Anne Lamott

- Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of GoodHang. Very excited to have our guest on today to see great writer and Lamont.

“And I know we've had writers on before and authors,”

but this is an author author. This is a writer writer, you know what I mean? And Lamont is a best-selling author who is written such books as Bird By Bird and traveling mercies and operating instructions.

And we're gonna talk to Anne about so many good things today. We're gonna talk about Jesus and we're also gonna talk about Mary. We're gonna talk about being a sweet and tender kid in San Francisco trying to figure out life.

We're gonna talk about finding love with people who are allergic to cats and you love cats and what do you do about it? And we're gonna talk about her new book that she wrote with that love, her husband, Neil Allen.

And it is called Good Writing and we're gonna get into that. So lots to discuss today with Anne and thrilled that she's here. And, you know, I wanted to find somebody who loved Anne like I did and was a fan of her books.

And I figured why not go back to one of my nearest and dearest friends and friend of the pod, the one, the only my favorite writer, Tina Fey. Tina? Tina Elizabeth Fey are you there?

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - This episode is presented by all state. Checking all state first could save you hundreds on car insurance, not checking how long that recipe takes

before you start cooking. Well, that's how you learn that simmer for four hours is buried halfway down the page. Yeah, checking first is a good idea. So check all state first for an auto quote.

It could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with all state. Potential savings vary, subjects to terms, conditions and availability, all state North American insurance company and affiliates, North Brook Illinois.

♪ Better, what do you say? ♪ ♪ How do I have the money, what's it really good to have you? ♪ - Hi, hi. - Hi. - Betty, thank you for coming on again. You are an official friend of the pod.

“You've been on now, I think, 14, 15 times.”

- I love it. - I want the one time I came on and remember I was all dressed up like a Gwyneth Paltrow and nobody caught on that. That was me. - Oh my god, you were so good.

- I just knew a really good Gwyneth Paltrow impression. (both laugh)

- Your hair looks incredible.

- Thank you. - Is this a blowout? - This is a blowout, and I'm putting a lot, there's a lot of breakage, but we're just gonna press through. We're gonna press through.

- Are you at a point now where you're getting a blowout, even if you're not working? - For my own sanity, sometimes I go like, once a week, like a 1950s lady, also because I thought of walking around my apartment

with wet hair, can't take it. - Oh yeah, yeah, 'cause I can't do hair. This is like something and my right about, 'cause it's like exercise and hope and faith and every time I air-dry my hair,

I believe it's gonna come out better. And it never does.

- Actually, Ann Lamott, who is an amazing writer,

she's written fiction, she's written memoir, she's written, she's like an essayist, she's self-revealing, she's written in all different genres that I wanna talk to you about today. She has also written about hair, and her hair,

her body, like coming to terms with our like physical selves, like in, and she's really funny about it, like how she tries to reconcile, like we all do, like her physical parts. - No, it's so interesting when you were talking to Carol,

“we're not too about, you know, how old do you feel?”

- She's like, I feel 11, and did she say 11? - 11. - Yeah, and I get that, we do forget, there are times when you, you absolutely feel that way, and you just, and you absolutely forget about the carcass

that you're in, and how long it's been around. - I asked you to do this first part because you and I have talked about Amamott and how much we like her and like her writing. And I think there will be people listening to this pod today

that will be die-hard fans of hers, and then people that might be discovering her work for the first time.

If you were to talk to somebody who had never read her,

how would you describe her as a writer? - I would describe her writing as very honest and funny, and it's like meeting a new friend, when you meet a friend who you instantly go, oh, you're one of my people, you know,

because she's so direct that she is so, yes, she's just so unguarded in her memoirs. And I also, I love the book bird, my bird, I give that book to people all the time.

any kid going to college, it's just, it's such a helpful, demystifying book about writing, and yeah, you know, Anne's books that have turned to them many times in my adult life for too, too, too, too comfort. They are a comfort, you know, traveling where she is,

and operating instructions, and some assembly require the different phases in your life, that those books are all a tremendous comfort, and they make you, they help you feel less insane. - It's so true.

And the mod, I'm gonna find out more about her today. I've been like reading her stuff and preparation,

but this is actually, this is a first writer, I've ever,

I mean, other than comedy writers like yourself and others. But like this is the first like writer, writer, writer. - I was writers. - Yeah, froze writer, yes. It's a little more daunting to have,

I feel like I need to work harder.

“- You know, I think you're just gonna be great.”

And I think, I was thinking too, like, oh, yeah, what can I ask her, and I was torn up, like in some ways, I was like, why can't I ask her to like minister to us? I want to be like Anne, why is God taking only the good people?

Do you know Anne, why is what's happening? - It's so funny you say that, Betty, 'cause I feel like my instinct is to keep saying, and how can we help, help, like, and can you tell me? - And I wonder, I wanna ask her, like, does she get that a lot?

Does she get people saying, like,

and tell me how to, 'cause she does minister in her own way.

- In her own way, but it's probably that tough to do on this spot. Can I tell you some things that I try to make notes of, like, what would I ask her? - I'm a credible Tina, best student ever. - You can cut any of this out, 'cause--

- Okay. - Please, I thank you. - Let me see, and I got some new glasses, check them out. - Let's see, are a little more square. - Oh, they're my love, Sam.

“- All right, let's see, also I had sort of a game”

that I thought maybe we could look at Tina, doing all the work for me, yet again. This, guys, I just, this is an, this is an example of Tina's love language. I just wanna point out. You ask her to do, "Hey, can you jump on for 15 minutes?"

And Tina does research, and also offers up a game that she's thought of.

This is how she shows her love, and I am forever grateful for it.

Thank you. - Thank you for knowing that about me. This is my love language, like, I'm not, if I had to buy like a physical gift, I would struggle, but this is all I got.

As I said before, I would like her to minister to us and try to help us understand why God is only taking the good people and leaving all the turds behind. And the next sort of thinking, like, it might be, because she's a creative person, I wanted to ask her

some, "Would you rather?" Ooh, I have to say what those. So I'll just bank through these and you can edit them out as you see fit. And would you rather only be allowed to eat pasta

with butter for the rest of your life? Or, you can have anything you want at any time, but all of your meals will be served on a moving bus. (laughing) (laughing)

“So if you're hungry, you have to go down, get the bus,”

oh my, I like to bring it, and then you eat on the bus. Would you rather only be allowed to reread books you've already read or only be allowed to read new things and never look back? Ooh, Tina, that's deep.

