The feeling when you need to put your hair back urgently. I know, I get. It's a real feeling. I just had it, and I was like, I will use an electrical cord if I have to. I am so desperate I actually can't stand it.
I entirely agree there should be a word for that, because to concentrate and they need your hair.
And if you can't find a hair tie, You're right. I have used not being able to find a tampole. That's the worst.
Hello and welcome to Mama Mia out Loud. Today is Friday, the first of November, and with the weekends so close, we're leaving the news cycle behind to spin itself into it stressed out frenzy and talk about other stuff. But before we begin, we've had a lot of new listeners and too the group chat recently, so allow us to introduce ourselves to My name is Holly Wayne Wright.
Who are you though? Who am I question? I'm me a Friedman. I'm the co founder of mom and Mia and some other things.
Okay, I'm Emily Vernon. I usually host our daily entertainment podcast, A Spill, but I'm filling in for Jesse today.
What's your job title?
Here I say writer and podcaster, but I kind of gave it to myself.
We could all have writer and podcasts. Actually, I make up a different title most weeks, even at very different stages. We could all be writer and podcaster. I noticed in my auto signature it said I was creative director. But someone else says.
That, Trot, you aren't you co founder and head of what?
Now? I'm just co founder, head of creating Happy?
Okay, She's very important anyway. On the show today, what are officially the happiest and least happy decades of our lives? And why that whole question is a croc. Also recommendations for your weekend and beyond, including the book that might finally change my life, em Who's got something to help
you do your hair? And me has actually got a whole list of recommendations for us today and our best and worst of the week, which include a Gwyneth update from me, AM's got another complaint about working, and Mia hadn't encounter with a coproat.
But first, Mayor Friedman, I have to tell you, in case you missed it, that there is a common rental behavior that is dividing households. Millennial households and it's also divining the internet. After there was a post on the Reddit thread oz property chat which sounds riveting, should be hanging out there more often. It got a lot of
traction this post, and the dilemma was this. It was a man who posted that the head renter in the sharehouse where he lived had sent him a WhatsApp message after noticing that this guy's partner had been spending more time at their sharehouse than before. And the message said two day rule for partners. Third day you pay for a week's rent. Please pay the extra week of rent.
I hope you understand that it costs me money. The poster then asked the forum if this is allowed Before hundreds of people gave their opinions, because that's how the Internet works. Now, before we get to those, I just want to go the opinions that I care about more, the opinions of the out louders. And we did our own poll. Sixty four percent of you said that if a partner is staying over for long periods, they should
contribute to bills like water electricity in the internet. Ten percent of you said the partner is not living there, so they should never have to pay. An eleven percent said it's perfectly fair for a partner to have to contribute after two days. What do you live alone, don't you?
I live alone. I used to have a housemaid, but I never had this particular issue.
She got a boyfriend while you were living together.
You started got a two a friend on the last day of us living together. So we never had I mean, we had like guys over that we were dating for a long period of time, but never like more than three days.
It's three days in a row.
Yeah, actually not even like it would literally be one night and then we'd see him like next week and I'd be like, hey, Billy, and she'd have to be like, his name's not Billy, And I'm like, oh, I don't.
That's quite awkward when it's your house, isn't it, because you can't sort of maybe come out if you live you know, maybe no top on or maybe I don't know. I do think about nude households.
There's a difference between being in a share house of four people and one of those four gets like a partner and it becomes five versus just having one house mate. Like I feel like you would feel the difference more like going from two to three versus four to five.
I've lived through this many times, many times, Like obviously not for a long time, but I lived in a lot of shared houses for a lot of years. The biggest was six for years and years I lived in
one with four. And I think that this everybody getting very incensed about this is just passive aggressive because it's not actually about the electricity and the water, Like it's not really that likely that that one person being there and having a shower quick shower every morning is really like impacting your water.
Bill that much. What it's about is the mill don't want you here? Oh no, sorry, I mean sorry, I agree with you. But it's also the milk, the bread.
But it's not, though, because what if they're not the problem with making it about money is I could easily say, Betty's coming over, but she won't use our milk, she won't use our blah blah blah, Like it's not about that. It's about the fact that they didn't sign up to live with Betty and suddenly they appear to be living with Betty. And so I think that making it all about the money, and I'm not pretending that money isn't important.
But making it all about the money is almost like a passag like him saying more than three days, they pay a whole week's rent. That doesn't even make sense, do you know what I mean? Like, so, it's not about the money. What it's about is get your boyfriend's last girlfriend out of my living room, which.
Is relatively fair.
It is fair because you said you didn't sign up to live with them. Oh, if it's can you move in? That's a whole other thing.
And I did that.
