Tangle - Valentine's Day Special: Phoebe returns.

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

On today's special episode of Tangle, we carry on with a Valentine's Day tradition. I sat down and talked with my wife, Phoebe. We talked about law school and mock trial, presidential candidates, the demands of Tangle, first impressions of the staff, and finally, Phoebe has some questions for Isaac. Special thank you to Phoebe and Isaac for being open and honest and sharing their love with us today. Happy Valentine's Day.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. Did you just throw the deuces up at me? You just threw up a peace sign? I'm here with Phoebe Padgett. I want to stop this. I think you should start again. Oh, I'm starting again. Good morning. Good afternoon and good evening. My name is Isaac Saul and I'm here from where we get views from across the marriage.

What's up? That was pretty good. Okay. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place to get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and sometimes interviews with my wife. Now, officially, I am your host, Isaac Saul. It's Valentine's Day, not while we're recording this, but it will be when you're listening to this. So for those of you who are new, maybe potentially new listeners that have found Tangle in the last year, we did this really fun series last year where I got to interview five Tangle readers. We effectively

chose randomly, and we dropped this whole series. And then right after the series got released, it was Valentine's Day. And I was like, oh, you know, it'd be fun is I could interview Phoebe for Valentine's Day, my wife for the podcast. And then we did it. And then it was really popular. I got tons of emails about it. People really liked it. And, you know, typically you should take your money and run, but instead we're going for a sequel. I figured it would be nice to do this again. It's a nice little Valentine's Day thing. Maybe it could be a little tradition. And so I decided I was going to bring her back on. And now this year we're not at home. We're sitting in the Tangle studio. It's, what's the date today? It's Wednesday, February 7th. When we record this, you'll hear this exactly a week from now. So, Phoebe, hi. Welcome to the show.

Thanks. Hey. That's how, you know, that's how you bring people on to a podcast. Oh, okay. Yeah, I know. I've listened to podcasts. Do you have your five questions? Yeah, do I have to go first? No, I'm just curious. Do you have them though? Yeah, I prepped some. All right, I asked Phoebe to come up with five questions

she wanted to ask me while we were on the show. I asked her to do that and she responded by saying, I'm the star. I don't want to come up with five questions for the show. Aren't you supposed to be interviewing me? And I said, I have a lot of questions for you. Okay, so I didn't know where exactly to start, but last year we did this, you were in the middle of your first year of law

school. It was right around this time. Now you're finishing up your second year. You're over the hill, more than halfway done. How's law school going? What's going on in your world? Let's start there. I feel like this was like a better answer last year. It's hard. Turns out. Yeah, law school's still hard. I was actually thinking about this on the way over because I feel like when we talked last year for this. It was just like, I was in this such a like intense romantic moment of learning. And I feel like that was so, I was like so deeply kind of like, I had a professor explain it where it was like the first year of law school was like the most intellectually stimulating time of your life because it's like, it's so new. It's so different. It's such a different way of learning. And I feel like every day I was just kind of in awe of it, where I was just, it was like incredibly romantic to me and like romanticized, not romanticized

because I like wasn't naive about it, but it was just like, I was in awe every day. And I think I was in awe every day. And I think what is different this year is some of that like novelty has worn off. And as like, much as I still feel the kind of like amazement with the law and I feel like continue to be challenged, it's a lot more practical where it's like, as opposed to just kind of being in the like stepping into this world for the first time being like holy shit like there's all this I get to learn now it's much more how do I actually do this in a practical sense and that's hard it's also a lot scarier now what classes are you taking right now? I am, I feel like I'm going to be sighing so much. I'm taking, are you having a snack right now? I'm having, I'm playing, I'm taking. I'm just, I tried to sneak in one pretzel while you were talking.

Well, yeah, no, go ahead. Two. I'm doing civil procedure, criminal appellate procedure, employment discrimination, a trial advocacy class, and an environmental law. Were you on trial team when we did this last year? No, I'm on trial team now. Wow. Oh, we have to talk about trial team. I can't believe you weren't on trial. Okay. So this blew my mind. In law school, there's this thing these nerds do, trial team. It's like debate team, but law school version. So they literally travel around the country. They go to these competitions and they do fake trials. And so they compete and they argue in fake trials. And at Temple, it's very prestigious. It's like the trial team is the hot, cool thing to do in law school on campus. And Phoebe made

the trial team. So we were very proud of her. It was a very big deal. And now it's like you spend more time doing trial team than you do in law school. Yeah. I mean, no, but it's like a huge, it's a huge part of my life now that was just like not a thing last year at all. Is that, was my summary of what trial team is pretty accurate? Yeah, I do think that like many people know what mock trial is. Like you made it sound like it was just like kind of crazy. I think it's insane. I went, I participated in one.

One of my all-time favorite experiences I've ever had. of my all-time favorite experiences I've ever had. I was a murder defendant in a case where Phoebe was my, she was my lawyer defending me. So what is that? You were defense counsel is what we call that. And the other people were, that makes them the plaintiffs, the prosecutor. So those are two different things, plaintiff and prosecutor, but they were the prosecutor because it's a criminal case. And then I basically was accused of pushing my wife out of a boat. Of murdering your wife. Murdering her. To be clear. The dynamic was in real life, we're married. And in the case file, you had murdered your wife.

Yeah. And then I know some of Phoebe's friends from obviously from just hanging out through law school. So one of Phoebe's closest friends, shout out Madison, all time. Awesome person. Hey, Madison. I would say Phoebe's law school best friend. She was the, like the prosecutor on the other side. And so her and Phoebe were going at each other. This was like their final, basically it was your final exam effectively. And so I was standing, I was sitting

in like where the defendant sits and we're in an actual courtroom. Like it's Temple has a mock trial courtroom. What do you guys call it? It has a cool name. Moot court. Moot court. Yeah. And so I'm sitting there, I'm like in a suit and Phoebe's like, don't smile. I'm like, I'm laughing because the whole thing feels so absurd. She's like, don't smile. You're, this is like supposed to be serious and like, you need to be a good defendant. And then Madison, who I know really well because she's Phoebe's closest friend in law school and we hang out all the time. She like walks out into the main whatever, just like stands in front of me in front of the judge and then just points at me and said, what was my name? Jesse Johnson. Jesse Johnson murdered his wife and she's just, I just completely lost my shit. I could not, I could not hold together.

But I got off. Yeah. You crushed it. You were acquitted. Yeah, I was acquitted. Phoebe destroyed the prosecution. She had a great closing statement. It was a tough case to prosecute.

