September 5, 2022 • 34 mins
These days, Bex Taylor-Klaus has a lot on their mind. And let’s be honest… with the current state of the world, who doesn’t? In today’s episode, Bex invites on three friends - Ian Alexander, Ambika Rajyagor & Lauren Bedard - to journey through a wide and eclectic array of curiosities – from Bengal tigers to Dungeons and Dragons to how you pronounce Joe Manganiello. Maybe when we all talk it out, the world doesn’t seem as overwhelming, after all?
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View episode transcript here: https://otter.ai/u/nWidfbjsNuvemQ_ex8W14a8p-cI
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Do you ever feel like there's just too much craziness
happening inside your brain, like so much so that you
want to just lay it out on the table and
pick it all apart. With a group brilliant people, like,
we're talking everything from saving tigers in all the tabletop
game therapy, the Canadian candy Officer. Literally, that's what we're
talking about today. Let's do it. S Hi. I'm Bex
(00:48):
and I am so excited to be here with you
all today. I think we can all agree things are
absolute lutely nuts right now, and somehow, whether we like
it or not, we are the adults in the room
and we have to figure it out. Figure what out? Well,
that's a good question. I actually celebrated my twenty birthday
last week. I never thought I'd make it this far.
(01:11):
There's this weird dichotomy for me of like the anxiety
of that, but also the excitement of I never thought
i'd have a future and here I am living out
my future. It's really exciting in a terrifying sort of way.
And I feel like that's that's what the aging process is,
excitement and terror all rolled up into a very frustrating
(01:33):
package that we have to deal with every year, so
we might as well enjoy the years that we've got.
Why should we be sad that we're growing older. There's
this question that my family likes to ask each other
and everyone we come across, what age do you think
you've been your entire life? And it's a fun question.
My grandfather's answer was seventeen. He was seventeen until the
(01:54):
day he died. My mother's answer is forty four. Forty four.
I was gonna say forty two, but that's the answer
to life, the universe and everything. Uh, but not the
answer to my mother's age. Oops, forty four. My point
is the concept of this is once you hit that age,
you feel like you've come into your own And I
(02:16):
never felt like i'd hit that, which is weird because
I mean, you hear how I talk on this podcast,
I sound like I could be anywhere from fourteen to
thirty two, not in terms of the caliber of my voice,
but in just in terms of the excitement and the
range of my excitement. It feels very childlike. How do
(02:36):
I balance the fact that like I act in a
way that the world perceives as youthful, but I personally
am feeling more myself as I get older. I think
the most important part is remembering that societies views on
aging doesn't have to be our views on aging. We
get a chance at a certain part of our adulthood.
(03:00):
We get the chance to sort of re examine agent.
I have a really close group of cousins. We were
all born within the same two months, and it's really interesting.
Two of us are very into this whole getting older things.
Two of us are like, oh, I feel I feel
good at twenty eight. I'm excited for twenty nine. I'm
ready to see what comes next. Two of the other
(03:21):
ones are like, oh, don't remind me we're twenty eight.
Oh no, please don't tell me that. And I'm like, nobuddy,
get excited. It doesn't mean you're dying. It just means
you're still living. And as a kid, I never thought
i'd feel that way. So now as an adult that
I'm feeling that way, I'm just so proud of myself.
You know, it feels like a really big accomplishment now
(03:41):
that you know a little more of what it's like
inside my brain. I think I'm going to open this
up and bring in a few friends. Please welcome Ian
Ambika and Lauren. Thank you all for being here. Hi,
(04:03):
I'm very excited to be here. I'm so excited you've
all joined me for this deep dive into everything or
at least five things on my mind today to begin with,
Can we go around the room and give brief introductions. Hi,
I'm Ian Alexander. I used day them and he him pronounced.
And I'm a twenty one year old actor living in
(04:26):
l A. And I'm very gay and trance. My name
is Ambica and I am a six year old Indian
American digital creative and activist. I try to do as
much as I can and all the work that I
do in different creative roles to also put forth just
my initiatives for disabled rights, intersectional feminism, and environmental conservations.
I'm really excited to be here. I incidentally love the
(04:49):
Instagram Disabled and Outside. I think that that whole thing
you're doing is just so cool and I want to
give it a shout out. Thank you. Yeah, disabled actors
on and Instagram, And if you guys are interested in
learning about how we make the outdoors more accessible, we're
happy to share more on there. That's super awesome. My
follow this Instagram page called unlikely hikers. So I'm definitely
(05:11):
gonna check you out after this. I'm Lauren. I'm a
twenty five year old math teacher in Santa Barbara. I'm
just really excited to be here. Yeah, I feel like
we've assembled a great team here. This is this is excellent.
Let's dive into this. I'm going to start with this
first one because it's very, very near and dear to
my heart, and it's very good news. Nepal's tiger population
(05:35):
has tripled in the last thirteen years, and coincidentally, fourteen
years ago, I have my bana mitzvah. For those who
don't know the Jewish community, when you hit a certain age,
you have a bar bot or ban a mitzvah. It's
your coming of age, coming into adulthood in the Jewish
faith and the Jewish culture and everything. And so when
I did mine, um, we all do a mitzvah project.
(05:58):
Mitzvah is chared and so my cherry project for my
Bandamet's vote was actually increasing the endangered tiger population. And
this was fourteen years ago, and within the last thirteen years,
having nothing to do with me, of course, the tiger
population has gone up and I'm personally very excited. I
want to go back and find all my tiger shirts
(06:19):
from my childhood and start wearing them in earnest again.
Because in there were only twenty one tigers left in
a wild in Nepal, and now, thanks to conservation efforts,
this number has tripled in thirteen years. That is such
great news, especially because I feel like we hear about
how we're just drying the earth and how humans are
(06:43):
literally the worst thing to ever happen to this planet.
So it's nice to hear some positive news of like
we are doing some good things. There's a lot of
climate doom and it comes to like talking about climate activism,
so hearing this is just something super hopeful and something
to look forward to. It's like, if we could do
this with the tiger population, what about all the other
endangered species exactly? And it helps open up the conversation
(07:06):
to the usefulness of biodiversity and how like, on the
one hand, we as a society we would rather save
the cute things like the pandas and the tigers. There
are bugs that are going extinct that could help our ecosystem.
They're just not as flashy and as fun to save.
(07:27):
But it's really nice to see, like you're saving tigers,
we have the capacity to save environments that are are
beneficial to other ecosystems, other other habitats. We can save those,
just like we save creatures. Yep. And I was reading
about the importance of like tigers on their entire ecosystem.
