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Refocusing Jurassic Park's Feminist Lens (with special guest Hannah McGregor)
108 Plays1 month ago
This week on a very special episode of "Friendless", join host James Avramenko as he sits down with the insightful Hannah McGregor, author and co-host of the popular podcast "Material Girls." Hannah, who penned "Clever Girl," shares her feminist analysis of Jurassic Park, diving into her unique perspective on the beloved classic.
In this in-depth conversation, Hannah opens up about her personal journey moving to Vancouver and the challenges she faced in building a community from scratch amidst social anxiety and panic attacks. James and Hannah also explore their preferences for horror genres, discuss their favourite childhood places, and the ethical complexities of zoos and museums.
Listeners will gain insight into Hannah’s ideal weekend relaxation plans, a humorous take on velociraptors in human suits, and the importance of fostering community and friendship in meaningful ways. The episode is brimming with humor, intellectual discourse, and practical advice on managing social anxiety, self-criticism, and the significance of personalized gestures in friendships.
Discover Hannah’s thoughts on friendship dynamics, and the valuable concept of emotional capacity in support networks. This episode is a rich blend of academic reflection and light-hearted banter, perfect for those looking to understand the nuances of community building and feminist perspectives on popular media.
Don’t miss Hannah’s professional insights and James' enthusiastic recommendation of "Clever Girl." Tune in to hear their candid discussion on vulnerability, societal pressures, and the transformative power of analytic essays. Be sure to check the show notes for links to Hannah’s work and other featured artists.
Links:
- Follow Hannah McGregor on Instagram: @hkpmcgregor
- Purchase "Clever Girl" (Not from Amazon)
- Learn more about Hannah's work
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#FriendlessPodcast #HannahMcGregor #CleverGirl #FeministAnalysis #CommunityBuilding #EmotionalCapacity
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Transcript
Introduction and Feminist Analysis of Jurassic Park
00:00:08
Speaker
Well, hey there, sweet peas. Welcome back, friendless. I'm your host, James Avramenko, and this week I had the absolute pleasure to interview Hannah McGregor. Hannah is the co-host of the podcast Material Girls, amongst the many others, and is the author of Clever Girl, the latest entry in the pop classic series that analyzes Jurassic Park as a feminist parable. The book is incredible, and Hannah was an absolute joy to interview. This was an instant favorite to record, and I think you're gonna love it, so it's time to lean back.
00:00:36
Speaker
Get comfy, set your volume at a reasonable level, and enjoy my interview with the one and only Hannah McGregor, here on Friendless.
Weekend Plans and Video Game Preferences
00:00:48
Speaker
So this week on Friendless, I have such an exciting guest. I'm so, I'm just, all week I've been just giddy to chat with um Hannah McGregor, who is the author of my current obsession, ah Clever Girl, which is a analysis of Jurassic Park in the pop classic series, which is one of my favorite ongoing series, which is what kind of initially caught my eye. And then um and then it was Jurassic Park and it just,
00:01:17
Speaker
And then the book itself just absolutely blew my mind. And so welcome, Hannah. How the hell are you today? Thank you so much for having me. I am delighted that it is the end of my week. It's been a a pretty silly week, I gotta say. I gotta say it's been one of those like, um,
00:01:36
Speaker
I sure wish I wasn't an adult with so many adult jobs and responsibilities. Seems like a rip off. But now I've got a weekend where I don't have to do a single responsible thing. Like I totally am just going to like, like loaf on my couch and play video games and smoke weed and eat pizza. Like it's just going to be a dirt bag weekend and I i couldn't be more thrilled for it.
00:02:03
Speaker
Oh my god, i like I'm feeling like contact joy for you for that, you know? are you what are you What are you playing right now? Do you do you have anything loaded up? i am i yeah I do. I am on my second playthrough of Cult of the Lamb, which is... Do you know this game? ah You know, it was free on the PSN recently and I've got it downloaded, but it's in my backlog, so I haven't actually loaded it up yet, but it's it's I'm gonna get there.
00:02:29
Speaker
I love it. It's a resource management game, which is my jam. I really like sort of games with very little stress in them where you're just sort of doing a bunch of little tasks. Um, but this one has a really fun sort of like horror cult skin on it. So you're like a little, an adorable little anthropomorphic lamb, but you're starting a cult to worship an ancient unnamed God. And you create doctrines in your cult and those doctrines include things like cannibalism.
00:02:58
Speaker
you can just like create a doctrine where like actually everybody really loves eating the meat of people who you've slaughtered. ah So it's like fun and cute and also like really, really spooky season appropriate. Yes. Oh my God. This sounds right up my alley. I, I, um, I finally am being a big brave boy and I'm playing the, the silent Hill to remake. That was my scary oh boy. I'm like, I'm like two hours in and I'm already like, what have I done? I don't, I don't, you know, like I.
00:03:30
Speaker
There are moments of self-loathing in my day, but like this feels like extra punishment, you know? I can't i really can't do actual horror. um it just it's it's um It's too scary
Horror Films and Monster Movies Discussion
00:03:43
Speaker
for me. I like a um a monster movie quite a lot.
00:03:48
Speaker
maybe Perhaps why I'm such a fan of Jurassic Park um big So like I also really liked nope, right Jordan Peele's movie, which is also a monster movie. I love the alien Franchise like I'm i'm down with monsters but ghosts zombies Human murderers. I'm yeah real life scared of all those things It's so interesting. I'm I feel like I You kind of land on the opposite side. ah if You brought up Alien, the Alien series. I mean, I i understand. I know Alien and Aliens are perfect movies. I can totally recognize that. And at the same time to you, anything with slimy tentacles. you know like and And actually, Alien alien has the one-two punch of my two least favorite things, which is slimy tentacles and mouth stuff. Anything that's like you know really getting- It's really mouth-centric.
00:04:40
Speaker
It's so mouse-centric and it's just like, ooh, I've had enough of that, you know? See, i'm I'm fine with a monster that is gross. I can't deal with like human body horror. Like anything weird happening to the human body other than just getting munched. Fine, I'm fine with a human getting munched. No worries about that. We're made out of meat, this does not concern me. But like, if something weird starts happening, I'm like, no, thank you.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, stuff's come out of the wrong places. Keep it it's in the right places. um Literally, last week's episode, I did a bit of a roundup of my favorite horror of the year. And my number one favorite horror movie was The Substance, which is literally all stuff coming out of the wrong places, everybody. And I found it, I mean, I think it's incredible, but it also was a difficult watch. I'm sure it's like a brilliant commentary on something, yeah but no thanks.
00:05:43
Speaker
ah That's literally, you know, it did feel like, you know, as I was watching, I was like, I do get i like, I feel like I got it in the first five minutes. You know, I was like, OK, this is what you're saying. Cool. yeah um But I was still locked in. And I and I just I think part of it was like I was I was kind of challenging myself to watch it because body horror tends to be one of my no goes like. um you know like the I saw the fly like
From Podcast to Book: The Journey of Clever Girl
00:06:08
Speaker
the David Cronberg fly like way too young I think I was like six or seven and like that traumatized me for a decade you know and so like just no never will yeah <unk>t kill can't won't never will right you know and I do find ah like you know like
00:06:24
Speaker
I don't trust people who really like body horror. You know, like there's something. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Right. You know somewhere like who were like big fans of the Saw movies. I'm like, exactly. Mm hmm. That's that is to me is the red flag, you know, like it's it's it's or like people who like really like rewatching Requiem for a dream. You know, it's like, you know, I'm like, go you need therapy. Literally. Right.
