Heavyweight - Heavyweight Check In 2

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

Jonathan, Stevie, and Kalila check in, to talk about what’s been going on in their lives, and in your lives, too. Mix by Emma Munger. Music by Christine Fellows, Blue Dot Sessions, and Bobby Lord. Special thanks to Paul Swensen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello? Kalila? Hi, Jonathan. Let me try Stevie. Hello? Hello. Hi. Are you guys ABR?

Yeah. What does ABR mean? Alex. Hi. Are you guys ABR? Yeah. What does ABR mean? Alex Bloomberg Rules. Always be recording. That's right. How are you guys? Um, okay. My update, I guess, is that since we last did this,

is that my roommate has left to go be with her family, so now I'm in the apartment by myself. It's like a weird moment where everything that brought people to New York is sort of gone or on hold, and you're left with only the terrible part, the worst part of living in New York, which is paying a lot to be in a very small room. Yeah.

Stevie? Yeah? I'll ask you the question that is on the minds of all Americans. On the minds of the world. Yeah, during these troubling times. How was your blind date? Oh, yeah, my blind date. It was fun. It was fun. What did you guys do? We actually just hung out and talked for three hours. And the thing that was so nice about it, honestly, because it was in the context of a first date

and completely getting to know a person and there are all the questions, it was three hours where we essentially didn't talk about the virus. I think sometimes it's nice to acknowledge that things aren't normal and to like hold that in your mind. But there was also something really nice about like this semblance of like normalcy.

You know, of which there's, you know, so we're getting in, we're getting all these emails and there's been this one guy, I don't know if you noticed, who's been sending us like a poem a day. This guy named Kieran Lennon. And he had this line at the end of one of his poems that I really liked, which was that kind of speaks to what you're talking about in a way where he says that, you know, today was more normal than yesterday, not because it is, but just because it was as strange as yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. I've, you know, been spending a lot of time with Augie, which is great, and so I took his tricycle out of the garage, and, you know, we had the whole alley to ourselves, so I thought maybe I could teach him how to use a tricycle.

Hmm, fun. He's more into making the sounds, like motorcycle sounds. He was trying to teach me how to do proper motorcycle sounds, which is something that I've never been very good at. He's like talking without your mouth open. Like this? Yeah. Is that good?

You're close to doing it right. The way that he understands all of, like, everything that's going on is we've been talking about it in terms of germs, because he understands that, you know, like about how you have to wash your hands before you eat because of germs. Right. And, you know, but occasionally he'll ask, you know, why can't he see his grandparents?

And we say, you know, we have to be careful about the germs right now. And he says, you know, well, we'll see them when the germs go away. And there's something just so simple and unconfused about it. as always with a kid, you're always like trying to meet them on their level. And in this case, it just forces a kind of optimism. Like there isn't a version of the world where things don't work out. Mm-hmm. Everything makes me emotional lately. Like it's like my emotions are coming out in all kinds of weird ways. Yeah. Yesterday, I, like, I put, there's this, like, piece of classical music that you guys would know because it's very famous.

It's this, like, prelude to this Bach cello suite that I just think is, like, so beautiful. It's, like, two and a half minutes. And it was sort of, like, stuck in my head on my run. So I like put it on to listen to it. And it just like made me cry, like just like fall. So as you guys know, so after our last check-in episode where we asked for people to write in and just let us know how they're doing. We got so many just really nice, generous emails from all over the world. And so you guys started calling a few people who you felt especially curious about or connected to. And I called a couple of old friends, and among them, Dr. Jackie Cohen. Jackie Cohen.

Jackie Cohen. That's right. An old standby. She's not just like an intro to a show, you know what I mean? She's a real person. Actually, she called me. Oh. Which was really kind of nice, yeah. I mean, I had left her a message, but she returned it, which, you know.

Well, baby steps. And she was even kind of nice to me. Hi, Johnny. Hi. How's it going? She's been working at a coronavirus clinic in Montreal. And so we talked a little bit about that. I take these short histories, and then I swab their throat,

and then I swab their noses, and that's it. And then I tell them we'll call them in two days. So there's testing in Montreal? There's lots of testing. Really? It started already a couple weeks ago. But what does it feel like?

Yeah, what does it feel like? It feels like, it feels like I'm, well, lately, we've just ramped up the numbers of swabs that we're doing and so it feels like

I'm on an assembly line working at McDonald's. I mean, it's just like, oh, come to these trays and you just grab tray, and then you go to the next person. You just have to move it along. They're really trying to pick up the speed. You have to gown up and down between each patient. The gowning process is what takes long.

The rest is super easy. Do people come to you sometimes nervous, worried, anxious? Oh, my God. they're always really anxious. Yeah. A, they're anxious, and B, when I call them up to tell them their results are negative, because I've been calling everybody back to tell them their results have been negative, it's as if they've just won the lottery. They are so happy.

