Episode 35: Transcript
"Where’s the line about how much you give to your family?" - with Helen Jane Hearn
Doug French: We were just trying to get this thing done before 10, right? What's happening at 10?
Magda Pecsenye Zarin: My Tuesday morning book club. I like to get there at like between 10 and 10:02.
Doug: Right, just because you’ve got to have time to pour that glass of wine.
Magda: It's one of my church book clubs, and we read a lot of stuff about indigenous environmental rights, stuff like that. And we stepped off that track to read one about “the power of fun.” And so they're daytime books, right? They're not fiction.
Doug: “The power of fun.”
Magda: I think you and I already talked about this. I don't want to impugn the author because the author is a social science researcher and she put just a metric shit ton of research into what actually constitutes fun. She has some great points. The first couple chapters of the book are very interesting because what she says is, first of all, people think that they're having fun when they're doing things that are accomplishing something. And that that's not, like, genuine fun. So she tries to distill “What is fun?” but then there's like 250 pages of her telling you how to figure out what is fun for you and how to bring more of that into your life, and I was like, yeah, I don't need that. The whole thing could have been a magazine article, to me, because I did think I hadn't previously thought about the difference between actual fun and accomplishment.
Doug: The main takeaway, I think, is the whole idea that we're told what to believe is fun. There's fun to keep up appearances, and there's fun that genuinely makes your soul lighter.
Magda: That is her entire point. That's the entire book.
Doug: That's why I always come back to the quote from Dave Grohl. At least that's where I got it from. He was asked once, like, what are your guilty pleasures among your music tastes? And he said, “there is no such thing as a guilty pleasure.”
Magda: Right. There's just pleasure.
Doug: If you like it, then just like it and listen to it and own it and love it. The end.
Magda: Yeah. So that's what the book is. But the beauty of the Daytime Weekly Book Club is we read a chapter every week. So if you get behind, you can catch up easily. If you miss a meeting because you had something else going on, it's no big deal. You just catch up the next week, right? And that pace has been really, really nice. With this one chapter a week, it's just low and slow and it's fantastic.
Doug: It's the barbecue of book clubs.
Magda: Right, exactly. And we finish three books a year, but it's fine. There have been a couple that we started and got like two chapters into and we were like, yeah, nobody's getting anything out of this. Let's just bail.
Doug: See, that's clever. You can just collectively just sit back and say, you know what, DNF.
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: A chapter a week, it can be kind of glacial, I guess. But again, it's like if the group agrees, then go for it.
Magda: Okay, but we're reading nonfiction. So a lot of those chapters are 50 pages. And I think 50 pages in a week is completely reasonable. If it was like, you know, if we were reading like, oh, God, what was that horrible – Oh! The Da Vinci Code where the chapters are all three pages long, right?
Doug: Yes, exactly.
Magda: Three pages a week, and it would take us five years to get through it.
Doug: But that's why Dan Brown made a career out of pacing, right? Yeah, the whole point was there's like 2,000 cliffhangers in the book. Okay, so... So now you haven't said anything about my hat yet.
Magda: Well, I haven't said anything about your hat because nobody who's listening to this is going to be able to see your hat.
Doug: Well, it wasn't meant for that. It was meant for you as a conversation topic.
Magda: This is a podcast, Doug. So what is the B2B trail?
Doug: I'm glad you asked. This was part of the free swag that I got when I went to the bike summit over the weekend.
Magda: The bike summit?
Doug: Because I really wanted to take to heart what we talked about last week about joining things. And particularly joining things that meet regularly and have meetings.
Magda: Oh, and you like biking! I was like, “why would you go to this?” because you know I don't like biking, but I forgot you like biking.
Doug: Yes, that was one of the first rifts in our relationship. Like soon after we got married you said, “I'll never get on a bike as long as I live.” And I was like, “Oh.”
Magda: It’s not that I never get on a bike, I just don't enjoy being on a bike ever.
Doug: Right. I may become one of those bike guys. I don’t know if I’ll get to become one of those biking guys who wears appliques on his racing shirt, but I really enjoy it.
Are you going to walk around the house all the time in bike shorts?