00:06:53
Speaker
oh Okay, so i'm I'm loving the fact that we can just like spitball about all this, but I do want to circle us back to the book because I think this is really important. And I just, I want everyone who hears this episode to go out and buy this. So we need to just like, I think I first need to gush at you and then we need to just like unpack this, okay? I hope you mean metaphorically because I'm grossed out by body horror.
00:07:18
Speaker
i ah but you know you Despite my autism, much of what I say is metaphorical. you know ok
00:07:27
Speaker
um you know ah like ah Like I mentioned, like i I literally just grabbed it without even cracking the cover. I just saw Jurassic Park pop classics. I'm in. you know And then um and then the the position you take in the essays was just such a breath of fresh air, you know, and and and just the the disparate kind of angles that you take on the analysis of the text. It's one of my favorite examples of what the power of the essay form can do, which is to to you know take something you're familiar with and then say, yeah, but what if we read it like this? you know What if we looked at it like this?
00:08:08
Speaker
um And I think where I want to start is is kind of asking you about the sort of germination of the idea behind the that you're sort of i guess you call it the thesis of of the of the book. you know i I read a little bit about you know it started with ah a podcast episode, but i was I was wondering if you could kind of tell the backstory story of of how this book came to be.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. um So it did indeed start with a podcast episode. I used to make a podcast called Secret Feminist Agenda, which was, I ran for four seasons, I think, and what is a season? Hard to say.
00:08:46
Speaker
Um, but after, yeah, nobody knows what that means. After the first season, I, it was an interview podcast. And the idea was that I was talking to feminists about the way that they enact their feminism in their day to day lives. Cause I really wanted to think through via conversation, sort of feminist feminism as a practice rather than just a set of theories. And after the first season, I was like, I can't actually do an interview every week.
00:09:12
Speaker
because just the process of finding and booking a guest every week is like, it's too hard. yeah You get it? Oh yeah, you are literally vocalizing my inner monologue from this year. I'm like, I can't do this. yeah yeah So then I was like, what if every second week is an episode with just me where I don't have to book a guest? And so I started calling them mini-sodes.
00:09:33
Speaker
i do I thought that was a real word, but a lot of people encountered it and were like, what's that mean? It's like a mini episode, obviously, a mini set. And in those episodes, ketchup I would just sort of like riff on some thing related to feminism that I had been thinking about that week. And so they were really different from episode to episode. Some of them were like, responsive to something that was happening in the news. Some of them were just like, I read a book this week, like really just whatever I could come up with. yeah And so one week I was like coming up with an episode idea and I had just rewatched Jurassic Park for like, I don't know, the hundredth time with a friend of mine who was seeing it for the first time. And I had talked her into watching it by being like, yeah, you got to see it. It's like one of the most important feminist films of our time.
00:10:19
Speaker
And she was like, sorry, isn't it about dinosaurs? And I was like, yeah, but all the dinosaurs are women and they only eat men. That's feminism. And she was like, okay.
00:10:33
Speaker
yeah so In this moment, just like, as I gotta make another episode, I was like, oh, I'll tell people my theory about how Jurassic Park is a feminist classic. And it's one of those things that's like, I both meant it because it's one of my favorite movies. And it was also a little silly in tongue in cheek, right? Because like, it's a Michael Crichton blockbuster movie, like it's not actually a feminist classic.
00:10:56
Speaker
um So I made this episode just articulating my thesis, which is the dinosaurs have all been genetically engineered to be female because the scientists think think that will make them more malleable and controllable.
00:11:10
Speaker
And the opposite is true. They break free. They devour those who would control them. um And isn't that a beautiful feminist parable about becoming monstrous and resisting the engineers of your oppression? And so I made this little episode and I put it out there and people were like,
00:11:27
Speaker
Hey, I love this because so many people also love this movie. And it's, you know, it's a a new lens on a familiar thing that people love, which is like, you know.
00:11:41
Speaker
Kind of my jam, like I made a ah podcast doing feminist critical readings of Harry Potter for several years with with my longtime collaborator Marcell Cosman. Like, you know, I just I like to take a thing that people know and be like, but what if a radical reading?
Queer Community and Chosen Family Values
00:11:58
Speaker
um But I had so much fun with people's response to this episode that I was like, Oh, it'd be really fun to do a pop classics of this. Like I knew right from the beginning it would be a pop classics. Like I knew the series. Um, Jen Suk-Fung Lee, who is the editor of the series now is a friend of mine. I'd read her gentleman of the shade, her, her, my own private Idaho pop class. Yeah.
00:12:21
Speaker
Um, and loved it and was like, Oh yeah, I told. And so I finally, you know, when I had enough time, I sent her in a little pitch. That was kind of like, I'm pretty sure that I drafted the essay title names on Twitter, like as a thread. And again, it was kind of like, I'm serious, but also I'm kind of winking.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, big time. Yeah. Um, so it's, you know, like life finds a way. Dr. Ian Malcolm and the complex post ecological, right? Like we're doing kind of a little bit of a winky thing. Um, but I just kept like, I kept putting it out there and people kept being like, yes. Yes. And so finally I was like, cool. I guess I'm writing this book. And then when it comes time to write a book,
00:13:05
Speaker
It stops being winky because you have to actually like articulate an argument. So, you know, working with Jen really helped me sort of, you know, the silliness is still there. She let it stay silly, but she also really helped me like take these ideas and work them through and figure out the stakes of them and make them cohere. So it's a stronger argument in book form than it was in podcast form. But, you know, that's the pleasure of editing.
00:13:33
Speaker
But that's and and that's the thing that I think is one of the kind of magic tricks of the book is that it does rope you in initially with that like first kind of, you know, the first statement of of the way you're framing the reading and it is exactly as you just got. I was telling some people about it as as I was starting to read it and and they all kind of laughed at it you know and and yeah I feel like that's sort of the purpose to to draw you in but then you start reinforcing it with so much like concrete and powerful research and not only not only the you know the sources that you're quoting, but also the way you draw in your own personal stories and the vulnerability behind that writing was just so powerful. And and by the time you're you're you're closing the book, you're like like, I felt my brain had been changed. you know and and and it and right and and it and it And it's like, what's so, you know,
00:14:32
Speaker
what I had so much fun with it what what wow that's a bad framing of the sentence but you know what I'm driving at that the fun I had with the book was that exactly as you said it it starts you out in a familiar place and then by the time you're done you're way off in the deep end and you're somewhere completely unexpected you know and and I find um maybe I'm just the you know, case study reader for a book like this. But that is exactly my jam, you know, we're my target audience. literally I mean, it's also, you know, it's a, it's an approach that I have learned a little bit through podcasting.
00:15:12
Speaker
right sort of start on familiar ground and then like slowly lead people to an idea, but it's also something that comes out of teaching. you know like i'm also I'm also a teacher, and so I'm used to this idea of like I'm gonna start with something you know, something you're familiar with, and then I'm gonna use that to be like, okay, but come with me. What what if actually we did destroy the patriarchy? Bear with me.
