Jenny Lawson, BROKEN (IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY)
[0:01]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:35]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:37]Jenny Lawson is the author of Broken in the Best Possible Way.
[0:42]Jenny is an award-winning humerist known for her great candor and sharing her struggle with mental illness.
[0:47]She lives in Texas with her husband and daughter, and was constantly, quote, buying too many books,
[0:52]which she insists is not a real thing, so she decided to skip the middleman and just open her own bookshop,
[0:57]which also serves booze because, as she says, books and booze are what magic is made of.
[1:02]She has previously written, let's pretend this never happened, and furiously happy,
[1:07]both of which were number one New York Times bestsellers.
[1:10]She also wrote, you are here, which she says inexplicably made it onto the New York Times bestseller list,
[1:15]and spite of the fact that it was basically a very fun coloring book.
[1:18]She would like to be your friend.
[1:20]I can't even read this. Forget it.
[1:24]She says, she realizes this whole paragraph is precisely the reason she shouldn't be allowed to write her own bio.
[1:31]Thank you, Jenny.
[1:32]That was just a perfect foreshadowing of the hilarious and awesome conversation we had.
[1:36]Welcome, Jenny.
[1:37]Thank you so much for coming on mom's and her time to read books.
[1:40]I'm so excited to talk to you.
[1:41]I'm excited.
[1:42]Thank you for having me.
[1:44]And I'm actually joined today.
[1:45]I sent her as Tomcat, my...
[1:48]And for this, Gingercat, who has decided that he will not sleep me.
[1:52]So he's used part of this, apparently.
[1:55]For those of you listening who can't see, Jenny is also basically strangling this forecat.
[1:58]So that it's like attached to her body.
[2:01]There is no hope for this cat escaping.
[2:03]Like, I'm not doing anything.
[2:05]I mean, he hasn't anxiety and he feels better if his head hears my heart is what the bell is.
[2:14]So I just, I'm like, okay.
[2:16]Well, so I'm just, he just stay strapped to me like a little baby, Bjorn.
[2:20]Have you read the book, Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman?
[2:23]Cause she has the whole thing on the cover is that she wears a baby sling with her dog.
[2:27]No, no.
[2:28]It's awesome.
[2:29]Yeah, you have that you would love it.
[2:30]It's like really good.
[2:31]You should definitely pick it up, but I relate.
[2:33]My lab is a little bit too big to do that, but usually she's like right here.
[2:38]Okay.
[2:38]So you are the blog guest.
[2:41]You have this blog you've had it forever.
[2:43]You own a bookstore.
[2:45]You've written multiple best selling books with your brain just on the page, which I love, right?
[2:52]It's like all the inner thoughts and feelings, which I identify with so, so, so much.
[3:00]How did this whole thing start?
[3:01]Take me to the beginning and then we'll talk about your obviously your book.
[3:04]Let's see.
[3:05]So it started when my daughter was maybe two and now she's 16 and I was reading this blog on the
[3:13]Houston Chronicle and the person writing it said it was a parenting blog and she basically said,
[3:19]you know, I don't think I don't think that I can do this.
[3:21]I can't be a mother and also right at the same time and you can't be you can't be a good mother and
[3:26]right at the same time.
[3:27]And so I reached out to the editor and said, well, I must be a terrible mom because
[3:33]I'll do it and I'll do it for free and it was that combination of all do it and for free
[3:38]that made him go, you're hired if you can get hired friend not actually have a real job.
[3:43]And so I started blogging there at the Chronicle or a while, but I kept getting in trouble
[3:49]for sort of going right on the edge of what you're supposed to say or not.
[3:54]I'm supposed to say and so I decided I will get my own blog and I just my first post was
[4:01]just the F word just as big as it could possibly be.
[4:04]It was wonderful, very freeing and then that like years after that led to my first book and
[4:11]now this is my I think fourth book coming out if you count one of them, which was technically
[4:18]a coloring book, but I count it because it was really hard, so you can count it.
[4:25]It counts.
[4:26]It's a book.
