Loving Heated Rivalry A Totally Normal Amount

Quinn: [00:00:00] How many times a day on average, do you wish that you were abducted and went missing for just a while?

Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.

Claire: We'll be talking about slash crashing out over topics like

Quinn: Gender identity and why they won't wear a coat.

Claire: School shooting drills and forgotten PE clothes.

Quinn: It's not an advice show.

Claire: It's a you're not alone and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kind of show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches.

Quinn: And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important, Not Important.

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Claire: And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions at not right now dot show. [00:01:00]

Quinn: Hey team, Claire and I have a guest today. We are excited to hang out with writer novelist parent and professional overthinker, Emily Gould, who has documented, boy, internet fame and friendship and motherhood and partnership and marriage and midlife chaos with pretty incredible honesty and precision for the rest of us. And yeah, it was a blast to have her on the show. So thanks for listening.

Claire: When you are like, binging on something or maxing, you're like, fuck it, we're just going to like, having a food party. What are you having?

Quinn: It's a good question. And it's an important part of getting away because as you were talking, you were listing all the different things you get for your upcoming annual getaway including Trader Joe's knockoffs of hybrids of other [00:02:00] things, cheese curls and stuff. Logistical questions before we get to my version. One, are you responsible for doing all the shopping ahead of time? Is that sort of agreed upon?

Claire: No, we compare notes. Oh. A big one is pimento cheese dip as well. So, my friend, she's getting some, she's bringing some cut up vegetables, which sounds like whatever, that's like a logistic I don't have to deal with. I don't have to pack 'em ahead of time. and, yeah, we will have to get some plates, like I said, cheese crackers. We'll also have Culver's for lunch the second day after we have some DoubleTree, you know, breakfast buffet. So, you know, I take a statin now, so I figure I could eat as much cholesterol as I want.

Quinn: I think that's how it works, right? You're covered now.

Claire: If I don't eat it, it probably hurts. Like it's probably, my cholesterol gets dangerously low, so I need to, you know, do the best I can.

Quinn: Are the boys, this is the one where the two boys who are quote unquote best friends get to go, right? Are they, how much of this food do they get [00:03:00] to access or is this strictly adults?

Claire: Oh, they get their own share. And it is so gross. They have, you know, like Doritos spilling out onto the bed and pizza on the floor. And yeah, toothbrush, last year I saw a toothbrush, like face down on the hotel carpet floor. I wanna just say this is the kind of, you're like, whatever, this is your time. Go for it. So, yeah.

Quinn: It’s like pre frat life, basically.

Claire: Yeah. And I, like I said, like these two call each other their best friends. They've never had to face a moment of adversity together. All they know is pizza and pool and hotel and shared Lego sets and things like that.

Quinn: Right. This is very far from do you wanna see a dead body? Like they haven't gone through anything.

Claire: Yeah, it's like if you thought being married was like being engaged, you know, but that's fine. And then my friend and I, she and I catch up a [00:04:00] little bit, but also we sit, we'll sit on our respective hotel beds and just look at our computers as well, to quote Best In Show we can talk or not talk for hours and it's great.

Quinn: That's the beauty of it. Best In Show. So timely right now, for a thousand reasons. Oh, we'll have to come back to mine because our guest is joining us.

Claire: We should ask her that question as well.

Quinn: A hundred percent. Hello.

Emily Gould: Hey.

Claire: How are you?

Emily Gould: Just taking a deep breath. Sorry, I was just, I have a daily newsletter, so.

Claire: I wanna hear what you're working on, but if it, if you wanna catch up, Quinn and I were just talking about, I'm going away with a girlfriend. We have this annual trip where we take our two oldest boys and we meet up at a hotel and we have shared like joining hotel rooms and we eat as much like Trader Joe's snacks as we want. So I was just asking Quinn, like if he's on a food vacation or like a binge, a planned [00:05:00] binge, like what his food of choice would be. So if you wanna think about that and answer, that's what we're currently talking about.

Quinn: Do you want me to go so that Emily has time to think about her answer?

Claire: Yeah. Let Emily catch her breath.

Quinn: I appreciate all your detail. Well, let me ask one last question. Do you get through everything that you bring?

Claire: No. No, that would be foolish. And that's not, I don't need to be a completist, plus, like, it's good to have food. The other thing is that there's another hotel night, the second day with the younger kids, so, I have to like save a little bit of room in my stomach for day two.

Quinn: Also, let's be honest, besides the cut vegetables that your friend is bringing, nothing on that list is expiring anytime soon. So it doesn't really matter, the shelf life on all that shit.

Claire: No. Absolutely not. So, when you are having a food party, what are you having?

Quinn: So my best friend Nate and I, friend of the pod, we're actively, we had one scheduled for two weeks ago, but the ice storm fucked the whole thing up.

So we're trying to schedule for a couple weeks from now. Pretty excited. We typically just go to an Airbnb and do nothing.[00:06:00] Sometimes we do like puzzle games on steam or something, but by the time the gummies kick in, we've lost track of the puzzle. And for like, you know, Rummy Cube or anything like that. It's all well intentioned until the gummies kick in. But food wise, so we don't really do anything ahead of time. We have realized we both get enormous joy out of, instead of meeting at the Airbnb, he lives about four hours away from here. We meet at the closest grocery store beforehand and just literally like ride on the back of the cart and throw things into it. And it's just, it's great because I'm a monster and I just eat fucking cut vegetables basically. and chocolate chip cookies. But this shopping is just chocolate chip cookies. There's a lot of bagels. He always, oh, he does, I should, this is so lazy of me. He makes, hand-makes every ounce of a handmade lasagna ahead of time and he makes it vegan for me. And each time it's different. It's fucking incredible. So that's like the base layer of most of our weekend. Sometimes the lasagna goes on a bagel. [00:07:00] Sometimes it's by itself, always finished off with a bowl of in my case again, like coconut based ice cream because kill me. That would, you know, you should lose a foot to diabetes for this thing. Again, like you said, it's just let it happen, you know?

Claire: Emily, I know that you cook, you are a good cook. I know you are homies with Alison Roman, but like if you are, you know, having a, like a store bought food party either with friends or at home or whatever, like what are you, what is your poison normally?

Quinn: This isn't like hosting a dinner party, though. I think what we're talking about is like.

Claire: No. Food party, not cooking.

Quinn: Okay. Go ahead.

Emily Gould: Okay, so, I'm not a good cook anymore. My cooking skills have atrophied, because my kids only eat the same five meals in a rotation. actually one of my kids only eats two of the meals and for the rest of the meals they eat either, chicken nuggets or Annie's mac and cheese. And those are literally the only things they eat. So yeah, cooking is not [00:08:00] really a thing for me anymore. I did have an amazing food party for myself, actually, it seems so long ago. But I guess it was actually technically speaking last week. I went to Baltimore by myself, to work on my book in my friend Laura Lipman's spare house in Baltimore, which is just an amazing space. and, this is like saving my life. Laura Lipman, deserves to have a parade thrown in her honor, basically. But yeah, whenever I go there, I try not to do any domestic duties whatsoever.

I mean, I clean up after myself and I like shower, but that's it. So I always get like two cases of Spindrift, a bunch of cheese and crackers and like cured meats and, like yogurt for breakfast. And a lot of coffee obviously. And, I'm really addicted to this Khalifa Farms almond coffee creamer. So that's like a necessity of my life. as are the two cases of Spindrift, [00:09:00] obviously. And then, for dinner, it's like pretty sad. I'll make spaghetti with jar tomato sauce or pizza. All of this is gluten-free by the way, because I have Celiac, so it's extra sad. And a carton of ice cream. That is what's in my grocery cart for the week. I also like to go, 'cause I don't live in the suburbs, I like to go to like drugstore aisle in New York City grocery stores and get like whatever fucking, you know, like eye, under eye patches.

