Mini-Ep 472: Grape Popcorn and The Hairy Questions
Listeners call in asking about advice for public speaking when you’re nervous, how to promote hair growth on your head, and figuring out how to have a happy life.
Mentioned in this Episode
Dear Sugar on having kids (or not)
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Transcript
This episode transcript is AI generated.
Doree Shafrir (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shaffrir.
Elise Hu (00:16):
And I'm Elise Hu, and we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Doree Shafrir (00:20):
And this is a mini episode where we hear from you, we share your comments and your thoughts, and we answer your questions to the best of our ability. But please remember, we are not experts. We are podcast hosts, and we always encourage you to seek support first and foremost from a medical and/or mental health professional as needed.
Elise Hu (00:38):
We sure do. And sorry, I sound like I'm about to lose my voice because I think I'm about to lose my voice. No.
Doree Shafrir (00:45):
And
Elise Hu (00:45):
I don't know what I'm supposed to do to try and keep it from happening. I've been having tea. We ran out of honey because I put too much of it in our lemonade that I was making or limeade I was making from our lime tree, our abundant lime tree in the backyard. And I don't know. I think there's some hack about gargling with apple cider vinegar that's supposed to work. So I might try that. I don't think we're going to get that much vocal rest over the next hour, hour and a half, so not going to be able to do that.
Doree Shafrir (01:11):
Do you think you're getting sick or do you think you just have been talking too much?
Elise Hu (01:16):
I think I've been talking too much and then I've been shouting too much. I got in a big shouting match yesterday with Ava and it was in the car and we were both shouting at each other at very high volume. Anyway, I felt my voice kind of go scratchy last night because then I ended up out at a holiday party. And this morning I woke up and I was like, "Why do I sound like former Arizona governor Jan Brewer?"
Doree Shafrir (01:39):
Is that her last name? Wow, that's a deep cut.
Elise Hu (01:43):
Yeah. So maybe I will let you do most of the advice giving today.
Doree Shafrir (01:49):
Well, before we get into that, I just want to mention that we are running a sale on our Patreon right now at patreon.com/forever35. It's 20% off for the next week-ish. And if you're listening to this on the morning of December 10th, it is not too late to join the Patreon and come to our casual chat live recording today
Doree Shafrir (02:14):
At
Doree Shafrir (02:15):
7:30 PM Eastern 4:30 Pacific. We'll be chatting live on Patreon and you just have to be a paid Patreon member to get access to that recording. So come check it out.
Elise Hu (02:29):
Yeah, I'm really excited about that. Also, the other cool thing about Patreon is I feel like our community is in conversation constantly anyway because we have the running chats going. We have a general chat going and a separate pop culture chat going. So if you're a Patreon member, you can jump in on that at any time. And people just kind of shout out with some questions and things that they're looking for or stuff that they're watching and reading that they like on the pop culture chats. It's fun. And I've gotten a lot of great recommendations and solidarity and things like that on there. So if you're not already on those chats, you can join us there at any time.
Doree Shafrir (03:06):
Very cool. Well, Elise, I know you're not feeling great, but what's been going on with you?
Elise Hu (03:16):
Oh, we have a big shoot coming up for Wind Sweat, my documentary because Christmas Tree Lane is going to get lit up again. So in Altadena, California, which burned in the Eaton Fire in January, they have, I think, the oldest Christmas tree lane in America, if I'm not mistaken. And it is on Santa Rosa Avenue. It's lined with just giant pine trees or what looks like Christmas trees. And the Christmas Tree Lane Association there will spend a gazillion dollars setting up very elaborate lights for a big tree lighting ceremony that the community has. And then all sorts of people drive in from all over Southern California to see it. I think this year they're expecting 15,000 people
Doree Shafrir (04:07):
At
Elise Hu (04:08):
The Christmas tree lane lighting and some of our characters, one of our characters that I'm following who was displaced by the fire, especially, she lives off of Christmas tree light and her father, he's a set lighting director in film and television. And so he volunteered to help with the lights this year. And they did this like father-daughter volunteering with the Christmas Tree Lane Association. And then it's finally going to get all lit up. The mom, they have a party at their house every year and they didn't even know if they were going to have it this year because they didn't know if they were going to be back in their house that had been all smoke damaged and became a biohazard because the fridge was like melting. The food was melting out of their fridge because they were evacuated for so long. So it's a real homecoming and a holiday celebration and yeah, we're going to have kind of like a seven person crew for Saturday.
