All Weirdsies With Linda Holmes

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket.

And with me, as always,

I don't know if I can say unpublished novelist or published non-novelist, Judge John Hodgman.

That's fair.

That's fair.

Of all the literary genres I have

done battle with and been conquered by, the novel is not one of them.

But we do have someone who has written and published one novel and written and has just published another novel.

It's our friend Linda Holmes.

Jesse Thorne, will you introduce Linda Holmes, please?

Linda Holmes, of course, is one of the hosts of NPR's pop culture happy hour.

She's an occasional host on my show, Bullseye with Jesse Thorne.

She is the author already of one New York Times bestselling novel and now of a second, which I believe in my heart of hearts will become a New York Times bestseller, Flying

out now.

Get it wherever you get your books.

Spend your summer with this charming and delightful novel.

She's also the coiner of the term Little Weirdsies.

Linda Holmes.

Hi, Linda.

Hi, Jesse.

This is the most interesting legacy I have.

Yes.

The Little Weirdsies legacy?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well, we're going to clear a docket today, the three of us, plus super producer Jennifer Marmor.

And this docket is consists entirely of little weirdsies.

So before we wade into the weird, maybe you could define the Linda Holmes definition of what a little weirdsy is.

Yeah, I mean, this came up in the context of wanting a new glass of water rather than wanting to drink an existing glass of water

and just having really strong feelings about the fact that there was something wrong with the existing glass of water.

And so we talked about the fact that everybody has these things that you just want to do them your way.

You're a little maybe overinvested in them.

They're a little too important to you, but you just have your feelings and you want to be accommodated.

And it can be a little bit hard to navigate in close relationships with other people, whether spouses or friends or family or whoever.

And those things are your little weirdsies that you just have to know about yourself.

And sometimes they're a little bit beyond the rational.

Sometimes it's just a feeling you have that that water that's been sitting out on your nightstand all night is contaminated by ghosts, most definitely.

Ghosts love to get into my thermos at night.

That's why I gotta cap it off: ghosts and dust.

Well, thank you for being here, Linda.

It's always such a pleasure.

And why don't we go ahead and get into it?

Jesse Thorne, do you have something from the docket?

I do.

A case from Michael.

My wife frequently wears pajama pants to bed.

I say beds should be no pants zones.

Okay.

NPZs.

Who's going to enforce the NPZ?

The UN pants keepers.

I confess, I mean, maybe this is clear to you, Linda, but I'm a little like pajama pants are pajamas, right?

Aren't they?

Yeah,

I have the same question.

I'm a little unsure exactly what this means.

Like if you go to the no pants zone and there's a sign and it says, here's the rules,

you know, like at the pool when there's no running.

Right.

What are the rules at the no pants zone?

Like, does this apply to short pants or only long pants does it apply to underpants yeah i mean is this zero pants is he talking about well and it's also not clear to me like do you feel i'm trying to find the the delicate and appropriate way to say this do you feel that you're impeded by your wife wearing pants to bed is Does the no pants zone have something to do with the

closeness that you wish to feel with your wife?

It didn't occur to me for a second.

Holy moly.

Or do you you just think it's, is it just a, is it just a feeling that you have that pants in bed are wrong, including pajama pants?

Like, if he was like, my wife wears her jeans to bed, then you're in a completely different, or her corduroys or whatever.

Like, I, sure,

I don't, I'm not sure I understand this.

Well, we don't know exactly what Michael means by the no pants on, whether that means nothing that's called a pant or zero pants of any kind and just

nudity.

The idea that the pajama pants might intrude upon marital closeness did not occur to me.

I just presumed that Michael felt that the pajama pants were contaminated somehow, and you didn't want to have him in bed with you.

Yeah.

This goes to show that I'm more into sleep hygiene than I am Nookie these days.

But I'm curious as to whether this is a category that has a new meaning, especially after a couple of years of a lot of working from home and, in my case, a lot of new experiments and elastic waistbands.

Jesse Thorne, you know more about

clothing than a lot of people.

Would you say, what's the difference between pajamas and pajama pants if you were to draw that distinction?

Is that a thing?

Is that a distinction?

I would characterize pajamas as an ensemble.

So when I say pajamas, I'm referring to a top and bottom combination.

Right.

When I'm talking about pajama pants, I'm talking only about a bottom.

Now, typically, if someone said to me pajama pants, I would think that they were referring to the kind of simple, wide-legged, often non-pocketed,

no fly

or,

you know, opening in the front,

often elasticated waist, but sometimes a tie-waist

pant that, you know, typically comes with a pair of pajamas.

Linda, let me ask you this question.

During these years of working a lot at home and no longer going to the office as frequently or at all, has the pandemic changed your feelings about what inside clothes and outside clothes are and what in-bed clothes and not in bed clothes are?

Yeah, I mean, there was a long stretch.

I am not in this stretch anymore, but there was a long stretch where the lines had blurred enough between what I wore during the day and what I wore overnight

that sometimes it was unclear.

Do you need to switch from one set of flannel pants to a different set of flannel pants or should you just go to bed?

I am not in that phase anymore.

I find that it helps me a little bit with the separation of the day

to actually make sure that I am not wearing like my literal pajamas all day.

The thing I'm not sure I know

is what Michael thinks she should wear to bed.

And I because pajamas belong in bed, period.

Well, exactly.

And I had this thought of like,

you know, how sometimes you think, oh, oh, the like everybody under 30 does things in a totally different way now.

And because I'm old, I just don't know about it.

So I was very curious about like, does everybody just wear nothing to bed now?

Does everybody just wear,

I mean, I just, I was very curious.

So I did what I often do in these situations, which is I, I, I, uh, I put the question to Twitter, um, to a Twitter poll, um, which has about 7,000 responses as we tape this.

