Episode 275: Musings on Middle Age
Kate’s birthday is around the corner and she reflects on what it means to be middle-aged. Doree sees a pattern in her sleep (or lack of it) and what she does near bedtime. Plus, a discussion about “beauty shit we didn’t know, that everyone else knew,” and listener thoughts on press-on toenails and the power of Pond’s Cold Cream.
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Transcript
Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I am Kate Spencer.
Doree: And I am Doree Shafrir.
Kate: And we are not experts.
Doree: We're not, we're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Kate: And hello, welcome to this. Our first episode airing on a Monday. Feels just the same as when these episodes aired on a Wednesday.
Doree: It does, but this is our first week of one episode a week
Kate: In our feed.
Doree: In our main feed,
Kate: Which is access and our main feed accessible to anyone and here we are. Feels good. It's good to be here. Doree. And I will say we don't have a guest for this episode other than the two of us.
Doree: I know. I'm excited about this. It felt like a good way to kind of kick off our new schedule
Kate: And just see how we do as just the two of us.
Doree: Totally. I will say though, if you do want to hear more of us this week, we are airing an episode of Product Recall on our Patreon.
Kate: Oh my goodness.
Doree: And we always say that the product recalls are an iconic product, but this is truly an iconic product. So if you're a fan of Product Recall, you can tootle loot it on over to our Patreon. There is a seven day free trial, so you know, can sign up for the free trial. Listen, kind of get a feel for the vibe. If you're not feeling it, don't sign up.
Kate: That's okay.
Doree: If you are feeling it, yeah. Sign up also until through Thursday. You will get two months July 6th free. July 6th, you'll get two months free. If you sign up for an annual membership and any of the tiers after Thursday, you'll continue, you'll get one month free, but through Thursday you'll get two months free. That is our best offer that will ever happen and
Kate: We want you to have two free months.
Doree: Get it. We have two free months. It's at patreon.com/Forever35 and Oh. Yeah. And at the $10 level, we have also added ad free episodes. So if you're listening to this and you're just like, Ugh, I'm so sick of fast forwarding through your ads. We know that you fast forward through the ads. We know. We know you do.
Kate: Yeah. We get it. Okay. Yeah, It's alright.
Doree: Right. But if you don't want to have to do that,
Kate: you don't have to.
Doree: You can join at the $10 level and get ad free episodes. Okay. With all that said, Kate.
Kate: Here we are.
Doree: How you doing,
Kate: yo? Okay. Well, do you remember when we had Liz Glazer on the podcast?
Doree: I sure do.
Kate: And Liz was talking about the 750 word journal that she does.
Doree: Yes.
Kate: Well, now I've started this.
Doree: Ooh, How do you like it?
Kate: Okay. I missed a day yesterday that I'm not going to harp on the kind of obsessive need for everything to happen every day in order for it to be considered a success by my brain.
Doree: Got it. Okay.
Kate: I really like it has been helping me process a lot of challenges that I have been experiencing. And I have been, I am a writer who writes books as part of her job, and yet I have found myself startled at how long it takes to write 750 words. Totally doable. And I do it, but it really is, it's a muscle that right now for me is just kind of like, I'll, like, I'll be type and I'll type some thoughts and then I'll look down to see if I hit 750 and it's like 230. And I think it's not that the word, it's hard to write a lot of words. What I think it is, it really makes you have to dig a little deeper into what you're rambling about.
Doree: Totally.
Kate: Or you can just matter of factly describe, even if you're just walking through what you did in a day, it requires you to go deeper.
Doree: Yes.
Kate: And I know I'm finding that kind of to be an interesting exercise and I like it. I'm going to say that I like it. One thing that is cool that Liz mentioned about this website, and they have a free trial, and then I believe you do have to pay a monthly a, it's a small fee, but when you're done, it analyzes the words that you use and it gives you, not only can it kind of see your most used words, but from analyzing it kind of tells you how are you feeling today? What are the big throughline emotions that are in this journal entry? And that has been really kind of cool to see.
Doree: That is really cool. Was there a word that you used a lot that you were surprised by?