[4:27]It doesn't matter what's inside.
[4:28]It could be a part of maybe we should start a movement of people publishing books that
[4:31]are just blank inside just to like give them the confidence that they published a book, you
[4:36]know, because you could do a lot with the cover and the end papers and you know exactly.
[4:41]I love it.
[4:42]Oh my gosh, I think that's hilarious.
[4:45]I just like crack myself up on it.
[4:47]You're okay.
[4:48]So this recent book broken in the best possible ways, the first chapter I already forgot
[4:52]I wrote this.
[4:53]This is like I just obsessed with every word of this essay.
[4:57]You say that you're blaming some of this on your ADD, which gives you the attention level
[5:01]of a kitten and cocaine.
[5:03]And then obviously just like the distractions and aging and all these things and then
[5:08]you take it and talk all about your husband, who you're so funny when you write about.
[5:13]And now that leads us to the quote that I made you wait while I found because it's like
[5:15]the best quote ever in a book.
[5:17]You said basically the secret to a long lasting marriage is memory loss and well-meaning
[5:21]lies and beach margaritas.
[5:23]Yes, really is.
[5:24]Yes.
[5:25]Okay.
[5:26]So let's hear your take on a good marriage and why these are the essential ingredients.
[5:31]Well, you know, I've been right for, I don't even know decades when 25, I don't even
[5:37]know anymore.
[5:38]But a really big part of why we have been able to stay married for so long is because
[5:43]my memory is so poor that it's very easy for me to forget whatever it is that I am currently
[5:50]angry at him about.
[5:52]And so he's able to just sort of slip by a little.
[5:56]The other really helpful thing is he's so funny that even when I'm really just absolutely
[6:02]furious, he'll say something funny and I cannot help but laugh.
[6:07]So he's very lucky that I have a good sense of humor.
[6:10]And I think that's, that's, it's not a good secret, right?
[6:14]You're supposed to be this good secret, supposed to be like, you know, trust and absolute
[6:17]communication.
[6:18]But mine's just like just be too lazy to get divorced and then, you know, he just work
[6:24]through it.
[6:25]You get that thing that you were mad about that you were like, oh, I'm so furious.
[6:29]And yeah, I think I'm just too lazy to have to, we're both too lazy to have to deal with
[6:34]anybody other than the people that we are and we've just accepted each other's flaws
[6:39]to the point where we're just like, no one else would get the same jokes that we get.
[6:46]It would take too long to train someone else.
[6:48]We're it.
[6:49]Oh, my gosh.
[6:51]That's great.
[6:52]But it's also really funny.
[6:54]And like one of the first times we got together, he was like making me laugh so hard about
[6:58]something I barely remember what it was.
[7:00]And I remember hysterically laughing and being like, are you always this funny?
[7:03]And he was laughing.
[7:04]And he was like, yes, it makes such a different, and it's funny because in like, I think
[7:10]when most people when they read the book, they think that I'm the funny one because
[7:13]I write the stories about it.
[7:15]But I'm funnier on the page, he's funnier in real life and whenever people meet him,
[7:20]they're always like, oh, you're the funny one.
[7:23]I'm like, yeah, I'm just, I'm an introvert and I will sit here quietly and I will listen
[7:27]to y'all and I will write what all has happened and it will be much funnier even than what
[7:32]you remember.
[7:33]But at the moment, I'm just going to be really quiet and nobody is going to pay any attention
[7:38]to me and that's the way I want it.
[7:39]I love that.
[7:40]Yeah.
[7:41]I was writing something and I said to my husband, I was like, but you know what, this
[7:44]just isn't funny and he was like, well, you're not me.
[7:48]He's like, not everything has to be funny, you know?
[7:51]And that's the truth too.
[7:52]If you're writing and all the things you write about, whether it's on your blog or all
[7:55]in your books, you know, many of which I have like all over this room.
[7:59]But it's that tapping into the parts that you could like feel sorry for yourself about or
[8:04]you could like make light of them, right?
