was like, you're not cute anymore. She knew it too. The reason I like you is because you're so cute. Now you know why.

And also in the back of my mind, yeah, she's not getting on top of me in the morning anymore. Chicken and the egg. Oh, but one of the things that, we thought about it at the time when the grooming was happening. We were like, I think there's something with the anal gland.

I know they do something with the anal gland, but I mean, of course we're not gonna do that. They express it. That's what they do. Yeah, they express it. And I was like, well, of course we're not gonna go there. But the other night we're all watching television together and Barbara comes in the room and we immediately notice

the smell of, it's like somebody took one of those bottles of fish oil that you take for your cardiovascular system and they left it out in the sun for like 72 months and then they brought it inside, and then they opened it up. That's what it, and I figured that that wasn't what had happened. And so I just said, is that the anal gland?

It is, yes. And then Jessie proceeded to grab Barbara and just slightly lift her tail for a moment. Oh! And she confirmed it was indeed the anal gland. Now typically they'll do the butt scoot and that's also a sign that the anal glands are not properly expressing.

Yeah, well and after I went on YouTube and started looking into this, small dogs especially, our dogs are not natural. Our dogs are so far from the natural canine species by this point that it comes with some complications, including they need humans there to do things like express their anal glands on a regular basis in a way that large dogs apparently don't need as much.

And so I- Yeah, because typically in the wild, because I was curious about this like a year ago, and cause I never took Jade to the groomer and that helped me justify doing it because I was curious, but I didn't wanna like put my fingers where my research was, you know what I'm saying?

But I found out that like, not to get graphic, but when a dog that's functioning properly poops, it expresses the anal gland as like part of that. And I- Yeah, so the poop will stink even more. And I don't care to know exactly why, it probably has to do with some sort of like aromal communication, but it's abhorrent to me.

So I'm done talking about it. But go ahead. Well, I'm not, because I haven't finished. like, aromal communication, but it's abhorrent to me. So I'm done talking about it. But go ahead. Well, I'm not, because I haven't finished. So I watched the YouTube video, and it looked so easy. The woman was like, get a pair of gloves, and just sort of, you know, you sort of just put your fingers on each side of the anus,

and you squeeze and pull at the same time. 10 o'clock and two o'clock? She showed, I think it's time. 10 o'clock and two o'clock? She showed, I think it's more like three o'clock and nine o'clock, but she said, this is what, she was like, she showed on like a paper towel or something like this is what will come out and it will smell awful. Oh.

And so we gave Barbara a bath and I proceeded to put on, the only gloves I had which were dish gloves. I reached in there. Hold on. Barbara seemed a little. Before you gave her a bath or after? No, before. Okay, good. Like during. Yeah, yeah. She was in the sink getting ready to get wet.

Barbara looked at me like, well now. Yeah, you're pinching her anus. I guess it was like, oh, you also do this. I've had this done regularly by that lady at the groomer, but you also do this? Okay. Lots of new things happening. Familial bonus.

Nothing came out, and I think that what we concluded at the time was, well, she must have already expressed herself. Yeah. You know, earlier, that's what happened when we were watching television. Now, I said I'm not gonna talk about it, just to interject my experience here, I was experiencing the same, Jade was doing the scooting,

I gave her a bath a week ago, and I remembered as I was giving her a bath, she's been scooting. I need to try this. And it just so happens that- You need to try scooting? Eric, the guy who used to be our friend, who then we fell out of contact with,

and then he started texting us about our Lost Years podcast. After that, he sent me a text and he was like, this is what I'm doing today or something. And then it was like a wiki how picture of expressing a dog's anal glands. Everybody's having to figure this out. And that image popped into my head and I thought it was 10 and two but that's when your driver's ed.

And you know what? I just reached under there and I gave it a little pinch and I didn't even have on gloves. Oh, why? Because at sometimes myana comes out in me and my nana, you know my nana, she's like, sometimes she doesn't care. Like she'll walk around naked or she'll like,

she'll do the walking farts and she doesn't apologize for anything. She'll teach, you know, when she taught me how to blow- What does it have to do about touching your dog's butt without a glove? She would chew up the gum, poke her tongue through it, and then take it out of her mouth and then put that slot where her tongue was over my tongue and then tell me to blow. And that's how I learned to blow bubbles.

She grew up on the farm. She doesn't care about stuff like this. You touch a dog's anus and then you're washing the dog. Just immediately wash your hand. And I just did that. And I know that seems out of character for me, but I'm're washing the dog. Just immediately wash your hand. And I just did that. And I know that seems out of character for me, but I'm like, screw it, we're in wash mode, let's go for it. Hold on, but did anything come out?

I couldn't tell. No pun intended. Well, I certainly could tell on that YouTube video. And I couldn't tell, but so nothing came out with Barbara, but then literally as we were getting ready to record this, 30 seconds before we pressed record, Jessie was standing right over here and said, I'm smelling it again.

So I think the fact, if you can smell it, it's a problem. And I think I'm gonna have to go in again. You're gonna have to go in deeper. You need a deeper pinch. Oh gosh. And don't wear gloves. You really need to bond with your dog. What is wrong with you? Anyway, so that's, you know, relationships are changing.

Yeah. Conventions are changing. I mean, if I can figure out how to do this, are we gonna take, you know, are groomers gonna go out of business? My groomer's not gonna go out of business because this isn't something I wanna make a regular thing. This is something I wanna do only in times of desperation.

