Award Sweep & Mom's Weep

In this episode, Claire dives into the end-of-year chaos. Emotions are high, calendars are full, and somehow… everyone’s getting an award.

From current trends and observations to navigating the bittersweet (and slightly humbling) experience of watching her son absolutely thrive, Claire unpacks the unexpected feelings that come with it...including a little jealousy she wasn’t exactly prepared for.

She also looks back on her own childhood, revisiting the infamous “scary” fourth-grade teacher and what it actually meant to experience her firsthand. Finding out she has always been different.

It’s honest, self-aware, and a reminder that sometimes the things we fear (or compare ourselves to) aren’t the full story. 

Transcript

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You hear the sound, and you know what day it is. Another episode! Ooh. Yeah. Trying to get myself pumped up. Yes. I don't know what the fact is, but it is enjoyable to talk about it. Woo! Happy Tuesday, everybody. How are you surviving May Mayhem? May again, May Sember, May, you call it whatever you can. May you survive. Thank y'all for bearing with me. Last week I had to put up a repeat episode. Will that happen often during the summer? Sure. Because I live in Houston and it feels like the center of the universe, the core temperature of the earth that you're not supposed to touch or dig a hole to. That's what it feels like here already, just in May. And there's no reprieve from it. Middle of the night, still 900 degrees. Morning, 900. Evening, 900. And then thousands of bugs are crawling on you just in time for you to be like, oh, I love the rain. It's coming. It never comes. Just kind of looks like it's raining for several weeks. And then it never comes. So you're a little depressed because you're melting and it's cloudy. Then a hurricane comes. No rain for a while, just looks like it's gonna rain, teases you, then a hurricane. Roof comes off the whole thing. You're underwater for five weeks. Last time I didn't have power for 10 days. It was awful. Normally I'm out of town for a hurricane. I've never witnessed one except the last one, Beryl. So I guess if I had to witness any hurricanes, Beryl would be the one for me, but it was not fun. Living through a hurricane is nitfin. Sorry, I came in real strong with the complaining. Shout out Houston, the best worst place to live. Thank you. I mean, there's other worst places, so I think Houston is the best worst place, right? It doesn't compare to Colorado. And they should have had the internet when I moved out of Colorado. I think it was just being invented by Al Gore. And so I didn't know, I didn't understand that every single place you go doesn't have mountains. I had really only been to Colorado and California up until the time that I went to college. And I was very confused that how did you know where West was? There's no mountains. Somehow I ended up in Houston, and my child is obsessed, obsessed with Houston, wants to live here, wants to have a giant block in River Oaks named after him after he goes to Rice. He loves it here. I don't know why. I think is do you think it's because he just does that to irritate me? Because I love Houston. I do. It has a special place in my heart that I won't see again after I move out of here and go to Colorado and live there happily for the rest of my life under a bridge because Colorado's gotten so expensive. I know you guys like the rants, and when I get off onto these side tangents, they become a little distracting for me in a way, but I'm gonna give you what you want and what you've all requested. So I'm just gonna kind of ramble for a bit. And if you don't like this part, you can skip ahead. Though I don't know what you're going to skip ahead to because it's mostly just me ramble daming dambling. And I needed last week just to listen to some podcasts on my own. You see, I need to fill my cup to fill your cup. Nobody tells you this about starting a podcast, but it really eats into your podcasting time because not only do I have to talk and tell you all the things, then I have to go back and listen to my annoying voice, edit the thing, and then put it online. So that really eats up my personal podcasting time where I consume and listen. And anyone that knows me in real life knows that I am the podcast queen. You need self-help? I've got you. True crime, done. Audiobook, recommend seven. Funny podcasts with comedians to hear their life story. I've got a list. Starting a business, podcast. Do I take any of those things into consideration and use them to improve my life? Hmm. If I do, I'm seeing some slow, slow results because I've been heavy into the podcast world probably since around COVID, maybe a little bit before. And I can drive to Colorado the entire time, like 17 hours. And I know what you're thinking. Claire, it usually only takes 14. Okay. I drive like a grandma. It takes me one and a half times to get anywhere. So if it says on Apple Maps 43 minutes, it's actually an hour for me. Okay. And I don't know why that happens. I am a slow driver, get into some podcasts, digest