[8:06]Depression and anxiety and OCD and like all these things that so many people relate to.
[8:11]But you have a choice of how you deal with them.
[8:13]You can like accept and let them bog you down or you can find the humor, you know, you
[8:18]even put like your room of toy dars right as like all this stuff is like out there.
[8:24]So tell me about that and dementia.
[8:26]All of it.
[8:27]Yeah.
[8:28]Just tell me about the decision to be open.
[8:30]Tell me about how it makes you feel to be open and the approach to sort of making light
[8:37]in a way to unite.
[8:39]So it was it was not that far into my blocking that I realized that I was basically creating
[8:48]this false history because I would get into a depression and for me depression typically
[8:54]will last like up to a week and then I have it.
[8:59]It's a feeling of just uncomfortably numb and complete exhaustion and inability to focus.
[9:06]So on those weeks when I absolutely could not function, I would have these other posts
[9:12]that were written that I knew that I could slip in and people would respond on the
[9:18]blog and be like, oh my gosh, you're so funny and that there was this terrible cognitive
[9:23]dissonance that came with that of having people be like, you're so funny, you're great
[9:29]and inside I'm like, I am a failure and I haven't taken a shower in four days and I'm failing.
[9:35]So miserably and so I finally was like, I'm just going to I'm just going to be honest
[9:40]about this.
[9:41]This was gosh, maybe 12 years ago, maybe longer and I thought it would scare people and
[9:49]instead I had all of these people who were like me too and I thought I thought it was
[9:56]just me and what was really amazing is
[10:00]is over the years after that,
[10:03]I would get all of these emails from people
[10:06]who would say that they were actively,
[10:08]they had been actively in the process of planning
[10:11]their suicide and decided to stop and get help,
[10:14]not because of what I wrote,
[10:16]but because they saw thousands of people
[10:19]in the comments saying,
[10:21]me too, I also feel worthless.
[10:23]I also feel like my family would be better off about me.
[10:26]And they realized, well, that can't be true.
[10:29]And they realized, well, if depression is lying to them,
[10:32]maybe it's lying to me too.
[10:34]And so maybe I deserve to try to give myself help.
[10:38]And so what's really wonderful is there are all
[10:42]of these people who just left this anonymous,
[10:44]these anonymous comments saying,
[10:46]me too, I feel the same way.
[10:48]And they saved people's lives.
[10:51]Like there's sons and daughters and mothers
[10:53]and mothers who were alive today.
[10:56]And these anonymous people who are struggling
[10:58]have no idea that they saved people's lives.
[11:01]And I just think it really speaks to how wonderful it is
[11:07]when we can share our struggles
[11:10]and realize that we're not alone.
[11:13]And there's so many different ways that you can do that.
[11:15]And for me, my way is if you,
[11:20]if there's this terrible monster of depression
[11:24]or anxiety or whatever challenge it is that you're facing,
[11:28]if you laugh at it, somehow that monster becomes smaller.
[11:31]I mean, it's still there.
[11:33]It's still absolutely, I'm still a terrible disability
[11:38]to deal with, but it is something
[11:43]that is so much more easy to handle.
[11:46]That's excellent advice.
[11:47]And even with all the grief in the world,
[11:51]like these days in particular and the time
[11:53]that we're living through,
[11:54]I feel like humor is one of our only weapons
[11:58]against the current fight.
[11:59]It's like we have very few at our disposal
[12:02]and this whole past year,
[12:03]and that is one of the only things we can like pull out
[12:07]from under our coats and brandish, you know, exactly.
[12:11]It's like it's one of the only weapons still
[12:14]in the toolbox that is still consistently working for me.
[12:19]So I just, I keep coming back to it.
[12:22]I'm like, okay.
[12:23]If I could just find a way to laugh through this.
[12:25]And the other thing is, you know,
[12:26]there's, especially when it comes to depression,
[12:28]I mean, when I'm in a deep depression,
[12:30]there's not a time when I'm like,
[12:32]well, if I just watch something funny,
[12:34]that'll take me out.
