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A
Hello. You're about to drift into an episode of the Nightly, a podcast designed to help you unwind and relax. For the full phone free immersive light experience. Visit Hatch Co. Enjoy.
B
Wow. Oh wow. It is a beautiful evening and I am kp.
C
It is a beautiful evening. I'm Kristen. Welcome to the Nightly from Hatch, a slumber party for pop culture lovers. Kp. It's been a while. How are you?
B
I'm doing great, Kristen. I am just staying cozy. I'm trying to watch some shows, catch up on the ever flowing media train. I feel like, you know, you've got to be watching and listening to something every, every gosh darn day around here to make sure you're up to date.
C
Absolutely. Especially now that it's awards season. You know, these are crucial times. We got lots of movies to catch up on, TV shows to catch up on. You know, the nominations are out for a lot of these awards shows. I just saw one of the movies that's nominated.
B
What'd you see?
C
I saw Wicked. For good.
B
Oh, of course. Okay. Yep, yep, yep.
C
That's the second part of Wicked. The first part of Wicked. I can't even remember what after. Or the colon. It is. Is it just Wicked? The start? I can't remember.
B
I actually don't know. It might just be Wicked. Is that crazy?
C
Maybe. You might be right there.
B
Can I go on a small tangent gripe here about naming sequels?
C
Yes, please. Because I have some gripes with that too.
B
Great, Because I saw a tweet or something recently where people were like, no, you've got to get crazy with the sequel. It shouldn't be Zootopia 2, it should be 2 Topia. You know, whatever you do with that. And I will say I love the sentiment, I love whimsy. But I am having a hard time when I'm watching a whole selection. I have no idea where to start. I was watching the Planet of the Apes ones recently and it's not 1, 2, 3, 4, it's dawn of the Planet of the Ape. Rise of the Planet of the Ape. Here comes the planets and here are the apes.
C
Yes.
B
The Kingdom of the Planet of the Ape. And I go, I have no idea which ones first. I mean, on a logical level, I'm smart enough to know that dawn comes before rise because I wake up.
C
Does it really though? It's not always obvious. Especially if maybe there was a downfall of the Planet of the Apes. The final battle of the Planet of the Apes.
B
See, I don't know when that happened.
C
And then the Resurrection of the planet of the. I mean, it's hard to know sometimes.
B
And I love the whimsy, but, you know, this is my issue is I had to Google. I was just trying to make sure I was on the right track here. I was like, dawn comes first. And it did. I mean, the 70s one comes first, and then the Tim Burton one, that looked, I mean, shocking to me. It looked like the back of a cereal box came to life. So I don't know. I haven't seen that one, but I think I did the right thing. But this is my small gripe with the sequel. So the Wicked for Good thing, I go, well, is that the fourth one, Wicked 4 Good?
D
I don't know.
B
I mean, you gotta know these things. Clever.
C
I don't want to yuck anyone's yum, but in my opinion, it doesn't matter what movie in the lineup Wicked for Good is. It's for bad in my taste. It does not taste very good to me.
B
Yes.
C
So, again, don't want to yuck your yum. If you love Wicked for Good, I say hurrah for you. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It wasn't for me like the first one. The second one, not so much.
B
And can I ask, is it only a duo or is there a trilogy on this?
C
Oh, please, God, say that there's only two.
B
I think that this is it.
C
I do think there are only two, because I did see the stage production when it first came out, and this seems to cover everything in the stage production. However, there is a chance that there may be spinoffs focusing on different parts of the Wicked universe, if that makes sense.
B
There's a lot of these books, like the Wicked books, which are fanfiction for wizard of Oz. Yes, well, even the wizard of Oz original books. Maybe I'm mistaking myself because the original wizard of Oz books, they have, like, one that's just all about the Tin Man. They have one that's just all about the Scarecrow. So I don't know if actually the wickedverse did that, but I know that the wizard of oziverse has a ton of books on all these things.
C
Well, there's definitely room to do that within the Wicked universe.
B
Well, we have all these Wicked questions, and I wonder if perhaps there's somebody that could help us that's waiting in the wings for us, and perhaps we could help them.
C
Oh, yes. Maybe we could give some answers rather than asking questions. We have someone special here, someone who is joining us for the nightly hotline. All right, so the Nightly Hotline. That magic moment when a listener joins us with a question, a concern, a call for help. And this week we are joined by Kelly from Chicago, one of my favorite cities in the world. Kelly, thank you so much for joining us.
D
Hello. Thank you for having me. It's so nice to meet you both.
B
Kelly, before we get to your question, you came on for advice, and actually we needed advice. This is the end of the Wicked. Do you know anything about Wicked? Are you a Wicked fan?
D
I am a Wicked fan. I've seen both the movies. I've seen the play. I believe this is the end for at least these two movies. But like you said, there could be a spin off in the future. We'll have to see.
