Wendi Aarons, I'M WEARING TUNICS NOW: On Growing Older, Better, and a Hell of a Lot Louder
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[0:58]Wendy Erin's is the author of, I'm wearing tunics now, on growing older, better, and hell of a lot louder.
[1:04]Wendy Erin's is a writer and award-winning humorist whose work has frequently appeared in outlets like McSweenies in the New Yorker, among many others.
[1:11]She is the author of the middle grade novel, Ginger Mancino, Kid Comedian, and a contributor to the listen to your mother, what she said then, what we're saying now, and keep strolling till you feel something, anthologies.
[1:23]She lives in Austin with her family and her tunics.
[1:25]Welcome, Wendy. Thank you so much for coming on momstone. I have time to read books to discuss. I'm wearing tunics now on growing older, better, and a hell of a lot louder.
[1:34]Thank you for having me here. This is really fun. I'm curious what your alternate titles were. This is such a good title. Did you have something else?
[1:41]Not really. That just stuck with me. I don't even, I'm not wearing a tunic today. I mean, I don't wear them all the time, but a tunic was kind of a metaphor for no longer caring what anybody thinks of how you dress except for your stuff.
[1:54]So I just stuck with it. Yeah, no other else. No other titles. Thank you.
[1:59]So first of all, tell listeners, I mean, the title gives it away, but tell listeners about the content of the book and what made you write it and all of that good stuff.
[2:09]I'm a humor writer. I've written satire for mixed meanings in the New Yorker daily shouts for years, and I was approached about writing something longer form.
[2:19]So I'm like, you know, humor is my lane and I wanted to stay in that, but it is one the team. So I started to write more humorous essays about just getting older in this phase of life, because there isn't a lot out there.
[2:32]And to be honest in the past, I didn't think I really had anything I wanted to say that was long enough for a book, but I realized in my, I think when I turned 50, I'm like, there isn't a lot out there examining how a woman changes from 30 to 50
[2:48]in a humorous way. I mean, there is, but not that I had seen recently. So it was like, I always say that.
[2:55]I never thought I had a book in me because my life is so ordinary. I'm not like Malala. I haven't climbed any mountains and you know, I'm not doing anything extraordinary, but what I've done is relatable, which I'm finding out with the response to the book.
[3:11]So each chapter has a title like I'm wearing blank now. I'm wearing maternity pants now. I'm wearing twin set sweaters now. Nobody cares what I'm wearing now, because I realize that my life in many women's lives can be framed by what our fashion is at that point in time.
[3:30]So that was kind of the trajectory. So the book goes through starts when I'm 30 and ends when I'm at my current age in my 50s and just that transition from, you know, being a young mom finding my place in the world, getting louder and more politically active.
[3:46]Realizing that there's so much freedom in a ratio when all of a sudden you aren't subject to the male days or you feel kind of condescended to just because you have some gray hair.
[3:59]Don't crazy with this description right now. I love it. Keep going. No, keep going. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But just how you know, I feel more confident and more powerful at this age than I ever have before my life.
[4:11]And I didn't plan on having any inspiration whatsoever in my book. I just wanted it to be funny, but I'm getting feedback that it is kind of inspirational, you know, just to let's talk about how hard it is to find friends as a mom and as an older woman and you know, I have some thoughts and I about how I did it or how life is not infinite.
[4:34]So if you want to do something and you want to go down a new path, do it now. There's no reason to wait anymore. So there. That's my five seconds to be all that I think actually went on for two minutes.
[4:47]Take your time. This is your show to like, talk your wares if you will. Okay. Okay. I'm serious. So here. Let's let's go through some of the, let's go through some of the clothes and and you can give a little snippet. Okay. Hold on. Okay. So you go from.
[5:01]I'm wearing chunky heels now. I'm wearing maternity pants twin sets conference swag. I'm wearing bad decisions from the juniors department now.
[5:11]I'm wearing fury now. No one cares what I'm wearing now. I'm wearing business casual now. I'm wearing wrinkles now or am I. I'm wearing a bigger size now. I'm wearing the name ma'am now. I'm wearing cooling cloths now. I'm wearing decades now. I'm wearing a slower pace and wearing a party hat. I'm wearing badass and I'm wearing two nicks.
[5:33]That's pretty much it. That's my life in a nutshell. Oh my gosh. So talk about I'm wearing a bigger size now. And then it says nine ways. I wish I could boost my metabolism.
[5:42]Yeah. And I think probably I would think most women go through this for your metabolism suddenly changes in their life.
