Goodbye.
No! What are you doing? You're sharing an outline with me!
Yeah, I'm not a superstitious person. We've been writing these very loose outlines and then we immediately don't do anything about it. So there's a little element of superstition. If we don't do that, then we won't have anything to say. I don't know. Hello, Alison. How are you?
I'm great slash tired. But mostly
Okay. Good. I am a good. Slash. A little sad. Just a friend's mom died and it's not like she was the center of my life or anything, but, you know, it's, it's, it's more the concept of when you lose a parent in a, you know, very un-normal time of life. Normal? Unique? Unnatural? I don't know. But when you're 30, when you lose a parent, when you're 30.
Earlier life than expected.
Yeah. Where, where you feel like you're not ready, actually, you don't have the skills to deal with it. This is, this is the time where parents are going to start, you know, leaving us. And so it's kind of like, Oh boy. This friend has been super chill and he's going to be fine. Everybody's going to be fine because we're 20 years more of an adult but it's still like, oh boy, here it goes. It's happening. It's happening. So, that's just going to be you. That's going to be a hard one.
So, you know, sometimes. I think I've done a pretty good job of not. Not really. It's not like I've been ignoring my mortality, but just. I don't necessarily acknowledge it the way other people, my age do. Cause think it's boring.
I'm like, hell yeah, I'm coming up on another decade. And refusing to do the, I guess kind of more normal, I'm opting out of this birthday. I don't want to age up. I do. Every year has been better than the last. My twenties were a raw disaster. Thirties were pretty good to me. So I'm excited to push on into my fifth decade and turn 40.
Yeah, I know. My mom had a birthday yesterday and she has hated birthdays since she turned 40, she locked herself in her room. Hmm. It was very scarring for me because I didn't understand what, what that was, but I, I, I have definitely managed to n ot go that route. But, you know, it is, it's a little different. When I turned 40, I got married, I made more money than I'd ever made. But so many changes all at once.
Life freaking crushing changes, both exquisite and difficult, and it hasn't really been that much of the case yet. You know, it's only April, but this year going to be. It's like, Hmm. I wonder what I can shake up. And that's actually partly what I, what I wrote as notes as far as, ADHD goes and, and D 20, Dungeons & Dragons, and how they, how they intersect, how they collide. Right. That's what we're talking about. Some day I'm going to have like a. A bunch of ' Amazing.
sound effects and I can just press them and go.
I want you to, I will now be officially sad effects don't go into this episode. Episode number...tree?
Three episode number three. Hopefully we'll see how it goes. I am. You know, It is going to be a tricky thing because i t's not difficult to edit these when I start editing, it is a joyful freaking experience. It's the getting into the mode of doing it. Like being able to stop the other millions of things that I have to do. To do this other thing that I'm not getting paid for yet. But going back to what I was going to say, I have, I have this constant desire to change everything, all the time.
Literally all the time. My life. you know, my, my, my gear. My job. It's just, it's a never ending need for new and that's definitely a big part of ADHD. But you, I wanted to talk to you about this because you are very close to finishing the second season of Critical Role, which, for those of you who don't know, I don't know why you don't know this, but Critical Role is... the is the pinnacle of Dungeons and Dragons live play.
They weren't the first necessarily, but they are by far the ones, you know, they, they kind of make all the rules. And I have enjoyed every minute that I've watched of theirs, but you're talking about going on YouTube and watching four hours at a time, four hours at a sitting. And I, it is just brutally difficult for me to do that. How close are you to ending second season?
So it's the second season is 141 episodes, each episode three to four hours long. I'm at episode 135. So let's say let's see 135. Times four. So that's 540 hours just of Critical Role Season Two. I also watched an eight episode mini series over the summer, which is really what catapulted me into this. So that's another 32 hours. Plus I'm 15 episodes into Critical Role three. That's 15 times four plus 32 plus 540.
So in less than a year, since sometime around last June, I have consumed 632 hours of Critical Role content. And that's just the shows. That's just the show is that's not like me living on their every last word on social media.
