Halfway Check-in: Progress, Pride, and Practical Advice

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Show Notes

In this episode of “Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice,” Patricia and Nicole discuss their mid-year review of personal goals, emphasizing decluttering and strengthening community connections. They offer book recommendations for Pride Month, focusing on LGBTQ+ history and resources. The hosts also share what’s currently bringing them joy, such as tending to a blooming plumeria and immersing themselves in vinyl records.

Mentioned on the show:

Find the full show notes and official transcript on our website: eedapod.com

Follow the show on Instagram & find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, & Spotify

Sound editing by Jen Zink

Transcript

Music: [00:00:00] [Intro Music] 

Patricia: Hey there, Scooby Snacks, welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle. 

Nicole: And I’m here, I’m queer, and I am exhausted. I’m Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We’re recording this show on June 6th, 2025.

Patricia: Happy Pride. 

Nicole: It is Pride. 

Patricia: It is Pride. I dunno what to say about that. Like, I mean, it’s, it’s always pride here in this household. 

Nicole: Oh yes. As our windows cast rainbows on everything. 

Patricia: True, true. We hope that those of you who celebrate can find some joy this month. [00:01:00] I know things have been extra hard, like extra, extra hard. But find some joy, find some community. 

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I hope you find that community. 

Patricia: Recently, the big thing between when we last recorded a show and when we’re recording this one, is we finally carved out like a day, like a good six to seven hours. And went through some of the boxes of my mom’s stuff that we have sitting in the back room. And we didn’t get through everything, but I do think we got through like a dozen boxes and we made a good like dent in the pile.

Nicole: Yeah. I, I wasn’t keeping count, but I’m measuring by now we can access the futon that they were all stacked up in front of. 

Patricia: Yeah, that’s true. And Nicole was great about adding that little spoonful of sugar and keeping things from being too hard. You know, there were definitely hard parts. I cried when I found some pictures, but we [00:02:00] found all kinds of things.

And also you, our soundtrack was records that day. You put on records. 

Nicole: Yeah, I put on a bunch of records. It was fun. 

Patricia: Putting on records was actually a great kind of way to track when we take breaks and get snacks and drink water, ’cause you have to either change the record or flip it over at least every 22 minutes or so.

Nicole: Yeah. When we say we were listening to records, we were listening to like real vinyl records on a turntable. 

Patricia: Yeah. But it’s great for kind of keeping time and making sure you take breaks. 

Nicole: Yeah, it worked out really well. 

Patricia: Reminder that this show is independently run, so downloading it, sharing it, giving us reviews and ratings are free ways to show us support and really, really important.

If you have a few bucks to donate, our Patreon membership start at $3 a month. Even if you don’t want to engage with the content there, like we definitely do not force you. It’s a way to donate to the [00:03:00] show and help us keep going. Second tier gets access to the newsletter and the third tier, the Dubious Advisors, there are 10 spots, you’ll get a monthly snail mail experience. 

Nicole: Yeah, we are a strong independent podcast, but you know, this show costs money. 

Patricia: It does. And a lot of labor. 

Nicole: And a lot of labor, yeah. 

Heads up, we are going to mention some books on this show, this time. This episode? And if you are interested in getting yourself a copy of any of those, you can head on over to our bookshop page, a link to which is on our webpage and in the show notes. And there you can order any of the books that we mention. And I think you can get digital copies now, right? 

Patricia: Yeah, I think bookshop does eBooks now 

Nicole: eBooks 

Patricia: and physical books, and you both support independent bookstores and it is our affiliate shop, so it’s another way to support us on this show as well.

Music: [00:04:00] [Transition Music] 

Patricia: So it is just about halfway through the year, so we are going to look at our old friends, our 2025 goals. After we get through these, we’re gonna recommend some books for Pride month. 

Nicole: The last time we checked in on our goals for this show was in March in our episode that was called Revisiting Goals? In THIS Economy? Focusing on Purpose and Joy, which is actually one of our most popular episodes. 

Patricia: Which I’m really amused by. I am like, what about this epi? Like what about that episode? Like did people really enjoy? I don’t know, but hey, full disclosure, we talked about goals at the beginning of March, and then I promptly got distracted by New York City and my birthday and picking cherries and going to [00:05:00] the theater here at home and networking events.

