Lemonada

I'm going to record the rest of this episode later

but I just have to capture this moment for you guys.

I just left lunch with a friend and I'm buzzing I feel so good I feel so just fulfilled and connected and every good thing

and capable and confident and like this is great feel amazing. And I want to expand on this more in our regular setting, which is me and my PJs with meatball in my lab. But I just felt the need to capture at this moment for context so you guys can hear it in real time.

And now hopefully the sound will be better for the rest of the episode as I expand on it.

That's all. All right. So for context, I recorded that intro on Tuesday. It is now Thursday. I've had 48 hours to process that lunch with my friend. And it is no less fulfilling, meaningful, wonderful than it was then. I still just feel so excited and giddy about everything that was.

I really want to talk about authentic connection because that's something that I don't think there is enough of. I think it's a hard thing to come by. Maybe is that a reach?

Is that me trying to like shoehorn it into the premise of this podcast? I'm like hard feelings.

Well, it's hard to come by. Maybe this will fit. Anyway, I met this friend. This is a new friend.

I first met this friend a year ago through a different friend, an author friend who had said, I want you to meet a couple author friends of mine. We can have like a cute little author dinner. I thought, I love this. So we all met up and it was great except for the fact that I was a fucking nervous wreck. I used to experience a ton of social anxiety. We'll talk about that in another episode. But I was nervous. I really wanted to

impress these people. I cared about what they thought. I respected them. And I didn't think I was like my

best. I didn't think I shined in that environment. I felt like I couldn't really form complete sentences.

Do you ever have that happen where you're like at a social gathering? You're like, what is coming out of my mouth? But it's like currently coming out of your mouth and you can't stop it. And then just kind of like, the sentence stops. And you're like, that wasn't an end, sweetheart. Like that was, you said nothing. That's what kept happening that. Oh, God. I'm just like flashing back. It was horrifying.

I don't even really like what I wore, not that that matters, but it actually does. It matters to me. I don't know. I like to feel comfortable in what I'm wearing. I like to feel confident what I'm wearing. I didn't, I was like, I felt kind of like a cartoon character. I don't know what was going on. A couple of mistakes were made. But anyway, I met this friend.

First thing he said to me was, this is like right after my book came out, he had just read it. And he's like, oh my God, everybody's talking about all the traumatic things that have happened in your life, but nobody's talking about the most traumatic. And I'm like, what? And he goes, the fact that you lived above the Glendale Galleria, anybody from the L.A. area knows this reference. If you don't, I lived in Glendale. There's this mall called the Glendale Galleria next to that mall is this place called Americana. And it's the outdoor shopping mall. And it's very like utopian Disney. You know, there's, but kind of feeling with high-end shopping, like a Louis Vuitton, there's like an Oritza, there's a Northstrom, that kind of thing.

And then there's also a trolley and Frank Sinatra blaring from the speakers, like the same 10 Frank Sinatra songs on rotation.

That's where I lived.

So, you know, I'd wake up every morning to fly me to the moon, like blasting from the speakers.

It felt odd to say the least.

I lived there for a fucking long time, way too long, several years.

Anyway, it was a great joke.

...