The Birthday Charity Episode

Five people who have never met each other, and one voicemail from my mom.I asked friends from every era of my life to come on and tell me who I was to them. Nobody compared notes. They agreed on more than I'm comfortable with — including one thing all of them independently decided was wrong with me.Featuring Amélie, Bean, Charlotte, Sarah and Cory. Contains a brothel, a triangle choke, a quinceañera I nearly didn't leave, and a photograph that should not exist in a printing shop in northern France.A pirate looks at fifty-one.For my birthday I went to the Rolodex and asked people who've known me at wildly different points — 1996 Las Vegas, a sub-basement in Camden, a dating app during COVID, a workout call run by Tony Horton — to come on and talk about how we met and what they made of me.They don't agree on how we met. Several of them are provably wrong. One of them caught me trying to gaslight her and named the venue.What they do agree on, without having spoken to each other, is that I can't take a compliment. So they took turns making me.There's also an apology list, because it turns out I've been carrying one.Scarlet Shadows — The Scarlet Mysteries, Book One — is out October 15. Every sale between now and then goes to charity.GUESTSAmélie — met on Facebook when she was nineteen and Europe still needed an invitation to join. Now in Prague. Owns the single most incriminating anecdote in this episode.Bean — Las Vegas, 1996. Designated driver, roommate, and the reason I'm still here.Charlotte — London. Met in the sub-basement of Cyberdogs in Camden. Fifteen years of the Terrence Higgins Trust event and counting.Sarah — met online during COVID from ten hours apart. Measured me in a hotel pool.Cory — Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Met on a Tony Horton workout call. Plays bass, does Shakespeare, once drove three hours at 4am into an ambush I arranged.And voicemails from my mom, Sarah, and from Jenni.LINKSEverything below goes to charity until October 15. Book sales, affiliate commissions, all of it. After the 15th the links stay up but the money stops being someone else's.Scarlet Shadows — The Scarlet Mysteries, Book One — out October 15.Surviving Gen X — the memoir. It has boobs in it. Lizzie drew them.Power Up — https://mypowernutrition.com/jo — Tony Horton's stuff, mentioned around 21:00. My affiliate link. Nobody paid for the mention; I just drink it.linktr.ee/Emptyhell