Hi guys, Hi guys, it's Jackie and Jen Fessler. I always say Jen Fessler, well, because there's also another gen. Well, not this room and not on this post, on this podcast.
But I think you're used to being in our I guess work family with another gen.
So fair enough, whatever you are, Jen Fesler on that baby.
Yeah, and we are two Jersey Jays. We have a really really great shophy you today. I'm so excited.
But but but first, before that, we can't just ignore the large not even a pink elephant? Is it a black elephant?
And I don't know it's pink elephant in the room a thing. I think. I don't think that's a thing. I think it's just the elephant in the room. What don't think it's a pink elephant.
Anyway, I've talked about the trailer.
Yeah, the trailer. Can I tell you something. This is my sixth year, my sixth trailer drop.
I thought it was more than that. Are you sure now?
Yeah, this is my sixth year and I still get a pit in my stomach.
I think you're the only one because I was besides me, I was like really nervous about it and I felt like no nobody else was.
No, I don't think I'm the only one.
There's no way because we see it.
When everyone else sees it. They don't send us the trailer first. You know why they don't send us the trailer first, I think is because in years past it's leaked, like there's there's no way to get this trailer and keep it all to yourself, right, you know, so it's leaked, and so I think to avoid that, they don't send it to anybody anymore. So we see it when the
world sees it. So if something is you know, if they put in a part about like something that you can consider really embarrassing, it's over.
Oh yeah, I actually watched it. I wouldn't watch it. I wanted Jeff to watch it, and well, Rachel, my daughter, watched it. And then, like you know, a couple of our PR people or whatever, I was like, I have to just know what I'm going to be staring at. I think that the nerves for me, so I was trying to figure it out. I guess I was. Maybe I was more nervous last year, but because it was
my first season. But it's this thing where you know, after the last season, my response at least, I felt like the response that I got was is mainly positive. Of course, nobody's ever gonna you're never gonna get everybody liking you. There's always gonna be haters. But basically I got a lot of love. I got a lot of like, you know, nice sort of like Gen you're funny, Gen You're you know, a breath of fresh air like this
really nice feedback. Again, not all good feedback, but I when you're in that place where you're coming from, Okay, Wow, I did good for me, and I fight this. I'm just waiting for the fall. So I'm nervous that I'm gonna, you know, not just the trailer, but watch the season, and nobody's gonna like me.
I think that's natural, but I don't think that's true. I think you're me. It's not just funny, and.
I don't know, maybe not maybe the season I won't be well liked, but like that's this is just a whole separate issue. But watching it, I think that's why I'm nervous. It's like I want everybody to like me, and like, regardless, yeah, not everybody's going to and maybe people want this season I have to like, but if you are in a good place with yourself.
Yeah, but you're also in a pretty good place with everybody.
Like I know, it's not even just that though, because you can be in a good place with Cass and still you're.
Yeah, that's true. Did you like the trailer.
I thought it was funny. I thought it was light, but it was also like I think, I thought it dropped those little like tidbits very well in those little little spoilers and teasers. Yeah, Like if I was a y yar, i'd want to be excited for this.
Yeah, which also gives me like anxiety because now I like want people to see how everything happens, because now people are you know, oh, Jackie, you know is doing things too. First of all, let me clear up something the whole Jackie is doing, you know, switching teams to save her job. Okay, I am very very clear on the fact that I am a friend, Like I am not like delusional, like I know what my job is. I'm a friend, and I am fully okay with that. Like took a little bit, but I am fully okay
with it. I like it. Like it's not to say like that I wouldn't be open to other things, but like I like it, and I know I don't need to jump teams and you know, jump through hoops and you know, set myself on fire to save my job. Like I can just be like a good supporting actor, like I'm good, you know, Like I don't think that I have to go crazy to save my job. So nothing that I do is based on, oh god, I have to be the best friend in the whole world in order to save my job. And I actually don't
think it really works like that. I don't think if I, like have a really big part of the season that next season, like I would be a housewife. I think actually, if I'm a fantastic friend, it's even you know, more reason for them to say, Okay, great, say a friend. Yeah. You know.
I saw Marisol say on the reunion maybe it was last night, No, no, she's being interviewed anyway, and they were asking her like, do you are you okay? Maybe it's even Hammer and Teddy Like yeah, I think it was Teddy, how do you feel about being a friend? Do you want to be, you know, a house wife? What do they hold a mahido? Yeah or whatever? So She's like, well, I mean I'd like to be paid like a housewife, but like it sounds like she was absolutely yeah.
But I think that people don't want to believe that because like I think that there's this like this misconception of like how could you not want it all? Like how could you not want all the fame and all the spotlight and all the money?
You like, those sometimes forget this is we're getting off on a tank. But like, don't you feel like as a friend you forget like factor out money or anything else, but like you kind of do get it all in a different way, Like and I know you have spoken to me specifically about like opening up your home and your family to cameras, you know, and now the difference you know, not having to do that and still being able to be involved is you know, like a gift it is, and.
You know it's also I mean, there's great stuff on both sides. If it happens again for me, like I'm sure my family would be open to it, But it's much easier for me now to film the show, to give it everything that I have, and to not have to say to my family, hey, cancel all your plans. You have to be home to film the scene, or to say to Evan, you don't have to come to this today, do you want to come? And sometimes he
really wants to come. But when he doesn't want to come, or when he has work, like I don't have to make him skip anything, he doesn't have to be involved. And for me, that works for me right now, right now, that works for me. But speaking of husbands being involved, I am strongly of the opinion that I know Jersey husbands have a bigger role than in other franchises, but don't I don't love seeing husbands so heavily involved in the drama. I don't like when husbands fight with wives.
I don believe this is all you baby, go right right.