It might be like a Dr. Pimple Popper thing. You might experience some pleasure associated with a victory, with success. Don't count your chickens before the can opens. You might like it. Oh, gosh. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is...

Anime! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes galore.

effect. It's a weekly news show with the best celebrity guests and hot takes galore. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Okay, before we dive into this, I will say we're going to be talking about this from the standpoint of people who are in a family and trapped with them. And I know that there are a lot of single people who are in a family and trapped with them. And I know that there are a lot of single people who have maybe the opposite problem, which is no one to connect with. And so I think there's a loneliness. That's not something that we can speak to personally

at this point. But I do wanna recognize there are a lot of people in that particular situation. I'm glad you're bringing that up. Yeah, because I think there's gonna be some complaining coming from us. And I don't know, maybe if you're in a different situation, maybe it'll be helpful for them to hear

how it's not that great for us at times either. But it is a good acknowledgement and we feel for you if you feel isolated or lonely. And we want to encourage you to do whatever you can to break out of that. And I know I can imagine that might be difficult at times to like, to pick up the video chat and to initiate. I don't know, and maybe more for guys to say, hey, I'm just FaceTiming you because I feel lonely. You know, it's not the type of thing that what I, I didn't feel like that was a thing as a guy that I would give myself permission to say years back.

Yeah. Good acknowledgement. So I found a couple of articles that I think speak to this. You know, one of the things that's happening, of course, is couples who have never spent this much time together are now spending this much time together. And the question is,

what is that gonna do for relationships? What is that doing for families? I mean, when you think about our situation, which I think is probably a pretty typical situation in the world and in America, is that a lot of dads are spending a lot more time at home than they normally would.

And this isn't just dads, it's- Working moms. Yeah, working moms. Anybody who has spent a lot of time traditionally outside of the house is suddenly there. And it's like one of those, if you think about when you go on vacation and we've talked about this dynamic before,

when you go on vacation, even with the distractions of vacation, being in a foreign land of some kind, having a schedule, having a pool that you could lounge next to and stuff like that, even with all those amenities, still by the end of a week long vacation, most people are like, I gotta get away from my family. But we're all on extended vacations of indefinite length

and we don't have, we actually have the most familiar surroundings and we don't have an option to really experience any, most of our neighborhoods are becoming much more familiar. I mean, I've walked, I could draw you a map of my neighborhood at this point. That doesn't actually sound impressive, but okay. You couldn't draw a map of your neighborhood before this. Okay, that's fine. That's no judgment. No, I mean, have you been, my neighborhood's got a lot of weird streets

and they're not, there's no system. It's not a grid. And so I'm just saying that now I feel like, I've been on streets that are less than a mile away that I was like, never been on this street, never been on this street. I've been on all the streets now, multiple times. But I'm just saying that the level of familiarity

with our family and our surroundings is at an all time high. Oh yeah. And it's creating some different dynamics. There's an article in the, well, I've seen a few articles that talk about like, what's gonna happen? Is there gonna be a coronavirus baby boom?

Because all these couples are at home together and everybody's having sex? Like, ooh, it's just a sex party all the time. I know how babies are made. And then the other theory is, well, actually there's gonna be a boom in divorces. I think most likely you're gonna see both of those things happening, hopefully not in the same families,

together at the same time. Hopefully they're happening as other families. I think there was the honeymoon phase of quarantine that was like, hey, let's sort the mail. This'll be fun. Right. And then a few weeks later, it's like, what are you, we don't have any mail.

I checked the mailbox and I walked straight from the mailbox to the recycle bin because everything that was sent was junk. For those of you who may be confused or maybe you're a new listener to Ear Biscuits. Thank you, we can have inside jokes. Don't explain it. I think I have to explain it

because I care about those people. Sorting the mail is a euphemism only on this podcast for sexual intercourse. I know how babies are made. Don't ask us how that happened, but it did. It involved getting locked in my bedroom, ironically. This is an article in the New York Post, which is not typically a publication that I frequent,

but they had an article about the surge in divorces. Cooped up New Yorkers are flooding lawyer phone lines with divorce inquiries, with an avalanche of filings expected once the courts reopen. People are realizing that they can't stand each other, said Manhattan lawyer, Suzanne Kimberly Bracker, who like many in her field has already seen

a coronavirus divorce uptick. In the middle of the night, I got a call from a client who now realizes she has nothing in common with her husband, but the children and how he knows nothing about the children. So it's like, and this is something that, again, this is sort of a stereotypical tropey thing, but you got the dude who's been off at his job,

and then he comes back home and he is like, oh, now I've got to do something. I've got to engage with the kids more than just like, hey, I'm home, dad's home. Let's shoot some basketball for 30 minutes. And that makes me a great dad. But you know what I'm saying? It's like now you're kind of expected.

And a lot of people are continuing to do their jobs from home, which can be a little bit disruptive. I mean, even right now, we're sitting here in the middle of our homes, making everybody else be relatively quiet while we do this. Yeah, typically Lily will roll out of bed and she'll walk in here and she'll see me doing this.

And then she will just like slump over, roll her eyes, go back into her bedroom because she realizes she can't make breakfast because it makes too much noise. And I told her she could tiptoe around and make the breakfast, but you know what? She's being ultra sensitive, I mean, not sensitive, but considerate, and she's not doing it.

