Handsome - Pretty Little Episode #87

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Mae and Tig answer your questions about comfort objects and "unlearning" on a Pretty Little Episode so entertaining it gives the Hickory Sisters a run for their money! Don't forget to get tickets to our May 4 Live Show in LA!Handsome is hosted by Tig Notaro, Mae Martin, and Fortune FeimsterSubmit your questions to speakpipe.com/handsomepodFollow us on social media @handsomepodMerch at handsomepod.comWatch Handsome on YouTubeThis is a Headgum podcast. Follow Headgum on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. Advertise on Handsome via Gumball.fm.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings varies, subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Allstate, North America. American Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. Handsome pot. Chatting the friends on the handsome pot. Chatting the friends on the handsome pot. Pretty little episode.

Yeah, it's your friend Tignotaro on a very pretty little episode with my co-host. May, Pearl Martin. May, where in the world are you? Well, I'm here in Poughkeepsie, New York. Okay. Which I called like Puff Kipsy until this morning and someone corrected me. Puff Kipsy. I thought that's how you would pronounce it when I looked at it.

No. No. No. I almost got, I got in big trouble last night. I said Concord instead of Concord. Oh, yes. Yeah. How are you?

Well, I'm doing much better than you. I haven't gone through nearly. the drama you have. But the tour's going well, huh? Tours going really well. You were scared you weren't selling tickets. I know. You're selling, right?

Well, except for Vegas. I'm not selling in Vegas. Not selling in Vegas. No, so if anyone's in Vegas, I'm doing two shows for some reason, and neither of them are selling very well. But the rest of the tour has been crazy. Yeah, like in Concord yesterday, there's like 1,200 people.

where'd these people come from? Oh, at your show. Yeah, it was good. Yeah. And I'm surprised about Vegas, considering there's a lot of people with kinks in Vegas. Oh, of course. I'm the king of kink. Of course, of course.

You would think that that would be, you know, immediately sold out shows. It's funny, like, the aspects of my personality that get magnified by this podcast or whatever that means, like, the people at my shows are like, thank you for speaking out for the tarot card community for like that like i've got like i'm like tarot readers the bdsm community like all these and i'm like i guess that's i guess that's me sometimes i just have a normal day too you know and wait why has the tarot card um community needed somebody to speak out well apparently um you know it's a it's a it's an ancient art form that needs representation and to stay in modern discourse, I suppose. Okay. Oh my God. Do you, oh, go ahead. Oh, sorry. I just,

I thought you'd enjoy this. I had an experience the other day. So I was in Boston, never been to Boston. Okay. Loved it. And I'm walking by this park, and I was feeling really like, like miserable and whiny. Like, I was just, all I keep thinking is like, oh, I'm tired. And then something called me into this shop, like an antique shop that it was like from a children's movie, like really spooky. And I go in and this woman's like, first time in Boston? She pokes her head up. And she goes, I'm 102. She was a hundred and two years old. Yes. And she starts telling me her. How did she know it was your first time in Boston? Because she's truly a witch, I think. And she tells me her life story. She's written this book. Where is it? Her and her sister were a double acting.

in Hollywood in the golden era of Hollywood. And she starts singing this song, Hickory sisters, Hickory sisters. It was crazy. And then she kissed me on my cheek. And without you asking to hear it. I didn't ask for any of this. And she owns the store?

The store's been there 130 years. It was her father's store. She took it over with her sister in the 1970s when they got back from Hollywood. And she was so alive, so with it, so social. smart. She's talking about AI. She was saying, like, I bought a crystal, of course, and she said, as I was leaving, she took my hand and she went, the world is a spider web of energy. And you can control it. And then kiss my hand. I was like, I am in heaven. Oh, my gosh. What is the name of the store so we can keep it afloat? Let me see. Hickory sisters, Boston stores.

Did you look up if there was any history about them online? There's a ton. Yeah. Patricia Bartivian and she was an Armenian immigrant, her dad. And then yeah, she runs this. The store is right by the Boston Common. Thomas, it's called what? Oh, the store is called Bartivian, her last name, I guess.

And it's a consignment store. So people give her their things and then she sells them and gives them. the cash. Yeah. But oh my God, TIG, like she, out of nowhere, she goes, well, my sister and I, we were going table to table singing songs, and there was Ernest Hemingway and Carrie Grant at the table. And I'm like, wow, that's amazing. And she said, Ernest Hemingway said, her tits are fake about her. And he goes, if they're real, I'll pay the bill. And so then she takes his fingers. She's, I took his finger. Wait, did they have fake boobs back then? Well, I guess so.

