4: Hobbies (What We Do When We're Not Doing This)

In this episode we discuss hobbies, making your brain pay out those GOOD neurotransmitters, and managing chronic pain in your relationships. Our intermission was also our first ever attempt at a Fun Facts With Fox (it was before we added shorter times, but we still think it's a fun listen!) As a peek behind the curtain, this is also our last episode that we recorded before we officially launched.

Do you have any feedback on our episodes? We'd love to hear from you as we settle into a regular structure for this podcast. You can comment anywhere you listen, dm us on any of our social medias, or email us! You can find links to everything and our email below.

If you loved this episode, please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a comment! Want to help pay Foxglove and get access to amazing bonus content? Consider joining our fan community on Patreon. You can also find us on Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter. We answer at least one listener question every episode. You can email us at [e-mail] with your questions about life, relationships, polyamory,  or anything really. 

A big thank to molly ofgeography for the use her song Hanahaki (Bloom) for our music.

And remember, we believe in you!

Support the show

Episode Transcript

Sage (00:18):
Hey, listeners, I'm Sage,

Sunflower (00:20):
I'm Sunflower!

Iris (00:21):
I'm Iris.

Foxglove (00:21):
And I'm Foxglove.

Sage (00:22):
And this is And They Were Roommates, a podcast about
modern love, life, andeverything in between.

Sunflower (00:27):
Disclaimer, we are not experts at being adults,
we've just lived through a lot.
And this week, we're gonna betalking about hobbies, making
your brain pay out those goodneurotransmitters, and managing
chronic pain in yourrelationship. Let's get into it!
Hobbies!

Foxglove (00:40):
Do we want to start with why hobbies are like,
actually legitlegitimately goodfor you?

Sunflower (00:44):
Yeah, give us some science!

Sage (00:46):
Give us some fun facts, Fox!

Foxglove (00:47):
Science!

Iris (00:47):
Science at us.

Foxglove (00:48):
Um, so, the first thing I'm going to preface this
with is that this is not me, aperson with a bunch of mental

Iris (00:51):
It's not how mental illnesses work.
illnesses, telling anyone elsewith a bunch of mental illnesses
that if you knit, yourdepression will go away. Because
I've heard that, and it's nottrue.

Foxglove (01:03):
Yeah, it's not how anything works, actually. I've
never heard of any illness thatwill be cured by knitting.

Sage (01:07):
Man, I want knitting to cure something.

Foxglove (01:09):
I want knitting to cure several things. However,
the thing that I am saying isthat when your therapist, or...
or something is like oh,knittingor like, whatever
fucking craft, knitting is whatI do a lot ofwill do some
beneficial things to your brain,they're not actually just

(01:29):
fucking making that up off thetop of their head. Because, um,
there's... everyone buckle infor a little bit of
neuroscience. So there are twoprimary neurotransmitters
involved here, they're dopamineand serotonin. Serotonin is what
we generally consider like, Idon't know, like it's a it's
like a calm pleasure hormone.
And it's usually what you'redeficient in if you have severe
depression. If you're onmedication for your depression,

(01:50):
you're probably on an SSRI,which manages serotonin in your
brain. And then there'sdopamine, which is also a
pleasure hormone thatspecifically pays out as a
reward for finishing tasks. Andlike, as a way to provide
motivation. It's what tells yourbrain to motivate itself. Brains
are more complicated than this.

(02:10):
I've boiled it down very far.
But an example of dopamineissues is if you have for
example, ADHD, like myself,you'rethe reason you struggle
to start and complete tasks isbecause ADHD affects the way
that your brain pays outdopamine. So for me, it's hard
to do tasks with a lot of smallpieces, because my brain will

(02:32):
not give me the you know, punchcard of like, you did part of a
task, good job, here's like alittle bit of dopamine for you.
That's not how my brain works.
So I just have a

Iris (02:42):
You can have little bit of dopamine. As a treat.

Foxglove (02:44):
as a treat!

Sunflower (02:46):
As a little snack!

Foxglove (02:47):
And for obvious reasons

Sage (02:48):
The good good brain chemicals.

Foxglove (02:50):
For obvious reasons, that does a number on my ability
to concentrate. So ADHDmedications, from what we can
tell, affect how your brainmanages dopamine.

Iris (02:58):
And hobbies

Foxglove (02:59):
And hobbies are a way...

Sunflower (03:01):
Just gonna pull in for a landing.

Foxglove (03:03):
IIlet me live!

Sage (03:06):
They were getting to the point! Eventually, in a
roundabout way.

Foxglove (03:09):
I took my medication today, let me live!

Sunflower (03:13):
Tell it to give you the dopamine!

Foxglove (03:16):
The advantage of hobbies, unlike a neurochemical
level, is that especially ifyou're doing something concrete,
or something that has some kindof like, waypoint, like, if
you're writing then you wrote,like, ten pages, or if you're
playing a video game and you hita save point, or if you're
knitting and you finish a hat,you're... you're finishing a

(03:38):
task, which means you can kindof like, jack into that brain
circuitry for like, please giveme the positive hormones,
because I did the things thatmake you happy, and I finished a
task and I made a thing. Iespecially recommend hobbies
that produce something physical,like something concrete.

Iris (03:57):
Crafting!

Foxglove (03:57):
Crafts are good, or short of that, like I, when I'm
really depressed, I write byhand instead of on my computer,
because like, you can also getthat drop from like, finishing a
page. And the reason I gothrough this entire ramble is
because today we're going totalk about hobbies, and we're
gonna talk about things that wedo that like, bring us joy
alone, and that we do as a groupto like, not just bring us

(04:18):
closer together, like we'vetalked about before, but like,
because we enjoy doing them, andbecause you're making your brain
dump a bunch of pleasurehormones while you're around the
people you like enforces thatrelationship on a neurochemical
level, and it's good for you.
And the reason I've done thiswhole ramble is that I really
want to clarify, hobbies are notbullshit. They're like, they're
good for you, they're an actualconcrete thing you're doing to

(04:39):
help yourself and like improveyour quality of life. So like, I
understand that we live in acapitalist hellscape that says
that anything that's not youractual paying job is not
worthwhile, but like, hobbies,they are good for you, they make
you better at the other thingsyou do, they make you better at
your relationships. They're justgood for you. Thank you for
listening to my TED Talk.

Sage (05:03):
One of my favorite ways to make my brain pay out the good
good dopamine is video games.
Because video games have nicelittle things with checkboxes
for your quest objectives, orthe other stuff that you're
supposed to be doing, and everytime that the game checks one of
those things off, it feelsgreat, because real life does
not have checkboxes for quests.

(05:25):
And nothing is ever complete.

Iris (05:27):
Unless you have a girlfriend who really likes
making to-do lists, and that'sreal life questing.

Foxglove (05:31):
Sun will sometimeslike, I write myself
to-do lists, but sometimes Sunwill write me to-do lists, and I
just, I feel so accomplishedwhen I finish them.

Sunflower (05:40):
I need like my own little spotlight, so I can sit
in it like the wizard cat, likethe glowy wizard cat that gives
you quest items?

Foxglove (05:46):
We'll get you a neon exclamation point to hang over
your desk.

Sunflower (05:50):
Yes!

Sage (05:52):
One of my other favorite things about video games though,
in addition to checking offlittle quest tick boxes is
observable progress incompetency. For instance, you're
in a racing game, and you wantto get faster going around a
track. And one day, you aresuper slow. And after a few more
laps, you get faster, andgetting better things is also

(06:13):
extremely satisfying.

Foxglove (06:15):
This is also part of why I play so many games on my
phone is because like, yes, I amon level 6000 of a match-three
game, that's not a joke. But onthe other hand, I'm on LEVEL
6000 of something. And solike...

Sage (06:28):
You've made it to the end of some of these games

Foxglove (06:31):
I have.

Sage (06:31):
when I did not even know that there was an end. And I am
constantly shocked.

Foxglove (06:37):
Dopamine. It's nice, especially like, finishing
levels? Mm. It's delicious.

Sage (06:42):
One of the other things that you mentioned earlier was
writing, which also happens tobe one of my hobbies, and the
rush from completing a chapterof anything that I'm working on,
or even just like, writing a setof words by the end of any given
day, and just seeing the wordson paper and being like, hey, I
wrote a thing that exists in theworld. I'm never going to show
it to anyone, but it's there.
It's, it's also very satisfying.