There were no witnesses. I got away with it. I think I did. Do you think I did? Do you think I did? You think you murdered her? No, I don't think I murdered her. There you go. There is no evidence to suggest that.

But anyway, this whole trial team thing is incredible. But you went to one competition and you kind of got fleeced a little bit. Oh, yeah. I have always known this, but apparently I am a very specific acquired taste. And people in the South, specifically in Houston, don't like me. It's nothing to get, they like nothing. I was happy as a little clam to come running. People in the South don't like you? i don't think that's what you were no i would i i was in the south competing in this competition yes and they

hated me but specifically the lawyers who were the mock trial judges hated me yeah okay hated me it's a little bit narrower of a group than people in the South. Okay. Southern lawyers really hated me. Really, really much. Very much hated me. You had too much Northeast attitude. Yeah. They were not happy with me at all. I was told that as a woman, I need to not let my gender get the best of me and not get

emotional when I was an advocate. And I said, I'll never come back here. Yeah. Also, Houston's a really weird place. Fourth largest city in America. People don't even know that. Right. But I was in downtown Houston and it might as well have been a ghost town.

It felt like I was on an empty movie set of a city. It was terrifying. It was just desolate. Nobody is there. Okay. But a lot of downtown places are kind of like that. I don't know. I don't know. It was like the scent. It's like, you know, I'm in like, oh, there's all these, whatever. I'll say I've never been, I've actually never spent, I've spent a lot of time in Texas, but I've not spent much time in Houston, so I can't really defend it. Maybe I just got my feelings hurt because they clearly... It's also possible that I just have a bad attitude

because they made it very, very clear that I was not their style. They didn't like me. So I've totally forgot about trial team. I felt like we must have talked about that in the last episode, but I'm glad that we didn't because I think it's really interesting. But also since the last episode, one of the things that I did write down that I realized was you had an experience that I really wanted to talk about. And I guess the context for this is, I would say, you are pretty progressive and liberal in your politics, or at least I think you're more to the left than me.

And you had an internship this summer with a Republican appointed judge, which when it happened, they were sort of like, oh, what's this going to be like kind of feeling? Like we didn't really know anything about him. I was just like, so interested in this whole thing because like you were in a federal court and whatever. I had a bunch of

questions, but ended up, it turned into like, I feel like this really positive experience for you. I'm curious to hear you talk a little bit about it. Yeah. It's like truly one of my favorite experiences so far, but yeah. So I was interning with this judge for the summer. It's a judicial clerkship. And essentially that means like I'm in the courthouse with him. I work with his full time clerks who work with him. He has year long clerks. And so people will come, will work with him for a year. And then usually they'll go either to a firm or somewhere else afterward. year. And then usually they'll go either to a firm or somewhere else afterward. And then he has summer law clerks, which are usually just people who are still in law school. And so I was one of, I think he had six this summer. I was one of six interns and it's my favorite experience. I couldn't have been prepared for how much I would love both this judge and the experience that I had and just the whole, the whole thing. I mean, it was a pretty interesting, like him and I are very clearly different politically. And I was worried about that because I think like specifically in a position of power, like a judge,

Because I think like specifically in a position of power, like a judge, ideally this never comes into play. Ideally, politics are completely irrelevant, but it's hard to believe that. And I think like the judge that I worked for in many ways did that to a level that I was kind of amazed at. And maybe that was just also having no experience with judges, having no like contact with the judiciary, but it was, it was really remarkable. And he was so, he feels like what a lot of mentoring used to be. I feel like there's not a lot of opportunity for mentoring in the same way. And he was so thrilled to be a mentor and so thrilled to be a resource and to teach and to be accessible. I mean, I think it's also pretty unique to him, but I was, I mean, there were days when he would, I would go into his chambers after something and we would discuss something that had happened in the case and we would disagree. Or I would ask him a legal question, like not understanding what had happened in the

court proceeding earlier that day. Or I would go to him and I was considering whether to, what I needed to do next year and where I wanted to apply. And he multiple times would just sit after, after five, I would go into his chambers with a question or maybe right before the end of the day, expecting to like, or asking, like I would ask him to find time to talk with me about something. And he would sit and talk with me for, you know, like an hour about what I wanted to do with my life or what I wanted or what spaces of the law or talk to me about how he came to the law. And it just it was like an a remarkable experience i was like yeah i i love him yeah i i don't know why i love this story so much i think just because

it i mean first of all it's like it's one of those things where it's just sort of good in the world i just remember you just coming home and being like, this guy is such a good mentor and he's such a good teacher. And it was just so good to hear that people like that were still out there. All the political stuff aside, I mean, I was so interested to see how that came up. But I also think even related to that, it was so refreshing to hear your perception of how things were done and how he conducted himself where it was like, yeah, he was a Republican appointed judge, but there was never really like a whiff of politics in anything he did, which is the total opposite of all the stuff you hear about and read about in the news. And it kind of, you know, I've talked about this in Tangle, like most politicians actually aren't like corrupt,

self-serving, awful people. It's just like the ones who are the ones who make the news. And it's the same thing with judges. It's like most probably aren't actually like corrupt political actors trying to like bend the country to their political whims. It's just like some, you know, have certain rulings that get them appointed by certain political parties, but they're trying to apply the law. And it felt like he was such this like sterling example of that in a way that I really made me feel good about the world. Yeah. I think like that was one of my overarching experiences with him in general was just feeling like there was this real like real like moral steadiness to him and I think that even came through with with my application with him where it's like for a lot of judges your grade point average is absolutely like a weeding

out factor and I don't have a 4.0 you know know, like I, my grades are fine. They're really not amazing. And I submitted my application to him without my grades because they had not been available yet. And he pulled me in for an interview. He offered me the internship and he has been like nothing but a champion to me or a champion for me in ways where it's like, it feels like he gave me this chance, like gave me this internship knowing that like, that all the kind of other things that are usually go into weighing whether someone gets a kind of prestigious opportunity, like a federal summer clerkship or kind of not not or kind of sometimes bullshit. Like he didn't look at my grades. He didn't know what my grades were, but he spent the time to get to know me and to talk to me and to ask me about the classes and to ask me about what I thought, what I was interested in. And that was what he based himself, like based his choice off of. And it feels like in a lot of spaces and a lot of like

academic spaces, that's not the case. Like you need certain grades to get through the door. You need certain connections. You need certain things. And yeah, I've just always said like, I'm a person where it's like my, my paper is not going to get me through the door, but like my person is going to get me the job. Like, I think if you give me an interview, I'm probably going to get the job, right? But it's like, but that, but it takes a certain person to look at my resume and to like get a sense from me and be like, yeah, I'm going to take a chance on this person and see if it fits. I think the other thing that was interesting about that whole application process was the theater thing.

