Annie Hartnett (The Road to Tender Hearts) feat. Debbie Millman, Guest Gay Reader

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Gaze reading where the greatsdrop by trendy authors.
Tell us all the who, what andwhy.
Anyone can listen Comes we arespoiler free.
Reading from stars to book clubpicks we're the curious minds
can get their picks.
Say you're not gay.

(00:24):
Well that's okay there somethingeveryone.
Hello and welcome to Gay'sReading.
I am your host Jason Blitman, Ijust came back from the LA Times
Festival of Books where.

(00:46):
I was moderating a panel withsome fabulous authors and got to
hang out with a bunch of greatfolks.
Thank you to those of you whostopped and said hello.
It was really fun to see a wholebunch of people who love books
all in one place, and it wasreally special and really great.
And if you've never been, uh, Ihighly recommend perhaps trying
to get to one, get to one, getto the LA Times Festival of

(01:08):
Books, or if you've just neverbeen to a book festival, they
are certainly really fun, lovelyplaces.
To be and to, uh, find yourpeople.
If you are new to Gay's Reading,welcome and if you have been
here before, welcome back.
I'm happy to have you.
today's episode, I am inconversation with Annie Hartnett

(01:29):
talking to me about her book,the Road to Tender Hearts, and I
have.
Been obsessed with AnnieHartnett for so long now because
I loved her book UnlikelyAnimals a few years ago.
It was so much fun.
And my guest, gay reader todayis Debbie Millman, what else is
going on today?
The Correspondent by VirginiaEvans comes out today.

(01:49):
I have not had a chance to readit yet, but I've heard such
terrific things.
It is a book that is toldthrough correspondence, which I
think is really fun.
Um.
As always, if you like whatyou're hearing, please share us
with your friends.
Follow us on social media.
We are at Gays Reading onInstagram.
We're on Blue Sky.
Another book that comes outtoday is The Lilac People by

(02:11):
Milo.
Todd and I have been lookingforward to this book all year,
and I have a q and a with Milothat is posted on the Gays
reading Substack, so you shouldgo check that out over on the
Substack, the link to that inthe show notes, in the link
tree, on the Instagram, all ofthose things.
Of course, I am still partneringwith Aardvark Book Club.

(02:32):
You can get your first bookthrough Aardvark for$4 and free
shipping when you go to aardvarkbook club.com and use the code
Gaze reading.
It is such an incredible deal.
And they are so awesome.
I don't know if you follow themon social media, but they're a
great social media follow.
They are.
They're just great.
It's a great company and, um, Ihighly recommend checking them

(02:54):
out.
Art rec book club.com code gaysreading book$4.
Who could ask for anything more?
Um, great.
Annie and Debbie's bios are inthe show notes and there are a
handful of things that Annietalks to me about and once we
stopped recording, I asked ifshe would send me pictures of

(03:14):
some of the things that comesup.
So those photos can be found onthe substack as well, make sure
to go check that out.
I.
I'm still laughing after lookingat them.
Alright, those are all thethings.
I hope you're great and enjoythis conversation with Annie
Hartnett and Debbie Millman.

Jason Blitman (03:34):
truly unlikely animals was, I loved it.

Annie Hartnett (03:37):
oh, thank you.
Thanks so much.

It is so weird.
You are so weird.
I'm obsessed with you.

Thank you.
Thank you.

Okay.
What?
We're not here to talk aboutunlikely animals.
We are here to talk about

Another weird

to tender hearts.
Another weird one.
Obsessed.
It's funny'cause they're not thesame book, obviously.
But they're like cousins.

Yeah.
They, yes.
There, there are.
I can't write another old manbook, that's for sure.
For a while.
Forever.
cause yeah.
So both both Tender Hearts andun unlike the animals have a old
man or older man character.
They're both, people get, I getin trouble these days for

(04:21):
calling men in their sixties oldmen.
so PJ in the Road to TenderHeart.
Is 63.
So he's not old.
He's older,

older,

lived hard.

Yeah.

men in their sixties who lived hard do come
across as old men.

What do you think it is that makes one old?

that's a good question because Clive in
unlikely animals is 68 and heworks hard to stay young by he
uses a lot of slang.
He likes to hang with prettymuch anybody.
Pj also PJ Holiday in tenderHearts.
He would hang with anybody.
He's got all the friends at thebar.
He probably has a lot of youngerfriends, so I don't know if it's

(05:06):
so it's not PJ Holiday has hadthree heart attacks.
He is a hoarder.
He he doesn't take good care ofhimself.
So I just, yeah.
But every time I start talkingabout the book now and I'm like,
oh, it's about an old man.
People are like, you're, he's inhis sixties.

(05:28):
Okay, fine, he is,

He is an older man than you are.
No, but now I'm really stuck onwhat makes one old

I don't know.

I'm like, really, I have this, I've had this long
conversation.
I say long conversation.
It's a long conversation withmyself that has permeated
through a number of interviewsnow about what's the, what makes
you an adult?
Like where is, when do you crossthat threshold?
And I think because I believethat it.
Is all made up and we neverreally do, and you're waiting to

(06:01):
become an adult.
And I wonder if the same is forold, if you are younger than the
person that you're talkingabout, they're considered old to
you.
But that threshold never reallyexists because they're always
gonna be younger than someone Idon't know.

If you are, if you're 63 and you're hanging out
with 90 year olds, you're gonnafeel like you don't relate to
the way their

And you're and you could call yourself young

Yeah.

in fact, but if you're hanging out with 23 year
olds, You're olds Conundrum.
Conundrum, Annie.

Yeah, even we were in the airport a couple
weeks ago and I was, there waslike this food court and there
were all these college studentseating Chick-fil-A and I was
like, one, I did not know howcollege students felt about
Chick-fil-A.

It's upsetting to this gay person.

they, yeah, it's I just didn't, I didn't know
that every single collegestudent, and I was also just
struck by these are babies.
These are small children who arehaving sex and doing drugs and
eating Chick-fil-A, and theyjust look so young to me.
So

I feel like you just titled your next book.

sex and drugs and Chick-fil-A

Yes.

done?

But we need to call it something else because
we can't give Chick-fil-A thatpromotion.
It could just be fried chicken,sex and jugs and fried chicken.

that, that is a good title.

I would read that.
I don't even care what it's,especially if you wrote it.
I like know what it's about.
It's about an old man.

Oh man, that would be maybe more exciting to
me.
An old man, sex and Drinks andChick-fil-A, but yeah, I already
wrote that book.

That's totally fair.
Okay.
Road to tender hearts.
It is about an old man.
It is about pj.
Do you have a one liner, a two

I don't have a one-liner, as having read both.
My first book, rabbit Cake, youcan do a one-liner, but it's
really hard to do a one-linerwith tender hearts and unlikely
animals.
But, so here's my not one-linerelevator pitch.
Pretend we got stuck at fourthree.
So the Road to Tender Hearts isabout an older man named PJ who

(08:13):
is reading the obituaries.
Of his hometown newspaper andcomes across the obituary of his
high school.
Oh, his high school friend.
And he realizes that if thatfriend is dead, then the woman
that man married is singleagain.
And so he decides to drive crosscountry to win his high school

(08:36):
crush back.
So that's one sentence, but thenalso

I know.
I was like, wait, but there's awhole other storyline that we're
missing.
This is child erasure.

