[Music] welcome to best friends back all right the show where two High School best friends try the best friend thing again I’m Stevie win Levine and I’m making homemadefar and today I only know half of what we’re talking about that’s right it’s an eel sex episode uh and as you’re listening it is Black Friday you could have us on your headphones or in your car as you’re going to multiple sales people you could be standing in line listening to us passing the time as you wait for that 100 TV yeah and I you know what I’m so proud of you for getting up and and getting out and just be safe be safe guys be safe yes that TV is not worth a black eye I mean a hundred dollars that sounds pretty cheap a black high heels in no time speaking of healing okay you see this do you see this yes it’s like a skin colored bandage I have been poked and prodded why so much this week because I’m a woman Stevie and that’s just comes with a territory well usually you’re poked and prodded in a different area well this one I signed up for I paid for this one and what does that says man so I have my birth control my nexplanon in my arm okay do you know what an explanation is it’s like an implant situation exactly yeah it’s that’s how they track size of a toothpick thank God because honestly I would really love for somebody to want to know where I am and so it was it like it has like a few years shelf life so you have to replace it so I went to go take it out and they said before take an ibuprofen just in anticipation of the pain but they also give you lidocaine which is supposed to numb the area so that’s like okay the shots right okay yeah it’s a shot and she there’s like a tiny little pinch for the lidocaine that’s not a big deal and I asked her I’m like okay so now that you’ve put this numbing you know agent on I shouldn’t feel anything right like what’s the point of it yeah she’s like well people say that they feel some discomfort and I’m like okay discomfort as in like you know tugging because they’re pulling the sink out is it there’s a difference for me between discomfort and pain yeah does that mean is this a first so you’ve only had it put in for a few years but you’ve never had it replaced I’ve never had it replaced okay okay oh God and she was like um oh and I’m like oh [ ] eight God I had not mentally prepared yeah for for that and so she I get the little pinch of the lidocaine and then she starts tugging and I know this is kind of gross like she’s like trying to pull this little thing out and she’s like dang it’s really in there oh no she’s like her as a word oh no red flags so I’m squeezing this like uh this whatever stress ball stress ball it’s a stress basketball and I’m looking to the side I’m humming I’m doing whatever I can and then she starts asking me like what do you do oh no and I’m like I don’t I know what you’re trying to do I know what you’re trying to too and it’s not gonna work is that what you said yeah I said that but I said it with a laugh oh I said it with a laugh I was like I know what you’re doing is it really bad it’s just like I do this every day and she’s pulling it and she’s pulling it and she’s like oh the tissue seems to have grown around yeah the next one not I’m like this is my worst nightmare no no I mean immediately I thought of you know those charcuterie boards that have like this cheese stick wrapped wrapped in meat oh my God I was like that’s literally inside of my arm you know how I know I mean there’s a difference between being uncomfortable and in pain and I am very uncomfortable right now but you’re on the line I might go into pain soon okay and so she keeps pulling and pulling and it hurts it’s it’s the kind of pain where it feels like at one point she’s doing such minuscule movements yeah it feels like my arm is gonna detach from my armpit it’s like weird things will work and you’re like oh this is huge this is really huge yeah what you’re doing but really it’s a it’s tiny it’s tiny yeah so that for me was also just like I was having the separate Out of Body Experience being like wow how does that happen how long are we talking well I asked I was like how long is this gonna take because it’s anywhere from a minute to an hour I’m sorry I was like what what and she’s telling me this as the lidocaine goes in I’m like wait I also don’t have time for one hour of this I have something to do afterwards so finally she ends up taking it out and she’s like let me clean it up I look to the side and there’s blood out there yes there’s blood everywhere it doesn’t it’s not like gross so there’s not like it’s my arm’s not open it’s like a tiny little incision that was made yeah but it’s already starting to bruise and so she cleans it up she puts this patch on and then she puts a compression like bandage okay and I um I put my sweater back on and she’s giving me some like you know to Do’s how to take care of it and I look down at my hand at my left hand I’m like you know is it supposed to be this color it was turning purple okay it was turning purple she was like hmm ah maybe I can just loosen it a little bit so she loosens it a little bit and I’m like it doesn’t really feel that loose she’s like just give it some time so I’m in my Uber home and then I’m like starting to feel a little bit light-headed because I’m like this is too much it’s too tight I can’t handle this I undo it my wedding ring won’t come off my finger like it’s just everything it feels like such a mess eventually things go back to normal but like I just feel like there’s so much that we do I don’t know if guys also have to do a lot of stuff with their body they don’t no insertions and like think it just feels like did you call Dr Nas and and and ask you know what I didn’t ah I didn’t use your resource I didn’t use my resource I know she has like a 24-hour shift I feel bad it’s also weird when you know that it’s like my hand is my hand supposed to be purple well no yeah the answer is no and the solution is loosening your bandage like I guess you don’t really need to know about that yeah right but it is it does give some like I don’t know like mental I don’t know it helps if you know somebody else is caring about the problem too but I just did get a little bit like just disgruntled yeah for sure for part of the day being like why do I do this stuff to my body and sure you can be like don’t put [ ] in your body don’t use this don’t use that but also like this is the way I stay safe yeah this is the way I like have peace of mind in the long term but it [ ] sucks yeah well the alternative is you could become a lesbian and that takes care of the birth control yeah for you yeah that is really a few like first season second season you mentioned not being on birth control and I don’t think I told you this but I remember being a little bit shocked super jump realizing yeah wow that is so [ ] true so I guess if a lesbian is taking birth control they might be doing it for hormonal yeah total reasons or anything like that but God yeah let’s be clear it sucks for all women regardless of birth control but yeah I don’t have a toothpick in my arm so I’m I’m thankful for that at least okay well that’s a great that’s a great little hack no just like segue into Thanksgiving and the things that I won’t be saying around the table yeah okay so when y’all are listening I mentioned it’s Black Friday when we’re recording it’s thanksgiving’s about to happen um you know it’s a time where you see family and friends or both um I I actually this past weekend I I saw quite a few friends that I haven’t seen in a really long time um oh I saw one friend who I haven’t seen in forever and who mentioned that she had listened to the podcast and I was like oh what episode whoa yeah and she said it’s it was the one with the the sex choreographer and um she was like man I forgot how much of a pervert you are and I was like excuse me is that the only episode of the show that you’ve listened to and she was like yes and I was like well who’s the [ ] pervert who’s the perv you chose to listen to the sex episode fair point but also if she listened to every other episode she would also think you’re a person yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah listen she was yeah she wasn’t lying she wasn’t lying but um but luckily I don’t think anyone that I’m seeing for Thanksgiving has listened to the podcast because I’ve given explicit instruction uh for them not to listen I hope they don’t listen to today’s episode either so you’re gonna be with your family I am going to be with my family are you gonna be with your family yes do you guys normally do do a family of Thanksgiving uh well this Thanksgiving we’re going to Vegas so we’re doing an anti-thanksgiving uh Thanksgiving and we’ll see how that goes um okay so parents your sister the whole shebang or is it Cassie side of the family my parents Cassie’s mom uh all converging on on Las Vegas is so cool and I hate Las Vegas so um and it was my idea so I’m gonna see if like this version of Vegas is gonna be masochistic I well I think that bringing parents into the situation is gonna change the scene a little bit you know okay yeah you’re not gonna be clubbing I’m I’m not gonna no you’re certainly not gonna be clubbing I’ll tell you that can I make a suggestion please Magic Mike show it is one of the most entertaining hilarious things I have ever seen in my life and I didn’t find it sexual I’m not into a male strip tease yeah I found it funny okay so if Mr Levine is open-minded and open to the experience then I think he’ll be like yes Mark is magical I agree okay I’ll um I’ll shoot him an email after this and see if he’s down but it is an eel sex episode my uh topic that I’m gonna be talking about today is related to family um because I started to think as I’m getting older there are certain things that I find I do that my mom did Growing Up oh yeah the older I get the more similarities I find between myself and my parents and mostly my mom do you it’s horrifying isn’t it it is and that’s why I’m glad that she’s not listening to this podcast and you know I think I think people blame their parents for a multitude of things but I actually looked up what scientifically we can blame our parents for because you know there’s there’s all the biology that you go through where it’s like oh the reason I have this color eyes is this and like my hairline is like this because this and my earlobes or whatever but there’s all these other things that you can also blame your parents for that are aren’t physical that are somewhere in between and and they’re psychological they’re physical they’re just a host of things that you didn’t know that you actually get from your parents so I figured that we could go through some of the things on that list and you and I could see if we feel like that is true we did get this trait from our mom and sometimes it’s it’s um it could go both ways so sometimes it’s more of a maternal thing sometimes it’s more of a paternal thing but the thing that got me thinking about this is I have a concentration face yeah you do actually I catch myself in my concentration phase and my mom has a really bad concentration face and it mostly comes out like if she’s like preparing a meal and she has to chop something up that you know takes takes concentration or she’s like you know writing something down like there’s just these moments where that concentration face comes out and I’m like oh and I’ve noticed that I’ve started doing a concentration face okay why you say yeah you do well because I’ve seen you emailing and rapidly texting and there you assume a face but there’s nothing weird about what I see I just can tell like the Brows Furrow a little bit the eyes narrow but I haven’t seen anything strange with the mouth and I just have a sense that your mom has a mouse yes there is a mouth thing I’m not a fan of and and I feel as if I’m developing this mouth thing can you show me what your mom does with her mouth I don’t know if I can it’s so unconscious it’s like almost like a oh it’s a little like maybe a little tongue out but like tongue out lip in okay lip doing something yeah does your mom have a concentration face honestly the concentration phase that comes to mind is when she’s on her phone without her glasses on yeah and she’s like that’s valid though oh she just can’t see is what you’re saying she can’t see okay so most of the things I’m gonna pull are from a list from bestlifeonline.com from an article called 27 surprising things you never realized you inherited from your parents I just wanted you know I want to give credit where credit is so important yeah exactly but the first one on the list or on my list is facial expressions so okay according to the American Psychological Association you can thank mom and pop for your facial expressions as Scientific American reported in 2006 some people who were born blind or were among a pair of siblings separated at Birth made similar facial expressions as their parents and other relatives despite never Having learned them by sight that is wild because I was gonna just ask you is this biological parents or but yeah everything everything I’m going over is all yeah it’s all biological my question was like well what if you can’t see your parents and then you said if yeah that is wild yeah and and it says fun fact Charles Darwin noticed this Phenom a century ago so even even back then it was part of uh the study of the awareness yeah yeah so um my fear about my concentration face is a reality it’s a reality I am going to get my mom’s concentration face and I don’t think there’s anything I can do well that’s what it does concentration face like he doesn’t have a concentration face oh he’s just always relaxed no I think it’s like your description of my email face I’m sure that’s kind of his concentration face which would be it’s a description of anyone’s like broad like I’m focused on this situation like a narrowing of the eyes and a slight Furrow of the brow yeah that’s more of his thing there’s no like mouth movement tongue thing that’s what I’m trying to avoid and a apparently it’s unavoidable well girl your mother is a beautiful woman so yeah okay well you haven’t seen her concentration face um okay next on the list level of risk aversion okay a 2012 study of 500 skiers and snowboarders published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and science showed that a particular genetic variation served as a predictor for risky downhill Behavior people with this variation were more likely to speed down steep slopes and presumably pop off a couple of 360s than those without it what’s more scientists think such folks might not process dopamine as efficiently as others meaning they need to take more risks to feel the same level of enjoyment interesting okay did they do Logan is making a very confused face right now oh you’re just processing yeah I’m just processing Logan has a processor I look dumbfounded so you’re saying that risky parents make risk babies yeah yeah there’s some genetic variation that you can track to see if yeah so if you’re if your mom or dad and this is not a maternal versus paternal thing so if your mom or dad have that variation and they pass it down to you then you’re more likely to take risks do you feel like your risk aversion level is similar to that of your parents or do you feel like one of them or they’re more daring or less daring yeah so when I think of risk aversion I think more about like life decisions than I do physical activity because when it comes to physical activity like will I jump out of a plane and will I do these things like I could do them but I’m not so excited to do them okay but when it comes to like you know bigger bigger risks like moving to another country or I don’t know or like changing jobs doing things like that I’m more comfortable and I think in some ways my parents are too because they moved to this country and we started their life but what I think is different is that like they did that and then became very stable and so it’s like this they had to take this huge leap and then go into a pretty like sustainable sustained lifestyle and so part of that is gone and so I don’t know how to kind of assess their risk-taking behavior as much although I will say with fashion my mom is married she’s she’s always been like try it cut your hair do whatever you want it’ll grow back it’s like she’s very