[5:50]And yeah, that's about all of a sudden I was doing all the diet exercise I've done my entire life, but I was gaining weight just because of hormones and you know, premenopause or perimenopause and all of that.
[6:03]So it's, you know, kind of a humorous take on that and how I tried weight watchers and, you know, stuck to the letter and did everything and then I gained five pounds at the end of the month.
[6:14]Because your body is, you can't control it anymore. It's just a different feeling. So, you know, I think like I said, I think most women go through this at that age and you either laugh for you cry. That's how I put it.
[6:25]So I tried to just explain how it was for me. And I think I've kind of regulated back to how I was before, but it's it's weird.
[6:35]You know, everything you thought you could control all of a sudden you can't, which isn't, you know, explains about a million things in life. But for me, it was the metabolism and my body was changing and, you know, I always say I would never go back to being age 30 again.
[6:51]But I would take certain body parts from when I was 30 and have those come back. So yeah, it's a little bit rough with the self acceptance in certain phases of midlife.
[7:02]I used to actually back in the day work at Weight Watchers. Yeah, that's a great program. After business school, I was like, I have to lose these 20 pounds and I've tried everything in the world, but I haven't tried Weight Watchers who knows.
[7:14]And I like got so gung ho about it and I was like, oh my gosh, it's the only thing in the planet that's going to work for me. And I got so carried away that I was like, I'm going to be a leader.
[7:24]Like I have to get to this goal. And then I have to. Anyway, so I became a receptionist and then I became a leader and I started leading meetings. That's really cool. I was like, you know, 20, what did I know? I was like 28. I would like hate myself now.
[7:37]I was 28 and like a size zero and like, you know, my hair was falling out and I was freezing cold all the time. Oh my gosh, they're leaving. But anyway, it was not the best.
[7:46]I go back to that time because I did a good job and they promoted me and I became like a private meeting leader and I would go to people's homes and I had this one client.
[7:54]I would go to her home on like first Avenue once a week and she was middle aged and going through all this stuff and we would like look at her food records and I remember thinking like, I don't know, she's doing everything right.
[8:05]I don't know why you're not losing. I don't know. I'm like that age and I'm just like, oh my gosh, you know what.
[8:15]Okay, I guess I'll just be large. Like it's okay. I'll just be large. It's okay. Yeah. And that's it. And that was it too. I grapple with it's ridiculous. I shouldn't have to get down to a certain size. I shouldn't have to go get Botox. I shouldn't have to call over my hair.
[8:29]And I know all of that. But then on the other hand, I'm like, well, but I don't want to look in the mirror and be scared of, you know, not recognizing myself and if all these other women in my neighborhood are doing that, then I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb or I don't.
[8:45]It's just this quandary. I haven't figured it out yet.
[8:49]I feel like I'm 46 now and I just feel like all of a sudden, especially post COVID when no one could get Botox for a while. Yeah, I have like this whole, there's this whole group of women who I'm like, oh my goodness. Okay.
[9:00]So that's what we're doing. All right.
[9:04]You know, holiday cards are like so funny. But anyway, I feel like middle age is similar. I mean, as one of these womenly moves, right. You don't know how you're going to be as a pregnant person until you're pregnant.
[9:15]Like, oh, are you going to be one of these beautiful pregnant people? You're going to be like hideous and your nose gets too big. Like mine was my two.
[9:21]I mean, like all my features distorted like you just don't know. And it's the same thing.
[9:25]I don't know.
[9:26]But nobody like warns you like this could go anyway. It's out of your control and you're going to have to like write it out.
[9:32]You have to write it out. And I say in the book that it's similar to puberty. It's a big change and hormones are involved in each case.
[9:40]But yeah, all of a sudden you're like, why did I just sit in my closet and cry for 20 minutes, you know, after watching that 90 day fiance episode, you know, it's just, well, weird feeling it's unsettling, I think.
[9:53]So that's why I'm like, let's just make some laughs about it because hopefully most.
[10:00]people can relate to it.
[10:01]And that's my way of coping with the world
[10:03]is finding what's funny.
[10:05]I mean, we have to commiserate, right?
[10:07]I mean, we do.
[10:07]We do.
[10:08]Otherwise, forget it.
[10:10]How did you get into humor writing and writing in general,
[10:14]like, start back in the day?
[10:16]Like, how did this haul?
[10:17]Back in the day.
[10:18]Well, I get, I've been getting asked a lot
[10:20]if I was a funny kid and the answer is no.
