digress & confess
Join Holly, Nick, and Melissa as they digress about daily life, cultural phenomena, and everything else important as they try to figure out what happens when you don’t quite have it all figured out. Weekly confessions include embarrassing moments, hot takes, and/or anything requiring repentance.
digress & confess
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Join Holly, Nick, and Melissa this week for poetry readings, classical conditioning, and trying to figure out why there will never be a crossover of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. From Sylvia Plath to Taylor Frankie Paul, we digress on women just doing their best.
TW: abuse
A quick note: Holly and Melissa speak during this episode to their own lived experience.
Read The Colossus: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89119/the-colossus
This blog has the poem by Sylvia's daughter, Frieda, in full: https://derekdenton.com/2019/04/07/2014-2-14-my-mother-by-frieda-hughes/
Some statistics, information, and resources on abuse: https://www.thehotline.org/
Amber Heard & The Myth of the Perfect Victim: https://youtu.be/P1IWzmi_T4Y?si=nesTlcllIufyKI-f
Thank you for listening queenifers!
Digress & Confess was created by us—Holly, Nick, & Melissa. The show's music was mixed by Nick, with credit to Kevin Macleod. The show is edited by Nick (& sometimes Melissa). Thank you to Brian for your editing guidance. Thank you to Jess for taking our season 1 show photo.
Follow the show on Instagram @digressconfesspod for the latest!
Digress and So I'll open up today with a dramatic reading of The Colossus by Sylvia Plath. And I'm also Whoa. We're not going to, hell no. It's really good though.
SPEAKER_02What does it say is really good?
SPEAKER_05The Colossus by Sylvia Plath? Do you guys know this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Oh, do you know this?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_05It's like one of her more famous ones. Yeah, people always talk about this one.
SPEAKER_02Read it to us.
SPEAKER_05Are you ready?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05The Colossus. I shall never get you put together entirely. Pieced, glued, and properly jointed. Mule bray, pig grunt, and body cackles proceed from your great lips. It's worse than a barnyard. Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle, mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other. Thirty years now I have labored to dredge the silt from your throat. I am none the wiser. Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of Lysol, I crawl like an ant in mourning over the weedy acres of your brow to mend the immense skull plates and clear the bald white tumuli of your eyes. A blue sky out of the orest orestia. Oh father, all by yourself, you are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum. I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress. Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are littered in their old anarchy to the horizon line. It would take more than a lightning stroke to create such a ruin. Knights, I squat in the cornucopia of your left ear out of the wind, counting the red stars and those of plum color. The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue. My hours are married to shadow. No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel on the blank stones of the landing. And that's the Colossus, baby.
SPEAKER_02I think she writes is so funny.
SPEAKER_05Even though I don't know how to pronounce some of those things, which is embarrassing, but is it like a rest like a shrine to Orestes, maybe? I think so. Or maybe is there a body of water? Is that where the Colossus was? Do you guys know what the Colossus is? The Colossus of Rhodes?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So this is basically a poem imagining maybe she did go. She's imagining herself on the ruins of the Colossus of Rhodes. And she's also comparing the Colossus to like her father. But there was a couple stuff I looked into it where her relationship with her father was kind of fucked up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And so this was one of her poems that kind of talks about her relationship with her dad.
SPEAKER_02I love it.
SPEAKER_05It's kind of weird. Thanks for taking that time.
SPEAKER_02Of course. Welcome back to our podcast, Digas and Confess, where we talk about Sylvia Plath.
SPEAKER_05Exclusively Sylvia Plath and relationships with our fathers. Holly, do you want to go first?
SPEAKER_00Wow. That felt I will go first. Yeah, that felt targeted. That felt targeted.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'm embarrassed about it. Don't know.
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm really, I'm just fucking with you. I'm just fucking with you. I don't feel any tiny. We didn't address ever be embarrassed.
SPEAKER_02We didn't address the Billie Eilish last time we recorded. No uh collective side.
SPEAKER_00It's not it's not about Billie Eilish. I'm sure she will do a great job. It's it's the Beljar should not be made into a movie. I don't think. I also feel that way. I'm not sure. Some media as is. Not everything needs to be a movie. And I do think that even though Billie Eilish is wonderful and talented, I think that she's a very like thoughtless, careless casting choice. It's very like, who is the mentally ill baddie of Gen Z? Yeah. Does she have any acting experience? Is she right for this role? Who cares?
SPEAKER_05I know she has some acting experience. She was in like one show. I don't remember what it was. I didn't see it.
SPEAKER_02That doesn't make her an actor.
SPEAKER_05You couldn't make her.
SPEAKER_00You know, I have faith in her because I have faith in her artistry. Yeah. She's an excellent artist. She is an excellent artist, but but again, I don't think the bell jar needs to be a little bit more. I know there was one made in like I think it's it was from like 1979 or something. But yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know what I would it if we wanna if Billie Eilish wants to do the Bell Jar, what she could just make an album inspired by the Beljar or inspired by the thoughts and feelings that the Bel Jar gives her. Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_00And I think that would be a good one. And I think it would be beautiful.
SPEAKER_02I think she would kill that. I think she's like so so her and Phineas are very talented songwriters together. The Bel Jar does not need to be made a movie.
SPEAKER_04I don't think so.
SPEAKER_02I the only thing is presumably they would have had to have gotten permission from the Plath Estate, which is her daughter currently, because everyone's died, except for her daughter, who has written out against stuff before. So I I do wonder like how this came about. Like if they if they presented something to her that she felt was good.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I wonder too if it's going to be like uh an emerald fennels Wuthering Heights situation where it's something that's shoot me at that point. I'm not ready for that. Where it's something that's like loosely based on the Beljar. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Or just honestly, maybe that's better. I like I think the reason I don't think that the Beljar should be made a movie is that the Beljar is auto fiction. Like it is about Sylvia Plath. Yeah. Even though she wrote it as as fiction in quotation marks, like a self-expression. It is about Sylvia Plath. And it is, and she died, you know. So like it is it is so tied up with her that it just feels icky. And like you, it's um, I don't think there's enough distance from it. And I think there's so much uh like that poem I had sent, yeah, of what her what her daughter said, saying uh their little styl Sylvia suicide doll. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like I think And I have full body chills.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like even my knee.
SPEAKER_05Even on your knee.
SPEAKER_02Even on my knee. People use her as a as a joke and a punching bag and don't realize that she was like a young mother. Yeah. And then that family is just filled with tragedy. A deeply mentally ill person who needed support.
SPEAKER_05Have you guys seen there's a version called Sylvia, or yeah, there's a movie called Sylvia with Gwyneth Paltrow.
SPEAKER_02No, you told me you liked that movie. It is the I actually do not like Gwyneth Paltrow as an actress.
SPEAKER_05I yeah, I mean, I have some issues with with Gwen overall, but there's like one scene in that movie that like haunts me and like stays with me because it was like so so superb. Like it literally was one of those moments where I didn't realize I was not watching a movie, I was watching this woman crumble. Yeah, and it was so it was it was brilliant. So I do recommend watching it. I mean, we can even hate watch it if we don't want to love on Gwen.
SPEAKER_00I don't mind her as an actress. I like her in the talented Mr. Ripley.
SPEAKER_05Never saw it.
SPEAKER_00There was a guy, the there's a man outside who was like kind of skipping. I don't know what he was doing, but it distracted me. He was experiencing joy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, wow. In 2026.
SPEAKER_00It's a beautiful 70-ish degree day in Minneapolis.
SPEAKER_02It's Gorgina right now.
SPEAKER_00Mind is a prison. Woman is prison. Woman is prison.
SPEAKER_02Woman is prison. Um, speaking of prison, do you want to talk about the the situation with Savannah Guthrie? Is that her name?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because I don't know anything about this besides that it's happening.
SPEAKER_00And I'm not gonna actually I know a lot about it either. Well, I've seen the headlines, I've I've watched I've watched some Nancy Grice videos on the matter. Nancy Grice. On the matter. On the matter.
SPEAKER_02I associate Nancy Grace with what is it? Top mom? Kristen Wigg's impression of her. Oh yeah. Okay, say that's what I associate Nancy Grace with.
SPEAKER_05Okay, start from the start from the very beginning.
SPEAKER_00So Savannah Guthrie's mother, her elderly mother was like kidding. Do you know who Savannah Guthrie is?
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00She is, isn't she like a news anchor? She's like a news anchor. Yeah, she's like a I think she's like a CNN. She's like a public figure, but not like a CNC.