But it's like, yeah, so our work lives coming home is a severe inconvenience to our families. You're in the freaking middle of your living room. If somebody wanted to watch TV this morning, that ain't happening to them. There's other televisions. Well, it wouldn't be on the big one on your left. Exactly.

Yeah, and one of the things that's happening too is I think that a lot of people are seeing their working parent or their working spouse in work mode in a way that they haven't. This article from the Washington Post, this woman, Laura Norkin, deputy editor of InStyle Magazine, tweeted, "'A funny thing about quarantining is hearing your partner

"'in full work mode for the first time.'" Like, I'm married to a let's circle back guy, who knew? Let's circle back on that. I've never heard somebody use that in my own home. We can take this offline and then circle back on it later and then we can close the loop when we've taken the pen out of it, but for now we're putting the pen in it.

Put a pen in it. Now I will say, there are some positives from this. So as you know, we have our company-wide meeting and there's not really a place in my house to get away. Even when I go into the most private of places, which would be our little guest bedroom. Yeah. The crack under the door is like an inch.

So you can hear everything that's happening in there. And Jessie was working outside on her computer right outside the room. Yeah. And we had our meeting, you know, we're having every two weeks where everybody at Mythical gets on a video chat and we talk about business and also just kind of connect with one another.

And I come out of the door and she was like, you sound like a good boss. That's nice. You sound like a good boss. You sound like a nice, nice boss. She surprised? And I was like, oh, thank you. I think that she knows that I'm not,

you know, neither of us are those typical, like chew your head off bosses. That's just not in our character disposition. But I think listening in on the meeting and like, again, just hearing my side of it. So she didn't come out, I didn't come out and she said, Oh, you're a circle back guy. She's like, Oh, you're a nice boss.

I was like, well, good, yeah. I'm gonna get a mug that says I'm a nice boss. As I'm setting things up for Good Mythical Morning or for this show, like I noticed Christy was on, she'll like look at me and like, she's like assessing me. She's like, even just right before we started recording, she like comes right over the camera.

She's like, pokes her head around from the kitchen. She's like, are you okay? Now that's a loaded question. There's a little more to it that I can get into a little bit, but I'm like, I'm fine. She was like, you look pale. I'm like, what I'm thinking is, I get stressed out right before I do something,

especially when there's all these people and groceries came in this morning again. Oh, good Lord. Oh, that'll throw you off. I'm like, yeah, I'm pale. I get pale before I start anything because I'm freaking, I'm stress spiking. And then I get my robe on and I sit down and I'm like,

all right, all right. And then I mellow out a little bit and I get in the zone, the auto zone. But like, she's like, Not a sponsor. You are so worked up. I'm like, yeah, I get worked up. That's why it's called work.

I get up for it. So I didn't get it. You're a good boss, but she's not listening in on our, Oh, I've got another thing. All hands meeting as we used to call it at IBM. Now, before we kind of, before this takes a trip to the dark side, I do, I'm gonna talk about a lot of the positives

because I think that this has been a really positive time for our family in a lot of ways. I made a little list here so I wouldn't forget. Now, Jesse and I had a date night before where we would go out once a week, but we're continuing to do that. You know, date night is our takeout night where we get some takeout and we send the children away.

They can be anywhere, but anywhere near us. And we put on some music, change the lighting a little bit, and it's still in the kitchen. I'm not talking about the bedroom yet. Okay. And we're sorting the mail happening. And we just have a nice dinner and we talk about the nature of our relationship,

actually talk about how we talk, you know, I think that's been good. We got our family movie night that we do every Friday night where we all sit down and try to agree on a movie, which has been going pretty well. Really? Watched Tombstone the other night. That was a hit.

Val Kilmer's performance. Not on your list, but. One of the best ever. Kurt Russell, a little uneven acting in that movie, but he's Kurt Russell. We're also, like you, we're watching Survivor. That's something the family is connected on. Locke and I have our horror movie night on Saturday nights. Shepherd and I are starting an art project

based on the golden ratio Fibonacci numbers. And we are playing horse and having putting contests. And there's a lot of like family interaction that's happening at a higher volume that has been great. But of course, with all that interaction, with the good comes the bad. Yeah, we've had, I mean, you know how the Neils are, we like to stay hydrated.

And when we go in on something, we go in deep, we go in hard. Boy, that sounded weird. We fully commit to something. And there's a dark side to that. Like we started watching Survivor and like as we've discussed before, we started at season 17,

cause I knew that if everyone got hooked on it and we got aligned on this thing, we needed a whole bunch of seasons to just start binging through because we just't want, we just wanna keep going down that rabbit hole. So now we're over halfway through season 18 and basically everybody's so excited about it,

it aligns us, it's a beautiful thing. It's kind of magical that everyone loves it. And it's the, lately it's the only thing we've been willing to do together. Like there's, so here I am already going to the dark side. Like, I mean, yesterday I'm freaking, I'm feeling, we're doing an AMA for the Mythical Society peeps.

And I guess to them, it just looks like I'm typing on my computer, I'm not filming anything. And they're outside in the garage playing ping pong, which that's another thing that we do. But now that's become a source of contention. I didn't finish the survivor thought. The thought is, survivor's the only thing that we end up doing every single night.

So we don't have enough variety. And it's like- You watch the Survivor every night? Every single night. And it's too much. It's a problem. Yeah. And then, you know, we're not having enough other positive outlets as a family.

