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283: Nightmare Antz (w/ Ashley C. Ford!) episode artwork

Mar 29, 2021 38 min

283: Nightmare Antz (w/ Ashley C. Ford!)

from Dear Hank & John

Why is Earth called Earth instead of Water? How do I be less busy? How do I tell my mom her breath is bad? Was it okay to email my doctor? How will COVID be portrayed in future media? Can a fetus yawn? Hank Green and Ashley Ford have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected]. Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected]. Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

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283: Nightmare Antz (w/ Ashley C. Ford!)

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Hey, so something worth knowing is a benefit for the nonprofit organization that makes Crash Course and SciShow Complexly. It's September 16th, 2026 in Los Angeles, California at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. Please join us. It's going to be incredible.

Friends have complexity like Mark Rober, Katie Max, Simone Yech, and Moore will share inspiring talks about what makes them hopeful and join Hank Green on stage for fun, interactive discussions. Complexly has been creating free educational content like SciShow and PBSEons and Crash Course and Bizarre Beasts for nearly 15 years and 6 billion views. But this year, we have become a 501c3 nonprofit and we're doing something worth knowing as an in-person event that benefits Complexly and our impactful educational media. It's the first ever Complexly in-person event and it's a fundraiser to support our mission of inspiring curiosity and lowering barriers to knowledge building because curiosity builds understanding and understanding builds a better world.

Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com, so come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing. You can get your ticket at Complexly.info slash something. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John! Or as I like to think of it, Dear Ashley and Hank.

It's a podcast where two brothers and sometimes two friends answer your questions, give you advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Ashley, my brother, said he couldn't make the podcast because he wasn't strong enough. Because he wasn't strong enough, Ashley. And so he had to send me his two-week notice because he's two-week.

That's hilarious. That's my dad joke. That's the one I came up with. That's wild to me, but also that 100% just to me as an observer seems like something John would say that he's not stronger than me today.

John is working very hard finishing up the Anthropocene Reviewed book, which is available wherever books are sold and also signing about, I don't know how many's got left. I think he's got at least 50,000 sheets of paper left. So he's taken on a little bit too much responsibility. So we have freedom of the responsibility of Dear Hank and John by having Ashley come and join me.

Hello on extremely short notice. Yes, it's true, very short notice, but I'm here. You are. I got an email from John two hours ago saying I can't do Dear Hank and John this week.

And then I just started DMing anyone I saw who is active on Twitter. So if you're on Twitter right now, you should be able to do a podcast. I agree. And because that's a rule I live by when the request came in, I had no good reason to say no.

You're on whatsoever. I was like, well, I'm on Twitter. I could just keep being on Twitter, which sounds worse than being on a podcast. Way worse.

Way worse. Well, thank you for coming on. This is your second appearance on Dear Hank and John with the person was with John. So this will be an entirely different experience.

I think so. Let's go. Let's go. Do you want to answer some questions from our listeners?

I'd love to. Do you want to start out by telling everybody how wrong I was last episode about how smooth the earth is? I mean, let's be honest, Hank, when it comes to the roughness of the earth, do any of us have a clear idea? Well, somebody told me I don't know who it was.

And I believed it. Some science communicator told me that the earth was that roughly was smoother than a billiard ball is what they said. And I was like, oh, smoother than a billiard ball. That's a fact I'm not going to help forget.

But then somebody corrected that person and said, no, it's smooth more like sandpaper, not like a billiard ball, which is good. It's also quite smooth considering how bumpy I feel like the earth is. Yes. But I mean, when I think about the difference between somebody touching me with a billiard ball and somebody touching me with sandpaper, it does make me want to put a little bit more distance between me and the earth.

I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to get roughed up planet that you are. Please don't please don't rub me with the earth. Rub me with a smoother planet, please. And thank you.

Yeah, that sounds like, I mean, I don't know, what's the smoothest planet? That's a great question. I really wouldn't know that. I imagine that the gas giants are all pretty smooth because they're like gas.

Right. But like, what's that even smooth? It's more like, I heard that I heard that that Saturn would float is a thing. That's pretty smooth.

Which has nothing to do with smoothness. I don't know, but it feels smooth in my heart. Yeah. There's lots of rough stuff that floats, Ashley.