That's certainly not me talking to anybody who will listen to me about how much I love this and all things D and D. But it's, it's interesting to me that you say that, you know, one of your side effects of ADHD is an obsession and fascination with the new, because I feel exactly the opposite. I don't like, I only want like comfort and to feel safe. I am the person who has read the same books, 47 times and watch the same movies 470 more times. So getting me to do something new is really hard.
And so it's funny that I blame that on my ADHD and you blame gotta have it gotta have the new, sexy thing on yours. Wildly fascinating.
The difference is probably you don't envy me. Whereas I envy you. I really envy your ability to, to be able to sit down and watch 600 hours.
I do want to point out though, that that is in part personality and in part lifestyle. Like you are married, you have to take into account somebody else's thoughts feelings, objections, hopes wishes, et cetera. It's just me in here.
Yeah, no. It is yes, lifestyle does play a factor for sure. But the closest thing I have to routine is to try to wind down at night. And I've got automations that start turning down the lights at 10 o'clock. I may not be able to fall asleep until midnight. But if I can at least just kind of get towards bed then it means I won't be up until 2 necessarily. And so I pick something to watch on YouTube every night. And it's just, I don't always choose Critical Role. When I do, I'm very happy.
But I'm just as happy to watch a video on how e-Camm Live and Descript work together or, or Airtable. And then sometimes there'll be in the mood for Critical Role. I can't stick the way that you can stick.
What's interesting though, is so with Critical Role I'm I'm five episodes from the end. So I feel, I very intimately know these characters now. I feel like they are my little imaginary friends in some way. Because I haven't had the same amount of time with the new Critical Role season that's about 16, 17 episodes, and I never watch it before bed. And I think that this goes back to the whole comfort thing.
Like I feel comforted and soothed, even though we're in a very high stress point of Season Two that I'm almost done with. Like it does, get my heart rate, you know, elevated because we're fighting the big bads.
Yeah.
But it's that comfort. It's like, I know you. I like, whereas with Critical Role Three, I don't know them yet. So I find no comfort, no joy in that being my immediately pre bedtime activity.
So that's, that's one thing I don't envy you of. Is that. I can turn on any season and just drop in and be fascinated equally. Like I do get to know the characters as it's not that. And if I'm able to power through and watch enough so that I do get emotionally involved with everybody, it's going to be even more rich and great for me. But. everyone has been like Oh, my God slogging through Critical Role three. I have had no problem with it because everybody's new and that's just what
happens . And new relationships are always so awkward, for me, there's always Are we going to be friends? Are we? I maybe not, really truly. Okay. It's not worth it bye, you know, I have. I have the ability to be not colder, but just more flibbertigibbet. I don't know.
What was that word again?
Flibbertigibbet.
Sure.
I just, I don't feel that stress. I don't need that comfort. I almost never read books twice. Almost never watch movies twice. And I have no problem with that. No problem.
I wonder if it's, what, what, like what facet of my personality should we blame? Is it the ADHD? Is it the fact that my astrological sign is Cancer? And, you know, we are known for being crabby little home bodies. You know, maybe, maybe I'm blaming the wrong thing here. Who knows.
Yeah, I don't know. Here's here's the nice thing about you though. We touched on the concept of fandom. Fan being a fan of something. Which starts with a Oh, cool. And then might turn into obsession and then burn really hot. Almost to an uncomfortable level. And then, overfamiliarity is bred. And then, maybe like annoyance slash well you owe me kind of phase goes through and then turns away from the thing that you're a fan obsessed with out of anger, because they're not giving you what you want?
So they don't sound the same or look the same or act the same. and then you, and then there's the breakup period. And then hopefully like a much more calm and rock steady return. Hopefully or not, but oftentimes right.
I'm just so glad that we never went through that.
Well, that's what I was going to say. That is what I was going to say is that you have all the symptoms of most of that circle, you go white hot. But you kind of break through and you end up being a loyal fan. You may be maybe more annoyed or you're maybe more cautious about all the things, especially if it's new stuff like cautious about a new album, cautious about a new you know, season. But you don't. you don't blow them up. You don't burn bridges, which I really, I respect that.