I'm just saying, like, when Evan was very heavily involved in the drama, which he did not want any part of, he never fought with anybody on camera. He never yelled anybody. He's never fought with anyone. It's just not his style. He never yelled at anybody. He never you know. And when it was time to resolve that drauma, he was such a gentleman. He was very open to it and he just wanted things to go back to common. You know, when I'm saying like I don't love seeing husbands like
really put themselves right in the center. This is a show for your wife.
Well, j Listen Jersey has traditionally been known right as like this, we are the family franchise. Yeah, of course it's everybody's involved, and of course you know Joe Gorga has made such an impact.
Yes, and he's maybe a little dire, but he also he doesn't like I don't know, maybe maybe Joe Gorga is different, but like the other husbands, I don't really feel like like they are definitely present. And that's great and I love the husbands on this show them, but I don't like seeing a husband actively like go after a wife. But that's just me.
We don't worry about Jeff Fessler. I don't think he's he loves, he loves all of this, which everybody like, no one can really understand or believe. Jeff's so I'm so a nice crazy housewife person. But you're never gonna have to worry about him fighting with anyone.
Yeah, but I thought the trailer was great. I am eager for people to see how everything comes about, because there's no part of it that's about me, like trying to save my job, like, I'm sure my job is fine.
I just you know, like it does happen very organically and hasn't this hit but historically been on the show for so long, don't people always look at like want to know your motive and it's not maybe what your actual motive is, like are and people you tell me, oh, there's so many theories, but you know, so I watch it. I actually had to pull over because I was driving when it when it dropped, and uh, I said to Aiden,
I was taking it into a doctor's appointment. I said, do you mind if I pull over and watch this because the anticipation was just killing me. And after I watched it the first time and I was like, Okay, I'm totally fine with the way I'm portrayed in the trailer. Then I watched it a second time to see how I look physically in the trailer, and I'm gorgeous. I'm like,
my face is all hot and red. I'm like, I'm going to be friends with whoever I want, and I'm like, my face is all red and like, of course you pick.
Yourself course, but I have to well, I'm being completely honest and not humble at all. I actually thought to myself, well, you do look better than.
Last year myself. Certainly they spend enough money to make that happen. By walking filter, I think you look so I get carried away now.
But that definitely was one of the things that I was like, Okay, well, if anything, I don't know how this is all going to go down, but I think I look better.
You looks good, fantastic. Anyway, it's going to be a great, great season. I'm excited. Me to our topic for today, guys, is you say it?
Well, okay, so I'll say it, but I want to say kind of why.
We picked today our topic.
We're going to entitle this one bucket or fuck it, meaning like bucket list items maybe that we had when we were younger. What are our bucket list items now? Things that we thought we had to do in our lifetime that we look at now and we think, oh my god. I can't believe I even thought that was important. But the idea came to us. I was watching Naiad. I don't know if you guys have see Niad, but
it's this I want to say. It's on Netflix. Anette Benning and Jodie Foster, this movie about this woman Diana Niad who swam from from Cuba to maybe like Key West, and so it's this amazing story. She tried and tried and by the time she was sixty she actually got it done. But it was like talk about like a bucket list. Like she was like, I just want to do something in my lifetime that no one else has done.
And I'm watching this and this woman is so driven by that, and I'm thinking, first of all, that is the worst bucket list item that I could even ever imagine. I can't imagine wanting to do anything less than swim.
But I don't get that at all.
And as a matter of fact, like I've got a friend who recently we were talking about this and I was asking her about her bucketless things, and she's like, I did a half marathon. I thought that was the dumbest bucketless thing. I cannot believe I would have wasted my time on that kind of misery. It's like, and now today I would have never been interested. Okay, so that is our topic.
So yes, I just want to bring up one more thing before we start. Yes, since we are a podcast about middle aged women, there's this new Anne Hathaway movie have you heard of this? No, okay. It's called The Idea of You, and it's about a woman in her forties who takes her daughter to Coachella and the the uh lead of a boy band falls in love with her, with.
The with the mother, with the mother who's Anne Hathaway.
Yes, I'm region synopsis. Hold on, I'm so into the real. Selene must step into chaperone her teenage daughter's trip to Coachella after her ex bales at the last minute. She has a chance encounter with Hayes Campbell, and there's an instant, undeniable spark as they began a whirlwind romance. It isn't long before hayes superstar status poses unavoidable challenges to their relationship. So he's in his twenties and she's in her forties,
and it's a story. It's supposed to be a story about a woman approach, a woman in her forties reclaiming her sexuality and rediscovering herself just at the point that society traditionally writes women off as desirable and viable.
Oh okay, seriously, I mean we're gonna have to do I think that we should do some movie and like a deep dive.
I'll just say that, like that sounds. Of course, I love my husband, but if they're like in an alternate universe, if we ever got.
Divorced but every woman feels like that, I don't think that I.
Would ever feel that fully secure in that kind of relationship. I think I'd always feel like that person was looking for was seeing what else is out there?
Well, I right, but I just think like the idea of it to me, what occurred to me is simply that like how validating in some weird way, And I mean, how validation at this age? But like there have some rock star on stage and a boy band. Now now it's actually sounding gross, but like, let's they say a boy band, Well.
They think that it's based on Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde.
Okay, so now I have to tell this go ahead.
I'm sorry, do it.
So we took so my sister and I took my daughter and my niece to one direction. So we're going back twelve years or something. And this is like when they had first come out, and like the little girls were like in hysterics, and we paid for like a VIP meeting and so first you went into this like little auditorium with all the people that had paid for this shit, and they did like a Q and A so just like embarrass my kids whatever. I like, raised my hand, I stood up and I don't remember what
I said. But then the guys started saying like stuff like my mother don't look like that, like something that was it was the best day of my life.
No, I'm not kidding. Wouldn't even brought it up. I want to say, like they said something like or Harry, your mother looked like that or something like that.
I was like, I can die now.