Foxglove (07:06):
I admittedly struggle more with like, that specific
issue because again, I haveIhave 'you only get dopamine for
finished tasks as a whole'disorder. But I write fanfiction
when I'm really struggling toproduce original fiction because
then I can like, finish a thingin a reasonable length of time
and post it and then people giveme validation for it. And that's

(07:26):
nice. That's a nice hack. Also,handwriting I do a lot when I'm
like, really struggling tohandle like the fact that
writing on a screen doesn'tactually make my brain tell me
I've done anything. Becausewriting by hand means that I
have like six pages full ofwriting.

Sage (07:42):
Sun, you should tell us about drawing and coloring and
stuff.

Foxglove (07:45):
Yeah, you're an actual art person!

Sunflower (07:48):
Mm. Mm. Mm. Not really.

Foxglove (07:51):
I mean you do art, which like, that makes you an
art person.

Sunflower (07:54):
I get happiness out of having colors? I don't know
if that makes me an art person.
Yeah, I started doing thingslike... honestly, I really like
the like, easy stuff, the like,either just coloring in like an
actual legitimate coloring book,or like, I've been doing paint
by numbers, which are reallygreat. I need smaller ones that
I feel like I can actually likecomplete and look at completely,

(08:14):
because the one I've had I'vebeen working on for like,
since... Christmas?

Foxglove (08:19):
That thing is massive.

Sage (08:19):
Yeah that's been a project, which like It looks
great, but like, wow.

Foxglove (08:23):
I think you got it before Christmas.

Sunflower (08:23):
I think I got that in April.

Foxglove (08:25):
Yeah, no, that's

Sunflower (08:26):
I think it was for my birthday.

Foxglove (08:27):
Coming up on a year on that one.

Iris (08:30):
And in your defense, you didn't start it right away
because you were still incollege. So...

Sunflower (08:34):
Yeah, it was like a fun treat for me for my
graduation.

Sage (08:37):
And also like finding a space in the apartment to work
on that uninterrupted is like...
was a challenge.

Sunflower (08:45):
Is a challenge.

Sage (08:46):
Yeah, well, yeah, that's fair.

Sunflower (08:47):
Like I, it, it takes up all the space that I have it
like my desk where I actually domy job working from home. So
like, it has to be put awayevery day, and it's hard to
like, take out a thing whichtakes a bunch of time. Anyway,
drawing is really good becauseit has a bunch of colors. Colors
are really good. And I've alsofound that likeI got an iPad
for graduation present cuz myfamily's great. So I've been

(09:10):
digitally drawing, which is lessmessy with less startup time,
and that does hit the same like,ooh I did a creative thing today
even though a lot of them Idon't like, but even just like
doing it and being like you knowthat's a tree! You would know
that that's a tree. That I justmade.

Sage (09:25):
They are identifiable trees, yes.

Sunflower (09:27):
Yeah. So like I'm big on that. I'm also a pretty avid
reader. And I will say like,finishing books is like a real
good

Foxglove (09:35):
Ooh, yeah.

Sunflower (09:35):
high for me?

Sage (09:36):
Yeah.

Foxglove (09:36):
Likewise.

Sage (09:37):
Wow, I can't believe no one else got to that.

Foxglove (09:40):
Yeah, no.

Sunflower (09:41):
We are, we are readers.

Foxglove (09:43):
Sun and I read semi constantly.

Sunflower (09:45):
Yeah.

Foxglove (09:47):
And you are absolutely right, it is the best.

Sunflower (09:51):
Iris, tell us about what you do for fun.

Iris (09:53):
I'm... I think my hobby is collecting hobbies. Because I
love hobbies and I love doing abunch of different things. So
I'll just cycle betweendifferent hobbies. I've done
embroidery. I've doneI lovevideo games. Video games are
always like an easy cycle backaround to that. I even tried

(10:16):
sewing for a while. If it's acraft, I've probably tried it.

Sage (10:20):
At some point, by the way, we need to put up on Instagram a
shot of the embroidered pillowthat you made because damn it is
gorgeous.

Foxglove (10:28):
Yeah. I can't emphasize enough how much I
personally will never beembroidering a pillowcase
because that seemed aggravating.
But. It's gorgeous.

Iris (10:33):
It was! You have to like, yeah, you have to hold your
hands inside the pillow case theentire time because of course
even though I own a sewingmachine and could have sewed a
pillow, I instead chose to buy apillow that already existed for
some reason that zipped up theback for some reason and then
decided to put the design in acorner for some reason. And so
that was a really long andtedious process. So I haven't

(10:56):
embroidered since I made thatreally lovely pillow, but I'm
gonna get back around to itagain, because that's just one
of my crafts.

Sage (11:02):
For listeners who can't see this, Iris is making hand
gestures of physicallyinhabiting the pillowcase and it
is very adorable.

Foxglove (11:10):
The tl;dr of it is that Iris stabbed herself a lot
doing that.

Iris (11:13):
I did! It was really... it was just a lot but yeah, no, I
reallyembroidery is probably myfavorite craft that I've picked
up because of the fact that it'sjust... it's so lovely and
detail-oriented and small, and Ilike being able to embroider
things that people who wouldwant me to be like a proper

(11:34):
young lady would be horrified byme embroidering, like curse
words. Like 'Be gay do crime!'

Foxglove (11:40):
This is also why I do embroidery. You guys know my
grandmother went to finishingschool, right? She would hate
me. I am so happy about it.

Sage (11:49):
Good.

Iris (11:50):
But um, but yeah, no, embroidery is really lovely,
it's super cheap to pick up,which was really nice. And the
projects that you can do can belike, super duper practical,
super duper just like somethingyou hang on the wall in an
embroidery hoop, something thatyou give as a gift. It's just
really versatile and you canmake really small quick projects

(12:12):
or you can do really bigelaborate ones that take years.
I saw somebody who embroideredan entire dress by hand, and it
took them like a decade and itwas beautiful.

Sage (12:21):
My God, it was incredible, though.

Iris (12:23):
Yeah, so I think it's a really cool thing, that's like
kind of having a resurgenceright now

Foxglove (12:29):
While we're all locked up inside.

Iris (12:30):
that I think is a really cool art form. Yeah, no, I think
it's a really cool art form. Butyeah, so I would say I'm a
collector of hobbies, which iswhy I stayed quiet because I've
probably tried all of the otherhobbies that all of my partners
do. Because I justI realizedrecently that I just like trying
new things. So my hobby istrying new hobbies.

Foxglove (12:51):
You're so cute.

Iris (12:52):
And then cycling back to the ones that I actually was
pretty good at.

Sunflower (12:55):
You know what's a hobby that I know we all do that
we totally forgot about? Is alsotarot.

Foxglove (13:00):
Oh yeah!

Iris (13:01):
Oh I do love tarot.

Foxglove (13:02):
I've done tarot since I was very wee.

Sage (13:05):
And you remain cursed from the first time you tried it?

Foxglove (13:08):
So, yeah, um, the relevant detail to this
conversation is that my familyused to live in a cult. We'll
get into that later. But

Sunflower (13:16):
And that's just how the story starts!

Foxglove (13:17):
Yeah, um, anyway, short version is that someone
started reading tarot for mewhen I was like eight months
old. And then my parents leftthe cult when I was five-ish.
Anyway, one of the very fewthings that I retained from it
is that I do read a lot oftarot, and I sometimes read
tarot for the whole group, and Ireally like doing that I think
it's, I think it's a lot of fun,and I find it very soothing,

(13:39):
and...

Sage (13:40):
You didn't tell anyone why you were cursed at it.

Foxglove (13:42):
Oh, um, yeah. So when I was eight months old, someone
in the cult read tarot for meagainst my mother's very
specific instructions. And theyspecifically, they pulled a
bunch of Major Arcana and like,you know, royalty from the suits
and stuff. But specifically,they pulled, they pulled the
Tower for me, like for a selfcard, and I have pulled the

(14:05):
Tower with freakish regularityever since then. And it is, as
far as I'm concerned, mypermanent self card because
every tarot deck I use is like,hey, would you like some chaos?
And I'm like, no, actually, I'mgood. Thank you for the, thank
you for the offer, though. I'mgood.

Iris (14:23):
They have multiple times, multiple times been like, oh,
yeah, you know, the Tower isjust kind of drawn to me and
just cut a deck of cards andlike the the fucking Tower has
been there. And I've been like,yeah, that's just how you are as
a person. That makes sense.