I think that's not the truth. But yeah, I don't know. I feel like when I look at when I look at a gas giant, I do feel a little bit like I kind of want to, I'm about to say it, vape it. I kind of want to vape a gas giant.

I've never faked anything before. But if I vape something, I want to vape Jupiter. And I'm sure that it would be terrible, much worse than regular vape, which is bad for you. But not as bad as vaping Jupiter, which is made of all kinds of bad stuff.

Well, just like regular vaping. You never know until you try. Just kidding. Just kidding.

You don't have to try. We know. Yeah, we know it's bad. We know it's bad for you.

I mean, you never know until you try is true of all kinds of definitely fatal. That's absolutely true. I think about that quite often. That's not actually a good reason to do something.

Okay. Do you want to, I'm going to ask you another question about Earth. It's from Bailey who asks, Dear Hank and Ashley, if the planet Earth is mostly water and not Earth, which is the part of the Earth that we named the Earth after, why did we not call the planet water? Your friendly building in loan Bailey was what is what?

I have no idea. I love your fans. It's from it's a wonderful life. It's a it's a wonderful life reference, Ashley.

Oh, that's the Christmas movie that for some reason I've never seen. Well, then at least you have an excuse for not like the only one. It's fine. It is.

I don't know. I'm more of a diva's Christmas carol kind of person. That is not what I've seen. Okay, Freddy.

Because you're gonna now let me think. Why isn't the planet's name water? I guess because that would be too much like right. We don't really like to do things the right way.

I like that thought that like we looked at the question and we're like, I'd like to answer this a little bit wrong. Yeah. Like I wouldn't want to go all the way right because we're humans and perfection that just be like an affront to God. Wouldn't it?

Yeah. Wouldn't it if we are made in the image? Yeah. I think so.

I think the flaws are necessary. Thereby if we had named Earth water, which would have been too perfect. It would have been rejected by humanity. Maybe it was water.

And then something smart first that someone was like, you know, welcome to water and then a bunch of other people were just like through Roxas or acorns. Like not nothing. Not the two mean just like something something like annoying. They're like shut up, Jeff.

Just call it earth. He was like fine. But the good of us all. It doesn't matter that much.

I feel like a lot of things kind of come down to that. Like all sort of like group decisions come down to like, oh fine. It doesn't matter that much. I guess.

Yeah. Quite often. Let's not do it. Let's not do it perfect.

Let's just call it earth. Here's here's my feeling. We're on the earth part and we are human biased and I walk outside. I don't see a bunch of water.

I see a bunch of dirt there. That's earth. That's fair. But uh, you know, I don't know.

I don't know if I want things to be named after just what I can look outside my window and see. No, it's it's not a it's not a good system. It's not a great system. Oh no.

But but it's what we do. We're like, well, also we didn't name the earth after the dirt. We named the dirt after the earth. So what water should be called earth?

Okay. And okay. Earth should have a different name because because if we're looking at it, did that make any sense to you? Yes.

It made sense to me because basically what you're saying is because we named earth first. We named the planet first. We named the planet first. Right.

We should have called water earth. We should have been like, yeah, that's earth. That's earth stuff. Yes.

This was me gesturing silent. You weren't giving me very like the encouragement. I felt it through the screen. It was very very much like, yes, Allegre.

Fantastic. Oh, yeah. I got it. Yeah.

I got to hit you with that deer hand good John energy. Bring it right up. My wife and I record a podcast sometimes very occasionally these days. And and recently she guest hosted deer hand con john and she was like, wow, the deer hand con john energy is different.

It's different. You know what's interesting was one of the more interesting things to me about you and john and the interactions that we have from time to time. Is that you guys never seem to know how much I know about you and how much I actually pay attention to your stuff online. Well, I mean, that's the safe choices to assume nothing because as soon as you assume some, you're going to make a fool out of yourself.

Of course, basically, no, I just think it's really it's always you know, I follow the content, man. Like I was a fan before, like I had ever met you guys. And so everyone's a while you guys will be like, Oh yeah, like I have this thing that I do sometimes I'm like, I'm aware I get the newsletter. I literally get the newsletter.

But you don't have time to keep up with it anymore. Because you're like, that's an interesting perception that people have when you have some visibility and success is that you're a very busy person. And I'm not I'm not by choice. I'm not a very busy person.