Yeah.
Yeah.
But then also he ends up beforehe can leave on the trip he ends
up with the surprise custody ofhis great niece and great nephew
and his daughter his biologicaldaughter is concerned that her
dad is, has custody of thesechildren.
So she comes along on the tripand so does a stray cat who can

(09:09):
predict death.
Yeah, so that's the whole car

Animals and death.
Animals Plus death equals anAnnie Hartnett book and plus, I
guess plus old men.
Right?
Where does that, so I, it's, Ifeel like that intermingled,
which is like this Mac Conessabout your style and your super

(09:35):
dry humor all mixes together tocreate a person who I'm like.
Guessing who you are as aperson, but really to just sum
it up, it you cr I'm deathanimals that we can see we can
hear what they're thinking and agr colorful group of characters.

(09:59):
Show us a lot about your senseof humor.

Yeah.

Where does your sense of humor come from?

My sense of humor definitely just comes from
my family, like how I wasbrought up.
Although we don't all have thesame sense of humor, I feel like
it's an Irish sense of humorthat's like the black, black
comedy.
And then I grew up in a townthat is I don't know,
predominantly Jewish or halfJewish.
I don't know what the percentageis, but it's a town with a lot

(10:25):
of Jewish people in it.
So I feel like there's alsoJewish humor and Irish humor are
similar.
And then my family everyone'sfunny in their own way.
Although they're, there isdefinitely like a attitude of
just laughing no matter what,and making fun of people no
matter what.
Like kicking people when they'redown for a joke is totally

(10:49):
acceptable in, in the family,but also accepting people in for
whoever they are.
So there's this we'll make funof you, but we will love you no
matter.
We I've told this story a coupletimes that is horrific that I
had my grandfather who was.
He is PJ Holiday is named aftermy dad, PJ Hartnett, and then

(11:14):
his dad, my grandfather was alsoPJ Hartnett, so there's two PJs.
And so I was, I really wanted tobe direct about I'm really
basing it on these men in mylife.
And my grandfather died when Iwas.
16 and he was just like thepatriarch, the like glue of the

(11:34):
family.
Everyone looked up to him.
He was he was just a, he wasjust a character.
And his famous quote was to mygrandmother I can drive better
drunk than you can sober.
And so we always say that toeach other.
Which is totally that's theinappropriate humor.
And so when we were Catholic atthe time when he died, and so he

(11:57):
had an open casket and my highschool boyfriend came to the the
wake and my uncle put this poor16-year-old boy in a headlock
and put him up to the dead bodyand was like, I'm so glad you
got to meet the old guy.
And like child abuse.

(12:20):
Um, It was funny.
It was horrific.

That's, that makes total sense to me.
You said you were Catholic atthe time.

Oh yeah.
When no one, none of no one isCatholic anymore.
People

That was just a very deliberate thing of a
deliberate way of

I have to separate myself.
It, we stopped going to my, myfamily, my parents were both
Irish Catholic growing up.
And so when they had children,they didn't really know what to
do with our religious upbringingand their college roommate, or
my dad's college roommate wasvisiting and they were talking

(13:00):
about it and.
He didn't have kids yet, but sohe, they listened to what he
said and he said you wanna givethem something to reject so that
they don't come home fromcollege total.
Like strangers who have foundlike, some super religion.
So that was my parents.

(13:21):
That's, there was theirphilosophy, except like we went
to church and we went it wasn'tlike a little bit of exposure.
We went to church, we went toCCD but then the, the scandals
came out and at the same timethat my other grandfather died
and he was my other grandfatherwas an amazing guy and was like

(13:43):
really active in the civilrights movement and was a
principal and.
Boston public schools and was acool person and this priest
reduced him to like, should havegone to church more wasn't as
active in the church as he couldhave been.
So it was a kind of a, theperfect storm of we are not,
none of us are doing thisanymore.

Yeah.

so I was never confirmed.
So I'm not a Catholic inanyone's eyes,

I never had a bar mitzvah, so I am still a child

oh yeah.
We will get you a DJ and acartoonist and we'll play Coke
and Pepsi.

and someone who does the, like spray paint hats

Oh, yes.
Yep.

Yeah.
And like cool socks for thedance floor.
So you were talking about PJ andit being based on, or inspired
by whatever term feelscomfortable for you your dad and
your grandfather.
He has a very modern andunconventional relationship with
Ivy, his ex-wife and Fred, herboyfriend.

(14:48):
They lived down the road.
I don't need to, I don't need totell you.
You could tell the listenersand.
Where does that come from?
Do you have examples of that inyour life?
It was such a just a, like amodern hip way of defining what
a post-marriage could look like.

Yeah it I do I don't know if I have real life
examples of that.
I have in my.
In my life though, examples of alot of men who are very
dependent on women.
He, PJ and Ivy got divorcedlet's see, like 10 years ago,
let's say.
I don't, I forget the exacttimeline, but he's still very

(15:27):
dependent on her, has breakfastwith her every morning, like
worships her, but also he is.
He is openhearted enough to alsolove her new boyfriend, and he
knows that he's a fuck up andthat he knows that like he
doesn't blame Ivy for leavinghim.

(15:50):
He blames like his lifecircumstances, but he they went,
so they went through a tragedy15 years earlier that their
oldest daughter died.
So the question I wanted to askwas, how does how does, married
couple recover, how do they moveon from.

(16:13):
Having a child die.
And I think a lot of marriagesdon't survive that.
So I did, and I did not thinkthat their marriage would
survive that based on thischaracter I was creating.
Pj unless Ivy was gonna spendthe rest of her life unhappy,
but they still love each other.
Like they she still, she doesn'tlove him, doesn't love him in

(16:34):
the way that she wants to bemarried to him, but she doesn't
wanna cut him off either.
And then so they, yeah, theydeveloped this friendship that
is a really nice friendship.
And then, Fred is an evolvedenough creature that he's
accepting of PJ too.
Everybody loves pj.
He's so messed up and he's he'sso imperfect, to have a

(16:54):
character who has three DUIs,but asking.
You two, think he is wonderful,is a lot, but he, so he won the
lottery.
He's if it were a Tom Hanksmovie, it would be like the
luckiest man in small townPineville if it weren't for, the

(17:16):
tragedies of his life.
And so yeah, so he's had somereal luck where he won a million
and a half dollars.
But he's a hoarder.
He lives alone.
His ex-wife left him.
But she stays friends with him.
And then, but he, and he givesaway all of his money to anyone
who asks, which is really whatis one of the main things that

(17:37):
is based on my dad.
No one please, no one.
The man is not on the internet.
Do not tell him about GoFundMebecause he would like, he.
He just will always, he's sogenerous, will always buy people
dinner.
I did an in conversation with myfriend Claire Beans, who's a
wonderful writer.
And we went out in celebrationfor her book launch with all her

(17:58):
like friends from.
All the many walks of Boston andlike my dad doesn't know Claire,
and he covered the restaurantbill.
And I was like, dad, like why?
That's and yeah, so he saw, oncehe saw, he's not like a really
wealthy guy.
It's

did not win the lottery.

no, he did not win the lottery.
Although he, part of it isinspired by that because he will
always play Powerball and hewill then.
He will talk to me about whatwill happen if he wins Powerball
and who's gonna get, say he wonwins$68 million.
And he'll be like, all right, Iwill give your aunt a million

(18:38):
dollars.
I will give.
And he just goes down and I'mlike, dad, please don't think
about this.

Because the odds are not in your

not gonna happen.
You don't need to make a plan.
And then he, like he, he will,he was watching the news once
and there was this Chineserestaurant where there was like
this racist incident against theowners and he sent them a check
in the mail and now he's likefriends with those it wasn't
even in his town.
It's just he's so generous, butalso in this sort of way that

(19:11):
you're like, uh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A little bit.
A little bit.
Not like he's not, in the poorhouse or anything,

No, but maybe you don't need to send the check to
the restaurant of the peoplethat you never met, or,

Yes.
But so seriously, GoFundMe he'snot on Facebook.