[12:35]I mean, I know that's not gonna work for me.
[12:37]But what I also know is during the times
[12:39]when I'm out of the depression,
[12:42]or where, you know, I'm still,
[12:44]I still have some workable brain space
[12:47]that I have to be able to take advantage
[12:49]of those moments and have real joy and happiness
[12:54]and to not feel bad about, you know,
[12:58]quote unquote, wasting time, you know,
[13:00]doing things that are guilty pleasures or, you know,
[13:04]reading or just doing things that,
[13:07]but I sit there and I think like,
[13:08]oh, I really should be doing the dishes
[13:10]and I really should be, but you know what, maybe,
[13:13]maybe you should just be taking care of yourself
[13:15]because that makes you a better person.
[13:16]And then you can give to other people
[13:19]and just give yourself permission to be human
[13:23]and as happy as you possibly can
[13:25]without pressuring yourself.
[13:29]I could not agree more.
[13:31]And the fact that you called reading a guilty pleasure, right?
[13:35]I, my whole, like, I'm trying night and day
[13:38]to change that point of view,
[13:40]that reading is actually essential.
[13:42]And like, should be a part of the fabric
[13:44]of our everyday lives.
[13:45]In fact, it makes every other part better
[13:47]the more you read and those escapes
[13:50]don't have to be, you know, lounging around
[13:52]and, you know, on the beach for a seven day vacation, right?
[13:56]It can be like 12 minutes in a chapter of like,
[14:00]a book like yours even or somebody who might need,
[14:02]you know, whatever you need at that time,
[14:05]whether it's relating or empathizing
[14:08]or like complete escapeist fan fiction,
[14:10]like whatever your treat is, I don't know.
[14:13]I think that some of these things we relegate
[14:16]to the wish list.
[14:17]That's what makes life worth living.
[14:19]And life is short and like, what are we waiting for?
[14:22]Exactly, exactly.
[14:23]And, you know, there's so many times that I look back,
[14:27]you know, one of the, like the greatest things
[14:30]that I've done in my life and so often,
[14:33]I think of the books.
[14:34]I think of the, you know, when I was a kid,
[14:37]my mom and my grandmother and my sister,
[14:39]we would all go to this little like RV camp
[14:43]and we would spend a week there
[14:46]and we would just read books,
[14:47]like that was the entire thing.
[14:48]And I remember like all of the,
[14:50]all of the men in my family were like,
[14:53]but why do you have to leave the house to read books?
[14:55]And they're like, because that's the only way
[14:57]we can escape from feeling like we need to be doing
[15:00]other things.
[15:01]But this whole week, that's all,
[15:02]and every single that it was so quiet
[15:05]and we just sit in the RV, in the camper
[15:08]and we all had our big stacks of library books.
[15:11]And it seems so ridiculous down to be like,
[15:14]some of my favorite memories ever are these vacations
[15:18]that we're just about the books.
[15:20]That's it.
[15:21]Hey, yep, totally.
[15:23]I'm planning this whole retreat,
[15:24]like moms and have times you retreat.
[15:25]I just decided like yesterday or something.
[15:28]And it's just so people can get away and sit and read.
[15:31]And like maybe they meet some authors
[15:33]and have some good panels if they want
[15:35]or maybe they just like sleep and read.
[15:37]And that's like the best thing ever.
[15:38]Oh my God.
[15:39]Right?
[15:40]Like, honestly, reading has saved me over this quarantine.
[15:44]You know, I'm naturally reclusive.
[15:46]So this kind of feels like it was like a marathon
[15:48]that I had been preparing for my whole life.
[15:50]But I still wasn't super prepared for it.
[15:54]And because I have so many autoimmune problems,
[15:56]we have to be very, very, very isolated.
[15:59]So we don't, I mean, we don't even, you know,
[16:02]everything is delivered.
[16:04]We do not leave the house.
[16:05]The only thing that we do is my bookshop,
[16:09]nobody works on Sunday.
[16:10]And so Sunday, I go up to the bookshop.