So I'm doing the AMA and they're outside playing ping pong. And then this is not the first, nor the second time this has happened in the past three days, but all of a sudden, I hear Lando screaming. And a lot of times when he's screaming, he's screaming, delete it! Delete it! What?

Delete it! And he comes in here and he runs to me and he's like, Dad, Lincoln took video of me and he won't delete it. And I'm like, what's he gonna do? Is he gonna post it online? He's like, he might. I was like, has he ever done that? Then Lincoln walks in and he has this like,

Lincoln grin on his face. He thinks he is enjoying this moment. This is what he's doing it for. To drive him crazy. You would have thought that Lincoln filmed Lando confessing to a murder. You know, it's like that's the level of intensity. And then the more that Lincoln just kind of grins at him,

the more he just goes ballistic. And I get to a point where I'm like, and three hours later, I'm getting ready. I'm queuing up Survivor. Okay, finally, we can have our positive time together. We can agree on this. We can at least all be in the same room, but not at each other's throats.

And I'm like, they wouldn't come and they wouldn't come. So I've got this technique where I start playing Survivor really loud. And then they'll like stop what they're doing and they'll all run in, they'll get off the phones or whatever and run in. Well, this time, instead of that happening, it was delete it, delete it!

And they ran in and you know what, without thinking about it, I was like, I don't wanna hear it. You two go back out of the room and handle it. And then they stood there kind of like bum-fuzzled. And I was like, go out of the room and handle it. And I looked at Christy who I was talking with before they came in, and she was like,

she had this disappointed look on her face at me. Yeah, yeah. And then the boys left, and I'm like, what were you saying? You know, it's like at a certain point, the button's been pushed so much

that it won't pop back up. You know that type of button where it's like, it gets pushed in and then it gets lodged underneath something so it's like, or you think that the button popped back up, but really it like you push it think that the button popped back up, but really, you push it, and instead of it popping back up, you push it, and then you watch it,

and you're like, I don't think the button's coming, and then all of a sudden, it starts to come back up a little bit, and then stops. That happens with literally every keyboard that we put in our kitchen, because no matter how many times I tell my kids to wash their hands before they type,

they don't, they won't. So we go through like one Apple magic keyboard every seven months. You talk about being a good boss. Just part of my budget. And the way that we talk to our employees, sometimes it's like, it gets familial. There's a good level of family atmosphere

and team atmosphere. But if I talk, man, I'm just being honest. You'd be shocked if you saw, you know, some of the things that come, that I exude, especially in this time. Well, okay, and to support you in this. I've already said that I'm squeezed my kids, but that was a joke.

Well, but in terms of the losing it and yelling, and first of all, there's people who are in families where that doesn't ever happen. Right. And great, it's great for you. And also you may be shocked when you hear, oh, you guys yell at your children? Because I know, I know that my kids have friends

whose parents never yell at them. And that's just not, that's not our family. I'm not proud of it. It's just, it's the way that, it's kind of the way that we are. And like Jesse will be working with Shepard, kind of getting him to do, now again, she's homeschooled the kids forever.

And they've only been at school for like three years now. So, but of course she thought she was done. And this, and now everybody's homeschooling, right? And they're doing the distance learning thing, but with Shepard especially, that doesn't mean that he's just gonna do the work. You gotta stay with him and make him do the work, keep him from being distracted.

And Jessie is more patient than me and tries to engage with him in a fruitful way. Yeah, we've both married much better people than we are. And that's a wonderful thing for us. And then she will, but then, you know, I'll come out of a meeting or a podcast or whatever I happen to be doing, and she'll say, your turn.

Well, this is not something that happens when I'm at work, but when I'm at home working, it does happen on a regular basis. And then I'll go in there and I'll kind of enter into the situation with Shepard with some patience at the beginning. That is exhausted. I think my patience tank needs to be repaired.

It has several leaks. And as soon as I fill it up, Shepard finds a way to like pull the plugs out. And I'm basically, I've gone from trying to work with him to just telling him, just basically shaming him, right? That's ultimately what yelling at somebody does, is you're trying to use shame to get them to do it. And I know it's not effective.

When I'm doing it, I know it's not effective. But that's what I end up resorting to very quickly. In my mind. And your tank gets smaller and smaller and smaller the more time that you spend together. In my mind, I'm thinking, and I did, once, I did tell Chrissy at that point, I was like, I figured this was worth a shot.

After I said, just resolve it yourself, handle it. And they left the room and I was like, what were we talking about? And then I was like, I yelled in a calculated way because I want, because we don't yell that often. I mean, it's not something, I mean mean there are

family cultures where like little subcultures of families where they where they yell more and it's just like everybody's got a thick skin when it comes to that and it's a it's a form of communication and everybody everybody knows how to handle it and it's in it i don't think it's absolutely a horrible thing to raise your voice. I think that there are, I would imagine that there's home climates where it can just be, you can be expressive, but it very quickly goes to a danger zone.

And that's what we feel in our house. And so the goal is to always know, to always remain in control and not to raise your voice. I mean, we all agree on that over here. And that's, I wouldn't put that standard on anybody else because I'm not a psychologist. But for me, that's where we've landed. So it does immediately feel like a failure when I do yell.

And, but I thought it was worth a shot for me to say, I immediately feel like a failure when I do yell. But I thought it was worth a shot for me to say, this was a calculated yell for me to express how much of an impact this ongoing quarrel has on me. It's like, oh, dad must feel strongly about this. This is impacting him. I mean, it wasn't that compelling of an argument, but I tried. Did it work?