Quinn: That's a great idea. I need to write that down for my getaway.

Claire: That is a good idea.

Quinn: Do those work?

Emily Gould: No, I'm sure they don't. They feel nice though. They feel good under your eyes.

Quinn: All that matters, right?

Emily Gould: Yeah.

Claire: It temporarily distracts you from whatever else is going on. And, it might be good, I guess you're like about to put makeup on right afterwards. I did that. I went to a school dance last week school dance, a school party. It was a fundraiser, but I had the eye patches on and I had also gotten a facial, a couple days [00:10:00] before and they upsold me like on the spot. They're like do you want this extra collagen dohickey? And I said, yes. And the lady was really nice. She was like, here's the packaging. There's still a lot of collagen in it if you wanna put it on your face. So I did. 'cause I was like I'm gonna get my money's worth. So I was putting laundry away with my eye thingies on.

Quinn: I think we're just at the point now, and I got a good talking too from a friend of mine, a couple years ago about this, where we all know, like the supplement game a fucking nightmare. And if you'd take any of it with real medicine and they're just like, hey, here's how much is in this. Here's how much is in that. Totally unregulated. But for other things, for the face stuff and like a foam roller by any other, any of these things, if they're not gonna measurably hurt you, great. I don't care if they actually work. It's do they feel good in the moment? And my buddy, this guy, he is a Nike master trainer. His name is Joe Holder. I'll wait if you wanna look him up. 'cause he is basically like the most beautiful human you've ever seen. I think Claire, I've made you do this before.

Claire: No, I said thank you for this picture.

Quinn: You're welcome. His whole gist is [00:11:00] you're old and need to do quote unquote recovery as much as you do everything else. He's like, if it's not like actively harming you, great. just if it helps you sleep great.

Claire: I pay for a fancy neck cream. And Emily, maybe you have one of these where it comes with a rose quartz scraper so you can scrape your neck. And that's why my neck is so beautiful. 'cause I constantly scrape it with this rose quartz thingy and I keep it on the window sill.

Emily Gould: Your neck actually, your neck actually is beautiful. And so now I feel like I have to buy this. So thanks for advertising for free.

Quinn: This is like Claire's, Tupperware shill.

Claire: Emily, tell us about the newsletter you just put out and also if your book is fiction or nonfiction, tell us a little bit what you're working on.

Emily Gould: So I do a daily newsletter for New York Magazine called Dinner Party, which I guess the original idea of it, I didn't invent it, Corey Zika invented it. Was that it would be like if you're at an imaginary dinner party, or if you actually are going to a dinner party this evening, it's [00:12:00] like, here are some talking points like here you, everything you need to be sort of like up to date on happenings in the world, about whatever I'm interested in. I have a great deal of freedom for better or for worse. I'm sure a little sick of hearing about Heated Rivalry at this point, but jokes on them because I never will be ever in my, I'm gonna be in the nursing home being, being like have you heard this story. That's my job. And I also have another part of my job, which is actually writing features for the magazine. And then, my book, three years overdue, but they don't, they've been really nice about it. They don't care. It's a memoir. It's sort of an expansion of an article I published a couple of years ago called The Lure of Divorce and it's about a time in my life when I, you know, kind of had like a, I mean, a lot of people say like, oh, I had a midlife crisis, but I had like a woohoo, [00:13:00] the kind of midlife crisis where you have to go to the hospital. And a whole bunch of stuff happened. Definitely thought I was getting divorced.

Ended up not getting a divorce, still with my husband. Love him. Great guy. And yeah, so I'm just sort of writing about like marriage, mental health, being in a man, woman marriage in America in, you know, how long have I been married? I guess like 2014 up until now. Like, it's basically my older son's lifetime has been, cause he's 10 and a half, so it's like he is really lived through an entire, we didn't start the fire before he learned how to like not wear a diaper basically.

Claire: Last week we had Mark Graham and Meghan Graham, and we're talking about kind of the older days of blogging and things like that. And I'm just curious how writing comes to you lately compared to, you know, pre-kids, pre-Trump, pre all that stuff. [00:14:00] Does it come outta you, come to you the same way? Or does it, you know, do you have a different relationship towards putting your thoughts down and putting 'em out in the world?

Emily Gould: Oh wow, that's such an interesting question. It almost feels like things should have changed for me more than they actually have. I wanna think that I have evolved and changed a lot as a human being, and then I'll look at something that I wrote, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago and I'll be like, same bitch.

So, yeah, I mean, I think, I think when I first started writing, I was pretty gratuitously mean a lot of the time and was sort of a posture and, now I try to hold back a little bit so that my meanness can be more targeted and have more of an impact when I deploy it.

Quinn: At your children? That's what I usually save mine for.

Emily Gould: And my husband.

Quinn: Yeah. No, I mean, of course, obviously, I assume I exist to just absorb friendly fire at this point, whether it's warranted or not. Most of the time I'm like yeah, that works.

Claire: I agree. I made Steve, this is not [00:15:00] exactly mean, but I was like, I save it for Steve and if I can make him laugh like in shock, then I feel good. As we speak Nancy Guthrie is still, sadly missing and we don't know what's happening to her. And I just think it's been the discourse around, I think the true crime heads are really over the top. 'cause people think that there's gotta be something like even more fucked up than just this horrible kidnapping and I told Steve,I said, what if Charles, like the Lindbergh baby was alive and he kidnapped Nancy Guthrie and that he like, so that's like where I say my edginess. But, yeah, no, I don't have good stuff for the newsletter per se.

Quinn: Can I ask you both an honest question, how many times a day on average, do you wish that you were abducted and went missing for just a while? I'm gonna say, honestly, to me it's like two, and I think I'm being honest about that.

Claire: I mean, I don't wanna be glib about things like [00:16:00] suicidal ideation, but I do sometimes just wish to sleep forever if that's like another nicer way of putting it. You know, I don't have the adrenaline to be kidnapped like that seems like that'd be.

Quinn: But you don't have to do anything. What do you mean? What do you mean the, you don't, you just, sure. I'll get in the van. You don't, or they'll probably put you in the van. You don't need to do anything.

Claire: I guess, I don't, yeah, I haven't thought, I think I've read too much about kidnapping maybe 'cause I'm a woman, but about like how to open a trunk from the inside, you know? Or how you leave your DNA inside or you scratch their, the face. So you have DNA under your fingernails, like, I don't know. I've thought about it maybe a little bit more, Emily, I dunno if you've thought a lot about kidnapping, like what you would do or how you'd fight back?

Emily Gould: I mean, I've seen every episode of Law and Order SVU, so it's not like I've never thought about it. Are we talking about like, a sensory deprivation tank type of experience where you get like the black bag put over your head and then you get put in a cell and like they just bring you food or whatever.

Quinn: If someone's bringing me food, they can take me wherever they want to be completely honest, like I'm just like, where can my kids [00:17:00] not ask me questions?

Emily Gould: I just really wanna look at my phone though. I mean, I kind of just want what I have last week, to be honest. Which apart from the part where I had to, you know, try to write a book, it was really amazing. I just read, like, classic novels. No, just kidding, I read Infinity amounts of Heated Rivalry, fan fiction on AO3.

Claire: All right. Let's talk about Heated Rivalry. I know that you love it.

Emily Gould: Stop. No. Don't make me do that.

Quinn: It's enough.

Claire: I have another friend who's really into it. Shout out to Christina Rez and she loves it, and people who love Heated Rivalry love talking about Heated Rivalry.

Emily Gould: Yeah. We don't love it a normal amount at all. We have a disease.

