I Hate This City

[00:00:00] Welcome Back to Overtired!

[00:00:00]

[00:00:01] Christina: You’re listening to Overtired, a sometimes monthly podcast. I’m Kristina Warren, joined as always by Jeff Severance Gunzel and Brett Terpstra. Hey guys, long time no talk!

[00:00:16] Jeff: Hello!

[00:00:17] The Time Warp: How Long Has It Been?

[00:00:17] Brett: How long has it been? We’ve been off for two weeks,

[00:00:20] Christina: No, like,

[00:00:20] Jeff: think I’ve been off longer though.

[00:00:22] Christina: Yeah, it’s been three or four.

[00:00:25] Brett: I have no sense of time.

[00:00:28] Jeff: I have

[00:00:28] Brett: isn’t, time isn’t real. Time is a construct. I live in the fifth dimension.

[00:00:33] Jeff: Okay, that’s fine. That’s fine. Um, mute him.

[00:00:43] Brett: That’s rude.

[00:00:44] Jeff: I was just kidding.

[00:00:46] Brett: Rude.

[00:00:47] Diving Into Mental Health and Podcast Sustainability

[00:00:47] Brett: Um, so should we start with a, a brief, a contained mental health corner?

[00:00:55] Christina: Yeah, it’s been a while. I’d love to like hear from everybody, see how everybody’s doing. Cause um, [00:01:00] uh, just, uh, we’ve all had stuff going on. Um, and also the podcast market is kind of trash right now, but mostly we’ve all had stuff going on. So we haven’t talked to one another in a while. I would

[00:01:11] Exploring Patreon and Merch Ideas

[00:01:11] Brett: really, we should test the waters with a Patreon and just see if our listeners want to support the show. Um, if you’re listening and you would be willing to pay a Small monthly fee, uh, to support the show, please write in, let us know, um, contact us on any of the various social media services, um, uh, because it would be a far more sustainable, uh, source of income than the fucking ad world right now.

[00:01:43] Brett: Well,

[00:01:45] Christina: I think, for, well, no, not I think, I know, there’s no I think about it. Like, if we’re taking money from anybody, we’re, like, at least, speaking for myself,

[00:01:53] Brett: with Patreon you can also, you can also set it up so that people pay when you publish. [00:02:00] Uh, so like, uh, like Amanda Palmer does it, like you only, if you’re on her Patreon you can only pay when she releases a song. Uh, which she does regularly. Um, but we could just charge people when we release a podcast, which would still give us the ability to take a week off if we needed to, uh, without feeling, um, like we were screwing people over.

[00:02:24] Brett: So yeah, we’ll look into it. Also, I am, I forgot to show you guys this, but, uh, we are going to launch some merch on Key Public. Um, I have some designs done, but I. I don’t know if you guys will love them or not. I might have to try again. I’ll show you them after the show. Um, if, if we get the go ahead from all three co hosts, um, check, uh, check the show notes for a merch link.

[00:02:53] Brett: Anyway, should I kick off the mental health

[00:02:55] A Light-Hearted Take on Money Laundering

[00:02:55] Jeff: hold on, I have a, I have a question. If we start doing [00:03:00] Patreon, is that an opportunity for me to launder some of my extra money?

[00:03:03] Christina: Yes.

[00:03:04] Jeff: Like the way they did in Breaking Bad to, you know, for Walt’s donation website. Okay, cool.

[00:03:10] Christina: 100%. No, I mean, like, I mean, I will say that we should probably, if we do decide to do this and you decide to do that, that we’re going to need to go back and edit this episode so that, like, any comments about the money laundering are gone. Which means, like, if you’re listening right now to this, you are hearing something that potentially might be deleted later.

[00:03:28] Christina: So, you know, save on, save, save, save

[00:03:32] Jeff: but I gotta clean my money. Somehow. I gotta clean it. I’m just sittin on it, it’s, this Zoom background is fake, it’s, if you actually were looking at my background, it’s just stacks of cash. With like a single sheet over it.

[00:03:47] Christina: Stacks on stacks on

[00:03:48] Jeff: Well, I’ll look into that some more. Do you think anybody does launder money through Patreon?