I move boyfriends into shared houses, maybe only once. That's one of those awful conversations where you're like really stealing yourself. Like, so I was thinking, how did you picture Martin's been kicked out of his house or his rent lease is up and he's going traveling soon. That was always the story, you know, going traveling soon. So it would only be for a few months, and then they would obviously if they're moving in, then they contribute to the rent and everything.
Of course they do, But then you get the arguments should you pay doubles, should you pay a little bit more? Like it's very thorny, but it nearly always really is about the person and the sharing of the space with the person.
It's really nigli, isn't it. Because I was living with a couple of girlfriends and one of them had their boyfriend over a lot, and suddenly we didn't really want to share a bathroom with a man, like we wanted to be able to be able to come in and out of the shower in a towel. Or suddenly when everybody's getting ready for work in the morning, there's also a guy, and guys take a long time in the bathroom. I don't know what's wrong with their bowels, but what is that?
No, they go on their phones when they're on the toilets and they sit there and like, yeah, they forever.
I would have thought that these issues would be different now, because when I was in shared houses, it was thing of like what was on the telly?
Everyone had to watch it, do you know what I mean?
So those were often like the kind of things you'd argue about is like someone had come home and like me and Betty are watching Survivor. Whereas now everyone can just live their separate lives. It's not so much communal time. It's still annoys people knowing.
There's nothing worse than coming into your kitchen, like in your underwear after like a big night, wanting to get your panel when a hangout and there's like a man sitting on your couch or a stranger.
People study happiness. I think we know that, right, But I'm going to suggest that all or some of the funding that goes to working out exactly what year of your life might be the happiest, what decade, what moment, etc. Could be redirected to something actually useful, like a laundry folding robot. I was going to say, but you're much more worthy with your cancer suggestions.
Some of us care about you know, people.
Help because I just read a piece about your happiest decade based on research, and I say it's full of BS, but let's get to it. According to this article in The Guardian by Sophie Brickman, she's citing research. By the way, I'm not suggesting for a minute that she's full of BS. She's not basing it on vibes. She's basing it on research. Your forties are your least happy decade. Your least happy year is exactly forty seven point two.
Interesting.
One of the reasons cited for this in this research. Of course, it's all about family, dependent kids, aging parents, a lack of time to yourself for self care, and so on and so on. This information has sent younger millennials and Gen zs into a bit of a tizzy because the idea that happiness is you shaped, which is something that a lot of the happiness researchers have found. The idea that you start off happy, then you get really fucking miserable, and then you end up happy again
is causing dread. Now I'm going to tell you why I think it's nonsense in a little bit, but first I need to hear from you two m Does hearing this make you not want to grow up?
Yes? Because in my head I always thought thirty six was meant to be my year.
Why it's a rangel number? What's going to happen in that year?
Thirty six is the year where I am married. I don't have kids yet, but I have a big house, and.
I don't I would. I think you should probably have kids by thirty six. No, I wasn't laughing about that.
I was just like, how we wear's this big house in the marriage and all this grown up life coming.
I might be working part time here because I know that's quite easy. I just be like living like with all my friends and family, will have them over for dinner parties, Like that's my.
Year and still feeling you say it is like a proper grown up year.
Yeah, it's like the year where I feel like I have my shit together by then.
So when you read this, the fact that that will just put you on the precipice of misery, does that make you worry?
It makes me sad because she also said that, like, happiness is like the U shape, where like it goes down at forty seven point two. So I'm assuming that I'm meant.
To be up right now. Yeah, You're meant to be really happy right now. So it only gets worse from here living your best life.
So is it because we both have been forty seven point two.
We have, I guess ideally, which is good news for Holly and I. You want to look at that number and you want it to be in the review mirror and you want to say, Okay, I'm on the upward trajectory. What's interesting about that number is that I think it correlates with the if you have children and parents in your life, that the needs put upon you by other people are at their highest and they're knock on effective. That is financial pressure. A lot of people want shit
from you. Right. Your children might not be little, but there's this myth that as they get older they need you less. That actually needs you more. The stakes are a bit higher as they get older, so there's a lot to be done when they're really you know, at that kind of age. I've bucked this a little bit because my parents had me young. I had my first
child young, and he had his first child young. So I have always been out of step with my peers, and I'm still out of step with my peers because now at fifty three, I've got a grandchild and my kids are grown up, except for my youngest who's sixteen, but because he's a third child, he may as well be twenty five, like he learnt to sort himself out a long time ago. And I'm fortunate enough that my parents touch Wood are eighty but in great shape, and
so my parents in law. So I think what's interesting. Jennifer Anniston said that I always I've.
Got the great ex philosophy.
