18min chapter

Well, I Laughed cover image

66: Horsing Around pt.3: Listener Episode

Well, I Laughed

CHAPTER

Navigating Change: Bookstores and Relationships

This chapter humorously explores the speakers' experiences of moving and adapting to their new home while highlighting the comforts of modern life. They share charming anecdotes from a visit to a local bookstore, focusing on their search for queer fiction and the warm interactions with the shopkeepers. Through reflections on love, financial responsibilities, and the urgency of seizing the moment, the narrative captures the complexity of balancing personal dreams with everyday realities as summer winds down.

00:00
Speaker 1
We're
Speaker 2
moving right now, and I think both of us are like, at each other's throats. We're at the end, we're towards the end, but his mom is coming into town on Friday to help us finish setting up, and she's gonna do the guest room and stuff, and so hopefully by the time she leaves,
Speaker 1
we'll be
Speaker 2
done, done.
Speaker 1
This house will be at home. Yeah. Because since what you need for this house to be home is AC and Wi-Fi, which you did not have before. I
Speaker 2
had Wi-Fi, it turns out all I need is C. We didn't have AC, I was like, with love, I'm gonna kill both of us. We're gonna go out Romeo and Juliet style, except it's just gonna be Juliet killing both of us.
Speaker 1
That is actually what happens, isn't it? Well,
Speaker 2
Juliet, like, fake dies to be with Romeo. Romeo sees her and then dies and kills himself.
Speaker 1
But is it with a dagger or is it with I don't remember which one does which. One of them is dagger and one of them is poison. Is it fake poison? Is it fake poison? Dagger dagger? That
Speaker 2
might be it. I don't know. I don't really care to find out. I'm sort of invited
Speaker 1
to teach English in the state of colorado. She keeps
Speaker 2
letting us know.
Speaker 1
had to pay for it. I'm not over it yet. How
Speaker 2
much was that test? Don't
Speaker 1
worry about it. It was more than 100, less than 200. OK,
Speaker 2
that was about the FE, I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1
I would love to know which one of our friends who works in the private sector has spent more than $100 on something for work, knowing full well they would not get reimbursed for it. That would actually be, dare I say, inappropriate to ask for reimbursement. In teaching, there's not even a person to go ask about reimbursement for. And so, I'll just have to embezzle it all back. I'm kidding. I donate to your local school. Just. No, it's wonderful. But speaking of school, school's about to start. And so I, when you start summer, you're like, oh, let's travel, let's get the hell out of here, let's go do stuff. And then you get into those doldrums, like the middle of the summer, when like- Kasey
Speaker 2
just walked past my office window and just go, shh. Who's there? Sorry,
Speaker 1
the love of my life was just outside the house we owned together. Let my heart rate get back down to a rusty pace for me. I
Speaker 2
thought he was leaving me,
Speaker 1
I can't afford this mortgage for myself. Hey, I got a guest room. Yeah, but I have to
Speaker 2
tell you the drama from when we signed, we closed this house, but continue your story.
Speaker 1
I mean, I'm settling into like a five minute thing right now.
Speaker 2
Okay. No, that's fine. No.
Speaker 1
All right. So, uh, in Doldrum's middle of the summer, you're like, what is time? It doesn't exist. I definitely woke up at 12.30 one day during the summer, like in the afternoon, right? And I had a text message from a gentleman caller who was like, what have you gotten up to today? And it's like, you can't tell him, you just woke up. You gotta be like. I've had a relaxing morning. Yeah, went on a walk and then came back in like... read a book for a little bit. Oh, he's leaving. Sorry. All I saw was the car rapidly pulling out. He said, actually, be leaving you. No,
Speaker 2
he has to go return a dock that actually... to buy on his company's card, I think. He
Speaker 1
was so excited for us to have a studio space so he could walk around the rest of the house, and then literally one minute into the first studio episode. He was
Speaker 2
like, God, I won't end up with her dumb Wi-Fi problems. I don't need to worry about getting her ethernet to this concrete office. He just checks you X,
Speaker 1
and then import this to use our marriage. Yeah. OK, So anyways.
Speaker 2
We have a Google Calendar invite to get a marriage license in a week. Good.
Speaker 1
