The Liz Moody Podcast - A Casual Quarantine Conversation with Liz & Zack

Episode Date: April 22, 2020

You guys asked me to do weekly episodes during this pandemic, so I will try my best to deliver! Every other Wednesday, I’ll do a more casual episode—maybe it’ll be a check-in with former guests, quick interviews, or Q&As (the other Wednesdays will still be our normal long form interviews!!). This episode is one of my most requested—a convo with my husband, Zack. We talk all about our lives in quarantine, and answer your most frequently asked questions! Enjoy! PS: Healthier Together is officially a number one best-seller! You can get your copy on Amazon or at lizmoody.com/cookbook. Please keep sending me your creations on Instagram—they make me so happy! This episode is sponsored by Skinny Dipped almonds, which I’m 100% obsessed with. They’re roasted almonds with a super thin layer of chocolate, and they also have a coating of maple syrup and sea salt that gives them a sweet & salty quality that’s utterly addictive. They’re truly one of my favorite snacks, and I can’t wait for you to try them. Get 20% off your order using the code “healthiertogether” on skinnydipped.com. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I have a very special show for you this week. As I told you guys last week, a lot of you requested that during this period of self-quarantine, we do weekly episodes. So every other week I'll be coming to with my traditional long-form, serious, inappropriate question-filled interview. But every other week on the in-between weeks, we'll do sort of shorter, more fun episode. Not more fun. Every episode is fun on here.

But like a little bit of a different format. So I might check in with some old guests and I might sometimes bring on very special guests that... Oh, we're going to have more fun. We're going to have more fun. That was my special guest for this episode here. So I am here with the only guest I'm allowed to bring you in person currently, which is my husband, Zach Mitchell. I mean, the cat could also be on. She probably might be.

Our cat has a little bit of a cold and so she has been snoring lately. and so if you hear any snoring noises, that's our cat, and we apologize for it. Cool. All right. So Zach and I are sitting here at our kitchen table. It is Friday night. This is going up Wednesday. So I'm going to try to record these many episodes pretty close to real time so we can kind of stay in the place that we are because things are changing so much these days.

But, Zach, how is your self-quarantine going? How long have we been only allowed? to hang out with each other at this point. Kind of feels like forever. No, I'm, I feel like we're week five. Week five. Potentially more.

13 years, week five. Yeah, five weeks going on 13 years. Stuck in about 500 square feet together. Yeah, no, it's been really intense. I think I always look at these people who are self-quarantined in like houses. Like, sex parents that does pictures of his dad out in the backyard and stuff. And we're like, oh, that's a backyard. And they're joking.

They're like, oh, so many blankets. It's covered in. I'm like, oh. It's so chilly out here. And we're like, man, it sounds nice to have two separate rooms that you could have phone calls in without hearing each other. That would be really, really lovely. So we're definitely really up in each other's space.

But I also think we had a little bit of an advantage because we've worked from home together so much in our lives. both recently and for a long time, I feel like we're really adept at working from home together, I would say. Absolutely. We're very good at sharing the kitchen table. We're very good at sharing the kitchen table. So how do you think like your emotions have gone over the last five weeks?

Like did you start off? Did you have the phases of, you know, grief or anything? Anger, acceptance, loss? Um, there, well, I think, I think my first, my first emotion was one that I often have, which was that, I was like, ah, Liz is right. Because basically, I mean, I think we were, we were coming back from, from kind of the Bay area during the holidays. And you're like, ah, this coronavirus thing is really freaking me out, man. I was asking you for reassurance about it a lot. Yeah.

Because that's what I do. I'll, like, read something in the news and I'll, like, read something in the news and I'll, I'll be like, Zach, tell me why, because I'm prone to anxiety and you're very much not. So I'll read something and be like, Zach, tell me why I shouldn't be anxious about this. Yeah, and I got to say I gave you probably bad advice at that time. Probably some of the worst advice I think what you said, and I still remember this at the time, you said, yeah, it's not like a great thing, but there's, it's an unprecedented situation because there's so many scientists actively sharing information and working on a vaccine or a cure or something like that. Like, you told me that there were more scientists sharing their information across networks than it ever happened in history. That's true. And I feel like I was reading a lot about that. And I think, you know, in some ways, uh, I was also kind of on the train of the rest of the world, which is like, oh, look at how, look at all this collaborative data sharing.

Look at, you know, like, it probably won't make it out of Wuhan. But look at all this. Like, everybody's up putting viruses online. everyone's like working towards a vaccine and then I realized how long it took to make a vaccine and that was not. Did you like have a moment where you were like, oh, this could be bad, but I probably should hide that information from Liz lest she freak out. Yeah. And as soon as that moment passes, I will tell her.

Okay. Did you freak out ever? Like, were you ever actively scared? I have gone through a range of my friends. emotions, mostly fear and concern for loved ones that are all over the place. And where are you at now emotionally? That. Still that?