What else did we do? Oh, we were in an art show and we went to the Parliament Funkadelic concert, and also just being in utter denial about some of the hard things here at home that need to be addressed. But I’m going to argue that’s what I needed. Maybe not the denial, but the abundance of social time has been restorative.

Nicole: Yeah, and like I said, the last time we revisited ’em on the show was for that episode, but that was also kind of the last time we revisited our goals like 

Patricia: womp womp 

Nicole: in general. 

All that being said, we have done some things, uh, like you mentioned, we made a dent in the piles of boxes of your mom’s stuff.

Patricia: And that was actually some of the stuff that I was in denial about too.

So like, I’m glad we did that and I wanna keep that momentum going. I am also working on sorting through my old wardrobe to put stuff up for sale on Poshmark or something like that. And hey, if anyone wants [00:06:00] pinup style dresses and skirts, that is what is being sold. The first step was to unearth the boxes, and then we invested in a printer so I can print shipping labels because it is a lot of clothing.

Nicole: It really is. Is this like a, a new goal because, this I don’t think was specifically on it. Maybe like helping clear out the office was? 

Patricia: I think one of our big goals at the beginning of the year was just a very general decluttering, and so I think this falls under, it. 

Nicole: Falls under that. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Okay. 

One of the things we’ve talked about as part of our goals for this year is updating our emergency packs and taking first aid classes.

I haven’t really done much with those emergency packs since we last talked in March, and at that time I got new batteries for the walkie talkies. But in prepping for this episode, we did just look up classes, which are offered through the Red Cross. And they provide a [00:07:00] combination of adult and pediatric first aid CPR/AED classes. In our area, it looks like they run about $85 a person, and there’s a wide variety of online and in-person classes or in combination. 

Patricia: Yeah, I, first of all, I was making this way more complicated 

Nicole: I know 

Patricia: than it needed to be. I was like, okay, where do we take first aid classes? Do we have to contact the local fire department? Does the library give first aid classes? And then my wife, the former EMT was like, oh, Red Cross does classes. And you say this like everyone knows it. But this was news to me. 

Nicole: I know it was one of those things that in my head feels like it’s an, everybody knows it thing, but I guess they don’t. 

Patricia: Not me. But when we were looking ’em up, it was really cool. There were a lot of online options, but there were also classes for like emergency dog and cat, like pet care.

There were [00:08:00] some wilderness ones. There was a class you mentioned that was basically what to do while you wait for help to arrive. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: There were actually a lot of cool options, and I appreciate the wealth of online options there were too. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

Patricia: One of my goals this year, as you all know, was to learn how to crochet.

After I took those couple of classes at the beginning of the year, I have not touched my crochet hook or yarn. You know, I do have an abundance of those woobles sets, and I do not have an abundance of time, so it just hasn’t been prioritized. It is still a want, but it is not high on the list anymore. 

Nicole: Yeah, and there’s, I think part of that is we don’t do a lot of things where you’re just kind of sitting and not using your hands. Like I know a lot of people do that kind of stuff when they’re watching TV and stuff like that, [00:09:00] but we don’t really do that. 

Patricia: Well, I could do it with audio books, but first I have to learn how to do it well enough 

Nicole: mmm 

Patricia: in order to be able to pay attention to both crochet and the audio book.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

One of our other goals was to read an Octavia Butler series and I had picked out the Xenogenesis Trilogy, which is also known as Lilith’s Brood. And this, we did make progress on, we both recently finished reading Dawn, the first book in the series. 

Patricia: Yeah. And we actually had gotten a first edition copy, like hardcover of that book, and it’s fascinating.

Because there are two white women on the cover. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

Patricia: Which the main character, she is not a white woman. 

Nicole: Nope. 

Patricia: But as they did with sci-fi back then, especially is they would put white people on the cover, even if it was a black author, and even if they were black characters because they [00:10:00] thought that white readers would not buy the books otherwise.

Nicole: I’m more cynical. I’m like, did they also think black people didn’t read sci-fi? 

Patricia: That too, right? Right. Did they? I mean, the audience, right? Yeah. Oh, the audience won’t go for this. The audience default being white people. Yeah. I wonder if that was also also a part of it. 

Nicole: Eew. 

Patricia: But we read the first book. I’m excited for the future ones. It did not go at all, like I anticipated. But to be fair, I am sometimes a very chaotic reader and I’ll just pick up a book and not even look and see what it’s about. I’ll just, 

Nicole: yeah 

Patricia: I’ll just read. 