(07:49):
It's like when they rub up against the tree bugs
that are on their back, in fact, the tree, like
the bark on the tree, and the bark on the
tree effects the animals that are eating the plants from it,
and just like it's a domino effects. So by saving
the tigers, it's just we're creating like a positive a
domino effect versus like if they were going, all of
these little things that we don't think about would be
gone to Yeah, and it's it's very a d h D.
(08:11):
I'm going to keep alerting everybody throughout this conversation because
I will have very massive jumps in my brain like
this one total opposite of what's going on with the tigers,
where they're symbiotic to their environment. Camels in Australia their
kill on side animals because they were an invasive species there.
Feet are not designed to work with the Australian turf,
(08:33):
and so they end up pulling up the natural flora
and destroying the desert ecosystem. That's really interesting. I'm also
doing the A d h D thing of jumping to
a topic that's somewhat similar. I on TikTok been following
a lot of like foragers and people who are foraging
invasive plant species, because not only are you getting like
(08:55):
free food, but you're also helping the environment by pulling
up the roots on these invasive plant species. And then
there's also people that like go and they skate around
and they'll seed bomb, so they basically like throw seeds
of like native plants that help the area or like
endangered plant species. It's the most punk rock thing you
(09:15):
could do. It really is. Yeah. I'm so into that
skate around and seed bomb. I want to do that.
I really want to do that. I see TikTok about
that all the time, and I'm just like, yeah, I'll
do it like the restaurant shakers with the plant seeds. Yes,
Oh that's so good. We should organize like a skate
and shake skate and shape that so much. There's like
(09:39):
a term for it, gorilla flower planting. You're just like
flower bombing everyone that it's so radical. It's the same
sort of thing. It's like, conserving our environment will conserve
the creatures that we want to continue to exist, including
ourselves as humans on a slate. Speaking of tigers and
(10:03):
saving the world simultaneously. Uh, it's making me think of
Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe it's because I've been playing a
druid and there's that whole shape shifting thing. You could
shape shift into a tiger and try to save the
planet as a tiger. It's pretty fun. Okay, So, for
those of you who do not know, Dungeons and Dragons
(10:25):
or D and D is a tabletop role playing game
that is arguably the most popular one on the market
right now, which essentially means that you and a bunch
of friends sit down at a tabletop and you play
a role playing game together, telling a story as a
collaborative friend group. It's very fun, and I would like
(10:47):
to talk about maybe a little bit of the therapeutic
nature of tabletop role playing games and the value and
the community that it creates in our lives. Lauren, specifically,
I would love to hear a little bit about your
tabletop role playing game experience so far. Yeah, absolutely, really
(11:10):
really funny coincidence that the tie into dn D was
tigers and saving the world because my very first character
was a druid who shape shifted into a tiger. Yes,
not so. D n D for me was a really
interesting transition because I didn't start playing until I was
(11:30):
an adult. My good friend Alec, one of his favorite
things to say is solving real world problems in D
and D, and so I feel like, just because we
have this tendency to let our own beliefs and ideals
bleed into the characters that we create, it's a really
cool and safe setting to like try new things and
being we're outgoing and take risks that you wouldn't normally
(11:52):
do in the real world. It's just a really cool
thing to see. I love that so much. There are
so many aspect to tabletop role playing games that are
so therapeutic, and it just it can be used as
treatment if done correctly, and it's just delightful because storytelling
can be so so healing. So it will have some workshop.
(12:17):
It's a organization that started in Seattle. It was these
two licensed therapists that made this organization that actually uses
dn D to like help people who have particular mental
health struggles, and so yeah, gets recognized within therapeutic community
that it is a thing that actually is beneficial to
(12:38):
mental health. I'm so glad you brought that up, Lauren.
I that reminds me of an organization that I can't
remember the name of. My manager's friend. D MS a
group of kids who are, like their youth, dealing with homelessness,
and it gives them something to look forward to when
you know life might be really hard, really challenging for them,
(13:01):
and they have, you know, that community that once the
week they get to come together and just kind of
escape from everything and have fun for a couple hours.
And the escapism part of D and D is really nice.
But I also love when you are working through some
of your own like personal baggage or just anxieties through
(13:22):
dn D. It's so cathartic. Yeah, I feel like it's
been really helpful for me, particularly because I'm a teacher
now and standing in front of a group of people
talking about something that I'm really passionate about would have
been at one time horrifying. But I think that like
playing D and D and like having this practice putting
on a persona has maybe way better at public speaking,
(13:44):
And sometimes it happens completely unintentionally. You just like have
this really cool character that is like loosely based off
of your personality, but maybe highlights some aspects of your
personality that you haven't explored yet, and then you end
up unlocking all these new realizations about yourself. Like it's
just it's so good. I have a few friends whose
(14:04):
characters in tabletop role playing games started using different pronouns
before they did, and it allowed them that opportunity to
test it and find out they liked it so cool. Yes,
I love the like gender euphoria realization that happens in
D and D. I love it so much. My first
character used they then pronouns and was a wood alf
(14:26):
Bart who was just super friendly and super sweet and
loved to sing their little songs on their little boule.
My first character is very much just me, like just Ian.
And then my second character, I started to explore this
side of myself that I hadn't really explored, because he's
this sort of super flirtatious rogue that like throws daggers,
(14:47):
that just flirts with pretty much anyone and everyone and
I did not really know how to flirt prior to
playing this character. But after playing d D as this
character who just like flirts with only anyone, I've gotten
to practice in like a safe, simulated environment. I can
confirm Ian's flirting has gotten better since the beginning of
(15:08):
that series. Oh my gosh, congratulations, it's so good. I
feel like that stigma that we have about dn D
in that it's like I'm thinking specifically, I don't know
if this is like too obscured a reference In Trek Too,
they're going on this little like exploration and there are
these two kids talking to each other and they're both
(15:31):
like dorquy looking boys. They have acne braces. One of
them randomly gets a nosebleed. I feel like that's the
perception that we have of people who play D and D.
And it's just really been cool recently to see it
come into like popular media. It's the main theme and
source material for Stranger Things. They're making a movie about
it with Chris Pine and Jon Page. I don't know
(15:54):
if I pronounced that right. From Berton they played no
Magnet Magnema make Joe Mangeling. They made him the sexiest
man alive and he placed THENDY. I can't say his name.
I'm so sorry. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I'm like, I
know exactly who you're talking about talking. I'm so glad. Yeah,
(16:16):
you got it all right. Go grab a cup of water,
take a deep breath. We got a lot more coming
for you after this break. I love the structure of
(16:44):
D n D like I love how when I started
playing during we were knee deep in the pandemic. I
had absolutely no structure in my life at that point.
