You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello, Hello, out Louders. Before we get started on your show today, myself, Mia and Jesse just want to give you the biggest thank you, the biggest audio hug because Apple Podcasts have just released their wrap up of twenty twenty four and Mama Mia Out Loud is officially the fourth biggest podcast in the entire nation and the biggest show for women in the country.
We obviously wouldn't be there without you listening to us. Stay in, day out, week in, week out. We absolutely love making this show for you and it's just overwhelming that you are showing us that love right back. So thank you out Louders, and now here's your show. Hello, and welcome to Mamma Mia out Loud and to our Friday show. You know the drill. If you're a regular out louder on Friday, we do not do new cycle stories, talk about other stuff that's obsessing us, and give us
all a break from the shouty headlines. It's Friday, the twenty second of November, and I'm Hollywaynwright, I'm Mea Friedman, and I'm Jesse stevens An on today's show. There has never been more to distract us, but we're more bored than ever before. What's that about? Also recommendations including some funny women talking about my favorite subject, a new podcast, Baby in Our Family, and a TV show to watch
this weekend. Also a formal apology from me MEA's new Nana name, and Jesse's Saturday Night encounter It's best and Worst of the week, But first.
In case you missed it, there is a scientific reason that women get the ick. Prey, prey, don't what Morgan?
Okay, fine, fine, I have the ech I know.
Are you happy?
I can't believe I ever let him touch me with those giant flower holding here.
Oh the eck. You know it always seems to find a way. If you're not familiar with the ick, you're very fortunate. It's a modern slang term that has been used to describe that sudden feeling of disgust or repulsion that you get towards someone you had previously wanted to be naked with, usually because of something they did or said or or ye. But scientists are claiming that it's actually an evolutionary survival tactic. It's your body trying to protect you. Because female prime who.
Wear songs, well, yes, female.
Primates are more easily disgusted than their male counterparts by food, potential, mates, and even neighbors. That's because women have evolved to be more easily grossed out in order to protect ourselves. So our sensitivity to the ick. Also, in terms of a sexual mate, you don't want to mate with someone who might put something yucky in you.
One.
Also, I think that it's because of pregnancy and child apparently wear more risk of certain diseases and all that kind of stuff. So it's not imagined women get the easier than men do exactly.
And you know this if you've ever been in a situation in a bed with a man and you have the flu or something, I don't know, gastrom he doesn't get the hick. However, a sick man is very unattractive to a straight female. If a man mates with a sick woman, that's kind of her problem, you know, back in the day. But the other way around, it actually imperils the woman. So we are biologically programmed to be very ex sensitive.
This is borry.
I'm so bored.
This week I came across some really interesting research on boredom. The amount of time young people spend being bored appears to be on the rise, despite us being in the age of literally endless entertainment. So there was a paper in the journal Communication Psychology which found that over the last fifteen years, with data drawn from the US and from China, very big data sets, people reported being more
bored now. James dan Kirt, who is a professor of cognitive neuroscience, says that boredom serves a really important function, which is to press us to explore the world. It propels us into action. And when we feel bored, we don't just want entertainment. We often want something unpredictable or meaningful. He says. When you start scrolling on your phone, a ton of what you're going to see there is highly predictable, and this is because of algorithms, and they know what
we want. And the more predictable our world becomes, the less meaningful it is, and therefore the more boring it becomes.
So the infinite scroll is about I'm looking for a dopamine here, which is something that's going to be interesting to me, which is harder and harder to find because I know it's just going to say served me more of what I had been consuming.
Exactly and everything.
Whereas if you were to walk outside or go for a walk around the block or have a social interaction, then anything could happen. That's where spontaneity.
Actually that you get more bored in your bubble.
Bubbles are bored. Yeah, bubbles are incredibly boring. So this study made me think about the last time I was bored. So we asked around the mum and mea office and here's what they said.
The last time I was really bored is when I went free camping with my dad and he went fishing and took the car which had my book and all the fun things that could keep me sane inside of it, and he just left me with the camp gear and I was just sitting around looking at nature, me and my thoughts, and it wasn't.
A very good idea.
The last time I was really bored is when I got on a long flight and I realized there was no in flight entertainment and I had nothing with me.
Probably now, because my partner and I are looking at getting into crocheting.
So I can't recall the last time I was bored because I feel like you get to a certain age and if you're one of those people that can enjoy your own company, it's not boredom. It's just a pause and it's nice to have a rest sometimes.
The last time I was bored was on my very bigger two hour commute to work.
I'm a little bit bored now.
From listening to people talk about, well.