Yeah, pass. Hard pass. But B2B is the Border-to-Border Trail which runs through Ann Arbor and goes way out of town. I mean you could bike all the way out to Dexter to get donuts, and you can go farther west than that.
Magda: So it’s really “the B2BB Trail,” because it’s the border-to-beyond-the-border trail.
Doug: You're overthinking it, but you're not wrong. The funny thing is, it's mostly complete, but there are parts of it that will never be complete because you've got homeowners’ associations, you’ve got wealthier people up north in the Barton area, you’ve got Amtrak which has a train running through, but at the same time it’s a ball. It follows the prescription: find the thing you love to do, and find your people who love to do it. The funny thing is, there’s like all these disparate institutions and organizations that all know each other, but they’re all working separately.
Magda: Interesting.
Doug: They're doing what they can, but it's all volunteer and people have lives and they're just trying to figure stuff out. And there's no one bulletin board that kind of indicates all the things that are going on, all the races, all of the events, all the ways to get involved and learn more about why businesses are fighting against bike paths.
Magda: That's really amazing. You know what? You should start a weekly newsletter called Bike News.
Doug: That's what I was saying. I'm like, this is what I do. I network people. Exactly.
Magda: And just write some little substack that puts out, “here are all the events you can go to. Here are all the issues everyone's voting on this month.”
Doug: See, and this is how I figured out the best way to make friends. Just insert yourself in an incredibly disorganized mess of people. Organize them up because you have to deal with everybody. It's great.
Magda: It's not wrong at all. Okay, can we talk about Helen Jane? Because I didn't know Helen Jane before we interviewed her. You did. You've been friends with her for a long time, and you were like, yeah, she's this lady who moved from a community she loved in California back home to Green Bay, Wisconsin, which she'd gotten away from.
Doug: Less affection for, yes.
Magda: Yeah, I mean, I feel like a lot of people feel like they “got away from” their hometown. And so the voluntary decision to move back to take care of her parents and bring her husband and her kids, it was a big decision. You know, when I moved back to the Midwest, when we moved to Ann Arbor after living in New York for so long, I was thrilled to see all my friends. I mean, there were people that I didn't like. My enemies from high school are still my enemies. But, you know, like, I had a lot of people to come home and see and hang out with. This wasn't like that. It was a serious decision to trade a lot of emotional quality of life and social quality of life for the ability to take care of her parents and live in a place that was a little bit more affordable.
Doug: And buy their parents' house, yeah. Because in America in the 21st century, a lot of people can't afford to live where they work.
Magda: Right. I don't want to say this is a sad story. It's not this tragic story of this woman who had to move to Wisconsin, right? But it was, like, I do think the story was affected by the fact that they moved right in the hot and heavy middle of the pandemic when nobody was going anywhere. So it wasn't even like they could arrive in town and start finding out, where were their favorite restaurants? Where did they like to hang out? You know, just find their place like that, because they were kind of stuck inside.
Doug: And that's the point, though. I mean, it's a story about, it’s sacrifice, it’s duty, it’s economic reality. It's a great story.
Magda: Yeah. She's funny as shit, too. Like, that's the thing. She's really funny.
Doug: That's what she's getting by on, essentially.
Magda: Oh my God, are there some like really funny, really snarky, progressive women in Green Bay who want to just be her friends? Because she's really funny.
Doug: If you live in Green Bay and have progressive ideals and don't know Helen Jane Hearn, please DM us for her personal information and we'll facilitate that. And then she'll write her novel and it will be extraordinary and I will read it one chapter at a time.
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Doug: We can have a nice discussion about northern Midwest women of a certain age. And I'll just go and do all my shopping. So welcome back from D.C. How was your weekend alone?
Helen Jane Hearn: Oh, it was a beautiful week. It was, you know, working with sponsors, working with influencers, all that stuff I've been doing for years. It just happens to be from an association perspective. So it was great.
Doug: How has that changed? I mean, I haven't worked with influencers for a while. Clearly, that was my life for a long time. But it seems now as threatened as the middle class of influencing was, now it seems like it's either you are a powerhouse or you're sweeping up.