(05:00)
So I've been doing a lot of talking, just directing and getting stuff organized and figuring things out.
Doree Shafrir (05:07):
Cool.
Elise Hu (05:08):
Yeah, really excited about that. And I think this is going to be a pretty chill month, knock on wood. So I'm hoping to spend some time at home and wind down the school year or this part of this school semester with the girls. The holiday parties have kind of begun. Rob and I went to a holiday party last night that was mostly outdoors. So it was kind of cold. It was like in a gigantic parking lot area
Elise Hu (05:40):
Of
Elise Hu (05:41):
Like a warehouse or a studio or something and there were like 500 some people there and they had foods that don't belong together. They were serving some not delicious food that I just want to shout out. They had grapeflavored popcorn cups. So first of all, grape and popcorn.
Doree Shafrir (06:02):
No.
Elise Hu (06:02):
But the gimmick, it's grape popcorn in liquid nitrogen so that when you
(06:10)
Bite into the popcorn and then breathe out, it makes like a little ... You can see your breath. That is wild. I think it's cold outside. Yes. So yeah, it's not delicious. It's not delicious. Didn't love that. There were some foods that I really liked. There was a dumpling. There was a dumpling food truck that was yummy. There were fried mushrooms. That was a fail. That was too much batter. This is what went wrong. It was the batter to mushroom ratio was off. I like a fried mushroom, but the batter needs to not overpower the mushroom. So that went to wrong. And it might have been the wrong type of mushroom. They used oyster mushrooms to batter and fry. And I feel like you should just use a standard button mushroom.
Doree Shafrir (07:01):
Right. I feel like oyster mushrooms are too delicate.
Elise Hu (07:03):
Yes. Well, yes, which meant that you would have a little sliver of oyster mushroom because they were cut up. You'd have like a sliver of oyster mushroom, but then a giant head of batter all over it. And so that was a fail. So yes to the dumplings, yes to the pizza. I love a popup pizza oven station. No to popcorn on dry ice.
Doree Shafrir (07:33):
I'd like to have a word with the caterers.
Elise Hu (07:36):
Fruit flavored popcorn on dry ice. Wow. This exists. Yeah. Who knew? Who knew? Okay.
Doree Shafrir (07:47):
All
Elise Hu (07:47):
Right. Anyway, how about you? How's your recovery from traveling? Are you just getting back into the groove of life?
Doree Shafrir (07:54):
Yeah. I played tennis yesterday morning. So we got back Tuesday afternoon and we had left Boston at like 8:00 AM. So it was like 5:00 AM LA time and we had been up since like 5:45 Boston time, so like 2:45. And then I went to bed at sort of a normal hour. I think I went to bed at like 9:00- ish, but woke up at like 4:30. And so I went to play tennis at 8:00 AM. And during like the first game, I was like, oh, I have a splitting headache. But fortunately, because I am like crazy and have so much stuff in my tennis bags such that I'm prepared for most emergencies, I had Advil. So I took some Advil and then it was fine.
Elise Hu (08:45):
What a relief.
Doree Shafrir (08:46):
And it was nice to get back out on the courts after not doing anything for a week, moving my body wise. So yeah.
Elise Hu (08:56):
Yeah, I'll bet. Good.
Doree Shafrir (08:58):
Yeah. Good. Yeah. But yeah, kind of recovering and also sort of like, oh, there's only like two more weeks of school and like all the end of the year just is sort of like rapidly approaching and it's crazy. So that's kind of where I'm at.
Elise Hu (09:18):
I told the girls I want to have a very austere holiday season this year and not buy a ton of gifts. And so I had them kind of send me their lists and told them I was going to pick one big thing from the list and maybe do stockings instead of just like buying whatever and then losing control.
Doree Shafrir (09:38):
Yeah.