C
We'll have to see. And Kelly, are you sad that I didn't love Wicked for good as much as I liked the first one?
D
I think I have similar feelings to you. The first act of the play is just so much better. You end on defying gravity, you're on a high, and then, you know, it's the fallout afterwards. So I think it's to be expected. It's not as. As up to hype as the first one.
C
All right, well, Kelly, now that you have helped us with our Wicked question, we want to help you with your question. What is your question you have for us tonight?
D
Yes. Thank you. I am calling today with some life advice. We all have many events that we go to where we're constantly mingling with other people. And a question that I love to ask is asking about other people's hobbies and what they do with their time spent outside of work or other obligations. But I hate when the question is turned back on me because I feel like I have the most boring responses. I'm like, well, I have a cute dog and we go for a walk.
C
That's not boring.
D
You're right. It's not boring.
C
Cute dogs are the best. That's. That's a hobby.
D
Well, then it prompts me to, like, show some pictures. But I guess I'm looking for some advice on talking about hobbies, finding an interesting hobby or at least making a normal activity sound interesting, too.
C
Such a great question. Love it.
B
I feel so passionate about this because I am, like, kind of a hobbyist. I love just, like, doing something a little bit and then not monetizing it at all, because that's an important part of the hobby is you cannot start monetizing it because then that's a job, and jobs are way less fun than hobbies. My first thing that Comes to mind is I've been trying to make this happen for a long time and some are more successful than others. But the free library has crazy events going on at all times. And so I've been loving just showing up. Like I'm showing up to a quilting one this week. Never picked that up in my life. Never had an interest really even in my life. I like the finished quilts, but I do think it's just going to be good. There's a lot of things that you just got to do for the story and if they're free at the library, there's some story that you're going to get out of it. So I went to a chess one there and it turned out to be for children. I went to some crafting ones and I went to some quilting ones. So that's the first thing that comes to mind is the free library has some really interesting stuff and this is just like across the nation and there's going to be some interesting people there.
C
Yeah, I totally agree with that recommendation. Kp, my public library here in Brooklyn.
B
Yeah.
C
Many, many events. Not just each day of the week, but many times. And I know Chicago is the same way. That library system in Chicago, top notch. They'll have classes on everything from crafts like KP mentioned to video animation to, you know, book clubs. There are so many things you can do at your public library. Go to artist talks and so on. And I went to one a few weeks ago and George Takei was there. You never know who's gonna show up at the library. Yeah, it's so fun to use that as a free starting off point. And you might just meet other people who will give you ideas of fun things to do at the library. So I love that.
B
Kp well, okay, the one that's kind of similar to that is like the museums and then especially like really small museums do some really funky events. There's. I found this new like occult museum near me that just has like kind of cool theology and witchy stuff going on. And that's not necessarily something that I super care about, but I think it's really interesting. But that's my other thing is like little museums kind of the same vein where they'll just like I get on the newsletters and I'm like, that is funky.
C
Yeah. Yeah. I was also going to recommend your city's park system. The park systems have so many great opportunities to take classes in flower identification, bird watching.
B
Oh, bird watching is a good one.
C
Nature related watercoloring and art that you can do or just nature walks. Or if you want to do something, like more of a volunteer activity, park cleanup or setting up community fridges near or in the park, depending on what your city has to offer. Which also segues over into the next thing I was going to recommend, which is volunteering. Sometimes volunteering can be a great opportunity to discover a hobby of something you might enjoy doing. And I volunteer with my own community fridge, which has become a hobby of mine. And I rescue food that people are giving away on my community, buy nothing and make sure it's distributed to people who might need it more. And it's just become this little side hobby of mine that I really enjoy doing whenever I get a chance. It makes me feel good, Makes me feel like I'm using my organizational skills, you know? And volunteering can be done in so many different ways in this world. It can be visiting lonely elderly people. It can be walking dogs. Kelly, you already like dogs. You know, you could be going to a shelter and helping to pet dogs or walk dogs or whatnot. You know, there are a lot of different places to start with volunteering.
B
I have some more really selfless ones. But before we go into more, Kelly, what's your sticking out to you? What do you like? And we can start curating some cool vibes here.
D
I feel like you are sparking my interest with the free activities at the library and museums. And he reminded me recently, I was driving to the grocery store one night and I saw this cute little art museum, like, really, like, right down the street from me, and people were pouring out of it. So I looked them up on Instagram, of course, to see, like, what was going on that night. And now I'm getting ads online for different crafting classes and different events that are happening at this art studio. So I'm very excited. I did.
B
So nice.
D
There's a lot that we can be doing out there, so you just have to kind of, like, go out and find it.