Still that? It's so interesting because I feel like I've had 80 million and even day to day. Like yesterday, I had such a great productive day. I was talking to my friend and she was very hormonal and like crying all day. I know the friend. And I shan't call her out on here though. And I was like, yeah, it's weird. I am also about to start my period, but I'm in a great mood.

And she was like, oh, super for you. But yesterday I just, I checked everything off my to-do list. I felt so good. And then today I woke up and I felt depressed and I felt like nothing I did mattered. And I felt like I was creating content to just like shove it out and to avoid. And then other days, I felt angry about the things that I've lost, the possibilities for my life that don't exist either in the short or long term because of all of this. this. And then I feel guilty for feeling that anger because obviously we're in a very privileged position compared to a lot of what a lot of people are dealing with through all of this.

I'm just, I'm just, I'm experiencing so many emotions and you're not sort of riding those roller coasters at all. Oh, no, absolutely. And I think what's going to be really, really interesting in, in the days and weeks and months and potentially years to come is to see how we all contextualize these moments and also how we remember them. You know, I, I think it's going to be, if we put aside for a second, like, probably the most important thing, which is the monumental loss of life and how hard our healthcare workers are working and all of basically the, let's say the gore, the gore kind of behind all of it. And think of this kind of in context of like the financial crisis or something like that in that same context.

I think I remember very clearly the different kind of, well, relatively clearly, the different stages of context and memory I have kind of as we went through that process and like the advice I would have given myself. The 2008 one? Absolutely. Yeah. Like what I would have like the advice I would have given myself when I was graduating college and like 2008 in October versus, you know, nine, ten, everything else. And I think a lot of it kind of what that memory shows me is that we're going to reinvest. envision this moment and kind of recontextualize it again and again and again over a bunch of different spans of time. And it's going to, it may be, you know, mean different things.

What, first of all, what advice would you have given yourself in 2008? I think that's really interesting. Um, probably it would be pretty complex. Uh, but I, I, I, I spent a ton of time pounding the pavement to try to scrounge up a job in a career that I eventually didn't pursue because I was so concerned about figuring something out in the midst of a basically, you know, a scarcity moment. You're talking about being an architect, right? Not like when we were looking at Futurism School in Malta. I don't know what you're talking about it.

Yeah, yeah, that. But also I think it's tricky to Yeah, I think I think I would have basically encouraged myself to take almost more. I think I gave this advice to somebody. On Instagram, I think. On your, yeah, kind of. Which was that basically now is the time to follow probably non-traditional courses.

of action without apology. So I think that that would have been something that I would have passed on. Like if you've lost the opportunity to follow the path that you kind of thought you were going to be on, it could potentially be an opportunity, even if it feels scary. Like, that could be the thing that pushes your life in a direction. You never even gave yourself permission to think possible almost. I think that's a good positive. Like that would be, you know, there's going to be positive negative angles across all of it,

but that's a good positive angle. Well, totally. But I think our lives are a really good example because we, yeah, we both graduated from college into the recession, like the raging midst of the recession. We both took a little bit of time to get our careers off the ground, I'd say, and we both ended up taking these very weird career paths to, you know, like my jobs, they were great and they were really interesting. And I think I got really lucky to have like this. I had a really great startup job where I managed a news team. right out of college, but it took me eight months to get that job. And I was very depressed during that eight-month period. What?

That, that, I mean, but that sounds, but the fact that you can be like, oh, it took me, like, I know, working, working for years to get an entry-level job and a whatever, right? That's true. It's one of those things. I think that eight-month period, though, I was, I was so depressed, so it maybe feels like longer. I don't know. That was the period when I was like,

We had a roommate, Jeff. And I feel so bad for this now because at the time I was like, oh, Jeff's so mean. He doesn't like it when I lay on his couch and eat chocolate and watch real housewives and apply to jobs. Like, he, like, would get really annoyed at me for being essentially the worst roommate ever. Classic Jeff, always wanting a basic standard of human decency in the home. He would come home from, he worked as an architect.

He'd graduated a few years before us. And he'd come home from work, and I'd be, like, surrounded by filth and trash. I'd be so depressed because I'd applied to, like, You called them snacks at the time. Snacks. Snacks. Snack debris. And I had applied to like 30 jobs and not gotten even any response.

And he'd want to like coming in. Like, I don't know, watch TV on his couch. And I would just be laying across the entire couch. But then I would be mad at him for being mad at me. I was not a great 22 year old. But I do think that if I had just like been able to graduate from college and get like, I think I even wanted an traditional. like advertising or marketing jobs right out of college at like an agency.

And my whole life path might have gone really differently. And I really like where my life path went now. And similarly, I think this is interesting too. If you're comfortable with us talking about it. I'm not. After you went to grad school, we went back and lived with your parents for a year. Oh, yeah. Which, oh, yeah.