Kate: No, it's more, It was more just kind of interesting to see the emotions that are tying in to a lot of the things I'm feeling lately. And that has been interesting. And I think there's also something to be said for journaling. Again, I've only done this three times, so not, and I have journaled on and off in the past, and I journal daily, but in very small doses. But this is kind of long form writing. You have to really be willing to look at the things that you might like to avoid because I think because you have this kind of word goal count. That kind of nudges you forward to keep digging and keep writing. But I have noticed, well, I do tend to avoid feelings that make me really upset. And it's interesting that in sitting down to journal about stuff and having to commit to really getting a certain amount of words onto the page, I'm having to, or I am finding myself, I'm not having to, but I am finding myself kind of getting a little bit more up close and personal with the shadow side of things to borrow a term that upcoming Forever35 guest Rachel Carle uses in her new book, I believe she talks about the shadow side, the less appealing, the things that aren't great to look at the darker side of things.
Doree: Ok.
Kate: So that's been interesting. And when we talked to Liz, I was so moved at how she talked about how journaling really helped her come to terms with her desire to be sober. And I can see how that happens because you're just sitting there typing and typing and type in and you're like, oh, shit's going to come out that maybe you were keeping close to the vest. But when you're writing it out, it kind of has a way of appearing.
Doree: That's very interesting. Kate, is there, so is there anything you'd like to share or not really?
Kate: No, no. For me this is,
Doree: okay.
Kate: Well, no, for me, this is part of, and I didn't mean to go super deep, but at the beginning of the year, I chose a word or words that I wanted to carry with me through the year. And normally I do this and then I forget the word and that's the end of it. But this year it has really stuck with me and I've been doing more and more work kind of in this direction. And I think it has a lot to do with other work I'm doing on myself. And the words I chose were calm and gentle. And part of that is understanding the ways in which having a right to have just keep my things private in a way.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: I don't know if that makes sense, but just, I am such a verbal person and have written books that I've written a memoir. I love engaging with people, but I also am starting to really kind of figure out, especially for me, calm and gentle is the voices in my brain and the noise in my head and the way my attention span and the ways in which understanding neurodivergency kind of has deepened my understanding of all this stuff. So anyway, I'm on a little bit of a journey right now.
Doree: I love this.
Kate: Yeah, you'll hear about it more when we talk about the books I'm reading and stuff. They're all, A lot of the nonfiction I'm reading is kind of a part of this, I guess mean. This is where I find myself in this season of life.
Doree: I really like this. Do you think it has anything to do with it being summer?
Kate: I think it's more that my birthday is coming up. I'm turning 44. That feels like a really big age. It has a lot of heft.I'm Middle aged.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: And yeah, yeah, really thinking about what are my values and how do I want to show up in the world? And when I say in the world, I really do mean in the present living space because I do feel online for me is it's becoming harder and harder for me existing in the online world and how it impacts my mental health. So yeah, I don't know. I'm just really thinking about how I show up in the present. I don't know. So anyway, I don't know if it's summer. I think it's more just kind of really doing a really honest evaluation with myself about what I want and as a person and how I am not quite meeting my needs and the needs of others in my life.
Doree: These are big
Kate: woo
Doree: woo.
Kate: I'm also, I'm also putting a lot of jojoba oil on my nails, so I just want to make sure we honor the lighter stuff in my life too. I am just covering myself in oil. But yeah, I don't know this journal, and I thought journaling might kind of help me process a lot of the things that I have been feeling, but haven't really been able to put quite into words and also really help me do the work that I'm trying to do on myself, on myself, with myself, for myself. Anyway, that's new over here. Got really heavy on this first Monday episode.
Doree: Hey, that's what we're here for.
Kate: Speaking of heavy, have you been able to have any heavy sleeps lately?
Doree: Good one. Kate.
Kate: One thing I'm journaling about is my very poor segue work on the podcast and how I really want to improve how I do segways in conversations. So that's a big topic in my journal.
Doree: So I have been making an effort to go to sleep earlier, getting in bed.
Kate: Yeah, I've noticed because you're not on text when I want you to be. That's good for both of us. It's good for both of us. It's good boundaries.
Doree: Getting in bed in the nines versus getting in bed in the tens.
Kate: Oh, the nines. And when we're saying getting in bed, you mean sliding between the covers teeth brushed, you're in physically in the bed?