Claire: And I'm not drawn to it. I dunno if it's just like, I don't want dicks in my, like, I'm kind of surprised that you live with so many guys and you still like willingly are going towards more like dick content. But did you feel like there was other, were there other forms of fiction like [00:18:00] romcom, you know, homosexual romcom fiction that did it for you prior to this? Or did Heated Rivalry just touch something, you know, I know also Keith, your husband has like a real thing for hockey, so I, dunno if that's like part of it as well. Like, the, you know, hockey being turned on, its on its dick.

Emily Gould: Yeah, and he’s Russian. So there's that. There are a lot of possible explanations for this. So my feeling is that even though I am attracted to these two men who are doing it with each other. It’s actually really gay of me to be attracted to them in that way. And let me explain what I mean by that. So the series is made by a gay writer and show runner, director Jacob Tierney, but based on books that are written by a woman, Rachel Reed, as so much like MM Romance is. And so when I was talking to a friend who recently, who was like, [00:19:00] this show made me come out to my parents as bisexual, like I feel like more gay than ever, but it's so confusing because I also am really attracted to these men. I'm like, well, the thing that you have to remember is that these are men who have the psychosexual interiority of women. So it's kind of like, it's like a, it's like a very queer lust, even though it is simultaneously a very heterosexual lust. I don't know if that answers the question.

Quinn: I mean Tierney did an incredible job, but there's no doubt, like so much of it's in the book. It's lovely and that is a very different thing if the source material's written by a dude.

Emily Gould: I mean, and there are MM romances that are written by like, non-binary folks. But it's really small shelf of those books that are written by men. And I was talking to someone like, who's like, well, because like men don't read or write genre fiction for the most part. I mean, [00:20:00] unless the genre we're talking about is like thrillers or sci-fi or mysteries or, you know, like the sort of like women coded genres of fiction. I mean, it's probably just that simple. You know, I think like gay men who watch the show and are like, I don't see myself represented at all will be like, let's pen the necessary corrections and like, that sounds great. Let's do that.

Claire: Now, has it gotten you more into hockey in general? Like, do you find yourself, you know, watching the sport more now?

Emily Gould: Yeah, I mean, every time Keith is watching hockey now, which is happening a lot because the Olympics obviously, he's like, look, look, look. They're all gay. They're all gay. And I'm like, I don't know if I can like suspend my disbelief to that extent, but I mean, I have actually always, of all the televised sports, like hockey is one that I have always like least minded watching. So, and partly because it's like, it's pretty straightforward, like as like a character on the show actually says like, you just have to score more goals than the other team. It's like not that hard. Whereas like, [00:21:00] football, it's like, I don't know what the fuck is happening. Yeah.

Quinn: Yep.

Claire: Yeah football's needlessly complicated.

Emily Gould: And baseball? Forget about it.

Quinn: Yep.

Claire: It is true. There's a million rules that like always pop up that you don't, that you don't understand. But, well, I love that for you. I'm glad that you have something that you love so much. I'm glad that, I bet that Keith is glad that you are slightly more interested in hockey now, I've also been thinking about you with the Olympics because of Ilya, I forgot his last name, but the Quad God has the same name as your son. And I don't know if you knew that, Quinn, that her kids, she has a son named Ilya.

Quinn: This is very exciting.

Claire: Are you guys excited about the Quad God and his floppy hair and his ice skating capabilities?

Emily Gould: Yeah, Ilya is always excited by Ilya representation, of any kind. Ilya very recently has started to use they, them pronouns. I probably should have tipped you to that, earlier, but that's kind of a new development. But not earth shattering development. Everyone who we've told so far has been like, [00:22:00] like, Yeah, like duh. I'm so sorry to bring up Heated Rivalry again, but you know that one of the characters on Heated Rivalry is also named Ilya, right?

Claire: No, I didn't know that.

Quinn: I thought that's where you were going, Claire. I thought you were trying to like make all the penises touch.

Claire: No. I have a real blind spot.

Emily Gould: Oh my God, I'm literally blushing right now. Like, like don't make me talk about my crush in public. Yeah like friends have even asked me like, is it weird for you that like this character who we all think is so hot, has the same name as your child? And it's like, no, because I don't really file people with the same name, in the same like filing cabinet in my mind. Because if I was gonna do that, then like, I would be in the same filing cabinet as like Emily Ratakowski, you know, like, and also infinity other people named Emily.

Quinn: There was a great SNL skit, I can't remember who the guest was. Who was running for New York State [00:23:00] Congress under the name Jeff Epstein and it's just a campaign video. It's fucking, it's incredible.

Claire: That's amazing. No, I did not realize that about Heated Rivalry. You have to save that, save that for, I don't know, next time I get COVID or something like that. I have a friend whose, child is trans and their kid is really into Drag Race, and they've gone all in and their dad is almost like a, he's almost like a parody of supportive dad. Like it's not enough that their kid is into drag. The dad is now like, can you make a career out of drag? You know, like just almost going too far. And so the dad heard that Heated Rivalry was like the shit, and I think he kind of thought all gay things are all the same.

Emily Gould: Oh my God, no.

Claire: So he had them all sit down and watch Heated Rivalry. Yeah. And he quickly realized that's not the same thing as Drag Race at all. And not all things are created equal, but love to love a supportive dad who tries at the very least. But, yeah, that sounds like I remember watching the movie Wilde, the Oscar Wilde movie with my parents in the [00:24:00] room and that was awful. So, you know, certain things are not meant for kids and parents to watch at the same time.

Emily Gould: I had the worst experience like that. I must have been like the age that Raffi is now like 10 or 11 and we were all watching Big together. Which Big is kind of not okay actually.

Claire: Yeah. Agree.

Quinn: Oh, a thousand ways. I just didn't know if you're, I was trying to think if there's some like specific explicit scene in it. And I was like I don't think so.

Claire: Putting his hands on her breasts.

Quinn: Oh, sure.

Emily Gould: He touches her boobies. And it's like a 13-year-old boy in a grown Tom Hanks' body. And I got up to go to the bathroom and my mom was like, what's wrong honey? And I was like, I just really have to pee. And she was like, honey, sit back down. They're just making love. It's actually amazing that I've ever had sex in my life [00:25:00] after that happened to me.

Quinn: Yeah.

Claire: That's amazing.

Emily Gould: That is some capital T trauma right there. Also, I can hardly bring myself to say the words, making love has to be the worst possible way you can refer to the sex thing.

Claire: I would say Big and also Back to the Future, are hard ones to watch if you are the mother of boys especially, those are real, like you are like, I don't want to go here, and I'm not even like that much of a prude, but you're like, this is like thought experiments that I didn't wanna go into. I had an idea for a, I was gonna try to write a shouts and murmurs piece or whatever the humor piece, is that shouts and murmurs? Yeah. About, whether there were Big men like walking around town and women, like a conversation about whether you're married to a man who's actually his own age or whether he's a, like a big little man. You know what I mean? Like, your husband is actually 13 years old. And, but I was like, that's a concept. That's not a piece. But that's hilarious. That's how my writing is I'm like, here's an idea and I'm not gonna even try to to flesh it out[00:26:00] beyond that thought.

Emily Gould: I don't know. I feel like It could be a short story maybe.

Claire: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I feel like the gag is like, all men are 13, but I feel like we've all, there's so much content that explores that, you know, speaking of little guys and little people, not guys necessarily, but what are your kids up to these days? Give us like the state of the union on what Ilya and Raffi are into.

Emily Gould: Oh, so for like Hanukkah, Christmas, I was basically like, Raffi, likes Stranger Things and Ilya likes Squishmellows and Labubus. So yeah, the two genders, Squishmellows and Labubus, Stranger Things. The amount that 10-year-old boys like Stranger Things is really, it's a very large amount.