And I said, if you are a woman or non-binary or femme type person, what is closest to what you wear to bed?

Is it nothing?

Is it a night shirt or dress?

Is it a, or, you know, night gown kind of situation?

Is it a short sleeve and a short bottom?

Or is it a short sleeve and a long bottom?

And, you know, 30% or so of the people came in as let me guess, let me guess.

Anime costume, anime costume.

30% of of the people selling anime costume you know i i acknowledged that not everyone was represented but um i did get about 30 of those votes for like a t-shirt and a long bottom like a sweatpant or a pajama pant or something like that including my favorite was the mix of both people who said i have to wear long pajama pants because I can't stand to have my legs touch each other when I'm trying to sleep.

That's a

little weirdsy right there for sure.

Which I love.

And I had multiples of that when people commented.

And then other people who said, I cannot stand to have pants on when I am in bed.

So I just wear a t-shirt and underwear.

So I think it's safe to say that experiences vary, but

there is no existing cultural consensus of which I was unaware that we do not wear pajama pants to bed.

There's been no vast Gen Z movement.

towards sleeping completely in the nude.

Not that I know of.

All right.

Well, I take that as a relief.

Did I ever tell you about the time that Jonathan Colton and I were invited to the

100th year anniversary of the a cappella singing group of Yale, the whiff and poofs?

Oh my gosh.

Jonathan was a whiff and poof.

This is the premier a cappella singing group in the entire world, everybody.

Cole Porter was a whiff and poof.

You ever hear the whiff and poof song?

Bing Crosby sung it.

It was a big hit.

I'm aware of their work.

I was never a whiff.

I was too scared to audition and join those things.

Also, Jonathan's a really good singer.

I'm not.

But because I was pretty much at the height of my television powers at the time, I got invited to this thing too.

Right.

And that was kind of, this would have been in 2010, 2011.

And that was truly one of the places where I realized very distinctly that I was no longer young in any way.

Like, it's so easy to maintain this fantasy.

and sort of sense connection of yourself as a college student.

Like it's like, oh yeah, I just graduated from college a few years ago.

I'm pretty much the same.

It's like, no, I haven't graduated a few years ago.

I've graduated almost 20 years ago at that point, you know?

And I was jarred out of that delusion that I was still the same by this generational experience of standing on stage with all of the wiff and poofs of every era.

And, you know, from the youngest and the coolest current wiff and poofs to the oldest and the most, let's just say, distinguished.

And I realized that in this vast timeline of white male Caucasia, I was much closer to the old and I was so far away from the young.

And if I wasn't clear on it, it became very clear where after the reception, one of the younger whiff and poofs said to Jonathan Colton and I, hey, we're all going to a party after.

Do you want to come?

And we're like, yeah.

He said, okay, cool.

It's a naked party.

And we're like, what do you mean?

Everyone's naked?

And he was like, yeah.

And are you cool with that?

And I said, no, don't you care about your furniture?

And so we didn't go.

Yeah, that's.

I had the same generational suspicion that maybe there's some nudity movement always, constantly in the younger generation where no pants zone means literally.

Yeah.

No pants zone.

I mean, there was a, there was a chunk of people who voted for sleeping in nothing.

And, and some of them clarified in the comments, it's, it's nothing.

I put nothing, but I wear underwear.

Um,

uh, not nothing, nothing.

Um, probably again, maybe for the sake of the linens and furniture.

But

yeah, there is a movement for it.

But I think Michael is still dealing, he is still swimming against the current when it comes to rejecting out-of-hand pajama pants.

I also think that there's another point of, you know, a lot of things got blurry over the past couple of years, including, as you pointed out, like the transitions between what we wear during the day, what we wear outside, what we wear inside.

And I think that

another thing that's that's become blurry is what is what is loungewear versus what is sleepwear for sure and i think that it's possible that michael's wife has a pair of pajama pants that she wears all day long as pants and why shouldn't she they're wonderful i've been wearing pajamas as pants for the past two years i'm never buying a belt ever again in my life i'm pure toddler mode only a less waistband from now on Yep, I've said it before, say it again.

Hard pants make a hard day.

That's right.

But I am also also extra concerned about both the psychological importance of transition between daytime and nighttime, out, you know, daywear and sleepwear.

And also, you don't want to, you know, if I go and wear my pajama pants out on the subway and then come home, I don't want to get into bed in them either.

Right, right.

Accurate.

Yes.

So if that's what's going on, if pants in this case indicates that Michael sees his...

wife's pajama pants as daytime pants that she's wearing all day, then I would, I would encourage her to change into night pajama pants as opposed to day pajama pants.

I agree.

I agree.

And I feel, you know, my dog is not allowed up on the bed that I sleep in.

You're talking about your wonderful Greyhound, Brian.

I am talking about my wonderful Greyhound Brian.

He's not allowed on the bed that I sleep in.

And I feel that therefore his hair should not be in the bed that I sleep in.

And if I spend too much time

cuddling him on the couch, as I often do, and then I bring those same soft pants into sleep, I will have a bed with dog hair in it, even though the dog is not allowed on the bed.

And that just seems like a waste of, you know, if I wanted dog hair on the bed, I just let the dog up there.

And sleep is so specific and so idiosyncratic in terms of what makes you comfortable sleeping that, you know,

that if you, that like, even though it's not fatal that you might have some dog hair in the bed, you probably won't sleep as well.

Right.

And it's one of the, when I asked this question and people answered, particularly in comments, it was amazing how many people

varied not just on what they prefer, but varied in a sense of I cannot possibly sleep like this versus I can only sleep like this,

describing the exact, exactly the same conditions.

But they are describing how they are dressing themselves to sleep.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Not saying, I need to exert control over my sleep partner in order to sleep well.

Right.

Well, this is the difference between you sort of have to get, and this is one of the

one of the foundational things about weird in general is that you have to get the difference between the ones that actually affect you.