Doree: Yes, I am in my pajamas. I've written in my one line a day journal. I've done all my skincare. I've brushed my teeth. I'm in bed. And I'm usually reading at this point whether it's like or doing a crossword or something. And what's interesting is I have found that it's my body takes the cues from getting into bed because I will find that after 15 or 20 minutes, I cannot keep my eyes open. And sometimes it's like nine 40, which if I hadn't gotten into bed, I would still be watching TV or texting people or playing a game on my phone or whatever. And it's just been interesting for me to just see that my brain and my body, I, I've had such a regular bedtime routine for the past few years that as soon as I'm like, okay, moisturizers on teeth are brushed retainers in, I've written in my one line a day journal, I'm lying down, I only have my bedside lamp on. My body's like, okay, doesn't matter what time it is, it's time for sleep and I am able to fall asleep. So that's been very interesting. And then last night I played Mahjong, my monthly Mahjong game. And we didn't leave my friend's house until 10, which is quite late.
Kate: That is late. Especially if you've been sliding into bed in the nines.
Doree: Exactly. So by the time I dropped my friend off, because we carpool and got home, it was like 10:35, 10:40, and then I was sort of amped up. So even though I did get into bed relatively quickly, I was in bed I think around 11. I wasn't really able to fall asleep that quickly. And I woke up a couple times during the night just sort of, I woke up at one. I feel like my sleep was sort of disrupted, which was again, just interesting. I am, and I didn't drink alcohol, but I think it's just the act of doing something very stimulating at night, coupled with going to bed later than I have been has. It does disrupt my sleep.
Kate: So yeah,
Doree: It's just very interesting just to kind of observe these patterns.
Kate: Yeah. I was talking to a friend about this, about just what it feels like to be middle aged and how this would've never been a thought I had 15 years ago, 20 years ago. The idea that if I'm out a little bit later, just our bodies are just different right now. And it, it's a real thing. And I had no empathy for people in their forties and older when I was younger. And now I'm like, oh my God.
Doree: Well, what's been interesting for me lately with these sort of realizations is I had already had the realization that even if I have just one glass of wine, my sleep is disrupted. But I hadn't totally wrapped my head around the fact that even if I'm not drinking, my sleep is disrupted depending on what I've been doing before bed. That was a kind of
Kate: The Stimulation Factor.
Doree: The stimulation factor. Yes. And I found now, now thinking back, I'm realizing I've found that also if I exercise before bed during the pandemic, if I was like, I'm going to get on the Peloton tonight. I was sort of amped up, the other night. However, counterpoint to that the other night I did do an evening yoga class on the Peloton app that was very calming, and that did not amp me up. So I think, do you remember when I was doing the restorative yoga almost every night?
Kate: Yes.
Doree: That was very calming. So I don't know, maybe I'll go back to that. That was a nice practice. Anyway, it has been very interesting. And to your point, I think about my lifestyle when I was in my twenties and thirties before I had kids living in Philly and living in New York and just going out almost every night and drinking and going to bed late. And I'm just like, whoa. That is so foreign to me. Now I'm just in a
Kate: Did you smoke cigarettes?
Doree: No.
Kate: You were never a cigarette smoker.
Doree: I was not a cigarette smoker in college. I smoked a few cigarettes here and there, you know what I mean? But I was never right. I was never a smoker. Yeah, no, I was not a smoker.
Kate: I was,
Doree: Oh, I know you had your Parliament lights.
Kate: I had those pee funks as people call them. I went through a spirt phase.
Doree: Do people still smoke Parliament Lights? Do people? Well, I feel like people don't smoke. People don't smoke in the same way. Although I guess, I don't know. I actually know nothing about who smokes now and how they do it. So.
Kate: I feel like I read something recently where it was the younger generation has returned to smoking, they're rejecting vaping, but now they're smoking cigarettes. I mean, if you have watched The Idol, I've only watched one and a fraction of the second episode, but
Doree: They're all smoking cigarettes.
Kate: That person, well, the main character is smoking Capris. She's smoking skinny cigarettes.
Doree: Yeah, I feel like there have been, I've seen there is an Instagram account of, it's basically, it basically posts pictures of celebrities, cool celebrities smoking cigarettes. And I'm like, oh, are we back to the glamorization of smoking now? Because this won't end well, there will be some people that will be able to just stop when they feel like it. And then there will be some people who actually get addicted to smoking even though they thought it was a cool, ironic thing to be doing in their twenties. You know what I mean?
Kate: Yeah. Yes, I do.
Doree: Totally. Anyway, okay. We should take a break.
Kate: Oh my gosh. Okay. Yes.