I think that is pure Alison. Whether it's ADHD or Cancer the Crab, I think that's pure Alison, that's a choice that you make, and I love you for that.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So I teased this, I think in the very first episode that we recorded about this article that I read that kind of broke me open and made me say this really resonates with me. I really need to go seek treatment or whatever it is for ADHD. And I think it relates to everything that you just said in that arc of fandom, to the ongoing theme that we now have, where I have a hard time with a blank page, and that fear. And now what we're talking about in terms of obsessions slash comfort.
You know, like whatever these little security blankets that I've dropped throughout the world are. And so in the article, it was a mother of, I think she was a psychologist writing this article, but about diagnosing her own son with ADHD and a symptom that let her know okay, this is something we've got to pay attention to. The son was somewhere in the like five to eight year old corridor. So still figuring out life.
And he social child as he was, was having a really hard time with new situations to the point of debilitating breakdowns. Where like if he was going to things that she thought would be really fun for him, like a friend's birthday party, he would just have these panic attacks in the car on the way, sobbing, screaming, crying. Wouldn't want to be ripped from his mother's grasp. And, and kind of her journey of, of walking through that with him.
And what she realized it was the ADD in him where you can't see the end at the beginning. And that raises a sense of panic, like physically in your body. And I had this moment of oh my God, I understand exactly what this kid is going through. Because like my friends know for a fact, if I'm going to a new place and I am the first to arrive, I will sit in my car.
Hell. Even if it's not a new place, even if we're just meeting for dinner, I will sit in my car and I will wait until I see somebody that I know. Before I will walk in, you know, to that place on my own. Because what if I don't know where the host stand is? And what if I look like an idiot to nobody in the world that's paying any attention to me. Right. But I suffered, with this weird anxiety that in high school, my parents just kind of wrote off where, you know, like lunch was a chaotic mess.
Because what if I can't find my friends, there's always the sense of What if I don't know the way. And apparently that is not something that neurotypicals deal with. Apparently most people just say, I'll walk into a room, I'll look around. I'll find my friend. It's going to be okay. I don't think that way. And so now my friends know if they get to a restaurant before me, Alison turn left at the host stand we're three booths back.
They know to walk me through a new situation to me, if they know that I'm going to start feeling unsure of it. That was the article that I read that was like, okay. So this way that I am is not just an Alison quirk, this is a known thing. And there are other people out there like me who have this weird anxiety around new situations.
I know exactly what you're talking about and I do the same thing, but I do with a difference. If I'm going to a situation where I probably don't know anybody. Okay. Let's say I go to a situation where I do know somebody. I will try my best to not just focus on them all night. Like I'm just as nervous as you are about meeting new people, the anxiety of that, the discomfort of it. But I've been accused in my life of being kinder to strangers than I am my friends.
Like I'm I'm trying to urge strangers into a deep conversation. Conversations I won't have with people that I've known for 20 years. And so I'll go with my wife to a party and it's just, it's, I hate when I do this, but it happens and she doesn't know anybody and she doesn't want to talk to anybody. But to me, going to a party is Okay, I'm going to put on this costume. I'm gonna put on this performance of Party Guy. You know, I may not want to play that role at all, but the show has to go on.
I've been invited. I'm going. I don't often go for fun. I just kind of go because I feel like I should. And I go, but once I'm there, I'm the opposite of what you're talking about. I try to hang out and I try to have slightly deeper than conversations about the weather with people. I don't know. It's very weird.
You are really good with strangers though. And it's funny because as I know that I'm the more like textbook extrovert. And people don't believe me when I tell them how much I hate strangers. No part of me. And I usually will just relay it back to think about when we met. Did I approach you? 99 times out of a hundred the answer is no. We were either shoved into a mutually awkward situation or somebody introduced us, but very rarely do I just walk up to somebody and say, Hey, be my friend.
In fact.
Yeah.
