← My So-Called Midlife with Reshma Saujani
My So-Called Midlife with Reshma Saujani
Bonkers Titties and Other Unspoken Parts of Pregnancy with Ilana Glazer
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- [00:02]
Gulab Vilasak
Hi, I'm Gulab Vilasak. And I'm Soo Jin Pak. And we're your aunties on Add to Cart, a podcast all about the things we buy, the things we buy into.
- [00:10]
Soo Jin Pak
And what that says about who we are.
- [00:12]
Gulab Vilasak
We're real life friends who love to talk about what we're adding to cart.
- [00:16]
Soo Jin Pak
Sometimes that means trying the latest snail.
- [00:19]
Gulab Vilasak
Serum to slather on our faces or a sweater that screams one third ugly.
- [00:24]
Soo Jin Pak
That's right, Sue.
- [00:25]
Gulab Vilasak
Each week we dive into honest, oftentimes TMI conversations about what's taking up space in our shopping carts and in our minds, be it products, trends or something for our auntie book club.
- [00:35]
Soo Jin Pak
We also bring guests on the show.
- [00:36]
Gulab Vilasak
And take a peek into their carts because the things a person buys or doesn't says a lot about them. We like to think of ourselves as aunties to all fun, slightly unhinged and always ready to share some sage advice and a good product wreck. Add to Cart is out now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Choice Words listeners. Sam Be here. Guess what? We are back with a brand new season of Choice Words from Lemonada Media. Each week I'll chat with amazing guests like Kerry Washington, Laura Dern, and Nick Offerman to dive into the biggest choices they've ever made. We are talking career shaping, history, changing life defining decisions. As someone who has made my own fair share of questionable choices. Hello Bangs. I am pumped to share these funny, poignant, all too relatable stories with you. Season 2 of Choice Words is out now. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. You won't want to miss it. Lemonado. Welcome to my so Called Midlife, a podcast where we figure out how to stop just getting through it and start actually living. I'm Reshma Sajani. Okay, so when I was pregnant with my first son, Sean, it was fucking hell. It was after my, I don't even know, third miscarriage. I didn't know if it was actually gonna happen. I was stressed all the time. I ended up having to be on bed rest. It was just not fun. I was not having a lot of sex. I was not eating all the things I wanted to eat. I was just fucking miserable. So I wish the word fun was associated with my pregnancy, but it wasn't. So when I saw Babes with Alana Glaser and Michelle Botox, I was like, wow, pregnancies, fun. And it was amazing because it captured all these things about pregnancy that we literally never talk about. And so that's the gift of our guest today who now I'd like to call my friend Alana Glaser. Through her acting, her writing, and her standup, she literally is able to capture the full person on topics like pregnancy and friendship. You know, a lot of folks know her from Broad City, and that was a show about being confused in your 20s, and it was really about friendship. But now, when Alana became a mom, she ventured into talking about motherhood, and I'm so grateful that she did. This conversation is just like a wonderful reminder of how midlife and motherhood have so many multitudes. Like, it's complicated, right? And there's no right way to do it. Alana really reminded me in this conversation that, yeah, those things are hard. But you know what? They're also funny and joyful and genuinely fucking hilarious. So here we go. Let's get into it.
- [03:57]
Soo Jin Pak
Hi.
- [03:58]
Gulab Vilasak
Hi.
- [03:58]
Soo Jin Pak
Can you just give me one second? I just want to put tape by the, by the camera because I.
- [04:03]
Gulab Vilasak
Go, go, go, go. Take your time. Yeah, but now I can't see you. Is that okay? You can't because it's gray now.
- [04:13]
Soo Jin Pak
Lol. Oh, that was the camera. Okay.
- [04:16]
Gulab Vilasak
I know. I'm always like, completely not technical. And everyone's like, wait, you started an organization called Girls who Code? Really? And I was like, yeah, I did.
- [04:24]
Soo Jin Pak
Yep, I did. It was a different aspect of Girls who Code that made you. That got you to found it. Not the technical aspect.
- [04:31]
Gulab Vilasak
Not the technical aspect.