Claire: It’s kind of a flex. I feel like it's a big boy thing, you know?

Emily Gould: Oh, like I can handle this scary show where they say curse words. Yeah, totally. I mean, the show that he really liked before he liked Stranger Things was Only [00:27:00] Murders in the Building, which such a New York lonely boy thing to like.

Quinn: So sophisticated.

Emily Gould: I'm like, I thought the show was just for boomers. But actually, I guess it's for boomers and 10-year-old boys who are excited by murders, cursing, and maybe low key Selena Gomez. Yeah.

Claire: That's dear. That's adorable though. I like that. 'cause that's much more interesting than, Paul had the flu last week. He's still getting over it, which I’m really sick of. But he, on his sickest day, he watched like six hours of Beast Games, which don't ask me any of the rules or whatever happens. All I know is that Mr. Beast only talks at a scream the whole time. And that's all I, and he had an island, he had an island he could give away. And that was all like my, the only thing I took away.

Emily Gould: An island in this economy? I don't mean the literal economy, I just mean the Epstein of it all. Like, come on guys.

Claire: Yeah. Exactly. And it did seem Epsteiny, where you're like, Ooh, it looks of [00:28:00] seedy and not nice and you know, if we're gonna have an island, like have a nice island. I wanna go, this is a weird transition, or not a good transition, but whatever. We're talking about your writing, talking about life in general and parenting, I know you haven't done this for a little bit, but I think it's so fascinating that you for a little while we're doing a parenting advice column for New York Magazine. Someone else is helming it now, right? Are they still running it?

Emily Gould: It recently got revived under Allison Davis. And it's not a parenting advice column, although it did answer a lot of parenting questions during my reign. But kind of like if you're going through it.

Claire: Okay. Going through anything. Yeah. for a part of my life, I kind of wanted to be an advice columnist. And then, I happened to have the honor and pleasure of Amy Dickinson, Ask Amy, helped me, she gave me the chance to answer a question from someone who wrote into her column saying, help, I can't take my kid's grocery shopping cause my kid is always like [00:29:00] a monster when I take him shopping. Like, what do I do? And I realize you have such a little amount to answer and you might say so much more in person to someone, but it's so different between writing it in a quick little column and this was you know, even in this case it was relatively minor, you know, but I still felt their pain. It didn't involve something as hard as money or heartbreak or cheating or mental health or things like that And, yeah, I just wanna know what that was like, what kind of questions you got? Anything that, like stuck with you after all that time? Like what was harder about it you than you, anticipated? Talk a little bit about your career as an advice columnist.

Emily Gould: I guess one of the things that I realized pretty early on in the game, is that the advice that you give is not for the person who asked the question. You're writing with them in mind, obviously, but it's much more for the people who will see your advice and maybe they've experienced something sort of spiritually akin to what's going on in the question. And they might be able to take something from [00:30:00] your advice and that relieves you of the pressure of feeling like if the person doesn't take your advice, then you've failed. Because I know just from like staying in touch with some of the people who asked advice column questions, especially those having to do with like my boyfriend did X, Y, and Z, should I dump him?

Like there were two questions that I answered from the same question asker that were along the lines of like, my boyfriend, X, Y, and Z. Should I dump him? And my answer both times was like, whatever Liz Lemon's catch phrase was when she briefly had a,

Claire: That's a deal breaker.

Emily Gould: That's a deal breaker, ladies. Anyway, they're engaged. So, you know, it's not a sprint though. It's a marathon. Could still call the engagement off, still get a divorce. but also the thing I said earlier about like the advice not being for her, like it's for, it's for everyone who reads it. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. It's pretty low [00:31:00] lift, having an advice column. I find writing a daily newsletter to be more draining than having a biweekly advice column.

Claire: I don't know how you do that.

Emily Gould: I volunteered for it too. I'm so dumb. As soon as Corey told me that he was quitting, I marched into David Haskell's office and I was like, I volunteer as tribute. And David like pretended like he was gonna say no. I just knew I would be really good at it. And to me that seems like a good enough reason to do it. But if I were giving advice, advice column style to my former self, I would probably tell her, just because you are good at something doesn't mean you have to do it.

Claire: And also doing something because it's pleasurable. I think we talked about this with dinnertime, maybe that just because you like cooking doesn't mean that doing it every day 'cause you have to makes it fun, that's how I feel about writing and cooking things like I used to do once in a while as a gag, you know? Or as a treat. And then once it becomes your [00:32:00] grind, it's not as much fun.

Emily Gould: I know I've ruined so many things for myself by professionalizing them, it's a lesson I will never learn.

Claire: Quinn. What’s something that you used to do for fun that you ruined by doing it too well or taking it on too much?

Quinn: Claire I'm in an office above a candy shop in Colonial Williamsburg 'cause I wasn't allowed to keep my toys at home. You know, I come home and my children just don't greet me. I don't remember what fun was. I mean, I used to, I love cooking. I still love cooking, but kind of the same thing.

I wouldn't say it was like beaten out of me and more just, they can only be like, I'm not gonna eat that. I don't like that without having ever had it before. Before you just go, I'm out. We're just doing frozen edamame every time. Like, I don't know what to tell you. You can fight that for a little while or like everything else in marriage and parenthood, you can just give up. And it's so much easier to give up and requires so much less. I told my wife the other night, she's [00:33:00] like, you're being pretty quiet at dinner. I was like, yeah, I'm trying not to yell at the kids like what you've asked me not to do all the time. I was like, it's addition by subtraction. I'm just not participating and everybody's better for it clearly. You know, bedtime going south, I just removed myself from the situation because it's not that I'm not helping anymore, it's that I'm not not helping anymore. And if they need some shit, they can come find me and my, you know, fantasy book as I lay on my heating pad in bed. So, I dunno, it's a typically loaded way of saying like, I don't know what fun is anymore.

Claire: Paul, our oldest one, he is 13 and a half almost exactly. And he's been, being that age hasn't been that bad on him, but he has been kind of moody lately. And I dunno if it's 'cause he's sick or its hormones or just whatever, but my husband doesn't react well to it for some reason. I don't think he remembers being a teenager or I have just this theory that he hated being a teenager so much that he just like, doesn't like it from living through it again.[00:34:00] And so our son has not been like a nice, he's been kind of cranky and taking his time in the morning. So this morning I woke Paul up a little bit early so he had a little bit extra time so that he could get his ass down and have breakfast. And so he was eating breakfast and I pointed out to Steve, I said, look at how Paul's eating his breakfast and he is already dressed. And he said, good job, Paul. And I was just thinking I bet we all congratulate our kids on the most basic fundamental like wins or failures to fuck up. And so if you could point out something that you did slightly better than normal that you would want credit for, what would you demand that your spouse or the world at large say, look, you know what, I brushed my hair today, don't I look nice? Or I remember to brush my teeth for the full two minutes last night. Don't I get a little pat in the head? Like, what would you just demand some kind of recognition for?

Quinn: There's this idea in the self-improvement world of, you know, and sort of the [00:35:00] manosphere stoicism and stuff, of which some of it's great, some of it's ridiculous, but you know, it's like be strict with yourself and, you know, patient with others in the sense, you judge yourself by your intentions, but you judge everyone else.

Anyways, the point is, I think I deserve credit. I don't think my children deserve any credit. It's the reverse, like you're eating breakfast, like you actually put your fucking bowl away. I don't know, man. I don't understand why that should be rewarded at that point.

Claire: I agree. I just wish, you know, especially a kid with ADHD, you have to kiss their ass so much. Like for just the most function, like.

Emily Gould: Oh yeah.

Claire: Who are you praising at home, Emily? Who are, yeah. Who's getting the boosts that, you know, they should just be doing it?

