Two Headed Girl
Episode 16 artwork
Episode 16 · March 30, 2021 · 01:13:40

16. Being a Human is Hard Sometimes

This weekAlex finally talks about being their transition, internalized transphobia, and why they were able to talk about top surgery for the first time on a different podcast. We know it sounds like a weird one. It is. But we really hope you like it.
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Show notes

Alex finally talks about being their transition, internalized transphobia, and why they were able to talk about top surgery for the first time on a different podcast. We know it sounds like a weird one. It is. But we really hope you like it. 

Show Notes

Stay safe and get vaccinated if you can!

Transcript

Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexHi, I'm Alex Cox. And I'm Mattie Cox. Welcome to Two Headed Girl. A show about gender, our minds, and all sorts of transitions. Hey, welcome back.

MattieHey.

AlexWe took a bit of a break, a much needed break, because this is March of 2021 and the pandemic sure still is a thing and it's been exhausting.

MattieYeah, but positive news, there's vaccines all over the place now, so that's good.

AlexAnd we'll put as many links as possible in the show notes to where you can get vaccinated, eligibility. Unfortunately, it's different in every single state, but best of luck, friends.

MattieDo you want to tell the people why we took a break?

AlexOh, I mean, other than your exhaustion.

MattieI mean, specifically, specifically you needed a break.

AlexI did because I needed some space to figure out some of my own gender things. Because I've been very open about being non-binary on this show many times. And how my pronouns are they then? But I've also talked about my insecurity in ever referring to myself as trans. Because I do not want to take up space. I don't feel necessarily like I ever transitioned as a verb.

Or rather, there was, I don't know, like there was no transition for me. Or that's what I kind of thought until I started looking back on things like how significant my first haircut was where I got to choose the length. And spoilers, the length was short. Very, very short. and thinking about my own internalized transphobia, but more importantly, my pure ridiculous

self-consciousness around your top surgery and the idea that because you have had top surgery, it would be absolutely ridiculous for me to ever want the same thing. Because there are so many narratives in the media right now about basically transgender being a trend. And I mean, even in the trans community,

trans-trenders is something that is talked about in a derogatory way. And that's not even to address the horrific amount of anti-trans legislation being passed all across the country.

MattieGlad we're coming back with some light topics here.

AlexThat's again why I kept pushing this off because I'm like, I don't want people to think about my gender for a while. because this show is really vulnerable and I like it that way and I didn't want to I didn't want to publish anything that was inauthentic not that I think that every podcast needs to be totally transparent or transparent yeah that didn't deserve that big of a laugh but you got it

But on this show, I think that we're fairly transparent. And I have been recording my own little audio diaries and stuff like that. So I'm putting together an episode.

MattieAbout your chest specifically?

AlexAbout my chest. About how I really, really hate my chest. About how it needs to change. and maybe that is full-on top surgery um which is or see that's the thing when we say top surgery it can mean so many things maybe for me that is a breast reduction whatever that's not important right now what is important is that we are back we are both ready to be in a more publicly

vulnerable place again because hey congratulations you just reached your one year top surgery anniversary which coincide coincides with the pandemic anniversary but hey at least we have

Mattiethat nice thing to associate it with yeah i am very excited i am i am excited to record about the details of it and just like celebrate it and it was definitely and still is something super positive that happened during the pandemic and I still feel so grateful and lucky to have gotten

Alextop before lockdown. I think your surgeon stopped doing procedures like literally a couple days after you had yours. He did yeah. Got under the wire there. So our next episode will probably be about that the other decision we've made is that we're not going to do what patreon exclusive episodes anymore because we realized that so many of our discussions of what we called our patreon

Mattieexclusive um opposite sides of the couch yeah because it i don't know because the name is cute

Alexbecause we watched stuff on opposite sides of our couch. You realized that the episodes we were doing ended up being somewhat valuable in that we did talk about gender typically more than we talked about the media, or rather we talked about gender in the context of the media and in the context of like the media, capital M,

Mattielike all media, not just the shows and books and stuff we were talking about.

AlexSo we are going to start talking more about media and putting that in the main feed. And if you can no longer or no.

MattieI'm sorry.

AlexOur cat is yelling at us to put out more episodes. And I'm like, I know it's tough. It's toughness. Being a human's hard sometimes. A lot of times. I know. I know. I know.

MattieYeah, I agree.

AlexSo first of all, thank you so, so much to everyone who has supported our Patreon. We're going to keep it up because we reached out to a lot of folks and they said they want to support the show either way. But we absolutely understand if you don't want to or cannot support us anymore. No big deal. It really isn't. Thank you so much just for listening.

MattieAnd thank you for your patience while we took a little mini mental health break.

AlexAnd I know we keep adding things on, but the messages that we've received in the past months, and especially to me in the past week, have just meant the world to me. And I say that because what you are going to hear now is an episode of another podcast I do called Dubai Friday. And it's a show that is essentially...

MattieWeird.

AlexYes. The premise of the show is my co-host and I, Merlin Mann, challenge each other to do something new or interesting each week. Dubai Friday, also as a Patreon. I am not pitching it, but we have a Patreon because every single week we have an entire second episode. But last week we ended up talking about project management. And it turned out that gender requires a lot of project management.

And that was the first time I publicly talked about how I have been figuring out what is going on with my mind and my body and how I need to switch some stuff up.

MattieYou heard the episode, Matt. I did. And it's basically you talking about gender dysphoria and project managing your boobs.

AlexYes. Yeah. I don't think I even used the word dysphoria because I still don't know if that's a word I'm comfortable using. But I am comfortable talking about how I might not be comfortable using that word. Does that make some sort of sense?

MattieYou're so complicated.

AlexI, oh, I'm sorry.

MattieAlex, making gender even more complicated.

AlexI know, I'm sorry.

MattieOh, I am not shaming. I'm just saying that you are allowed to take up space in the trans community and use the words that apply to you however you see fit.

AlexI know that. You know that. But I can't know that in the context of the queer community, especially, I think, because of all of this stuff going on. Because basically, I just want to protect trans kids. And like, I don't right now I'm like, fuck my tits. I just want to protect the lives of those who are just, oh God, horribly being discriminated.

against and I'm just gonna let this episode play now I guess thank you thank you thank you for listening Mattie you got anything else hopefully more of our episodes in the future will be light-hearted and not so terrible definitely you can also let us know if there are any sorts of shows books movies whatever you'd like to hear us discuss because one we do that

anyway so we did as well record it and two we also like to talk to other queer creators because

Mattiewe're nerds enjoy alex's gender journey oh lord

Alexseriously everyone thank you for listening hang in there talk to you soon

Merlinhello

AlexI just wanted to know what noise is I wanted to gauge I didn't want to come in hot as you said I am calm I am composed I've got my second espresso shot which I will have at some point

MerlinI've turned off my heaty fan I have eaten my leftovers I am on Zoom

Alexwelcome to after show back welcome to back to friday i i i genuinely couldn't really hang on to that for very long i i'm loopy have not been having a good time of it uh lately we'll keep it short we'll keep it No, no, no. I genuinely, without any sense of irony and snarkiness, really want to know what you are doing in terms of infrastructure and how you are sort of refaming it.