Nicole: I had no idea where this book was even gonna go. 

Patricia: Yeah. And I listened to it on audiobook and in that last 10 minutes, she really just goes for it like, yeah.

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Another thing that we had wanted to do was kind of looking at our months ahead and really planning the calendar and kind of having an [00:11:00] an idea of what was going on. And I think we did that kind of for March, but we had travel in there. We didn’t do it for April, we didn’t do it for May. We’re looking forward to doing it for June and also getting back to like this, our goals check-in, because we also have some goals and stuff that we don’t talk about on the show, so we wanna look at those too.

Nicole: One of the other things we’ve been working on this year is being more social and hosting guests at our home. And when we do that, that means that we do have to do a certain level of keeping the house clean and in order. We have been incredibly social lately. 

Patricia: We have, we have, we haven’t hosted people as much as we had hoped, but you know, there’s still time.

But we’ve been very social. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: More social than we have been 

Nicole: in 

Patricia: since before the pandemic. 

Nicole: Yeah, I was gonna say in years. 

Patricia: Still mostly outside though. And if we’re indoors, we’re masked. 

Nicole: Yep. 

Patricia: One of the other things I had on my list is to level up [00:12:00] this podcast. I have, again, so many ideas, so little time. I finally did gather the ideas all in a single place in the podcast notebook.

And, uh, one of my ideas that I’m thinking about, and I would love people’s feedback on this, like, let us know. Are y’all into printables, like worksheets or things that could be helpful for you to have and customize for yourself? Kind of outlines of things I’ve written about in the newsletter or maybe even talked about on the show.

Things like filling your cup. That’s something I’m thinking of and I’m hoping to work on my first idea very soon, and I think I could sell printables through a Patreon shop. Like you can download the PDF for a few bucks and print at home or the library if you don’t have a printer. 

Nicole: Yeah, use the library.

I have been supposed to be more [00:13:00] involved on our Patreon, and while I have been contributing to the weekly check-in, I have not been great on following up, logging in and doing more interactions. I think I just need to do that. 

Patricia: Yeah. You know, the one thing that I, I’ve heard of in, you know, like Atomic Habits or whatever, is kind of think about a thing you do at the same time.

Like maybe while I’m brushing my teeth, that’s a thing you do. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Yeah, no, there’s, I think there’s a couple of things I could link it to. I just have to start linking it. 

Patricia: Yeah, that’s fair. 

I desperately want to get back to learning piano and ukulele, but again, low on time, low on spell slots, and it’s just not a reality right now.

You can want things all, all you want, but you know, I am actually more focused on the decluttering I think. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Is my priority, like that’s, that’s [00:14:00] more pressing to me. 

Nicole: Yeah, that makes sense. 

Kind of along those lines was my exercise plan. I had incredibly good intentions earlier this year. 

Patricia: Many people did, yes. 

Nicole: Uhhuh. Yeah, I did good for like a month. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: And something happened. Well, something happened. I’ve been working. 

Patricia: You’ve been working a lot. 

Nicole: I work a lot and I exhaust myself. And this does involve I’m, I’m also going into the office like three days a week right now, which really cuts down on my work from home days, which is when I typically had more time to do things like exercise because then I didn’t have commute.

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: So that has just kind of fallen off. You and I were talking though about maybe finding other ways to do it and really just finding a way to kind of radically shift something in our week to make room for this. 

Patricia: Yeah. And I think something that has helped me with other things is actually taking a class, right?

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Being accountable, again with the [00:15:00] accountability. Being accountable to another person, like actually paying for something. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

Patricia: And we have some ideas, but honestly things are a bit shaky at my job right now as they are at a lot of universities. So I’m waiting to get through the end of this fiscal year.

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Before we make any other big plans. 

Nicole: That makes a lot of sense. 

Patricia: One of my goals was to read 15 physical books, and this was one to read, but two in service to decluttering. Right? The idea is read 15 physical books and then I can get rid of some of those books because I have read them and I can set them free, pass them on whatever.

And I’ve actually read eight physical books so far this year. Like I’ve read a lot of audio books. I’ve read a lot of eBooks, but there are eight physical copies, physical versions that I have, and I think I might only be keeping like two of them. So… 

Nicole: All right. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Well done. 