Elise Hu (09:39):
And so I want to be very directed about it and then coordinate with all their other loved ones and tell them like, "Okay, I'm going to get this. What are you getting?" So that there's no duplicates because that happens every once in a while from the different sides of the family and things. I'm trying to keep it ... I'm trying to right size, right size the holidays so it's not just a bunch of crazy consumerism. And then me having to sell it on Depop, sell these items on Depop six months later. Oh, did I tell you I'm on a bit of a Depop tear?
Doree Shafrir (10:12):
No.
Elise Hu (10:13):
Yeah. Ava gave me a garbage bag full of just stuff she didn't want. Oh my gosh. And I opened it up. I opened it up and it was like a trove of things that teenagers would want. She has like one of those giant Taylor Swift 1989 hoodie blankets, which was like 80 or $90 when we bought it, which I can probably sell for maybe half of that. She actually has a lot of eras to her merch that I can probably get rid of, but she told me she thinks that after Life of a Showgirl kind of flopped critically at least, that some Swifties are just kind of off the train. And so I think there's a lot of Taylor Swift merch being sold on Depop right now.
Doree Shafrir (10:57):
Oh, that's interesting.
Elise Hu (10:58):
Yeah. So I don't know if I am going to move that product very quickly, but I'm moving Rob's vintage stuff really quickly. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. He has like his dad's old Zegna sweaters and things from the '80s or '90s and they are like gone. He had like this really soft velvet underground tea that he just thought was a little bit small that I think he had originally gotten at a thrift shop himself in New York in 2003 and that sold immediately for like 50 bucks. So maybe I underpriced it. Yeah, I think I underpriced it. I think it was like a very super limited edition tea. He had an old KCRW hat that sold really fast. So now I'm just like, "What do you need to sell, buddy?" Seriously? Because I'm going to arbitrage your old belongings.
Doree Shafrir (11:47):
Sounds like he's a goldmine.
Elise Hu (11:52):
It's supplementing my income. I think I've made like 1175 bucks in the last week. Depop is just like my side gig now.
Doree Shafrir (11:59):
I love it. This is so great. And you can just continue to mine Rob's closet and his storage bins. Well, Elise, we're going to take a short break and when we come back, we have an interesting question for you, I guess sort of for both of us, but mostly directed to you about dealing with nerves when you're public speaking, which I thought was so interesting.
(12:28)
And just a reminder that you can call or text us at 781-591-0390 and email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. Our website is forever35podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mentioned on the show. Our Instagram is Forever35 podcast and our newsletter is now on Patreon, and that is at patreon.com/forever35. Again, we have a sale going on right now, 20% off monthly or annual memberships. And you can shop our favorite products at shopmy.us/forever35, and we will be right back. All right, we are back. And here is the question I mentioned before the break. Elise, you mentioned in the last mini app about your modeling that you get nervous speaking in front of people, but you're a podcaster and you've done a TED Talk. Do you or Dori or anyone else have advice for dealing with those nerves? I get really nervous, but a friend asked me to officiate her wedding next year.
(13:29)
I want to do it, but I also don't want to ruin her big day with nice shaky voice and sweating and stumbling over words.
Elise Hu (13:36):
Yes, I get nervous. I was actually taken home from school in kindergarten because we had to skip in front of class. I can't do any across the floor stuff like in a dance class or demos or anything because I don't like all feeling like all those eyes are on me. And so I remember I had to actually call, the school had to call my mom and pick me up to take me home from school in kindergarten because we were just skipping. We learned how to skip and then each student had to skip in front of the whole class. And I basically had a meltdown and I couldn't do it because I didn't want to skip in front of class. So I think like inherently I'm a very shy person, but I love people. I'm very extroverted, so there is a difference.
(14:19)
So I get very energized being around people. I just don't want to be the center of attention. So that's why I really like hosting because with hosting, you can kind of have people meet each other and you can direct and steer the conversation, but you're not the center of the conversation. And I think that's actually what makes me a good party host. So anyway, so that was a big problem and my mom recognized it. And so she had me start learn how to play the piano in order to get used to recitals because I think this piano teacher that she started me with had recitals every semester or something. And so just to kind of help, it was almost exposure therapy,
Doree Shafrir (14:59):
Like
Elise Hu (14:59):
To help develop a performance gene so that I kind of learned how to have all eyes on me.