And she goes, I took his finger. I poked my boob. I know. So she took Ernest Hemingway's finger and poked her own boob. And then he goes, well, they're real. I'll pay the bill. And then she looks at me, she goes, I tell you what, they were fake. The twist was they were fake.

That is so funny. Crazy. So that really lifted my spirits. Like when I left, I was like, oh, my. my God, like she's so full of life and what am I doing complaining about anything. And you know what is so deeply amusing to me about this story is when you left, the next person that walked in got the same story. The exact same story and experience.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It was polished the story. And I've seen a video of her telling it on the news too. Really? Yeah. That is amazing.

She's a real badass. Like there's this statue of Edgar Allan Poe in Boston Common. And on her Wikipedia page, it says she was responsible for getting that statue put there. And that information on Wikipedia. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Hickory sister. Oh, my gosh.

And are you going to, are you still, wait, are you in Boston now? No, I'm in Poughkeepsie. Oh, right, Poughkeepsie. Yeah. Right. But I want to keep in touch with her somehow. Well, we have the name of the place. Yeah.

And if you're in Boston, go chat to her. Yeah, I don't have any Boston plans right now. Oh, really? All in good time. Well, but I know you're on tour soon because a couple of these venues have been like, Tigs coming soon, Tigs coming to everyone's really excited. And at the meet and greets, people are so pumped. Oh, that's so great.

They're pumped for my non-meat and greet. Yeah, they are. They're like, TIG's coming here. We were going to get a picture with her, but we probably won't. But we definitely won't. That's so great. Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm going to see some people I know.

And yeah. Has it been nice to be in L.A. though, for a while? It's been really nice. It's been really, really nice. It's everything I dreamed it would be. Really? Well, just when I was, yeah, when I was gone, a lot. I was just daydreaming about things like playing tennis with Stephanie or our family or going

on hikes and just being able to do that and take our morning walks. I just, all of that stuff makes me so happy. Oh my God. Unbelievably happy. It's exactly the life I want. You look tan, you look healthy. Yeah. I've been out in the sun. That's for sure. I love you too. Should we get to our first question. Yeah, let's do it. What if it was from Patricia? I think it will be. I'm going to send you a video of her that I secretly made.

Oh, please do. Hey, y'all. It's Emma and St. Louis. And you're the first podcast I've ever stuck with for every episode. So great work. What's something that you have had to or are working to unlearn? Could be a tiny thing. Could be huge stuff.

Ooh. Our listeners have the best questions. They really do. They're better than the celeb questions, let's be honest. They're so good. Yeah, like really, they really make you think. But do you have anything right off? Working to unlearn?

Maybe the value is measured in productivity, which I didn't really consciously believe, but I think subconsciously I'm like, if I had a year where I didn't put anything out or, you know, would I feel like I'd had a bad year or wasted my time? Like, I'm really shifting into just wanting to do nothing and do less and do it really, but do it really well and not, you know what I mean? Yeah, I do.

Yeah. Absolutely do. You felt like if you were not just churning a million things out, you were not successful. Is that right? Yeah, like, like there's no limit to how much you can do. like I and yeah it's I I can't it's hard to even relax because I'm like I should be doing a painting or writing a song or like do you know and uh now I really feel very clearly and strongly that I wanted I mean I'm I'm I'm just like yeah that work life balance that you talk about I really want

that yeah yeah it's it's an ongoing process I think not that I but I do love what I do as well so that's Yeah. That also makes it. Well, it makes it easier to love what you do when you have the balance and you have time off and you can, you know, live the life you're dreaming of. It's like before your career gets going, that's the life you dream of is things to get going in that way. And then when they get going, the life you dream of is to not be doing that as much. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's definitely a balance.

What about with parenting? Did you have to unlearn anything with parenting, like that you thought you were going to be one type of parent and then? Yeah, I think I, that's a good follow-up question on a really good question. There's a lot of unlearning. Oh, my gosh. I think more than anything, I'm trying to find more curiosity in, like, standing back and and watching rather than, I think I would be more pushing for certain things that I thought

that our kids should have or do. Whereas I'm really, I think I've shared on this podcast that thing my stepfather said, which is it's not the child's responsibility to teach the parent who they are. it's the parents' responsibility to learn who their child is. I love that. And I'm really, really trying to, and not even like forcing myself to try to do that. But just being way more aware of that and curious about, yeah, who are you? And what do you want to do?