So having like a regular weekly thing where I got
to see my friends on zoo once a week really
really helps my mental health when I was very, very
(17:04):
depressed in distance learning, where the only interaction that my
students were getting was with their classmates or me over zoom.
Having that outlet and having that structured time where they
can actually like engage in an activity with their friends
just game changing. Oh yeah, it big time and it it.
(17:27):
I'm like watching the thought drift away like a post
it note in the wind. Oh well that's how my
d she works. I'll have a guy and I'll be like, oh,
a beautiful analogy there. You can see it flies away.
It's just gone now. But I still want to do
that exactly. It's like wait, no, I wait, no, no,
(17:47):
it's gone. I should have written it down. I think
there's something there's something so healing about D and D
like for your inner child as well, because you just
you get to play, and I feel like when you
become adult there's sort of this like stigma against playing,
like it's like, no, you have to be serious all
the time. It's like no, We're all like we all
(18:08):
have our inner child with us at all times, like
we still deserve to frolic and just have fun. It
can just be camaraderie and community. And that's my favorite
part of it. Yeah. Absolutely, Speaking of camaraderie and community,
the n b A is doing a really cool thing
(18:31):
and they're not having any games on November eight in
a move to encourage people to vote. And now the
n b A has honestly been really good about this
so far. This is that sense of like camaraderie and
community where they've opened up their locations to be voting sites.
But they've gone a step further now in an effort
(18:52):
to you know, preserve democracy and all that good stuff.
They're actually stopping all gain on November eight, so that
not only their players and not only the cast crew
of everything to do with the NBA, but also the
people who sit and watch everybody no game on no
Member eight, it's voting day, baby. I love that. You
(19:15):
don't hear very much about big corporations doing things that
are actually beneficial for people. So yeah, very cool. I
love that. I definitely think it's a step in the
right direction. But I also hope that they start voter
registration spaces and in the same centers, so it'd be
great to see that and then have a lead up
to Member eight. Oh yeah, Like if they had like
a whole registration set up the entire week leading up
(19:38):
to it and during games and stuff, that would be
so good. I remember who's I think Ariana Grande had
her concert series. There were voter registration polls like at
each concert, and I thought that was amazing and like
a great way to get young people involved. So appealing
to your audience and getting people engaged in your communities
of the duties that like in a way that is
relatable to the actual game and the sport. That's so good.
(20:00):
It Yeah, I mean, there's obviously more to be done,
but it's so cool to see these people in positions
of power doing anything. I think it's a great step
in the direction of people starting to use their platform
for good instead of just like self promotion or things
like that. If the NBA is doing can we get
the NFL to do something? It would be nice to
(20:20):
see like other large companies contribute in this way and
using their platforms for good. Yeah. I've been hearing a
lot about this inflation reduction act. I feel dumb admitting
I don't understand a lot of it and what's going on.
I know it's important, I know it's important. I'm just confused.
(20:41):
But I feel like you're not alone there. Yeah, yeah, Baker,
do you think you can help us out? Definitely? Of
course no. And I think we're not alone and feeling
like this is a confusing thing because the act itself
is so all encompassing that it's it's kind of confusing
in general. So for like us, as like normal people
to be like, what's even going on here? I feel
like that's just a general conversation everyone's been having. So
(21:03):
it's kind of cool. Like I was researching what exactly
is how many different things are included in this It's
all from like different perspectives. We've got climate change things
going on on one side of it, We've got medical
like health care and insurance things happening on another side
of it, and then we've got tax law. Like it's
all packaged up in one deal and it has nothing
really to do with inflation itself, but we're just calling
(21:24):
it the Inflation Reduction Act. I feel like all in
all like in effects inflation, so that's why that's the
name of it. But it does involve climate investment, lowering
the price of medications, reducing the deficit, and adjusting tax law.
So that's that's pretty cool. They're all very different, but
each thing is important to the overall like picture of
reducing inflation. In terms of like how I got signed
(21:44):
and how it got to the President's death, it's kind
of interesting story, but not surprising at all. Not a
single Republican voted for it. Because of that, we had
to get all fifty Democrats to vote yes so that
the like the Vice President could break the tie with
the fifty one. But to get all fifties and Democrats
to vote yes was even hard in itself because we
were fighting with different senators who are sitting in a
(22:06):
Democratic seat, but the way they vote tells us something different.
So we were fighting mansion, for example, from West Virginia,
or Christian cinema from Arizona, and we're just like, Okay,
you guys, look at the bigger picture. Unfortunately, have to
vote along party lines for this one. One thing that's
typically really hard is to pass through legislation that is
(22:27):
so all encompassing like this, like it says inflation reduction,
but it it covers like twelve different things. It's a
little misleading. Yeah, And because it's like it covers so
many different things, there's so many different things to fight about,
and so that's what's been going on. That's why it's
taken so lung to get this signed. But we had
to do this because we promised, like on a global scale,
(22:48):
like we promised that we would be doing things to
help combat climate change, and so this is a step
in the right direction of doing that. There's a couple
different things going on, but basically, we just we dedicated
ourselves to raising over seven billion dollars in government revenue
over ten years um and spending over four billion of
that to reduce carbon emissions. And that is huge because
we've never done anything like that before. That's the biggest
(23:11):
climate change move in the United States of America so far. Yeah,
And I think that also applies to like we talked about,
how they're all touching different areas of climate change in
the reducing carbon emissions. It's also included with tax reductions
and things like that. So when people are getting solar
panels for their house or they're picking energy safe cars,
like you get a tax reduction on that. That also
(23:32):
affects the environment in long term. So it all kind
of plays in together, even though they're so different on paper,
if that makes sense. Yea. So there's that, and there's
also just extended subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable
Care Act, which is monumental as well, because the average
American is paying about a year just one for scription drugs.
(23:53):
And this is with health insurance, like to spend money
from like your out of pocket expenses. Like even with
health insurance, I'm about two three dollars a month just
on medicine that I need to get high on a
day to day basis, And same thing for like so
many other people. And my wife's son an ammy and
no suppressant and it's it's so hard to get it
(24:13):
because there's just too many channels to go through and
then you run out of time and you're out of
your meds exactly, and it's like, on average, an individual
is not making it enough. COVID has affected us in
such a harmful way that like we need to start
approaching disability and healthcare like in a more unified way
than we have ever had to do before. In the
(24:33):
in the disabled community, there's the concept of the rest
of society is just pre disabled, and I think that
that's so correct. This is a step in the right direction,
and it makes me really excited through the future. I mean,
like endgame, I really hope we get universal healthcare, but
like we'll take this. This is baby steps. Yeah. Absolutely.