MerlinWhat do you imagine it's about? You read so much into my nonsense. I'm keen to know what you're thinking. It's not that. I mean, I don't want to disappoint, but I don't think I'm doing anything that profound. like i said here on the show i think it's uh what did i say i wrote something down i prepared uh yeah finding patterns and noticing things yeah that's that's part of it isn't i mean i i i guess

Alexi wouldn't call it profound but what profound things if you hear one single thing and are like that is profound then you're probably doing drugs or just haven't thought about it too

MerlinOr you like to cry.

AlexOh, no.

MerlinI think that, so, you know, the infrastructure in general, for me this comes up a lot whenever I have a reason to feel like I want to talk about New Year's resolutions. I know you've heard this. Well, I'm not against it. I'm against New Year's resolutions. I'm against it. I'm against New Year's resolutions if you don't really know what you're doing it for. if you haven't created an infrastructure, if you haven't created a path to success.

And I'm honestly not trying to do a straw man here. It's just that's a good example that most people can relate to is you have no business deciding to lose a fifth of your body weight if you've never done it before healthily and you haven't prepared the way to make that something that's more likely to succeed than fail. If you haven't put an infrastructure in place to change your habits or to do whatever it is. And I mean, I should disclaim at the beginning that I am an overthinker, that I, overthinking in

terms of like, I'm over-engineering, over-designing. Whatever it is, I probably put too much mental effort into things that will help me keep the demon dogs at bay. I think this is a known issue

Alexfor me well if it keeps the demon dogs at bay why is it overthinking or too much well i mean like

Merlinfor example last night on the rectives that we recorded this kind of stuff came up a lot because one thing we talked about is long story short like you know that song take a break from hamilton and like can you even imagine like disappearing to upstate new york for a month and of course knowing me it won't surprise you to know that most of the discussion for me was like well in this game that we're laying out, this game is really all about deciding the rules because that is the game. Like if I could by fee, I just hit escape and disappear for a month, I guess. But

like, I have so many questions about what that means, what I would need to do to be able to not only enjoy taking a month off, but, and I'm sure most of you out there, if you're being honest, are the same way. Like, oh my God, are you kidding me? I could not do that. I mean, even if I had like pretty good internet, that would be really hard to do. To take a legitimate off the grid vacation of more than a few days is a cause for stress for me to think about that. And the, the,

one of the best ways I have to minimize that stress or to at least feed my demon dogs, something that's nutritious is to walk through what I would need to do to unhook and yes, to enjoy it, but also to maybe more importantly, be a good participant in a vacation. And that goes for lots of stuff. And I don't think you have to be an overthinker to find benefits in adding a little bit of infrastructure. It doesn't have to mean rules. It doesn't have to be, you know, unplug the road or like, I don't know what, you know, what works for you, you hope. But like,

all I know is that whether it's cleaning out my garage or realizing a better time to do chores or to think about a way to change a behavior of mine. I think a lot of it starts with, even if it's a very small thing, and I can give you examples, but anyway, that's the high level. I think whether it's life hacks, infrastructure, any of this stuff, it is about noticing things and then finding a way to make a little scaffolding that lets you see a change in your life that's valuable to you.

AlexThat's so good. I'm trying not to fan girl. It's very weird.

MerlinWell, it's fine. I'm glad you like it. It helps me a lot, too. There's all kinds of things where, like, oh, you know, I know I repeat myself, and then I feel bad that I'm repeating myself.

AlexNo, because that's when it gets profound because an idea is...

MerlinNo, it's like it's Bernie Sanders all over again. That's the point. That's what makes Bernie good is he has been saying the same thing forever. Well, did it get fixed? Nope. It needs to keep being said, you know.

I'm always sharing conversations with my wife. Another conversation we had yesterday was I was talking about how cool it is that I think that for the longest time IBM's motto for the company was just the single word think. My version of that is remember to remember, right? Like everybody knows they're supposed to do things. But how do you remember to remember something? Let's take a real obvious one. Do you remember to remember that you've survived your entire life up till now? Do you remember that?

AlexWell, yes, but I feel like I'm an outlier in that case.

MerlinBut like somebody like me who's an anxious person, you know, we don't actually have that much hands-on agency to literally change our future because that's not the way the world works. There are things that will happen to you. There are things that will change. There are unexpected things without regard to whether they're positive in the moment or not. There are things that come along that you have to adapt to.

AlexAt will and plow in it.

MerlinYeah, that's one.

AlexWell, you've talked a lot about thought technologies and trying ideas on. And one that I hope has been helping me is not keeping the demon dogs at bay, but trying to sort of embrace them as like little devil puppies. And it's like, okay.

MerlinYou know, how about this? Let's domesticate the demon dogs.

AlexExactly. Like, you know what? You can be here, but you can't jump on the couch because otherwise you'll make me sneeze. Stuff, like, they're always going to be there. I've tried many things to get rid of them.

MerlinYou use that phrase a lot. I think it's a great phrase, living rent-free in my brain. But that's my brain. That's my mind. I am the one who feels the need to return to that often enough that the lease is always renewed, whether I like it or not.

AlexWell, things, I either got that from you or TikTok. Who knows? There are many things that we're getting rid of in our house. that like it's like we are uh you know we're paying dougie to keep our funko pops here like yeah yeah yeah yeah it's another thing that you have talked about often in that like this these these things represent the people we were and we love and cherish what those things are and what that time was but that's not who we are and who we want to be no not slagging on funko pops

Merlinor anything and it's not even like i mean the thing is it doesn't have to be i fall keep falling back to that example that I think is the easiest to understand example of a New Year's resolution to lose weight, like, which, you know, say whatever you want about that. But like, that is a very common thing people have. They decide, I've decided to make this big decision when the calendar flips, I'm going to become a different person just by dint of my own will. And even though, like I say, in terms of like yesterday's weather, we, you may not have much of a basis. Have you shown your work

in terms of your success with deciding things by fiat in the past. Some people are very good at that. Some people are not. Like if you're John Roderick, you might say, I'm just not going to drink anymore, even though that's the main thing I do. You could just decide that. I think for most people, that's very difficult. And the less harmful thing, but the annoying thing everybody notices is, oh, it didn't work. I think the more pernicious thing is I'm rehearsing failure. Every time I don't succeed, even time I don't make good on a deal I've made with myself,

whether that's to, you know, be somewhere at a certain time, you get to decide all of those things. I know you like to think that it's your boss's fault or whomever, but like we each get to, we have to decide what we agree to do. And it's, it's one thing to have the rug pulled out from under you by the world. It's another thing for you to do that to yourself. And if you're constantly breaking deals with yourself, something needs to change. Um, you need to, you need to, I don't know, I don't know what you need to do, listener, but like it's beneficial to realize when something's

not working in the way you assume that it's working. And this is where, like I say, it gets a little bit mundane, but some of the examples I want to share are beyond mundane, but the results are more than mundane. By realizing there's something, and then, you know, in my usual sort of array of this, I change the way, if I change the way I feel about something, I can change the way that I think about something. If I change the way I think about something, I change the way I can do something. And that's the beginning of something kind of real. And if you try to,

if you think you can just skip over those steps, you're fucked. You can't just go straight from, I don't like the way my tummy feels to like, I can really imagine myself losing 60 pounds or whatever. And like, I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying, well, there's all kinds of aspects of that that you can choose to qualify that will give you a clearer runway to something closer to success than failure. And I'm using those words specifically. Success is this thing I never achieve because I suck. Failure is this thing that I achieve all the time because I'm bad and I'm fat and I'm sad.