Forget Yoda, It's all always about jen jan Anne. She said that you need to have therapy in your thirties so that you can enjoy your forties. Her father died, she was estranger from her mother. She didn't have children in her forties. She's now well into her fifties, probably her late fifties, and she had therapy, So I imagine that for her, and she spoke about this when she was in her forties. That's of her life advice. And I
actually agree with that. I think that if you haven't sorted your shit out in your thirties, your forties are really hard.
I just think the very notion that there's a point at which you've sorted all your shit out is nonsense.
No, I don't mean, of course, there's always more shit. I got to say, tell me, is there no shit left by the time fifty? Which is a reminder to go back to therapy for me? But there's new shit. But I mean they're very much building block decades, thirties and forties. And I think that a lot of decisions
you make in your thirties inform your forties. And I think understanding yourself well, certainly, if you've made bad decisions, and don't we all, and you've got patterns that you keep repeating to understand those in your thirties is really helpful in your forties.
I think these kind of studies directly affect our happiness, right, because the very idea that there is a destination, like happiness is a destination and you're going to get there and you're going to stay there.
It's absolute nonsense.
And the older and wiser you get, the more you realize that there are pockets in every year, in every decade of absolute joy, absolute despair.
Of course absolute this isn't.
But my point is so chasing down and giving people data about like, yeah, you're not going to be happy in your thirties. M. You know you're not going to be happy in your forties. Maybe you'll finally get happy in your fifties. Especially in the endless, first for information world we live in, I think it's really stupid. Well, it's different for everybody, and you only know what your decade was to generalize over a decade in the rearview mirror,
like M can't possibly know she might have peaked. I don't even think there's such a thing as the happiest decade. I think that you've got to stop thinking that there is a place where you will sit or like there are little bits of happiness in the shittiest times in the good times.
Twenty eight how's.
Your twenties been horrible? How are your team? Why are they horrible?
I just feel like twenties feel like I'm in like my waiting phase.
A lot of pressure in your twenties, I think.
And then thirty is meant to be where I start sorting everything out and then everything will sort out. Like if I could, just, like tomorrow wake up as a thirty year old, I'd want that.
What would you? Yeah, what's the point of wishing your life away?
Or thinking like, rather than going okay, so today, I could do some things that would make me happy, Like I think it's a very specific view that like if we always think that we're never quite there, I'm never quite there. I'm not at my happiest yet that directly affects your happiness.
Because this is not a recipe or a blueprint. This is just an observation from a whole lot of people that have been asked to self assess the decade of their life that was the best and the worst. I could do that, though. What I think is interesting about this, and of course it doesn't apply to everybody, but is to just understand the meaning behind it, because you know, we talk about seasons, and some seasons you expect them to be great, and they're actually tougher than you think.
And women are always interested in this season that's coming up for them. You know, if you are single, you want to know what it's like maybe to be married. If you're married, maybe you want to know what it's like to be divorced. You know, if you've got one child, you'll know what it's like to have two children. And you want to know what it's like to have teenagers
when you kids are small. And so I just think that it's not a guarantee that this decade will be bad, but it's just made me think that for women, and I'd be so interested to know if it was different for men. For women, the less people you have depending on you in a caring role, the happier you are. That's why women's happiness tends to go up the older.
And I think we're sold such bad news about growing older and that you know, oh, you've got to be in your twenties and you've got you know, we're in this culture that values youth above all else, particularly physically that it's actually lovely to think that things get happier.
But I think it's not good for happiness to always think you're in a waiting room. Like I think that that's the problem, is if you always think I'm in a waiting room and things are going to be different. Because what you said before about assessing in hindsight is so true, right, But even that shifts because I had my kids later. So again, as you've already said with your anecdote, like this is kind of bullshit because that all can depend on different times.
Right.
So my forties I had little kids, incredibly incredibly difficult decade.
Right.
But the thing is is that I know now all the joy that was in that that I will miss for the rest of my life. I will look back at those years for the rest of my life and the pockets of joy that I had even though it was hard, and I won't think it was my unhappiest decade, so that I haven't. I think there have been shit years in all my decades, really stressful, difficult times, really beautiful,
glorious times. I know it's unpopular not to just slot into a like well, let's just say it's it but I think that genuinely you're happier if you think that you can find happiness all the time, little bits of it like today, tomorrow, next week, but not go I'm living in a ship world right now, and it's going to be better when when I lose weight, when I get that job, when I meet a partner, when I buy my house. When that is the thing that keeps
you unhappy, Yeah, that's interesting. I just don't think that's what this survey says to me. I think it's just interesting looking at different phases. And of course it's not like when you generalize about a decade. I think for women particularly, you know who you are more as you get older. And I think maybe it's the word happy that's tripping you up. If it was like challenging or difficult, I don't know, you don't like being put into boxing. But I also don't think it's I just think that
there's too much emphasis on this. As I say that happiness is a place you'll get to one day, I don't think that.