My friend just made a short film to raise awareness
(24:56):
about like people having to raption insulin, and so he
cre add a script about a sort of post apocalyptic
scenario where diabetic man has to ration his insulin and
has to like try to find like a warehouse that
has insulin. And it's a very dark, very sad reality
that a lot of people have to face who are
diabetic and living in the United States. And even if
(25:18):
they do have healthcare, it's like ridiculously expensive. So I
really hope that this changes. I hope this gets better.
I'm happy that people are finally starting to listen. There's
a dialogue about it, and then now we're seeing like
tangible change so overall, like Inflation Reduction Act, Like it's
it's tackling a couple of things that are super important
to me, so like environmental conservation and disabled justice. But
(25:41):
it's it's a baby stuff in the right direction. So
I'm very helpful. The game is one in base hits,
so I'll take a base hit any day. Yes, So
in some really funky and good news is making me
smile like an absolute just like a cheshire cat. Just
(26:05):
I'm smiling so big right now. Canada in the latest
compelling reason to move to Canada, or at least in
New Jersey. Apparently, Canadian based candy company Candy Funhouse has
just posted a job listing for chief candy Officer. I
love this. If you are interested, beware, hey, friends, we'll
(26:29):
be right back after this short break. If you are interested,
(26:50):
be aware so many people have applied for this job,
which includes palette training. By the way, via Lincoln that
the company is having trouble responding to all of the
LinkedIn applications. I'm like, look, no further, I'm here say,
let's you'd get the equivalent of eighty thousand U S.
(27:11):
Dollars a year to try candy for a living. You
taste about thirty five hundred pieces of candy per month,
which is roughly a hundred thirteen per day. As the
head taste tester. You can work remote or in either
the Canada or New Jersey office. Interesting, and this is
(27:31):
another part of the job posting that I really like.
Applicants can be as young as five years old and
must reside in North America. All you need is a
passion for candy, pop culture and a sweet tooth. Is
that the literal ad that was on the posting. It
sounds like a great job to have k year. I mean,
(27:56):
arguably the best part of this job is that it
comes with top of the line dental plan for all
that sugar consumption. Thank god. I was just going to ask,
I was like, is there healthcare included? Especially it's a kid.
I was gonna say, you're going to need to pay
for a lot of medical tree. Oh to live in Canada.
(28:16):
Sign yep. Though I feel like I didn't know I
was preparing for this job my entire life. But I
feel like, here, oh yeah, I feel like we should
all apply for chief candy Officer. The skills very willy Wonka.
Maybe they should make friends with the people who are
professional hot dog eaters, because I have always wondered how
they eat so many hot dogs. They have to like
(28:36):
train their stomach. I know they do warm ups. It's
like working out, but like with with their stomach as
the model. And then I I don't know where I
read this, but I like one time was having Korean
barbecue with my family and there was a hot dog
eating competition in the background, which kind of honestly was
like not, um, I don't know. I felt like that
was a little bit of a misstep on the seemed
(28:57):
to see just to witness. I know, I was like,
I was like, I don't know if this is really
what I want to watch while I'm eating, Like it's
almost kind of making me to lose my appetite. But
because I was so curious about it, I had that
same question Lauren. I was like, how do they do this?
Like how is this physically possible? Apparently they do have
to spend time recovering afterwards, where like all they are
(29:18):
able to eat is just like really soft food. It's
like yogurt and like apple sauce, and like they have
to take a recovery period because your body just can't
handle that much sugar, that much hot dogs. It's just
not natural. It's like a marathon. You really have to
prep for it. Well, this was This was really fun.
I feel like this was pretty amazing. I feel like
(29:40):
at least some of my thoughts got aired out, you know,
and it's hard to be a person in the world
right now, and so talking it out feels really good,
especially with friends, especially with a group of friends like these.
So I hope that everyone out there listening to our
little chaos found something in here that resonated with few,
something in here that made you smile. But when it
(30:03):
all comes down to what I'm less interested in thoughts
and I'm way more interested in what actions they lead to, because,
like I said, whether we're aging millennials or hip lip
cool gen z ears, we are the adults in the room,
for better or for worse, and we gotta step up
and do something. So based off of our conversation today.
(30:24):
What are some of the action items that you're going
to take with you. I really really wanted to the
seed bomb thing for sure. Same and making sure that
I am voting on November eight. So those are my
takeaways from a conversation. Nice, I am awesome motivated by
(30:46):
bomb thing. I think I'm gonna start volunteering for some
more habita restations and things like that. I want to
learn more about animal conservation itself. And then they definitely
want to get three of my friends to get registered
to vote and actually get out there on November eight,
so hopefully that'll account. Yeah. I I feel like when
you were saying originally about the Inflation Reduction Act that's
(31:08):
being passed, I didn't know very much about it. So
I definitely am going to go do a little more
research on that after this UM. And then my goal
for myself for this teaching year is I really want
to start at D and D club, So I'm going
to get my students into it to get some get
some role play going with my little ones. Yeay, oh,
I love that so much. Man. That would have been
(31:30):
so nice as a kid to have a dn D club.
I'm so glad your kids get that all right? Well,
I guess my takeaway is, um, I want to look
further into those specifically therapeutic t TRPG programs that we
talked about and see if there's, you know, anything anyway
I can get involved with that, because that's that's so
(31:51):
near and dear to my heart and also of course
see bumming. So maybe both at the same time. Maybe
we can go on like a D and D walk
in the park and drop seeds like little druids. Tell me,
let's do this. On that note, I feel like we
should get off the podcast so we can set a
time for us to meet up and seed bomb and
be druids. Absolutely, it's a plan, all right. Yeah, before
(32:15):
everyone goes, where can we find you? My Twitch channel,
my Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok it is Ian Alexander except
the L and Alexander is an I. I'm on Instagram
being TikTok at gandis gal g A n G s
g A L like the river nice I am on
Instagram that's just uh Lauren Bdard b E d A
(32:39):
R D six team and then you can find me.
I'm I'm also I like to make it difficult for
everyone and have my name be something different. So you
can find me on Twitter at ibex WebEx, on Instagram
at Beck's Underscore t K and if you want to
find me on TikTok, you're gonna have to search genuinely.
From the out of my heart, thank you so much,
(33:01):
Ian Ambica and Lauren for joining us, thanks for having us,
and for everyone tuning in today. Thank you all so
much for listening. You can follow along by following at
Love Struck Daily on Instagram and Twitter, or email Love
Struck Daily at frolic dot media. If you have any
(33:22):
questions or if you know of anyone who would like
to come on the show. I'm always looking for new friends.