Sage (14:37):
I mean, it fits, unfortunately.

Foxglove (14:38):
Yeah it's um, it's a weird trick. It's a weird party
trick to be able to pull out, tobe able to just like, take a
tarot deck, cut it in half andthen like, pull the Tower off
the top. But...

Sunflower (14:48):
Here Look, I found it.

Iris (14:50):
Yeah. And I think tarot is one of the things that we all
enjoy doing together. And thereare plenty of other hobbies that
we all enjoy doing together. Itwould be really cool if we could
talk about the differencebetween solo hobbies and
sociable hobbies, bebecause Ithink they're both important.

Foxglove (15:06):
Both of them are good for your brain also.

Sunflower (15:09):
Yeah! Our, Iyeah, I'll talk about stuff. I don't
know. We're all on this likewhole, it's really great to have
stuff that you do on your ownthat makes you happy without
anybody else's input. Becauseit's great to have your own
things outside of yourrelationship that you do that
make you happy and bring youjoy. And also, as Fox very
eloquently put with someneurotransmitter talk and

(15:30):
everything earlier, it's alsoreally good to do things that
make you happy around otherpeople. And through doing random
things and throwing some hobbiesat a wall, the things that have
stuck are mostly board games.

Foxglove (15:44):
Yeah.

Sunflower (15:44):
We play a LOT of board games!

Iris (15:47):
We do. And card games.

Sunflower (15:49):
And card games.

Sage (15:50):
We play Werewolf. We play...

Foxglove (15:52):
We play a lot of Werewolf. We play a lot of
hidden rolehidden role gameswhere like you are something and
you lie to everyone about whatyou are.

Sage (16:01):
Yeah, we really like lying to each other don't we?

Foxglove (16:03):
We do!

Sage (16:04):
It's like, an interesting feature of our shared
experience.

Iris (16:07):
It's because we're so painfully honest with each other
all the time. And we have, weneed to have a space for that
like fun creative acting andlying.

Sage (16:18):
An outlet for our liar's instincts.

Iris (16:19):
Yes, exactly.

Foxglove (16:21):
Get the chaos out there so we can go back to being
our normal, disgustinglyfunctional selves.

Iris (16:26):
Exactly. Yeah. We, we really like games that involve
like, murder mystery esquethings like...

Sage (16:35):
Deception

Foxglove (16:35):
Deception. Deception in Hong Kong.

Iris (16:38):
Yeah. Deception in Hong Kong. That's a really good one
that combines our love forhidden role games with our love
for... well, Sun's love for truecrime, primarily.

Sunflower (16:47):
My infinite love of true crime.

Sage (16:49):
Oh, and also games that involve stabbing each other in
the back like Betrayl at theHouse on the Hill.

Foxglove (16:54):
We love that one.

Sunflower (16:54):
True.

Sage (16:55):
It's just 'At House on the Hill,' isn't it? Yeah.

Iris (16:58):
Yeah.

Sunflower (16:58):
Yeah.

Foxglove (16:58):
Sure. You said that confidently enough. I believe
you.

Sunflower (17:01):
Yeah. And we also love that one because it's like,
kind of hiddenit's kind of roleplaying game, but with more
direction. So there's a lot lessprep work.

Foxglove (17:09):
Yeah.

Sage (17:10):
The number of times that Fox has tried to kill us in that
game.

Foxglove (17:14):
I constantly end up the traitor in betrayal. And
it's delightful.

Iris (17:20):
It's a lot of fun.

Sage (17:21):
We beat you the last time, I was shocked!

Foxglove (17:23):
Yeah, one time I took over the world as an Ouroboros
gfod. Last time I lost asbasically Yog Sothoth from The
Bifrost Incident.

Iris (17:34):
By The Mechanisms.

Sunflower (17:35):
That is an incredibly niche pull, guys.

Foxglove (17:37):
Yeah...

Sunflower (17:38):
Incredibly niche.

Foxglove (17:39):
All of my media references are very niche.

Sunflower (17:43):
Also, if you don't know who The Mechanisms are,
maybe read the Wikipedia pagefirst. And then listen to The
Mechanisms.

Iris (17:51):
Yeah, they're a weird group, but we love them. And we
also love tabletop RPGs.
Tabletop role playing games,especially... Fox and I have a
long history of playing themtogether since back in college.

Foxglove (18:05):
Yep.

Iris (18:05):
We started with Dungeons and Dragons. I specifically
really liked to collect rulebooks and different systems of
like more niche ones. I recentlygot a really cool one that
combines my love for linguisticswith my love for tabletop role
playing games called Dialect.

Foxglove (18:22):
I like Dialect a lot.

Iris (18:23):
Super cool.

Foxglove (18:23):
Dialect was really fun.

Iris (18:25):
Yeah. They're doing really amazing work on like language
preservation and like, talkingabout how languages die and
stuff. Really cool group, pleasecheck them out.

Foxglove (18:33):
I DM a lot. I'm...

Sunflower (18:36):
You should use full words in case of non RPG
players.

Foxglove (18:40):
Okay that's a fair point. In a D&D game, you have
someone who's the DungeonMaster, and they're in charge of
like, writing the story andplaying all the NPCs. They're,
they're, the video game,basically, to the player
characters. And I do a lot ofDMing because I am willing to do
it. And also because I actuallyenjoy writing stories.

Iris (19:02):
You're a good storyteller.

Sage (19:03):
Bless you.

Foxglove (19:03):
Yeah. But mostly it's because the running joke is that
everyone wants to play D&D, butno one wants to be the Dungeon
Master.

Iris (19:11):
It's a lot of work.

Foxglove (19:11):
It is.

Iris (19:13):
Yeah, we've been having a lot of fun doing that sort of
stuff. Some other things we alldo together include... Sun and I
especially love a co-op videogame, especially a puzzle game.
We're super into that. Orplatformers, yeah. We really
enjoy doing that. But generally,we all like to play couch co-op
games together. Along the sameline as like the true crime

(19:38):
stuff, we really like murderboxes, like the murder mystery
boxes that you get to solve acase. They also make a bunch of
cool ones of like, escape theroom or puzzles. We just started
doing this recently. So I thinkthese are gonna be like a new
favorite hobby.

Foxglove (19:53):
I'm not gonna lie, I didn't expect to like it as much
as I did.

Sage (19:57):
I was expecting the last one to last like... to like defy
us for a little longer, but wejust all the four of us sat down
at a table and just cranked outthe entire thing in one sitting
and I'm honestly pretty damnproud of us.

Sunflower (20:10):
I do think it took us like, four hours. But we did do
it.

Sage (20:13):
That's still one sitting.
And I mean it's not like wedidn't have breaks in there.

Iris (20:16):
And I'm pretty sure that's about how long a murder box is
supposed to take.

Sunflower (20:19):
Yeah, um, yeah.
Other

Iris (20:21):
Yeah, it's supposed to be like four to six hours. It's
like a D&D session.

Sunflower (20:25):
Other cute domestic stuff we do is we often cook
together.

Foxglove (20:30):
Yeah, we talked before about that as a date night
thing, but that'sI wouldconsider that also a hobby at
this point.

Sage (20:36):
Absolutely.

Sunflower (20:37):
Yeah, like you have to eat anyway. But it's nice to
like, spend some time with eachother or like we'll wander in
and out of the kitchen whilesomebody is cooking or like one
person does prep work and likeyou have an assistant and then
you have someone to talk to,which is really nice.

Iris (20:49):
Especially like elaborate meals, we tend to do those over
the weekends rather than duringthe week.

Foxglove (20:53):
That's what I've done with my quarantine time period
over the past several months isI've just gone out

Sage (20:59):
Surprising no one.

Foxglove (20:59):
and learned a bunch of really elaborate recipes
where it's like, I'm going totake over the kitchen for all of
Saturday. Everyone has to figureout their lunch in advance
because you can't get in.

Sage (21:10):
All of your recipes for Indian foodyour, your
scratch-made naan of justoh myGod.

Foxglove (21:17):
I feel so victorious for figuring that out.

Sunflower (21:19):
Yeah. And also Sage and Iris bake together, and I'm
really into it.

Foxglove (21:23):
Super cute.

Sage (21:24):
We need to make more cookies soon. Because we don't
have enough sweet things.

Sunflower (21:29):
We should make more cookies today.

Iris (21:31):
We could do that.

Sage (21:32):
That's true, there's time.