SPEAKER_05This is the person who had her motherfucking.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, her elderly mother, yes, was kidnapped out of their home by like a masked intruder. And that's it. They don't know where she is, no updates. They don't know where she's gonna be. Um I think there was wait. I okay, I think there was something, I don't know. I can't remember. I remember uh like watching a video that had something to do with a ransom, but the ransom was like suspicious. Question mark. I don't know. The whole thing is very suspicious. There's no leads, no clues, nothing. In the uh like ring camera video you see of the intruder, it kind of looks like it could be a woman. So some people think that it's like an inside job situation or that the family like knows more than they're letting on. It's fucking weird. It's fucking weird.
SPEAKER_05I mean, it was kind of weird from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00And also, like, who would take her mom? Like that yeah, because she again, she's not a celebrity, she's a public figure, but she's not like a celebrity. So then because she's like a you know, works in like news, well, is it like a political thing? Like what it's just bizarre, and that's it. That's all I know.
SPEAKER_05Okay, yeah. Huh. But you brought up jail time, but do you think that's a good thing?
SPEAKER_02Oh, I guess well, you're going to prison if it's the law. Oh, okay, yeah. The law due to that being illegal. The law of it all. So you're not, Nick, uh, you're not allowed to kidnap old ladies.
SPEAKER_05Okay, and then they put you in prison after that. Is that what you're doing? If they catch you, yeah. If they catch you, yeah. That's how you do it.
SPEAKER_02If they if they don't, you're free to go.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay, cool. But like only if they catch you, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So happy hunting.
SPEAKER_05Okay, thanks. Can't wait. I want to tell you guys about the No Kings protest.
SPEAKER_00How was it?
SPEAKER_05It was such a blast. So I haven't gone to any of the No Kings protests so far because it just didn't really fit into my schedule. And so I was really excited to go. Went with my friend Zina and their mom and one of Zina's coworkers, and so the four of us just kind of had a great time. We were on like the eastern side of the Capitol, and it there were so many frickin' people there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there was a lot.
SPEAKER_05And I think they said it was like over a hundred thousand or about a hundred thousand, uh two hundred thousand. 200,000. That also feels correct. Like it was just so many freaking people there. Um, and yeah, it was great. I mean, Bruce Springsteen was there, Jane Fonda.
SPEAKER_02I saw Jane Fonda over there. I was like, oh damn, I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I love Springsteen. Maggie Rogers.
SPEAKER_02Boss.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Is Bruce Springsteen the king? Is that who people refer to as the king? No, he's the boss. He's the boss. Yeah. Right. Because Elvis is the king, he's the boss, right?
SPEAKER_05That's right, that's right. I know. I don't understand that. Um, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02You're a big Major Maggie Rogers fan.
SPEAKER_05I'm a big Maggie. Oh my god, I felt Maggie. I mean, I went to her concert at the Armory several years ago. Maggie's in the room with us. Yes, yeah, Maggie's.
SPEAKER_00She's in the room with us. Thanks, Maggie. Wow, it's great to have you on the show. I did say I was gonna stop singing into the mic, and I haven't, so I I hope you don't.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, don't stop.
SPEAKER_00I'm I I'll try. Did you meet anybody special at the party?
SPEAKER_05I did, and that's why I brought it up. And okay, so uh when I first got there, we were at the far back of side of the crowd because we kind of strolled up a late. By late, I mean like 10 minutes before it started. Yeah. Um and I saw someone up very far ahead that held a sign that said Trump shits his pants, and I said, that's kind of funny. Um true. And yeah, so I mean, there were lots of other signs, it was really funny. But as the night went on, you know, people you know would leave, and so we would be able to scooch up forward, you know, closer and closer to the front. And then at a certain point, I was standing next to this person with the sign, and we were like shoulder to shoulder for a while, and I like didn't really know you know, we were just vibing, you know, we were just there at a protest together. All of a sudden I turned well, actually, I heard her.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and and the voice is wrecking.
SPEAKER_05And I said, I know that timbre anywhere. That is Carolyn from season three of The Traitors, and I literally I so think about me. I haven't seen any like famous people out in the wild. Like, if I've seen famous people, it's like I'm going to a convention, I'm going to a concert. Oh, I did see Greta, but I didn't like bump into her. She was like still far enough away. Dunberg. Dunberg. She was marching in a parade. Yeah. And I said hello from afar. And so this was my first time of like seeing a celebrity in the wild. And so I was like, what do I do? I really want a picture with her, but I do I do I ask to be like, I feel like she's the type of celebrity where it's okay.
SPEAKER_02That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_05That's what I thought so too.
SPEAKER_02So but in Minnesota, especially.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And so I really wanted to like take, I wanted to make sure we weren't gonna like I wasn't gonna ask her to take a picture while something was happening. I was like, I didn't want to be that kind of disrespectful. Um, but then she started to leave, and I had to be like, no, come back. Yeah, and I quickly I ran up, I I almost ran up to her and I was like, Carolyn, please, Carolyn, can I take a picture with you? She turns around and it's like, why? And I and I like panic because I'm like, my heart's beating on the I would start crying.
SPEAKER_02I would have cried.
SPEAKER_05And I like blinked twice and I was like, Well, you're Carolyn, and she said, You're right, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I'm obsessed with her. And I love her. I think I'm gonna talk shit about her on the pod, but I res I rescind that. I don't think you did. Okay. I didn't really like her on traitors, but you know what? I rescind that.
SPEAKER_05Rescinded. Rescinded that. I think she's great.
SPEAKER_02Prior to Traitors, she was on Babe's Brother or Survivor. Okay. Friend of the pod, Devin is like a huge Survivor fan, and that she's one of his favorite survivors. Really? Um, and he met her like a couple years ago at like a Survivor Minnesota event or whatever.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Love.
SPEAKER_05I love her.
SPEAKER_02So that's so funny that she just like fucked up.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, she did. She's like, why? Because I think she did she did hear me because before I realized it was her, yeah, I turned to Rosina and I was like, hey, we gotta make sure to like get a picture of her sign because that's like a really funny sign. And then I like realized who it was, and I was like, oh god, but I think she heard me when I made that comment. And so then of course he didn't like put two and two together until later. So I think she was ready. She had something in her. And she was ready.
SPEAKER_00She's always posting like crazy DMs she gets on her stories of people like yeah, harassing the fuck out of her for her politics. So I am sure that like someone at a protest being like, Can I take a picture with you here? Like, I think maybe she might have genuinely thought, like, for what? You know, yeah, that's true. Yeah, not thinking like, oh, I was on a really popular TV show, two really popular TV shows. So maybe this is like a fan.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Well, I saw she just spoke out and was like, What the fuck is Boston Rob doing? Because he like went to the White House and was like posting about it, and like yeah, which like I could have guessed.
SPEAKER_05I mean, but like I also guessed, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But his name is Boston Robb. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Lots of cues. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Lots of cues there, but um I love that. Sounds like she was an angel.
SPEAKER_05She was an angel, and yeah, we're now a fan podcast. Now we're not a Carolyn fan podcast. It's really great. Um, it was a great time, it was a really great experience. Um, I'm pretty sure I got sunburn and windburn, but it was uh worth it. So it's a great time.
SPEAKER_00I'm kind of coming to the pod with like nothing today. Yeah. We're in a place of nothing.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know what I wanted to talk about actually. Yeah, what yeah? I'm coming to the I'm coming to the pod with something.
SPEAKER_05Give us no.
SPEAKER_02So Holly and I were speaking about this this week. Speaking. Um, and so I want I wanna I want to hear your thoughts on this. I want to talk a little bit more. I want to explore, I want to delve in. I'm nervous. Um, Holly and I are sort of in parallel but similar places of locking in right now.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02So for me, I'm sort of like, damn, my life's changing. I'm moving across the country in a couple months. I will start crying right now if I keep there. Um, but like there's some shit like getting on psychiatric medication on a daily basis, and like I had texted you that I was interested in like ketamine therapy, maybe. Um, and like just kind of locking in and like actually taking like I took my med today, the first med of my new med today, which I did cry and have to hug Jared while doing it, but I did take it.
SPEAKER_04Nice.
SPEAKER_02And so far I haven't had a side effect, so we'll see how it goes. That's right. Fingers crossed. But um I'm still young. But yeah, so I'm sort of in a place of like locking in, like taking care of my health, as we discussed on the way down to this room to pot. I have currently have an infection in my belly button, which is horrifying. Um, and I'm just trying to take care of myself and like be going to grad school and going to North Carolina in a place of as much wellness, but not in like wellness. Like like in in the place of wellness in the broad sense of the term. In a real way. In a real way. Like I'm trying to, I'm trying to move my body more. Um, so I'm I you know, I'm in a place of locking in. And I I know Holly is also in a place of locking in. I don't know if you want to speak on it.