Very comfortable with that. The party year. It's great. But that's when I sold my first book. And I think, and that's when I sort of started my own brand in earnest. I was kind of coming out of this deep period of anxiety that I'd been in in England. And I think if I hadn't had these kind of like outwardly perceived negative circumstances, I might not have taken the chance to do the things that ultimately changed my life the most.

You know, we were living your parents. We were like old to be living your parents' house. but it gave me the freedom to to really pursue a totally different avenue in my life, even though I was embarrassed about a time. Also, it ended up being amazing because I was able to develop this relationship with your parents that I think would have been impossible without having had that quality time. So it ended up being this really, really mad. And the fridge was always stocked. Nothing bonds people together like Liz sitting on the couch, you know. I cooked. I cooked a lot.

I was still just this messy. But yeah, I think it's important to sort of looking back, and I don't, I still have to tell myself it sometimes, but sometimes it's sort of the harder moments that end up changing your life direction in a way that you come to appreciate later. I completely agree. I think, I mean, in some ways, crises, crises. Crisis? The crisis is. C crises make you set your priorities in order. Or at least they should.

What are your priorities? Gotta say. Really go for some outdoor nature right now. Yeah. My priorities are probably about three to 10,000 feet higher than we are now. And with a line of sight of a few more. It does feel like I don't think, we realized how stifling parts of our life felt until we were actually quite stifled in them.

Well, I mean, you know, we live in a very dynamic city, but it's a, it's a, it's a different, it's a different place when you, when you close the door and don't go out. Yes. Yeah. For sure. But have you had any sort of realizations about like, I've had, we've talked about this a little bit, but like, I've sort of been thinking about my relationships a lot and how. which ones matter and how they matter. And I've talked, I think it's really interesting how much this is flattened. The boundaries. Like, we had a really wonderful, like, four hour long conversation with our good friends in England the other day. And we didn't do that, even though we loved them before this happened because it was like, oh, they were in England.

We should hang out with our New York friends or something like that. And I think it's been a really interesting thing for me to be like, it genuinely does not matter where people are. I can hang out in quotes with all of them equally. And that's been kind of a magical. I've had a deepening of my relationships with people who don't live near me in a way that I haven't experienced in years, which has been really, really special. And you play games with all of your friends from all over the country, like, every night. I'm such not a video game person, but hey, here we are. When you're liars dice, that's not even a video game. That is true.

Some good dynamic games of liar dice with video calls. It's, we had seven or eight people on last night. It was crazy from all over the country, basically, right? Like from Bay Area. Bay Area, Texas, beer, a couple other places, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I think that. And also I've talked to my family more than I have in a really, really long time.

My whole family is taking this Science of Happiness course together on Coursera. It's free. If anybody wants to check it out, it's the Yale Science of Happiness course. We all do the classes and we talk. about it every Thursday night, which is really sweet and cute. And we would have never done that otherwise, which I don't know. I think it's really interesting. It's also really fun to watch.

My mom try to do Zoom meetings. I didn't say that. Yesterday we talked for like 10 minutes where the entire family tried to coach my mom on how they were just like how to get her head in the frame. They were just like turn your screen down a little bit. No, down. No, no doubt. Down. And it was just like really funny to watch.

She got it eventually. I assume she's listening to this. So as far as I'm going to say is, you did a great job. You did a great job. But have you like had, do you think there's anything that you're doing now because of this situation that you're going to try to hold on to when it's over? I think there's some really kind of simple stuff. But in some ways, it's so very much part for the environment, but it's kind of, I mean, like what?

We cook food everything. You know, I think the, there is a noticeable upside to, you know, especially around the waistline or not, you know, going out and, you know, having beers out, eating pizza out. I think we eat healthier. And I know that's something. And in a far, like, lower waste way, too. We organized the fridge, the freezer, and the pantry at the beginning of this so we can minimize trips to the grocery store. And we, so we knew every single thing that we had and we could start using it up.

And we've gotten so creative with our meals. And I feel like before I would go to the grocery store almost every day because I'd be recipe developing. So if we just needed something to make a meal that we were craving. I would pick it up. And now we've gotten so creative with the food that we have. And I feel like we've cut back on food waste by like 50% and cut back on our grocery budget by like 50%. Absolutely. Maybe more. I think that's something I would love to stick with, that sort of like look in the cupboard and see what you have and make something wonderful with that instead of

being like, what do I crave or what's this out there meal and then going shopping for that meal. Yeah, I think there's something to be said for that. It's not like, I, I, You know, as I think people who have a grocery store around the corner, I find a lot of beauty and being able to shop for what you want day of. But it doesn't mean that the, you know, stuff doesn't go bad in the fridge because you're like, where you go out. You're just like, oh, you like went and shopping for all this food and then you just like go out. Also working out.