[00:03:52] Christina: Oh, most definitely.

[00:03:54] Jeff: Oh. I’m upset my family’s so tired of me talking about money laundering. I’m obsessed by all the ways [00:04:00] that people launder money.

[00:04:01] Christina: Yeah. I mean, I mean, look, look, they do it through gift cards. They do it through, I mean, you know, Bitcoin, whatever you have to do. I have to think that like Patreon and things like that are, are a source, right? It just depends.

[00:04:11] Jeff: chips. I see you, Donald Trump.

[00:04:15] Christina: probably just has to depend on like, okay, like the only thing with something like Patreon is You’re, you’re giving up like whatever fee you’re giving up to like launder the money and then you’re also paying the Patreon fees.

[00:04:27] Christina: So I guess you just need to like, you’d probably need to have like a high volume, um, to be able to like make it work. Otherwise there are probably better ways, ways to launder money. Um, she says as if she’s some sort of money laundering expert. I’m not. I’ve just

[00:04:41] Jeff: We’ve all seen Ozark.

[00:04:42] Christina: I was going to say, I’ve seen Ozark.

[00:04:44] Christina: I’ve, I’ve, you know, seen a bunch of other heists types of things. Watch Breaking

[00:04:48] Jeff: Ozark, which has, which has the most amazing, uh, like quick brief on money laundering that he gives, I think to his kid maybe, or maybe no, no, he’s just narrating it. [00:05:00] It’s early on. And it’s like the, the, the footage you’re seeing is like actual money and actual laundry machine, which is actually part of his process to sort of age the money.

[00:05:10] Jeff: Anyway, um, that’s not my mental health check in. It’s definitely not yours, Brett. Uh, so, um, yeah. See you in jail.

[00:05:19] Mental Health Corner: Road Rage and Wallet Woes

[00:05:19] Brett: I gotta tell you, so this is officially mental health corner now, but, um, I think it was last week, like I said, no sense of time, but, um, Elle and I got up early to go for a walk in the, uh, wildlife refuge, not too far away from us, um, but it was early, and I’ve been sleeping until like eight lately, which is, uh, Weird for me, but if I get up before then, I, I am crabby.

[00:05:48] Brett: Uh, and I got up before them on this fateful day. Um, and, uh, I was driving us to, we were just leaving our little neighborhood, uh, [00:06:00] which is on a two lane street. And someone came up hot on my six. Um, just riding my ass, which was annoying, but. I intentionally went exactly the speed limit, kind of to piss them off.

[00:06:14] Brett: Um, and, uh, then they, it’s a double yellow line, uh, at a blind curve, and they try to pass me. And my brain’s like, oh fuck no, so I gun it. And we’re like racing down this two lane road into a blind curve and they give up and they pull back in behind me. And I roll my window down so I can more easily flip them off when, uh, when they do eventually pass.

[00:06:44] Brett: Uh, which happens and we flip each other off and like, my adrenaline’s up but I calm down, like, I let that kind of thing go very quickly, it’s like, fun in the moment, uh, but, in the meantime, Elle is scared shitless, um,

[00:06:59] Jeff: Elle’s in [00:07:00] the car for this?

[00:07:01] Brett: yeah. L’s in the car for this, which normally, you know, for this kind of thing, I’m driving alone.

[00:07:07] Brett: But L is in the car, and they’re scared shitless. Um, and, and they’re screaming at me, Brett, no! What are you doing? What the fuck? No! And I’m not listening, I’m just saying. And so anyway, it takes, it takes them a long time to calm down, which involves like shaking and tears and like, I really upset both their nervous system and just their emotional state of being.

[00:07:35] Brett: Um, and I was so, I felt so stupid because it would have been so easy to just be like, Hey, look at this fucker. And let it happen, uh, but instead I, I had to escalate. Um, so I did some parts work after that to, to use IFS speak. Um, and realized there’s this part of me that I’ve always thought was a pretty good part.

[00:07:58] Brett: Um, that [00:08:00] believes that society functions better with rules. Um, And it’s often kept me from making some very bad decisions. It also violently reacts to other people breaking social norms and, and laws. Um, like I’m, I’m bizarrely rule based for someone who considers

[00:08:23] Christina: I was gonna say, I was gonna say, that’s like, that’s like an interesting, um, thing there.