And it's like, well, you know, you can qualify things. So maybe don't start with the most dramatic thing that's bumming you out right now. Don't take the most emotionally charged and difficult thing in your life and then just decide you're going to wave a magic wand when the clock turns to 12. You know? So anyway, I don't want to beat that to death. But I do think that's real. And that's why I say the things that I'm going to share are going to seem very mundane. Well, they're not mundane to me. They're meaningful to me. Because whether that's a big project, a little project, or a small change, I can see an improvement in my life and the life of the people around me if I find an accommodation that lets me either move past a block that I've got or to ideally, in the most exciting way, harness a superpower I didn't know I have by just doing something a little different.

but my stake in the ground, whether it's life hacks or life change or whatever, biohacking, whatever you want to call it, is that I think first you have to see clearly, you have to notice things. Then you have to operationalize the changes that you want in that thing in a way that makes sense and that you have the cycles and the infrastructure to actually do. So like, let's do a few just off the dome, like stop agreeing to everything. Stop agreeing to everything that anyone asks you to do unless that's your project. But you should be able to

ruminate over or deliberate over whatever it is you decide to allow into your life. And if there are things that snuck into your life because you let them sneak in, it is valuable to become aware that that is not furniture. That's your life. That's what you live with. Don't become a psychological hoarder. You don't have to have all of those things. in that way.

AlexSuch a good phrase.

MerlinBut the corollary is you don't need to and cannot change all of that by fiat with the wave of a wand. Why don't you cut yourself a fucking break? Stop escalating everything into the most emotional thing that you can possibly come up with. And why don't you look for a modest way to make good on more of the deals that you make with yourself, potentially by quietly, secretly, personally committing to a certain kind of change and then doing what needs to be done that on the day that's difficult and the next day and

the next day and the next day that that's difficult, you either decide this isn't worth doing or if it is worth doing, I'll continue to find accommodations that make that something that I can do. And that's some of the things I want to talk about. But I would also entertain any questions

Alexor thoughts that you have on this. Oh, I mean, I don't want to say, well, I've been hearing you say this for years but i i've but you have to remember to remember exactly remember right and i've been thinking about this for so long and i i think that i'm also lucky in that i hopefully have been able to swerve and avoid some of the more grifty life hacking stuff but the new year's

resolution thing resonated with me real hard and so i i always try to do kind of a uh a reboot every year but i always make it in march because nothing ever happens in march and so this is my

Merlinsleep when you when you just when you do something like that it strikes me that there's two kinds of general sorts of resolutions of that sort just very generally which is i either want to as soon as possible, quit doing something full stop, or as soon as possible, I want to start doing something full stop. And there's a million ways to look at that. But I do want to quit smoking. I do want to start exercising, right? Is it fair to say that that's a general pattern is like there's a thing about me or my life that is not okay with me, and I want to see a change.

So I either want to do a lot more of this or a lot less of that.

AlexWell, yes, and I think that's what you're getting then in terms of, like, mental health, because the resolutions that folks come up with, it's usually to change the thing that they feel is either the worst thing about their life or the thing that makes them the most unhappy.

MerlinAnd yeah, it's well, another way in my in my parlance, it would be if we if we take that thing I keep saying about feeling bad about feeling bad. Well, I would ultimately I would like to not feel bad. But for me, I would also accept feeling less bad about how I feel bad would be would be one way to to qualify, you know, qualify that or to ease your way into something. it feels like you feel like you're being dishonest with yourself in your party hat on december 31st if you do something that seems too you know sort of trivial right oh yeah december

Alexthrough january is is my personal jubilee of fuck it not not fuck it all but i try to um You know, live with the demon dogs. And also, what I have found helpful with my own infrastructure stuff is, as most people know on this show, I don't enjoy binaries. So I try not to set myself up for like, this is an absolute failure.

But if there's a—

MerlinRight, black-white thinking of like, if I don't succeed 100% within the make-believe constraints I've made up, I have necessarily failed forever.

AlexMm-hmm. And that's why, absolutely. And that's why, you know, to get into like the nerdy lifehacking stuff. That's why I love apps like OmniFocus that don't, don't, you don't need to have a due date. You can have, you can, in fact, you can say, don't even defer this. Don't even think about this till later. and also for for me if i have that set up and ready to go like the the the planning is the biggest part of most projects for me and i i guess that is because i'm which seems crazy to some

people it's yeah yeah it will and you finally got Mattie off the the new year's resolution change and i was like listen this is a like yeah this is something you want to do let's do it but let's do like how about the the resolution is to start rather than absolutely yeah yeah and that's

Merlinwhy i did that series on 43 folders fresh starts and modest changes it was about that wasn't the meant to be a more gentle way of doing that but like there's this book and i can't pretend i totally understood this but when i was trying to understand more about developers and kind of become a little bit of a developer myself but mostly like to understand the process of something that was very abstract to me. I want to say there's a bunch of books I really liked, like Code Complete, but a really good one, I think it was called Rapid Development. And they had this chart in there, and I don't know if this is true. It might have been Mythical Man Month, but I'm pretty sure

it was Rapid Development. Anyway, it was this book that, so some book I came across about development included a chart that showed you the estimated cost of change to a project based on when you have to make that or need to make that change. And, you know, unsurprisingly to people like you and me, a change in the early planning parts of a project versus a change at the last minute to a on the market shipped product. Unsurprisingly, the cost of that, any way you

want to slice it, but especially in terms of money, unbelievably different. If you decide to make a change in your spec for the bridge before it's built and cars are driving over it, as you can imagine, it's a lot less costly. And that's why I would say when people say, oh, why are you overthinking this, why are you overdoing that? Because my disposition is to identify the things that I know are going to be difficult, to identify the things I'm pretty sure have a level of uncertainty from the stakeholders that make it a risky thing for me to commit to

shipping by a certain time, even just my one piece. There's all those different things. But if you are somebody who appreciates infrastructure and planning, you know that just on risk mitigation alone, you will, you will. And then, and then when the time does come that you have bugs in your software or whatever that is, where you have a defect in a shipped product, I mean, you're going to always have to deal with that, but you won't have to deal with that on top of all these other things you really should have had the presence of mind to think about at the least costly, most blue sky part of project planning. And I think that, that if that doesn't

Alexgo for your life i wish you'd think about it or i i know too that the this the first time folks hear stuff like this there is that like well that's fine for merlin aspect but uh much as i don't

Merlinthink it's as not totally totally a great way to stay a great way to stay in a world where things

Alexare only fine for merlin is to think like that yep yep yep yep and i i i need to there are a lot of things that i you know don't have control of that i would like to have control of but because of the infrastructure i have been able to put in place and sometimes it's not fair that i have to put into like because things suck and the world worlds are changing but

even like there are so many things whether it is health or work and that you shouldn't have to prepare for but this is the world and it will still help like it doesn't mean that you fail failed if you did not prepare enough and then your app breaks or something or you know you the, or the microphone dies. It's, I, I don't, again, trying to think out,

get out of that binary thinking as well as like, okay, well that's fine for Merlin, but exactly. It's fine for Merlin, but there must be, what's going to be fine for you.