00:15:42
Speaker
ah but they But your reader or you know the student is at that point like they've got their competence built up, right? So they feel like, yeah, absolutely. Let's go. yeah right
00:15:57
Speaker
So ah a big kind of um one of the driving thoughts behind this podcast is these these questions of connection and these questions of community. And um throughout the book, you're you're talking a lot extensively about queer community, queer say safety, you know, and and and how chosen family is is kind of forged through through you know life experiences. And one of the sort of tentpole questions I always ask, I'm i'm sort of flipping these around from the general order, but um this is the one I find connects the most to the book, is is this question of what community means. and and And, you know, your book taps into a variety of, not only communities that exist, but also communities that could exist. and and And I'm really curious, at that very baseline, you know, using that word community, what does that word for you evoke? Like, what does community mean for you?
Building Resilient Communities and Mutual Aid
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, community is is completely central to to everything about my value system, the way I move through the world, um you know the way I understand the world. So I'm queer, I don't have any biological children, and I'm asexual. So a lot of the conventional forms of family that are sort of happen by default Oh, well and my and my mom's dead and I kind of have a complex relationship to the rest of my biological family. like So, you know, like we we don't have any low hanging fruit here in terms of of having family, having built in automatic community. um And so for a long time now, I've had to push myself to be more deliberate about the ways that I make community for myself.
00:17:49
Speaker
and the way that I seek out community that receives me in the way that I need to be received, um which is to say seeking out community who understand friendship to be a pivotal relationship in their lives, who are not going to um think of our friendship as secondary to say ah romantic relationship Right. That's like really, really important to me to know that like, because my friends are the primary relationships in my life, I need to also be the primary relationship like part of the primary relationships in my friends' lives. like
00:18:30
Speaker
I actually don't want to be anybody's most important person, that's too much pressure. um hundred for percent yes what i'm What I'm really interested in is like building resilient networked communities where many of us are caring for one another, where I have my set of skills and capacities that I bring into my community, the things that I'm really good at, the resources that I have that maybe other people don't have. But then other people are bringing in their own resources and capacities. And we can take turns sort of tapping in and tapping out when people do or do not have the energy to deal with a particular crisis, you know, I've got more
00:19:14
Speaker
um like financial resources than a lot of my friends because I'm ah a tenured professor at a university and a lot of my friends are artists and so like they don't have I own property I have a pension so like we have conversations about you know How can we make a retirement plan where my resources can be expanded to to care more widely for people? You know, but I also Part of the intensity of my job is that like I have less time so like yeah crisis situation you know a friend is sick and it's like, you know, there's another friend who has the capacity and the emotional literacy and the experience to be like working with her to help her prepare for her surgery and
00:20:00
Speaker
And then she can communicate to the rest of us, you know, here are some resources that this friend needs. And I can be like, cool, like I don't have a ton of time to offer. But like you said that like she needs some more sheet sets because she's going to be recovering in bed. I can buy some sheet sets.
00:20:16
Speaker
like i can absolutely i'm so good at research i'm gonna find such good cheat sets i i'm gonna buy them i'm gonna bring them to where i do a thing so like oh this sense right that like we can we can care for each other better when we understand it as a collective responsibility and when we celebrate the different strengths that we all bring into what we do And those so small acts of collectivity, of problem solving, even of just like trying to get like a bunch of neurospicy people together to plan a party. like All of these things are in some ways like practice for the bigger, harder stuff that's coming.
00:21:00
Speaker
you know like we we talk i'm I'm really interested in like mutual aid and community care and the idea that like we actually very clearly cannot trust our systems our governments those in power to take care of us and so we're building up the skills to take care of each other. And like, yeah, some of those skills, you know, some like queer preppers are really interested in like learning to farm, learning to hunt, learning to preserve. And these are really, really valuable skills. And community care is also a really valuable skill. Yes. And practicing that in the micro in terms of how we treat one another and how we respond to each other.
00:21:45
Speaker
It
Managing Emotions and Relationships
00:21:46
Speaker
lets us create these like robust community networks so that when we need them, we can activate them. It's, it's, oh my God, you're saying so many things that are spider webbing my brain. And I just like, I just want to just sit and listen to you talk. Um, uh, but, uh, one thing that came up for me is this idea of, of modeling, right? The, uh, you know, um, um, so I, I'm, I'm actually see several therapists. I, I have a, I have a.
00:22:16
Speaker
i know That's my community care, is I just take care of the of the community of voices. The community that's hanging out up here. Literally. um And and ah one of them, I'm in a i'm in a dialectical behavior therapy ah group ah therapy group. And um one of the sort of tenets of that is to practice the skills you know you will need in a space where you're safe to practice, you know, because because the more you get used to it in a safe space, the easier it'll be to tap into it in a more escalated space, you know? Yeah. um and And I'm really curious about, I want to keep building on this on this thought because, you know, the idea of of modeling, but also the idea of fostering these communities is something that I'm really, um, trying to participate within. And I do find myself hitting a lot of roadblocks because of, as you say, that the, you know, the sort of inherent very blatant limitations of the capitalist system, you know, everybody, you know, everybody is shorter on capacity is shorter on time is shorter on, you know, uh, it feels like so many of us, we want to participate in this, but we just like, we're just.
00:23:30
Speaker
to burned out by surviving. um And and and i'm I'm curious about what types of steps yeah ah you know you could maybe recommend or or maybe some steps that you've taken within your community um that you know listeners or or myself could could sort of try to to to practice to to foster these types of communities.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's so many right because there's, there's never going to be one right way to make community, because community is like the, the particular encounter of a particular group of people.
00:24:03
Speaker
um One of them for me is being willing to experiment with different forms of gathering, um to to say like, okay, let's try out like a standing Zoom happy hour. Let's try out a, you know, once a week, we watch the same thing at the same time and text each other. Let's try out a once a month D and&D game. Let's try out, right? So so figuring out, you know,
00:24:34
Speaker
what what fits being willing to try them out being willing to experiment and and to say when it's not working for you too right to be like oh actually at the end of a work day being on zoom is the last thing i want to do i don't want to do this can we try a phone call while we go for a walk can we try something else um And also, you know, the being willing to spend a little bit of time navigating those tricky conversations with people. You know, one one thing that I'm sort of working through with with a number of my dear friends right now is our relationship to flexibility versus predictability around making sure we see each other. So like,
00:25:16
Speaker
I have a really sort of scheduled job at this phase in my life. Like, you know, that's not always been the case. I was in school for a very long time. My schedule used to be incredibly flexible. But at this point, like I am booked. I am just booked nine to five, like three months out. It's silly. And so what I want is to like get time with you on my calendar. And I have friends who have young kids. When you have young kids, you often can't make those kinds of commitments. I have friends who are chronically ill or disabled, who are like, cool, I have no way of knowing if in two months on a Tuesday, I'm going to be able to do that thing. And I have friends who like the very process of making those kinds of schedules is like,
00:26:13
Speaker
deeply stressful to them. And so I'll reach out and be like, hey, can we get something on the books for January? And they're like, no, please. And so and figuring that out, right, like both hearing from them what they need.
00:26:31
Speaker
articulating what I need and then and then getting a little creative in terms of like the approaches that we take um you know so like we're experimenting right now with like what if we've got like a standing thing in the calendar but you can always not show up like does that work and then like part of my responsibility around that is going to be like but not getting my feelings hurt if like some some days people can't show up. And that goes in hand in hand with one of the other major pieces for me, which is really working to let go of notions of scarcity around friendship. So this idea, I i remember, I've learned a lot about friendship from my dear friend, Zena Sharman, who I name check because she is um a writer who also writes in really, really beautiful ways about queer community.
