Enough having fun. It's time to work.
Enough fun time. Hi, Alison. Hi Alison.
So abrupt! Hi Matt. Is this it? Are we doing it?
This is it. We're recording. We're back.
We're back for season two? Uh, does that make this ADHd20: Season Two Electric Boogaloo?
Oh, yes, it does.
Remember when I was like, Hey Matt, I think we should take like a season break. We were like, that's so long. It's so far away. I don't know what happened to November and December. It like gone. Like, where, where, how, why. Yesterday, Fitz, there's our, there's our first Fitz, uh, mention of the season.
I know.
37 seconds in, uh, Fitz referenced something from a game session from September and I was like, absolutely not. That happened last week. So I don't know what happened to the back quarter of 2022, but here we are. 2023.
So, so fast. The whole holiday season was a buh-buh-buh-blur. And I know what it is for most people. I know that it is for everybody, but still. Some just comes at you like a punch in the face. Um, but it was fun. It was good. It was a necessary break. I, I, I know how your holiday went because we've talked about it, because we talk to each other almost every day. So, we're, you know, we can just kind of like say we had good holidays.
We did!
Some point, even surprisingly good. Um, always exhausting, but…
Mm-hmm.
Surprisingly good.
Surprisingly good. Uh, certain parts were emotionally exhausting for sure, but also to see people I don't get to see all the time to spend multiple days in the presence of others that, you know, is only a once or twice a year feat. Um, I did joke with you and, and Evan as we were doing the initial catch up, that my Christmas was boring for maybe the first time ever. And that's not, that's not a slight, that's praise if I've ever given it.
That, that I've become so comfortable with my family that we could just be in each other's
Yeah.
Without any argument, drama, or otherwise. And just do things like, I read a book, I started American Gods. I watched, I did. I really, really did like a, a, a physical book. This wasn't something that I, on a whim downloaded from the library app from my iPad. This is something I carried with me with the purpose and intent of reading. Um, I still have a long way to go. It's not, you know, a short book, but enjoyable for sure. So, yeah, it…
Mm. Oh my goodness. Very interesting. So I'm super psyched because for Christmas my brother gave me the new updated rebooted Dragonlance campaign, world adventure or what have you. And I haven't finished reading it yet, but it just
Uh, could I just, could I just let my newbie show for a second, for like the first month or so when everybody was getting ready for the, I don't know, is it release or re-release of Dragonlance? I, I, that's how new I am. I really thought that all of you were saying Dragon Lands, L-A-N-D-S. It wasn't
That makes…
Until I saw it like, available on D&D Beyond. Oh, it's
Dragon Lance. Lance.
Is important. Everybody.
Yeah. It's funny, it's still unique as a setting, a campaign setting, I think, to what is currently out there, which we, you know, we've got Faerun, which is sort of the default.
Mm-hmm.
5e Dungeons and Dragons World. Um, then you've got, Barovia, so you know, Curse of Strahd and all that, which is very, very different. And then you've started playing in the new reboot of Spelljammers, um, which is fun. And Exandria of course, but like, yeah.
yep. Uh, interestingly enough about that, the Spelljammer. We started in Faerun as kind of our blast off point, and then now, now we are space pirates. Uh, so I think one of the last D 100 roles I got of season one, was what's the next character that you'll build? And I have since built that character. I am now playing, uh, an echo night, and I'm mad at myself for sleeping on fighter all this time. You heard it here first. Alison can have fun, not as a caster.
Mm-hmm.
So that's cool. That's a big change since last we spoke.
I believe I've said it before on this podcast that the fighter is one of the more underrated
Mm-hmm.
classes of 5e. I think there are some that have been made not as fun, and I think Fighter was definitely made to be super fun. For like one of the originals, like the original. Original. So.
Before we get too deep into all of the nerd topics we have, should we roll on our
I was gonna say, speaking of the roll, ADHd100 table
It's time. Our first rolls of 2023, Season Two.
A
They see me rolling. They hatin'. Actually, I'm not hating, I'm loving.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Who wants to go first?
You go. You tell me your question. Or your number.
I rolled a 65.
I'm like desperately trying to not look at the screen and see my question. I'd like it to be a surprise. Uh, if you could live in any fantasy location, where would you choose?