Okay, and then this is the sort of game I was gonna propose, which is because Anne is so open and revelatory about herself in her writing. We feel like we know her, we don't really know her, but there's a game that I like to play on road trips

with my family where you pick a person and then everyone, the way your family is to guess who, someone that you know and who they're thinking of is you have to answer these questions, like, okay, if this person was a breakfast cereal,

what would they be, if this person was, whatever. And so I thought, and what if you and I like to try to answer these questions to describe Anne, but then ask her and see what she says. Oh, and see if we get close.

Perfect, okay, okay. So here's the ones I had so far, which is I started with if Anne was a color, what color would she be? I'm gonna say sort of a burnt orange.

I was just about to say a sunset orange. There we go. Oh boy, let's see what she says. I hope she gets it right. 'Cause we're right.

I don't know, look at my lights keep flickering. I'm gonna pick these bills. If Anne was a breakfast food, what do you think she would be? Let's not forget she lives in California.

So I'm gonna say like an avocado toast. Okay. What would you say? I'm gonna say, for some reason, I'm gonna say sort of like a porridge

with probably some kind of nuts, let's say California almond.

but I think a lot of brown sugar, like a sneaky amount of brown sugar. (laughing)

“Like a brown sugar that renders it back to unhealthy.”

(laughing) Perfect, delicious. If Anne was a holiday within the year, what would she be? Oh wow.

This is a good one because it really makes you think about what holidays you consider good and bad holidays. And I'm sure we've talked about this on this pod

and elsewhere, but Tina and I don't always agree

about what makes a good or bad holiday. I like a lot of holidays. Well, the biggest example being Halloween. Right. I like Halloween, Amy does not like Halloween.

No, it's for children. Halloween is for children. I'm gonna say Thanksgiving. Yeah, that's what I'm gonna say too. I don't think, I wrote Thanksgiving, duh.

(laughing) Thanksgiving, duh. Okay, so I hope she gets that right. Because gratitude and community and, yeah. Yep.

Okay, what if she was a house pet? What kind of some kind of pet? I think it's a cat. Yeah. I wrote down a cat also.

And then I also wrote down kind of, maybe she's kind of like a Greek cat,

“the ones that kind of mostly live outside”

and are pretty self-sufficient. But they come around sometimes. Also a little bit of a bearded dragon in that. There's, I feel like there's a stillness. There's a watch, watchful eyes.

And that she is able to eat cockroaches and still get nutrition of this. Still can't believe you have a bearded dragon in your house. You know what will happen. Is eventually one morning you will wake up.

And that will be bearded dragon will be gone. It'll lose some house. Yep. And you're going to fall asleep looking for it. And then it's going to be on your chest over your mouth,

sucking your spirit out. Good luck. Good luck finding it. (laughing) A day of the week.

What day of the week do you think I'm going to be? Well, I'm going to say it might be too on the nose, but I'm going to say Sunday. Okay, yeah. Sunday.

Come on in. You got to get that right. Because of faith and also I think because it's a day where you couldn't take it easy. Time yourself.

So true.

“And you have a little bit of Sunday blues,”

which Anne is in a fray of and is in a fray of talking about. I bang my lights to that. Yes. (laughing) That was all I prepared.

Okay, this is a perfect game. This is so fun. Of course, Betty, you come with a fully realized written game. Oh, God bless. God bless is right.

Thank you for that. I'll see you very soon. I will see you very soon. Thanks for your time. Love you.

Bye, love you too. Bye. (upbeat music) This episode is brought to you by visible folks. It's officially summer.

Whether you're planning summer travels or staying home to watch all the action in the villa, you need a wireless network that keeps you connected. And you don't have to splurge. With visible, you get unlimited 5G data and unlimited hotspot,

powered by Verizon for just $25 a month. So you can save and order some extra spritzes this summer. Visible is more than just a wireless plan.

It's unlimited wireless designed to always keep you connected

and there's no contract to tie you down. Switch today at visible.com. Plan started $25 a month or get the premium visible plus pro plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code, hang.

Terms apply, see visible.com for plan features and network management details. (upbeat music) And the mod brought me a package. - A care package.

- Oh my gosh, how are you? - Good. - Thank you for doing this. - Thank you, kiddo. - Can I open it now?

- First of all, beautifully wrapped. - Thank you. - Did you wrap it? - I had a lot of trouble with it. I want to say I had a lot of trouble.

- Are you a good rapper? - Can I have the ribbon back? - Yeah, there was a ribbon scrape. - Unless you really want it. - No, the ribbon is beautiful.

- Yeah. - It's my best ribbon. - What's the present? - Okay. - There's a bunch of things.

What is that? Okay, that's your mix because that's the hand of God. But it's a really special one because it not only has mother Mary, it has a baby goat. - Oh wow.

- Don't you love Mary? - I mean, how can you not love Mary, right? - I want to talk about Mary. - All right, we'll talk about Mary. I love her.

- That's my favorite favorite pair of socks. I got them in Paris, but they're from Japan. I only have worn them once, but not for years.

But I've always saved them because they were so incredible.

- Incredible. - Yeah, you know, sometimes if you feel worried or lonely and you put on socks that someone gave you they just could change your whole day around. - Oh, and I love these things.

- Don't you love them? - Don't you love them? - This is so nice. - Okay, now this is really special. You know, I hang out with a lot of sober people. And when COVID happened, the old ladies

that my favorite women's group started making miracle bracelets for the young, the newcomers. The women and girls who came in who were brand new

So I never wear these unless I need a miracle.

And that means I'm feeling very mentally ill and tweaked and clenched and clutch. Then I go get a miracle bracelet and I put it on. And I think I'm going to keep my hands off the spaceship till I hear back from God or whatever she's up to today.

And so then I put it on and I'm not kidding. It works 100% of the time. - This is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful miracle bracelet. And I will say it has a little bit of like a Taylor Swift energy too, which I've never heard about.

- It's just interesting.

“- Wait, wait, wait, you have to look at the cover.”

- Pocket blessings by blessings abound. Okay, so I'm opening up a tiny box with what looks like a little ribbon inside. And Anne, just to just let everybody know again, Anne has brought me a beautiful box of gifts.

And here's one that has tiny blessings. - Ooh, and it's a little blessing. - It's a little scroll. - A little scroll. Oh, wow, a little scroll with a blessing in it.

- Yeah. - Oh, my gosh. - Do you know? (laughs) And oh, and it says you are a blessing.

Coming in real hot and limott, coming in with all of these gifts. I mean, you've already given me so much and here we are at this beautiful box. And the mod is with me.