So, you have to negotiate.

These are the ones like, um, I, if one person absolutely needs to run a box fan all night long and the other person can't sleep with a box fan running, that you actually have to negotiate.

Right.

The other kind of weirdsy is the kind where it just drives you crazy that the other person wants to do something that you think is wrong.

And those are the ones where you got to let those go, man, because those are the easy ones.

Save your save your negotiation skills for the ones where the person actually wants to do something that has some effect on you.

All right.

So what we're saying is Michael's wife should consider wearing clean sleepwear to bed if she's wearing pajama pants all day long.

Yes.

But beyond that, Michael just has to deal with whatever she feels is comfortable.

Yes, I think the no-pants zone is only the best bar in Brooklyn.

That is not a thing you can implement in your home.

And may I say before we move on to the next one, Brian the dog, always welcome in my bed.

Brian?

Absolutely.

Give this message to Brian.

Brian, come up to Brooklyn.

You can hang out with us.

I will.

Love that dog.

Here's a case from Carrie.

My husband Matt has a shirt with a texture I find deeply abhorrent.

It's an athletic-y, moisture-wicking, quick-dry type of shirt.

Just thinking about touching it makes me ill.

I like to hug Matt, but not when he wears this bad shirt.

Please forbid Matt from wearing the bad shirt so I can hug him always.

First of all, let me say a state of constant hugging is not actually great for a marriage.

A state of perpetual hug, people do need to

break it up every now and then.

All right, honey, we got to move toward the door because I got to go out and get the mail.

Yeah, I get it.

Right.

But I wonder, Linda and Jesse, and I'm curious in your take on this, how much of this I want to hug my lovey argument is not just cover for the real fact, which is I hate the shirt and I think

I think it looks dumb.

Yeah, I mean, there's two possibilities, right?

One possibility is I don't like it.

I don't think it's snuggly.

It takes away from my enjoyment of hugging my husband and I wish he would wear something else.

I don't like those kinds of fabrics either.

I think I know exactly what.

Yeah,

what are we talking about here, Jesse?

You know what we're talking about.

Yeah, go ahead, Jesse.

Explain this.

I think I know what we're talking about, but explain what you think we're talking about.

I think we're talking about a so-called performance fabric.

I'm guessing that this shirt is maybe one of those golf polos

for when golfers are performing.

You know how when you're golfing, you are getting all that cardiovascular exercise and you need the wicking power of specially shaped polyester fibers to move the moisture off of your body.

I think that might be the kind of thing we're talking about.

It's the kind of thing that you might find in the workout wear section of a Ross dress for less.

Why are we dancing around this?

It's an under armore jerk shirt

or I think or

variant or economic or more economic variant, I would say.

It could be the champion for target equivalent.

That's what I'm getting at.

It's like a shirt you wear while running or doing athletics or whatever, and you keep it on in public because, yeah, there's been a lot of blurring lately between

daywear and, you know, between athletics and leisure and athleisure.

And no one, there are no standards anymore.

And it's wonderful and it's freeing.

But if you're someone who's just, who's wearing a running shirt, at a brunch,

it looks like you care more about running than being with the person you're brunching with.

It seems to me.

That's what it feels like to me.

Yeah.

And I, so that's, you know,

if it's that, if it's just, I don't like it and I think it's not snuggly and I think it looks silly and I don't think it's appropriate for all the occasions where he wears it, that is, um, that's one kind of thing.

And it's just, you guys just have to kind of negotiate that.

It's a conversation.

It's a conversation.

Absolutely.

But I do want to be sensitive to the fact that, um, you know, when we talked about sleepwear, one of the things that people commented to me when I asked them about sleepwear was, um, you know, one person said, it depends on how I'm feeling about textures at that moment.

And it made me think about people who have like, you know, texture stuff, sensory stuff around, around textures.

And, you know, I also want to be sensitive to the fact that it's possible that this is somebody where they are either always or sometimes really sensitive to how clothes feel.

And it's possible that this is a, this is a,

you know, not within the person's, it's not just a matter of taste.

I'll put it that way.

It's just not just a matter of taste and preference, that it's genuinely uncomfortable and makes the person feel like, you know, odd and wiggly and that kind of thing.

Yeah, I guess

I feel that with this fabric, too, because I feel like my repulsion to the Under Armour jerk shirt is not merely the fact that it is fitness wear and fitness is something that I used to have and have no longer and cannot seem to get back.

And therefore, I just feel judged by fitness wear, but it is is this kind of wild space blanket, crinkly,

different kind of fabric.

You're right.

There is something inherent to it that is not just, I don't like that color.

Certainly there are a variety of versions of this shirt.

And we don't know which one she is referring to.

However,

I think it's likely that it's that kind of slick, shiny one.

Slick, shiny.

Yeah, I agree.

And I was getting some just very basic long sleeve tees from a very basic online retailer and got one in the mail and it turned out it was this kind of thing and I hadn't realized it.

And I immediately was like, oh, I'm never going to wear that exactly because I find it not a pleasant texture and not a pleasant uncanny in a way.

It's just, yeah.

So I think it kind of depends.

I would, I would encourage, you know, a little bit of a deeper dive into whether this is just an I don't like it thing or is there a, you know, if you take this letter literally, it's sort of, you know, thinking about it makes me really uncomfortable.

Thinking about touching it makes me really uncomfortable.

If that's literally true, then you want to be sensitive to textures and, you know, the same way that you do scent of detergent and stuff like that.

So who knows?

Carrie, I apologize for distrusting your motives at the top of this segment when I suggested that your hugging argument was a cover for just the fact that you find your husband Matt looks dumb in this shirt.

You could still be right.

I mean, come on.

Well, I think Matt probably does look dumb.

No offense, Matt.