Yeah, he's a big theater guy. Right, and so the people who were around last year will know that Phoebe's background is in theater. And so we live in Philadelphia and we left New York and we moved down here for law school. And I've written a little bit about that in some personal notes in the Tangle newsletter. And she talked about it on the podcast last year. And it was like, when she first got to

law school, we didn't really know how any of that was going to translate. And then it turned out, actually, some of the theater stuff was really beneficial, like public speaking. And, you know, there's a performance element to at least trial stuff, like actual trial advocacy, which is the stuff you're interested in. But then you applied for this thing and he was like a theater guy. He was like super into theater and that was kind of like an in for you in the interview, which was just, I don't know. It was very serendipitous in a way that felt really meaningful somehow. Yeah. I think that whole experience felt like that where it was like kind of kismet in a lot of ways. I want to, before you put it out of this, I want to talk about the Starbucks case

because, okay. So one, one of the cases that you got to sort of observe and you were there for was this Starbucks case, which a lot of Tangle people probably know about this because it was like a viral thing among people who are political news junkies. But I don't know. Do you remember what year this happened? I don't remember. I think it was probably like right before or right after COVID in that time.

I think it was before. Okay, maybe like 2019, 2020. There were a pair of guys who went into Starbucks in Philadelphia. They were both black. They went in, they sat down there waiting for somebody and they basically got kicked out of the Starbucks because I don't know if they didn't buy anything or that was like the accusation was that they didn't buy anything. And the person who kicked them out was white, I believe. And Phoebe's nodding along as I get some of the facts, right? And then they got removed from the Starbucks.

And then all this stuff happened. There was video of it. The police came. The police were called to take them out. And it was like, you know, it was in the mainstream press. It was sort of framed as this instance of racism. Like like there are these two guys just trying to have a meeting and they're like assumed to be homeless or like derelict or somehow and like that they need to be removed and then starbucks in its pr cleanup fired one of the managers from like the regional branch of Starbucks that managed this Starbucks. And she was a white

woman. And she sued Starbucks for reverse racism. And then the case came before Phoebe's judge. And then Phoebe got to sit in on the jury deliberations and the whole case. And I know there are certain things that you can't say about it. but yeah, I mean, first of all, she won. Yes. How much money did she get? Do you remember? I don't. She won an unbelievable amount of money. Millions of dollars. Yeah, tens of millions of dollars. Yes. And I think your priors going into the case probably made you feel not very sympathetic toward her. But by the time the case had ended, you thought she actually had a pretty good... I remember you saying, I think she's going to win, just based on how the arguments went,

how her lawyer performed in court. I'm curious to hear you talk a little bit about that, not to put you on the spot too much, but I'm wondering what it was like for you to watch that trial and maybe feel like your feelings about it changed a little bit. I think like, I think really, it was, it really was an interesting thing for me to watch because I think in general, the idea of like reverse race discrimination specifically about a white person in like a white dominant industry in a position of power being discriminated against because of their race is a really hard sell for me. Like I have trouble with the concepts. So it's like, I think coming in, I was like, you have to be kidding me.

Like, you simply must. And I think in a lot of ways, like, I still feel that. Like, I still feel like my feelings about it have not changed. Your emotional response. My emotional response. Your emotional response. in theory i don't believe in the idea of reverse racism in the in the way that we talk about it socially but like i do think that this woman's race played a part in her firing but it's hard for me to reconcile that with this broader idea of reverse race racism where it's like oh you can be racist against white people where i'm like well i mean

there's a lot of stuff that's public record like we can talk about i think without talking about any like the jury deliberation stuff which you wouldn't even really talk to me about but like for instance there was a manager below her who was not white, who didn't get fired or something like that, right? And like, that was part of her central claim was like, they looked, Starbucks as a PR move, look for a white person to fire. And like that, and that's like the way that they framed it. But in reality, what happened is that almost everyone did get fired and they didn't fire almost everyone did get fired and they didn't fire this one interim manager who happened to be a black man. And so it almost felt like they tried to clear house and like clear and fire everybody who is even remotely related, but they didn't fire this one of very few managers of color who were in the company. And this was this one,

a black man who was below the woman who's bringing the case, but like above the woman who was actually in the store who confronted the two guys who came into the store. So there was this moment of like, there are all these other people who all happen to be white, but also a predominant amount of the managers were white. And so they kind of cleaned house and all of these managers without like, except for this one man. And she, because that happened, there was able to be this comparison between them where it was like, he was more directly related to the event. She was more removed. She's white. He's black. And so it created this, like, this ability to compare. And I, like, am now in an employment discrimination class,

and comparator evidence is, like, a huge part of how you prove discrimination. And so the idea that there were these two people, one of whom was black and more like more adjacent to the to the actual incident and one of whom was white more removed and that the white person was fired in a nutshell like or in a vacuum that looks like oh you just fired the white person but what it almost really feels like is that they wanted to fire everybody and out of like an abundance of caution and again i this is i don't know this is nothing but it's like it would it almost seems seemed to me like they were hesitant to fire him because they didn't want to be firing one of a few black managers in an instance where they're trying to respond to these accusations of racism what was also interesting about the case was she was not

like she was not involved in the decision to remove these people at all, right? She wasn't at the Starbucks that day. She was pretty removed. I mean, she was like a regional manager of the Philadelphia area. Right. She was probably making bank. And I think that was part of how she made so much money was she was like, my loss of income was so huge and whatever. how she made so much money,

which she was like, my loss of income was so huge and whatever. And then a couple of funny things happened that you told me about that I thought were really interesting, like insider courtroom stuff that I never would have heard about. And I guess this was probably like public record, but you talked about the closing statement

from her lawyers, the woman who won the case, and where the lawyer said, closed the argument in a way that you sort of got you fired up, like you wanted to do this kind of work where he was like, I want them to have to pick up the phone in Seattle

or whatever. I want them to feel this at Starbucks HQ. Well, which is also such an interesting thing now having been in trial team. Cause when I heard that line, I was like, holy shit. Like what a thing. Cause essentially like this lawyer was like, like in deciding,

