WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 550 - Allie Brosh

Episode Date: November 12, 2014

Allie Brosh is the creator of the popular comic Hyperbole and a Half, which is more than just extremely funny. It's been called one of the best contemporary portraits of depression. Allie and Marc talk about the ongoing struggle for sufferers of depression and how it forces Allie to channel her creativity. Also, Joel McHale drops in with some stories about his new movie A Merry Friggin' Christmas. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated

category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton.

The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Lock the gate! what the fuckadelics this is mark maron this is my show this is wtf welcome i'm excited about today's show i genuinely am excited i'm genuinely excited about most shows but ali brosh is on the show today and i don't know if you're familiar with ali brosh but she's a fucking genius she's hilarious nobody has made me laugh more than her in a long time her book and her blog hyperbole and a Half. There's a new edition out now.

It's updated. It's a new edition of the book. It's got the animated panels. It's got her sort of take on her life, which is very specific and very personal, but very relatable if you you like me and you're a sensitive maybe slightly dark person struggling with certain things that you're up against within your own mind on a day-to-day basis where the minutiae just becomes paralyzing and overwhelming well this is a book for you it's hilarious it'll it i guarantee you it'll make you feel better and make you laugh. And I don't have to say this. It was not easy to get her. I mean, she lives up in the hills somewhere up north.

And I had to pull her down off of the mountain to get her to hang out and talk to me. And it was amazing for me. Because I know some of you struggle with the war. The war with self. The war with bad patterns, the war with self, the war with bad patterns, the war with sadness, the war with anxiety, the war with depression. How are you going to get through it? Are you going to get on some medicine? Are you going to just fight your way through it?

Are you going to eat your way through it? Are you going to exercise your way through it? Are you going to create your way through it? Are you going to keep plowing and talking and doing things until it's out of you how long does this exorcism take how long will it take to get the shit filter cleaned within me there's like just there is some there is there is a filter a scrim there is something that reality passes through as it passes through my brain before it gets to my heart and it just it just turns things slightly dark it's sort of like how do i open the aperture man

well i look i i can experience things uh as they are relative to my perception them not everything is dark but you know what I'm saying. I was on stage last night at the Trippany House, or the night before last, it would be. People have been great. I'm so glad that you guys came out. Had a couple of women open for me. Jean Whitney opened for me.

Ashley Barnhill opened for me. They did a couple of 10-minute sets. Then I went out there and talked about me for about they did some a couple of 10 minute sets then i i went out there and talked about me for about an hour and a half or so but it's weird with me and i and i know maybe some of you can relate to and i think i touch on some of this stuff with ally is that uh you know you're always going to come up against yourself eventually and sometimes you arrive at the same place you know you think you've gone through some changes you think you've made some progress and certainly you probably have but then that that old feeling comes back just this feeling of like oh fuck what this is it and that's like a

filter problem yes this is it but it was no different than when you were feeling good a day or two ago or when you felt great about that thing you did or whatever it's not you're not a different person i just don't know why those things don't get cataloged properly you know once you start cataloging the good things or the progress you're making you shouldn't have to regress back to uh to the shit zone you know what i mean why do i always you know end up backed into the shit zone i just made the i just ran you know 70 yards and now i'm in the other side i'm in the i'm at the beginning i'm at the shit zone again i mean obviously it gets a little easier to get out of that perhaps you just have to create your way out of it or or uh feel your way out of it but for me it just it becomes sort of interesting because i i don't want to be a guy that just spins the same fucking plates all day

long i don't want to be a guy that just kind of repeats cycles. So something's got to give. I mean, I got to, you know, I got to cure cancer or something. I got to do something. I mean, that's a little high. That's a high expectation to put it myself. I don't, I don't have any, you know, I don't, I don't even have a Bunsen burner. So I don't, I don't have any safety goggles.

So right out of the gate, the cancer cure is not going to happen unless I can do it, you know, with a cast iron pan and some basic spices. Some people think you can. I don't think that's my journey in life. Oh, my God. Joel McHale's here. Hi. What are you doing?

I was just sitting down to do some things. You're a dead man. What? Don't put the knife down. Finally payback. You had no guest. I've had that thing on here forever. I leave a lot of things for people to play with. No one Don't put the knife down. Finally, payback. No guest. I've had that thing on here forever. Like, I leave a lot of things for people to play with. No one's ever opened the knife.

You have some hostility inside you. And now the hammer. The broken hammer. Broken hammer. Sit down at the mic. Didn't you see? Relax. I know that you saw Deliver Us From Evil, where I had a very long knife fight.

Oh, of course. Yeah. I'm so glad you enjoyed that. I'll pretend. Oh, right. Of Yeah. I'm so glad you enjoyed that. Should I pretend? I'll pretend. Oh, right. Of course. That was when I was nominated for.

For? For all of the awards. Oh, my God. I don't, like, I... I got an NAACP award for that. Wow. Yeah, incredible. It's amazing that I saw it and I can't remember it.

See? Yeah. Well, it's so shocking. What are you doing? How often are you going to the gym? I saw it and I can't remember it. See? Yeah. Well, it's so shocking. What are you doing? How often are you going to the gym? 40 minutes a day is my thing. 40 minutes a day?

40 minutes a day. What do you do? Like your arms are bigger than your torso. I mean, what's... Thank you so much. 40 minutes a day? You hear that, folks? Yeah, 40 minutes. You got to be intense.

You can't just sit on an elliptical with a magazine open and talking on the phone. That's not how I do it. Okay, well, what do you do? Do you just enter in a panic, jacked up, and just get in it? I usually have about six shots of espresso, a lot of anabolic steroids. I drink them.

And then... So pretty healthy. Yeah, very healthy. I have a lot of acne on my back. My balls have shrunken down to nothing. Great, great. If you do 40 minutes a day, you'll notice a huge difference, my friend. Or if you can't do that, start with...

I'm not kidding when I say that. Start with 10 push-ups today, and then tomorrow, do 11. You don't think I can do 10 push-ups? No. No. You don't? Not with a rigid body.

Look, I'm just trying to create controversy. Mark Maron's about to do some. Here we go. Stay on the mic. Let's go. All right. Here we go. 10 rigid body push-ups?

What? 10 rigid body push-ups. 10 rigid. No, no, no, no, no. Drop your butt a little bit. Drop your butt. There you go. All right.

One, two, three, four. Oh, he's giving up, guys. I know, he's doing it. He's doing it. Look at that. Rigid. He's a strong man. He did it.

He's doing more than 10. Boom. Now, let's see how much. Now, let's see whose dick is bigger. Come on. I guarantee yours is. All right, I'll take it out. Oh, my God.

It's the humanity. How do you feel? I feel great. So I'm done for the day? You're done for the day. Tomorrow, 11. I'm not kidding. So by next week, you'll be doing 17 push-ups in a row.

Look, I just have to get on it. So you're saying 40 minutes a day. How many days are cardio? I'll do 10 minutes of cardio one day or 40 minutes one. I can't believe I'm talking about that. But 40 minutes one day or it'll be all weights. And then you always got to stretch. I stretch.

I know how to do this stuff. I've done it in my life. I'm just not as consistent about it now. Is this why we are talking? I have a good motivation. What? Because I want to impress my children no uh kids kids come out how's that going no because i'm half naked on community so

i we're getting ready to shoot it so i have to i don't want to it's a great way to motivate yourself if you know you might be half naked soon right television. Right. Or on Yahoo Screen. Yeah. So you're going to shoot a half naked thing? I am anticipating it. I haven't seen the scripts yet, but Dan Harmon usually writes something in. So what's going on with that? It's all systems go? Literally, the hour before all our contracts expired, Sony closed the deal with Yahoo, which is relaunching its internet portal and it's going to

be called it is called yahoo screen and uh we're like their first wow show uh to it's because i i don't know how what the matrix they used to figure out that there was enough online presence to for people to spend 50 cents or a dollar for the episodes and And you're really, are you going to vomit? No. I'm kidding. And so here we are. So community's back. Community's back. For 50 cents a pop or whatever. Whatever it is.

But now, no commercials. And Dan will have a- Full control. He will have full control. The canvas is open and bare and ready. Look out. Yeah, so I'm very excited. The maniac is loose. Yeah, I'm very excited. The maniac is loose.

Yeah, I'm very excited. Yes. So Merry Friggin' Christmas is your first big lead. It's my first lead, yeah, lead. Lead role. Good cast. No, not at all, really. It's great cast.

What are you kidding me? Candice Bergen, Lauren Graham. Yep. Clark Duke. Clark Duke, Robin Williams. Was this his last movie? Yes, it was. And I should say Tim Heidecker's in it, too.

Heidecker? Yeah, and Wendy McClinney Coven. So you're going after all the age groups. We're getting everyone. Yeah, you get the- We're getting all the hipsters that watch Adult Swim. Yeah. Then you get Wendy, who's on a very traditional sitcom and every big comedy.

You get Candice Bergen, who was part of the biggest one ever. Clark Duke, who's Mr. Hip and Cool from The Office. Super nerd. Super nerd, but you know. These super nerds are not super nerds. And who directed it? Tristram Shapiro. And you knew him from...

Community. He's directed more episodes. So it was going to be the Russo brothers who were the executive producers and directed a bunch of communities. But then they got a little movie called Captain America 2, which took precedence over this tiny little movie. Merry freaking Christmas. And we, the Russos and I, we courted Robin. We went up to Marin to convince him to be in the movie.

This was now three years ago and he amazingly said yes so yeah now that with everything that's happened i it's hard for me to even talk about the guy and uh without uh you know everything that happens when you think about someone who's just died so it's profoundly sad and but i mean i imagine that it must have been uh well you have very tangible real memories of working with the guy yeah and was it pretty amazing it was amazing I I will I will I will be able to tell my great-grandchildren if I get to that point that I got to work with him yeah and he was you know I mean you knew him

and and he was he that's there's that stupid phrase, never meet your heroes. He is exactly the hero you want to meet. Great guy. He was such a good guy. And everyone, I've now post his death is always like, but he would, did you notice anything? I was like, what are you talking about? And then they would say, he was just always on, right?

And I was like, no. Yeah. He was always a good guy. Yeah. And he was always very funny, but it wasn't like he, it's not like he had to, he wasn't one of those guys that had to walk in a room and dominate it, which he just walked in a room and he was there and that made him dominate it. Sure. But he was a very collaborative guy and he was generous with other actors, right?

He's such a good example to follow i mean for his the way he was on set was just like he wants you could tell that he wants to make everyone look good right and he wasn't trying to score all the time it's tremendous that you're that we have this movie i mean because i i don't uh you know after his death there was obviously a lot of tributes and you know youutes, and you look at the past movies again. But now you have this interesting document and this great little part that no one's seen before. And it's Robin acting. He's acting a little cranky, right?