[10:22]I was not a funny kid.
[10:23]I was the one in the corner reading,
[10:25]reading, reading, reading, I was a big bookworm.
[10:28]But I liked my sensibility was for humor.
[10:31]So I was the strange, six-year-old walking
[10:34]into the city library and checking out
[10:36]Irma Bomb that books.
[10:38]I love it.
[10:38]Because I know, like, I guess I identified
[10:41]with, like, domestic housewife humor at a very young age,
[10:45]but I love, but she said, I mean, every reader,
[10:47]because she's so sharp and witty.
[10:49]And I think didn't get the recognition that was due
[10:53]because she was writing about women and domestic issues.
[10:57]But yeah, I always loved humor as, you know,
[11:00]I would seek out funny movies and funny books
[11:03]and all of that, but it wasn't until I had been a mom.
[11:06]I was laid off from my advertising job
[11:09]when I was pregnant.
[11:10]So I became, as I said, a reluctant stay at home mom.
[11:13]And I started writing as an outlet
[11:16]and my brain just goes naturally to humor.
[11:20]I teach a lot of kids humor writing classes
[11:22]and I tell them, you know, if you all had the assignment
[11:25]to write something about a horse,
[11:27]part of some of you would write a poem,
[11:28]some of you would write something dark and twisty,
[11:30]and some of you, like me, would write a joke
[11:32]because that's how your brain is wired,
[11:34]like you see the world in a funny way.
[11:36]So that's how I started to make sense of the world.
[11:39]Like, motherhood, I wrote a lot of funny parenting stuff,
[11:42]but the thing that changed my life
[11:44]and it's in the book is I wrote an angry letter
[11:46]to Procter and Gamble about their always maxi pad,
[11:50]have a happy period slogan for McSweenies
[11:53]and it's a satiric piece.
[11:54]And I thought, you know, I'm like,
[11:55]yay, I got something published on a website,
[11:58]but then it went viral.
[11:59]And this is before Twitter and Facebook existed.
[12:02]Like, it went viral, like people were printing it out
[12:04]and mailing it to their friends.
[12:06]And that was like a big, just a huge thing in my life
[12:10]because I'm like, somebody wants to hear my voice.
[12:12]I'm sitting here in my little Texas bedroom
[12:14]with my kids in the next room, typing away.
[12:17]And what I wrote resonated with all of these people,
[12:20]they liked my humor, they liked my feminist point of view,
[12:24]blah, blah.
[12:24]So that led to starting a blog
[12:27]and the blogs were a big deal back in the early 2000s
[12:33]and that was my way of connection.
[12:35]So I'm like, I can put my humor voice out there
[12:38]and through that, I'm gonna meet these other funny women
[12:41]that are in Wisconsin and New York City
[12:44]and all these other places.
[12:46]And it was just the best gift in the world.
[12:49]And it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't put myself out there
[12:53]and taken a risk and just said,
[12:56]I'm gonna write what I think is funny
[12:57]and hopefully it'll attract a few people that get me.
[13:01]That's amazing.
[13:02]Oh my gosh.
[13:03]And so how did you get it into McSweeties?
[13:06]Like, did you just pitch randomly?
[13:08]Yeah, well, the beauty of,
[13:09]when I tell aspiring humor writers,
[13:11]that's the beauty of McSweeties
[13:12]and also New Yorker Daily Shouts is anybody can submit something.
[13:17]And it's not like, I remember in way back when I would
[13:22]try to get into magazines and there was always
[13:24]like you'd have to track down the address and submit it.
[13:27]And it just was too hard for, you know,
[13:30]some want to be right in Austin, Texas.
[13:32]But when the internet started,
[13:34]I sound like a little bit more,
[13:36]went back with the tubes and wires were hooked up.
[13:38]No, but McSweeties, anybody can submit.
[13:41]And it's really been interesting to see
[13:45]the wave of female humor writers take off
[13:48]over the past 10 years.
[13:49]If you go on to their site on any given day,
[13:53]it's usually the top trending pieces are all women writers,
[13:56]which I think is fantastic.
[13:57]And they're writing about parenting and whatnot.
[14:00]And my piece, I'm wearing two next now.
[14:02]That's in the book.
[14:02]It's been trending on McSweeties for a couple months,
[14:06]which is great.
[14:06]But it's such a good way to get your work amplified
[14:10]because people will share it.
[14:12]Now they can email it and text it to each other.