I've worked out more during this than I have ever worked out in my entire life. Maybe like literally. Like I've maybe worked out more times during this than in the rest of my life combined. Yeah, I'm on the other side of that because I was just really hitting a peak of going to like a physical gym. And that was really working for me. And I remember like the last couple of days we were going. In February. Yeah, I was like hot in the hand sanitizer.

Just like, oh, who? Uh, okay. That was the last one. And we stopped before they even shut it down. We were like, this isn't good. We shouldn't be going. Yeah, to clarify. We were, I think we stopped.

I think you went. I think first. No, you went when I was. When I was sick in February, and that was the last time that you went. When you were sick with that dry cough, just going, no. I had a flu in February, but we don't know. I mean, I feel like everybody says that now where they're like, oh, I had this flu, and I don't know what it was.

I'm really surprised about the number of people that I talked to that they're like, I think I already had it. So, you know, that's out of the way, which I'm like, that's not. It's like very wishful thinking. And really not the mindset to approach. Yeah, especially when you said this to me the other day, it's like it almost, it's, I appreciate the wishful thinking because I often. also want to feel that way. I got, I got sicker than I have ever been in my entire life in February. I

never get sick. I don't get the flu every year. And I was bedbound for a week, which you may remember from Instagram because I whined about it on Instagram stories a lot. Couchbound. Oh yeah, couchbound. I just laid there on the couch, much like my Jeff days. But you said to me that it sort of minimizes the actual suffering that a lot of people who actually have the virus are going through for us to be like, oh, that thing that I have. had was probably it, you know, casually, even though the wishful, like, I appreciate wanting to have felt like you win through it and beat it and all of that. I think everybody wants that, you know, and it's one of those things where it's like if we were

in a position as a country to have, like, you know, rampant testing and we could all just, you know, be like, oh, got it, didn't get it, great, fine. You know, then when, you know, we could basically do that math, but as it is now, it's like a black box. You have to just kind of unless unless you've been put in a position where you can get a meaningful test, you just have to assume, uh, haven't, haven't had it, have to have to treat it like it's a, like it's a big freaking deal because it is. So just to, I just want to talk about briefly why I've been working out because I think it's interesting. Um, more maybe it's not. Uh, just that like, I've, I felt motivated to work out because I'm not moving. I, I just feel like I, I,

would be going so much more so crazy and having so I feel the extra need to protect my mental health because I already, I don't have precarious mental health I would say, but I know that I'm prone to anxiety and I know I went through a period of really extreme agoraphobia and what they teach you to get over agoraphobia, which is a fear of leaving your house. I'd have panic attacks whenever I left my house is to consistently make your life bigger and not make your life smaller because when you make your life smaller, you start to get afraid of what it might look like when it's bigger. So when we started all of this, I had the thought, like, what if not being able to leave my house makes me afraid to leave my house again, like it did when we were in England.

And I still have that thought sometimes, which does scare me for sure. So I'm trying to take as many steps as I can to protect my mental health. So for me working out every single day, it's almost a necessity in that case. And I do feel a significant difference in my mood, in my mood. anxiety and in my energy on the days that I do work out. And I've been doing a lot of dance workouts and yoga and weightlifting, like mixing it up. So I don't feel like it's this huge chore every day. Absolutely.

And the dance workouts really sort of a dual purpose of entertaining you. Maybe. Really all of us here. It's the cheesiest thing ever to have your, like, phone out. And I'm, like, dancing along with this guy on the phone who's like, you're looking great, lady. Like you got this. And Zach's just sitting on the couch, like doing work on his computer. I like to stand, like just kind of awkwardly hover.

Like, because it's always in the morning. So I've just made coffee. And for me, the ritual of making coffee in the morning is basically why I'm a whole person and how I'm a whole person. So I like to sit there like really like loudly sipping my coffee and just like sitting in my arm's truck. Yeah. That's the sound. When necessary.

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All right. Let's get back to the show. Can we talk about being a couple in quarantine and like our relationship? Sure. Do you, how do you feel like being quarantined with me and spending all of this time with me and not having like an outlet to other people? How do you think that's impacted our relationship? If at all.

I don't think it's impacted our relationship at all. Really? Zero effect. things are not remotely different. Really? No, obviously. No, I mean, like, there's no way, I think, to avoid a little bit more of being at each other's throats on these type of things. Especially, I mean, I think people right now are realizing all of the work habits of their partner, all of the awkward habit.

