"My High School Boyfriend Tells All" with Matthew | Cross My Heart Episode 6

My most requested guest is finally here. Matthew is my best friend, my high school “beard”, my roommate, and the man who knew I was gay before I did! Watch us yap on our living room couch sort of like we do every day : ) 

Cross My Heart is hosted by Hannah Beck. Follow @hannahbeckcomedy on TikTok and Instagram. New episodes every Monday. Comment, review, and tell your gay friends 🖤

Known for her viral "Tube top" video and "Dear Daddy God" diary series on TikTok, Hannah dives deep into the messy but beautiful reality of growing up queer in the Midwest.

Keywords: Hannah Beck, Cross My Heart podcast, Chicago comedy, gay podcast, lesbian podcast, TikTok comedian, Dear Daddy God, religious trauma, ex-evangelical, queer comedy, Midwest LGBTQ, Caleb Hearon fans, So true Podcast Brittany Broski, Broski Report with Brittany broski, comfort creator, coming out stories, Christian deconstruction, mental health, therapy podcast, chosen family, lesbian dating, stand-up comedy, viral TikTok, queer, podcast launch, hannah beck gay best friend

0:00 — Teaser

0:30 — Meet Matthew

0:51 — Hannah is hungover

1:26 — Drunk college stories

4:37 — Karaoke & Matthew's Voice Lessons

8:05 — Roses & Thorns

11:20 — Reddit & Health Anxiety

12:34 — Thorns of the Week

14:17 — Line Dancing

15:15 — Prom Memories

16:22 — Starting a Cult: Trying Things You're Bad At

17:31 — How I Started Stand-Up Comedy

18:40 — Bombing in Springfield

20:21 — Bombing in Chicago

22:26 — Starting a Cult: Thursday Nights Out

23:17 — The 45-Minute Thursday Date

24:26 — Why I Yap Through Movies

25:35 — Starting a Cult: Reflecting on Media You Consume

28:23 — How We Met: Queer Kids Finding Each Other

30:26 — My Last Ditch Effort at Finding a Man

32:41 — Sneaking Around in High School

35:19 — Getting Doxed on TikTok

38:17 — Confessional: What You Used to Believe

39:47 — Glaring Signs You Were Gay

41:52 — The DoorDash Sex Candle 

43:45 — Matthew's Personal EGOT Goals

47:06 — Goodbye & Thank You

Cross My Heart is hosted by Hannah Beck. Follow @hannahbeckcomedy on TikTok and Instagram. New episodes every Monday. Rate, review, and tell your gay friends 🖤

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You coming to my musical theater shows and me thinking it was because you were in love with me is my favorite thing that's ever happened.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

But really, I was just uh closeted gay in the Midwest who was bored and there was a live theater performance that was going on, so I had to go see it. You brought me roses to the Joseph and Technicolor dream coat. You deserve roses. It was your opening performance.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

And I told all my friends I said this guy loved me so bad. And it turns out you just knew musical theater etiquette, which isn't great. This week I have a very special surprise for you. This is my most highly requested podcast guest so far. He is my best friend, my current roommate, my first lover in high school, the man of my dreams, my soulmate, the love of my life, Matthew. Hi, beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Hi, gorgeous. How was your day? I'm hungover. Ah, okay. You were out last night?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

I'm really hungover. I went to bed at like 2 a.m. Uh it was a a Thursday hangover, which is new for me. I went out on a Thursday. You're never gonna guess what the deal was last night at the club. What was it? Pictures of Pink Whitney.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Pink Whitney Pictures.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Which is my college blackout drink. That was my like that's the one drink that if I taste I gag. Oh, I'm aware. But it was also like a$10 pitcher, and so I had to buck up.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I'm surprised that Scarlet does pitchers. It's not like you're sitting at a table. Scarlet is like standing room only, no? So you're just like all standing holding a glass and someone's pouring a picture. Who holds the pitcher?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

We were standing holding a pitcher with three straws in it, and then we were drinking the pitcher.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Like a fish bowl. Oh awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Our lovely lesbian friends that I went with, beautiful women, didn't want to drink the Pink Whitney because it was disgusting. So they're like, Hannah, you can hold the pitcher. Hannah, you should drink this.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

They didn't like Pink Whitney.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

No, it's disgusting. No, it's actually because it's a very bad drink. It's actually made for college students and it's the cheapest liquor you can buy.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

I haven't had it in seven years, probably since like 2019, so I don't really remember.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

The only time in my life I've never blacked out other than on Pink Whitney. That's the only time was my 20th birthday party. The only time I've slept on a bathroom floor in my life was blacking out on Pink Whitney at my 20th birthday.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

I pretty vividly remember you sleeping on the bathroom floor at my frat house in college after juices.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

So okay, well, I've slept on the bathroom floor two or three times.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

I was gonna say, in fact, I think you slept on the bathroom floor every single time we threw juices. Juices was a party that my frat would throw.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Oh wait, let's roll it back to the fact that Matthew was in a frat in college.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

I wasn't a frat.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Matthew was in a fraternity in college, but it was like a gay one, it was a gay one.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

We had a high population of gay people in our frat. It was like it was definitely skewed gay a lot more than most frats.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Engineers, gay guys, or queer in general. Music composition majors, people that play video games.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

It was like gay guys and engineers.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Queer people, engineers. So I never felt weird about my safety in this fraternity. It was like a it was a cool vibes fraternity. The brothers, the boys. I feel weird calling them brothers. It feels weird because I grew up in a cult and we had to say sister to refer to everyone. So I feel like Oh, I never thought about that. But I feel like frats are cults a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yeah, well, yeah, referring to people as brothers in that way is kind of getting into cultish territory. I get it. Juices was my favorite party too.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Every boy's room was decorated with a different theme. Like the reason why I love the party is because it was gay. It was a party with home decor and like Halloween decorations, and every single boy had to decorate his bedroom with a theme and like wear a different costume, and then they would serve a themed drink for that bedroom.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yes, there was probably like 30 or 40 bedrooms in the house. And yeah, you you would decorate the room and everyone would make like their own mixed drink. And so the whole party was just running around the entire house trying like all 40 drinks, and everyone was sleeping on the floor by the end.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Okay, I definitely threw up on your floor.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