00:27:27
Speaker
And um I remember sort of early on when we were first becoming closer friends, and we were trying to find a time that we could get together for dinner. And it was very like, okay, here's one Wednesday when we're both actually free. And she was like,
00:27:46
Speaker
I don't want to, I don't want to have something every night that week. I don't want to completely schedule myself. And I was like, yeah, you're right. That sounds really stressful. And she was like, we don't have to think of our friendship from a perspective of scarcity. We don't have to assume that because we can't see each other soon, that means we don't love each other or we won't see each other again, or we can't text or we can't. And so just being like.
00:28:12
Speaker
If I am busy and this person is busy and I can't see them for a while, I don't have to... It's not a rejection. Yeah, I don't have to interpret that as a failure. yeah um As a like, we're doing our friendship wrong or or we're not really friends.
00:28:29
Speaker
um and And really shifting to that, like, I'm just going to believe that we love and care for each other and that we're going to find ways to connect um really sort of helps lean into the sort of long-term sustainability of these relationships, I find.
00:28:49
Speaker
and you know wow i i just i think a lot of friendship can you tell yeah no and and i know you appreciate this so much like i'm just like i just i just i'm i'm i'm finding myself just flabbergasted by just like the the the fact that you're speaking off the cuff but it's so impactful and it's so deep and it's like you're just voicing so many of the things that I think and it's just so nice to hear it like outside of my brain. um One thing I think often about is is um for me with those kinds of like the desire for that like
00:29:25
Speaker
personal live connection and that at that that feeling that you just you only get in person and you know I say it to myself and I hear so many guests on the show say it and I hear just friends in general say it where it's like it doesn't feel the same when you get a text or when you get a meme or you know and and something I've been really practicing a lot recently has been to just mindfully shift that in my brain and and let myself feel good about a meme in a way that I would feel good if we went and got coffee, you know? yeah um Because it does play it in exactly what you're talking about, about the idea of, you know, i I'm somebody who does, I'm like you, I like to schedule and I like to be like, in two weeks I'll see you, you know, I'm not quite as far ahead as January, but like, I'm like i'm like a two, three week outer, you know?
00:30:15
Speaker
Um, um, because I do like to just, I like to know what's coming up. I like to plan and I like to be, be ready. And, and at the same time too, I, I am also at the other side. I am somebody who's like, Oh, three week ago, James's capacity was much higher than today. James's capacity, you know? So like had all kinds of crazy ideas, right? Exactly. What was he thinking? You know, girl, you know,
00:30:43
Speaker
But ah so I will you know, I'll often communicate like this is super flexible on my side But it is It's that it's that you what you just what you're talking about about like not letting yourself be hurt by that and it's hard to write it's a difficult thing to not to feel like you're Failing the connection by not seeing them in person, you know um and it and it yeah, it's just such a nice reminder to be like you you You know, I don't like that whole kind of stoic thing of like, you choose how you feel, but but I do think it's like, I think we choose how we react to things, you know, to a certain degree, right?
00:31:23
Speaker
There's this absolutely incredible series that I loved so much that I watched it twice. It is a sort of black comedy murder mystery series called Deadlock.
00:31:34
Speaker
l c h um It's set in Tasmania ah and it is about a small town that's formerly a mill town that is gentrifying primarily via a bunch of lesbians moving there. You know this phenomenon where a bunch of lesbians decide they're all going to move to a small town and then they start like a weird arts festival. um You know the funny thing is that I was like, I know a bunch of those in DC. So yes, for sure. Like Nelson, B.C., for example. Yeah, yeah, you get it. So.
00:32:07
Speaker
ah So it's one of those towns. It's based on a real town in Tasmania where this is happening, where where a real festival takes place. And so one of said lesbians is a police officer in this town, and um kind of like dirtbag men start showing up dead. And it becomes this really interesting story about gender and class and violence. um That is also like a really funny sort of scathing cultural commentary. And she's got this incredible partner who is like, she's trying trying to like, she's really stoic, and she's trying to solve a mystery. And then her partner is always wanting to like, really process feelings together.
00:32:46
Speaker
And there's this moment, and it's that sort of thing where it's like, we're we're teasing her, but the things that she's saying are also very true, but like it's pretty funny. um yeah And there's a scene where like she's talking about how she's really struggling with the fact that like her partner has a um like another detective that she's working with who is a woman.
00:33:09
Speaker
And she's been feeling jealousy about that. And she's like, but my feelings are my own and it is my responsibility to parent them. yeah And it's so funny because it's definitely like a laugh line. And also I have used it so much to be like spot on. It's spot on. It's like, it's not the feelings are not bad. The feelings are not wrong.
00:33:32
Speaker
but they are your feelings and it is your responsibility to parent them. And sometimes the parenting of those feelings will include expressing them to people you love, but that does not mean that they are those people's responsibility. They're your feelings to parent.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, deadlock. I really appreciate this important lesson. I mean, it's a beautiful encapsulation of of like something that i I, you know, I have been ah less effective at in the past. um That's one of my new favorite therapy words is not saying it's a good or bad. It's effective or ineffective. You know, that's something i alert um it's something that you are in the process of learning.
00:34:17
Speaker
Bingo. Bingo. um yeah And i and i've been getting I've been getting much more effective with it recently. But ah but yeah, it is it is that feeling of... of um And that's I think that's been one of the funny ah questions that I navigate with some of my my my connections is is this idea of like,
00:34:34
Speaker
What part to share, you know, and, and, um, you know, so many of my friends will share kind of everything and I'll look back and I'll be like, Ooh, I don't know if that was actually the right call. Cause now everybody feels a little weird. and yeah And I don't want to make them feel unsafe for sharing, but it's, you know, and I've been that person too, where I've just been like, hi, nice to meet you. Let me tell you about why I hate my mother, you know? Time time to trauma dump. You know what I really believe in? That is a thing that people make fun of a lot is asking for people's consent before you like do a big emotional conversation.
00:35:08
Speaker
yes like I remember there being this like moment on Twitter where somebody like offered a script for people to use to basically say, like I do not have the capacity to provide you with the emotional labor that you are requesting of me right now. And like Twitter went hard on this person. And I was like, Yeah, but actually, isn't that great? Like, isn't it really great? But again, it's like part of of what is required to be able to do that in the first place is to know that like we are held by networks. There's this this beautiful book called Undrowned. One second. I'm going to check the author's name because I can't remember it, but it's so good. Alexis Pauline Gumbs.
00:35:55
Speaker
ah undrowned black feminist lessons from marine mammals. I think I have it. I actually think I have it over my shelves. It's so good. It's part of Adrianne Marie Brown's Emergent Strategies series. Yes. Yeah. um yeah and And it's a beautiful series of essays about sort of what we can learn from different marine mammals. And one of them, you know, she's writing about um networks of care and this idea that like,
00:36:25
Speaker
whales moving in pods can take turns sleeping because the other ones like take responsibility like this sort of idea that like you can tap in and out um that you move in collective so that people can rest at different moments yeah um and i and I feel that way about about emotional capacity that like I don't want to be anybody's only source for emotional support, because that means that I could never tap out. And sometimes I really do need to tap out. Oh, yeah. And so I picked and I can tap out. If I know that there are other people in your life who are also caring for you. Like, that's that makes us all healthier and happier and makes our relationships more robust.