I don't like those shirts, but I believe you, Carrie, and I believe you don't want to touch that shirt.

And it makes you sad that you can't touch your husband

when he's wearing it.

And I think that's the conversation.

It's like, you can wear that shirt, but I don't like it.

I don't like the way it looks and feels, and I can't hug you.

I don't think you can ban him from wearing it all the time, though.

I mean, he's got his own little weirdsy too, right?

He likes to run around with this space shirt on, pretend he's like on

the StarCraft Enterprise.

Pew, pew.

that's what he wants to do he wants to be a spaceman performing at all times performing at all times but yeah like uh go easy on that shirt matt

you know what i like to sleep in chainmail

that's the texture i like that'll get you hugs there was a guy named andrew who went to my high school and he'd just sit on the bus.

We'd take the 26 Valencia to school,

just a regular city bus, and he'd just be sitting there making chainmail.

He got on the bus, you know, half mile before me or something at his house.

He'd just be there with his backpack making chainmail with two needle-nose pliers.

We're going to take a quick break to hear from this week's partners.

We'll be back with more cases to clear from the docket on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Made In.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast, the world's premier public transportation chainmail program.

This week, we're clearing the docket with our friend Linda Holmes.

Linda Holmes with her second novel, Flying Solo.

Linda, tell me a little bit about what this novel is about, because it is set in the same

context, the same milieu.

as Evie Drake Starts Over, your first novel.

New York Times best-selling novel, one of the great books.

Oh, a delightful, delightful book.

Outside my wheelhouse, I was delighted by it.

If it's in your wheelhouse, you're going to flip your wig.

If it's outside your wheelhouse, I want you to try it anyway because you're going to love it.

But Linda, your new book, Flying Solo, is in that milieu, but it is, is it part of an interconnected universe?

Are you building the Holmesiverse?

It is part of the same universe, but it is somewhat tentatively connected.

It is mostly new characters.

There are just a couple of little crossovers and little Easter eggs for people who read the first book, but you certainly don't need to have read the first book.

It is a different story,

but yes, it is the same Midcoast Maine town where Abby was set.

And it's a fictional Maine Coast town called Calcassett.

And I know it's fictional because I went searching for it.

And I could not find it.

It is somewhere in the area of Rockland and Camden, if you're familiar with that part of Maincoat.

I am familiar, and I could not find it there.

It exists only in the mind.

of Linda Holmes and in the pages of Flying Solo.

Hey, I have a question for you.

Who is the protagonist of the book and what do they want?

The protagonist of the book is a woman named Lori who is about to turn 40 and just canceled a wedding she decided she didn't want.

And her great aunt has just died.

So she goes back to Calcassette, her hometown, to clean out her great aunt's house and beloved objects and finds a

a duck decoy among her aunt's things and sets out to figure out why her aunt had it and what the significance of it is.

So it has a little bit of mystery.

She also runs into her high school boyfriend and her first best friend and reconnects with some of those folks while also trying to track down the story of the duck.

I heard that in part the idea of

finding an object and tracking down its story was inspired by your interest in the Antiques Roadshow.

That is absolutely, absolutely true.

That is 100% true.

I was watching a lot of Antiques Roadshow during the pandemic, the early to mid part of the pandemic.

And Jesse has not mentioned this yet, but

I sort of started to get the idea of a beloved object thing.

And I reached out to Jesse and I said, you know, I am looking for this kind of object.

I don't want jewelry.

I don't want art.

I want something that's like cool, but interesting and that a normal person might actually own.

And Jesse said, duck decoys.

So without Jesse, there is either not this book or there is not any book.

So I got to say, a lot of people have been telling me this sounds like a 50-50 collaboration with you and Linda.

And I have to say, no, no, no, 70-30 at best.

You know, I feel like in

actually putting her hands to the keyboard, Linda did at least 30% of the work.

So that's right.

Yeah.

I'm really honored and I'm donating my portion of the royalties to Linda

just because I could write another best-selling book anytime if I wanted to.

But for Linda, this is really challenging.

So, how dare you?

This is not a joke.

I'm going to let her tell.

I'm going to let her.

It was

novelists sit down and make up everything out of their own brains and put it down.

Linda Holmes did it all 100%.

She's a brilliant genius.

Yeah.

Listen, you got to know the right person at the right time, though.

I'm telling you.

And I'm not going to take credit for your books just because I invented Maine.

That's true.

You did.

That is true.

You did.

But anyway, so yes,

it is a book that comes directly from my heart with an assist from my pal, Jesse Thorne.

What I found upon reading Linda's novels is that they are easy to read without sacrificing depth, complexity,

charm.

They are funny and moving.

And they are the absolute best kind of pleasant reading experience that you could possibly have.

This new one, I think, is

takes some genre conventions and

re-examines them without rejecting them, without judging them,

applies them in new and interesting ways.

And I really, I really love Linda's books and I think Judge John Hodgman listeners will too.

So that's my, that's my recommendation.

Thank you.

Lying Solo.

I look forward to reading it, but you know what?

I really look forward to buying it.

Yeah, now we're talking.

Wherever books are sold.

Here's something from Kendra.

My husband says there's no such thing as, quote, feeling sloshy, unquote.

This is the feeling you get when you've had a lot of water or some other liquid and your stomach feels very full.

It's not bloated.

or any of the other alternative terms my family has suggested.

My family also refuses to accept the existence of minty eye.

Minty eye happens when you have mint or gum in your mouth and you're wearing a mask.

The mint fumes go out of the top of your mask and they get into your eye.

I seek an order that my family accept that language is a living thing and my descriptions are not wrong.

They are merely additions to the lexicon.

I like that

Kendra at the last minute just

throws in a little pandering to recent Judge John Hodgman talk

about descriptive versus proscriptive language.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

And I, and, you know, flattery works.

Minty I, never heard of it before.