You are not very busy by choice. Yeah, by choice. I'm what are the choices you make to be less busy? This is a hand green question.

I just really need to know the answer to that. Okay. I mean, I don't know that it'll always be this way. Now, you know, like I have a book coming out on June, and that's a whole thing that'll happen.

But I'm pretty introverted. I'm very much a homebody. And I also, I guess I don't seek out work. I don't I don't seek it out.

And I found that so much of what I've been raised to do and and conditioned to do to a certain extent is to seek out work and more ways to work. And I've just been challenging that a little bit. And that obviously comes with like the privilege of being able to do that, of being financially stable enough and having enough work that I'm able to say, Oh, that is enough. And I don't actually need to do more.

And I'm good with that right now. I don't like to be overwhelmed anymore. So I just try to keep that away from me. Ah, yeah, I think ultimately, the problem is that I kind of do like to be overwhelmed.

And so I'm just gonna be gonna be who I am, where I am. And there is you're not gonna be able to fix me. Right. Yeah.

Okay. All right. And I was trying to let myself, I was trying to become a person who was okay with being overwhelmed and a person who could thrive in that space. And I found that I could thrive in that space.

If that space was the only thing that I allowed to be important to me, that's just me. But the minute I started having other things be important to me, like, you know, a spouse or a dog who won't stop chewing his paws. Thank you. It's like, Oh, I don't actually have to be in front of a screen all the time.

And that felt good to me. Well, good. I'm happy for you. Yeah, but you're in.

But I'm me. And I guess I'll continue to be that good. There are a few questions that we got more than one question in this batch about honesty. And I think that that's interesting.

So let's do, let's do one from anonymous who asks Dear Hank and Ashley, how do I tell my mom her breath smells really bad? Just in case she's listening, I'm anonymous. P s I'm 26 years old. I'm not some cute little kid that can get away with being blunt.

I have a hard time with this with just friends. When it's like, Oh, and even when there's like a reason I need to tell them, like we're about to go into an important business meeting, I'm like, well, I guess this is going to be how it is. Hey, no, no, you can't just leave them to the wolves. All right.

There it is. You can't just leave them to the wolves. But what do I do, Ashley? Okay.

So there's so many ways to deal with this, right? So there's, there's the gift giving way, right? Which is that you just are like, Hey, pick up some gum for me. It was two for one.

I got a pack for you too. Here's your go. And then they're like, I don't like gum. And then they're like, they don't like gum.

And so you're like, Okay, we tried that way. Didn't work out. Got to move on to plan B and plan B is always, I think quick, compassion correction. Okay, so it's very quick, compassionate correction, which is to be like, Oh my god, every time I'm about to go into a meeting, every time I'm about to do something like that, I know that something is up with my breath.

It's because I drink coffee, it's because I'm always eating garlic, blah, blah, blah. So I always keep this with me. I think you should keep one too, just to make sure that before we go into these places, you're feeling good, you're feeling fresh and your confidence is on 10. And then they're like, Okay, great.

That's like a thing that we do together now before we go into meetings. Now that's like, I'm thinking more of like a Hank thing with meetings with your mom. I think a lot of times it's just like you just have to be like, Hey, mom, I noticed this a couple times. Have you been to the dentist lately?

I'm wondering if maybe you have something going on with it too. I'm wondering if maybe there's something going on with your stomach. Have you expressed concern with your mom? It takes it takes it always takes this thing out of critique.

Yeah, because like my my instinct is to do the worst thing, which is like, tell them but have it not come from me somehow, like just leave an anonymous letter, just like cut out ransom note style, which is the worst, right? Because like all that's doing is sparing me. It's not sparing them. Like they're like, who did this?

How many people know like it could be anyone? Yes. Yes. Yeah.

That's really the thing that did not do. No, absolutely. Just a blackout poem where you like where you got like a page from a book and it's like you just white out all the lines except for breath. That's terrible.

Don't do that to people. Okay. My grandmother was a person who had no sense of attack. Like she didn't have a concept of it, but she so if you smelled in any way, which you know, when kids go through puberty, especially it's like things are changing.

You don't know what's going on. You're trying to help, but you don't know what to do and you're scared to ask and all this stuff. And my grandma had no compassion for that situation. She would pull you over and go, what's going on with you?