Emily Gould: Well, Raffi obviously, but you know, my whole thing with parenting Raffi is that like the hardest thing about parenting him is that it's like looking in a mirror all the time.

Claire: If that's the diagnosis. We all have ADHD though.

Quinn: We were all under the desk.

Emily Gould: I mean, I think it was a little bit more like watching him struggle with things. [00:36:00] I'm like oh, I've developed, like, elaborate mental workarounds for all of these things. And maybe life doesn't have to be that hard.

Quinn: When did you first realize you were looking in the mirror with them? Because I get it. and it's a rude awakening.

Emily Gould: God, I wanna say the minute he was born, he's just had the same personality for his entire life. Yeah. Yeah. Like everything about him and Ilya has just been also his opposite in every way. Like Keith was telling me, like as they were walking home from school yesterday, he was telling some story about Raffi from like when Raffi was little and Ilya was like, tell a story about me from when I was little.

And I guess this is also a classic like second child thing, but it's just like buddy, like basically like you were born and then we kind of didn't hear a peep outta you for like the next four years. We actually have to really struggle to like, give Ilya enough attention because Raffi is just so, he is exactly like me. He is like, oh, this [00:37:00] conversation is not about me. Like I'm either tuning out or I'm making it be about me.

Claire: Yeah.

Quinn: And you're like, let me teach you some tricks.

Claire: He is that tweet. I'm uncomfortable if we're not, if this is not about me.

Emily Gould: Yeah. So I'm basically like, I've at least like learned how to deceive other people into thinking that I'm interested.

Claire: I do wonder if my kids realize that like, they're not the main characters in my life, like I wonder if they are aware of that, you know? But I also know they don't think about, they don't think about that. I know I don't exist. I know I'm a non-entity to them.

Quinn: It's kinda what was the Mad Men quote when he, what's his face steps into the elevator. Yeah. I don't think about you at all. That's it. That's it. I'm like, how was your school day? And they're like, good. I'm like, man, I missed you all day. I thought about what you were doing this and this. And you can see in their eyes they're just like, why are you still alive? Like, Jesus Christ. They're like, I haven't thought about you since the second I stormed out the door this morning.

Claire: I guess I just get treated like the background maid and it starts in the morning when I ask [00:38:00] James, what do you want for breakfast? And I already am mad at that I even have to do that because like, in a perfect world, he would've already fixed himself breakfast and that he will decline to answer 'cause he hasn't decided yet. You know? And I'm like, don't you understand who I was once. I have a master's degree, I have published books, like I have a podcast and I have to wait for you to discern, you know, whether you'll allow me to fix you a bowl of cereal or one piece of toast. That was him this morning. One piece only. Alright. Sorry. Like Oh, noted. I said noted. 'cause noted is code for fuck you. But I heard you. That's like how I track that, ours is different where my firstborn, when we were gonna have a second one, I was like, he will let us know what kind of kid our verse born was.

And it was, the answer was he was easy. And then we had the spirited, I think we talked about this, right, using the term spirited as a, and I always say with a hard T 'cause it's more fun that way for when a kid just sucks you dry. And, you know, again, makes you [00:39:00] praise him for being just like the most mund, like just doing the least as a human being. And you're like, thank you so much for, you know, acknowledging my feelings or something like that.

Emily Gould: This conversation is making me realize that my husband does this to me actually. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's sincere. I would like to believe that it's sincere and not that he's not like managing me, but, I'll be like, oh, I did like X, Y, and Z today, and he's like, so hardworking.

Quinn: Here’s the thing. Does it really, you're like, I hope he is not managing me. I'll take it where I can get it. Like I don't care how sincere it is at this point. Like clearly nobody else gives a shit. So if one person's like, that's really great, I'm like, fuck yeah, I'll take it, that's a win.

Claire: Yeah. If you said it out loud, you want someone to say you're not gonna hear Keith be like, blah, blah. Like he knows that it took, like it takes, you're a woman in 2026 who's perimenopausal and you're a mom and you're living in New York. Anything you do deserve [00:40:00] praise. So, you know.

Emily Gould: Literally last night, he was like, you took the subway into Manhattan, like you worked at your job and then you came home and you made dinner. Like, and I'm just like, yeah, yeah I did.

Quinn: Fuck. Yeah.

Claire: No, that is not condescension. All of that is, I back up Keith either ironically or not ironically, you do deserve recognition for all that, especially anytime anyone makes dinner ever deserves a thank you. Steve does a good job thanking me in front of the boys. 'cause Steve's dad was a, I've talked about this a lot of times, but Steve's dad is one of those like chronically picky eaters who not only rejects food, he will reject sitting at the table with people. He'll kinda make a point of not joining dinner and like will reject food so much.So I appreciate that Steve will like, make a point of thanking me for the effort of making dinner in front of the boys, like even if they don't realize it or not. So I'm glad Keith is giving you your due.[00:41:00] Emily, we talked about this once a while ago but how much, especially Raffi, but how much do the kids know about your writing or follow your writing like, both you and Keith, but like how much are they reading what you do and, you know, what are your policies right now on writing about the kids or talking about the kids?

Emily Gould: So I give them photo approval for stuff that I'm posting on like Instagram. I feel like that's the bare minimum that I should be doing. We have sort of made mistakes that we can't take back at this point with vis-a-vis Raffi. Raffi has a very skewed sense of his own importance in the world because he's like, there's a book about me.

Like there's a whole book about the first six years of my life. He has read not entirely positive reviews of that book. 'cause that's what comes up when you Google his name. I think we should probably have a therapy fund the same [00:42:00] way that we should have a college fund for him, but at the same time I'm like, he's pretty, I mean, you know, this is just like luck of the draw stuff. I don't credit anything that we have done or not done. although we have on and off taken him to like a really good therapist. He's just like a pretty cool customer with a pretty unshakeable sense of his own like who, like who he is and how he sees the world. And I'm not, I'm not super worried about him. I do worry more about Ilya because in part, because like, there is no book about Ilya and there's never gonna be a book about Ilya.

Like there's a book called Raising Raffi. There is never gonna be a book called Illuminating Ilya. Because like I said, even as a baby, he was just kind of like, Hey, so, whenever you get around to it, no big deal. But my diaper's wet and could I also have some milk, please? Okay. Just whenever you have time, like no worries if not. I don't, yeah, we don't really have like rules or policies. We [00:43:00] probably should. I'm not thinking about that stuff with my first draft of this book 'cause I just like, can't, I can't think about that stuff right now.

Claire: Dedicate this book to Ilya.

Emily Gould: I can't, I already said I’d dedicate it to Laura Lipman.

Claire: Well you can give Ilya, put Ilya before Raffi in the acknowledgements at the very end.

Emily Gould: Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Claire: And you can tell Ilya that they were mentioned in this podcast. So they're not completely given the short stick. They are also exposed as you know, all of our poor children have been.

Emily Gould: That's the thing they would not even, they would not even care. They would not even care. 'Cause they don't, they really don't care about external validation.

Claire: Wow.

Emily Gould: I had a home birth, so I know for sure that Ilya was not switched at birth. But other, if that were not the case, I would be genuinely concerned because we just look, we just look at him all the time we're like, seriously genetically, how did this happen to us? Like, this person has nothing in common with any of us. He is the only person in our household who has like any executive functioning [00:44:00] whatsoever. He's always like, guys, what are we doing this weekend guys? We need to make a list of all the stuff that we need to do before people come over. Like, who's vacuuming?

Claire: Wow.

Emily Gould: He’s like, mom, hasn't it been a while since we changed the sheets on my bed?

Claire: Amazing. I'm glad you have someone in your house. I'm glad you gave birth to like the house manager, like you gave birth to a family advisor basically, that you have someone like that, you deserve it.