[16:12]And I'm like, this whole bookshop is mine.
[16:15]I get still all these books.
[16:16]And my husband's like, oh, you can't still them
[16:20]because you own the bookshop.
[16:21]I'm like, I'm taking all of these.
[16:23]And he's like, we'll never make money.
[16:25]I'm like, dude, we didn't do this to make money.
[16:28]We opened an independent bookshop
[16:30]in the middle of a pandemic.
[16:32]There's no way this is ever gonna make money.
[16:35]But it has saved me because I just come home
[16:40]with these stacks of books.
[16:42]And I get to go into these different minds
[16:44]and escape mine, which is so great.
[16:48]It's such a wonderful recess.
[16:51]I couldn't agree more.
[16:53]I also, I can't, I feel like everything you're saying
[16:55]I'm like me too.
[16:56]And this must be getting very annoying.
[16:57]But I'm just like right before the pandemic,
[17:00]literally looking at like spots to open an independent bookstore
[17:04]in New York City, which I did the math.
[17:06]And I was like, wait a minute,
[17:07]how is any independent bookstore are still in business?
[17:09]This is like completely impossible.
[17:11]Like this isn't even like close to possible
[17:14]to being profitable.
[17:15]I would have to like, you know, rent a closet
[17:17]and like, you know, I don't know if somewhere far away
[17:20]from, you know, where I would want to have a bookstore.
[17:22]Anyway, so I was like, well, I can't do that right now.
[17:25]Plus it's gonna take so much time, right?
[17:27]I was like, I was imagining and I'm curious to know
[17:29]from you, like, and I guess you don't have to go in.
[17:31]Well, it's a pandemic and I'll rest.
[17:33]You know, I was thinking you had to be in the shop a lot
[17:36]and I would want to like manage everything the way
[17:38]I tend to do and did I have time for that?
[17:40]So is like, so you're basically living out my dream.
[17:43]What is it like to own an independent bookstore?
[17:45]It is really wonderful.
[17:48]I'm really lucky Elizabeth Jordan is our general manager.
[17:52]And so she's their day-to-day
[17:54]and she does like all the stuff that,
[17:56]where I say like, what am I doing?
[17:58]How do I do this?
[17:59]And she's like, you know what, I got it.
[18:02]Okay, it's okay.
[18:03]And so I can just center like, I like this,
[18:05]and I like this, and these books are great.
[18:06]And she's like, okay, yes, we will stop that.
[18:09]Let's do the inventory, let's do it.
[18:11]So that was very helpful.
[18:13]We are actually, I want to say no word bookshop
[18:15]is probably I need to check with Guinness,
[18:17]probably the longest running bookshop
[18:19]that has literally never opened its doors to customers
[18:23]because I don't think it's safe enough.
[18:25]And so yeah, we have never opened the doors to customers.
[18:29]We've been up and for well over a year.
[18:32]But we've still done really well
[18:35]just because we have a great community
[18:36]that supports it and does curbside service
[18:39]and all of that.
[18:40]And so I started this book club.
[18:42]We have thousands of members now
[18:45]and that's supporting us.
[18:46]And it's paying for employees and it's paying rent
[18:49]and it's sustaining us.
[18:50]And it's just, it's so great.
[18:53]And it's great for authors too
[18:55]because it's really hard to sell books right now
[18:57]because all the book shops are closed
[18:59]and it's great for publisher.
[19:00]And it's great for me because I get to like
[19:02]have these Zoom meetings with authors and talk to them
[19:05]and feel like I'm accomplishing something
[19:09]and having some sort of social life
[19:13]and we have these long conversations with
[19:16]and anybody can come in and ask questions
[19:21]and it just, it's so lovely and wonderful
[19:26]and it won 100% saved me through this quarantine.
[19:30]Once again, I'm like, I did the same thing.
[19:35]But you're so smart.
[19:36]I started a virtual book club
[19:37]and I have like we do half an hour of talking
[19:39]and then the author comes for the second half
[19:41]and we do a Q&A.