I have a Google Calendar invite to remember when your elopement is so I can send you what I've invented anyways. OK. so those are the doldrums, the middle of the summer. And then as you set to approach August, you remember that you're mortal and that you'll have to go back to work again. And at least for myself, that like last week, I do more just activities than that last week. And I did like the entire month of July. And so it's like, let's go get lunch at my favorite place. You know, the place I was gonna go to 10 times and I have not been to once yet, because I wake up and have coffee at 1230 in the afternoon. By the time I'm hungry I'm not even joking I texted I was talking to this one guy he was like what are you doing I was like oh I'm fixing up lunch right now and he goes it's four. I don't know. Like dinner's gonna be at nine. You don't need a question. It's dinner's at nine because I'm watching a movie at 11. Like I don't. What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? And so this last week, as part of this tour de force, of like, let's go do everything that we've been meaning to do all summer. I went on a tour of bookstores in Denver. And it's in part because I had just finished reading a book that I was like obsessed with. I'll talk about it on the Patreon when we do a little book club. This is not me trying to tease it out. This is just me being like I don't want to burn the content before we record it. But I was like I have to find something that can replace this itch. Like I finished this book less than 10 hours ago and I need to start a similar story ASAP. So I go to the first bookstore, go to the second, I'm going to the third, right? I'm like I'm parked on Broadway, like I'm walking around, I'm like I'm like a girl in the city and it's like a four lane highway that runs down the center of Denver. Well this story
Speaker 2
happens in Denver? Oh yeah yeah yeah. Oh I thought it happened on your road trip. I'm at... Oh yeah
Speaker 1
that's where this place is. So I go to this final bookstore and it's like, I could drive to it, but like you drive in and the parking's kind of complicated and we're like, just like a six, seven minute walk, it's fine. Nevermind the fact that it's 97 degrees in the city. And it's all complex.
Speaker 2
Why has it been this hot for this long?
Speaker 1
Climate change. Okay, so I'm walking to this last bookstore and I'm just saying I arrive and I'm like of sweaty and I'm kind of gross. I mean I'm a city girl in the city and that's just what you look like sometimes. But I'm not necessarily wanting like a lot of attention on myself. I want to like cool off a little bit. Bookstore should be cool. I walk in, it's not, that's fine. The owners are sitting at a desk, and they both like turn and look at me at the same time, and they say, hi, welcome to our bookstore. And before I go any further in the story, I want you to know this, I would die for these people. I have just met them, but I'm instantly like, You're amazing. Yes, exactly. You were supposed to own a bookstore in Vermont. You just didn't get all the way there, babes.
Speaker 2
Like, I'm... Like, you're just here. They're so sweet. Yeah. And so... They're like an elderly couple. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Correct. That's very important. Um,
Speaker 1
and so I like step forward, cause they're just like tracking me, right? Yeah. Um, and they're like, can we help you find anything? And this is like my fourth or fifth bookstore now. So I'm like not necessarily like looking to just like walk and browse. Like there is a specific section. So I go, I am looking for a queer fiction. Like queer fiction specifically. I would love like some LGBT like romance books or like, you know, it's kind of in general, like I'm looking for a fiction book and I want there to be gay people in it. I am on record saying, I really struggle listening or reading fiction that's all straight. Yeah. I just can't do it anymore.
Speaker 2
I mean, and I struggle reading queer relationships. Right, right. For a similar reason. Right.
Speaker 1
Now, before I say this next part, if you were in the car with your children, or potentially your mother, or you're around coworkers, and they can hear you. We're
Speaker 2
talking about romance. Right.
Speaker 1
You might want to press forward for the next minute before I say what I say. You have been warned. So I walk up to the desk and I go, hi, yep, sure, you can help me find something. I'm looking for you guys's queer fiction section and they both stand up at the same time like husband and wife, married couple. And the husband is already like coming out from around the desk, and like walking to like, basically kind of the complete other side of the bookstore. just that there are significantly long pauses between the words cognitively. Clearly she's all there. She knows what she's saying. She's just working to say it out loud and so you just give her the space to say it, right? You don't cut off. You let them finish cutting people off as rude. I'm working on that. So you just let them... You let them finish what they're trying to say and then you respond. I'm