Won't tell

God he's never been on.
Yeah.
Don't tell

what would you do?

I have a little bit of the same problem that
like I've never playedPowerball.
I like scratch tickets a lot.
But like scratch tickets, you'renever gonna win that much money.
I think I did play like MegaMillions once, and then I did
find myself in the same sort ofoh, obviously I'm gonna win, so
what am I gonna do with it?
Like, how much would I give tocharity?

(19:52):
I think the question of.
Of when you win that much moneyis how much do you keep so it
makes your life better anddoesn't ruin your life.
And I think the answer would belike, I would keep$10 million
and then I would give the restto a global warming charity

(20:13):
because I would not wanna I, andthat would be, I would just
throw it all

However much it was.

Yeah.
however much it was.

What's like the one extravagant thing you would
do for yourself?

oh

I have no idea what that answer is for me.

Yeah, I'm not like an extravagant person.
We have driven with a car thatis missing a door for a year.

A whole door.

It's, the door was reattached, but not all the
way.
So it like has a big gap in it.

Does it just rattle the whole

It's, I just drove my friend to I had to
teach in Maine and my friendcame along and she was like, I'm
sorry.
I was like, is your window down?
And I was like, oh no it's, mycar and our neighbor who is a
mechanic, put the car door backon for us.
'cause my husband was, he was ina rush to get to me.

(21:07):
So we for the first time had twocars at the time.
We finally, we'd lived with onlyone car for as long as we've
been married.
But we got two cars last fall.
And so he was rushing to me, toswitch off with me so I could go
to an event.
'cause he was at, I was at danceclass with our kid and he was
driving outta the driveway andthere was like a.

(21:28):
The light on that said the doorwas open, which is always the
trunk and the Honda fit.
If people have Honda fits, italways happens to the, so he got
outta the car and he is on thephone with me I'm on my way, I'm
on my way.
And he was just like overtlystressed for no reason.
And so the car kept driving andripped the door off, and it was,
so we had our neighbor, who'sthe mechanic come to.

Wait a minute.
Hold on.
I would need to go back and makesure that I'm understanding this
correctly.
The trunk was, the light for thetrunk was on.
Your husband gets out of thecar, leaves the door open,
leaves the car running, the carkeeps moving,

car keeps moving and he's on the phone with me
and he is oh shit shit, shit.
So the other funny thing aboutit is they're, they don't make
Honda Fits anymore.
So he had to drive, I guess thisis all related to the book, it's
a road

No, you know what hundred percent is.

So he ended up driving to Connecticut to get a
door and because, so we had toact fast because the body shop
is like, there's only one HondaFit Door left in all of New
England.
So he drove from where we livein Massachusetts.

it's a Honda, doesn't fit door.

Oh, good one.
So we got a we have a silvercar.
Her name is Helen Muran'causeshe's a silver fox.
We get a white door and they putit in the back of the Honda Fit
and he drives back home.
And this was a year ago or?

(23:06):
11 months ago to be accurate.
And guess what is still in theback of the Honda Fit and we
can't get it out.

A tree branch.

no, there is a white door, a car door in the
trunk, or like the whole backseat of the door car.
So we have a car that has like adoor that is like three inches a
jar.
And then there's a car, whitecar door in the back of the
Honda Fit and it's jammed inthere, so we can't get it out.

Wait, so the Honda Fit door that he went to
go pick up got stuck in thebackseat.

Yes,

What?
Wait, why didn't they justinstall it at the body shop?

I, it was like a junky yard place.
Like it wasn't like a,

Oh my God.

and we.

Your books make so much more sense now.

they're, oh yeah.
They're not comedies.
It's just real

Oh my god, that's so not only is a door slightly
ajar, it's the driver's side

You can't, but you can't.
Yeah.
It's the driver's side

right?

and you can't sit in the back because there's
a car door.

I'm like seeing stars.
I'm laughing so hard.
That is so funny.
So a road, obviously you don'tdo road trips with this car,

No, don't.
I did just drive five hours

friend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But like other I mean like afamily road trip you're not

So I can't even pick my kid up at school in that
class.

but are road trips like a thing in your
family?

We did a road trip around Ireland.

Oh.

like we never would go outta the country,
except that was the only likeinternational trip we ever went
on as a family.
And we mom planned it out pre,pre.
Pre iPhones.
So she had this map and wedidn't have a plan of, we were
gonna spend the night everynight.
But you could just drive aroundIreland and stop at b and B's.

(25:18):
So that's what we did.
in a small car, my dad in the,he would drive most, for most of
the trip.
He could only come for twoweeks.
And then my mom was left with meand my three brother or two
brothers the rest of the trip.
So three of us in the back.
And my little brother, likeimmediately threw up.
So we would always make him sitin the same seat and just call

(25:40):
it the throw up seat.
And we would taunt him the wholetime.
And he he ended up I ran out ofbooks to read because I, I had
brought like as many red wallsas I could probably pack, but I
was in fifth grade and I ranoutta books to read.
Two formative things happened onthat trip I borrowed my

(26:02):
brother's book that he hadbought in the airport called
True Irish Ghost Stories.
And I was so spooked.
'cause they were, I was like,they're true.
I was just like, obviously

says so in the title.

it says so right there.
So I was terrified during theentire trip and I like didn't
sleep and I drove everyonecrazy.
And then at the end of the tripmy mom was tired of driving
around country, so she foundlike a little house to rent like
somewhere, I think it was inlike Donal or something.
And so we stopped for a week.

(26:41):
I.
And it was all these littlecabins and I was so crazy at
that point'cause I had not sleptfor a month.
And and it was, there was alittle like dinky playground in
the middle of these cabins.
And every day there would bekids out on the playground.
And at some point I was like,there's fewer and fewer kids on

(27:01):
the playground every day.
Obviously they're beingmurdered.
And so I told my little.
Yeah, by the true ghost actuallyI had changed it to now it's a
serial killer in my mind.
So I told my, I was in fifthgrade.
My brother's four years youngerthan me, so he was in first
grade.
I told this like baby child,that the reason we had fewer

(27:26):
kids to play with every day isbecause they were being killed.
But I told him not to worrybecause they were seven cabins
and we were leaving on the sixthday.
So I had done the math that Iwas like, they'll never get to
us.
Don't worry, it's not ourconcern.
So that is that is the mostmessed up thing I've ever done

(27:47):
before since,

wow.
And that changed your lifebecause now you write the way
you write,

Yeah.

and that was your road trip.

that was my road trip.

You've never done like an in, in the states road
trip.

I did an in the states road trip, but not with
my own family.
I did an in the states road tripI was in college and I had just
broken up with my boyfriend whoI had for five years and I
needed to get outta town'causeI.
We could not be around each, Icould not get back together with
him.
I needed to take myself outtathe town.
My friends went to Bard andtheir friends had just just

(28:24):
graduated this couple, and theywere.
Going to try to move.
They couldn't decide whetherthey were gonna, she was from
San Francisco, he was fromSeattle.
We were driving back fromMassachusetts to Seattle and
then we were gonna go down toSan Francisco and they didn't
know which city they were gonnalive in.
So they just were arguing aboutit the whole way and their

(28:47):
relationship was falling apart.
I didn't know them.
They were my friend's friends.
One thing I just loved aboutthis road trip is that we wanted
to get to San Francisco.
We wanted to get to Seattle orfirst, and then down to San
Francisco, but we had no otherreal plans, like which is the
best way to do a road trip.