I was gonna say, I've definitely seen you sleeping on more than one bla bathroom floor. I think that you probably slept on every bathroom floor in my frat house.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

I feel like that's been enough. Thank you so much for coming on my podcast today. I loved having you. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Do you remember what any of my juice's themes were? Lil Nas X. It was a little Nas X themed themed room. And what was that music video that he had just dropped that was themed like Angels and Devils?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

It was very controversial, I remember. It was like publicly like Little Nas X is shaming Jesus Christ. I remember that there was a time where Lil Nas X was heterosexual to the world. Like everyone thought he was straight.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

When Old Ton Road dropped.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

And it was like a very big deal for him to come out as gay.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

I he saw a gap in the gay music market, and he is doing great things to fill it. Yeah. I love his music.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

I am obsessed with Beyonce this week.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

You have discovered Beyonce recently. You kind of missed that.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Have you guys heard about Beyonce? Do you guys know about this?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

This is so fun because sometimes you like discover a new artist that you missed when you're upbringing. Like I like that you said that gently.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

You were like, in your in that way, in that way, in that weird way you grew up, you missed a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

In that weird period that you might recall. I remember like last year you discovered Lana Del Rey for the first time, which was huge for me because I love Lana.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

She had some cr some crazy good songs. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

I know. Also, things that you like sing very well too. You do Lana at karaoke a lot now. And thank you, beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

I've told the internet in my Daddy God Diaries that you have come to all of my musical performances in my whole life.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Oh, of course.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

So this guy's gonna know what I can sing well, obviously. Also, what uh what I'm doing for karaoke. You're really you're really helping me plan that out as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Well, you're you're singing a lot at karaoke. She's not shutting up at karaoke. Slash pause. Slash pause. No, you just sing really well, so you can do a lot of songs well, you can do a lot of artists well.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Thank you, handsome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Um you can do Hamilton well.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Stop.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Okay, I'm if we're going out for karaoke, she's pretty much gonna hit a Hamilton song. Usually it's what, Aaron Burr?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Stop!

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Alexander Hamilton.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Does anyone want to hit Aaron Burr at karaoke, maybe? Does anyone want to wake up a little Aaron Burr at karaoke? And then and then it does usually suck the air out of the room. I think two times we've gone to karaoke together, everyone's singing a fun song, everyone's like, let's do Beyoncé, let's do Bruno Mars, let's do like a fun classic karaoke song everyone knows. I get up, do Aaron Burr, and then my group goes, I think it's time to leave.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

The lights turn on when I do Aaron Burr. No, when you get up on stage and you have a mic in your hand for karaoke, the song that you choose to sing is for you and you alone. You do not have to cater to an audience. That is your healing time. You sing Alexander Hamilton. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

I really appreciate it. Do you have a go-to karaoke song? Because you haven't, you're not really participating in karaoke.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

I don't participate in karaoke very much because I'm not a great singer, but I'm learning. I just taught myself how to read music.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Can we tell them about your voice lessons?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Oh my god, my voice lessons. I tried taking vocal lessons, like one-on-one private tutoring vocal lessons, and I basically was like kicked to the curb. We I did it for like six or seven weeks, and at the last class, I was basically told not to come back because my teacher ended the lesson by the teacher started like rifling through this large old trunk that obviously hadn't been opened in years and muttering things like, There's gotta be a more basic book in here somewhere. And from the bottom of this chest, pulls out a book called How to Make a Sound and said, Work through this and then come back when you think you can maybe uh match pitch better.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

He said, We're gonna start with the basics.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

I yeah, so that was humbling. I'm still working on it, but I'll I don't think you're that bad.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

I think he just didn't believe in you or himself.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Well, that's the thing is I like looked through the profiles of a bunch of these vocal coaches, uh-huh, and this was the only one whose like bio was like, I think anyone can sing. I don't think there's anyone that like can't learn to sing, you just have to practice. And then yeah, cut to cut to him handing me a book that said how to make a sound and saying, Well, brother.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Oh my god. Would you like to do my first segment with me? Yes. It's called Roses and Thorns. It's a classic youth group activity. We're gonna walk through best thing, worst thing of your week.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Okay. I'm gonna do a braindump of some good things that have been happening to me. Okay. Recently, I have been kissing boys in bars. Very fun. Recently, I was gifted a huge collection of glass for my stained glass collection that I can make stained glass pieces out of. So that's a huge rose because I'm very excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

I'm really excited for you to make my podcast sign.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Oh yeah, you want like the stained glass heart.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

If you're on if you're on YouTube, you can probably see this, but I have a gallery wall behind me and I want a new centerpiece to be like a stained glass heart, and I have commissioned Matthew to make it. So if you see that coming soon, it will be um an original work of art by Matthew, of course.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

And I have a full car, a full trunk full, and a full back seat full of new glass that my aunt gave me. Shout out Aunt Mary. Um, so we'll have to rifle through it together, and you can pick out the colors that you want for your heart, or we can go shopping at like a glass store.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

I looked through the glass with you, and I want I want pink so bad. And according to the internet.com, pink is the most expensive stained glass color. It's like the hardest way to stay. And I'm so excited that we got that from Mary Ann.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Shout out Aunt Mary for real.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