them, and then I tell everybody what I know and get hyperfixated for a while. And then it just goes right out of my brain to the ether, to the unknown, to the upside down. But I do enjoy it. I like hearing how they interview and ask the questions and when they bring in the raunch factor, slash when they put on their Diane Sawyer hat, slash when the guest gets irritated with them, slash when they get irritated with the guest. I love consuming it beyond belief. But I'm also an audio learner. And again, if you know me in real life, if you've told me a story, a birth date, anything really, I somehow retain all of that information and will bring it back up to you. And you're always like, did I tell you that? How do you remember? Are you a fortune teller? And it's just because I process a lot from my ear to my brain. And then from there, it's up to my brain to decide what it wants to keep and what it wants to throw away. Usually it throws away the important stuff, like where I'm supposed to be and when and why and how it will hang on to your mother-in-law's birthday for the rest of my life. I will remember that. Even though you told it to me, probably don't even know your mother-in-law anymore, but I will remember forever and ever. And on every September 19th, I will remember that it is your mother-in-law's birthday and that happens, and I can't get it out of my brain so that other things can come in and move in there, and I can actually survive and process. Good news and bad news. Can't understand IKEA instructions by looking at the photos. And because there's no words, nobody can read me the instructions out loud. But if there were, I could bang out some IKEA furniture like it's nobody's business, like it's my full-time job. Yeah, her? Because I like when people tell me things in my ears and I don't have to read it. If I had email, just I could be delete, swipe, delete. Maybe there's an AI app for that and I need to figure that out, but not today. I'm just podcasting today, okay? So much has happened in the last couple weeks. Gotta catch you all up. First of all, the Hantavirus. Don't you want a Hanta Hanta? Don't you want a Hanta Hanta? Every time somebody says Hantavirus, I have to sing that song. I don't know why. It's just a tick. But yeah, I was trying to make hantavirus viral as much as I could. I was just telling people, another pandemic. We better stay in at least for two weeks. Because May was starting to get really May-ish. Assembly, another assembly, recital, game, another assembly, game, field day, half day, game, popsicle day, bring your yearbook day. All the days, okay? And I was like, hantavirus though, guys. Should we all stay in just, you know, maybe for two weeks? See you next year. It wasn't happening. And then I would tell people about hantavirus and they would be like, mmm, Claire, you don't know what you're talking about. It can't go to person to person. And I was like, oh no, it can. I think we've just become so desensitized that we're like, mm, hantivirus, assassination attempt, mm, ebola, mmm, another assembly. But man, we get into some field days. But because the hantivirus didn't catch on, now I guess they're trying to make Ebola. I can only follow a couple diseases a year. So I'm tapped out. Somebody let me know when it's close to home and I need to hunker down and get a hazmat suit. Until then, I'll just continue to go to assemblies. Which by the way, I've gone to a thousand assemblies and I'm usually cynical. I'm the mom that it's very cynical and I feel bad about that. But I think this past couple weeks has taught me, hey, celebrate the good moments, cheer it on, be happy. And I don't want to be braggy, but a part of me does want to post all over socials and tell everybody that my kid is now good at baseball. He's done private lessons. He won Best Trumpet Player. He won like some sort of other awards. And I should call them out by name, but I'm trying to not be braggy and at the same time keep my cynicism in balance because normally I'd be like, I don't know why I didn't get a child with ADHD that's just bouncing off the walls, saying horrible things. Probably because I wouldn't do well in a principal's office every other week talking about suspension. But, or I would just say, you could just send him home, let me know when to grab that kid. But I have a really great kid. I'm really proud of him. And it's been really exciting to watch him grow into himself, even though he verbally abuses me most of the time and tells me how annoying I am and how old I am and how I don't know even half of what he knows, which could be true, could be not. Let's not explore that today. But he had a week of winning, inflated his ego a little more than it should have. So I'm trying to think of ways to keep him humble. And I think that's just me being me, just kicking around. He did tell me, yeah, when you have two opposite parents, you become a perfect human. I've got dad smarts and I've got your social ability without your ticks. The next thing I know, that kid is dancing around the living room with a cow by cowboy hat on. If that's not my weird ticks, I don't know