Why do you smell like this? You would walk past it. She would go, somebody smells like a goat. Somebody smells like a goat or like you would come and say something to her like, hi, grandma, if she was smell your breath, she would go, oh, and cover her nose like that.

Like it was terrible. And she did it. It was like the worst noise in the world. I don't know where it came from.

I don't know where she got it. Yeah, I know exactly what that sound means. You know, exactly what it means. But what do we have a word for that sound?

No, no, like I like I, I, I've definitely experienced it, but I've never like put it in a category before. I never like, there are so many things that we understand only on a subject. Right. Like, yeah.

But it's so embarrassing. It's so embarrassing. Oh, yeah. Well, it's good.

Like there's something about, I think, being a grandparent where you get to a certain age, it's like the naked guys at the gym and the locker, like they're just beyond it. It's over. We've gotten past all of this, you know, they're like picking their nose like that college professor that just will like straight up get the finger all the way inside and like pull out a visible booger during a lecture. And it's just like, where, at what point do I stop caring about anything?

And like, and not only do they pull it out, but it's like they examine it. Yeah, I'm like, whoa. It's like they look at it like they take real account. Well, and I do in private.

Yeah, but like in front of people. If I accidentally, which is the only way I would have it pulled something out of my nose in front of people, I'm immediately like, how do I get this panic? Well, like, put it back, put it back, just put it back, right? And they pull it out and they're like, oh, that's greener than usual.

And it's like, girl, Oh, that's interesting, interesting variety of consistency. Oh, the viscosity has changed right that down in my logbook. I love the idea that somebody's keeping a booger diary. Somebody is, you know, somebody is.

It's a big world. There's billions of people. Somebody's got a booger diary. Right?

Right. So let us know about your booger diary. I want to know why do I want to know? That's the real problem is that I'm sitting here like, yeah, I'm actually curious about that.

Please, please follow up. Please follow up. Okay. I got another question.

I'm ready. It's from anonymous, another anonymous because this is a healthcare related question at deer, Ashley and Hank, or Hank and Ashley, I emailed my doctor to ask a question the day after my appointment and said, I hope it's okay that I emailed you and I asked my question and said, sorry to bother you. They responded, they answered my question, but they did not say that it was fine for me to ask, which is a thing that anonymous asked anonymous asked, is this okay? And the doctor did not write back.

Yes, this is fine. They just answered the question. Was it fine? I was more worried about bothering them than getting the answer I needed to sign off me.

It was probably absolutely fine. Yeah, it's got to be fine. I'm saying like the fact that they answered and didn't address the fine this means it's fine. They're busy.

They're just busy. We got a lot to do. Yeah, they're just busy. I also know that sometimes if somebody reaches out to me and is very like apologetic for asking the question, sometimes like the reason why I don't necessarily address the apology is because I just don't feel like there was anything to apologize for or I feel like it should be their assumption that they can reach out to me in that capacity and ask a question.

And so I don't want to validate the idea that you've done something wrong here by reaching out. Yeah, the other thing is you have your doctor's email address for a reason. They didn't like give you an email address and say never use this. Right.

It's not their personal email address. It's professional. It's more a reason. Which I don't have my doctor's email address and I desperately would like it.

I think it's like wait a minute. First of all, what are the rules? This is how I beat this. I'm just now having a doctor like a regular doctor.

Yeah, I only got one like five years ago. Isn't it like it's a new world to have a regular doctor and to be like, oh, if something's wrong, I call my doctor, like the person who is like, I'm just like the walking clinic. Yes, it's wild. It's wild and beautiful.

Yeah, they like know you. I see Dr. Bixby around town like at places and I'm like, hey, Dr. Bixby, how's it going?

Right. And she's and she's friendly about it, which I kind of feel like maybe I wouldn't be like, maybe I'd be like, I'm having dinner with my family right now. I don't need to talk to another person whose toes I know about. I don't know.

Hey, I feel like if I've shown you my toes, maybe you should greet me. Okay. When I see you, like maybe there's a mutual respect thing there now. You know me better than most of my friends.

Right. These certain parts of me. Yeah. Oh gosh.

But Dr. Bixby, if you're listening, what's your email address? She's just a loveliest person. All right.