Emily Gould: Yeah. I mean, he's gonna be the one who's supporting all of us in our old age. Unless of course, Raffi, you know, makes good on his potential to be a wildly successful child streaming star.

Claire: They have their own, like their strengths. Like Paul can put James to bed, but James will be the one who like, I don't agree with this necessarily but I went through this emergency with my mom in December and I had to call 911 and all this shit. And James was the one who was like, mom, you are kind of a hero for saving granny's life.

And I didn't need [00:45:00] that. And I don't necessarily agree with it, but that's the kid, the one who like gives us the hardest time and we have to spend the most therapy money on is the one who will say that kind of thing. You know? Or what was he saying? Something about Donald Trump, where he was Oh, about ICE.

I forgot. But he was like they're behaving what they're accusing everyone else of doing. And you're like, how did you become like this? You know, even though you are the most selfish, wild, like self-centered person, you could have all this wisdom and empathy at the same time. Like when we're not paying attention.

So, you know, I tried to offer the kids the chance to quit Evil Witches. I think I kind of wanted the excuse to stop doing it basically. And I was like, do you guys want me to stop writing about you? Like Paul's in high school, or he is about to be in high school. I was like, do you guys want, and they were adamant, they want me to keep going. Like they don't, it's not like they read it, but they know I do it and they just like it. Like they like the idea of it and they're like, no, don't quit. So I was like, okay, do you read it? Because I don't always say nice things about you guys, but you know, I guess you'll figure that out later [00:46:00] on.

So, I don't know. Quinn, what's up with your kids? You don't really write about your kids too much but when you do, are you rolling it by Dana? You guys are pretty private about them on social media. You guys are like good people.

Quinn: Well, a lot of that started honestly when we were in LA, so much of your life when you were there. And there's pros and cons to this. I always compare it to DC which is it's very incestuous your work and your life and your friends, your personal and your work. And you have a lot of long-term friends if you're lucky.

But you also like, you know, some of the projects, if you're lucky enough to work which doesn't really exist anymore. You know, they're so intense for a period of time. Like a TV shoot could be a while or it could be a month, you know, a feature is a few years depending on what your role in it is.

And the point is you end up spending a lot of time with folks who are getting photographed and doing things like that all the time. And that was a big part of when our kids were little. We, you know, my wife [00:47:00] went back to work after a week. Partly 'cause she's a workaholic and partly 'cause she was running a TV show and they made her do that, which was awesome.

So awesome. We were lucky to have help. The point was like the kid was on set and then the other kids were on set. And we had one moment, and this is not this actress's fault, she's a dear friend. We were living in New York. My wife was making a movie and someone got pictures of our friend with two of our very small children. We had three under three at one point, Emily. So it was like babies on babies, as my wife used to say. She was like, but I already have a baby. How could I have another baby? And then there was a third one, one of these folks with, picture with our baby.

And then it was on, I don't know, it was on Twitter, it was on something and someone else, some random person posted like a shit load of pictures of this person with our kid basically. And I was like, oh, people have pictures of like our very small [00:48:00] children saved to their, like collecting saves to their computer machines.

And this is 11 years ago now, but still we were like, we're just not gonna do that as much as we can. One, we don't post that much anyways, but two, we were just like. I dunno, it feels kind of fucking creepy. And we'd like to give them a choice eventually on that stuff. And, you know, we fuck it up here and there and stuff.

And obviously this is different and I do it less, I mean, I also partly do it less frankly because the rest of my job is like, there's a lot of politics involved and stuff like that and that's obviously not great at the moment. But that's kind of how it evolved. It's different here, certainly, but that's kind of how it evolved.

So it is what it is. Again, different here, but then, you know, Wicked For Good is, well no, we took 'em to the Wicked Premier and I think we took pictures with them and we were like, we didn't, they were old enough. I get Wicked was last year, so they were like 9, 10, 11, 10, 11, 12, something like that. [00:49:00] We were like, how do we let them experience this very important part of mom's work that they, that has basically been half their fucking life? 'cause she's been working on it for so long without them like getting photographed in some way or whatever. Does that make sense? Like we want them to be able to go to this thing and see these people they've been hearing about and be a part of this. 'cause they were a big part of it, you know? And so we did that but we still don't, I dunno, it doesn't matter. They're just gonna make AI cleans of 'em at this point.

Claire: We had done a pretty bad job of like respecting our kids, well, I don't wanna say respecting our kids' privacy, being circumspect about it because Steve has like been making videos about them since day one and putting them on YouTube. And then during COVID, Paul had an assignment one day to do a weather report, you know, it was like a homeschool thing and Steve went above and beyond with the production of it. And people loved it so much that we started doing it daily and people would recognize them on the sidewalk, be like, are you the one that report kids? And the kids thought like you, Emily, like with [00:50:00] Raffi for a while they thought they were like legitimately famous 'cause they were like famous within a small circle of people. But, and James I think is gonna be in a commercial soon for Steve's like day job and, I don't know. You know, we try to be good at, or like thoughtful about certain things, and this is one of those things where, you know, it's like, well, I don't make money off them directly, like with their face being like here's me making food for them and being like, you know, I don't know.

Quinn: Right MAHA.

Claire: Yeah. So I'm, I am obviously superior in that way.

Quinn: Sure. But here's the thing. It's all, this is where, like I always say to people, and I feel like half the texts I send you are like, Claire, it doesn't matter. There's no rules anymore. It's all relative, right? 10 years ago I was like, oh, I'm upset that someone has like these pictures of my very small babies on their computer with this person. And now it's like the privacy. The privacy that doesn't exist anymore for anyone in every single [00:51:00] factor of your life in 2026, From fucking Flock cameras to people just trying to literally just drive by an abortion clinic and the cell phone provider sold their data to everyone. We're just so far fucking past that. So it's like keep the good intentions, I think, but also acknowledge like it is not great.

Claire: Yeah, well we, it also helps that, I think Emily are we the same where our kids have a different last name from us too, so that makes you feel like sort of slightly, separated for them. I know Keith has written about Raffi, so there's that, but you know, you're like, well, there's little church and state difference going on there. I mostly remember Keith's book mostly being about him being a dad and then the blood spurting from you when you were giving birth to Raffi, and I think much less about whatever Raffi was going through at the time. So for what it's worth, that's his legacy to me.

Emily Gould: You really haven't known hell until you have experienced the fact checking process for someone else's first person [00:52:00] essay. Having experienced the fact checking process for one's own first person essay is really bad and I have done it many times now. But someone else's, you are just sort of like, I got so mad at that fact checker. I hung up on her. And then it was funny, she like came back into my life much later in a different guise. ' cause she had quit the New Yorker and she had started working on her own print at Riverhead of books translated from Chinese, which are all like really good. So I was doing an interview with her and she was like, Emily, like, I don't know if you remember this, but I'm the fact checker. You hung up on.

Quinn: Oh shit.

Emily Gould: No, it's like, it's like all good now, and I'm glad that we got an opportunity to smooth things over. But, I think she, I think she did even sort of understand at the time that it was really not about her.

Claire: I was gonna say she would absolutely, like should [00:53:00] not take that personally. And if anything, I'm jealous of you that you had a really good reason to hang up on someone. Like, I don't hang up on anyone aside from like a spam collar and maybe I'll sort of hang up on my dad or brother, but that's not exactly the same. Like I feel you know, everyone hangs up on a relative sometimes to some extent. So, Quinn, I dunno if you saw this, but Emily wrote a good, painful story about like the middle age drop off. I think you said age 40. What did you say in your piece, 42? What was the age drop?

Emily Gould: 44. The aging cliff. You age in hyper speed, apparently during the year that you are 44 to 45.