[19:42]But I don't charge anything.
[19:44]And I don't send the books.
[19:45]You send the books.
[19:46]Yeah, I send the book.
[19:47]Yeah.
[19:48]Although technically we probably lose a lot of money
[19:51]because we just charge like $25
[19:53]and almost all of the books that I select are like $28
[19:57]and $30 and I'm like, whatever, we'll eat.
[20:00]The eat the cost because I love it so much. And the Elizabeth is always like, okay. All right. I'm a bookseller, but I love books too. So yeah, let's do it. So
[20:10]People are like, Hey, I'm saving money with this. I'm like, yeah, that's probably not the way it's supposed to work, but
[20:19]Oh, I just love that. I just love it.
[20:22]Amazing. So are you working on a new book now?
[20:24]Not really because I I'm having a really hard time during quarantine with struggling with creativity. Like, I just don't feel like I have it in me, but I did. I got my first vaccination. I get my second one day after tomorrow.
[20:40]And so I I'm starting to feel like maybe there's a light at the end of the tunnel and maybe soon I'll be able to, you know, maybe get away from this house a little bit.
[20:53]Typically, when when I have like writers block like this, I will go and I'll spend a couple of days in a hotel where I don't get where it's just me locked in a room and I don't leave the room.
[21:03]Because I don't do well with, I don't know if it's ADD and focused or what, but I don't do well with interruptions. And of course, living here with, you know, a child who's doing full time, you know, high school from the house. And she's also a theater major. And so she's, you know, doing her musical
[21:22]theater all over the house, which is great, but also really not super conducive to, you know, writing in my husband comes out and he's on a conference call and he's yelling at somebody and then the dog is like, I need to go outside and the cats are all just like, like this attached to me. And yeah, it's hard. I could see that. At the same time, there's an essay right there. So you can start with that one. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Cat attached to my, you know,
[21:53]It looks like I'm breastfeeding and actually from the same. It does. I'm kind of wondering what's going on under there. But it's a little bit of a tory anus cover thing. It's yeah, I like it.
[22:04]So for aspiring authors who may also be having this writer's block and just in general, tell me a little more about your process and the advice that you would have. So when you start writing,
[22:15]like how much do you like do you repurpose content? Do you recommend against that or for that when you're doing books versus blogs, do you write in a different style like obviously they're different. Just like tell me like transitioning from blogger to author. All that good stuff.
[22:32]I try to, I try to have my books be around 80% new material because otherwise I feel like people would be like, I'm ready to make this for free.
[22:42]But there is always a little bit of a crossover just because because I'm blogging, you know, in real time, a lot of times there's stuff where you, you may have seen some of it, but I tend to what's really great about blogging is you can kind of see like what works and what does work. And sometimes the thing that is for me,
[23:00]is such a throwaway ends up being something that really people are like, this is so relevant to me. And so you can be like, oh, okay, well let's flesh out this idea a little bit more.
[23:10]So I think blogging is very helpful in finding your unique voice and in finding out, you know, what people like and what they don't.
[23:20]I, one of the things that's really helpful to me is not comparing myself to other people. It takes me years and years to write each book. And so I have friends who like, I mean just it really feels like they wake up in the morning and then by the evening, they're like doing first edits on my, you know, new novel.
[23:39]And I'm like, how, how like I wrote one paragraph today and then I deleted it because I hated it. So I don't compare myself to other people.
[23:49]One of the things that I found that was very, very helpful is because it feels, it feels like such a slow process for me. I will put a post it up on the wall for every single chapter that I'm going to do.
[24:03]And then on each on each chapter and has like a tiny little synopsis of like don't forget to put this this and this. And then I will change. I will have a little percentage done.
[24:13]And so every day I can come in and be like, okay, well, this chapter is only 19% done. But now I can scratch that out and change it to 20%.
[24:22]And it's such a small thing, but it's still you can feel like you're doing something every single day and it's sitting there. It's always on your wall. You're always kind of walking past it and sort of thinking about it.