Speaker 2
trying to work on that too, but don't tell Kasey. So
Speaker 1
he's not gonna edit this episode? Nah. So the old, the man, the husband is peeling away, and she's standing up and she's turning to point in the exact opposite direction, at a shelf essentially right next to the desk. And he's like, no honey, it's over here. And she goes, this section right here is right next to the desk. Which I want to make sure before I can do the story. That was not what I was asking. And again, because if a thought's not done, I'm going to do it. I need to let her finish. And she goes, but it's a little vanilla.
Speaker 3
And I'm
Speaker 1
still thinking like, that could be a period. We don't need a complex compound sentence. Like you could absolutely end it there. And there's like a mix of like horror and like laughter on my face. I'm just like, what a beautiful moment in the city. I came in asking for queer fiction and you're like, yeah, we got hardcore gay porn over here. And so she's
Speaker 2
still pointing. But it's like, not super hardcore. No,
Speaker 1
no, no, no, no, it's vanilla. And so she's still pointing and like, like the sentence is continuing. And she goes, it's like if Joe Biden was to look for it. I want
Speaker 2
you to know that story. age, so I heard this story like two weeks ago, a week ago now, it's just as good. It's just, you are hanging on every word that Grant slash this woman is about to say. And
Speaker 1
we're just forming this lifelong, inseparable bond between the yeah, you guys are best friends now. Alright, meanwhile, because not only have I not interrupted her, her husband, God bless him,
Speaker 2
has
Speaker 1
also not interrupted her. She has, she has, sometimes she wants to say, we're all gonna listen to it. Which means you just see this like, slow motion train wreck of the suggestion. And of course I have questions like, why when you heard queer fiction were you like, I know what this man wants, erotica. And then also, why do you keep it right next to the front desk so much so that you could just point to it?
Speaker 2
I wonder if she was like, trying so hard to prove that she's like an ally, that she was like, I don't think that's weird. In fact, I read
Speaker 1
this. Exactly. There were elements of that too. And I've experienced that before, but not in a while. The last time I experienced it, I was at this, and God bless, I'm gonna keep everyone's name was here, but I was at this tournament in small town Colorado somewhere. And they were sharing a story about how frustrating it was when you qualify like three girls and a gay kid to state or something and that's only frustrating because the gay guy gets his own room and the coaches are like we could save like 40% of our cost and we just roomed them all together and so their hearts absolutely in the right place but she goes so we have this kid right he's gay and then they whip her out and look at me and they go which is totally fine And it's like, thank you, I know. And I guess in a weird way, I am thrilled to hear you say that. Yeah, like I'm glad. Like this isn't like freshman year of college. Like we're in the year of our Lord 2020. So I want to keep things in the center. OK, so back to this bookstore. This is the last part. I didn't tell you this next part. Oh. So I'm in love with this place. And there's like, I then brought to the queer fiction section that the husband wanted to show me. And there's like four titles and I had read two of them and wasn't interested in the other two. But I was like, I am not leaving this place. You can't leave, yeah. Not only because I'm the only customer there.
Speaker 2
But because they've both given you such detailed attention. I do the exact same thing. And
Speaker 1
so I walk around, thank you can always count, in the self-help section, is a Brene Brown book. And I actually have not read all of her work yet, so.
Speaker 2
Wow,
Speaker 1