[00:08:28] Brett: but like that, that’s the, that’s the thing is if a rule is in place, like A law in general, whatever. But a rule like, don’t pass on a blind curve, like that’s just for everyone’s safety, that’s for the good of society, and that to me is a rule that should be followed. Um, that is not to say what I did was excusable, um, it

[00:08:53] Christina: No, what you did was immature.

[00:08:55] Brett: I published, I published a DIMMspiration the same day that [00:09:00] says, I don’t believe I’m a maniac, but then sometimes I do things that only a maniac would do, which is kind of a glaring hole in my theory.

[00:09:08] Brett: Um, so anyway, like I, I found that part and I, I talked to it and I’m going to work to kind of let it, Exists without being so reactionary. Um, because I feel like it’s, it’s not a bad part. It just, uh, these firefighters come up. I’m using IFS speak. Anyone who’s doing IFS will know what I’m talking about.

[00:09:35] Brett: Everyone else is like, what the fuck? But anyway, a couple other points I want to hit.

[00:09:41] The Great Wallet Saga: A Tale of Loss and Recovery

[00:09:41] Brett: Um, I lost my wallet a week ago, and for a week I have been just stressed. Even when I wasn’t thinking about it, I realized I was carrying all this stress, uh, because we’re about to leave on vacation, and I don’t have a valid driver’s license, I don’t have any of my credit cards, [00:10:00] um, I don’t even have a health insurance card, and so I’m freaking out a little bit.

[00:10:04] Brett: Um, and today was the day. That I was going to start the process of applying for a new driver’s license and hopefully get a temporary one, and then just rely on all of my Apple wallet so I could pay with my phone wherever possible. But I, I, as a last ditch. I retraced my steps one more time, which I had already done once, but I ended up at Walgreens asking the guy behind the counter if they had a loss in found and he like calls to the manager and um, I forgot what my wallet looked like.

[00:10:43] Brett: Um, I was thinking of, uh, my previous wallet, which was tan leather. Um, so I described it as a flat tan leather wallet and they’re like, eh, what’s the name on the ID? And I’m like, well, this is hopeful. And I give him my name [00:11:00] and he’s like, just a sec. And he comes out with my. Black wallet and it has my ID in it and looking into it It’s very clearly all the credit cards have been pulled out and it’s got like compartments for each card And all of the cards had clearly been pulled out and shoved back into one compartment.

[00:11:24] Brett: Uh, which is weird because the ID is like, clearly visible on the outside. But, all the cards are there, even my, like, uh, gift cards for like, local restaurants. Which could easily have been used by anybody. And I had such a sense of relief. Um,

[00:11:44] Jeff: Ehhh.

[00:11:45] Brett: like, I didn’t realize until that moment exactly how much stress I was carrying over this, but like, it felt like, it felt like, uh, I’m gonna say like a hit of cocaine.

[00:11:58] Brett: Like, just this [00:12:00] like, elation in my body that almost tingled. Um, it was cool. It was very nice.

[00:12:06] Navigating Life’s Challenges: From Medication to Moving

[00:12:06] Brett: Um, so it, and I’m getting ready for this vacation, so I’m dealing with like meds that would have a refill date right in the middle of my vacation, which makes it like too early to refill before the vacation, and I got to figure out if I can get like a special exception, uh, On a couple of these, including my Vyvanse, uh, which is a super sticky one to get an early refill on.

[00:12:34] Brett: Um, so I emailed my doctor, but, uh, she takes Fridays off and. I might not know until Monday, but I don’t leave until next

[00:12:44] Christina: that’s, that’s good at least. Um, so, um, I’m really glad you found your wallet. Um, I, I’m also glad that like, you, you realize like what your wallet looks like,

[00:12:58] Brett: right? [00:13:00] This whole time I’ve been trashing my house and my car looking for it, because I keep it in this secret pocket on my jeans that’s right above my knee and has a zipper on it. Well, at least on the jeans I was wearing that day. And when I realized it was missing, I realized that zipper was down, which in my head only happens when I take the wallet out.