- [04:33]
Soo Jin Pak
Yeah. But also, Reshma, I'm such a fan of you from Girls who Code. I love that initiative and I was a big fan of also Black Girls Code and I just think it's awesome.
- [04:44]
Gulab Vilasak
It is. She does amazing work.
- [04:46]
Soo Jin Pak
Yeah.
- [04:47]
Gulab Vilasak
All right. I'm so excited to talk to you. Okay, so I like to start with this little icebreaker. So we talk a lot on our show about the midlife mindset and everybody has like a different perspective. Like, some people are like, fuck yeah. Best time of my life. Some people are like, I'm dying. This is the worst. Where are you at?
- [05:09]
Soo Jin Pak
I'm like, fuck, yeah. This is the best time of my life. I have two other best friends from Long island that I grew up with. And we just have been like middle aged people since we were in sixth grade. You know what I mean? So, like, it feels for me like this clicking, I think, with my natural, like, tone or rhythm, you know, like there's like a hum that's always been there that now is like clicked in and it's feeling harmonious with the other, with the parts of my life. You know what I Mean and while totally challenging and I'm going through like major uphill battles of personal transformation, even that feels like it's singing, you know, and meant to be right now. I think it's like because I've never been like really a partier, you know, and I've always been like obsessively productive as a way to deal with anxiety. So like as a true middle aged person at 37 and a mother, I feel it's, it's feeling really good for me.
- [06:20]
Gulab Vilasak
That's amazing. So like in sixth grade, like you guys were like looking forward to like getting older in middle age.
- [06:26]
Soo Jin Pak
100%. I remember calling my best friend Daniel from college, calling Daniel on his 19th birthday and he literally said one year closer to retirement, a 19 year old, a young gay 19 year old from freshly out not ready to go live. His truth, ready to be closer to retirement. Like, I think it was more of like this almost older, sensible mindset that me and my tribe have had since we were really young. That is like finally clicking in now.
- [06:57]
Gulab Vilasak
That's awesome. Okay, so you're in the beginning of your midlife.
- [07:02]
Soo Jin Pak
Thank you.
- [07:02]
Gulab Vilasak
You're actually our youngest guest, which is so cool.
- [07:06]
Soo Jin Pak
Thank you. Oh, I'm at the beginning of my middle age. Thank you. O what a little girl I am compared to whoever JLD or whatever.
- [07:16]
Gulab Vilasak
And what's interesting is like your transition to midlife has kind of been in the public eye, right? You went from the stoner buddy comedy in Broad City to making movies about pregnancy. Part of that, right? You talk about like shit like I didn't know how horny I would be like in pregnancy. And you wanted to actually do your art based on like talking about your experience. And one of the things I was reading about, you were listening, is that people would come up to you all the time after broad sitting. They felt like they knew you, right? And they knew your character. But they also said like, it really changed their lives. And I want to know like, what's been the reaction from folks after seeing babes? Because I watched babes and I felt very seen as a mother as I.
- [08:03]
Soo Jin Pak
Really step into middle age. I'm feeling so tender. Broad City was such a fiery experience. Like Abby and I were like first loves, you know, who like got married young and had all these babies young. Five seasons, it feels like five babies, you know what I mean? And I'm thinking of actually a woman I went to school with on Long island who has six kids and had them really young and married her high school sweetheart. It's like, almost like that, but of comedy. And by the time Broad City ended, I had been in that project for 10 years, and I was 32, so it was a third of my life. It was my entire adulthood. Broad City, wow. The reaction, you know, it was more like, yo, dude, we should blaze right now. Do you want to smoke right now? Like, you know, when I was, like, in Broad City, and I was like, no, that's my. That's a character. But as I've gotten older, like, the. It's really interesting and lovely to see people's reactions change, like, you know, to age. They're sensing it. And then with babes, like, we were all holding hands together, stepping into this phase together, and it's been very. In contrast to Broad City, the reaction to Babes has been a gentleness that people are having toward me that I see they're having towards themselves that the movie kind of invited them to have.