Iris (21:33):
Yeah, we still never made that snickerdoodle cookie recipe
that I really wanted to try. Andwe have all the ingredients for.

Sage (21:39):
Oh, sweet. Yeah, let's do it. Anyway, other hobbies that
involve going outside that wehaven't done for a while: going
and exploring museums. We livein the city and have access to
just a, an ungodly amount ofmuseums, more museums than I
have ever been in the same cityas in my entire life. And there

(22:01):
are still so many left to go.

Foxglove (22:03):
Our last group outing was to the Met. Was it not for
that knight exhibit?

Sage (22:09):
Guggenheim or the Met?

Foxglove (22:11):
The

Sunflower (22:11):
We went to the Met for the

Foxglove (22:13):
The Last Kight, about Maximilian.

Sage (22:15):
Oh, that one! Yeah.

Foxglove (22:16):
I think that was the last time we like went anywhere
as a group, and it was a longtime ago now.

Sage (22:22):
Oh Lord.

Iris (22:23):
The last time we the three of us went someplace right
before we all locked down. Sun,Fox and I went out and got
tattoos. I don't think that'snecessarily a hobby. But we do
like to do a hobby.

Sage (22:39):
I think it qualifies as a hobby for y'all now.

Foxglove (22:42):
I would say so.

Iris (22:43):
Other domestic stuff that we do together. Reading aloud.
We do like a storytime.

Foxglove (22:48):
Yeah I, we read out loud

Iris (22:50):
Read a book a chapter at a time.

Foxglove (22:52):
I'm currently reading my favorite obscure fantasy
series to them one chapter at atime, which

Sage (22:58):
It's not going to be obscure anymore by the time
you're finished blogging aboutit.

Foxglove (23:01):
I'm running a campaign.

Sunflower (23:04):
Do you want to drop the name and the author?

Foxglove (23:06):
Oh, yeah. My favorite series is The Chronicles of the
Kencyrath by PC Hodgell. I alsorun another podcast about it.

Iris (23:14):
Do a plug!

Foxglove (23:15):
The Podcast Bound in Pale Leather, which I run with
my mother. And it's real nichecontent guys. But it's a lot of
fun to do. And so I've beenreading those books out loud to
my beautiful patient partners.
And I likeI really like readingout loud though. So I appreciate
you guys being willing to be anaudience. I like it a lot.

Sunflower (23:36):
They're good books, we're not forced against our
will.

Iris (23:38):
No, not at all.

Sage (23:40):
Do we want to talk about why shared hobbies are good?
Because I have some thoughts.

Iris (23:45):
Yeah, go ahead, I think that would be a good way to tie
a bow on this bit.

Foxglove (23:48):
Yeah, we talked a lot about the importance of like
dates and spending timetogether. But I think hobbies
that are like more casual arealso really good.

Sage (23:55):
Yeah, I particularly like the extra understanding of
everyone that I get from doingshared activities, especially
with board games, especiallythings like hidden role games. I
feel like I get to understandeach of your just like,
characters and your responses somuch better. It justthe, I
learn something new every time Iget stabbed in the back and it

(24:17):
is genuinely wonderful. Also, Idon't think we covered this but
there is a video game calledKeep Talking and Nobody Explodes
where you have to collectivelyband together to help person
disarm a bomb. And theiftheruthless efficiency that we have
gotten to of getting through allof the challenges is kind of

(24:40):
inspiring, honestly.

Iris (24:42):
It's a really good way to learn to communicate with a
group of people. I highlyrecommend it to do it with your
partner because it's a, you cando it just with two people. I
also recommend it if you everneed to like, get a group of
people on the same page for likea group project or something
like that? Play this game. Itmakes you a brutally efficient
communicator.

Foxglove (25:01):
I would say brutally efficient is the appropriate
word choice there, yeah.

Sage (25:06):
Yeah.

Sunflower (25:06):
Also, this is a good one because you can play it
digitally with a, like acomputer, one side and a video
chat open, because you're notsupposed to be able to see the
bomb anyway, only one personsees it. So. Distance things!

Iris (25:18):
Yeah! And any other thoughts on this? I have like
one more tie it togetherthought?

Sunflower (25:25):
You have a bow?

Sage (25:26):
I have an individual hobbies thing, but not a
collective hobbies thing.

Iris (25:30):
That's, that's fine, too.

Foxglove (25:31):
Yeah.

Sage (25:32):
Particularly, one of the reasons I really value hobbies
is because I tend to get up inmy own head too much for my own
good. And having projects towork on really helps me like
commit to thinking aboutsomething specific. And that
along with making progress, itimproves my mental state a lot.
And I really value writing forthat. Because the you know, as

(25:56):
much as there's the wholeinitial struggle with like,
there's a blank page in front ofme, and I have to put something
on and I don't know what it'sgoing to be, making progress on
a larger project, whether that'sediting or writing something
new, really helps me get out ofthat headspace and just produce
something that I value. And on asimilar note, like things like

(26:18):
video games, or any of the otherfun hobbies that we listed, like
board games, just, they're thesame thing. Like sometimes you
just need a distraction you needto stop thinking about...
whatever, you know, you do forwork if that's if that's a
struggle for you, or about...

Foxglove (26:34):
Whatever fresh crisis is happening?

Sage (26:36):
Yeah, any of thepick a, pick a crisis from the last
year, honestly, it's, it's, it'svaluable to be able to be
distracted from that for alittle while.

Iris (26:45):
Absolutely.

Sage (26:46):
And also, and this is the last thing I promise. I really
like having individual hobbiesbecause then we have stuff that
we can all collectively comeback and talk about, because
we're saps and eat dinnertogether and stuff. And it's
really cool to be able to belike, Hey, I have this exciting
thing that I did today orlearned today or made progress

(27:07):
on and I always like all of thestuff that we bring to the table
like that.

Iris (27:11):
Yeah, absolutely. I think the TL;DR is that you should go

Sunflower (27:11):
Yeah! out and get some hobbies, get
some solo hobbies, get somehobbies you can share with other
people, because I genuinelybelieve that hobbies are a part
of being able to live joyfully.
And I really want to, like, justput it out there that you should
try to get rid of the notionthat you have to be productive,

(27:34):
and do, spend all of your timebeing productive or being an
adult, because living joyfullyis what makes life worth living.
And hobbies I think is a part ofthat.

Sage (27:46):
That was

Sunflower (27:47):
Very cute. Jesus.
Okay. All right.

Foxglove (27:49):
I think that's a good end of this, I think that's a
good end of this bit! Musicalinterlude here.

Sunflower (27:56):
All right, friends.
Now we're gonna try out a newsegment called Fun Facts with
Fox. And here are the rules.
Each of us has prepared a topicfor Fox to tell us about they
have five minutes per topicbefore we move on to the next.
And they have been able toprepare for each topic for
accuracy, but most they alreadyknew. First up is Sage's
question. Sage?

Foxglove (28:16):
The OG fun fact that made it so that I was not
allowed to give fun facts. Yeah.

Sage (28:24):
So, this is really kind of the question that started it
all. This is the one where wemade Foxwhere we required Fox
to say 'fun fact' beforerelating anything that they
considered a fun fact so wewould know what we were in for

Iris (28:39):
To emotionally brace for whatever they're about to say.

Sage (28:42):
Yeah. So, um, Fox, tell us about horse fingers.

Foxglove (28:48):
Okay, so I think this fact is becoming increasingly
common knowledge, which I'mdelighted about because it's
horrible, and I love it. Um, butI want to preface this with,
first of all, any animal thatyou look at and think to
yourself that it has quoteunquote a 'backward knee'
relative to how human kneeswork? That animal is probably
walking on like, instead of awhole foot, they're probably

(29:09):
walking on a fingertip ormultiple fingertips depending on
how many toes they have. Anyway,point is, the way horses
specifically are designedbecause they are what's called
an odd-toed ungulate, whichmeans they only have one toe,
their, their limbs are directlyanalogous to ours. But that was
not common knowledge for a longtime because of course, they
don't have fingers. So what wasdiscovered is that um, so the

(29:34):
hoof bone which, fun fact, iscalled a coffin bone, like as in
a casket. So a hoof bone isanalogous to a fingertip.
Theit's called a distalphalanges. You don't need to
care about that. And then the,like, what's called a pastern
bone which is right above thehoof is the first and second

(29:54):
phalanges. So like proximal andmedial phalanges. And then
what's called the cannon bone isanalogous to a metacarpal, or a
metatarsal, which if you look atthe back of your hand, the
metacarpal is what spans fromyour first knuckle to your
wrist. And the knee of a horse'sforeleg fun fact is made of a
bone called the carpus, which isone of the carpal bones in your

(30:17):
wrist. And that's what you wouldlook at and call a knee to
yourself, if you were justlooking at a horse without any
expertise, the actual knee of ahorse is further up the leg
right up near their, right upnear the body, because thethen
they have, like, you know, thestandard shit, radius ulna,
humerus, etc, femur, tibia,whatever. Um, you know, bones.