A researcher is Jesse Epstein and our editor is Jen Jacobs.
We're produced by Abigail Steckler with Little Scorpion Studios. We're
executive produced by Frolic Media. This is an I Heart
radio podcast. Thank you all so much for joining us today.
(33:44):
I'll see you next time. Songs You'll be tall tied
on Day Tin Love Day
Do you ever feel like there's just too much craziness
happening inside your brain, like so much so that you
want to just lay it out on the table and
pick it all apart. With a group brilliant people, like,
we're talking everything from saving tigers in all the tabletop
game therapy, the Canadian candy Officer. Literally, that's what we're
talking about today. Let's do it. S Hi. I'm Bex
(00:48):
and I am so excited to be here with you
all today. I think we can all agree things are
absolute lutely nuts right now, and somehow, whether we like
it or not, we are the adults in the room
and we have to figure it out. Figure what out? Well,
that's a good question. I actually celebrated my twenty birthday
last week. I never thought I'd make it this far.
(01:11):
There's this weird dichotomy for me of like the anxiety
of that, but also the excitement of I never thought
i'd have a future and here I am living out
my future. It's really exciting in a terrifying sort of way.
And I feel like that's that's what the aging process is,
excitement and terror all rolled up into a very frustrating
(01:33):
package that we have to deal with every year, so
we might as well enjoy the years that we've got.
Why should we be sad that we're growing older. There's
this question that my family likes to ask each other
and everyone we come across, what age do you think
you've been your entire life? And it's a fun question.
My grandfather's answer was seventeen. He was seventeen until the
(01:54):
day he died. My mother's answer is forty four. Forty four.
I was gonna say forty two, but that's the answer
to life, the universe and everything. Uh, but not the
answer to my mother's age. Oops, forty four. My point
is the concept of this is once you hit that age,
you feel like you've come into your own And I
(02:16):
never felt like i'd hit that, which is weird because
I mean, you hear how I talk on this podcast,
I sound like I could be anywhere from fourteen to
thirty two, not in terms of the caliber of my voice,
but in just in terms of the excitement and the
range of my excitement. It feels very childlike. How do
(02:36):
I balance the fact that like I act in a
way that the world perceives as youthful, but I personally
am feeling more myself as I get older. I think
the most important part is remembering that societies views on
aging doesn't have to be our views on aging. We
get a chance at a certain part of our adulthood.
(03:00):
We get the chance to sort of re examine agent.
I have a really close group of cousins. We were
all born within the same two months, and it's really interesting.
Two of us are very into this whole getting older things.
Two of us are like, oh, I feel I feel
good at twenty eight. I'm excited for twenty nine. I'm
ready to see what comes next. Two of the other
(03:21):
ones are like, oh, don't remind me we're twenty eight.
Oh no, please don't tell me that. And I'm like, nobuddy,
get excited. It doesn't mean you're dying. It just means
you're still living. And as a kid, I never thought
i'd feel that way. So now as an adult that
I'm feeling that way, I'm just so proud of myself.
You know, it feels like a really big accomplishment now
(03:41):
that you know a little more of what it's like
inside my brain. I think I'm going to open this
up and bring in a few friends. Please welcome Ian
Ambika and Lauren. Thank you all for being here. Hi,
(04:03):
I'm very excited to be here. I'm so excited you've
all joined me for this deep dive into everything or
at least five things on my mind today to begin with,
Can we go around the room and give brief introductions. Hi,
I'm Ian Alexander. I used day them and he him pronounced.
And I'm a twenty one year old actor living in
(04:26):
l A. And I'm very gay and trance. My name
is Ambica and I am a six year old Indian
American digital creative and activist. I try to do as
much as I can and all the work that I
do in different creative roles to also put forth just
my initiatives for disabled rights, intersectional feminism, and environmental conservations.
I'm really excited to be here. I incidentally love the
(04:49):
Instagram Disabled and Outside. I think that that whole thing
you're doing is just so cool and I want to
give it a shout out. Thank you. Yeah, disabled actors
on and Instagram, And if you guys are interested in
learning about how we make the outdoors more accessible, we're
happy to share more on there. That's super awesome. My
follow this Instagram page called unlikely hikers. So I'm definitely
(05:11):
gonna check you out after this. I'm Lauren. I'm a
twenty five year old math teacher in Santa Barbara. I'm
just really excited to be here. Yeah, I feel like
we've assembled a great team here. This is this is excellent.
Let's dive into this. I'm going to start with this
first one because it's very, very near and dear to
my heart, and it's very good news. Nepal's tiger population
(05:35):
has tripled in the last thirteen years, and coincidentally, fourteen
years ago, I have my bana mitzvah. For those who
don't know the Jewish community, when you hit a certain age,
you have a bar bot or ban a mitzvah. It's
your coming of age, coming into adulthood in the Jewish
faith and the Jewish culture and everything. And so when
I did mine, um, we all do a mitzvah project.
(05:58):
Mitzvah is chared and so my cherry project for my
Bandamet's vote was actually increasing the endangered tiger population. And
this was fourteen years ago, and within the last thirteen years,
having nothing to do with me, of course, the tiger
population has gone up and I'm personally very excited. I
want to go back and find all my tiger shirts
(06:19):
from my childhood and start wearing them in earnest again.
Because in there were only twenty one tigers left in
a wild in Nepal, and now, thanks to conservation efforts,
this number has tripled in thirteen years. That is such
great news, especially because I feel like we hear about
how we're just drying the earth and how humans are
(06:43):
literally the worst thing to ever happen to this planet.
So it's nice to hear some positive news of like
we are doing some good things. There's a lot of
climate doom and it comes to like talking about climate activism,
so hearing this is just something super hopeful and something
to look forward to. It's like, if we could do
this with the tiger population, what about all the other
endangered species exactly? And it helps open up the conversation
(07:06):
to the usefulness of biodiversity and how like, on the
one hand, we as a society we would rather save
the cute things like the pandas and the tigers. There
are bugs that are going extinct that could help our ecosystem.
They're just not as flashy and as fun to save.
(07:27):
But it's really nice to see, like you're saving tigers,
we have the capacity to save environments that are are
beneficial to other ecosystems, other other habitats. We can save those,
just like we save creatures. Yep. And I was reading
about the importance of like tigers on their entire ecosystem.
(07:49):
It's like when they rub up against the tree bugs
that are on their back, in fact, the tree, like
the bark on the tree, and the bark on the
tree effects the animals that are eating the plants from it,
and just like it's a domino effects. So by saving
the tigers, it's just we're creating like a positive a
domino effect versus like if they were going, all of
these little things that we don't think about would be
gone to Yeah, and it's it's very a d h D.