Claire: Okay. Because I'm 46 right now. And someone sent me that piece and I was like, oh, these young bucks, you know, they don't even know. But I just wanted to ask you guys how the state of, what is like the most acute side of middle age for you guys right now? Like, where, you know, what is your, what is making you feel the most of your age at this moment in time?

Quinn: Besides the fact that I told my kids the other day, I just wanna be left alone with my books?[00:54:00]

Claire: Yeah, Yeah, that's good.

Quinn: And was very honest and scathing about it. Or that I've told you this, Claire, before, how earlier this year, one of my kids was like, why do you make that noise whenever you get up and sit down? I was like, what the fuck? He was like, the groaning whenever you get up and you sit down. I was like first of all, again, fuck you. Second of all, because I've earned it, man. I've been through it, and I was like, oh God, I'm fucking old.

Claire: Can you make the noise now?

Quinn: Not intentionally, no, but many times a day apparently enough to have sincere questions about it. At one time, probably misinterpreted as something else. It is not, it's pain. It is just pain. But earned, earned pain. I don't know. I'm tired. I'm just tired.

Claire: Emily, how about you? Where are you feeling the most? The most middle of your age.

Emily Gould: I work with a lot of young people. And recently I was in the elevator with my boss's assistant, who is 23 and I was just making chitchat with her and I was, like, oh, where do you live? And she was like, oh, I live on [00:55:00] the Lower East Side. And I was like, oh, yeah. I used to live on the Lower East Side. I lived on the Lower East Side when I was just like, I was doing the math and I was like, and that is two years before you were born.

Quinn: When it was in black and white,

Emily Gould: Exactly. Maybe it was sort of glamorous to her. Maybe she was imagining me hanging out with like Patty Smith, or at the very least, like the cast of Rent. I'm like in a Nan Golden photograph in her mind basically.

Quinn: I think for me, I mean most of the time for me it's like the College of William and Mary is 10 feet this way. And when I go to the coffee shop, it's kids are like class of 2042, and you're like, that's not a real year. What year were you born?

Claire: Emily what was it like to be in Times Square when they declared World War II was over and that guy kissed that nurse?

Quinn: Yeah, yeah. yeah. Right. I was the guy in the picture.

Emily Gould: Yeah. I just remember the ticker tape falling and everyone was so happy that the war was over. It was just a really, it was an amazing time to be alive. Yeah. [00:56:00] Yeah.

Claire: No, it is very humbling. Like I still love, even, it makes me happy to like, to think about how young people now will be old someday, and like how my son Paul asked me a couple years ago if Beyonce was still alive. And that made me, like that delighted me.

Emily Gould: Oh my God. I was watching the Grammys red carpet with Raffi and not the Grammys, sorry, the Golden Globes red carpet with Raffi and he has like such a handle on who the Gen Z celebs are, I guess from YouTube and also from watching Stranger Things. 'cause like, most of them are from Stranger Things. And at one point was like, who's Julia Roberts?

Quinn: And she's been out of the spotlight for a minute. But it's by choice by the way. It's another thing to say is Beyonce still alive? What are we doing here?

Claire: What was your reference for Raffi for Julia Roberts?

Emily Gould: Well, that was the thing. was like, there actually is no movie that would currently appeal to you that stars Julia Roberts. Like I know they've seen Hook where she was Tinkerbell. Terrible casting by the [00:57:00] way. My friend Val, who's a film scholar, suggested the Pelican Brief. Maybe that will be?

Quinn: Wow. Erin Brockovitch?

Claire: Steve is really into the Oceans. The Oceans movies are not too problematic.

Emily Gould: My God, yes. Oceans. Yes, totally. Next family movie night.

Quinn: Oh, that's a good idea.

Emily Gould: Just fights about family movie night though. Like we'll try to, we'll try so hard to find something that everyone can agree on, but it's just like seven and ten.

Quinn: What has been successful?

Emily Gould: I'm trying to remember the last thing that we all like genuinely enjoyed together. Oh my god, this is really kind of pathetic, but it's probably the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie even though the Johnny Depp of it all is a little tough.

Claire: You don't have to apologize for, we all have something that we've watched that we like, you know, it's okay.

Emily Gould: We gotta make a compromise somewhere.

Claire: Yeah. Well, you are not complicit. It's not like you're like, by watching this movie I question Amber Heard’s testimony, like, and I'm fine with marital [00:58:00] rape. Like, you know, it's okay. like we've all been there.

Quinn: Your children weren't adopted by Woody Allen. They just enjoyed the movie with the lobster scene.

Emily Gould: We actually haven't done any Woody Allen. Like maybe we should. I don't know. They're growing up in New York City, like it's an important part of the culture, Diane Keaton.

Quinn: There's a lot of New York movies.

Emily Gould: So true.

Claire: Diane Keaton, no Father of the Bride and that'll get Diane Keaton in there. Or First Wives Club or something like that. I do think about like my favorite portrayals of mothers of boys. 'cause I have a real bee in my bonnet about the boy mom. I know you're not strictly boy mom, but like the whole boy mom narrative. 'cause I'm like, why do people act like.

Quinn: Claire loves being called a boy mom.

Claire: I just, I'm like, why do people, I don't know who these boy moms are who like made it seem like we like love living with men when it's like everyone blames you for [00:59:00] everything, you know? And it can be desperately lonely. And yet they're like, the internet is like these crazy mothers of boys. Just think their boys are so awesome. I don't know any of them. But, and you hurt my feelings. Julia Louis Dreyfuss, has a really sweet relationship with her son in the movie that made me like I thought was a really sweet. You know, I was like the, she's also one of my legendary look at her. She raised two boys, and she like, seems like she got out alive and is happy and looks good. So I see her as like a north star for me.

But, we did make James watch the Cutting Edge last week as like some Olympics programming that Mark Graham encouraged us to watch. It's an interesting, aged in an interesting way, but.

Quinn: Does it hold up? I haven't seen that in a long time.

Claire: Super nineties. It is very Taming of the Shrew, like where the one part that I didn't like was that she says, I don't drink. And then they have a drinking scene and she goes from never drinking to having six shots of tequila. [01:00:00] And she's mad at him 'cause he, she wants to sleep with him and he says no.And he gets all like a bee in his bonnet over what a mean drunk she is. And you're like well, that's your fault. Like you got her drunk so you can't be mad at her for being an angry drunk, but otherwise she looks so beautiful in the movie. Her eyebrows are so full and her teeth are like slightly brown in this way that like teeth will never be ever again in film or tv. And so yeah, it was sweet, she's got a lot of turtlenecks that are like the, you know, and a nice vest like Emily enough you, when you were a child, if you ever had like a fancy vest, you know, at a certain time in your life in the late eighties or nineties. But yeah, one of those. But yeah, often though, we default to the Simpsons, like when we can't decide on a movie or it's too late to start a movie, like that's what we usually go to.

Emily Gould: Yeah. A friend once said to me, the Simpsons is like Shakespeare. There's something for everyone.

Claire: That's a good philosophy. Well I will say my middle aged symptoms right now are everyone's parents are dying or about to [01:01:00] die, or my skin is crepey. I'm starting to notice those little like patterns in my skin where I'm like, I think I need to get like peptides or something like that, yeah. And it's only gonna get worse. So looking forward, I'm like, this is the best it's gonna be currently. But your skin looks great, Emily, by the way. I dunno if you're using the laser mask or whatever it is that you're doing.

Emily Gould: Yeah, so I like to for my skin, I like to be like 30 to 40 pounds overweight. That's one of my tips for, sort of a youthful plumpness to the skin and the other thing that I find really good for the skin is smoking like half a pack of cigarettes a day, it's my top beauty tip right now.

Claire: That's exciting. At the school fundraiser, one of my mom friends who I've known since high school was saying that she wants to bring back cigarettes. And so that's sort of been in the discourse.