I think we have I think we have one together, a rose that I think we went to we went to visit our friend in St. Louis last weekend. Oh, yeah, that was really fun. She just bought a house and we did a big friend group trip to St. Louis, um, and it was a really fun time. We like all crashed on air mattresses on the floor. It was like very fun. It felt like we were like in college again, and we like fixed things around our house, and we got really drunk. I flirted with a waitress.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Hell yeah, brother.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Another rose, I planned a trip to New York for the end of April. I like bought tickets and finalized going to New York, which I'm really excited about. And I get to be on a podcast of a famous person whose name I will not share until it's happening, but I'm so excited about it. I just get to be on this podcast of this person that I really admire and I think it'll be fun.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Exciting things forthcoming.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

I know.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

In the Hannah space.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

So that in the Hanna space, things are looking up, things are slash pause. Someone asked me this on a TikTok for the last podcast that I did. My favorite bit to do with my friends will do like slash pause, like slash P-O-S or slash neg slash N-E-G. And if you didn't know, in like 2020, how do I say this? At peak neurodivergent TikTok, it became normal to tag comments, like tag the things you were saying to your friends, text comments with slash, and then the intention of that comment. So, like for the purpose of a neurodivergent person to understand what you were saying, like a lot of times they tend to struggle with sarcasm, you would let them know if you were being sarcastic or not by saying like slash sar for sarcastic or slash srs for serious. And it sort of became a bit that has evolved into like a four-year-long running bit where we say slash pause slash neg at the end of everything that we're saying in the way that like a Redditor would. I say it all the time and no one understands what I'm talking about. And when I was opening for Amber in October, I was like saying it to her backstage. Oh, I feel I feel like the audience is like really ready to laugh, slash, pause. And she was like, dog pause. And then I had to explain to Amber Autry, like very well-known touring stand-up comedian, what my little bit with my friends was.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

You speaking in Reddit, speak to someone you admire. Yeah. I'm on Reddit a lot, what you know about me. I am familiar with the crazy things you're doing in the Reddit space.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah. Matthew has had to restrict my Reddit usage, genuinely, like password my Reddit with a password that I don't know, because I think that as a woman with OCD, I should not be allowed to access every single person's personal experience throughout the history of time.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah. PSA, if you have medical anxiety of any kind or any sort of OCD, put the Reddit down. You don't want to be on there.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

You don't want to be on Reddit. Gay people, people with OCD, put it away. I have really bad health anxiety, and I've realized that any symptom I have, if I type it into Reddit, I can find someone that has died from the symptom that I have. And sometimes it's just like R slash my foot feels weird, okay? Sometimes I'm looking up R slash my nose is itchy, okay? And someone has had like an itchy arm and a weird feeling toe. And actually it was a terminal diagnosis and it was the end for me. So I can turn anything, I can turn nothing into pretty much anything. So Matthew has um restricted me from it. So um if you have access to a Matthew, I would I would really recommend taking that away from yourself.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Hey, screen time passwords, guys, they work.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

What is your thorn for the week?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Do you want to go first? Yeah. What's your thorn for the week?

SPEAKER_01 12:39

That our car broke down on the way home from St. Louis. It was three lesbians and Matthew in a Subaru on the way home from St. Louis, Missouri.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

What else is new?

SPEAKER_01 12:48

And Matthew's always hanging out with a big group of lesbians. That's something about him. In a Subaru. The auto zone like wouldn't let us have someone come outside. They were like, we won't come outside to help you. I think classically, women know that they're sort of mistreated at auto centers. Like this is something that happens to women a lot. Um, and so we had to send our big scary dog, Matthew, into the auto zone to like ask for help. And then they did send someone out to help us with the car, which was very fascinating to me. So it was a that was a thorn to me was um having to send my gay guy in.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

It's crazy how different the treatment is when I go with you to like an auto zone or like a car shop or a doctor or something. Like they'll just flat out tell you they cannot do something, and then I ask for it and they do it.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yep. Male privilege. Who would have thought? Did you know about did you guys know about this?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Do you think like men and women are treated differently?

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Have you guys heard of this?

SPEAKER_00 13:37

What's the deal with air food? I've never read a paper. I think you should. What's the deal with airline food? You can see live comedy food. She has like a tight five on airline food. So if that's something that interests you, really tune in.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Shut up. I hate you.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

I didn't think of a thorn yet.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

My thorn was probably the boy that I had previously kissed coming up to me at the bar, and then like no one else was approaching me, but he wasn't kissing me.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

And then you didn't get to kiss him.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Mind you, I still did have others come up and talk to me, but it was like Matthew's being fought over at the gay bar. Hey. If you show up to line dancing and look confused, it can do wonders for you.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

We had to stop going to line dancing together.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

We did.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Matthew and I have always gone, not always, for the last few months we've been going to gay line dancing in Chicago, and it's been really fun. And we used to go together every week. We got we got really good at a two-step. Um, we can do a little spin, it's very professional, and no one was approaching us, and our friend had invited us under the guise that this would be something where we could meet potential suitors. Suitors. And women weren't coming up to me, men weren't coming up to Matthew, and we're like, okay, what's going on? This is so stupid. And it turns out it's because people thought we were married.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

I I was wondering where all of my solicitations were, and I think our chemistry was just too strong.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

I think we have pretty palpable sexual chemistry to everyone that sees us together.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Oh, definitely. Especially on the dance floor. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

The way that you're spinning me, I totally people are thinking, like, oh, they're gonna kiss you.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Obviously.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Do you remember the first time we danced together?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Is this gonna be prom in high school?