In all seriousness, when your brain doesn't make enough dopamine, and you know that's one of the symptoms of neurodiversity. For me, boredom is actually uncomfortable. I can't explain it.
And this is the thing, right, Boredom is, as a universal human experience, uncomfortable, but it's a different type of discomfort if you're a neuro.
Yeah, well I think so, because I don't know what it's like if you're not. Like, no one enjoys being bored, right, No. But for me, the fear of boredom is so intense. It's like someone might be scared of spiders. I'm scared of boredom. It dictates my life.
Where was the last time you were born?
Well, I'm bored all the time. That's the thing. I'm bored so easily all the time that it's almost like this constant ping ponging back and forth between and bored. I need to find something to do on board, and I need to find something to do on board. I need to so it's like a restlessness.
It's interesting that you bring up dopamine because it is a symptom of clinical depression is boredom. So I was thinking about the last time I was bored, and parenting a young child has moments of boredom, for sure, But when I have been going through periods of depression, the scariest thing for me is the infiniteness of the boredom. It's like, no matter what I do, I can't get the dopamine. So I feel bored with myself, I feel.
Bored with other people on anything.
Yeah, exactly. It's like everything is sort of in gray scale.
How about you, Holly, I was thinking when you first asked me when was the last time he was bored? I was going to say, I'm never bored because the phase of life, I mean, there's just always something that needs doing, do you know what I mean?
Like, are any of those things bored well then, but yeah.
And then I really considered sort of the state of because I'm never bored in that way that a kid is bored, like say my teenage is board where she's like, oh, there's nothing to do, you know what I mean, because there's always fucking something to do, right, So not that kind of bored. But I think that the constant stimulation that I expect from my life now means that things
that shouldn't be boring are boring. So I was thinking about how, because I'm always in putting podcasts and whatever into my ears, that if the conversation that I'm having with a stranger or somebody I don't know very well doesn't live up to that level of like ping pong, new information, funny, funny, whatever, then I'm quite easily bored
by it. And I might commit the cardinal sin of desperately wanting to pull out my phone, because that is our learned response to boredom now, right, even though it's not the solution, as you were just saying, You're like, this conversation is making me so bored I want to pull out my phone. Is a terrible feeling to have, Like, I don't mean terrible for me, I mean a terrible impulse because so that's not how humans work, it's not how they talk. Their interaction isn't designed to be constantly
fascinating and giving you. But nothing can.
Compete with a phone. Can anything be more interesting?
My phone is boring as hell. I like some of the things on it, but I find the scroll makes me sad.
You're right, I should have said the potential of a phone that, as you say, Jesse, he's never realized really because you don't. You never put your phone and go wow, I feel really full in the same way that you'd finish a TV show or a book or a conversation or a podcast and you go oh wow. You never feel that after you just mindlessly pick up your phone.
Because to attainment is not the same as fulfillment. It's not the same as being satisfied. And in terms of evolution, that boredom impulse, which is evolution, would have us to be the most bored iterations of humankind, right because we've probably pro created because the people who are bored have an stinc to go and innovate and challenge and create newness. Like if we didn't have boredom and there were you know, hunters and gatherers, or like, why would you go anywhere?
You would just be so stimulated by staring at your own feet that you would never go anywhere. So it's actually a really good thing to be bored. But what that impulse is telling us to do is to find newness, have a conversation, be invent be inventive, be creative, use your imagination. But when we don't do that, we just
end up more and more bored. So I found a definition because I was like, I need to kind of remind myself what boredom even is, and it's the state of feeling disinterested in one's surroundings, having nothing to do, or feeling that life is dull, and all of those things are reinforced often by just being on my phone. I think I often feel bored on my phone hundred percent.
But I also think depending on what kind of person you are, because you know how people often say that they would be really afraid of retirement because they would be like, oh, be so bored, right, I never think I would be bored because I think that's what I'm going to read all the books that I have always wanted to read but never have time to or like, because I live in my head a lot and I like reading and writing and that kind of stuff. Like,
I don't think I would be bored. But if I was the kind of person who that isn't stimulating, for they fill their days with jobs, right, like endless jobs, the cliche of the man who's pottering around the shed all the time and fixing things in the house and whatever. But like, I couldn't imagine ever being bored if I had a good book.
So I think what you're getting to, Holly is meaning. If you have meaning, then there is no boredom. Yeah, there was a study done about though, if you have meaning to what you're doing. So if you retire, yeah, but you still feel like you have meaning and purpose, then you can't really see it because you've.
Got stuff to do. Isn't that what meaning and purpose is? Or is that my problem that I'm so focused on productivity.
Well, to some people, reading a book would be really boring, but to Holly, it's a meaningful activity. So I think that's the thing. It's like, if it's meaning making, then.