It's like, I'm married to the let's circle back guy. Oh, yeah. Like, finding out 10 years in that you're. married to the love. And we should circle back on that, but no, I mean, it's, it's true. I think you and I have, like you said, we, you know, I can't go to my, my office, but even when I could, I would often, you know, work from home and do a. When I begged you to. And, you know, when it's just more comfortable to drink the coffee you make here. Yeah. So I think it's, it's one of those things where it's like, it was, it's nice. I think, I think it, you know,

working from home used to be a luxury. And I think, I think in the same way, interacting with our partners used to be a luxury or should have used to be a luxury. And it's one of those things where once the choice is taken away, the moments become less intentional from the people, you know, who you want to be intentional for. Like, I think it's, I like the idea of being able to choose hanging out with me. When we hang out, absolutely. So what is that? does it make you value that choice in other times or does it make you like wake up next to me and be like oh or again we recently invested in a king size bed so i like i wake up and i'm like i'm so alone

like no better time than a month before all this happened to invest in a king size bed i mean the the wasted space uh that wasted extra foot on your side of the bed that uh we had i think was totally best spent on this A hundred percent. No, but that, I think once you take away that intentionality, if you assume there's attentionality there, and I felt like there was a lot of intentionality there, when we would hang out and the activities we would do.

And you start saying, okay, you have to, like, it's this or not much else, right? Then it becomes a little bit, I think you start questioning, the, I think you start kind of questioning, like, what the time means. And I think for us, it's, there's been some really, like, nice upsides, which is I think we've actually been even more intentional to carve out, like, kind of, like, dady things and kind of, like, making, making food and playing game. Yeah, exactly.

And then the, you know, the hard part is, is when you just need to have some space. not be, not be like jetted up against somebody. I feel like the huge boon though has been the way we fight. I feel like we have had a tendency in the past to fight in probably no small part due to me. I never really learned how to fight well in a relationship. And I had it modeled in literally no ways for me growing up. My dad and my stepmom hated each other. probably and would fight all the time and then my mom never remarried. So I did not grow up with a

happy, I remember when I met your parents actually. And I was like, oh, this is like what a happy couple interacts like. And it was such a weird, your mom had her feet up in your dad's lap. And we were like sitting around the table drinking wine in Berkeley. And I was like, she just has her feet in his lap. Like, what is that casual display? I was so strange to me to witness it. But, um, that we can't fight for that long right now. Like we used to have these fights where we would kind of get stuck in a pattern. And I think I'm really bad at like the fight might be over, but I'm bad at sort of turning back on the good mood and getting back into what I call a good place.

And so we would just kind of be curt, but not actively fighting, but just like not actively good to each other for weeks sometimes. Weeks. Scary to think about. Yeah. I mean, nothing, nothing is more of like a slow burn than like the civil, like, we'll just have a civil situation going on here. Like, just kind of like, eke past each other in the hallway or be like, here's your towel, you jerk, you know. It's damp.

This towel is damp. Who wiped up Bella's hair with it. But like now we don't have that luxury. I feel like we've had a number of, like, fights because of, as you said, I think any couple in the situation can't. not have fights, but we've actively said we don't have the luxury of having this last a long time. So let's figure out how to get back into a good place quickly. And that's been revolutionary for me. Well, and it's, I think it would be a nice thing to hold on to because at the end of the day, you know, I actually really like the concept of life is long, but, you know, life is short, right?

Like, life is finite. Things are finite. You know, I tell myself both alternately, depending on, like, what I need at the moment. You introduce me to the concept of like saying life is long, but it's... It's true when you're like, I need to like go do this right now and go do this right now and succeed in this way right now. But it's also like the thing I'm realizing is like even tonight we were having like a little bit of a tip earlier. And I was very loathe to kind of get back into a good place. Why was that?

Because you wanted me to learn a... Because, oh, a TikTok dance instead of doing... Your work. That was a fun game of Madlips we just played. But, and it was a stupid fight, as Zach just kindly pointed out. I disagree. It's a very, you know, poignant fight. But I was sort of, you were trying to get us back into a good place.

And I was, like, too stubborn or prideful or something. And then we were like, okay, let's just, like, play some boggle, eat some pizza and record. And I don't know, it's making me question all the times where I'm like, no, I don't want to come over and give you a hug or like, no, I don't want to take these like little efforts to get back into a good place. And I'm just like, why do I stop myself from doing that? Yeah. I mean, I think this individual context aside, I think the, no one was, no one will ever like, you know, be on their deathbed and be like, oh, man, I wish I'd spent more time being bitter at that person. Yeah.

I really wish I'd spent a lot more time quietly seething. Totally. It's 100% true. And I think that this situation has made me a lot more aware of that. And I think we're going to fight better going forward. And also the number one thing that we fight about, I've had to be better at because we're in quarantine together, which is that I'm messy. And Zach is not. I don't know you talking about it.

Um, so I've, I've, I've had to be cleaner just because like, we live work, like, work out. We do literally everything in this space. And so I feel like I've been forced to treat it. We did a huge deep plane the other day and we both looked around afterwards and we were just like, oh, like it feels so much calmer and so nice and so lovely. Yeah. Number, number one quarantine tip. Clean your house.