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Matthew and I went to all of our dances together in high school, or almost all of our dances together in high school. I knew that Matthew was gay for most of that time. But to others, it appeared that we were going to these dances romantically, but we would just gossip the whole time, which is my favorite thing. We would just like talk shit about people. You'd be like, her outfit, that dress does not go with those shoes.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Or the people that would slow dance to like fast songs with like a beat and it's I hated that in high school.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Oh my god, when when couples would just be like groping each other and just like slowly rocking back and forth to like party rock anthem.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

No, because why are you in the middle of the floor doing that? You could go do that on the sidelines. This is for shake the dance floor is for shaking ass if the beat's dropping.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

This just in, grope each other over there. We were keeping up the guise of of being in love pretty well. I think we were doing we were doing beard pretty well. Matthew, what are you starting a cult for?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

I am starting a cult for trying the hobbies that interest you. I tried stained glass recently, which I was always really interested in. Yeah. And I've fallen in love with that, and I'm doing stained glass in a big way.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

And you're making beautiful art for our home, which I love.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yes, yes. Thank you for supporting me. And yeah, and I've always admired singing and music. And so I think it would be really sexy to be able to sing well. So even though the private tutor I hired did tell me I was hopeless, I'm gonna keep persevering and I'm gonna keep learning and I'm gonna learn to sing.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

To add to what you said, not only trying new things, hobbies, um, but trying things that you're bad at.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

I think is really admirable and difficult. And I'm not saying that you're bad at singing, but I'm saying like trying things that you aren't already naturally skilled in. Because I think that we both grew up as like these like gifted kids, and we were told in all of our schooling, oh, you're so smart, you could do anything. And so we've kind of had to on purpose practice that skill of being seen trying and failing by other people. Cause I think when you're told your whole life, oh, you can do anything, you're so smart, trying and failing becomes really embarrassing because you feel like you're supposed to be good at everything.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

I don't know. I'm 25 now, and at my big age, like the things that I'm naturally good at, I'm already really good at. Yeah. So I can't really grow anymore without trying the things that I'm bad at and just being consistently bad at them until I get better.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

That's literally part of why I started standup, is because when we moved to Chicago, I lived alone for a little bit while you were living with your parents. I was so scared of being alone, I had terrible social anxiety, and I was like, I'm going to like macro dose humiliation to make me a less anxious person. And so I decided to go to an open mic. And like, obviously, your first open mic, you're gonna say jokes that aren't funny and you're gonna bomb.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

You're gonna suck the air out of the room.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Uh-huh. I just like did that over and over and over again. And it part of it was because I didn't have any friends in Chicago and I was scared of being alone. So I was like, if I go to this bar on a weeknight, I'm not gonna be by myself. So then I started doing stand-up that way, and it's become the thing that I love more than anything in the world, even though it's not something that I was naturally talented at to start, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

I disagree that you weren't naturally talented to start. Oh, yeah. I think that if I'm in that if I'm in the audience, you're never gonna suck the air out of the room because I don't think you've ever went in for a joke that has fallen flat for me.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Okay. Have you seen me bomb before?

SPEAKER_00 18:29

I don't think so. I bomb a- Maybe I just bring out the best in you.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

I think something about me is that my comedy is specific.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

There are some audiences that might not like what you got going on.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

For everybody, I did a set in Springfield, Illinois recently. So I was I was a feature act for another comedian. Um, and usually when you feature for a comedian or you tour with a comedian, they'll try to pick someone that has a similar audience to you. That was not the case with this comedian. We we had very opposite audiences. He had a very straight male in their 40s audience, and I have a very young, gay, female, and non-binary audience, like 18 to 24. Not a lot of overlap. Not a lot of overlap. I go to this show, and it is the day of the Chicago Bears Packers game, which is a big deal in Illinois. So there's men in the front row, full face paint, like the split face paint, like they're going to a game, clearly upset that their wives have made them come out to this comedy show, and they're watching the game on their phones the whole time that I'm up there performing. And I I have this one joke where I talk about I mentioned Zoran Momdani, famous socialist New York City mayor.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

And that's not gonna play well in rural Illinois.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

As soon as I said that, I like the light died in their eyes. Like it felt like pulling teeth. It was probably the worst I've ever felt after a set in my life was walking off that stage. It was it was the only time I've told that joke to a silent room. Like I've told jokes, and like sometimes it's just for one person. Like sometimes there's only one person that gets what you're talking about, and they laugh and they relate, and that makes me feel happy. This was the only time I've done a 10-minute set to dead silence.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

That's so crazy that the front row was literally just like men in warrior paint, too. Like they're preparing for battle and they're like, get this lesbian off my stage. I'm not happy that you're talking about a democratic socialist.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

But I feel like it is good for mental health to practice rejection in that way.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Oh, do you feel that what didn't kill you made you stronger?

SPEAKER_01 20:21

I have a second bomb example.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

This is just a humiliation ritual. I'm just telling you, times I've been embarrassed. Um, I did first date show at La Factory in Chicago, and the premise of this show is kind of like The Bachelor of The Bachelorette. It's a really fun show. There's a bachelorette that they pick from the audience to go stand on stage, and she will be like the Bachelorette for the evening, and then there's six comics that go on stage and they do their set and they compete to date The Bachelorette, and the audience will vote off comics one at a time, like one round at a time. They'll pick one comedian to have like lost the dating competition and leave the stage. This was like a horrible day that I was having. It was the day that I first slept with, and then she told me that she didn't want to see me anymore. Do you remember the first time in January?