But what about Like one of the people in the office said he and his partner are going to learn to crochet. That's not a lot of meaning in crocheting, But isn't that creating activity.
It's creative, it's creating. So I suppose it's like there are some podcasts that if anyone else put it on, they'd find it so boring. But it's just my relationship to it is such that I'm getting a lot out of it. But the prospect of boredom can make my skin crawl, It can make me feel nauseous, feel and in fact, I read a definition that said it's akin to disgust. There is a sense of disgust about boredom.
And I have this memory of being a kid in sick bay and waiting for my mum to pick me up, and it felt like hours would past, and I didn't even have a clock, I didn't have anything, and I would count the bricks on the wall. To me, that is the epitome of boredom. And it was like I was in a jail cell and I was so so bored.
And I read this like philosophical idea that the reason were so afraid of boredom is that it forces us to confront the existential void, the nothingness of our own existence, like the fact that all we're ever doing is trying to feel it because we don't want to think about dying. Essentially, we don't want to think about how terrifying the universe and all the parts of it are.
Stop talking about.
So it's like busyness, busyness, business. And if we get bored, I think we're all a little bit scared of where the fuck our brains will go, because it's like there is a big thing waiting for us, like the certainty.
Sometimes so if I've got like a lot on my mind, there are very few occasions but I'll have to restrict the amount of stimulation coming in. So I might go from say a podcast or visual stimulation or you know, to just music. And sometimes I'll have to have silence, Like if I'm driving, I know that there's some shit going down. If I have to drive in silence, yes, And that's not even a conscious decision. But sometimes it's
just like there's no more I just need. There's simulation for everything, and it's very rare that I get over stimulated, but sometimes when I do, I just need that space to think. And they say necessity is the mother of invention, but I also think boredom is the mother of invention, and boredom is the mother of creativity.
One hundred percent. This is why parents forever have said to their kids when their kids go, I'm bored. Only boring people are bought. That is the cliche of all time, right, And I said to my children too, what do you mean you're brought? You've got a house full of stuff, you've got a garden, you've got this, you've got that. Go and do something. Go find yourself something to do.
I feel like yeah, and I you know everyone's parents who used to say, if you're bored off, Joe, want me to find you a job to do.
Yes.
But I feel as a mother, Oh, I felt when my kids were small that my biggest failure was if my kids were bored. Somehow I'd internalize this weird message that my job is to make sure my children never experience a moment of boredom, and if they do, I have failed. Along with if they feel sad, if they feel disappointed, if they feel anything negat there's this particularly border.
God, there's this focus on stimulation and education. I listened to a great podcast a few months ago, Holly You did two with It was Judia Tolentino, Ezra Client and I'm Geo Tarantino talking about parenting and how we've got this idea that everything we have our children do has to be in some way educational.
Nothing's educational at this age anyway, Like I've never most of the cocomela and audience is not learning shit, you know. I was wading through a lot of literature and research about this. Tiny little babies can process TV more than we think they can, but they can't really learned anything anyway. And I think that absolutely the It feels kind of like overtly like a veneer, that everyone is just pretending that we can talk about what is going to be good for them and what is healthy and what.
Is not, and in fact it's feeding into the idea that we have to be productive all the time. Like some of what kids do doesn't have to have any purpose,
they just do it. But I have noticed Lerna's gotten to an age where I see signs of boredom and I see it as I'm being a bad mother that day because I haven't got her out to the park enough, or I haven't There's this ridiculous focus on stimulation where like arousal in terms of just like stimulation in the world probably just needs to be turned down like ten notches.
Yeah, it's interesting because obviously you can't live in other people's heads. But when I was young and I was bored, and even now, if I'm doing a really boring job, if I'm washing dishes, if I'm cleaning the bathroom, if I'm doing I hate all that shit. Then I tell myself stories in my head. Like I've always lived in my head. And when I was a kid, I'd invent whole worlds and there was a character that was me.
But I was married to Simon Labond from Duran Duran, and like we lived in a house down the road and my friend was going out with Nick Rhodes, and like you, I should write fiction, well exactly, And I always lived in stories often. I still do that now. So if I'm bored, I just tell myself stories. I don't really make outfits get bored, and so I expect
that my kids are like you know what I mean. Yeah, but what's intest thing about my teenager who if she's got a Saturday afternoon where she doesn't have plans and she's bored, bored, bored b then she will scroll her TikTok, but she will get bored of that without prompting from me, She'll go, I feel disgusting.
Now, yeah, there's something about not only does it not fill you up, but there's a different state that I feel like we don't have a name.
For just despair.
It's not even that extreme.