SPEAKER_05What are you locking in on?
SPEAKER_00I'm in a place of locking in. Um, and I'll leave the um sort of career aspect of all of that um off the pod, off the public pod. But yeah, I am well, one of my resolutions, of course, was exercise, and I have worked out maybe twice, and it is sort of the end of March. So that's how that's going. But yeah, I I was really I was doing a lot of admin this week of like calling the doctor to change a medication dose, scheduling a psych appointment to switch a medication entirely, and like I don't know, spring cleaning and going through my stuff and doing all the organizing projects that I need to get done and all the little tasks and things that I put off and avoid because they seem overwhelming, but it's not that the task is overwhelming, it's like the putting it off overwhelms me because then it is like looming large in the distance. It's not the actual task that is anything. Yes, it's the avoidance of it. So I'm kind of locking in in that way. I'm really just sort of like like we were saying before, woman is prison. Yeah, and I'm trying to do the best I can to get the key, get the key to free myself, honey. That's right. I was gonna say to decorate the cage, but I don't want to be in the cage.
SPEAKER_03No, break free, free.
SPEAKER_02I want to break free.
SPEAKER_05Break free.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So we're in a place of locking in.
SPEAKER_05Wow. I don't know if you're gonna be able to do that. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I don't know that it's go like I did have again, I did take one pill today and had to cry about it to my husband, but like I'm working. I did it.
SPEAKER_05Hey, a healing journey starts one step with real.
SPEAKER_02How like where are you in a place? Are you in a place of locking in? Like, what place are you?
SPEAKER_05No, absolutely not. I think I was really locked in January, February, beginning of March.
SPEAKER_02And really New Year's locked in.
SPEAKER_05I was New Year's locked in, and yeah, I was really locked in with like being a better student and like doing more studying and that kind of stuff. But there was there was one lecture I had that made me feel like locking in to study was a bad idea. And this sounds really bad, and I don't know if I'll include it on pod. I might. Essentially, I had studied really, really hard for this like one chapter we were talking about. Yeah, I think emotions. And I read a lot for this chapter, studied a lot, and this one specific section was like, okay, I'm gonna know why the lateral nucleus of the amygdala is important for aggression and like fear response. Like, this is something I want to know, I'm interested about it. And then we got to the lecture, and the professor was like, broad strokes, broad strokes, you don't need to know this. And I spent like an hour trying to like memorize some of this stuff because like memorizing is hard for me, so I have to put in a lot of effort to like do it. And I was like, this is something I want to do, this is kind of interesting. And I remember getting so frustrated because I was like, I've spent I spent a lot of time learning this like from the textbook, from like the textbook that you, Mr. Professor Sir, assigned to us, and I was ready for it. I was prepared, I was locked in, but I was too locked in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And I just honestly, since that point, I have like barely read any of my textbooks because I'm like, if you don't want me to read it, I won't read it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Do you feel like you're still doing fine though without reading them?
SPEAKER_05I'm doing fine without reading it.
SPEAKER_02Because I feel I was just talking to somebody about grad school, um, somebody who also will also be, is currently a clinical psychologist who completed a PhD, and they were like, I'm gonna be honest, I never read that shit. They were like, I just didn't read it because like I was getting enough context in all of my like clinical and research work to not need that. But sometimes, you know.
SPEAKER_05And I and I get that perspective, but I'm frustrated right now because there's a lot of really cool stuff in that textbook. Like, for instance, I one of the really cool things, and I'll I'll teach you guys about it. So, operant conditioning, you know, the little Pavlov Bell where you're like, you know, basically creating a new Jared fucking response to talk about conditioning. So cool in the When once you learn that response, there's a separate part of the brain that helps extinct that. So if you're like with the bell, you train the dog with the bell, and once you stop putting food out, you know, if you're gonna ring the bell and they start salivating, after a while that's that's gonna disappear. Like they're no longer gonna salivate if you don't give them food or a treat afterwards. So if you aren't like fulfilling the whole extinction. Yeah. So then that basically creates extinction. So now like you're gonna ring the bell and they're not gonna salivate anymore. There's a separate part of the brain that operates that extinction mechanism. So essentially, if that part of the brain is turned off and you have a trained stimulus, that's gonna be trained for way longer than it would without it. So basically it's saying if you have damage in that part of the brain and you are going around learning all of these like stimuli responses, or like, for instance, you have you've conditioned yourself to be fearful of some specific thing, but that part of your brain, the extinction part, is damaged. It's gonna be way more difficult for you to like relearn that that's actually okay. So, like your journey to healing, Halin is gonna be much harder if you're doing that. And I think that tracks that part of the chapter was so cool to me. Yeah, did we talk about it in lecture? Absolutely not. And that was the same day that we talked about the the amygdala. And I was like kind of pissed because I was like, that is one of the coolest things here. I was like, Yeah, I was like, we could have we could have dove in. And I understand in grad school there's a lot of stuff, there's a lot of content, a lot of stuff to cover. We gotta go do a lot of things, and I was like, man, could we not have just spent, I don't know, half a minute on that? That's kind of cool. That's kind of rad.
SPEAKER_02This is my issue, is uh, I mean, that's my bread and butter. I'm like interested in neurosych and stroke. But uh, like neurosych has so much interesting stuff, but it also has so much minutiae, and there's so many things you need to memorize about like neural anatomy and stuff that like you will never ever cover everything and you have to pick and choose, and it's like a hard lesson to learn because there's so much cool shit about our brains. I know uh due to them you know keeping us alive and being very complicated. What's the best organ? I'm like the brain, and people disagree with me on that. And I'm like, okay, if you don't have a brain, what are you doing? Not having this conversation with correct. So that's why I love Narrow so much. But like, yeah, it is it is hard because like even in college I felt that way sometimes. I mean, like a little bit less so than I assume I'll probably feel grad school. Um but or even I feel that way like with reading sometimes. If I'm reading like a nonfiction book, I'm like, I could deep dive onto so many different things, or even if I'm reading like a fucking Wikipedia article, like I can just keep going, but you have to stop yourself. I love a Wikipedia rabbit hole. Yeah, yeah. You have to stop yourself at some point and figure out what what is the end goal of the thing that you're doing.
SPEAKER_00I can't speak to neuropsychology, but I will say that I did accidentally Pavlov cucumber. To what? Tell me the sound of my laptop shutting. Oh, I'm working overnight, the sound of my laptop shutting. No, he knows when he hears that it's time to eat, literally. Because I feed him immediately after I close my laptop, put it away, and then feed cucumber, open a can of wet food. So even if he's like sound asleep next to me, that shutting of the laptop, he'll wake up out of a dead sleep, go and run to his bowl.
SPEAKER_03That's brilliant.
SPEAKER_02I conditioned honey. If I put my glasses on, she starts shaking because she knows mama's leaving. She has to drive so her glasses are going on. Yeah, so she's very terrified of glasses. Yeah. Unfortunately.
SPEAKER_05Kafka, I've trained Kafka that when I turn the TV off, he knows that's when it's time to go upstairs and go to bed.
SPEAKER_02I feel like that's a good condition. Yeah. It is, yeah. Penny Penny knows like it's at night when it's time for bed. I go, it's time for seeping. And then she gets up and goes in the bedroom.
SPEAKER_05Cute.
SPEAKER_02But then sometimes if she's too tired, she won't. Yeah. And she'll just like look up at me weakly with like little tiny eyes. I'll say, It's time for seeping, Baba. And she'll look at me and just be like, Carry me.
SPEAKER_00He's carrying me.
SPEAKER_05And then I will carry her. Yeah, right. Of course. What's what's cucumber's bedtime routine?
SPEAKER_00Um, well, he's a cat, so he doesn't really have one. Because cats kind of just like are sleeping all the time. Yeah. And then yeah, he eats. I go straight to bed and then he eats his food. He also has this reflex that some animals have with that like when they eat, it stimulates something in their brain that makes them go to the bathroom. So um there's like it's like a nerve or something that it stimulates. So yeah, he eats and then immediately uses the litter box and then comes to bed. And he usually sits on the end of my bed, and then if he gets bored or isn't feeling it, he'll go sleep in his little bed next to me. And then yeah, I usually wake up and he's in bed with me. So cute. I know. He's not snuggling with me, he's just sleeping out of the side of the bed. He's being the bodyguard, of course.