I can die now. And Rachel and Day based on you.
Holy shit, people are always stealing shit.
Maybe I don't know if our audience remembers this. Remember when Craigslist had miss connections?
No, I don't even you don't remember that.
Oh my god. It was the craziest thing Craigslist. This is a million years ago. It had this thing called miss connections and it was like, I saw you on the subway. You looked at me. I thought of it yesterday. You know why. I was driving home from New York City and I was getting on the West Side Highway and fucking Conan O'Brien was standing having a conversation with somebody right by the exit and I almost served my fucking car off the road looking at him, and we
locked eyes. I swear to god, we locked eyes, and I was like, God, if that fucking miss Connections column was still around, I would have been checking that ship. I mean, not to start a romance and Coda and O'Brien, but like, just for the ad that says, were you the crazy blonde bitch you almost run me over when you were getting on the west side.
It was why that's I wonder why that's not here anymore? Let's bring it, bring back misconnections. People start from that. Anyway, we have to see that movie and we have to do a deep dive maybe for another episode. Love it.
But okay, so bucket list, So I think that where you should start by talking about the things we wanted when we were younger.
Yeah right, not just bucketless things, but things that you were just like, because bucklets is a weird thing. Means before I die, I want to do this, Yeah, maybe, but maybe sort of more encompass. Encompass, like what we really wanted to do or what we wanted to have, Yeah, what we wanted to do and have now you know, yeah, the things that.
We really thought would fulfill us. Right, well, I think do you remember? You know, we're a few years apart. But when I was a kid in elementary school, the biggest thing was making these little orgami. I forget what they were called, but like you would stick your fingers in them and like go like God, or open them. I could still make it open and you would you
would write down the things that you wanted. It was also a game called mash and like you would write out the things that you like wanted, and it was like who you wanted to marry, what you wanted to do for a living, what kind of car you wanted to drive, where you wanted to live. And I was very very sure of what I wanted for my future. I wanted to live in Beverly Hills. I wanted to drive a limousine. I wanted to want to be the driver or the passenger. I just thought a limousine was
the most glamorous car. You wanted to be the driver. I just wanted it to be my fucking car.
Okay, I just wanted to park. Because you still feel that way, I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities for you to drive a limousine.
Let's see if I lose my friend, if I wasn't a good enough friend. No, I just wanted to I just wanted a limousine. Okay, I just thought it was a glamouse. You know. I wanted to marry this kid, Doug in my class, who is not on social media, so I can't even stop him. And I just like, I really wanted to live in a mansion, have three kids married. That's all I wanted out of life.
Wow, I mean I want to say that I had so what age was that?
No, that was as a kid. That's not really what I wanted as a young adult.
Yeah, but as a kid, I'm going to say that that that about sums it up. I wanted to be on a soap opera. To me, so the world of like all my children in general hospital was the only place in which anybody should live, and.
It wasn't even necessarily.
And I went to perming our high school, and I went to acting school after. But I was never a good actress, so there was that. But I just craved that being on stage right, which ironically, all these years later, I get a little bit of that. But anyway, but so and get married and have babies, and I feel so. I don't know why I feel guilty saying that, because that's not an anti feminist thing to say. It's just
for me. What it was. I just wanted, you know, my family life was not traditional and it was there were a lot of moving pieces, and I really just dreamt of having a very stable, secure family, one home, not a lot of moving around, having babies and being the star of all my children.
Yeah right, I mean the stable family home. I definitely understand given your upbringing, right, Yeah, yeah, I definitely wanted a lot of children, and I wanted to get married. I didn't when I was dating, I didn't really care who I dated, like in terms of race, religion, ethnicity. I dated across the board. I just I was I love. I mean, if you read my book, you know I
was like boy crazy. But I probably why I ended up falling in love with like a Jewish finance guy from Westchester, which you know, worked out for my mother wonderfully, but I and he's the best, and it worked out for me really great as well. But I was really open.
My one requirement back in the day when I was dating after college was that somebody just had to be tall. That's the only thing I cared about is Jeff tall. He's five six, okay, so literally, like people would be fixing me up, I wasn't. I really didn't have anything else except I just because I always felt like such a big girl and I wanted just to have someone bigger than me. And I mean, look how we plan and god laughs, but I mean I dated. Oh my god, the list is long in terms of all of that
different guys from all different backgrounds. I just was so until I met Jeff, so needy of a man's attention, and like I didn't really have a lot of requirements, just like just want to kiss me? Yeah, sad, but.
No, not sad. I mean, but what would did you have any like goals in your mind of things you wanted to accomplish before you were a certain age.
You know, not before I was a certain age. But I think I would dream of of being an actress and being famous. And again, I don't think that was about the craft. I think that was about the attention and just sort of like I always loved in elementary and middle school, like I was always in plays. I was always getting these these you know, really big parts. And then high school. I went to forming arts high school and not so much like there was actual real
competition there. And then I went to an act After I graduated tech from UT, I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I got another degree in acting, but I just wasn't very good at it. But so when you say bucket list, that's something that was always like, I want to be famous. There were other things certainly that I've wanted, but I would say that in terms of a career, that was probably the running thing I never And I also was never that big of like a career person.
Well yeah, but you have a successful shoe line, right, That's what I'm going to say.
Yeah, So I was not ever sort of like that focused on career. I wanted to make money. I wanted to be independent, and however that was going to happen. So I had a whole host of different jobs in my twenties that I hated, and then when I had the kids, I worked part time as a fashion recruiter.
Didn't really enjoy that either. I never enjoyed anything until I started my own business, which is for anyone who cares, I have a high heel shoe line shop f Major dot com and it's for women who after a certain age can't walk in heels. And I just wanted to create like a really sexy heel for women that wanted to still wear them but that was still comfortable because I can't walk in heels anymore, and I had bunions and whatever a million disgusting things that go along with
aging in your feet. But anyway, so I have this business, this shoe business, and I was really passionate about it, just I don't know what the It wasn't a bucket list thing though, right. More like I started it, I felt great about it. I started doing it, I really started liking what I was doing, as opposed to jobs where I was there not because the job was actually feeding my soul, but because it was feeding my pocket.