MerlinYeah. Like there's a reason. What are you okay tolerating because you decided that you're how

Alexyou are? Yeah. And, and it goes like, if you're going to, you know, quote, check your privilege, then how about finding out what is fine for you and what is not fine for other people that you say you care about and help to put that infrastructure in place and i know this is like the big woke take

Merlinbut for me it's down to like well i mean like it's it's me it's one thing to go like you know i i and this is one reason i have a lot of problems with that particular way of thinking and it's also why i struggle with it because i don't want to sound like a privileged asshole but you are privileged

Alexbut you're not an asshole or maybe you're a dick but you're not you're not an asshole everybody

Merlinevery well i'm not gonna say everybody's privileged but people have more agency than they like to admit and it's more fun to be this heroic person who's born about by the the the you know slings and arrows of life but anyway let's let's let's skip over that for now um i'm gonna i'm gonna repeat something real quick just because i i can't think of a better example of this if we take it as read that there are people who decide by fiat that for example let's to say, let's go straight to it. I want to lose weight. I don't like feeling like I feel. Okay.

And it doesn't have to be about New Year's resolutions, but that's a valuable way to explore why that's difficult. And from the get-go, there can be problems with the way you approach that. Now, I chose to phrase it that way because I think that's a pretty common way that people phrase that. Well, like from the get-go, like, okay, but so you want to do this thing. Now, let's think about what that really means to you. If you don't lose X pounds by Y date, does that mean you failed? And does that matter to you? Because that's important.

Like, I don't care one way or another, but you should. Like, if that matters to you, okay, well, let's make that part of the way. It's almost like on predicted.org, the way that they have very specific ways that things are phrased in terms of the contracts for a bet. And when the decision is made, when it pays out, all that kind of stuff. You know, will Andrew Cuomo be governor by the end of the calendar year? But there's a lot to that. You can ride those waves. But like I'm saying here that like let's just stick with this one dumb example because it works, which is like from the conception, let's make sure we're putting this in a wholesome and as we'll get to in a second, realistic way.

So like, I mean, what if what if your goal was something much more annoying, which is like I'd like to feel better about myself? that gives you a lot more runway for what you decide to do. If you do decide that I'm going to lose weight or I'm going to specifically lose this much weight by this date or I'm going to quit smoking tomorrow and never smoke again, I'm just here to tell you as your pal and risk assessor that that does not give you a lot of flexibility on the days when it doesn't go great. So the way that you phrase it can be important. Also, by the way, surprise, nobody cares about your resolution,

which also means, lucky for you, Nobody cares if you decide to change the terms of your resolution because it turns out you use a monkey's paw and it's not the thing that you wanted. And now you're unhappy or somebody got sick. What, you're not going to go to the hospital because you know you have to eat out of a vending machine? Well, you know, suck it up.

AlexI'm so familiar with hospital vending machines here.

MerlinYou know, they don't sell sugar beverages at UCSF anymore. I don't know if I could have gotten through my child's birth if they had that rule then.

AlexThey only had diabetes.

MerlinNow let's get to the, to me, the part that I find important and bracing and hopeful in this, which is where does the infrastructure come into it? Like, well, okay, let's even say it's very important to you because you're in some office pool for a January 1st change beginning. Well, you know, be careful. Be careful what you sign up for that, like, you know, makes shame the only way that you can, shame the only pathway to what you hope is success because that's not incredibly positive. but the one I always say, cause I think this is a great example,

maybe, maybe before you undertake any of those things, before you even committed to what your goal is, you know, maybe even while you're still sort of phrasing and framing what, what the project is and what success will look like. Let's go to the obvious ones. As I always say, like, first of all, is there like a problem food for you? Like, I really like ice cream. I mean, there's not any, a lot of like huge problem foods and I don't really need to lose weight, but let's say I knew that potato chips were a thing I found myself eating even on nights

when I didn't want to be eating them. And let's say when I did eat them, I ate more than I wanted to. And let's say that when I was done eating them, I felt bad about myself. Well, as your friend and risk assessor, I'm here to say that's a good example of a food. Let's start easy that you need to stop buying. But I think that's also a food you need to get out of the house. So number one, stop getting the thing that's that risky, tempting problem. Number two, let's go a level deeper. Get rid of all those kinds of things right now.

Now, is that enough? No way. Just not having it, guess what? You can call Postmates and have like 20 pounds of French fries in an hour. That's not the answer. The next thing, just for this one little dumb part, is you're going to need to stock the place with foods that you will eat, foods that you might even look forward to eating that are not the problem food and you can't lie to yourself which i have done it doesn't work it absolutely doesn't work it's like these are my

Alexhealthy snacks and then you don't eat them for two months well i feel like it's the kinds of foods

Merlinlike let's say there's those kinds of foods you always end up donating to the food bank or to the canned food drive it's like nobody wants your cream corn here's my son chips thank you for your service. Thanks, airline. But like all so that's just and again, we're just talking about one aspect. I just want to like get this one thing in place. If you have a goal that involves losing weight, you know, I'll let you decide what all the rules for that are. But I can tell you if you need to think about that and plan enough to identify, is that a thing? How can I how can I

begin an infrastructure here? So I don't know the answers to any of that. And that goes for all the other things, too. Like, you know what? Here's a good tip. If you want to stop smoking, you need you stop buying cigarettes? That sounds obvious, but like, what is your plan for not buying cigarettes? And is there something that you will potentially try to replace as a different habit? It's hard to fill a void with nothing, oddly enough. So I don't know what the answer to that is, but for any of those things, the infrastructure part is assuming from the beginning, because

you're a good, smart, wise project manager, you know that things go wrong with every project. And part of risk mitigation is thinking ahead of time, not about whether something will go wrong, but what I'll do when it goes wrong and how costly it will be to fix. Because the earlier you figure that out, the better. So like an example here, I'll just begin to speak for myself if that were my goal. And it's not.

AlexWell, and I had also say this is something that I've seen actually people not get wrong, but costly, not just in monetary terms, but I think across the board.