And when you think about the next few decades of your life, how do you kind of imagine them rolling out? Well, when she's thirty seven, she's going to have her big house and I'm thirty six.
My big house and my husband. I genuinely don't know my big I guess complex from my age right now is because my mom had me when she was twenty eight, and I'm the oldest child. And since I was young, I've always had especially from early twenties, I've always been like, oh my god, do I need a boyfriend? Should I get a boyfriend? Now? When do I have kids? And my Mom's like, don't worry because I was old for
my age to have kids. I was only twenty eight and now I'm twenty eight, and she's like, stop stressing, Like I can feel you stressing. Don't stress, Like, yeah, I feel bad now that I sattle. Thirty six is too technically kids yet if you want them. But I think I was like really looking forward to my forties because.
I until you read this article, until I've read this article, Olly's right, it's made you unhappy.
Because I loved watching my parents in their forties, Like I remember those years so clearly. I remember them just having so much fun and surely like they would have been so stressed behind the scenes, but me and my sister never saw it. And they were just so much fun. And I talked about this last week about now I'm seeing my parents' age, but in my head when I picked, my parents are in their forties, like taking us out, going to parks, like having fun.
That's so interesting. I hated my twenties. I'm very happy to make generalizations about decades because I like boxes and leaderboards. Times I reckon, wait, but that's not what this is. This is looking at a decade and generalizing about a decade. So for me, I really struggled in my twenties. I separated from my husband, lost a baby, didn't know who
I was, was undiagnosed with all sorts of things. And I had a really, really difficult time in my twenties for a whole bunch of reasons that I only understood once I started going to therapy properly and addressed a bunch of things in my late twenties early thirties when my life essentially fell apart in my twenties. My thirties were about consolidation, a little bit more kind of working out who I was, but still all of those big decisions like how many kids to have, who's my partner,
getting back with Jason, not whatever. And then I loved my forties. I really did. I've loved my forties and I'm loving my fifties. It's interesting and it's going to be different for everybody, you know, just in the same way that not everybody is the average height or whatever the average age. Can you not generalize about any of your decades when you kind of look at them as seasons. Didn't mean that I hate it every day that I was twenty, but just as a decade. I understand the concept.
It's not that I don't understand the concept.
I just generally think that it's not helpful because, yeah, my twenties, all of that craziness and a lot of shit happened to me in my twenties two there were also amazing adventures that turn my life in the direction that it's gone in. So I could not possibly say that I was miserable. I was miserable some of it.
I don't know.
I just don't see it that way, And I think for me that's helped me because I don't. And aging has really changed my view on happiness. I used to think much more like that about it, like there's a place and I'll get there. And if I make these changes in my life, everything will fall into place and it will be great. And I think wisdom hards for life. Wisdom has taught me that that's not true.
I get confused on the phrase figuring out who you are. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means for me.
It's about understanding why I like certain things, why I respond in certain ways, why I don't feel right in certain situations where other people seem to feel right to me. It's about undoing the shoulds, the shoulds of life, and that's definitely something that makes you happier. Yeah, it's going, oh, everyone likes parties. I don't like parties. It's not because I'm broken or because I'm abnormal. It's because that drains my battery. And I understand and then going, oh, what
feels my battery and learning about that. And maybe you can do that at any age, but there's a certain amount of you just need life experience to be able to look in the review mirror and understand yourself a little bit better. Does that make sense?
I think that's why I'm not enjoying my twenties, because I feel like I'm still at that age where I still have to do things that I don't necessarily want to do, like I still.
Have sticking around for a long time. But if you've worked out what you do and don't like, you know, or how you respond or you know. Sometimes it can be about the romantic partners that you choose. Sometimes it can be about patterns you're in with friends or with you know. It took me a long time, for example, to work out that I fall in love with people friendships, and I'm a fast starter, and then I'm like, oh
and so god. I had to do that a lot of times to work out, Hey, maybe don't come on so strong so fast, Maybe just sit back a little bit. That's just one example. And not traveling, I kept thinking if I travel more, I like it more. Everyone else likes travel. I don't like travel, and I've unpacked all the reasons why I don't like travel. So I guess knowing myself better is judging myself less.
After the break, Mia is about to go rogue with her recommendation.
Hell out.
So we love giving our recos as much as you love hearing them, So settle in. Because Mia has a reco blockage which needs I'm plugging.
That is so gross. Visually, Yeah, I've got reco constipation because I haven't been on a Friday show for a couple of weeks. Oh so I'm backed up.
But we're gonna keep you hanging because I'm gonna make.
You go last. Okay a visual of that ole you're up.
My recommendation is a self help book, which is very unlike me, because I hate self help books. Happily, this is a self help book written by someone who also hates self help books.