Yeah. What is exactly that? He plays a real jerk of a father. Your dad. My dad. He plays a real jerk of a father. Your dad. My dad.

And who also tells funny, has a good sense of humor. Because I think people, he is a real jerk. But he's playing a guy, the jokes come from his character in that he does not like, we do not like each other. How much improvising? I would say, I don't know. A bit? A bit, definitely. Once scenes kind of got moving, we kind of... So what is the story?

It is about, I play a father with children, and obviously, and my wife is Lauren Graham, and we decide to, through a happenstance, Clark Duke plays my brother, and he accidentally schedules the baptism of his illegitimate child on Christmas Eve, meaning I have to go to see my parents, who I haven't seen in years.

And so we go there. It's fights. Not good. And Clark is... Who does he play? My brother. Okay. Because we look alike.

Yeah. And Robin and I are the same height. Sure. So it works out perfect. Yeah. You never know. It was good that Candace was playing my mom, because we do kind of look alike. Yeah. And Robin and I are the same height. Sure. So it works out perfect. Yeah, you never know. It was good that Candace was playing my mom, because we do kind of look alike.

Someone had to have the genetic credibility. Yes. We need the Sloth, or the Nordic. So it's like a dark, crazy Christmas. And then I forget, in my haste and my stress to get everybody to my parents' home, I forget all the gifts. So I was like, well, if I just drive back four hours and drive back,

then I can make it. And through, so it becomes like a road movie where Robin's character has to help me. Yeah. And then we, yeah. So you're in the car with Robin. There was a lot of time on a soundstage in a car that's been quietly, quietly shook by some very nice men. With Robin. There was a lot of time on a soundstage in a car that's being quietly shook by some very

nice men. With Robin. No actual driving. No. There was some driving and that you'll see the truck was about as easy to control as it was like trying to drive a boat through the street. Well now, you know, when something like this happens, when something horrible like this, you know,

we lost Robin and, you know, was there conversations about, you know, when something like this happens, when something horrible like this, you know, we lost Robin. And, you know, was there conversations about, you know, was there any, did they have to do anything differently, you know, post in post-production? Did they go back to the drawing board? Were they concerned about anything? I think there was, I mean, it was, there wasn't huge concerns, but the movie's rather dark. There was selecting the poster. Right. We all kind of, it was like, we shouldn't put any pictures on it. Let's just have it be our names.

Right. And then that would be better than some wacky Christmas photo. Which it's not, because it's not a wacky Christmas movie. It's got cursing in it. Uh-huh. And it's a family, it's a challenging family situation. Yes, but it's not, but it's got cursing in it uh-huh and it's a family it's a challenging family situation yes but it's not but it's not an adult movie and it's not a family fan like kids movie it's a i would say it's a family movie that you can watch because that's your family talks like

that it's funny yeah and it's dark it is dark but it's not dark like bad santa i get it right right but so but but hopefully you know people will love it and be one of those christmas hopefully it'll be the biggest christmas movie but it's like it's interesting because like it's odd when and horrible when something like that is hanging over a movie but like with somebody like robin you're sort of like well i want to see him again i you know what i mean and it's a very strange uh thing uh- Yeah, it's bizarre. And I think that the type of sort of, you know, the way that people miss that guy or they think they miss, I mean, there might be some sadness to it, but you still want to see him work and you want to, you know. Yeah, it was the strangest, the number of calls I got after his death to promote the movie was crazy. So, I mean, it was, everyone wanted to talk, everyone wanted to talk about it. I mean, I get that completely,

but I don't think we would have had as much response. I probably wouldn't be here. No. I mean, you're just- No, I chose to do this. God bless you. You know, I could have just pushed your movie without you. Oh, that's true.

It's true. I listened to your, Robin, your podcast with him, and it was great. It was one of the biggest days of my life, really. And you've got a side of him. I don't even call it a side, but that was like, oh, that's him. That's how it is. And now you're a guy that was in this amazing situation where you spent a lot of time with that guy. Yeah.

And it's a great gift you know to have had that because i don't think a lot of people realize what a generous and sweet and thoughtful dude that guy was no and he like in when you grow up with him or you know him as this this he's like a weird dad to you like but this is huge force of nature huge so when you're just sitting there and he's this sweet kind of of soft-spoken, very generous dude, there's still part of your brain that's sort of like, that's fucking Robin Williams. He's right there. Yeah.

He became more than just a guy. I mean, he was such a big star. He would get up before we would start shooting at 6 a.m. or whatever it was and ride his bike for an hour. I mean, it was great. And I remember we had this scene where we almost fight each other. or whatever it was and ride his bike for an hour. I mean, it was great and he, I remember, just, we had this scene where we kind of,

we almost fight each other and I grabbed his shoulder and it was like grabbing a piece of granite. Oh, it was solid? He was so physically strong. Well,

I mean, I just like, you know, I'm happy for you that you had that experience with him and I'm happy that, you know,

this movie is around and that, you know, it's going to represent his talent well. I think, and as you were just saying, people don't realize. I mean, he was this massive star with this massive amount of talent, and he was so smart. Yeah.

He would, like, I brought up, we were talking about doping for the bike world. Yeah. Oh, he loved the bike races. Yeah. He knew exactly the chemical breakdown of all the doping and how it worked.

I was like, I'm just going to... His brain was so much bigger than people realized. Yeah, it was on fire all the time. Yeah, he was a big fan. I remember he was a big fan

of the bike racing. But, well, great. Well, good luck with the movie. It's great to see you. It's nice to see you. I can do 10 more push-ups right now. I don't believe you.

No, we'll do it off mic, but I'm going to do it. Why don't you hike your feet up on the edge of this uh desk and see if you can do it that way and put a little more weight on your arms all right you so you're gonna sit on my back well no no no you just put you here i know i know no i know how i know so you put your feet up there and that just means yeah look i'm not you get a bit different part of your your body chest i'm not here to you know for you to prove to me that you're

a bigger man I'm not here to do that I am I don't have to prove it I am literally a bigger man get out of my garage well I can't the door's too small

let me just rip the hinges off here good luck with the movie this is the I thought these these podcasts were longer get out see you later

well that was nice of Joel to stop by. And go see Merry Friggin' Christmas. It's now playing in theaters and available on demand with the late, great Robin Williams and Joel and many others. Oh, my God. Brace yourselves, folks. Brace yourselves for a journey. For a journey and a discussion into the edge of darkness that exists

in all of us somewhere between our heart and mind is is a is a moving ledge that's right it's within you i cannot even begin to express what an honor it is to uh to share with you this conversation i have with ali brush i have a tremendous amount of respect for her personally, for her journey as an individual and the way she found her art and her mode of expression. It's just, I love her. And her book, Hyperbole in Half, is just, it's relieving,

it's hilarious, and it's deep. So let's talk to ali bro you can get anything you need with uber eats well almost almost anything so no you can't get an ice rink on uber eats but iced tea and ice cream yes we can deliver that uber eats get almost almost anything order now product availability may vary by region see app for details it's a night for the whole family be a part of kids night when the tor Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City

at torontorock.com. I want to make sure I pronounce your last name right. Brosh? Yes. That was Brosh. You got it. Now, I didn't know anything about you until I got this book. But a lot of people knew about you. And that made me upset.

I suppose so. Like, I feel like I'm always late to the game. And this book comes out, and then I read it, and I identify too deeply with it. It's problematic, but hilarious. And I'm thinking, like, how is this person staying alive in the world? I wonder that all the time. That's the biggest mystery of my life. But I mean, like, you know, you seem okay.

I carry it off much better than I think than the reality is. How old are you? Do you talk about that? I'm 29. You're 29. So you're a young person. Yeah. Yeah.

And you were not planning on being a cartoon artist no no it just sort of happened i actually studied human biology in college and i was planning on being a scientist but then panicked at the last moment and uh decided to try other things you seem to be proficient on your computer with this um this paint this this animating program uh it's that's that's a lofty way to put it animating program oh yeah it's like a little doodly program like i don't know what it is see like i don't even know that much like i you know i could do research on you and learn the name of things i think i did was it called paintbrush or paint yeah paintbrush it's what does it just come on a computer yeah it's like a free download thing it's like ms paint sort of yeah you just

sort of has a little brush tool and a fill tool and so that's it yeah you don't need to know there's no steps not yeah i mean like steps as in like i have to put down different lines but yeah more than that and you just drag around and yeah just drag it around i have a trackpad but once you created the version of you that is a cartoon you, how do you repeat that over and over again? Is there, can you just bring that guy up, that person? Yeah, it's sort of like a, it took a while to get to that final form, but I sort of have it in my head now. Yeah. It's just like.

How did you, how did this form evolve? So. We're going to go back, but I'm wearing this now. Okay. Okay. So we're going to go back, but I'm wearing this now. Okay. Okay.

So when I sit down to write something or convey something, I have an image or a feeling in my head that I'm trying to transfer to whoever I'm communicating with relatively unadulterated from my head to theirs. Through this medium. Through this medium. Through words and the paintbrush. Yeah. And so with pictures, I have this abstract concept that i'm trying to put down on the page and communicate and that was just sort of the best way that i figured out how to do it because it was simple it was simple and that's

really what i'm like on the inside i feel like that picture is me more me than i am but you decided that after after like there because you chose this medium because you were fucking around on your computer. Yeah, it's just sort of, like, I feel like... It wasn't years of painting, or like... No, no. Like, it just sort of... Well, this is the drawing program I have available. I'm gonna use this. Right. And this was the relationship

you built with this representation of you. Yeah. I imagine it evolved and you accepted it. Yeah. It wasn't waiting to happen. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I think if you were to conceive of yourself at some other time before paintbrush and what your inner self looked like, it would not have been that. Yeah, it would have had to be something else.

Yeah. All right. I've been reading too much of your book. So you grow up outside of Sacramento, horrible. And then what happens? So we moved to Sandpoint, Idaho when I was eight. Are your parents off the grid people? Are they?

Well, so my mom had a dream. And I think, I'm pretty sure she just really wanted to get out of the Sacramento area. And she used this dream as the impetus, as the excuse to go. Did she grow up in Sacramento or outside of there? She grew up near there, a little further south. Right, okay. But yeah, so she grew up in California her whole life. Right, not interested in California.

Yeah, she was sick of the heat, sick of the people, just a bunch of people there. She wanted to get out somewhere where there was... Right, so... Where she could just sort of live, I guess not off the grid necessarily. I feel like that's a loaded term, off the grid. Well, I'm not saying she was a survivalist or a white supremacist or but you know just sort of uh away yeah she wanted to she wanted to get away i wanted to be in nature so that was her dream nature yeah and then so she had this dream um and my mom believes in all this like mysticism dream stuff like oh she's uh kind of uh new agey

yeah oh super new agey like Like there's no coincidences? Oh, yeah. That's my mom. Okay. Like certain rocks, crystals, candles? Oh, crystals, yes. I had to drive with a crystal in my glove box of my car. She would not let me go anywhere without it.