SPEAKER_05He's in the same area.
SPEAKER_02Penny is trying to sleep on top of me as close as humanly possible. Oh, of course. Of course, of course.
SPEAKER_00Penny would be, if Penny were human, she would be um the child who does like pretend to be asleep in the car so she gets carried indoors, but but like past the age where that's like reasonable.
SPEAKER_02She's like 16 doing that. Yeah, Penny would be 16 years old doing that.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. No doubt, no doubt. She she still is carrying around her blanket and like she probably has milk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like Lala Kent.
SPEAKER_02Her bottle. Exactly. She has a bottle like that. Yeah, she has a baba. Yeah. Um, speaking of Lala Kent, who's from Salt Lake City. Lauren. Lauren from Salt Lake City. Where so you're um I don't think I've met Lauren Like. No, she's on Vanderpump, but she is from Salt Lake originally. She's from like she's not from the show, she's from the city of Salt Lake. That's what the famous city. The famous city of Salt Lake. Um you're on the current season of Salt Lake. Have you decided where you're going next? Because we talked about that last time on pod. I was talking to Rachel about it, and she was like, wow, he has a world ahead of him.
SPEAKER_05And it's true. No, it is true. I don't know. I don't know if I've decided yet.
SPEAKER_00I really think you have to go Beverly Hills.
SPEAKER_05I think I do.
SPEAKER_00I need I need your like critical analysis of like the first five seasons of Beverly Hills.
SPEAKER_05Okay. And I'll do what I did last time or just the other night where I'm just live.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I like that you said the other night as though it wasn't 7 a.m. that you were texting us. It wasn't you in the morning. It was 7 a.m.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think it was.
SPEAKER_02Wake up, turn on the women, see your girls.
SPEAKER_05Hey, it was a great way to start the day. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah. I was like, wow, I feel so great today.
SPEAKER_02I love that. Are you gonna tell your professor uh that you met Carolyn, who loves trade ice? No, I will. I will. I for yeah, I forgot. Get some extra credit, be like, look who I met.
SPEAKER_05Wait, look who I met.
SPEAKER_03Love.
SPEAKER_02Love. I just started Atlanta.
SPEAKER_05How is it?
SPEAKER_02It's really good. I mean, and Nene is like immediately the only person I knew from Atlanta. Well, I think Portia might have been on Atlanta, but I haven't I don't think she's on yet. Well, I know she's not on yet. But the only person I like know of is Nene Leaks because she is like in the Pantheon. Panthenon? Pantheon?
SPEAKER_05Pantheon.
SPEAKER_02Pantheon. I was right the first time. Pantheon of uh Bravo Housewives. Uh Jared was like, she looks so familiar. I was like, she she's in every meme.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02She is every meme. You've seen her a thousand times. And she is a star. She was on Glee.
SPEAKER_00For the Gleeks.
SPEAKER_02Yep. She is immediately a star. She's so she is so funny. She is so herself. She just is perfect. Like she's just great. Um, and I under and she's also like a huge bitch, of course, which like you cannot be a good housewife without being a huge bitch, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_05That is true.
SPEAKER_02Um, but there's different kinds of bitches, and like she's the right kind. And I just I she's just such a star immediately. There was also another housewife who I think she might leave after this season. Um, and she is one of the very, very because some of them are crazy rich because they have they're married to like NFL players or like NBA NBA players, so they have like dumb money, and she holds like a charity event, and she's like, My goal is to raise a million dollars, and she raises ten thousand dollars. Oh and I was like, I would quit the show at that point. Yeah, to be honest, like I would be like, Nope, you'll never see her hear from me again. Yeah, you'll never see her hear from me again.
SPEAKER_05Moving to the Canadian woods.
SPEAKER_02That was scary, but yeah, so I'm on Atlanta.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_02And Holly is on Rony.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I am, yeah. And I um I'm I just started season nine. Yeah, um, and I put it on today while I was um like in the background, so I wasn't super paying attention, but I did catch a scene where Ramona and I believe Carol are having a fight, um, presumably about the election. Yeah and Ramona says, I think there's pluses and minuses to both, and I don't want to start a war over it. I don't want to start a war over it. Pluses and minuses of her saying that at her big age of what, probably 58 there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02She's might be in her 60s at that point. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Carol is and minuses.
SPEAKER_00Well, and then I also got a glimpse of um Heather Hey Mama Holla Thompson watching the results come in with Carol. I can't think of a worse person I would want by my side during the 2016 like election result night. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Wow. There's the there's a Thompson Heather, and she is she is like the epitome of like girl boss 2010. Yeah. Hey mama. Let's break that glass ceiling. At one point, I think she says, I don't know her exact words, but I think she says to one of the other women who's about to walk around my show, she says something like, You've got a strong, beautiful black woman inside of you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Imagine you're a strong, yeah, independent, beautiful black woman, is what she says.
SPEAKER_02And then she always goes, Huh?
SPEAKER_00Do I believe Sonia Morgan? Is that who she said that to? Yeah, I think she might say it to Sonia. Yeah. As like advice for when she's going down the road. She's white, by the way. Yeah, they're all white. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02She's very like girl boss 2010's feminism, but like no, I know she is a notorious RBG mug. Like, yeah, but she was like still wearing a pussy conservative circles.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Like she worked with Diddy, and so that's kind of why she thinks that she can say Holla after she like says and does anything.
SPEAKER_02She also keeps bragging about going to Diddy parties.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But this was like in what 2013, 14. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So it was kind of you know, you know, sort of thing at that time.
SPEAKER_00But anyway, yeah, Heather Holla Thompson makes an appearance with Carol to will continue to make appearances because some of them are still. I can't believe she was a friend of. I can't believe she was a friend of.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It's crazy. She's like continues to be friends with them, and I hate her ass.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she's really crazy. Um, for our listeners, if you kind of know about like the nose scrunch smile meme where it's like where it's like HR people be like, I will.
SPEAKER_02I thought it was Heather at first.
SPEAKER_00I thought so too. This Stephanie McMahon. Oh yeah, this kind of like devilish like smile. Yeah, very that. Very like she's um she's like HR personified. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Holla mama.
SPEAKER_02Who is your who is your current favorite? Now that you're kind of almost caught up on Salt Lake, who's your current favorite and least favorite? Because I feel like they kind of varies a lot via the season throughout the seasons, and so I'm kind of curious where you're because I think Mary was my least favorite for the longest time until this like.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. There's like something about season five that just like kind of changes the I feel like they finally gave her a storyline.
SPEAKER_00I agree.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah. Her previous character was just being a bitch, like that just was like Which Yeah, yeah. Yeah, which isn't wrong, but like But no, I um I think I still I have always hated Lisa Barlow outside of like one episode. Um I don't remember which one, but she's like probably the worst human alive.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. The most recent season, I'm like, I can't do it. I like I cannot get into like the standom of Lisa because I do think that Lisa goes beyond like housewives evil, and I do think that she is a genuinely evil, awful person.
SPEAKER_05I mean, why do you have six lawyers?
SPEAKER_00Calling my six lawyers.
SPEAKER_05You don't need if you are a good person, you don't need six lawyers. She's very so crazy. She's so crazy. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Crazy in a way that like it literally exhausts me to watch and makes me feel tense and like worked up.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know why.
SPEAKER_02I kind of like watching Lisa, I'm gonna be honest.
SPEAKER_05I mean, she does make for like good TV.
SPEAKER_02I think she's good TV. She's great TV. She's pissing me off so bad. Her talking about her fucking trees. I don't know if you've gotten there yet.
SPEAKER_05Her trees?
SPEAKER_02And the most recent season, she talks about how like her trees give her energy. Like, I don't even know. You'll get there and you can text us, but anyway, so Lisa is a no.
SPEAKER_05Lisa's a no, Mary Cosby's a no. I have always loved Whitney, even though she's a mess. Whitney Rose is a mess. She's our mess. And I love how she's so earnest.
SPEAKER_00She's the realest one there.
SPEAKER_05She's the realest one there, always Hillen. And I actually do really like Heather Gay.
SPEAKER_02Like, I you could never get me to say anything nice about that bitch. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Sirens just started going off in my mind with kill bills.