Clean your house. Lay on the ground and have a moment. Yeah. It really, it's like a breath of calm. Okay, so I feel like there's a good amount of like quarantine life conversation. Let's answer a few sort of general FAQs and then we can be done with this episode because I don't want to make these ones too long. These are frequently asked questions. Well, is that what FAQ stands for?

Yes, these are asked questions. So I put out on my Instagram to ask you guys for some questions for the couple's Q&A. And I'm just going to pick a few at random. AQs. These are just cues. they are somewhat F to keep Q's They are medium F'd Q's

Slightly F'd A Q's Yes Okay what is the favorite food that you've made for me And favorite that I've made for you The favorite food I've made for you The favorite food we've made for each other Okay so I have to assume that And Liz hates playing games like this with me

Because I really hate it So context specific Yeah So you want me to guess slash no the food that I've made for you that you appreciate them. No, no, just say

your favorite thing I've made for you. Oh, so easy. What's your favorite thing that I've made for you? You made cookies last night Oh my God, don't just say the thing I made last night. No, no, no, no, because these cookies are a regular, they're like a regular staple in our life. It's the best healthy cookies for my cookbook,

which are also on my website. I don't want to pitch it, though. I didn't want to make it. Well, I want to tell people in case they want to eat the cookies. Yeah, they're great cookies. Just search Liz Moody, Best Healthy, Cookie. The recipe comes up. They're fabulous.

Your sister and I talk about, like, making and eating these cookies during quarantine. That's, that's, like, our side chat. You, like, text my sister, and you're like, I like Liz's cookies. And she's like, me too. Yeah. That's really? Is that actually your favorite one of my recipes is the best healthy cookies? They're, like, a really delicious, perfect chocolate chip cookie.

They're healthy. They take, like, 10 minutes to make. Zach, I think is kind of funny because Zach will often make them better than I can make them because he follows the recipe better, which I developed very intentionally and worked on for a really long time. But now I just kind of throw shit in a bowl and put it in the oven. And so his always turn out better than mine because he follows the recipe in my book as it is written. You made them perfect last night. Thank you. I followed the recipe. But that's actually your favorite thing? You know, I think, yes. And I'm just because I think it has a bigger imprint in my

memory because it's something that we make regularly that I love. I love it too. My favorite thing that you've made for me is either we used to make these burritos when we were living together right like in college and just out of college. And it was like this, we were already sort of healthy but not really that healthy. And we just sort of throw a bunch of burrito-y stuff in a pan. It was like everything went in a pan and turned to a giant sort of mush pile and then went in the burrito.

And they were so flavorful and so good. skillet burrito feeling type of thing. Yeah, like a one skillet burrito feeling. Yeah, we lived next to a really amazing market. Shout out Berkeley Bowl. Berkeley Bowl. But they had they had like a lot of good

peppers. So like like non spicy peppers like the Anaheim's and Pablanos like that would make up like a lot of the core veg side. Yeah. And then it was just a process of doing it all together with lots of cheese. Like Adele's sausage. And then also

of course your pop pies. Zach went through a really wonderful pot pie phase, which was some of the best years of my life. It's a pot pie period. A pot pie period. We'll test if the pop filter on this mic is working. A pot pie period. He has a version of his pot pie that it's called Zach's chicken pot pie.

It's in the book. And I actually, it's one of my favorite memories of writing this book. Because Zach is like very, we're very, involved in each other's careers. He's more involved in my career because I don't understand a lot of the technical stuff he does with his career. But he had seen the manuscript of the book. He'd been there when I was developing all the recipes and he'd really played a large role in the development of pot pie. But it was just called like healthy chicken pot pie or something. And then I was able to sneak a change in the manuscript so that when the final book came,

it was called Zach's chicken pot pie. And everyone saw it coming. And it was really cool. It felt really special to me because like I dedicated my first book to you and I still remember I really want I had that I dedicated my second book to him too because it was called held there together so I felt like I couldn't not but then I was like ugh I've dedicated two books to him now um but I remember I really wanted that moment with the dedication the first book where you like I don't know I don't know what I picked I picture you're like wandering in a barns and nobles and like grabbing off the shelf my god I mean like oh my god she dedicated the book to me but no what happened obviously is I got sent the manuscript to do edits on, and we were both looking through it, and it said, like, to Zach.

It was really sweet. And it was really sweet, but it wasn't that reveal moment. And so for me, the chicken pot pie was a big reveal moment. So I love your pop pies. I think they're really good. Okay. Somebody, a few people actually asked. Oh, frequently asked questions.