Patricia: Thanks. [00:16:00] 

Nicole: This next one is a bit of a success so far. It is my ongoing fancy mail project, M-A-I-L. And some of the people out there who may be listening to this podcast may have been recipients of that. Congratulations I guess. I love you. Thank you. Um, but yeah, I’ve done pretty good about this. I’ve included some pressed flowers, I’ve included pictures. I have used fancy paper.

I don’t know what you’re doing with your fingers there. 

Patricia: Uh, you used your typewriter. 

Nicole: I did use my typewriter. That’s what that motion was. Yes. 

Patricia: I’m not doing like itsy bitsy spider. 

Nicole: I really wasn’t sure what was happening there. 

I haven’t, I have not yet done a wax seal to close the envelopes up, but I think I’ve done everything else but that.

Patricia: Oh, yeah. I did get you a cool wax seal for December-ween. 

Nicole: Yeah, I know. 

Patricia: Yeah. Okay. 

One of the things I’ve definitely fallen off the wagon about is [00:17:00] no phone after 9:00 PM. I was doing really great with that, like the first three months of the year. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

Patricia: And then just out the window and I realize it is something I do more of when I’m even more stressed.

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: So I think. I really wanna get back to that. Like I am better for it when I’m not looking at my phone after 9:00 PM. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

This next one was my desire to hang art, and while we did purchase frames as mentioned in the March episode, the only notes I have here since then say, whoops, because this has just not happened.

Patricia: Yeah. Yeah. It’s still a, a would love to do and like I said, I think we’re really focusing on going through some boxes. 

Nicole: Yeah. Decluttering. Going through boxes. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Trying to get some stuff out. 

Patricia: This year I had chosen three focus words to work on, and one of them was connection. And I think we’ve been doing a [00:18:00] really good job of that.

We’ve been both hanging out with our usual friends, we’ve made new friends. When we went to New York, I got to reconnect with friends I haven’t seen in years or even decades, and that was really, really good for connection. 

Another one of my words was creation. I feel pretty confident in my egg pasta dough, like making the dough, kneading the dough. Pretty good at rolling the dough out with the machine and I’ve hand cut some. We also have cut it with the machine. I think the next step in my pasta creation is going to be making shapes. 

Nicole: [Gasp] Shapes. 

Patricia: Yeah. Not yet filled pasta. But like maybe like farfalle or something or, or like, or like a little rolled situation.

But we successfully made [00:19:00] jam and preserves this year, which I’m really excited about. Like I feel like I have a handle on at least canning fruit in that way. And also looking forward to making some zines. 

And so I had connection creation and that last word I had chosen was reclamation. There are a lot of things that I miss about a person I used to be, things I used to do that I loved that I don’t do anymore, but I wanna get back to doing or do in some capacity. And I think going to New York helped with that. 

Nicole: Yeah, it really, I could tell on the way back, it un it like unlocked something. 

So it’s June and I, I’m curious, do you have any, like any kind of new goals, like mid-year goals that you’re interested in?

Says here because you can start new ones at any time. I think June is an appropriate month to start, like a new goal or something. It’s not [00:20:00] like August or September that feels totally off. I wouldn’t recommend it, but June, June feels like a good month to like start something new, like maybe plan a new goal or something.

Patricia: Yeah. I mean, summer solstice is in June, so if you need, if you need some kind of arbitrary start to things. 

Nicole: No, just vibes. 

Patricia: Just vibes, you know, I think, I think I’m just kind of solidifying the things I’m gonna focus on more the rest of the year. Which one is just the no phone after 9:00 PM I just need to knock it off.

This is me not gentle parenting myself, by the way. Um, and the other thing is in service to decluttering. Like what can we do to get stuff out of here? Stuff that needs to be sold or donated or given away or, or what have you. So I think those are maybe aside from some creative things and some podcast stuff, like I said, maybe some writing, but [00:21:00] mostly less phone or rather being more deliberate about when I’m on my phone. It might not even be less phone. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

Patricia: Like no phone after nine, but if I’m on my phone, I want to have made that decision and not mindlessly have picked it up. 

Nicole: That makes sense. 

Patricia: Yeah. How about you? Do you have, you know, have you zeroed in on more focus the second half of the year or do you have any new goals?