They're like this palpable release through the phone. Does it feel good to make those phone calls? like this palpable release through the phone. Does it feel good to make those phone calls? Well, part of me, I mean, part of me feels like, you know, happy to tell them the good news. On the other hand, I'm thinking, I mean, it shouldn't be the worst news to get that you have coronavirus because,

you know, eventually a lot of us are going to get it. And it's just feeling like it's so stigmatized at this point. So I'm hoping people are going to be psychologically be ready for a positive. And she even thinks that like she'll probably end up getting it eventually. Well, at some point, at some point I probably will. Because of the work you're doing? Well, yeah. I mean, we're healthcare workers.

We're frontline. I mean, at some point. And then she had to go make dinner. I've got to get dinner on the table. Okay. I've got a life. Before she could blow me off the phone, I really wanted to tell her that I was just really impressed with her.

Yeah. You know, we joke around a lot, but I really do think that Jackie is one of the most selfless people I know. But, you know, of course, I said none of that to her. Instead, I just kind of said something, you know, typically sarcastic, you know, over the top, just to kind of gross her out. I would like to be the first to thank you on behalf of Canada. Stop talking about that, okay? You're just embarrassed.

Oh, God. You're just... Are you going to bravo me now? Are you going to bravo me? You're going to bravo me. Stop it. So I also talked to someone I have a longstanding relationship with. I talked to my brother.

Hey, this is Tristan. Hello, Tristan. It's Kaylee Holt speaking. Hey, what's up? Not much. How are you? Oh, pretty good. Just driving home in the rain, you know. He's still working.

He is in Iowa. He works at a car dealership. He sells cars. Are you guys still open? We are still open, which I feel two ways about. They sent out a memo the other day being like, your safety is our number one concern. I want to work.

It's going to be tough to make ends meet if I'm not working. But don't tell me my safety is your number one concern, because if it was your number one concern, you'd close us down. Right. Because all non-essential stuff is supposed to be closed down. Right. But our service center, auto repair shops,

are considered essential. Oh. So we're using that loophole to stay open, and we'll probably stay open until the governor herself comes down and personally closes us down. And people, the crazy thing is, people are still out shopping for cars i was gonna say i can't imagine anyone is buying a car right now lots of people are lots of people are most of the people i talk to are still fine to shake hands and are you shaking hands with people i am yeah they're like yeah the media is

just blowing this way out of proportion and you, you know, I'm in sales. I can't tell them they're a fucking moron and they're endangering themselves and everyone around them. Yeah. The past week is like, okay, today's the day where we're just not going to see anybody. And people just keep showing up. So I just got really kind of scared for him, thinking of him shaking all those people's hands. Does he have any Purell? Yeah, he says he has hand sanitizer at his desk.

And I'm like, are you doing it every time you shake someone's hand? And he's like, yeah, I'm trying to. So, Stevie, who did you talk to? Yeah, so I talked with a woman named Lexi. Just to give you a quick heads up, I'm just having some like pretty heavy contractions, but I really wanted to talk to you. So if I stop talking or if my voice sounds weird, or if like I have to mute you for a second, it's because I'm screaming. Wait, wait, Lexi, Lexi. Wait, wait, wait, wait. She is like 40 weeks pregnant right now. Her

due date is March 27th, which is four days from now. That's very. Yeah, very, very pregnant. Like about 10 minutes into the call. I work for this music management company. Sorry, I'm having a contraction. Wow. Did you feel like you were going to have to like guide her through the delivery of her child over the phone?

I honestly, like, listening back to the tape is, like, painful. I was like, you got this, Lexi. Like, we can do this. What do you need? Oh, my God. Okay. You got this, Lexi? I'm totally fine.

I'm good. Hang on one second. Are you sure? The terror in my voice, I'm sure sure was doing a lot more harm than good um but yeah so the interesting thing about Lexi is she had never really like thought she wanted to be a mom. Yeah. But is with this partner and it was important to him and to them and their relationship. And so it was sort of like a decision she made knowing that, but maybe not a decision she would have made otherwise. It's this weird moment where like already she has so much fear around it and complicated feelings. And then like on top of it, she's like about to give birth in the middle

of a pandemic. And it's scary, you know, like she's scared. But on the other hand, there's sort of been an evolution in how she's feeling about it. It's a real weird thing for me to say because, you know, a month ago I would have been terrified because I don't know anything about babies and I'm afraid to be alone with this baby. But now it's almost like here's an external thing that isn't the state of the world that you have to focus all of your time and energy on. It's almost comforting. And maybe this is a good thing. Then I spoke with someone who's already a parent, a woman named Rachel. And Rachel and her husband, Drew, are having a really different experience of this period of social distancing than I think