Helen Jane: And that's exactly where it was for us, actually, economically and why we ended up moving to Green Bay. From an influencer perspective where it is, the numbers changed, I think, where it was. You needed to be accessible to millions on TikTok and some various platforms, like, that's where that changed. There was always the hope, I think, when we were in our blogging time of, you know, my 500 monthly folks are targeted to me, and that's what's important. They're engaged. And that just can't compete with the scale of millions and millions and millions of people, but that's when you lose your engagement. That's when you lose that authenticity. So it's just a different game. I have yet to meet a happy influencer, or a satisfied influencer.
Doug: Well, because all of your work is still pinned to a third-party platform over which you have zero control.
Helen Jane: Totally.
Doug: And they could just shut you down on a whim and then you call about it. And your call is very important to us. We'll be back with you in six months.
Helen Jane: Totally. So it's been fun to go into the world of B2B influencing or having a day job, basically, is the point, is that I'm not in there trying to push individual folks to get their cash. Right.
Doug: Well, I care a little bit less about that and more about how you enjoyed your solo hotel room.
Helen Jane: Oh, there is a scene in Date Night with Tina Fey. And I think she talks about going into a hotel room and just sitting down and ordering a Diet Sprite from room service. And how that is like all she wants. And that was in that time when like the kids are at that four to five to six, jumping in on you every morning season. Like, yes, I just want a break from people touching me. It's still a little bit. But then when you've got, you know, one of your kids' boyfriends breaks up with them, it's a whole different scene when you're away and it's not the same and you want to be there for them and you want to be helping them through that. So it was good, but I did miss the first big breakup and that was rough.
Magda: And I think that like, you know, when your kids have those real firsts and you, if you miss them, you feel two things. You feel like the worst parent in the world, right? But you also feel that sadness that you missed it for yourself, right? But then when they're having those first, when they're old enough to realize it, like the first breakup, the first college acceptance, they go to the grocery store and use your, you know, for you and you text them a picture of the loyalty UPC number and they get your discount at the grocery store and stuff like that. They really actually care that you're there for that. And so it's not just about you feeling like that first. It's like they really actually care, whereas they don't care who sees them walk for the first time. They don't know. They don't care. They don't know.
Doug: But didn't that feeling kind of dissipate after 15 years of divorce? I mean, just like, I mean, empty nesting. I am so much more ready for empty nesting because I've been co-parenting for 15 years. It's a recommendation. I really think all of you intact couples out there, just consider splitting up because this time of life is a little easier.
Magda: I mean, it does make it so much easier when they go away to school, I mean, I think because when your kids are living in two households, you have already developed your communication methods with them, right? It's not like if you're not there with them for a 12 hour period, they don't know how to get in touch with you. But, no, Doug, I mean, there were some things that if you did them first, it bothered me. But for a lot of things, I kind of, by the time they were that old, I just sort of felt like you were my proxy and I was your proxy. You know what I mean? Like, I wasn't upset when they lost teeth when they were at your house, and our younger one–
Doug: Because you were on speakerphone whenever I took him to the doctor.
Magda: Right, exactly. And like, that also was a feminist issue for me. I was like, there is not a single conversation that any doctor in the world can have with me about my child that I am not going to feel gleeful that I didn't have to show up for and their male parent took them to. But you know, our younger child left for prom from your house, that kind of stuff but I still came and took pictures. If you and I had had a different relationship I might have been upset about missing some of those firsts, but it was more like “Is one of us there to talk the kid through it?” and we were very lucky.
Helen Jane: We did have a parent who is very skilled at breakups and was able to talk her through it. And also, we're on the same page of it, right? We weren't on the, you know, “Did you try dressing sluttier?” Like that is not, that was something I could trust. It wasn't going to be a part of the advice.
Doug: So your husband didn't say, you know, all right, well, he broke up with you. What did you do?
Helen Jane: No, they're young. It's a first thing. It's got big feelings, but like, my trip was very much sitting on the edge of my bed, sipping an ice cold Diet Sprite. But then you've got this other piece that's a little more complicated than it used to be, which is like, crap. Can I help guide you through this? Yeah.
Doug: Well, thank you for bringing up Date Night, the movie. I think that's underrated. I agree. And it's interesting. I'm glad to have you on right after we talked to Jessica Ashley, just because we talked a lot with her about caregiving and how gendered it is. And she referenced a lot of the work she's done. She has a Master's in Women's Studies from Oregon State. Go Beavers.