It's, that's amazing that we were just talking about. I'm, I'm assuming it's kind of based on fantasy location as like, do you want to keep it to 5e?
You could go live in like the Shire and be a Hobbit. If, if that's what Yeah, like any, anything. In our current version of reality, we don't know what really exists out there in the multiverse. So talk to us about where you'd go, what you'd do, who you'd see, what you'd know.
Dang. Um, So it, it would definitely be in the Eberron ish, uh, Arcane milieu. Arcane you know, The Netflix show based on a really, whatever video game, but a gorgeous freaking show, uh, that I, that I've watched twice. Uh, just that combination of magic and technology is so, so, sexy. Uh, so sexy, so ding, ding,
Ding dang Sexy!
That combination of magic and technology is so ding dang, sexy to me that, um, that's what I would do. I think like a, a techno magic world is where I want.
I see
Mm-hmm.
I I approve of your very personal answer. What? What? Come on,
Yeah. Okay, great. How about you? What'd you roll?
Uh, 26.
Oh wow. If you could trade an existing personality trait or quirk for a different one, what's getting tossed and what's coming in?
Mm. Damn.
I know
This must be a Fitz question. Um. I could, there are so many facets of my personality that like shouldn't be part of my personality that I have made, right. Like loving pineapple or glitter or, Dungeons and Dragons.
Right? Yeah.
Um, so I'll, I'll toss those out and kind of go to core Alison for a second. I, I
Let's just go core, hardcore, Alison. Hardcore.
I'm assuming it doesn't have to be like a one for one, right? Like, it's not that I would toss being messy for being tidy, but like I could just pick anything that's not something I'm totally settled with. Right?
Yeah.
So I think, I think I'm not a very patient person. I think that I get, you know, a little wigged out when things aren't moving at the pace that I would like, you know, so that maybe, maybe we could zoom out even more the control aspect of it. I want to control the cadence and pace of it all, but we'll boil that into patience. So I'll, kick that out. And I would like to be more, not totally, not totally, but more minimalist. I, I have too much stuff. I have too much stuff in my head.
I have too much stuff in my life, and I think that I would
Amen, sis.
like to not feel the need to have all of that, uh, and just be, you know, like see surfaces and like, not feel the need to buy everything when I go to the grocery store. You know? That must be nice. What's that like?
I don't know. I don't know. I will say this though, that after a multi-year, uh, hipster focus on minimalism, that the, that the YouTube sphere has kind of been dallying with, we're now seeing a return to Maximalism.
No.
So just when we wanna be minimalists, everyone's like, go Baroque and I Oh, that. Well, that. works. Go baroque.
How hipster of us to be fighting against that grain.
Yeah. You know it. That's true.
I want less. I want less to do. I want less to think about. I want less to manage. I want, there are certain areas of my life in which I certainly want abundance, but stuff,
Mm-hmm.
Stuff. And even like, I mean I, I think one thing I have done a really good job of in the last year is, clearing my calendar and not feeling the need to fill every second of every day with stuff. So I would like that to see that translate now into my physical realm.
I hear you. I hear you. We had a, we had a chat last week about, we kind of eased into the new year and the new work world, and we were like, wow, that's so nice. I think we should try to hold onto that as long as we can.
Yeah. What other kind topics do you like?
What other kind of topics do you like? Well, we had a fear, which is understandable, that, we, we might be rolling on this D 100 table and we might eventually hit, you know, a, a point where we have, we don't wanna repeat a question, but our, you know, object impermanent memories, mean that we could very easily just answer the same question twice and not know it. But luckily for us, we now have an official lore keeper,
Yes, we do.
Uh, whose name is Fitz. And, what the bleeeeep is a lore keeper?
Well, Matt,
That wasn't quite as smooth as I was hoping it was gonna be. We'll edit it Yeah. Alison. Oh, we won't. Alison. Alison. Hey Alison. What the is a lore keeper?
I would love to tell you Matt, um, this is actually it's, this is a funny conversation coming off the, the heels of talking about our sometimes lack of organization and accumulation of too much stuff. So, you know, in the, in the role playing game world, a lore keeper is someone who is either forced at sword point by their own party or just has a natural knack, for organizing thoughts and notes. Because as at least the two of us can attest to many of these campaigns go on for years.