This is a COVID question that I want your insight on it. It's from Nana who asks, dear Ashley and Hank, now that COVID has taken up one whole year of our lives. I can't stop thinking about how it will be portrayed in movies and books. Will fictional characters acknowledge that year that they spent at home hoping not to get sick?

Or will that be too much of a turn off for escape as fictional readers? You can hum my name Nana. I'm not really. Can you?

I don't know. Maybe that's just how she pronounces it or they pronounce it. Like maybe it's very. I've been thinking about this because of course I write fiction.

And in my book, in my books, I was like, I can't, I can't. And it was done before the pandemic, it was mostly done before the pandemic really hit. But I think that there's been a, like some people have wanted to write pandemic fiction, like things that are like specifically about this time. But I think it's not, there's a problem in fiction where if it's not like about a thing, you kind of have to like sideline that thing and have it like be unimportant.

And it's hard to have this be unimportant to a story. Yes, absolutely. How do you slip into the story? Like, and then there's the last year.

It's like everybody's immediately like, whoa, what happened during the last year? Well, actually, I kind of like that. I kind of like that, like, I kind of like that the last year is just sort of like mentioned, but everybody, because I love stories where the, so the both the only fiction I've ever written, the protagonist is assuming that everybody who's reading the book knows the whole story. Oh, yeah.

I love that, that trope. And so I love the idea that the production would be like, and then there was the last year, you know, and so a year after that. And like, you know, everybody knows everybody, like I don't have to explain COVID to you. Right.

Everybody gets it. Right. And that's how you would treat it if you were in a world where there was a lost year. That's true.

But also in fiction, everybody wants to know pretty quickly. Well, I think everybody at least wants the author to know, how have you changed the real world in this story? What are the rules of this story? Yeah.

So is it a story where everybody just knows, like, because if that's the, if that's in the foundation of it, if that's, you know, where you're coming from, that absolutely can work, but it isn't a thing where everybody's just avoiding it. I don't know. Maybe that can work too. Like that's the weird thing about fiction, is that I feel like so often whenever somebody talks about what can or can't work, it's like, yeah, you can't make that work.

You don't know anybody who can make that work. You've never heard of anybody making that work. Does that actually make it impossible? Yeah.

I'm inclined to say no, I'm interested, but I'm also a person like you can't really, sometimes I feel like you can't go by me because my taste is so like, I don't know. Can you do that? Because if you can, I'd like to see it. Absolutely.

Yeah. Like when someone says that something is either shouldn't be done or can't be done, what that really means is it's very, very hard and you have to figure out what other rules you're going to have to bend to break that one. So like, if you're going to not bend any rules, you're going to do something normally, you probably can't. Like that's what they mean when they say that you can't.

But maybe you can do something weird and think about it weird. And this entire, this is like, I love the idea of having a book where the whole trope is like, life is pretty normal, but everybody recognizes the last year. And then like the sort of trick that the reader has to go through is figuring out what the last year is. And that is especially interesting to me if it turns out that the people in the book themselves don't really know what the last year was.

Yeah, absolutely. Like that's like, that's great pandemic fiction right there. I'd love to read that book. I agree because it's like that is that would be what's most reflective of the time we're in.

Right. We don't know what the pandemic means yet. We don't know what it's going to mean to us and like how it will change us. And the things that we think are the biggest deals, this is what I gotten from reading any number of like history books, which I haven't read many of, but this is the biggest takeaway from reading books about history.

The things that we think are big deals in the moment usually aren't the big deals that we will actually take from the thing. Oh, yeah. Never. Yeah.

They never are. In my opinion, I think that those things almost get like over talked about, you know, or like or over analyzed as soon as everybody's talking about it, then that's how you know like that's probably going to get taken care of. We're probably going to fix that thing. And it won't be the big deal.

So what are we not talking about? Yeah, I agree. So it's going to be so interesting because I feel like one of the things that's going to be happening over the next several years is that there are going to be perspectives of the pandemic that most of us have not considered, or that we have not seen discuss or analyze in any sort of meaningful way in the public space. And as those things come up, people are going to act like, you know, it's an impossibility.

You know, it's like, it's not an impossibility just because you didn't personally see it happen to you. Yeah. Here's a question that's sort of a me question, but I'm very, I'm very excited to share this information. This is Hannah asks, Dear Hank and Ashley, I recently watched a TikTok in which a pregnant woman showed an ultrasound of her baby supposedly yawning in the womb, considering the baby is surrounded by amniotic fluid.