(30:38):
But the thing that I did

Sage (30:40):
You know, bones?

Foxglove (30:41):
The thing that I do really urgently want to share
with you guys is that, um, sothe way that a horse's four legs
specifically is constructed, isthat there's a cannon bone,
which is again, analogous to ametatarsal, I'm sorry, a
metacarpal because it's a fourleg. I know what I'm talking
about. Um, so a cannon bone isanalogous to a metacarpal. And
there's only one cannon bone,but there are split bones that

(31:02):
are also metacarpals. So ahorse's leg is essentially a
middle finger with the pointerand ring finger to support the
cannon bonehorse legs are veryfragile, anyone who's ever dealt
with a horse knows this. Soit's, it's been known for some
time that horses liketechnically have the, the core
structure for like three fingersin their leg. But there is an

(31:23):
embryonic phase of horsedevelopment where they have FIVE
fingers, like it's a very briefphase, and it's pretty early on,
but they do have like the fullstructure for five and the like
outer two just kind of vanish atsome point in there. And I'm
just, it's, it's super, supercool. And anyway, the long story
short of this is that a hoof,like what you would visualize on

(31:44):
a horse as like the quoteunquote foot is actually a
fingertip bone, and is directlyanalogous to the very tip of
your middle finger.

Sunflower (31:51):
That was beautiful and you still have a minute and
46 seconds left.

Foxglove (31:54):
Fuck yeah, I have a minute and 46 seconds left.

Sage (31:57):
So now everyone has to live with the knowledge that if
they picture it right, they canjust envision horses walking on
four middle fingers

Foxglove (32:05):
That's correct. That's correct.

Sage (32:06):
instead of on four legs.
And I wish I could rid myself ofthis knowledge. Thank you, Fox
for this fun fact.

Foxglove (32:13):
Like I said, I think this is becoming increasingly
common knowledge and I just, Ilove it so very much.

Iris (32:20):
I've just known this for so long, and hearing this ramble
again, I still hate it.

Sunflower (32:25):
Yup, hate it just as much.

Sage (32:28):
Anyway, this is why we make Fox preface their facts
with 'fun fact' so we canemotionally prepare ourselves.

Sunflower (32:35):
You just never know what's gonna come. Alright, Fox
you ready for number two?

Foxglove (32:38):
Hell yeah, I'm ready for number two. Let's go.

Sunflower (32:41):
Could you tell us what cocaine was used for
medicinally?

Foxglove (32:44):
Yes. Okay, so, um, I want to preface this with like,
cocaine was originally isolatedfrom a coca plant. Its actual,
ooh, I'm gonna take a swing atthis Latin name. Erythroxylum
Coca?

Sage (32:57):
Sure.

Foxglove (32:57):
Believe me. Um, and it was originally used medicinally
and as a stimulant, sort ofrecreationally by the indigenous
people from where the plant was,is, was originally grown. And
the thing that I really want tofocus on is initially, on the
one hand, it was used as astimulant, sort of like coffee,

(33:18):
like you, you would like chewthe leaves and they would like,
wake you up, they would kind ofclear your head, like, you know,
caffeine. But you could also

Sage (33:27):
I mean, but it's cocaine.

Foxglove (33:29):
Well, it's not cocaine yet, it's a coca plant, and
that's an important difference.
Um, and, but it could also beused as a topical anesthetic. So
what you could do is you couldlike either, either like grind
or chew or whatever, like renderthe leaves of the plant down
into a paste, and then you couldapply it to an injury and it
would anesthetize the area. Andso obviously a bunch of people
discovered this. White folks,let's call a spade a spade real

(33:52):
quick here. So a bunch of folksdiscovered this, and they were
like, that seems pretty dope,let's try some shit out. Um, so
then they started to like, tryand fuck around with it and try
and isolate it and figure outhow to make it work better.
Because that's what humans dowhen they find something
interesting is you try to makeit more of that thing. And so
they isolated it in the 1800s.
And then things got kind ofweird.

Sage (34:14):
Story of the 1800s. And then things kind of weird.

Foxglove (34:16):
And then stuff got kind of weird. The anesthesia
option was was really lookedinto a lot because it was, it
worked really well as a topicalanesthetic. This was after they
had isolated it down intococaine, which is now
synthesized through a differentmethod not directly from coca
leaves. And specifically therewas someone named Vasily von
Anrep, who had like two jars ofwof water and one had like salt

(34:40):
water in it and one had like acocaine salt dissolved into it.
And then he had a live frog andhe dipped one of the frog's legs
in each and let it soak in thesolutions for a little while and
then he quote unquote'stimulated the frog's legs in
assorted ways.' That means hepoked the frog with a needle.
And discovered that one of thefrog's legs that had been in the

(35:03):
saltwater reacted normally andthe other one that had been the
cocaine didn't. There was also aguy named Carl Koller who
decided to prove that it couldbe used for ophthalmology and
applied a solution of cocainesalts to his own eyeball and
then pricked it with a pin infront of a medical college to
prove it worked as ananaesthesia. Anyway. This is why

(35:23):
I check things ahead of timebecause I forgot Carl Koller's
name.

Sage (35:28):
That's, yeah, I guess you would definitely remember the
other thing.

Iris (35:32):
Thanks, I hate it!

Foxglove (35:34):
I know. Right. And it also, of course, people started
to use it as cocaine like ascocaine. Um, you might be
familiar with Sherlock Holmes,in the original Conan Doyle
stories was known for a 7%solution of cocaine to like,
quote, unquote, manage boredom.
That was super common. It wasjust like available at
drugstores, you could justfucking buy it. Coca Cola did
have coca leaves soaked in it toextract the like original

(35:56):
compound, not direct cocaine,they weren't putting direct
cocaine in it. But that is whyit's called Coca Cola. They had
to take it out after the PureFood and Drug Act in the early
1900s. That's not important.
Additional Fun fact, they usedcocaine to treat morphine
addiction. So if you wereaddicted to morphine, your

(36:17):
doctor would put you on anintravenous dose of cocaine
holy. prescribed cocaine and youcould buy it from a drugstore
for real fucking cheap, and thenyou would use it to manage your
fucking morphine addiction. Thereason for this is that a bunch
of doctors includingmotherfucker, Supremes, Sigmund

(36:39):
Freud, had the official stancethat cocaine was completely safe
and had no ill effectswhatsoever. And specifically,
Freud's official stance was thatit had no ill effects. It didn't
have any after effects like ahangover like you might get from
alcohol. It did not causeaddiction. And he put out an
entire work about this. He feltso strongly about this that

(37:02):
Sigmund Freud put out an entirework called Uber coca. And it
includes the description ofcocaine cocaine's effect, that
it was in no way different. I'malmost done. It was, quote, in
no way different from the normaleuphoria of a healthy person.
And the reason that this is myvery favorite thing is that I

(37:23):
think it raises more acutequestions about the mental
health of Sigmund Freud than anyother single sentence I've ever
seen in my life.

Sunflower (37:31):
Nailed it. Eight seconds to spare,

Unknown (37:33):
it was perfect.

Iris (37:36):
I think we might need to shorten the amount of time you
have to make it more stressful.

Sunflower (37:42):
We'll just shorten it by one minute. Every time we do
this, like

Sage (37:46):
those are really traveling that like your manic energy. And
I think it's very appropriatefor particularly the side Well,
yeah.

Sunflower (37:55):
Gotta say your meds are working now.

Foxglove (37:56):
Right? Yeah, my meds are working now.

Sunflower (37:59):
All right, ready?

Iris (38:01):
I'm ready.

Foxglove (38:02):
Let's do it. Let's go.
All right. All right.

Iris (38:05):
So time to dip into some of our favorite queer history.
light of my life. Jor joy of mydays bane of my existence. Tell
us about the pantless party.