- [09:26]
Gulab Vilasak
Yeah, it was a beautiful and funny film, and I think it was just so powerful because so many of these films about parenting are often from the perspective of men and not from the perspective of go figure. Go figure, right?
- [09:42]
Soo Jin Pak
It's so sick, and it's just so absurd. And, like, as we started, my producer, Susie Fox, and my co writer, Josh Rabinowitz, as we started writing this movie, we were like, there are no comps.
- [09:55]
Gulab Vilasak
No comps.
- [09:56]
Soo Jin Pak
There are no comps. And it's a really tender movie, but it's, like, really funny. We're doing, like, I would say, two to three jokes per minute. Like, it is. It is funny.
- [10:04]
Gulab Vilasak
Oh, I would lay on the floor laughing.
- [10:05]
Soo Jin Pak
Yeah. And it's like, so. It's so, like, silly and goofy and, like, we had such a. This classic sense of New York. It, like, felt like this old time when people could really live in New York and make a life for themselves in New York. And we pointedly wanted to give that feeling we have to remember and feel that that existed can exist again and should exist like a livable New York City with community.
- [10:34]
Gulab Vilasak
Right? That it is. Yeah. Maybe you gotta take four trains to, like, go on to dinner together, but you can still see each other and you can raise children. You know what I mean? In New York City. And, yeah, it is. Really. I love that. I love that intentionality around it. You know, one of the things you said is you shopped this movie around. You got a lot of rejections from men. They thought it was gross that you were talking so intimately about what was happening to your body when you actually are pregnant. What was the scariest Part and the funniest part of being a pregnant person.
- [11:11]
Soo Jin Pak
For you, I think, I mean, a big part of the absurdity that was unlocked for me becoming a pregnant person was how powerful I felt. And this narrative that, you know, because we have no paid leave, because our system makes creating life worthless and people as property, because we so devalue pregnant people, we make. It's a. You have to claim disability to get, like any paid leave in New York State. You have a disability. You're creating another person while living your own life. Like, not even thinking about it. Your body is so powerful, creating teeth and nails and hair and organs for someone, and then it's going to somehow get that body out of you. It was absurd. Like Kafka. Like cosmic absurdity. Hysterical. And like a power that I have stepped into that I kind of have been. It feels like waiting my whole life to step into that power. That joke of like, it's not even just like women. It's like, we devalue this. We devalue creating life. How the hell are we here? You know what I mean? That we are creators. We are the creators was hysterical to me. Unbelievable. And then the slapstick comedy of your body. I mean, your boobs are nuts. I like, had the. I had like, heads, you know what I mean? I had like my own head, but two of my own head as boobs. They were bonkers. Bonkers titties. Nuts. The horniness was so funny. Like, I. I have been programmed to think that once a woman enters the parenthood journey, starting at pregnancy, you are desexualized. I found myself completely sexualized from the inside out, personally sexualizing myself and my partner. Like, I was like, this is so sexual. This is so activating and sensual. Even after I had my baby. Just such sensual experience. Like, you know, I think we also almost. It's almost a good thing that we don't talk about the sensuality because our. Our mainstream discourse does not have the nuance to do it.
- [13:41]
Gulab Vilasak
No safely.
- [13:42]
Soo Jin Pak
But like, it is so special and sensual. And, you know, my mind, so much of my mind just went into my body. The fluids as we discuss in Babes. You're just like, what's. What's coming out of me right now. It's just. It's crazy.
- [14:02]
Gulab Vilasak
How is that pee? No, I don't think so.
- [14:04]
Soo Jin Pak
I don't think so. How thick you get and how much space you start to take up after, you know, living as women, living our whole lives getting messages to take up less space. It was very funny. Very funny.
- [14:20]
Gulab Vilasak
Why do you think? You know, again, going back to the fact that there were no comps when you shopped babes and it was rejected by men, why are these cultural narratives about motherhood so hard to change?