Doree: So let's do that. We will be back in a moment, but actually before we take a break, I do just want to remind everyone that they can visit our website, which is Forever35podcast.com. You'll find links to everything we mentioned on the show there. We're also on Instagram @Forever35podcast. We also have our favorite products at shopmy.us/Forever35. We have a newsletter at Forever35podcast.com/newsletter. You can join our Patreon at patreon.com/Forever35. If you don't want to hear the ads that are coming up, join us there. And you can call or text us at (781) 591-0390 and email us Forever35Podcast@Gmail.com And we are back. And Kate had an idea for a fun little segment that she has appropriately titled Beauty Shit We Did Not Know that Everyone else knew.
Kate: Now, this stems from a conversation that you and I were having just in our lives, unrelated to this podcast about how there are moments, and I think this is specific to beauty culture, but I feel like there's this with everything where you suddenly realize everybody else knows something and you don't. And I had this
Doree: Basically a major theme throughout my memoir.
Kate: You basically wrote a whole book about this.
Doree: Yeah. Yeah.
Kate: Well, it's, I feel like sometimes there are with beauty culture, and I'm not saying this is like right, but there are ways in which we learn or are taught the tools and aspects of beauty culture. And then there are ways in which we are not. I feel like especially among college girls, white college girls, in 2007 ish time, maybe 2005, they were straightening the shit out their hair. And I just thought people had really straight hair. I understood chemical straightening of hair, and I understood perms.
Doree: Yes.
Kate: And I understood hair curlers in different ways of curling your hair. I was with a friend and she whipped out a hair straightener. We were going out and I was like, wait, what? And she was like, yeah, I have wavy hair. I straightened my hair. And then a friend, I was explaining my friend at the time, I was telling her this, and she very kindly gave me her chi hair straightener.
Doree: Wow.
Kate: Cause it was, the other thing is I didn't realize that you could spend $200 on a fucking hair straightener. It was an entire world opened up to me that I didn't know existed. And sometimes I still sit with that. And how there are things occurring right now in the world where I'm like, and obviously there are things occurring in the world that we don't know about that are literal atrocities. I'm talking about on a superficial level in beauty.
Doree: Yes.
Kate: Just these kind of things that are happening that all you're like, what? I didn't know.
Doree: Right. Well, I think I've talked about this before, but I feel like I learned a lot about beauty culture in the aughts from the gym.
Kate: Oh my gosh, what a great spot to get an education in the gym, changing room they were doing Get Ready with mees, but just in front of the mirror for nobody. You know what I mean? It was just a room of get ready with mees.
Doree: But it was in public, I mean, not public. It was in the locker room so everyone could see what everyone else was doing. And one of the things that I noticed, and I've talked about this before, was how many women wore thong underwear?
Kate: Oh gosh. Oh my gosh. Yes.
Doree: Not I was trying to look at everyone's butt, but it was just hard to avoid. So that was one thing. The other thing I agree, yes, at the time, flatirons were freaking everywhere. And I think the other thing that I noted that felt very foreign to me was the amount of time that some people took to get ready. They would blow dry their hair, then they would flat iron their hair, then they would put on makeup, they would it. And most of the time they were doing this in front of a mirror in their underwear. And I was just like, wow. And that was also at a time when I showered and blow dried my hair and put on a full face of makeup every day. But I don't think I had fully grasped the extent to which some people spent so much time getting ready. Not in a judgmental way. I was just sort of like, wow. I don't think I could even think of things to do for that long. You know what I mean? But that was interesting for me. But another thing kind of along those similar lines, as you was learning many, especially people on tv, how many of them had hair extensions? I didn't realize that that was not everyone's natural hair.
Kate: I've told you about the time, a friend of mine who is an actress, I just gotten to LA and she was working on a TV show at the time, and she picked me up in her car to go to dinner. And there was just a chunk of hair on the passenger seat. Have I ever told you this?
Doree: No, you did. No, you have not told me this.
Kate: And I was like, what the fuck? And she was literally just tossing it into the backseat. And she was like, oh yeah, we're all in hair extensions on tv. And that was another thing that blew my mind. I was like, what? Excuse me. And also you could just put in hair extensions for the day and then they would take them out and then put them in. So mean, this just also goes to the point of nothing we see is real. And we know this, obviously we're now in the AI world. But even something as basic as that. Right. Yeah. Nothing we see is real.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: Well, Doree, you, you've talked about wearing hair extensions on this podcast before. Correct? I can still remember the moment. This is way before Forever35 existed. And you and I would get together and write, we would hang out at Cafe 1 0 1 and sometimes we would see John Ham and, you told me that you had hair extension that, and that blew my fucking mind.