I don't know if it could have been damages or whatever, but like part of her closing is like, make them feel it in Seattle. Like make them feel that they can't treat people this way. And when I heard that line, I was like, that is like, it feel it in Seattle like make them feel that they can't treat people this way and when I heard that line I was like what that that is like it was so powerful but now that I'm in mock trial we use that line all the time like we use that all the time we're we're gonna use it like we use it all the time it's like a classic and so it's like and it just goes to show like classic and so it's like and it just goes to show like me the jury the new people in the room like we i've never heard someone like describe it as that of like this kind of righteous stick it to this big corp kind of like angle but now i'm on trial team i'm like yeah no i'd do that left and

right i'm always being like make them feel this they can't get away it's like it's such a classic way to get around because there's like in it's such a classic way to get around because there's like in trial, there's these gold, like they're called golden rules of closing statements and opening statements, like what you can do. And you kind of like,

you can't really say like, make them pay millions, but you can like hedge it and be like, make them feel it, make them understand that there are consequences and so this is like one of those like classic make them feel this all the way in seattle like make them have to deal with your judgment and like empower the jury in this very specific way yeah i love that it got me fired up listening you talk about it yeah i mean it was great

and i remember it but that is i mean it worked what he did work because he got her oh it was a woman what she did worked oh excuse a little a little subtle sexism from your your boy isaac we'll be right back after this quick commercial break. All right. I want to pivot out of the law school stuff a little bit. I was thinking, you know, I said this last time, and it's kind of true now, this time as well. That you want a gun? No. I mean, I do. of true now this time as well that you want a gun no i mean i do but i prepare for all these

interviews and like this is what for whatever reason it's so much harder to prepare for like this than it is to prepare for an interview with you know i interviewed bill o'reilly today uh and that was super easy i have all these questions i want to ask him and talk to him about. Name drop. Yeah. And I'm thinking about what do I want to ask you? And one of the things that sort of occurred to me is in my industry, you are what we call a political normie. Okay. You're just like, you're too busy to follow the day-to-day. You're not a political junkie, I would say.

No, yeah. You follow the news and go on Instagram and you see the stuff people are talking about, advocating for and whatever. But you're a young woman. You're a Democratic voter. I am cognizant of the fact we're entering election season right now.

And you're a political normie. You're just like somebody who pays attention when you can, especially since you've been in law school. I mean, you don't even, you confessed to me the other day that you like barely read Tangle anymore. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, which I mean, I, whatever. I have feelings about that.

I mean, you read the stuff you are interested in, but you used to be like a daily reader and now you're not. So like, you don't even have the 15, 20 minutes for Tangle, which I understand you're in law school. It's hard. You have a lot of stuff to read. as a sort of, I mean, you're going to be a really, you're, you are representative of a very important demographic. You're a democratic voter. You're a woman. You are going to vote, uh, because you care about this stuff. I feel like actively nervous right now about this. Like, I think this is sort of indicative of being a normie. I feel like you're going to ask something and I don't know the answer. No, no, no. I'm not going to ask. I'm, I'm, I'm going to ask for your impression about like what comes to mind when you think about four different politicians. Okay. The first one is President Joe Biden. Like, what do you think about Biden? I'm just

kidding. Let's just talk honestly, because you're just like a normal person who is going to vote. And like, you try to understand, know what stuff's going on i'm not here to correct you or anything i'm just i'm really curious i think really my experience of him is really more rooted in my experience of trump which i which i think is happens for a lot of young democratic voters where it was like he is in this he at least in the in the previous election that was such a like a life vest out for me. And this is where I was like, I don't want to deal with this anymore. And I think it was such a wave of relief to just not have Trump in the office anymore for me, personally.

But I think it's very frustrating that these are the options. I think his age is like a big concern for me. I think the idea that we're going to have someone who's in his mid 80s in the office or in office, it feels like really hard to swallow given that we know that this generation, like our generation and younger generations are really, really politically active. So it's like, there's no lack of people or no lack of younger people to move up through these kind of like political ranks. It could be doing something different, doing something better. And it doesn't even have to be a Democrat. Like, I think that there could be young Republicans, young whoever that would change. I don't know. It's hard for me to also like look at the scene like, okay, another old, older white man. I don't know.

It's frustrating to be like, what will it take for there to be a woman? What will it take for there to be a woman of color? I think it's hard for me sometimes to get trapped in this idea of like someone who stands for progress as opposed to someone who is progress. Like someone who's like just their person is like a symbol of progress and of change and of positive change or just like an opening of the door. All right, what about Nikkiki hailey i don't pay attention to her like i know that she's like a kind of a nut but i don't pay attention because i don't think she's she's going to be the numb like i think it's going to be trump and biden and so i don't pay attention to her because it's kind of like i don't care until she's my until she's like the problem

or she's until she's real she's not real to me which i guess it's like maybe that's like i don't know but it's like i i don't know well i think like not knowing anything about her and also being like having the impression like oh she's a nut but that's probably just because of i'm a democrat and all of my friends are democrats right and so i'm getting some very skewed social media and i don't read tangles there's this yeah i was gonna say there's this newsletter that you could read that would, okay, but wait, but really quick on Joe Biden, the age stuff, do you see like tons of videos of him?

Is that stuff that comes across for you or you're just like, I just know how old he is in numbers and I don't want that. No, I mean, I get that. I see things about him. Like watching, I think that was like one of the part of the things that was upsetting during the debates where it was like you had these people on stage who were such like eloquent, beautiful, strong, coherent speakers. And he just seemed slower to the game. And they were just like, I think there's just moments like that that have happened continually, like since he's been in office where I'm like, there's just some part of me that feels a little bit like frustrated with that. I remember during the 2020 election that you liked Kamala Harris. I did. Do you have any, I mean, would you vote for Biden

with the knowledge that if he dies in office, like she ends up being president? I mean, I'm going to vote for him regardless. If it's him versus Trump. If it's him versus Trump, I'm going to vote for him. If it's him versus Nikki Haley. If he's the nomination, I'm going to vote for him. That's the reality. Because whatever my kind of discomfort with him is,

he's still more in line with me than those candidates will be that makes sense all right i'm gonna i'll let you off thank you now this means it's about me huh so are all are you looking at your list and they're all political questions they are you're looking at it it's every single one i have more political questions but i actually want to talk a little bit about tangle okay so this is about you but i think about us more uh we tango is an up and down thing with us, I would say, in our relationship. I would say. Because it demands a lot of me. And you recently like muttered something like, I hate tangle, like said it offhandedly. And I said, what are you talking about? And then I promised you that I would give you a chance to

air some of that. And then before we got on this show, you don't know this, but I posted something on Twitter and said, I was interviewing you for the Valentine's day podcast and ask people to like send in questions they wanted me to ask you. And one of the first questions I got was from somebody who said, I'd like to know how she feels about your success and its impact on your relationship. Success often takes you away from your loved ones. How well is she dealing with that? That was a question from Jim. From who? Jim, a guy named Jim Davidson. I thought it was a thoughtful question.