Perfect for you exactly.
He's called Oliver Berkman, and if you know about these things, he was a Guardian columnist for years and he write these columns about self development, but from very much this like raised eyebrow, this is all perspective. And then he wrote a book that became a massive bestseller called four Thousand Hours, and he got interviewed everywhere.
Blah blah blah.
Anyway, it's new book. It's called Meditation for Mortals. And the reason I picked up this book that I would formally hate is because, as regular out loud as would know, I'm trying to learn how to meditate.
It's not going well.
Maybe I should just accept as the previous segment and me are saying, get to know yourself. Maybe I should just accept it's not for me, but I'm trying hard anyway. It's like a little course the way it's been designed, as you read a chapter every day or listen. I'm listening, so like the first five minutes of my walk in the morning, I listen to one, and it's like little insights into basically recognizing.
Even bits of wisdom, yeah.
And like little bits of kind of instead of thinking that one day you're going to finally become this productive, incredibly sorted out, like infinite person who can write a book and make dinners from scratch and keep everybody happy all the time and do it like maybe just chill out a bit.
So it's like kind of gener therapy in a way.
It kind of is, but it's like little insights and life lessons. So one of the things that I found helpful the other day was this thing about you keep a to do list, but you should also always keep a done list, because your to do list never ends, and sometimes you need to remind yourself.
That, look, I did actually do all that shit, and things like.
I was talking to you Earliermir about like he's saying, when you feel really trapped in any situation, remember that you do have the freedom to change it, but you have to work out whether the consequences are worth it.
Oh I like these so anyway, it's not like me.
But you know, I'm trying to grow, and I'm only up to about week seven. So I'll report back just to torture you all on whether or not I ever learn.
I think it's twenty eight. Sorry, every day for twenty eight Oh no, no, no, sorry, there's four weeks. So how many days are there than four weeks? Thirty ish? Yeah.
The idea is is if you read or listen to a chapter every day. Yeah, can't you tell them better?
Person? Already it's going really well. It's called Meditation for Mortals by Oliver Burk.
Okay, my turn. So I'm recommending a product today. It's called the vs Ssoon Unbound Cord and Cordless Curler. So I went to a hair event recently, and I'm not a hair person just because I have a lot of hair.
It's the hair.
It takes me at least one whole hour to do my hair, even like straightening it. It's a lot and drying it.
You've got beautiful.
Thank you so much. I think you can either be a makeup person or a hair person. You don't have to be both.
Remember when it was blue your hair.
That was what I was going through a breakup, so I don't want to talk.
Yeah, okay, break up, but it was good.
They showed me this curler that like, it's not like the traditional curls where you curl your hair around or like those big wand things it sucks your hair in and then spits it out or dies one of those. And it's like a curl and it's so light and it's cordless, so you can charge it overnight and keep in your handbag or your car. And you choose like the heat temperature, You choose which direction you want the curl to go in, and you can choose how curly you.
Want to Does it leave you with like beechy waves.
Or there's four options. Can I choose on the actual device, like if you want just a wave or like a tight curl. I always go tight curl because my hair is so thick that it drops, but also the it like keeps.
It in there.
And it took me ten minutes to do my hair isn't that insane? Normally ten hour, it takes an hour.
To Oh, that's very good. Is it expensive? There are so many amazing new hair tools on the market. Some of them are incredibly expensive.
It's around one hundred and fifty I think, which is expensive, but not the.
Dollars. Yeah, okay, that's awesome. So I've got a few. I've had my fiber. I'm ready to release my recommendations into the world. The first thing I want to recommend is a book that was out this week that I've wanted to tell out louders about for a while. It's called Out of the Box and it is subtitled A one Stop Guide to Navigating Neurodivergence. It's by Rebecca Sparrow and Madonna King. They both live up in Brisbane. Madonna King is a terrific journalist and written many many books
about parenting and other things. Beck's Barrow, friend of the Pod, absolute gun expert on teenagers and tweens. But this book is so good. I know that there are a lot of out louders who have kids of all different ages who are neurodivergent, so that might mean that they are
on the autism spectrum. Or they have. Adhd Madonna and Beck surveyed and interviewed almost two thousand Australians in including like experts and educators and children and their parents, and they gathered all the most useful tips to help support these kids and not just when they're little, but also like when they're learning to drive and when they're you know, maybe moving out of home and finding friends.
And there's a lot about schools too, and how it is how fast to deal with education when.