what it is. He just doesn't want to own it. And it will serve him well one day. When tensions are high, he can just bust out into a nice, fun song. He probably does have more self-awareness of when to appropriately bust out into song and dance, whereas I'm just like, do do do do do do do do, we're doing something serious and someone's talking, they don't want me to do this, and I can't help it. Yeah. I'm getting better about using my filter kind of, but sometimes I just don't have one. For instance, we'll get to this story, but I'm gonna tell you a sneak peek right now. One time, T, she went to a cool college and had a sorority vibe going, and she invited me like as a riffraff friend. I'm not really sure why. She thought it would be appropriate to include her friend from Pueblo on a fancy sorority girl trip to Mexico. But I obliged. I went, saved up my money, which wasn't much, so I didn't have money to spend there. And they all had credit cards and whatnot, perfect curated outfits. I was rocking some capris multiple days in a row, but neither here nor there. And this is a trigger warning for eating disordered or disordered eating, but a girl didn't, she would make how do I say this kindly. She rid herself of the food often, and finally I got a little frustrated and I said, please don't even eat the pizza if you're just gonna throw it up, because I couldn't afford the pizza on my own and I wanted more slices for myself. So I was really mad at her and I said that, and I didn't even know this girl, right? So I was just like, if you're gonna throw it up, please leave it for the rest of us. Super insensitive, and I kind of didn't understand disordered eating at the time. And I'm trying to be better about that, but that's an example of where my filter just says the wrong thing, but yet everyone else is thinking it. And I guess that's why I have a podcast for you guys to listen to my inner thoughts that could be inappropriate, could not be. I don't know. We'll wait until I get sued again. I also needed some time to have some conversations with people and develop what I want to rant about and talk about. I do have a friend. Every time we talk, she said, put it on the pod, put it on the pod. You should put this on the podcast. You should talk about this. I can't put everything on the podcast, otherwise, I could just record our conversations and make that a podcast. But she loves to say, Oh, podcast this, put it on the pod. Also, she got another ear piercing. And I don't know if I've just been under a rock. The last influencers I followed were at Coachella and they had earrings coming out of all the places. And so I just became desensitized to it. But she is very grand millennial, they call it, you know, the mid-century modern vibe, but incorporating big flowy dresses with flowers all over them. And I was really surprised that she was getting another piercing at 40. And I must just be out of the loop because I was wondering why anybody is getting holes. So then I started noticing everyone's ears. I looked at Kristen Bell, thousands of earrings on her ear in an interview. And she's so cute and adorable. But and then I would be at the baseball fields and see there would be a snake cuff and a chain attached to that little earlobe that covers your inner ear, and then it would a chain would be like wrapped around the tip of the ear. Now, I'm not a candidate for this because one of my ears doesn't bend over at the top. It's an elf ear. Sometimes I think I'm secretly a little elf. But I really want to know one, do you put those in every morning and every night? Because I can't sleep in a ton of earrings. That irritates me. Maybe I'm a side sleeper. Maybe y'all with your big ear elaborate decor, you don't side sleep, which is great. You're probably getting some really good rest or something. But I just feel like I'm one second away from getting a hair snagged in and then losing my entire ear, a lobe just tearing and bleeding everywhere. And then I have to go get it fixed, and they have to see that I have a pointy ear. It's just a whole thing. Also, if you don't mind, if you have the big earring situation going on, letting me know how that all works. I'm really curious. Do you take them all out at night? Even the ones that are connected and an inner maze on your ear, like a laser, laser light show that you have to kind of sneak under. There's always a lightning hanging off of one or a little star or a very, very microscopic happy face that you have to zoom in to see the yin and the yang. It's very cool. I like it. I like it on other people. I don't have the capacity. I can barely brush my teeth, is what I'm telling you. And so if you're asking me to put 17 earrings in one ear every day and then take them out, that's gonna be a no for me. Additionally, this trend, I'm gonna tell all of you right now, if you're into the trendy ear, I love that for you. I think it looks adorable and you probably have a perfectly curved top ear and you don't have elf ears. And for that, you should really wear the heck out of all of those earrings. But if they start selling single earrings and I can no