It's now in the lexicon, as far as I'm concerned.

It's great.

Of course it's real.

Yeah.

My favorite kind of case that comes before this court is the kind where somebody just says, tell this other person that I am right.

And there are no other stakes.

It's just tell these other people that I am right.

Which, yeah, I love both of these.

Absolutely real.

Both absolutely real.

This family is badly off base.

These are both real.

I haven't experienced minty eye,

but in my mind's minty eye, I experienced it vividly.

I'm 100% certain it's real.

I've certainly been sloshy.

I've definitely felt sloshy before.

And you know what?

Until today, I had no way to describe my feelings.

When you drink a lot of

water, when you overhydrate, and it sloshes around in there,

now I'll admit, it's a gross feeling, and it's a gross description.

It may be that Kendra's husband has a little weirdsy around the term feeling sloshy.

You know what I mean?

That could be something that's real.

Because it's a little, it's a little like,

a little gross.

Yeah, I mean, the great thing about feeling sloshy is that sometimes you can sort of hear it, it, which is another whole level of sloshy.

And bloating is absolutely, it's absolutely correct.

Bloating is different.

Bloating can just be gassy.

Bloating is just the twofold kind of, that's a totally different thing from

this gas don't slosh.

There are certain things where you got to drink, you know, there are medical procedures where you got to drink and drink and drink and drink water.

And it's, you get to that point, you're like, I'm going to float away.

I'm feeling sloshy.

So it is absolutely real.

Now, it's very possible that Kendra's husband is now himself feeling so sloshy that he's going to barf because of this, the use of the term feeling sloshy.

He might have a little weirdsy repulsion to it.

In which case, Kendra, you got to respect that and keep the slosh down around him.

But absolutely, these are terms, right?

We agree.

100%.

100%.

All right.

Jesse Thorne, call up Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

They're in the Judge John Hodgman contact book.

Tell him to put feeling sloshy and mintyi into the dictionary.

Just send me the Rolodex card and I'll...

I'll send you the whole Rolodex.

Grab the phone off the wall and here's something from Mike.

My wife Kim has some weirds around brushing her teeth that I cannot abide.

First is how she puts on the toothpaste.

I put my toothpaste on after wetting the bristles.

She, like a monster, puts the toothpaste on, then wets the bristles.

Second,

and where I have more standing, is her habit of brushing her teeth first thing after waking up.

Now, normally, this wouldn't relate to me, but I make the coffee in our household.

Not only that, I roast the coffee myself.

I feel like she can't adequately provide me taste feedback if she's brushing her teeth immediately before drinking the coffee.

Mike's wife Kim is ruining her palate.

before tasting his very special coffee.

Let's take the first part first.

Linda Holmes.

I am having a hard time right now because I cannot think of how I brush my teeth.

I'm thinking about it.

It's like, I don't, now I don't know.

Do I wet the bristles first or do I wet the bristles after?

I'm in my head about it.

Linda Holmes, do you wet the bristles first pre-tooth paste or post-paste?

My first thought was like, hang on, wait right here.

I'm going to go brush my teeth because I don't know either.

It's, it's, uh, it's not something I've ever thought about.

I probably have done it both ways at different times.

I don't think it matters one way or the other.

I will just say right now, but I think I wet the bristles first, but I have no idea.

I have no idea because it's, this is a great example of the kind of thing where this is just somebody who just thinks she does it wrong.

Tell her not to do it wrong.

Tell her to stop doing it wrong because it bothers me.

It has no effect.

Acknowledges that he has no standing even to make this case.

Absolutely.

It has nothing to do with it.

Doesn't harm him in any way.

If you, if you want, just close, like, why are you watching your wife brush her teeth?

Just close your eyes while she's brushing her teeth and you'll never know and it will bother you.

That one is absurd.

Jesse Thorne, you ever brush your teeth with your finger when you don't have a toothbrush?

I think I did that a few times as a child as a novelty.

Oh, okay.

That's not the way you do it anymore.

No, now I purchase a toothbrush.

Oh, really?

Interesting.

When do you wet the bristles?

Before I put the.

Before you do.

I think that that's how I do it too.

But I agree with Linda Holmes.

Mike, it doesn't matter.

Now, Linda, did you spot the fatal flaw in Mike's argument, the thing that undermined the whole letter?

It's in the first sentence.

Jesse, would you read that first sentence again, please?

I will.

My wife, Kim, has some weirdsies around brushing her teeth that I cannot abide.

This is not a grammar thing.

This is pertaining to the Linda Holmes minted phrase term, little weirdsies.

What did Mike get wrong in this sentence?

Well, I don't think she's the one who has them.

Yeah, she doesn't have any weirdsies.

Yeah, she's just brushing her teeth, man.

Right.

You're trying to put weirdsies on her.

You're trying to say that your wife is weird when the fact is the little weirdsies is always on the weirdsies out person.

You're weirded out by the way she brushes her teeth.

You have a right to that.

Do you have a right to dictate how she brushes her teeth?

No, it doesn't cause you no harm whatsoever.

It's a classic example of weirdsies transference.

It's in the literature.

It's in the literature.

Now, what about this second part, Linda Holmes?

What do you think about this problem he's got with his wife brushing her teeth before she tastes his coffee that he's carefully brewed and roasted himself?

Well, I mean, the thing is when you wake up in the morning, depending on who you are and how your mouth works, I guess.

Yeah.

You may very well wake up with a mouth that feels kind of gross already.

So I'm not sure that you can count on the fact that her, that if she doesn't brush her teeth, that her palate is coming to you in some pristine and wonderful state.

No, she may already have gross mouth.

Exactly.

She has gross morning mouth.

And that's just one of those, you know, people wake up in the morning in all kinds of different states.

And if she has gross morning mouth, then

A,

She's not coming to you having just finished a lemon sorbet.