No, it wasn't that Christy was mad. I mean, we just, you know, she helped me talk through it and then like, I was like. No, did they resolve their conflict and come back in? Yeah, well, I didn't hear it anymore. They shut up, which again, that was my goal. It was like, stop impacting my quality of life. It was that selfish stance of, as long as you guys can shut up somewhere else

and I don't hear it, I will be fine. But then later on, we called them back in there and we had a we had a 10-minute discussion that was more like hey how do we get how do we get to the bottom of this now in retrospect i might could have added an apology about like losing my losing my cool and raising my voice and uh especially when you make the point about shaming because I think that's a good point maybe I'll revisit that but we at least had a constructive conversation about how they can own what they're doing and what their motives are and because Lincoln's doing it on purpose and now Lando's developing this coping mechanism of yelling at him this is a new thing so it's like trying to get to the bottom of that. But I mean, and this came at the end of a long day.

I mean, at the beginning of the day, we're in a different way than Shepherd, but we're having, we're just trying to get Lincoln to be more motivated to do the schoolwork. It's very difficult to do schoolwork in this environment. And he comes in this morning and he's like, "'Mom, dad, I've done some research." And I'm like, I perk up.

I'm like, my boy's done research. This is great. I immediately felt proud. I was like, I've never heard him use that phrase before. I've done some research. And he says, I've done some research. And he says,

the LA Unified School District says that the grades that you have when you left for quarantine, they can't make your grade lower than that. So I'm not gonna do any more schoolwork. I was like, well, this took a turn. And then Christy was like, who told you this? Yeah, that's a high school rumor. Well, my friends aren't doing their work because they said that's true. And then she's like, first of all, we're not in the LA Unified School District.

So you need to do more research. And so, I mean, we were on and off all day. We were kind of bantering, getting into that. And then Lando and him are at each other's throats because I won't let them be on screens all day. And I forced them to go outside and play together. And then they come in at each other's throats. And, you know, Lily had her own, you know,

I'm not gonna tell Lily's story on here, but there was something that Lily suffered a disappointment. Like there was some, she got some disappointing news, something she was looking forward to, it went the other way. And this was like months of looking forward to getting this news. And so it was kinda, it was a bit shattering

for Christian and I, as well as for her, you know? So it's like, that was also yesterday. So it's, you know, you have these ideas that like things are, you know, and on previous podcasts, we talk about this mindset of like seeing things as an opportunity and not being Pollyanna about how things are going in the world or even in our homes. But feeling like, OK, you know what? We can find the silver lining. We can we can see the opportunities in this. okay, you know what?

We can find the silver lining. We can see the opportunities in this. We can, like the things that you listed out and then knowing at the end of this that we're going to see it as a precious time because we do love each other. And thank goodness we care about each other and we're not, you know, there's a lot of people who, A, don't have anybody

or they're like on the outs of a relationship or they were about to break up or like, there's lots of more nightmare situations than the ones we're in. We've got it really great with our families. But it just gets to you, man, you know? Well, and I think that it's, I mean, I do think it's important to recognize that,

because I think you could say something, and I'm sure someone has written something like this, where it's like, it's not that being cooped up in your home is going to cause a divorce. It's that being cooped up in your home is going to reveal the reality of how you actually, whether or not you actually connect. That's the kind of BS that somebody would say,

because the fact is, is that regardless of the nature of your relationship, regardless of how healthy it is, this is going to be difficult for almost everyone. And that doesn't mean that you should break up, you should get a divorce or you're not compatible. Now, that also doesn't mean that, you know, there will be some real discovery and real discussion during this time that you realize that you got some things to work on

or maybe you do realize that you've come to an impasse that you can't get through. But I think it's helpful to hear that it's incredibly normal to respond to this situation in a negative way and have to resist being selfish and being self-interested. And I also think that there is some, depending on your personality, and have to resist being selfish and being self-interested.

And I also think that there is some, depending on your personality, I mean, for me as an introvert, it's like, it's not a negative thing when I think, I gotta get away from these people. That doesn't make me a bad person. It doesn't make them bad people. It just means that the redster needs to eject her himself from this situation and go on a solo walk. In fact, Jesse and I were talking about this yesterday because Jesse is one of the biggest differences between the two of us.

We have so many things in common. We enjoy so many things. We connect in a lot of different ways. But she is a hyper extrovert and I'm not a hyper introvert. I kind of present as an extrovert to most people who get to know me for the first time. But in reality, I'm energized by being alone. So I'm an extrovert and I'm not a hyper introvert. I kind of present as an extrovert to most people who get to know me for the first time, but in reality, I'm energized by being alone. So I'm an introvert.

But so when I talk about things like, I'm gonna go work out, like first week she was like, "'You wanna work out together?' And I'm like, no, I don't wanna work out together." For like seven reasons, the least of which being that we're not gonna do the same stuff in a workout. But the main reason being that it's a time for me. Like I put on, I listen to a book.

I don't listen to like pump up music when I work out. I listen to books on tape, right? And when I walk around the neighborhood by myself, I listen as well. It's like- You got a tape, you got a Walkman, a cassette tape? I just have a, you know, I've just got earphones and an iPhone.