- [14:33]
Soo Jin Pak
Okay, there's a couple things. This is just like very rich conversation. So I'm like going line item by line item. Give me one second. Wait. What do you think it's. Why are these narratives about motherhood so hard to change? I'm going to get to that point for sure in one moment. I just want to say the shopping it around and rejected by men. Part of that is because men dominate the industry. Men are the majority of decision makers in the industry by design. Many women come up and build this industry. Many people of color and minorities and black people create the culture of this industry. It remains dominated by men because that's who is in power at this time. And I want to shout out film Nation, Glenn Basner, an older white gentleman who loved it. But I think part of it is that women's stories and perspectives on themselves have been held down and suppressed such that it remains shocking and such that shock value is the currency for women's stories being told. You know, we're at this point in the culture where stories about trans people, trans people want to get past the trauma part of their stories and show them just living their lives where they're gender identities in the backdrop. You know, it is less. This point is less amplified for women and especially white women. But, like, it's still mostly true. You know what I mean? Like, it's still mostly true that women's stories are most successful through the male gaze. So, you know, it's just by design that women telling honest, like, not traumatic stories about their own bodies and spirits and selves remains a rarity. So that we remain a rarity, so that we aren't represented so much that we're electing ourselves in droves and electing ourselves as business leaders in droves.
- [16:30]
Gulab Vilasak
You know what I thought was just so powerful, though, about the movie? So I think, like, in our work at Moms first, we always say we're trying to uplift motherhood. Like, I think what is not respected or valued or aspired to is not actually invested in. So we don't have paid leave and childcare because we still treat mothers like shit in this country.
- [16:50]
Soo Jin Pak
Right?
- [16:50]
Gulab Vilasak
You go to Brazil, you're a mom. You're a mom of twins. Oh, my God, you're a goddess. Right? So part of the cultural creativity is so critical. I saw this. Girls who code so critical to actually changing policy. And what I loved about this film is like, it wasn't just like it sucks to be a mom or like there was the honesty of it, but the two of you getting high on mushrooms. You mean like looking hot and fabulous, like having this powerful friendship, like in many ways not losing yourself, trying to keep yourself. It was the celebration of motherhood in many ways in this really honest way. So if I watched the film and I didn't have children, I'm not like, oh shit, I'm not doing that. That looks too, too depressing, too hard, like not aspirational. I'm like, oh, okay. Like I can do this. And I think that that's. That to me is really fresh and new in terms of the kinds of films that you see about pregnancy and motherhood.
- [17:55]
Soo Jin Pak
Yeah. I think what you're describing is full people.
- [17:59]
Gulab Vilasak
Yeah.
- [18:00]
Soo Jin Pak
Our movie actually doesn't tell you isn't propaganda for having children or not.
- [18:05]
Gulab Vilasak
Right.
- [18:05]
Soo Jin Pak
It's actually just a full human story, which is why I found such a diverse swath of people relating to it. Because it's just a human, a specific human story that values full humanhood.
- [18:20]
Gulab Vilasak
You said in the Them article that being pregnant on paper was the most female thing I could ever do. But it actually highlighted both the masculine and feminine inside of me. And after that, you came out as non binary. Can you tell me more about what you were feeling and what you learned from your pregnancy about the feminine and the masculine?
- [18:43]
Soo Jin Pak
So like, it was really. I didn't sort of intend to like come out in a public way, but I, you know, I had this private experience interpersonally of this realization and sharing it with my community. But then, you know, in a, in a interview, I was asked like by an astute journalist about my non gendered language in babes. And kind of to the point before of pregnancy bringing so much of my brain into my body, so much of my mind into my heart and into my vagina and into my legs and butt and body, like literal body. I felt these. I was able to like really feel my feelings, not think about my identity from this conscious perspective, but to really feel the two spirits, male and female, inside of me and claim them. I don't think this is like, I've always felt this fluidity and I actually. It's also always been, I think, perceived and visible. But the knowing of it and the knowing of myself was both in my gender identity, but also in all these other ways was a gift that only this process could give me.
- [20:17]
Gulab Vilasak
Yeah. Could solidify it for you, for what you always knew in your heart and then having this experience.
- [20:22]
Soo Jin Pak
Yeah.
- [20:35]
Gulab Vilasak
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- [24:15]
Soo Jin Pak
I sometimes surprise myself when I hear things I've said. Yes, Rocha, I do too. Yeah, I do too.
