Hi everybody.

Welcome back to the Be There in Five podcast.

I'm Kate Kennedy, your host.

If you've listened to this podcast over the years,

you've probably heard me share anecdotes of how sometimes I struggle to keep it like to keep

it breezy. I use the word breezy all the time because I feel that is the opposite of what I am.

I opened my book, calling myself an Erica Jane on opposite day. How many Fs do I give? She says none.

I give all the Fs about everything ever. Part of this issue is like my natural curiosity, you know, in a very

Leslie Knopian manner, it's, if I'm in the mood to chat, I want to skip the idle nonsense

and get right to the meat and hear about your hopes, dreams, fears, and regrets, of course.

I don't remember the last time I went to a social event and didn't ask a woman I was talking

to about her experience with IUD insertion. Now having experienced labor, I'm an virtual nightmare everywhere I go because all I want to do is hear everybody's stories now that I understand them and they don't terrify me. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm not great at the art of small talk. I'm good at medium to big talk, and I'm actually pretty bad at small talk. I think I'm a good

conversationalist. I mean good at medium to big talk, and I'm actually pretty bad at small talk.

I think I'm a good conversationalist. I mean, I don't think anybody sticks themselves in front of a

mic for a living if they think they can't converse. But I, there's a level of awkwardness I feel

trying to explore high level generalized topics to warm up to somebody. Because my sister and mom, people approach them everywhere always. And they have stories and tales about who they met and how their children are doing and this thing they went through. And I'm like, nobody ever talks to me the way they talk to you guys. And I've been trying to get better at it. I want to be approachable. I don't make friends very easily. You know, it's lonely out here in

mom world. So I'm trying to get better at it. And I heard about this audio book, not a physical

book, but an audiobook written by two brilliant actors and comedians and people that I love

from like the podcasting world. Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair wrote this

audiobook, The Art of Small Talk, based off of a podcast episode they did on Jessica and June

Diane Rayfield's podcast, The Deep Dive, about like the art of casual conversation. And it was created

into this audio book you can listen to. And it's, I think it's like six hours long.

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