Doree Shafrir (15:07):
Oh, that's fascinating. And
Elise Hu (15:08):
I think it helped. I certainly think it helped, but I still get nervous. I still was like super, super anxious and nervous before I gave my TED Talk, but I'm less nervous when I have to moderate any panels. And the reason why is because it's not about me. It's just like about the people on the panel.
Doree Shafrir (15:25):
Yes.
Elise Hu (15:26):
So this past TED, instead of giving a TED Talk, I was just hosting. I was just emceeing, so I was just introducing everybody else. And that job was easy because I wasn't the focus of it. And so for this questioner, you're officiating a wedding in which the bride and the bride or the bride and the groom are the center of attention. You are not. You were just there to celebrate your friends and share their story and focus on how much you love them and everyone in that room loves them. So just ride the wave of all of that goodwill and good energy and love because it's really about them. It's not about you. And I think that if you focus your energy that way, it takes out a lot of the nerves. As for just general public speaking, being prepared always helps. I think it's helpful to really know your material.
(16:18)
And so if you have a speech that you're going to read, make sure that you have that on the podium in front of you and that you're familiar with which parts are on which parts of the page that you don't get too lost. I think the advice that people give about just like picking a few people in the audience to make eye contact with like somebody on the left side, somebody towards the back, somebody towards the front, somebody towards the other side, so that you have like some vocal points so that you know to find them while you're speaking is good advice. And then the other tried and true piece of advice that the TED coach gives is that you should not practice in front of a mirror because practicing in front of a mirror is the least authentic way you would give a speech.
(17:04)
When you give a talk, you would never be like looking at yourself giving a talk. And so it's more effective just to practice to all different audiences. So you can practice to your friend, practice to your neighbor, practice with your spouse, practice on Zoom with a couple of friends who will just watch you on Zoom and it's all better than practicing in front of a mirror.
Doree Shafrir (17:27):
That's
Elise Hu (17:28):
So interesting. I didn't learn that advice until later. Dora, what about you? What do you do for stage fright or nerves?
Doree Shafrir (17:36):
I have to say, I don't really get stage fright. I think that there's something about the ... It's more anxiety producing for me to go to a party where I don't know anyone. I would much rather give a speech because there's sort of like a script when you're giving a speech. It's a controlled situation. So I think I'm more comfortable in that. I did theater as a kid and in high school, and that felt very natural to me because it was a script and a performance and it wasn't like
Elise Hu (18:12):
...
Doree Shafrir (18:13):
I don't know. Does that make sense?
Elise Hu (18:14):
Yeah, it does. We all have different ways that our brain rationalizes what's scary and what's not.
Doree Shafrir (18:19):
Yes.
Elise Hu (18:20):
And so it's interesting just how different we are.
Doree Shafrir (18:22):
Yeah. I have an old coworker who swore by beta blockers. She would get very nervous when she had to do anything. And she was like an entertainment journalist, so she was always like moderating panels and doing all that kind of stuff. And she would just take beta blockers. And I feel like the New York Times just wrote about beta blockers and we're like, "Beta blockers are great." So maybe look into beta blockers.
Elise Hu (18:48):
Great.
Doree Shafrir (18:49):
Awesome.
Elise Hu (18:50):
I can't speak about- This is not medical advice.
Doree Shafrir (18:52):
Yes. No, this is not medical advice and I have no personal experience with this, but this is just anecdotal what someone else I know did. Okay. We have a voicemail on a totally different topic.
Listener Voicemail (19:06):
All right. That's what I love about a mini app. This message is for Elise. She was mentioning being oversimulated at the volleyball games because of all the noise and the light too. And I just wanted to mention the brand loop earthlog. There are these noise release earbuds that you can put in your ear when it's loud and it dampens the sound. And anyway, you can still hear that it makes the noise a lot less intense. I had two young kids. There's three and a six and there's just a lot of noise in my house. And I often wall them and just go about my normal life share everything's so quieter. All right. I hope that helps. Sometimes I also just put in the canceling AirPods and the whole world just kind of goes a lot quieter and it's really nice. All
Doree Shafrir (19:50):
Rigt. Great recommendation. I have used Loop earplugs at concerts and they're great because they ... I don't know how it works, but it sort of dulls the background noise and you can still hear the person performing, but the loudness of the crowd is not as prominent.