[14:14]They don't have to print it out.
[14:15]But yeah, it's been wonderful.
[14:18]That's awesome.
[14:19]And then what about the New Yorker?
[14:20]The New Yorker?
[14:21]This is typical me.
[14:22]I was really upset a few years ago
[14:24]because I've never had anything in the New Yorker.
[14:26]And then I'm like, oh, I've never submitted to them.
[14:28]That would help.
[14:29]Like, so I've had some pieces in there.
[14:33]And the ones that have done well have been about midlife,
[14:37]like how midlife women can stun on cell phone photos,
[14:40]which is in the book.
[14:41]And one of my favorite pieces happened after I was
[14:44]interviewing for jobs, like trying to get back
[14:46]in the workforce, and it was really humiliating.
[14:49]And my way of therapy, I guess, is to make fun of it
[14:53]with a carrot piece.
[14:54]So I wrote, we can't ask your age in this job interview,
[14:57]but please take this quiz about rotary phones.
[15:01]And I loved it.
[15:02]And the New Yorker ran it, and it's in the book.
[15:04]But it's kind of like, I have these emotions
[15:08]and these jokes, and I don't know what to do with it.
[15:10]So I sit down and it comes out that way
[15:13]in a carrot piece.
[15:15]That's amazing.
[15:16]So who do you love to read?
[15:17]Like, who are some of your favorite?
[15:20]Probably most, you know, I follow your accounts
[15:22]and everything you have up there is what I read.
[15:25]I don't read.
[15:26]Yeah, you have great taste.
[15:28]I read novels, read a lot of novels.
[15:31]I like thrillers.
[15:33]I used to read about a book a week, and that slowed down.
[15:36]I found my attention span is like I just watched TV,
[15:40]and I need to break that.
[15:41]So I just started Cloud Kugland, which I've had forever.
[15:45]But I'm like, this is a daunting challenge,
[15:48]because it's like five million pages.
[15:50]But I'm going to sit down and make myself
[15:52]read it for an hour a day.
[15:54]And of course, once I get into it,
[15:56]I'm going to be hooked and want to read it all the time.
[15:58]But I read mostly women writers, and that's
[16:01]not a conscious choice.
[16:03]But that seems to be who's putting out
[16:04]the most interesting stuff right now.
[16:06]What I was preparing for my interview with Anthony Dorr,
[16:09]I ended up going back and reading this memoir he wrote
[16:12]about his time in Paris.
[16:13]Have you read that?
[16:14]Oh, no, that sounds great.
[16:15]You should go back to that.
[16:16]I mean, I've just heard you from crowd Kugland.
[16:19]But if you're feeling like you're not in the mood
[16:22]for that one particular night, but you still want
[16:24]to be loyal to the enemy, you might want to dip into it,
[16:29]because it's a quicker read.
[16:30]But it tells you so much about him
[16:32]and put some new light on everything he's written since.
[16:34]Yeah, that's good.
[16:35]I'm like, why have I not even heard about this?
[16:37]I guess it was before all the success of all the light
[16:39]we cannot see.
[16:40]I love all the light.
[16:40]We cannot see so much.
[16:43]My kids had to read it in school, which I found.
[16:45]Really wonderful.
[16:46]Yeah.
[16:47]Yeah.
[16:48]I always look at what they're bringing home.
[16:49]And I'm like, tell me I interviewed this person.
[16:52]Come on, I hope you have my kids.
[16:55]No, never heard of them.
[16:56]Then they're like, can you interview Neil Patrick Harris?
[16:58]And I'm like, I don't know.
[17:01]I bet you could.
[17:01]I'll try.
[17:02]You can come up with something again, yeah.
[17:04]Maybe I'll try, because they're reading that today.
[17:06]By the time I book the podcast, they'll be over it
[17:07]and be like, whatever, but anyways, that's funny.
[17:10]So what are you working on now?
[17:12]I'm not sure.
[17:12]This has been in the promotion phase of the book,
[17:16]which I like and I don't like.
[17:18]I guess I'm kind of itching to get back
[17:20]just to writing.
[17:22]I have an empty nest, recent empty nest.
[17:25]So I'm batting around the idea of writing something funny
[17:29]about that, but I haven't found anything funny about it yet.
[17:32]Oh, I know.
[17:34]But all the books that exist about empty nest
[17:37]are very sad and modeling.
[17:39]And I think it's just another phase of life.
[17:42]And it's an opportunity to reconnect with your partner,
[17:47]to start traveling more, to try a new path
[17:50]that you maybe haven't done.