she’s very experimental what about just on the physical side of things what about the the jumping out of a plane she’s only oh I was gonna say she’s only liked my father she hasn’t really experimented with a lot of people um they’re just like not they don’t do things like that but okay so their their risk averse fit to physical things like that yeah okay yeah I I think that’s more of what the study is talking about because of the dopamine connection because they’re saying essentially that you have to oh because yeah you have to do more risky things in order to get that high my parents are very especially my mom does not like doing any of those you know more physically risky things and I think yeah I’m similar but I would kind of argue it’s like the nurture part of nature versus nurture because like to an extent like if you grow up with your parents saying like no no it’s too dangerous to do this it’s very dangerous to do this yeah then then you know you’re kind of conditioned not to although I guess I could go the opposite way and you could be like [ ] you mom that is a good I I totally buy the nurture part of that yeah I got a lot of that from my piano teacher we had a really strict piano teacher uh growing up and she was would get really like defensive and upset when she found out we were doing sports because she was like if you do anything to injure your hands Your Arms any part of your body it’s going to impact piano and so like because she was so strict about it it kind of even if we didn’t care infected our thinking so whenever I played Sports I was hyper conscious of like not hurting myself so it wouldn’t impact Mrs Sanders wow Mrs Sandy yes I mean we had to trim our nails [Laughter] could you paint your nails uh we’re talking about two different things oh yeah I thought we were talking about you before you knew you were a lesbian okay yeah no and uh I did not paint my nails all right optimism according to a 2011 study in the proceedings of the National Academy Sciences the gene that codes for oxytocin receptors the cells in your brain that respond to the love hormone displays some definite variations in people who are optimistic and have high self-esteem and then these people also reported feeling highly in control of their own lives so whether or not you’re a glass half full person or have empty person could genetically have to do with your parents yeah for sure that my parents are definitely on the optimistic glass half full always looking for like how to make something work and what else can be done and very optimistic people I think that’s true of my parents I think in a similar way it’s not it’s not like ignoring the the things that could go wrong or being like weary of the things that could go wrong I guess it’s just not thinking things are gonna go wrong I guess that’s the that’s the separation oh you know what I mean like my parents are very they always instilled that good sense of fear in me of the things that could go wrong but they weren’t like and they will go wrong okay that is exactly that’s that’s the right answer to this because as you’re saying this I’m like well my parents did like say like if you know we don’t get good grades then this bad thing could happen so actually they did instill us with a lot of that kind of like you know simmering fear of the abstract yeah but you were totally right that would never happen though they weren’t saying they weren’t saying like this is your future they were like yeah they were saying like this could be a future if you don’t do this yeah yeah so I thought that was exactly but even in social situations do you feel like your parents like you know you’re at the Magic Mike show yeah yeah yeah and Cassie’s mom is like you know what this is the worst male striptease I have ever seen like is it are your parents gonna be like that was the biggest mistake we should have never come to Vegas we yeah or are they gonna be like this was this seems like a very realistic scenario yeah well I think what you’re referring to is like well there’s a cynicism at play yes which is slightly different um also Cassie really likes Magic Mike oh my God you know every time I learn a little bit more about Cassie I’m like freaking thing I’m like why do you like that movie series she actively likes it and she’s not shy about it I don’t know why I appreciate that it is entertaining I can’t only remember seeing the first one though and not this series oh no she’s seen I don’t know how many are in the series but I’m pretty sure she’s seen all of them are there three I don’t know I’m making that up it seems like there’s too many you know it’s just too many do you think Channing Tatum age is out age is out of the series out of a series no I don’t I think he’s forever going to be magical um and also he’s dating uh Zoe Kravitz who is arguably so cool oh you’re not a fan I’m a really big fan oh no I was going like this gorgeous she’s gorgeous oh you’re going for like I was like a steaming oh yeah she’s beautiful um but I do fully believe in the realism that is Cassie’s mom saying that she’s seen him a better male strip tease I do believe that would be true I do think that would be true for something well I’m excited next week to hear yeah empathy according to the same 2011 proceedings of the National Academy Sciences study those oxytocin receptors that help determine a person’s optimism also help determine another positive personality trait empathy these people have a variant of three particular genes that’s a good predictor for altruism pro-social Behavior and a greater ability to cope with stress the good news is that a little more than half the population 51.5 percent has this variation why is that good news that seems low it means like most people majority of people have I mean not really it means that half half of everyone is has the empathy Gene and the other half doesn’t doesn’t well I hope they find each other and have terrible lives and empathetic people should be with empathetic people don’t drag us down non-empathetic people don’t oh okay I see empathy but wouldn’t that spur like an evil grouping of non-empathetic people who would get together and then have non-empathetic babies and then we’d have January sixth Invasion on the capitol Invasion on the capital yeah seriously invasion of the capital yeah idiocracy you know what you know how you can do genetic testing yeah for for your embryos I wonder if you could test for these things I think you could I will say that like you know have you done 23andMe no okay so 23andMe has like an additional option where they can get into some of this stuff and I avoided anything I think that that’s also on that particular report the things are a little bit more like you know there’s a genetic trait that makes it so you either smell stinky urine from um asparagus or you don’t or like okay the cilantro tasting like soap thing like that’s more of what they do so I I think I avoided all of that stuff but what do you think about the empathy the note of empathy um as it relates to you and and your your parents I feel kind of bad being like yeah it makes sense because what I’m saying if I say yes to any of these it’s like yeah my parents had it and so do I why is that bad well not bad but it’s like all of these positive traits it’s interesting well as as we’re going through this I I find myself going back to that nature versus nurture question and I think it’s like without this study I’d fully believe that okay if your parents are empathetic people they raise you you learn also yeah exactly but this is confirming that like not that’s not negating that that can be true but it’s also saying also there’s a biological connection here so it’s like the two things converging to make that happen yeah it’s not that I don’t think my parents are empathetic uh because I do and I would say I would say my mom’s a lot more sensitive than I am in a lot of ways um but I do think that there’s and maybe I’m I’m equating the two things and I shouldn’t be but like not that there’s a standoffishness but there’s a uh a little bit of a line with you know a boundaries yeah there’s a little bit of a boundary there and I think maybe it has to do with their