Do you remember what type of crystal it was? I believe it was like an amethyst. Okay. Or like a quartz or something. And that was a protecting crystal? I think so, yeah. It was sort of a pinky color one. Does she read the I Ching? Does she... I don't know about that one.

I know that she has just like bookshelves of... So this is, she's one of those kind of new age, fragmented system of understanding through many different methods that are removed from larger methods. Yes, yes. That's a good way to put it.

Yeah, and also it functions as a way to decorate your house. Yeah. We have crystals all over. Yeah, little points of light, she says. Points of light, oh good. She likes the points of light. So she's still in this? Oh, she's very much still in this.

And is she a healer of any kind? No, she just sort of likes it. And it's very concerning to her that I'm not very spiritual. And this is a great point of anxiety for my mother but but her spirituality is based on so many different things so see she she calls herself a generally spiritual person because she's aware of all these different possibilities and levels and interpretations and okay right so that so she ran away yes so so we so we all moved up to northern idaho okay and uh dad and all this is yeah yeah he's he's just along for the ride or is he uh yeah he just sort of my dad loves my mom and when my mom gets an idea in her head that she wants to do

something my dad just okay okay he goes so but how does he tolerate the language around the crystals and around the possibilities of mysticism it's interesting i i never wondered about that until i was an adult yeah um and i i think he just sort of goes with it he knows it's important to her and he doesn't doesn't question it sort of just he's he's more like me so he really loves her yeah he's just like okay okay so he he's sort of the calming influence yeah i'd say so so like probably despite whatever beliefs your mother has and all this other stuff the thing that grounds her is him yep he's just sort of he's just sort of there and he's the unfluctuating constant. Exactly. In a world of chaos that's being managed by several different systems.

Okay. Got it. So that's what you grew up in. That's what I grew up in, yes. Well, there's also my aunt and my grandmother in the equation. Yeah, some of them are in the book. Your aunt's in the book. Yes.

So they were all in Idaho? They all went there at the same time? So we were all living together in the same house in California. My mom moved back in with her mom after she and my dad got married. Yes. So they all moved in with my mom's mom. And your aunt was there? And my aunt was there.

My crazy aunt. Big house. Yeah. Okay. I mean, not super big house, but... And you're all there. Yeah, we're all there. Which is nice to some degree.

And you have a sister. Yes. Okay, just the two of you. What? She died. Oh, I'm sister. Yes. Okay, just the two of you. What? She died. Oh, I'm sorry. It's all right. Yeah, so that was this year.

Oh, really? Mm-hmm. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. It was sort of a long time coming, I think. Was she ill? Yes. She is bipolar.

Oh, okay. And yeah, she just got in a real bad depression and and ended it and ended it yeah i come from that you know i mean i mean it's in my family and you do too i guess is uh do you have other members of your family that are bipolar um not not bipolar i mean i'm i'm depressive you've got that oh you're classified as depressive that's the diagnosis well let's get to that and i'm sorry to hear about your sister that's very sad i compartmentalize i deal i i deal with tragedy well i guess you could say uh-huh um i i feel i feel okay about it now i mean it was definitely hard uh especially i was i was going through a really tough depressive episode at the time it happened.

And so it was a little bit tougher to get through it because I couldn't navigate my feelings because I didn't know what they were doing. I couldn't feel them enough to know what they were doing. Right, right. So your depression is cyclical? Yeah, I'd say. I mean, for the last four years, I've pretty much just been depressed to varying levels. It gets worse sometimes. And then sometimes it's... For the last four years? About four years i've pretty much just been depressed to varying levels it gets worse sometimes and then sometimes it's for the last four years about four years yeah holy shit that's

a that's that's hard yeah um but i think that you get sort of a an amazing amount of credit that's well deserved in in how you navigate that illness in the book like Like I know that because like I talk about my feelings fairly frankly on my show. And I imagine it's the same with you in the sense that you had no idea the type of relief and gratitude common people who think like you experience when they read your stuff. Yeah, it was really surprising to me, right? Because you think that when you're depressed, it's like your own specific brand of misery. Nobody else would be able to experience or like be able to relate or understand. Yeah. Yeah. But the way you broke down in the two chapters in the book about depression, the way you broke down, you know, your exact feelings of how it affects your day toto-day life and what your brain is doing your relentless self-examination is sort of a portal in to like i i i read your book and i said to myself i'm like

wow maybe i am depressed because i i put that aside because my father's depressive so like but i was very much sort of like fuck that i'm not going to be that so i'm going to fight it like that but there's definitely specifically the thing of of like why bother yeah that thing the apathy yeah yeah in a way even if it's good things like i don't even know what to buy sometimes like i want to buy a thing because that make me happy it's like what's the point yeah that that sounds about like the experience but then there's other parts that are fine i mean yeah that's that's pretty much how i feel when i'm in like not the absolute worst part right i got diagnosed as dysthymic once yeah that's that seems like a i've heard that i've heard that term it's like a fancy word for like sort of depressed yeah

sort of depressed yeah chronically sort of depressed yeah chronically like but don't you ever get that thing where you're like well who the fuck isn't and then i guess so but but it depends on how long it goes on and like whether you can feel enthusiasm right that i feel like that's that's when i i know i'm not doing very well if i if i can't feel any degree of enthusiasm about you're just flat like it's like exactly it's like a phantom limb like i should be yeah like cognitively i know what like how my reaction should be to things i can see so i sort of have to like reverse engineer my just every interaction that i have with things oh this is like it's it's very like clinical like this is how i would feel if i was a normal person right and then try to do that it's hard to but it's hard to determine what

normal is because i used to in stand-up I used to justify depression as being a reasonable reaction. But, you know, you went up to bend. It's beautiful. I mean, there's no reason to not feel good, right? Yeah, well, and that's the problem is that I get down on myself about it. It's like, you know, I have a great life. Yeah. And there's no reason to feel depressed about anything.

But that's sort of the hallmark of it is it's not about anything. Yeah. You have to accept that. You have to accept it as a mental illness. All right. So let's go back. So you're living in this huge house with your grandma and your aunt and your mom and dad and your sister. And everybody goes to Idaho?

Everybody goes to Idaho. Because your mom wants to. Yes. Powerful woman. Yeah. I mean, she made a case for herself. I don't remember what it was. I was pretty distraught about having to leave my friends.

Yeah. But what was the life like up there? Did she buy a piece of land? Did she have a business in mind? Yeah. So my grandma actually had a bunch of money saved. My grandma put down money on buying the property that we have. And it was, I imagine, pretty cheap.

How many acres? I think about 20 acres. It's huge. It's a huge amount of property. Way out in the middle of nowhere in northern Idaho. Pretty? I think so. I mean, it's sort of swampy.

Does she still have it? Yeah. They're actually thinking about selling it. Now? Now. But yeah. So I grew up in this house. half yeah they're they're actually thinking about selling it now um now but uh but yeah so yeah i grew up in this house um they built the house on the property to sort of keep down costs so it is sort of the the homesteading yeah yeah uh pleasant side of off the grid and yeah we were nice off the

gritters did you have any weird neighbors who were the wrong kind of off-gridders? Oh, yeah, we had one weird neighbor. Yeah? Lyle. He was a weird guy. He'd just stand out by his mailbox and just survey things, like look around, take the scene in. Waiting for something to happen? Just waiting for something to happen. He wanted to be the first one to just get in there when something happened. He knew something was going to happen.

He was ready. Yeah, and so he saw that we had moved in, and he came over, and my parents saw him just wandering around the yard, sort of poking around, looking at the landscaping, whatever. And they're like, hey, can we help you? And he's like, oh, hi. You mind having me in for a beer? You mind?

Yeah. And my parents were like, I guess not. I wasn't there. I've just- Heard the story. Yeah, cobbard the story. Yeah, cobbled the story together from. Yeah.

And what happened? When Lyle came in for a beer. He hung around for an uncomfortably long time. And finally, my dad, my dad is a very passive man. He doesn't like confrontation. But he finally just got up and was like, maybe it's time to go, Lyle. Maybe it's time to go home. And I was, oh, okay, okay. And I walked away.

And is that how the relationship has remained i mean are they friends though i mean or at least i don't think he ever came over after that that was the only time he ever came over it's just added to his grudge pile those people are part of the problem over there he was he was the only weird one that lived right next to us there were some there was a guy i went running one time i was big into running in high school. And my friend was biking with me. He was going to ditch the bike and then continue running with me. He didn't want to run as far as I did, so he wanted to bike part of it,

run part of it, and then get back on the bike. So we stop at some bush where he can ditch his bike and we can start running. And about a mile down the road, this car speeds up to us. And there's this guy who saw us ditch the bike. And he's like, well, what's that about? Yeah, yeah. We're like, well, we're just exercising.

He's like, are you sure you're not terrorists? He didn't know that guy. I had no idea who he was. I've never seen him before in my life. That's the Idaho I think is up there. Like there's those guys, there's the TM people, or i think have a big compound in idaho yeah yeah yeah and then it's like this weird combination of hippies uh uh off the grid people you know like uh anti-government but americans and then there's the aryan nation people i don't know what

but but that's very funny to me because the way i picture it is that when something happens anything happens uh it's such a minimal environment that it must be so loaded for any person exactly it's just like oh oh crap there's like that somebody gets a bike yeah that's a bomb something's going down yeah something's going down where right like if i was a terrorist i would be the worst terrorist in the history of the world. Like, what sort of plan is that? Go out in the middle of northern Idaho where there's nobody. Ditch a bike and then go do something? Yeah, the bike is explosive. It's going to blow up the bush.

Oh, I can't believe that you grew up like that. But it must have been nice on some level. So, okay, so what was your mom's big plan, though? Just to live there? Yeah, just to live there. No job? She's a computer graphics artist. Oh, really?

So she got a job working for like a, not a newspaper, but you know those pamphlet, like handout, ones with the little things that have the brain teasers and trivia questions on them? She does those? Yeah, so that was the first thing she did, and then she moved. So you kind of come from illustration, in a way.

I guess so, yeah. I mean, did you watch your mom do that when you were a kid and think, well, maybe I can do that? I saw her doing the stuff. She had the light table with the X-Acto knife. That's mostly the stuff that I'd see her do. Oh, yeah. Back when people did that.

Yeah. And what did your dad do? He's sort of a jack-of-all-trades. He's a handyman. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. So he just goes around says yeah i can build that for you yeah so he works now for a hotel chain or a chain of like restaurants

and hotels and he just goes around and fixes stuff he's a he's a fixer man fixer they're very they're very important yes he gets called like five o'clock in the morning he has to come in and like yeah do something some plumbing thing yeah something that yeah. Something that he has to, if he can fix it or he has to get a guy to come fix it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, the handymans in the LA area

are notoriously, you just never know how your house is wired or anything. Like if you ever get into the walls of an old house here, people are like, this is all just tape. It's just entirely built out of tape.