It is. So I figured this was a good place to air it out as any. To specifically answer this question, the success is a really tricky part of it because it's really, it makes me feel really bad when I'm resentful. Because ultimately what happens is there's, it becomes very, very tense inside of myself. Because I'll have my own feelings about something about you being away or time or or a comparison between the two of us like we we've talked about this where it's like sometimes it feels like the magnitude of Tangles successes are so much bigger than what I'm doing

that it's hard to feel like the power of my successes when you're having these kind of like, just like tenfold bigger moments in comparison. And so I think like something that happens for me is, and again, it's not to be clear, it's not that this is something that you make me feel, but I find myself feeling in moments resentful when my achievement that feels big to me in the moment is like quickly and easily dwarfed by something kind of remarkable that you've done. And that's hard. And then the other part of it is like being, feeling however I feel about it, feeling angry that you're gone or feeling frustrated that you're stressed or feeling whatever. And then feeling like a bad wife or a bad partner for that reason,

because I'm essentially angry that you're doing what you wanted to do. Like that I'm having a negative feeling towards you being successful in all of your hard work and all of the time and energy that you've poured into this company, I'm like, you know, if I zoom out, I'm like, all right, so what? I'm mad that he's gotten his dream job? Like, I'm mad that he's made his dream come true? And like, that makes me feel like a bad wife. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. The flu remains a serious disease.

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and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at fluselvax.ca. And it's like, it's a tricky line to advocate for myself without feeling like I'm raining on your parade. Yeah. You do a good job of it, I would say. I think you're pretty understanding of the moments where I think work calls. I never feel like you're raining on my parade. I feel like, if anything, you're a healthy jack-on when I've crossed some sort of boundary where I've brought work into a space that it shouldn't be brought. I mean, the hardest thing for me is just the constant pace of the news, especially now. And like, especially the last few months, I mean, like all the stuff that's been going on, the,

the Israel Palestine stuff has been so hard emotionally. And then, you know, we'll talk about that or I'll say something like that. And you're like, but it's always like that. There's always one thing that's like that. And I think that was pretty, the last few months have been pretty extraordinary in that way. But it's also true that there is kind of always that thing. And I don't do a great job drawing those boundaries sometimes. I mean, I try and sign off every day at six. Like I try and do like a no phone or news after six o'clock. And then I wish I'm actively shaking my head. I love you.

And I think that you think that you do that. But I have I don't think ever seen you do that. And I think that if you asked yourself, you'd you'd say that that's something that you do consistently. I think I don't go on Twitter after six o'clock. but you're on Instagram and the group me and whatever, you know, it's like the, sure, sure. Maybe you're not on Twitter, but it's like, you're not putting your phone away, you know, it sucks now anyway. So I don't really like using it that much, but yeah, no, I mean, it's hard. And, and then there's always news that breaks sort of at that hour. And then there's always news that breaks sort of at that hour. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting.

This success thing, I feel like we've talked a lot about privately. And I don't know if that's necessarily a conversation for the podcast, but I think we have a good understanding of how to navigate that with each other after all the talks that we've had about it. I actually disagree. Really? Yeah. I don't think that we navigate it. I don't think that we have found a way to navigate it yet. I think we've recently started talking about it. But I think that this conversation that we had about, like, that there are moments when,

like, my kind of accomplishments feel dwarfed or like for every, I think because what I've said is like, it's really hard for me. There are like two extremes that happen where it's like either we are both in the trenches and so exhausted and so stressed that we can't like, can't be there for each other. And that's almost easier for me where I can just be like, okay, we're like, I see him. He can't breathe. I can't breathe. Like we're neither of us are doing okay. Like we can't pull our heads up. And so it's okay for me to feel like, all right, I'm just going to be in my own head, kind of isolated. And I'm going to trudge through this moment and we're going to both get to the other side. Where it gets harder for me is when something good happens to both of us. And I think I'm pretty hard on myself. So for me to acknowledge that I've done something

good kind of takes a lot to get there. And then there has been instances when I finally say like, wow, like this is something that I'm proud of me for doing. And it's often that in the same breath or in the same day, you've done something that like objectively looks so much more important and so much more impressive than me. And that is hard for me. I think the way that I've like described is like, I never win. I'm never the most stressed or the most successful in either moment. I'm never the most stressed or the most successful in either moment. It's easier for me to be alone in my stress. It's hard for me to feel like my moments of celebration, my wins, don't feel like they get to be the win of the day? Yeah, I think watching you work and go through law school and do,

you know, like get the wins you're talking about getting have made me realize how fortunate I am to do the kind of work that I'm doing. I think for years, I used to really loathe the part of my job that required or necessitated feedback from people because all I could do is just like obsess over the negative feedback and the really critical comments. And then I saw you working and how hard you work and watch you do things like, you know, you get an A on a paper or get an A in one of your classes or something like that. And the rewards, the grade, there's nobody writing in and being like, this is incredible. This is why I signed up for this thing. You know, and when we

do something really strong and tangle, I get that positive feedback. Like our readers and subscribers is one of my favorite things about the community we've built is like, we get people writing in saying, I like, this is why you guys are the best. This is why you're my favorite news organization, whatever. Or, you know, I get to go on CNBC or whatever and talk about the thing. And it's like, I get that immediate reward system, which keeps me really motivated and kind of fills me up. And I used to only look at that through the negative lens. Like, it just sucks to get all these critical emails.

But I felt a lot more grateful for it because of the conversations we've had where I'm like, you should have that. Like you should get an A on a paper and there should be like 80,000 people cheering for you. That comparison makes me want to crawl through my skin. Like even in that comparison, it's like, oh, you got an A and I was on MSNBC.