[00:13:25] Brett: And so, so I must’ve left it. Like I went to the drive thru pharmacy and I never would’ve passed my wallet to them. So I figured it had to have been on the car, seat of my car. So I trashed my car looking for it. And, uh, I could have been at my. Desk, uh, and needed to like check my health insurance card or something.

[00:13:45] Brett: So I trashed my office looking for it and I, apparently I just left the zipper down and it like fell out at Walgreens,

[00:13:55] Jeff: Man, if

[00:13:55] Brett: Just so weird.

[00:13:56] Jeff: that line was out of context.[00:14:00]

[00:14:02] Brett: Left my zipper down and it fell out at Walgreens. Um,

[00:14:10] Jeff: So

[00:14:12] Brett: but yeah, I, I don’t know. Cause I paid with my phone at Walgreens. So I don’t, I, yeah, I got lucky. I’m, I’m so glad to have it, but thank you.

[00:14:22] Jeff: yeah, it’s a little piece of us we carry with us that we forget how destabilizing it is when you lose it.

[00:14:29] Brett: Oh my, I’ve never lost my wallet

[00:14:30] Jeff: That’s actually what I’m hearing from you. So for me, I lost my wallet. I misplaced my wallet in the house, like, a week ago. And for me, what happens is I just go a little crazy because I lost something.

[00:14:43] Jeff: You know? I’m like, I should know where this is. It’s crazy I don’t know where this is.

[00:14:48] Brett: my phone, my wallet, and my keys, I never lose. Like, they’re three things that I’m always conscious of. I, like, every time I stand up, I check my left pocket where my phone is, check my right [00:15:00] pocket where my keys and my wallet are. And they never leave my person, and I just It’s, yeah, I felt really, um, destabilized for having lost

[00:15:12] Christina: Yeah.

[00:15:13] Brett: Uh,

[00:15:14] Christina: Well, yeah. I mean, that’s the thing. Yeah. I, I always had like this mantra that I, that I stole from, um, the TV show Broad City, um, that I think, I think how Lincoln says it is slightly different, but in my mind, I always say like phone, wallet, keys, because that would be like a thing that he would always like tell like Ilana to, to check before she would leave.

[00:15:31] Christina: And so I always have them like, okay, phone, wallet, keys, phone, wallet, keys. And then sometimes I’ll add in, like, if I’m going on a trip, like Phone, wallet, keys, pills, right? Make sure, like, before I leave, like on a trip, that I’ve got, like, my meds, that I’ve got, like, my phone, my wallet, you know, whatnot. Um, no, I lose sunglasses. with surprising frequency. And, and I’m not talking like cheap sunglasses. I’m talking like, like 200, 250 sunglasses. I once lost like three pairs of Ray Bans in like a six week period. It was obscene. It was dumb. And [00:16:00] like at that point, um, and, and I’d had such a good streak up at that point, I think it’d been years.

[00:16:05] Christina: And, and since I’d lost a pair of Ray Bans and then, um, No, I, I, to my knowledge, I’ve never lost my wallet. I’ve lost parts of things before, like I lost my passport card, not my passport. I did, I didn’t bother getting it replaced because it was just the passport card and I was like, fuck it, whatever.

[00:16:23] Brett: What’s a

[00:16:24] Christina: that is, it looks like a, um, uh, ID, like just looks like a driver’s license and you,

[00:16:30] Jeff: Like a global

[00:16:31] Christina: Kind of, except it only works in Canada and the U.

[00:16:33] Christina: S., so it’s also sort of pointless. But I had it for a while because I didn’t have like a state ID, and so my state ID was expired because it was from a state that I didn’t live in anymore, and so until I got like my ID ID, I would use, I would carry my passport around, but like that’s kind of annoying, so I would carry my passport card.

[00:16:51] Christina: I did lose that in 2019, and um, God, passport renewals right now are such a pain in the ass. I’m [00:17:00] still waiting on mine. I, like, sent in for it forever ago. Digress.

[00:17:04] Brett: You probably paid for expedited

[00:17:06] Christina: I did. I did.

[00:17:07] Brett: Expedited is still like a

[00:17:08] Christina: It’s more than a month. And the thing is, is that it’s like, I would pay, like, Do I have to fucking go to San Francisco to go to the fucking consulate to get, like, a same day thing?