Foxglove (38:15):
Okay, so for context for this, you need to know that
a dude existed named Baron vonstuben. You might recognize him
as the guy who turned a bunch ofjackasses in Valley Forge into a
functional army. He wasPrussian. That's all you need to
know. Actually, you need to knowone more thing. And that
additional thing is that he wasnot exiled, but like, politely
encouraged to leave at least acouple countries based on quote

(38:36):
unquote, I'm like, Huh,actually, what's what's the
phrase exactly a unseemlyaffection for his own sex. So
like, I get it, I get it. Likeit the the viewpoints of queer
people have changed a lot overtime periods like sex as action
versus sex as identity verydifferent. But this guy was gay.
Let's just admit that real fast.
And so he was brought intoValley Forge by George
Washington to turn the Americanarmy into a functional unit

(38:59):
because it was just a bunch ofjackasses with muskets. And he
was brought to Valley Forge in1778. It was a horrible winter,
everyone was miserable. And thething that was kind of shocking
was that this guy who spoke zeroEnglish, except for a handful of
curse words, and had to beentirely translated for by a
couple of assigned aides tocamp. He was really popular with
the troops because he was reallylikable and he like, was a

(39:21):
soldier. He was a careermilitary man and everyone like,
recognized a certain amount ofKindred spiritedness. Also,
there was a guy named BenjaminWalker, who upon meeting Baron
von stuben stupid Yvonne Stevenscomments on him was that it was
like an angel had come down toearth. Walker stayed with him
for the rest of his life andinherited his estate. That's a
side story though. Anyway, soduring the whole debacle that

(39:43):
was the winter of 1778 into1779. There advanced even
decided that everyone needed alittle bit of a morale pick me
up. Um, and so he arranged forone of his other aides to camp
one of the people he had broughtwith him because he of course
showed up with like, Threepretty young men. Very
heterosexually showed up withthree pretty young men and then

(40:03):
fell in love with the fourth.
And so he had one of his aidesto camp put out an announcement
that he was inviting all of theyoung officers who were really
struggling under thecircumstances of the revolution
to come to a party in hisquarters because he had an
actual cabin like this. This isalso part of the whole like
Valley Forge was a shit show andnobody was sleeping in good
arrangements except for thehigher ups. And so he was like,

(40:26):
everyone can come to like myquarters, which are actually
nice. I have good rations, youguys can like come and hang out
criteria. Quote, none shall beadmitted who does not have who
has a whole pair of breeches,which is why this is
colloquially known as thepantless party because you're
not allowed to come in if youare wearing an intact pair of
pants. So some people tore theirpants, but cloth was kind of in

(40:49):
short supply. So most peoplejust took their pants off out
the door and joined the partythat way. The other thing that
is really important to me, thatpeople are aware of is that the
people who were assigned toBaron von stuben as his
translators and aides de Kamp,by George Washington were
general Nathaniel Greene, whospoke French and therefore helps
translate john Lawrence who didnot speak French but was one of

(41:12):
Washington's aides to camp andtherefore was helping out. And
Alexander Hamilton who spokeFrench helped translate and it
was also one of Washington'saides to camp. The reason that
this is important to me, thatpeople know is that it matters
enormously to me that peopleknow that like we all sit around
and pretend that the foundingfathers were like serious adults
who knew what the fuck they weredoing and like, definitely 100%

(41:34):
all three of those people wereat this party. That's the end of
my story.

Iris (41:39):
Wait, what about the word there? Something to do with
shots?

Foxglove (41:43):
Oh, yes, actually, this. First of all, this was our
country's first underwear party.
This was also the first time ata party that we have a
historical record in our in thecountry of America that flaming
shots were served. We do notknow exactly what they were but
they were called salamanders atthe time. And all we really know
from the time about quoteunquote salamanders is that that
probably meant they were onfire. And also because as a

(42:03):
superior officer von stubenwould have been a very feet one
of very few people with accessto a large amount of alcohol,
like a sufficient to throw aparty. So anyway, there was
there was like this one timeduring Valley Forge where like
for morale, there was anunderwear party with flaming
shots,

Sage (42:21):
flaming shots, the only true patriotic drink.

Foxglove (42:24):
Honestly, as a side note, Baron Vaughn Stephen and
his men showed up in red coats.
And there is a anecdotal storythat they were almost arrested
at the port for being British,despite the fact that none of
them spoke any English.
credible.

Iris (42:42):
Thank you for that anecdote.

Sage (42:45):
I love to say genuinely Fun fact. Unlike

Iris (42:47):
a genuine fact.

Foxglove (42:49):
Yeah. I mean, I think the cocaine facts are also very
fun. Yep. A frog and cocaine.
Yeah, that is a fun fact.
Different eyeballin cocaine.

Sage (43:02):
When you're when you're editing, please do not cut out
this long sigh. Valid.

Iris (43:10):
Thank you. Yeah, so this has been fun facts with Fox. You
can find more of these on ourPatreon.

Foxglove (43:16):
Yeah, I um, you can also find more of these by being
in my vicinity for more than anhour.

Sage (43:23):
Confirm. Yep. All right.
We love you and your fun facts,even if some of them believe us
scarred for life.

Foxglove (43:32):
I think they're all very fun. Discard is a little
heavy handed.

Sage (43:35):
I would say that's debatable.

Sunflower (43:37):
I feel mildly mildly distressed.

Foxglove (43:41):
Horses are an evolutionary train wreck. And I
they're very fun. cheetahs arebasically slinkys. So like, it's
not like horses are alone inthis.

Sage (43:49):
Alright, you had your fun facts. You got to stop no more.

Iris (43:56):
Time to switch over to answering an audience question.
Just as a reminder, you can sendus questions via email at Quaple
[e-mail]. That's QU aPLE [e-mail] or through
any of our social medias or viaPatreon. This week. Our question
comes from Katherine, one of ourfirst Patreon subscribers, which
is very exciting. As a reminder,our Patreon Subscribers get

(44:16):
bumped to the top of thequestion queue. So if you're a
subscriber and you have aburning question, we'll get to
you right off the bat. SoKatherine's question is, it's
hard to be in a relationshipwhere one person or people have
chronic pain and another persondoesn't. How do you manage that?
Now to level with you this isgoing to be a greatest hits of
managing chronic pain becausethis is a big topic and we are
almost certainly going to comeback to it at a later date in

(44:37):
more depth.

Foxglove (44:38):
We really are going to get back to this at a later
date. Definitely because we sataround and talked about it and
we ended up having like an hourlong conversation. So
specifically, we're going tofocus on chronic pain in
relationships today.

Iris (44:51):
Yeah, because we're going to talk about chronic pain but
also disabilities more generallydown the road. It's definitely
going to be at least one maintopic if not more, and if we get
any Further audience questions,please feel free to submit them.
However, a living with chronicpain, Fox, do you want to set it
off?

Foxglove (45:09):
So for a little bit of stage dressing as it were, Iris
and I both have what I wouldclassify as physical
disabilities. Yeah, I have ahypermobility disorder that
affects a lot of my connectivetissue and can cause me It tends
to cause me pain all the time.
And in addition to that has somevarious other fringe problems.

(45:30):
I'm wearing a sling right nowbecause I closed a window and
something cracked really loudlyin my shoulder and it hurt a
lot. And that's, that's prettycommon for me. Iris, do you want
to talk a little bit aboutyours? Yeah, absolutely. So

Iris (45:46):
um, I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at
seven years old. So I've been

Foxglove (45:52):
Oh, there's an actual name for my disorder. It's
Ehlers danlos Syndrome. Sorry, Iforgot.

Iris (45:58):
Yeah, so I've been living with chronic pain since I was
seven. Somewhere in there, Ieventually got a Fibromyalgia
diagnosis tacked on, especiallyonce my my juvenile rheumatoid
arthritis went more intoremission. So that's mostly what
I deal with now is just thatlike, kind of systemic chronic
pain. And both Fox and I dealwith these disabilities that

(46:21):
also fall into the category ofnot just chronic pain, but also
invisible disabilities, which,unfortunately, a lot of chronic
pain you can't see. Yeah, soyeah, we have some strategies
for how to navigate, both havelike having these disabilities
but also, like navigating yourrelationships and your

(46:42):
partnerships with with these

Foxglove (46:44):
because I mean, to be blunt, it can be hard to like
navigate the initial phases of arelationship, like if someone is
not used to working aroundsomeone who has chronic pain,
like those initial phases can bekind of Rocky. And like, I think
there's a lot to be said forlike a high degree of honesty
and compassion and patience fromall parties initially, as

(47:06):
everyone involved kind of learnsa new language. Yeah, I think is
the way I would put that

Sage (47:11):
there was definitely, yeah, there was definitely a
learning curve for me, as well,because Iris and I worked
together for a pretty long timebefore I knew anything about
your disability. So I was usedto assigning you to lift heavy
items or be on your feet allday, sometimes for multiple

(47:31):
shifts, because that was justkind of the situation that we
were in at the time food

Foxglove (47:35):
service. And

Sage (47:36):
then when we became better friends, and eventually became
partners, I learned that thiswas something that you had been
facing literally the entiretime. And I had to radically
recalibrate my just assessmentof you as a person, and like
what you were

Sunflower (47:55):
like what's safe for you to do? Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
absolutely.