Nicole: I think there are a few like goals I set that have, I feel like they’ve really kind of solidified and I’m happy with them. So I think the one thing I wanna focus more on, kind of also in service to the decluttering is a, a full closet clean out. We were talking about this and I realized I think I have things in there that I’ve had for like five years and have never really worn out or like wore it once and I can probably let it go.

Patricia: Yeah. I think you know what, going through so much of my mom’s stuff has kind of unlocked that willingness or that [00:22:00] ease in letting things go. I think I’m more amenable to letting things go, um, after having gone through and seen all the things she held onto that were so unnecessary. 

Nicole: Yeah, that makes sense.

Music: [Transition Music] 

Patricia: Now we wanna shift into some book recommendations for Pride, because we don’t want our first episode of Pride to just be like, ugh, here’s all the hard stuff we’re doing, and maybe some fun stuff like let’s talk about some queer stuff. And so we’re gonna do what I do best, some book recommendations. And I’ve gotten Nicole to do it, uh, with me too.

So we’re mostly focusing on nonfiction to hopefully give you some books that can be a resource or you can learn things from or use them as a springboard for further learning. We mentioned [00:23:00] some books in the episode called A Starting Place to Learn About Pride in the Queer Community, which was one of our June episodes last year.

And what I mostly mentioned were the quick and easy guides. Um, there’s like The Quick and Easy Guide to Queer and Trans Identities, the Quick and Easy Guide to Asexuality. And they are still amazing. I love them. They’re like little comic books. And since that episode, they also published A Quick and Easy Guide to Coming Out by Kristin Russo and Ravi Teixeira. We also have an episode, um, on some help for folks coming out that also I think, came out last June. So should be set. 

Nicole: Is this our new segment, uh, EEDA Backlist? 

Patricia: [Chuckle] 

Nicole: I’m gonna kick us off with a book I mentioned in the best books we read in 2024, which is He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters by Schuyler Bailar.

If you [00:24:00] want to hear more about why I recommend that book. Go back and listen to our Best Books We Read in 2024 episode. 

Patricia: Yeah. We’ll, we’ll link that one. That’s one that, uh, I definitely bought for a family member, like an, like an older family member who is cisgender, straight, and they found it actually informative.

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: So my first pick 

Both: [Laughing] 

Patricia: is, I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom. This book is really for a queer audience, especially a queer adult audience. Though maybe some older teens might get some stuff out of it too. There are so many ways that we in the queer community can cannibalize ourselves or repeat harms that we are critical of in other communities. Or just repeat, you know, I’m [00:25:00] gonna say it like repeating heteronormativity, but just, you know, maybe in the same gender, uh, relationships, or forsaking community in service of, of that heteronormativity, even though folks may be queer. 

And this book is not a long one, but it’s a really, really important one. I do think every queer adult should read this book. I will, of course, we’ll link these both in the show notes and then on our bookshop page, we have a section that is like books mentioned on the podcast. So you’ll be able to find them there. 

Nicole: I will read everything Kai Cheng Thom writes. 

Patricia: Absolutely. 

Nicole: I adore them. I think they’re so important to our community. I could just gush, but instead I’m gonna pop over to a book that just came out. This is Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline. I have been telling people as I am raving about this [00:26:00] book, this is the definitive biography of Marsha P. Johnson.

Most people who have heard of her probably know the story that she threw the first brick at Stonewall or something like that. And that’s typically the extent that most people know about Marsha. And Marsha was so much more, and she was so beloved by the community in New York City and beyond. And this book really goes into the rest of her life and how, how incredibly important she was to everyone. 

Patricia: And how radiant she was. 

Nicole: Oh my gosh. 

Patricia: Just 

Nicole: brought joy to everyone she interacted with. 

Patricia: Absolutely. Whether you wanted it or not, 

Nicole: she would bring it in a very New York fashion. 

Patricia: Yeah. Uh, you know, you’re reading the physical book and there are pictures 

Nicole: Yes

Patricia: in the physical book and I, I read it on audio book and Tourmaline reads the audio book. Uh, [00:27:00] I think both are great experiences. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

Patricia: Yeah, I definitely got misty-eyed during some of it. 

Nicole: Oh yeah, for sure. I really just, anyone who wants to know about the history of our community, this is so important because her life expanded decades beyond Stonewall, um, into the early years of the AIDS crisis, and she was involved throughout, and of course, you’ll get bits and pieces of those who interacted around her, including Sylvia Rivera, who, if you don’t know who that is, you should also know who Sylvia Rivera was.