SPEAKER_05Wow. Because I think I'm afraid of you. There's something. There's something pathetic about her. I don't know. Yeah, like you feel bad for her. I just like want to bring her under my wing and just be like, hey, we can be, we can be friends, we can be buddies. It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be a good thing. It's not gonna be okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Judge on needs to hit her again.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I that part is wild to be, but honestly, that to me is like the level of insecurity that that woman has. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I just bully her.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and so I give her so much grace because she has no she is not confident about who she is at all.
SPEAKER_02No, she's not. But I'm not either. And I'm not a Heather Guy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. But I feel like I guess in comparison of like the wrecking balls, her kind of wrecking ball is like much smaller than everyone else's.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But Angie K.
SPEAKER_05I kind of I kind of love Angie K. Oh, Angie K is amazing.
SPEAKER_00Angie K is just so hairstylist. She really is. She's so hairstylist. I can't get enough of her. I love her. I do have to kind of ignore the fact that like her and her husband are like kind of like red pill, weird red pill freaks. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, but there's a lot of people. I can't I can't think of the politics of anyone on Bravo. I just can't do it. It'll ruin it for me. I can't remember that they're like actually really bad, awful people. Right. Yeah. And I have to just separate that, separate the art from the artists. I know.
SPEAKER_02This is the one time where I'm like, you just gotta do it. Yeah. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Correct. Because I love, I love, I love Meredith Marks. I love her best.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I do. She's a mess. Bless this mess. God.
SPEAKER_02I do think, well, because Meredith is not coming back next season, right?
SPEAKER_05In season seven?
SPEAKER_02Um, I don't think I think that was like a That was a rumor, but it's not been confirmed.
SPEAKER_00I think that was like someone on Stan Twitter did that and then it got out of hand. Okay. So I don't think that was ever confirmed.
SPEAKER_02I was kind of I love Meredith. She's generally been my favorite housewife in Salt Lake City, but I was getting like sick of her ass on this most recent season. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00She's like been a little too on pills.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Even in season five, I don't know, it felt like she was just very her fuse was very short in a way that like not in like a Jen Shaw kind of short fuse.
SPEAKER_00Are you to like the airplane of it all? No, no, you're not there.
SPEAKER_05In season, what, the most recent season? No, I just watched the first episode. Okay, you're not even.
SPEAKER_02I can't remember when that goes down. That would be like at least midway through the season.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_02I love Britney. It's obnoxious. Brittany. She is a wow. She is, there's nothing in there.
SPEAKER_05There's nothing upstairs. She is the biggest mess.
SPEAKER_02A man over her children every time.
SPEAKER_05I have loved the amount of announcements, has really brought me a lot of joy.
SPEAKER_00Her and Jared.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I am hoping that there is a secret lives and Salt Lake City crossover. Oh. And I think that there might be because um someone just posted a pic. I think it was Whitney Rose and Jesse. I did see that together.
SPEAKER_02So because I think they're run by different.
SPEAKER_00They are. However, if someone were to leave Hulu, that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_02You think like somebody could cross over?
SPEAKER_00That's what I mean by a crossover, not a collaboration. They'll never collab because it's Bravo and um ABC. Yeah. I think.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_00Or maybe just straight up Hulu because Secret Lives is a Hulu exclusive show. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, I don't think the they'll ever collab necessarily.
SPEAKER_02They'll pull in somebody for Salt Lake.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I hope so. I would love to see one of the Secret Lives women on Salt Lake City. And I think Jesse would be the perfect person to do it because she is independently wealthy and was before she went on Secret Lives because of her successful hair business. Yeah. So her and Angie could get into it.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely, yeah. I would love that.
SPEAKER_00I would love to see Jesse on Salt Lake City like that.
SPEAKER_02You haven't watched Secret Lives, right?
SPEAKER_05I've watched a couple episodes, but then but then as I was watching Secret Secret Lives, I was like, I kind of want to get grittier. And that's when I was like, that's when I moved to Real Housewives. Yeah. Of Salt Lake City.
SPEAKER_02Of course. Of course. And the reunions are fucking terrible. The reunions are awful.
SPEAKER_05But I've also heard that like every husband on Secret Lives is gay.
SPEAKER_02Deserves to die. Oh. Oh, did you say he's gay? Yeah. Well, one of them is. One of them is. Who knows?
SPEAKER_05But I was gonna say, I mean, when I'm a good one. I mean, when I watched when I watched that first episode, I was like, are all of these gay men? I was like, this is the vibe.
SPEAKER_02Horrible people. Yeah. Horrible people. Yeah. Except for one. Yeah, except for Connor.
SPEAKER_05Connor.
SPEAKER_02The rest of them are truly like demonic. All of those women deserve a gun to kill them. Because they are horrible. Nobody, oh, he gets my grinds my ears. Nobody talks about Michaela, who's on the show who's in her early 20s. She has like these chronic health issues and like there's so much going on. And she talks about having like childhood sexual abuse in the show and like how it's been very hard on her marriage and all this kind of stuff. And what and it's I think it was like maybe a family member or somebody in the church. I don't remember exactly she said who it was to her, but it was like when she was quite young. What we don't ever address in the show, and what we don't really bring up besides the fact that they say it, I think in the first episode, is that she got pregnant when she was 16 with her current husband's baby when he was 21. Oh. So he is also her abuser. And she's married to him. And she's married to him, and she's having all these health pro like autoimmune flares, and she like doesn't want to have sex with him because it's so stressful for her because of her trauma.
SPEAKER_00Her body's keeping the score in a crazy way.
SPEAKER_02And I'm just like, are we ever gonna address the fact that like that's her abuser? Like that is yeah, that's not I mean, that's not her only abuser, unfortunately. Like, I you know, I hope for the best for her, but like it is so horrible to watch this disgusting man. And a lot of people are like, he's one of the better husbands, and like he's not. He is outwardly better than some of them. Yeah, but he is absolutely her fucking abuser.
SPEAKER_00He's better, like I think I think he's better.
SPEAKER_02I don't think he'd cuss her out on camera.
SPEAKER_00No, I think he's better at keeping his cool and having like a being a duck smooth on the surface, paddling like crazy underneath, you know. I think he's much better than that than the other husbands who are more, yeah, like you said, like outwardly white supremacists. Outwardly angry and like beefing with their wives on camera. He's he seems very like docile, you know what I mean, and like quiet and kind of shy. Yeah, but I think he's one of the more sinister of them. Because yeah, you did sort of groom her. Yeah, got her pregnant when she was a minor and you were a legal adult, be well beyond a legal adult in your 20s. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and now you're gonna have a whole storyline about how like you're upset because she doesn't want to be intimate with you.
SPEAKER_05Hmm.
SPEAKER_00Hmm.
SPEAKER_05Interesting. Yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_02Really interesting shit.
SPEAKER_00Really interesting. So yeah, he should die, Dakota should die. I support Taylor Frankie, beat his ass back, Paul. That's my girl, that's my sister, and I think she could have done worse to him. So and should have. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Have you seen all the discourse about Taylor Frankie Paul?
SPEAKER_05I've heard some of it. Um, but I guess give me the quick one, too.
SPEAKER_02She essentially was like, she's one of the women on Secret Lives, and she is in a very toxic relationship, on again, off again relationship with her baby daddy. His name is Dakota, and he's a fucking piece of shit. And she was the Bachelorette, and they filmed the whole season, and they pulled it because footage from like two or three years ago came out where she like throws a chair at Dakota and Having like a domestic altercation. Um, but he is obviously abusing her, and she is being responsive to that abuse, correct. And everybody is like disgusting behavior, and like there is a child in the video who gets accidentally hit, which is very upsetting.
SPEAKER_00You want to know what though? I watched the video with no sound because I didn't want to listen to it. Yeah. And at no point in the video do you see the chair hitting the child? But what you do here, because I asked my friend who watched the video with the sound on, was do you actually see the child getting hit with the chair? Or do you just hear Dakota saying, You just hit your daughter with the chair?
unknownOh.
SPEAKER_00And Dakota walking towards her child as Taylor's swinging on him with a bar stool. Yeah. Walking towards her child and then saying, Look what you did, Taylor, you just hit your daughter. And then you hear the child start crying. Yeah. But it's like, was she crying because she was scared?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Or was she crying because she allegedly got hit? So there is no actual video proof of her daughter being hit by the chair.
SPEAKER_02I found it very difficult to watch. Correct.
SPEAKER_00But it's just what Dakota's saying.
SPEAKER_02But again, like the internet is like, is like she's the devil. She deserves to go.