- [24:22]
Gulab Vilasak
I do too. Talk to me about that. Because I'll be honest, when I saw you post this while back, I was like, I was like, ooh, I want to talk to her about this. Because I feel like the reason why people come off as downer cunts is because it's fucking hard to be a mom in America, right? That it is that we don't have these structural support. Yeah, so talk.
- [24:45]
Soo Jin Pak
But I'm talking about Marge Simpson. I'm not talking about hearing women bitch, which I fucking love. I love hearing women bitch. I'm talking about Marge Simpson. I'm talking about messages of, you know, that I'm thinking of Jill on Home Improvement. Oh my God. You know, I'm thinking of these lines that, you know, women on TV in the 90s had the furrowed brow. And then of course, we're sold how to remove the furrowed brow later, but you're still furrowing your fucking brow. But I'm not talking about real people. I'm talking about messaging. That is the message I've gotten for so long. And it keeps you in line. It's like you're a donkey and we put shit on your back and you're just gonna go forward quietly and don't be too loud. But, you know, and I grew up really loving the Simpsons, and I actually love Marge Simpsons. And I do it to myself. And I'm like, oh my God. I'm like, Marge Simpson. It's not even that I don't like it, but it is the only aspect that the powerful minority who have been the storytellers since Hollywood was birthed have told us we are and will be.
- [25:56]
Gulab Vilasak
Yeah, it's so powerful. And it's like the more we present it as it being tough and rough and like you just have to deal with it and it sucks. You can't find your empowerment in it. You just are taught to really suck it up. And I always say this about my mother. Like my mother used to always apologize before she went off to work, but that woman didn't retire until she was 72 because she loved her job and she felt like part of what she had to do was say she didn't wanna do it. Right. I feel this way as a mom when I have to go off and speak somewhere and my 6 year old was sitting at the window being like, don't go, don't go, don't go. And the women in the room will be like to me, well, don't worry about it. He won't remember. But I'm like, no, no, no, I will remember. So the point is like, I freaking want to create what I want to create for myself and not be given either. Or either this is what it means to be a woman in the workplace or this is what it means to be a woman who is going to not be in the workplace.
- [26:59]
Soo Jin Pak
And like also, do you remember the show Step by Step?
- [27:02]
Gulab Vilasak
Yes.
- [27:03]
Soo Jin Pak
Sally something. And then she had the Thigh master. It was like she was so hot and air heady. Like moms were either weirdly hot even in my community. I'm remembering weirdly hot, like bimbo moms or sexless angry moms. And like, I'm just thinking about your mom for a second. I'm like, maybe she was genuinely sorry and that wasn't performative. Maybe she was sorry and enjoyed her job.
- [27:27]
Gulab Vilasak
Yeah.
- [27:27]
Soo Jin Pak
And maybe she was like a little like, sorry, I gotta go, you know? And like maybe it was different on different days. And the other thing about your 6 year old not remembering. Ooh, I like, I'm always like, when people are like, she won't remember. I'm like, they will remember in their. Even if they don't consciously remember which they remember so much, they remember in their bodies and in their spines and their cells. But like what he's going to remember is that the most important woman figure in his life did what she knew she had to do.
- [27:59]
Gulab Vilasak
Yeah.
- [28:00]
Soo Jin Pak
And it's like a whole lifetime of experiences we have that we make meaning of. But it hurts, you know, it really, it really hurts in the moment.
- [28:08]
Gulab Vilasak
And that's life, right? It's like that, that's part of living I feel like, though, motherhood, though, like, sometimes I'm with my kids and I'm just like, I had a situation this morning. I don't know, and I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and, like, you know, we're all getting them ready for school, and, like, my little one's having a tantrum, and I'm just like, ah. You know what I mean? And it just. And my husband's like, you lectured me this morning. He's just like, you know, you can't get mad like that, right? Like, it just sets the whole day in, like, the wrong way. But how do you not get annoyed?