Iris (47:59):
Definitely

Sage (47:59):
a good way to sum it up.

Foxglove (48:00):
And son, you did you want to talk, because you have
kind of a different situationthan like, here's like, my base
level of pain. And I go up fromthere where you tend to have
flare ups instead.

Sunflower (48:12):
Yeah, I have a slightly different thing.
Because I don't really live withpain on a day to day basis. It's
more like flare ups anddifferent stuff. I have
endometriosis, which is superfun in every way. And it's
relatively managed on a day today basis. But I do have cysts
that happened randomly at will,because whatever, this got away

(48:33):
from me, but I also like havelike three to seven days out of
each month that are incrediblyuncomfortable and can sometimes
be immobilizing. it but itreally like depends. So mine
really ticked me off guard. Soit's a little different from
like, yeah, like Fox and Irislike wake up every morning with
pain. And I get surprised. Sowhich is really fun.

Foxglove (48:53):
Yeah, there's pros and cons to both of those.

Iris (48:56):
Yeah, the universe just decides to punch you in the
face.

Foxglove (49:00):
On the one hand, it's easier to learn to ignore it if
it's there all the time. On theother hand, having days where I
wasn't in pain sounds nice.

Sunflower (49:07):
Yeah, exactly. So like they're very different
things. But I definitely thinklike, the big thing that I've
learned is like, I know how totake care of myself and I know
what I need. But the mostimportant part of like living
with people who have chronicpain is starting to get to know
what their like, easy. Firstthree things are when they're in
a lot of pain. So like ifthey're really feeling bad in
the morning, it's like oh, haveyou tried like your tea that

(49:28):
makes you feel a little better?
Have you? Do you want yourheating pack? Do you want me to
throw that microwave for you? Isthere like a food that would
make you happy today? Like whatwhat can I do to like help
support you in like, making youfeel better faster?

Iris (49:40):
Yeah. And I think a big part of being a partner who
lives with chronic pain islearning how to be honest about
it and learning how tocommunicate effectively. Because
like Sage said, we'd known eachother for a really long time
before he knew that I haddisabilities at all. And part of
is it's a very common thing. Andit's very understandable that

(50:03):
some folks with disabilities whohave the ability to hide it,
because it's invisible, chooseto hide it because there's a
huge stigma against it. And youmight not be promoted, you might
not get that job. And like, I'mreally in a place where I
consider it to be a hugeprivilege that I'm able to be
out as disabled at work rightnow. And that's something that I

(50:25):
do a lot of advocacy around. Butbecause of that, you might have
a partner who, or a friend or a,or a partner or something who
might come into it, and not knowanything about disabilities or
might not even know that you'redisabled. And there's a lot of
learning that needs to be donethere. But also, everybody needs
to unlearn internalized ableism.
It's just a part of our society.

(50:46):
And even as a disabled person,there's a lot of work to be done
to like, learn how to climb outfrom that. Because it's hard.
It's hard every day.

Foxglove (50:55):
Yeah, especially since I how do I want to put this,
I've always had chronic painissues and joint problems and
stuff like that. I didn'trealize that was a typical until
probably about four years ago.
And so for a really extendedperiod of time, I worked really
hard to be compassionate withthe people around me. But I was
really, really hard. I was likebrutally hard on myself. For

(51:16):
most of college. My my strictpolicy was, if I wasn't running
a fever or to injured to walk, Iwas going to class, I think I
missed maybe two days of classesper semester, through my entire
college career absolute maximum,including every illness, every
injury, every time I passed outall of it, I also faint a lot
because of my disorder. So thatmeant that, especially after I

(51:39):
got to a point where I couldn'tjust sort of ignore my
disability away anymore, I usedto work as an EMT. And I'm sure
it's shocked to hear thatworking as an EMT with joints
that don't work, I hurt myself alot really badly. And I'm
probably not ever going to be ashealthy as I was before I
started that job again. And likeonce I was in that position

(52:03):
where I had to pay attention tothings, it was really hard for
me to learn to be honest withthe people around me about being
in pain, because I was used toignoring it. And I was used to
pretending that it was fine. Andso like, that is I would say the
predominant responsibility oflike a person who has chronic
pain, it's that you can't expectsomeone to read your mind. You
can't expect them to Intuit thatthe reason you're struggling to

(52:24):
like do dishes today is becausestanding hurts. And like On the
flip side, it's theresponsibility of a person who
doesn't have chronic pain andhas a partner who's learning to
tell them that to like, becompassionate and work hard to
like deal with that internalizedableism response of like, well,
but you know, you said you dothis chore or like you have to
like pull equal weight in thehousehold or whatever. And like

(52:45):
taking time on both sides toreally kind of sit with that
response and like learn to getaround it. I still guilt trip
myself all the time for when I'mlike, I can't do any more work
today, because I can't sit up.
Those are hard things to learnto admit. And you have to learn
to admit them because the peoplearound you can't read your mind.

Sage (53:04):
Yeah, one of the hardest things for me since I met all of
my partners in the serviceindustry, is undoing all of the
bullshit that the serviceindustry teaches you about
working through the pain, whichis just, you know, a more
extreme variation on what all ofsociety does, which is if you
are not feeling great, you workthrough it, because that's what

(53:27):
you do you work for thecapitalist overlords until you
die. And you're

Foxglove (53:31):
really failed. But

Sage (53:34):
don't ask me that. Yeah, the the amount of ableism that
I've internalized and had tounlearn over the past weeks and
months, and that I'm stilldealing with is staggering. I
mean, like, in addition to thefact that both Fox and IRS have

(53:55):
disabilities, Iris, you got hitby a fucking truck, and we're at
work. Like two days later, I gotinto a car accident and came
back to work two days later,like, people shouldn't be
expected to do that. And itmakes me genuinely angry, that
we live in a society and work inhave worked in workplaces that

(54:17):
just don't see disabilities as avalid, a valid thing at all, and
that aren't accommodated andaren't even acknowledged in most
cases.

Iris (54:27):
Absolutely.

Sunflower (54:28):
I think it's also important to say like people who
live with a high degree of paintoo. It's also like, we have to
give leeway to other people whoare also in pain, because it
makes you you know, like theableism around us in our
capitalist society and all ofthese things and also sometimes
your parents make you reallylike jaded, you know, and
they'll tell you like your painis normal. That's a standard

(54:48):
every person thing and like noteveryone handles pain the same
way. And like you can't knowwhat another person is going
through. And like, yeah, it alsodoesn't matter if they're not in
as much pain as you It might bedebilitating for them. And like
that just is what it is.

Foxglove (55:03):
Yeah, the impulse to compare pain, I think is a
really important thing to avoid.
If you're someone who lives withchronic pain or if you if you
have a loved one who lives withchronic pain, because like a, if
you are in pain all the time,then obviously your pain
threshold is going to bedifferent. And it's important to
be compassionate to the factthat someone else not being in
pain all the time is a goodthing.

Iris (55:23):
Yeah, yeah.

Foxglove (55:24):
I understand that it can be sometimes hard to deal
with, but it is a good thing.
And you should want that foryour loved ones. Absolutely. But
on the other hand, like I thinkthat one of the things that I as
a medical professional before Ihad to like actually learn to
talk about this about my ownphysical health. One of the
things I learned to ask peopleas a medical professional was
like, Are you in a lot of painfor you? Like what what is your

(55:48):
pain tolerance, like becauselike, my pain tolerance is
insane. You can do whatever youwant to me and I'll be able to
sit there and take it so like,you know, if a doctor is like,
this is gonna hurt a little I'llbe like, okay, and like, it's
important to be able to askpeople who you know, are in pain
a lot, like, okay, you're sayingyou're in a lot of pain, I need
you to be a little bit moredescriptive, because like your

(56:09):
pain tolerance is really high.
Absolutely.