SPEAKER_00She's getting amber herted. She's getting amber herted. And to me, it's one of those things where it's like again, no one wants to acknowledge that it's like women are so rarely abusive to their partners for no reason. You know what I mean? So often it is a woman who is pushed and pushed and poked and poked and prodded and prodded to her breaking point at her lowest moment when she is crashing out and like really just has had enough is when the men bust out the camera and start recording them. Look how crazy you're being.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Do you I can't believe you're acting like this? How could you do this? Like your daughter's in the room. And it's like, what? But why aren't we acknowledging what brought her to that point? You have pushed this woman to her lowest moment, probably in her life, and taking your camera out and started filming her in her lowest moment.
unknownCool.
SPEAKER_02It's also like this video came out. This video is a couple years old and it has only come out right before The Bachelorette was set to air.
SPEAKER_00Correct. And this altercation is what opens the sh entire show, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. This altercation was filmed. Episode one, the pilot episode. You see the police body cam footage of them pulling up, which the 911 call that the neighbor called in Taylor being abused because the neighbor heard Dakota like beating on her in the garage and not letting her leave the garage. So when she finally gets let out of the garage is when we see her with the bar stool swinging on Dakota.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_00So let's talk about that.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_00Let's talk about that.
SPEAKER_05Let's talk about self-defense. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like women, so there's a whole TV show about it. Snapped. Abused women pushed to their fucking breaking points who kill their husbands. Snapping.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_05Do you think the the recorded season of The Bachelorette will ever be aired?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. They say no, but I don't know if I believe that.
SPEAKER_02I feel like it's possible to like release it like online only or something.
SPEAKER_00Or like straight to streaming every episode.
SPEAKER_02Straight to stream. I don't know. I don't know if they will. Because I feel like they've already pulled it. Yeah. And so now if they were to walk it back, I think there would be outrage, even though I think the outrage is all very misplaced right now. I think so too. I mean, like, to be clear, Taylor is mentally extremely unwell. Of course. Like, needs to be needs to handle her mental health. She is like not a stable person. No, not at all. And that's why she's a good, she's a good victim of abuse, right? A perfect target. Uh, but like, I I just think that the yeah, the blame is getting put on her, and I don't think that ABC is going to air it, because I think that the Bachelorette's viewers are primarily like conservative Christian women who would never side with Taylor.
SPEAKER_05You're right. No, you're right.
SPEAKER_02And so I think if it was a different audience and it was like new information's come out or whatever, is the kind of vibe. I think maybe they would go back, but I think because of the primary audience for The Bachelorette.
SPEAKER_00You know what though?
SPEAKER_02I think so.
SPEAKER_00I don't completely agree with that because I don't think that ABC pulled it because of like they were worried about backlash. I think they pulled it because sponsors started dropping out and they were going to be able to do it.
SPEAKER_02No, I think they pulled it because sponsors are dropping out, but I think to put it back, I think there would be backlash.
SPEAKER_00Of course, but there was crazy backlash when they casted her as the bachelorette. ABC knew everything about her when they casted her. This none of this information was. Yeah, none of this had been uh was a surprise to them. Absolutely none of it. So is this because people were outraged when she was cast as the Bachelorette. The Bachelor fandom was. Yeah. But I think the reason they did that is because they were hoping to gain a new audience for a dying franchise because like no one really cares. Yeah, and they were going to. The girls in gays were seated. Yeah, we were going to be. I was seated.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I don't know. I don't I don't think ABC cares that much about backlash and about like I don't know. I think they care more about like their bottom line and money. And I think if sponsors hadn't pulled out, they probably would have still it.
SPEAKER_02But I I think the backlash would impact the sponsorship. Like I think it's all tied to that. Like I don't think it's the literal back. I don't think any company care gives a fuck about what the general public's saying. Correct. I think the backlash is what would once again just not drive the sponsors. Drive the sponsors.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Do you think this is still part of the same show though? Like a like this like corporate show that they're putting on? Like, did they know that this was gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00Do you think they knew that she was a risk when they cast her, which is why they did.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_00Because she'd be entertaining.
SPEAKER_05So do you think that they prepared for this? Like, do you think they had they have a plan in place for this?
SPEAKER_00I mean, maybe, maybe, but I also think a lot of it too is that like part of the reason they didn't air it is because one, they were losing corporate sponsors, but two, the season was spoiled by like reality Steve and like all the like reality people who like have you know the inside scoop and then.
SPEAKER_02Well, the seasons are always always spoiled to some extent.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but but with the Dakota thing. With the Dakota thing and like the storylines from the other show carrying out and like that sort of thing. People people knew that like okay, she picked someone, but she ultimately went back to Dakota.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Oh.
SPEAKER_00Because the what kicked all of this off is that she got into the she got the cops called again with like another incident with Dakota, uh, like a few like three weeks before, um, sometime in February, I think.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then it was a couple weeks before uh The Bachelorette was supposed to air, and then that's what got people talking. Is like, oh, she had another incident with Dakota. Oh, what about this incident from 2023? And then it got people talking about the old one again. And then the video was released, which we didn't have that video. The video was released like three days before the premiere. That feels intentional, yes, and people think Dakota sold it to TMZ.
SPEAKER_05I don't think anybody believes that's true.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but ABC would have had access to that footage anyway, because they cast Taylor, and I assume that they do some sort of background checks on people, and like if they had requested the video from the police, I think because it's like part of a public record, they would have given it to her. But um, or they would have given it to ABC. Yeah, but yeah, people think Dakota sold the footage to TMZ, which I believe that.
SPEAKER_04I do.
SPEAKER_00And all the women on Secret Lives had been saying, like, this is what Dakota does. He always sabotages Taylor before something good happens to her.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, now we see it in like a grand scale.
SPEAKER_00Cyclical abuse. And yes, like Melissa said, Taylor needs a lot of help. Taylor is very unstable. Yeah, she needs help, and no one is excusing anything she did, but it's like the context for why she did it does matter and it is important. And what's been really making me angry is people like I don't know, people spouting off parroting these DV statistics that are overwhelmingly about men, about male abusers with female victims. Like, oh, if you if you um strangle your partner during an altercation, you're like 500% more likely to murder them or something like that. Hey, that's about men. That's about male abusers, and that matters. That context matters so much when we talk about domestic violence statistics, and people are just ignoring that, and it's making me so angry. Oh my gosh, Melissa. I mean, her and I, we were getting into it all last week, just talking about it. Like the amber herd evocation, it just is really people genuinely don't understand like smear campaigns, they don't understand when someone's like being womaned, they don't understand like yeah, they just people don't get it. Yeah, and it's really frustrating to see all the discourse.
SPEAKER_02I just continue to wonder why I know so many women who have been abused and I seem really no men. No, no men, men who have known abusers. There's just um yeah, they're just there's just women out there who are just crazy.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02I just know so many women who have been sexually assaulted and abused by their partners. And it's just interesting how no men seem to know anybody. Yeah, it's just so fucking weird how straight guys have strained friends.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. I I find this the whole Taylor Frankie Paul situation almost like triggering in a way because I'll say this on pod. Like, I, my high school boyfriend was very abusive to me. He wasn't physically abusive, but he was extremely emotionally abusive. He cheated on me a lot, he was having sex with other people our entire relationship. Like, I I don't need to get into the dirty details on Mike. However, like he was horrible to me and he really, really traumatized me, really affected me. The night we broke up, I physically attacked him. U Do you know me to be a violent, abusive person?