SPEAKER_00 21:06

I do remember.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

So I was like very deeply sad that I just messed things up with this girl, like everything is going terribly. I'm not feeling confident. I go on stage, do the dating show, and I'm immediately the audience hates me. I'm immediately the first person that the audience kicks off, which I get. I was bringing a terrible energy to the stage.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Um, because you had just been dumped.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

But the way that they vote you off is they ask the audience, who do we think should leave the stage? And so I'm just sitting here at a sold-out laugh factory, Chicago, which is a theater of 300 people screaming my name because they hate me. And it felt like a nightmare. Um, it felt like a prank. Like, I have had dreams where exactly that happens before. And I remember sitting on stage and thinking, like, okay, if I can get through this happening, like any other embarrassment is not that bad.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

That is macrodosing rejection in a big way. To have a theater of people like screaming that you are the one they don't like.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

It was also someone from the audience came up to me after, and she was very sweet, and she's like, We loved your set, but the bachelorette apparently they quizzed them before, said that she wanted someone short and I was too tall. So she was like, they were just excited to like vote me off because I was the tallest one of the six. But in the moment, I was having a really depressing day, and I was like, no one likes me. What I am starting a cult for this week, I am starting a cult for going to the club on a Thursday.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Weekday hangovers.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Weekday hangovers. I do feel like it sets the tone for the weekend. I think that working a corporate job, working a nine to five can steal all your energy and joy. And in that sense, five of your seven days per week belong to corporate. And so by starting your weekend on a Thursday, you're sort of reclaiming power, I think, um, and allowing yourself to be drunk and hungover on a Friday is sort of like an act of resistance, I would say, in terms of being a comrade, and that's something that I really value. So I think that by getting really drunk off of 1.5 pictures of Pink Whitney last night, I was committing an act of resistance.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

No, boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That's why I'm hungover on company time.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Yep. I also think I've been given this advice too that like Thursdays are a great day to have a first date or like to try something new. Yeah. Like you go out on a Thursday night. I my best dates have been Thursday dates, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

I'm a big fan of a Thursday date.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

We'll go out on a Thursday, and then if it's great, I'll ask to see you again on like Friday or Saturday because it's fun. And then if it's terrible, I still have three days to recover from the fact that I had a terrible day.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

You have your whole weekend ahead of you still.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

But if you only have two weekend days, if your weekend starts on Saturday, then you just ruin my weekend.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Like I cannot do first dates on a weekend.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

I was listening to Caleb Heron's podcast this week and Taylor Tomlinson was on, and they were talking about how a first date should be 45 minutes, which feels incredibly short.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

I kind of like that because after 45 minutes, you know whether or not there's chemistry there. And having it planned to end after 45 minutes allows you to get out if you know that there's not.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

And then also if you do the Thursday date thing at the end of 45 minutes, you can be like, I'd really love to see you again. Are you free tomorrow or Saturday? And that's hot.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

That makes it really easy to be forward and there's not much scheduling involved.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

So yeah, I'm starting to call for going out on Thursday nights, whether that be to the club or on a date.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

What's a good 45-minute date though? Like coffee? I've maybe boba. That could be cute. Boba's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

I'm weird about dates. Like last week, I'll bleep her name. I'll bleep her name. Last week asked me to go to a movie. And I said no because I hate movie dates.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Well, you yap through movies. I yap through movies. Yeah. If you can't add colorful commentary during the movie, then what are we even doing here?

SPEAKER_01 24:47

What are we even doing here? This isn't even fun. Matthew and I watch movies unlike anyone else in the whole world, in that we will pause every five seconds to talk about what just happened on the screen.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

What is a movie if not food for thought? And brother, I've got thoughts. If I've seen a scene, I have thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

I would like to do a Socratic on the movie at all times.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

But it does take us so long to get through a movie, which is why we don't ever watch them.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

When we watched right after college, we watched a bunch of movies when we lived with your parents. We would do 30-minute chunks every night where we would like watch and reflect a 30-minute section of movie. And I think it was really fun.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

I don't consume much for more than like 30 minutes at a time. I like I do TV shows, but I usually do like one episode at a time, or I do 30 minutes of a movie, or even if I'm scrolling on TikTok, I do it for like 30 minutes. My attention span just is not that long. And to watch a movie front to start is such a commitment.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

I have another start a cult for based on what you just said. And I'm starting a cult for reflecting on the media you consume. We, as people, consume so much media in a day, whether it be like short form media or long form media, we're looking at I'm watching hundreds of TikToks personally. I don't know about you, or I'm watching, I'm binging like 10 episodes of TV in a day. And then at the end of the day, because I've consumed so much media, I have no idea what just happened. There are days that I have been watching my phone for four hours, and I can't tell you a single thing that came across my screen. And that like makes me feel scared about my memory and the way that I'm processing and storing my memories. And so something that I've been trying to do pretty intentionally is to write a reflection about something compelling that I've seen, whether that be a movie review, a book review. If I see a TikTok that I like, I'll save it and I'll write a little note in my phone about what it meant to me or how that might impact my life. Because it's like I think my memory used to be so good. Like I used to be a lot sharper, and I think it is absolutely related to the phone. Turns out it's the phone. Turns out the phone is a problem.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

I think that's so beautiful and intentional.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

So I'm, yeah, starting cult for being intentional about my media and reflecting on the things that I see with my eyes.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

I love that. Yeah, you will end up in like brain mush kind of thing at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Then you take my phone.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

I've definitely been there. I think that I'm a bit more like reflective and introspective person.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

You said I actually do think about things while they're happening to me. Which I love about you, by the way. I just am not I don't do that. I get sucked into a little ADHD rabbit hole and I can't get myself out.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

I don't know. I've always been this way, but there's almost nothing for me that is as entertaining as my thoughts. So like even if I'm just like scrolling scrolling through TikTok, all I'm looking for is food for thought. And then it's something that can give me a scenario to think about, and then I'm walking away from my screen and I'm yeah, I'm daydreaming.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

I think I do the exact opposite, in that instead of daydreaming, I will avoid my thoughts at all costs. Like nothing is more terrifying to me than my thoughts. So if I have to turn off the TikTok and spend maybe even a moment alone with myself, I'm gonna fill that silence. That's sort of where I'm at right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Wow. It's interesting because I do think we're like kind of on opposite ends of a spectrum there, because there are problems that come into my life because of the way that I am rocking with it. Yeah. Like I have pretty bad insomnia, and it's because I enjoy my own thoughts so much that if I'm just laying there in bed, I'm happy as a clam. I am cracking myself up, and then I can't fall asleep.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