[00:17:16] Christina: Because in New York, at least I could do that. I could pay, like, 600 bucks and, like, get it, like, The next day if you needed to, um, because somebody would actually like hand walk it to the embassy and like, you know, get your docs back. But the thing is, is that like Seattle doesn’t have an embassy. So the closest consulate is fucking San Francisco.

[00:17:32] Christina: So anyway, I hate this. I fucking hate this state. I hate this town. I hate everything about it. Anyway, I digress. But I mean, I do. I fucking, I fucking hate living here. I do.

[00:17:41] The Seattle Rant: Love, Hate, and Everything In-Between

[00:17:41] Christina: Um, that’s my mental health corner. I fucking hate Seattle. Um,

[00:17:45] Jeff: You’re like, the Pearl Jam albums aren’t even

[00:17:46] Brett: I, I did not know that. I thought, I thought you enjoyed

[00:17:50] Christina: no, I don’t. No, I’ve tried. I’ve like, I’ve like kept it in. I’ve like tried for seven years and I fucking hate it. It’s a shitty, shitty, shitty state. It’s a shitty, shitty, shitty [00:18:00] city

[00:18:00] Jeff: Why did you, why

[00:18:01] Christina: because I got a job.

[00:18:02] Jeff: you end up there? Seven

[00:18:03] Christina: I got a job.

[00:18:04] Jeff: had the job. Okay, got it.

[00:18:06] Brett: so, so what’s the plan then? It’s not, it can’t, it can’t be mentally healthy to live somewhere you

[00:18:12] Christina: No, but like,

[00:18:13] Brett: to use your words. Yeah. Oh, that’s rough. I feel for you.

[00:18:20] Jeff: Extracting yourself from a city. It’s not so easy. Unless you’re like 29.

[00:18:26] Christina: So, but it’s just, it’s just as expensive.

[00:18:29] Brett: they won’t

[00:18:29] Christina: No, they would, but I mean, it’s not just, it’s not just about me. Like I have other, anyway, I, I, I can’t, I don’t want to get into all that, but like, it’s, it’s not just, um, my decision. So.

[00:18:40] Brett: hate

[00:18:41] Christina: Yeah, no, but it’s a shitty, shitty, shitty city. It’s a shitty city full of shitty people with shitty weather, um, and, um, expensive as fuck, um, for not a good city.

[00:18:51] Christina: Like, you don’t have the amenities of an actual city, but you pay actual city prices. It’s a fucking shitty place. Seattle fucking sucks.

[00:18:59] Jeff: [00:19:00] I think you should take, I think you should take all this to the Chamber of Commerce, because it’s, if they start putting that up on

[00:19:04] Christina: Oh, the Chamber of Commerce doesn’t give a fuck. In fact, the Chamber of Commerce, or not the Chamber of Commerce, the, the fucking City Council, the fucking City Council is like so anti anybody who actually gives them money, they’re like, oh no, let’s, let’s, let’s, um, Ray, let’s, let’s create a fucking Uber tax so that every single delivery service has an Uh, has to pay an average of 25 an hour for delivery drivers.

[00:19:28] Christina: Which, look, I’m all for fair wages, and I’m all for like, if you want to set the minimum wage a certain thing, fine. I think it’s kind of fucked up that people who dr who like, deliver for DoorDash are getting paid more than like, people who like, work. Like, in, you know, as like, uh, it, it, you know, a lot of people have like, actual jobs, you know, who work in like medicine and, and things like that and, and are, are doing things that frankly, like, take a lot more skill than, um, doing a poor job delivering food.

[00:19:56] Christina: Like, so anyway, the, and the net [00:20:00] result is nobody orders delivery anymore because the, the prices are so insane. Um, not to mention the sales tax, not to mention the fact that they, like the, the city sucks. Like they, they just got rid of the gifted program because of equity. Um, which all that means is that all the smart kids who are mostly, you know, uh, white or Asian or whatever, you know, people have money.

[00:20:19] Christina: Like the, the, the families that have money are just going to put their kids in private school. And the smart kids who don’t have. Parents who can send them to private school are, like, those kids are fucked. So, anyway, this city sucks. That’s, that’s my mental health corner. Sorry, didn’t mean to take yours over, Brett.