SPEAKER_05Absolutely not. That was must have been your bottom.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was my breaking point. And I had been at work all day, the fucking frozen yogurt shop, and I couldn't be on my phone. I wasn't allowed to be on my phone because this was in 2012, 2012. Yeah. So smartphone wasn't um God yet. And I wasn't allowed to be on my phone at work, so I remember getting off work, having a bunch of like texts and calls from him, like, why aren't you answering? And then I texted him, tried to call him. He, of course, ignored me, wouldn't pick up his phone. So I'm like, okay, I wonder if he's home or like if he's hanging out with his friends. So I drove past his house on my way home from work. I see a car outside of his house. It's his ex-girl's car. Yeah. So I turn my car around. At this point, I'm just in a blind rage. Okay. And I understand like abusive people often say, like, I just, I don't even remember. I like blacked out. I don't even remember. That's that that isn't what's happening here. Okay. Rage took over, parked my car, knocked on his door, he opened the door, and I see his ex-girlfriend sitting on the couch, and I just lost it. He opened the door, I looked at him, I said, Fuck you. And I slapped him across the face as hard as I could. I kicked him in the balls, and I was just like swinging on him. I was. I had and I was screaming at him. I said, Fuck you, like, how could you do this to me? And so then I start screaming at her, and I'm like, You're a bitch. Like, I almost got you a job. Like, how could you do this to me? Just hysterical. I was completely hysterical, out of my mind. And yeah, I physically attacked him, and then I just started sobbing, walk back to my car, got another surge of energy as I'm walking back to my car, turn around and start banging on the door again. Well, then his dad answers and he's like, I know you're upset right now, but you need to leave. And I was like, you know, still a teenager while I was 18, but I, you know, when a parent tells you something, you're not going to be able to do it. You're still shooking. You get scared, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So then I went in my car, drove home hysterically sobbing. And it was like the worst night of my life. Yeah. And I guess I just think, like, what if he had had a camera in that moment and was recording me doing that? Posted it all over the internet, said, look how fucking crazy she is. Look how she treats me. And no one had any contact with that. And it has all the messages he had sent you. The the year and a half of fucking emotional torture he put me through. And I can feel myself getting like so angry. Yeah. Clearly, this is still a wound for me. But it just I find it like triggering almost the way people speak about her because I just am like, of course she looks crazy, swinging on him with a fucking bar stool. But what did he do to her to push her to that point? Because he did something. Yeah. And there's there's no denying that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Most of his ex there's like been ex-girlfriend, like friends of his ex-girlfriends and stuff that have been like, he's a fucking monster. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Women know.
SPEAKER_05So he yeah. So he's a really good guy. Yeah. Great.
SPEAKER_00He's a good guy just like Johnny Depp.
SPEAKER_02Just like Johnny Depp. Just like Johnny Depp. He's a good guy, just like Brad Pitt.
SPEAKER_05Just like Brad Pitt.
SPEAKER_02Just like Chris Brown. All the other fucking men.
SPEAKER_00Just like fucking Louis C.K.
SPEAKER_05Just like our president. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Just like Trump. Just like every other fucking man.
SPEAKER_05Yep. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Good guy.
SPEAKER_05Just a good guy. Yep. You don't want to ruin his future.
SPEAKER_02One of the boys.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. That is why there's like some things that I'm kind of thankful about being gay for. No, gay men aren't perfect. But I do feel like I have a perspective on this that like I think if I was straight, I think I would be a monster.
SPEAKER_03Well.
SPEAKER_05Because a lot of the like emotional and social journey that I've been on is because I came out of the closet.
SPEAKER_02Because you mean you haven't you weren't socialized to be.
SPEAKER_05I wasn't socialized to be a gay man. I was socialized to be a man. Yeah. And after I came out, it did take me a while to realize like actually it is okay to like step into queer spaces and learn and to make friends and to talk about your emotions and to like rely on other people and also admit that you're sorry and you know say stupid shit sometimes that you know what not to do. And like it took me a really long time to learn that, and I'm still learning that. Yeah. But I honestly don't think I would have been on that journey if I hadn't have come out of the closet. Granted, part of the reason I was such an asshole when I was in the closet was because I was gay and I didn't want to be in the city. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02I don't think that you I still don't think you would have been like an abuser. Like I think that there are I think that there are I'm thinking right now. Well I'm thinking about what to say on pod. I think that there are men I have met, men that my friends have been with, men that I have personally interacted with as my partners, where even before anything happens, you know. Like I think there is just like one time I joked with Jared and he was like, he was like, that's not funny to me, I don't like that. But I was like, nobody thinks that Jared, I was like, you actually it'll be really easy for you to abuse me because I don't think anybody thinks you're abusing me. Yeah. Because he's not, just to be clear. No, yeah, yeah. But like nobody is scared of Jared. Nobody is scared of Jared beating the shit out of me. And I do think that like, I don't want to say you can always tell because like that is one of the scary things, right? Is that people marry people sometimes and then all of a sudden they're fucking freaks of sh do shit to them and stuff. But like there is something about certain men that even if I'm not seeing them do anything, I'm like afraid of them. Yeah. And it's it they've done nothing to make me afraid of them because there is just this there is this energy. Narcissistic stare.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's the emotionless eyes. Yes. I've gone on dates with guys like that where immediately I know within minutes of sitting down, I'm like, oh, you're scary. Yeah. And I'm not ever gonna speak to you again after this.
SPEAKER_05Right, yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna make it through this interaction, that's it. Yeah, that's terrifying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Once you've met one, you've met them all because they all have the same personality.
SPEAKER_02Listen, when I talk to when I meet new people, and then I have to like at some point rehash the fact that my ex was a piece of shit, and you know, I start to describe him, and women can finish what he what his behaviors are, what he looks like, how he behaves now. Like it's just there's a pattern.
SPEAKER_05There's a pattern.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so fuck men.
SPEAKER_02Fuck men. That's how we feel about abusers. Yeah. The spot is taking a stand. We don't like abuse. Yeah. We hate abuse. You heard it here first. Hey, thanks.
SPEAKER_00We don't have to be able to do that. Not a lot of people are willing to say that. Apparently, fucking not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. According to the internet right now.
SPEAKER_00People, I you know what? I think it is so much easier for people to buy into this fantasy of like this crazy abusive woman, or like to buy into this fantasy that like women, um how okay, how do I say this in a way that doesn't sound controversial and like really crazy? But people want to buy into this fantasy that women have the like capability of abuse that like the standard man has, which is just not true to me personally, or like I don't believe that to be true because women are raised and conditioned completely differently. Like, you know what I mean? Women do abuse, but the driving factor is different factors, and that matters.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I think it's easier for people to like believe and buy into these sort of narratives that like there's there are these like crazy women out there who are just just as abusive as men and da-da-da, instead of the simple fact that um men have all the power in this world, men are abusive, men kill their wives for no fucking reason and get away with it, and can abuse women and rape women and like uh torture women and still tour like Chris Brown and still have a fucking career. I think it's easier for people to believe that women are capable of the same instead of the truth of the matter, which is that like women are treated like garbage in this world, and that's a hard pill to swallow that women are not equal.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Right? Yep.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Women are not equal.
SPEAKER_00I just it's just it just drives me crazy. It drives me crazy. I'm like, you can't use statistics that are about men to you can't use those when you're trying to, I don't know, trying to talk about like a woman who's abusive. You can't say these DV statistics that are not about women, that are about men. Because what is it? Isn't it like 80 something percent of DV victims are women with male abusers? I think it might be less than that, but I don't remember. It's more than half.
SPEAKER_05It's more than half more than half for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It just makes me so mad. People don't give a damn about women who are abused, but they do think that they care when it's a man and suddenly it's well, women are just as abusive, by the way, and it's underreported, and that's why it's not talked about. No.
SPEAKER_02No, everyone's waiting for a woman to mess up. Correct. We already expect that men have messed up.
SPEAKER_05I mean, look at the the Trump administration.
SPEAKER_02I know, I'm like the the entire cabinet right now is a group of fucking abusers. Yeah. Correct.
SPEAKER_05And who are the ones that have fallen the first? The women.
SPEAKER_00Right. Amber Heard still to this day has her Instagram comments turned off. Yeah. And like lives like a quiet private life in Spain, I believe, with her two children and a partner. Yeah. People still want her dead. And it makes me so crazy.
SPEAKER_02Like if you haven't listened to Matt Bernstein's Bernstein Bernstein, I think it's Bernstein Bernstein's. Bernstein Bears. Um, Matt's uh podcast a bit fruity, he has a great episode on Amber Heard, which is just like so, so excellent and so well researched and so well thought out that just lays out the entire entire thing. Like I would highly recommend listening to that because I think I just see so many parallels. So many parallels.
SPEAKER_00Um and these are yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And also I would encourage people to look up the just look up. Yeah, just look up statistics. Look up, um, just look up just look up here. Just look up. Just look up the um concept and like the the sort of term um womaned. I believe, wasn't that Rayne Fisher Kwan who coined that? I think it might have been. I think it was. Um, yeah, the concept of being womaned. It's essentially like when we've seen or heard a little too much from a woman in the public eye, there's suddenly a smear campaign. There's suddenly like a, you know, people who have been womaned think like uh Jennifer Lawrence, classic example. People got a little too tired of her, like I like pizza shtick, and suddenly she's evil and she's not in movies anymore. Yeah. And Anne Hathaway was one.
SPEAKER_02Um Catherine Heigel kind of was womaned, but then it's now come out that she sucks.
SPEAKER_00She yeah, she is kind of.