This one's actually quite frequently asked is, did we always agree on wanting to get married? The answer is no. I wanted to get married a long time before Zach did, although I regret wanting to get married a long time before Zach did, I think. Like, I gave my friend advice recently. She wanted her boyfriend to propose to her. And I was like, you're ruining the relationship that you have now by forcing a future that it might not be ready for right now.

Man, I think that's such a... Tricky Wicked. It's a tricky wicket. It's really a balancing act on... But like me getting drunk and crying to you about wanting you to propose to me, you weren't like, oh man, let me put a ring on this finger faster. True. Correct? At that moment, no. Like, was there anything that I actually did that you were like, that hurried up the process in any way? Because that's what I feel like women are, or not one partner may want to hurry up the process.

That was in my case, me. But I don't think anything I did actually made you ready. faster and it just made our relationship more uncomfortable on the times before. No. And I think, I think at, I mean, the end of the day, I would recommend to anybody having, I think saying conversations about it are, are. By saying you mean sober. What? Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think sane and sober conversations about, about just general priorities in life and time frames and stuff like that I think are important to have. I think it's, you know, I think it's also.

important to call guys out on their shit when they're kind of, you know, being flaky too, though. So it's kind of or any partner out on their shit when they're being flaky. Well, but my thing is, so it's interesting to hear you say that because I feel like a lot of my stuff wasn't coming really from you being flaky. You were being a really solid, really good partner. But I just was worried about we'd been dating for a really long time and I was worried about how our relationship was being perceived externally. So I don't feel like you were being flaky.

I just feel like I wanted everybody to think that you loved me enough to propose to me when in fact, in looking for your proof of love that way, I was missing the myriad proofs of love that you were offering in all these other ways. And that's what I regret personally. What's our cat adoption story? Oh, man. Let me tell you, guys. So we have a cat.

No, no, no, I got this. Okay. Do not worry. Well, I was just in case people don't know we had a cat. I was going to give that background. Oh, great. Okay. So, we have a cat.

We adopted this cat in Berkeley when Liz and I have been dating for like less than a year, like eight months like that. Tuesday. Yeah. You know. Some things you've got to just dive right in on it. But a friend of ours like, oh, you know, they do fostering programs at the SBCA because we just drive by the SBCA sometimes to like pet kittens. Which is like a humane society. Yeah, sorry.

And... Because we thought we were too young to adopt. Yeah, because it didn't seem a good idea at the time. Far too young to adopt. And literally, he was like, oh, like, what is this flyer? They just like let you take kittens home and you just keep them while they're very young and then you just give them back for adoption. And I literally turn around and Liz is like going through a series of complex emotions, which in, in tears.

Like happy laughing tears. I was legitimately crying. No, like like literally crying. Like, yeah. And kind of gasping for the air, really is concerning. But it was also endearing. And she went to a number of courses to learn how to be a proper training. I got certified.

Certified foster. Kitten parent. Kitten parent. And basically, long story short, kitten season rolled around. and we got this like trio of scrubby, like, kittens with, like, they look like mangy. I remember when they opened the cardboard. They were all three of them were in a cardboard box.

They've been found in a dumpster. They were like two or three weeks. They were too young to stay in the shelter. They were so young. And I remember I love kittens, hence the tears earlier. And I was like, these ones? Like, they looked so gross. Their eyes were all crusty and red.

And they're like, you're going to need to feed them a lot of pumpkin because they're all backed up. They're really constipated from living in a dumpster. Bella had to have three enemas before she pooped. I just want to call her out publicly. And she never stopped. And so basically we had these kids. And looking back on the photos, they're just like running around like a college, like a college dorm of an apartment. The dirtiest apartment of all time.

No comment. That was when it was still my apartment. technically and Zach was just sort of like partially living with me so he couldn't demand that I follow normal standards of sanitariness of hygiene and there and I was like I was like okay rule number one toilet seat closed um that's because the kittens were so tiny that if you leave the toilet seat they can drown and that's the number one way that they that foster parents lost kittens so when people would come over we'd be like put the toilet seat down don't kill our kittens So basically that was happening

There was a lot of Towing and froing on The meeting of kittens and just like how cute they were And how magical they were And we basically gave them all back To the SBCA after they You know they got spayed neutered A lot of trips back and forth

And then you know they were old enough to be adopted We gave them back So we had them for like a little A couple months Yeah we had them for like six or seven weeks And I was I was doing a a remote program school program

like right at the end of this and I just got this call from Liz bawling because she had just dropped off the kittens and she was like I just want them too gosh and I was like go get them

go get the kittens and we ended up having two of them actually are with friends and we kept because we didn't want to adopt like three so we adopted all three with the intent intent to adopt out to.

Yeah. Yeah. We thought we were going to keep two, and one person was a friend of ours. I was going to have one, and we flipped it because. And we kept Bella because she was the smartest one. Yes. Bella learned to escape from the apartment at a very early age. She actually learned how to open the front door.