00:37:14
Speaker
there's a there's ah There's a concept I got introduced to introduced you last year. um So I just hit a one-year sober a couple weeks ago. and i didn' go through Thank you. Thank you very much. um I didn't go through like the traditional AA program at all, but I did speak to some people who who went through it. And they gave me this, my favorite ah kind of piece was They said, get yourself a six pack. And what that is, is get six people into your life who can support you. So that exactly as you described, you're not putting all of it on one person. Instead, you're able to spread the load. And so, you know, and and in turn, you get to be part of their six pack, you know? um leave it to a bunch of alcoholics to come up with funny uses. But but it's um it's been one of my favorite kind of practices to to sort of spread it out because I found that it not only you know strengthens the connections of the people I need, but it also gives me more capacity to to share that when they need something you know because it's not
00:38:18
Speaker
I find when you're overdumping on one person, they then in turn try to compensate by by dumping back on you, right? And you're like, no, I'm already tapped. You know? I got i got nothing for you, bud. Literally. All I am is a spout. Yeah. yeah and it you know and and And that links, too, with this idea that I just recently got introduced to in one of my one of my other therapy sessions, is this idea that ah repair is is a one-way street.
00:38:46
Speaker
you know when you're when you when you have a rupture in a connection, you you don't get to repair um both hurts at
Friendship and Communicating Needs
00:38:54
Speaker
once. You repair one first and you focus on one person and then once that's fixed, then you flip. you know And sometimes that isn't done in one session. Sometimes that's over time. right um and and And I think that that Bleeds into this idea of support, which is that it's like it isn't a mutual thing It is a one-way street, you know, um and and and that's not it, you know, that's not a bad thing, right? That's just how these things work right me I am I bubbled with two friends during lockdown and because they're a couple, I live alone, and in BC, small households were allowed to to bubble together. um So you know the three of us were like a bubble for like a year and a half. And so it's been a lot of time together really at our collective nideers. And we developed at this time, this shorthand for the idea of like getting to be the one who
00:39:54
Speaker
is receiving birth versus being the one who is taking care. um And it's whether you get to be baby or daddy. yeah So like, and there's like different things, different people are daddies around, right? So like, this person's dinner daddy, like I'm car daddy, this person, like, but sometimes it's just like, I just need to be allowed to be baby tonight.
00:40:17
Speaker
yeah And that's like, I will not be asked to do any logistical work. I will not be asked to demonstrate any emotional maturity. I can just be a nasty screaming little gremlin. Yes. And, you know, if you're tired of me, you can leave the room, frankly. Oh, yeah you know, I, I, like you know, I'm sent for it first. Yes. you know Yeah. like Yeah. I into it together. Like it's OK. I can be baby. Great.
00:40:43
Speaker
ah That's my favorite usage of those terms out of any any any version I've heard in recent years.
00:40:59
Speaker
in the little handout i sent it said if you have if you want to if you want to bring a couple questions i was wondering if you wanted to flip the mic do you have anything that you wanted to kind of ask oh my god yeah i do and it's it's hypothetical it's a hypothetical but i've been i've been thinking about it because Right now, I'm from Ottawa originally, and right now a very dear friend of mine is in Ottawa for the Writers Festival. And she has been like visiting some of my old haunts. And so my question is, um if you could bring an adult friend to a childhood favorite place, what would it be?
00:41:40
Speaker
Oh, that's such a beautiful question. um So i I grew up in Calgary. um and I don't know if I would really want to take anyone back there these days in any capacity, you know? But you could take them to that, what's that great museum that has all of the little like the town, like the little town in it? Oh, Heritage Park. No, not Heritage Park. The museum that's got like a little like, you know, like little dioramas and it's like, oh, I'm in a little shop. Isn't that miniature room in Victoria?
00:42:18
Speaker
No, am i not that bigger, bigger than that. Life size bigger than that. Oh, my God. ah The Glenbow Glenbow. It was the Glenbow. OK. You know what? Actually, like no smaller than Heritage Park, bigger than Miniature Village right in the middle.
00:42:37
Speaker
You actually just spiked my brain and I just realized that actually is where I would take people because as ah as a kid, my two favorite places to go were a was the Terrell Museum in Drumheller because as a child obsessed with Jurassic Park, you know, hu yeah go to the din go to the Dinosaur Museum and just be, you know, blown away by that. Or it was to go to the Glenbow Museum.
00:43:01
Speaker
And I remember that they have, I think they still have it, this massive, massive Buddha statue. um Actually, no, it's not Buddha. I think it's Shiva. It's this huge, like towering statue. And it used to scare the living shit out of me. But I also loved it. I just thought it was like it was like it was like fun, spooky, you know? Because her face was like really like, you know, and she had these heads in her hands and and she was just so fucking cool, you know? yeah And at least where it was when I was a kid, it would be like you would come up the stairs and you'd come around the corner and she'd be right in the door frame of that main kind of exhibit, you know? And so I was always like excited to turn around.
00:43:43
Speaker
So I think if I was going to take somebody, it would be there. And I would hope that she's still there, but I don't know. Kind of together. I mean, morale trial is also a great answer. If you have a friend who hasn't been, being like, come with me to where the dinosaurs are from.
00:44:02
Speaker
yeah Like just bringing somebody to the Badlands for the first time would be fun enough but like really that's a good museum. I love that your answer was also a museum because my friend went to the the Ottawa Museum of Nature today and that's you know in the book I talk about that as being the site of my first encounter with dinosaurs and so She brought a copy of my book to the dinosaur exhibit in the museum and like took a picture of the book in the exhibit and sent it to me. Oh my heart. Like she took my book on a little field trip back to where she's from. That is a good friend. Oh my God. I know, right? Ugh, what a dream. It's, um, it's- Dean Delbucia, poet. Check out, check out her work.
00:44:46
Speaker
Yes, i've I'm gonna need to hotlink to all these people in in the show notes for this. um And I also just like love it. like Please keep name dropping, because because anytime I can find out about other artists. you know um But yeah, no museums in general, but the Tyrell was just like, I had family who lived in Drumheller, like just outside of Drumheller in this place called East Cooley, which is just like a ghost town. It was a coal mining town. um But we would go out there all the time. And and yeah, it just, you know, yeah and you talk about the the impact of this sort of of museum culture and and, you know, the the sort of the
00:45:28
Speaker
colonialism behind that and and I I have a very conflicted personal experience both with museums and with zoos um because growing up my my grandma was a docent at the Calgary Zoo for like 40 years she she volunteered whoa and and like I knew personally like Tom Banes who was like the founder of the Calgary Zoo you know and and um you know there it was such a magic and and actually it has a great dinosaur park too it is an amazing dinosaur park you shouldn't have dinosaurs i know it was so strange i know it was such a strange like it was in the corner of the zoo it was just like and also by the way dinosaurs you know ah but it was like
00:46:12
Speaker
It was such a magic place for me growing up. And then now, you know with with with what I know now about the culture of museums, the culture of of zoos, yeah there's such a conflict in me for for like how do I reconcile that beautiful impact and like what inspired me to love animals and love dinosaurs and and was such a precious time with my grandmother and you know and then also being like, but it's also horse shit and all those fucking polar bears shouldn't be here and penguins shouldn't be in North America and all that. you know
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, hot take, you don't you don't reconcile it. you just let yeah just you just let You just live in the messy complexity of it. And like yes, that's it. you know like You can look back and say, like wow, this thing really mattered to me. like Going to the zoo is really, really pivotal to me. And also, like I understand why zoos are bad. And also, you know like yeah I know more about museums than zoos. i'm I have been to a very small number of zoos in my life, and they mostly really bummed me out. I remember. Yeah, you're not really missing much. We're visiting the Edinburgh Zoo, um and they there was a polar bear. This would have been in 2006. They had a polar bear there, and that polar bear was like so yellow and sad looking, and I just was like, Get in my suitcase, I'll bring you to freedom. Literally. it's um I feel like half the half the animals are depressed and the other animals are just hiding it better, you know? yeah like And they're all jerking off because they have nothing else to do. Right? its just I do go to the Vancouver Aquarium and I enjoy the Vancouver Aquarium.