Like that those are the two things we're celebrating. Like that is hard. And I think like that comes a lot from my own like criticism of myself, but to try to hold space, like when you're like, Oh, Hey, yeah, my partner's going to be interviewed on whatever CNN. And I'm failing in Houston at a trial team competition. You know, it's like, it's like, I know what you mean. I know what you're saying, but sometimes, you know, okay. For instance, the, the last big break that we had with Tangle was my first piece when I wrote about the stuff happening in Gaza and got a bunch of interviews and went on MSNBC and, you know, Elon Musk tweeted out, I mean, it was like this big, crazy week and whatever. I worked on that piece for four or

five days. You spent like a whole semester to get an A. But come on. I know, I know, but I'm just saying like, there's a, I guess, I don't mean to say it should or shouldn't be a certain way. I'm just saying, like, I realize that I have I'm very fortunate to have like a feedback system that I never felt fortunate about before. So I guess my only point, my only thing that I'm arguing is just that I think there's a perfectly reasonable case that there should be some reward system that you're not getting. I don't want a reward system. What do you want then? I just, I don't know. I don't think there's a solution. I'm not saying that I need a reward. I'm saying that it's just hard to be me in that dynamic. Like, it's just hard to be the person whose kind of high achievements are just the smaller of the two. And I think like, you know,

that becomes a kind of dynamic in other spaces where it's like, when we're out, when we're with family or when we're with friends, we haven't seen, there's a lot more for them to look at you and be like, oh my God, I saw you being interviewed. Oh my God, I saw Elon Musk tweeted you. Oh my God, I saw Keanu Reeves tweeted you. and then they look at me more like and house contracts you know it's like and and there's nothing to like there's nothing to be solved in that but it does make for like a tricky dynamic from for us sometimes i think sometimes it like it's painful for me in a way that i don't think has a solution necessarily. Thoughtful question, Jim Davidson. Thank you, Jim. Yeah. You really touched you. You pressed the button, Jim. Okay. Somebody else responded and

said, what is life's most precious commodity? What is life's most precious commodity? I think, and this is so corny but i think laughing oh my god i thought you're gonna say love and i was gonna say oh valentine's day no laughing i think laughter i mean i think for me that is like one of the most precious things that i have and i think it's because it happens in a lot of spaces that are really personal to me. Like, I think most of my relationships are kind of founded on whether or not we laugh together. My family, there's a lot of laughing. Like, we, you and I laugh all the time. I think it's, maybe it's more of like a good indicator of life's precious moments. For me, when I think of, I don't know, kind of like all the good stuff in life, it's like those moments of laughing so hard you can't speak or breathe and you're crying.

And it's like usually that happens with the people who mean the most to you, at least for me. Because that's like I think that's a big foundation for a lot of my friendships and my family and us is is that is being able to laugh this is a beautiful answer i think i would certainly have laughter up there for me uh will my will from the tango staff yes will. My will. He's my will. Our pal? Will is one of Tangle's editors and researchers and does the booking for this podcast. Will said, first impressions of everybody on staff. Wow.

Which I thought was a great question. Okay. Yeah, I can do this. So. Everybody's going to learn about the Tangle team right now i know okay so i guess the first person well the first person has to be magdalena magdalena i'm just i feel like we should do this magdalena is my first hire she is the rep my right hand social media editor does all the advertising stuff if you like follow us on instagram or whatever all that stuff is her she does all our advertising the newsletter she's

kind of a jack of all trades and she was the very first person i ever hired on just tangle so my impressions of magdalene are kind of like skewed almost because like similar to you, she was in your life and like part of Tangle for so long before we ever met her. And so it's like before you ever met her, before I definitely ever met her. And so I kind of only knew her in the ways that she impacted you. And I think like my sense of her before I met her, and I think it's true now that we've met in person, is that like for all the kind of like frenetic energy you have, I feel like Magdalena is like, she seems unflappable. She's got a vibe. Yeah, just like kind of you can't phase her in some senses.

And I feel like she's, I don't know, she's also just like a hustler. Like she'll do a million things for Tangle, but it's kind of like all in this like, just like, know, she's also just, like, a hustler, like, she'll do a million things for Tangle, but it's kind of, like, all in this, like, unsur- like, just, like, yeah, unflappable, just feels like she can't get phased, and then when we met each other in person, I was just, like, this woman's, like, kind of half intimidating, because she's just, like, I don't know, she's just this, like, kind of beautiful, there's just, like, a presence. She's there like in her body. And you're just like, God, I really hope that she thinks that I'm not a freaking psycho. Like I, like I want, I wanted her to like me so much in meeting her. And I think like, because she's so like

self-possessed in this way where I was just like, I, I really hope she thinks I'm cool. where I was just like, I really hope she thinks I'm cool. Yeah. Magdalena is awesome. My first best decision ever with Tangle, hiring her. Okay, that's great. All right, Magdalena, I guess Ari would be next and if we're doing order of people we hire. I guess Ari, you knew Ari.

Yeah, so Ari, I like, interestingly, like know him the least in terms of tangle and the most in terms of you and i think like that's been also i mean i love all right all right he's like also a little bit of a frisbee nerd and so he is that's true i got a real i got a real place for them he's a dork he's a dork but he's we love him hey ari um it's interesting i mean these are your people but it's like he brings out this very specific part of you where i feel like you and ari together kind of get in this very kind of like there's like a different intellectual space that you guys kind of have a little hive

brain together i think where it's like maybe not even so much in the Tangle sense, but I think about, like, the writing group that you guys did or, like, just kind of, like, some of your experiences together. You have this, like, very specific part of you that you are with Ari that I think is pretty unique to your friendship, where it's, like, I, so that's how I experience him is through, is this kind of, like, proxy to this part of you that I really don't see with any of your other friends. It's like a pretty different, like you're pretty like bro-y and kind of, yeah, man, I don't even fuck with a lot of your friends. And I think like Ari, you're just like, you're different with him. Yeah.

We think together. Yeah. You're like like brainy friends you're nerd friends together yeah as i feel like you feel like you're like your boys your bros they'd rather do this everybody that's my that's the voice baby uses for me all the time. That voice right there. Anytime she's quoting me to people, that's what she does. Okay. I think, so we hired Will full-time first, but I think John joined the team first. So if we're going chronologically, we go John. John also submitted a question and said, what makes John your favorite Tangle employee? I knew it.

I was like, I bet it's why. Who's your favorite and why is it John? I, okay. John is, by the way, I didn't do this. I did it for Megalyn. Ari, managing editor, does everything writing wise. And now if you're the podcast listener, you know, he's the new co-host on the pod.

He's not here now, obviously. Because I am. Because Phoebe is. John runs the podcast and runs the YouTube channel. So he does everything related to the podcast and the YouTube channel, all the editing, all that stuff. I think what feels so good for me about John is that sometimes I look at John and I think that John and I have a hive mind. And I think that is mostly about being from New Jersey. Like when we both talked about like a murder black range Rover and we both got pumped up about it.

And then John was talking about unboxing his sneaker collection and this and this and this. And I was just like, I love you. Yeah. Like where I just, he, John won you over.

