Inappropriate Behavior

Hey folks, this is Kevin. On this week's episode of Risky, you'll hear Brian Kett. This guy looked at me and he said, every single one of us wants this internship. If you leave your envelope with me, I will personally see to it that it's thrown in the garbage.

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Hello folks, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories. They never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison and this is Jossen behind me now. And we're calling this week's episode, inappropriate behavior.

I used to joke that nothing is inappropriate on risk until something just is. But of course, some things are inappropriate here like stories that lack compassion or stories that are told only for shock value. But today's stories are about people behaving inappropriately. In a little bit, we're gonna hear from Gillian Markowitz recorded at the Risk live show in Philly in March.

But before Gillian, we're gonna hear one of our storytelling coaches here at Risk and one of our faculty members at thestorystudio.org. Brian Kett has launched a social justice project. He's making gerrymandered chocolate bars that break into absurd shapes of real congressional districts to highlight inequalities and democracy on the proceeds are gonna fight gerrymandering. So you can visit BrianKett.com to learn more.

And here is Brian now. With a story we call, please and carrots. Hey, when I was 24, I left my position as a science teacher at a high school in Chicago and that career that was like the safe route, but I decided to go back to grad school and to get my degree in creative writing. So from like public education to the arts, I can really pick careers that really pay very well.

And all my friends at the time, they had these very lucrative esteemed careers. They were like executives and analysts and small business owners. And the night that I left my position, I went out to a bar with my friend Eric Erickson, medical sales. And we were sitting at the bar just to grab a beer.

And these three very fancy businessmen came up to us. And they all looked kind of like Mitt Romney, but with like variations of more teeth, right? One to the next. They looked like the kind of guys who would say that they really loved the outdoors and then they'd post for a photo like with a tiger that they had shot.

And so they started talking to us after they ordered and they asked Eric what he did for a living. And Eric told them that he was in medical sales and they were just elated. They just clapped him on the back and everyone talked about like bootstraps and pulling yourself up by him in the American dream and all that. But I was so apprehensive and anxious and nervous because I didn't know how to interact like with professionals of that caliber.

And then they said, well, what do you do? And by default, because this is what I had always said as an adult, I said, well, I'm a teacher and they got so quiet. It was like I told them I had like a terminal illness or something, but then I caught myself and I said, oh, no, wait, actually, I left that position today. I'm going back to school.

I'm getting another degree and they became so relieved. And they're like, oh, good for you, son. What are you gonna study? Is it finance?

And I just took a sip of my beer and I said, actually, it's creative writing. And there was another pause, another silence. And then they just started laughing like in my face, just hard like tears streaming down their faces, gasping for air, just like, can you believe he just said that, just looking to one another. And they told us to have a good night right before they walked back to their seats after they got their drinks.

We talked a little more to them, right? And the first guy goes, well, I happen to be in commercial real estate. I'm like, okay. And this thing I said, oh, I sell gravel.

I'm like, okay, I don't know what that means. And the third guy happened to be the CEO of Redstripe Beer, the Jamaican Beer Company. They were in town for a business conference. So after we said, our little bit, they told us theirs, like, have a good night.

And right before they left, the CEO of Redstripe, he opened up his wallet and he took out a Jamaican dollar bill and he handed it to me. And he said, you're gonna need this more than I will. And surprisingly, this had like a really negative impact on me. And so I guess the next time you're thinking about ordering a Redstripe Beer, maybe don't.

And so all of that said, though, grad school was fantastic, okay? It was wonderful. I learned how to write. I learned the structure of English.

I analyzed literature. I asked this big portfolio of writing samples. It was wonderful. And this supportive and collaborative environment.

And during grad school, I started a tradition for myself where every Sunday when I was doing my work, I began listening to what became one of my favorite shows on NPR. It's a show called Wait, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. So, okay. If you're not familiar, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

I'm glad some people know it. I adore it. It's a comedic news quiz show where every week, these like celebrity panelists who are humorists, they recap the world events from the previous week. And it's hosted by the amazing Peter Siegel.

There you go. It's witty, it's fun, it's charming, it's everything. And it kind of feels like talking to a neighbor of yours who's way smarter than you and you still want to be friends with them anyway. You don't load them for that.