[24:34]And the other thing that I found is really helpful for me because I have really severe ADD or 88. What is it in a tentative based AD HD. I don't know. They've reclassified it in the like mental health, whatever, but I just say ADD because that's what it used to be.
[24:51]But the thing that I found really helpful is pink noise, which you can just find on YouTube. You just look at pink noise and it's like white noise, but it's at like a slightly different volume.
[25:00]But there's something about it that helps you to get rid of all of the background noises like people with the ADD like fluorescent lights you can hear and you can hear lots of things that really kind of mess with your head a little.
[25:13]But pink noise I found is very helpful, especially because if you're doing it on YouTube, it's only like 15 to 20 minute increments. And so if I turn it on and start writing when it gets to the end, I'm like, Oh, I'm right for 15 minutes.
[25:27]So like I can like I can be that. And so yeah, those are the things that have been most helpful to me. And then also reading other people's work that I absolutely love can sometimes inspire me.
[25:41]For instance, Aliebrash and Samantha Irby are two of my like favorites. And so whenever I'm reading so say I'm reading Samantha's book and I will read a chapter.
[25:51]And I'll be like that's so funny that reminds me of the time that. And so so many of my chapters are really like in response to other people that I've read their book.
[26:04]And I've been like, I'm going to tell my story about and it's like our books are talking to each other. And you would never know that. But yeah, yeah, I always tell Samantha and like you help me write my book.
[26:14]Does she know that.
[26:16]That's a great way to think of it.
[26:18]It's like when I studied art history, like way back in the day, they're like every painting is actually a conversation and it's like basing it on the last one. I was like, no, it's not. These people are just like splattering paint are doing whatever you know, come on.
[26:30]And I think you're giving them too much credit.
[26:32]But it's like seeing with authors like with you, like that's so great. It's a conversation and you're keeping it going and.
[26:39]Yeah, so neat. Well, I have you and Sam are we been in conversation together. Oh, yeah, we have a couple of times and then I'm doing my virtual tour here sometimes seeing and she very sweetly agreed to moderate one of them. So I guess it's hot.
[26:54]And I love her so much. Okay, okay, I have to watch. Oh my gosh. She she is the best. And I did it and in conversation with Ali brush, which is really nice because we're both like pretty reclusive and she even more so than than I am.
[27:10]And her book came out. She was like, can we do like an in conversation with. And I was I was so into it. And she was in her blanket for it. And we just talked and visited.
[27:22]And at the end, I was like, you know, we're never going to talk again. Right. But I still want to be best friends. And she was like, you know what, I have this whole thing where I have these like these fantasies in my head of these like trips that we take together.
[27:37]And I was like, that is fantastic because that means we don't have to leave the house or actually talk on the phone or do any of that. But we still get to stay friends forever.
[27:47]Anytime I started really alone. I'm like, yeah, but you know what me and Ali brush are like running through the hills of Appalachia or something. And it's okay. I mean, that's just happening in her mind, but
[27:59]that kind of counts as being out. Maybe.
[28:02]I mean, all vacations just end up in your mind anyway.
[28:05]Exactly.
[28:06]Why waste it. Why waste the time.
[28:09]So it's like the speediest vacation in Dorphin rush ever. Just imagine it.
[28:14]You don't even have to go. It's perfect.
[28:16]Oh my gosh. Wow. Well, Jenny, thank you so much. This was great. I am going to go on vacation with you in my head.
[28:25]Yeah, we are going to laugh. No, but your book was great. I love how it just makes me feel like I'm not as crazy as I often think I can be. And I'm just so impressed with how what you've done and particularly your bookstore, which is like a dream come true. So just love it. Congratulations.
[28:42]Thank you. Thank you. Come to San Antonio. You can come and visit it one day when the plague has passed. You can come and visit it. I'll come to San Antonio for some curbside pickup.
[28:53]Exactly. All right. Okay. Thank you so much. Take care, Jenny. Okay. Bye bye.
[29:00]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[29:04]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zebioans and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[29:09]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[29:16]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan Beck, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.