Your kid doesn't fit the box exactly exactly, and Beck has a neurodivergent child, and it's even stuff about applying for jobs and insights from teachers and it's just such a great book. It's a terrific handbook if you've got someone who is living with someone who's neurodiversent, it's a great gift. Highly recommend it. Some of my other recommendations. I have read a book by someone we all love on the show, Taffy Brodessa Akner. She is one of the best profile writers in the world. She works for
The New York Times. She wrote a book called Fleischman Is in Trouble, which was made into a TV series, and her next novel is called Long Island Compromise, and it is about a very wealthy family, three generations of that family, and the impact it has when the father is kidnapped for a period of time and then returned. And it's not a thriller. That actually happens early on and he's returned. It's not like a mystery or a thriller.
If she was not a woman, she would be being compared to Jonathan Fransen, who is this great American author who writes generational novels. She's amazing, She is incredible. That's excellently actually a good book. I love her writing. Yeah, I just loved reading this book. So I read that on my kindle. Long Island Compromise a book that I listened to that I cannot talk about enough or recommend enough.
It's Lisa Marie Presley's memoir and it's the audio book and the reason Lisa Marie Presley, of course, daughter only child and daughter of Elvis Presley, mother of Riley Keo who this bit's important. She's an actor. She was in Daisy in the sixth she wrote or she started to write a memoir and she died last year of a cardiac arrest in her fifties and she had started work on this memoir. She'd recorded some voice notes, she'd done
some interviews, and there were recordings of those. This memoir has been finished by her daughter, Riley, who, after her mother's sudden death, came upon all of this work and had to think about am I going to put it out in the world. The narrator who does Lisa Marie's voice is Julia Roberts, and there are also some of the recordings of Lisa Marie's actual voice.
Is it emotional?
Yes? And then Riley weaves her story through as well, like her experience of her mum, And it's an incredible story. Like Riley's brother took his own life a couple of years before Lisa Marie died, she married Michael Jackson. It's amazing, it's all that in there. Yes, it's all in there, opective from Riley's perspective, and then having Julia Roberts narrator, it's just it's an absolute I won't say a delight,
but it is an extraordinary thing to listen to. And then the last thing I wanted to recommend is a small business brand that makes toys. She's an out louder. She sent some toys from her brand called Freckled Frog. They're these wooden toys, Like there's a lot you know that when you've got little kids, and I'd forgotten this now having Luna, your house is just full of plastic shit, yeah,
brightly colored plastic. And these are so beautiful. There are all the wooden toys, Like there's this set that I've got that are just all these different people and there are different people of all ages, and there's like people using wheelchairs and you know, old people, young people, babies, and like it's for imaginative play.
Are they still like colorfuls?
Yea, yeah, no they're great. No, no, no, they're great and just so interesting and learners at this age now where she likes sort of little objects and sorting things. But they're the kinds of toys that are nice to have around. They did play with them as well. Totally does after the break our Best and Worst of the Week, which include a vibrator ring one unlimited out loud access.
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It's time for our Best and Worst of the Week, where we tell you about the highs and lows of our week. The rules are, it can be superficial, it can be a big thing, it can be a small thing. There's no rules here, there is no judgment whole. What's your worst of the week. My friend Gwyneth is in trouble and it's making me sad. Oh dear, No. The relish with which people are reporting that Goop has laid off eighteen percent of its workforce.
That's big.
Well, it's not really well, I mean, I mean as a business person, she's missive, But what I mean is like, I know.
It is massive.
And they're also talking about their slow downs, but obviously the spin from their side is like, we're just reprioritizing Hyah decode that businesses are doing it really tough.
Retailer is doing it really tough. And she is an online retailer. She sells vibrators and fancy creams and clothes and interestingly, she has never appointed a CEO. She stayed as CEO. Trinny would always done the same with her company. I have never been the CEO because I know I'd be a terrible CEO. I think that often founders aren't the best CEOs for their companies once they get to a certain size. I'm not saying that about Trinny, but
perhaps Gwyneth isn't. And you know, they were doing a lot of those these candle smells like my vagina and all those like shock things. Gets what's of coverage? But it's clearly not translat Yeah, here's the thing.
So the reason I was I've made it my worst is because it's also the time of year when the Goop Gift Guide comes out, and it's one of my absolute delights to go and peruse that gift guide, right, because how would I survive if I didn't know about the two hundred and fifty dollars vibrator ring?
Yeah, or abra ring.
It's literally like a ring, like a ring on your finger, but it has you'd like it. Actually, it has like a big gold bullet thing on it that doubles as a vibrator.
Oh that's so clear. Yeah, I know. Right, So if a meeting gets boring all this podcast, I was like, what's that sound? I saw myself? That's going off?
Not you know, reacting with the technology anyway, or six hundred and thirty dollars cavea or body balance magnets. It is my pleasure, right I like scrolling through all her like plain black pole and necks that inexplicably cost.
Like howels dollars you never buy any And.