And I'm so thrilled. I mean, when I was thinking about being with you today and thinking about what we were gonna talk about or what I should talk to you about and all that stuff, I just had the moment where a moment you would remind me to have,

which is just like, oh, don't forget, you're just gonna be in each other's company. - Right, we're just hanging. - I know. - I know.

- It's hard to beat together. We've had this really nice friendship

but we've never been an actual touch before.

- Yeah. - I mean, it's funny because I feel like if I wrote to you and said, Amy, I mean, I need you. You'd say, okay, yeah. - What do you need?

And if you said that to me, I'd say, okay, I'm there. - What do you need? - And I would show up. - I know. - Wherever you were, it's not funny

and we've never actually been in the same room together. - I feel that too. - I really do. - I, I funny. - You know, you are a person who I just said,

will you be my friend? I knew said, yes, I'd love to be your friend. And it's a good, I always love to be reminded that I haven't met all the people I'm supposed to meet and I'm not friends with all the people.

I'm supposed to be friends with. And I feel like you and your writing and the way you include all of us in your life and your world is why I feel and boldened to do things like that. So thank you.

- You are a first author that we've ever had on good hang.

- Oh, wow. - And it means a lot to me that you're doing this. When I talk to other actors and performers, I feel like, we're, we're sharing a vocabulary, but there is just a funny thing that happens with writers

where people like myself wanna make sure that we sound smart. - I know. - Well, I feel like too all the time with the D1. Oh yeah, yeah.

And I have to do a special draft of everything I write. Well, I go through and I take out the lies and I go through and I take out all the stuff that I just shoehorned in so that we'll put people think kind of smarter than I am or that I'm educated.

- Yes. - And then I take it and I go, it's okay, honey. You're just where you are. - It's fine. - Isn't it funny?

We just keep doing it. Same thing with advice, like someone told me one time like wait until someone asks you for advice to give it. And no one ever asks. No one ever actually asks, what do you think I should do?

- That's so hurtful. - Amy, what do you think I should do?

“- I think you should just keep doing what you're doing.”

- Okay. - I feel like, and do you get this a lot because I'm already feeling this way where people say to you and tell me, like do they want you to kind of emotionally lay hands on them

and make them feel better or different? Do you find people asked out of you? - A little bit. - And what's that life? - Well, you know, I've been a Sunday school teacher

for 32 years, so I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve. I've recently retired, but I was sitting with my kids and it's a tiny failing church. So there might be four kids there and they could be a four year old up to a 15 year old, right?

And I do this thing called loved and chosen with them. And so I might go, sir, anyone here, wearing a sort of navy shirt with pink's grid on it. Well, you know how little kids are they go? - Yes.

- And wave it me, and I go, oh, Amy, you are loved and chosen as is. Why don't you come sit with me for a minute and I do it, but it might be like as anyone wearing Pokemon two laces, right?

“But that's what I just tried to convey to people”

that you know, you're loved and chosen and you're exactly where you're supposed to be and I really care and kind of get you glass of water.

used to say the names at the end of his show, remember that?

“And he would look through and say, "And I see,"”

and he would say all these names. I need to be kind of waiting to see if your name came up. If he could see you, it was such that's an example of just like little people and big people. They just want to be seen.

- They just want to be seen, certainly. - Yeah, we all want to, I mean, that truly, if I was to sum up what you're writing does for me, is it makes me feel less alone and it makes me feel seen. And it also gets rid of the mystery of things

that I think keeps us apart from each other. I want to talk about all of that today and all the stuff that you've written. And I kind of want to start if it's okay with talking about the stuff that you write currently

in real time all the time. 'Cause you're here to talk about your new book that you wrote with your wonderful husband, Neil. What are your steps when you're working on something where you're calling yourself out,

where you're taking you? - Oh, I edit me the way I would edit you. I edit me with a lot of gentleness. I'd say to me, or you, I'd say, you know what, Amy? I love this, but I think maybe it goes somewhere else,

not in this piece you just handed me, which means it doesn't work here at all, but I would say it in that way. And I would say, it just feels a little bit like

on the first page, like you're sort of clearing your throat

a little bit, but on page two, you start to get into it. And that's where you caught mine.

“You know, that's how I would talk to you.”

And now also, you know, your parent of sense also. And, you know, nothing worked, right, but bribes and threats. - I mean, anything else? - No, no. - No, I have some threats.

So I'll say, okay, and if you write this one passage, we're gonna stop and go for walk. We're gonna stop and watch MSNL. We're gonna stop and have a half a sandwich. - Yeah. - And treats at the end.

- And threats, if you don't. And so I'm strict and friendly with myself when I'm working and writing. And I do a lot of bribes and threats. And somehow, you know,

and then I write incredibly terrible first drafts. And then I go back and I take out half. - Yeah. - I take out half. And that part's so painful. I don't know if it's the same with you as a comedian,

but it's like you hate to just lose something. You loved and thought really worked for it. - Well, anytime you think anything works, it usually goes away.

Like, it's always like, oh, that's the best joke.

And it never makes the movie, never makes the sketch because you've become so attached to it. You're just like in love with it. And then someone goes, well, you could lose this first piece and you're like, my favorite joke.

- We can't be friends anymore. - I know of just a commit for the great writer

“from Oakland said, you have to kill your little darling's.”

- Yeah. - And you have to go through. And all those lines, I used to try to get you to think something about me, like that I'm smarter than better than more ironic. Well, anything, I just have to cut.

'Cause then I'm gonna head it to my husband. My current husband, Neil Allen. And he is gonna notice it. And he's gonna say, you just don't need this. And he's gonna market.

So it's better just to do it before. - Now, you were referred to Neil as your current husband. - Well, he's also my first husband, yeah. I got married three days after I started getting social security.

- I cannot wait to talk to you about that because the way you write about and have shared your feeling about partnering up in later in life is like, I've gotten so much from it. But before we get there, I discovered you with hard laughter,

which was that your first book? - It's my first book, that was 45 years ago. - Wow, how old were you when you got that book? - I was 24 when I sold it. I think I was 25 when I published it.

Yeah, I mean, it was just an amazing break. - How did you get that first break? How did you go from writing and being published?

- Well, my dad's agent had always agreed to represent me

if I ever wrote anything representable. My dad was a well-known writer. And I kept sending you these stories. And you know what they do before you kind of hit, before you really come up with something.

Oh, this is like when a kid makes you something like an ash tray out of clay with the dance for the cigarettes, this it only, did you make that so much use? I was like, oh, did you make that?

And they were just terrible. And then my dad got sick, which as you know, from hard laughter, he got a metastasized melanoma in his brain. And we knew he wasn't gonna make it because no one ever had yet in '77.