[00:20:34] Brett: No, that’s, that’s,

[00:20:36] Jeff: segue.

[00:20:37] Brett: yeah, I, uh, I, I definitely with your permission, am titling this episode, like why Seattle sucks, um, or fuck Seattle.

[00:20:50] Jeff: You just generalize, this city sucks. Then everybody, then everybody comes in wanting to know which city.

[00:20:56] Brett: There you go.

[00:20:57] Jeff: Minneapolis, Seattle.

[00:20:59] Brett: for sure. [00:21:00] But Minneapolis, I love. Do you love Minneapolis, Jeff?

[00:21:07] Jeff: I love Minneapolis. Our mayor’s a twerp, but I love Minneapolis.

[00:21:10] Brett: I love, I love Minnesota. I love my city. I love my little town. I, it, it hurts my heart to hear that someone has spent seven years living somewhere that they hate so much.

[00:21:22] Christina: Well, I didn’t, I didn’t always hate it. And like I said, I’ve like, I’ve like tried, right? Like I’ve tried to like make it better, but it’s just, it’s just shitty place. Um,

[00:21:31] Jeff: Where would you, what, where would you live if you had had a choice? New York, yeah, that’s easy. I still have dreams that I live in New York again, but the dreams are just that I’m standing on a sidewalk in New York and I’m the happiest person in the world.

[00:21:46] Brett: I’ve only ever,

[00:21:47] Jeff: sidewalk.

[00:21:48] Brett: I’ve only ever been homeless in New York, but it was still a great city. It was still like one of the best places I’ve been homeless compared to like Baltimore. New York is amazing [00:22:00] for homeless

[00:22:00] Jeff: competition in Baltimore. You got, it’s a little more like, uh, you got a lot more space in New York to be homeless. You can find your, your little communer people, or space.

[00:22:10] Brett: Well, I, I was fortunate enough to be like part of kind of a punk world that Everyone couch surf like half the kids there were homeless and you could find a couch to sleep on in the summer You could find rooftops that people would let you throw a sleeping bag down and all the bars Offer like free food, even if you’re not buying drinks, not all the bars But if you know where to go

[00:22:35] Jeff: Mm hmm.

[00:22:36] Brett: It’s actually a pretty easy place to be.

[00:22:38] Brett: For me, for me, a white male, it was a pretty easy place to be homeless.

[00:22:44] Jeff: always find a stinky couch. Yeah.

[00:22:48] Brett: Anyhow. Yeah. Okay. Do you have anything, anything else you want to add to your mental health corner? Christina

[00:22:56] Christina: well, the fact that I just went on that unplanned, like, unhinged, like, [00:23:00] rant about how much I fucking hate this city, uh, probably means that I need to talk about. Some of my rage issues with my, uh, with my therapist, um, and it’s not even rage issues. It’s just, I think I’ve probably been bottling stuff up, um, frustrations for various things.

[00:23:19] Brett: Yeah. Well, like it’s so fascinating to me that I had no idea you didn’t like Seattle, which means you have bottled that up for a long time. . All right. All right. Jeff

[00:23:37] Jeff: Uh, Jeff, well, I added to our, um, show notes to, uh, follow up on anarchy after we’re done with this. I just have a couple of, uh, good bits, good bits from my life about anarchy. Um, very short. Uh, uh, but, um, yeah, I, I’ve embarked on a writing project and, um, kind of a [00:24:00] comprehensive writing project. And, uh, and as a start for that, I kind of started gathering all of my writing over the years, uh, that even have anything related to this topic.

[00:24:13] Jeff: And it’s like things I’ve published, things I’ve written and not published, journal entries, like transcripts of interviews I’ve done over 15 years and 20 years, maybe, uh, trainings I’ve given, all this stuff. And, um, and I just, I had it all transcribed. I mean, just did AI transcription. Um, and it was super interesting.

[00:24:35] Jeff: Cause like, I basically realized that everything I want to say Or that I think I want to address has been, I have said or written in ways that every time I encounter it, I’m like, Oh, that’s a good point. I agree with that. Oh, I like how he said that. And so, uh, it was really just fun to kind of go through all these years of writing and speaking, um, and just see what has changed and [00:25:00] what threads are like common throughout.