(08:11):
I'm going to keep alerting everybody throughout this conversation because
I will have very massive jumps in my brain like
this one total opposite of what's going on with the tigers,
where they're symbiotic to their environment. Camels in Australia their
kill on side animals because they were an invasive species there.
Feet are not designed to work with the Australian turf,
(08:33):
and so they end up pulling up the natural flora
and destroying the desert ecosystem. That's really interesting. I'm also
doing the A d h D thing of jumping to
a topic that's somewhat similar. I on TikTok been following
a lot of like foragers and people who are foraging
invasive plant species, because not only are you getting like
(08:55):
free food, but you're also helping the environment by pulling
up the roots on these invasive plant species. And then
there's also people that like go and they skate around
and they'll seed bomb, so they basically like throw seeds
of like native plants that help the area or like
endangered plant species. It's the most punk rock thing you
(09:15):
could do. It really is. Yeah. I'm so into that
skate around and seed bomb. I want to do that.
I really want to do that. I see TikTok about
that all the time, and I'm just like, yeah, I'll
do it like the restaurant shakers with the plant seeds. Yes,
Oh that's so good. We should organize like a skate
and shake skate and shape that so much. There's like
(09:39):
a term for it, gorilla flower planting. You're just like
flower bombing everyone that it's so radical. It's the same
sort of thing. It's like, conserving our environment will conserve
the creatures that we want to continue to exist, including
ourselves as humans on a slate. Speaking of tigers and
(10:03):
saving the world simultaneously. Uh, it's making me think of
Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe it's because I've been playing a
druid and there's that whole shape shifting thing. You could
shape shift into a tiger and try to save the
planet as a tiger. It's pretty fun. Okay, So, for
those of you who do not know, Dungeons and Dragons
(10:25):
or D and D is a tabletop role playing game
that is arguably the most popular one on the market
right now, which essentially means that you and a bunch
of friends sit down at a tabletop and you play
a role playing game together, telling a story as a
collaborative friend group. It's very fun, and I would like
(10:47):
to talk about maybe a little bit of the therapeutic
nature of tabletop role playing games and the value and
the community that it creates in our lives. Lauren, specifically,
I would love to hear a little bit about your
tabletop role playing game experience so far. Yeah, absolutely, really
(11:10):
really funny coincidence that the tie into dn D was
tigers and saving the world because my very first character
was a druid who shape shifted into a tiger. Yes,
not so. D n D for me was a really
interesting transition because I didn't start playing until I was
(11:30):
an adult. My good friend Alec, one of his favorite
things to say is solving real world problems in D
and D, and so I feel like, just because we
have this tendency to let our own beliefs and ideals
bleed into the characters that we create, it's a really
cool and safe setting to like try new things and
being we're outgoing and take risks that you wouldn't normally
(11:52):
do in the real world. It's just a really cool
thing to see. I love that so much. There are
so many aspect to tabletop role playing games that are
so therapeutic, and it just it can be used as
treatment if done correctly, and it's just delightful because storytelling
can be so so healing. So it will have some workshop.
(12:17):
It's a organization that started in Seattle. It was these
two licensed therapists that made this organization that actually uses
dn D to like help people who have particular mental
health struggles, and so yeah, gets recognized within therapeutic community
that it is a thing that actually is beneficial to
(12:38):
mental health. I'm so glad you brought that up, Lauren.
I that reminds me of an organization that I can't
remember the name of. My manager's friend. D MS a
group of kids who are, like their youth, dealing with homelessness,
and it gives them something to look forward to when
you know life might be really hard, really challenging for them,
(13:01):
and they have, you know, that community that once the
week they get to come together and just kind of
escape from everything and have fun for a couple hours.
And the escapism part of D and D is really nice.
But I also love when you are working through some
of your own like personal baggage or just anxieties through
(13:22):
dn D. It's so cathartic. Yeah, I feel like it's
been really helpful for me, particularly because I'm a teacher
now and standing in front of a group of people
talking about something that I'm really passionate about would have
been at one time horrifying. But I think that like
playing D and D and like having this practice putting
on a persona has maybe way better at public speaking,
(13:44):
And sometimes it happens completely unintentionally. You just like have
this really cool character that is like loosely based off
of your personality, but maybe highlights some aspects of your
personality that you haven't explored yet, and then you end
up unlocking all these new realizations about yourself. Like it's
just it's so good. I have a few friends whose
(14:04):
characters in tabletop role playing games started using different pronouns
before they did, and it allowed them that opportunity to
test it and find out they liked it so cool. Yes,
I love the like gender euphoria realization that happens in
D and D. I love it so much. My first
character used they then pronouns and was a wood alf
(14:26):
Bart who was just super friendly and super sweet and
loved to sing their little songs on their little boule.
My first character is very much just me, like just Ian.
And then my second character, I started to explore this
side of myself that I hadn't really explored, because he's
this sort of super flirtatious rogue that like throws daggers,
(14:47):
that just flirts with pretty much anyone and everyone and
I did not really know how to flirt prior to
playing this character. But after playing d D as this
character who just like flirts with only anyone, I've gotten
to practice in like a safe, simulated environment. I can
confirm Ian's flirting has gotten better since the beginning of
(15:08):
that series. Oh my gosh, congratulations, it's so good. I
feel like that stigma that we have about dn D
in that it's like I'm thinking specifically, I don't know
if this is like too obscured a reference In Trek Too,
they're going on this little like exploration and there are
these two kids talking to each other and they're both
(15:31):
like dorquy looking boys. They have acne braces. One of
them randomly gets a nosebleed. I feel like that's the
perception that we have of people who play D and D.
And it's just really been cool recently to see it
come into like popular media. It's the main theme and
source material for Stranger Things. They're making a movie about
it with Chris Pine and Jon Page. I don't know
(15:54):
if I pronounced that right. From Berton they played no
Magnet Magnema make Joe Mangeling. They made him the sexiest
man alive and he placed THENDY. I can't say his name.
I'm so sorry. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I'm like, I
know exactly who you're talking about talking. I'm so glad. Yeah,
(16:16):
you got it all right. Go grab a cup of water,
take a deep breath. We got a lot more coming
for you after this break. I love the structure of
(16:44):
D n D like I love how when I started
playing during we were knee deep in the pandemic. I
had absolutely no structure in my life at that point.
So having like a regular weekly thing where I got
to see my friends on zoo once a week really
really helps my mental health when I was very, very
(17:04):
depressed in distance learning, where the only interaction that my
students were getting was with their classmates or me over zoom.
Having that outlet and having that structured time where they
can actually like engage in an activity with their friends
just game changing. Oh yeah, it big time and it it.