Elise Hu (20:15):
Oh, wow. Okay. That's exactly what I need. So this is much better than just the standard foamy earplugs that you can get at CVS.
Doree Shafrir (20:24):
Yes, for sure.
Elise Hu (20:25):
Okay. This is fancy. All right, great. Thank you for the recommendation. Anything will help. I probably need that plus some very dark sunglasses because the lighting is so bad too. There's so much is going on there. But I do get a break. We're going into a period of a break, like almost one month free of volleyball tournaments. So hooray.
Doree Shafrir (20:50):
Yay. Okay. Moving on. Listeners said, "Hi, Dorian Elise. I've been listening from the beginning and love the pod. Dory, thank you for sharing your hair growth journey. I've been doing a number of things to treat my hair thinning over the last few years, including topical minoxidil and an oral prescription for spironolactone." I don't know if that's how you say it.
Elise Hu (21:16):
I don't
Doree Shafrir (21:17):
Know. This year, my dermatologist recommended adding oral minoxidil. Honestly, my only hesitation is that I've spent a lot of time and money on laser hair removal on other areas. Isn't it ironic? And I'm concerned that those areas will regrow hair. Would you mind sharing your experience as I recall you've had laser hair removal and are currently using oral minoxidil? Yes. I have not seen real regrowth. There's a couple of stray hairs here and there, but that was happening before I started the oral minoxidil, so I don't think it's attributable.
Elise Hu (21:53):
Okay.
Doree Shafrir (21:54):
But I have seen people say that they got a lot of unwanted hair growth, but then it has emerged that they were immediately put on a very high dose.
(22:10)
So what my dermatologist did was we kind of ramped up to an average dose. We started on a relatively lower, like a half dose and now I'm on the 2.5 milligrams, which I think is sort of like the regular dose. But these people were saying that they were on five milligrams a day, which I think is a lot. So you can always start at like one and a quarter and go up. I will say, as far as I know, they don't make one and a quarter tabs, so you have to split the two and a half. I had to get like a pill cutter because they're these tiny tablets. Oh,
Elise Hu (22:53):
Wow.
Doree Shafrir (22:54):
Yeah. But that's what I did. Maybe I have a little bit more peach fuzz on my face, but I really have not seen any real unwanted hair growth and I'm seeing like actual growth. I was looking at my hair yesterday and I was like, "Oh, what are these hairs that are like a quarter of the length of the rest of my hair?" And I was like, "Oh, this is new growth." Oh,
Elise Hu (23:18):
Yay.
Doree Shafrir (23:19):
Yeah. So it's really working. I will say, and you probably know this from doing the topical, but it takes a while to work, so you have to really have patience, but then once it works, it really works. All right.
Elise Hu (23:33):
That's
Doree Shafrir (23:33):
Awesome. Yeah. We're going to take another short break and we will be right back. We have a big existential question after the break.
Elise Hu (23:41):
Okay. I don't know if we're going to be able to answer it. I know. But all right. That's coming up after the break.
Doree Shafrir (23:55):
All right. We are back. Here's the existential question. Hi, friends. It's my 35th birthday. Is it okay if we get existential? Yes. I've been thinking a lot about happiness, especially as it relates to the decision of whether or not to have a kid. I know I'm 35, so probably should have decided that by now. I would love to hear your and your listeners' thoughts. What does it mean to you to be happy? And is happiness actually necessary to have a meaningful life? Has your idea of happiness or meaning changed as you've aged? I'm sure this can be solved in a mini app, winking emoji.
Elise Hu (24:38):
Well, first I would say that being 35 sounds like the exact time that you should be asking these questions or would be asking these questions because it is around midlife where we have done a lot satisfied, a lot of the sort of external markers of life that we are supposed to have satisfied, like finding a job and participating in the economy in some way. And a lot of folks have found a partner and it's around midlife. I'm a real student of Yungi in psychology and Carl Young and surround midlife where we start asking, we look inward and I start asking these questions like, "Who am I? What am I doing? What is my purpose here? What does it mean to be happy?" One really good book I read on this was Krista Tippett, who hosts on being a very existential podcast. I think she wrote a book called On Being as well.