Magda: Doug, this is one of your talents. I wish you could monetize it. You somehow know the mascot of the top 500 colleges and universities in the US and probably Canada.
Doug: It's one of the few aspects of my memory that I have left, so please let me have it.
Magda: I mean, like, anybody mentions any school and you're like, go Wolfpack, go Tornadoes.
Doug: Right, but I was out playing trivia the other night and they asked the question, what was the Benedict Cumberbatch movie where he played Alan Turing? And I couldn't remember it for the life of me, even though it's an amazing movie. It's the imitation game, which I learned afterwards, and some dickhead who was Googling everything beat us. But I'm not bitter about that.
Magda: That's not okay.
Doug: Yeah, and some dude walked away with a $20 gift certificate, and we want to flail him with it.
Magda: Oh, my God. You know what? I would just come and set up an iPad with, like, chat GPI on it and just turn it on and let them ask the questions and let the iPad answer.
Doug: GPI?
Magda: What is it called? Chat? GPT?
Doug: GPT.
Magda: I'm so immersed in the world of AI. What does GPT stand for?
Doug: You know, the same thing as CSS. Nothing.
Magda: Nothing. Well, then it could be GPI. GPI is the next version. GPI is 3.0.
Doug: Well, you talk about a leap in daughter caregiving. We're going to talk about how Helen Jane was in the Bay Area and uprooted her entire family to go to the Green Bay Area. Thinking, you know, how different could it be? It's just an adjective away. It's a Hallmark movie just waiting to happen.
Helen Jane: And a little reversed. Yeah, we've been here for three years. We spent 20 years in the Bay Area, James and I did. We spent 15 years in St.
Helena in the middle of wine country. It was one of those idyllic experiences, a completely walkable town, gourmet food, friendly folks everywhere you went, and all of the people with regular jobs had to move elsewhere over the past five years. It just became untenable if you did not have family money or a business that you owned. If you had a regular job, you couldn't live there anymore. So around that time, my parents were needing a little more help. But the problem was I never, ever, ever in a million years wanted to go back to Green Bay. And I left this place with two middle fingers up. I was like, “fuck you guys. I have a scholarship. I am on my way. Bye.” And then I'm back. And guess what? I don't have any friends.
And there's a whole thing around here where, I don't know, it's some Facebook group. It's very intense. And it's folks that are like, yeah, right. I'm a parent. You can all fuck off. That's one group of the parents. But also I think there's age, like the age that people have kids here is definitely in the like 20 to 24 space. And where I was in California, the age you had kids was in the 38 to 42 space. And what I'm dealing with right now with my parents is some of the fallout. My parents were 40 and 52 when I was born. So back in the day, that was super old. Like my mom was too embarrassed to tell them her birthday when she needed to call the ambulance when she was in labor with me because they were going to publish her age in the newspaper and she didn't want anyone to know how old she is.
Magda: You know, they used to do that. They used to publish the person's name and age and then “baby boy” or “baby girl.” Yep.
Doug: Is that a Midwestern thing? I never heard of that.
Helen Jane: Probably. I don't know. I keep learning all of these things that are not okay in California and that are totally okay here. But what I did recognize with my friends in California was that they were also choosing to have kids after 40 or later in life. And there's a lot of stuff that goes with that that I'm living through right now that is when we have a whole part of our society that's not quite set up for that, it's alarming. Where, you know, my mom had a stroke when my kids were two and three. So I never had any parental help with the kids because she became wheelchair-bound right away. And so she has been in that space for the last 10 years, needs a tremendous amount of care. Her partner is 90. It's my stepdad, but he's her primary caretaker. But when I'm her primary caretaker, but I also have teenagers, but I also have a husband, but I also have a full-time job, it is an intense amount of support that I think we used to have a lot more help in, or there used to be a lot more. So I understand. I shot myself in the foot by being like, “fuck you guys, I'm never coming back.” I'm eating those words, num, num, num, every single day. But I think where I'm worried about it more is the vast majority of my friends who had kids after 40 and aren't quite aware of those biological limitations that they might run into.
Doug: And so your kids are how old now?
Helen Jane: 14 and 15.