It's just kind of it.
It's like, I feel disgusting, I feel yucky. It's really interesting. I can tell. I'm trying to teach myself to become more aware of when I cross that line. So I'll look at my phone and I'll like, I'll check my emails, I'll check my bar I'll d d d DA, I'll cross over from the interest of it to feeling disgusting.
And I'm usually then on my second round of checking my Instagram check, checking another website, and then going to my second tier of websites that I check, and then my third tier, and then I'm just like ooh, And I'm trying to be more alert to that feeling and snap out of it. But like, phones have addicted us, and I think that our tolerance for boredom has become lower and lower and lower and lower. And lower, because boredom used to be built into every aspect of our life, every aspect.
You know what I've found myself doing and now it isn't, which is a feeling of absolute disgust. Is I have found myself watching TikTok while brushing my teeth and I've stopped and I've gone, yeah, no, we're not doing this. We're actually not doing this. This is being good for us. Another thing I read was that people who had a higher religiosity, so who were religious, report less boredom than
people who were not. And I thought about that and I went, I wonder if religion, like as someone who grew up Catholic and went to church, if we practice
boredom so something in church? Some of my memories, isn't it of being bored as a kid, are what seems like a never ending mass with a sermon I don't understand, with songs that I'm not following and just standing there in stillness, like religion is about stillness often and you would have to find way, whether it's making up stories, thinking about what you did last night, thinking about lunch. And recently I had to go to something that was
a mass. I felt itchy, I kind of went, because I know it's rude you don't touch your phone, but all religious practices do have that stillness. And I wonder if the more you practice it, the easier it becomes. And then if you do find yourself in a moment of boredom, you know what to do. Like the more you resist it, the harder it gets.
Funny you say that, because if I've had my medication, I can handle boredom, and I almost look forward to those little pockets of just being able to think and just let my mind wander. If I haven't, it feels really disgusting. It feels like distressing is too strong a word, but it feels like really uncomfortable.
Yeah, and I've.
Been going to synagogue a little bit lately, and I've really been enjoying that because you're not meant to look at your phone.
Peace you sit there.
I just look around and I imagine little store make up little st stories about the people I can see, and I, yeah.
You've got to interesting places you don't know otherwise.
That's why me and I were talking to a friend this week who we were talking about meditation, and she was talking about going on one of those extreme meditation retreats, you know where you don't talk for ten days, right, And this is all part of that spirituality obviously, because it is about cutting off stimulation to allow yourself to
rise to a high a plane. But she was saying, you know, you have to sit still in one position and you have to not move your legs, and you have to and it's all about getting through that uncomfortable nature. But I when I'm bored, I fall asleep, like I just bore myself to sleep. I do that often when I'm riding, Like when I'm writing my books, I'll be like in an afternoon session and I'll just be like riding, I'm like, this is fucking boring.
Literally fall asleep on my.
I bored myself to.
Sleep, and you wake up and then are you like, right, I'm ready to go again?
I'm really not really.
But I'm like, okay, that's what naps for. Or you know the cliche of like politicians falling asleep in parliament or people falling asleep in church is that I'm just like, I'm so bored, I'm checking out in court. Friends, if you're not bored, but you do want a bit of
that piece that me. I was just talking about We've got treat for you, because apparently there is a song that has been scientifically declared the most relaxing song of all time, guaranteed apparently to alleviate stress and ease anxiety. And we're going to play you a little bit of it.
We haven't heard it, Yeah, we haven't.
See if we feel.
I feel a little on edge. I could do with something to do compress me.
Yeah.
Okay. This song is called Weightless and it's by Marconi Union Take it away, m.
Yeah, it's doing it for me.
I like that.
I like that too.
I like the slow heartbeat.
It's making me worried. When does the heartbeat stop?
That's so interesting, So Jesse and I feel instantly relaxed. Holly and producer m are incredibly uptight. They really have the opposite effect.
It makes me worried.
Oh, I really liked that. I felt like I was in a float tank.
Same.
Yeah, and I usually I thought i'd hate it.
What are you feeling, Holly? You don't like the heartbeat like I like it.
But the thing is is that I'm always anticipating, and I find this if I try and listen to those like relaxation things is I'm always anticipating for what's going to happen and when's it going to stop, and what's going to so like that heartbeats lovely, but I'm like, oh no, is the heart going to stop? And then what's gonna like? It makes me worried? What does that say about me? I don't know.
I really like it.
Out Louders In a moment, we're going to be back with our recommendations for your weekend. But first, here's a little break.
Out loud. It's Friday, so it's time to set up your weekend with our recommendations for things to watch. See by eight listen to Holly speaking of boring, Yes, I am seeing how boring your recommendation does seem to be, but trying to sell.