So how are you gonna remember the stuff that's happening now, you know, with the stuff that happened last week, last month, last year? And so a lore keeper tends to step in and hold the keys to the history files of him in any given campaign or database, right? And we're learning that we aren't gonna do it. So we had to ask one of our best friends to come do it for us. And so Fitz and I did some traveling together over Christmas and we were talking about my gotta pause. Gotta pause for effect.
Okay. I'll stop. I'll stop. Okay.
Don't you dare. We were talking about how, yeah, we need to start for a couple of reasons. One, so we don't repeat questions like a bunch of boobs.
Yeah.
But two, because there are other questions waiting in the wings and they deserve spot on the ADHD 100, table too. Um, and I was like, I, I guess, I guess I gotta go back through and like listen to our old episodes and do write-ups and take notes and mark things off on the table. And Fitz was like, oh, can I do that? I mean, she is our number one fan, so, you know, it, it felt like a natural fit.
proclaimed. Yes, for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Her words, not mine. Uh, so yeah, so we said, great. You wanna be our lore keeper. And so it's official now. It is. It is. Podcast official.
So great. It's funny because I was just on, just taking a walk because the sun just came out in Chicago after like 50,000 days. And I was talking to Lindsay about just thing things, , and we, I was talking about neuro, uh, divergent brains, right?
Neuro spicy. Neuro spicy Brains.
That's right. That's right. There's a new, there's a new description of what's happening to our brains, y'all. Uh, I need to give credit where credit's due. Our friend Sarah Mason Walden has the new word, uh, for 2023 to describe those with a neuro divergent brain, neurodiverse brain. And that is neuro spicy. It's here to stay. So, my wife and I were on a walk talking about neuro spicy brains. That is amazing. I haven't used it in the world. I haven't used it in IRL. Uh, that's pretty funny.
That's great. Okay. Neuro spicy. We were talking about neuro spicy brains and somehow it. The difference between how Fitz, uh, you know, is, is the lore keeper and how I have to actually go to Fitz's lore keeping in order for me to do my job as a game master because I am not as organized. And so I will say, I will say things off the top of my head, not make a note of it, like a major non-player character that we're gonna run into no idea what their name was. Thank the sweet Lord above for Fitz.
But what I was saying was that in both of our neuro spicy brains, hers, OCD, mine, ADHD, there are some interesting similarities. So maybe, maybe this year we have the lore keeper on the podcast to explain those similarities and differences. That's, that is a goal that I think should happen. So yes. Yay. For lore keeping and Fitz. Welcome.
I mean, it's always been official, but now it's just official with a title.
Yeah, exactly. So what are we talking about today? This is the time, January 10 that we were recording this. People are still kind of in the, the thick of their, resoluting and goal planning and stuff. So we figured maybe we should give this episode kind of that bent of like New Year, always same old bullshit. It has like, you know, every new thing, a new year, a new month, a new week has the possibility of this little bit of dopamine that kind of makes you excited. Well, I have another chance.
Anything can happen today, right? Or anything could happen this year. And so I know that everyone kind of is reeling from that. It's a joke, of course. You know, when you make a resolution and you can't keep up with it, then you beat yourself up a few months later and we're we're saying we don't want to do that. So what do we, what do we do?
Let me tell you the fundamental problem that I have with resolutions, and even before I went full woo at the end of last year, I've always, I've, I ha I've been, I've been full, woo um, I come up with a word and that is just kind of my, my beacon throughout to like, is this how I'm feeling? My problem fundamentally with resolutions is that they do what I don't like, which is they focus on where you're lacking, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, and weigh in here.
Always feel like, oh, I wanna get outta debt, or I want to lose 20 pounds. Or I, they're always these things we find wrong with ourselves, and I just want myself and everybody I'm around to reframe that. So it's okay to wanna get healthier, and it's okay to have a plan to build up your finances to a place of abundance. But let's do that by focusing on what we want. I want to be able to run a 10 minute mile. I want to have $10,000 at all times in my savings account.
I want to have a thousand people consistently listening to my podcast. Whatever it is, I want to focus on the thing. See, and I said that, and your sweet little eyes just lit
Yeah!