generation or how they were raised and it’s certainly you know the the line has become blurrier through generations like I think the way that my parents interacted with their parents was even more standoffish yeah yeah I don’t have a better word for it but that boundary still exists so yeah so that’s how I kind of feel about the empathy thing but I think I’m not completely defining it correctly no I think it’s I think in the absence of like another example that could be like oh like here are two non-empathetic parents who have an incredibly empathetic child like that would be helpful to see as an example of but I I don’t know anybody I don’t know anybody like that yeah yeah but like when I think of my mom and my mom in particular like service has all since and it’s like my earliest memories of her service to the community has all always been yeah a like prevailing theme of her life and it became one of mine but when I think about like the way that I’m living right now right now I don’t have a big service element like in the traditional sense where I’ll volunteer here or there but it’s not on this consistent level and I have this desire to and a guilt for not doing it for not having committed to it and I wonder I have always just thought that was because it was the way that I was raised and I see my mom yeah I mean to do it and I’m not doing it or maybe if it’s biological this is like this recognition of something that I want to do yeah I haven’t yet found the kind of the outlet for it I think that’s a super that’s a much better connection that you’re making between empathy and service to others than I am I think more on like just like the emotional relationship side of things but you’re right like empathy being transferred through seeing other people in need and wanting to service that need I think is a really great example of of the way that can go look at you being empathetic [Music] Hello friends I want to take a moment to tell you about the podcast story of the week on story of the week journalist Joel Stein chooses an article that fascinates him he convinces the writer to tell him about it and then he interrupts a good conversation by talking about himself great sometimes the story will be one everyone is talking about like a New Yorker article on smoking hallucinogenic toads other times Joel finds a story you might have missed like the verge’s piece about a rock groupie turned hacker who had a huge corporation at her mercy these are stories you’ll tell your friends about stories that stick with you long after you forget whatever headline you just Doom scrolled through listen to story of the week wherever you get your podcasts I’ll just do a few more because I’m very curious uh what you’re what you’re gonna be talking about today this one is more um applicable to men but I thought it was very interesting popularity having the right variant of the 5 h t 2 a serotonin receptor Gene might make you more popular at least if you’re a college-aged male people with the so-called G variant of this Gene tend to be impulsive and break more rules making them more popular with their peers in 2009 researchers at Michigan State University studied this phenomenon by having young men plan and throw parties according to the party-goers the men with the G variant were considered more popular that is crazy is so crazy it’s just weird how you like everything has this like very specific scientific answer to it like you can’t you can’t say like yeah that dude’s awesome and then like in the in the behind that it’s like well that’s because he has the G variant like designed that way yeah and we are biologically like uh predisposed to recognizing that I guess positive think whoa but it’s not it’s not the same for women because women are complex human beings and we cannot be defined by our G variant no we cannot there’s a there’s a g joke in there something yeah I didn’t want it I’d already yeah I totally agree your perfect quota yeah exactly um exactly yeah uh this one I think we’re more concerned with or at least I’ll say I’m concerned with how fast you age um oh hello hello mirrors telomeres that’s the part of DNA on the tip of each chromosome could dictate how old we look according to a 2010 study published in nature genetics in which scientists analyzed more than half a million telomeres I might be saying that wrong those with shorter tips looked on average three to four years older than those with normal length tips wow and is this is related to parents or mother this is related to parents I guess okay it doesn’t it doesn’t say specifically I’m gonna you know what we’ll say mothers for us yeah let’s play moms for everything because I have always heard like oh like the mom is a good you know indicator of what you’re gonna look like of that age what you’re gonna look like what your pregnancy will be like what we were all this all the things that you could experience in life your mom yeah but I like the idea of being about your parents um man I [ ] hope so yeah but I already feel like I’m I hate this this topic of Aging though is very problematic because on one hand I want to be like I want to age slowly and gracefully on the other hand [ ] you not you Stevie but in general who were trying to say that my Aging in its natural form is not you know aesthetically pleasing I I don’t know I think that we have some options now that’s what I’m going to say about aging is like hey let’s let’s get that Botox on let’s get those those retinol creams going like there’s nothing wrong with wanting to use that stuff there’s a bunch of stuff that our moms didn’t have I remember one of the things well two things that my aunt and my mom always said to me one never cross your legs because you’ll get varicose veins oh [ ] there is treatment for that I’m crossing the hell out of my legs and then I’m going to the med spa and I’m getting those things erased okay technology also moisturize your neck I do believe in that one you should moisturize oh someone believes in moisturizing I thought it was so hard for lesbians it’s hard below the neck which is not what that show’s called oh my gosh there’s probably a parody porn series called Blow neck that’s like below deck yeah if there’s not if the porn producers listening to this episode please take it take that is that how that works I don’t know creepy yes to you below neck Mediterranean Edition Logan’s like very good okay why don’t we end on a sweet note with your sweet tooth uh in 2018 Danish researchers found that people with a variation of the gene fgf21 have a practically incurable insatiable Sweet Tooth they experience cravings and eat more sugar than other people but they also tend to have less body fat oh do you have a sweet tooth I do but I totally blame Zach for it okay so your parents don’t no huh interesting Zach loves dessert and since being with him I I just eat more and and as a result have created like a little bit of a you know desire for it a little bit desire for it um you know I think I’m in a similar place I well actually almost in an opposite place because I think my mom does have more of a sweet tooth than I do but I’m I’m a Savory girl I do not have a sweet tooth Cassie freaking loves Magic Mike and Sweets she really well those two go hand in hand yeah totally makes sense is she like a chocolate woman or pastries she’ll do everything she’ll hit a little bit of everything opportunity yeah the the issue is when she Taps into when she brings home things that she knows that I’ll just hop on the train for like um I don’t know why but I really like gummy bears they’re poppable yeah they feel good in your mouth you don’t want to overthink what they are by by any means but as soon as she brings that [ ] into the house I’m like girl I can’t I can’t stop I cannot resist uh and I think she does it just so that she’s not the only one eating sweets in the house yeah because then it just feels like a problem yeah okay so yeah so I hope there’s more things but uh the the moral of the story is you can blame your parents for basically anything basically anything is your parents fault um so I hope that um y’all take that into your Thanksgiving weekend totally I feel like this is a