And so I started writing a book about how a family stays afloat when an anvil has dropped on the family. When a center of the end of the family is not gonna be there forever. And a lot of it was that we were laughing, you know,

And I've always said that laughter is carbonated holiness.

If you're laughing in a really tough patch of time, you're on a holy ground. And my brothers are funny. And I wanna try to love letter to my dad, so he would know how my brothers and I felt about him.

And so I changed it a bit in that. There was always a little bit of hope in the novel that he was gonna be okay, which we knew he wasn't. And I sent off six chapters and my agent loved it. And it was really rough, you know,

which is like she saw the diamond in the rough or something, you know? And she showed it to an editor at Viking, Kirk Smith. And he loved it. It was just strange.

“And you were ready to get while your dad was ill, right?”

And I finished it and sold it by the wall. His brain was still working. The last eight months or so, he was really not very functional. But he, you know, called me to tell me and had read it and loved it.

And I mean, that was like the great miracle of my life. Wow. But the first two reviews I got were pre-pub reviews, publishers weekly and Kirk's. And I got him in the mail.

I mean, I don't know if your audience has even familiar with waiting for mail to find out news about your career and your finances. But I got these in the mail from an agent and they just were terrible reviews.

They just said, we hate her. She's right about thinking she's a loser as demonstrated in this new novel. So you get your first terrible reviews and you have to make a decision there

about what you're going to do with them. What do you do with them? Where do you put them? Well, then they were,

they don't, I got it, it was amazing.

“Well, luckily, I was still drinking at the time.”

So I got through that. And then I didn't have a scent, literally, in the world. But by hooking by Kirk and by good friends, I got the money together to go to New York for publication and and Tyler, when I have favorite writers

to this day, wrote this raid in the New York Times book review. Wow! So right, so then you think, I've arrived. I'm the queen of the hill. I'm the total princess of all the earth.

And then of course, the next day, you get a bad one. Totally. (audience applauding) I was reading something you wrote, and I shared it with my friends just the other day,

'cause you do often engage with the world. And you kind of like tell us like, I know it's bad out there. You do the opposite of gaslighting, basically, which is like, here's the bad things that happened this week.

I saw it too, what should we do about it?

“And the what should we do about it is never anything that feels,”

I don't know, it just feels simple and right and real, and we're all kind of working it out together. Would you mind reading something that you wrote? No. So it's just this, so it was this little section here,

because I wanted to ask you about it. It was when you were 68, and you were writing about that year. Okay, okay. But turning 68 means you weren't born yesterday. Turning 68 means you've seen what you've seen.

You crane, sandy hook, the permafrost, marjorie Taylor Greene. By 68, you've seen dear friends literally ravaged by cancer, lost children, unspeakable losses. The midterms are coming up.

My mind is slipping, my dog died. Really, to use the theological terms, it is just too frigging much. And regrettably, by 68, one is both seriously uninterested

in a vigorous debate on the existence of evil, or even worse, a pep talk. So what does that leave?

Glad you asked, the answer is simple.

A few very best friends with whom you can share your truth. That's amazing. By 68, you know that the whole system of our lives works because we are not all nuts on the same day. You call someone and tell them that you hate everyone

and all of life, and they will be glad you called. They felt that way three days ago, and you helped hold them out of it by making them laugh or a cup of tea, you took them for a walk for a walk or a target.

The idea that we're all not nuts on the same day, I mean, talk about a blessing, and it is exactly what we're still dealing with right now, which is like, what do we do? The world just keeps spinning out of control.

Things just feel darker and darker and darker. What do we do? We make each other tea. We make each other tea, and we try to shine a little brighter. We laugh after shines this up a bit.

And so goodness and fresh air and radical self-care. You know, you might binge on below deck or don't tell anyone,

And radical self-care. You do what you would do with a close friend. You know, with a close friend, if she isn't even we're asshaped and you are here the one that says, "I'm on my way. I'll be there in 15 minutes, bring you all it."

I mean, I mean, I talk about it a lot here and just kind of show, by example, all of the friends that give so much to me and that I feel so proud to be a part of their group. But I feel like female friendship is different.

It's different. Why is it different, Anne?

Well, it's different because we have always

spent so much more emotional and truth telling than men. They weren't raised to tell the truth. They were raised to look good. You know, they're raised to seem or be powerful or to a mass, more prestige and power and money and whatever.

And we, under suit, I mean, women, our bodies are messy. Are the work of women is messy with a, you know, in the Christian tradition where the laughs at the cross and the first at the cave, you know, and we're there for birth and death.

And we're comfortable with it, you know? I was literally saved by girlfriends, the way other people are saved by Jesus or Buddha. And I mean, that literally, I was literally saved by chapter books too.

And I mean, that literally, I meant that no matter what

the world through it with me, I could still be with Shelley Adams

tomorrow. When I'm six years old and I'm 72 soon and Shelley Adams and I still walk two or three times a week. And when the world has just thrown all this horrible, bleak stuff at me, getting bed with and Tyler or Barbara King's

Oliver and there's going to be truth and there's going to be laughter and there's going to be insight and there's going to be just going to comfort my entire soul. And I feel that, and I love a lot of men writers, a lot of men and I've been influenced some, but I turn to women writers

for truth and comfort. Yes, I just do.

“I feel the same and I, and I think you're, like, I feel like”

by reading your writing over the years, I've also got to walk with your friends. Like, I, you bring your friends in your work a lot and you do that wonderful thing that is so loving, which is, because to me, teasing is kind of a love language and the way you tease

when your friends tell you the truth. Like when you talk about horrible Bonnie, for example, like, could you, could you speak about horrible Bonnie was my mentor when I first got sober, which was in 1986. And I was called her horrible Bonnie because no matter what I had on my

mind when I called her, and it might be disgusting, like for a new drunk, barely sober woman.

And she'd always say, oh, dearest, I am so glad you called.

And then she would say, everything was going to sort out at the end, which is what John Lennon says. John Lennon says, everything will work out in the end. If it doesn't look okay, it's not the end, you know? And so Mary Baker, Eddie, the mother of all new thought of Eckhart

told in Mary and Williamson, everybody says that, but Bonnie would say it in this loving mother, grand mother voice.

“And I, for a second, oh, no, I don't think you're, you know, I think,”

I don't think you understand the complexity of it. And she would just say, I know, darling. And so I was called her horrible Bonnie because she was ruined my bad moods. And she'd always make me have hope and face again.