So we, you and I were talking and I was like, well, I got a word. I always have a word of the year. Uh, I think in the past I've tried to choose words that didn't align with me, like discipline. Eh, I'm never gonna be a disciplined person. You know, like, let's just, let's just throw that out. I can maybe a better, you know, discipline is what I lack, maybe what I'm looking for is sustainability.
Like it doesn't have to look the same every day, but is it sustainable as opposed to being disciplined? Um, so I came up with this word that I realized was one of my, core values last year, and I decided I'm gonna apply it to this year. And that word is magic. Um, I find it not at all strange that, uh, we had, you know, Tey on at some point halfway through last year, and we talked about why I like D&D and the, the characters that I play, and it always centers around magic.
And every single thing that I've been lit up by in the past few years, it's because there's been some like spark that feels bigger than myself and other worldly and like, I didn't get to control it. Uh, that feels magic to me. So, you know, in the sense of that, I'd want to find the things that make me light up and go, ha, that's magic, um, in all that I do. So that's my word of 2023. Matt, what say you, you have a different, you don't say words, you
Yeah. I, I like the, I do really like words too, and I feel like I'm inspired to come up with some words similarly, but I also like the concept of themes. And again, these are not things that we've invented, the internet can show you some people who can explain all of this so much better. But for me, theme is fun because it's like word, maybe they're almost interchangeable, except for me, the theme is something that can even change halfway. Right?
Like it's, it could be a quarterly thing, it could be, it could be a monthly thing, but it it, it could be a yearly thing. So I could have really big ones. Like one thing that I have this year is play more the, the year of playing more. That's kind of open.
You know what,
Yes.
Do you know what my word was last year?
Play. Was it? Aw, I thought it was ease last year.
Oh, last year was ease so the year before that then was
Okay. Right.
Play, play, has been, I think it was, it was, yeah. Magic, ease, play. It was synchronicity, I think the year before
Those are such good ones. So, yeah, for, for that, I, I really, I don't know, themes, themes feel good to me. Similarly in, in the way that I'm not tearing myself down. But another theme that I did come up with is, more confidence. Not that I don't have confidence, but know, just kind of egging myself on. It's not coming from a place of lack, it's that I've discovered, oh, I don't really give an f. I'm learning that, oh, I don't need to be nervous about things.
At the end of last year, I, yeah, there were some things that I kind of just like reached out and did and was like, oh, that's totally easy. It wasn't, wasn't as hard as I thought it was. Um, and, And so for me, like more, is it confidence? More, get it more, go more. What does Evan say? Shoot the shoot, shoot your shoot. Get it. It's not even get or done because I, I don't wanna stress out about getting things done this year the way that I did last time. I want to just, just do.
Sounds like a Nike commercial.
Just do it.
Yeah. So I, those are, those are two of mines. And then I, I do want to respect, I specifically said I wanted to respect billable hours. I wanna respect client work more. I think what I'm saying there is just find that balance, right? Like take the balance, find it, because I, I want to, I want to invite it, right? Part of my stress of 2022 was that I was sometimes doing too much client work and not enough play, and that's just the way it works.
But if, if I just invite it in, then there will be more. Therefore I might, you know, I could do less because we're a team and we can help each other. So those are some things that I was thinking about.
I think, uh, it's, I haven't named it officially as one of my words, so maybe we'll tie this into the theme bucket, and it goes along with that is the notion of sustainability.
We had a lot of high, high peaks and low, low valleys last year, and the highs feel great, but man, the psychic damage that we collectively took on those valleys, And I just, you know, I can't help but wonder if there is a way to, sustain so that way we can just keep going for longer instead of getting so caught up in all of this.
And I agree with you, like we have a business, we have to give ourselves to it and, and work to make it flourish and make it exactly what we want it to be and invite in exactly what we're yearning for. But we have to find that balance too and say, okay, like I, I'm now grinding, you know, and that's not good. Like, metal on metals is not gonna get us anywhere. Uh, so now I need to, I need to rest.