B
Yeah, I know. There's, like, all these ones that are not as free that obviously I go to much less because there's so many weird. Like, at clay studios, they're doing cool stuff. Like, jewelry making would be so appealing to me. I would love to make jewelry. And then the one that's been really sticking out to me is like, we have these in la, and I don't know if they're so, so around, but, like, phone case making, where you, like, frost the phone cases. Have you guys seen this?
C
Oh, so fun.
B
Yeah. And then you're putting Like a bunch of little gems and stuff all over it. There was a class for that recently, but it was quite expensive. But then I was like, oh, at least you come away with a cool, gaudy phone case. Which appeals to me. But there are, like, I know so many of my friends. I don't know if it's a. Just an age or if it's like an extra popular thing right now, but I have so many friends doing ceramics. Do you guys.
C
Oh, so many. I know so many. I mean, warning. It can get very expensive.
D
Very. Yeah.
C
But the people who love it in my life really love it. They say this is, like, totally what they would do every minute of their day if they didn't have a job. They just love it.
B
Kelly, do you have any ceramic heads over there?
D
You know, I know a couple. Crocheting, I would say, is really big. Something easy you can do while you're watching TV or, you know, just need a mindless break or something. So a lot of activities like that.
B
That's true. I forget about that one that. I mean, those two are so good to have as friends because then you're getting cool homemade stuff. And then I have like a nice. I have like five lovely little, like, juicer ceramic things and little shot glasses and stuff. And it is cool to have a hobby where you're like, ah, there's something tactile in here.
C
Yeah. Yeah. Especially in this day and age where so many of us are essentially just working on a computer and staring at a screen all day. It can be so good to have something that we make that we can actually hold and feel and have more of a physical connection with. Another idea I was gonna suggest, Kelly, is to think about your younger self. What were you excited about when you were younger? And for a lot of us, it might be a hobby that we felt like, oh, that's not practical. I can't make money off of that. When we became adults, we said, oh, I'm never going to be able to make money off of Latch Hook, so this can't be a job. And then maybe you forgot about Latch Hook, or maybe it was origami, or maybe it was, you know, watching a TV show that you just really loved. And I think we can think about those things that got us really fired up when we were young and think about how to adapt them to who we are now as adults. So one example of this might be to create a club around something that you enjoyed when you were younger. Let's say when you were younger, you really loved watching the Gilmore Girls. And let's say you start a rewatch club where every Tuesday for the foreseeable future, you get people together to watch the Gilmore Girls with you from beginning to end. That can be a fun little club to create where that's a hobby that you already have it on the calendar. Whoever can show up, shows up. If people can't show up, you still get to watch the Gilmore Girls and have an excuse to do it. And it's fun. But just, you know what other things like that. It could be a TV show, it could be a hobby, it could be any number of things. And that inner child in you will hopefully smile when you think, oh, yeah, I really loved doing that when I was a kid. And so I'd encourage you to think about that.
B
Yeah. Kelly, were you a Gilmore Girls head?
D
I was, yeah. And I. I do a re. Watch almost every fall, too. So I love that idea because I know there's so many people out there doing that as well.
B
I know it is. It's a great point, too, which is like watching pop culture is a hobby.
C
Yeah.
B
That is like a absolutely, completely normal thing to be like, yeah, my hobby is movies and TV and reality TV or whatever it is. It's like, that's absolutely a hobby. That's an interest, and you're doing it. I think dog is hobby.
D
Yes, it is.
B
When it's cute enough, it transcends. It transcends all labels. And I'd love to take this moment to shout out to your dog. Describe, please.
D
He's a mini golden doodle. Very cute, very silly. He's about 1 years old, so a lot of energy. But you're right, it's personality. Now, my dog, mom, you know, that's my hobby.
B
Yes.
C
But that also can become a hobby beyond you and your dog if you want to. I don't know if you're part of a dog community at all. If there's a dog park that you regularly go to and you meet up with other people, if you have maybe a dog chat, a group chat where you and your friends can all send dog pictures to each other. My husband is part of such a dog chat group. Even though we don't have a dog. He's been brought on as an honorary member of this group. And they just swap dog pictures all the time. But that's one of his hobbies. He just loves being a part of this group. And it's because of my allergies, we can't have a dog. And this is how he vicariously gets to be Part of the dog world. But there are lots of ways to turn the love for your own dog into a broader hobby, too, and broader community, if you want that.
B
The Dog park world is a real. The community. They're. They got a lot of personality over there. Dog Park World is. They are interesting people. I've gone there for my dog, and I'm like, it's socialization for you more than the dog. You're just chatting with all these people. My favorite hobby during COVID because we all had to get very hobbied out during that time was. I mean, I'm a thrifting fanatic. That's definitely my biggest hobby is, like, shopping, but specifically vintage and old stuff. And I would just pick a spot on the map. This would be Sunday. I would just pick a spot on the map that had a little bit of green on it and then travel to that and then do nearest thrift store and then nearest sandwich. That was kind of my day. It was sandwich thrifting and then a little bit of, like, perk. So the hobby can be anything. It can be watching, it can be driving, it can be shopping.