Doree: Yeah. Well, I don't think I realized until I got hair extensions that you could get hair extensions to kind of make your hair look thicker, not just longer. And because I had pretty short hair at the time, I, it was above my shoulders.
Kate: Right.
Doree: But it was just kind of intended to make my hair look thicker. I ultimately stopped getting extensions because they were very expensive to maintain. And it was also hard to put my hair up because it was hard to do it without showing the extensions.
Kate: Did it take a long time to get them put into your hair, put them into your, or onto your head?
Doree: It wasn't hours and hours. Cause I didn't have that many. It was more just that every six weeks you had to go back and get them replaced because your hair grows and you need to get them redone. And then if you know, want to grow your hair longer, you have to get new extensions because those extensions are cut to a certain length. So it was a lot of maintenance. You had to pay for the extensions themselves. Then you had to pay every time I had tape in extensions. So you know, had to pay every time to have them redone. And I forget exactly how much it was, but it was not that cheap at all. And I remember just being, I cannot maintain these anymore. But yeah, trying to think of there were there other things like that. And of course, this is just my perception and my sort of socioeconomic mil to say everyone was doing something. But I don't know. It is interesting to just observe those things or learn about things that you are, then why am it feel like I'm the last to know about this?
Kate: I think that's it. It's that kind of the title of Mindy Kaling's first book is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? I think is it, it's that kind of energy of just did everybody know? And there is this kind of, who gets the information, who gets the access. So much of that is think is based on, you mentioned economic, standing, race, class, all these things. And it's also perhaps a way in which beauty culture is used to weaponize those systems and keep some people out and bring some people in.
Doree: Totally. Yeah.
Kate: Who knew?
Doree: That's also a really good point.
Kate: Who knew I could get so much out of freaking hair straighteners.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: Well,
Doree: Yeah. And then I feel like there was, and maybe we're still in this period where people didn't, didn't want to have their hair be curly.
Kate: Well, yes. I mean, that is a whole other conversation about the ways in which hair, in particular, black hair is received in professional environment, all that, that's all connected, right?
Doree: Yeah. Yeah, totally.
Kate: Yeah, good point. And the way in which some people speak about curly hair is messy. And what that insinuates, without saying it.
Doree: Yeah. I mean, Taylor Swift says that her hair just changed from curly to straight.
Kate: No, Doree, what?
Doree: She says,
Kate: well, I shouldn't, okay, I shouldn't act aghast because I will say my hair was for the first half of my life, first 30 ish years, maybe even 35 years, stick straight, really straight. And which is why I just assumed anybody who I couldn't quite figure out how they got their hair so straight. But mine was always pretty straight. And then I now have weight. I now have wavy texture. So my hair texture has completely changed. And I think there is some sort of cyclical change that goes on hormonally that impacts the ways in which our hair can grow in. And I know things like chemotherapy can change your hair, texture, all these things, which I have not had, but I have not had. But so I don't want to say that it's not true that maybe she had curly hair and now it's straight. But her curls,
Doree: Her curls were very curly.
Kate: Her curls were like,
Doree: Yes,
Kate: Defined.
Doree: I know. It's verys. Interesting. It's very interesting.
Kate: So I have to assume they were being deeply enhanced and styled. And now,
Doree: Yeah, that's also possible.
Kate: Maybe her hair has changed, but yeah. Wow. If you look at the first cover of her album, she's got like,
Doree: Yeah, it's super curly,
Kate: Super curls. And that was in 2006. They were ringlets, if you will. She had a real ringlet. A real ringlet vibe.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: Oh wow. this is fascinating.
Doree: Yeah. But she has said, I found something from 2019 where she told L Magazine that she had the curliest hair from birth, and now it is straight. It's the straight hair. I wished for every day in junior high. But just as I was coming to terms with loving my curls, they've left me please pray for their safe return.
Kate: Oh, I see. She wants her curls back.
Doree: So now she says she wants her curls back. So I don't know. Interesting. Just a little tidbit there.
Kate: I mean, to quote Taylor herself, it sounds like her curls are saying, we are never getting back together,
Doree: Kate. That is what they're saying.
Kate: So take that.
Doree: All right.
Kate: Take that Taylor,
Doree: Kate, let's take another little break.
Kate: Okay. BRB.