really fun thing to talk about with family thank you and have I would love I would love for this conversation to be had I’m definitely going to have this with my family and see how my parents think it did it it doesn’t track oh I’m way more empathetic than you are like you didn’t get that from me I wish you did I do believe that’s going to be the conversation and yes I’m glad I could give you something to talk about other than uh birth control but you I mean if you want you know yeah yeah um okay thank you that was nice and fun um because we were because because a couple weeks ago um you did the Time Capsule episode yeah and took us back to the old days Elementary School I really or kind of elementary school yeah just took me back to a time that I had not spent a lot of time thinking about and I was home obviously and it’s not obvious that I was home but I was home and I came across how do I share this with you I came across a couple of pictures of myself from elementary school these were the class pictures I I before I look at these I will tell our friends on that time capsule episode you’d mentioned your favorite birthday with the uh water balloon boobies and then you shared those after with Logan and I wow you were in your element like I the look on the glow the glow emanating from you in those photos you were so pleased to have those fake movies it was Glee it was like pure Glee and there was a little bit of a Glee slash rage right I don’t know it was it was a lot but there’s more to me than just water titties okay especially in elementary school okay what am I looking at I see I see a class here so see if you can find me oh I found you look for the little boy wow talk about bangs there’s a lot of bowl cuts going on like including my own yeah you’re giving your your you know it’s not as there’s a lot of haircuts for the gentleman uh giving whoops you know like give me um let’s let’s talk about your your hair though because it is yeah yeah yeah go ahead it is a bowl cut yeah um it is short you know I was a woman ahead of my time um okay so that you you were like I want short hair I don’t remember I don’t remember asking for the show I don’t remember having an opinion or being able to express it on my hair I don’t remember that but I do remember in the second grade I was a tomboy I wore t-shirts and long shorts and like remember the long shorts that went below your knees yeah like I wore I wore those and I only wore pants but then in the next year if you go to the 96 97 you see that I’m wearing I have longer hair and I’m wearing a dress and tights and Mary Jane’s damn girl your hair grew a lot this is maybe my mom’s experimental influence well it’s interesting because in your the first one second grade you said yeah so in your second grade photo it’s not as if any of the girls are rocking a shorter hairstyle like you you are that’s so true I I have the shortest hairstyle am I everything you need am I the only one and I was I was the only one um that is such a good point every thank you girl has her hair it’s like a more obvious Bob or it has a bow on it not not this girl not Nanking home my fast she wanted to stand out with the boys not the next year though in the next year you you are adopting more of a classic hairstyle for a girl of that yes age the the heavy bangs it’s clear from this picture that I am a girl whereas I think of the other picture it’s not as clear I like totally totally totally fair but this was so Elementary School was such a gosh when I started thinking about it a lot of the stuff that came up for me had to do with books and so I I spent a lot of time at the Benjamin Branch library and eventually shout out you know the the library they opened downtown that very nice one hell yeah that was like such a nice that was like the Equinox it’s like yeah multiple floors glass everywhere like this smells new Benjamin Branch though was like your local mom and pop single story Library like a um Planet Fitness yeah no it’s more of like the hotel gym yeah yeah yeah Fair very fair but my mom would drop us off at the drop me this is before my brother was born she would drop me off at the library for like a few hours at a time while she would go run errands and so I would hang out there by myself all of the time they didn’t seem to mind but I just spent I spent so much time there and I learned to really be like kind of independent I think from that but it’s where I also discovered a few book series that I just loved my favorite being the um Boxcar Children yeah read that series I think I think I did read all of those yeah gosh okay to The Boxcar Children I have recommended the series to parents who have children that are like you know reading they’re six or seven like this is the best series you can start your kids on because there’s nothing violent about it it has kind of a [ ] up premise though because it’s about these four kids who are orphaned but they’re siblings and they live in a boxcar in the middle of a forest and they live there until they’re very wealthy but estranged grandfather finds them and rescues them but it’s all about them kind of solving Mysteries together as siblings and I I could get lost in them and there were 160 Plus Boxcar Children books wow and and the Benjamin Branch Library had this like three foot long like shelf that was dedicated to them and I would go one by one and at one point I remember like all I had read all the books but it was not all of them in the series and so I was just like waiting for the next one to come and then when the new book came I knew immediately because it was a spine that I didn’t recognize it was like a little bit glossier than the other ones and it was just so it was like the new addition of something coming out that was super exciting but then there was another section of the library and this is where I started I feel like getting into uh dicey territory because it was the y a section okay adult section and this is where the bigger chapter books were that were for teenagers yeah and I’m sorry when there’s no Boxcar Children left to read I just have to read what’s available oh no I started reading these books that are like totally innocuous but like Angus Thongs and full frontal snug yeah yeah remember that yeah I totally remember that I remember when that came out well yeah where we it got I guess we were in elementary school or or I think so because I remember reading it and feeling very like but it was really popular like it was when it when it came out it was like the book to read was it was it yeah I felt very like very mischievous reading yeah yeah because it was it was a little risque for a a more conservative younger palette but yeah yeah I remember it being like very tantalizing and uh and popular but this girl was like I think I feel like something that made it feel even more tantalizing aside from like the making out of it all was this girl was from England so Snogging learning that like making out or French kissing was this was called Snogging in another country I remember made me feel very like a cultured I love that you went from boxcar to that and it by the way it came out in 19 99 so shout out to the the time caps okay so maybe that should have maybe then that was fifth grade or sixth grade sixth yeah sixth grade okay then that that means that in between Boxcar Children and Angus Thongs I was reading the country books which were entry Books A series another series of books that Benjamin brand provided that were all books about different countries they had a China book an Estonia I don’t even know if they had Estonia at that point okay Yugoslavia the old days you know and I started reading them kind of for pleasure but my mom started doing this thing that really ruined it for me which was she would quiz me on the books so I would read them and then we would learn the currency and the popular food in that place and the wow what a joy the and then she would quiz me yeah it really kind of took the the love the love of other countries away from me it’s so easy interesting because when you talked about Boxcar Children so I remember and I don’t remember that the name of this library branch and they had like a kid’s