[00:25:02] Jeff: Um, Like I actually took, I took whole chunks of stuff from different years and put it through three AIs, through Claude, through, uh, through Gemini and through ChatGPT, just to say like, do a thematic analysis. It’s so interesting to see not just the difference between the three of them, but obviously the similarities, but then also the similarities across years.

[00:25:24] Jeff: I was like, okay, I’ve been on this trip for a long time. And, uh, so anyway, it’s just really, that’s been really fun. And, and just a nice way to, I always like my life feels so scattered and my career feels so scattered and, uh, higgledy piggledy as they say somewhere. Um, then anytime I have like a opportunity where I can actually see kind of a straight line through it, even if it’s a curvy thing, um, like a sine wave, you put, uh, that always feels really good.

[00:25:52] Jeff: And, um, makes me feel a little more whole. Uh, and so that’s been really nice and really fun. [00:26:00] Um, and, uh, and just, yeah, just an unusual experience. And, and part of how it came to be is that I ended up with a gap in contracts. I am a, we’ve talked about this before, but like I’m a member owner of a collaborative research and evaluation collaborative until last year, I always had these huge contracts for like five years, really great budgets, a lot of Create new things and new ways of handling things.

[00:26:24] Jeff: And, uh, then that ended last year and I was in the world of small contracts and that’s just not, it’s not my gift to manage those things properly, to manage the scope of my efforts inside of them. I invariably burn through my budget when the work’s still not done and then I’m working for free, um, just to complete it.

[00:26:43] Jeff: But basically I ended up with that, through, what is it? Six pay period gap where I’m making a sixth my normal income, which is not good. Um, I’ve been able to claw back some of it by going out for some new [00:27:00] contracts, but even that, what was cool about this is that, well, one, I reframed it right away. My wife and I had like a meeting where we’re like, okay, so that’s this number of dollars that I have to kind of figure out how to fill because we’re already like, things are tight and we’ve got a kid going to college and we’re paying some of that.

[00:27:14] Jeff: And, um, And, and we were, had this meeting where like, I just created this like narrative of like exactly how much money I’m missing per week and what I need to make up and all this stuff. And, uh, and at some point in the like depths of it, where I’m like, okay, when we come out of this right now, we’re just doing the logistics and we come out of this, it’s gonna, it’s gonna sting when the reality hits.

[00:27:36] Jeff: But then instead of that, I was like, you know what, this is. It’s a muppet caper. It’s like, they’re gonna close the theater down if we don’t raise 15, 000. Well, let’s go! Woo! And like, someone ends up in jail, but like, Yul Brynner’s the jailer, you know, and like, and, and so once I framed it that way, both of us.

[00:27:56] Jeff: And my wife has, tends to be way more, she can get way more kind of anxious [00:28:00] about money than I can for better and for worse. Um, all of a sudden we were like, Oh, that’s great. This is delightful. And, and I went about the work of like finding new stuff. What was great about the opportunity in the end. I mean, I’m in it very much in it is like, it allowed me to shake loose from really what was kind of a work rut.

[00:28:18] Jeff: Um, and like, I got really burned out on my Juvenile justice. And then I just took a lot of contracts that were just doing the kind of work that like, wasn’t that exciting to me. There was no room. I really liked to create and there was just no room to create. It was just like, get it done. And, um, and I was like, I don’t want to die like this.

[00:28:37] Jeff: Like I’m 49. I’ve, I’ve like managed to stay in a place where like, I’m. I’m basically doing something I really care about and I’m passionate about with a team of people. We talked about this a couple episodes ago, but like with a team of people, I really just like feel a, a sort of like soldier’s bond with.

[00:28:57] Jeff: Um, and, and so all of a sudden that was [00:29:00] over and I was like, Oh, this is great. I can just sit here and think about the things that I like to do, the things that I’m good at, and get out of this thing where I’m saying yes to things I’m good at, but don’t like doing. And it’s a huge privilege to be in that situation, but I will mind, mind you, I’m on unemployment.