(17:27):
I'm like watching the thought drift away like a post
it note in the wind. Oh well that's how my
d she works. I'll have a guy and I'll be like, oh,
a beautiful analogy there. You can see it flies away.
It's just gone now. But I still want to do
that exactly. It's like wait, no, I wait, no, no,
(17:47):
it's gone. I should have written it down. I think
there's something there's something so healing about D and D
like for your inner child as well, because you just
you get to play, and I feel like when you
become adult there's sort of this like stigma against playing,
like it's like, no, you have to be serious all
the time. It's like no, We're all like we all
(18:08):
have our inner child with us at all times, like
we still deserve to frolic and just have fun. It
can just be camaraderie and community. And that's my favorite
part of it. Yeah. Absolutely, Speaking of camaraderie and community,
the n b A is doing a really cool thing
(18:31):
and they're not having any games on November eight in
a move to encourage people to vote. And now the
n b A has honestly been really good about this
so far. This is that sense of like camaraderie and
community where they've opened up their locations to be voting sites.
But they've gone a step further now in an effort
(18:52):
to you know, preserve democracy and all that good stuff.
They're actually stopping all gain on November eight, so that
not only their players and not only the cast crew
of everything to do with the NBA, but also the
people who sit and watch everybody no game on no
Member eight, it's voting day, baby. I love that. You
(19:15):
don't hear very much about big corporations doing things that
are actually beneficial for people. So yeah, very cool. I
love that. I definitely think it's a step in the
right direction. But I also hope that they start voter
registration spaces and in the same centers, so it'd be
great to see that and then have a lead up
to Member eight. Oh yeah, Like if they had like
a whole registration set up the entire week leading up
(19:38):
to it and during games and stuff, that would be
so good. I remember who's I think Ariana Grande had
her concert series. There were voter registration polls like at
each concert, and I thought that was amazing and like
a great way to get young people involved. So appealing
to your audience and getting people engaged in your communities
of the duties that like in a way that is
relatable to the actual game and the sport. That's so good.
(20:00):
It Yeah, I mean, there's obviously more to be done,
but it's so cool to see these people in positions
of power doing anything. I think it's a great step
in the direction of people starting to use their platform
for good instead of just like self promotion or things
like that. If the NBA is doing can we get
the NFL to do something? It would be nice to
(20:20):
see like other large companies contribute in this way and
using their platforms for good. Yeah. I've been hearing a
lot about this inflation reduction act. I feel dumb admitting
I don't understand a lot of it and what's going on.
I know it's important, I know it's important. I'm just confused.
(20:41):
But I feel like you're not alone there. Yeah, yeah, Baker,
do you think you can help us out? Definitely? Of
course no. And I think we're not alone and feeling
like this is a confusing thing because the act itself
is so all encompassing that it's it's kind of confusing
in general. So for like us, as like normal people
to be like, what's even going on here? I feel
like that's just a general conversation everyone's been having. So
(21:03):
it's kind of cool. Like I was researching what exactly
is how many different things are included in this It's
all from like different perspectives. We've got climate change things
going on on one side of it, We've got medical
like health care and insurance things happening on another side
of it, and then we've got tax law. Like it's
all packaged up in one deal and it has nothing
really to do with inflation itself, but we're just calling
(21:24):
it the Inflation Reduction Act. I feel like all in
all like in effects inflation, so that's why that's the
name of it. But it does involve climate investment, lowering
the price of medications, reducing the deficit, and adjusting tax law.
So that's that's pretty cool. They're all very different, but
each thing is important to the overall like picture of
reducing inflation. In terms of like how I got signed
(21:44):
and how it got to the President's death, it's kind
of interesting story, but not surprising at all. Not a
single Republican voted for it. Because of that, we had
to get all fifty Democrats to vote yes so that
the like the Vice President could break the tie with
the fifty one. But to get all fifties and Democrats
to vote yes was even hard in itself because we
were fighting with different senators who are sitting in a
(22:06):
Democratic seat, but the way they vote tells us something different.
So we were fighting mansion, for example, from West Virginia,
or Christian cinema from Arizona, and we're just like, Okay,
you guys, look at the bigger picture. Unfortunately, have to
vote along party lines for this one. One thing that's
typically really hard is to pass through legislation that is
(22:27):
so all encompassing like this, like it says inflation reduction,
but it it covers like twelve different things. It's a
little misleading. Yeah, And because it's like it covers so
many different things, there's so many different things to fight about,
and so that's what's been going on. That's why it's
taken so lung to get this signed. But we had
to do this because we promised, like on a global scale,
(22:48):
like we promised that we would be doing things to
help combat climate change, and so this is a step
in the right direction of doing that. There's a couple
different things going on, but basically, we just we dedicated
ourselves to raising over seven billion dollars in government revenue
over ten years um and spending over four billion of
that to reduce carbon emissions. And that is huge because
we've never done anything like that before. That's the biggest
(23:11):
climate change move in the United States of America so far. Yeah,
And I think that also applies to like we talked about,
how they're all touching different areas of climate change in
the reducing carbon emissions. It's also included with tax reductions
and things like that. So when people are getting solar
panels for their house or they're picking energy safe cars,
like you get a tax reduction on that. That also
(23:32):
affects the environment in long term. So it all kind
of plays in together, even though they're so different on paper,
if that makes sense. Yea. So there's that, and there's
also just extended subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable
Care Act, which is monumental as well, because the average
American is paying about a year just one for scription drugs.
(23:53):
And this is with health insurance, like to spend money
from like your out of pocket expenses. Like even with
health insurance, I'm about two three dollars a month just
on medicine that I need to get high on a
day to day basis, And same thing for like so
many other people. And my wife's son an ammy and
no suppressant and it's it's so hard to get it
(24:13):
because there's just too many channels to go through and
then you run out of time and you're out of
your meds exactly, and it's like, on average, an individual
is not making it enough. COVID has affected us in
such a harmful way that like we need to start
approaching disability and healthcare like in a more unified way
than we have ever had to do before. In the
(24:33):
in the disabled community, there's the concept of the rest
of society is just pre disabled, and I think that
that's so correct. This is a step in the right direction,
and it makes me really excited through the future. I mean,
like endgame, I really hope we get universal healthcare, but
like we'll take this. This is baby steps. Yeah. Absolutely.
My friend just made a short film to raise awareness
(24:56):
about like people having to raption insulin, and so he
cre add a script about a sort of post apocalyptic
scenario where diabetic man has to ration his insulin and
has to like try to find like a warehouse that
has insulin. And it's a very dark, very sad reality
that a lot of people have to face who are
diabetic and living in the United States. And even if
(25:18):
they do have healthcare, it's like ridiculously expensive. So I
really hope that this changes. I hope this gets better.
