Sometimes the pop culture we love just teens hits differently in retrospect.

Maybe it's a tabloid story we couldn't get enough of or an illicit student-teacher relationship

on our favorite show. We're Suzy Banna-Karim and Jessica Bennett,

posts of the new podcast in retrospect, where each week we'll revisit a cultural moment from

the past that shaped us and probably you to try to understand what it taught us about the world

and our place in it. You're the first person that I've talked to about this for years and years.

Listen to in retrospect on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows.

Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.

Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast Podcast.

Today's tip is to throw your own party. If you have something good happening in your life,

use it as an occasion to bring people together to celebrate. Special occasions deserve to be marked.

And the best way to make sure something happens is to do it yourself.

As a child, you may have celebrated your birthday with friends every year.

As an adult, we tend not to do that and perhaps that's wise. Maybe we don't always feel like

celebrating 43 trips around the sun. However, one of the reasons that adulthood tends to feature

a lot of sameness day after day, year after year is that we don't mark occasions.

There is perhaps a wedding and then not much. And that's too bad because bringing people together

to celebrate good things is one of the most pleasurable things we can do. And I say that as

someone who is fairly introverted, there is a world of difference between a networking cocktail party

where I don't know anyone. And a gathering at a restaurant with 20 people I do know, who are all

toasting a book release. So for at least a few of my books, I've tried to do the latter. And it's

been great. I remember those nights years into the future, which is not something I can say about

...