- [28:42]
Soo Jin Pak
Or how do you not be like, I do. I get, like, literally so annoyed. So mean. I'm a baby. It's, like, crazy. No, like, so this is the thing, me talking about focusing on the joy in my work. I mean, that's a professional and creative effort. But personally and privately, I am fucking up all the time. All the time, dude. Seriously. And, you know, we all know now how, like, comedians carry darkness. You know, it's like, I've really struggled with anxiety and depression most of my life. I have mental illness in my family. And, you know, I think also as mothers, it's like, we're more. The experience is so visceral. We're still separating from them. The first separation is them leaving our literal bodies. But, like, we're so connected to them. And to have a. To have a co parent who was not pregnant. I find my husband to be such a cooling self that I'm sometimes resentful of because I want to do his job, too. Yeah, no, I'm a bitch and a baby and I suck often. And I'm. I am. I do have those lines. And I am like, no. And David is also like, you can't be mean. You can't be a bitch. You know what I mean? To our kid. And I'm like, right, right. And it's a repeated conversation. It's not that I'm so grateful for this public discourse around postpartum depression, around how hard it is. I love women. Bitchin'I. Love it. I'm just adding, like, some more slices to that pizza pie.
- [30:30]
Gulab Vilasak
And you're so right. It can't just be one or the other. I fucking love my kids. Best title I have is being like their mom. But that doesn't mean that at times I'm like, I need you to leave. That's why John's character in Babes was so powerful. When they're sitting there on the bed and being like, it's the most complicated relationship you'll have because when they're with you, you're like, can you just go away? And when you're away from them, you're like, where are you? I need you. And it's, it's, it's deep.
- [31:01]
Soo Jin Pak
Bedtime is so crazy.
- [31:03]
Gulab Vilasak
And it's such, oh, I hate bedtime.
- [31:04]
Soo Jin Pak
Internally volatile experience because you're like, go to sleep, go to sleep, go to.
- [31:07]
Gulab Vilasak
Sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep.
- [31:08]
Soo Jin Pak
Your anxiety makes them stay up. It's activating, they sense it. And then the moment they go to sleep, I'm like, oh. And I'm looking at pictures of her. It's like psychotic. And what I love about Michelle, but Hasan Minhaj's scene as Don and Marty and Babes is the confronting. And like, I really love how our director Pamela Adlon shot this of them sitting forward, you know, not looking at each other, sitting forward and just looking at this sort of space in front of them that is like so complicated. You're supposed to be also sexual and romantic partners. That's how you met. That's why you created life. But things have gotten so unsexy. Sifting through the minutia of untangling, like you're saying a tantrum. Untangling. When was it that I got annoyed? I lost it. She was pissed. But then, then I escalated. Sifting through that stuff is so not hot and annoying and tedious. But the way that you press forward is like simply by willing yourself to.
- [32:15]
Gulab Vilasak
Yeah, I. One of the things I want to ask you too about is like you said, your favorite thing is the organic need for constant presence. And I was here and you said, you know, when I'm like with my child, it's like I'm in a scene in a script. I am dialed in. I am like present. How do you do that? Like, I'm with, you know, a four year old, a nine year old, and like I have to like slap my hand as I'm like with them playing Monopoly. But I'm grabbing my phone, you know what I mean? Or I'm like one eye towards like the thing that my to do list. Like, how do you dial in that way?
- [32:50]
Soo Jin Pak
The phone is mostly the thing, honestly, because the phones are now, you know, as AI starts to come for our bodies. I don't know, you know, more than I do. The phone is this literal extension of our minds. We're anxious without it and I'm mostly just putting it away. I actually don't even think that like, folding the laundry is, like, not being present. It's like something that has to be done. It's mostly the phone, but sometimes I like to, like, take a little gummy. You know what I mean? My workday's over. Turn the phone off. Take gummy dialed in. You know what I mean? Like, fully dialed in.
- [33:27]
Gulab Vilasak
All right. What's the gummy that you take to be dialed in during the day?
- [33:30]
Soo Jin Pak
I do a, like, 2 milligram THC, 10 milligram CBD, very low dosage. And I'm just, like, feeling, like, my muscles relax and I'm, like, floating a little bit more. I do that like when, you know, we say goodbye to our nanny, and I put my phone on the console and leave it until my kid goes down to sleep. And that's what I'll do.