Oh, it was just immediate. And you know, oh it was just immediate and you know yeah i don't know i'm just a sucker for someone who's from new jersey i guess but we're just i don't know we're boys yeah i've had mixed feelings about that about how much i love john i mean for people who don't know yeah john's like he's like six five ripped and handsome. And it's tough to watch your wife fall in love with somebody like that right in front of your eyes. That's hard. So I was like, oh, you really like John, huh? The big, tall, handsome one.

They're all handsome, but you know. They all are. Him especially. Okay, Will. So Will is, this is a great a great story actually i should tell this story before as my introduction to will is no no i want to tell this story okay okay so will writes into tangle whatever that he's a subscriber great we all love it he he loves it we're all living we're all happy we here we go isaac and i are sitting out on the front steps of our apartment and this

guy walks by carrying a case of White Claws. Sorry, Will. Really? I thought it was beer. No, maybe it was beer. In my head, it's White Claws. I always tell this story as beer, but it could have been White Claws. I don't know what he would prefer. Okay. Probably beer okay probably beer because he's a boy um just kidding but he walks by does a little double take comes back looks at isaac and goes hey man are you isaac from tangle and my heart sinks i was just like this is the worst day of my life first of all i'm like this kid's gonna murder us we're sitting outside of our house. He knows that we live here. We're clearly living in this apartment. And I was like, this guy is going to kill us.

Why does he know where Isaac is? How does he know who Isaac is? And I was just like, first of all, one, we're going to die. Two, Isaac's ego, I'm never going to be able to get it in check ever again. We're never going to come back from the fact that he was recognized on the street. It was a beautiful day. It was probably the worst day of my life. Easily, easily.

I was just like, I will never, ever be able to forget this. And neither will Isaac. Yeah. So that's fast forward. He was the first person to ever recognize me on the street for as Tangle. I'm, you know, in my, uh, pre-Tangle slash in the early days of Tangle, I'm in like the culty ultimate Frisbee world. So I'd, I'd have

people say, Oh, you're Isaac from Frisbee, whatever pony stuff. But I never had anybody recognize me as Tangle until Will. And then we kept in touch and it turned out he was, you know, did PR and was like a public policy major and was super smart kid and was writing in. And then I ended up hiring him months later. He volunteered to work part-time, savvy move for everybody out there looking for a job and then just made himself indispensable in like a matter of two or three months and then i hired him full-time um okay so first impression of will i guess your first impression was that he was a murderer i didn't think that he was gonna kill us and then i was like no he's too pretty to kill someone he is pretty he's pretty also but I think

I really like my response I mean my first time really meeting him was for the Tangle event in Philly I mean everyone really except for Ari and I think he he feels like I mean you say this he's the most similar to you where it's like I

think if anyone could like you where it's like, I think if anyone could like match you, it's, it's Will. And I think he's also very similar to you in the sense of like, there's a similar amount of like excitement. Like, I think one of my favorite things about you, and I've said this is like, you have a level of excitement about life and about things that I feel like most people lose. And I think Will has that too, where there's this, it's a really earnest excitement about all the things that you could do and all the possibilities. And I think that really comes across with Will. There's a lot of drive there. I think Will would say yes to almost anything

and then execute it. And I think, like, that's something that you guys have together that's very, like, you're similar. He and you both have this, like, this engine where you can really hustle. There's a certain level of, like, I don't know, like, enjoyment in it. Really great response. Great responses for everybody. Thank thank you all really positive and really right on the nose i think like i wouldn't change or alter any of them you're so smart you are yeah i know and uh no it's not even smart it's like um present cognizant aware thank you

we'll be right back after this quick commercial break okay everybody's gonna have to let the vacuuming go we're in the we i stayed in the office too late. There's people cleaning up here. They just kicked it into high gear. It's getting louder. We're just going to have to deal with it. We'll cut my mic in a second.

Okay. Someone else said, what's your favorite mundane activity that you all do together that she finds joy in? What's her favorite mundane activity that you all do together that she finds joy in? What's her favorite mundane activity that you all do together that she finds joy in? I don't know. A favorite mundane, I guess, what do we do? Trying to think of like our household tasks that I like doing together. Making the bed. Brushing our teeth. Brushing our teeth. Yeah, we have a lot of fun. Yeah, I would say that. We brush our teeth together every night

and I always put on a little song and dance. Do I do a little show? Is your last burst of energy before you fall asleep? Yeah, I get a big burst right before bedtime. We're over an hour here. So I want to wrap a little bit. Last year, we finished a podcast by reciting our wedding vows for each

other, which was very Valentine's Day. I think that's sort of a, you can't do a sequel to that. You can't run that back. It is, this is Valentine's Day though. So I do just want to say that I love you very much. And I'm so grateful that you are my wife and so appreciative of the way you support me and challenge me. And I love how we disagree. The vacuuming's back again. I love how we disagree thoughtfully. I think the way we talk to each other about stuff from everything to like political issues to actual like relationship stuff is a model for me that I use in my day-to-day life. And I learned a lot of it from you.

You're a very thoughtful, emotionally intelligent person, and you're really good at articulating why something might bother you or talking your way through like a disagreement in a way that not a lot of people are. Makes it very easy to hear you. So I've learned a lot from you in that way. And yeah, happy Valentine's Day. Thank you for coming on. I'm glad we're making this a tradition. I told you before the show that I would give you space to ask five questions or less, however many you want, and ask you to think of a few questions if you wanted to. So now is an opportunity for you to ask those questions that I will try to answer or turn back on you like you've done to me a few times. you like you've done to me a few times well okay so my first question would be what is your favorite surprise about our relationship like what's the part of our relationship that you like the most but didn't anticipate wow great question liked the most but didn't anticipate

yeah or just like didn't like or love right now but would never have thought of beforehand. I think it's the way you've built our home. Boy, when we first started dating, I was living in a six bedroom, one bathroom apartment in Harlem in New York City. So I could pay $600 a month in rent and survive on my $40,000 a year journalism

salary. So I was roughing it, I think you could say. Right, but you didn't think so. I didn't think so. At the time, I thought I was living like a can. No, you thought, yeah, you thought you were literally living in a palace and I went into your kitchen one day and opened an industrial, literally a garbage can it's the size of the garbage cans that you put your garbage bags in to be taken away i you had a literal industrial size garbage can i opened it up and a pile of maggots fell onto my feet yeah just many many maggots i thought i was living like a normal person when really I was living kind of like a degenerate bachelor and I didn't really understand. You were just living like you were still in

college. Yeah. This was a six bedroom apartment with one bathroom. Yeah. And I continued to come there for years. That's how much I loved you. I was there for years. We don't have to talk about that. My point was, my point was that I think the prospect of moving in together was mostly like a fear about the things I was giving up. You know, like what, like I'm moving out of this apartment that five of my friends live in. I'm like giving, I'm going to have to share this space, whatever, whatever. And I think what surprised me was how much better living with a woman, like my partner was than living with my friends was like, we just, you're so good. You specifically are so good at building a home, like a space that's like comfortable and cozy and warm and welcoming and has just like a good vibe and everything from like just you know candles to like the lamp to the certain tools we have in the kitchen that make cooking easier it's just like my life is so much better at home where i spend so much my time than it would be if i were living on my own and like our house and now we've been living together for years, but like our, you know, both of the last apartments we've lived in

together were primarily designed by you. I would say you were responsible for how they're set up. So I think that surprised me is how much like wouldn one upgrade moving in together was when at the time I was nervous about it. Thank you. Yeah. And like, I really feel that like if we didn't live together, my home space would just suck so much more than it does. Pretty good. Pretty good. All right.