00:47:49
Speaker
And I am glad the Vancouver Aquarium no longer has dolphins or orcas because they couldn't you believe they had them. I couldn't believe that. Right. But like these are these fields are like anything else. Fields that are developing, shifting that contain a lot of internal complexity that like You know, we look at them from the outside and it can be tempting to just say that they're one thing, right? Like museums are just colonial institutions. And it's like, well, as long as there have been museums, there have been people working at museums who have wanted to imagine them as something else. yeah And
00:48:29
Speaker
Right now museums are transforming the world of curation is transforming the conversations about um Like appropriate repatriation of stolen cultural artifacts is like happening um And that doesn't mean it's happened or that these problems are fixed, but like there is complexity and um and movement within these fields. That also means that we don't have to have just like a single static relationship with them and be like,
00:49:03
Speaker
zoos, evil, people who like zoos, evil. This is not a useful just not a useful way to to see the world. um we'll just fine my thinking in general you know yeah well that's just it but Fun easy. Fun and easy. That's just it, right? you know It's like like black and white thinking in any capacity on any subject.
00:49:20
Speaker
is way more fun because it's way easier to just literally be like all villain, all hero, whatever, you know? Everything is just- So morally simplistic. Right? Exactly. It's just like, yeah, the world is a Marvel movie and we can just punch our problems, you know? And it's just like, it's obviously much easier to do, but like, then you actually get into the real world and you're like, oh yeah, right. My problems aren't Dr. Doom. This is my issue with Jurassic World versus Jurassic Park, because Jurassic Park does not have a real villain and is all about ethical complexity and nuance, and Jurassic World is about them having genetically engineered an evil dinosaur who has to be murdered by Chris Pratt.
00:50:03
Speaker
Yep. Yes. It's just like, what if Jurassic Park bought a Marvel movie? And it's like, no, the good thing about this is when there's nuance, you can't make a little dinosaur. Because even though I watch, like so. So you you started to tap into this at the end of the book. And I was really excited. I know there was i so much more. And then my editor was like, this is in a book about Jurassic World. And I was like, yes. and i And I understood why you cut yourself off. But you started to put your toes into exactly what i i I had been feeling about it, which was this like, it was like watching someone wear a Jurassic Park suit, you know, but like, you know, like it was like, yeah, right. It was like the Buffalo Bill scene and you signs land know, but like, you know, but like, like but Right, you know, but ah but now suddenly I'm imagining that. But a velociraptor tuck it anyway. Just tucking itself inside of a human skin. but Well, that's fun to think about because, you know, in those scenes, that scene in the kitchen where you like really see the velociraptors moving around, that's people inside velociraptor suits. Yeah. So like it's really fun to then picture those velociraptors inside suits. Or just like back and forth. It's just like a matryoshka doll. It's just like
00:51:17
Speaker
per ah Person, velociraptor, person, velociraptor. And then suddenly their cake and it just doesn't make any sense. it turned yeah i turned A turducken of humans and dinosaurs, I don't know. I don't know what's happening. I love this. um But it's it's it is, the Jurassic world is where we were at, I think. um and it it And it was like, it was like what what was what's so fascinating on a like adult reading of Jurassic Park is that like even the quote unquote evil characters, even like the lawyer or you know something like that, like he's not an evil dude he's just kind of a shithead you know like but he's like he's just a bureaucrat he's just like uh you know yeah we want to make profits but like i also have to pee you know like he just you know like percent he's just a dude he's not like waha twirling his mustache you know um whereas you whereas then you get to the like you know the the drastic world movies and you literally have like not only do you have you know the
00:52:15
Speaker
the iterations of like the Vincent D'Onofrio tackling villain, but you also have what you described, like the engineered evil dinosaur who like literally at one point becomes Jason Voorhees and starts stalking the evil clone girl or whatever she is. you know ye Yeah, the fact that the second the second movie the Jurassic World falling kingdom becomes like a ah horror movie Yeah, like the dinosaurs like stocking a kid through a house and it's like I don't i don't know but like what are we doing here? I guess but I mean that is part of what I love about the velociraptors is like yeah, did we did a um
00:52:54
Speaker
a watch-along of Jurassic Park just last weekend. um And it was very satisfying to have people in that this for um for Patreon supporters for for my podcast, Material Girls. um And it was very fun to have people who like haven't read the book yet saying things that i'm like that's in the book that's in the book that's also in the book and at one point somebody was like like the velociraptors were stalking the children and somebody was like they ate a cow yesterday and two men earlier today why are they still hungry they should be asleep
00:53:37
Speaker
And I was like, correct. Hunger absolutely does not, but like that's, you know, the terror of them is their endless hunger. Yeah. Oh, whoa. I hadn't even really, I've never thought about that direction of like the metabolism of a velociraptor and like, you know, yeah but but I, but like you talk about, you know, they have 65 million years of hunger to catch up on, you know, They got some eating to do, you know? A hundred percent. It's like they are they are hungry on behalf of the entire earth. Yeah. Yeah. And they are one little exclusively eat those who try to like harness and control the power they represent. Yeah. Well, and you know, one little measly lawyer is not going to cut it, you know, like that's scrawny it was like skin and bones. Right. Yeah.
00:54:34
Speaker
you know we've weve we've We've kind of touched on it a bit already in the community discussion, but you know the real the the the whole crux of this show has been asking, really, it started as being like, have I been a good friend or not? you know um And then I got diagnosed with multiple, with different ah cluster B disorders and and all kinds of fun things. So it was like, I probably haven't been. But ah but but it was really this question of,
00:55:03
Speaker
what is being a friend? What is being, you know, and, and it obviously it' started out with the question of good or bad, and then it's since evolved into, you know, a less loaded, uh, uh, judgment on that term. Um, but I am really curious about people's personal interpretations of friendship and, and what does it mean to you to be a friend? Yeah, there's, um, uh,
00:55:33
Speaker
So one of my favorite
Productivity vs. Personal Value: A Misconceived Link
00:55:35
Speaker
theorists, critical theorists is Lauren Berlant, who died a couple of years ago. um Heartbreakingly, I mean, quite they were they were quite young still. um And God, I really wanted to meet them one day. But I did get to see them speak over Zoom during during the sort of lockdown that they did an event. um And they were talking about um They were talking about about about community and about sort of building political solidarity. um And they were talking about sort of the root of community being showing up. and And that for me, like that idea of like, what we do is we show up for each other, for me is the crux of it. And
00:56:22
Speaker
sometimes that is just literal like I show up for you like I go to your thing you have a thing I go to it yeah I go you got a book launch I'm coming to your book launch you got it yeah you got a choir concert I'm coming to your choir concert like I'm gonna show up as much as I can um Part of it is like showing up for you in the shape that your life takes. So, um you know, it's really important to me that I show up for my friends who have kids.