Us it's a trigger. When you tell me my recommendations boring, you know it's a trigger. So I'm recommending a podcast that I started listening to because the hosts of it stuck into my dms because they are funny and as out Louders know, and I know it is boring to many people, but I love gardening. I've got a hobby. I like growing veggies. Anyway, I've never listened to any gardening podcasts because I imagine they would be boring, even
though I like it. But the other week I posted something about making a cocktail on a Friday night and my compost bin was in the background, and these women stuck into my DMS and said, oh, if only there was a show about drinking cocktails and gardening. There is, and it's called the Avante Gardener's Podcast, right, and it's hosted by these two women from Tasmania, Emily and Madeline Goals. They live on land and they really into gardening, and
they also drink cocktails. So at the beginning of every show they tell you what they're drinking, and then not always, sometimes they're mocktails, you know, responsible service of our cohoal On our podcasts, they tell you what they're drinking, and then they have a conversation about gardening, and then they have a guest and it is so fun.
So you gave me some of your scabiosa plants, and you've tried again. You've thankfully given me in a nigella love in the midst and I'm pretty sure I've worked out that the issue where I was planting a lot of these plants that you were giving me, including colendula. I think we've got a rabbit problem. I think that's my issue, is that the rabbits are getting to that spot. So I have made it a bit of a mission now too. I'm starting to fill all the spaces between our fruit.
Trees and I absolutely love it. And I learned things in the very first episode and it's changed my beyond gardening and taught me new drinks to make. So my recommendation for anyone who likes a cocktail and a little potter in the garden.
Is you get something out of it if you just have a few plants.
Look, I think you probably have to be into gardening to a point. They are funny and interesting and it's not heavy heavy on the information. But then they get someone on and they talk about gardening things but in a lighthearted way, and I learned stuff. It made me laugh. And also because I listened to lots of Newsy Newsy podcasts for our work, you know, like in prepping for what we do and stuff, I'm often listening to all
kinds of American and British and Australian news podcasts. Sometimes you want that something gentle and that's something that I'm often looking for in my feed is something that's just like nice, and that is what this has filled for me at the moment. And they've got a funny Instagram account. They are called The Avant Gardener's Podcast Emily and Madeline.
They go, I picked a flower one time.
I'm going to go because I want to you too. Did you watch season one of Bad Sisters?
I did. I didn't finish it.
Oh, okay, Bad Sisters.
I don't know why because I love Sharon Horgan.
Oh my goodness, making me in that show has gone down as one of my favorites ever Sharon Horgan. The premise is that there are four sisters, five sisters, and one of their husband's, Grace's husband dies and that's not a spoiler. That happens very early and you wonder who did it, and then you realize that all of them wanted him dead, and it's just a question of who got to him first. And it's a black comedy. In terms of scriptwriting a plot, it is just so so clever.
It's got this great one lineers. It has Bono's daughter who's in.
As the couple forgotten her name.
Yes, perhaps, Yes, yes, that sounds right. Anyway, have been waiting for Bad Sisters Season two for a million years and it has just dropped. It is on Apple TV.
After everything that happened, things are finally looking up.
Did everyone think about what we did? Like, girls, my husband, we are holding involved in this.
We covered up a murder.
The world's better off with Actually even the.
Pool say that.
Full disclosure. I've only been able to watch the first episode, but exactly the same. It's like that warmth and just laugh out loud lines that you think you can't say.
That because it's Irish.
It's Irish. It's like it's so subversive, it's so surprising, and yes it starts with a dead body like the other one, but the whole thing's just a joke. So it is this warmth, there's a warmth to it.
And it's never a dead body of someone who's very nice.
No, exactly, do you.
Have to have watched season one to watch season two or just you know what, I'm going to go back and watch season one again because why wouldn't you may as well get the full treatment.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but you know what, you could just pick up at season two. Yeah, because I tried to get Luca to watch it with me, because I was like, I just really really would have been into this, but it's just funny. It's so good. Bad Sisted season two. It is on Apple Plus.
My recommendation is a new podcast that Mum and Me launched this week. It's called Diary of Birth. We've been working on this for a while now. Who doesn't love a birth story. I love a birth story, even though I haven't given birth for a long time. We wanted to find a way for women to tell the stories of their births. We've got fascinating, very different types of births.
This week is friend of the podcast Michelle Battersby, who runs a company called Sunroom, and she is very big on social media, and a lot of people were sort of vicariously living through her pregnancy and how it was her birth going to go, and she very openly was saying on social that she wasn't going to learn anything about giving it, like I'm not going to do any research.