That's my point, right, is that I was thinking, like, oh, that rainbow yoga matt for two grand. Actually that I was like, but maybe I'm part of the problem because I've never even won sport anything from the group Guard, and yet I love looking at it.
I actually don't think that's the problem whole. As much as I don't want you to blame yourself for this, I actually think, having read quite a bit about this, and business is hard, man, you know, no shade on Gwyneth. Business is really hard. They expanded into good Clean Goop, which was like a discount line of Goop for Target, and it hasn't worked so funnily enough, people aren't that interested in buying a sort of a mid priced Goop
product in Target. So perhaps she tried to expand in a direction and she should have gone more high end. She should have done like a thousand dollars fancy vibrator ring that's like platinum plated, and that might have been better. Who knows. I'm not a retail I'm sure she has one of them.
So really sad about.
Thoughts and prayers. Yes, it's my worst.
I'm pouring one out for Gwyneth, Like, seriously, what can you do if you haven't got the Goop Guide in your back pocket? My best is reversing my car into a tree, which I know that sounds a twist.
I didn't say coming for your best.
So last weekend in Berry it was the Rider's Festival. I don't live in Bury, but I live near Berry. Jesse came down, lots of wonderful riders came down.
It was great fun.
But I had a very busy weekend like doing sessions, seeing sessions, doing stuff, helping out a little bit.
Not really.
And I was also obviously being a taxi driver for my teenage order, because that's all you are, right at some point in your life.
Best decade, So yeah.
It's the best decade driving.
I went to pick up one of her friends from a place and I immediately reversed my car into a tree, which was very annoying. Will cost us some money to fix. But the reason it ended up being the best is that we have two cars, and the other car is an absolute ship box, like I'm not even joking it. It has wind down windows like manual wind down windows. You can't connect your phone to the stereo. Last time I was in it and I tried to adjust the mirror, it came off in my hand, like it's a shit box.
And on Sunday night, after I'd just reversed the carrent to a tree, my friend who was one of the organizers of the festival, so can you give this rider a lift back to Sydney on Monday morning? I was like, sure, I can, And then I realized I was going to have to drive them in the shipbox car. Not only that, but Brent had transported a whole lot of waste from the garden in the shipbox car, so the shipbox car
had spiders and hay fever, allergen things. The reason this all ended up being my best is because that two hour drive in the hilarious car with no podcasts and no music, but a very good conversation.
With this person.
It was actually like it was one of those things where a comedy of errors ended up giving you a present?
You know what I mean? Every now and and that happens, right, what's yours? My worst is that the other day I put on my shower cap and I still do you have a shower cap? That's so well? I don't understand no one has a shower for me. You two have so much hair. I don't understand how you have showers with and you tie your hair back, but why would you want to when you can have a shower cap.
I don't like the noise that it makes, and I don't know why I keep it without it going slimy and it kind of smells a bit your towel hook.
But also I don't have my ears in it. I think maybe because I have my back to the shower the water. Do you have your face? No, I face the shower. Oh, I don't face the shower. Maybe this reddle this, This might make a little bit more sense. But also I rotate a little bit, like sometimes I turn around.
We have to clean it front.
Sometimes clean front, clean front. Anyway, I put my shower cap on my head and I was like, what's that is? Maybe some of my hair's falling out? Glance in the mirror. There was a cockreach running down my face.
That's why we don't shower down.
Into my cleavage and then I brushed it away and off it ran. Anyway, it wasn't lovely. That was my worst pretty bad, right. Best though, is that every so often I haven't we call it out og family dinner. It's my family of origin, so it's my parents and my brother, no partners, no kids, just the four of us. And we had one of those haven't had one for ages and it was really lovely. And then my mum asked, oh, Darling, when are you going to be back on Out Loud?
And usually she doesn't like the show when I'm not on it, She's always like, I'm missing you on the show.
I mean, I only do this for her.
Well, we're going to get to you. And then she said, oh no, look I actually have been loving Amelia and em I've been loving them and went, thanks mom, No, that makes me so happy because I'd love having people so I can go and do other things. I said, what do you love about m Because whenever anyone gives me a compliment or compliments anything work related, I asked them why because I always want to learn and so
I'm like, what do you like about them? And Mum said, well, Amelie is just she's so dry and she's so funny and she knows so much. And I said, and what about m And she said, she's tough, but she's also vulnerable. Like last week she had her jeans and she was bleeding into her genes and this guy who she'd been with but I think it was just a one night stand, was like, I think you're bleeding in your jeans and
then Holly said, well did he stay the night? And she's like, I don't know if I'm going to see him again. And my dad and my brother we're just like, wait, so, who's bleeding into the jeans my colleague?
It's not Is it weird that they're like, this is my employee?