And so to me, the show really just embodied the power of writing to cause, you know, just laughter and to create community just through humor and getting to sit there and listen every week to these professionals who had degrees in creative writing, just being successful, it made it all seem possible and I cherished it and I didn't miss an episode for two years. And then at the end of grad school, I started feeling this pressure because I was gonna have to get a job, right? And all the writing positions in Chicago, they were very dry, they're very corporate, they all involved like transcribing notes from board meetings or writing press releases after you transcribed notes from board meetings. And the future felt very bleak.

Then one Sunday morning I was sitting, I was listening to that, wait, wait, and they made an announcement. They were looking for an intern and this internship could lead to full-time employment. And I was like, well, this is it. I'm gonna apply, I'll get it.

And then I'm gonna dazzle everyone, I'll get promoted and my life's gonna change. When I go to all these fancy literary parties around the city, you know, meet all these fancy celebrities who will then like quote my jokes back to me without knowing that I was the one who wrote them. This is gonna be wonderful. And so I applied and I felt really good about my chances until the following week when I was listening to the show.

And they said that they had received 2,000 applications for one internship, unpaid internship position from all across the country, they received these and I crumbled, right? I was like, there's no way I was gonna be able to stand out amongst all of that. Right when I was about to turn off the radio, Peter Siegel said, and this episode was recorded at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago. And I was like, well, wait a minute, they're in Chicago.

I'm in Chicago, right? These 2,000 people aren't like, I can go plead my case in person, I wasn't done yet. And so I printed out some of my favorite writing samples and I put them in Manila envelope. And I didn't know who to address it to or what to write on the outside.

So I just took a Sharpie and on the outside I wrote fragile, enclosed our dreams. That's all I did, terrible, not my best. And I went down to the Chase Bank Auditorium and I was recording and it was packed with people. And I found my way through this crowd and I came out to this volunteer.

This man looked like a big egg wearing glasses and I said to him, hey, I'm Brian, I applied for the internship. I really wanna give this a shot. I think this would help if I got my writing into the hands of a producer for the show. It's in this envelope, can you help me?

This guy looked at me and he said, every single one of us wants this internship. If you leave your envelope with me, I will personally see to it that it's thrown in the garbage. So it wasn't gonna work, it's not ideal. So I'd have to get creative.

But luckily, I was about to graduate with a degree in creative writing. And so the following day I went down to Navy Pier. It's on Lake Michigan. It's where NPR is headquartered in Chicago, okay?

And I went down there with my envelope with my packet of materials, but they wouldn't buzz me in because I didn't have an appointment and I was so frustrated by that and I've since realized it's a pretty good policy. Just not to have an open door like that. So I waited by the delivery entrance for like an hour until the UPS guy left and when he left, right when the door was about to close, I grabbed it and I ran inside. I just thrust my envelope at the receptionist.

I said, can you please get this into the hands of anyone? And wait, wait, don't tell me. And he looked at me kind of confused and then he kind of raised his eyebrows at the fragile and close to our dreams. And that was all I could do.

And then two weeks later, they called me. They had read me. They loved me. They wanted to interview me.

And I was like, oh my God, this is happening. And the only actual interview I had had to up to that point for like a career position was for my teaching job. And they kind of just gave me that once they found out I wasn't on parole. That wasn't a high, that wasn't a high standard.

And so I googled how to tie a tie and I got back on the train and I went back down to Navy Pier with my packet and I was buzzed in this time. No UPS guy needed, thank you. And this producer started showing me around. She started showing me around.

Like I already had the position. She's talking about the architecture of the building and the history of everything. And oh, that building over there is such and such as we walked by these big windows. She showed me where the bathrooms were.

And that's pretty serious. And then she showed me where the cafeteria was. And in the cafeteria, there was one person needing lunch. It's a man named Brian Babylon.

He's a comedian in Chicago. He is so funny. He's one of the panelists on wait, wait, don't tell me. He's one of the coolest people I've ever crossed paths with.

And he's sitting there needing lunch by himself. And the producer said to him, Brian Babylon, hello? Good afternoon. This gentleman here, pointing to me, is interviewing for the internship position.