But yeah, it's your time and you need that recharging. Well, even today or yesterday when, you know, our days right now consist of doing something in the morning and something in the afternoon that's work related typically, right? Every weekday. And even something as simple as like, okay, let's record two episodes

of Good Mythical Morning today. Like there's been some days where we've recorded one in the morning and one in the evening or one in the afternoon. And you would think, oh, two episodes of GMM, like that's, what else you got going on? That's an easy day, but the setup and then the getting it all right

and then the meeting before and then doing it and then the taking the thumbnails and then uploading the footage, before you know it, you've taken all day to shoot two episodes of GMM. And that is not me time. Right, exactly. But I had like a little window in between

the other day and I said, I'm gonna take a walk by myself. It was sunny outside, I was like, I'm gonna take a walk by myself. And then Jessie said, okay. And then she told me this morning, she was like, when you said that, cause we were talking about this dynamic before we recorded this, she said, you know, then she told me this morning, she was like, when you said that, because we were talking about this dynamic

before we recorded this, she said, you know, my instinct is to be like, well, I want to go on a walk with you. Like, if you're going to go on a walk, let's go together. But she was like, no, I stopped and realized that no, that's what he needs. That's good for him. And it's not saying anything about me.

Like she was like, that's not saying anything about her that I need to get away from her. It's saying anything about me. Like she was like, that's not saying anything about her that I need to get away from her. It's saying more about me. Yeah, it reminds me of the same principle, but Christy made a comment to me at the end of the night last night, after we had gotten through Survivor, and then I think there was,

there was still, I said something sarcastic while everyone was going off to bed. And she said, you know what? I think the only person that doesn't annoy you is you. She said, and then she turned to the whole family. She was like, you know what? I think your dad might need to camp in the backyard. You might need to do a little like camping time by himself.

And I'm like, all right, first of all, all right, tit for tat, I was sarcastic. So message received and I laughed and you know, it broke the tension, you know, it didn't escalate it. She knew how to, she was doing that to deescalate and it worked. But yeah, I think that was her observation. We're coming to grips with that too.

That like, I mean, I've been getting up an hour or an hour and a half before everybody else and I've been meditating. I mean, today was 30 days in a row I've meditated. Wow. Yes, it's like it keeps a record of it on the app, so it motivates me to do it, like I said. But I don't know, it's not enough.

I don't know. It's like I still suck at meditating, by the way, so I'm not bragging. It's just like I think I am getting insights, but insights into myself and how to cope, but I'm not quite engaging those lessons enough. But the other thing I haven't mentioned yet, as far as relating to Christy goes, I think it's been a real challenge.

And you know this, that Christy's been sick for over two weeks. And it was just a mild fever every day for the past over two weeks that hasn't broken a hundred. But when it's like that for days and days and days and weeks, you know, she's been in conversation with her doctor and there's been like stomach issues. So loss of appetite.

So she's lost over 10 pounds because she hasn't been able to eat and like with diarrhea. And then, but those are the only symptoms. So the doctor was saying, well, that's, you know, there's COVID is, it was weird. And it's, it manifests in different ways, different people, but they didn't think that's what it was. But then finally, after a week and a half,

I took her to get the test, like a drive-through test. And, you know, it's like a, it's like a pipe cleaner. It's like a freaking pipe cleaner that's like that long. And then they said, you'll drive up and you can stay in your car and we'll do the throat swab. And so Christy was thinking it was a throat swab, but the way that they access throat is through the nose. And so I knew this, she didn't know it.

So, and I didn't know for sure she didn't know it until I saw the look on her face as it started to happen. The dude reaches in, he's like, now I'm gonna count five seconds. It's gonna feel a lot longer than five seconds, but I'm just gonna count. And then the guy took the pipe cleaner, put it in her nose, her eyes got huge,

her feet started beating the floorboard of the car. And she said that it went all, she said, if I would have opened my mouth and looked at you, you would have seen the thing go past my throat down there and start. And then he's counting to five and he's twisting it. Yeah. And then he's pulling it out.

I'm sorry that I got a kick out of her being so surprised, not because it hurt, because it was uncomfortable. I wouldn't say it hurt, it did hurt, but it was more uncomfortable. It's just like when, it's, well, you've experienced, we both have experienced it because when you got your, when we went to the plastic surgeon to do the commercial and he showed you how to look down at your throat,

well, they did the same thing to me at the ENT when I was having some throat issues a couple years ago. And it's like, again, it goes through the nose and I have a deviated septum in my right nostril. Like you can't get in there. And the left nostril is open, but prone to bleeding. So it's like, I just, I don't wanna have to get tested. I hope they come up with,

I want one of the less invasive ones. Two days later, we got the results back. They were negative. She was still having the symptoms. And I mean, she started to develop pain in her chest. Like, it was like, I think I'm having trouble breathing. And I was, she had had that similar symptom earlier in the year. And she got checked out for that.

And we thought there might be something, it might be a heart thing or something. She got all checked out and she was fine. We realized that like anxiety was driving a lot of her symptoms at the time. And then I was making the point that those, I think anxiety might be manifesting this symptom now because even though your test was negative, the doctor did happen to mention that it's possible to have a false negative, that she could have COVID. And they said, if you start to have breathing problems, you need to call us and then we might need to take decisive action. And then I observed that she started to say that she was having breathing

problems. She woke up in the middle of the night. I woke up three nights ago at like 3.30 in the morning and she was having a panic attack, but she didn't know if she just couldn't breathe. but she didn't know if she just couldn't breathe. And it was, I don't, I mean, I was kind of groggy. I'm not the most supportive at 4 a.m. I was, you know, but I was trying to be supportive. But, I mean, ultimately, yesterday, she went in for a lung x-ray just so the doctor could make sure that she didn't have it.