MerlinIt could just be pure stress. Stress is free. Like that's an unlimited supply. But like for me, that might mean getting some hand fruit or cutting up some fruit to have in a bowl or getting a kind of vegetable that I like. Like when I make a big meal, for example, part of my infrastructure is I do – I guess you could call it mise en place. I would just call it prep. But like anything that I can prep at a certain time earlier makes it less stressful and it makes it more fun when it's time to put it all together. You know what I'm saying? Like so for example, if I can chop the parsley early and put it in a ramekin, I will.

if I make my own like steak seasoning. So if I make that myself, like whatever that is, and that my demon dog of wanting all the food to come out at the same time is served by some planning ahead. If you know there's stuff you need to do, you know, there's an order of operations for what you need to do. Why would you not plan? Why would you not do a mise en place that lets you be better prepared for dealing with that? So the big pattern, the little pattern here is whatever your thing is, think through the part, you know, you can expect to be difficult, plan for that, get an infrastructure for dealing with that, and guess what?

You will be less stressed not only when that comes along, but when the thing you didn't expect and couldn't have predicted comes along, right? So sort of like what happened in Texas. Nothing in Texas with the weather and the infrastructure there, nothing there could not have been predicted. What would have been more difficult to predict is how those would interact in these Loren's curves sort of ways that screwed everything up. You can't be 100% on this. See, also a good reason to give yourself, you know, forgiveness and more loose variables,

but a specific goal, but like friendly rules for achieving that goal that you're willing to participate in from the get-go. So that's just that one. That's just one example that's really obvious, but I'm sure a smart listener will be able to abstract that to whatever their thing is. Put it in a different way. If you were doing a postmortem on all the times, well, you know, like I say, if New year's resolutions work you'd only ever have to do one of them once ever oh god that's good whoa really you're gonna do you're gonna do this resolution for the fifth time what happened to the

other times well january 5th happened all the other times and so let's let's try doing it exactly the same way again because it's got to work this time because now i'm mad um so that's just that that one part and then i want to give you some if i may i want to hear your response but i also want to give you like a couple of specific examples of these incredibly mundane things i find useful

Alexwait are you thrown to me right right now for examples well i'm talking i'm talking i'm talking

Merlina lot here and i don't mean to sound like the professor or something no no you don't uh which

Alexis i will let's actually let's go with the weight thing again a couple years ago i was like you know People say that getting healthier physically helps your mental health. Cool. I'm going to try and do that. And I put infrastructure in place.

MerlinI stopped eating carbs and now my brain doesn't work.

AlexAnd yeah, for a while, I really highly recommend Maintenance Phase for Folks. It really frames like not just weight.

MerlinI've really gotten into that show. I love it so much.

Alexthe cleanse one is amazing oh it's why it's a it's a delight hearing what was in the actual book

Merlinthat became the basis and it's sort of an inbox zero situation where people don't actually know what the hell that lunatic is talking about but it's hopefully in a slightly different way but you're like oh really this is about the bible what like it's crazy yeah

Alexgreat show we'll put it in notes it's very it's it's such a good it's such a good show um but but i had the thing of so i i had an issue where okay i have a like achieved these like physical goals if you will and and i was like oh cool like uh good job i did that infrastructure i put that in in place you know had my stupid oh the fucking exercise like i keep these stupid weights next to my desk i hate them i hate them so much but once again now you're mad now you're mad at the

weights and you're mad at yourself uh no but but no i hate them because i know that i will use them and i know that i will uh probably feel a little bit better afterwards but um you know there's always the gross thing of the family members being oh you look so good i don't you feel better and like no i fucking don't not even a little bit like maybe like i don't know and then it's like okay

Merlinyou used to be so disappointing and for right now you're not as disappointed yeah yeah like

Alexoh thank you oh you look so much you're smiling and you have that dress uh you look a little more

Merlinthe way we've always wanted thank you thank you you must feel great to have not disappointed me

Alexand luckily like i uh you know what how about this in the opposite of compliment

Merlinthis is really not meant i didn't actually think this through and i'm gonna say it anyway and i'm the asshole you know you're less fat you don't sweat much for a fat girl women have a

Alexthing and you know i i grew up in in the most protected class of of human which is white women so uh and sure maybe not the most powerful chicago catholics but yeah oh boy but but i i was like okay well how have i failed if what i i literally got to check off all the boxes for all of these things that i wanted to do and then it's like

well what the fuck now and the uh again monkey's paw be careful what you ask for right right and And the people probably have people. I always say people. And really, I mean the very nice people on not just Twitter, but on the internet.

MerlinYour Welsh troll.

AlexThe Welsh trolls. Oi!

MerlinThat's all these things.

AlexAnd like, where's an episode of Show the Girl? I'm like, well, we purposely don't have a schedule. And we're just like, we'll make the thing when we want to make it. And then I was like, oh, there's not weight stuff going on. There's gender stuff going on here.

MerlinOh, wow.

AlexI'm like, oh, fuck me.

MerlinThe call's coming from inside your body.

AlexYep. Like, oh, the problem's in the tits, not the tummy.

MerlinOh, boy. Leave them in Michigan. That's what I always say.

AlexYep. And, well, that's the thing is like, okay, now we're exploring different infrastructures of, like, again, like using the hashtag privilege to go to therapy. And I'm like, oh, oh, probably just suppressing a lot of this internalized transphobia. Oh, oh, like the reason I the reason I hate taking showers isn't because I think I'm fat. Like there's a whole lot going on here.

MerlinOh, God, that's so good.

AlexYeah.

MerlinOh, my God, that's good. That's a really good observation.

AlexWell, but but that was like my my freak out at sort of the beginning of this this or rather last summer. Last summer was a great time to have this realization. uh and then it's like uh and then the whole like demon dogs of like oh god if i am if i'm another genderqueer person who's getting top surgery and i'm like wait a second i am that's another thing of of like turning 30 i'm like wait i'm 30 years old who the fuck cares what i do i mean i know people will care what i do about my body that's an entire political an entire political party

MerlinBut it's a lot more to it than a five-minute decision on December 31st.

AlexOh, yes.

MerlinThere's a lot of threads there, yeah.

AlexAnd the reason it's—but I'm looking enough that I'm—oh, I feel like I would—oh, yeah, I don't think I've ever talked to you about this. Just like I will probably be—

MerlinThere's a bunch of this you've never talked to me about, and I'm finding it fascinating.

AlexOh, really? Oh.

MerlinI don't know what the fuck goes on in your life. I don't know what your deal is.

AlexI don't know.

MerlinOh, my, your titty lawyer? I've got enough penises to take care of over here.