Patricia: Another book is uh, Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary by Toshio Meronek and Miss Major. And Miss Major is a trans activist who is blessedly still with us, still doing the work. You can donate to some of her projects still. And she is [00:28:00] out there still fighting the fight. 

Nicole: Yeah, I think she’s down in the south now.

Patricia: I think so. 

Nicole: And I think she does a lot of work around housing and stability for the community. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Um, and she is also a Stonewall veteran. 

Patricia: Absolutely. And in this book, this book, I laughed out loud a number of times because she pulled no punches. 

Nicole: Oh.

Patricia: Uh, it’s, ugh delicious. Absolutely delicious. 

Nicole: As you hear me talking, or hear us talking about various time points in our community’s history, and you may be finding yourself going, what is that? I don’t know what that is. I don’t know who that is. Or if you have an interest just more broadly in history. I recommend the book, Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution by Susan Stryker. This book is now currently in its second edition, and that was published in 2017, so it doesn’t include any of the history [00:29:00] from the last, what is that now, eight years or so.

Susan Stryker is the preeminent trans historian, if there is one amongst us. Every time I pick up this book and leaf through it, I find bits of history that send me down rabbit holes. I first listened to, or first read this book, on audiobook. And while you can do that, as I’m leafing through it more and more, I’m seeing its structure also lends something to kind of understanding what it’s talking about. And there are pictures in it as well. Even though it is, uh, currently paperback, so they’re just black and white pictures, but it does help with that as well. 

Patricia: I also have a history book recommendation. Full disclosure, I have not read this book and I tend to stay away from recommending books I haven’t read yet.

Honestly, there have been books that I have read intending to talk about on the other show I do. [00:30:00] And the last 10 pages, all of a sudden it gets transphobic or it gets misogynist or it gets ableist and I’m like, I can’t recommend this book now. So that’s why I’m often very hesitant to recommend books I haven’t myself read.

So this one is on my TBR. I have flipped through it. It’s called Rainbow History Class: Your Guide Through Queer and Trans History by Hannah McElhinney. I think Hannah McElhinney started, uh, Rainbow History class maybe on TikTok, and maybe she has content other in other places. 

This book is, I don’t think it’s for children. I think, children children, I think teens can get a lot out of it. Teens, adults. It is, I think currently still a hardcover. Um, and there are a lot of illustrations in it, and it goes through like a bunch of different events and people and places. And [00:31:00] it’s one of those, like, you can read it all the way through if you want to. Or you can just like pick up and learn about a couple of things every once in a while. 

Nicole: What’s that? You want more history books? I’ve got you covered. 

Patricia: Hey, you know, knowing where we’ve been can help direct where we’re going. 

Nicole: And that’s the exact reason I’ve picked this next book. 

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: My next book is Let the Record Show: A Political History of Act Up New York, 1987 to 1993 by Sarah Schulman.

This is a big book. Um, if you get the paper back like I have, eh, the print is a little smaller. It is that big because it covers so much material. This book documents the activities of ACT UP New York during the early years of the AIDS crisis. And for those of you going, Nicole, what is ACT UP? ACT UP was a political [00:32:00] activist group whose mission statement says that they are, quote, a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis.

Their actions are, if you could say any group had like legendary actions, it is ACT UP. They are the ones who sponsored like the AIDS die-ins, or I guess not necessarily sponsored, but did. 

Patricia: Yeah 

Nicole: like the AIDS die-ins and things like that. They used a real multi-pronged approach of direct action, but also in higher levels of working with governments and things like that.

Like they, they managed to get themselves seated at the table for some things, so they were incredibly successful. And this book goes into detail as to what they did to be so successful with their actions. That is the reason I’m recommending this book because I think there are a lot of lessons to be [00:33:00] learned, especially this day and age when we are once again in our community facing issues related to healthcare.

Patricia: The author, Sarah Schulman, I think is a journalist, and she also recently had a book come out called The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity, and I actually learned about this because she was on an episode of the podcast How to Survive the End of the World. I will link both that podcast episode because it is great, and also this book as well. I haven’t read it yet, but again, it is on my never ending TBR. 

My last book recommendation for today though is Juliette Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera. This is actually fiction. Um, it’s older fiction and I have the graphic novel, but it’s based on a novel of the same name, and it is fiction you can learn from.