His name also happens to be Brian, just finding any common ground, I guess. And Brian Babylon looked up from his sandwich and he said, wait a minute, your name's Brian, too? And I was like, yes? You know, not knowing where this was going.

And then he turned to the producer. And he just said, hire this man. And he went back to Eden. And so I was like, oh my god, this is happening.

This is mine to lose. So she led me over to the office area of this kind of headquarters. And there are all these desks in this perimeter facing away from one another. And the middle was this round table.

And she said, well, you can sit in Peter's chair because Peter isn't in today. And that's Peter Siegel as the host of the show that just called him Peter, casually, like barbecue. And so I sat in this chair and just touching greatness. And I immediately started to panic because all these other chairs with these producers and them spun around.

And all these people wheeled their chairs over to the center table. And this interview just began. And immediately, I felt like I was back in that bar with those businessmen just unable to relate to professionals of this caliber. And I started shaking.

I was so nervous. And one of the producers was eating baby carrots, like little carrots. And he took this massive bag of them. And he put it right down on the table.

And he said, well, you can have some if you want. And here's the thing. I'm not a carrot guy, right? Like, they're fine.

I don't seek them out. I don't dislike them. They're just sort of there. But I thought, OK, here's a pretty good opportunity for me to show them that I'm a regular guy who just eats carrots.

Just like them, like, look how much we have in common. And so I said, OK, I'll have some. And I put my hand in the bag, and I wanted to take one. But I was so nervous.

And my hand was shaking that I touched like 15, 20. And immediately, I'm in a situation. I'm in a predicament. Because if I take just the carrot that I wanted, then I'm touching food and leaving it, and then I'm a gross person.

I'm not going to get this position. But if I take this monstrous handful of them, then I'm greedy. So five seconds in, I'm stuck. And I think, OK, well, greedyness is better than uncleanness.

So I take this monstrous handful, and I don't want to hold it. So I just start housing it. I'm popping it in my mouth as fast as I can. Interview hasn't started.

And one of the producers tries to make some kind of smiles. And she says, wow, you must really like carrots. And I should have just explained the situation. They would have understood.

But instead, I doubled down. And I said, oh, me? Yeah, what you got to know about me is I love carrots. And then as though to prove it, I took another handful.

That was just as big. And I didn't want to have two handfuls. So I shoved the first handful of the rest of them into my mouth. And I'm crunching.

And it's so loud. I can't hear a thing. They're talking. I'm nodding and smiling around the circle.

The train is going off the rails. And then all of a sudden, this woman looks at me again, because she says something, and I missed it. And I said, oh, excuse me. After I swallow a gigantic mouthful, and she goes, so what do you want to do with your career?

That's an easy question. That's a softball, right? That's like interview 10101, because that was my chance to tell them everything. Like what they're showing me, and to tell them that I wanted to create community and effect change through humor and all these things.

But I was so nervous. I couldn't stop thinking about the carrots, that all I say to them. And her very easy question of, what do you want to do with your career? My response is, quote, I like creativity.

That's all I said. And these words just hung out there, OK, in between us. And they were silent. Like, who are you?

How did you get in here? Like, I can't even imagine what they're thinking. And to fill this silence, I finish the rest of the carrots. And I'm like, well, I'll get more.

And so I put my hand back in the bag. I'm just going to take one. But then I thought, well, wait a minute. If I take fewer carrots this time, they're going to think the first two times were some sort of a mistake.

So I took another monster handful just for consistency. And I'm sitting there, holding all these, trying to eat them. And another producer very mercifully keeps the interview going, and he goes, all right, well, what are you struggling with right now? I think he was talking about the interview to be honest with hindsight, which is what I should have said.

But I wanted something like witty and fun, something fitting. I was like, wait, wait, don't tell me something. That Peter Siegel would really appreciate. And after the longest pause that's ever taken place in an interview, all I said was, well, at home, I'm working on a pretty tough crossword puzzle right now.

That's not funny. That's not witty. That's just words that just came out of my face. It was terrible.

And they stared at me. And then I didn't know what else to do. So I got yet another handful. And I held them up.

And I just shoved them into my mouth like a raccoon, going through with dumpster. And you would think, to have made this many mistakes that I was there for half an hour, it had been five minutes. Five minutes after I sat down, they said, well, thanks for coming in. And I said, thanks for the carrots.