Right yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would say the biggest thing in my as a young adult, the number one thing that I wanted the most and I thought would make me so happy. Aside from being thin, which was another a whole nother story that's a different episode. I really wanted a daughter, and I thought, if I have a daughter, my life will be complete. And I won't need anything else in the whole world.
Wow.
Now, I had two boys first, and it's not something I really ever talk about. I did write an article about it once for Good Housekeeping, But I and if you know me and my relationship with my to my first set of twins, I am absolutely at the time, I gonna be really honest. I had something called gender disappointment, and I it was like severe and I loved my boys so much, but I had and I make no secret of the fact that I have struggled with mental illness over the years.
Welcome, come to the right place.
Nice to meet Jim. And I had just this like unending anxiety that my boys were never going to love me the way that they would love their father. Really, yes, I was consumed by it.
And it wasn't about you loving them, It was about loving you.
No, no, no, I love them so much.
I know you didn't.
I always went scared that they were never going to be you know, society tells you that you have a daughter, she'll be your best friend for life, right, so I was like, I need that best friend for life. I also struggled with like insecurity, and you know, I'm a very different person now. But I was consumed by the thought that if I don't have a daughter, I'm going to be really missed something.
Wow, yeah, I know one other person like that, Jack and I don't even not a friend. But this woman that I that I knew who had had like twins, she ended up having a daughter. But I remember her talking to mebout I didn't even know her that well, and she was just she couldn't get past you.
I just had boys.
I wanted a girl. I just.
And then you think, so like when I had the two boys. I cannot tell you how many times people ask me, are you going to try for a girl? And so I just had this idea in my head that I couldn't get rid of, where I was just consumed by it. So anyway, I needed IVF anyway because I destroyed my body with anorexia. So I went back.
So I had my boys first with one round of IVF, and then when I went back to have a third because I did want to try for that girl, my next two rounds of IVF at the same clinic, I didn't even make it to transfer my So you the way that it works is like so you grow the eggs with medication, they take the eggs out of you, they fertilize it with your husband's sperm, and then you see how many embryos are left.
That's a different day.
Yeah, you see how many embryos are left at the end of either three days or five days anyway, and then the good ones, if you have some strong ones, they'll put either one or two inside you and they'll freeze the rest or if you want to freeze the rest. Right. So I had nothing. I couldn't go to transfer on my second and third rounds. It was devastating. It was horrible. I had very low e quality, so the because of the interrexia. Yes, I just really destroyed myself. And my
doctor suggested that I stop. And once he said that, my mind was like I just went nuts because I was like, oh God, I'm not going to get my girl. So I was looking for a new doctor closer to my home in New Jersey. And I'm going to tell you a story that I've never told anyone. I don't even think my parents know, only really me and Evan.
I know this now sixty how many how many of you?
Okay? Because I mean so, I started doing some research on how I can have a girl. And I found this thing that is no longer available in the United States. It's available overseas, but it was called MicroSort. It's still around, but it's just not in the US anymore. But it was in the US then it was in clinical trials for a very very long time. So I felt okay that, like, it wasn't something that was going to make my kids
sick or what. But it was this technology and there was a doctor right near me who participated in it. And what it does, it's this sorting process where your husband has to go to Virginia and then they spin it or something. No, they don't spin it. Spinning is
like a little bit of a myth. But they they use this like fluorescent technology that highlights the male sperm versus the female like sperm, right, and they separate it and then but it's not a guarantee, so you a percentage on what your sort is, okay, and then they fertilize your egg with whatever sort that is. So like if you were trying for a girl, if you want a girl, they'll take all the girl sperm and they'll and they'll fertilize with that. But it's not a guarantee
they don't get like thousands of dollars. Was this, you don't even want to go show accepted. You get to get accepted to the process and everything. It took a long time, and they but it's not one hundred percent.
Sort, okay, right.
So our first round of that, which was my fourth round of IBS, oh my god, I got an eighty five percent sort, so, which meant that eighty five percent of the sperm that they were using was girlsperm. Right, So I got pregnant for like a week, there was a thing on the screen my my tests showed that I was pregnant, and then it was gone. I don't know that that's called a miscarriage because it was so early, but it was gone after like a week, and I
was devastated. And then my fifth round of IVF I got an eighty five I got a ninety percent sort. And at the end of that, I had one good embryo and one bad embryo, and they were like, we're just gonna put them both in because nothing ever takes anyway. And I ended up having a boy and a girl, Oh my god, which is wild. But I worried for a long time that first of all, they have to mail back the sperm from I said to Evan, I was like, if this is baby, he doesn't look like
you're gonna hear really fucking upset. Wait was Evan?
How did Evan handle it?
He was so Evan was not He knew that I really wanted this. He also, it's really hard to fight my Yeah, my mentor determined he he did it because he loves me and because, I mean, there was no like real downside for him except having to go to
Virginia twice. But I think he was a little bit nervous because no one we knew had ever done anything like this, you know, and still to this day sometimes like if my kids will do something cooky, I'm like, God, I wonder if that like fluorescent technology did something, you know, I mean, you I worry. But it's still around. It's just that in the US the FDA wouldn't clear it, which means it had to stay as a clinical trial, which is really really expensive. So it's all over the world,
it's just you can't talk about in America. So I did end up having my ground.
So Alexa was your bucket.
List, she alexis is my bucket list's your bucket list. But that being said, I worshiped my daughter. I love her so much. It didn't it didn't end up being the kind of relationship that in my mind I thought it would be.