And that when you're with people that help you understand that it's the inside person that just needs to feel, to connect with their loving, sweet, generous heart, that is literally what heaven on earth is like, is when you connect with how generous your heart is, even though your mind is like, you know, cranky and cringy and trying to figure out

who to blame in my case, I think you're fine. But in my case, usually the default step is to figure out who to blame. Oh, yeah, and then I can relax. Oh, I mean, and also, you know, I don't know about you, but of the two emotions, anger and hurt, I'd much rather be angry than her.

Oh, yeah, I mean, please. Angry all the way all the way. So I'd much rather be mad than sad. Oh, of course. Sad's the sad is, it is not where I want to live.

No.

“So let me tell you what is in between those, I think,”

and it's one of the things I wrote down. What keeps happening when we feel that separation from, like, if we're hot, if we've been hurt, or if we've gotten the bad review, or we've gotten the neglected, or kind of blown off, or whatever, paradoxically, when I feel, I think a lot of the women I'm close to have felt,

you just go into that shame spiral, right? Instead of just crying or feeling grief. Yeah, so tell people what operating instructions for people haven't read it is about. Oh, OK, let me go back and say, when my dad got sick,

I did what you do. You go to the library, and you look for books by people you respect who have been through a similar circumstance, and you read how they got through it. It's our only hope, mine, most of the time.

because it was unseemly that you can talk about death or dying.

“Yeah, you know, it was just like, whoa, what a buzz kill, right?”

And so when I had a baby, I went to the library to find books, and I was single, and I was broke, and I was usual. And there was just nothing about the fact that it can be so boring. Yeah.

And I had infant and pretty soon, the infant got colic, and I would start it right. I started keeping this journal. And like I'd write things like that one night, just strung out on extended exhaustion.

It's unbelievable. I thought about wrapping up my baby really carefully, and blankets, and putting them on the porch for the night, just so I could get one night sleep,

because you know, it's like put your own oxygen mask on first.

And no one had written stuff like that yet. No. Or I had written at one point. I saw he had gone down, and I could cry with my love for him. And then I wrote, oh God, now he's raised his loafsome reptilian head.

And no one had written that before. That's right. And so people were like, oh my God. So then the next book after that was my first writing book, which was called Bird by Bird.

Right. So it went from that to Bird by Bird.

“And then I think I wrote some more novels.”

Now, and I think about operating instructions, and I remember reading it before I had kids, and I didn't understand, I understood later what you were actually really talking about about that. Those early times when you feel sleep deprived,

and like the only one getting it wrong and all that stuff, you're right, what you did, it's still transgressive, still to say, I'm not completely and madly in love. I'm actually really stressed out, and I'm not feeling the bliss I'm supposed to feel.

Or I don't think I'm doing it right, or there's still this crazy amount of pressure for young mothers to have to instantly be in love with a new role that they have. The shame of being a parent is just something that just hadn't been talked about at all.

Even the realization that your parents or people is a relatively new idea that your mother was a girl, and that your parents are people. It's not that old of a thought. Yeah, yeah, it's true.

So I don't want to do the same thing with writing, because all existing writing books said, if you did certain things, probably an outline. And this and that and the other that things would go well, and you would almost certainly sell your book,

and then you would have really, really good self-esteem all the time. And I wanted to say, this is how I do it. I sit down, and it goes badly most days. I sit down with the bad self-esteem, and the raging e-goping pong game, and I start writing,

and it's awful. It's unreadable. It's got awful, but I have a secret. I keep my butt in the chair, and I know to write really terrible first drafts.

I know, and a lot of writing students don't believe that the writers say love most in the world. The books say love most in the world began as God awful, overly long, purple prose first drafts. And you ever find other writers pushing back on the idea,

or your ideas of that, because when you say that, what you're doing is you're opening up,

you're like, you know, people always believe

there's some kind of special room that only certain people are allowed to go into, and there's certain vocabulary of case people out of the room. And when you open up the door and say, come into the room, or here's how we do it here.

Other people that are in the room don't always like it. Do you ever feel that, or did you ever feel that when you were first writing about writing? Almost every one I've talked to ever about writing. You said, oh, that's the same with me.

Yeah, but I just keep my butt in the chair, and I use bribes and threats. Now it's funny, because yesterday, Nate Silver, the legendary Nate Silver out of nowhere, not referencing me said, people talk about writing first drafts,

and that it's okay not to get it right as you're going. So I find out a great waste of time with something like that. Then I thought, well, that must be so nice to have a fully, to be able to be able to have a fully-formed thing.

“It's like when writing when Christians tell you what the truth is,”

and you think, God, that just must be so nice to be so sure of yourself. Like, I never am. Yeah, and they know whenever it is. Yeah, yeah. Well, okay, you talk about writing when Christians and Christianity,

and we've talked a lot about spirituality, and you, did you find your faith through sobriety? Is that when you became- You know, I found my faith drunk.

I'd always believed in God, and my parents were easiest,

so we weren't, and I know you were raised Catholic, and that's a very beautiful way to have been raised. I mean, some issues, but I'm putting that aside for a minute. Oh, I was going to get it. Yeah, yeah.

But, um, where did you first find God, as I was-

I was living across this. I was on a houseboat, literally twice the size of this table, with a sleeping loft in San Toledo, and I would be so hungover and I'd walk across the street to this flea market that was in this economically,

totally deprived place where the crack epidemic could take place, mostly people of color. Six churches in a place of 2,000 people, so, and there was this- because when you're hungover, you want kind of greasy food and a lot of coffee.

And, um, and I would hear music from the civil rights movement, coming out of this one, ramshackled church with this horrible, Charlie Brown Christmas tree out in front of planetary, that, you know, it looked like Birch and Russell at the end, and, um, but I could hear this music coming.

And I've been raised on civil rights music, and on Joan Bias, and the Weavers, and, um, Pete Seeger,

“and I knew all the words, and sometimes I think Grace”

means you've just run out of any more good ideas, and I'd run out of any more good ideas. I tried everything. I tried to stick to four or five social drinks, and the non-habit-forming marijuana, and some pills, and one day at a time, and I couldn't.

Yeah. So, I finally went and I sat down in this church, and the thing was they, no, there's like 30 or 40 people, same church, or that had been at all these 41 years now, and they didn't try to hassle me, they didn't try to get me to sign on, or they come to Bible study, or to figure out anything,

or to figure out who shot the Holy Ghost, they just could see I was desperate and lonely. That's the GOD acronym of the Gift of Desperation, and I sat there, and I was like desperate, but like, crabby, you know, and I couldn't relate to what they got me in water.