Emily Gould: Pretty easy to do.

Claire: As always, you're a [01:02:00] trendsetter.

Emily Gould: I quit vaping. That's how, it turns out that's how you quit vaping.

Claire: You know what? You're not hurting anybody.

Emily Gould: Well.

Claire: You’re keeping the economy alive.

Quinn: It just doesn't matter.

Emily Gould: Every single day, Ilya, of course, Ilya, Ilya is like, mom, I don't want you to die, mom, your lungs are turning black. And I'm like, yeah.

Quinn: What do you want from me?

Claire: But it's so cool, but it makes me look cool. And, my mom, after her medical incident, I made my dad surrender,the cigarettes in her house to me. And I had all these cartons of Carlton Slim 100 menthols. And I actually like Quin, you'll appreciate this for a second. I tried to give a college try being like, does someone want these? It seems like a shame to just throw away all these cigarettes. This is quite a lot of money. And I kind of was like, does anybody want some cigarettes? If I put 'em on the garbage can, will someone take them? And then some lameos were like, what if a kid finds them? I was like, you know what? If a kid finds these, like, good [01:03:00] for them.

But, I let Paul take some cigarettes out and like, hold them and play with them and open them. So that's my cool mom moment. I don't know if it will make an influence on him, on his tobacco use or not use, but it's like, why not free cigarettes? Go for it.

Quinn: Yeah. At least he's not stealing from you. Right.

Claire: Not yet. We'll see. Emily, anything on your mind that you wanna put out there? This is your one time to get your name out there and to finally put your thoughts out in the world.

Quinn: Express yourself. Anything you’ve been piling up.

Emily Gould: Please watch Heated Rivalry. Like, just do it for me. You know. Okay. Whatever. I don't wanna yum your yuck. But it would be cool if you watched it, I guess there's no reason not to subscribe to Dinner Party. It's free. You don't have to subscribe to New York Magazine. It will incentivize you to subscribe to New York Magazine. 'cause you'll click a bunch of links in it and then you'll hit the paywall and you'll be like, fuck, I should subscribe to New York Magazine.

Quinn: That's a well designed sequence.

Claire: [01:04:00] We get New York Magazine delivered to our house, we love it. I wish it was weekly again, I love the crossword puzzle 'cause I'm also middle aged, freaking love New York Magazine. Ride or die and absolutely subscribe to Dinner Party. Subscribe to it. Keep print alive. And Emily, when is your book supposed to be due? When are the, like, when should we start looking forward to it?

Emily Gould: Dude, at some point in my life, probably, I said at the top of the year, that I was gonna try to have a draft done this year. So that is, that is my goal.

Claire: By 2030, the latest we can expect it to be published.

Emily Gould: That's not a real year, Claire.

Claire: I know. That's when Paul is graduating high school. Like he has a t-shirt that says Evanston Township High School Class of 2030. And I was like, what is that? That's like a letter. It's like a year with a letter in it practically. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. But thank you for giving us something to look forward to. Thanks for coming and talking with us and watching Heated Rivalry so you can talk to Emily about it.

Quinn: If you haven't heard about it, you want to tell people what Heated Rivalry is? We've been just glossing over it this entire time. No one's heard of it.

Emily Gould: Oh, it's a show about [01:05:00] hockey, really important, to know that it is just primarily about hockey and you gotta know a lot about like, the rules of hockey to really understand it and get into it. And made in Canada. So they used a lot Canadian actors and Canadian artists on the soundtrack. Really good soundtrack. And can't really think of anything else pertinent to know about this show.

Quinn: What if I'm just like somebody, maybe not into hockey, but I'm into like cottages. Is there a way in for me in this show at all, like I'm a this old house kind of guy.

Emily Gould: Yeah, I mean, I think especially if you have an interest in sort of like modernist real estate, if you like a floating fireplace, the show has a lot of that to offer. Kitchen counters, beds. Lots of beds. Yeah other surfaces also.

Quinn: Nancy Meyers by any other name, really.

Claire: Watch it with your dad, for sure.

Emily Gould: Or really any member of your extended family.

Quinn: Any boomer Dad is perfect for it really, it is just like the ideal audience here.

Emily Gould: You know, they could maybe learn some things [01:06:00] about themselves that they never realized before.

Quinn: But will they?

Claire: Do you usually watch it alone or with Keith?

Emily Gould: Are you crazy?

Claire: I don't know how you guys work.

Emily Gould: I actually have heard from people who have had the experience of watching it with their husbands and having their husbands be into it. One friend's husband got a boner. I don't know if this is outdated, but the Kinsey Scale, like goes from zero to six and zero is you are the most heterosexual, and six is you are the most gay. And I'm probably like a, I would say like a 2.5 to a 3 on that scale. It depends on the day. It probably depends on like what part of my menstrual cycle I'm in. But yeah, like 2.5 to a 3. Keith, I would say is a zero. I've asked him so many times, like, so in the locker room, did you guys ever, you know, help each other out or, you know, like, when you guys were founding n plus one, late nights, did you guys ever explore each other's bodies? No. They did not [01:07:00] do that.

Quinn: Seems like a wasted opportunity.

Emily Gould: That is fan fiction.

Quinn: Claire, where are you on that scale? On an average day?

Emily Gould: Think about your answer, I'm just gonna say that Keith made it through the first 14 minutes and 22 seconds of Heated Rivalry.

Claire: That’s pretty good, based on what I know. Quinn walking around during the day, probably, what is less than zero, and I don't mean that in terms of like being so heterosexual, but being like off the scales, but at like at night by myself, like maybe more like a two. But that's another story. That's for another time.

Quinn: Sure. That's not for a parenting podcast.

Claire: Yeah, exactly. Depends on the time of the day and where I am and where my blood is flowing. So how about you Quinn?

Quinn: I was on a college swim team, so I've seen more dicks and butts than anybody has ever seen. So I think that's just like a baseline in the sense that they don't bother me at all. I've never interacted with them, but I appreciate everybody doing their thing. I've seen so many dicks.

Emily Gould: We're gonna need a [01:08:00] number.

Quinn: Oh, what did, can you explain the scale one more time to me? Is it just zero to ten?

Emily Gould: Zero to six. Zero is the most straight. Six is the most gay.

Quinn: Oh, zero to six. Fascinating scale. Yeah. Two, three, I guess. I don't know. You know, not three, I don't know. Two, two. Good for them. Good for them.

Claire: Sorry, one more penis question. Emily. Are you still watching The Pitt?

Emily Gould: Oh yeah, I have seen up to 11.

Claire: I mean, you’ve watched this season?

Emily Gould: Screener privilege. Yeah. I have, I've seen more Pitt than most.

Claire: What did you think about the erection scene? Did you like that penis? Did you feel like that was a good representation of a penis? Were you just, any thoughts on that?

Emily Gould: It was good in terms of gender parity, because I think last season we got to see like a vagina look in its worst and, with the baby coming outta it. Or its most empowering and life giving, depending on how you wanna look at it.

Claire: The most beautiful.

Emily Gould: We can agree that it is not a horny [01:09:00] way to encounter a vagina.

Claire: I hope not.

Emily Gould: Yeah. Something for everyone. But anyway, yes, that was not a horny way to encounter a penis at all. It was certainly quite a large penis.

Claire: Yeah. It was like, my word for it was proud the way it was, they displayed that penis and it was, you know, I mean, it was a nice looking penis, but also, I don't, I live with one child. I won't say who out of privacy, but one of my kids has no body shame and I see a lot of him and a lot of it, and so I don't need more in my life. But anyway, that's all for another time. When we do our penis pod. We'll go into further depth on all of this.

Quinn: Can't wait. It will also almost be called screaming in the shower.