longer get earrings in a pack, and now one earring cost me what two earrings would be, and I want to wear matching earrings in my boring little elf ears, I'm gonna be mad. I am going to come for you. So please, if you're buying all of those things and broaches and whatnot to go in your ears, please promise me that you will try to buy a two-pack and don't make this a one-pack thing. I know. I know that it probably making microscopic yin-yangs and skull and crossbones and smiley faces, it's probably expensive for these manufacturers. They can still sell two. That is gonna be the hill that I'm going to die on on this Tuesday. They can sell two. I don't want that to ruin my ability to buy two earrings. Occasionally, you can have the one, like the bikinis, large top, small bottom. I get everybody's different. So buying one of one, but I do like it when it's just a set. And you can just make it cheap enough that we can just have a medium top, medium bottoms, large top, and large bottoms. And we interchange it as we need. It's just, we need to stop. Gas prices are at an all-time high. I cannot, honestly, it's like I'm acting like I buy earrings all the time. I don't. But if the time comes when I do want to buy new earrings, I want to buy two. You hear me right now, ladies, that are making the ear jewels a thing. I want to buy two packs of earrings, not a single. They can be one-offs, but I want the trend to remain that when I purchase a set of earrings, they come as a set, not just one snake huggy with a lightning bolt off its tail. And I'm just middle-aged. I will participate in a trend if it makes sense. The sweatpant trend that we're trying to do, that I don't know if that's allowed for middle-aged women. It kind of looks like we gave up on life. Like, people aren't sure if we're trying to be trendy or if they should check in on us. I don't really do the sweatpants, though I would like to, because that's a trend that seems convenient. It's just my body type would be very oompa loompa. I definitely think it would be a cry for like mental health, and people wouldn't realize I was trying to be trendy. So, yeah, I'm not against trends. You guys rock those earrings in your ears. I just can't do trends that are gonna be inconvenient, not at all. Nope. If it's an inconvenient trend, can't please count me out. So also if it's expensive, I did that. I bought a bunch of golden goose shoes. Those shoes just look like they've been worn through uh the Great Depression and a war. And I don't know why I have so many of them because I feel like a clown now with them. It was a cute trend for a minute. Ooh, look at us. Rich and messy, sussy, sassy. But now I just feel, well, was I making fun of dirty tennis shoes or was I thriving in them? I don't know, but I just feel like a clown now. And it happened over time, but my glitter era, it's coming to a close. I can't have 17 shades of glitter ombre with a 3D star on my shoes. 45 now, have to hang it up, along with the idea that I would have 18 earrings in one ear. Okay, and that's enough of the trend report that I am cynical about. And I want to bring you some happy news. So I made a friend earlier this year and we bonded over just life stuff and chitty chatty. And if you do know me in real life, you know that I can make a friend pretty much anywhere, which is good and bad, because the next thing you know, I have people living in my home that I've only known for two hours, which is good and bad because next thing I know, I could be in a truck going to a beach with somebody that could be a serial killer. So far, so good. A lot of prayers, a lot of faith that all people are good, but they're not, and I should probably be more aware when I make new best friends. For instance, somebody I meet at a gas station could be my new roommate the next day. I've only met them for 20 minutes, but I have a bleeding heart and I'm friends with everybody, which is weird. And it's probably related to trauma, but here we are. I digress. My friend, we meet, we chat, we become fast friends, and not immediately. We're still just hanging out, kind of cool and casual, but we got to talking and she listened to the pod while she was applying for a graduate program. She got into the graduate program and she is going on to be a licensed professional counselor. And to that, I say that was the goal of the podcast. One of the first goals was to brighten people's day, to change one life, to inspire one person, hopefully more, but I'll take one. And also to make money and also to get sponsors and also on my healing journey. But you know what? Small results. We're only like two and a half months in, and here we go. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it. I'm excited for her. I'm excited that this journey inspired her. And I just am so excited. Those are the little boosts I need to keep going so that maybe one day in 17 years I can make a little bit of money from this silly little thing. And something really exciting. I was scrolling on uh the socials as I do when I'm avoiding life, which is kind of often if I'm being honest. I need to get one of those bricks or whatever that locks me out of all social media. I'm also getting the ick with social media. I don't know. You guys, what is this midlife? It's kind of hard. Or am I just complaining about everything? Because everything feels good to complain about. It kind of does feel good to be a complainer. I was talking to a friend last week, and literally we were just trying to celebrate even the smallest of wins. Like your car turned on today, isn't that great? Woo-hoo! You got some steps in, walk into the mailbox, get it, girl. And that's kind of how I feel in midlife. Wow, you woke up and you didn't have mascara running down to your cheeks. Oh, because you didn't put it on in three days. That's great. We're always just trying to find the silver lining of pretty hard stuff, but that's not really hard. But I did see on Instagram that a lady in Ireland is starting my idea. And I know there are other places around the world that are doing it, but in Ireland she has in Ireland, in Ireland. Anyways, so she has a place in Ireland and it's called the Knitting House, I believe. And she has artist residence there, but then also has two rooms that is in this art compound, maybe two or three. I don't know. She's talking about how she needs funding to fund this, but it's for single moms and their kids, and it provides daycare and a place for them to rest and meals and be artistic. So, you guys, I might be moving to Ireland. I'm just saying, probably not, but I'm so proud of that lady. One of these days when my estrogen is high and I'm motivated and I've checked all my mail, I might reach out to her and say, I want to do that here in the Houston, Texas. I don't know, but I was really inspired by that. And that's the idea, that's the long term impact. When I hit that Spotify signing bonus or with Barstool, I'm just gonna be like boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Now I have a knitting house in the States. And I could probably go to Ireland to visit her and see what she's doing and then bring it here. If they There's one thing that I've picked up for my son is believe it and you will achieve it. And so that is why I'm talking about my Spotify signing bonus because I truly believe that it can happen. And honestly, his positivity, his ambition, it comes from a place of an ego that is a bit bold, but it's this no-fail mentality. I've got this. If I work hard, I do this. And so that's been the most inspiring part of watching him win like a bazillion awards this past couple weeks. But and I am trying to adapt and not be so cynical about those achievements. That's the one takeaway I've seen from my son and I've learned from him is if you believe it, you can achieve it. And he does have a bit of an inflated ego. That's probably because he's an only child. And I just tell him, You're so handsome, you're so good, you're so smart. And he meanwhile just is like, you're so annoying, mom, which it's okay, fine. I can handle it. But I truly believe that if we put out in the universe what we're trying to accomplish and we really don't have doubts, like we intentionally think this could be the future, it happens. So I'm trying to dial back my cynicism. I'm trying to be more positive. I'm trying to go for the things, I'm trying to be fearless. And after 45 years of being beat down, it's sometimes very hard, but I'm trying. And I love that part of being in a parent-child relationship is that you get to see those things and witness and learn just as much from the children as you do from your parents. It is fun if you're open to these life lessons to learn them from friends, kids, cousins, sisters, brothers, mothers. You just have to be open to seeing how the universe works in their favor. If I'm being honest, I kind of have a tendency to want to be jealous of my kid. I know. I can't believe I'm saying that out loud either. But yeah, I want to be in sixth grade and win a bazillion awards. But I turned that jealousy into motivation and inspiration. And that felt right and good. So what is it in your life? And I'm getting a little, mm-hmm. So if you need to turn this off and just scream to heavy metal, I don't blame you. But what is it in your life that you're maybe feeling stuck or jealous of or kind of is making it give the ick that you can turn around and say, oh, I'm gonna use this for fuel. What is it? Comment, drop it in the comments, like follow, drop it, drop it like it's hot. I was listening to a Mike Tyson interview and he said he likes to suffer. I was like, oh my gosh. Some days I'm giving a bottle of wine and Che's lounge, and some days I'm down to clown and suffer. But if I'm being honest, can we get a balance? The point of my TED talk is if we had a choice between comfort and discomfort, obviously we would all choose comfort, but sometimes that means that you're stuck. I don't know if I'm making any sense because I'm just trying to do this in one hot take and then edit it out later. So this all might come out. It might stay in. I don't know. Let's just see where the discomfort takes us today. And I'm struggling a little bit to bring in the historical part, which is that's why we're