I always left before the sermons,

'cause I didn't want too much of the Jesus stuff. Yeah. And little by little, it just ground me down. Little by little, I started staying, and I just always got, and I got, well, I was drinking and trying to be other religions, that Jesus was the sweet, sweet shepherd, you know,

and he just, and he had this incredible mother, and that it was the ultimate Asis program, and that As I was, which was horrible, and messy, and promiscuous, and nuts, although charming, I mean, had a perfect life. I had three books published, I was well-known,

and everybody I loved lived in my county, my mom, my brothers, my cousins, and, but my insights were like Swiss cheese, and little by little, I could kind of bear the Jesus part, and so I started sticking around, and one day I was walking to my houseboat on the, along the dock,

and I was just gonna sound like I'm crazy, but I could just feel them, and I could feel like if a little cat, a little stray cat, was running alongside me, and I didn't want a little stray cat, and all my friends are progressive activists, they all worked at Mother Jones at the time, and it was like, I was kind of kicking

the little cat away, go, because you feed a little stray cat,

“you, it's on a stray cat anymore, you probably own a cat now, right?”

I'm not stupid, so, but then I finally just stopped,

and I don't, this was Grace, which is spiritual WD40, you know, without long sin red straw, that's, and it squirted me, and I just said, okay, fine, come on in. So has it now that you, that little cat came, what, what is that? What, how is your faith changed?

Like, I think, for people, when they think about faith, I think sometimes they think of it like a bank account, that just, you know, like, an account that gets bigger and bigger, like you get more and more and more faithful. Yeah.

Is that how it works, does it go away and come back? Does the cat go away sometimes and come back? Does it, what, how does the cat go away? Because I do the work, you know, I do the practice, and I study, and the practice keeps it.

And again, I do, I read the Bible a little bit every morning in my friends, believe in God, and a lot of them believe in Jesus, and in a non-annoying way, and, and, um, I just, that has, I mean, my best friend died is, you know, from operating instructions,

“when I was not that sober, and, and how do you get any?”

When she died? Yeah, how old was she? She was 37. That's right. I think I was 37 too. And I got sober when I was 32 and I had a two, three-year-old, you know, two-year-old, and, um, and it was very, very scary, and I wrote about it a lot in operating instructions, but, you know, I,

I don't have an interesting or sophisticated theological, no different than that day with the straight cat. And I have the, theological understanding, like a, uh,

really bright second grader, you know, and I, I don't have conversations.

People will say, "I can't feel God anymore. I can't feel God right now."

And I'll say, "Oh, good. I want you to sit down. Let's have a cup of tea." Or, "Do you want to go shopping? You want to go for a walk?" Or, "Do you want to light out on the couch with me?" And so, I don't have, um, interesting, um, intellectual answers about faith. I just can feel it. It's truth in me. I just feel it in my heart.

It's like I have a heart cave. And in it is my little one, my little Annie that I was well as, and, and my big old Annie, and, and Jesus and Mary, and I can just feel them. And I, for whatever reason, I just let it go with that.

“Yeah, I mean, it, even my question is interesting that I'm realizing, because I think there's”

like this idea that there's some deep second chamber, third chamber to all of it, right?

Like, that there's some, like, did you get to level 10? I do that. I do. I mean, there is none. I mean, that's the, that's the big, um, thing you find out in every department of life, which is like, you think there's some secret room. Well, all the cooler people, smarter people, more of all people are, and there isn't. There isn't. There's just where we are. We're about sorry, where our hearts are. I know. Well, um, yeah, I keep it very simple. I keep it very practical.

Can I ask you something? Yes. Do you think this is going okay? Oh my god, I think this is going great. Oh, okay, good. Let's ask Jenna, though. She's listening. Okay. I think this is going great. Oh, okay, good. And thank you for asking that. And I love that you asked that, because what I

wanted to say about, like, you are willing to kind of keep, you keep checking in. Like, it's

“important to check in. But that is, that's not always easy to do to check in. Like, kind of put”

dip your toe into the, like, there's the way in which we can kind of all live in our worlds of, I don't know, our comfort, comfortable worlds. And then we can sometimes, especially when we get older, I know for myself, have to kind of force ourselves to get uncomfortable. Like, we, we can comfort us really nice. Right. Right. But you also discover that it's in the disc comfort, and the dark nights of the soul, that the growth and the healing happens, because I would be

four foot seven, if I had had anything to do with how, how I was going to grow. I don't like discomfort. I don't like growing pains. I don't like mess. It makes me crazy. I've been sober four years. And I've discovered that that is where it's going to happen. It's like I'm not. And Jesus doesn't have a magic wand and tap you on the head and say, go for it's little one. You know, be happy and joyful. But Jesus and Jesus in the distressing form of other people, usually sits down next

to you, shoulder to shoulder and says, you know, I can just sit here for as long as you need and we'll be together and things will change. So do you believe this idea of, like, other, other difficult people are gurus for you? You know, that when someone's like, oh, he's your guru. She's your guru. Like, this horrible person is in your life for some reason. I feel that later. Yeah. I can tell when I'm really uncomfortable because somebody's annoying

me or, or they just seem so stupid or so wrong. Yeah. I can tell that something good is going to come of it in me. But I'm not, I don't want to sit next to them at the table. And it's I can in one of the many 12 step programs. I'm in this, there's one for people with tiny control issues that use the word intimacy to mean into me. I see. And when I have that feeling, I'm seeing in me, I don't love it. I'm not avoiding the beautiful, generous, silly, playful.

I'm avoiding the parts that are scared and judgmental, that endless judgment. But, you know,

“if you want to heal it, you've got to reveal it. And as soon as I can see it, and I share it with my”

best girlfriend, I start to get better. Yeah. You know, people say, "Oh, let go and let go of it." And I just want to poke them in the forehead with a plastic fork like they're a baked potato because if I could have let go of that, God, I definitely would have trust me. Well, that's when people say, "Oh, you just have to feel your feelings." And I'm like, "You've got to be kidding." Oh, stop. Please. Like, there's got to be another way that actually feeling your feelings.

I know, no definitely. But I share it with a friend because then you, at some point, you start laughing. Maybe you cry because of person saying, "You know, I have that exact same thing." And I have a lot of shame around it. And it's a kind of short core shame that you might be disgusting or not okay. It's not true, so it's not truth. It's not truth. It's something that, like my husband, Neil, we need to segue to Neil in a minute. But he does his work with it.

And it's just kind of like quietly controlling this in me. I know, I don't want to. Are you kidding me? There's nothing I love more than a woman. And a woman who's a little older than me who I respect having control this. Okay, good. Let's talk about Neil.

Well, you met on match. And match shock com. Well, there's a match wing for older people.