And where do you want to go? And what do you think? And I know that sounds very obvious. But it's, I bet there's a lot of differentiation that starts to happen around their age, too, where like, I'm, I get so nervous. If I'm around a toddler, like, their safety is like, like, you just, I would get in the habit of just stepping in and, you know, making sure everything's happening smoothly. And then I guess, yeah, as they get older, you have to be like, all right, well, they're not going to do anything dangerous. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, even aside from safety, just like, just letting them. make decisions. One of the fun things that we do on the weekends is they decide when they go to bed and that's really cute, you know, just to hear them. And I've probably mentioned it on the show, but like for us to be in bed and to hear them down the hall watching The Simpsons and laughing, you know, or Bob's burgers. And how late do they make it? What's the latest they've sort of stayed up on their house? I probably near the midnight time, you know. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know.

Giving them choices, watching them make those choices and live with consequences and successes. And I don't know. Yeah. I love that. I think I went into parenting originally with, oh, this has to happen or this has to be done like this. and it actually doesn't. Checking Allstate First could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart.

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My mom talks about like, well, she feels like you have to teach kids empathy. I think it's innate. I think they, what do you think? I don't know, but I think about it a lot. But I can see really specific examples of, Max and Finn's compassion and just heightened parts of their personality that I can directly tie to how we've raised them. Oh, really? What catches their eye, how it catches their eye. Like, I always talk about how moved I get by the kindness of strangers. Yeah. And Finn feels very,

he loves that and he loves pointing it out where I told him that even when the fire department or police, you know, when they're coming through and people pull over to let the emergency vehicles through to go help, you know? Yeah. I said that even touches me. I just love like seeing people pull together help and and even like to go back to Bob's burgers. I don't know if you know Eugene Merman from.

Bob's Burgers, but he plays Gene, the kid, and he's an old friend, and he was in a terrible car accident a few days ago. Like, his car was in a ball of flames, like an action movie, and it was electric. It shut down. They couldn't get him out. And the governor of New Hampshire happened to be driving by, and her security detail smashed out the windows, got Eugene out of there. and I talked to Max and Finn about that.

I was like the kindness of strangers and seeing large groups of people standing around wanting Eugene whoever this person is in the car to be okay. And so I've just noticed it as we go through life and we'll turn and be like, that's the kindness of strangers, right? Oh my God. And when he points that out, I'm like,

yeah, that's exactly these different. moments that he notices and and he's very aware of it and that's so amazing that you because you're the lens that you view the world through is so malleable like it's so like that you've taught him to notice the good things is so amazing because I I the other night when I was down I did like my therapist had said about a gratitude list and I was like I was corny and then before I went to bed I wrote down all the good things that had happened that day. And it had been an objectively bad day, but but then there were all these good things in there. It was like I saw snowflakes, you know, it was snowy. I had a good dog. I had a good smoothie. I talked to parv. Like there were good things

going on, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then that was nice. Well, sorry you had a bad day. Oh, no, but in the end I was like, yeah. I had a good day. Yeah, on the scale of days. The pros and con list said I had a good day, actually. Yeah, gaslighting myself. Now I was good. Should we hear Emma's answer? Yeah. My tiny unlearning is that somehow I said the word B-O-T-H with an L growing up.

Like, oh, I love both of those. So I have been trying to correct it to both because there just really never was. It still isn't an L in that word. As far as bigger things go, we got patriarchy, racism, the classics, but we don't have time for all that. So I am a work in progress. Okay, love you. Mean it.

That's so funny, like the deep dive we went into and she's like, I'm just trying to get L out of my both. Both. But now we're both going to say both. Yeah, we will. We'll both do that. Yeah, that's going to be addictive for me, I think. Both. Both.

Well, good luck with all of that, Emma, from every end of the spectrum that you're working on. Yeah, the patriarchy and. Should we get another question? Yeah. Hi, Handsoms. This is Kate. I was just wondering if any of you had a comfort item when you were little. And if you did, did it have a name or did you do anything interesting with it?