room that I would hang out in and back then the serial mystery books were really really popular and and not that the like I remember Nancy Drew and not that was like new by any means but like I was obsessed with Nancy Drew and then also uh Hardy Hardy Boys I never got into that I think it was more Nancy Drew for obvious reasons and then um Goosebumps was like that was amazing yes especially the covers of Goosebumps were the best part of it oh yeah the textural like you felt the bumps Goosebumps and then the other one the other like mystery series that I got into is called Erie Indiana which was an orange but like that was oh and anamorphs that was a slime of like yeah all those serial Mysteries sci-fi-ish kids novels yeah they were so good I felt like they did such a good job of like nurturing a love of reading yeah because it was quick to go through and there were so many more yeah yeah oh do you think kids read these days like that they read chapter books um I try and avoid kids as much as possible that’s true so I don’t have an immediate answer anytime yeah what if people are screaming or on their iPad so no I’m gonna go with no kids I’m gonna go with me anymore foreign S I want to take a moment to tell you about the podcast dare we say join Josie Toda Alicia Pasquale Pena and Yasmeen hamidi three young actresses disruptors and best friends as they navigate the issues that affect their lives from hookup culture and social media to structural racism and lgbtq plus rights they won’t shy away from diving deep into controversial topics even turning to their Elders actors activists comedians experts politicians 26 year olds is that is that we’re saying 26 year olds are Elders now great to try to understand the world their generation was handed catch a new episode of dare we say every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts well outside of the the library we also had a lot of like required reading in school but the book that that has stayed with me for the last how old am I now 20 plus years Julie of the Wolves I read that in the fifth grade Julie of the Wolves yes so we read this at Summerfield and it’s a little bit of another bit of a [ ] up book but it’s about this 13 year old girl named Julie she’s an indigenous Alaskan and she escapes her Village because her husband yes her husband she’s married at 13 tries to violate her and so she leaves the village and she gets lost in the tundra and she ends up like befriending these wolves and she becomes a part of this wolf pack and I don’t know why we read this book how old were you when you this is the fifth grade it was such an amazing book but it um I will never forget this fact that I learned from it which is like so many things from this era I remember one weird thing from which was that Mom wolves regurgitate food back into their Cub’s mouth okay and since the fifth grade I have at least once a year I think made some joke about regurgitating food into someone’s mouth because I learned it in Julie of the Wolves and I thought it was a funny thing yeah Mama Mama birding baby birding is what we call it it says um it says when I Googled Julia the Wolves it says why was Julie of the Wolves challenged is one of the questions and then it says it was challenged for sexual content offensive language violence and being unsuited to age group and then um then this question that what age to read Julie and the wolves and it says uh 10 and up is the general age so that’s yeah that’s correct Julie of the Wolves oh gosh so did you guys have a you were in a really small school so maybe not but we had a we had like a like an advanced learning track so if you’re in that track then you got pulled out of some of your classes is to learn this to learn more yeah and reflecting on that class I’m really wondering what the [ ] we learned more about because the things that we did in that class really just don’t make much sense to me what did you do yeah in one of them I I don’t even know how I could have passed this class because we were learning the Mayan number system okay okay the Mayan number system is like special because they were one of the first they were like the first civilization to to recognize uh the way that you’re saying this like there’s like there’s like an apathetic undertone as if like it’s not a big deal about the Mayans you’re like the Mayans I don’t know I guess they were the first ancient civilization to have numbers first to have this awareness of zero which is apparently very important but we spent so many classes learning how to count my numbers they use like dots and lines and I could just never I could never get it it never came easily for me it was always very hard but we had multiple classes about this Mayan number system so I looked up like why why it why teach this in schools what is this gonna what is this helping me do and the only the only thing I could say is a good reason to put this in is because they say that seeing numbers for kids represented many different ways is a great way to help increase their number sense and better understand how numbers work huh for me though it just it remained confusing I don’t ever remember learning Maya numbers and also yes like there was no um I guess Roman numerals maybe are the other version of that yeah okay I I there was no like advanced track at the nation alone we were all on the advantage or you remember who uh who I grew up with yeah um but I don’t know there’s something innately [ ] about the advanced track in a lot of ways 100 you know it’s like these young kids and really what it is is we’re gonna be able to spot the ones that are smart enough and deserving of extra attention and the ones that just aren’t and we’re gonna kind of give up on and like so it doesn’t ultimately really matter so much what’s being taught in those advanced classes so much as you going like well these are the Smart Ones let’s occupy them yeah occupy them with something so then let’s make sure they know that they’re the Smart Ones I mean isn’t that [ ] like you’re telling kids at a young age like you’re are not smart enough and then other kids like you are very smart and so yeah of course the kids and the being told you are very smart are going to do better than the kids who are not that’s such a good point yes but also they probably chose with with great accuracy but the way they would do it you’re reminding me of how uncomfortable it felt because literally you would because of the way the the the period system was put up I remember how I had to leave one class early in order to get to the other questions all the smart kids it’s time to go if you’re smart stand up please and leave because you’re too smart to be here it’s time to go learn that Mayan number system and apply yourself in this world so the other thing that I did in this very Advanced learning class in elementary school was watch a video series an educational video series called The Voyage of the Mimi of the Mimi of the Mimi m-i-m-i The Voyage of the Mimi gotta Google it all right this bad boy this bad boy was a 13 episode TV program that was that was designed by the department of the educate Department of Education and it was supposed to be something that was like technology and media forward they had CDs they had discs they had videos that they used to kind of to to teach this weird marine life uh curriculum and the most exciting part of it was that this was a series that featured Ben Affleck as a child Ben Affleck plays the captain’s grandson I will say the the videos were pretty interesting they were really fun to watch but it didn’t it was like you know when the substitute teacher was there for school and you were like yeah [ ] yeah we’re gonna watch yeah yeah this is what you would watch okay this is what so this was actually an amazing an amazing thing to do after the buy-in number system so I loved I could do this I could watch yeah it says um it was made to teach middle schoolers about Science and Mathematics in an interesting and interactive way where every lesson related to real world applications I suppose if you were you know a seafaring people I know it’s like I really don’t remember the science and or the the math of it yeah but