Carefully because it sounds like in your mind you thought she was going to be your best friend. Well she, I mean, I had worship were best friend my daughter. No, No, I don't think my daughter thinks I'm her best friend. I think she much rather hang.
Out with her actual friends than with me I imagined us, you know, like coordinating outfits, or of like getting our nails then together. I think I've taken her for two mantic years in her whole life. She much rather like use a marker and color her nails black. She enjoys hanging out with her friends far more than she wants to be with me. And I'll tell you the honest truth. My oldest son, my firstborn, and all my kids will tell you this. I love all my kids the same.
But Hey and I are the like theses. Probably you know, and if you had told me that, I would never have believed it. But I find myself gravitating more to the boy stuff. And maybe because I'm in a place of privilege right now because I do have the daughter, so I can you know, I just gravitate more towards their basketball games and shopping for the boy. I get such a jolt at a watching them play sports. And I don't feel any different being with my daughter than I do with my sons.
Wow. Well, I definitely didn't have that my so neither Jeff nor myself. We have zero ability in terms of athletics, so I can barely walk, much less kick a ball. Jeff pretends, but he really and we passed those genes on thankfully because the truth is the thought of having to go I watched my friends have to go to game after game after game. Zach is actually here somewhere. He's probably up there just cursing me out because like
he wanted so badly to be good at sports. He tried so hard, and now like he looks back at it and he'll say to me, you know, you guys, just let me quit everything. Now I don't think we let it. I remember spending thousands of dollars on the cross equipment, Like I do know about letting him quit so easily. But I'm sorry, but the kid just he just couldn't play, so it was what it was. And Rachel, well, she just is not in sports. She's like me, she
never was. But like so in terms of spending time with them, I don't I don't know that I gravitated both of my kids whatever they had going on at the time. I don't think I was like, oh my god, I wish I could go to a soccer game over whatever girl scouts. But was our point here?
I mean, I'm just like what you gravitated towards. I don't gravitate as much to the girls stuff. No, but like oh this, I was gonna say so.
But like when the kids were little, Zach was the easiest baby toddler teenager. Rachel was the most difficult baby infant toddler teenager. Like I always tell this story that when they were both inside me, I used to have to go get non stress tests with Zach, which means like you don't know if the baby's alive or not, because he was like so mellow, Like I was like, nothing's moving, there's no way there's something wrong here. There's
no way that this baby is alive. And with Rachel, like literally the second that the egg was you know, the sperm hit the egg. She was kicking me, and like we always say, like I was like, I couldn't get up the stairs with her. She was just pissed, and I to this day it is it's well, actually it's changed, it has changed.
Yeah, you guys are super close, and I am super close with Alexus. I just you know, I think about it now, and I'm very close with my father. I'm also very close with my mother. But I don't think I would want my daughter to devote her life to being my best friend. I don't think I need her to live next door to me. If I don't, I don't need any of that that I thought that I needed. So that would be my number one thing that I really thought I needed in order to find happiness throughout
my life. And even though my daughter brings me abundant happiness, of course, look go back now, I think I would have had, you know, abundant happiness with boys only you.
Know, well, yeah, if I think of like bucketless things, I too had the had I didn't have the girl thing. I just had the kid thing. But I remember biological clock really ticking, like in my late twenties, and I met Jeff when I was twenty nine, and I was like losing it. Like I'd wake up with dreams, having had like these dreams of babies, and I would wake up so sad and just like missing the baby from the dream. And I remember negotiating with God and saying
listen because I'm also a like a crazy hypochondriac. And it was way worse when I was younger and not on medication. But anyway, so I always thought I was dying. Please God, just let me have babies first. Please just let me have babies first. Then I had babies, Please God, let me just get to their weddings. They're gonna need me. Please let me just make it until then. Then you know, now I have kids that are I can't ever leave them, Like there's no negotiating. I can't bear the thought of
ever leaving them, do you know what I mean? On the line you said, but wanting that so badly, just wanting the kids. I don't know if that was a bucketless thing, but that was just inside of me. Yeah.
I think some people need it and some people don't. For me, I know, I see childless couples, and I know there's a lot of people who have no desire to ever have kids. It's hard for me to understand. And of course I know that it's you know, it's just not everybody and everybody's plans, But for me, it's hard to understand that. I just feel like my kids, you know, like it's just something I said Jenny McCarthy or like Bill Maher talking about Carthy as a kid.
I'm not Jennie McCarthy. Who am I talking about another really pretty blonde male. Not Jenny McCarthy. What's her name, Amy Schumer? No, Chelsea him. Yes, So she's always talking about it, and like Bill mar is always talking about it, and I'm like, you know, maybe they are onto something there like she's. But I mean, obviously I would never go back, but.
I do think that, Yeah, I think that people can be other There are bucketless things include children. Yep. Okay, So I mean I always wanted to be thin, but that's that's for another time. And that didn't actually pan out the way I thought it would because it almost killed me. As we all know if you read my book, I wanted to write something that and viral. I did want to be a journalist. I had no My mother wanted me to go to law school. I went to law school. I was a corporate lawyer for a while
and then a real estate lawyer. But I always had the writing bug and I just wanted to write one thing that would go viral anyway, So I this way before Housewives, I started writing. When I started writing, I was working my way up. And then I got I started getting published in the Huffington Post, and I started getting published in really good places. And I wrote one thing that went absolutely like all over the place, and I can't tell you, for like a week, I couldn't
even sleep. I was just like checking who would read it and who would comment, and a good way. It was so good. It was so good. It was just about being a mom and like the things that you know, you felt that you felt that like you were you had been so fulfilled. Oh I was fulfilled. I was. But then I was like, I want more.
Yeah, I was just exactly was.
But I did have that. But there are things that I still want in life, like little goals, like little I wouldn't call them bucket lists. I still feel far from death maybe so it's hard for me to.