Oh. The little chuckle after interesting. Yeah, did you have, we've talked about stuffed animals a bit, right? Yeah, yeah. I had a monkey. key name Zip. And I handed it down to Max and Finn who cared nothing about Zip. And it was so shocking to me because it just, I would assume it was like the greatest gift I could give anybody. Yeah. And they, and it just is lying around in their other pile of stuffed animals that they feel neutral about.

Really? Are they not into any stuffed animals or just they wanted their own? They were like, what is this old second hand? Monkey. No, Finn's into his elephant and Max has a lamb, but he's not as attached. And when I go into Say Goodnight, I'll say,

do you still care about lambie? And he's like, yeah. And then I'll just grab it. But Zip was hardcore for me. Like we went on a family vacation left the house. I don't know how far out we were. And I was like, I forgot Zip!

And so we had to turn around and get Zip. Like, there's no world I could have ever, ever made it through that trip without Zip. I'm really glad they turned around for you. Yeah, yeah. What about you? I had so many stuff to animals that I was deeply attached to. Because my, you know, my dad is a strange puppet maker. Like, he would bring them all to life and stuff.

So Owell is the oldest one that I still have and live with. And it's an owl that I swear I have a memory of my dad making it fly above my crib, like when I was a baby, like that. And then, yeah, a lot of stuffed animals. A lot of them, I don't know if this is like unwell, but my dad has a lot of them by his bed still. Like he has them in Toronto. And he's got like donut the bear, Amanda Panda, Beanie Bunny and Kitty White.

all next to his bed. And you're saying quite possibly your father's unwell? Well, he lives in a pretty mystical world. No, he's definitely not unwell, but he has a rich fantasy life and imagination. I don't know what he gets up to because his bedroom is also his puppet studio now. And does you, I mean, this is very personal, but does your mother share the bedroom with him? No, they have separate rooms. Okay.

But they've assured me that they are intimate with each other. I didn't ask, but they told me that. Because they don't want me to worry that they're in separate rooms. And they ask that you share with the handsome podcasts. They are still intimate. Oh, God. Yeah. But yeah, so stuffed animals, I guess.

I didn't, I was never like, you know, people have a blanket, like a blankie. I never. Yeah. I didn't either. Yeah. You had cigarettes and a monkey. Should we listen to Kate's response? Yeah.

My answer is that I had a pillow comfort item when I was little. Its name was stinky. And I used to smell it around the clock and also crease its satin and strum it like a guitar. And also pick feathers from it because it was a feather pillow. I liked all those little sensory things. All right, handsome, your best. Thanks, Kate. Yeah, Stinky the pillow, huh?

Stinky the pillow, pulling feathers out of old stinky. Oh, my God. Where do you think? What picture? Stinky is in a landfill right now. Let's just be honest. It's how it's likely, but maybe Kate. Yeah.

Maybe Kate. No. No, Kate would have mentioned if Stinky the pillow. And pulling out. that many feathers. There's just no way. You're right. And that's the kind of thing that if you try to gift that to your kids, they're like, oh. Oh my gosh. It is a weird thing I did not know about, because I, again, gifted my kids t-shirts from when I played soccer for them to wear. Yeah. Yeah. But then they wear them, they grow out of them. And then I left with this just happened

in the house where it was like, it was all returned to me. Like we've grown out of the. And it's like, there's no one to give it to now. So I just have to throw it away. Like, not throw it away, but like go, you know what? I'll start an eBay store and I'll sign my childhood soccer jersey and retire on that. But what if they have kids one day? They got to keep them. But you can't expect them to keep them now until they have kids.

Yeah, it's like how long do you hold on to these old soccer t-shirts? Anyway, well, that was a fun episode. Good to see you, and thanks for listening. Make sure to submit your questions and advice request to speakpipe.com slash handsomepod. And actually tonight, I'm in Vegas. If you live in Vegas, there's still tickets left. There's two shows, 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. I'm desperate for you to be there.

And go to Maymartin.com for the other tour dates. Okay, well, until next time, keep it pretty handsome. Handsome is hosted by me, Fortune Feimster, Tignitaro, and May Martin. The show is produced, recorded, and edited by Thomas Wulet. Email us at handsomepod at gmail.com and follow us on social media at HandsomPod. What a podcast! What a podcast! That was a headgum podcast.

Checking all states. First could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking your new smart thermostat before going to bed? That's a sticky situation. For some reason, it programmed itself to heat the house to 90 degrees right at midnight. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings varies, subject to terms, conditions, and availability, Allstate North American Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. boy.