I'm happy that people are finally starting to listen. There's
a dialogue about it, and then now we're seeing like
tangible change so overall, like Inflation Reduction Act, Like it's
it's tackling a couple of things that are super important
to me, so like environmental conservation and disabled justice. But
(25:41):
it's it's a baby stuff in the right direction. So
I'm very helpful. The game is one in base hits,
so I'll take a base hit any day. Yes, So
in some really funky and good news is making me
smile like an absolute just like a cheshire cat. Just
(26:05):
I'm smiling so big right now. Canada in the latest
compelling reason to move to Canada, or at least in
New Jersey. Apparently, Canadian based candy company Candy Funhouse has
just posted a job listing for chief candy Officer. I
love this. If you are interested, beware, hey, friends, we'll
(26:29):
be right back after this short break. If you are interested,
(26:50):
be aware so many people have applied for this job,
which includes palette training. By the way, via Lincoln that
the company is having trouble responding to all of the
LinkedIn applications. I'm like, look, no further, I'm here say,
let's you'd get the equivalent of eighty thousand U S.
(27:11):
Dollars a year to try candy for a living. You
taste about thirty five hundred pieces of candy per month,
which is roughly a hundred thirteen per day. As the
head taste tester. You can work remote or in either
the Canada or New Jersey office. Interesting, and this is
(27:31):
another part of the job posting that I really like.
Applicants can be as young as five years old and
must reside in North America. All you need is a
passion for candy, pop culture and a sweet tooth. Is
that the literal ad that was on the posting. It
sounds like a great job to have k year. I mean,
(27:56):
arguably the best part of this job is that it
comes with top of the line dental plan for all
that sugar consumption. Thank god. I was just going to ask,
I was like, is there healthcare included? Especially it's a kid.
I was gonna say, you're going to need to pay
for a lot of medical tree. Oh to live in Canada.
(28:16):
Sign yep. Though I feel like I didn't know I
was preparing for this job my entire life. But I
feel like, here, oh yeah, I feel like we should
all apply for chief candy Officer. The skills very willy Wonka.
Maybe they should make friends with the people who are
professional hot dog eaters, because I have always wondered how
they eat so many hot dogs. They have to like
(28:36):
train their stomach. I know they do warm ups. It's
like working out, but like with with their stomach as
the model. And then I I don't know where I
read this, but I like one time was having Korean
barbecue with my family and there was a hot dog
eating competition in the background, which kind of honestly was
like not, um, I don't know. I felt like that
was a little bit of a misstep on the seemed
(28:57):
to see just to witness. I know, I was like,
I was like, I don't know if this is really
what I want to watch while I'm eating, Like it's
almost kind of making me to lose my appetite. But
because I was so curious about it, I had that
same question Lauren. I was like, how do they do this?
Like how is this physically possible? Apparently they do have
to spend time recovering afterwards, where like all they are
(29:18):
able to eat is just like really soft food. It's
like yogurt and like apple sauce, and like they have
to take a recovery period because your body just can't
handle that much sugar, that much hot dogs. It's just
not natural. It's like a marathon. You really have to
prep for it. Well, this was This was really fun.
I feel like this was pretty amazing. I feel like
(29:40):
at least some of my thoughts got aired out, you know,
and it's hard to be a person in the world
right now, and so talking it out feels really good,
especially with friends, especially with a group of friends like these.
So I hope that everyone out there listening to our
little chaos found something in here that resonated with few,
something in here that made you smile. But when it
(30:03):
all comes down to what I'm less interested in thoughts
and I'm way more interested in what actions they lead to, because,
like I said, whether we're aging millennials or hip lip
cool gen z ears, we are the adults in the room,
for better or for worse, and we gotta step up
and do something. So based off of our conversation today.
(30:24):
What are some of the action items that you're going
to take with you. I really really wanted to the
seed bomb thing for sure. Same and making sure that
I am voting on November eight. So those are my
takeaways from a conversation. Nice, I am awesome motivated by
(30:46):
bomb thing. I think I'm gonna start volunteering for some
more habita restations and things like that. I want to
learn more about animal conservation itself. And then they definitely
want to get three of my friends to get registered
to vote and actually get out there on November eight,
so hopefully that'll account. Yeah. I I feel like when
you were saying originally about the Inflation Reduction Act that's
(31:08):
being passed, I didn't know very much about it. So
I definitely am going to go do a little more
research on that after this UM. And then my goal
for myself for this teaching year is I really want
to start at D and D club, So I'm going
to get my students into it to get some get
some role play going with my little ones. Yeay, oh,
I love that so much. Man. That would have been
(31:30):
so nice as a kid to have a dn D club.
I'm so glad your kids get that all right? Well,
I guess my takeaway is, um, I want to look
further into those specifically therapeutic t TRPG programs that we
talked about and see if there's, you know, anything anyway
I can get involved with that, because that's that's so
(31:51):
near and dear to my heart and also of course
see bumming. So maybe both at the same time. Maybe
we can go on like a D and D walk
in the park and drop seeds like little druids. Tell me,
let's do this. On that note, I feel like we
should get off the podcast so we can set a
time for us to meet up and seed bomb and
be druids. Absolutely, it's a plan, all right. Yeah, before
(32:15):
everyone goes, where can we find you? My Twitch channel,
my Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok it is Ian Alexander except
the L and Alexander is an I. I'm on Instagram
being TikTok at gandis gal g A n G s
g A L like the river nice I am on
Instagram that's just uh Lauren Bdard b E d A
(32:39):
R D six team and then you can find me.
I'm I'm also I like to make it difficult for
everyone and have my name be something different. So you
can find me on Twitter at ibex WebEx, on Instagram
at Beck's Underscore t K and if you want to
find me on TikTok, you're gonna have to search genuinely.
From the out of my heart, thank you so much,
(33:01):
Ian Ambica and Lauren for joining us, thanks for having us,
and for everyone tuning in today. Thank you all so
much for listening. You can follow along by following at
Love Struck Daily on Instagram and Twitter, or email Love
Struck Daily at frolic dot media. If you have any
(33:22):
questions or if you know of anyone who would like
to come on the show. I'm always looking for new friends.
A researcher is Jesse Epstein and our editor is Jen Jacobs.
We're produced by Abigail Steckler with Little Scorpion Studios. We're
executive produced by Frolic Media. This is an I Heart
radio podcast. Thank you all so much for joining us today.
(33:44):
I'll see you next time. Songs You'll be tall tied
on Day Tin Love Day
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