Doug: Okay, and you had them. How old were you?
Helen Jane: 32.
Magda: So you were like The Kid in California.
Helen Jane: We had no friends with children for the next 10 years.
Doug: I know exactly how you feel. I had my heart attack at 47 and all my friends were 70.
Magda: Same thing. Well, so Jessica was talking about sort of being trained to deal with the stuff. And I remember feeling like I was being trained when I was a teenager to handle older people. You know, because we had these relatives who were in assisted living and nursing homes and stuff like that. And so that's another thing, like all of that immediate stroke stuff and all that kind of stuff, your kids were too little to really be trainable in that.
Helen Jane: However, we're just dealing with it right now. I've got a family member getting married and my mom wants to go and she's 89 and in a wheelchair and it's a nine hour or eight hour drive and it's a couple nights stay in a hotel. And we know it's a hopeful burden, but it is a burden, and it was very interesting to me the immediacy of the response, “Why can't your girls help? Why can't your girls take care of her? Why can't your girls be the ones that are getting her in and out of the car and feeding her and responsible for helping her in the bathroom and bath?” and it was one of those, like, I also have a few brothers. And they are also going to be there at the wedding. And they're also going to be there to help. So maybe it doesn't fall on my teen girls to wipe butts and lift in and out of wheelchairs. Maybe my nephews, my brothers, like maybe some other dudes in the space can do it. I get it. Nobody wants to. But we need to be able to not put it on the chicks of the family so that they can...
Doug: So your brothers are local? Are they nearby?
Helen Jane: Close-ish. I've got one in Florida and one in Upper Michigan.
Doug: That's not close.
Magda: Yeah, that's not close enough.
Helen Jane: I mean, he drives up all the time.
Doug: Northern Florida at least, like Tallahassee?
Helen Jane: No. I have one in Upper Michigan. I had one in Chicago. He passed away a few years ago, and then I've got one in Florida. So I have one up north.
Doug: Oh, on which side of the bridge in Michigan?
Helen Jane: Ishpeming, Upper Michigan. (UP accent) Don't you know?
Doug: Oh, he's a Yooper.
Helen Jane: He's a Yooper. He's from Wisconsin, really.
Doug: Yeah. Yeah, it's basically, it's extended Wisconsin up there.
Magda: Well, yeah, the UP should be part of Wisconsin.
Helen Jane: I agree.
Magda: And Toledo should be part of Michigan.
Doug: I agree.
Magda: Toledo would have been better off if they were in Michigan.
Doug: When I moved here, I had to do a lot of reading about the area because it was new to me. So I figured, all right, I'll figure out what the hell's going on.
Magda: Had to find out what the mascots were.
Doug: Yes. Go Rockets!
Helen Jane: That's been something so interesting about moving the kids from, okay, we were in wine country, like glorious, weather's perfect.
Doug: Well, it's beer country. It's close.
Magda: It's Tom and Jerry country. It's carnivore sandwich country, cannibal sandwich country.
Helen Jane: Yeah, cannibal sandwich, old-fashioned. That was a huge part of my getting used to being here is how much I thought was just me and how much was cultural. But having had a hard break for over 20 years from this space and then coming back, I'm like, oh, wait, I thought I was just super nosy about what things cost. Oh no, it's a full culture of like how much did you pay for that? Like that is the entire part of the culture and it is not a part of the culture in other parts of the country. And so my girls are also realizing some of the things about human interaction that have changed from Northern California to Northeastern Wisconsin.
Doug: The weirdest thing, Magda and I were messaging each other the other day and she actually wrote out “Ope.” And I was like, is this research? What's going on here?
Helen Jane: From Massachusetts?
Doug: No, I'd never seen that before. I mean, we both know what Ope is, but she'd never actually written Ope in a Gchat.
Magda: I didn't understand that I was saying Ope. I thought I was saying some variation on Oops. Combined with O with a hard glottal stop.
Doug: That's how it gets you. There are no accidents.
Magda: That's what I thought everyone was saying. I thought we were all saying like a hybrid of “oops,” “oh,” “ugh,” something, comma, “let me sneak right past ya.”