I guess I just don't know how this works. They can't inhale water. Can they? Babies hiccup in the womb too.

And I've always thought that that was strange. Can you guys explain how these things are possible? Wound wonders Hannah. I love that baby.

Did you know that babies hiccup? I did know that they hiccup. I did not know because you like, you're like, oh my god, my baby has the hiccups and it's inside of me. It's very weird.

That is. I mean, I don't know. It hasn't actually happened to me, but like just knowing that that happens to people is very weird. Oh, yeah.

A lot of my friends are mothers and watching their experience with pregnancy, their experiences is always every single one is shocking to me. Got to tell you every time they tell me something else that I'm like, they did what? Yeah, man. Who did?

Huh? Yeah. Interesting. I'm going to put that in the archive.

Right. Well, I mean, the entire. It's a lot. It is very, it is the thing that is the most natural in that like it is impossible to be here without growing inside of a person.

Yeah. And so that's amazing. And like, it's how all life happens, you know, in one way or another. But at the same time, like there's nothing that is this natural and this unbelievably weird.

So weird. It's just like, I you can accidentally make a human being. Yeah, that's not that the same, right? And then you hear about like people who have babies who like didn't even know they were pregnant.

Yeah. And like they have a baby. And I'm like, so you telling me your body was making bone. You just weren't worth aware.

You just were like, yeah, like your body could be making bones and stuff. It could be making somebody's whole circulatory system. And you are chilling. So I'm going to talk about this and someone replied, you can't accidentally make a pizza.

Day. Okay. Now I'm really messed up because you can't accidentally make a human person. Yeah.

You can accidentally, you can accidentally make like a football player. Like a really skilled professional. And there's just this person here. Okay.

Okay. Hey, but how, because now I got to know how is the how is the baby yonder? So yeah, it turns out babies do yawn probably. There was a lot of debate about this at first people.

There was some contention, but our ultrasounds have gotten detailed enough that we can we can watch as babies yawn. It's now becoming difficult for me not to yawn because I've said the word yawn so much. So shout out to everybody out there who's yawning right now. So they have figured out that babies yawned and babies do have amniotic fluid in their lungs.

So they're just like full on submersed and this stuff. But that's not really what's happening. They're just sort of like making the face of yawning or stretching their jaws. And maybe don't breathe in and out.

Amniotic fluid is more like they swab it into their lungs and it just sort of like hangs out there. But otherwise, like all the alveola would be sticking together. So they have to develop with something in there so that the cells can develop correctly, I think. Ashley's face, by the way.

I'm sorry. Oh my God. But then the babies are just more or less making a yawning. Because we don't understand yawns.

We don't understand really what they do after all this time. We have lots of theories, but we don't really get it. And so it is a reflex action and just like any reflex action and something that can be done throughout our... I don't know when the first yawn is, but apparently the first yawn tends to be in the womb.

Which makes sense to me because he was yawning immediately once he was born. Because one of the first things I was like, oh my God, that's a thing a human does. What is amniotic fluid? What is it composed of?

I guess I just always thought it was like, I'll be honest, in my mind, I'm like, oh, is it just like saline? Oh my God. I'm looking at the composition because I've always imagined it as basically like the stuff in an ivy drip plus other things. Mainly water and electrolytes, but also contains protein, carbohydrates, lipids, phospholipids and urea because the baby pees in there.

The baby can also poop in there. Which is bad. It's not great because it means that they have their stuff in their lungs. Makes it harder to breathe.

So just all that stuff. So yeah, before you were born, you breathe in a pee. That checks out. I don't know why that just feels.

I mean, it's all very, it's all very human and dirty. Oh my God. Yeah. I don't know why I just I'm fascinated by like, I've always been fascinated by what happens during pregnancy.

Like always. And I feel like I read so much about it. I talk to my friends about their pregnancies all the time. My best friend was pregnant when we were very young and I remember her daughter who is now, oh my God, I'll be just turned 16.

I remember me putting her my hand on her belly and her daughter dragging her foot across the bottom of my hand. And that was when I realized I didn't know what the hell was going on in there. Like I think that was the moment when I was like, I should read a book about what's happening here because I don't have to know. And now, now I'm just like, I feel like I feel like pregnancy is the weirdest thing in the world.