shocking. A little, yeah. Well, it's because it's all the queer fiction that I read. All the erotica that apparently I've died in. Vanilla though. Right, Joe Biden's thought. Joe Biden's. And so I grab Rising Strong by Brene Brown. I'm like, you know, it's at this point probably a decade old book, but I can page through it. There are some gems. And there's other stuff outside of Brene Brown, too, that I read, but this works. Like, this will be great. And I go up to the front again, and I'm starting to check out. And they're just, they're thrilled that I have a book. I'm like, do you want Carter Cash, which you guys prefer? And they're like, Cash, if you have it. I'm like, that's super sweet. And then I'm like oh like it's a little warm in here but you guys have a lot of fans and then the husband's like yeah we have an air conditioner but it's right above our desk and she gets a little cold and she kind of like shivers a little and she goes so we don't turn it on. Guys it's like 83 degrees in this bookstore. And I'm like what is this like expression of love?
Speaker 2
Oh that's so cute. I turn on the AC to 65 usually. Yes, I know. Yeah, and I love it. That's my ideal temperature. I wanna be able to put on a sweatshirt. I wanna be a little cold if I'm in shorts in a tank top, right? And Casey, especially in our old place, there was a vent right under his desk. It was like one of the most powerful vents in the house. And so he'd be shaking in his office and he'd come down and be like, it's so cold in here. And I'd be like, well. So
Speaker 1
yes, it's like not humid, but it's warm. And it's charming. And it's mostly used bookstore. And it's just, I mean, it's everything you want this place to be, including the shopkeepers. But you can almost get the sense that the husband is trying to like rush the transaction so that way his wife doesn't say anything and his wife had had had something cooking so again if you have children in the car or if you're with your parents you might want to skip ahead a little bit that being said he's like wrapping it up and she looks at me and she goes, the man who brought most of that in, I'm
Speaker 2
so scared.
Speaker 1
asked if I was sure about purchasing it from him. And I said, yes, I need to make sure I'm keeping my husband, Kathy. And he seated right. And I'm purchasing a Brene Brown book from them, standing in front of them. I would die for this woman! What the hell? I'm just like. Oh my gosh. And again, it's one of those moments too where it's like, they're marching in the pride parade right now. Like this is- They are covered
Speaker 2
in feathers, mostly naked. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Exactly. This is their P-flag Stonewall moment. And I will not rob that from him, from them. And it's just, and they have actually, none of their intentions have been evil at all. They are actually kind of overshooting it a little bit, in a way that like dialed back a little bit more, might be hitting the range that they're trying to go to. Anyway, so absolutely precious. I am not laughing outwardly, but internally I'm like laughing, crying immediately. I'm like, what an incredible story. Putting this in your brain for future reference. And as I walk to the door, I like turn around, because you know you can do like the back bush thing, you know, touch the door knobs. And as I do that, they're both looking at me and she goes, we hope to see you again many more times. So
Speaker 2
that's the only bookshop I'm ever going to. From here on out. No, I'm legitimately
Speaker 1
like, how do I tell them I will order all books through their store and they can just take like a cut or whatever, right? Like I would do that. There's websites for that kind of stuff. Purchase stuff through independent places. Yeah.
Speaker 2
I would die for them. I would follow her to war. I would trust that man implicitly with almost anything.
Speaker 1
What a marriage equals. Yeah. You know, I, I'm almost afraid to say the store's name because of the story about them. that I've shared. We
Speaker 2
can bring it up in a future episode.
Speaker 1
I want to say, there's a couple of bookstores on. South Broadway. South Broadway. Bop around, almost all of them are locally and independently owned. Purchase a book at each one of them, and you'll eventually, probably find the love of my life. It was
Speaker 2
the woman or the man.
Speaker 1
I'm actually just gonna kinda keep that experience. That experience is what I understand love to be, so. No,
Speaker 2
that's super fair. Because Casey and I sure don't know what it is right now. I say that with love, obviously. We are both like super aware of each other's emotional extent right now, but it's yeah, you can take that off Yeah No, yeah, I bought it specifically so that we could take it
Speaker 1
I was also to be that I do do that quiet you were talking about The challenges of love. Oh,
Speaker 2
there are challenges
Speaker 1
Which leads me to my next section. Wait, I had a story to say.

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