Sage (56:13):
One of the things that ended up affecting me is that a
few years back, I slipped whileI was still in college, I
slipped on ice and went downreally bad on one knee. And one
of the terrible ways thatableism fucked me up because I
was like, Okay, this hurts alittle bit. But like, I can
still walk, and it ended up Iprobably broke something. And I

(56:37):
still live with that injury. Andit's not that bad. Like, it's
not debilitating, but like, youbetter fucking believe I noticed
that on a day to day basis. AndI wish I'd gone and seen someone
I wish I'd taken it seriously.
And I society can just do somuch better at Yeah, believing
pain is a thing andacknowledging and accommodate
I'm

Foxglove (56:59):
obligated mentioned here of the fact that we all
grew up in the Americanhealthcare system. And so
ongoing problem until literallythis calendar year, when I'm 23
years old, I have never had goodenough health insurance to deal
with any chronic healthproblems. And so like obligate
mentioned, or the fact that theUnited States health system

(57:20):
really fucking just the cherryon top of this whole ablest
Sunday,

Sage (57:25):
us, America give us that sweet, sweet single payer,

Foxglove (57:28):
I would take anything, I would take a government
option, baby steps, I'll do

Iris (57:32):
anything. And I just want to pull this back around to
managing chronic pain withinrelationships real quick. So
here are irises top three tipsfor chronic pain in
relationships. One, which we'vecovered a lot is dealing with,
and I'm learning internalizedableism. And just working on
that with patients compassionand understanding.

Foxglove (57:54):
Try not to crucify yourself

Iris (57:56):
yet with yourself and with your, with your partners to
learn about fluctuatingcapacity. This is something that
my therapist taught me and thatI've been working on really
continuously for the last, Idon't know, six months, I can
commit to doing something todayon a good pain day that I won't
be able to do tomorrow on a badpain day. And everybody to a

(58:17):
certain extent has fluctuatingcapacity, we all have good days
and bad days. That's especiallythe case with chronic pain. So
you have to learn how tounderstand what your capacity
looks like. And also learn whatthings are able to be dropped,
and what things are absolutenecessities to get done. And

(58:38):
just figure out and dial in, onwhat you can commit to and what
you aren't able to commit to.
And I especially want tohighlight the fact that like,
this is something that's reallyhard, and is something that like
is a continuous work inprogress. I'm a yes person. I
always want to do everything foreveryone all the time. So a big
part of me learning aboutfluctuating capacity is me

(59:00):
learning to say no, sometimes onmy good days, so that I have
more spoons and more capacity onmy bad days.

Foxglove (59:10):
And I think that's really important in a
relationship because I mean,like I mentioned this earlier,
but if you have chronic pain,and that means that for example,
on a bad pain day, you can'tstand long enough to do the
dishes or like I do all of ouraudio editing, if there's a day
where I can't sit, because myback is too messed up. It can be

(59:30):
really hard and scary to learnto tell your partner that or
partners because it feels likethey're going to be angry at you
for letting them down and forlike expecting them to do
everything for you because likeyou're a delicate wilting
flower. And it's easy to getinto that headspace and I think
it's what you're not you're nota delicate Well, you're not

(59:52):
prefaced with that. But it it'sso important to be able to have
an explicit conversation withyour partners about that fear.
Like I said, Straight up.
Remember when we started talkingabout doing this podcast, I sat
everyone down and I was like,there are days where I can't sit
at a desk, and I can't reallystand I have to lie down because
like, something is just wrongwith x joint, and I just can't
I, I can't handle how much painI'm in if I do XYZ thing. And

(01:00:13):
like, I'm really scared that youguys are gonna be upset with me
if I feel like I can't work andI'm letting you down. And like
being able to have thatconversation and be honest about
it was really terrifying from myangle. But like, it meant that
we're all operating on the samepage. And we're all operating
with this, like, understandingof they want me to be okay, like

(01:00:34):
everyone is working toward thesame goal. And that means that
some days, some people do more.
And some days those people doless and like that's okay. And
being able to discuss theconcept of fluctuating capacity
with the people you love. Andmaking sure that everyone is on
the same page is like absolutelyfucking crucial to like having a

(01:00:55):
relationship while you havechronic pain. 100%. Would you
guys say that's accurate?

Iris (01:00:59):
Yes. Oh, yeah. And then I have one more tip, if you live
with chronic pain and want tofigure out how to navigate your
relationship with your partnersand chronic pain. It's learn how
to do the real kind of self carewhich what I'm talking about
with that is there's likemultiple different kinds of self

(01:01:21):
care. And one of them is likethe industry of self care that's
very like commercialized andit's all about like spa days,
and treat yourself and all thosedifferent things. And listen,
that can be really enjoyable,really good for you and really
fun sometimes. But there's alsothis like, real digging deep
type of self care. That's thehard stuff, the unpretty stuff,

(01:01:42):
the stuff that's like, okay, Iam going to learn to take my
pain medication, before I startfeeling really bad. Or I'm going
to learn how to

Foxglove (01:01:52):
put on a brace before I actually do something stupid.

Iris (01:01:54):
Yeah, I'm going to learn to turn off the TV because blue
like a half hour earlier,because then I can get to sleep.
And sleep is really importantfor my chronic pain not flaring
up, or whatever it is thatliterally helps your physical
and mental health and well beingis frequently not pretty. But it

(01:02:15):
is really important. And it'simportant to learn how to do
that for yourself, but also tolearn how to communicate those
things to your partners andcommunicate the things that they
can do to help because ofcourse, they love you. They want
to be able to help and theycan't fix your chronic pain. So
giving them little things theycan latch on to that they can do
when they know you're in pain.
Like Yeah, you're in pain.

(01:02:36):
You're you shouldn't be gettingup and walking over to the
microwave and standing there forthree minutes. Will your heating
pack is new. So like I struggledto let people do

Foxglove (01:02:45):
things for me. This is a challenge personally. Yeah,
but

Sage (01:02:51):
we're adding you. Yeah,

Foxglove (01:02:52):
the others are like hey, do you wanna? Do you wanna
heating pack? Yeah.

Sage (01:02:59):
We want you know, to her.

Iris (01:03:01):
Yeah, so like Sunset at the beginning. It's learning how
to do the like learning how tocommunicate those things to your
partner of Yeah, they can heatup the water for tea for you,
they can put like, get you anice pack. They can get you your
brace that those little thingsmatter a lot in a relationship
with somebody with chronic pain.
And learning how to take care ofyourself is also learning how to

(01:03:21):
teach the people around you howto take care of you as well. And
there's no shame in that soundslike a good stopping point. I'm
sorry, one more thing. I haveone more thing to like just
No, but that was your three. Yousaid three.
I said three. It's not anothertip. It's just like a PSA. For

(01:03:44):
if you're a person living withchronic pain, living with any
disabilities of any kind, fromone disabled person to another,
please know you're not lazy,you're not a burden. And you
deserve to have your pain takenseriously, especially by your
partners and your loved ones.

Foxglove (01:03:57):
I would say that last one is the key. Yeah. As a
person with chronic pain, it'simportant that you take your own
pain seriously because it willmean that your partners take
your pain seriously.

Iris (01:04:07):
Yeah. So just like you're doing a great job. We love you.
We're very

Foxglove (01:04:13):
proud of you doing a great job,

Sunflower (01:04:14):
take some Advil and get a heating pack. And I'm not
actually I'm

Foxglove (01:04:17):
gonna On that note, I'm gonna put ice on my
shoulder.

Iris (01:04:20):
Now we can tie it up so I just wanted to do that little
PSA.

Sunflower (01:04:23):
Yeah,

Sage (01:04:24):
cool. All right, that's been us the cool as always a big
thank you to Molly of geographyfor the use of her song honey
hockey bloom for our music commFind us on Twitter or Instagram
at at wr underscore podcast, onTumblr at copple dash network or
even by email at [e-mail]. Toss us a
question or an advice topic. Welove hearing from you. And of

(01:04:47):
course go ahead and check outour Patreon at the at wr
podcast. If you want to tip Foxfor editing work. If you love
our podcast, please share withyour friends and leave a comment
wherever you listen. And asalways remember, we believe in
you

Iris (01:05:00):
Hi