Right, there's no, no one ever hires an electrician. They just call a guy and they have him fix it. So what'd you do in high school? Your plan was not to be this, this brilliant illustrator writer person. It was definitely not my plan.

I, let's see. You ran track. I ran track. I ran track and cross country. So you could run long distances. Yeah. Was that helpful? It was very helpful it was very

helpful i feel like running looking at it in retrospect i feel like running was my attempt to self-medicate um i have that's a good choice of them it is it exhausts me you know i have add and some some amount of anxiety when i run and i exhaust myself i don't have energy to be that way and so i can just sort of chill out. You know what I'm thinking right now? I have to start running again. Yeah? Did you run? No, I ran like a week or so ago.

I was close to getting back into the habit. And then I just went on the road to work. And I ate a lot of stuff. That's tough. Yeah. And then you just start eating. And you're like, oh, now I'm fucking. And it's that spiral, right?

Yeah, I'm fucked. And then you've got to pull it all and like just start denying yourself food and start running that yeah so that you do that well not exactly that but like i i know what you're talking about like the the general shape of it where like my life will start to spiral downward in some way like i'll i'll just let one thing go and then that makes it harder to do the other things. Yeah. Because you don't feel good. Right, but you say you have an ability to compartmentalize but not when you're going down.

Not really because once there are too many things that pile on top of each other, it's just like, well, especially accompanied by apathy. Yeah. It's just like, well, how do I even get out of this? And it's exhausting. Yeah. And that's where the anxiety comes in

because that's what I learned about myself. I don't know, maybe as someone who self-examines. Like, I used to think I was experiencing depression, but then I realized I was experiencing anxiety that became dread, and then I get exhausted. Yes, it is exhausting. And that looks like depression. Because you're like, oh, I can't.

And that moment feels like depression. But I've decided it's just the end of the anxiety cycle. That's how I've self-diagnosed. Well, I was actually really relieved when I first became depressed because that was the first break I'd had from anxiety. When I'm really depressed, I don't have enough energy in me to be anxious. All right. So you're in high school. You're running.

You're doing good in school. Yeah, I did. I did well until my senior year of school, and then things sort of train wrecked. But you could have been worse. You were running. You weren't on drugs. Yeah. You weren't driving around drinking.

Yeah. Huh. That's good. I was doing all right, yeah. Yeah. What happened in your senior year? So that's when my sister started getting sick. And so when she-

How'd that manifest itself? She became extremely manic, and the way her manic episodes manifested one of my sisters started getting sick and so when she um have that manifest itself she became extremely manic and the way her manic episodes manifested where she she had what the psychologist called psychotic manias yeah where she just totally lose touch with reality and um yeah just do crazy things nobody could figure out what was wrong right um you know my parents had no experience with this they didn't know what it was. And so everything was sort of tumultuous. And my parents had their own struggles

they were going through. And things were just weird at home. Right. So a little bit of that. I had my own weirdness going on. And I just couldn't cope with it. What kind of weirdness? Probably identity stuff. Oh kind of weirdness?

Probably identity stuff. Oh, high school stuff? Yeah, but periodically I go through a phase where I just realize, oh, my identity is all wrong. And I have to break it down and rebuild it from scratch. What were you at that point? Like a jock kind of? I've never really known what I am. Who were you hanging out with in high school? Who were your friends?

A little bit of everybody. Oh, yeah. I was intimidated by the cool kids. I was never a cool kid. Right. They sort of like made an attempt to maybe like, maybe I could be in that group, but I was too scared. They reached out, they sent a representative.

And I was too scared. I was no, I'm not gonna do that. Not cool, too much pressure. Yeah. I'm gonna have to keep up with music. Yeah. And figure out what people are wearing so you felt like an outsider oh yeah yeah i um i was always an awkward kid i just never i was always behind never knew

what to do with myself or like how to be uh i feel like i i got most of my i so my friend my best friend this is this kid named Joey. He was a cool kid, and I never was. And I always felt very intimidated by him. And much of my early life was defined by trying to get him to think that I was cool. And he would give me advice on how to dress. So I spent my early preteen years wearing like JNCO jeans and baggy shirts just totally like rocking the skater guy look. Yeah, yeah.

And you never felt comfortable? I mean, I didn't fit into anybody but him. He didn't know what he was doing either is the thing. He didn't know what he was doing. So he was pulling it out. To me, he looked like he knew what he was doing. So he confided in you that like, look, I don't know what's going on either.

He didn't confide in me. It's just now that we're adults, I can clearly see that. You're still friends with him? Oh, yeah, yeah. Really? So it lasted? Yeah. That's great.

And initially it wasn't a dating thing? It was just pals? No, no. You just felt like outsiders? Yeah. I was like the tumor on his life. He saw that I wasn't meshing with like, he found this group of cool friends and I wasn't meshing with the cool friends. What do you mean we're meshing?

How does that happen? Like what moment signifies that for you? The unmeshing? They could just tell, like they, cool kids have this sense where they can just know that you aren't one of them,

right? And they can see like, and okay, so it also didn't help that about three months earlier, my friend Joey had dared me to shave my head. Oh, you did that? I did that because because he dared me to and I didn't want to look like I was chicken. People that don't know who they are can't shave their heads.

Yeah, exactly. And I didn't know who I was. I did that. I hadn't I hadn't worried about it up to that point, really. It's the worst that because you can't do anything about it. Yeah, and it grows back so slow. I did that once because of the same reason, I think. It's horrible. And it's awful, right?

But I was in my 20s. Yeah. And I decided, well, people just go to those razor cut places, and they just get shaved, and it's comfortable. And at that point, I bought a skateboard, because I wanted to hang out with the guys who could skateboard. Aren't they cool? Yeah, but I couldn't skateboard.

And I'm in my 20s, though. I'm not in fucking high school. So I shaved my head, and I had my skateboard. And at some point, I just looked at my head, and it was almost like there was no definition. Yeah. It was completely horrible. But what you don't realize at that moment is that, well, with your case, because it was a dare and you were in high school and you're a woman, it was probably more impactful.

But no one's looking at me going like, why does that guy have no sense of definition? But I felt that. Right, right. So you shaved your head and what happened? Well, so this was, I was 13, I think, but I felt that. Right, right. So you shaved your head, and what happened? Well, so this was, I was 13, I think, when I shaved my head. And it was really bad timing. It was about two weeks before I discovered that I'm interested in boys. Yeah.

I had no view of self before this, no self-consciousness, nothing. Then I shaved my head, and I discovered, wow, I'm not pretty. And it was pure. This was unadulterated. No distraction with hair. Yeah, it was nothing. Oh, and I had giant braces. When you do something like that,

when you do something that's so obviously, it just shows that you don't know how to do the things that show people you can be one of them like they see you and they're like this there's something wrong here right but but the thing is is that they i don't know like i don't know how you were able to track it in terms of this weird uh there it's sort of a mixture of um there's some missing there's a fundamental missing piece to your sense of self so you know i can kind of track it to like having fairly self-involved parents with no boundaries and, you know, no one really, you know, you know, provided the amount of discipline for me to sort of feel like I was making decisions for myself.

It just felt like I was a wild animal of some kind, you know, who had. I totally feel like that. Right. You kind of got to build your identity on your own. Yeah. And it's this weird lifelong project just to arrive in your fucking body. And I'm 50 and it only happened to me like five years ago. I don't know where you're at with it.

But I don't know what clinically that is. But what I noticed when I was that age was that there was just this weird discomfort and paralyzing self-consciousness. You know, that what they're sensing is not that you just don't have the ability to get out of your head. Yeah. Because you're constantly double checking yourself and, you know, and also in this, I don't, I'm talking a lot, but that's okay, right? Oh, it's totally okay.

All right. So. I like when you talk. So also what I realized, because I did some of it the other night, was that you start looking, and I think you do this in your writing as well. You sort of illustrate this. As you look at everything else about you, like just decisions you're making and like this is the wrong shirt for life. That kind of thing. Like it all it'll take is one little thing to make you completely insecure.

And then you kind of change it up. Well, what if I drank that instead of this or what maybe i should drink both of them and they just become this like this horrible you know spinning of one thing can like destabilize the whole right machine what the fuck is that i don't know man let's think about it was there any discipline in in the house there was discipline i mean, my parents were pretty hands-off. I had a lot of freedom. My mom believed more in explaining things to me. Instead of disciplining me, she'd say, this is why this was a bad decision.

This is why this would have been a better decision. She was very open about stuff. But that's hard when you're a kid because you just want them to make the fucking decision. I suppose so. I mean, because that's what my mom used to do that she used to say things like do you want me to say no no what is that just you know how is that going to help me i don't know yeah maybe maybe it's like a paralysis of having too many options right you you yeah you want to sort of kind of like can you give me a value system? Can you teach me? Because like that one thing I was in the book is that the idea of, you know, good and bad.

And am I a good person? I'm not a good person. Is that to kind of have to manage due to your own, you know, judgment of yourself, you know, what is right and wrong? And then to sort of assess the fact that, well, you're not a good person because you're doing all this for selfish reasons. Well, a lot of things are done. I would say most great things are done for completely selfish reasons. Yeah, I'd say so. It's just no one talks about it.

I mean, I don't know if it's possible to act completely unselfishly because even if you do it, like, you know that you did the thing, so you get to feel good about it. And so it sort of like negates. But I do think there are people that think about others others first like you know either by you know training or by yeah do they do that because it's an important part of their identity you know they want to be the person if they're like a mother teresa or something all those people have flaws you know but yeah they well they might even be codependent to the point where, you know,

they don't even like themselves. So they just live through other people. I don't know. There's a lot of different options. All right. So, so your senior year, your sister starts to get sick. You're just growing your hair back. I made it through. I almost didn't graduate because I had missed too many days of school because Because? Because I just sort of, I couldn't deal with being there. I just wanted to, I don't know, be somewhere else. Were you ditching? I was ditching school. I'd still study.

I was one of those kids who would still read the book. Were you still running? I was still running, yeah. You just didn't want to go into class? Just didn't want to go into class. Because you felt? I've always had a problem with schedules. I think why I do what I do now is because I don't really think I had any other option in my life.

Like if this. That feels the same way. If this career path didn't work out. Or didn't come to you. Yeah. If it didn't happen, I, that, it was my only option. Well, thank God you found it. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I've been doing comedy my whole life and I don't know what else i would have done and it's completely it's very similar in that you know it's very immediate you know you're engaged with it you know when you're being funny you know and you can put your thing up on the blog after you make it and you get the reaction and sometimes that's terrifying no it is and i imagine i'm sure stand up even more so but but it's just weird it's just like these are things that are that that that immediate. You know what I mean? There's no kind of like you're not working for somebody else. You don't have to work in a group situation. Yeah.