That was my response. And I stood up from Peter's chair. It's Peter Siegel chair. And I looked at the table.

And the bag of carrots was empty. And all the producers gave one another looks that said, we will never stop talking about this. Couple of weeks later, I'm sitting at home, working, I'm drinking tea when I get an email from the show. And they were so very sorry to say that they could not offer me the position, which is shocking.

I know. But it was heartbreaking, because the dream job was there. And then it was gone. It took place 11 years ago.

And I still kind of carry it with me. It's kind of just a part of me. And today, I'm not commercial realist. I don't sell gravel.

I don't work at a very mediocre beer company. But I have carved out a career as a writer and as a storyteller. Even if it wasn't with, wait, wait, don't tell me. I would love to bitch.

Call me. But here's the thing. I've been able to carve this out and able to do this because a couple months after this catastrophe happened, I got another interview with an advertising agency in Chicago. And I got that job.

And I got that job because I learned so much from this experience. This is bleeding out. We're done in ADP here with those producers. I now knew so much more.

I knew to stop overthinking things. And I knew just to kind of trust myself. And I knew to kind of let some things go like I knew myself so much better. So when the recruiter asked me right before that interview, would you like anything to eat?

I just looked at her and I said thank you, but absolutely not. Thank you. Don't like carrots. Sorry.

Now you listen up. Farmers are out there working very hard in the fields to grow all these vegetables. So eat everything on your plate. Thanks.

You bet. Hey, folks, if you like our show, you'll absolutely want to check out Were You Raised by Wolves. It's a show that's all about etiquette, manners, and beyond. It's hilarious, fast paced, definitely not what you think of when you hear etiquette podcast.

Each week, Nick Layton, an Emmy award-winning journalist, and Leah Bonama, an acclaimed comedian and writer, tackle all of life's tricky situations and help people glide through every social situation with confidence from what to do if you're ghosted to the proper way to eat Cheetos. Nick and Leah have got you covered. I could use a little help with the whole what the fuck to do if you're ghosted thing. Yet another delightful new normal.

And we've heard thousands of awkward social situations where people weren't sure what the right thing to do was here on risk. So check out Were You Raised by Wolves and get the advice you're going to need in this new world at wereyouraisbywolves.com or wherever you get your podcast. I've just sold my car. All right, I've got caught in 30 seconds when we buy any car, drove to my local branch in 13 minutes, and cash is getting sent to my bank.

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I've been female applied for more information visit weebyanycar.com slash info. This week on historical high-eaters, join our top panel of comedians as we take us. Is there a guy? Are you still in the bath?

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Simples, huh? Folks, as you might have heard, this summer is the summer. We either raise enough funds from our listeners to keep this whole enterprise stable or dot, dot, dot. There has never, in the 13 and a half years of risk's existence, been a time that we needed your financial help more than right now.

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And all of a sudden, he started singing about a bitch stuck my dick. And I didn't know I was in a song. He was singing about a bitch stuck my dick. And I didn't know it was a song about a bitch stuck my dick.

But I'm singing along with the song. I didn't know I was singing along. And I'm singing along with the bitch stuck my dick. And as you can be hiding, you're kind of shook your hands and you can get out of the radio.

There are so many amazing, surprising, hilarious stories like Drew's over there on our Patreon, as well as the beautiful ones the scary ones, you know, all over the emotional map. We've got so much more over there. And listen, I cannot tell you how much we appreciate your help. I really can't.

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With a one-time donation at paypal.me slash risk show, or you can email me about other ways to send money at kevinitrisksteshhow.com. But the easiest way to do it is also to be getting all that bonus content by joining our Patreon or by upping the amount you're already donating there at patreon.com slash risk. And now I want to give a huge, huge thank you shout out to all of our newest Patreon members, as well as folks who have recently increased their monthly donation. We always give a shout out to anyone giving $25 or more per month, like Ivan Spala, Glen Watts, Jude Trader Wolf, Merrily Lance, Damon Harris, Todd Harding, Sarah Fleischer, Kerry Sturgis, Olivia Laughter, and Maddie Bold.

