I Hate Richmond

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Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started.
Hey, Stephanie, welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Hi, how are you how are you stephanie great this is funny so weird nothing absolutely nothing funny has happened so far so yeah you have a very low bar for funny i do it's been a tough week so i'll tell i yes the lowest of bars oh i'm sorry it's been a tough week uh anything the matter or no my kids have just been home from daycare with the flu oh okay and when the kid yes yeah it's tough when their kids are around and you don't really love them i know i know i had agency in that decision but i didn't think i'd have to be around them all the time it's tough it's tough even when you your children, it's tough when they're constantly around.

It is.

It is.

It's more the job,

but yeah.

We're getting a little,

I'm just going to check in a little bit.

Is that a little bit of feedback?

Feedback.

Would that be, let's just do a quick test.

Stephanie,

let's do a quick back and forth.

How are you?

How you doing?

Great.

Love and life.

How are you?

What's your astrological sign?

Capricorn,

Leo,

rising,

Gemini moon.

Oh, Jesus Christ. She was ready.
I don't don't understand yeah i'm a real scientist though too i thought wait a minute i thought people just gave one answer when they gave their yeah but that's not the whole picture all right okay i'm just an aries i'm not an aries there's no moon rising there's no ram jumping in a hole you just might not know it there is no no but i've looked into it just aries stephanie um tell us a little bit about yourself you're coming to me i'm they say you're from are you in central virginia uh yeah i'm in richmond do you want me to hit record or we still do you back no no no you don't have to hit record we can proceed just like this thanks for asking yeah okay perfect yeah yeah i'm in richmond virginia okay why? You went like, uh, Richmond, Virginia. So disgusted? Yeah, I mean, Virginia's a beautiful state.
Yeah, it is. I'm not from here.
I miss room. Wow.
So you don't work for the tourism board, do you? I don't. I do not.
They should not have me. I will complain about the bugs and the humidity and the heat and their inability to deal with snow and all of that.

Okay, well, I'm going to move on to more pleasant topics, though, than the fact that you hate living in Richmond, Virginia.

People know it.

What do you, yeah, it's that T-shirt you wear.

I hate Richmond.

Yeah, they know.

They say Virginia's for lovers, and yet they have a hater living right in the center. Stephanie.
In the Capitol. You, I see here that you're a geography professor.
Is that correct? That is fully correct. Yeah.
Okay. This is not a police interview.
You're allowed to elaborate. Yes, I am a geography professor.
That is my job. Okay.
And how did you get into that? I mean, how does one become a geography professor? Yeah. As an undergrad, I checked off a box that said I had to travel.
So then I got into this geology program. And that's not geography.
Geology is rocks. Geography is people and places.
You're talking to me like I'm an idiot. That's what you're doing.
People know.

Do you know?

Yes, I know.

The difference between geology and geography.

Well, I know, but it's more than maps.

The listeners might not all know.

Listen, if you're a listener right now

and you don't know that geology is rocks,

never listen to this podcast again.

You are banished.

And that includes you, David, because you seem genuinely confused.

So, Stephanie, you studied geology and then you said, you know what?

I'm going to move into geography.

So what is it you do now?

What is it you're studying?