[17:52]So I think I'm optimistic about this phase of life,
[17:55]but it's also bittersweet.
[17:58]It's no one call you, I guess.
[18:00]And you know, you walk past the empty rooms and I know.
[18:04]But one of my older son goes to school in London,
[18:07]which is a great opportunity for us to go to London
[18:10]as much as possible.
[18:11]So I highly recommend that if your kids are looking
[18:13]for colleges, have them go some place you wanna visit a lot.
[18:17]I will be sending them to Australia.
[18:19]Yeah, exactly.
[18:20]Here, go to college at the Sandals Resort in Jamaica.
[18:23]Exactly.
[18:24]They have a school.
[18:24]Yeah, it's great.
[18:27]Yeah, I know that I am divorced and remarried
[18:29]and every other weekend, all my rooms are empty.
[18:31]And it started like seven years ago
[18:33]when my kids were really full and I know.
[18:36]So I feel like I'm not empty.
[18:37]I still have them part-time,
[18:39]although my older son was at boarding school.
[18:41]But I relate to that so much
[18:43]because I get like little glimpses of it.
[18:45]And when it started, I was like,
[18:46]this is the worst thing in the entire world.
[18:50]This is like grief.
[18:51]It feels like grief.
[18:52]It had, it just struck all the same, you know,
[18:54]nodes of grief that I have at the same response.
[18:57]So I could see that.
[18:59]And then, but on the other hand,
[19:00]you're like, they're thriving, they're happy,
[19:02]they're in a safe space.
[19:04]Yeah.
[19:05]No, but then I was like,
[19:06]bye bye.
[19:07]I'm flying to LA.
[19:09]I don't know, now my weekends,
[19:10]I mean, I guess I still get sad.
[19:11]But yeah, I started this whole business
[19:13]and now I'm like, oh, wait, yeah, I used to have time.
[19:16]But anyway, but that was part of why I started all this
[19:18]is to like fill the time when they weren't here, you know?
[19:20]So yeah, you're not just gonna sit home
[19:22]and play a cat in the cradle
[19:24]and look at baby scrapbooks.
[19:26]Like, oh, I know.
[19:28]So how have you found like what's been the most effective way
[19:31]to reach this audience?
[19:33]Like, how have you connected the most?
[19:34]Like, what have been the most effective channels for you?
[19:37]And like, where have you met the most engaged readers of it?
[19:40]The day the book came out, I had mixed me knees nicely ran
[19:44]the, I'm going to an exact piece
[19:45]and that did really, really well.
[19:47]So I think that was for me the best place.
[19:51]They're all about humor and it's easily shareable.
[19:54]So that's done really well.
[19:56]But I've been doing podcasts,
[19:58]which I like a lot.
[20:00]Later this month, I'm doing tunics and tea at Austin's
[20:04]legendary Driscoll Hotel in this fancy ballroom,
[20:07]which was an interesting invitation.
[20:09]So I guess I need to get a fascinator now that,
[20:12]but I also say that humor brings people together.
[20:15]So if you can make somebody laugh,
[20:18]you have them in the palm of your hand,
[20:20]but we all like to laugh at the same thing.
[20:22]We all like to, you know, just lighten the mood
[20:25]and it's an endorphin thing to laugh.
[20:29]So any time I can get together with a group
[20:32]and read from the book,
[20:33]that's been really successful just because it's funny.
[20:36]And, you know, I'm not reading some dark twisty poetry
[20:39]that's also effective,
[20:42]but it creates a different mood
[20:43]when you're making people laugh.
[20:44]It's more celebratory, I guess.
[20:47]And why do you think this has been not written about enough?
[20:51]Even old age.
[20:52]Like in this bookstore opening,
[20:53]I have like a whole coming middle age section,
[20:55]which would include this book.
[20:56]Okay.
[20:57]She was like, you know, why don't you have a coming
[20:59]of geriatric age section?
[21:02]I'm like, what would I put there?
[21:03]Yeah, there isn't much.
[21:05]And, you know, I say in my book that the words,
[21:08]even the phrase middle age kind of has a negative
[21:12]tinge about it, you know,
[21:13]and when you and I were growing up,
[21:15]women would say like, oh, a lady never revealed her age.
[21:19]You know, it was in this big mystery.
[21:21]And I think it's just, I'm Gen X.
[21:23]I think you are too.
[21:25]We're getting to be where we're just like,
[21:28]I hate this phrase, but living out loud.