My second one was, what do you think you're best at as a husband? Did you put all these to memory? You put these questions to memory? I'm really impressed. There's five, Isaac. Okay. I couldn't remember five questions. I'm just watching you not look at your phone or anything.

What do I think I'm best at as a husband? Oh, my God. What do I think I'm best at as a husband? Oh my God. I'm best at taking care of the things that are like stereotypically masculine. I don't know how else to put that. I think I do a good job of like the finances and the, why are you giving me that look? Of our whole relationship,

you think the best thing that you do as a husband is take care of the finances? Like organize the life in that sense, I think. Okay. Like we joke about that. Like you say, like I go out or go like i go grocery shopping or something like bring stuff home you're like i like the feeling of like providing like i think that makes me feel a certain fulfillment i'm really shocked that this is what you that i mean i guess this is yeah it's your question but i mean that's the thing I feel like I'm bad. I'm like, I feel I feel way less confident in the how I do in other areas, I guess, is what I guess is like what's funny for me.

It's like as opposed to like what you what you do for me or for the actual relationship, you're like, I take out the trash really, really good. I think about like, yeah, I'm thinking about like our marriage. I mean, like interpersonally, like is that the question you're asking? What do you think a marriage is? I mean, obviously, but still like thinking about it in the terms I think maybe you're asking the question, in the context I think you're maybe asking the question now, I would say probably, I miss sometimes, but I would say maybe like getting you to laugh I mean we talked a little bit about laughter sometimes I make a joke when it's not appropriate to make it like I think

I can make you laugh when you're upset or pissed off about something and I'm I miss and you're like this is not funny this is not a time for you to joke. But I would say I am pretty good at pushing your funny laughter button and getting that. My funny laughter button. Yeah, I think I can. I think I do that to a degree that, I mean, I always tell people like that's a fundamental thing in our relationship is laughter, which that's why I loved your answer earlier when you said that that was like the commodity. So, yeah, I mean, like I feel the most confident in the providing part of it, but I think I, yeah, like really tied to our relationship. our relationship. Yeah, I would say like,

I think I can, most of the time, I'm really good at making you laugh when you need it, especially. So my next question is, what do you think that we do like well as a couple? Like what's something that we do really well? This.

Talk, like communicate. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, that's the thing i feel way but like i wouldn't say that for me because i think you taught me a lot how to like say my feelings out loud or but yeah i think we are really good at i think we both have pretty strong personalities and i don't know what what are the types like type a what does that mean i think we both have pretty strong personalities and i don't know what what are the types like type a what does that mean i think that's me you're type a i think so i think we're type a i actually don't know but everyone says if you go to law school you're probably type a it's

like super organized and yeah i don't know though i i would say we're both we we're both talkers like in social settings i think we're both pretty outgoing and when we first started dating that was like the thing that attracted me to you was like you had a quick mouth and you would like i couldn't i we would like yeah we had never we never like shut up with each other basically and i think as our relationship, the thing that we do really well that maybe I don't see a lot of other couples doing is just like, I feel like we communicate really openly and honestly with each other. And it's hard. I don't know. Like, I don't know.

I don't see other couples in private. Right, yeah. So, but I do think that we're, we definitely communicate better than I've communicated with anybody in any other relationship i've been in for sure i think we just like we speak really honestly and directly with each other which is helpful makes me feel like i know you really well yeah i agree what do you think has been the hardest thing that we've done together. Also this, not this podcast, uh, moving to Philadelphia. Yeah. I mean, we left like a life that we'd both been building for a decade in New York, friend group, family. I mean, I have some family down here in Philly, obviously, but we were, you know, my parents live 45 minutes outside the city,

whereas in New York, we were living next to your family or with your family. We, you know, you live with your brother for a little bit there. And yeah, I mean, I think leaving all of that has been still is really hard. Like I just, we gave up a lot to come here and I think it's been a big challenge for both of us. And, uh, I love Philly. I mean, it's in a lot of ways, this is my home, but you know, you spend 10 years living somewhere and especially your twenties and your twenties to live somewhere. And like all your adult friends are there. So yeah,, I think, like, the first year we were here was definitely the hardest thing we've ever done. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I would say.

I would say, yeah, it was just a huge difference. A lot of things changed. A lot of things changed really fast. Yeah, like, our schedules changed. Like, we've reversed positions in a lot of ways. Yeah, I would say definitely i don't really have anything else that comes close to that i think like there have been some space of time where we've been apart that were really hard and you know like gone through various family stuff or whatever that's been challenging but yeah philly moving to philly is tough

do you have one more i think that's four it is four i don't think i actually have one what's your favorite thing about john about john yeah john our podcast editor who you love so much uh my favorite thing about John is um kind of similar what you said about Will actually like his enthusiasm about the world I think he's he's just like he works man he's just a really hard worker and he's tall yeah he's tall he's but he's a really, yeah, I just love... Tall guy. And that's the thing that like earns my respect more than anything else from people. And like, yeah, he's always operating like he's got an empty stomach. And I like that.

He's a hard worker. This is an easy one. I have my Twitter feed open while we're recording this podcast where I ask people to submit questions. And someone just said, what is the best city in the world? New York. And which restaurants in philly clinch it okay well it's not philly so we're lifers yeah i hate to break this to everybody but new york is the best city in the world i mean there are things about new y that are terrible, but it's, it's at least a city,

you know, it's the best, no disrespect to Philly, but it's a different, it's a different ball game up there. They don't call it the big apple for nothing. Okay. All right.

We got to get out of here. We're devolving. Um, Phoebe, thank you for coming on. Happy Valentine's day. I love you. You love John. And we love Tangle. Thanks for watching! A background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.

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