See, Well, do you know there's that we so our producer sent us actually an article like it was like a Yahoo ar yeah twenty three about bucket lists and like how people over fifty they say that they really didn't like attain any of those goals or the bucket
list becomes less important. What becomes important is, you know, spending time with people that you love and and all of that stuff and Kilimanjaro or running the marathon is not doesn't feel quite as meaningful, and you're much less likely as you get older to also check those items items like that off of a list because now you're older and you're too tired to travel the world, do you know what I mean? But but there are little yeah, I still have a bunch of little ones. They're not
they're not the huge ones. They're not the be you know, uh, the eric on all my children anymore?
Well, what are yours? And by the way, you can you can do that.
I don't don't want to do that, okay.
But you know that like ninety nine percent of people's dreams die in their head, they really do.
I do love that. That was what Niad was about, that that Diana and I had had Like she didn't do it until she was sixty years old.
So what are yours?
I have a lot of little ones. And I have to say it's like I like everyone does, but travels certainly on the list. And I saw in that article like one of the maybe it was the number one bucklest thing was Safari in Africa. Oh really, Yeah, I'm dying to do that.
No, I don't like really long flights.
I mean I'm not concerned about the flight. I just want to get there and I want to like be in this place that's such a like it's like mystical. Yeah, and I have one of my best friends went a few months ago. It just changed everything. It was like being in a completely different world.
Yeah. I think I'm waiting for my kids to be able to appreciate it.
She went with her kids. Yeah, so there's that. So so I would say the like, definitely travel is something.
Yeah.
And then there's the thing is like I was thinking maybe I'd want house in a certain place in Florida or the Ham or whatever. But you know when I was when Jeff and I had first moved into this house, this is our third home in this town. I remember we were bidding on it and I'm like, if we get this house, I will never have an unhappy day.
That'll be it. Every day I'll wake up and not that.
My house is. I don't live in an estate, but it was for me, it felt so right. I was I was dying, dying, dying for this house, big shop. I've had unhappy days. So but like what I thought was like the end all be all. I mean, it probably never is, but I so as of now I'm older, I see like, oh, it'd be so great to have a house in where's your house, West.
Hampton, West Hampton.
Right, But having said that, I'm still going to be there. My shit's still going to be there, you know, my issues will still be there. But stuff that I just I want to do, I mean, it becomes a little smaller. I want my kids to be good. Like that's the first thing.
I mean, your kids being happy is just all that all of us.
Yeah, it's just like you know right that that's just innate. So I want my kids to be good. I want to laugh.
Yeah.
I mean I've gone on this crazy adventure with housewives that I could have never predicted and that I'm so grateful for. And I would like to have more adventures. Whether or not it'll be it'll have to do with houses. But like having that kind of newness and excitement and excitement love to keep.
There's nothing better than that feeling of like fear and excitement and anxiety and like then doing something and it turning out well or not.
I mean, listen doesn't always certainly not when we're talking reality TV. It doesn't always turn out well and it is always you know. But I have found the last couple of years, I've fulfilled these different like checked off little bucket list things that I never thought I would. That's been sort of cool.
So can I tell you one that I still have? Yes?
Please?
So I played the piano right, and when I was younger, I was really good. I was good, and I can play by ear. But when I play by ear, it's not sophisticated, Like it's just like simple chords with like my right hand moving around making like the melody and like that's pretty cool though. So but I know that I could be good if I took some more lessons and I like refreshed myself. I know that I could be good. And I can read music and everything. And I've always had this dream of just playing one night
with a rock band, just really. I can't sing, but I can write songs.
Jackie, we have spoken about this while you were taking guitar lessons, and then you never you didn't continue. Well, I was, so, how am I going to start a band? I got a little busy. But besides that, it's also really really hard. So and I've tried, not once, not twice, but three times. And I still have my guitar in my room and I pick it up and I'll start again and start lessons because the point is that one of my bucket list things would be not just to
play one night. I would love to play. I'd love to like band a band, or like be sitting around with your friends at night, and like I would just cut because there's nothing better than when someone plays guitar or piano.
Oh my god, I always thinking out. I always think of Beverly Hills and David Foster used to always get on the piano and that ever would stand around him. Evan thinks that's the most awkward thing in the world. When I used to play songs, be like, it's a little awkward, Well, because I have no because it's like, well.
David Foster was like, different, you're talking about a different thing you are you're talking about You're sitting in a room and David Foster is playing the piano, but like, if you're just sitting with friends, I mean, maybe I'm going back to like days of sleep away camp, or like somebody just picks up a guitar and all of a sudden you're singing like James Taylor, I know you.
Had an edible that guy was like not that cute, and then he picks up on guitar and you're like, yeah, I mean that's so universe is saying, get back on that, because I really that is my bucket list goal is to play in a rock band, even if it's for one night. I really wanted to write a book. I did that. It's been unbelievable and so fulfilling. My other biggest thing in the world is I want to be
fully recovered. And I am recovered from my eating disorder, but I definitely still have a lot of disordered eating habits. So no anorexia anymore, but I still weigh, like overanalyze and worry, yeah, of course about food weight too much. So I want all of that gone, which I am actively working on. I would love to go to Europe when that's all done, and really be able to like go to breakfast and get what I want and then not think about food for a little while and then
go to lunchinella I want. Like That's not how my life works right now. Of course, so I don't restrict anymore in an unhealthy way, but I certainly do not have like a lot of freedom around food the way that I should. So that is my ultimate bucket list goal, is to get rid of all of that noise and to be able to eat really really freely without tons of anxiety, which I'm getting there, but not there quite yet.