00:56:56
Speaker
like in their capacity as parents, which means also including their kids in my community and not being like, oh, I only wanna hang out with you when your kids aren't around. Like, kids are cool get yeah get rid of get rid of the kids and we can have like one-on-one time, which isn't to say that I don't value one-on-one time with my friends or parents. It's just like, ah you know, I'm showing up for you. This is who you are. them yeah This is what your life is. um so So that like, for me,
00:57:26
Speaker
that's That's how I practice friendship is is by showing up for people you know to the best of my capacity in the ways that they have communicated to me that it matters that I show up for them. And sometimes I don't like, you know one of the my favorite things for a friend to do for me is to communicate to me that something matters to them because then I'm like, oh, fuck yeah, now I can show up.
00:57:50
Speaker
Yes, yes. Like you tell me that this is important to you and I can be like, incredible. Thank you. Like, and, you know, sometimes that's physical presence and sometimes it's, you know, receiving something in a particular way. I had a friend recently who shared something that she'd done sort of an artistic project.
00:58:07
Speaker
um on a group chat, sort of in the middle of the day while a lot of other conversations were happening and it kind of got like just missed. And she, you know, it was hurtful for her. Like it was a thing that she had worked on and was proud of and nobody responded to it.
00:58:27
Speaker
And so what she did is the next day she came back and she reshared it and she said, hey, I really don't think this was intentional, but nobody responded to this yesterday. And that hurt my feelings and I would like for you to respond to it now. And everybody was like, yes, 100%. Like the enthusiasm with which people were like, i all we want it's to is to care for you in the way that you want to be cared for. And you have given us such a gift.
00:59:04
Speaker
by communicating a need and like asking for the way you want us to show up for you. honest And that's you know the harder part for me because I've often been a person who's very good at showing up. What I have been bad at is telling people how I need them to show up for me. but um Because I have spent most of my life believing somewhere deep inside me that it's illegal for me to have needs.
00:59:31
Speaker
yes everybody else who have all the needs and want can't wait your vulnerability is a gift for me disgusting yeah literally literally absolutely not yeah yeah and so like really really like wrapping my head around that like Hey, you know how much you love it when people you care about communicate a need to you? You know how that's like a gift? Because then it like gives them a way to express their love and their care for you. And that's something that like, you got to reciprocate that. yeah like I like love what it so much. you You tell me you want something and I get to give it to you. I fucking love that. And so maybe I should also do that for you.
01:00:17
Speaker
That's just it. It's like, it's like what if you what if you gave someone the gift of your needs? yeah like like what if you What if they were a gift and not a burden? What if you believe exactly but believed that your needs were a gift and not a burden? Yes, right. or i mean i mean dream you know and Look, we'll get there someday. Listen, we're all still working on it. yeah this is a moment when i can like hear another friend's voice in my head going sounds fake
01:00:49
Speaker
right
01:00:53
Speaker
ah You know, I mean, yeah I'm always laughing about this in in in in therapy sessions where I'm always like, i'll you know, we'll be talking and I'll be agreeing and then I'll be like, yeah, but, you know, like, cause there's always, there's always that little voice in the back of my head that's like, uh, uh, uh, but what if he's lying to you, you know? ah A friend once, like we were, you know, we were on a long walk, you know, having a deep conversation and she at one point sort of,
01:01:24
Speaker
like made me turn to face her and look her in the eye and said, you know, i I really want you to hear this. You would still be valuable if you weren't doing anything for anybody else. And I was like, I don't believe you. Yeah, how dare you? And I never spoke to her again. And she was like, yeah, I know you don't and I want you to hear it.
01:01:52
Speaker
yeah And you don't, it's okay. And it's been, it's been, you know, years, years of work from that. And like my favorite, you know, I think this because I i am a real ah intellectualizer of things. I have found ways to like use that to help myself with things that I find emotionally difficult, which is just to think myself into the logical conclusions of emotional realities. So I'll be in one of those spirals where I'm like, actually, everybody in my life secretly hates me because I'm a terrible person. You know that one. And then I'll be like, well, let's talk. Are you mad at me group text to my whole life? Yeah, yeah, yeah, to everybody I've ever known.
01:02:40
Speaker
yeah Yeah, but like, I actually won't send that because I already know. And I don't need that. But like, I can pause and be like, consider, if you will, the evidence. And let's just sort of, you know, apply a Occam's razor approach to this and be like, not as everybody your life creating an elaborate sort of Truman Show conspiracy where they pretend to love you or maybe is it Do they just love you the more obvious? Maybe it's the more obvious one, you know, so so For me this sense of like I only have value if I'm being productive. I only have value if I'm doing things for other people um The it's engaging with the work of disability justice writers and thinkers that has like shifted my my beliefs around that because I'm like do I think that other people's value has to do with the amount of that they achieve? No, I profoundly don't. Ergo, it can't be true only of me. yes it's just not There's no possible way that it's across the board incorrect for everybody else, but applies exclusively to me. That doesn't make any sense. it it it and it And to the point where like when I think about it, I start to realize that like
01:04:01
Speaker
The people who, you know quote unquote, produce the most, or the you know which then supposedly leads to the most success, are often the people that I trust the least. you know like i I trust highly productive, highly successful people, very little. you know I like people who just like kind of get done what they like doing. I'm sorry, okay? I can't help it.
01:04:28
Speaker
but its I realize that could be taken as a sub-tweet, couldn't it? Outrageous. But he's like, but you know, ah so the the way it's framing in my brain is like, you know, people who follow an impulse and create something and put that out. And, and whether it succeeds or not, it's like, they just, you know, like, like, and, and I, I use your book as an example, you know, you had this impulse that came to you and you followed it through. Right. And, and that to me is.
01:04:59
Speaker
the mark of of authentic success over like, you know, and and I'm not even trying to disparage an artist like this, but like, I'm thinking of like, you know, ah Olivia Rodrigo, or like, you know, the like these like these pop icons who who are are selling out stadiums, and it's like, I don't, you know, like, I don't trust Taylor Swift, you know? Oh, we shouldn't trust Taylor Swift. no Exactly. but But it's not, it's because you shouldn't trust billionaires.
01:05:24
Speaker
Well, that's, I mean, I guess she's in a different category altogether, but it's like yeah the idea of like, you know, but the idea of like productivity is the thing that leads you to success, which is the thing that leads you to validity in your life. You know, like, like, um, I'm like, hasn't, you know, and done some work on themselves.
01:05:45
Speaker
That well, that's just it right. That's exactly right, you know, and I I'm just I'm far more interested in in just authentic existence and and and you know, I think I think sometimes the conversation gets kind of like muddy with this with this idea of like There's there's a bit of a fantasy of like the utopian world means there's never any work and it's like no No, no like there would still be oh my god a lot of work to do.
Navigating Social Expectations and Personal Boundaries
01:06:07
Speaker
There's so much work to be done Exactly. But you would enjoy it because you'd want to. Yeah, I mean not always. There's work that isn't fun. Sometimes we do things that aren't fun. But we do things that aren't fun for those we care about all the time. We lovingly engage in acts of manual labor and care.