We didn't go to the emergency room that night. I kind of talked her down and helped her calm down. But then the next morning, which was yesterday, she went in. The test results for that were totally clear. Her lungs are totally fine, which is more support that, you know, this is, I don't know if I would say psychosomatic, maybe that is the right term, but it's caused by her heightened anxiety associated with, you know, being in this pandemic where,

here's the connection for her, you know, over three years ago, and she's told this story on Science Mike's podcast about how she, you know, she hit her head, she had the concussion, she still suffers from post-concussion syndrome. But the thing that I think we're coming to grips with is that because of that, she's suffering from PTSD. She now, on a subconscious level,

believes that if something's so, if the odds are so low for something like her hitting her head on a limb, walking into the Trader Joe's, can then three years later have a dramatic and drastic impact on her life, then, well, when this virus starts sweeping through town, she's gonna get it. You know, she just knows it.

You know, on a, like, that's what, that's the survival technique that I think she's learned. And again, I mean, so, you know, it's been difficult been difficult you know with a couple of days of a flare-up of symptoms and anxiety like we can work together but like when it when it's like over two weeks i mean it's it starts to become very difficult to um to be empathetic you know because it's frustrating it's very frustrating for me me because I feel like I don't have the magic words to get through to her or I don't have the techniques to fix her. And she's not asking for that from me.

And, you know, she's asking for an open ear and she's asking for, I think she wants empathy and she just wants me to be there for her as she goes through this and be supportive because she does have a therapist. She does have a brain doctor. She does have a normal doctor. She has, and she has other friends that provide a support structure too. So it's like, she doesn't need everything from me. I don't need to be the silver bullet but it's it it get with every day it gets increasingly more difficult especially when i see that her symptoms are getting better um except for the anxiety you know so it's um and she gave me permission to talk about this by the way but she was like what are you going to talk about in your biscuits and i was

like we're going to talk about relational dynamics she was like you know you can you to talk about this, by the way, but she was like, what are you going to talk about on your biscuits? And I was like, we're going to talk about relational dynamics. She was like, you know, you can, you can talk about this because, and I applaud her for it, that like the things that I'm sharing are not things to be embarrassed about. They're actual conditions that people suffer from, whether it's depression, anxiety, post-concussion syndrome, all types of silent illnesses. I think she encouraged me to share this story because just to remove that stigma. But you know- Well, and I can speak on behalf

of hypochondriacs everywhere, which I think people would relate to. And I talked to my dad who, my dad is like me and presents himself as invincible. my dad who, my dad is like me and presents himself as invincible. But it's like, okay, the very first, so I went a long time in my life without thinking that, not believing,

like I refuse to believe that you could feel something physical in your body and it not be real. Like, but in the past 10 years, I have felt so many specific things, injuries and sicknesses, and then it turns out to not be anything. And so with coronavirus, the first week that we were home, I swear to you,

because I was consuming so much news, I had pain, I had legitimate pain in my chest. And I kept telling Jessie, I was like, I think I got it. I was like, I don't have any other symptoms, but like when I breathe in, like it hurt, my chest hurts. So I was like, literally, I can point to it, it's hurting right here and it's hurting right here. And I was like, and it comes and it hurts. I was like, literally, I can point to it. It's hurting right here and it's hurting right here. And I was like, and it comes and it goes

and I've had it for a week. And then I talked to my dad and he was like, I've had coronavirus 20 times since this whole thing started. Like he was like, it's just in our genes for it to manifest itself in that way. So, I mean, it doesn't mean you're crazy. It's, I think it's very normal and you can actually,

and I've had a couple panic attacks. I'm not crazy. You're saying it doesn't mean that my wife is crazy. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a couple of like, and that whole feeling like you can't breathe thing, and like, there's a couple of times in the past few weeks that I've woken up in the middle of night

and I've been like, I think I'm not getting a full breath. And the moment that you think that, it's very difficult to get out of it. It's very difficult to get out of it. It's very difficult to get out of it. And again, I'm not telling people that they should ignore their symptoms. I do think that for me, a lot of times doing what Christy did

and like going and getting the x-ray so you can be told definitively, sometimes you do need that. You need that like, oh no, there's nothing, there's actually nothing wrong with you because hypochondriacs like me will keep thinking like, yeah, you're just telling me there's nothing wrong with me. But in reality there is,

and you just don't want me to think about it. You know, and sometimes you do have to go to that place. It can get to a place where you're having to have all these things confirmed all the time. But I just say that as somebody who hasn't had nearly the struggle that Christy has had, I haven't had the post concussion syndrome or anything like that, but I am a hypochondriac

and I have thought that I had coronavirus already. And I was sure of it. It's just so difficult to be empathetic because I'm not great at it in general, but then, and I think when we were talking about our highlights from the year, I might've talked about the dynamic of, I end up, I'm not sure, but whenever she says, I'm concerned about this, whether it's a physical symptoms related to this, or it's related to the kids or something else, whenever she says, she expresses anxiety towards something, my knee jerk reaction without actually hearing her

is to just minimize or try to make it disappear entirely. Like to dismiss her instincts, or her concerns. And I told her it's like, at a certain point, if something's really concerning, she'd be like, "'You don't seem concerned at all.'" And I'm like, one time I was like, if you cry wolf too many times,

then the farmer's not gonna come or I don't know how the story goes. And that was not a sensitive thing to say, but it was an honest thing. That like, it is a struggle to continue to hear her and to empathize with her when it's so foreign to my own experience that like, you know, I think I live with my,