[21:29]We're like, yeah, I'm 55.
[21:31]This is it, this is my life.
[21:32]And we were, a Gen X really started writing
[21:35]about parenting more than anybody had before.
[21:38]And I think now we're going to write about this.
[21:41]And you've probably noticed like Gwyneth
[21:43]and Naomi Watts and the shields,
[21:46]they all have these companies about midlife.
[21:48]So I think it's just taking these, you know,
[21:52]these big mouse getting to this age
[21:54]and wanting to talk about it.
[21:55]And hopefully, you know, I don't know if I'll be writing
[21:58]a book about being 60, but maybe, I mean, it's, again,
[22:02]it's me trying to find a connection
[22:04]and trying to put out something that I hope people
[22:09]will relate to and make them feel less lonely.
[22:12]Yeah.
[22:13]The best aging, I don't know if you've read Judith Vierst's
[22:17]essay is on aging.
[22:18]We read like on being 70.
[22:19]Yes, yes, yes, yeah, it's so good.
[22:22]So good.
[22:23]I feel like that's all I would put in my section,
[22:25]but we need more books like that.
[22:27]I also like to read books about the next phase.
[22:29]I always have done that.
[22:30]Like no matter how interesting.
[22:32]Like to let me know what's coming.
[22:33]Like I don't have an oldest thing or anything.
[22:35]And I don't know.
[22:36]I just, I feel like this is how I sort of mentally plan
[22:39]or prepare, you know?
[22:40]I was in high school reading about like,
[22:42]what it's like to plan your body or something.
[22:46]And so now I'm like, okay, time to prep
[22:48]for a year yet.
[22:49]We'll definitely read the chapter of my book
[22:51]about turning 50 since you're coming up at that
[22:55]in the four or five years.
[22:57]Yes, for sure.
[22:58]Well, this was so fun.
[22:59]I'm so excited to get it to get it to talk to you.
[23:01]I'm glad I got to meet you in person.
[23:02]Yeah, I think you have to go home and invite it to that party.
[23:05]And I was like, I just have to meet her.
[23:07]That was fun.
[23:10]And he's talking about I had a book launch party in New York
[23:12]City and November that my friend is about through.
[23:15]And it was surreal to me.
[23:17]And I'm like, how do I know all these many people
[23:19]in New York City on this, like I said,
[23:21]I started writing this in my Austin, Texas bedroom.
[23:24]So yeah, it was great to see you there.
[23:26]It was fun party.
[23:27]Do you still live in Texas?
[23:28]In Austin?
[23:29]Yeah, we've been in Austin 25 years.
[23:31]Oh, wow.
[23:32]Okay.
[23:33]Well, I'm dying to get down there.
[23:34]I'm doing these retreats.
[23:35]And I want to do one in Austin
[23:37]because I've never been really into Texas.
[23:39]Oh, okay.
[23:40]Well, let me know because I know great retreat places
[23:44]and they're so we have a very, very strong writing community
[23:47]in Austin, so many novelists and people
[23:50]that I'm sure you know their names.
[23:53]So that would be fantastic.
[23:54]Yeah, okay.
[23:55]That's on my to-do list.
[23:56]Maybe for the.
[23:57]Okay.
[23:58]I want to do California in Texas.
[24:00]Hi.
[24:01]Yeah.
[24:01]I can stay standing through the spot.
[24:03]Yeah.
[24:05]The following Texas is much better than the summer.
[24:07]So yeah, plan that way.
[24:08]Oh, everywhere is better than the summer pretty much.
[24:10]Yeah, for like the ocean.
[24:12]I agree.
[24:12]Anyway.
[24:14]All right.
[24:14]Well, thanks for coming on.
[24:16]And this great guide to the funniness of the saddest parts
[24:20]of life.
[24:20]And the inspiration too to just like try and submit and why not.
[24:25]You know, yeah, so thank you.
[24:28]This is great and I love this podcast.
[24:31]And I'm telling everybody I know that I was on it.
[24:33]Please do.
[24:34]Thank you.
[24:35]Great.
[24:36]Thank you.
[24:37]Bye, Wendy.
[24:38]Bye.
[24:40]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[24:42]Don't have time to read books.
[24:43]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram
[24:46]at Zebioans and at Moms.
[24:47]Don't have time to read books.
[24:49]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
[24:51]and sign up for my virtual book club
[24:53]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[24:55]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[24:58]for the Sound Editing.
[24:59]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[25:01]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.