Thank you all so, so much. And everyone else listening, please join these folks in helping us through this really tight squeeze of a summer. Now, let's hear a story from Gillian Markowitz. Gillian helps produce a comedy show with a group called Raymore versus Flanagan at House Party Cafe in Bushwick, Brooklyn on the first Friday of each month.

And here she is now, with a story we call, Crossing the Line. So in high school, I was the worst. I came from a high achieving family, and I could not measure up. I struggled with learning disabilities, and I was given a very high dose of Adderall.

Also, my sweet silly dork of a big brother had just moved away from medical school, and he'd been a huge source of support for me. I felt totally lost without our late-night talks or his eyes on my homework. So I was putting all of this pressure on myself to do well in school. And I'm just furious with myself and everyone around me when I cannot measure up to the perfect GPAs of my older siblings.

So I'm going like 60 hours at a time without sleep from the Adderall, and I started hallucinating radio frequencies in the shower, and I kept seeing non-existent squirrels out of the corner of my eye. In the yearbook, I was actually voted most likely to be found sleeping on the hood of her car. You fall asleep on the hood of your car three times. No one ever lets you forget it.

I just had no awareness of how I was moving through the world. I was in a complete fog all the time. All that I knew was that, apparently, it is not appropriate to call out in the middle of AP history that your mouth tastes like testicles. So lesson learned.

All I knew was that my family thought I was a bad seed, and I was rapidly losing friends in school, averaging 14 absences as a trimester. Not a semester. A trimester. Now, I knew it wasn't normal to be so anxious about a chemistry test that you drive right past school three hours to the beach and then just sit in your car listening to old-time radio shows on your iPod.

But I was just that kind of dame, see. Now, after trying several therapists, my parents took me to see Dr. Dan, and he was not like any therapist I had ever met before. Now, he wore your typical therapist uniform.

You know, he had the button down and the khakis and the shiny brown shoes, but he wasn't normal. He was weird, but good, weird. Brainy and jovial and these big blue eyes that were always vibrating back and forth from the stagmus. The rest of him vibrated too.

I mean, his personality vibrated. You know, he was awkward and he did Homer Simpson impressions. And I remember our first session, he asked me why I was there, and I said, everyone thinks I'm a fucking loser. And he said, what makes you say that?

And I said, well, on the way here, my mom said, you're a fucking loser. And then he did something I had never seen a therapist do before. He laughed. And I laughed.

And session after session, we kept laughing. He seemed to genuinely enjoy me in a way that nobody did at that point. He saw that beneath the sleep deprivation and the biting pass of aggression, I was a good kid. And I started to see myself that way, and then everything got better.

I was sleeping. I was getting along with my parents, kind of. You know, if I was like late for a class, I would just laugh it off instead of driving to the beach. But something weird, it also started to happen.

Sometimes Dr. Dan would show up, like, 30 to 40 minutes late for a session. And one session, he spent the entire time venting about the clinic where he volunteered, and then at the end, jokingly offered to pay me. But I mean, I liked that he was so open with me.

He trusted me. He respected me. And my life just kept getting better. When I got into my first choice college early decision, I ended up speaking at high school graduation about all the lessons I had learned and all the insight I had learned.

Nobody thought I would make it there. And I ended up speaking. I was probably one of the first people to do virtual therapy. When I went to college, my parents said that I would fail out of school if we didn't continue our sessions, so we kept meeting via Skype.

Remember Skype? So I started learning more about him at that point. And I was getting into stand-up comedy. And I found out that he had this obsession with Tina Fey.

So we read bossy pants together. And he said that he thought that I was a lot like her. High praise, wow. So we're getting more and more casual.

And then he starts emailing me from a secret email address. Tina Fey is not my wife at gmail.com. I don't think his wife knew about that email address. And I don't think Tina Fey knew about that email address.

So one day during our session, I got a little bit drunk on Spike's Lemonade. Now he didn't know I was drinking. It was in like a Snapple bottle. But toward the end of the session, I could see him start to clock, but I'm getting a little looser, and I'm slurring a little bit.

And so I knew I had to do something. So I said, oh, I think I grabbed the Spike's Lemonade by accident. So cringe. Now he ended the session awkwardly, but he did everything awkwardly.