here. We're chronologically going through life. And sometimes it's a little difficult because stories are threaded through all the way. And this process has been healing for myself. I will tell you that. I feel a lot more free yapping about things on the internet. And it has helped me realize that again, some of the things that I went through happened for me and not to me. And that's been helpful. That's kind of the point I was trying to make a bit earlier. And then we went on a random tangent of a TED talk. But here we are. But I'm seeing where this takes us. A lot of you guys just like the rants and when I go off the cuff about random things in the world, which I'm trying to incorporate that. But again, we're still here for the memories. So we're in fourth grade, and what I failed to tell you about is that my stepdad enters the chat, and that happened around second grade. It was shortly after the divorce, and he was driving a red sports car. He got us candy, he maybe took us to the park sometimes. We thought the stepdad was so cool until we didn't. And my mom got to move very fast, right? From somewhere from eight to ten, she's now married to my stepdad, and they have a little girl this year, my sister Margot, who I love and adore. So I have a brother and a sister from a different mister. Yep, you heard it right. And I adore them and I love them. But I have to also tread lightly because this is their dad, who's no longer with us, and we'll get to that part. But I am trying to introduce this kindly and with compassion. Also, this is my story. So tune into their podcast if you ever want to hear their story. And I remember during this time, I'd ask my mom, why did you get divorced? And she would say, Well, I'll tell you when you're older, which either means there's no reason or the reason's really complicated, or she just didn't really want to talk about it. And I'm 45 now and I still don't know. So I'm 10 and I have a baby sister who's born shortly after my 10th birthday, which was very cool. But also, I was a horrible big sister to my sister. I wasn't trying to get more sisters, if you know what I mean. I was really self-absorbed in my own world, wanting to be an only child, and here I am with another sibling. I don't think I was the best big sister when she arrived. I liked it that there was a baby, but I was still kind of like, this is kind of cramping my style of being 10 and getting perms. For now, I need you to put a pin in this. All you need to know, I have a stepdad, he drives a cool red sports car, they get married, they have my sister. It's cool, but also I'm busy doing fourth grade things. One of those fourth grade things was at the beginning of the school year, I got the teacher that nobody liked. Everyone said, avoid this teacher. Some of my friends also were put into this fourth grade class, and their parents cared about them and weren't having babies, and called the principal to say, Hey, we don't want our child in this class. Can you swap it on out? And so they did. And I remember crying on my way often to fourth grade. I was very nervous about all of the rumors that I heard that she was going to make us write multiple sentences on the board and whatnot. Let this be a lesson for you. What is good for the gander might not be good for the goose, if uh that makes any sense at all, which it probably doesn't. But what I'm trying to tell you is I ended up thriving in that fourth grade year. That was one of my favorite teachers. She had very short golden girl hair. I had very short golden girl hair because I got a perm and chopped it all off and looked somewhat like a boy. That's doesn't matter, but maybe that's where we bonded. I don't really know. But I did love that class and it was one of my favorite teachers to date. And so if I had let the worries and fears of others convolute my way of thinking, I wouldn't have had that experience. And so it goes to show, again, what happens to you is actually happening for you, especially when it comes to your mom being pregnant and not calling to get you out of the class so you can be with your other friends and have a really great year. I don't know the flip side of that coin, right? But I do know that I had a great experience and I made the most of it. And let that be your lesson. If you find yourself in a crappy situation, do your best and forget the rest. And as the great universe would have it, this week with my son winning all of the awards, I get to reflect on one of my favorite moments, aside from getting a newborn sister and a member of my family who I will love and cherish forever. I had this moment of winning an award in fourth grade. So I did Odyssey of the Mind. Now it's called Destination Imagination, but some places still have Odyssey of the Mind. It is this quirky brainiac club, similar to Girl Scouts, but you do more puzzles and logic and put on plays that have to have a different theme. If you were a more of an engineer type, you were building things out of toothpicks that could hold a Hulk Hogan, if you will. My team was built of my girl gang. Shout out to the girl gang. And we were called the