[00:29:16] Jeff: So like, it’s a, it’s a qualified privilege. Right. Um, but it really opened me up. And one of the things was just wanting to do. Some writing, and so now, finally, I’m kind of like, doing that. So it’s like a blessing, the Muppet Caper’s a little bit of a blessing, but I haven’t ended up in jail yet, so

[00:29:31] Christina: Well, that’s good. That, that, that’s like an, that, I mean, you know, cause like that’s, that’s the one part of the Muppet caper that like, you know, when, when Fozzie and, uh, and Kermit wind up in jail, uh, you know, like that’s, that’s always one of those moments, you’re like, Oh God, you know, who’s going to have to bail them out

[00:29:46] Muppet Jailbreak: A Hypothetical Dilemma

[00:29:46] Jeff: Who, I think I know the answer for all of you, but who would you rather be in jail with, Fozzie or Kermit?

[00:29:52] Christina: probably I don’t know. I, I don’t know. Cause yeah, Fawzi probably, cause Kermit would be super anxious. Kermit would be [00:30:00] super anxious and that would make me anxious and, and you don’t, like, that’s just not good. But, but Fawzi could be kind of annoying.

[00:30:08] Jeff: But I am

[00:30:09] Brett: Fa Fa Yeah, me too. Fa

[00:30:11] Jeff: That’s what I realized. I thought I was going to choose Fozzie. It was like, I fucking am Fozzie. We’re never getting out of there.

[00:30:15] Brett: Fozzy is clearly ADD. Um, and like, I, the way I relate, the way, like, especially in a, um, captive situation, um, I relate best to people that think quickly over, like, the surface without diving deep, and Kermit would want

[00:30:35] Christina: would want to dive deep. I, yeah. Now I’m, I’m going to tell you, I don’t know who I’d pick between them. I’d tell you who I would really want. I’d want to be there with Gonzo. Gonzo,

[00:30:45] Jeff: Hell yeah.

[00:30:46] Brett: Also

[00:30:46] Christina: Yes, but he’s like the good A DH adhd, like Fozzie is like, like he’s the a DH adhd, which would be useful in jail.

[00:30:52] Christina: Like Fozzie Iss. Fozzie is the type who’s gonna make the joke at the wrong person, like, like the wrong Muppet. He, he’s gonna make the joke to the wrong Muppet [00:31:00] and it’s gonna become a whole thing. Um, whereas, whereas Gonzo is gonna have some good awareness, he’s gonna know the lay of the land. He’s gonna maybe be able to have a scheme of things.

[00:31:09] Christina: Gonzo’s, who you want? Kermit, I think. Yeah. Kermit is Kermit’s too anxious. Kermit’s gonna, to your point.

[00:31:16] Jeff: But here’s my argument. If we’re only choosing Toon my argument for Kermit is that there’s a show title in here somewhere. My, my argument for Kermit is that, um, you need someone, A, that’s small enough that you can, you know, Push him through the bars, if you have a plan, uh, or the little hole you’re able to dig.

[00:31:34] Jeff: But also Kermit is, you never suspect Kermit, right? Like if you could get Kermit on board with some kind of scheme, he could

[00:31:42] Christina: no, this is correct. Here’s, here’s my follow up question for you. Do you realistically think that you could convince Kermit to like go along with your scheme? Because that’s my big thing. Like, it’s like, you’re, you’re right on all of that. If you can convince him to go along with you, no one’s going to suspect him.

[00:31:57] Christina: He’s going to be able to get through the bars. He’s going to be meek. He’ll be a great [00:32:00] patsy. Can you actually convince him to do that?

[00:32:02] Brett: one, no one will suspect him because no one would believe that Kermit would be willing to break the law or do a

[00:32:11] Jeff: Here’s the scenario where that works. You’re like a year in, which you don’t want, never happens in the movies. My version of this is it’s just overnight, you know? But if you’re in for a year, you could definitely at some point be like, yo, dude, you know, we could get out of this and Kermit would be like, I’m

[00:32:27] Brett: So the argument would be you could do more for society. Um, if you weren’t in this prison, like you could.

[00:32:37] Jeff: Piggy has to be in there, too, as a

[00:32:39] Christina: Ye