Is the opposite approach to Jesse Steve Yes.
But she wasn't being a dick about it.
She was just very, very relaxed, and she was.
Busy at work and she was just like look, the baby's got to come out. You know, I don't actually feel the need to go and do all this research best laid plans or best laid lack of plans. So she tells her story.
Just constantly, his heart rate dropping, and a lot of people would rush into the room and I would have to move positions, and they were trying to work out why he wasn't comfortable. So again it was just this constant game of how far can we push this baby without him really becoming distressed. And so after about thirty hours of that whole game, and having had a nepy durl and are being stuck at five centimeters for ten hours, I just asked, can I please have a C section?
I just need this to end.
We've got other amazing stories coming up, like a woman who gave birth to quads. Oh Corta by the side of the road. Great stories, So we will put a link in the show notes or just look up Diary of a Birth wherever you get your pods.
After the break, our best and worst of the week. And if you think we've moved past me A's grandma angsty, you are wrong. Every Tuesday and Thursday we drop new segments of mummya out Loud just for MUMMYA subscriber, follow the link in the show notes to get your daily dose of out Loud and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.
Best and Worst of the week, where we have a little glimpse into our personal lives and still stay away from the news cycle. Jesse, what's been the worst of your week?
My worst is gastro.
Us lots about that.
The rest of the country I believe has had gastro Everyone I've spoken to has said I have also had that in the last week or two.
Got any picks?
It was bad? It was really bad. No, not have any picks. My tell is I wake up and I go, oh, I don't for like a coffee And that's when I know that things have become very bad, very very noseul of that.
And did everyone say are you pregnant?
I know no one said that? Actually did you said it behind my back? Good girl? But you're growing as a person. What was really hard was trying to parent, because.
Second is the it was being hungover in parenting.
It was meant to be my day with Lunar and we had a toll day planned with all our fun activities and it was just not a fun momday. Funny speak of boredom. This is a time for your creativity and imagination to flourishes because mummy can't stand up. And she was just like, this is a terrible day. So
did she get it? Did No, she didn't get sick, which was amazing, but she had no sure it was or do you think you just ate another dodgy chicken sandwich because you have been known a few days later and it's been gone around the office and you can just go, yeah, it's not good.
It was prostro there's nothing worse now it was.
It was bad, my best I haven't told you guys about this.
Okay.
So on Sunday night, it was Claire's husband's birthday, so we all went out our drinks out out. Oh yeah, yeah, on the town on town. Luna was with Grandma. It was great anyway, So Saturday night and Rory has a bunch of friends, most of whom I dated ten to twelve years ago, right, and I often see them and it's just Luca's friends with them, and it's great.
Yeah one of them.
Do they compare notes?
No, But every now and then we make a joke and everyone just feels around it like a swappy seconds joke. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, one of the people who was there I haven't spoken to properly been let's say twelve years, and my experience with him made it very much into my book. Something bad is going to happen. There are scenes based on
experiences I had with him. Now I'm now married in nearly my mid thirties, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about him, but there are certain stories that you tell yourself about how something went down and what
it means about you. Anyway, we sit down and have a few cocktails and we start talking and he just told me exactly what was going on for him at the time, why he did certain things, why he treated me certain ways, And I just got to sit there and go, So, why didn't you call yeah that work? Did you behave like that the next day?
Yeah?
Because I remember that you said this to so and so and that just.
Like oh wow, like it was a documentary.
It was like a documentary, and it was like Jesse from twelve years ago. I was getting this clarification and I walked away going that wasn't about me at all.
It is around the world's biggest lesson, isn't it.
That you walk around thinking it meant something about you and what was wrong with you or whatever? It's always about And it wasn't like they're always going through shit. Were speaking earlier this week about bullying and how you can tell your kids as much as you like that it's about the bully and not them, but it's very hard to get them to understand that. But that's what this reminded me of. And I just felt really light
to just go. You thought that there was something wrong with you and there wasn't, like and that's the story of all of them anyway. It was just such an interesting conversation.
That was did you in the process of this.
Like on I had Gastro so he wasn't there.
I have two more questions. Had he read your book?
No, I don't think he has. He knows how candid it is.
And was he defensive or was he just like, no, this is it? Or was he like were you blah blah? Or it wasn't like that.
Well, he remembered certain things that I didn't about, like remember I did this, and remember we did this that day, And I was like, oh, I hadn't remembered that, but it's just funny how we tell stories. And like I was thinking that night, I was like, there are about three people in my life I'd love to just sit down and have that hour long conversation where you just even though it's like I don't want to be your girlfriend, and without emotion, without emotions forensically baggage.