um speaking of uh speaking of you know facts that I learned like regurgitating food there was an episode in The Voyage of the Mimi that was about hypothermia okay and in it one of the people one of the crew mem what do you call what do you call one of the sailors yeah whatever one of the people on Board gets hypothermia and he has to strip down naked and get into a sleeping bag with another man and what you learn is that when somebody has hypothermia fire lighting a fire being your fire is actually not the way to to like save this person or heal them body heat is the way that you that you recover from a hypothermia well I’ve learned something today there you go that is the one thing I learned in elementary school but I later yeah what I learned was that that episode about hypothermia actually was banned in three states because it was showing two men um Alabama Mississippi yeah but not North Carolina isn’t it wild yeah there you go I will now be watching this series it’s too like really hairy bearded men it’s really there’s nothing excited by it yeah yeah I totally won’t watch it now yeah and the last thing that I will tell you about elementary school I hope this brings you back box tops for kids yes yes remember that scam I do remember oh it’s a scam I didn’t I didn’t look into it Beyond collecting Box Tops um also I think we would use the because it was it started on cereal and then it just was it all General Mills it was all General Mills started in 1996 so right when we were we were in elementary school yeah there was like an organized effort behind it too like it wasn’t just General Mills doing it like parents and teachers would be like oh let’s make this part up at least for me let’s make this part of a fundraising thing and then I the best thing about it and you’re about to tell me why it’s terrible but the best thing about it was we would use all the cardboard boxes that weren’t the tops and we would make things out of them so like I remember making like this whole cityscape using uh the cardboard yeah yeah yeah using the cardboard boxes and then we’d so we’d build all of it and then paint all of it and then it was like a little miniature cardboard City well we weren’t doing that in the public school I could tell you that is a beautiful way to use discarded boxes yeah I mean okay I said it’s a scam nobody said it’s like out they weren’t like cheating people out of money they weren’t like stealing it but I think of it well let me tell for people that don’t know right the idea was you bought cereal or you bought the product that had this like bar a barcode or a little tag yeah it said box top for kids and when you collected them you turned them into your school to help raise money for your school right I thought the weird part of the program was that it convinced kids families teachers that kids were responsible for raising money for their school and I found that a little bit weird like in re like when I was doing it I loved it I loved collecting them I had my whole Ziploc where I would put all of the little boxes yeah yeah whatever they’re called box tops and it was a ton of fun it was very motivating and it was a positive experience in school but just like looking back on it now I find that it’s strange and it there they have there’s some controversy with it now I think it might be like winding down oh it still exists it still exists for like years they raised like I think over like a billion dollars of money for school yeah but they got into some trouble because they tried to move away from physical Box Tops into an apps program where you needed to have a phone um to scan something and then it became like everybody doesn’t have yeah yeah exactly exactly okay but it was a weird thing each of those box tops okay you had to buy like a four dollar let’s say like a four dollar box of cereal yeah in order to get this box top that was worth 10 cents yeah yeah the portion of yeah so you’re spending a ton of money to get very little and I learned that the average uh average amount that a school would raise per year was around five hundred dollars that’s not not a lot that’s not that’s not a lot of money yeah is that really worth all of the time I think that that broader fundraising point you know can be applied to nearly any fundraising effort like when they had like you could sell magazines or you could sell um like wrapping paper and stuff like that it’s like that’s kind of [ ] that’s that’s that’s so true you know yeah and like it was always like a sales guy coming in and being like and this is how you get the most sales it’s like why is this [ ] sales guy coming in and talking to middle schoolers about like how to sell magazines like what’s happening and then and then you know talking about instilling like a weird sense of self into kids it’s like I only sold two magazines I’m bad at selling things and it’s like you know totally man the trauma the trauma speaking of selling do you know that um one of our closest closest family friends in this world today we met because I was selling a magazine for school like on their doorstep and then you became friends no yeah wow you must be a really good sales woman that’s what they told me um my parents are their their children’s godparents like that close wow well okay well then not all fundraisers are bad maybe it’s good to make your kids yeah gosh so elementary school there are so many I could I could talk I could talk so much longer but I’m gonna stop right here because because we’ve gotta we gotta stop right now well I’m gonna tell you why you’re gonna stop because we’ve been waiting for quite some time to hear a certain report from producer Logan um Logan has recently attended a bachelorette uh weekend I will also set up that there was a PowerPoint presentation for this bachelorette party which Logan shared with us prior to attending uh this weekend and we have not heard the report of how it went but before you get into how it went could you please give some description for the the prep the the PowerPoint like set set the scene for our friends listening well why did you show us the you showed us the the PowerPoint for a reason right we’re looking for some advice on what to wear yes so the PowerPoint is about a 10 page slide describing what we should wear each day um I don’t mean to correct you but it wasn’t just each day multiple outfits a day okay yep yep there we go so there were some days I think had two I think there was a day that had three outfits that we needed to bring typically you know like it’ll be like the bride will wear white and then all the girls will wear black but this was about 10 times that which I think and so these are my friends from college and I would say the more that I’ve grown into Who I Am the harder it is for me to turn on that straight Sorority Girl Vibe you know yeah yeah that’s gotten way harder I realized yeah I so it was in Scottsdale and I had prepped nigid and Stevie for this and they were sending me words of encouragement as I embarked on my journey to Scottsdale that that and so so to be clear you use the PowerPoint and you did curate your outfits yes okay yes were you able to collect what you needed I sent the PowerPoint to my sister and I said God bless my sister and she because I told her about it and she was like send me the PowerPoint tell me what you need so I sent it to her and she was like yep I got this i got this i got this i got this which is so great so then you should have just sent to your sister you should have just sent her I should have just sent her so I thankfully had all of the clothes I needed amazing did I feel great in the heels no could I walk in them no but I did it oh that’s a friend yeah yeah Logan I do remember seeing like you know the the tops and bottoms and dresses and like what was required or requested for the tops I didn’t see any Footwear requirements it was the heels something that you projected onto yourself I thought that maybe there were shoe requirements but I might be reading into that um I brought heels because I know that they were all going to bring heels in there yeah you know I was like I don’t want to be sure totally I don’t want to be short yeah anyway so I