There's not a lot of schooling necessary. You get the reward right away. Yeah. And yeah, I guess maybe I have trouble like thinking about long-term rewards. It's tough to, you know, it's like what we were saying earlier about the multi-step process. I can't think. I have a hard time thinking about next week

without panic. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So it's probably important for people like you and I to have something more immediate. Well,

I'm glad we worked out. Yeah. Right, so you almost don't graduate. So your parents, are they busting, are they on you about it? They actually sort of

took my side with the whole thing because like my grades weren't bad. You know, I graduated with a fine GPA and everything. But I just I wasn't you know, there's a certain amount of days that you have to be sitting in a chair in school. And they're one of my I think it was my vice principal was just like, no, you can't graduate. And this was infuriating because I had a I had a scholarship.

And, you know, my parents aren't wealthy. They, you know, they use their retirement fund to pay for my sister's treatments and everything. So they didn't have money to send me to college. And so I don't think I would have been able to go to college if I hadn't gotten a scholarship. Graduated. And it was just sort of like I'd missed the days by like two. I was over by like two days on the number of days I couldn't miss. Yeah.

And so finally they settled on, okay, well, I have to come to school after everybody's gone and just sit in a chair for the number of days that I missed. And then it would be forgiven. So yeah, I just went and sat in a chair in a room to fulfill a requirement of me. Paperwork. Yeah. Punishment. Exactly. Just like sit here and think about what you've done. in a room to fulfill a requirement of me. Paperwork. Yeah. Punishment. Exactly, just like sit here and think about

what you've done. You meant nothing other than that vice principal could say that you made the days up. Yep. That's ridiculous. But you did it. I did it. And then you went to college.

Yes. Was that a disaster? Sort of. Yes, sort of. Yeah. I feel like in college, all the not fitting in part was just, it was magnified. Amplified. Amplified. Yeah.

So I was on the track and cross country team. At least you had that. Well, that was where the weirdness came in. I never felt like I fit in on the team. Really? Yeah. That's sort of essential for a team. It is, isn't it?

It's the idea of team. Yeah. Why exactly? Well, it all started, my freshman year roommate was this girl named Julie. And Julie is, she was terrifying to me.

Yeah. Just the embodiment of everything terrifying to me in another person. Really like. Just extremely judgmental and unforgiving. And she was cool. I could tell she was cool. Which is bad. Which is, yeah, I mean. Cool, judgmental, unforgiving. I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up with her and i wanted her to like me so bad i just i i wanted to be best friends with her and and have her and have her feel the same way about me that i felt about her yeah and and she didn't yeah and it didn't go well and it's sort of like from there things spiraled like she wasn't on the team though she was just your roommate oh she was on and so um and i don't know what this is all about, but there's this political thing that

happens sometimes where like if somebody doesn't like you, they have to convince other people that they're right. Like that their dislike of you is correct. Yeah. That's kind of, that's a type of bullying. I guess so. It's sort of a campaign. Yeah.

To ostracize you. So she should campaign, campaign against me. She did? Yeah. a campaign yeah so she should campaign campaign against me and she did yeah and tell people oh yeah she is she you know leaves her clothes out of her drawers and doesn't clean up and uh yeah just just weird stuff and it just hurt me deeply when i figured out that this was happening because well yeah because like you already feel yeah awkward and now there's there's actually a reason to feel excluded because she's trying to she's a bully. I suppose so, yeah. Go ahead, it's okay to say it now.

I see, I'm worried that is she going to listen to this? Is she going to feel bad? Am I going to hurt Julie's feelings? What if we could still be friends? How long has it been? Oh gosh, so like 10 years. So you're still worried about Julie liking you? Probably, yeah. I think so. I think there's a part of me that's still like maybe it can happen. what if how long has it been oh gosh so like 10 years so you're still worried about julie liking you probably yeah i think so i think there's a part of me that's still like maybe it can happen

maybe it can maybe maybe someday but wouldn't you rather the scenario be that you run into julie again you're like i don't even want to be with friend now i guess because when i really think about it logically i don't think jul Julie and I would really even get along. Even if she liked me, we just don't share a perspective. We don't have enough in common to have fun together, to be friends. You envied her ability to move through the world. Yeah, and I just took it as she didn't like me and that bothered me. It really bothers me.

I have this thing where I want everybody to like me, and that's how I feel okay. I hide it. You hide it? Well. I've moved on. I think that's the phase I'm in now where I'm trying to sort of, like, cover up that, like, on your belly. I don't want to believe that I want everyone to like me.

Yeah, because it makes you feel weird, right? Yeah, because it's still, like, an indicator that my personality is not defined. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Like that my sense of self is so fragile that like I need, you know, everyone to- Yeah. But like, but I've gone out of my way through most of my career to alienate almost everybody

at some point or another. Yeah. I feel like I do that as well. And I'm an angry person. I, you know, when I get close to people, I put them through horrible trials and tribulations. What does that look like? Well, if I really do get close to somebody, then I constantly feel like I'm either being manipulated or judged or they're lying. Like if somebody really does like me, I'm like, that's bullshit.

You don't really like me. You don't have any of those? I do. I'm less suspicious, less about the lying. But I think that the way that I've dealt with it is I either have to get really close to somebody or I can't really be around them because we have have to sort of tear down walls pretty, pretty early. But this is a friend or a boyfriend or a husband. Yes.

It's something that I get that I get really close to. And then. But isn't it always like one person, though? Yeah. It's just it's one person. Right. So really close to that. And it's like it's you're safe because you think, OK, at this point they've seen enough of me.

Right. That like they, you know, I'm relatively certain that they've seen some real bad stuff and they're still sort of here, so. But haven't those people ever exhausted and sort of had to go like, you gotta find one other friend. You need to, you need, I need,

like, because I used to do a joke about that, like, you only need two friends. You need the main friend. And the backup friend. I saw that one, yeah. You did some research, but that. Oh no no i've been a fan of yours for a while but but that's true right like i've had like i have like i had to pull back from from putting so much to the point where i i don't i keep very few friends like because

at some point i realized like i always lock into one friend, and if they can't be there for me, it's a disaster. See, I feel like I saw that I have a tendency to do that, and I'm so scared of doing it that I get in my own head. And I think that that's where most of the anxiety comes from, is trying to self-police so that I don't get to that point. I'm so afraid of getting to it. Making different choices. I mean, self-police is sort of a, I don't know if it's a negative way, but it's certainly a hard way to make a metaphor for cognitive decision-making.

A lot of times for me, it feels like self-policing where I'll see it like, I'm just always suspicious of myself, always watching myself. Like, are you going to mess this up? What are of myself always watching myself like are you gonna mess this up what are you doing like what what are you doing over there yeah yeah do you have are you able to have a good time yeah yeah now um I feel like within the last couple years

I've made made good progress on feeling more okay with myself I still I my my self-view and my self-talk has turned more into like the way you treat a child. Yeah. Like I very much talk to myself with an understanding tone and that you would talk to like a child who doesn't know what the fuck they're doing. As opposed to a bad parent going like, what are you doing? Yeah, exactly. So it's just like, okay. Okay, look what happened.

Get a towel. Exactly. You made a mess. So, okay. So, Julie, this is a problem. So, you're in college and you're ostracized. Yes. And it was.

And you had to live with her the whole time this was going on? No, I lived with her for about six months. And she finally just, she quote unquote broke up with me. The friend breakup i was like i'm moving she she um she was really angry at me uh for she probably loved you couldn't handle it i don't i don't think so but she she got angry at me which i would later find out the reason for but i i was very confused i just knew that she wasn't talking to me it was awkward because we lived in the same room yeah and i'm very bad at dealing with silent anger.

It's okay if it's coming out, if it's coming directly at me. Because then I can react to it. You can walk into it, yeah. Right, but when it's just sort of like there and I'm forced to be in a room with it. It's the worst. It's passive aggressive. Horrible. Yeah, and I'd even ask her, you know, like, is there something wrong? She's like, no, I'm fine. That's a control thing. Is it? Yeah, because like because like you know she's got you just spinning all the time yeah and

and so there there was a few weeks of that and then finally we went out to coffee and i and i here i was thinking oh maybe we're gonna resolve our differences maybe she's she's taking me out to coffee and we're gonna be friends and she's So sad. And she's like, no, I'm moving out. I was like, oh, okay. Heartache. And then I moved in with a new roommate who was sort of like, she had all of the problems that I have, but like way more. Oh, good.

Well, that's good. Way more. That's helpful. It was helpful. I mean, and we got along and it was stressful living I mean, and we got along. I mean, it was stressful living with her, but I, like, we got along. But it must have provided you, like, at least some ability to see that you're common things, to have something in common with somebody, but to realize, like, wow, this could be a lot worse.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely comforting. And I think she found comfort in the fact that, like, you know, we were both a little bit messy. Yeah. Yeah. Like, but she, in the fact that we were both a little bit messy. Yeah. Well, I was a little bit messy. She would pile, throw garbage away under her bed.

Yeah. We had raised beds, lofted beds. So she couldn't put things in the garbage? Yeah. So she went, when her garbage can would fill up, she would go and buy a new garbage can. Yeah. I know. I went and excavated this entire, there was a pile probably five feet tall of garbage at some point.

Didn't it stink? Oh, it stunk real bad. And this was in the place you lived? Yes, and I'm so non-confrontational. I was just like, yeah, maybe we can do something. You didn't ever go like, do you smell that? No. I was just like, well, maybe we can.

I made it like a group thing. Like, we can start taking out trash. Yeah. Here we go. And we're going to do it. And she wasn't as enthusiastic about it. Oh, my God. How long did you live with her?

About six months again. And then I finally got my own place. What happened to that girl? I don't know. I've not seen her since. I mean, we parted on good terms. Yeah. Like it wasn't...

I don't tend to hold anger in me. I don't resent... Were you able to have relationships with men? Yeah. Oh, I've always found men easy to relate to. I love men. Yeah. Not that I don't love women. I just really, really

love men. Right, but so you had successful relationships with boyfriends and stuff. I always had really good relationships. I'm still good friends with a few of my boyfriends from the past. Huh. Really? Yeah. That's interesting. So they dealt, did you

find that the relationships that you usually find yourself in are like your parents where you find a guy that just adores you and is willing to kind of. That's a good question. I've never actually thought about the answer to that. So maybe. I mean, because my husband is a little bit like that. Like he just really loves me and goes along. And like, I mean, like, I definitely pull my weight in the relationship I right sure

he you know I helped him learn how to communicate and how to he didn't know how to talk he he wasn't good at it he uh he would when he'd start having feelings he just sort of like panic and shut down and then not want to like I don't know what's And look at the ground or just walk away. Yeah, or just try to, like, shove it away and distract himself until, like, the crisis was relatively. The crisis of having a feeling? Yeah. That's hard to get through. Because he didn't know what would happen if he acknowledged it,

if he, like, said, okay, I'm having a feeling. Any feeling. Yeah, like, any bad feeling, any, like, you know, so if he was stressed or sad or something like um right he he had he has an interesting relationship with with grief if he's ever grieving somebody it's it's hard for him to deal with um and yeah so he just tries to like put it away which obviously doesn't let you yeah work on it's not good right well there's that that one chapter in

Hyperbole and a Half where he's upset and you realize he's upset but you don't really want to deal with it. I know that feeling, that self-consciousness of sort of like, oh God, I'm doing something else and now I got it. Alright, I'm with them and there's a problem.