So interesting because all like stuff that you think that you want when you're younger, and then you get it and you're like, wait a second, you know this is great. But so I also have one of my best friends who said to me when we were in we had just had kids, so we're like, I guess early thirties, and she started a business called alor Mates and it's for kids with food allergies, and she made really amazing like jewelry and dog tags. Her kid had and has
a very serious nut allergy. Actually so does my son and my daughter has. I know, they both have food allergies, but anyway, so kind of I would sometimes go in and help her with ideas for the little characters and the dog. Anyway, she said she was so driven by wanting to be to like have created this uber successful business, right and your name and your your pictures on the cover of Time magazine or whatever. Business. She was so all about being the CEO. And the business is still
around and it's actually really really amazing. But she said, you know, I was asking her, what were your bucket list things then as opposed to what they are now, And she's like, now, it's not that I don't, you know, enjoy my business. But the truth is she feels really passionate about certain causes, one of them right now being Israel. But she's like, I just want to be an advocate.
I wanted my life to get smaller. And she actually still has a son who it's like his first year of high school, so she's a while but she's like, that's what is motivating her now, causes that she is passionate about and advocating for them, and she's a big house. Maybe she always wanted that. It's you she wants to downsize, you know, like everything changes. She wants to have an easier, smaller situation and so which I really I kind of relate to like what I thought I wanted when I
was younger. And by the way, if any of you out there are under forty and listening, just know like it changes, it does. It definitely change the better you get perspective. Well, yeah, you were saying you wanted to have like freedom around food. I would like to be I've had years and years and years and years of therapy, but I would like to And we were talking about this at the top of this hour, but not be so affected by oh my god, worried about are they
going to like me? Number one and number two? Always I have a lot of fear around oh my god, when is the other shoe going to drop?
Oh no, I don't really have that so anxiety.
I mean it's gotten listen, years of therapy and medication and work on myself. It's definitely a whole different thing than it used to be. But I do definitely dream of a time where I am and it's gotten better, a lot better, but where I'm so sort of like secure, knowing that I am like living in dignity and not worrying. It doesn't It doesn't affect me what people say or think. Yeah, that's definitely a goal.
Yeah, you know. I also I think one of the things that's always been really important to me and that I really wanted as an adult was close female close female friendships because I struggled with that congratulations, I'm gonna I was just going to say, like you and I, how long we've been friends? Only a few years? Like sisters?
Yeah? Yeah, Well, listen, the thing is the best thing about the female, about a female friendship is that it's so different. We can talk about shit that I will never ever talk to Jeff about, will relate to each other in a way that I can never ever relate to him. You and I will be there for each other in ways that you know, my husband is thankfully happily there for me always. But different.
But like the fact that, like if you had told me when you're, you know, in your mid forties, you're going to find one of your best friends in the world, Like, I don't think that I would especially.
Imagine this in this scenario, right.
And did you notice we have the same exact I already did notice that, But no, I mean, I'm really happy with where I am that I think there's so much to be said again another episode because whatever.
But like, the female friendship for me at this age is everything.
Everything, yeah, but not not everything.
But it's a lot.
But it's a lot. But that being said, on the flip side of it, the female friendships that I felt like were toxic and not serving me. In the past few years, I have definitely moved away from.
So you see yourself in terms of like a bucket list? What do you see because you're younger to be Jack, but like now you're let's say, now you are sixty, what does that look like? I would like to.
I mean, obviously that perfect relationship with food I would like to have.
But what does it look like? Do you have a picture of it?
If my kids are happy and doing things that make them happy, have gone to a four year college is important to me, and working in careers that make them happy, then I would feel like I can go live my life. I would like to travel with Evan. I would like to work. I always want to be create content, you know I I That's why I love this podcast. I love being on the show.
I can't say I always would want to work no, no, no, but I.
See I love creating content, like putting things out there, whether it's a book, an article, the show, the podcast. Like I am always like I wake up and I'm like, what can I write today? Yeah? I love that, So I still want to be doing that. I would like to write a lot more things, and of course play in a rock band.
Yeah, and playing around and playing a rock band.
And that's it.
I mean, I got a lot of the bucket list things. I'm not Erica Kaine, but I am like I was able to with this show. You know, see what it feels like. Which is funny because that's when I say that I wanted to be famous as a bucket list thing. I'm not trying to say that I'm famous. I'm not. I hate like I make myself sick a little like because some people that watch the show will recognize me, I know, but I'm not trying to be like now
that I'm famous. I obviously know that I'm not. That's not but being recognized sometimes I thought that it was going to be it would fill me up in a way that it definitely it's so much fun, but it's not what I thought like and maybe so many bucket list things aren't. Like I used to walk behind Margaret We're friends before and I watched people recognize her and they would just wig out when they would see her coming, and I would be like, wow, what would that be?
Like, Yeah, because the problem is there's always going to be someone more famous than you.
Well not, that's not a problem. I don't mean it like that, right, but like.
You're always gonna when you get to a certain level, then you're like okay, now what Well.
I also just feel like it's not as for whatever reason, like when people recognize me, it's so flattering and nice, but I would watch it happen to others and be like, wow, I want that to happen to me, and it's not. Again, I'm not saying it's not exciting and flattering and nice, but there's you know, it's not I guess what it what I mean.
Sometimes it's fun, Like I was at Whole Foods. It is fun, and I went over to the strawberries and there was a girl looking at the strawberries too, and we were both like picking up packages and looking to see if like the whole package was like fine, And we were both there for like a good like minute and a half and she said without looking up, and she was like, I can't find a good package. And
I'm like, I know me neither. And she started to talk and then she looked at me and oh my god, Jackie and she drops all the strawberries and like it was just like it started, like that is so fun and funny. And then there are times when like you get somebody at like a checkout counter who like really wants to deep dive into the show, and.