- [33:56]
Gulab Vilasak
Yeah. I mean, it's right. Cause it helps you just take it. I know for me, I just need to take it down a few notches.
- [34:01]
Soo Jin Pak
Yeah.
- [34:01]
Gulab Vilasak
Cause I'm normally like, let's go, let's go, let's go. Right. And it just helps take it down a few notches.
- [34:07]
Soo Jin Pak
Yeah. I'm not, like, getting blazed ever. And I used to get blazed a lot. It's now more like a relaxing, like, little additive. It's not really the center of my experience when I use weed and alcohol has. I've pretty much phased out. I find it's.
- [34:30]
Gulab Vilasak
That's wild. See, I still need, like, a skinny margarita, like, or a glass of wine.
- [34:35]
Soo Jin Pak
I mean, if it felt good, I would do it, but I'm finding that it's, like, very depressing and makes me, like, depressed, sad, and mean. And I'm like, I don't think. I don't think this is working for me. But if it was fun and I was fun with alcohol, I would still use it. It's not really a principal thing, but I'm like. I'm more able now to, like, be with myself and be with my body and feel what I'm feeling and then respond to that.
- [35:17]
Gulab Vilasak
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- [36:48]
Reshma Sajani
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- [38:05]
Gulab Vilasak
I want to talk to you about pleasure because I love. There's a quote that you said that I loved and you said I aim to take pleasure. Instead of saying just have fun. Talk to our listeners about the distinction.
- [38:18]
Soo Jin Pak
So I toured my hour that's coming up in December, Human Magic on Hulu. I toured this hour for a year, two nights a week. That's as long as I can be away without getting like so sad from my family. So I would do. So I toured this over the course of a year. And I struggle with depression and anxiety and have for the majority of my life. This tour was such a. So transformative for me as an opportunity to confront all these feelings that I have. And I had this process before every show of walking around the neighborhood I was performing in and talking to myself. I would call it stacking it up. I would stack up the reality of the situation so as not to necessarily believe my feelings, but try to look at them objectively. Like, I'm in. I'm in Detroit. We're doing two shows today. They're weirdly early. I did a 2pm show and a 5pm show in Detroit. That's weird. It. It makes sense that that feels weird. Da, da da da da. Just like that kind of. That kind of gentleness with myself, an objective perspective and aiming to take pleasure, you know, instead of saying to myself, just have fun, just have fun. That implies, like, why are you not already having fun? Having fun is right and not having fun is wrong. So I. It feels like someone's forcing, you know, when anybody says have fun and they mean a positive thing, but it's like they're telling you what to do. And it's like, that may not be where I'm at right now. So I would always aim to take pleasure. And I would say to myself, I aim to take pleasure in this hour because standup is hard and standup is lonely, and it's kind of crazy pretending that you're saying something for the first time and you've. You've said it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. And so I would just aim to take pleasure in this hour. I would aim to take pleasure in what is new about this hour. The audience is new. I've never been with them before. It's. The time is new. It's a different day. And if I fell short of taking pleasure or didn't take pleasure the entire time, which is pretty unlikely, then I haven't failed. It's just like a path I'm walking down, either slowly or galloping.
- [40:37]
Gulab Vilasak
Do you have any advice for people of, like, just sinking into that pleasure? A pleasure that sometimes people are afraid of because sometimes, like, we're attracted to. To pain, let's be honest, for sure.
- [40:53]
Soo Jin Pak
And there is such a pain, pleasure dichotomy in performance, in achieving our goals, in sex, in whatever. You know what I mean? Like, that is they kind of are two sides of the same coin sinking into that pleasure. Because pleasure doesn't necessarily mean a free fall too. Like, there could be Some effort. And there is. There is pleasure in pain. Any advice I would say is, gosh, I mean, like, something that I found, that I have found useful is talking out loud to myself. And I find that it focuses the thought streams into one thought. And I would say, go for a walk and talk to yourself about what you're experiencing.