So I didn't think much of it. I don't know why I drank during that session. But as an adult, I am so curious what was going on for me. I mean, was I angry?

Was I rebelling? Was I testing his limits? I never got to find out why I did it, because Dr. Dan stopped showing up for sessions after that, and he had increasingly absurd excuses like that.

He got hit by a bike messenger and broke his glasses. Finally, six months later, he met with me and said that he had been direct, quote, weirded out when I drank during our session and had been avoiding me ever since. I was so embarrassed I wanted to die. I could not believe that I had let down my hero.

My mentor that way. Now we continued our weekly sessions after that, and we even started signing our emails. Love. After college, I moved to Chicago to study at Second City so that I could be like our hero, Tina Fey.

And Dr. Dan said that he had a conference in Chicago, and we should meet up in person. I was 23 and so excited. My brother had taught me all about craft beer, and I was super stoked to show off all my knowledge, take into comedy shows, and I took him to see improvised Shakespeare and TJ and Dave, which some of the best improv in Chicago at that time in my opinion.

But I noticed that every time I got him a fancy beer, he finished the whole thing in one goal. One night after a comedy show, we went to a bar, and it was this girl at the bar's 21st birthday. So I bought her a shot, and then I went to the bathroom. When I came out, Dr.

Dan was sort of looming over her. She's against the wall, and he's got his hand perched high up on the wall like a kickstand. And I started to feel kind of sick when I saw that, but I didn't understand why. I told him I wanted to go home, but when we got to my apartment, I had locked myself out.

Very typical for me at that point, and at this point. So he said that he had a couch in his hotel room. We made our way back to the Hard Rock Hotel, and he made up the couch for me. I couldn't believe it.

We were hanging out in his hotel room. I had done it. I had made it to adulthood, and I was cool. I was so cool that the coolest person I knew, my therapist, wanted to hang out with me.

I made a joke about how salacious it was as sharing a hotel room. And then he backed away from me and got very tense. And he said, seriously, do not even joke about that? We cannot have sex.

I mean, we can never have sex. First of all, I am married, and you know, I'm not trying to mess with that. Even though I kind of see monogamy as more of a grayscale than I used to, and I think cheating's not necessarily entirely black and white, but both the main reason that you and I can never have sex is it would really fuck you up. It was freezing on the couch, and I tossed and turned.

Why did I feel like I needed eight showers? Why was he so weird about the sex joke? I mean, that's my sense of humor. It's in all of my stand-up.

I sincerely had not even thought about having sex with my married 43-year-old therapist. The next morning, before he left for the airport, we had brunch together. And he told me that he considered me to be one of his soul mates, and that he'd submitted a paper to that conference just so he would have an excuse to come to Chicago and see me. He also told me that he hadn't told his wife that he was coming out to see me.

As he got into his cab, he kissed me on the cheek and said that I had cured his depression. I walked home trying to shake this icky feeling that I had in my chest. I felt so validated that I was as important to him as he had been to me. I mean, I was finally special to someone.

I was the star pupil, the protege, the mentee that I had always wanted to be to somebody. But by the time I got back to my apartment, I just felt like I was covered in tar. My landlord let me in, and when I got into my apartment, my phone buzzed. And then I buzzed again, and again, and again, and again.

And I looked at it, and it was Dr. Dan texting me from his cab pages of legal jargon, releasing himself from any responsibility as my doctor and saying that I was no longer his patient in any capacity. I just kind of stared at it. I didn't even want to touch my phone.

I calmly walked into the shower and turned up the heat and sat there, the water running over me, watching my skin turn pink. And then it hit me, a montage, a series of flashing memories, the overwhelming sense that this was weird, but not good weird. My hero was gross. He was a gross guy.

He was being gross. He was chugging $15 beers and looming over newly legal women and hiding from his wife that he was flying across the country to visit a patient and sending me a long text so he wouldn't be liable. His ass would be covered in case I had this exact realization. But he had helped me.

He saved me. My parents said that I wouldn't have graduated without him. He saw me. He looked me.

Who else could know me the way that he did? It's funny how much damage a man's midlife crisis can do. How much of my therapy since has been learning what healthy therapy looks like? I do feel some sympathy for Dr.