(29:08):
Especially across the UnitedStates.
'cause there's just so muchweird stuff, which if you stop
at all the roadside attractions,like both the ones that people
know about people are like, makesure to stop at Wal Drug.
Make sure to stop at like theCorn Palace.
but I also didn't know aboutlike even some,'cause I was 21
and there were many things aboutlife I didn't know.

(29:30):
Many things I still don't know,but I didn't know about the
Badlands and so when we droveinto the Badlands just appear
outta nowhere and you're like.
Whoa.
There's the moon is just righthere in the middle of nowhere
and you can just it's cra itlooks crazy.
And so it was, so that was areally memorable experience,

(29:50):
both trying to get over somebodyand then having these all like
really fun, weird experienceswith these people who became my
friends, but were.
Two of them, out of the three ofthem were total strangers.
And then when we got to SeattleThomas, who was Dr.
Who was one of the drivers, washe had, his family had a, a

(30:13):
really nice camp on one of theSan Juan Islands.
So we went over to the San JuanIslands, which are unbelievably
beautiful, and his dad and hiswhole family was there and his
dad was there.
And his dad was one of thosepeople who gets up at 4:30 AM
and is just like, is wasbuilding his own house.
And had these, had built theseincredible outhouses made out of

(30:36):
driftwood, which didn't havedoors on them so that you could
look out at the ocean.

going to the bathroom.

Yes.
Which were like and it was justlike all this sort of memorable
stuff, but I was so exhausted bythe time I got there that I was
like I'm still broken heartedand I just want to like, so I
spent one entire day in bed whenwe were there and we all
gathered around for dinner andthere were a lot of people
there.

(31:04):
And we also saw thishomeschooled one school house.
Production of Macbeth that thechildren put on, which I feel
like was super formative in alot of my work and like making
children do things that they'relike really should not be doing
in any appropriate way.
but we're sitting around thetable and someone asked oh,
Annie, what did you do today?

(31:24):
I didn't see you today.
And somehow the dad knew and hejust goes, in my voice, he says.
I napped and I cried,

Oh, you were red like a bug.

I hear his voice in my head.
I'm not even touch in touch withThomas or his family anymore,
but sometimes when I'm feelingbad for myself, I'll just hear
this voice in my head that goes,I napped and I cried.

If you are no longer in touch for just
happenstance reasons, you shouldreach out and tell him that.
I feel like that's very funny.

I should.
I should.
I really should.
Yeah.

There is a character in the book who worked
for a greeting card company.
And it just so happens that atthe time of recording my
birthday was a couple of daysago and I got a birthday card
from my mother who.
Has sent me the same card, Ithink six years almost in a row.

(32:23):
Not fully in a row, but had I'vereceived the same card from her
six times.
Not exaggeration, noexaggeration.
We need to change it up.
Who do we need to write to?
We

it?
What does it

It's so generic.
There's nothing.
It.
There's nothing particularlyspecial about it.

But it does have words on it.
It like speaks to her in someway.

Yes.
All these years it's beennothing short of magical
watching you become who you aretoday, is what it says on the
front, and then you know, someversion of that inside.

That's a pretty nice sentiment.

It's so nice.
But Hallmark needs to know whento retire a card and bring in

it up so that they have to do the work for

Yes, exactly.
But also I don't know if you, ifthis is based on a person, in
real life, am I going on a rantright now about greeting cards?
Yes, because.

I've been on a few tangents.

I, they are infuriating to me the fact that
like people get paid real moneyto write.
Wishing you a lovely day on yourbirthday, on your day of birth,

Yeah I think those jobs will go away.
Thanks, Dan.
So you'll get yours.
You win.

I, that's maybe true, but how do we become a
greeting card writer?
Should we start our own company?
We could come up with quirkythings and you could draw them.

yeah I did start a grading card company.

What?

Yeah.
It wasn't successful

Say more.
Tell me everything.
Was it called full of heart net?

no, it was it was full of heart.
I was 22 and I was living inbasically a commune, but it was
it was like a outdoor schoolwhere we would teach like every
week that, so in ca, in, inCalifornia, outdoor education is

(34:26):
mandated, so like kids in eitherthe fifth or sixth grade have to
go.
To basically summer camp for aweek and learn about the
outdoors in the outdoors.
So there's these camps, likethey're usually summer camps
that are then like, rented outduring the year by these
companies where you're, if youthe, there's young people like

(34:49):
20 somethings who work there andlive there, and every week you
get a busload of fifth gradersand you teach them the exact
same stuff every single week.
And so we would teach them,about the water cycle.
We'd take them on hikes and wewould teach them about I don't
remember what el, what else wetaught, but like science in the

(35:11):
outdoors.
And then we'd also do like ropescourse, and tr it was like
bonding as well as and then sowith the other counselors, we
worked there and lived there andhad a empty summer camp on the
weekends.
So it was just this.
Wild experience.
And during my downtime I was,I'm always looking for, I just

(35:34):
have a lot of, extra creativeenergy.
This was before I was reallywriting, I think so decided to
start a business.
And at the time my, my bestfriend's mom was dying of breast
cancer.
So I decided to start a businesscalled T Nips Greeting Cards,

(35:55):
and it was made out of, so youprobably made

I wonder why I didn't do well.

You probably made art projects with like hand
prints, thumbprints that likeyou turn into an So I had me and
all my other friends sit aroundand we made nipple prints in
paint.
And then I made drawings withthose prints and and a lot of my

(36:25):
friends still have them framedin their house.
But I didn't really do very wellselling them, but my dad loved
the idea and he wa he was like,we gotta make this an LLC.

He is gonna be your investor with his lottery
money.

So that was my grading card company.
So if

feel like we could maybe circle back.

Yeah.
So if,

follow up questions.
That's where a different podcastOh my god.
A person needs three things tobe happy, something to do,
someone to love, and somethingto look forward to.
What are those three things foryou?

Yeah.
So that's a quote from the bookthat

it is

is yeah, but I, but the backstory's really
important to me.
I grew up I had these likesurrogate grandparents who grew
up who lived across the streetfrom me, and their names were
Mrs.
Chris and Dr.
Chris.
And Mrs.
Chris had us a reading club forfor the little girls in the
neighborhood'cause her kids weregrown.

(37:41):
So we would go over to her houseevery Wednesday and she would
read to us and serve us tea andcookies.
And it was like, and we did ituntil sixth grade.
Like she would read to us, weread so many books and then she
switched it to a writing club.
So that was the first writingclub I was part of.

God.

And then Dr.
Chris is this was thiscardiologist.
He was like this renownedcardiologist, but he was mostly
retired when I was growing up.
And he played piano and he wasthe, he gave me EB white's
essays when he found out I wasinterested in like animals and
writing and together theylearned Italian and they had

(38:19):
adopted another kid as well astheir four kids and they just
had this.
She's still alive and they hadthis really interesting full
life.
And like she, she's a pollworker.
She would call me if I hadn'tshowed up to the elections.
So when I think of someone whohas had a good life, they have
had a truly good life.

(38:39):
They have done good things.
They have, they have theirretirement just looked like.
People should try to learnItalian after they retire so
that they can go to Italy.
So they just, they had a goodlife, especially from when I was
able to observe it when theywere older.
And she's still alive.
She's in her nineties.
She is still as sharp as tack.