AlexWell, that's the thing. It's like, do I need a tummy lawyer or a titty lawyer? Oh, and it's like figuring out, it genuinely was kind of like, oh, this to-do app isn't working for me. Why? And the reason I frame it like that is that's how my brain works. is and uh because i had that infrastructure in place and i'm like well did this infrastructure why did this infrastructure fail i i did not fail and the infrastructure didn't the the

infrastructure failed because i didn't uh remember um in this case i don't think remembering to remember where it's almost like i wasn't thinking about thinking enough like i had this single goal in mind and i was like oh do you feel like you hadn't pushed past the default and not default

Merlinbut like to get to where you got to for now you had to kind of push past something right

Alexin terms of your own thinking or cognition the most obvious and and it sounds so obvious now that Mattie's like well you know is it possible could it be possible that you've had a lot of more a lot more traumatic and upsetting things i assume that this is something that you've

Merlingone through and made a decision about of some kind three or four years ago so this is fascinating

Alexto me oh no that's that no that is that probably deep deep down inside where the you know where where the boob demons are yeah yeah exactly like like and and it's like ah it's okay if you need to take like there there are you know if you're gonna pock the stack as your worst best friend would say like it's it's okay to take care of more important things first like you you might want to lose 25 pounds overnight but it's probably good to make sure that you have a

Merlinboy talk about a big project with a lot of moving parts my goodness oh dude i am so good at yeah

Alexlike project planning for this has really changed into a different episode and i'm fascinated not i see that's the thing i totally disagree and i was like oh should i bring this up and it's like no because the way that i i'm glad if you're comfortable i'm glad you did oh yeah but well

Merlinand that's the thing it's like um the we will be we will be putting this out in the public feed by the way this is too fucking good wait sorry what we've got to put this in the feed tomorrow this

Alexis oh okay cool um this is really good they oh thank you well but and that's like the one thing that fell down is like okay i have all of this i was so like i i i did my that's fine for alex what failed in in my project planning like where where did i what did i miss i missed a step somewhere yeah and then i was like and then i was like oh i i did not miss a step it's just that there are the projects done and i need to move on like i need to get rid of the funko pops like the

the anxiety about weight or me and, and well, it turned out it was not an anxiety about weight so much, but it's like, all right, the, the,

Merlinall these are anxious things.

AlexYes. Yeah. And it's like, oh, okay. So I did this, did this work done on the whole lot of work on, you know, the chemicals in, in my brain to get to a certain spot. And like, if I'm going to call myself a progressive or leftist or what, whatever in terms of political policy, I would hope that I am the same in my interpersonal and, and my, in my relationships with other humans as well, especially with my relationship with myself.

MerlinWe talked to, we talked to ourselves in a way we would never talk to others.

AlexYeah. And God,

Merlinbecause we're, we're decent people. This is even setting aside the whole, like what kind of advice would you give a friend who's actually you, you know, there's kinds of things that we say to each other that would just be beyond the pale, but we're fine to just be the, uh, what did Annie Lamont call it? The jukebox of my greatest hits of failure. Like I'm fine to have this loop, this loop playing all day long about what a piece of shit I am and how I don't deserve the things that I wish everybody else in life got. Why would I be generous with myself? I know I'm not worth it.

AlexLike, why wouldn't I, like, if I cared about myself a fraction of the amount that I cared about you.

MerlinIf you worried about yourself as much as you worried about others. And not worried as in, like, you know, fretful, like, I'm worried you're going to get on heroin. But more like, I want your future to be good.

AlexYeah, like, if I just.

MerlinIf one thinks that about so many people, you're like, you know, like, you know, there's like celebrities where I'm just looking, you know, I just hope they're happy. I hope Pedro Pascal is happy.

Alexit seems really nice when i saw that john mulaney was recovering i was like yes i know when he got

Merlinout we were like oh my god i actually said that to my daughter i hope he's happy yes i oh gosh

Alexand i i i think that was two months two months dude yeah well if if your demon dogs are if you need to put your demon dogs in rehab like hey different life send him the rehab kennel yeah

Merlinyeah you've got to learn to behave yeah yeah like drop it drop it drop it

Alexand well and all right sometimes you'll realize that your dog uh maybe maybe just needs a new leash or you were doing needs to go back to Delaware for a while right right and I don't know like that that was the one part of I don't want to say that again I don't want to say that it failed it was it was just a a total shift in also now how i plan projects in general again to literally how i'm like organizing my closet it's like all right if this doesn't make me happy like

that's okay we're figuring it out as we go along and because i'm lucky enough to have the space

Merlinto have accomplished something you're figuring out which potato chips you want to get rid of yes

AlexAnd like, I mean, oh, God. OK, the okie dokie cheese popcorn that you like get at gas stations. It's totally not a food at all. Once a month, there is on our shared grocery shopping list, Alex's gross popcorn.

MerlinThat's so funny. That's so funny you should say that. I had an example that crop up the other day because, you know, when you have a family, you buy each other like joke gifts and stuff like that. But I forget exactly when, whenever the thing happened with Ted Cruz and Doritos, something happened. Maybe he had a Dorito on his shirt or something.

AlexOh, his, his, uh, yeah, yeah.

MerlinThat was the big nacho page. Doritos related. And around then was, I'm going to guess probably Valentine's Day, but I don't remember. And because I'm, I'm the king of, of, of stupid, dumb gifts. And my wife and I were just talking about like, oh God, I used to love Doritos. I used to love Funyuns. And so in her, the equivalent of her Valentine's Day stocking or whatever it was, I got her this little bag of Doritos. And she was like, oh, my God. She's like, I'm going to save this for a day that I really need it. And she'd come back from a run. You know, she runs every day. And she'd come back yesterday, the day before, probably the day before.

She goes, she reaches in the cabinet. She goes, you know what? Today's the day. I need the Doritos. So that's the corollary here. Because she's not constantly tempted by Doritos, it's okay in her rule book. to have a whatever three ounce bag of Doritos that just sits in the cabinet for a month or more. And then one day she eats a couple of them. And, you know, it's what chips do you want in your life? You know, what chips do you leave in Michigan? What to leave in, what to leave out, as Michigan resident Bob Seger used to say.

AlexExactly. I derailed you. I want to give this one.

MerlinI just want to give this one example of a thing from this week that's already working out for me. Here's the problem. The problem is, as I've said ad infinitum, I am very aware of the fact that, you know, well, part of this is behavioral. Like, I'm at this office by myself through most of the working day. Like, you know, I hang at home sometimes. But honestly, it's good for everyone. No one needs to say this. It's good for everybody for me to not be at the house. I've got an office. Why wouldn't I use it? That means two people in a 900-square-foot flat, two people, the difference between two

people and three people is a big difference. If I'm milling around and doing shit and trying to fix the iRobot and like, man, dad's talking to people and, you know, it's just better off. But then I come home at usually five on the dime. And as I say, as I stipulated, I know from years, ever since my diagnosis, I know that regardless of the medicine, And regardless of the whatever, four o'clock is my – there's a time every baby gets sad.

You usually put an unhappy hour. 4 p.m. is my unhappy hour. And I'm not – if I'm just sitting around my office doing whatever, I might be taking a nap. I might be working on a project thing. But that is really – there is a 90-minute period where my brain is flagging and I get a little bit cranky.