Like so my first time getting to truly hang out with you one-on-one was when I was visiting Chicago. And you and I went to lunch together. That was the most nerve wracking moment, both in asking you if you would want to have lunch with me. And then also like waiting for you to arrive at the restaurant in a city where I don't know anything. And it's like this guy who I know of is going to walk in and hopefully we'll find things to talk about. Spoiler alert. We did, we were fine.
All worked out, you know, but it is very rare that I will put myself out there in that way. But if I know you and I'm comfortable with you, yeah. You can't get me to shut up ever. So that's why people don't believe me. When I say I hate strangers. I hate new situations. All of that makes me wildly uncomfortable and anxious. I guess, cause I exude a confidence, like once we're in some kind of relationship, but they just forget how awkward I was at the beginning. I don't know.
And people don't believe that I am a homebody introvert.
Cause you're so good at like, your ability to make everybody feel seen. You know, like you can just stick that little drill right in there and extract exactly the question that you need to ask to make somebody feel at ease or feel seen. And it's a really magical, wonderful quality.
And it is a genuine quality. When I say performance, it's not a fake thing. But it is the thing that I have to do. It does take a lot of energy from me. But I didn't realize until I, till I married an introvert, that that's what I was. Because she's, she's doesn't need to meet new people. Doesn't need to make new friends. Doesn't need friends around. Doesn't need any social engagement at all. And I realized, oh, okay. So that thing that I feel after five nights of making people feel seen.
I kind of close up. That's introversion. That's what introversion is.
I don't know if it's age or the pandemic or what, but I think that I have definitely started to skew more ambivert in the past few years and now, when I go, like I went and traveled last weekend with a group of friends. All of whom I love. And we did things that I chose to do joyfully and willingly. When I came home, I did not want to see or hear or talk to anybody for two straight days. Like I I'm learning that my recharge time is taking me longer and longer.
I'm no longer fueled by those connections. That's not the right way to put that I'm no longer fueled by, you know, just being around people. I can also fuel myself in solitude as much as I like being around people. It's pretty balanced. It's pretty 50/50 now. If I have too much alone time, I get a frenetic energy and have to surround myself with people and do things. If I'm around people too much, I have to get home and talk to nothing and no one for a couple of days to reenergize. It's weird.
It is, it is weird. And, you know, tying it to this game. I did mention a couple of episodes ago that one of the amazing things about this game for me is the fact that it forces quote, unquote forces because you don't have to do anything, it's just a game. But it seems to me that there is a much higher chance for people, new people talking to other new people to drop all of the just super surface level conversation that is normal.
Like my favorite favorite thing, I've missed it very much being in the Midwest. Cause it doesn't happen very often, is that Southern Well, I've got time to talk to you about this thing that happened to my grandmother last week. Like Southerners? Strangers talk to you, you know, and, and so anything that I can do to be in a situation where I mean, you know what it is? I think, I think. Okay. I think this is what it is.
My parlor trick about making people feel seen is to just get them to talk about themselves. And I don't know what to do when people don't. But this game has that ability to just kind of strip all that out. Just, you are not even playing you.
But you are.
But you are exactly, but you are.
So there's one question I've had in the back of my brain pretty much since we started playing Dungeons and Dragons is. Is this for everyone? And I think the like, Inclusionist in me, wants to believe that if people would just open their damn minds and hearts and give this a shot. Everybody could love this as much as we do. But maybe not. uh, You know, me, I want to tell everybody everything all the time. So it's weird for me to have this thing that really is just for me and a very small circle.
Getting back to that comfort motif that we started out on. That's an uncomfortable place for me, but just cause it's uncomfortable doesn't mean it's bad.
And I think you're, I think you're totally right. It is a much easier sell to your friends to watch a TV show or go listen to a band. It's a concept that everybody does every day. This is asking a lot of a human being. It is something that anybody can do. And I will hold that you don't need a degree in improv. You don't need to be an actor. You don't need to like games. I think it is a therapeutic thing for people. I think that it, it does teach you a lot about yourself.