It is one of my favorite revisits and it’s just, it’s a good [00:34:00] one. I think it’s a classic, I call it a queer classic.

Music: [Transition Music] 

Nicole: Okay, Patricia, we kind of did a split episode here. 

Patricia: We did. 

Nicole: What do you want people to take away from this other than going book shopping? 

Patricia: Well, aside from reading some books, remember that your goals serve you. You don’t serve them. 

Nicole: Huh. 

Patricia: Yeah, I know. 

Nicole, what are, what’s, uh, some of the takeaways you want people to take?

Nicole: We’re at about the halfway point through the year, at least in the standard calendar year. Things change. It’s okay to reevaluate your goals, drop some goals, add some new ones. You know, when it comes to these things, the rules are made up, the points don’t matter. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Just have fun with it. 

I know things are wild out there, what’s [00:35:00] been filling your cup?

Patricia: [Exhale] 

My plumeria, who is named Planty because I named things like Peewee Herman our, and our couch is Couchy. 

Nicole: It is? 

Patricia: Uh, yeah. 

Nicole: Oh no. 

Patricia: You didn’t know her name? 

Nicole: No. 

Patricia: Oh my gosh. 

Nicole: I’m sorry Couchy. 

Patricia: And, uh. We have many plants, but this one particular plant is Planty, and she was the first plant I had, and she is a plumeria that my mother brought from a grower. She was just like a little stick back in 2015. She brought over from Maui and gave her to me, and I planted her. We were living in Pasadena. And we just kind of cared for her from 2015 on, and she bloomed for us the first time in 2020. And then she bloom, this is the second time she has bloomed. Five years, like five years later, she’s bloomed again.

The thing [00:36:00] is, is that we were told Plumeria don’t bloom in Oakland and especially not indoors. We have her under a grow light. She’s in a pot indoors. 

Nicole: We were told they don’t grow here. 

Patricia: Oh, they don’t grow here either. Yeah. They don’t grow here. They don’t bloom here. And yet she’s full of flowers. You know, I have posted on my personal Instagram and also in, in a recent newsletter, some pictures and no one told Planty that she can’t bloom me here. And we have treated her as if she can. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: And I think there’s like a bigger, you know, lesson here. 

Nicole: She is definitely a survivor too, because a couple years ago she grew too tall for herself and got heavy, top heavy and broke 

Patricia: Broke in half. 

Nicole: in half. 

Patricia: Yeah. Well, in 2017 when we went to China we had a friend watch her, and Planty didn’t like not being [00:37:00] in our apartment, so she dropped all her leaves. 

Nicole: Yeah, so she’s, she’s been through it. She’s a survivor. 

Patricia: Nicole, what’s filling your cup? 

Nicole: As I mentioned earlier, we were listening to some records while we were doing some boxes, but with that, I’ve also started just putting on records occasionally in the evening.

And I don’t listen to a lot of music, like I don’t listen to the radio. I typically don’t have streaming services playing while I work, I don’t like music. And so in doing this, I’m being really intentional about the music I’m listening to, and that’s just been really nice. 

Patricia: Yeah, I like it. I’m always interested in like what you pick out next.

Nicole: I mean, yeah, there’s some that I would just keep spinning over and over again, but we have a lot of records and I feel like some 

Patricia: Again, with the decluttering, we also have a lot of records to go through that we inherited, so 

Nicole: Yes. 

Patricia: That too. 

Nicole: Yeah, we need to do a record party. We keep talking about that. [00:38:00] 

Patricia: Yeah.

Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com, and we’ll leave a link to that in our show notes. 

Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E-E-D-A-P-O-D dot com. There you can also find a link to our Patreon, our bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing, Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter.

You can find us also on BlueSky and Instagram and YouTube at eedapod and email us at eedapod@gmail.com. 

Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent 

Nicole: except for how we do this outro sometimes I guess. 

Patricia: We? Like you and the mouse in your pocket? 

Nicole: Uh huh. 

We would also appreciate it so much if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow for ratings. It really goes far in helping other people find us because we are a strong, [00:39:00] independent podcast. 

Patricia: We are strong…. We should make some merch. 

We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon support there is going to help us keep this show going, especially without ads. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod.

In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water and read a book. We’ll be talking to you soon.

Nicole: A mouse in my pocket? You gonna let me have a mouse in my pocket? 

Patricia: Absolutely not. 

Nicole: Aww.