01:06:32
Speaker
frequently. um you know it's the ah It's the sort of a crushing requirement that we do them in order to survive when it's when it's not when it's not actually necessary.
01:06:45
Speaker
well that that that that spikes in my brain um um ah but ah see you I think it was like it it was probably a tick-tock or something like that it was somebody saying that the very bare minimum you can do is go to somebody's birthday if they invite you go to their birthday you don't have to stay you don't have to be there long but make an appearance you know and it's like that's like for some myself very much included that's like emotional labor, you know, to be like, I'm sorry, what I have to go outside? How dare you? I, I, um, when I first moved to Vancouver, so I've been here for, um, like eight and a half years now. And so, you know, I moved here in my early thirties. I didn't know anybody in the city. I was building community from scratch cause I'd gotten a job at a university here. And.
01:07:32
Speaker
Though that first year of like really working to deliberately build community and make friends was really hard. like I cried a lot. um And I had a lot of panic attacks and like social anxiety attacks where I would try to show up for a thing and then be like, nope, I have to leave and cry.
01:07:51
Speaker
um and This was in the area of the era of the old birdhouse too, when it was extra scary. It was so hard. ah And I remember ah of another friend being like, okay, here's, I think I was talking about like a thing I'd been invited to and I wanted to go because I'd been invited. And it's like, you're new in the city, you got invited to a thing, you gotta go. um And it's like, i was it was gonna be, it was like a big,
01:08:20
Speaker
a backyard concert kind of situation. um And I was like, I will know two people there. And there's gonna be like 50 people there. And that absolutely terrifying. And so I was talking to a friend about like, what do I do? I i really think I should go and I really don't want to. And she was like, go and stay for 30 minutes.
01:08:48
Speaker
All you have to do is show up, stay for 30 minutes and then leave. And if at the 30 minute mark, you're enjoying yourself, you can stay longer, but you're not saying I'm going to go to this event all night and I'm going to have a good time. Like don't set those expectations that high. yeah You were going to show up and you're going to stay there for 30 minutes and then you're going to leave. And then, you know, I went and I had a great time and I stayed way longer than 30 minutes, but like that, like,
01:09:16
Speaker
That's it. Set the expectation much lower so that you can meet it with some success. um Yeah. Yeah. But also like that expectation, you know, I love when people show up to my birthday party and friends who like can't make it to my birthday party. I'm not like, you must not love me.
01:09:43
Speaker
Yeah, big time. Yeah. Yeah. like Well, and isn't that the case? Life's fucking hard. You got shit going on. Life happens, right? you know And isn't that the case, too? you know like the the The difference in that internal monologue about yourself versus the internal monologue about others, where it's like, of course you can't show up. Don't worry about it. Whereas it's like, if I don't, it's like, oh, I must be the biggest piece of shit and sit in the city. Yeah. Yeah. like history's History's greatest monster. It's fucking nonsense. you know
01:10:11
Speaker
No, but it's true about me. I am actually the worst person of all. Well, I mean, you know, I did. I I think we knew you were going to find them eventually. It's me. I this is, you know, I've been this has been a seven year odyssey looking for you. you
01:10:30
Speaker
yeah um andda You are just an absolute delight. Thank you so much. i'm i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna um I think we'll just jump to the, I've just got one last kind of listener question um that's really easy and fun. I i always love to leave listeners on a bit of an actionable thing that they can try. um But before we get to that, I do want to just say like thank you so much. like Thanks for that for coming on, for responding to my random Instagram message and just saying, fuck yeah, jumping in. i i I couldn't be more grateful for your time and for this book, which I'm just, I am an immediate, like, uh, what a, like a disciple of. I've been telling everyone about it for the last like three weeks since I bought it. So I, I, um, yeah I'm just, yeah, I'm so,
01:11:19
Speaker
I don't even know what the right word is. It's just, I'm so impressed. I'm so inspired. I'm so just like, um, there's a lot of emotions around, around you and around this book for me. So thank you very much for, for all your work. yeah This has been a delightful way to end my week, slide into my dirt bag weekend. You know it. And we will get you there so soon. and One last question. What is one thing listeners could try doing this week to be a more effective friend, either to themselves or to their community?
01:11:50
Speaker
Oh man. I mean, there's so many, there's so many good and serious things that I could say, but instead here's what I'm going to say. I'm going to say, find out what your friend's favorite little treat is.
01:12:08
Speaker
and like write it down like you know in your notes app make a list of like this is right like this person really loves this thing like this friend of mine really enjoys a fancy marshmallow yeah like the ones that are like square and artisanal and fresh and just write them all down so that anytime you're like I just want to express my love to this person you can just be like and send them a fancy marshmallow Yeah, oh, that's so magic. and it And it mashes so many different pieces of like, remember it and then come back to it. And like, you don't have to dump it, you know, you don't have to do it 20 times this week. Just like, even just track it so that down the road you can do it, you know? I, oh, I love that one. Thank you so much. That's, um I'm, I'm literally, fuck the listeners, I'm gonna do that, you know?
01:12:58
Speaker
Do it. It's nice because then they're so excited when you send them a little treat. We all just want a little treat. That's literally, you know, you know, Rhonda says we're all just walking each other home. What he meant to say is we all just want a little treat. We all just want a little treat.
01:13:14
Speaker
Well said. of ah but where Where would you like listeners to find you? where what What would you like to plug here? You can find me on Instagram at hkpmcgregor.
01:13:27
Speaker
um And there's ah that's where you'll see ah outfits mostly, predominantly outfits. You'll see my outfits. If you would like a more serious way to access my work, it's hannahmcgregor.com. um I make a podcast called Material Girls that you should subscribe to because it's really good and smart and fun and funny.
01:13:50
Speaker
And um you can get Clever Girl at all the places that books are. Don't buy it from Amazon, please. You know it. I got it at Book Warehouse and it was the the best. The the the the lady at the at the counter was so excited about it. we were like yeah it was yeah It's becoming a whole thing. So oh thank you for being the spark for that. yeah
01:14:14
Speaker
One more time Hannah, thank you so much and just have yourself a wonderful evening and a wonderful weekend. Thank you so much. This has been really fun. I'm gonna go buy some weed.
01:14:33
Speaker
And that's it. Thank you once again to Hannah for joining me. It was such a treat to chat and I'm feeling so deeply inspired not only by their work, but with just how they're showing up in the world. Please get yourself a copy of Clever Girl. I've included a link to it in the show notes. And if you want to follow more of Hannah's work, you can check out the other links that are in those show notes as well.
01:14:55
Speaker
And if you'd like to support Friendless even more than you already are by listening, why not share the episode with your friends? Every little bit helps and it would just mean the world to me if you would share this with somebody who you know would appreciate it. You can also sign up for the substack, which I swear is coming back to a more regular schedule, so just please bear with me, sweet peas.
01:15:16
Speaker
It's coming, it's gonna be a blast, I'm excited, I just haven't had enough time to actually sit down and do a real serious ah writing session with it. But it is coming, so ah sign up, it's free, all the links for that are in the show notes, along with all the rest. But that's gonna be it this week, so let's leave things there. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope to catch you back here next week with a brand new episode. But let's not worry about that right now, because that is then, and this is now.
01:15:45
Speaker
So for now, I'll just say I love you and I wish you well. Fun and safety, sweet peas.