I get a little bit like easily annoyed. and regardless of the drugs, regardless of the, whatever the regimen is, there's some kind of a, and you know, back in the day that used to be, that's when the Adderall's wearing off. So woof, that's rough. Even now though, when I'm not as medicated, I do know that's when I feel, and it could be drugs, could be just the day and the sleep and the times and the whatnot. But like, I do know that four to five is a time where, let me put it this way, before I got smart,

Let me just put it this way. It's like, like, I certainly am aware that that's a time. And you know what sucks about that? That's the time when I go home and I hang out with my family. Yeah. And, you know, like I say, we all have our accommodations. My wife is usually still working at that point. My kid never leaves her room because she's just, you know, talking to her friends, which is awesome. But and I'm mostly by myself, but I am kind of a cranky butt. And but there's more to this. Right. So I've come home from the office. And of course, I'm carrying my Tom Bin backpack with like 20 pounds of stuff in it, right? And because I am fortunate enough

to be old and I got to go up a hill, I'm pretty tired. Even on the scoot scoot, I'm pretty tired. Let's, here's the other thing though. And this actually does matter. I don't care if it matters to you. It matters to me. I know like, Hey, cool. I'm going home and I'm into it. Like I like, I like my family. They're the best. And I legit like being with my family. And so it's cool. Like I'm going home. So why isn't this a happy time? Well, ADD. Also, backpack full of shit. And of course, now I'm also carrying things home. Like if I got an Instacart delivery and an included cat litter and I got to carry 20 pounds of cat litter home, all I want to get, I want to get you in the mindset of me needing to go up a hill laden with items.

Now, like I got to get through the kill zone with all this, there's stuff and there's children's shoes. And now without realizing it, I'm getting more sort of irritated. I get upstairs. One of my, Mike, I have a, not implicit, one of my jobs, chores, is that I have to do stuff like take down the recycling through the kill zone, recycling, compost, trash. I really try to stay in front of the dishes that isn't and shouldn't be something

my wife has to take care of all the time just because she's at home and she's a lady. and so i i i affirmatively try to help with how can i put this because it sounds like i'm being

Alexevasive and i'm not i i have chores and i do my chores no it i i feel i totally feel what you are saying now because it sounds like i'm trying to be a vase i don't want to over dramatize it well that's the thing i'm like do i want to talk about my boobs and how i like thinking about like full on top you should talk about your boobs well and that's but that's the thing it's like i'm it's you're not being evasive it's you're thinking about thinking she is legit better at it and

Merlinfaster at it and once again qed she's all about forests and i'm all about trees and that causes the most wonderful friction in the way we solve problems in a way that's like because i am the guy who's like yeah but did you think about this and she's the person who's like actually it's already done i did it and i go how did you do that but setting that aside i'm really not i'm not

AlexMattie is the Madeline.

MerlinIs what?

AlexMattie's the Madeline.

MerlinOh, really? Oh, God, of course, of course, of course. So anyway, Mattie and Mattie, a podcast I pray never happens. Oh, God.

AlexMattie and Mattie. Oh, nightmare. I'm sorry.

MerlinIt's like Marshall and Marsha on Parks. But anyway, so but let's just get to where I'm going with this. So, I mean, I know I knew going into this for whatever 10, 15 hour long years it's been that I've been aware of my officially diagnosed condition. I know it's a low energy time. And the way that I usually say that is my brain is fried right now. Like I need to just go look at a screen or I need to concentrate on something. I need to concentrate on cleaning the Roomba. I need to concentrate on trying to get my SSL certificate to work right.

I need to do something very specific and detail oriented. But what I need to be doing, a deal I have tacitly made with myself is, no, I'm supposed to, and even though my family, the rest of my family is not like around at this point. They're in other rooms. I'm mainly in the lounge by myself over here. Might be watching some Anderson Cooper or whatever, but, but, but hanging over my head is all the stuff that isn't done that I could be doing, which is like sometimes, sometimes let's be honest. Sometimes I'm a little miffed and I'm like, Oh wow. The dishes are still here from before,

even though I was the last person to do the dishes. Do I love feeling like that? No, but I think dishes need to be done. Not only do the dishes need to be done. I carried all that stuff up. I am wiped. I come upstairs I just want to do it but like you know what it's all looming over me there's dishes in the sink there is and we're not gross or anything but you know what I mean these are all small things that need to be dealt with maybe I never finished like seasoning that pan from the other night there's all of that oh guess what we're playing that Simpsons game where like the person that makes the pile of garbage fall over has to take it out the recycling is full so I can't

even you know how it is where you can't clean until you clean so not only am I wiped not only what I'd like to be trying to get my Let's Encrypt certificate fixed. Just have Anderson Cooper on in the background while I drink a seltzer. My own expectation with myself has not been met. And guess who's mad? Me. Guess who I'm mad at? Me. But I'm also really fucking tired. So now there's all these, now I need to like go through the kill zone again, get all the fucking trash out, be able to do the dishes, make room for the dishes to dry. All that kind of stuff.

It's all such petty bullshit. but what a dumb shitty way for me to feel at 5 p.m. when I've just come home from my very fucking easy job. And you know what I changed? I said to myself, I said, I can't change the fact that I'm neurologically a little vulnerable at that time, but you know what? I can try to at least improve my attitude. I wouldn't count on that as the first line defense toward being a complete and whole non-neurotypical person, but I can choose to be a little bit more jolly about things.

but then there's some very specific things that i can do one thing is before i leave the house i try to not leave a mess i try to if there is like morning dishes stuff morning dishes that are like crazy fucking easy to clean up because they're just the morning dishes well guess what by the late afternoon it's a whole day's worth of dishes why don't i get in front of that and why don't i improve this area so one easy one is like i try to at least get everything sort of like rinsed out and cleaned up. I empty, we have that little dishwasher. I empty that from the night before. Just little basic things where I've left the place a little bit better. That's the small

thing. So four o'clock, five o'clock, I know I'm going to have to fight all these things. I got to carry this shit. I got to get through the kill zone. And I did, I started doing the simplest thing that so far is non-invasive to my family. And I think they, I hope they appreciate. Right. Afternoon chores. So when I'm done with my stuff, like when I'm done here, I'm going to go home and do my afternoon chores. And so what do I do? Guess what? First one. So I'm still have, you know, my regular, mostly morning energy. If I have something I need to carry home,

why don't I bring it home now when I have a little more energy? Whatever that is. So, you know, and I've always got a list, a running list of things that should go from house to office, things that should go from office to house, because, you know, that's how it works. It's probably like that for everybody. You pick up dry cleaning type stuff, whatever. But so number one, so dumb. I'm going to go, you go home at one, two, even three o'clock because we don't, I don't really come home for the day till five. But if I don't have anything outstanding, why do I wait until the time of day when I'm most fucked up to do the heaviest lifting I will do that day,

literally. So anything that needs to go home, put it in the backpack, put it in a bag. Where does it go? It goes by the door so that when I leave, I just pick it up and go. I make it easy on myself. And then I scoot, scoot up the hill with the heavy things. But you know what? I'm feeling fine. It's okay. It's one or two in the afternoon. Still good. Still in the window. Ultraman's light has not started blinking. I get home. I put my scoot, scoot away. And you know what I do? I go upstairs and I'm not as bothered by the children's shoes. I'm not as bothered by any of the things. And you know what I do? I do the chores then, which is I do like do the dishes, get them in the dishwasher,

all of the, oh, you just got a slack from Matt Howie. So recycling goes down and I've got an improved workflow for that. That's been a lot easier. I'm doing that thing where I'm playing the video game of like minimizing the amount of effort. If stuff, if paper towels need to come up, I bring those up after I've taken recycling down. This gets more mundane. So strap the fuck in. All of that dumb shit.