“I forgot what's called "artime." But I'm pretty well known in that barrier.”

And had you dated before? Or did it with a man for six years and I hadn't been with anyone

for a couple years. Okay. Yeah. And yeah, I've been in relationships before, but I had never

gotten married. And then, so I decided I would learn to date because I had never had to date. You just, certainly when you're drinking, you don't have to date. You just know. You're going to be with this person and they have cocaine or they have money or they have a car or they can get your cigarette lit or whatever. And after I got sober, I just didn't know how to date, but I was kind of new who, like the next hostage was going to be. You know? And you know

how to sit down and have coffee and get to know them. So I decided I wrote a piece. It's online. You can find it if you put in the mod and match shock com. I had a terrible year of dating. Like, I dated this one guy who had this bevels and bet, but had laugh. And I had to sit through the whole coffee and I was just going, hmm, like that guy in the three, two, just going, hmm. Yeah. I was like that. But people were men were bringing me manuscripts, stuff like that.

Oh, yeah. And it was just awful. God. Yeah. And one man said on right before a third date said,

"Is it too soon to bring you a plot treatment?" And I said, yeah, a little bit. And I never saw him again.

But so I learned how to date and I learned a lot about who I am and what I needed. This, what I wanted my whole life was a man who, if he were a woman, would be my very best girlfriend, my ultimate best girlfriend. I'd never have that. I'd always had it come. I'd been with a really, really nice man. And I'd, but it wasn't, he wouldn't have been my best girlfriend because he didn't have the depths and the kind of the layers, the archeological layers that a woman or the lasagna that a woman's

being would would present to us. And so then I saw this tall handsome guy on match, on our time. And he was spiritual and he, I thought overeducated. And but he seemed like he had a nice sense of humor. So I wrote him, and we wrote a little back and forth. Well, it turned out he's allergic to cats.

“And I have a cat and I live for the cat. For me, it goes, "Jesus, the cat, everyone else," right?”

And so I thought, "Well, I can't, I'm my grandson lives with that. So I couldn't be with somebody who was allergic to the cat because I'd have to go to his house all the time and I basically don't like to leave my house." And so we sort of, it didn't turn into anything. About four months later, I saw this really attractive man with beautiful face and a profile and I wrote, and I said, "Oh, I love your profile." And he wrote back, "You already rejected me. I think I'm not Jesus enough."

And I wrote back, "I could care less how Jesus, you are. It was just the cat." And he said, "Well, I have lived with cats. I'm violently allergic, but if you put brewery sheets in their kibble after a week, I won't be very allergic to the cat." And I thought, "That's a trick." It's a trick. That's a habit. And so I thought he was just either trying to get me to do whatever,

or he needed an agent or something. And we got together. And we've never been a part for a single day.

Unless one of us has been out of town, and that was coming up on 10 years ago. So that was how we met cute. No, I'm going to segue into it. And I love that. And he would be my best girlfriend. Yeah, he would. He just loves it. He loves to chat. You guys have shared interest. He loves, he loves the bigness of you. He doesn't have to dim your light around him. And he loves God. And it's not quite the same, but it's, you know, it's so much the same.

“But is that true that you wouldn't have minded if he didn't love God?”

It would have been hard for me if he didn't have God in his life, because it would have been like not speaking English. But his, what he is is, I would say more Eastern. Uh-huh. He has more Eastern traditions in it. But one of us will be writing. He's a very accomplished writer. And he might come in and say, can we talk about spirit? And I'll go, yeah, and he'll write down our all music. It's me saying, can we talk about, can we talk about the soul? And then I'll

scribble down everything he says, and then steal it all. Or he'll do the same. And so we have this we jam. You know, we do these endless jams in riff, because on the first or second first date, I think we both found out how much time we both spent with dying people. He was a hospice volunteer. And I've had many, many people who have died. And I've been with many people, because their families have asked me in, because I'm not afraid of it. You know, because I went through my dad and

Pam and a lot of people by now. And we talked about that. Well, who can you talk to? Like a date. And when he said, oh, yeah, I'm a hospice volunteer. I want you've got to be kidding.

services. And so then three years later, he asked me to marry him. And we played ripple for our processional. I mean, it's so, get, get kind of getting back to what we said in the beginning.

“It's so, it's such a good reminder to remember that we have not met all of people responsible.”

We have not loved all of the people who were supposed to love. Like life is still like, if we are lucky enough to be talking today, like, you know, like, um, I thought about this thing when I woke up today that that I haven't hanging in my house. And I thought of you, which is that dolly, very famous dolly llama quote, like every morning when you wake up, think to yourself,

I am so fortunate to have woken up. I have one precious life. Like it's just basically like, if you

are still around, you're still around. Yeah. So you and Neil wrote a book, uh, good writing. And the book is about, you know, good writing. Yeah, about kind of like, it's, I, I really like it because it is, but it's like, Neil's, um, very smart and helpful ways to get your sentences better. And then, and comes in to say, this reminds me of something and way to second. It's like listening to a conversation. Yeah. It is a conversation. Yeah. Yeah. The subtitle of good writing is, um,

36 rules to improve your sentences. And Neil had him on our first date. And I've been teaching writing since before Milton Burrell, you know, and as my father would say. And, um, and he had these rules because he was a journalist for 10 years at the Bergen County record. And they were all rules like, like, um, you know, like, lay your sentences, um, bringing in sense, bringing in the sense, take out the boring stuff. I forgot what rule it is, but, you know, right from good verbs,

you know, need to say Amy walked across the studio. You'd say Amy staggered across the studio. Amy tiptoed. Amy slump across the studio. Amy dancer, you know, and, and they were all brilliant rules. So then about two years ago, he said, I'm turning those rules into a book. I said, oh, that's great. It's a wonderful writer. So he wrote sort of meditations on each of the rules. And then I became, then I became convinced it's somewhere in this book. There was a place for me.

And I started talking on a shoulder one day and I said, you know, I know something about writing. And I wrote a very successful book about it once. And um, and I said, I really love to annotate your rules, you know, and lighten it up a little. I mean, his rules are great. And so I would come in and then I write my meditation. So it should frequently point out that he is

“overeducated. And there are rules that I think people can ignore. And instead, in my experience,”

what my work better is. Well, I like your, the challenger in me likes the idea of like someone having a rule and then someone getting to poke the rule. Like, and a good rule, it can can stand the poking. Totally. Okay. We do this thing on the pod where we ask somebody who is a friend of yours or a fan of yours or someone who loves your work or loves our guest to ask them a question. And I really thought about who to ask for this. And I realized I'm like, I should just ask my

old friend because my old friend Tina Fey is a huge fan of you. And she's an incredible writer.