Yeah, yeah, which is not inappropriate. So it was not the way I expected the dinner to go. But I just thought it was delightful and I love that description of you, and also that the conversation over dinner was you leaking into your genes.
I love that that's gonna be for the rest of the week.
What was your worst?
M Okay, my worst, which now I feel bad talking about because you just complimented me when I'm about to complain about work.
Oh good, nothing less. I would be disappointed if you didn't.
People who put meetings between twelve pm and two pm deserve jail time.
Excuse me, our record is a level that what I'm trying to say, Producer M That's what I'm trying.
To say, prison, prison.
Every single day last week I had a meeting or a recording during the lunch break.
Do you have a two hour lunch break? No?
I do like half an hour. Sometimes I push it to an hour, except I don't think I'm allowed.
So why do you need a window of twelve till two?
Well, I'm just saying like I could like go any time between them. You need lunch When.
She's got people that she wants to talk to in the kitchen, you know, shift your lunch break depending on when the meeting was, unless it was a two hour meeting that went from twelve till two, And I don't think anyone's invited you to that.
That's not the thing. The thing is is like my friends will have their lunch break and then I'll come out of the meeting, and then no one's there in the kitchen.
And then I have to.
I either have to sit by myself or sit at my desk and then work while I'm eating.
Because we have a big common area at Mum and mea which we call the kitchen, and you know what at lunch time name buzzing ill the cafeteria because it feels like a cafeteria. It's like a cafeteria.
There's so many more people. Like when I started, there was like seventy people, and you knew everyone in our old office. And now there's so many more people that I feel like, oh, I actually don't know you, and it's a bit weird if I just sit near you and you guys are just in the same team.
Like, I can't do that, so you need to write. So it's really yucking. You're young. When someone makes you a lunch meeting, the work.
Demands are messing with her socializing. May's all right, definitely talk to HR about that. A work life balance, it's important, and that includes lunch. I need to have full flexibility of my lunch time, which means I'm blocking out these twos.
We should just run this audio in the kitchen.
That's true, Okay.
My best is is that oh I didn't crash my car. But it's similar to U whole. I don't really like driving, Like driving is like my worst chore ever. So I do have a car because the only times I have to drive is to my parents' house because I live quite far and I live in the city. And then they launched the Metro.
The Metro is great. I've caught the Metro.
I've been having the best time.
So I use a light rail.
It's in between a train and the light rail, I would say. So it's like a new form of transport that they've launched in Sydney that like, I don't.
Know how to me.
It's no different from any other underground train. But because it's new, it's fancy. It's fancy. So the stations of fancy, so it's underground. Yeah, yeah, so the stations of fancy and clean. The platforms are fancy and clean. It's got like a barrier that owns so like you're not exposed to the tunnel.
Like it's just it's faster. There's no driver, So.
So what do you love about it?
I love it because now I don't have to drive to my parents' house so I can jump. So I take it from Gadigall station, which is in the city, and I take it to my parents' place and it's like a five minute's walk to their place, and I'm using public transport.
Saving the world. Yeah it's good.
Yeah, it's so good.
And it's like everybody and I.
Feel like I'm a main character because you can like read your book and then you're looking at everyone, going, I know, you see me looking smart over here.
I like that.
It's nice.
Everybody loves it. Thank you so much out loud. As we've come to the end of our show today.
Thank you for being with us. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoy making it. We're going to be back in years on Monday, but until then and read this out, my friend.
A big thank you to our team. Executive producer Rude Divine. She says that she barely knows what decade she's in, let alone if she's happy or not. Our senior producer Emmeline Gazillas is generally a glass half full kind of gal, but it's particularly content in her current decade, which is what she's been in her thirties or five seconds. You don't know this, okay. Our audio producer.
Leah, but no complaints. She's fitting on so good.
Audio producer Leah Porges is definitely in her happiest decade now. She hated being a teenager but is thriving in her twenties. It must ben. And our social media producer Isabelle Dolphin, who's on holiday now, so we're deciding for her that this is definitely her happiest time surely.
And before we go out louders, it's the US election next week. Hello boy, did Amelia Lester have a lot to unpack with Holly and Jesse on yesterday's subscriber episode. We'll give you a little preview of that episode right now. There is a link in the show notes if you will listen to the whole theme. Now, did I say that?
Jennifer Lopez she also has come out and she is roundly she said, let's get loud.
It's a lie.
I love it, Jello and she's the vote Harris all the way. And she's also reposted some very famous on stage imagery of her wearing air Puerto Rican flagged made entirely of feathers and her Puerto Rican pride. After that our commentary go.
Jayler and we should mention that Puerto Ricans are scattered all over the US because they are American and so this could have a real impact on things. Shout out to any Muma Maya subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us as well, subscribing to Mama Maya is the very best way to do so. There is a link in the episode description.