We very much have a the way our relationship economy works is he does the like detail stuff. He does the responsibility stuff, like pays the bills. And I'm the emotional responsibility person. You feel for both of you? I feel, and I help, I help him sort stuff out. So we both, we do separate, separate things. You work that out?

Not, I mean, we just sort of realized that that's how the, how the chips fell. What's he do? He's working on becoming a game designer. That's sort of his dream. Computer games? No, board games. Really? Like tabletop games, yeah.

He's working on becoming one? Yeah, he decided we were both heading toward a career in science. You met him in college? Yeah, we met freshman year of college. You've been with him since oh that's a long run yeah it's 10 years now so you're okay so let's get back to that then so you were studying biology yes and and what how'd that hit the wall hit hit the wall i mean how'd you decide that wasn't your thing um i i just sort of i saw myself dreading the idea of having a career where I show up

and, and have a list of things that I have to do. I just, I just knew I saw, here's how it worked. I saw, I saw this life and I know, I know myself well enough to know when I'm, when I'm going to fail, when I'm just totally going to fuck something up. And I knew just every day that I got closer to this reality, it was just like, I'm going to ruin my own life. I know that I'm not going to be able to stick with this long enough to actually be successful with it. I just know this about myself. I don't have the capacity to do this.

Well, that's an important thing to know to not self-sabotage because you could have had a whole miserable life. Yeah, I think I probably would have been pretty miserable. And it was just the science part of science. Well, I wanted to be a doctor because somewhere in my identity, I love the idea of being a doctor. I love the concept of it. Right. What kind would you have been?

of it right um what kind would you have been i liked um probably an internist of some sort like diagnostic yeah um helping people yeah so i like the idea so like helping people is very important to my identity it's very important for me to see myself as somebody yeah that's a very funny chapter too where you're like uh like just seeing yourself as maybe being that is sort of enough yeah i'm like a pathological helper i love helping in your head yeah but do you do in real life i oh i do it um oh yeah like i i love when like if my friends have a problem that's the only time i can feel useful to my friends when they're having problems in their lives so like i secretly love it when my friends will call me like, oh, I had this thing that I need your help to get through.

Oh, you need my help? I can help you. Let me set aside some time for the rest of the day, week, month. And do you find yourself helpful? My friends tell me that I'm helpful. I don't know if they're just being nice. But I definitely put a lot of work into it because I want to actually be helpful.

What do you mean you put work into it? Oh, into being there for them. Yeah, because for me, it's not like I have to go beyond just convincing myself that I'm helping to where I can see that, oh, if I can see that I have helped, then it helps me convince myself more that I'm being helpful.

But do you fight the urge to sort of go like, remember that time I helped you? That's pretty good. Yeah, I don't that I have helped, then it helps me convince myself more that I'm being helpful. But do you fight the urge to sort of go like, remember that time I helped you? That's pretty good. Yeah, I don't think I bring it up because I know that if I did that, it would negate my ability to feel good about it. Because you- Because I'd know that I was-

You'd just be selfish. Yeah, I'd catch on to myself. Right. And so I'm always playing this game where I have to stay a step ahead of myself so that I don't see the game I'm playing. Like every day? Every day, every every day I'm always trying to like figure out how to how to be this thing in my identity without alerting myself to the fact that I'm trying to be it yeah so I can enjoy being it right and that's that requires some sort of vigilance

doesn't it? Oh, yeah. But it's tough being vigilant without realizing you're being vigilant. It's sort of like this weird. Right. I guess maybe you've been doing it long enough to where it's second nature. I suppose so. Thank God.

Yeah. All right. So you turn your back on science. Mm-hmm. So you turn your back on science. Mm-hmm. And you're dating this dude, and he wanted to be science, too. Yeah.

And you both have this realization around the same time? Mine was earlier than his. Yeah. So mine, I actually, in this crisis situation where I was seeing my impending career. Doom. Yeah, my doom that I'm just going to totally mess this all up, I know it. So this was right after I graduated from college. And I mentioned that I ran track and cross country in college. Yeah.

So my idea was, you know what, I'm gonna try to be a professional runner. That was my career plan originally. That's a good job. Oh yeah, I'm sure. What does that even mean? Okay, so you go to races and if you do well, you get prizes, which can range from like $10,000 to a pumpkin. I won a pumpkin before.

That's not a good job. No, you can't support yourself with a pumpkin. Yeah. Also product endorsement, free shoes, that kind of stuff. Yeah, I guess. So, so that was sort of what I was angling toward.

Yeah. Because it, that's what I felt like my options were at the time. And it's very immediate for people like us. Yes, exactly. It's like, I'm running already.

Another immediate thing. Right. But the pumpkin, was that the deal breaker? No, the deal breaker was I hurt my Achilles tendon. God damn it. And I couldn't,

so that I was unemployed and sort of just. Couldn't fulfill the occupation dream. No. And then so, yeah. At this point, we had moved to a little town called Hamilton, Montana. Because my husband got a job working in a biomedical research laboratory there. And the reason it was there is because it had the Ebola virus at the research station.

And it needed to be in a very remote, tiny town so that if something went wrong, it would only kill like 3,000 people and not... So that's where he worked? That's where he was working. And so we're living in this itty-bitty little town in the middle of nowhere, Montana. You're a victim of the Ebola virus in some weird way.

Yeah, in some weird way. Your isolation was because of this virus. Yeah, I like how he's going to blame it on now. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. That part of your life was because of Ebola. Fuck Ebola. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so this was a sort of depressing time period of my life. And that's when I sort of started writing. But is that, when did you start experiencing what you now know to be clinical depression? When did you start experiencing what you now know to be clinical depression? Probably, I feel like on some low level, it was during college. Right. On some very low level, but it became bad in like 2010. You had reasons to be depressed. You were isolated.

Yeah. So then I actually had reasons. Right. And then it just- It's hard to say that that way because, yeah, it's tough to say because there were reasons. Yeah, so then I actually had reasons. Right, and then it just- It's hard to say that that way because, yeah, it's tough to say because there were reasons. All right, so this was the dark time.

Yeah, it was sort of a dark time. And then, I don't know, maybe for me, I've wondered, you know, why do I want to do comedy? And I think it's another identity thing. It's an approval-seeking thing. I think that approval-seeking- But it's also a way, I think that's minimizing it.. It's an approval-seeking thing. I think that approval-seeking. But it's also a way.

I think that's minimizing it. Well, for me, I was. I'm going to tell you you're wrong about you right now. Okay. I think it's also a way of having a point of view. Yeah. It's a way of disarming things. That's true.

It's a way of self-acceptance. It's a way of communicating with others. It's a way of understanding. It's a way of dealing with others it's a way of understanding it's a way of dealing with sadness anger yeah fear i mean it definitely is a lot of things yeah i'm wondering i think that the the motivation to start may have started with the selfish for me the started with a selfish like i just want i want to make i'm not denying your experience i'm just like i don't want you to undersell yourself or comedy.

No, I think you're correct. Now it's become, it's become more. But that moment you decided it was selfish. Yeah, it was, it was sort of, I wanted to do this thing. I was feeling bad, feeling bad about myself. Yeah. And the, the way I decided to deal with this was to sort of put myself out there in a very. But, but, but also there in a very, but,

but, but also, but it's, but, but there's a, there's something in between putting yourself out there and, and, and your selfish,

your idea of selfishness is that it seems to me what you realize in that moment is that you were an artistic person. You were a creative person. You were somebody that wanted to express yourself. Yeah. Yeah. So like, so that's,

you know, you don't want to miss that part. Yeah. Is that this is, this is the birth of an artist it's not just like i didn't feel good and i was selfish and i needed everyone to see me yeah i mean like maybe i am minimizing it but yeah i i definitely when i think back to it i i definitely view it as this and maybe maybe this reveals something about my self-view. I feel very guilty about stuff like this, about wanting. Because my relationship with attention is sort of weird. I crave it, but I feel horrible about craving it.

So I sort of try to support that. That's better than me. I crave it and I feel horrible about getting it. Yeah. I think you're in a healthier place. I also feel pretty horrible about getting it sometimes because then it's just like, well, it's like screaming for attention

and then suddenly the spotlight's on you. It's like, wait, what was my plan here? And then once you create something everybody likes, there's expectation. I mean, that's the next level of it. It's like, when's your new book coming out? Yeah. How come there's not a new blog post up?

And you're like, what? Well, right. I wanted all the good stuff without having like the responsibility of it uh-huh all right so so you start doing this so like in that moment that where you took this selfish step to uh to uh get attention yeah that's when he started playing around with the paintbrush and when he started so i was just writing at first so you started with just essays yeah so just just journaling yes sort of journaling i like i wrote i think the first thing i published was like an So I was just writing at first. So you started with just essays? Yeah, so just writing. Journaling. Yeah, sort of journaling.

I think the first thing I published was an open letter to my neighbors who were just annoying sorts of neighbors. Who were your inspirations for doing this? I mean, because you were always conscious that you were doing comedy and you were writing comedy and you were writing funny things. So who sort of gave you the idea that you could do that? I mean, I've always been really into stand-up comedy yeah and uh i've i've never felt for some reason i've never felt that i could personally do it i actually think there there was some blog that i'd seen or maybe it was like a

i i know i had read a lot of like the like cra Craigslist. I was reading that. And then somebody wrote like a blog or a Tumblr where they had chronicled their experience living with like the worst landlord in the history of landlords. And I think that that was the one that was like, hey, this is a person just writing something on the internet. Well, that's interesting.

Nobody gave him permission to do it. He just did it. Right. And that's a generational difference in me. Like, you know, this stuff was out there and you were sort of consuming it and you could see that you could do it he just did it right and that's a like that's a generational difference in me like you know there this stuff was out there and you were sort of consuming it and you could see that you could do it yeah easily and so i was like well i want to see what happens if i try to do this um and so i just started putting stuff out there um with what was the name of the site was just on the tumblr hyperbole and a half it was always yeah so it was always that i I don't know how I feel about the name now,

but I know that when I was creating my blog, there was a form thing that I had to fill out the name of it before I was allowed to go further. Yeah. And I just wanted to get to the part where I could start writing. I was in one of those moments where I have to write now. Yeah. And so I just thought of the first semi-clever thing I could think of.