thrilling thinkers. That is the name, and I love it so much. And sometimes I have to remind myself to be a thrilling thinker. There were two segments of Odyssey of the Mind competition. One was called spontaneous thinking. They would give you a question, for instance, tell us something that is the end of something. At the end of a pencil is an eraser, at the end of life is death, etc. So you would popcorn around, and each person that had a decent response would win a point. That was spontaneous thinking. And that was really fun for me because that's how my brain works. The other one that we participated in was we created a sketch and you had to show a certain theme. And our theme was transformation. And I don't know how we got there, but we did milk that was rotting or spoiling because it did drugs. Do not do drugs, Nancy Reagan, hardcore in this time. And we knew we didn't want to fry our brains as an egg in a frying pan. We did know that. So we decided to showcase transformation about milk that does drugs. I don't know how my character got involved in this particular play, sketch, et cetera. I think my character was the granny that owned the milk. And as a method actress at the time, I don't know, I'm 10. I'm just saying that because it sounds cool. We went on to go to state and at state in Denver. So we loaded up the bus, we went to Denver, and very rarely did our teams get to go on a state. So this was kind of a big deal. So in fourth grade, we busted on up to Denver. We're doing the thing. We're sitting on this hill. It might have been on a college campus. I'm not really sure. Can't remember. But I got an acting award, you guys, in fourth grade for my granny performance. That will be a place I go to when I'm dying. And just as a fun, fun memory. My legs were shivering as I walked up to the stage. Didn't get to make a speech, by the way. It but I got this thing called a Renata Fuska, and that's kind of an elevated award in this weird place of Odyssey of the mind. The way I'm describing it sounds like Dungeons and Dragons. It's not that, it's more of a creative, brainiac, extracurricular activity. But that was so fun for me. I really enjoyed it and getting to relive that memory to know that I did win awards too. And so I don't have to be that jealous of my child. From there, I think I went on to explore via the card catalog system and Dewey Decimal, trying to check out books of the library about how to become a child star. Because I knew I should have been an actress at that point. Of course, I would go home and tell my mom I needed book fair money and figuring out how to use the Dewey Decimal system so that I could research how to be a child star. Because remember, there was no internet back in the day. So I was at the book fair buying those books with Corey Haym and Corey Feldman on them, how to be a star. And my mom was like, Don't you want to be a lawyer? And I was like, No, I want to be an actress or a beautician. I didn't even call it a stylist, I called it a beautician because remember, I had so much fun at the Pueblo beauty school and getting my hair feathered and instead of wearing it just as a basic mullet, which is normally what it looked like. And spoiler alert, my mom didn't pack up all of her things like Taylor Swift's mom, and I didn't become a star. I'm recording a podcast in my living room essentially right now, trying to break into the industry. But maybe one day, maybe one day, even though I'm 45 and I don't think they hire 45-year-old actresses, but maybe one day, if you're hearing this, Hollywood, I'm available. I know we took some twists and turns here today, but I hope you walked away with understanding that bad things can turn into great things. And you should go out today and remind yourself that you love Claire Bear and you yourself are also a thrilling thinker, and you can problem solve and be the actress that you wanted to be in fourth grade. And if that's not your lot in life today, that's okay. I hope you still make it a great day. Your homework this week is to go get yourself a little treat or a big treat because you made it through May and we're almost there. We're almost at the home stretch of summer where we also stack our busyness and vacations and trying to work while our kids are on summer vacation, while trying to go to the pool with them, while trying to do 18 camps, while trying to do tennis, while trying to go in our front andor at deck chairs and have wine with our neighbors while we also try and get some rest. Okay. So if you get this far, get yourself a little May Day treat. Next week is a bit of a humbling episode. We're going to talk about mean kids. And there's a part where Claire is called a bitch in riding on a bathroom stall. So you're not going to want to miss it. Make sure you turn in next time. Turn in. Tune in next time. And with that, we've made it through another Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, friends. And guess what? I will see you next Tuesday. As a reminder, this podcast was edited, written, directed, talked to, started in by your host, Claire Bear. See you next Tuesday. I love you all.