Doree Shafrir (25:40):
Yes, I think she did.
Elise Hu (25:41):
Yeah. And I read that around midlife when I was contemplating like, "Is this it? What should I be doing with the second half of my life?" The other one that I really like is by James Hollis, who's a very famous Youngian psychologist, and he wrote Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life. And so that's another one that I can recommend to you because I think about, when I hear about these happiness questions, I think about Don Draper and Mad Men and this famous scene towards the end of Mad Men where he's like, "You know what happiness is? It's the moment before you need more happiness because in our era that we live and in this sort of capitalistic time that we live in, we've been sold happiness as something that we can sort of buy or get by means of some sort of external accomplishment where to me I want my life to feel whole.
(26:41)
I want myself to feel like psychologically whole and have purpose and meaning. And that's like such a deeper thing to seek. And it doesn't always mean being happy all the time. Because psychological wholeness also means really wrestling with grief and pain and the things that make us human. So I want to be very human ultimately. And I guess that's how I think of it because the more human I am, the more compassion I can bring to all my relationships. And I think ultimately we are people who are in community with one another. As human beings, we seek belonging. And I think that is a way to achieve a kind of meaning. The question about having children, the reason why ... I never wrestled with this too much. The reason why I had children or I chose to be a mom was because I didn't want to ... I felt like I would regret it if I didn't.
(27:42)
I felt like the regret of not having children would be greater than the regret of having children. I'm not saying that that's a right decision for everyone, but ultimately I remember reading something that Cheryl Strade wrote. She has that book, Tiny Beautiful Things,
(28:00)
Was just a collection of her dear sugar essays. And she wrote one that was sort of inspired by a question like this. And so I will link it if we can find the dear sugar, the original dear sugar. And I think that it speaks to some of that. That's on a really specific question. So I guess Dori, I would put the question to you, this two part question to you backwards, which is A, the kids question and then B, the how you think about happiness question.
Doree Shafrir (28:30):
I mean, I don't think ... Our listener wasn't really ... She wasn't really asking whether or not to have kids, right? She's just kind of thinking about what it means to be happy and do you need happiness to have a meaningful life? But yeah, I mean, I guess those are connected. I think that having a meaningful life brings happiness. It's a little like chicken and egg, which comes first, the meaningful life or the happiness. And maybe it's a thing where both conditions are necessary. For me, I think I don't know necessarily what the difference between being content and being happy is. That's something that I've often tried to sort of parse and being satisfied because I feel like I'm someone who is often not satisfied with myself or what I have and does that make me less happy maybe. But I think happiness is also built on finding meaning in your life through friendships, through family, through work, through hobbies.
(29:53)
And so I think all of those sort of combined to create happiness. But I think what can It can be sort of a trap is seeking happiness for happiness's sake almost. If you're only looking to be happy, that's going to be really challenging. I think it's sort of like you have to cultivate these other areas of your life and happiness will follow, if that makes sense.
Elise Hu (30:17):
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not
Doree Shafrir (30:18):
A philosopher.
Elise Hu (30:21):
Oh, and speaking of that actually, so we're so glad that you wrote in with this question because we are actually going to feature a philosopher on the show.
Doree Shafrir (30:29):
Yes.
Elise Hu (30:29):
I think in the new year, in the beginning of the new year, she wrote, we'll just tease, she wrote a book or co-wrote a book called The Good Life, and it examines what the philosophers had to say, how they address this question of what does it mean to live a good life? And so we'll be able to spend an entire episode with a philosopher on this very question. We're so glad you asked and maybe we'll put this question straight to her because I'd love to hear what she has to say. Thank you for the question.
Doree Shafrir (30:58):
Yes. Thank you so much for the question. I'd love to hear what listeners have to say about this as well.
Elise Hu (31:02):
Yeah. Call, write, text.
Doree Shafrir (31:04):
All right, everyone. Thank you so much, and we will talk to you soon.
Elise Hu (31:09):
Okay. Talk to you next time.
Doree Shafrir (31:10):
Bye.