And that's what it is? That's what it's been ever since. It's stuck. It just ever since. Stuck. Just sort of stuck, yeah. So you're writing, and you're starting to get reactions pretty quickly? Yeah, I think that people started trickling in. I remember being really excited

when I had like eight followers. Yeah. It was like eight entire people out in the ether are following me, are paying attention to what I'm doing. Right, right. And you knew their names, or at least their screen names. Yeah, yeah.

Did you interact with them? Yeah, I read their stuff. Yeah, yeah. And they read my stuff. So how long did you just write before you were like, what was the decision to start illustrating? So the decision I, because I feel like stand-up was a huge influence on me and I was very frustrated that I couldn't. You never tried it.

I tried it. It was embarrassing to me. I've recorded, I've actually like worked out whole routines and recorded myself doing stand-up alone. I love the idea of people doing stand-up, rehearsing stand-up. Years ago,

there was this comedy booking agency that used to book me on gigs, and the woman who ran it would get submission tapes. And there was this tape of this guy who obviously had a friend with a record of the sound of laughter, of candle laughter. So it was just him in a basement against a wall and he was doing his act and then you just hear his friend drop the needle on the record of people laughing it was a fucking masterpiece all right so

you're obsessed with the stand-up thing yes but because I like the I feel like when when you're communicating with someone live, you have a lot more access to other comedic tools, like facial expressions, body posture, tone of voice. And it was driving me a little bit crazy that I didn't have those things. And immediacy. Yeah, and immediacy. And so for me, the drawings were a way to bring bring in a little bit of that physicality to it. Put a facial expression in there that's like this is the tone that I'm attempting to convey. And you've never done any drawing?

I've done a lot of drawing. I drew a ton growing up. It was something you liked to do. Yeah, yeah. And I got pretty good at it, I'd say. Like I used to read comics occasionally and graphic novels, but the experience of the emotions of these illustrations, you know, just sort of really hammers it. Because, I mean, you can read the joke and the joke will stand fine,

but then when you keep going back and forth from, you know, the writing to the character, you know, it just keeps amplifying itself. It's a rare gift you have. Thank you. I'm really bad at fielding praise. All right. I'm not going to. Well, the question then is,

you've had profound success with this. I mean, I don't know how the book is selling, but I know that the blog is extremely popular and I was the one, you know, the people, I talked to Pia, I said, I'm interviewing her and they're like but I know that the blog is extremely popular. And I was the one, the people I talked to, I said, I'm interviewing her and they're like, do you read the blog? I'm like, there's a blog? I have the book. I have the book. And so now I just read the latest one up there about the dinosaur costume, which is hilarious. Thank you. The way that you're able, again, to sort of track your inner conflict uh and and find some resolution as

an adult through these childhood experiences do you do you do you find you still have a resource of those left that i still have material left from from my childhood yeah yeah so um i'm in the middle of writing a batch of stories for my second book now um how did this do the book it did well yeah um it's it surprised me i wasn't really expecting anything you're just sort of well i for my second book now. How'd this do, the book? It did well. Yeah, good. It surprised me. I wasn't really expecting anything. Well, I give to somebody who actually reads some of it to her kid.

That's cool. But there's an ability to do that. A kid of a certain age can probably identify with your childhood experiences. It's not dark in the way that you can. Like a sophisticated kid can take it in and find it hilarious, especially the dog stories.

Do you still have both those dogs? Yep, still have them both. They're still as messed up as ever. So you experienced the first wave of depression in 2010. And you stopped writing for a while? Yeah, so i'd say it reached a point in like it 2010 is when the descent started and it reached ahead in like late 2011 early 2012 that's when that's when things were really bad for me and you were incapacitated totally incapacitated suicidal just all of that. It was awful.

And so, yeah, that's when things were the absolute worst. And what did you do to help yourself? Through the pleading of my mother and my husband, I went to a doctor and got put on antidepressants. And they took a long time to start working, but they eventually helped. It was sort of like a to me it felt like a the effect of like a pain reliever on on pain where you can tell what's under there you can tell that you're that something's not right but it's dulled and so that that's how my experience

of antidepressants was but you were resistant to it resistant to the idea of antidepressants well at first i mean because like i don't need that it's not gonna yeah not gonna make a difference but somebody who's so involved with their head, the idea of altering your head, even though you were uncomfortable, must have been like, well, then how can I trust anything? Exactly. And I eventually just had to get desperate enough. Like, I don't even want to be alive right now. This is obviously. How did your husband put up with that?

how'd your husband put up with that uh he was it was hard for him just because like i think it's difficult to see somebody you love just in such a dark spot yeah and and he there was some degree of helplessness i think he he couldn't do anything and then also to sort of realize that it's got nothing to do with you it's got to be a struggle yeah that there's nothing there's nothing he can do to help there's nothing he can yeah and it. There's nothing he can... Yeah, it's tough to separate that like, oh, because I'm so flat that there's nothing wrong in the relationship. There was one thing you wrote in here just in relation to my father about,

you know, seeing somebody who's like that and not, you know, and not understanding what there's a flatness to them that you can feel. You know, I mean, you must have experienced some of that with your sister over your life. Yeah, yeah. That the despondency.

Yes. Because I can tell when my dad's there within a second. It's just like it's gone. Yeah, you said it sucks the air out of the room. It just sort of like. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, i guess if you haven't experienced it yourself or seen it and other people it's it's really hard to explain but i

think you did a good job with it thank you so did you stay on the medicine um i actually just recently went off of it um and i feel it's been about three weeks and i feel good i feel normal got you hopefully it lasts yeah Yeah, I hope so. But either way, I got you in a good window here. Yeah. Oh, yeah. This is the first time I've felt more myself in like four years. Who knows how long it's going to last.

So you did all the writing about it afterwards once you leveled off. Got a little distance from it. Yes. But it was fresh enough to really have the feelings be tangible enough to communicate it so well in the book. And I was still in it to some degree. I mean, I still felt depressed, just not, I wasn't bottomed out. You weren't unable to do anything.

Yeah. But I think that, because you can feel the immediacy of it, but obviously you had some distance in order to have some hindsight. I wrote during the time. Sometimes because I just didn't know what else to do. And so I'd sit down and write. And it was, you know, in the form that it came out of me originally, it was very not funny at all. Right.

But were you able to use that later? Yes. I was able to go back and look at it. So it was almost like, you know, I'm in hell. Yeah. There's nothing funny about this. But I got to do this. And then later you were able to contextualize it with some hindsight. Good.

Yeah. We talked earlier about your sister's illness in bipolar and that she ended her life. And how are you processing? What happened? um how how are you processing what happened she um so on on new year's eve she drove her car in front of a train and that's that's how it ended on new year's eve new year's eve yeah i've i've lived with some bipolar in my family and there's always a sort of threat of that happening but i mean had she been suicidal before she she had she'd made a couple attempts oh she had um and never it was my the way my mom referred to it was like practice suicides where she would do something but it was

clear that like she wanted to have an out just in case she changed her mind but was the the consensus or the feeling in the family that that she was probably going to do that and that there was nothing anyone could do to stop it if she wanted to? We always sort of feared it, but yeah, especially since it had happened a couple times, like she made a couple attempts,

but it never felt like she was really... Committed? Yeah, it didn't feel like she was really... But it wasn't a cry for help thing? No, this... because why couldn't they get her medicated they tried she kept going off of the medic she had a really hard time accepting that she needed the medication because she didn't like to she didn't like to see herself as somebody sick and also when they're manic they right you start feeling better about it

and and this was this was a depressive episode. She had recently tried to change up her medications and it just wasn't working. She had been... It was a couple months where she was just totally, you know, didn't have any emotional variation whatsoever, just felt bored and detached all the time. And I talked to her on the phone a few times

just because like i've i've also been suicidally depressed and we were able to talk a little bit about it but you know i didn't feel like anything i could have said really would have helped much at that point right that's just horrible when it. And, and you all knew that's what it was. It wasn't an accident. Yeah. Um, and then it's just so weird. Like it, it just brought up a lot of weird stuff. You know, I was pretty horribly depressed at that time period as well. And so I was having a hard time, um, figuring out my emotions around it. And then, you know, it brings up this whole thing where like, you know, my know my parents knew that i had been suicidal at some point and suddenly they um there was this weird conversation where when i first got home for the funeral my dad gripped me by my shoulders and

looked at me in the face just crying he say you can't kill yourself you can't do this to you you're all we have left really and it's also like this pressure and i it's sort of a fucked up moment because my immediate thought was well fuck like now what am i going to use to comfort myself when things get like now i'm not now i'm not allowed to like well you can think about it yeah but now there's this weird thing of like you know my dad's sobbing face holding my holding me by the shoulders. Well, thank God. Because no one wants you to kill yourself.

But if that's going to be what's going to stop you from doing it, that's fine. See, I mean, there have only been a few, maybe just the one time where I really seriously considered doing it. Other times it's more just been a, it's comforting to me. Yeah, I used to do a joke about that yeah that there's an out well yeah the joke i used to do was um you know uh you know i i i thought about suicide i didn't really want to kill myself i just found it

comforting to know that i could if i had to yeah because it's that moment where you're like why does everything have to hey yeah i could always kill myself it's another control thing right why i i actually tag it by saying it's the spiritual reprieve of the faithless. Yeah, there you go. It's dark. But yeah, it's sort of like the way you can let go. And if people who are religious have that and like, oh, there's a God, I can put my trust in this higher power.

Or that things will get better. Yeah, that things will get better. And like, it's like, well, if they get too bad, at least I can, at least I have an out. Right. Well, they have God. Yeah. We have suicide. Yes.

Suicidal rumination. I don't think that's a community builder, you know. No, no, no, not at all. No church for that necessarily. Well, I'm sorry you went through that. But so now as somebody who, how are you going to approach it? Are you going to approach it in your work? I want to write about it at some point. I feel like it's important for my process of getting through it and sorting things out.

And I mean, there's stuff that came up in me and in my family that I never would have thought of, you know, as far as grieving goes, where it's like, you know, I, the way, the way that I work through things is I just talk them to death.