Even when it was locked. So that was like a fun thing to come home to a few days before we figured out that we weren't being robbed. And in fact, our cat was opening the door. Yeah. And Liz Values intelligence. above all else. I do.

So we kept her, her name was Smurfette, and we changed it to Isabella because we thought she looked like little French popper, even though it's an Italian name. I don't know. We were very young.

And then Twilight came out and ruined the name completely. We were not huge Twilight fans. Absolutely huge Twilight. The cat is not named after Bella from Twilight. Absolutely. She's eating dinner right now. I don't know if you guys can hear her.

But yeah, that's how we got our cat, like way too soon. but I think it worked out well She's been the glue that's held this relationship together She's been present for all the time She's lived in England In San Francisco and New York

She's really like She's been it's great When I think about how many memories How many parts of my life She's lived through with me It like blows my mind honestly Yeah it's really special All right I feel like that's a good note to end on

One more You want to do one more You want to do like a light one Yeah do like one casual IQ Okay. These are all like really deep. Something sassy. Okay. How to keep sex fresh after 12 years. Different sassy one.

Favorite, ooh, I want to hear this one. What's your favorite physical and non-physical trait about each other? Cool. I think that one's fun. You go first. Okay, so my favorite physical trait about Zach used to be his hands. I think he has spectacular hands. He's sort of always been like a woodworker and like into inventing and making things with his hands.

But since quarantine happened, he's grown out his hair long enough to put into this like sexy man bun situation. And it smells really good. And it's very silky. And it just looks really good like pulled back from his head. And so I'm very into that. That'd be my favorite physical feature. and my favorite non-physical feature is probably like your goodness. I don't know the right way to like say it,

but I feel like you're a good person without a reason to be. Like you're just good. I think it's a good reason to be. But like you're good. You help people not because you want anything from them. You put kindness and goodness out in the world just because. you feel like that is the right thing to do. And I've never met anybody who does that as benevolently and generously as you do.

And it inspires me a lot. Yeah. Are you nervous about the cat snorflane in the background? Man, she's so hungry. People can deal. They made it this far in the podcast. You think she'd just be starving over there. She's smashing her face against her little metal cat plate.

She's eating turkey. All right, you go. physical and non-physical feature about me. I know there's a lot to choose from. I would have said your hair last week. Oh. But it's really growing out. It's a little raggedy.

We miss you, Brooke. It's so cliche, but you're, I don't know. I feel like your eyes are very, very like see into the soul. I thought you're going to be like, it's so cliche, but your boobs. I feel like that would be a little alt, you know. Really, really love the booze. They're great. Thank you.

Second favorite. Okay, but my eyes? Yeah, yeah. The smaller, bluer orbs. And then, emotionally, I'd say, I mean... Bless you. Jesus. Emotionally, I would say you have such a deep empathy for people.

and yeah i think i think i think your your love and engagement and also production of human stories is the thing that i think moves me the most like i it's it's like a fun thing about liz is if we watch like a like a movie with any sort of context or historical context she's like cool that was really it was a really good movie uh i need about two hours to research the backstory to really understand how these characters felt at the time and to like really get i need to know i need i have a deep dire like need to understand where they fit in space and time and like what they were feeling at that time because it's very important to me and i think that's like a very attractive characteristic Thank you.

And educational, because then I come back and tell you about like Nazi Germany and you're like, oh, man, that's fun facts. So much as there are fun facts about Nazi Germany. All right, well, this is very lovely. Thanks for me my guest. You're my first podcast guest, too, which I'm hesitant to shout out, lest people go back and listen to that episode. That's great. All the early stuff, you want to go back to the first podcast episode. That was before I knew how.

I remember I recorded my first like six episodes without the right record settings on my equipment and then had a mental breakdown because I was like, it was terrible. Anyways, you can go back and listen to that if you want. And just as a reminder, we will be doing these sort of more casual episodes every other Wednesday throughout the duration of this shelter in place and maybe longer. And then we'll be doing our traditional long format interviews on the other Wednesdays that exist. every other Wednesday and every other Wednesday. What is time? What is time? And yeah, I hope you guys liked it.

If you did, I would appreciate if you would share the podcast with a friend or family member or loved one. I always love to grow the H.T. family. And it's the best way to support small creators like myself. And also, if you love this episode, please give it a rating or a review, rating and review, not rating or review on iTunes. That's also a wonderful free way to support small creators. I've been doing that a lot in this time because I know a lot of small creators are having,

you know, a tricky time these days. Myself not completely excluded from that, trying to figure things out career-wise and how all this economic stuff is going to affect that. So ratings and reviews are a great way for free to support the creators you love. And I hope that this podcast provided like a little bit of respite. Maybe you went for a walk or cooked a meal or I don't know. I just hope it provided you some company during this time. So thank you for hanging out with us for a little bit and for listening.

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