- [41:44]
Gulab Vilasak
Yeah, I liked what you were describing. What you did before your show is you go for a walk. And there is something. I've been meditating while I'm walking, and it's actually been a lot. Like, I feel a lot less pressure than, like, sitting there with my hand, you know, back up against the wall, so. All right, last question. What's next? I mean, what do you want to continue to explore about yourself in midlife? Like, are we gonna get a perimenopause comedy? Fingers crossed right here.
- [42:11]
Soo Jin Pak
I'll definitely deliver. Or one of my close friends will deliver a Crayman imposs comedy to you for sure. Because, you know, now I'm starting to hear the symptoms. People thought, oh, hot flashes. And again, on tv, it's one side character mentioning hot flashes, and you're like, oh, years later, you're like, that was menopause. But actually, in real life, it could be 10 years of hot flashes.
- [42:34]
Gulab Vilasak
Yep.
- [42:35]
Soo Jin Pak
So there's some funny shit ahead there for sure. But what's next for me? I plan to continue rooting deeper and further into my life, continuing telling the stories of queer women, centering myself, centering others, and shaping. Helping shape. Using my experience to shape narratives around other identities, telling the stories of friendship and the spectrum of love between friendship and partnership, and where those lines blur. I can't wait to get on stage and start working on my next hour. I really want to just keep doing exactly what I'm doing, but I know that with each day, that changes too.
- [43:24]
Gulab Vilasak
Yeah. Well, Alana, we're so lucky to have your voice and your creativity and your gifts, and so I hope you do all those things, and I think we're lucky that you're out there telling the stories that are not being told and doing it in such a beautiful, funny way. So thank you.
- [43:43]
Soo Jin Pak
Thank you. I am so grateful to have this conversation with you. You're so brilliant and prolific and generative, and I'm so happy to know you now. Thank you so much, Reshma.
- [43:56]
Gulab Vilasak
Same here. Thank you.
- [43:58]
Soo Jin Pak
Let's be in touch.
- [43:58]
Gulab Vilasak
Thank you so much. Let's be in touch for sure. Ah, that was awesome. Alana Glaser is an actor, writer, and standup comedian. Their newest standup Human Magic is out on Disney on December 20th. You can watch Babes on Hulu. I'm going into the holidays feeling super excited to hang out with my kids, but also I'm gonna give myself some grace to be annoyed with them too. And hot tip, even your relationship with weed changes when you become a mom. That's it. See you next week. There's more of my so Called Midlife with Lemonada. Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like Midlife Advice that didn't make it into the show. Subscribe now. In Apple Podcasts, I'm your host Reshma Sajani. Our producer is Claire Jones. This series is sound designed by Ivan Karaev. Our theme was composed by Ivan Karaev and performed by Ryan Jewell, Ivan Karaev and Karen Waltok. Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lepore. Our VP of New content is Rachel Neal. Executive producers include me, Reshma Sajani, Stephanie Whittles Wax, and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Series consulting and production support from Katie Cordova. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. And let us know how you're doing in Midlife. You can submit your story to be included in this show@speakpipe.com midlife follow my so called Midlife wherever you get your podcast or listen ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Thanks for listening. See you next week. Bye. Why hello there. This is your pal Sarah Silverman. You know, the standup comic that's not afraid of a diarrhea joke. Oh my God, I'm so brave. I hope you're enjoying this podcast that you're listening to. I am just dropping in here to let you know about another podcast I think you'd like, and it's called the Sarah Silverman Podcast. Each week listeners from all over the world call in and they ask me for advice or they talk about going on in their life. Anything, their silliest, grossest, deepest, darkest situations. And then I respond, whether I'm qualified to or not. Go ahead, search for the Sarah Silverman Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Bye.
- [46:56]
Reshma Sajani
People love to pretend that there are simple formulas for living your best life. Now eat this and you won't get sick. Manifest it and everything will work out. But there are some things you can choose and some things you can't. And it's okay that life isn't always getting better. I'm Kate Bowler and on Everything Happens I speak with kind, smart, funny people about life as it really is. Beautiful, terrible, and everything in between. Let's be human together Everything Happens is available wherever you get your podcasts.