Like when I, when I'm stuck psychologically at a, at a point where it's like, I just kept replaying the scene of like what her last moments must have been like. And I just over and over and over obsessively for days and weeks you have that morbid thoughts thing yeah uh definitely like my brain immediately goes to like the most morbid horrifying way that it could have that it could have played out and repeats that that's an ocd thing right it i suppose it probably has that too

bamford has the morbid thought yeah where it's in brain just does that. And so it's like, okay, well, I'm obviously stuck at some point and I need to move past it. And one interesting thing I found out is that, so when people were expressing sympathy to me, I get all these emails and stuff and messages and phone calls from people being like, i'm so sorry that this happened and i noticed myself feeling almost guilty like i was like oh i don't deserve this i don't deserve your pity i don't deserve this and i and i looked back at like my sister in my relationship we weren't especially close growing up i mean we had we had resolved our differences pretty much at this point, but, um, I felt like from, from an outside perspective, I felt like, oh, I shouldn't be as sad as I'm feeling, um, because of, we were a little bit distant, but then I was feeling like all of this, this genuine grief, but I wouldn't let myself sort of experience it because it's like, oh, you don't deserve to feel that. You don't, like you weren't close enough to her to feel, to feel that. So I didn't, I didn't like let myself go with it.

And so I was just stuck until I could talk it out and realize that that's what's happening. And like, no, I really am feeling these, these things. Like I really did love her. And yeah, so that was one of the interesting things that happened is just like, I didn't expect myself to react that way. Well, I think it's, isn't that something that the human brain does that you're,

you're, you know, I think that grief is so tricky that you don't want to be consumed with it. So, so something's going to, to distract you. It's the denial, maybe not denial, but it's some version of the five,

you know, that you're going to feel these different levels of this and the grief will kind of come up as it does unless you're really good at repressing it and then God knows what's going to happen. You sort of have to ease into it like a hot tub. Yeah, yeah. I think so, a hot tub. Yeah. Yeah. I think so.

In a hot tub of your tears. Yes. A hot tub made entirely, filled entirely with tears. That's how you know you've been. I couldn't cry actually. I didn't cry until maybe two weeks after it had happened.

I was so depressed and so emotionally like dead inside that I couldn't, and it was really frustrating to me because I saw myself not like not crying. I felt awful inside. And you were beating yourself up for not crying. For not crying.

It's like, this is not a normal, this is what a psychopath would be like if they were in this experience, having this experience. Well, that's that piece in the book that my dad at his father's funeral was sort of manic. And it was really disconcerting. Yeah.

So you're probably- Just making jokes, making aroundsting yeah so you're making jokes yeah yeah you're probably it's probably better the other way yeah where i'm just like well yeah i can't i can't feel anything and you know finally at the funeral i was able to to cry and it felt really good to have it come out and you know and it came out all at once it just hit me like oh that's good well that must i was gonna say like a train but that's and it, did it shake you from your depression at all? Um, I don't think it shook me from it, but it, it gave me some important insights into it. You know, just like that one, when, when you're really depressed, you don't feel like you can take anything beyond the particular brand of misery that you're already experiencing.

And then there's this thing. And 2013 was just sort of a fuck of a year for me. I also had a personal cancer scare, major surgery, a bunch of stuff. Just a ton of stuff happened. I got in this almost victim mindset of i'm experiencing this horrible thing and then everything is happening on top of it like that shouldn't happen that's not that's not fair but there's no like universal justice system right so like there's nothing governing whether that can happen or not do you want me to confirm yeah sure yeah there is no you know you're you're you're

just another person yeah just another person so there's not there's nothing like oh well you know clearly you've had it pretty hard so're going to go easy on you for a little while. There's none of that. But there is the human capacity to sort of get through things. Yes. And to integrate things and to survive and to flourish and to learn from and to realize that that's really it. That's better than being the victim mindset. Yeah.

Is that like, Jesus Christ, I survived that at the worst time. Exactly. And so I think that that's the good that has come out of it. And looking back, it's like, wow, I'm pretty resilient. Yeah. I can, like, if I can make it through all that and still, it makes me a little bit less anxious and scared about the future because I've seen like, okay, well, make it through this this clusterfuck of a year sure a cancer scare or or having surgery for cancer and losing a sibling is about as bad as it gets and and yeah and so

and it and it and you know it was horrible but i know that i can get through it sure and you know not and now that i'm experiencing this this reprieve of relative normalcy, it's a good thing to have because I can see that I've made it through that horrible stretch to this little island of safety where I am now. Yeah, you have a resilient spirit. Yeah. That's where your selfishness helps out. Exactly.

How are your parents, all right? It's hard to tell. My mom is, she always puts on the strong face. Like she never wants to let me know that she's, because she's a mom to her very core. She's the most mommiest mom person you can imagine. And so she, when it all happened, she didn't want to freak me out didn't want to so she

you know obviously the first day it was it was she was sobbing uncontrollably but uh later i'd say hello how are you and she'd say i'm i'm doing okay you know but i but i know from knowing her that that's less than true i I think now she's better, but she has days where she's not feeling okay. And you can be there for her in those? Yeah. I try to be. I try to make myself available to her,

but she still has this thing where like, I'm the child, she's the parent. She doesn't want to, she feels like she's putting it on me. And I don't, to me, I'm pathologically helpful. I love helping. I want her to sort of unload some putting it on me. To me, I'm pathologically helpful. I love helping. I want her to sort of unload some of that on me.

You are. Even if she doesn't let you. Yeah. Despite being on the phone, probably. Yeah. Well, I'm going to second your father and say you can't kill yourself. All right. Okay.

You're the only one left. Now I'm going to see your face. Put both of us there. I'm sure sure your husband you can add his face yeah yeah just add a bunch of add a whole bunch of faces just yeah just say no no no go make a a thing yeah just go go do something else yeah go to go draw your thing but here's the the question is that has any of because what i found from from gaining some success doing my own thing and doing this was that there was a component that was always missing for me which was a a sense of genuine validation and self-esteem because of the effect

it has you know outside of me like i i you know a lot all of this work lives outside of me. Like I, you know, a lot, all of this work lives outside of you and you get some feedback and that's validating but the fact that you've, you know, created this thing and that you continue to create it,

has that given you some chunk of yourself and your identity? I think so. I mean, it's given me something to sort of attach onto which is helpful

because like it's sort of like an anchoring point. Like I'm out there sort of like I don't know what my sense of self is doing but then there's this thing that can just sort of like an anchoring point. Like I'm out there sort of like, I don't know what my sense of self is doing, but then there's this thing that can just sort of, I can anchor it to.

But are you proud of yourself? That, I don't know. I think so. Like I'm happy with it. I'm happy with it. I look at, I think I'm a little bit scared to be proud of myself because that sort of,

I've learned to be timid of those sorts of situations where I can sit back and be like, I'm, I'm proud of this. Why? Cause you just think like, it'll make you just full of arrogance and, and maybe,

maybe, maybe I, I recognize that tendency in myself and I don't want to, don't want to give myself the opportunity. But, but, but wait, but see,

I have this struggle too. It's like, why can't we be happy with ourselves? I mean, like why, what, what is the threat of saying like, I did a good job. Like, then we're going to stop? Well, I think that I use, I manipulate myself very much.

Like the best self-control I have over myself is sort of this like fear that I can instill in myself. So if I sit back and feel like I've done a good job, I think somewhere deep down, I'm afraid that i'm gonna become complacent and that i'm no longer gonna have this this like cattle prod tool of fear that i've been using to drive myself yeah but i mean how is it why wouldn't you call it self-hatred i mean i think that there's certainly some degree of that as well, where I feel like I have to.

I mean, fear is reasonable, but to sort of go like, nah, you're still not quite there yet. No, good try. Well, I mean, so do you ever look, I feel like I go through this cycle roughly every two to four years, where I look back at myself from two or four years ago, and it's just, oh my God, what was I doing? And I'm so ashamed of that person from years ago. And so I live with this constant suspicion that I'm going to feel that way looking back at now in two years, four years from now. And so maybe that's one reason why I don't want to be wrong.

I don't want to be like, oh, I did a good job and then be wrong in four years i want to be like oh i called it i called it i knew i was yeah but that's like uh but that's like a no-win situation yeah i'm not saying it's logical no it's not it's anxiety it's dread yes it's um it's all that stuff that you grew up with it's fear of judgment it's fear exactly not being cool and and you don't want to all of a sudden feel happy and then be told by who I don't know that you were wrong. Yeah, so it's like a preemptive defense mechanism. I know, but don't you think you,

don't you have, I mean, I would imagine through writing through your childhood and through the depression that there is some self-acceptance. I mean, you can't. Yeah, there definitely is some degree of it um i i feel more comfortable with myself i feel like i have ironed out a little bit more of who i am yeah no i'm definitely not there yet but i feel i know i feel more comfortable being in being in my head right but you know what the weird thing is and i think this is something i can relate to only because I'm hearing you talk about this.

And is that like you might be the only one that thinks this shit because, I mean, you're not some sort of weird boundaryless drifting person. Like, you know, I definitely have a sense of yours, of you right now. I've been talking to you an hour and a half. And, you know, there wasn't one point where I'm like, you know, oh, my God, she's just not clear on her personality. It's weird. The room is filled up with this weirdness. That's good to hear. Right.

But like a lot of times I talk about how angry I am and how fucked up I am. Yeah, I've done some shitty things in my life. And I've acted out of both, you know, selfishness, sadness, self-loathing, anger, whatever. You know, but for the most part, most people are like, I'm not seeing this idea you have of you. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's sort of the impression I have of you is that you don't seem like, cause I've, I've read a lot of your materials, your standup and yeah, you just seem like a genuine guy. Right. So why can't we accept that about ourselves? Wow. Is that like 10 feet above the garage? It's real close.

Wow. We almost died. Yeah, I know. I'm glad we made it through. It almost crashed into the... Yeah, it was so close. That would have been such an amazing ending

for both of us. Yeah. Something completely out of our control for no apparent reason takes us out in the middle of a conversation about whether or not

we can accept ourselves or have any control over the future. It's just like a point, like an exclamation point. A no ourselves to have any control over the future it's just like a point like an exclamation point a no you cannot have that control over the future that's right never have control it's over now i guess it's good as long as we're not running from something yeah because then the you ask all these questions that there's like no answer to you know like what's well i think that's what's great about the book and about you know the type of people we are in terms of what our creativity is. And I'm just comparing myself to you because I relate to you.

It's just that that's what it is. They're really not answerable. But it seems like that asking them and living through them is something that people relate to. And that conversation is not really had that often. Right. And it's what I appreciate about your work as well. And I appreciate about yours. Hey.

And I think this was good. You feel like we covered it? I think so. Yeah, this was good. It's great talking to you. You too. How was that? Was that amazing?

She came down from the mountains. She came down from the hills. She came down from the north to talk to me. I love her. I love her. I had a great time talking to her. Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTF

bees knees. Get the app. You're just getting into this. Get the app. Do it up. What else? Oh, yeah. Christmas is coming up. We're going to stock up the merch store. I think we're bringing back the Cat Negotiations t-shirt.

We're bringing back the Boomer Lives t-shirts by request. I think Brian's going to make a few more mugs. I'll let you know when that happens. Thank you. Thank you. boomer lives Boomer lives! at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5pm in Rock City at torontorock.com. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors,

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