You're like, I don't. Yeah, no, I my toilet paper, right, but not even I don't mean not that. I just thought it would fill me up in a different way, Like it's not it's not the absolute that I thought that it would be, you know, for somebody who always wanted to be on stage or to be famous. Right, But like now what I want when I look at my life is just like you, I want my kids. But even those bucket listened, Like you said college, the
four year college thing. My kids both my daughter's about to graduate in May, but both kids went to had they both got a four year degree. Now I'm like that was so important, right, and like what college they were going to go to? No, I don't care what college they want. I'm not saying that's not important. But now I look at life very differently. There's so many different and I have some friends whose kids took a
different path that has worked out so beautifully. Yeah, you know, so like all of that stuff that I thought I and that's really about them, not me, but that I thought I wanted for them so desperately. And I'm happy that they both have graduated from a four year college, but the importance it felt so much more important to me than it does now. In actually I think you live and learn, right, Yeah, No, just thinking about like
what else I wanted in life? And I'm fifty five years old, and like you would think i'd be actually really concentrated on that, Like what do I want? Really sort of like you can't really plan it, I guess, but put a lot of thought into that bucket list question. But I want to travel. I want to have my
life be peaceful. I want Yeah, I don't want to have at some point we're going to give up the four bedroom colonial and I want to be somewhere easy in a townhouse and an apartment in a you know, and just and I guess play with grandkids.
Very I don't want even want to hear that word.
Yeah, it's sorry.
I don't even want to talk about granids.
It's gonna happen.
Evan brings it up sometimes and I'm like, get the fuck out of my face with branchids, like I still have thirteen year olds, Like, I don't want to.
Hear any I can't believe you have thirteen year olds. That is so hideous.
I'm so sorry, far away from like thirteen.
Oh my god.
Well my oldest and your youngest are not that far apart in age.
Rachel's twenty one.
Oh you're right, yeah they are.
Yeah, I'm not interested in going back, but I am inted in having the grandkids. And like everyone says having them, I'm not going to be that grandmother. I'm not raising them. I'll take them, I'll play with them, I'll give them money, and i'll send them back.
See. I still have these thoughts every once in a while where I'm like, I could still have a baby. I'm forty seven. I hear that I could still have a baby.
Yeah.
I have brought it up to Evan, to be honest with you, I think I stop bringing it up, Like a year ago. But I think two main concerns, and I would have another one because I actually love to the children. My two main concerns are that, you know, as you get older, it's riskier.
Be a geriatic what do they call a geriatric?
Forget?
Forget, you're like geriatric? I am like fucking like in the coffee and walking kiddy. I am like the old age home pregnancy.
I worry that it would be healthy, that the child would be healthy, because you know, as you get older there's a greater source of But if I could guarantee that it was healthy, I just think that it wouldn't be like so much of a sibling, excepting name, because there'd be such an age difference. I just can't get.
Past past the pack that this is a bucket Is.
This called that's the bucket list? I don't need a fun are you nuts? No? I don't need But are walking around in their eighties they weren't believing that wasn't on their bucket list.
That just that was like something slipped okay, seriously, something fucking slipped by, and some woman was like, don't worry, I'm on that pill wink wing.
Oh yeah, I don't know. So yeah, but grandkids I just don't want to think about yet.
I mean, people love them, they say good things. Yeah, people recommend it. Oh yeah no no, I definitely one day, but not anytime soon. Not today, No, not today, honey. I'd like to also. Now we're just rambling, but whatever. That's why we have a producer jackline. You can cut in paste. But like, I'd like to just do things that are like when you say creative, like not work, like you always want to so you always want to work.
Well, I always want to do creative things.
I want to make nice stuff like i'd like to. Lately, I've been putting this stuff on social media about like cooking because I'm so bad at it, and so I've been doing things where I'm cooking whatever shitty thing I'm cooking, and just it's like fun. It's like it's like performing a little bit, you know, and like just thinking about it and thinking, like maybe one night I'll do an
edible and we'll call it edible cooking. Well, come over and do that and then we'll Because I sock at cooking, so so do I. Well, the reason I suck at cooking is because I never wanted to cook. Because I never wanted to taste of food, right, Yeah, so I suck at it just because I suck at it and I was never interested in doing it, and like, but like making these little videos about it is kind of funny. I did like a one. I have a one in bringing watch Chicken. I have to watch that. You don't
have to watch that, but I do. I'm just saying my point. The bigger point is that like doing fun stuff like that, you know not yea, I don't have to. I'm not going to necessarily change the world, but like being creative like that. Yeah, And I think that being funny and coming up with things. I do really enjoy that. Whether or not you know you paste on TikTok.
I am not on TikTok. I don't even have an account. I think I made an account once just to check like my daughter's content, but.
I don't I've never been on it.
And I think that I felt like I missed the boat on doing those kind of things.
You may have there, maybe taking it down it was all that controversy. But yeah, but like stuff like that, but I think is fun. I would also like to give back. I should probably say that even though that has not come out, but do something meaningful in this world. Actually, like, yeah, no, idea something good we have. Of course we've done good things in this world, but something that has nothing to do with me.
But by the way, I tell you something funny follow up to the TikTok things. So I always had this regret that I didn't get on TikTok early enough. Right, So when Threads started, I was like, I'm gonna be the first motherfucker on Threads. Iain. I was like all about Threads for like a month, and then I was like, you know what, Yeah.
I don't even know what thread is, honey.
Sometimes on my Instagram, the Facebook version of Twitter, I.
Don't even know what that means. And I don't want to know Instagram.
That's it. I have no other bucket list items. All right, Well, listen you guys if you want to, I keep saying at the end of every show, but if you guys have any ideas there are things you want us to talk about, it would be so great. I think we really should watch that movie.
Okay about it. We're definitely watching them. What do you mean in ten minutes? Okay, yeah, but no.
I'm serious. This was so fun it always is fun. Yeah.
I hope you guys are having fun. We appreciate your listening a lot.
All right, We love you guys until next time.
Bye bye,