Yeah, I study a lot of different things, but I mainly use satellite data to understand changes in the landscape. So one of the things I, yeah, I can feel like I'm lecturing.
One of the things I study is how climate change is affecting the timing of fall foliage in Maine, because I love Maine. Another thing I study is how deforestation in Brazil is affecting the regional climate there.
I think about that in the southwestern Amazon. I do stuff locally in central Virginia that I love.
I use drones to help map historically black cemeteries that haven't been funded. First of all, I'm going to cut you off and say this is all very cool stuff and very valuable stuff.
This is important work. You know, it's in our minds now obviously i mean climate change has been for a long time but we live here in los angeles and we're seeing the effects of uh terrible effects of uh 100 mile an hour santa anas and and a lot of homes lost in a in a bad fire and we're wondering um clearly things are changing and uh and i think everyone's almost everybody i shouldn't say everybody but i think almost everybody is slowly getting to the reality that there is climate change um what advice do you have for for example there's just so much anxiety about it my wife has anxiety about it yeah I have two children that have anxiety about it um and uh I I sometimes want to be the voice of things will be okay we'll figure this out but then I sound like um you know very Pollyanna I can sound like a moron what's your take on this where's it is there a way that we can be positive or talk to people about who are anxious on this subject? Yeah, I think it's okay to be anxious about it.
I think it's kind of crazy if you're not anxious about it because it's very real. But I also have a two and a four-year-old and I, that was like an act of radical hope in society that we would kind of figure this out.
I think just getting outside and breathing and taking a walk and connecting with nature, that's what I do if I'm getting overwhelmed. I think you can be overwhelmed, but you can't let it take over you, right? And you just find faith in your community.
You find what you can do. Maybe eat one less burger a week, but I'm not saying become a vegetarian or a vegan.
Don't go vegan. You don't have to do that.
It's not that good for the environment. If you just eat a eat a little bit less meat feel better about it you can take one less flight a year but honestly just like being okay with being upset allowing yourself to feel your feelings because you're kind it would to me i think we all should be feeling our feelings a little more yeah that's that's very good advice that's very good advice um i should tell you i drive a 12 cylinder car And I eat seven burgers a day.
All your private flights. I took a private...
That's not probably great for your arteries. Oh, terrible.
They keep trying to get me to stop, but I can't hear them over the revving of my 12-cylinder. And it runs on rainforest wood that just...
Oh, my God. The mahogany is...
Yeah, I mean, it's the best no i uh i i'm trying in my small ways to do my part uh it it can all feel so overwhelming um yes and i also my son gets really mad when i say this because my son's a very uh he's into stem and science tech and all that and he uh and to him, look, we all, we humans have to change their behavior, but I'm also hoping that science comes up with some answers. And he gets mad that I'm just putting it off on science.
Like, don't worry, science will fix it because that can sound, I think, irresponsible. But I do think science is going to have to be, is going to have to come into the equation because I have my doubts that China, India, the United States, Russia, and I'm including us, trust me, are all going to say, you know what, we got to change our ways.
Yes, I agree. I think it's not worth it feeling guilty because like you're not Exxon, you're not the US, you're not bp you're not the people who like lied to people for centuries about what harm this would do so it's not worth feeling guilty but i think you can look for the good stories a negative headline gets 10 more clicks than a positive one so that people are always going to write negative headlines um there are some really cool climate resiliency things going on some cities they're planting more trees trees are really are really great for cooling down cities.
LA, I think, painted some pavements white for a while because dark surfaces trap a lot of heat. There are small-scale changes that a lot of cities in the U.S.
in particular are making. And yeah, I think it's going to be a mix of science and everyone realizing that these disasters that we keep having cost so much money.
So it'd actually be cheaper if we start

actually investing in climate change solutions and resilience.

I think insurance companies in L.A. are going to start investing in climate change technology

because, you know, and you're going to see, I mean, unfortunately, at a certain point, it takes,

I hate to say it, but it does. Once you start hurting big businesses' pocketbook,

That's what we're talking about. at a certain point it takes i hate to say it but it it it does once you hurt start hurting um big business's pocketbook that's when they pay attention and they see they see religion i know i'm so sorry this is the most depressing conversation you've probably ever no first of all no um i just talked to my staff 10 minutes ago and uh that was much more depressing real downer yeah real down're just not fun people.
Yeah, we had a quick meeting where I encouraged them to tell me how they really felt about me. And that went terribly.
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The show picks up five years after the events of the first season as Joel and Ellie are drawn into conflict with each other in a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind. CNN calls The Last of Us exquisite, fully realized, and worthy of the hype, and The Daily Beast calls it a riveting and suspenseful triumph.
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Stephanie, I know how to brighten this up. Yeah.
I'm going to do it right now. Go.
I take to heart what you said, and you shouldn't be self-conscious because I want these discussions. Yes, it's nice when they're fun, but it's also heartening to talk to people who are out there dealing with the real problems in the world.
So don't feel badly about that. OK.
And I won't feel badly about my job. OK.
Yeah. Yeah.
If you want to feel badly about something, feel badly about thinking that I didn't understand the difference between geology and geography. I just think we don't have geography in many schools.
So I just am used to it's a battle I've been fighting for years. Do you feel that people have lost touch with the outside world, that we're all on our screens, that we've lost touch with nature? I think everyone should just get out more and breathe more oxygen and stop looking at your phones more.
Yeah, I mean, it's's, it's weird. There was an onion headline like 15 years ago.
That was like humans look at glowing rectangles all day. And I was like, Oh, it's only got worse.
Yeah. I think everyone should just talk to more people and go outside and look at a tree and be like, wow, how long has that tree been there? Yeah.
I have an, I have an app on my phone called nature and I just click it. It shows me pictures of nature and it calms me.
And then, you know, every every 15 seconds, there's an ad usually usually for a porn site. And then the porn sites are great.
And sometimes they're and I'll be honest with you, Stephanie, sometimes they're outside. What if you take your phone and you watch your porn outside, though? Does that work? That's but i'm just encouraging more outdoor porn it's always in a indoor facility in the valley and i'm thinking there should be more porn that's shot outside what's wrong with that and i think it's because of splinters i think that's the big thing that's getting in the way people are like you know uh i'm gonna get hurt splinter if i get in that position on top of that redwood.
So my point is, and I don't really think I have a point. I just say that sometimes when I know where I'm going.
Stephanie, I think you're right. We got to get outside and we got to also know what nature is.
I mean, there are people that don't know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. They don't know that, you know, they don't know how a tree grows.
You know, they don't know what's edible. Like sometimes I just go outside and I just start eating stuff, berries and things to educate myself about what's edible and what's not.
Now, the problem is I don't record it. I don't write anything down.
I just start stuffing berries and leaves into my mouth. And then I have a very powerful diarrhea, sometimes violent vomiting.
And so that's a mistake. I think I'm probably going at it the wrong way.
You're employing the scientific method on your own. Yeah, but I'm not recording.
A big part of the scientific method is record the data. I don't do that.
That's true. Every time I go to the emergency room, they say, what did you eat? And I say, I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know.
Something. And then they, you know.
Something. Yeah, but they usually do a biopsy on what's in my stomach and find out that.
Oh. You ate a piece of a fire hydrant.
A lot of people don't know why we have seasons. That's the question that my students get wrong all of the time.
Why we have seasons? Why we have seasons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Could you explain to us why we have seasons? I know, but I want to make sure that we're- You went to Harvard. Why do we have seasons? I did not go to Harvard College.
I went to Harvard Driving School. And I was asked to leave because I couldn't parallel park.
That's a common misinterpretation. Well, I mean, the tilt of the earth has a lot to do with it.
Yeah, okay great a lot of people think distance from the sun and that's not we're actually closer to the sun during the winter yeah but of course the angle of the earth tilts us farther away from the sun uh but you know i don't like to brag about my own knowledge i'm so proud so proud of me for knowing that the earth tilts every now and then and that I know what a rock is.