And I think one of the things that I learned more so in past, past year than any other year before is this notion that like, we as humans don't have to earn our rest or our fun. And I think that there are so many people out there apologetic about peace, apologetic about joy, and I just, I don't wanna do that anymore, you guys. I wanna like a little toddler just running unabashedly into the fun and then taking a nap and not apologizing.
Right.
for either of those two
Yeah.
Um, so I think, I think magic coupled with sustain sustainable sustainability, something around that notion will be, will be a theme for
Magic. Sustainability. And I'll have one more, which I think will lead us to our next topic. Uh, it was, it was one of my, my goals last year, to build a community or find community. Right? Because I felt like I was losing one in some ways. And I wanted a new one. I wanted my own. I wanted one closer. And, so that is a big word for me this year. Community. And I think at the very start of this year, we just kind of like sounded the call.
Nerd Horn.
Okay, that sounds weird. What does the nerd horn sound like? Or this. Is that the nerd horn or maybe is it both at the same time? I don't know the nerd. We, we sounded the nerd horn. I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna "yes and" your nerd horn. And I'm gonna say we sounded it and people came and we went from like zero to 60 for our Discord, which it's just such a fun place to be. Like I, I do actually have to fight myself. I need to kind of relax a little bit when I spend too much time in there.
Cause I wanna just hang out with people and talk about nerdy things like TV and books and everybody it is so interesting, they have such interesting things to say and it's really fun. So, um, this is a, an unapologetic, nerd horn toot.
Oh, absolutely not.
Oh, whoops.
I hate that so
Yeah, that's, that's, a, that's a, not even a working title. That's a not happening title. Anyway, so I'm saying right now, however, that we have a hopping discord, which I'm gonna pump that up because it's so fun and it is, um, full of people that we both know and don't know. And that's what I want. I want that this year.
I want to meet new people and, and hang out with older friends and learn new things about, like already in this one week that we've been at Discord, I learned so much about all these people that I've known for years. I'm like, you do what for a living? What the hell? What? So I love that. I love it. And that's my word. Word.
Yep. We love, well, and, I wanna toot our own nerd horn for a second.
Okay.
Oh no.
Yeah. Oh, yes.
You know, we, give ourselves a lot of shit for the thing. Again, that place of lack, the things that we don't get done. And I think that we are especially prone to do it as people with ADHD because the universe has told us for so long, you're lazy, you're unmotivated. Like all of these things that now that we are evolved beings who know that it's not that we're lazy or unmotivated, our brain is literally working differently. And I don't like the overuse of literally, but we have to use it.
There it is. We are spicy mofos. Okay. So I wanna focus more on the things that we get done in instead of the things that we don't in that very same spirit. And I love that we just came out of the gate swinging this year. We were like, you know what? It's time we are, we are ready for our Nerd Herd or our Revenge of Nerds, or the Nerd Alert or all of these different, we're workshopping it
We're working, we're working on it.
Okay. Whatever we're gonna be called collectively, we just did it. And we've stopped worrying about if it was ready or if it was good enough or if it was organized. And in fact, I think that's been part of the delight of the first week of it has been giving the community some, some stakes in it, some level of ownership. Some I don't want them to do the work for us, but I do wanna know. Truly, what kind of topics do you like? What do you wanna see here?
What's, what's your definition of a thriving really tremendously fun community and they're giving it to us, man. I set up a channel called Suggestion Box, and I instantly, I didn't even have to tell people to go fill it. They were, they were in there with their ideas and ready. And then every new channel that I set up, somebody has something to contribute to it.
And I just think it's so lovely to find community was one of my core values that came out in the core values exercise that I did last year. And so to watch it play out IRL man, it's so fun. I love it so much. So thank you guys for being a part of it and keep, keep flowing in. We, we, we, we want more.
More, more. And, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna say thank you, Alison, because I think that a big part of this, this new confidence and this new, we just gotta do it for me, in last year, which was not my favorite year of my life, uh, there were some great things and some okay things, but this podcast was by far one of the best things of 2022 for me. It's the example of the thing that we just do because we wanted to do, and we have things to talk about.
And, and so yeah, that's, this podcast kind of is, gave me the confidence to say, okay, let's go. So, yay. Good job. I'm shaking your hand. Shake, shake, shake. Yeah. What else, what else we got? I mean, that's a pretty good, that's a pretty good intro to, to the year. What else you got?