I have pretty bad insomnia because I'm scrolling until 2 a.m. Isn't that beautiful? I think oftentimes we're opposite sides of the same coin. We we are experiencing the same problem, but from a different perspective.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Yes, pretty direct opposite sides of the spectrum. When we met, we were probably a little bit more opposite than we are now. Oh, definitely. We were very opposite. Like when we first met. I don't know like what brought us together, but I think probably just the phenomenon, at least in the Midwest, of queer people who don't even know that they're queer themselves finding each other.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

I think there was a secret magnet in us.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

You you coming to my musical theater shows and me thinking it was because you were in love with me is my favorite thing that's ever happened.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

But really, I was just uh closeted gay in the Midwest who was bored and there was a live theater performance that was going on, so I had to go see it. You brought me roses to the Joseph and Technicolor dream coat. You deserve roses. It was your opening performance.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

And I told all my friends I said this guy loves me so bad. Um, and it turns out you just knew musical theater etiquette, which is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

I can see where you would think that was courting, especially in high school.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Avery and I talked about this last week that every lesbian has to have a last ditch effort, like a last try at finding a man. And you were my last ditch effort at finding a man. I don't know if this makes sense, but being with you has always been so easy. We've always had like very easy conversation. I've always had a lot of fun with you. And in high school, I remember being so excited that we had such good conversational chemistry because I was like, oh, perfect, I'll just marry him. Wow. I wouldn't allow myself to entertain the idea that I was gay. So I was thinking that if I had to live a life and like have a husband and have kids, I was like, this guy is gonna be perfect.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Well, you were very much hunting for a husband when we met in high school because Well, because all my friends were getting married at 17. I was gonna say, yeah, like in in the culture that you were in, it was like you were an old maid if you didn't have a husband by 20. And so you had to find someone quick, or kind of someone was gonna be assigned to you. Yeah. And so you were on the hunt for beards.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

So and I said, This one is perfect.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

And I said, This one likes musical theater.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

This one brings me roses at Joseph and the Technical Dream Co, and I think we're gonna be great pals. My plan is just for us to high-five a bunch, watch music videos.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

I do want to say, I don't think I agree that I was your last ditch effort to give men a try. Okay. Do you remember the bracket that you did in college to like go on dates with men and then like rank them in like a tournament style bracket? You did that publicly, by the way. It's on her in her TikTok.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Stop! I haven't thought about that in a little bit too long. In college, I made it was called Tinder March Madness. It was it was like a viral series I had in 2019, and it was ranking men on Tinder by going on dates with them, and it was like 32 dates I went on where I ranked men and like pitted them against each other for which one would be the best, like who would win the Tinder March Madness bracket. But I I went on literally dozens of dates with men just to like double check that I wasn't bi. I had never really felt strong attraction to a man before, and I was really trying to make sure that it wasn't just a fluke. Like I was like, I need genuinely, very methodically, I thought if I collect enough data on the way that I feel on dates with men, I can conclusively decide whether or not I'm attracted to them.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

No, sitting down and scientifically doing it in like the bracketed way that you did was screaming your last your lesbian last-itch effort to me. Because mind you, I had already suspected that you were probably a lesbian at this point based on your interactions with women that I had observed. Okay. Should I tell some? Okay, you can if you would like. You would be so giddy whenever a woman texted you that you were like kind of had chemistry with, you would like fall to the fetal position, like giggling to yourself when these women were texting you, and then you'd immediately like get back up and start making your March Madness bracket full of men to go on dates with.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

You had me on Gay Watch for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

And I was like, Do you remember when I took a picture of you?

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Uh-huh. Matthew and Avery both had me on Gay Watch, and I was like dabbling with the idea that I could be attracted to women. And Matthew sent me a photo of myself that he had sneakily taken while I was texting a girl that I had a crush on. I didn't tell Matthew that I had a crush on this girl. He just knew based on the way that I acted around her.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

You could see it in your face.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

He sent a photo of me texting this girl, and he said, I've never seen you light up this way, getting a text from all those boys you're dating.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

It's still probably my favorite photo. Like unadultered bliss. You were so thrilled that this girl had texted you back, and it's a live photo too, and you're just like so happy.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

I remember with that girl specifically, we braided each other's hair. Like that was our best intimate interaction exchange. Was that I would go to her apartment and we would braid each other's hair, and I would just like think about like, oh, her hair is so soft. I'm so excited to like try a new braid on her today. I wonder if she would like it. And Matthew was just sitting there fully aware that that was very sapphic.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Yeah, I'll bet. Wrap it up, Sappho. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

There was something I wanted to go back to, which was high school. How you brought me flowers, and we had like this sort of outwardly romantic relationship, but together we were not doing romantic things. I think we've always given off husband-wife vibes to the people around us, but we weren't doing husband-wife things. And one example that I can remember is the way that Matthew and I would hang out in high school, because we weren't allowed to hang out one-on-one because he was a boy, is I would either A, sneak over to his house, or B, I would house sit for like other people that I went to church with, and then I would invite you over to the house where I was like house or pet sitting. And one time you came over and we obviously watched musical movies. We watched hairspray in Greece. Duh. Um naturally. And our friends who had thought we were dating at the time asked what we did this weekend, and I said, Oh, we were just watching Greece. And then Matthew goes, Oh, we weren't really watching. Oh, we weren't really watching it though. So they had assumed that we were making out having sex the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Do you remember what did I mean? That just that we talked through we just talked through the whole movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

We kept up a good disguise, I guess. We we were good beards.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