What a movie High Fidelity, Yes, where he goes back to all his exes and he like lays it all out there and most of the time they're just like, what are you talking about? Yeah, yeah, fainting?
Cool?
The great book High Fidelity?
It is maya what was your worst?
My worst? And it's so funny. I write this down before or I even knew what we were going to talk about on the main show today. But my worst is a realization that I just don't know how to rest.
You've just realized that, No, I guess.
What about seven types of rest, babe? Because you know that you can't rest and do nothing, but like arranging your wardrobe is rest?
What is there's always I don't know how much of this is about my personality, how much of it is about being a business owner, But I just always feel like I'm I have to be doing something. I have to be working. I have to be working. I have to be working, and if I'm not working, I'm failing. And if I'm not working, I'm letting people down. And if I'm not working, maybe I'm not worthy interesting. And I always going to be productive.
Because you own the business. It's like you always have to be working twice as hard as everyone else.
Ye like an and there's always work to do. It's not like, oh, boundaries, I'm clocking off. It's like, well, it's an endless pit of things that I could do. Yes, I've been on this treadmill for so many years that I just don't know what it feels like to not.
Can you give yourself some time off over Christmas?
Yeah, I'm usually really good at Christmas. Actually it takes me a little while, Like I need to find something to hurl myself into, usually books, like I need to just hurl and binge read. Yeah, I can't go from sort of fourth gear to neutral. I have to sort
of come down slowly through the gears to rest. And usually my off ramp is binge reading books all right, And then I usually have to say I've got a project, and then even if I don't get to that project, it gives me comfort to know that that project exists. That's some of the worst, Like it's not a worst worst, but it's just like something on my mind.
Because you know how when you're a busy person, as you've discussed another layer few business owner, but I'm sure that we relate to this. There's always something that needs doing or could be done professionally. Yeah, like the idea of a blank page if there isn't anything on that list is very freeing or scary.
Yes, And for me it's probably both. You're right, and I will always throw too many things on my list and then feel overwhelmed and get angry and then throw more things, like it's almost easier to have ten things to do than one. Best confronting my best, though, has
been on my best and worst. Last week, my worst was that I was very angsty about realizing that Luna called both of her grandmother's nana and that I'd made peace with Ben called Nana, but I didn't know how I felt about sharing the name Nana with her other nana.
And the best part of this is that the out louders and their stories in the Facebook group have been so funny, and people have DMed me as well, and everyone telling about what they used to call their two grandmothers or grandfathers, and a lot of them are realizing that, oh, you know what, hey, it's probably actually some of the things we used to call them. Maybe that was not quite right. Like one of them was like bones Nana and big Nana, yeah, because one was skinny and one was less skinny.
My favorite is moon Nana because she lived.
On a farm, Moon Nana and Moo Grandpa versus regular Nana and Grandpa because I lived on farm. So I'm like, maybe I'll be moon Nanah. I quite like being moon Nana, I said to Ann. I texted her and said, you're gonna laugh when you listen to the show on Friday. But I don't know what she thinks.
She did actually listen to the show, and she sent us a little message, Oh, go to play to you. Let's this is what she said.
We need to have this out. No need for a petition, no need for a therapy session. You will from now on be called five because that's what you are. On the leaderboard. I will be called nan if that's okay. With you. I believe there's been some discussion behind my back as to what I shall be called. But my mum was Nan, so Jess called my mum Nan, so I'm more than happy for Luna to call me Nan. Kids will make up their own names, as we know.
But let's put this to rest right here and now I will be called Nan and stop with the cutting of the photos. I love that album seriously though. If you want to be called Nana, you can be called Nana. I've got another little girl called Matilda who calls me Nana. So there, I was sort of flat.
I love Stevens. So was it the cutting of the first Yeah? So the reference to Nan is that Luna has this album with all the pictures of a family in it. And I said last week that I was every time Luna came to my house, I was strapped here in a high chair and she wasn't that anything to eat or drink until she would point it photo of Anne Stevens, and I would say Nan, and until she said Nan.
Toy photos of mom from the album.
And I love I can be Nana five because I'm five down on the leaderboard. It's set settled. It's like West Side story. We need to dance off.
You've got like.
The best mother and mother in law's colbo. I just can't cry. My first of the week has something to do with the out louders too, because a little controversial. We had a little conversation on Monday about when you should put up your Christmas decorations right, and I made maybe a slightly judge, I don't know statement about I.
Thought you came across as a bitch, but that was just me.
You did say it wasn't class.