She's one of the best writers I know. And her and I have talked about you and your books and your writing. And so Tina and I were talking about you. Just I hope your ears were burning in a good way. Thank you. So we were talking well behind your back. And we were, we were talking about the ways in which your book provides comfort and your books, your work, your posts, all of it, feel like it is a way in which in a world with so little comfort that you keep doing that for us.

And we're so grateful for it. And women pass around your work like what I imagine they did with medicine back in the day. It's really special. And I'm thrilled that she wanted to talk about you and and to me about you. So she had some questions for you. Okay. Tina was like, um, want to me to give you some, would you rather? Okay. Would you rather only eat pasta with butter for the rest of your life? Or you can have anything you want to eat

at any time. But all of your meals have to be served on a moving bus. Um, pasta. Okay. Would you

“rather be allowed to reread books you've read and that be the only thing that you're allowed to read”

or only new things and never look back? I read only books I've read and loved. Okay. Okay.

We've answered some of these for you. You tell, hopefully you'll get it right. Okay. And if you were a color, what color would you be lavender? Oh, we both got it wrong. We both said

Because I don't look good in that color. I don't mean like colors that I look good in. Okay. That's true. Tina, we got it wrong. So that's okay. If you were a breakfast food, what do you think you would be? Oh, mele. Yeah. She nailed it. Tina said some kind of porridge. Yeah, I love it, mele. If you were a holiday, what would you be? Oh, a beaster. We should have picked that one. When I heard a great line or read it somewhere, it said, we are Easter people living in a good Friday world.

And I love that so much because it's such a good Friday world. So what does that mean a good Friday world? Good Friday world is where they crucify Christ and it's dark in the sky turns black and there's no hope anywhere and all we see is power and evil in corruption and cruelty. And then two days later, we see the spring. We see resurrection. We see new life. So, um, you know, the cross looked like a big wind for the Romans and then two days later. No, it's Jesus and Mary going,

we're okay. You're okay. Come with us. Yeah. Okay. What kind of house pet would you be? Okay. Yeah. We got that right. Yeah. A specific kind of cat? No. And what is the best? What do you love about cats? I just love that that's like having a little monkey living at your house and they're so aesthetically needful of your love even though they pretend. Oh, yeah. My cat is an embarrassment. She is so desperate. And also she's stand-offish and I mean depending on their mood.

Yeah. Yeah. But um, I just, I always had cats and I always knew that if I could find the cat,

I was going to be okay. I wasn't alone anymore. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Dogs are too easy. I mean dogs love. I'm not going to name names, but dogs love anyone. But cats, you don't know where they are. No, it's awful. And I don't like that. I wrote a list about that in one of these books about, I was going to get buttons made that said, the kitten is not dead. The kitten is in the living room

“because I went through the kitten's dead with Neil. And I'll remember that. I'm touching. No,”

the kitten's not dead. The kitten's hiding. The kitten's probably in the living room. Yeah. The hiding is stressful for me. I like, I like the path that comes out to greet you. Yeah. But I understand. And then what day of the week would you be? I love Sunday mornings. Not because I'm going to church because it's Sunday morning and it's the Sabbath and you are commanded to do as little as possible. And I believe rest is a sacred act. And I, you know, it's the end of the week and it's just

such a luxurious warm blanket of a day for me. And the people that are listening like Sunday blues is a real thing. And it's definitely a thing when I have kids getting ready for Monday for school. Like that feeling of dread. We talked about it a little bit. How do you? Can you give us all, as I'm asking you to do this, even though I, I don't want to put you on the spot. But like this feeling, like, what do you do with your dread? How do you break it apart? So it doesn't

get so big and, and, and snowball into something big? Why do a lot of breast work? And I always forget

about that. I did breast work. Can I pray? And I, um, call a girlfriend or I go find Neil or my son. And I say do you have a minute? And then I say what's going on in as soon as you share it with someone

“it's lessened. That's the only way ever been able to let go is to share it with somebody. Yeah.”

Then it gets so much. It's dilutes it. It's so true. And so, and it always goes back to that simple thing of like just not trying to go in your space capsule and take care of it by yourself. Right. Figured out is a terrible slogan. It's a terrible slogan. And, and breast is Holy Spirit and breast is life. And, uh, and I pray I said, you know, a wrote a book called

"Help Thanks Wow," the three essential prayers. And I'm usually saying one of them, "Oh,

me help me. I am in a hole too deep to get myself out of or I'm going, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, that you got me out of that hole, thank you, the, or I'm stepping outside and going, wow, it's so beautiful in the world. It's so fresh and blue and the, and things are starting to bloom in California, the paper whites are blooming and, um, so I'm always saying one of those three prayers. Yeah, they always work.

Well, I'm going to say wow back to you, Annie. Thank you. Thank you for doing this. You're so, I mean, I, I, I, I'm just, thank you for my presence. You're welcome. Thank you for my hand. Yeah, with Mary and the goal. Give it up for Mary, shout out to Mary. Shout out to Mary. Yeah. Shout out to Mary, the original pop star. Right. Right. Who's who told that little boy,

“Diego, don't be afraid. I'm here. That's what she says now. She's at to us both right now. Don't be afraid.”

I'm here. You're okay. Oh, Alabama, thank everybody. Thank you for being here. Thank you,

I feel compelled to say what Anne would say, which is to remind you that

“good behavior and good action can be small and tender. It doesn't have to be a giant. I don't”

know, sweeping gesture. So on behalf of Anne's good works and in an attempt to just kind of, I don't know,

put a drop of goodness, a molecule of goodness back in the world. Maybe Moe your neighbor's lawn or shovel their driveway or leave a gift for them. Maybe put a little

“gift on your neighbor's porch today. Cookies that you made. I don't know. And right, from your secret”

admirer, but that might be weird. So don't do it like that. But you know what I mean? Just do something for your neighbor. Think about people around you. Do something small as Anne would say,

“give them water, give them a cup of tea. Say hello to people who perhaps haven't been said hello”

to today. And always reminds me to do that. I'll do the same and pass it on. Thanks for listening

to Good Hang. See you soon, bye. You've been listening to Good Hang. The executive produces for this show are Bill Simmons, Jenna Weiss-Berman and me, Amy Poler. The show is produced by the ringer and paper kite. For the ringer, production by Jack Wilson, Kat Spelaine, Kaya McMullen, NLA as an eras. For paper kite, production by Sam Green, Joel Lovell, and Jenna Weiss-Berman. Original music by Amy Miles.