a lot of us are. So Rachel is the mother of three out in Colorado and her youngest son, Johnny, he's three and a half years old. Johnny is like a major daddy's boy right now. And since Drew is working from home, he's very excited about that. So Johnny has this very rare condition called ACTA2. And it means that he is incredibly immunosuppressed. Like he's just always getting sick and they have to be really, really careful. So like for Rachel, social distancing isn't new. Like the first thing you see when you get to their front door is this sign that says like please do not enter if you've been sick or like around someone who is sick yeah um you know like johnny can't go to preschool because it's just like too much exposure to germs

and they often like can't don't end up going to like parties they get invited to because it's like just too risky like um that's that's just like the reality of how they live yeah and so like right now with covid like rachel says people have been reaching out and are being really supportive but it's like for rachel it's almost like frustrating in a way you know people are like hey can I go to the store for you? I know it's probably hard right now, but I'm like, going to the store is always hard for me, like all the time because I'm always weighing like, can I go right now? I won't have people like there won't be as many people and the carts will be clean and available. And I can have time to clean the cart even more. And people won't like look at me funny and be like super judgmental that I'm crazy. Yeah. And that's the thing that Rachel is sort of like hoping that like after people have gone through what, you know, like what we're going through right now, that there will just be

like a greater empathy and understanding of not just our family, but like so many special needs families. Because whenever everybody else turns back to normal life, like we'll still be doing that. else turns back to normal life like we'll still be doing that the last call i made i phoned this woman emma who works at a zoo in arizona and the zoo is obviously now shut down to the public, as most things are. Yeah. But she's continuing to work and, like, take care of the animals.

The animals have been just behaving differently. I can tell they're like, what is this? Why? What's going on? You know, like, for people right now, it's a time of like increased anxiety. But for the animals, like it seems like kind of like they're more relaxed and she's seeing the animals like play a lot more.

Oh, because there's nobody there. Like, for example, we have a group of painted dogs. There are three of them. What is a painted dog? A painted dog is a African carnivore. They're also called African wild dogs. And so they've just been like romping around in the water during the day and like playing. Normally they would kind of hang back and like, because they can be a little bit nervous around people. Man, I got to look up painted dogs after this. I feel like it's not often as an adult that

you learn about a new animal, so I'm very excited. Painted dogs. Have you guys heard of them? No, I haven't. I'm gonna send you guys a picture. Oh, they really look like they're painted. They look like they're painted by an abstract expressionist. It's like a hyena and a panda bear had a baby. It's like they're like painted by like an abstract expressionist. It's like a hyena and a panda bear had a baby. It's like a dog that's wearing like one of those Mickey Mouse hats. Yes, I was just about to say he has Mickey Mouse ears. I was just about to say. Yeah. You know, this thing also came up while we were talking.

also came up while we were talking um like she was talking about sort of what it's like to be a zookeeper and you have to do things to like manage the animal's anxiety and you know they're in an enclosed space and sometimes they need like certain like activities sent set up for them or like different she had like more zookeeper terms for it but like toys introduced to their environment to like keep them healthy and stimulated. And it's kind of like now during the pandemic, like that's the situation that we're all in as humans. We're kind of in captivity right now. We really don't have a lot of choice and control. And so if you kind of get lost in that, it can be really scary.

It's like we're the zoo animals, kind of, where we're in this enclosed space and we have to figure out the things that are going to make it manageable for us. We've been getting a lot of really lovely, thoughtful emails from you guys, so please continue to send them to us. We really enjoy reading them. you guys. So please continue to send them to us. We really enjoy reading them. Also, you may be thinking lately about reaching out to someone who you haven't spoken to in a while. And if that's the case, and you'd like some interlocuting or just someone to talk about it with and maybe help you make that call, please let us know. You can email us or you can record a voice memo and send it to heavyweight at gimletmedia.com. Hello? Hi, Paul. Hi. Good. How are you? You know, hanging in there I know, it's

I don't know It's been hard to do anything Actually, even with all this time I don't know, like a lot of people are on Facebook and they're all being all productive And I'm seeing what they're working on And I'm like, man, I just feel The exact opposite of that

I just had a whole lot But all my work got canceled. So I don't know what's going to happen after this. It's pretty bad. I think that's sort of why I'm like kind of not practicing. Sorry to make you practice when you're not feeling it. It's good. It's really, it's great. It feels good. Are you ready to, should I? I'm ready. It's great, actually. It feels good. Okay, good. So are you ready to, should I? I'm ready.

Okay, let me, I'm just going to, okay, you're on speakerphone now. I'm just going to hit record and then I'll just play it through. Okay. And here we go. ¦ Thank you. ¶¶ ¦ ¶¶ Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon