Denne Michele Norris (When the Harvest Comes) feat. Zee Carlstrom, Guest Gay Reader

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Gays 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'm your host Jason Blitman, andon today's episode I have Denne
Michele Norris talking to meabout her new book When The

(00:44):
Harvest comes and Z Carlstromtalking to me about their new
book.
Make sure you die screaming.
big thank you to those who cameout to Book Soup in LA this past
weekend.
I was in conversation with thelovely Sean Hewitt, sean was
last week's Gay's reading guest,and this coming weekend I will

(01:05):
be at the LA Festival of Booksmoderating a panel over there on
Saturday at four 30.
So if you're there for that,please stick around and say
hello What else do we have goingon?
If you are new to Gazes reading,welcome and if you are back,
welcome back.
I'm very happy to have you.
As always, if you like whatyou're hearing, please share us
with your friends.

(01:25):
Follow us on social media.
We are on Instagram@gaysreading.
We are on Blue Sky you couldwatch these episodes over on
YouTube and you can like andsubscribe wherever you get your
podcasts.
So you will be the first to knowwhen a new episode drops.
And this Thursday I have a newspill, the t episode that I'm

(01:46):
super excited for.
So make sure to, uh, come backaround for that.
That is with Nathan h Lentz, whowrote a book about sexual
evolution.
So I talked to Nathan about thatand he's super interesting and
that's really fun.
And now please enjoy myconversation with Denne Michele
and Zee.

Jason Blitman (02:07):
I'm, I hope you pick up the mug again because we
love a Dollywood Shout out

Denne Michele Norris (02:12):
I literally chose this one
specifically for you, for thispodcast.

And I have a ga, a gay reader mug.

Yes.
Yes.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.

yes, you just moved, you put an ask out for
mover recommendations formattress recommendations.
You have a whole lot going on inyour life at this moment.

I do.

hanging in?

I'm managing.
The timing worked out great, butnow I'm like, and now I'm
decorating as I do book stuff.
So I have something important todistract me.
So that's also really good.

hot tip.
Next time you move, which I hopeis not anytime soon.
Whenever we would move in NewYork, we would get, they were
called gorilla bins, and theywere these reusable plastic bins
that, a company would drop offto you two weeks before you move
and then pick it up from thelocation that you move to the

(03:06):
best part about it.
A, it's green, but b, you have adeadline of unpacking.

Oh yeah.
Okay.
See, I need that.

That's right.
'cause they're coming to pick upthe bins.
You have to have them empty.

That is amazing.
That's great

my hot tip

That's a great, and it's green.
And we love green.

it's green.
I know, but you could giveyourself like a fake one.
It could

Yeah.

You're gonna host a book, launch party in your
apartment and you have to haveyour boxes gone.

I think it is gonna be something like that.
I think it's probably gonna belike I have a festival this week
and then a WP next

Oh, sure.

and the week after that, as of now, is a
little bit lighter in terms oflike interviews and things.
So I.
My goal, I think, is that weekto have all of my new furniture
arrive, have all the boxes.
I think most of the boxes I'mgonna try to have picked up this
week because I can't deal withthem anymore.

While it's giving a cis white man telling you what
to do, it's really, it's Jewishmother, like making sure you're
taken care of.
Denne Michelle, empty the boxes.
Make it nice in your apartment.

That this is the task.
This is the moment.
This is the moment.

girl.
Make it nice.
Your friends don't wanna seethat.

No.
Neither do the reader, andneither does my dog, who, by the
way, is right there,

Hi dog.

to me.
His name is Hughes.

God.

He's been very clingy today, so I was
like, yes, you can come up onthe high stool.
It's fine.

The top of your sweatshirt.
I can see it says, love that.
Does the rest say for you?

You missed one word.
It says, love that journey foryou.
Yes.
Let's see.
Can I, there we

Oh my God.
Funny.
Okay.

Covered in dog hair.

It was one of those things where your brain
fills in space and I saw lovethat.
And I was like, I can't imagine.
Maybe it says love that andthat's it, but like my brain is
telling me, it says for you.
But I love this journey for you.
Speaking of journeys dead,Michelle.
This is an audio medium.
I'm holding up your book everyonce in a while.

(05:12):
I forget to describe what I'mdoing.
I just held up your debut novelwhen The Harvest Comes Gorgeous
cover,

Thank you.

There's a lot to talk about.
There's a lot to unpack.
There's a lot to digest.
There's a lot to, there's a bigjourney that I love for you.
Let's, before we can we talkabout the journey specifically
getting from no, we can't evendo that.
My brain is all over the place.
The book you started writing

Yes.

In your galley note, you talk about that and
then you talk about how it tookyou 14 years to write.
What was that journey like?
And then we could talk morespecifically about the book
itself.

I love talking about this because I do,
because I think that one,writers need to know, other
writers out there who areaspiring need to know that this
work is will really test yourpatience.
And so yeah, this took 14 yearsand.
so the funny thing is I startedthe book, as I said in the
galley note like in the monthsafter my father passed away, and

(06:18):
I was in the middle of my twoyears in my MFA program at Sarah
Lawrence.
And I had done well there myteachers were, very encouraging
and supportive of my writing,but I really that my fiction
wasn't.
There was just something that itwas missing.
Like I would never revise astory.
I would write a story, I'd getpretty good notes on it.

(06:40):
And then I would move on to thenext idea.
Nothing, I didn't care aboutanything enough to like work at
it.
And I knew that this was aproblem and I really felt that
maybe I had made a mistake andneeded to go to law school, but
instead I started by trying towrite something.
That was like true to myeveryday life, and I thought, if

(07:01):
I can get rid of trying toconvince anyone of anything,
because I know that it's likecloser to my life, I can focus
on the emotional truth.
And so it, it almost started asan exercise in a way.
And then, I very quicklyrealized this was a story that I
would stick with for howeverlong it took.
And at the time I thought.
God, this might take me fiveyears and that's fine.

(07:23):
I'll do it.
That's fine.
I went to my MFA young, so Ispent that time, I moved to New
York.
When I graduated, I had to buildlike a career that paid me more
than an hourly wage.
'cause prior to my MFA, I'dworked in retail mostly.
I had to learn how to live inNew York and pay a bill on time
and.
Get around the city.
I was building friends anddating and building a life, and

(07:44):
my work was in my day job workwas in student affairs and youth
development work.
So I had this whole other careertrajectory and I was writing
just on top of that.
And so it necessarily took along time because those
concerns, are really real.
I wanted writing to be thenumber one thing in my life,
but.
I had to make sure my rent waspaid.

(08:06):
I had, and I had to make sure Ihad food.

And that you were living a fulfilled life in a
capacity outside of writing.
The writing isn't gonna keep youwarm at night.

Exactly.
A lot of writers, we feel thatthe writing will save us.
And I've had, in the last coupleof weeks, I've felt both that
the writing did save me becauseit's very clear.
I mean in very material ways I.
In addition to like theemotional metaphorical aspect of
saving.
But also there are ways in whichthe writing didn't save me.
I saved me.

(08:35):
I had, and I had to live a lifealongside it for many years as I
got to this point.
So yeah.
But I always want writers toknow that we've gotta give
ourselves grace about the timeit takes because this is serious
business.
We're trying to make art here.
And it takes the time it takes.

Yeah.
On some other podcasts, in someother articles you have talked
about your trans journey, yourgender journey.
You've talked about all aspectsof your coming out process 14
years ago.
Was a different, incrediblydifferent part of your life and

(09:12):
I think you were learning.
So per other interviews thatyou've done, you've learned so
much about yourself in the last14 years.
So I'm curious the journey ofevolving with.
The writing.
Does that make sense?
Did the book St.
When you started writing, wereyou writing the same book that
you finished writing is part ofthe question, but ultimately,

(09:32):
you talked about writing truthand writing things that were
true to you upon learning moreabout you after finishing the
novel.
There are whiffs of autofiction, so I don't know if that
was the intention is the wrongword, but if that was the
ultimate goal or if you werelearning about Davis, the
character and learning about DanHel simultaneously.

Yes, I was, and it feels fortuitous in
a way.
I have one thing I've wanted tosay in sort of the media that
I've been getting is that I.
When I finished the book, Irealized that I couldn't have
finished it any sooner because Ineeded to go through the things
I needed to go through in orderto see this novel through to its

(10:16):
end, but also in that there's acircuitous because I felt as
though I, in fact, the noveldoes end where it always was
supposed to end, and in manyways, it's a winding journey to
write a novel and you go down alot of wrong paths in the
process, or at least I did, andI almost feel as though what

(10:42):
I've finished with is soperfectly what I envisioned at
the beginning, even though Ididn't, the vision at the
beginning is so vague, like youdon't know a lot.
You know how it, how you, or atleast for me, I knew how I
wanted it to feel.
I knew what I wanted thesecharacters to go through in
terms of their relationship, butI did not know the vehicle.
I didn't know how they weregonna get there.

(11:03):
I didn't know how Davis wasgonna get there.
And, but by the end I was like,I couldn't have finished this
any sooner.
And at some point through theprocess I was like, I'm growing
up alongside this novel and I.
I knew in an earlier version Ihad ideas about what I wanted a

(11:26):
reader to know about Davis.
And it was almost like ifsomeone asked that reader to, or
if that reader got to check inon Davis, five years in the
future, they would see adifferent person.
And the reader would know, butthen I was like, if that's what
I want a reader to know, Ishould just write it.

(11:46):
Like it just, why leave it upfor any discussion?
That's where the story needs togo.
And so that revelation did cometowards the end of the writing
process when you think about 14years.
But it just felt, it felt sonatural.

You say you want it.
The goal was the truth.
The goal was, being honest and Ithink.
That's, that was what wasgetting mine the whole way.
'cause if you had written thebook differently, then it
wouldn't have been the truth oryour truth.
Okay.
Listeners, tell us, for ourlisteners, tell us when the
harvest comes.

(12:22):
What is your elevator pitch forthe book?

my elevator pitch is this is.
A queer love story that isirrevocably impacted by daddy
issues by grief, by searchingfor intimacy and ultimately
people finding their way back toeach other.

Yeah, I laugh because it's like hilariously
universal.
Do you know what

Yes.

the book starts out and it's giving nineties
romcom.

Yep.
Yep.

And it is ju, it's so relatable in that way.
And so it's oh, I am nothinglike some of the characters in
this book.
And yet we are all like all ofthese characters in this book.
What do I wanna talk about next?
There, there's

Go anywhere.

I know well, before we dive in, I guess too
much to the book again, inanother interview that you did,
you talk about your name andwhere Michelle comes from and
shout outs to our girls, Obamaand Wan.

Yes.

didn't realize.
You were a figure skater.
Tell me more.
How did this what is, if therewas something about these two
women that you were like,they're my girls.
This is my journey, this is whatI aspire to, is there a
particular inspiration from themother than the obvious?

No, they just, they both are iconic women
in my mind that I, they're bothpeople that I think about on an
almost daily basis.
What I'm looking for, I.
Strength, confidence,inspiration.
When I feel like I need thatvoice in my head to be like, you
have the answer, look insideyourself.
I can hear that kind ofencouragement coming from

(14:09):
Michelle Kwan and I can hearthat kind of encouragement
coming from Michelle Obama.
So that's what I'm thinkingabout a lot of the time with
them.
And I just love that name.
I think it's such a beautifulname.
But I also prefer the spellingwith one L.
So I was very specific andintentional about that.
But yeah, they're just they'rejust two iconic women that on
the daily basis are offering meencouragement.

(14:32):
They have no idea.
They don't know why I exist.
I did meet Michelle Kwan once,but they don't, they have no
clue.
But here we are yet.

we are manifesting.
We're on a journey.
Who knows what 14 years from nowis gonna give us.

Yes, true.

Obsessed.
Okay.
I just needed to like addressthat as a gay human, this was
important to me.

It's

The book starts out in the, with this prep for a
wedding between Davis andEverett.
Davis talks about loving Everettbecause he knows Everett knows
in italics.
And it just made me think of thephrase to know someone is to
love them.
And then it had me thinking moreabout is that where love comes
from?
Does love come from knowingsomeone?
What does that mean to you?

Oh, that is such a good question.
I think one of the things that Itumble around in my head is the
possibility that love comes fromdifferent places for different
people and.
So that meant that for thepurposes of this book, I had to

(15:38):
understand where love's come,where love comes from for Davis,
where love comes from forEverett.
And I think that's a part of whythey love each other.
And I think very often how welove and how love is inspired in
us has a lot to do with who welove.
Because we can only.

(16:00):
I don't know.
I don't want to say that love islimited, but I, but when it
comes to certain kinds ofrelationships, we can only love
the people who relate to us orconnect to us in the way that I
think inspires love.
That causes love to bloom insideof us.
And so for Davis, what that linereally referred to was just this

(16:23):
idea that he grew up in.
A home and in a family and in acontext where actually knowing
each other was very difficult.
And that's not how that familyalways had been.
But in the wake of the loss thathappens at an early age for

(16:43):
Davis where his mother passesaway and in his father's grief,
there are certain walls that areerected.
And to actually know someone isvery difficult.
And I think that's a part of whyDavis throws himself into the
career path that he throwshimself into.
It's part of why so many thingsunfold in the novel in the way

(17:03):
that they do, but I think forDavis it would be very, it's
very easy to fall in love with aman who makes himself available.
Like really available.
And I think that, I guess that'strue for all of us.
It's not always easy to findsomeone who makes themselves
emotionally and psychologicallyavailable.

(17:23):
But that's what Davis was hungryfor.
Although he didn't know it untilhe met Everett.
I've read.

What about Jen Michelle?
Does she feel like she can lovesomeone?
Does she love someone becauseshe knows them well?
I to interrupt myself and tointerrupt you I'll take that
out.
I'll take that away.
I'll take that off your platefor a second.
Conversely, I feel like you weregetting at something but not
actually saying.
If you don't know someone, it'shard to love them or you cannot

(17:50):
love them,

Yeah.
It's tough to, for me to sayanyone can or can't love, like
it's hard for me to computethat, but you, but that is how I
feel like how is it really loveif you don't know someone?
Now that I understand is a veryrational way of thinking about
it.
Like when you talk about love atfirst sight, like obviously you
don't know someone the firsttime you see them.
But I would actually argue thatpart of why something like love

(18:13):
at first sight happens isbecause on a level that's beyond
consciousness, perhaps you doknow them, you know them
immediately, and they know you.
And you may not be able toarticulate it, you may not be
able to explain it.
I have never felt love at firstsight romantically, I don't

(18:35):
think.
But I have felt love at firstsight for friends.
And truly the minute that we metit was like we're in this till
the bitter end.
And that happens, right?
And you feel like you've knownthem forever, even though you
haven't.
So I think there is a level ofknowledge that goes beyond what
we're conscious of.

(18:55):
And yeah, it's hard for me tothen say that you can't but
maybe that is what I'm saying.
Maybe that is what I'm thinking,that you can't love someone if
you don't know them.

totally.
And I think unpacking.
The parental stuff.
You said that in Davis' family,knowing each other was difficult
'cause they weren't open witheach other.
That it in turn just made itharder to love each other.
And I think just it's, I say allthe time there's a difference

(19:22):
between family and relatives andjust because we're relatives
doesn't mean we know each other.
Right.
Just because you're relateddoesn't mean you have that
connection.
Metaphysically that you havewith a stranger that you meet
because there's a, them in somecapacity, whatever that means.
It had me thinking a lot aboutthat.

I wouldn't, I don't know that I
would call it a central theme,but I do feel like the ways in
which this novel operatesbetween, biological family and
chosen family is very reflectiveof, queer people, queer
relationships, queer life, andthe ways in which we as a
community have to embrace chosenfamily.

(20:03):
Because for so many of us,particularly of a certain age,
it wasn't safe for us to beknown in our biological families
all the time.
I think there are other booksthat are like more maybe
specifically on the nose aboutthat, but I don't know how you
write a queer book that doesn'tdeal with that in some way.
And I was certainly very happyto write about it in, when the

(20:23):
harvest comes.

you earlier on talked about, joked about, were
serious about, I laughed aboutdaddy issues.

Oh yes.
All of them.
All of

And it's like it had me thinking about.
My relationship with my father,which at the moment is
nonexistent.
And me prioritizing therapy, theneed for therapy, my promotion
of therapy, because I thinktalking to somebody allows
yourself to know yourselfbetter.
And when you know yourself, youcan love yourself and share

(20:54):
yourself.
And I think when I think about.
Complicated pieces of myrelationship with my dad.
So much of it comes from him notaddressing the truth in his own
life.
Him not addressing his ownfeelings, him not sharing
himself, and in turn, making itharder to have that
relationship.
There are truths of hischildhood that I am aware of,

(21:17):
but that he doesn't talk aboutor that, doesn't address.
And so it, it builds that wallup and I think, I think we could
unpack knowing someone andloving someone all day long.
'cause that's so much of that,and especially in that
generation.

Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think that's one of thebiggest, tensions that we see
among queer people of our sortof millennial generation in
particular.
And I think, so many of ourfathers didn't know that they
could allow themselves to beknown in the ways that we

(21:52):
probably needed to know them.
And I think about that a lotbecause.
Like my father, I feel like Iknew him very well.
And I think he was good at that.
Particularly for his generation.
He was born in 1935.
So yeah, I'm the youngest in myfamily.
My dad was 50 when I was born.

(22:14):
So really that generation, kidsare seen and not heard.
You just take, we love eachother because we're family.
That's, there's, you don't needto think about it in any way
other than that.
But he, I think for thatgeneration was very emotionally
intelligent.
And so I did feel like I, I knewhim and yet there was just

(22:37):
inevitably there was a wallthere that I think.
I that I think has to do withhow many men think they're
supposed to move through theworld.
I think there's a lot of, I amnot supposed to put my turmoil
on you.

(22:58):
I am, that makes me a burden.
I'm supposed to hold yourdifficulty and solve your
problems and provide for you andprotect for you.
But I'm not supposed to.
I.
Ask any of those things of youbecause you're my partner or you
are my child and that's not howthis relationship is supposed to

(23:18):
work.
And that might be very generousof me in certain ways, but I
think that what I'm saying isthat I think even the best of
men who are of certaingenerations, I think it's
changing a little bit, but whoare of certain generations and
certain identities.
There's a wall up simply becauseof those things.

Sure.
And to that point, something ofthe book is also so much about
is how we bring our full paststo our relationships.
And that's relationships with.
Everyone, so our parents arebringing their pasts to their
relationships with theirchildren.
How does that affect your dailylife, do you think your own,

(23:59):
bringing your own past to your,to, to all the people that you
engage with around the world?

You call me Louis Vuitton because all I
have is baggage.
Like

How many times have you said that?

actually that's the first time, but I'm
trademarking it.
That's the

Oh,

very first time.

you heard it here first, everyone?

Yeah, I literally thought of that as you
asked the question, but I butthat's how I am.
I'm not a good comcompartmentalizer in any way.
So all of my stuff, like all ofmy stuff in my background is
everywhere.
So like in, like in my currentjob, right?
Like I am I'm the editor inchief of Electric Literature and
we're a nonprofit, and I, mostof that career that I developed

(24:41):
before I was full-time literaryas I am now, was in the
nonprofit sector.
I was doing nonprofit serservice oriented work for
marginalized communities inHarlem and and in the area of
youth development.
And I had, horrible experiencesfor the most part at those jobs.
And, people were transphobic,they were emotionally abusive.
There were all kinds of problemsin those places.

(25:03):
And when I left the last one.
I said I would never, ever goback to a nonprofit.
I was leaving the sector andwhen I came to Electric Lit, I
was like, oh, it's a nonprofit,I was like, I think it'll be
fine.
It's completely differentpeople.
It's a completely different areaof the nonprofit world, and
that's true, but that baggage.

(25:23):
It pops up all the time and Ihave to therapize myself and
manage it.
And I have a I'm very happythere.
I have a great relationship.
I don't want to say anythinglike that, like it's really
amazing, but it has been

Trauma's trauma.

traumas trauma and and Halima, who's my,
who's the executive director atElectric Lit has not known that
she has had to do this, but shehad to prove herself to me in
certain ways.
S simply because frankly, she'sa white woman at the top of a
nonprofit and I have traumathere.
And it has been a completelydifferent experience, and I am

(25:58):
like, okay, like I can work inthis sector, I can do this work.
And it's just, it's completelychanged everything.
So like I have professionalbaggage that like, accompanies
me in professional settings.
I absolutely have personalbaggage that accompanies me in
all of my personal areas.
One could argue that this entirenovel is me taking my baggage

(26:20):
and putting it in a beautifulpackage for people to read.

And to, yes, there is humor in that, but also
that's sometimes what we need todo.
It's, putting it into somethingcreative and passing it off into
the world.
And I don't wanna say moving onbecause you don't move on from
the baggage.
However when it could when youcan see that it could be put in
a small package, it's easier tonot feel the burden of it, I

(26:47):
imagine.

Yes, and also it just, it gave me.
Writing a novel was an excusefor me to live in the baggage
and deal with it and turn itaround in my head and therapize
myself.
Not that I haven't worked withtherapists,'cause I definitely
have.
But a big part of that islearning how to manage yourself.
And I'm, that I'm very good at.

(27:09):
And I had a real excuse to dothat work because it was
connecting, it was connected tothe art that I wanted to make.
I told my thesis advisor SarahLawrence, when I came back my
second year, and I had startedworking on this.
And I wasn't ready to call it anovel yet.
I was saying it was a long storyor a novella, but I said to her,

(27:30):
I was 25 and I said, I feellucky because I feel like I have
found the thing.
That is why I'm a writer.
I.
I think very often writers knowthat we're writers long before
we know why we're writers.
And I don't mean like reasonslike loving it, but in terms of
what are the things that we needto be living with and dealing

(27:52):
with and writing about thethings that keep us up at night
for things that drive us towrite.
I think it takes more time oftento identify that.
And I, in the process ofstarting this, I was like, oh,
this is why I write, I.
That's why I didn't care aboutany of the other short stories
that I wrote and would neverrevise them.
And as soon as I finished themwas onto the next story.
'cause that's where my attentiontook me.

(28:15):
Those were not why I waswriting.
I was just cutting my teeth alittle bit.
This is why I am writing and theproject as someone who wants to
write for the rest of my life,is to make sure that everything
that I write, short things areone thing, but in terms of book
projects are things that are whyI'm writing and that they take
up that much space in my mindand my heart.

(28:36):
And I'm sure that I veered sofar away from that original
question that you asked, so letme know if I didn't answer it.

No.
I think the conversation aboutbringing our baggage to
everything that we have theconversation about, just
identifying pieces of us andcompartmentalizing all of that
into one space.
I think it's almost like a.
You have to let it expand inorder to shrink it back down.

Exactly.

yeah.
Anyway.
No, I think it's that.
I think you, there was an answerin there.
Of course, yes.

but every book I write, everything I write
is going to be tied to mybaggage in some

right.
Yes.

it has to be.

'cause that's we bring ourselves to everything
that we do.
So a lot of the book.
About, not about, but there's alot of nurture versus nature.
There's a lot of becoming in thebook.
There is a lot of questioningand there's a great quote that

(29:40):
I'm gonna misquote, but there'sa line in the book that's
something along the lines of.
N don't be more worried aboutwhat ifs when you could be
excited about what is, and Ithink we're so worried about the
maybes and the becoming and thewhat is going to happen and the
questioning of the, where didthis come from?

(30:02):
But without focusing on the nowis there, do you have a trick
for that, for yourself of livingin the moment?

A little bit.
So there's two things I am partof.
This comes from both the figureskating and I, I played viola
also very seriously.
Through

Oh, we're gonna talk about that.

yes.
So that is the thing.
And I both of those things,learning how to do them is so
physical, right?
There's like physical technique.
And so it makes you, you becomesomeone who's very in tune with
your body.
And so for me, one of the waysin which I.

(30:46):
Am able to slow my brain downand help myself stay in the
moment, is just literally payingattention to my physical, being,
paying attention to how my bodyis feeling in a moment.
Taking a moment to feel theground underneath my feet,
taking the moment to feel thetemperature that I'm at and
whether or not I'm comfortabletaking a moment to I might, I

(31:08):
don't know, run my hand throughmy hair or something.
Or if I have an ice cold glassof water, feel like the ice cold
water going down my throat, justsomething to bring me into my
body, which reminds me that inthis second, in this minute,
this is what I'm accountable to.
And everything else can waitanother minute or five minutes
or 10 minutes while I get myhead into the right space.

(31:32):
Nothing is so urgent that Ican't stop for 60 seconds.
And, everyone, anyone will giveme 60 seconds, pretty much at
any point, right?
So I can always do that, right?
So that's one thing.
The second thing, which is alittle bit different, but when
it comes to things like you'reon the precipice of something

(31:54):
and you're worried about, thepast or what people think or
whatever, versus, doing whateverit is that you need to do.
I don't have a trick for this,but I talk about it.
One thing about me is that I,once I get tired of something,
I'm just done.
I'm just done.
So like this, the way that Icame out as a gay man when I was

(32:19):
15, was I simply got tired ofbeing afraid of lying to
everyone, of feeling that therewas something wrong with me.
I was like, I'm tired of this.
This is crazy and I'm not doingit anymore.
And then I came out and that wasit.
And I truly was like, if anyonehas a problem with this, that's
their problem.

(32:39):
That's the world's problem.
That has nothing to do with me.
And I was bitchy about it'causeI needed to be'cause of my
settings, right?
Like I was just you have issues,like I'm gonna live my best
life.
And that's how I felt.
But that's how I tick.
So even like with breakups.
I'm sad until a point, andeventually, usually pretty

(33:00):
quickly I get tired of being sadand then I just stop being sad
because I'm tired of feelingthat way, like I'm tired of
feeling that way.
You could argue that part of whyI finally finished the novel is
because I was tired of nothaving finished the novel.
I really was

whatever it takes.

whatever it takes, I just get tired of
something and when I get tiredof something.
I end up saying to myself, youdon't have to live like this.
And once I've said that tomyself, it's like the train is,
has left the station and I'malmost at it at my whims.
And so those are two things thateither keep me in the moment or

(33:41):
get me to start moving when Ineed to move.

Yeah.
Thank you for sharing that.
I realized in the moment or uponreflection, I was like, oh, I
was, I'm essentially asking youto give me answers, which I'm
not really, it was, I am.
It's interesting, I think,'causewe all.
We all humans, queer peoplenavigate similar nuggets

(34:05):
throughout life and.
I think hearing what you weresaying about being tired, I'm
like, oh, I have lived so muchof my life being worried about
what people are going to thinkof me, that I've I've, I am, I'm
beyond capacity, so I don't careanymore.
So it has, that cup has filledand overflowed and not in a good

(34:26):
way, and I'm just like, oh, Ihave, I've hit my threshold of
caring what people think and sonow I don't care anymore.

And now.
And now you're free of that.
It's like imagining a world, alife where you get to be free of
that feeling.

Yeah.
And so you were talking aboutthe, cold glass of water, et
cetera, almost like ameditation.
Davis in the book plays scalesin arpeggios as a form of
meditation.
Do, would you, do you also dothat?
Is that also on your list ofthings as a violist, former
violist?
Do you still play.

No I don't play anymore.
I would like to, again I miss ita little bit and I miss the
repertoire.
I.
And so one thing that is on myto-do list sometime this year is
to have my viola repaired andstart playing again because
there is one thing that wasalways an issue in my playing
was that I held a lot of tensionin my shoulders and in my back.

(35:18):
And so the task was always torelax, to lower my shoulders, to
let that tension drain out of mybody.
And I think putting that intopractice again would just be
good for me and I do miss it.
But I will say scales andarpeggios.
My teachers talked about them asa form of meditation.
They were not for me.
They were a task.
They were boring.

(35:39):
I hated them.
Now I think I would love them init and they would work that way
for me.
But at that time, when Iattached so much to Viola,'cause
I wanted to.
Play viola professionally for along time and I had a lot of
issues around feeling like I wasinadequate and not good enough
and not talented enough and sothat just like made me crazy.
And so I was not as good at likejust enjoying the moment and
enjoying the practice for whatit was.

(36:00):
So at the time it was notpeaceful for me at all, but I
think it would be now.

And also you.
Similar with the book.
You've been on a journey since,I'm sure the last time you
picked up a bow.
And I am imagine that, thebaggage, can also be a good
thing right?
And so, And so bringing the newbaggage to the table with
playing maybe you wouldn't holdthe tension on your shoulders so

(36:25):
much anymore.
I it's just it could beinteresting to explore what.
What you as a violist looks likenow.

Denne Michele Norri (36:34):
absolutely.
And I'm excited to do it.
It would be fun.
And that's exactly right.
Even thinking about technicalissues that I had, and I was
like, I wonder if those would begone away simply because I'm not
gonna be in my head about it inthe same way now, yeah.
Yeah.

That's so interesting.
Whilst we are talking aboutmusic Oh, still scales in
arpeggio.
Arpeggios you talk about.
There's a great description inthe book about them that I
won't, I don't really want toget into'cause I want people to
experience it when they read thebook, comparing it to a
playground.
And I will just say that it mademe think about life in general

(37:14):
in a different way.
I in the sense of we are, wehave the we.
Life is life.
These are our tools, this is ourplayground.
Period.
Do with it as you will.

Yeah, first.
Wow, thank you.
I have to tell you, I had somuch fun writing that passage
that was like incredibly joyfulfor me.
And it was so easy to imaginethe ways that Davis would tell
that, or speak that soliloquy,in a joyful way.

(37:51):
Simply because he's so excitedabout what he loves to do,
right?
And that's how I talk aboutwriting to people really.
So it was really fun to imaginethat and to imbue that.
And it was really fun to justlet my imagination run wild.
And what I'll tell you about itis that when I wrote it, I wrote
that during my first round ofrevisions, after the novel had
sold.
And I remember sending thatdraft to my editor and I just

(38:16):
was like.
I don't know.
She might think this is toomuch.
Like it might be over the top.
It might be too crazy.
But it just went through.
Everyone loved it.
And so that, that's been reallyfun to talk about because it
was, for me, it felt like amoment where I got to really
lean into the character actuallyand show the reader who this
character is, how this characterthinks and moves through the

(38:38):
world.
So it does a lot of work in thatway, but it was intricate to
write, it was challenging, itwas fun.
But I also think that it speaksto my project as a whole in
terms of, being able to look atthe world around me and be like,
yes, this is the life I have.

(38:58):
This is, here's what I can dowith it.
Here are the options.
So let's look at thisrationally.
And figure out our path, sothank you.
Thank you.

And we're speaking so vaguely, but
everyone will know exactly whatwe're talking about when they
pick up the book.
I, there is a sentence in thisbook that I have to call you out
on.
You are on gay's reading.
I'm going to call you out onthis and then I'm gonna need you
to unpack it for the people.
No context.

(39:29):
How important it is for aviolist F hole to point straight
out to the audience.

Oh my.
I was like, where is he goingwith this?
Where is he going?
This is super fun to talk aboutactually.
So.

All know where my mind goes, but tell me what it
really means in terms of themusic.

So I, I will say that as a very serious
violist, I went to chamber musiccamp in high schools.
Like I would go for six weeks inthe summer, and there was some
activity where we were justmaking dirty jokes about the
instruments for and putting themon t-shirts for something.
And of course, the stringplayers were talking about f
holes.
Which for people, if you look ata violin, viola, cello, or bass,
are those holes shaped like an Fon the front of the instrument?

(40:16):
So for the viola.
The viola is very different fromthe violin or the cello in that
these instruments have what'scalled an acoustic range, right?
A lowest note and a highestnote, and that's called the
acoustic range.
And ma this is like veryintricate and mathematical, but
for the violin and the cello,the size of those instruments

(40:36):
matches their acoustic rangeperfectly.
And that, that means that theyare, it's just all in harmony
when you play those instruments.
It's all working.
It's all.
Easy to play in certain ways andit works beautifully.
And the problem is that theviola's acoustic range the
perfect measurement for a violawould be too big for any human

(40:57):
being to play it the way thatthe viola is played.
'cause the viola is played onyour shoulder.
Yeah.
And so over hundreds of years Luears have experimented with
different ways of trying toreshape the viola and do
different tricks to make thatwork.
Because what happens is becausethe size doesn't match the
acoustic range, there are.
Real challenges to playing theviola and drawing the sound out

(41:21):
of the instrument effectively.
And there are just things thatyou have to figure out,
techniques and ways of gettingaround.
And so what this means is thatthe viola is sometimes harder to
hear for listeners.
And so in chamber music and inorchestras to an extent there
are different ways of arrangingwho sits everywhere.

(41:41):
But when I was growing up,something that was becoming more
popular was not having theviolists sit in the middle of
the orchestra or in the middleof the quartet, but having the
violists sit opposite the firstviolins, so at the edge of the
stage.
And then they could actuallyturn their body a little bit

(42:02):
when they had a solo to, so thatthe sound projected from the F
holes straight into theaudience.
And there's a lot of debatebecause some people think that
is better and more successful.
And some people think that theviolists should just sit in the
center of the orchestra and thenif they turn out just a little
bit than they're already, the fholes are gonna be moving

(42:24):
forward.
But very often.
The instruments in the middle ofthe orchestra, the sound gets a
little bit lost and muffledsometimes.
So there's different schools ofthinking about it, but yes, it
is it's a thing that you thinkabout, especially in a string
quartet setting, which I did alot of chamber music.
That's where I was reallyserious.
And for a long time I wanted tobe in a quartet professionally.
I always used to sit on theoutside and turn, and I, there's

(42:44):
like video footage of me at homein concerts where the, I would
have a big solo and I would turnout.

Hold towards the

and face my f hole towards the audience,
which is something I was born todo.

this is so interesting.
The things I learned whilstreading the book there are a
gajillion things that we haveyet to even touch on.
Everything from different kindsof fear we face to, allowing
ourselves to embrace our futureand not harp on the past.
I don't like using the word harp'cause it sounds like we're.

(43:18):
Complaining about our past, butmaybe just move on from the past
is a better way to say it.
Relationships between parentsand children.
I said to my husband at dinnerlast night that this book had me
thinking a lot about my ownrelationship with my dad and
just how complicated that is andwill continue to be.
I'm just at this point becausewe only have a few minutes left.

(43:39):
I'm rattling off all the thingsthat I am, I'm feeling it had me
thinking a lot about submissionand what that means in all sorts
of ways.
I will say though that I'mmostly upset and angry that
there was a scene where you hadEverett do a hundred pushups.

I know.
I've set the bar is high.

Because I was like, oh, he is hot you.
And by saying he just did ahundred pushups.
That's all you needed to do.

Yep.
And some of them are

who can fucking do a hundred pushups?
Literally no one.

and some of them are one-handed.
It's, it is.
I, that was so fun when I wasjust like, I'm just gonna put
this in here and see if I getaway with it.

Duh.
Of course.

And I did.
I did.
Yeah.

what is bringing you joy these days?
There's a lot, I don't wanna saythere's a lot of trauma in the
book, but, you have 14 yearsworth of shit you were working
out in here.

Yep.

What's bringing you enjoy?

Honestly, right now conversations like
this are bringing me joy.
It's fun to be at this moment inmy life and this moment in the
book's trajectory where peoplehave read it, people have, for
the most part really liked it, Ithink, and have.
Are engaging in it reallythoughtfully.
So this is bringing me joy.
My new apartment brings me a tonof joy.

(45:01):
I love this apartment.
It's got a ton of beautifullight, and it's quiet and it's
spacious and it's in New YorkCity, and it's the first time
where I, my workspace will notbe in my bedroom.

Yes.

and it has a kitchen island like I'm living
the dream.
Yeah, I have a

A gajillionaire over here.

I and I was gonna say, so there are ways
in which Sell in the book didSave my Life, right?
Like the

Amen.

Amen.
Thank you Random House.
But and my dog, my sweet littlebaby Hughes who brings me so
much joy.
And just like reading, I don'tknow.
I feel like I am on theprecipice of the life or I'm, or
just stepped into the life thatI have been working towards.
That I was, that was meant forme.
And when all of that is inalignment just existing brings

(45:45):
me joy.
So like now I am making coffeeevery morning by myself in my
beautiful kitchen with my Frenchpress and my really pretty
kettle that has a button whereyou can make sure it keeps the
water hot after it's doneboiling.
And that is meditative for meand that is joyful for me.
And it's just simple and quiet.
And daily and feeding my dog atthat moment.

(46:06):
'cause that's when I feed my dogin the morning.
That brings me joy.
It's just little things, littlepractices where I get to fully
be myself and own the space thatI'm in is really joyful.
I think that's the thing that weall work towards.

Amen.
And I'm a little bummed that yousaid that's when you feed the
dog, because I, as you weredescribing this, I was picturing
you laying on the kitchen islandlike a piano, waiting for the
water to boil, but no.
Next time

maybe tomorrow.

right?

Maybe

That's, that could be like a, your Vogue
cover photo shoot can be youlaying on your kitchen island.
Oh my God.
We will go find you on all theplaces and follow you on
electric lit.
Louis Vuitton, thank you so muchfor being here.

Thank you for having me.
This was so fun.

Then Michelle Norris, come on When the harvest
comes the book is out now.
Everyone go get your copy,support local wherever you, you
know, get your books.
Congrats.
Have a great rest of your day.

Thank you.

Carlstrom, thank you for being my guest gay
reader today.
Welcome.

Zee Carlstrom (47:19):
much for having me.

I'm happy to have you.
Um, okay.
First thing I wanna talk to youabout, because I'm obsessed.
The bio on your, your galley isz carlstrom grew up in Illinois.
They live in Brooklyn.
The final version of your bio onthe website is z Carlstrom grew

(47:44):
up in Illinois.
They're now, uh, an art directoror whatever, whatever your type,
whatever your job is, they livein Brooklyn.
You're an elusive figure.

Yeah.

You don't really have social media presence, but
you are there, right?
Some people are just like, noton social media, period.
You're on social media, but it'slike nothing.
Your bio is nothing.
And I was like, is ZA person?
Do they exist?
So I'm thrilled that you'rehere.
And my favorite way to learn alittle bit more about someone is
to find out what they'rereading.

(48:15):
Z what are you reading?

So a great many things.
Um, but what I, I was gonnaspecifically talk about two
things.
The first is, um, I, I've beenreading a lot of Reddit threads
about how to get citizenship andvisas in other

Yes, yes, yes, yes.
We have some links, my husbandand I, I well offline.
I'm happy to send you a coupleof them.

Yeah, that would be good.
Um, it's, and I, the thing aboutit is I have really complicated
feelings about even the, eventhat impulse, even the desire to
go looking.
I mean, I think it, I had thesame desire in 2016.
Things were really chaotic.
Um, I opted to stay.

(49:04):
Uh, things have gotten, youknow.
Measurably worse, I think is anice way to say it.
And, but I'm really, I'm just soconflicted because I.
As soon as I started lookinginto it and saw how much it was
about like, well, you know, youcould get a global talent visa.
Are you, are you talented?

(49:26):
Do eminent people say nicethings about you?
Have you won these awards?
And I started to be like, well,maybe, you know, I could
probably finagle my way intothis.
And then I started to get angryat myself and angry kind of at
like the.
The entire global system ofcitizenship and where you can
and can't be and how like I'msomehow potentially able to go

(49:49):
other places while, you know,one of the biggest problems with
what's going on in America isthat like people who have come
here and deserve to be here inopinion, um, are.
You know, being deported, beingkicked out now without even
really cause or certainly notlike legal just cause of, for,

(50:11):
for those deportations.
And so I'm really, I, I feel,you know, I feel all sorts of
things.
I feel a bit like a coward.
For wanting to run.
I feel like I, um, like, I don'tknow, just a little bit sick of
myself, you know, in terms ofwanting to or ha having the
ability and the means to, toflee and to be somebody who, I

(50:37):
guess the rest of the world forwhatever reason could
potentially deem desirable.
Like, that makes me.
Really sad.
Um, I'm gonna be funnier as theconversation goes on,

there's,

but

there's no requirement to be

Right.
No, I have just say I'm gonnakeep it light.
I'm not trying to bringeverybody down.
I just like really have, I'm soconflicted.
I talking to friends about it,people are like, well, if you
should consider really.
It's, it's a struggle, but Ihave always really believed in
what, uh, I think America'ssupposed to be about.

(51:17):
And that idea for me comes morefrom people like, you know,
Frederick Douglas than it doesfrom people like George
Washington or Thomas Jefferson.
Like I, but I think like theseideas of, you know, forming a, a
place where everyone can belongis a really beautiful idea.
And I, I.

(51:38):
If I do have the privilege toleave, well that means I also
probably have this, you know,privilege to stay and
potentially try to make it thatplace.
Right?
Uh, and I don't know if I havethe ability or, but I would like
to, I, I'm tempted to try andmaybe stand my ground.

Yeah, that's a very thoughtful insight.
If you have the privilege toleave, then you should have the
privilege to stay.
but your instinct to fall down aReddit rabbit hole also makes
sense, right?
Like it, there's somethingabout, uh, making sure your
parachute is packed, you know?

Right, right.
Because it's like at what pointis it really gonna seem like the
plane is going down,

Right.

you know?

listen, I, a lot of my anxiety comes from
expectations and if I am fullyprepared for something, then I'm
typically.
Less anxious about it.
And so like, yeah, you couldfeel comfortable and confident
to stick around and fight thegood fight literally and

(52:44):
metaphorically.
But if you also know how to getthe hell outta here, it can, it
can help arm you better, uh,while you're here.

Yeah, I think that, I think that's smart.
I, I mean, I'm a tremendouslyanxious person.
Just, just really living, likein my non-work hours, living
exclusively on pot and justtrying to, trying to numb any of
the bad feelings, um, whichreally doesn't always work, but,
so I, and I do, I, I thinkyou're absolutely right, like
sometimes just having a plan,making some kind of decision,

(53:17):
like, okay, well that's thedecision I made, so now I can
leave it alone.

right.
Um, you said there were twothings you wanted to talk about
that you were reading.
So your rabbit, your rabbitrabbit holes.
Your rabbit, rabbit holes.
What, what's the other thing youwanted to talk about?

Well, so the other thing's kind of bigger,
um, and, and

Bigger than a Reddit rabbit hole.

bigger, right?
as if anything could be.

I know that seems impossible.
more.

so, so I'm reading, um, the Queer Art of
Failure by Jack Halber.
I don't know if you've ever readit.

not.

It's really great.
Um, it's, it's the kind ofthing, so I have, I have had not
like a, basically I am a queerperson who hasn't done the work.
Um, and I'm

what does that mean to you?

Yeah, so I, I am new to my queerness.
It's certainly to like openlyadmitting it or talking about
it.
Um, and I'm really getting somepractice in now that the book is
coming out.
And the book is so much aboutthat.
And really honestly, like mybook, uh, helped me to.
I mean, through the writingprocess, like I realized that

(54:28):
the character was gender queer,and I, and I had already kind of
known that about myself, but Iwasn't talking about it at all.
And so, so anyway, like it's,it's a relatively nascent thing
for me, and I have always had.
A bit of a love haterelationship with like theory
and academia in general becauseI come from this background

(54:48):
where, you know, my parents aresuper alienated by academia in
general and are very much likesuspicious of education and I'm
not, but I still am like, well,I don't wanna over
intellectualize some of thesethings.
I want them to come from a trueplace like inside me.
I understand before.

(55:12):
I feel like my approach hasbecome, I'm gonna ask you if
you've read another thing, whichis like, foundation by Isaac
Asimov, if you know that series.
Um, So it's pretty cool.
Basically the idea is likecivilization, gally has
collapsed and there's afoundation that exists where
when this new civilizationthat's growing is ready to

(55:35):
receive a really crucial pieceof information, a hologram.
Guy comes out of the foundationand tells them like, this is
what you need to know right now.
And then he goes away for like ahundred years.
And I feel like that's myrelationship with Queer Theory
is when I'm, when I, I'm readyfinally to learn a thing, that's

(55:58):
when I read another book or I godown another rabbit hole, you
know?
Um, and I, because I think if Ihad read The Queer Art of
Failure, um, which is brilliant.
Before I was ready, I probablywould've like burned down Seton
Hall at DePaul, which is where Istayed.
And so I think like it's goodthat I didn't read it until now,

(56:19):
but um, the book is really aboutthis idea that in our context,
in a capitalist system, in aheteronormative system with a
patriarchy and all these thingsto be queer, and to fail
radically, essentially is, canbe like a form of, protest to,
to kind of not.

(56:41):
Conform by necessity, and I'vealways been an incredibly
success oriented person, youknow, and I don't think that was
necessarily.
The idea of failingpurposefully, or not being
afraid to do something that thewhole society is going to hate.
You know, there's a lot of likeJohn Waters in it.

(57:02):
Like that kind of idea of I'mgonna make you look at this and
you're gonna hate me for it, andI don't care because like
through that, through yourdiscomfort or through my own
personal failure to makesomething that.
Of a sudden we've gonesomewhere, we've achieved
something more.
Um, and I think that, you know,if you fail profoundly, um, and

(57:25):
there's all sorts of ways thatHal Stem kind of defines these
failures and, uh, ways that, youknow, I, I'm not really even
smart enough to articulate, butthe, the like.
Idea of that has been reallyfreeing to me, particularly with
this book coming out and beinglike, if, if I fail, if it, if
it doesn't hit a nerve, if theculture isn't, doesn't like what

(57:46):
I had to say, maybe that's okay.
Maybe it's just'cause the book'sbad, but maybe it's because like
I fundamentally said somethingthat people didn't wanna hear or
it didn't match up with like aworldview or whatever, you know.

Yeah.
You know, it's interesting tohear you say that sort of, I
mean related, but unrelated.
I think about this when it comesto books.
I think about this when it comesto job interviews.
I think about this when it comesto all sorts of things, but like
one person liked it enough topublish it.

Right.

So does anything else matter?
You know, or like, is, is thatvalidation enough?
Or, you know, a job huntprocess?
You know, it's like, okay, wellyou make it to the final round,
but you don't get the job.
It's like, okay, well they, youwere championed along the way.
It just wasn't necessarily theright fit.
Or, you know, whatever it is.

(58:37):
There's a, an ask for everychair.
You know, there's, there's a, abook is for someone, you know,
so I don't know.
It just, uh, I am a perpetualglass half full person,

Yeah.

I think sometimes a bad thing.
Um, so

I was more that

can you even say you, have you failed, if let,
let's say the book does poorly,could you even say it was a
failure because it waspublished?
Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I think there's, I think, uh, my sort of
problem, because I completelyagree, like fundamentally with
what you said, truly, and I, Iwish I was more of a, I'm like
kind of.

I feel you.

The, the idea that, like it used to be for me,
and I used to tell myself allthe time,'cause I, I've written
eight books, I never sent themanywhere.
Like I've been, I've beenwriting and writing for years
and I was never ready for anyoneto look at it.
And I didn't want anyone tojudge it.
and I used to tell myself like,even if I make one person laugh
or one person have any kind ofexperience, hopefully profound,

(59:46):
then that's enough.

Yeah.

Then, you know, you ostensibly do that like
once, or someone does buy it andyou have that one seat in that
one chair and all of a suddenyou're like, oh, what about the
next one?
Really?
Two people would be a littlebetter.
Um, and I think that that's areally dangerous.

Jason Blitman (01:00:11):
Sure.

Zee Carlstrom (01:00:12):
I'm, that I've been really working through and
I, and because I don't want itto be like about that.
It's not

No, but it's very human.

Yeah, exactly.

We all wanna be liked.
For the listeners, tell us aboutmake sure you Die screaming.
Do you have an elevator pitchfor the book?

I do.
Of course.
The copywriter, me has to haveone.
so it's a gender queer corporateburnout searches for their
estranged, Trump loving fatherwho has gone missing in the,
very much.
I, I had a bio, uh, actually,which was, um, which had the

(01:00:53):
line, uh, the, the book isn'tauto fiction, but their parents
do in fact live in Arkansas.
Um, and, uh, I think thepublisher was, um, I, I.
Do have parents who did movefrom Chicago to Arkansas with

(01:01:14):
their retirement.
They wanted to be closer to thepeople who had their same
political ideology.
They wanted to be in the warmembrace of Trump country.
And my parents are, you know,they voted for Obama twice.
They then, and had voted UnionDemocrat, basically c.
Been that way.

(01:01:34):
They were very anti George Bush.
And then this whole Trump thinghappened and they have gone so
deep into it.
Um, the conspiracy theoryculture that my father was
really immersed in pulled him sofar down into the, the world
where like, you know, even the,even Elon Musk naming his
company, company, Tesla.
It's like so attractive to mydad because he believes that

(01:01:57):
Nikolai Tesla like invented freeelectricity and then was stomped
out by Thomas.
It's like all this, it's likeall this like lore that that
whole movement politically islike tapping into.
So the book isn't, it's abouttrying to deal with essentially
having my truth and having thepeople I love.

(01:02:18):
A different set of truths thatare not really, and keep
oscillating wildly as, as theworlds.
And so like the journey to findthe missing father is also like
a, a search for that truth.

That's great.
That's a great, uh, elevatorpitch with a, with a coda.
Um, which I appreciate because Ithink, you know, for anyone who
reads it, I think there's anugget of, oh, could this be
auto fiction?
And then you're like, no,there's no way.
This is auto fiction.
In our last few minutes togetheras my guest gay reader, the last

(01:02:56):
thing I wanna ask you that Irealized is such an important
question that we should all havein the back, an answer to in the
back of our mind, not dissimilarfrom the parachute conversation
we were having, um, who this is,this is a time to amplify people
we love and care about deeply.
Who would delete your historywhen you die?

(01:03:19):
Your search history on yourcomputer.
Who's deleting your searchhistory on your computer?

meant entire Wikipedia bio or

No.

Um.

Z.
Your bio has six words in it.
You're good.
You're good.
When it comes to internetsearching?
No.
Who's deleting?
Who are you?
What friend are you enlisting tobe responsible for clearing the
history on your computer?

It would be my, it would be my partner.
It would have to be my partner,but I, she's the only person I
can trust to make sure that noone would know anything.
I mean, you know, I, I'm notgetting into anything that,
like, is, is honestly, I feellike I could show my search
history to the whole world andI, I'd be fine with it.
I know that's probably wild, butI mean, there'd be like a lot of

(01:04:08):
weird things.
Like today I was, I was.
Probably exclusively GooglingLeBron's feet, LeBron James'
feet.
Um, but that was because I waswriting an essay about his feet.
It was not like a fetish thing.

You were writing an essay about his feet on a
fetish website,

No, on Substack, which in its own way is a fetish
website.

what shoe size?
What did we learn?

no.
So his toes are like, hebasically has crushed his feet
through 40 years of basketball.
And my feeling was like, I'venever seen a greater testament
to like an athlete's greatnessas like just looking at this
poor man's foot and being like,he's still playing on this.
Like, we argue about, you know,I'm Chicago Michael Jordan's a

(01:04:57):
big deal, basketball.

uh.

Michael Jordan's done all this, you know, all
these tremendous things.
People like, he's the greatestof all time people.
LeBron's greatest.
All my, is that anyone who has,is that

Interesting.
I need to come out for my dancerfriends and be like, look at
dancer feet.
Every single dancer has messedup feet and they still dance on
them, and so justice for thedancers is all I have to say.

No, you know, honestly, it's a good point.
And I did, as I was writing it,I was like, I'm being pretty
silly about this.
Like obviously people are, and,and you know what?
The dancers are probably moreimpressive, honestly, the things
that the dancers put theirbodies through, like, that's
crazy.
Um, I, I, I could never, uh, andyeah, the basketball thing is
actually, it happened because I,I got season tickets to.

(01:05:55):
And then I got, because then forme, I had never really been to
NBA games because they were tooexpensive.
So I got into that and then theWNBA ended and I needed more
basketball.
So this is like a very newobsession.
I've just, like, it's my, it'sthe thing I look at.
I'll take an edible.
I watched the, the men bouncethe balls, and I don't think

(01:06:17):
about anything in.

And then you turn on your TV to watch basketball.
See now that your search historyis public.
I knew exactly what you weretalking about.
Um, this is very funny becauseon your website, at the bottom
of the page, there are, youknow, images, like social media

(01:06:39):
icons and things, and one ofthem is the shape of a
basketball.
And I literally was like, Iwonder what that is, but didn't
click into it.
So, because I was just like, oh,there's a basketball there.
I wonder why that's.
Interesting.
And that was the end of that.
Now it all makes sense.

Yes, yes.
I, I started the substack, it'scalled Make sure you Dunk
Screaming.
You see?
Um, yes, very clever.
And uh, and so basically mywhole thing is everyone's
talking about stats.
My thing is no stats, justtruth.

no stats in the stacks.

Yes.

Uhhuh, Uhhuh.

I don't want, I don't, I just wanna basically
say silly thoughts about thesport that is.

I'm so glad to hear that.
See, this is a great thing toamplify.
Find the things that give youlife.
I love everyone.
Make sure you buy this bookscreaming, no, that was bad.

I think it,

Make sure you die.
Screaming by z.
Carlstrom is out now.
Go get it wherever you get yourbooks.
Z thanks so much for, for beingour guest gay reader today.

Thank you so.

So great to meet you too.
Thank you Jen.
Michelle, thank you Z.
Everyone.
I appreciate you being here.
Thank you so much for listeningand have a wonderful rest of
your week.
Bye.

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