I did, well, I didn't mean it like that. I meant that's how I was brought up to see it. We've all got our baggage from out and you know what English people are like, we're very, very classes asmired in the class system, and so there's no question that in England it is seen as class. Either way. It doesn't mean it is, but anyway the thing is is, I was like, why is everybody getting so cut about
all this judgment? And then I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, which we've discussed on this show before, which as Marina Hyde as one of the hosts, and she and her the other host, Richard Osmond, were talking about how you arrange your books in your bookshelf right, and she was saying one of the things she wants to do over the Christmas is rearrange her books. And she's got this system and I think it's alphabetical and blah.
And Richard Osmond said, oh, I always arrange my books according to size, and Marina Hyde said that he was a psychopath for doing that. She was so horrified, and I was like, but I arranged my books according to size, And now I understand someone I respect has made me sound like I am taki and I am I have I am a Psychopaths of the way arrange my books are now related to the Christmas thing.
But how do you your size? Do you remember in lockdown when we're looking for things to do, and if you weren't making a sado starter, you were arranging your books by rainbow? Yes, but that's bad.
No rainbow. And some people, because of esthetics, have started arranging their books like pages out so that it all looks like the natural colors, so you couldn't find anything, you know, like books are not for that. Like obviously I find books esthetically pleasing, so I love a house with books. And if I go into a house and they're in no books. I think there's something strange going on.
I don't have many books. I know you're a psych I'm more of a psychopath because I just give my mind.
I love books as decoration. So that's why I do in size, I guess because otherwise you have like a big coffee table book next to a little skinny novelette. Like that's disgusting, doesn't make sense. But Marina Hyde thinks that, I'm do you.
Want to retract anything you said about the Christmas decoration? Three?
You just want to make it clear that you know, we all carry the scars from our childhood. I can't help it. And now my weird English rules about Christmas have been passed on to my Ossie family and it's just part of the film. Now there's my best though, is a hack. You know I'm no good at hacks, right, I'm no good at hacks. But we've got one in a house going on at the moment. So the way my week usually works because I lived to our south of Sydney. Monday morning, early early, I drive up to Sydney.
I very often stay in Sydney then till Wednesday, which means that my beloved Brent, the elderly boyfriend carries a heavy load of parenting early in the on the Monday and the Tuesday and Monday Tuesday night nights Wednesday. Often I don't get home till after dinner. And it's a lot, you know what. Kids at that age you like, you've got to drive into sport, You've got to do this and that. You've got to feed them. You got to
feed them a lot too much too. And my kids aren't very good at looking after themselves in that way. So we've got one of those food delivery things, which I'm not going to tell you the name because it's not a Recco or a sponsored read, but we all know the ones.
You're free.
You get the box delivered to your house. It's got stuff in it. You make a meal, it's got a recipe and all the ingredients are waited out and they're all there for you. And so we've started to get that just for Monday, Tuesday Wednesday. So one night's Billy, one night's Matilda, one night's Brent. They're making it.
Oh wow.
So it means a they're eating more interesting things because otherwise, like poor Brent's just running off his feet and he's like, here pastor, which is nothing wrong with that. We a lot of pastor our house.
Is it classy?
Don't know if he's classy. But now they're eating more interesting things, and the kids are cooking because it's kind of fun because you've got the recipes there or the ingredients are there. They're learning something. So that has changed our lives recently. And that's my best of the week.
Is that Now when I call up on a Tuesday and I at work and I'm like, what's for dinner tonight and he's like, well, Billy's making chicken nitzel sandwiches or whatever, It's like that alleviated my guilt, made their week more interesting. Up skills kids win, win, Win Hack.
Yeah, so good.
That is all we have time for this week. A massive thank you to all of you for being here. Mia read us out.
A big thank you to our team who are anything but boring. Executive producer Ruth Divine, who yearns, pines and begs for boredom to strike, but boredom is yet to appear. Senior producer Emmeline Gazillas is rarely bored. She can't go anywhere, including the grocery store, without being plugged in listening to a podcast. Our audio producer is Leah Porges. She never allows herself to be bored, even when she is home
in the evening and should be relaxing. She is looking at three screenses to my heart.
There is a common theme.
And our social media producer, Isabella Dolphin, is never bored because she loves to read and.
Page our video.
The producer, Josh Green, finds himself really bored as he is constantly daydreaming and there is always a fantasy story playing in his head. It's not nice.
Bye, no out louders. Before we say bye, we thought we would leave you with a little bit of a conversation we had on a subscriber episode yesterday. We helped an out louder whose dilemma was all about her sex free marriage. Why was it sex free? You might ask, Well, you're going.
To have to listen sex less or sex free.
I'll decide a link to that episode will be in the show notes.
Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, Subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do it. There's a link in the episode description.