Stephanie. And a tree

maybe sometimes. My bar is low.

I don't know. No, you seem fine.

And your life, you said you have

kids? I have

two kids. I have a two-year-old and a four-year-old

and they're pretty feral. And my

oldest is a

budding mycologist. He loves mushrooms.
We always always go mushroom hunting but he has a book and he does record what we and he doesn't eat it we don't let him eat the mushrooms oh the responsible parent that's great uh he's four years old and he's learning the difference between you know the the safe and the dangerous mushrooms yeah we have like a little mushroom fan club book he's really into my hall he's got a mushroom fan club book listen he's gonna be bullied you know that right i know you're not the first no no but i just want to make sure that he learns self-defense because david here was in a mushroom fan club things did not go well no no no they were constantly smashing his glasses yeah it was awful yeah and then he came to work for me to work for me and I smashed his glasses. But I think it's great.
I applaud young people being passionate about knowledge. And I think that's a great thing.
I think that's really cool. Yeah, he gets outside.
We make sure we get our kids outside. And who's we? Who's your partner? My husband, Chris, who's a delight.
Okay. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not uh he's no he's the best he's actually okay because when my wife says conan's a delight it means she wants me dead no no he's great he's with my two kids right now who are homesick from school what is what does he do he's a behavior analyst and what he does he's the most patient man on earth so he um spends his days trying to uh help adults with disabilities just like successfully walk through the world great i mean i think you two are killing it good for him thanks yeah good for him yeah no seriously he's i mean i'm constantly surrounded in show business i'm surrounded by people that are just out for themselves trying to advance their own career i've done that.
I've taken mine, worked very hard to drive mine into the gutter. But I think it's amazing.
You sound like both of you are working hard to make the world a better place. Do you two get along? It sounds like you get along pretty well.
Does he ever use his behavioral techniques on you? Yeah, 100% all the time. Whenever we're arguing,

a snack will appear out of nowhere and I fully know what he's doing

and I will take the snack

and it doesn't matter.

Wait a minute.

Well, we did a con-in.

If you're fighting with your husband

and arguing,

he'll pop a snack into your mouth?

He'll just, well,

he won't pop it into my mouth

because it's a little much,

but he'll be like,

are you hungry?

Do you want this thing over here?