AlexBut the more mundane it is, the more important it is so you can focus on the...

MerlinI have to earn, in this explanation, I feel the need to earn the incredibly modest but satisfying results of this. But that's what I'm doing now. And if there is stuff I need to do at home, you know what? Invariably, there's stuff I forgot needs to go to the office. Aha, my little thumb drive that I put extra large movies on, that should go into my watch pocket and my jeans because that's going to go back to the office to get loaded up. Also, remember to add a reminder. You know what you need to do? Remember to remember. So what does that mean? I open up the task paper and fucking A, there's always at least one thing that I forgot to remember.

So that's the thing that needs to go back to the office. And guess what? When I do that at 1 p.m., I also might notice or remember or think of something that's at the office that needs to come home. Do a basic survey of the house. Is there anything obvious that needs to be different right now that I could just take care of right now? Remember, it's only 1 or 2 o'clock. We're still going to have Daddy's Afternoon podcast and project time back at the office. But I brought home the dumb stuff that's heavy. I've brought up the supplies that need to be brought up. I've taken down the things that need to be chored.

And I've got that satisfying sound of the dishwasher running, doing all the glasses and silverware from earlier. and for the second, if I'm good, for the second time that day, I've left the place better than I found it. The counter is clear and whoever walks into that room, especially one of those people, will probably notice that and be a little happier that that got taken care of. And then it bounced. I say, I'll see you tonight and I go back to the office. So then it gets to be four or five o'clock. Let me give you one quick step zero benefit. I'm not dreading the stuff that I know makes me a little bit of a whiny bitch in the afternoon.

Guess what? I don't have all that shit to do. I don't have all this stuff to carry. I don't have all those chores waiting for me. Unless somebody's decided to bake a cake or do science, there's a pretty good chance that in those mere three hours, the place is going to be pretty much the way I left it. School has been happening. Work has been happening. And I get to feel a little bit better. I get to feel like, why? So what did I learn from that? Find a time that's better for this. It's really, really insightful stuff. If you're low energy at a time that you want high energy, Well, you can't change when your energy,

you can't just by fiat create new energy. Why don't you move that to a time when you've got better energy? And like, I have to be honest with you, so far it's been really, really great, but it's also really encouraging because I realized there's probably way more things like this. So basic resource leveling for me includes things like, like when we're done here, I'm going to go clone our document and send you the link because why would I wait until next Tuesday to do that? Why don't I do that while I'm already here right now, while I'm in this particular kill zone? So that's to me an example of noticing

and adding a little bit of infrastructure, making an impossibly small change that actually has an immediate benefit. Yes. Well, I... Were you leasing a vehicle or what were you doing? Where'd you go?

AlexI know. I talked a lot there. I know. Well, the... Because I love listening to you talk. And I love it.

MerlinNow, is there anything in that that makes sense to you, to any of your various conditions in life? Is there anything to that that's not what I'm doing? But like, is there anything that you think you could notice and operationalize to see a tiny life improvement?

AlexWell, I think you've been actually talking about the or not. You've been acting or doing these things for the past few weeks. And it's sort of seeped into, you know, you've talked about it a little bit. It's seeped into other conversations and stuff. And I which makes me happy because it makes you seem happy. And I want I just want people to be happy.

MerlinDon't worry about me. I'm fine.

Alexum the good point i'm very articulate uh but i have always not always but i often think about my brain as uh as ram and i just want to clear as much of it as i want to automate as much of it as possible so that i can you know if i need to boot up whatever the equivalent of the emotional labor of Final Cut Pro is that isn't going to put a huge strain on my RAM or my hard drive.

And that like the one thing during quarantine that has changed the game is just preparing my clothes for the next day.

MerlinOh, shit. Yeah. If you and that also goes for like if you decide to exercise, I had so much better success if I charged my MP3 player the night before and had all my clothes laid out to go to the Y at 530. Made such a difference.

AlexAnd if you've actually have your your playlist ready and yeah.

MerlinAnd you look forward to it. You know, I used to leave an index card on my chair at the end of the day. Next time you walk in this room and sit in this chair, here's the very first thing that you do.

AlexYes. Yes. That's that's like the I they're like a kernel panic. I sometimes need to put things in place that I cannot ignore even as much as I want to.

MerlinBut it's also but like I've heard this referred to as this might be Stephen Pressfield. but I don't remember. But some people call it parking on a downhill slope or leaving water in the well, whatever you want to call it. But I think it was Pressfield, the War of Archive. Anyway, somebody said park on a downhill, going downhill. Like make it easy to get started the next day. Like leave as hard as it might be, if you're as difficult as it might be while you're writing, leave at the point where you're in the middle of a sentence where you know you can come back. And whatever, I don't know if that's true for everybody, but think about that as a pattern in your life.

It's like, you know, if I need to like, If I'm out of toilet paper, I'm sad. But like if I bring in the toilet paper and I stock up the toilet paper, that's also maybe a good time for me to think, do I need to order more toilet paper? Like there's all these kinds of things where there's like an automation or a shortcut, a script that can run in your head to say, well, you can tell I've been spending a lot of time at home, assistant. Under these conditions, you know, these are the variables. And under these conditions, remember to remember and do that thing and make it easier. You parked on a downhill slope.

AlexYeah. Yeah. I mean, now, because of issues I'm still, like, body and gender issues still working through, I fucking hate showering. But I love being clean. Because you know what happens if you're not clean? You think about how gross you are.

MerlinAnd I hate it. Just shower in the dark, Alex. It's not complicated. Get a candle.

AlexDude, that is an actual.

MerlinI love showering in the dark.

AlexI now change the lighting in my bathroom to be pleasant.

MerlinYou should make a scene. You should make a scene called I Love Me.

AlexYes, I literally.

MerlinHey, Dingus, I love me.

AlexHey, Dingus, don't hate myself today.

MerlinHey, Dingus, hide my shame.

AlexSo thank you so very much.

MattieWait, I wanted to say a thing. I've just been sitting on it. Would you say that instead of considering yourself to have transitioned, you consider yourself to have evolved?

AlexDid you just want to make a Pokemon reference?

MattieYes.

AlexYou've literally just been letting me talk and holding that in.

MattieFor like 20 minutes, yeah. Yeah.

AlexYes, my gender has evolved.

MerlinThank you.

16. Being a Human is Hard Sometimes 0:00 / 01:13:40