I get there and I just sort of took on this role of like the funny lesbian I just I just took on this role and I just ran with it for the weekend I was like you know what I’m gonna have fun yeah I’m gonna fill out a place for I’m gonna have fun yeah you were just being overt about feeling like you were out of I mean at this point are you were you saying like I feel weird wearing this or like were you like no I always wear this but I’m also the funny lesbian here I a little bit of both like to my close friends they knew okay and they were and so like I would be like I don’t want to wear the heels can I just wear the boots um so pause for a second I’m just gonna send you some pictures oh yes yes pictures did you get it I got one you know what’s so interesting is that like this what night but uh there’s a um like you could tell me this photo was from 2006 and I would believe you oh you see what it’s the same point yeah totally and you know what I see immediately amongst the sequins is somebody has created a customized tattoo of what I think oh yeah we were we had his face on Wow you spotted that very up into a number of these things I’m just looking for the penis straw now oh I was gonna I meant to bring Stevia penis straw and I forgot we have plenty of penis straws here okay great Logan you look like one of the girls you’re you’re like really fitting in here Logan yes do you have sparkles on your face I sure do let me tell you okay oh yeah I’m gonna tell you guys about that I think I told Stevie this a little bit but when we were out there was a bachelor party that yeah okay randerson and they had a table and uh we were like of course we’re gonna hop on that hey no point in paying for drinks yourself exactly exactly and so we are at the table there’s like there’s 14 girls and then there were like 11 guys so there was like we were like packed into this table what a night and they had this you know they had to like spend like five thousand dollars so they were like giving us they had to spend five thousand to have the team that was their minimum and it was these boys from DC that are in finance oh God so I was like oh God I know what’s gonna happen here so I I was talking to this sweet sweet boy Erin for a while and I I don’t you’ve talked about this a little bit with straight men where it’s like they never can tell yeah and um certainly not when you’re wearing certainly when I’m not what I’m wearing a face perfect dress and I we were talking for a while and my friends had come over to like save me from it like do you want to leave whatever and I was like no it’s fine Aaron and I are having a good time whatever so uh we just keep talking and I just stopped the conversation and I was like Aaron I’m so so sorry I just need to let you know something oh no and I was like I’m gay [Music] and his face and he was like bye so he didn’t surprisingly because normally they will yeah they’ll be like oh cool or they like don’t know what to say but they totally up one time let’s begin like I’ve yeah like and then they walk away but he was like you know his eyes got a little bit big and he just kept talking to me like nothing happened which is nice that’s great but then there were like three other boys that were like like you know like they walked away whatever and I was just at the point where I was like Logan you were holding my hair well they were confined to it half of the girls are engaged they have their ring you know they were probably spotting girls that didn’t have one I don’t know right right so that was interesting that is and so like I said I was just sort of like I will say like some nights I was like carrying the party a little bit like no one was dancing so they’d be like oh and go on grind on Abby and I’m like sure so then I would let go grind on Abby you know try to get them like hyped up whatever yeah yeah and so like I was like okay I’m just gonna like play this like role and it would say I was carrying the party so scary you know I love it but so we were when we were getting ready a lot I would be the first I would be done and I don’t know if you guys okay you guys should have received these pictures um there was a whole picturesque setup with a ring light guys there is a balloon a balloon arch of saloon yeah Gold light pink cream there’s a whole like Photo backdrop so while they were getting ready and I was already ready if you go to slide two this is what I was doing a sequin penis so the Sparkles they we had like all of these Sparkles to put on our faces and I did a little bit of it but yeah I was like what should I do with my time here while I’m drinking this white claw and there were a ton of extra Sparkles so I made penises and stuck them to everybody’s phones nice that’s brilliant and I like how you stuck it to the front yeah not the back right it was really they really loved taking that off of their phone so overall like you made me most of it made the most of it made the most in my own way I here’s here’s when you correct me if you don’t feel this way I think that it’s hard as an adult to be put in a situation where you can’t be yourself and or you feel as if you have to fit into a certain box and I think that the older you get the less willing you are to fit inside that box right and so I would think you still have love for your friends even though you’re very different people but perhaps the next time they invite you to an event like this maybe they shouldn’t try and put you in such a very specific box and or maybe you say that you’re not going to I’m not good in that box do it right exactly yeah yeah that’s a good point Stevie I think that the also this is like your your second Bachelorette second yeah which is like just the beginning girl there’s a lot and I think there’s a big part of it like it’s a among the first so you’re like not really sure what to expect and you don’t know where people are triggered or not and you certainly don’t want to be you’re putting yourself in a bad situation but you start figuring out where you can say no and it not being a big deal and where what matters to to the bride and what really doesn’t and figuring out if that’s something that you’re willing no yeah I think you’re right and yeah it’s like the more I’ve grown The more I’ve like come into who I am and like that was it’s like you know like North Carolina there’s a difference yeah just different Vibes but I was gonna say the other thing is next time if you are gonna wear a sparkly dress wear the boots wear the checks wear this like keep an element of yourself yeah there because it’s also like I don’t think everybody looks kind of the same at these at these parties everybody looks the same and so like that’s also can be suffocating after a while right so different than them yeah preserve preserve your identity in little ways and find see if you can you can have yeah in little ways exactly exactly yeah well thank you for sharing and especially thank you for sharing that PowerPoint because I will be showing it to more people please do because it is um it is well thought through I will say there’s a lot of details there’s a lot of detail but it sounds like you made the most of the situation I’m gonna use it to plan the next Bachelorette just a little copy paste yeah there you go all right y’all thanks for listening to this week’s episode of best friends back all right you can catch brand new episodes every Friday so make sure to follow so you don’t miss an episode if you’re enjoying the podcast leave us a review you can follow at mythical pods on Tick Tock for Clips to share with family and friends you can follow me at negin and Stevie everywhere at Stevie W Levine and of course you can hear me every Monday through Friday on Good Mythical Morning with Rhett and Link at youtube.com good mythical morning I’ll see you there Hello friends I just wanted to remind you that Trevor talks too much a very special podcast featuring our own Trevor from mythical kitchen is back with season two so go to wherever you’re listening to me talk right now and you get your podcasts and listen to Trevor talks too much highly recommend highly recommend highly recommend highly recommend highly recommend highly recommend