And I'll be like,

yeah, I want that thing, but also.esus it's called a scooby snack that's uh okay well um i guess i mean that's that's uh has he ever tried to lead you through a maze with a snack oh not yet okay that's good i just picture we have been or we have beenienteering together, but and the snacks were more for like my self-preservation. Orienteering is when you run through the woods and you have a compass and you have you allowed to have a map with you when you're orienting.
You have a map because the map has checkpoints, but it's not like your phone and just a compass. And you have to figure out how to get where you're going.
That's a great thing to know how to do. I dated someone once who was into orienteering.
And she used her orienteering skills to get away from me. She got out of that relationship with a compass and a map.
Stephanie, how can I help you? Is there anything I can do to help you? Because a big part of my life is trying to help others. You've described that so well before.
Yeah, I was right. So I have these two little kiddos who are two and four, two boys, and they just are wild.
And I was just wondering what the best parenting advice you've ever received was and maybe how I can bring that into my daily life to not get so overwhelmed. Do you have duct tape? Yeah.
Duct tape is, yeah, get the really strong electrical kind. It doesn't break.
And you tell them it's a fun game called sit still. You just duct tape them to something.
I don't, you know, it's a tricky one because all kids are different. And so how to get, are you trying to say how to, you want me to help you parent these two, you've described them as feral children that are running around the woods, grabbing mushrooms and stuffing them into their mouths.
Yeah. And they grab our chickens and yeah, a hundred percent.
And they'll just like pick up snakes, even though another reason Central Virginia is bad is there are venomous snakes here and there aren't back where I'm from in New England. So, yeah.
How do I? Hey, where are you from in New England? From Broxton, Massachusetts. You're kidding.
You buried the lead. I'm from Brookline, Massachusetts.
I surprisingly know that. Yeah, I played Brookline High in sports a lot.
Yeah, what sport? Golf, because I played golf to get out of running the mile in gym clubs. I respect that that i respect that you wait to get out of running the mile if you played a varsity sport you didn't have to run the mile and i was like i can do golf i love this so stupid i wanted to be a sprinter and i tried out for the brookline high school track team and they made me a two miler so i ran the two mile yeah and they made me swing a golf club as i ran for no reason it just looked funny um wow yeah i have miserable memories of uh of my days on the track team at brookline high school it not no wasn't anything brookline high school did it's just that i had the lungs of a of a two-year-old child when i was in high school and um it was not a fun experience i don't think i was a good runner i'm not built to run either which is why i tried to golf it out yeah well um you're from brockton and you've made your way to a play even though you study maps and your specialty is where things are in the world you have moved to a place you seem to

despise it's so hot here it's so humid then get out of there get out it's so buggy go what's keeping you there academia the whole hierarchy it's so it's so hard they have schools other places. I know, but they have to want me to.
I, yeah, you're right. They have schools other places.
I have, yeah. I don't know what to say.
I've applied. I love my job here from 600 miles north.
I would never leave. You know what I love? I can't wait.
I can't wait till word gets out, and it will, because this is a popular podcast stephanie that you were

pleading with a way to escape and that you're desperately sending out applications to other schools i go up for 10 years you're up for 10 years not anymore not anymore you're gonna be eating mushrooms day in and day out you're gonna be living in the woods with a compass I love it here.

Oh, I love it here.

I love it here on the ninth level of Dante's hell. Oh, Stephanie.
People here know how I feel about Richmond. Sure, they do.
They do now. They do now.
Oh, they did before. Yeah.
Well, listen, I hope I've helped you. I think I've helped you move out of that job.
And once you're homeless, once you're homeless, you'll have to move on and you can move back to Brockton. Yep.
My parents moved out of Brock. They're in Wilmington now.
So, but yeah, I guess I would go somewhere around northern, north of Boston.

I can't afford that.

No one can afford that.

What are you talking about?

First of all, it doesn't sound like, I mean, your children can feed themselves.

They sound pretty much like wildebeest.

So they don't need clothing.

These two monsters, yeah, they'll just be.

You'll just have them on long ropes and you and your husband will be walking around the woods

and you'll be saying, look, a tree.

Isn't it crazy?

And your husband will give you a snack to change the topic.

Stephanie, it's all a mess.

What a perfect life you've just envisioned.

I love it here.

Yeah, too late, Stephanie.

I know. Listen, it's been really nice talking to you and why don't you check in uh with us and tell us what your new city and new profession is in about six weeks it's too late stephanie you did this to yourself and you know what this was a cry for help you didn't don't worry about it yeah i't have a question about parenting.
It's how do I get out of this job that I do like? This is a place I don't like. Too late.
You're just digging the hole deeper and deeper. And as you know from geography and geology, if you dig deep enough, you'll end up in China.
All right, Stephanie, I got to run, but you take care. Okay? Thank you so much.
And say hi to your kids, Greg and Greg, those monsters. Close enough.
All right, take care. Greg and Greg.
Bye-bye. Bye.
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