I know that the New Year for a lot of people always brings this, like, this hope and this renewed optimism. You know, and I know that we've all made jokes, especially since 2020 of like, nobody say anything. We're whispering. We're, we're not being loud, we're not saying things like, this is our year. And I, I get that. I get, I get why we're all scared.
Yeah.
Why we're all hesitant to do that. And, and the other thing that I now get is that there's nothing magical about the first day or the first week or the, like, we can, we can turn over. Clean slate. Any, any old ding dang time we want.
Yes, exactly. That's the thing. That is exactly the thing.
But I also won't, I won't stop myself or anybody else from feeling some renewed sense of optimism, whether it's driven by the calendar or just the vibe. Um, and so, so far, so far, 2023, you passing the vibe check.
Here's, yes. Here's the thing. I feel like the last few years, a couple of them, maybe three things have happened to us more.
Mm-hmm.
Some bad luck, some sad, experiences, some pandemics, right? Like things have been happening to us that add to that the stress of moving forward. And I think maybe the difference that I feel this year, at the beginning of this year, that I didn't really feel as much last year, uh, that I almost haven't felt in since 2020. Oh, the irony. But like, look at all the stuff I learned about ADHD just last year. Like more in one year than I have in 50 years easily. And, and what did I learn?
My brain is different. It's going to act different. It's going to be different. I have the choice. I have choices, right? I, there's some things I can't change, but I certainly can make choices. How do I learn something now that I have this information in my brain? How do I, how do I learn it in a way that I can learn it, right? How do I overcome the difficulty of, of this or distraction or focus or whatever. So what if we just say, Bring it on, whatever it could be.
Let's not let it distract this. Like we can, we can still hold little gems of, of things like this podcast or, or our community burgeoning, or friendship or, or playing D&D together in person or blank, blank. All the wonderful things. Like, that's, that's a word in itself. Just the the hopefulness, the but, but more than hopefulness. It's kind of like don't take your eyes off the prize. So you've got these words. I've got themes.
Don't take our eyes off of those prizes because they're prizes that we're giving each other. Wow. I'm sounding woohoo right now. Love it.
You are so woo. I
woo. woo.
I will leave you with my parting thought
Please.
This was, this was a thought that I had at some, and I don't remember exactly where in the year, but when, when I, when things started to turn around and change for me, and I started to feel more in control of myself, my emotions, my environment, beginning to understand that exactly what you just said, like, I can't control the ocean, right? Like, ocean's gotta ocean. It's gonna send me waves, it's gonna send me wind, and there's gonna be beautiful placid days as well, right?
But when you turn the corner and realize that things don't happen to you, they happen for you. That's where all the magic is, man. Like, that's where the shit gets real. And I think that that's the like, collective
Right.
Collective corner that we've all turned is we're like, you know what stuff's gonna happen and we're gonna, we're gonna see what happens. We're gonna, we're gonna weather it together and we're gonna, you know, get out on the deck and pull out a deck of cards and, and play a game until the storm passes.
Mm-hmm.
So, you know that I think the, one of those themes that kept coming up in 2020 was, we're all in the same storm, but we're not all in the same boat.
Uhhuh.
That was, that's something that people said a lot that You know, some people are in yachts and others are in like little rickety canoes, you know, and we're all in a hurricane, which is very true. But damn, I'm proud of not only the boat I've built, but like who it's full of right
Yeah, I am too, man. I am so proud of the, of the people in your boat. You just, man, you kicked a bunch of people out. You you murdered a lot of people.
I did,
You drowned.
ruthless
caused the drowning of many
Wait a minute. Before this podcast gets taken out of context, I did not murder any people. I murdered friendships. Okay, Yeah. Let's let that get out. Alison Kendrick murdered people.
That's the way we're gonna end in 2023, uh, in season two. Okay. We got weird. It's time to stop. Uh, I, I love you very much, Alison. I'm very excited to be back. I'm glad we are recording this. Uh, good job.
I love you right back. Thanks for, thanks for letting me on your podcast, Matt.
Thank you for, thank you for being on my podcast.
Some, some threads have to carry.
That's fine. Threads carry. Um, all right. Until next week.