I don't know if it's because we like were really good beards. I think we've probably always had sexual chemistry.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Your mom is gonna listen to this and she's gonna hate that we said sexual.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

I know. And also, just like the town where we grew up was so heteronormative that we were hanging out one-on-one, even when it was like against your rules, like that definitely gives like they're flirting, they're trying to be romantic.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Yes, because I was sneaky hanging out with you, but I was sneaky hanging out with you, so then you could show me music videos.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Yes, yes. But what we were actually doing was like having like rigorous intellectual debates and stuff. We were like comparing worldviews.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

You were also sort of like trying to get me out, like you were you were doing cult deprogramming on me when we were hanging out and then showing me music videos.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

And I was kind of being ostentatious with it too, because there came a point where I knew that you were coming into our relationship as like an evangelical Christian who like wanted to convert me. Yeah, and I was like, watch this. You said I'm gonna convert her so hard back. I'm gonna convert her back. And now I've got her kissing girls in a mini skirt in bars. So And thank you.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

And thank you for your service. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Matthew 1, Jesus 0.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Do you remember when your mom got doxxed?

SPEAKER_00 35:21

I do remember, yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

I was in college and I went to one of my first college parties and I danced on a stripper pole. Okay, that's something that happened to me. That's something that happens to a girl when she has a little bit too much pink Whitney. Okay, that's nobody's fault. A year after that had happened, I posted it to TikTok as like an example of how rebellious I had been. It was like I was such a rebellious college girl way back way back in the day. So I decided to post that video to TikTok, and a man had a viral account where he would find videos of women doing drugs, going to parties, like, and just generally enjoying themselves, and then send it to their parents and be like, Is this your daughter? And that was like his whole TikTok. That's like how he got famous.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

It was really stupid. That's so creepy, too. Like finding just public photos of women that like maybe have some cleavage out, and then trying to track down their whole family and send it to them and be like, Look at the whore you raised.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Creepy as fuck.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Creepy.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Um, and in my specific case, dangerous because of the way that my parents, my parents had no idea I was doing anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Um, so when I catch you, Ricky, I think you had like kind of been living out of our guest room by that point.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Yeah, I was living with Matthew's family, so they had seen a photo of like me at a family holiday with Matthew's mom, found her Facebook, and then sent her the photo of me on the stripper pole, and they're like, Is this your daughter? And she was like, Yeah, and I think she should do it again. Yeah, and she looks really beautiful and she was having a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Mom had so much fun with that. You were so apologetic about it.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

Oh my god, no, because the terrible doxing thing that happened was that my audience saw that video that this man posted and assumed that Matthew's mom was my actual mom, who who for years I had been telling stories about like horrific abuse. And so these people assumed that this woman was my mom and were like sending her terrible comments about how like she was an awful mother and like trying to send things to her workplace to like trying to like call her work and like get her fired. Like it was a very scary time for me because I was like, I don't want my TikTok to be affecting this this person that I really love. Um, but she handled it like a champ. She was no she was like having a field day. She was fighting back in the comments, yeah, um, and she was having a lot of fun. I thought I might cut this, but that was heavy police time for me where um I was getting wellness checked a lot. Like my my parents were calling in police wellness checks, so they would call the cops to come to my apartment almost to just like let me know that they knew what I was doing. You know what I mean? Like that they were checking in on me.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Like letting you know you're being monitored.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Yes. So at that time it would have been spooky had that video gotten back to them. And now they've probably seen it because I posted it again this week, but but I don't care anymore.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

So we'll never know.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Yeah. Wow, sometimes I say something is kind of a bummer. Hey, and that's okay. Last week, Avery and I talked about the Holocaust, that was sort of like a bummer too.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Well, I don't I don't know what to do with that. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

And I think we should keep that in. I'm human. Would you like to do my last segment? Yes. Okay, this is called Confessional, and I'm gonna ask you some juicy questions. What's something that you used to believe that you don't anymore?

SPEAKER_00 38:26

I used to believe that I was heterosexual.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Matthew was a frat boy and a football player.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Yeah, on paper, I had some pretty, you know, heterosexual tendencies. Tendencies, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

I had some heterosexual tendencies.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

But I used to believe in the game of American football, and I don't anymore. I think it's just a crazy sport. Any of these like high contact, violent sports, there's like this culture among football fans and football players when a football player gets hurt where they are so like somber about it, and rightly so. It's like very tragic. I just am not able anymore to like bypass this paradox of a game that valorizes violence but then is horrified by its consequences.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

And I just I hate it. Yeah. You also were concussed multiple times. Yeah, and I so I don't think I would like put my child in a high contact sport. Like I wouldn't want them playing football or hockey or anything like that, because it's just not worth it.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

I never was a fan of football, but as an adult, I learned those statistics about domestic violence going up during football games, and then I was just like, oh, this is stupid. Like, like, what are we doing? Oh, this is bad. Confessional. Okay. As a kid, you were gay.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Something about you that I know is that you're gay.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

What were what were the glaring signs looking back that you were gay that you didn't realize at the time?

SPEAKER_00 39:52

I had Pocahontas on repeat as a five-year-old. I had that soundtrack down, which apparently is a gay thing to do. Did I have anything else? I mean, for there was a long while where I was like watching gay porn, but didn't know that I was gay. So that was something that's like, hey, that's a pretty clear sign.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

You were just looking it up in like a research way?