Dan because I recently found out that he stopped practicing shortly after that trip to Chicago and is now a legal writing consultant, so I guess that text was just practice. He also followed me on Instagram for half an hour in 2020, and then just deleted his account. I feel more compassion for him than I used to, especially knowing that he's not practicing anymore. I mean, somewhere he knew that he was not okay.

But what he did lives in me still. He used me as a device in his story. The same misogynistic, manic-pixie dream girl bullshit that would haunt me for years after. I'd been cast as the helpless girl who exists to cure the depression of the leading man.

He was my therapist, but I wasn't a person to him. I've spent the years since trying to convince myself that I am more than just a device in the story of somebody else, of some guy. And now, here I am, studying to be a therapist myself after all that. And at first, you know, I wanted to be a therapist because I wanted to help negate a lot of the bad therapy out there.

Since no one is now more versed in what healthy therapy should have looked like than I am. But now that I'm in it, it is so easy to mess up. I mean, boundaries and consistency are really hard, and messing them up can really fuck people up. But no matter what kind of therapist I am when I finish school, I know that I am writing my own story, and I'm telling it.

So there it is. For yourself, but not for me. I want you to go out there and find some- This is Risk. This is Delta Spirit by me now, and we just heard from Jillian Markowitz.

Before that, we heard a rare mix of Weird Al Yankovic's 100% original song, Eat It, along with Megan the Stallion, Crystal, and the Cast of the Anime, Bleach. Folks, you might have noticed that Brian Kett mentioned Brian Babylon of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me fame in his story a couple of times. Well, Brian Babylon has told several of the all-time classic Risk stories. And you can find all of them at risk-show.com slash storyteller slash Brian Dash Babylon.

Folks, this has been a transformational year for me. I got sober. I switched to veganism. I began exercising and meditating every day.

I lost 45 pounds. But most importantly, I started doing what a lot of people call doing the work. Every day, some days for 20 minutes, some for an hour, I started doing journaling exercises, guided meditations, somatic healing, like with breathing exercises or body scans, and sometimes just creative exercises for the sake of play. And I found all of these exercises in lots of different books with titles like The Self-Love Workbook or The Recommendations of Psychotherapist or Buddhist Teachers.

So even though I just went through an excruciating breakup and have been so worried about risk being able to raise enough funds this summer to keep things stable, I am going strong. I'm growing exponentially and showing up for myself, for my life, and for the people I love, including you, the risk community, like never before. The other day, I did one of those journaling exercises where you think of a recent time you felt shame or hurt or frustration with yourself, and you write yourself a letter in the voice of the wisest, most loving, most supportive character you can imagine. And for an hour, I wrote that letter.

And when I stood up, I felt like I was glowing, like my body was filled with sunshine. And in that moment, I thought, I want to lead other people in doing this work too. These daily assignments of giving yourself care, tender loving care, they're not a replacement for seeing a licensed therapist, but they have been hugely helpful to me in their own way. I'm on this path, and I want to be on it with others.

So I'm leading an online workshop on Zoom, simply called practice. When we prioritize showing up every day to practice tender loving care of ourselves, we heal, we grow. We create new possibilities in our lives. So we'll meet once a week, have paired sharing and full group sharing.

I'll lead interactive exercises and give homework assignments for supporting one another in cultivating a daily self care routine that goes deep and nurtures us. Anyone interested in learning how you might be a part of this workshop? Email me at Kevin at risk-show.com for details and mention practice in the subject line. Last week I mentioned that I was thinking of calling it healing and growing, so you can use that in the subject line too, because this will indeed be the practice of healing and growing.

This is the beginning of something truly beautiful. Folks, have you ever been in a life or death situation? Maybe it was your life in the balance, maybe someone else's. Maybe you had an impossible decision to make, maybe you didn't even have a choice and have since had to learn to live with that.

Well, pitch us your stories if life or death brings to mind a story to you. Send a 300 word pitch to pitches at risk-show.com, or it could be a two minute long voice memo of you leading us through, you know, a brief summary of what happens in the beginning, middle and end of the story as you see it. Now in a couple of days we'll be doing our Queer Lives compilation in celebration of Pride Month this year, but that's in a couple of days. Meanwhile, folks, today's the day.

Take a risk. Go now! You bet.