And B,

she

knows whether she, I mean, people, when you want want to brush your teeth because you feel gross, waiting to brush your teeth is really unpleasant.

So you can't tell somebody else to wait to brush their teeth.

Now, if you want to say to her, hey, I really want you to taste this coffee.

So I'm going to give you 15 minutes.

You know, have a slosh of water.

If you want to encourage that, if you want to tell her, oh, I'd love to have you enjoy it.

offer her some sort of i don't know carbonated water like knock yourself out if you want to try to create ideal conditions, but you cannot stop her from brushing her teeth because just don't, you can't do that.

Yeah.

Hey, Mike, you like coffee, right?

You're a coffee guy.

I can hear you talking back to the podcast.

You're saying yes.

Mike, you know how everyone likes their coffee their own way?

They like their own roast.

They like milk or no milk, cream, no cream.

Whatever they like, they like it their own way.

It's very specific.

That's true with mornings too.

Morning is personal.

We're talking about how deeply personal and solitudinous sleep is.

Like

you are communing with yourself and solely with yourself during sleep.

And during morning, you're transitioning from this deepest solitude.

You're coming out of your dreams.

Your mind has just shown you a bunch of weird home movies about what's going on in the back of your brain that you're processing.

You've got gunk in your eyes.

You've got morning mouth.

That's not something that was invented by commercials.

That's a real thing.

You don't want to look in my mouth when I wake up in the morning.

What you want to do,

when you come out of the mornings, you need to deal with mornings the way you deal with mornings.

And for you, that's pouring a fresh cup of coffee that you've brewed with beans that you've roasted.

With your wife, it's like, I got to brush my teeth as soon as possible.

It is very nice that you make this coffee, and I bet it's delicious.

And I do appreciate why you might feel underappreciated because the nuances of the flavors that you're trying to capture are being undone by Toms of Maine or whatever.

But it's not her job to get up and judge a coffee tasting contest in the morning.

You know, it's just, it's her job is to get on with her morning as best she can.

I think your solution, Linda, is very, very elegant.

And it's true that carbonated water cleans the palate much more effectively than plain water.

So a neutral carbonated water would be a great thing to offer with the coffee.

If you express like, you know, I'd love for you to taste this coffee outside of your experience of Aqua Fresh or whatever, here's a little water.

And if she, if she can, if she can do it, if she makes that part of her routine, great.

If not, it's fine.

That's very, I think that would be very fancy.

Like if she woke up and you said, here's like a little in the summer in particular, if you were like, here's a little carbonated water with like just a little, little tiny hint of lemon in it.

Like that's a, that's a good start to the day.

But you're absolutely right.

Mornings are

very personal.

When I was a

a younger lady, I was involved with a young guy who

every morning started his day by cracking every joint in his entire body.

I am not talking about cracking knuckles.

I am talking about cracking knuckles, cracking toes, cracking ankles, cracking knees and hips, cracking back, and especially cracking neck.

And this would go on for quite a while.

And I will tell you, I did not enjoy it, but I think about it now and I think, oh, yeah, that dude.

I liked that dude.

Because, you know, people have those things and it's who they are.

And you just go,

yeah, boy,

that guy really loved to crack those knuckles.

I love that you make coffee in the morning and I love that your wife brushes her teeth.

And I

love that you were able to forgive that guy for cracking all of his joints when the bones because that just truly skewed me out.

But that's one of the reasons that you are so great.

We'll take a quick break when we come back.

More weirdsies.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Judge John Hodgman, we're taking a break from clearing the docket.

There's something important going on, which is we are going to be in New York City at Lincoln Center.

It is June 22nd that this episode hits your RSS feeds.

And it is June 29th that we will be performing at

perhaps New York's most legendary venue until such time as we perform at Yankee Stadium.

That's on the horizon, I think.

I shall never set foot in that stadium, but I can go to Lincoln Center, Dam Rush Park, June 29th, under the stars and free of charge.

It's going to be a wonderful evening.

As far as I can tell based on the weather report, it's going to be nice weather, a great time to reconvene with old friends in an outdoor environment safely, enjoyably, and get to the bottom of some live justice for the first time in basically two years.

You can reserve your seat and buy, dare I say seats?

Because it's free.

Why don't you bring a whole bunch of people?

Reserve a bunch of seats right now by going to bit.ly slash JJ H O Lincoln or search engining Judge John Hodgman Lincoln Center.

Our guest this week, Linda Holmes, also has a book in stores.

It's called Flying Solo.

Go buy it.

Buy it for yourself.

Buy it for a friend.

Make this happen for yourself.

You'll be glad you did.

Yeah.

Like if you are traveling to New York City by a bus or a train or an aeroplane and you want something to read along the way, Flying Solo is the thing to be reading.

She's wonderful company, as you already can tell.

Let's get back to the docket.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're here with Linda Holmes, the author of the new novel Flying Solo, now available in bookstores and online.

Here's a case from Jackie.

I grew up with a very superstitious father.

While I've rid myself of most of his superstitious habits, there's one I agree with him on.

That it's bad luck to step on the wheelchair person icon that is spray-painted in a disabled parking space.

My husband refuses to abide by this.

When we walk through a parking lot, he purposely steps on that icon to spite me and test the fates please rule that my husband must stop

all right before we get into this linda jesse

are you superstitious do you have any superstitions

i'm not really superstitious i don't think

um

yeah i don't think so not not not like this i don't change my underwear when i'm on a hitting streak oh really

yeah

really no superstitions at all i only i'm i'm I am not someone who is particularly superstitious, and I certainly consider myself a rationalist and an agnostic, and I would love to believe in all kinds of magics.

But to me, that's far more optimistic than I'm willing to be when I confront a reality that I think is mostly just chaos and chance.