I feel like nobody knows what happens. I feel like they know things that happen. But I feel like when you really start pressing people with questions about pregnancy, eventually it just becomes like we don't know. Oh yeah, it is.

Yeah, I mean, it is a it remains a really big mystery of science. Like the development of a fetus remains very, you know, there are things we know now that we didn't know 10 years ago and there are things we know now that we didn't know a year ago, but like the things that we don't know still by far outweigh the things that we do, we don't know how a fetus how like a bunch of cells come together to cooperate. Right. At all, really.

Like even in my body right now, the fact that like I have a bunch of cells and they're all like, you know what we should work together to take care of this entity that isn't even us. Yes. You know, like they're working their butts off to take care of me. And we don't think about them at all.

They're not me. Why do they care about me? But they do they've evolved to care about me. And anytime anyone of them decides I'm going to try and actually take care of myself.

My body murders it. That's true. Wow. And and like or it kills itself.

It's like actually I've been I've been taking I've been thinking about myself too much. I need to die. And they and they just like pop themselves. Is the body a cult?

The body is the biggest cult. Any of any strain from the like what you have been a like the task you have been assigned to is immediate death for a cell in the body. Wow. And if it's not then it's extremely bad news for the body because they that's what cancer is.

This is like a nightmare version of the movie, yeah, you hello listener. You are a nightmare version of the movie. Like you have been individuals step out of line but inside you and one of your cell step out of line. Yeah, it's like I should I should grow on my own.

I should make a bunch of copies of me. That's what evolution drives us to do murder immediate murder. Oh my gosh. Every time I this is one of the problems that I have with talking about things like the body in space.

Is that eventually my brain just is like, yeah, yeah, you should shut this down. Like you like stop thinking about this too hard. You're going to find out the secrets. And I'm like, but I want to know the secrets.

And I'm I guess if I find out the secret, oh my gosh, this is okay. Let's come back to something else because now I've gone off too far. Hang on. I've gone away.

I've gone away. I literally started looking at a painting above my desk like, what do you mean? I'm like, I'm doing something. I'm doing something.

Yeah, which reminds me, Ashley, that this podcast is brought to you by just the terrifyingness of the babies inside of you, I guess. Not to mention, amiatic fluid. The white claw of birthing canals. No, sorry.

And this podcast is brought to you by Booger Diaries. It's where you write down on your boogers. And also it's brought to you by the Planet Water. Those are my sponsors.

My sponsor is Vapuranus. We're all vaping earth right now. But what if you could vape your anus? Well, it's literally the best sponsor we've ever had.

Mattel and Jim Shark. Thank you so much for making the podcast with me today. It was such a pleasure. I heard that you have just finished a book.

Can you tell me a little bit about it? Yes, I have a book coming out June 1st called Somebody's Daughter. It's from Flatiron Books. And it's an Oprah book on her imprint.

And yeah, it's a memoir. It's about growing up as a little girl in Indiana, hard times, good times, and getting to know myself, getting to know the world. And yeah, that's pretty much it. That's like my elevator pitch for now.

This is the first time I've had to give it though. So I'll work on it and make it better. Okay. And it's coming out in June.

June 1st. Yes. June 1st. Congratulations.

I'm so excited. Thank you. Can I get a pre-release? Yes.

When do you start some of those? It's already on the way to you, Hank. Oh, you did you ask me for my address? I did.

It's already on the way. So you'll be able to read it. So I will tell you that by the time you've read it, other members of your family may have already read it. That's I think I don't we don't tend to compete on who gets to read the galleys first in my family.

Hank, I don't know your life. I don't know your dynamic. I'm just letting you know just in case. Okay.

Thank you so much, Ashley. This was a ton of fun. Sorry there's no news from Mars and A.C. Wimbledon.

I checked the League One table. A.F. Wimbledon is no longer in last place. They are now in second to last place.

So that's something I guess. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Metis. It's produced by Rosie on Hoss and Sheridan Gibson. Our communication coordinator is Julia Bloom.

Our editorial assistant is Dubuque Trucker Vardy. The music you're hearing now and it's the beginning of the podcast by the great Gunnarolla. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.

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This episode is 38 minutes long.

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This episode was published on March 29, 2021.

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