Doree: And we'll be right back. Okay. We are back with one of my favorite emails. And what's so funny about this email is our project manager, Sami, was talking about people introducing themselves in the Forever35 Patreon Discord, because a lot of people were doing little intros and saying what they do for a living and where they're from, blah blah. And she was like, Forever35 listeners have the coolest jobs. And I was like, I know. They really do. And then not like an hour later, we got this email
Kate: Only proving your point further and Sami's point.
Doree: And I was like, Wow. Okay. So this listener writes, hi K and D I'm writing in regards to the pond cold cream mini episode 384. I'm not a star of the stage, but I do perform on stage at the Met Opera.
Kate: You're a star of the stage,
Doree: Just casually.
Kate: Come on. You need to own it. listener.
Doree: And I wear, I wear a lot of makeup for a living between 140 and 175 performances a season.
Kate: Oh my goodness.
Doree: My stage makeup removal routine is aire water. And then CeraVe SA cleaner, I believe that is salicylic acid cleaner, followed by my moisturizer routine. I've tried all sorts of balms and melts, including ponds, but I usually have to wash at least two rounds with a cleanser to get the rest of the gunk off. I've found this routine takes the make off the quickest and makes my skin the happiest. I'm a new listener and I've been loving the pod. Keep up, keep doing the good work.
Kate: Well, you keep doing the good work star of stage.
Doree: Seriously. My goodness. I was expecting when I read this and they said, I'm not a star of the stage. I thought they were going to say, but I do wear a lot of makeup or something like that. They're just like, but I do perform at the Metropolitan Opera.
Kate: I mean, how freaking cool is that?
Doree: Oh, that was so cool.
Kate: I have never been to the opera. Have you? I've never seen an Opera
Doree: I have.
Kate: You have?
Doree: I have. I have, yes.
Kate: What is it like?
Doree: To be honest, I kind of had no idea what was going on.
Kate: Well, because it's always predominantly not sung in English. Correct? And that is your first language,
Doree: Correct. Yeah.
Kate: Did you enjoy it despite not kind of understanding?
Doree: I did. I did. But I think I definitely went once when I was in grad school because I was in a arts and culture journalism program, and we went as a class and I wasn't compelled to go back.
Kate: Fair.
Doree: But it definitely a cool experience.
Kate: Yeah. I'm fascinated. I would like to go, I think we can see the opera in Los Angeles. I could also just YouTube the opera.
Doree: Yeah, lets go to the opera.
Kate: Okay. Okay. I think it'd be cool to see that live. All right. Well, listener, thank you for this. You do wear makeup. I mean, a 140 to 175 performances a season. That is a ton of stage makeup and stage makeup. It's a lot having done very local theater in college. I know.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: Stage makeup is intense.
Doree: Yeah. All right. Kate, do you want to read the next thing?
Kate: Yeah. I mean, this is technically for you, but I will read it. Doree, these are life changing. Thank you so much for letting me know these existed. I believe the subject of the email was something like fake toenails. I purchased dashing Diva for both my fingers and toes for a recent long weekend away. I used both the included adhesive strips and a brush on nail glue. It's now been over two weeks and my toes are still going strong. Why bother with pedicures again? My nails lasted almost a week, which as a lifelong hand fiddler and nail picker was a win for me. I'm hooked. Love, grateful in Toronto. Look at you toe influencer.
Doree: Listen, this is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying. The press on pedicure is really amazing.
Kate: Yeah. I had never seen anything. The moment I saw Doree's Fake press on toenails was one of the most powerful moments of my last five years. Because talk about not knowing that something could exist, and also that people are walking around with fake toenails. It blew my mind
Doree: Totally.
Kate: Now I will say I have been on a little bit of a nail health journey, and I do worry about the damage that some of these press on nails can cause on some people's nails. So I do just want to flag that they aren't like,
Doree: Have you done, you done a press on pedicure?
Kate: I haven't done a pedicure. I have done press on manicures, but I also have been extensively watching nail damage videos. Why not? Yeah, I mean hyper fixate in this way.
Doree: This is obviously anecdotal, but I did not find that presson damaged my nails. I feel like my nails got more damage from gels.
Kate: Totally. Well, I think that's good. A good to point out. It's definitely not everybody. I just have the kind of nails that get damaged if I sneeze, but
Doree: Well, maybe don't sneeze.
Kate: I try not to Doree, but I mean truly, I've never seen anything look more natural than when you had fake toenails on.
Doree: Yeah, they were really good.