I'm glad to say that I recently, and I've mentioned this before, I would say within the past five years gotten over my, not fear, but conviction, deep bone conviction, that if I don't leave the bathroom before the toilet finishes flushing, then the devil will possess my soul.

That was a long-standing one.

Yeah.

I mean, I was about to say, I went through a long period of time when before I could go to sleep, I had to go down, open my purse, get out my wallet, and make sure that sometime during the day I hadn't lost my credit cards and my driver's license.

And I did that every single night for probably at least a couple years.

Yeah.

But But it's not a superstition.

It was anxiety disorder kind of stuff.

It's not a, it's not a superstition exactly.

It's just an intrusive thought.

And those are not the same thing entirely.

Right.

Well, I mean, they overlap, of course.

If a superstition is violated, it can become an intrusive thought.

Sure.

I don't care to toast with water, which is an old superstition.

Like, that's a bad luck thing.

Interesting.

To raise your glass and toast if you're drinking water as opposed to wine or alcohol or i mean a soft drink just water right supposedly bad luck and i kind of get my my thoughts do kind of intrude when i am drinking water which does happen by the way uh and uh someone toasts with me i kind of don't want to do it it's not fun i mean mostly i feel like we should shake off these things but how do you feel about this this case

i feel like i want to know what the dynamic between these people is i want to know,

I feel like if I understood better what the dynamic is, you would know whether is this guy really doing this to try to cause her distress?

You know, when she says he's doing this to spite me,

is this being done to cause distress?

Or is it teasing that

has been indicated to be acceptable marital teasing

that is being

made into a big deal for sport.

Or is this somebody who, when you see something that bugs someone else, you just do it again and again and again?

And I do feel like there's a version of this story where I don't like this guy.

But there's also a version of this story where this is just people kind of messing around and being playful.

oddballs.

And I don't, it's hard to say.

I don't know.

I sense from your face.

You all cannot see John's face, but I can see John's face, that you do not like this guy.

Let me give you the Judge Sean Hodgman version of the story.

This guy is an under armor jerks shirt jerk hole

who is doing something that he knows annoys his wife

because of the pleasure that comes from bullying another person unconsciously, but most probably most consciously to express to her how irrational her fear is and how she should just get over it.

Now look, I don't like to put people into pigeonholes.

I don't love to put guys into the Under Armor

jerk hole hole.

But I've been doing this for a long time.

I've seen a lot of the data.

Heterosexual married couples, dudes do this all the time.

They flex their rationality

and get the added bonus of winding their beloved person up a little bit.

Does that mean this is absolutely happening here?

No.

Will I bet crypto on it?

Yes, because it's valueless.

And I don't have any.

Don't at me, crypto people.

Getting enough of that on Twitter as it is.

There is a difference between being a rationalist and being a jerk.

That is a distinction that has been a point of real struggle in the skeptic community for 20 years.

Very true.

And I think that it's fair to say, I don't believe in your superstition, and I don't know that it's helping you, or I appreciate that it's a connection between you and your dad, but it's not something that I personally can abide by.

So if I accidentally walk over

the wheelchair icon in a disabled parking space or whatever, I hope that you can deal with it.

Or teach me the weird little dance I need to do in order to undo the bad luck.

But to step on that on purpose, unless Jackie is misdescribing what's going on,

if indeed he's stepping on purpose on the icon to get a rise out of her, that's just jerkism.

I don't know how you describe it.

I think what you bring up, though, Linda, is really important.

What was it?

Acceptable marital teasing, A-M-T.

Teasing is, you know, the law of the land here, Judge Sean Hodgman, it's not fun for everybody.

It's no fun at all.

Yeah.

And yet

I must accept that there are couples and friends and

partnerships where teasing is a true love language.

Mutual teasing is fun.

But it's very easy to lose track of when that teasing is no longer fun, particularly if it becomes a tradition.

So I would say that acceptable marital teasing is a real thing.

But I think maybe you would agree with me.

It's something that in any relationship, friendship, partnership, siblingship, parental childship, or whatever, it deserves to be

renegotiated from time to time.

For sure.

And I think in this case, you know, the fact that she has

the fact that Jackie has reached out to you to say,

tell my husband to stop doing this

has to be taken to some extent at face value that it is not being enjoyed.

It is not fun for everyone.

And it would be worth in this case, if you do, if you are the husband in a case like this and you want to make the case that this is just, this is just how we are, this is our teasing,

take a tiny pause and say to the other person, do you really not want me to do this?

If you genuinely think that they enjoy it and that it is okay between the two of you, take a little tiny pause and say with sincerity,

does this really bother you?

Do you really want me to not do this?

Right.

And if they say yes, stop doing it.

That is such an easy,

I mean, it's kind of up there with just ask the restaurant whether you can use the soda water fountain, you know, like just ask whether it's okay and mean it right and mean it when you say i care what the answer to the question is and then you know sometimes if it's really okay

and you know be be cautious about an answer where the person goes no i don't care because sometimes they don't they're they do care but they feel like they shouldn't say they care if somebody keeps asking you to stop doing something and you are kind of running over that, then yeah, absolutely stop doing it.

I think I like your answer better than mine.

I think I tend to like.

I think we have the same answer.

Yeah, yeah.

It's hard to say.

I would want to see what this dude is like, but I think I agree with you.

Can you have a superstition that goes back to like 1988 or whatever it was that they started

painting the wheelchair icon on disabled parking spaces?

You mean it's not ye oldy enough to count as a real superstition?

I don't know.

Do they like actually, is this something they believe?

Like the dad just invented this, right?

Yeah.

But he invented it.

He invented it and passed it on to his daughters

down one generation.

And those

icons and those parking spaces have been around for a long time.

Everything was invented by somebody.

And also, you don't know, maybe you don't know, Jesse, but originally before there were disabled parking spots, they were called scary black cat parking spots.