C
Yeah, I totally agree with that. And walking is also one of my hobbies. I just. When people ask, what do I love to do? I'm a walker, and some I'll walk. Not often, but sometimes I'll walk 30 miles in a day. I'll just walk and walk and walk.
B
Oh, my goodness. Chris.
C
I've walked from New Jersey to New York. I've walked the perimeter of Manhattan. I've walked to JFK airport from my neighborhood before. I just walk. I like walking. I'm not saying you have to do it on my level, but anyhow, not everything has to go all the way to 11.
B
This is a total reveal. Kristin, this is so interesting. You're just like your own mode of transportation.
C
I love it. And then I listen to audiobooks while I do it, which is another hobby of mine is audiobooks. But, Kelly, question here. What is it that you would like to relay about yourself in conversations where the topic of hobbies come up? What would you like to put out there in the world about you?
D
That's a good question. I think you want people to walk away from the conversation, like, thinking, wow, that was like, a really interesting person and a really interesting conversation. But I would say I'm like, I'm a normal person. Like, I'm watching real. I'm reading books, I'm walking my dog. I'm doing these little things that don't sound super interesting. But you've given me a lot of ideas so far about how you can spin it and at least keep the conversation going so that it doesn't fall flat. Once you say, I watch tv, you.
C
Know, well, I'm gonna say, kelly, you are an interesting person. And here's one way that I know this. Because the way I see it, interested people are interesting people. And I can tell you're curious. You are interested in others, you're interested in the world, and that makes you interesting. That makes you fun to talk with. I mean, KP and I have been having the best time talking with you because you are an interesting person. So I wouldn't even worry about, do I come off as interesting in this conversation. I think I would just focus on are you interested? Are you enjoying yourself? And that's going to engage with people way more than naming the quirkiest hobby or the coolest collection. Because you already are really cool. And you're already. So it doesn't matter if you think you're interesting. Tough cookies. You are, you just are.
B
And I think there's a tipping point too. Like, I was asked a similar question to this guy at a wedding and his hobby was like high mountain climbing, like climbing really big mountains. And I found him to be one of the most boring people I've ever spoken to. So, you know, it doesn't matter what the hobby is. It's about the person behind it.
D
Yes.
B
I was like, oh, this guy's just sort of listing elevation heights at me. I would much rather talk to you about reality tv because also I just think there's a relatability. I'm like, that's relatable. I don't know anyone that I would want to talk to that's not watching a little bit of TV around here, you know?
D
Yeah.
B
And always, when in doubt, you could just lie too. Which is fun at a party.
D
True.
B
Very fun at a party to just be like, yes, I can. I'm a tin worker, a metalsmith, whatever.
C
You want to do.
B
Kelly had such an amazing question. And as we wrap up, I want to remind everybody that if you have questions, comments, things you need advice on, you can email that to thenightlyatch.co and we'd love to talk about it. And I want to make sure everyone feels like they got a beautiful little good night. So, Kelly, who would you like to say goodnight to? Take us through it.
D
I am currently laying in my bed as well. I have my dog curled up right next to me. So we are both going to bed. So I'm going to say sweet dreams to little Sam, the little mini golden doodle. And we are both going to get a really good night's sleep tonight. So thank you.
B
Good night, Sam. Good night, Kelly. And good night, Kristen.
C
Oh, good night, all of you. Sam, please accept my virtual belly rub. Good night.
B
That's good.
C
Good night, Kelly and K.P. sweet dream.
A
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This cozy, pop-culture-infused episode of The Nightly focuses on the art of hobbies—finding them, talking about them, and learning to embrace the everyday joys they bring. Listener Kelly joins co-hosts KP and Kristen to chat about the sometimes-awkward question, “So, what do you do for fun?” Together, they explore how simple pleasures, like hanging out with your dog or attending free community events, are worthy hobbies in and of themselves. The vibe is gentle, accepting, and full of offbeat humor, perfectly crafted for relaxing and winding down at bedtime.
(00:34–04:50)
(04:50–07:14)
(07:14–15:31)
On Hobby Validity & Dog Parenting:
On What Makes People Interesting:
On Not Needing Extreme Hobbies:
On Lying About Hobbies for Fun:
Casual, witty, and gently validating—a warm late-night chat among friends. The hosts make even mundane topics feel special, delighting in the serendipity and the simple joy of sharing, suggesting, and encouraging.
Closing Goodnight:
Kelly: “Sweet dreams to little Sam, the little mini golden doodle. And we are both going to get a really good night's sleep tonight.” (21:40)
KP: “Good night, Sam. Good night, Kelly. And good night, Kristen.” (21:57)
Kristen: “Sam, please accept my virtual belly rub. Good night.” (22:00)