I live with my head in the clouds sometimes maybe. It's I think how she feels about me because we're, our experience is so different in this way. And it's, so it's, and it's, but it's very frustrating to not to be able to fix it. And then to, and then whenever I start to say, well, that's not what I need to do,

I just need to be there. Then it's like, it's hard to access the, the energy to, because it's against my instincts to interact with her in that way. And so, you know, after over two weeks of that, it's like, again, that was the last thing over the past two days that was like,

okay, this is difficult. You know, just to kind of close the loop on it, what was the corporate saying? Circle back. I don't want to have to circle back on this later, so let's close the loop now. You know, this morning I took my meditative time to kind of think more about her and about just to have an exercise in empathy. and about just to have an exercise in empathy. And then afterward, you know, it gave me the capacity to go upstairs and to apologize for, you know, how I wore my frustration on my sleeve.

And there was no yelling with Christy. You know, it wasn't like that. It was more of like a just this, you could just sense the frustration. And it seemed like annoyance, you know. But I think we were, you know, we were about to and therapies and things like that that will help her through this that it's not. And I can be there to help her wade through that stuff. But, I mean, I know she's in that process, too. So we're not stuck.

And we're not. And so we had a moment, we had a good moment this morning where it was like kind of a reconnection and just being honest. And so that's the, just to close the loop on that, but. Well, yeah. And I would say, you know, given the, there's a lot of things about this particular situation and the things that we continue to read about the virus that make it very, it's a specifically difficult situation for people who are hypochondriacs because the virus, the symptoms,

they don't know anything about it. It's like you read one article and it's like, okay, well, it seems that it presents this way in most people, but for some people, it's just like this. And then some people, all of a sudden, they go, there's all these little things that I think people who write these articles,

and again, they're not, you know, when you're writing about it, you don't have hypochondriacs in mind. And actually hypochondriacs need to learn how to deal with, I can say this as a hypochondriac, I need to be able to engage with information in a way that doesn't immediately make me think that I have it. But it's very difficult because it manifests itself

in so many different ways. And we've been told it's super contagious and you're out of your normal routine. You got a lot, all a lot of us are doing is just reading the news and sitting around and thinking. And it's like, that could be a really bad combination. So I do think it's important that, and again, for the longest time, I just thought, I thought that my mom was a hypochondriac and I was like, well, that's not me. And then I realized, no, you know what?

Oh, actually, no, I am. And now I'm talking to my dad, I'm like, oh, and also my dad is. It's like, we all have this tendency to immediately kind of internalize it. So I just think that it's okay. Again, it doesn't make you abnormal. It's such a common thing,

but it is important to realize it and address it. I mean, with me, I got a therapist I can talk to about it. I think that that continues to be really important for a lot of people. There are resources. If you, you know, there's mental health resources that are available in this very difficult time for a lot of people. And we just encourage you to continue to, to seek those out. I mean, not a sponsor. They were a sponsor at one time but i know there's better help you know which is like you basically can have a teleconference with somebody which is what we're all doing with our therapists right now anyway yeah um but there are

there are services like that we just encourage you to if you feel like you need somebody to talk to and you don't have somebody that you can talk to who will listen and be helpful. And again, like links talking about, it's like, we're, none of us are trained in this. And a lot of times don't know what to say and we'll say the wrong thing. Uh, finding somebody who can actually help you think through this and work through this in a healthy way is important. yeah so and i yeah i it's it's helpful to talk about it here i think it's you know it's with chrissy's permission it's calculated to talk about it here because i know a lot of people like you said relate to it and um yeah it's like we're not you know we're not in the business of providing answers but we're in the business of just being honest

and like sharing our journey. So, and it's helpful to me to do that. So I appreciate opening the can of listen. It's your rec. Yeah, so I'm gonna rec a book that I listened to during my workouts and my strolls. Okay. And it's called Underland by Robert McFarlane.

And I didn't know about this Robert McFarlane guy. I didn't know he's a writer from the UK who sort of specializes in writing about nature. So it's nonfiction, but the way that he writes about his experience, specifically in Underland, which I'm always fascinated with geology and also just underground things in general, but this is this incredible multi-year journey where he went underground, basically, into like caves and mines and underground systems

under cities and met the people who know about these places and visited them himself and his way of kind of bringing you along for the ride. But it also becomes a story about the earth and the environment and what's happening in the world. Top 10 favorite books of all time. What? I mean, it's not even, it's nonfiction?

Yeah. And again, this is not, this isn't for everybody. Again, but if you happen to be interested in that, in the way that I described that, if that piques your interest at all, there's nobody that I'm aware of who can write in a more compelling way, almost a spiritual way.

There's like a spiritual experience in the way that he kind of approaches this stuff that it's, again, it's been super meditative to like walk and listen to this, these stories about these people. And it's sort of like really tapped into my sense of adventure, which I kind of feel like I haven't really been feeding for a long time. We do a lot of crazy things. Our lives are pretty, we could do a lot of amazing things, but just this guy's commitment to going out into the world and then talking about it in a compelling ways. So that's Underland.

Okay. Yeah, all one word. All right, thanks for hanging out with us this week.'ll speak at you again next week and you know we love you