But there's also other ways to do that .Therapy. Actual improv. What a weird thing that you kind of have to use the rules of, of a thing that's performance-based, but then you're not performing for anybody usually, unless you're Critical Role and a few others. But even, but even then it's not. It's. It is a weird thing sometimes. Don't think about it too hard.
I will. I'm not losing. I'm definitely not the only time that I lose sleep over anything Dungeons and Dragons related. So Fitz and I play a Thursday night game with strangers from the internet. Which there's another, that was hard for me to, to be like, I'd only shared this with some of my nearest and dearest and people that I feel very comfortable with.
So when it was first, you know, asked, do you want to join the Thursday night game with people you don't know that you will probably never meet that may or may not judge you and may or may not get you in the way that your friends do. It was a leap of faith that I took to join it. And now it's one of my favorite days of the week because of the Thursday night game. But it is from 8:00 PM until we usually wrap somewhere between 1130 and midnight.
I've had to modify my entire Fridays, you know, that, it's it just cause to what you were saying at the beginning, like you need that wind downtime. Which I do too. I'm the same way. I absolutely get into bed at nine, hoping to be asleep by 11, just cause I need that time to put the day away. And so I still need that time at the end of playing until midnight.
And then also it's so exciting and I'm usually so like just keyed up by all these weird, stupid make-believe things we did, but I, I still get so excited and so emotionally invested in them. Evan made fun of me earlier in the week? Like I had made the comment that sometimes when I talk about Dungeons and Dragons to my friends, I feel like how my friends with eight year olds must feel when they're trying to talk about Minecraft or whatever it is.
And Evan was like, yeah, I kind of experienced that with you when you were telling me about your Thursday game.
Yeah.
So. It goes back to maybe it's not for everybody.
But
And I'm not complaining. I think it's the best.
Yeah, I'm not complaining either. But it's funny. Uh, At the beginning of this. podcast, I realized that I have an actual goal and the way that this ties in is because as a Dungeon Master, I would like to play a world with y'all. To build one and then play it where characters have goals. And that's harder in Barovia. It really is because it's not your world and you were put in it and I mean, you have goals, but it's it's harder.
And I realized for this podcast, I have a goal which is not, not like me, really, that I have. Okay. You ready?
I lay it on.
I don't even know whether we'll add this to the, to the actual podcast, but maybe if I say it out loud and put it out loud. I want to have Jennifer Kretchmer as a guest on this podcast. And then I would like to have Deborah Ann Woll. Because, Jennifer Kretchmer is very open about having ADHD. And then she's great friends, of course, with Deborah Ann Woll, who has a husband who is, who is blind, low vision. And I was just like, Oh my gosh, those are very, possibly achievable goals.
Very intersectional. Is that the right use of that application?
I think so.
I love that you are inspired to have goals. And verbalize them, speak them into the universe.
Yes. In order to make it that goal though, you and I are going to have to One, keep recording this podcast. Two..
Oh, no.
Edit it and put it out.
So it's funny. I was talking to my friend Paige about it and she was like, great, where can I listen to it and I was like, so we're going to actually do things the right way instead of the Alison way for once. So I think that getting to talk to heavy hitters in the Dungeons and Dragons and disability space is the coolest goal ever, and I am fully onboard and will do everything in my power to help make that happen.
Thank you.
Yay.
I just think I could come up with some amazing questions for, for anybody who plays this game. Anybody honestly. Any darn person.
It goes back to the consummate, making people feel seen and heard and loved and surrounded.
I can do that.
In a cocoon of safety. And we will be other people's safe space. To talk about Dungeons and Dragons as long as they want to.
Yes. Ma'am. Um, well, speaking of winding down, it is your time to start doing that is your quitting time. I don't know, man, I feel good about this podcast. It makes sense to me. I don't know how about you.
It gets all my hearts, all my stars. Uh, Today I came to the table with a blank page and didn't die.
Good for
So
And I came to the table with a page.
And a goal! I feel good about this.
That's good. That's good. Well, Alison, thank you for doing this podcast with me. And until next week,
Yeah, I'll talk to you between now and then, but especially
Yeah. I'd probably talk to you. Yeah. Okay.