And there are special spots for scary black cats to sit around and sail them.

And there were just parking spots with big ladders over them.

Yeah, exactly.

All parking spots are cursed.

I mean, that's probably true, right?

All parking spots are cursed.

That's true.

That's why you hunt for the best one so long.

It's true.

I think you're probably right, though.

I think he's probably just being a shirt jerk.

But what it comes down to, ultimately, and I think

you've underlined this well, Jesse, it all comes down to another Judge John Hodgman archetype, a weird dad making a thing up.

passing along to his kid, and his kid has to deal with it for the rest of their life.

Now, I have to say, I looked on the internet and while

the Civil Rights Act was amended in 1988 to include people with disabilities and the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990,

there were disabled parking spaces going back to the mid-1950s when a Delaware law designated certain parking spaces to be such.

And there was a law in 1968 called the Architectural Barriers Act that mandated the guidelines for the design and access of buildings.

So that's things like curb cuts

and

signage and in some cases, parking spaces.

And I believe that the person who brought that law forward to whatever state legislature first passed it was a wizard.

And if you look at the wording, it says, he that shall walketh upon the signeth of the wheelchair shall be cursed for for Ev's.

Well, it's true.

I'll tell you this.

My dad's best buddy from college with whom he worked when I was a kid was this guy named Ed Roberts.

And Ed was

Ed was in an electric wheelchair from he had had childhood polio.

So he was almost completely paralyzed from the neck down.

And

he breathed with a breathing machine and that kind of thing.

And

he became the head of the Department of Rehabilitation, which was

the state department in California that

provided services for people with disabilities and was the first person living with a disability like that to be the head of that department.

And he eventually was a big part of the independent living movement that

got the ADA passed in 1990.

Amazing dude.

He was, there's a state holiday named after him here in California, Ed Roberts.

Anyway,

Ed passed away when I was about 13, 14, 15, something like that.

But if he were alive today and you stepped on one of those, he might run you over with his wheelchair because I saw him run his wheelchair in malice into a number of people in the time that I knew him.

Yeah.

I will,

I don't know if you've seen this, Jesse, but I, if people are interested in this kind of chapter of, of, um, of activism, I really recommend the documentary Crip Camp, which is on Netflix.

I think it's still on Netflix,

which is about some of the activism around

people with disabilities.

And it's just super awesome.

And it's a terrific movie if you, if folks haven't seen it.

And it has a lot to say about that.

But I did want to say, can I say one thing about weird dads?

Of course, please.

Always.

I do think

dads, like the stuff that you hear from your parents or your parental figures, it has a tendency to stick with you in a very particular way.

And I was thinking about that the other day because when I was a young person,

my family drove by a restaurant that had a sign outside that said, all you can eat crab legs, $13.99.

And my dad said, why are they calling me crab legs?

And this was my favorite joke for like 15 years.

And I used to give at Christmas, I used to always give my dad a present addressed to crab legs.

Oh, and

I never have forgotten that.

And it's just the things that strike you funny or interesting that you get from your, from your folks, can really stick with you.

And so I think, boy, it doesn't surprise me that if dad said, that's bad luck, don't do that, that that would really stick with you.

It would take on the immediate cast of powerful magic and instant legend for sure.

Never mind the fact that most early laws were backed up and enforced by magics.

And grumpy guys in wheelchairs.

Also, good point.

It's just mean to step on that icon.

It's just mean.

It just seems mean to me.

Can I, I want, I feel like

if I don't qualify what I just said,

I don't want anyone to think that I'm speaking ill of Ed.

Ed was an amazing dude, and he was very self-conscious about his belligerence and grumpiness.

They were his superpower that allowed him to help change the world.

And he very famously said at one point that they had said that he would never live independently, that he would be a vegetable.

And he did turn out to be a vegetable.

He said he turned out to be

an artichoke.

I'm paraphrasing.

He turned out to be an artichoke, which is to say, hard and prickly on the outside, but with a soft, sweet center.

It was a

very good description of Ed.

I think I'm going to have your Uncle Ed for dinner tonight.

I know.

I'm going to go out to the

store and get some Uncle Ed's and steam them right up.

That's good stuff.

Our docket is now clear.

That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Our editor is Valerie Moffat.

You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Hashtag your judgejohodgman tweets, hashtag jjho.

And check out the maximum Fund subreddit at maximumfund.reddit.com to discuss this episode.

Linda Holmes' new novel is called Flying Solo.

It is available in bookstores now and online.

Look, I don't care if you get it from the feed-in supply.

Buy it.

Linda Holmes, Flying Solo, bring it with you on an airplane or a car ride this summer.

Enjoy it at night when the world has beaten you down into submission.

Revel in the depth and delights of Linda Holmes' fiction.

She's great.

It's a great book.

Go buy it.

Don't be a dumbbell.

If you buy it to read on an airplane, guess what?

You won't be flying solo.

You'll be flying in the company of

one of the best brains in the biz.

Yeah.

BBBs.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate every time you guys come by.

This is so fun.

I'm always happy to be here.

If you've got a dispute about travel, by the way, hit us up, maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho, whether it's things that happen on airplanes or in cars, on ships at sea, all the ships at sea.

How about this?

Those kind of like spaceship airplanes that go up into the stratosphere and then they, I don't know, turn off their engines or whatever.

I'm looking for a, oh, you're talking about the vomit comet?

Yeah, I'm talking about the vomit comet here.

Zero grav simulation flights.

Yeah, where you like shoot Apollo 13 or whatever.

Yeah,

definitely.

Hey, if you're Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, or the late Bill Paxton, and you have some stories you want to tell from the Vomit Comet, I don't care if it's a dispute or not.

That would be great to hear from the late Bill Paxton.

I miss him a lot.

And you know, travel related

anything else.

Maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho.

We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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