(39:00):
Yeah she's amazing.
Like she, she's not anydifferent than she was when I
was growing up.
She now lives like 40 minutesfrom me, so I get to see her
sometimes.
And Dr.
Chris died two years ago.
And so at his funeral, this wassomething his son said, is that
the advice that Dr.
Chris always gave him was thateveryone needs something to do,

(39:23):
someone to love and something tolook forward to.
And that's the key to happinessif you can fulfill all those
things.
And I was, I just had such, hewas gone by then, so he never
said it to me, but it just waslike such simple and really.
Good advice.

And really from someone who meant a lot to you.
Okay.
The story was so much thank youfor, it's breaking to tell me
this whole thing'cause it reallywas worth it.

yeah.
Sorry.
It I can't follow directions,but,

No, don't be sorry.
I didn't tell you not to.

Yeah, no it really, yes.
So it's said by, a characterwho, if you hear the story and
then read the book, you'll.
What but so something to do forme

You're not allowed to say writing

I'm not allowed to say writing something to do.
So something to do, someone tolove and something to look
forward to.
I'm not allowed to say writing,we live now, we moved out of
Providence and we live inLakeville, Massachusetts, which
is the town that Pineville inthe book is based on, it's rural
and I don't really know anyonehere.

(40:32):
I have friends, but they're notin this town.
So I'm just very dedicated tomaking the space that I have in
my yard like a habitat space.
So I'm, I got into gardeninglast year.
I do have a friend who's a supergardener, so she's helped me
with it.
And then we have bird, we haveblue bird boxes.

(40:55):
And And even I learned from theguy who owned the house before,
he was also really into.
Habitats like having wood pilesin your yard is really good for
snakes.
Learning that stuff, especially,we are so powerless against most
things that are happening, butlike the.

What

And I, I don't know what to do about I'm, I
think a lot of us are justparalyzed.
It's what's gonna happen?
So having that concrete thingwhere I can I can feel like I'm
making a difference to So that'sone thing I can

something to do and see.
I'm glad I said you're notallowed to say writing'cause
that is a

Oh, yeah.
Okay good.
Yeah, I mean that, that'ssomething that I'm actively and
I learned that from my parentstoo.
My parents live much more in thesuburbs, but my mom, my dad puts
out little bowls of water forthe rabbits, and my mom is,
yeah.
Yeah.
My mom is a super bird watcher.
Yeah, my parents are reallyawesome.

(41:55):
They're I'm very lucky withthem.

That there's, there are levels of bird
watchers, like novice, mediocre.
But she's a super bird watcher.

she's an award winning bird watcher

Is she Actually,

Yeah.

Oh the amount of follow up questions I have for
this whole conversation, Annie.

I just feel like so comfortable with you.
I'm like, not usually the silly,but um,

your brand.

yeah, no, that is my brand.
But no I just feel like, yes,this is this is fun for me.
The, yeah, no, my mom, we haveto get a table.
Like I have to make sure I don'thave a book event that,'cause
she's getting this big award.
But what's really funny is that,my dad, they have been together
since they were 18.

(42:47):
Lost their virginities to eachother, which my mom would
absolutely kill me for saying.
But um,

Good for them.

when, oh my gosh.
When I when,

on gay's reading.

When I, like when the boyfriend, the road
trip boyfriend, when we brokeup, my mom asked me.
What does a broken heart feellike?
And I was like, oh my God, youdon't know.
And I was like, it feels bad,mom.
It feels super bad.

astonishing.

Yeah.
There's not that many peoplethat I'm like, you don't, you
have no idea what it feels

That's a very interesting story of someone who
never had their heart broken.

yeah,

Like I don't even, I don't know what that
feels like,

yeah, it's different.
It doesn't feel.
It's similar to a death, butit's not a death.

right.

Yeah.

Anyway,

anyway, but what's funny to me is that
there's this other bird watcherwho's like a real, like a
celebrity bird watcher who callsour house sometimes.
And my mom will knock overfurniture to be like, he's on
the phone and my dad gets prettyjealous.
It's very funny.
So that's something to do,something someone to

You're not allowed to say your husband or
your child

Okay.

again, it's just too much of, too easy of an
answer.

easy.
This is a funny thing for me tosay.
'cause I just said I live inthis town where I don't really I
am gonna keep it.
Who knows?
You never know who you're gonnameet.
But I'm like chronically lonelyalso, and just, I love people
and I like, I'm always like.
I, I want to like, I want bestfriends all the time.

(44:29):
I have these real strongmemories of like summer camp and
college and like those feelthose when you had your friends
that lived with you all the timeand you were really comfortable
just holding hands and climbinginto bed together and watching a
movie and like adult.

Yeah.

Yeah.
And adult friendships aren'tthat way so much.
But I do.
It really is, I, one thing thatnone of my college friends live
near me.
We just went on vacation withone of my college friends and we
went, she works for Save theChildren.

(45:05):
Which is was being gutted andshe was just like texting me
like, I might lose my job.
And even if I don't, I'm workingin this like completely, carved
out organization And,

was like, let me call PJ Hartnett.
He'll save the day by donatingmoney.

She, what our solution is a pretty funny one.
She said but at least she hasfour pomeranians no kids but
often has to travel for work.
Her Pomeranians are EU citizens,which she told me and I was
like, they have EU passports.
They're Pomeranians.
They were born in Berlin whereshe used to live in Berlin.
Anyway, she said, I don't haveto travel for work, so if you

(45:46):
wanna go somewhere.
So my kid had been pestering meto go to Disney World.
And so I was like, this isprobably not what you had in
mind, but do you wanna go toDisney World?
So she came to Disney World withus and it was the best time.
So someone to love is someonelike that friend who will do

(46:10):
that is, that is really fun andsilly.

can.
Does she have a name?
Can we shout her

Oh, her name is Winter.
Yeah, her name is

Of course.
Her fucking name is Winter.
Of course.
Of course.
Winter has four Pomeranians thathave a U, passports, like of
course.
That's her name.

She started out with only two and she was living
in Germany and they don't Spainneuter in Germany until they're
a year old.
So she took them, she had justdecided that she didn't wanna
have kids and she was likehaving panic attacks about like
having children.
She was like, no, I'm always, Ilike my freedom, I just don't
wanna have children.

(46:48):
And I was like, good choice.
But even though I'm obsessedwith my child, but I did think
it was a good choice.
And she went to the vet and thevet was like, oh, we can't.
One of these dogs is pregnant,and I don't, and so I was like,
this is so funny.
You wanted your freedom and nowyou have four.

I'm shocked that hasn't made it into one of your
books yet.

Oh, I should,

Shout out to winter.
And okay.
What about something to lookforward to?

Something to look forward to.
So it probably cannot be bookrelated.

You are right.
Good job.
Can't be booked to her.
Can't be released.

Can't be released.
I dunno.
Just think about all the thingsthat are going on right now.
Um,

Hopeless.
It feels like there's nothing tolook forward to.

Let's see.
I'm a New Englander.
And I just love seasonschanging.
And so just like seasonschanging is I'm about to garden
and my birthday is coming up, soApril 22nd, so I You're an
Aries,

an Aries.

Taurus, I'm a,

Oh interesting.
Thinking about something to lookforward to can reset every day.

Yep.

Like you could look forward to something
tomorrow and then you could havea new, something to look forward
to the next day and that justkeeps the buoy of being happy in

I also finally understand why people go on
vacation.
I had never been on a vacationother, like I had never as an
adult, like I'd gone on familytrips, went to Ireland as but we
never, yeah,

get it together, drew.

Oh, drew does not like to go on

What the hell?

No.
Drew's.
The Drew's the only man in theentire world who brought a
laptop to Disney World.

Wait, are you counting Disney World with your
child and winter as vacation?

It's the only vacation I've ever been on,

Oh,

but I

and sad.
But I'm happy for you.
But that sounds like a lot ofwork with a Kit Disney,

Oh, is.
She's almost, she'll be six thissummer.
Like I saw people with reallyyoung children there, and I'm
like, oh, you are in hell.

No.
Six is probably fun to be there.

yeah.
It was totally fun.
It was just like fun, like pure

Did you get to sit by the pool and relax at
all?

No, I've never done something like that.
Like I've never,

And you can also be excited for book launch and
book tour and all those things.

I am excited because it is a book that I like
when people have the same sharemy sense of humor.
I like when people tell me whatmade them laugh, and I'm like,
yeah, that was messed up, wasn'tit?

So when the book arrived, I like was so obsessed
with unlikely animal.
I mean, The amount of people Itold had to read it is endless.
But when this book arrived,literally I read the epigraph.
Was like, I need her.
I don't even care what the restof the book is.
If I only have to talk to herabout the epigraph.

(49:58):
That's all I need to do.
'cause that's how funny it is.
It's, there's a nationallampoons vacation quote and a
quote from Papa Hartnett.

What does the Papa Harding one say?

Shut up and look out the window.

yeah, so that was from that was from the Irish
vacation.
So that's why I didn't go on anyvacations after that.

Oh my God.
So funny.
Annie.
Such a pleasure having you.
Thank you for being here today

Thanks for having me so much.

Everyone go by the Road to Tender Hearts by
Annie Hartnett.
Go by unlikely animals.
Go by rabbit cake and follow youon all of the social medias and
such to be abreast of all thethings.
You mark my, my third.
You are a third complete coupleto on gay's reading,

Debbie Millman (50:50):
Oh wow.

a nicer compliment than a, than a second
half of a couple who's happy tocome on the show.

Yeah.
Well, Roxanne had a lot of verynice things to say about you.

That's very, very sweet.
How are you today?

I am in my office at the School of Visual
Arts in Manhattan.
And um, after this I'm going togo to Frenchtown, New Jersey,
where I'm having a pre-booklaunch event, um, with a very
dear friend of mine, um, that Iknow from the design community

(51:23):
who ended up buying, renovating,and now running a bookstore.

Oh my God,

Yeah, Barbara de Wilde, she's extraordinary.
French Town bookstore is justbeautiful.

that sounds amazing.

Yeah,

I, after reading your book this morning, went
around to all of my houseplantto just like give them love.
'cause

yeah.

just needed to.

Oh good.
Thank you.

And I wanna hear about the book in a second.
Um, Debbie Millman, I'm thrilledthat you were on gay's reading
and as today's guest, gayreader, the first, and obviously
most important question is, whatare you reading?

I know I was actually, um, preparing and
going through my, some of mybooks, my stack of books, and
also my Kindle.
Because of my podcast, I read alot.
I read a lot of books for.
Prep for the show because I'minterviewing people that have
just written books, so I'm gonnastart with that.

familiar.

Yeah, so I interviewed John Key.
You could probably see his bookright there.
Black Queer and Untold, which isincredible.
It's an incredible book.
You can have him on the show.
He's amazing.
I've recently read that, AdrianTona was on the show recently
and I read an incredible book ofhis.
I've read a bunch of his, butI'm only gonna include one in

(52:45):
this list.
I read about four of his books.
They're graphic novels.
Um, but Killing and Dying is atour divorce, just an absolute
tour divorce.
I had, I did a live interviewwith Seth Godin, um, at Creative
Mornings at the very, very endof last year.
I'm including this because Ikeep coming back to it as well.

(53:06):
Um, and it's called, this isStrategy, and it's, it's a
brilliant book, and I've alsorecommended that to all my
students.

what about it do you recommend your students or
why?
Why is it that you

Well, I, I run a graduate program at the School
of Visual Arts in branding, andSeth's book is one of the most.
Concise and candid, um,overviews of what brand
strategy, marketing strategy,and business strategy really

(53:39):
truly is and what it entails todo well, and, and so that's why
I'm including it.
Um, I also run, I run two bookclubs.
I run a book club for Printmagazine, which is, I'm, I'm a
part owner and, and that'smonthly and I run a book club
for the Joyful Heart Foundation,which is quarterly.

(54:02):
And, um, I'm very excited.
I'm, I'm, I'm about to startreading The Tell by Amy Griffin.
'cause that's our next book.
But our last book was with ourlast book club was with Chanel
Miller.
And so I read her young adultnovel.
Um, Magnolia Woo Unfolds it all,and it's charming and delightful

(54:25):
and beautifully illustrated.
And I adore Chanel.
Um, I read Sarah Lewis is theUnseen Truth, which is also a
peer, um, which is also areally, really remarkable book.
The Work of Art by Adam Moss,which is also two books below
Black Queer, and then told, um,olden Art School by Nell

(54:50):
Painter, which is also aterrific book about her going
back to school to study art as amiddle-aged woman

Mm.

and.

those sorts of stories.

And then just some books for me that I've only
read for me because I, I wantedto and have enjoyed them.

for you?
Once you tell me your list?
I need also need your advice offinding

Okay, well, I fly a lot, so I, I also, and I
need, I need to be able to readfor just pure pleasure and not
be like, you know, highlighting.
I, I all for, for designmatters, I always buy two copies
of the book, the hard copy, andthen a Kindle copy because in
the old days I used to have toput.
Post-its on every page and thenunderline things and then

(55:34):
transcribe it all.
But now all they do is highlightand, and then, uh, export them,
which saves me a lot of timeand, and ruining a lot of books.
Um, especially if they'resigned.
Because if I interview somebodyin person and I have their book,
of course I ask them to sign it.
Um, but I, I recently read, it'sa, it's a little bit left of

(55:55):
center here, um, a book calledSeven Brief Lessons on Physics
by Carlo Elli.
Very easy to read.
I am endlessly fascinated by howthe universe works or what we
think, or how we think theuniverse works.
And, and these lessons arereally, um.

(56:16):
Language that anybody canunderstand, and it talks about
electromagnetism and wavelengthsand black holes and all the
things that I spend endlessamounts of time thinking about
and can never come to any realconclusion or,

end up on your radar in the first place?
That

well, I do read a lot of science books when I
can.
Um, that's just a,

the world better?

yeah, and, and just, and just because I love
it, I, I also watch a lot of.
Space documentaries and, yeah,I, I,

we were just watching a, a deep blue
documentary the other night,

oh, nice.
Yeah.

My husband has a degree in chemistry.
He is very, very

Oh.

focused.
know he, he teaches me a lot.

So, so yeah.
And then I also read All Foursby Miranda July, which I think
everybody in the world has readat this point.
And then most, most, mostrecently, um, the Backyard Bird
Chronicles by Amy Tan, which Iloved.
I loved, and I also loved herillustra, her paintings, they're
not even illustrations.
They're beautiful.
Beautiful photographs ofpaintings of birds, um, which is

(57:26):
something else that I reallylove.
I love birds.
So yeah, that's just a, a list Ihave.
I, I could have, I couldcontinue.

list.

So I just finished a season of design
matters, and so with a show, atleast one show a week, and many,
many people that are authorsthat have wr written more than
one book, you know, I can't justread.
Their most recent book.
Also, I have to at least try toread some of their back list so
it's, it can get very intense.

that's where audio books come in handy for
me.

Mm-hmm.
Oh, yeah.

do audios with Backlist.

Yeah.
I don't, I don't do that.
Um, yet, I haven't, I haven'tmade that transition yet.
The only book, the only bookthat I've listened to was
Barbara Streisand's memoir,

It's

but I, I had to stop, I had to stop Jason
because it.
I, I revere her.
I, I revere her.
You know, in a, in a previouslife I was a gay man.
I revere that.
I mean,

girl.
Come on.

and, and, and she reads it in a way that makes
it seem like she's so friendly.
And I'm like, I, I, I don't knowthat I could be your friend.
I need to keep you on mypedestal.
And so after like threechapters, I was like, I just
need to read this.
And, and hear it in a moreformal manner in my head because

(58:52):
she was too familiar.
Like just too, it was too much.
I love her so much that havingher be that friendly and kind of
funny.
Not that she's not funny in, inevery,

was very, it was very close.

yeah, I can't really explain it, but I was
really, it was verydisconcerting to have her in my
ears in that way.

so funny.
You were like, Nope, I need aseparation.

Yeah.
And also that book is beautiful.
I mean, it's just gorgeous.
The cover's gorgeous.
It's a beautiful book.

I couldn't believe how, mm, what's the word
I want to use?
I felt for Barbara Streisand is.

Yeah.

oh, you are allowed to be B, capital S,
Barbara Streisand.
You can be whoever you want.
You could walk into any room.
You can

Yeah.

you want and you've earned it.

Yep.
She's so humble.
I mean, I couldn't get over it.
And, and also the first coupleof chapters, she talks so much
about food.
It's fabulous.

If you wrote a food book, what would it be?
About?

Debbie Millman (01:00:01):
Well, I just wrote a gardening book, which
included Roxanne's menu recipe,kind of.
I'm never gonna write a foodbook.
My food book book would be howmuch I appreciate my wife's
cooking by Debbie Melman.

Jason Blitman (01:00:14):
Um, I would read that.
Okay.
Before I wanna talk about yourbook,

But let's keep talking about this.
This is more fun.
Do you want me to tell you agreat story about Barbara
Streisand?

Yes.

Okay.
This is a story I often tell mystudents because I was so blown
away by, by, by the whole thing.
So it starts probably well overa decade ago.
I was reading an article in theNew Yorker about stage fright
and, and how many peopleactually have stage fright.

(01:00:50):
And they interviewed BarbaraStreisand's manager because
apparently Barbara Streisand hasreally terrible stage fright,
which I didn't know.
And apparently when she was veryyoung and first getting started,
the big public concert she didin Central Park, she forgot the
lyrics to some of her songs orone of her songs.

(01:01:11):
Now I could get up on stage andsing all of Barbara Streisand
songs without losing any of thewords.
But that's beside the point.
So apparently ever since then,that's why she didn't tour for
so many decades because she hadthis terrible stage.
Right.
Yeah.
Because she was afraid of, ofnot remembering her lines or her
words of of songs.

(01:01:32):
So that's part one.

yeah.

Next chapter.
I saw her twice.
I saw her at Madison SquareGarden, which was amazing.

Yes, me too.

And, and I didn't think anything of it
about, you know, I don't evenknow at that point if I had, if
I had read the article in, inNew Yorker about her stage
fright.
But then I went to the show atBarclay Center.
And the tickets were crazyexpensive and no one wanted to
go with me, not for the price ofthe tickets.

(01:02:04):
So I went by myself.
I wore the t-shirt that I hadgotten from the previous concert
and, and I went, and when you'reby yourself, you just notice so
much more.

Yeah.

Now, oh, back to the first chapter.
One of the things that struck methat the manager had said was
that actually BarbaraStreisand's greatest talent
isn't her singing, acting,directing, decorating, none of
that.
What her greatest talent is, isdoing all of those things while
suffering from debilitatingstage fright.

Mm.

So when I saw the second concert, I was by
myself.
And I, you know, sang along toStony End and the way we were
and all of the greats.
And, but for whatever reason, I,I looked around a lot more than
I had in the previous concert.
And I looked up at one point atthe ceiling of the Barclay

(01:02:58):
Center and saw, tucked awayamong the wires and the lights
was a teleprompter with all thelyrics.
Of all the songs and my heartburst because she figured out

(01:03:20):
how to hack away the stagefright and do it anyway.
And, and I tell my students, ifBarbara Streisand suffers from
stage fright and has figured outa way to get around that and do
it anyway, because the choice todo it is bigger than the fear,
then you have no excuse.

I saw the teleprompter, and I have to say,
not only was it lyrics, it wasalso every joke, every line,
everything, and even, even morebrilliant than performing under
those circumstances, she talkabout what a performer she is.
It was as though she wasn'treading,

Right.
Yep.

was delivered as though it was off the top of her
head, and I was like, you'refucking brilliant.

It, yeah, I saw the same thing, all the, all the
little nuances of that she wassaying, which did really seem
off the cuff.
Yeah.

magical

Yeah.

it happen like that.
Anyway, obsessed love BarbaraStreisand.

For 20 minutes about garlic and me for 20
minutes about Babs, and thereyou have it.

we go.
Right on different coast tocoast, the two of you.
I wanna hear about your book andhow it came to be.
Love letter to a Garden.
It is adorable.
It is beautiful.
And like I said, made me want togo love on my, my house plants.

I see one beautiful one behind you.

know I said to your publicist, I was like, I
sort of just wanna take mycamera around my house and make,
have Debbie make sure I knowthat I'm taking care of them
correctly.

Oh, I would, yeah, but you can do that too.

Oh my God.
So funny.
All right, so how did this bookcome to be?

It was.
One of the big surprises of mylife, I have to tell you, I've
had a lifelong journey to tryand be a gardener, but most of
my efforts have resulted in,utter failure really, and I
started to get a little bitbetter.
At planting things.

(01:05:31):
When I started dating Roxannebecause she had a beautiful
house in Los Angeles with afront yard and a backyard, and
they weren't.
Really gardened.
They were well manicured grass,your sort of standard shrubs,
boxwoods, et cetera.

(01:05:52):
Um, but because I had alwaystried to have gardens and was
making one in New York, in mybrownstone, albeit slowly and
somewhat dubiously, and thenduring Covid, I, we decided that
it would be better for me to goand stay with her in Los Angeles
as opposed to her and come andstay with me in, um, in New

(01:06:13):
York, mostly because we'd have alittle bit more freedom, being
able to drive around, have acar, be able to go to the beach,
be able to sort of see more sky.
I had started doing a lot ofvisual essays around my
traveling.
I do a lot.
I go on a lot of expeditions,and I'm a big travel adventurer,
and so the way that I have beendocumenting my, my, I.

(01:06:37):
Ex escapades, which was alsoquite spontaneous, was to make
these little visual essays.
And I do a lot of work with thefolks at Ted who run the TED
Conference.
Um, my podcast is part of theiraudio collective, and they asked
me when Ted had gone completelyonline because of Covid to.

(01:07:00):
Do some interstitials betweenthe talks, some, some visual
essays that sort of came to lifewith narration.
And I did, I did three of them.
I did one, uh, a love letter totraveling, a love letter to
storytelling, and a love letterto gardening.

Hmm.

So about a year and a half ago I got an.
Email out of the blue from aneditor at Timber Press and
Timber is owned by Ette, askingif I would be interested in
creating a visual book aboutgardening.
And I wrote back and was like,I'm not sure if you are writing

(01:07:42):
to the right person here.
Um, I'm not a gardener.
I am.
I am a wannabe gardener.
I am a, I am on a quest tobecome a gardener, but if you
are asking me to write a bookabout gardening, then every
gardener on the planet willprotest because there.

has already turned them down?

There's nothing I can teach anybody about the
actual discipline of gardening.
And I said, if you're lookingfor a quest to become a
gardener, if you're looking forsomebody to document all their
failures and what they did wrongand how they've come to a
modicum of success, then I'myour girl.
And they wrote back and said,yes, that sounds like a fun
book.
So that's what I did.

I love that.
Okay.
But I also really want the loveletter to storytelling.

Oh yeah.

on that next?
How do, can I find thatsomewhere?
Where is it?
Who do I have to, who do I haveto call?

If you do search on my name, it'll, they're still
there.

okay.
I'll link all of this in theshow notes too so everybody can
go watch them.
Um,'cause that sounds beautiful.
there was something that yousaid in the book that really
struck me.
You said as you've gotten older,you've gotten less comfortable
doing things that you're notgood at.
And I find that so interesting.
'cause I, I feel like Iconstantly hear the opposite.

(01:09:03):
As people get older, they sortof don't give a shit about.
How, how people, what peoplethink of them.
have you combated that at all?

Good question.
I am doing more things that I'mfundamentally uncomfortable
doing because I'm not good atthem.
Those two things are learninganother language, which French.
Roxanne and her family all speakfluent French.

(01:09:31):
Her family's from HA from Haiti.
Um, so they speak Creole French,but they also know more
traditional French.
And after a hip operation that Ihad two years ago.
I was very severely warned thatif I didn't do physical therapy,
that it would not be a goodthing for my hip or my body.

(01:09:55):
And because I'm a huge walker, Iwalk everywhere and I love
walking.
I really took the PT veryseriously.
But up until that point in mylife, um, the last time you
could find me in a gym was insixth grade.

Got it.

And so that was super hard for me.
So now I'm super proud of thefact that I can do things.
And so those are two of thebiggest things I've spent a lot
of my life.
I.
Wanting to do things and beingtoo afraid to do things for lots
and lots of reasons, not justbecause of failure, but probably

(01:10:36):
what goes below that is thehumiliation of being seen as
failing at something.
Um, but there's so many, likewoulda, coulda, shouldas that
now that I'm in my sixties, I,I've become very impatient with
myself in this regard.
And I'm more like.
If not now, when, like, how muchlonger are you gonna be saying

(01:10:58):
you wish you could speak anotherlanguage or you wish you could
do and blah, blah, blah.
So I'm taking those, those,those sort of hopes and dreams a
little bit more seriously.

I love that.
Thank you for sharing, sharingall of that.
I think, uh, there are importantthings to remember.

Yeah.

One quick question before I let you go.

Oh, we can talk forever.

I Great.
I have time, so if you have sometime, well, something to ask
before we go.

Okay.

I, I want to amplify people in our lives that
we care about.
you're not allowed to say,Roxanne,

Okay.

if you were to die suddenly, who is clearing
your internet search history?

Oh my God.

Who do we trust with our life and our secrets?

Um, oh my God.
Oh my God.
I would probably ask four peopleto do this or in different, in
different ways.

love.

Maybe five.
Um, I would, I would ask.

stages so that

Yeah.

knows all the secrets.

Right.
Yeah.
I would ask kid, my dear friendwho, Has some, oh, well, I'm not
gonna go there.
I would ask Chip kid, the bookdesigner, to clear my reading
history.

Oh.

I would ask my cousin, Eileen, who I talk about
in the book to clear out mygardening history.
I would ask Emily Oberman, oneof my dear asbestos friends, to
clear out all of my, um, TMZ,uh, culture slash culture ish

(01:12:53):
history

uh.

and, um.
I would ask my friend DeedeeGordon, who's, who's also
somebody that I've done a lot ofbusiness with, to clear out all
of my banking info

Oh

Roxanne got all the money

yes, of course, of course.

and, and all the business stuff.
All the boring business stuff.
Yeah.

So

Oh, and then I would ask Mario Poppo another
really good friend of mine to,to clear out all the other
ancillary stuff about scienceand.

The miscellaneous Uhhuh Uhhuh.
So funny how awesome that youhave such a long list.

Oh yeah, I do.
Well one, one is my cousin, oneis my ex.
You know, all lesbians are

matter.
It

so

I think that's so fantastic.
I wouldn't

thank you.

any of my cousins, so.

well, Eileen is featured in the book because
she's really the person who'staught me most about gardening
than anyone.

Tell me why I need to watch all 10 seasons of
Colombo.

The guest stars, Faye Dunaway.

Oh my God.

Cash.

It like really wasn't on my radar until I read
that in your book.
I

A young, very young, like probably 19.
Kim Catrell, Jason Robbar, Imean everybody.
Who was anybody?
At that time in the seventieswas on that show.

That's

It was incredible.
Just incredible.

watching.
'cause you watched all 10

All 10 seasons.
And I would watch them again andso would Roxanne.
We loved it.
And the pace that the, you know,it's a two hour show and the
first half hour to 45 minutes,you don't even see Colombo.
It's all about the, theperpetrator doing the bad deeds.
So we know who it is, but thenColombo comes in and the, and

(01:14:50):
the perpetrator, the, thecriminal was always a famous
person like Johnny Cash, FageOnaway.
I mean, it was incredible thenumber of famous people that
were on Colombo,

Interesting.
And I'm fascinated by that styleof the storytelling because
murder she wrote, Sherlock,you're, you're on the journey
with the

right?

don't know who did it.

Yeah.

is a very interesting turn.

very slow tv.
You, you know, it's often inthat first half hour, you don't,
there's not even any dialogue.
You see the sort of machinationsof this bad behavior and the
music.
And do you know that StevenSpielberg directed the very
first episode of Colombo?

No, I didn't know that, but now I do.

Yeah.
Right now, no words.

I just got so much information into my brain
that is so funny.
we could talk endlessly aboutall of the things.
You are a delight.
I can't wait for people to checkout the book to maybe be
inspired to start their owngarden.
I need to be Googling what alemon cucumber is because.

(01:15:56):
saw that and I was like, I needto know more.
Does it taste like a lemon?
Is

Yeah.

yellow?

It's yellow, it's round.
It sort of has a roundish shapeto it.
Not quite oval like lemon.
Um, but it's round.
Um, I have to say, if you'regoing to grow cucumbers, I would
go with, um, Persian or Englishcucumbers.

I just had never heard of a lemon cucumber

Yeah.
I mean, I, I got the littleseedlings and then grew them and
they took, so that was like, Ialso tried other cucumbers, but
failed.

Mm-hmm.

I like that the, um, actual sort of outside of
the cucumber, but the seeds arevery big and I don't like
cucumber seeds.
I love cucumbers, but I alwayscut the seeds off

Interesting.
I find them sort of benign, butI can respect it.

in, in traditional cucumbers and in
lemon cucumbers, they're verybig.
Part of the reason I like curvycucumbers or Persian or English
is that the, the, the seeds aremuch, much smaller.

I'm probably eating Persian and English.
Yeah.

Yeah, they're long and thin.

Right, right, right.
Exactly.
Oh my God, love.

Like I wish my legs were,

no, we're perfect.
We're all perfect.
Well this has been a delight.
You're fantastic.
Thank you so much for being myesque reader today.

My pleasure.
It has been an honor, anabsolute blast.

You are so sweet.
Annie, Debbie, thank you both somuch for being here.
Everyone, you're the best.
Thank you so much for listening,and I will see you next week.
Bye.

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