Kate: It blew my mind,
Doree: And if everyone recalls it was because my nails had been damaged from getting nails like a fungus.
Kate: Yeah, that's right.
Doree: It's really, really pretty gross. But even if I had put nail polish on them, you would've still been able to see the texture. It was very obvious. And so in desperation, I was like, let me try these press on nails. And they were a revelation.
Kate: Have you worn them recently or because your toenails have kind of grown out, are you not really back in the saddle?
Doree: Yeah, because my toenails are, knock on wood healthy ish now, I've gone back to getting pedicures just because I, having my feet more tended to and nail my nails shaped and such. But certainly for a long time the press on pedicure was a lifesaver for me. Well, Kate, I believe we have come to the point in our episode where we talk about our intention.
Kate: Well, last week on the last episode, I had shared that my intention was figure out what I want to do for my birthday. And at some point a few days ago, I received a text message from one Doree Shafrir that just said, what are we doing for your birthday? My answer is, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what I should do. I'm kind of having decision making paralysis and I want to figure it out on my own. I feel like you were very kind and asked if you could help, and I just kind of like don't know. I don't know.
Doree: That's okay. I asked because I was listening to the episode where you talked about it, and so
Kate: you were holding me accountable.
Doree: It was top of mind.
Kate: I appreciate that.
Doree: I was like, lemme just see if she's had any thoughts.
Kate: I havent. I keep coming back to a couple things. One is to invite people over to just do some gentle crafts and then the other to have a dirty dancing movie night.
Doree: Cute.
Kate: Because I haven't seen that movie in a long time. And I like a romance, but I just haven't gotten that. I haven't gotten that far. And then I kind of run into my same panicky nervous feelings about hosting and asking people to show up and all that stuff. All my stuff.
Doree: I know. I hear you. I hear you.
Kate: I made, I'm work it out.
Doree: What about this week, what do you have going on?
Kate: This week is to keep working in my 750 words journal and stick, try to stick with it. So that's where I'm at. But I'm going to have to do it after we record. I didn't get to it this morning. I would like to make it a first thing in the morning practice, but right now it's going to be right after we record this podcast practice, which is fine. It's, it's great. How about you, Doree? Last week you were having some trip anxiety.
Doree: I wrote about it in my newsletter, which you can find Doree.substack.com if you're interested. And this week I have a sort of related intention. By the time you hear this, I will have already flown across the country, but I am going to try to be kind of chill about travel as we're recording this. There, there's been, I've reading about airline meltdowns essentially, partly due to the thunderstorms on the East coast and then a sort of cascade failure of staffing and et cetera. And I'm really hoping that these things work themselves out by the time we fly. So hopefully we're flying into Boston, which seems to be having fewer problems than New York. New York seems to be a major problem, but who knows what will happen. And I'm trying to just be calm, accept the things I cannot change, but at the same time be as prepared as possible for unexpected delays or whatever. Which includes for me, because I have a four year old bringing a lot of food, bringing changes of clothes, bringing backup power sources, backup headphones back, just all the things. And of course you can never prepare for every eventuality, but I'm going to try to just hopefully make things as pain free as possible. So that's what I have going on this week.
Kate: I think that sounds great. Well, thank you. I have become kind of obsessed with travel hacks. I would love to discuss this once you get back. Maybe we can talk about it deeper on an episode because I definitely am trying to figure out strategies to make travel when I get to do it, less of a struggle.
Doree: Totally. But you're, you're not going to wear a fishing vest through security.
Kate: Is that a thing people do?
Doree: There's like this woman who I guess on TikTok does all these. They're mostly, I think, packing. She does a lot of packing hacks. So she's worn a fishing vest stuffed with, she put a laptop in her fishing vest.
Kate: Stop it.
Doree: Yeah, so she'll, it's basically another suitcase. And then she also took the stuffing out of a neck pillow and stuffed it with underwear and socks.
Kate: I've seen that that before, which is fascinating.
Doree: I mean, so stuff like that,
Kate: I could get to that point for sure.
Doree: For me with a child, I don't think I can go there, but if it was just me, I would explore these things.
Kate: You would be in a fishing vest for sure.
Doree: I would maybe be in a fishing vest. Anyway, thanks everyone for listening. Again, if you want to hear more from us, patreon.com/Forever35. If you don't, that's also fine. Forever35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrir and Kate Spencer. Produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager, and our network partner is Acast. Thanks for listening. Bye.
Kate: Bye.