SPEAKER_00 40:14

No, I remember vividly remember thinking a couple times, like, hmm, I wonder why I have to type G-A-Y-G before my search to enjoy what's going on. And it like took me way too long to connect the dots that, oh, I'm gay. Oh, that's why I like it. That's insane. It's insane. The dissonance that you can be raised with is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

You know that I also experienced that where I was, yeah, Googling, I was doing the MIG quizzes, I was doing Ingrid Nielsen coming out, Joey Crusapha coming out, Connor Franta coming out. Like I was watching coming out videos of YouTubers that I loved and then weeping, crying because they were so happy and free. And I was like, God, I just love gay. I just love that you can be yourself.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

And it's just such an odd feeling because like I guess I was in denial, but it didn't feel like denial the whole time. Like, I'm not someone who like soft launched as bisexual first and then fully gay. You hard-launched gay. As soon as I connected the dots in my head, I was fine, like taking the label. I was like, oh, I'm gay. But yeah, there were there were some glaring signs, such as my search history, that should have led me to that conclusion sooner.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

I feel like people were really surprised when you came out. You were like a a shocker to a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Oh, yeah. I mean, I was I was pretty straight presenting for sure.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Probably because we were so in love, too.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

It was like probably because I had a baddie on my arm.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Matthew ruined my secret of boyfriend. I didn't get asked about boys because people knew that I had Matthew. And then when you came out, I was like, fuck. I've got to figure something else out. I have to find another one. And I never did. Wow. You were you were the best.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

No, I was keeping you.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

I have to confront you about something. Okay. I've written it in my notes that we could discuss it this week because it's really on my mind. Okay. You told all of our friends that I door-dashed a candle for sex.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

I I okay. They did get that information from me, but I was not telling them your business. Okay. I just so happened to be hanging out with a bunch of our mutual friends when we also all knew that you were preparing for a date at the bar two blocks from our house. Yes. And then someone saw on my phone, because we share a DoorDash account, that right before the date, you DoorDashed a vanilla candle.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Don't tell them what scent it was. I the house smelled really bad, first of all. The house didn't smell good. Okay. I have a cat. Sometimes she's stinky. I got really nervous. I was gonna have a girl over after, and I didn't know what else to do. So in a moment of vulnerability, because I get a little I get a little nervous sometimes, I confided in Doordash.com to get something delivered to my house, and it was a candle. Um, and then I get confronted by all of my friends the next day about the candle that I Doordashed to our house.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

We immediately checked your location because we thought you might be out at the bar already, and that would be such a power move to have door dashed a candle and it's just waiting on the front step for when you invite her back to our house, just like, oh, here's the here's the candle I door-dashed for us.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Hey babe, is that a candle in your pocket? Or you just happy to see me?

SPEAKER_00 43:15

And do you think vanilla is a good scent for for that?

SPEAKER_01 43:18

No, I need I don't know anything about smells. There's a couple things that I missed out on via growing up in the church world where I missed out on I don't know anything about fashion or jewelry. I wasn't allowed to have perfume or like nail polish or jewelry or anything. So there's some stuff that just like genuinely hasn't crossed my desk as an adult that I haven't looked into.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

I was gonna say, are you interested in engaging with those things now? I think if those are things that you want to like look into, you should.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Okay, well, I'll do it. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna ask you the question that I've been asking the last few guests, which is what is your personal e got? So if if there are four goals in your life that feel sort of unattainable, but that if you worked really hard you could accomplish them, okay, what are those four goals that you have?

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Okay. This is a really fun question for me right now because as you know, I'm just now waking up dreams and goals.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Uh-huh. Huge.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

This just in boys can have dreams and goals. Dreams and goals. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

What are your what are your four dreams and goals?

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Something to do with stained glass, because I really do intend to keep up with it. And I think eventually it would be really cool to put like queer art. Like I would I would love to do m things that are meaningful to me and get messages out there with stained glass. I think that stained glass is such an interesting medium to do that kind of thing. Yeah. Because historically stained glass is pretty much only found in churches. Yeah. And so especially if I were able to like, I don't know, somehow be able to do this redo the stained glass windows in an old church, but I could redo them with scenes of like queer love or other things that historically the church, at least the Catholic church, where stained glass is really prominent, would not have vibe with. I think that that would juxtapose really beautifully.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Gorgeous. People that have been disenfranchised by the church. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

And something that I've been playing around with recently is I would love to do a piece that is kind of like an homage to like uh Palestine and Palestinians. So I've been thinking that I would love to do something like an olive tree touching the water, and then like the ripples are made of the metalwork between the pieces of glass, and I think that that would be very beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

That makes me want to cry. That's so beautiful. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

Another one. Writing, yeah. Another thing that I have taken up recently is writing. I've always really enjoyed writing, and I've got some shit to say.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

And Matthew's always yapping.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

I've got some messages to disseminate. Uh-huh. Something with writing. Honestly, probably just like getting a book published would be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

I have always in the back of my head kind of wanted to hold public office.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Love. I think you'd be a great politician. I would love to see a version of the world where you're holding public office. I think you'd be incredible.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

What is another thing I'm passionate about? I'm really bad at music, as aforementioned, but I think it would be really cool to get really good at music and then do something with that. I love that. Um I think that I could like write music well or something at some point.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

I think you could too. I think you're a really talented writer. I I'm excited for my special and my TV show to come out and take you credited in them. Like anything that I'm writing, you are contributing to in some way, whether that be like just reading it over for me or like adding tags or revising or like coming up with new ideas.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

I'm earning those writing credits. Yes. Yes, you are. I want to have writing credits on your stand-up special and on the TV show that you're writing.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Yep, it is an unpaid position currently.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Hey, just let me in the writer's room.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Um, but I appreciate you so much.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Did I just make one of my egots an actual Grammy? Is that what I did with when I said something with music?

SPEAKER_01 46:53

I think you could win a Grammy.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

You think so?

SPEAKER_01 46:55

I think we should wait it out and see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Do you think my vocal coach would disagree?

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Michael, was that his name? Mm-hmm. I don't I think Michael might um have some hesitations about that goal, but I think you could get there. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Yeah. I love you so bad. Love you bye. Bye.

unknown 47:11

Bye.