SPEAKER_02I think the thing about being Woman does like it doesn't absolve people of their behaviors because Jennifer Lawrence has also had shitty behavior, but all of these women, it is like we get sick of them, and we want a reason and any little thing, then any excuse to nail a woman to the cross, like we're gonna do it.
SPEAKER_05No, absolutely. Yeah, that's insane.
SPEAKER_00Chapel Rhone. Yep. Yup. Oh my god, Chapel Roan. Absolutely. Extremely womaned right now. Yeah, being womaned anytime she says or does anything. And I'm like, don't make me fucking say the word lesbophobic, okay? Don't make me pull out the tender, queer terminology, but I will, but it is lesbophobic. People say that they want a diva and they want a this and that and whatever, and then they get one and they're mad that they because she doesn't, she's not acting how they want her to. Right, you know? And a lot of it is like, I hate that this angry dike is standing up for herself, and I'm gonna write a think piece about it, about why she's kind of a Karen. It's like, okay, you don't do that about well, they do do that about other celebrities, but still, it's like you're not I'm not seeing think pieces. Correct. I'm not seeing think pieces on uh I don't know, I I'm not gonna think of a comparison, but yeah, there is like a certain air of homophobia to all of the chapel road discourse. Oh, 100% and Jojo Siwa too. Don't even get me started on the way evil treat Jojo Siwa. True. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Hey, I know we're getting into the app, but can we get some confessions?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Confess. I have a confession.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00I'm bleeding through my tampon as we speak.
SPEAKER_05Oh shit.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_05Do you want that on pod?
SPEAKER_00I don't care.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_00You think I'm a you think after everything I just said, I have I have shame around my period?
SPEAKER_05No, absolutely. No, no, no. You're good.
SPEAKER_00I'll pull it out and show the camera.
SPEAKER_01I'll swing it around. A clot hits the wall.
SPEAKER_02I love it. I'm gonna do a I'm gonna do a period-related confession. Um our listeners may or may not know that I don't have a uterus because I had it removed. Um via choice, just to be clear, had a hysterectomy.
SPEAKER_05Where your husband had to sign for it.
SPEAKER_02To boot. What did you say?
SPEAKER_05And your husband had to sign for it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Did he have to sign for it?
SPEAKER_05I thought we talked about that.
SPEAKER_00We might have. Or what did he just have like a questionnaire or something? Like, are you okay that your baby maker can't make babies?
SPEAKER_02I can't even remember at this point.
SPEAKER_05I think he I think because it was a point of for me where I was like, the fuck kind of system are we in?
SPEAKER_02That whole month was very is very blurry in my brain.
SPEAKER_00Do you allow your wife to remove your childbearing ability?
SPEAKER_05Should we beat her for you? Yeah, like yeah, literally.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that that whole month is very blurry in my brain because I did have complications where I was like bleeding out and thought I was gonna die.
SPEAKER_00You were losing liters of blood.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was losing literally, you wouldn't imagine how much blood you can lose. Um, but my confession is that um, and there's no scientific explanation for this, but I have phantom period pains about every six months.
SPEAKER_04Whoa.
SPEAKER_02The way that you have like a phantom limb pain, I have phantom like uterus contractions. And I've seen some people talking about it online, but not a lot. And I did bring it up to my OB one time, and she was kind of like, that's not real. But like, literally, it's so and I just want to be clear, I loved my OB. Like, she was not that kind of bitch. She was, she was, but she didn't say it like that. She said it much more nice, but like I literally have like phantom uterus cramps, and people are like, you know, like maybe you have a stomachache, your back, and I'm like, but like it's literally so specific. It is like my uterus is contracting, and I feel it in my lower back, and I can feel like the period cramps are such a pain that is so it is not another pain. Yeah, and it happens like every I would say between four to six months. It's been almost five years since I got my uterus removed. Jeez, and it is so weird, and I just feel so sick, and it happens just like for one night. So that's my confession. So I have a phantom uterus that's actually.
SPEAKER_00Just to see if the streets are talking, might I suggest adding Reddit to your own.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I've looked at Reddit. Yeah, there are some people. It's hard though, because a lot of the people who are experiencing that are a couple months post-op, and that's like your body's healing. It takes like a long time to heal from it.
SPEAKER_00You know, I'd be so curious because I always see those videos of like the period pain simulators and like hooking men up to them, and they're like, they can't even handle like level two. Yeah, and the women are on 10 and they're like, it kind of hurts, but I go to work like this, I usually do.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'd be very curious to like do for you to do one of those to see like if it actually does feel like period pain. Because I always wonder, like, what does that feel like to someone who doesn't have a uterus? You know, like does it just feel like abdominal cramps? Like, what does it feel like to cramp?
SPEAKER_02Maybe we'll have to find that that'll be a pod episode or if we hook we hook me up to a pain simulator because I don't have enough. Um and yeah, I tell you whether we don't have enough ailments, so we're gonna seek more. We'll get you an additional because I'm I'm I'm uh I'm not rare. Actually, hysterectomy is one of the most common medical procedures women get. I know what it feels like to have a period and have period cramps, but I no longer have that have a uterus because I don't have a uterus anymore. Yeah. I I am I always wonder like what does that feel like because period cramps, like I said, they're and every woman I bring this up and they're like, Yeah, period cramps are such a specific pain. Yeah, because it is literally your uterus contracting.
SPEAKER_00And it feels so internal. Yes, it feels so internal because it is so internal and it goes through your fucking back, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's your uterus contracts and then it, I don't know, shoots lasers and guns through your back for some reason. Or you could be like Raylan, who like I had my period for three days, and it was kind of a late flow. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up, Raylan.
SPEAKER_00I'm sick of you.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm pushing, I'm giving birth to blood clots in my period. Like I can, yeah, like like bearing down and pushing it out.
SPEAKER_02One time I almost had to go to the ER because I was sitting on the toilet. Yeah. No, I believe you. No, I believe you. Almost went to the ER, sitting on the toilet, and it was just a stream of blood. And I was like, at what point, at what point go hospital? We need to Google. At what point hospital? Hospital when? Hospital when Reddit. Or like when I was bleeding out, and Jared's like, we need to go to the hospital. And I'm like, I'm not sure yet.
SPEAKER_05Like, because I'm just like I've bled out before.
SPEAKER_00Again, the pain of womanhood. Women are so resilient because we have to be. We don't have another choice.
SPEAKER_05I mean, that's true. Yeah. No. It is.
SPEAKER_02So, Nick, what's your confession? Yeah. Big shoes to fill. Big shoes to fill. And you don't have any marginalized identity too. I don't.
SPEAKER_05I'm not marginalized in any way. Um, my confession is that reading Sylvia Plath earlier today did feel a little bit cringe, but I was trying to work through it.
SPEAKER_03No, it's beautiful. You are gonna get the beats.
SPEAKER_05I'm still that's what I was trying to figure out. Like, you did a great job. How did it go? Maybe I've read that poem twice, I think, and then just read it now for the third time. That felt wild.
SPEAKER_00Should we start every pod with a poem? I was just about to say, new segment. I feel like maybe we should like start or have like a uh listeners let us know what you're thinking. Have like a moment on the pod where we like share something that really like touched us. Like I I recommended um that poem Tincture. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah. I have full body chills thinking about it. I'm pretty phenomenal.
SPEAKER_02My favorite Kava Akbar poem, which I can't remember the name of, but where he starts and he says, uh, what is the first thing? He says, like, it's been January in both directions for months now or something. It's like so, it's so good.
SPEAKER_00We have yet to bring up the two-headed calf poem, so that's for the next episode. We're having a poetry up next. But yeah, don't feel cringe. I appreciate that you've confessed it.
SPEAKER_05That was my confession because I that is something I don't really do that, and I was like, what am I doing? I don't know what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02Maybe you should be doing more of it.
SPEAKER_05Maybe it was just a confidence, maybe it wasn't cringe, maybe it was just uh Nick, you're fine. Get over yourself.
SPEAKER_00I love you. You didn't see the way I was looking at you when you did it. It was a wife looking at her husband.
SPEAKER_05Oh, good. I love Sylvia. I won't beat you later, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, great.
SPEAKER_02All right, guys, we'll see you next time. I feel like I could beat your ass.
SPEAKER_05You could.
SPEAKER_02Should we try? Thank you for listening to Degrass and Confess. Our show was created and produced by us, Holly, Nick, and Melissa. Our show was edited by Nick. Our music is also by Nick. The views we share in our podcast are our own and do not represent the views of our employers. If you enjoyed hanging out with us, please rate and review wherever you're listening.
SPEAKER_03T T Y Link