Helen Jane: It has been fascinating watching my husband and children look at me when I fall into my Northeastern Wisconsin language. It will be like checking out at Walgreens and I'll say, you almost done? And they'll be like, yeah, five minutes left for the day. And it's one of those like, okay, that must be fun for you. Oh, yeah, tonight I got a 12 pack. We got the game. We're gonna do that. And I can't wait to get the fuck out of here. And that is not a thing that you would ever have an interaction like that with a West Coast service provider. Here it is understood that your job sucks and you can't wait to get out of it. There it's understood that your job sucks, but you have to pretend you love it because you're all about loving what you do. And because if you lose any money, you cannot live because it's so expensive to live there. So you have to pretend. And so there's some of those minor cultural differences that my daughters have been really aware of that have been fascinating to me to watch them pick up.
Doug: We could talk about Wisconsin all night, frankly. But we also established you do have two brothers, but neither is really close at hand. You're the one who's there in a pinch.
Helen Jane: Correct.
Doug: And you're also the one who came from farthest away.
to be nearest.
Helen Jane: Correct.
Doug: So as the daughter in that scenario and as a mother of two daughters, what do you think they're learning from that? And what discussions have you had about it in terms of what we talk about? Like, does responsibility need to default to the females?
Helen Jane: Oh, Doug, you just went for the jugular on that one.
Doug: It is so true. Do you need the towel off? We can wait. Just take it easy.
Helen Jane: Well, and it's tough because there is one part of me, one big slice that says, you've got to respect your family and you've got to respect your elders. There is one slice of me, a huge slice, that says women should not be responsible for any of this. I have a very equal partner in caretaking, and even he won't touch the parents. Like, even he leaves that to me. “It's your parents. You've got to deal with it.” It's very fascinating when you don't want your kids to automatically pick up that mantle. However, you also want to have an environment of respect and joy and love around getting to know your elders and being around your elders. One of the things I found with that is, you know, long lead times. We've got Grandpa's birthday and that's coming up. And we girls, you know that this Saturday in two weeks, you're going to spend the next four hours helping Grandpa celebrate his 90th. They might not be happy about it, but they know it ahead of time. And I'm also not going to make them responsible for paper plates, cups, all of the mental stuff. However, I take that on myself.
Doug: Well, you're the party planner. I mean, you've been the party planner for as long as I've known you.
Helen Jane: Yes, of course.
Doug: I think you were born with a red Solo cup in your hand.
Helen Jane: Yes, but one with super cool tape on it with your name, artistic.
Doug: If Solo had stemware, yeah.
Helen Jane: But it's been fascinating to watch just as I work with my kids to not have them feel responsible for folks. But then it's, where does that responsibility that you actually have end? And so that is a tussle that I've got in my heart. I find with longer lead times, I can get them to help out more. I can have them
Magda: Well, because some of it is just being in a family, but some of it is care work. Right. And if you also have noticed your nephews and brothers never think of the plates.
Helen Jane: But also, it's like how much mental capacity does it doesn't matter that I'm keeping track. There's also like, fine, I just remember the plates. But that's the stuff I don't necessarily want to model for my daughters. But I'm not sure how to do that without making them selfish little rats.
Doug: I imagine there must have been so many family discussions or attempts at them anyway, because your husband's from California, right?
Helen Jane: Correct. He grew up in Long Beach, Los Angeles area. So he is out in Wisconsin for the last three years.
Doug: He's a fish out of water too.
Helen Jane: He is totally.
Doug: How good are you at maintaining a united front when you talk to the girls about the move and about the new responsibilities?
Helen Jane: Thankfully, we have been very good about it because, well, and that's the thing, is that this came with a big perk. We could buy my parents' house. And so that big perk was worth it. And not a lot of folks who have to move back to the Midwest or have to move back have that perk. So for us, it was, hey, we have this opportunity to purchase a property, which we could never have in California. We can do it here, and that might provide us a semblance of security. And they were cool with it. And I think it was also the timing. We were very careful to move Dottie at fifth grade. We moved Nora at seventh grade. So they were a little before the–
Doug: The name may have to be a part of that. I think if you're a Dottie,
Helen Jane: I have two aunts named Dorothy and then like a bajillion all the way up the chain. So it was adorable and I love it.
Magda: And I mean, it's gonna be easier for your kids to get into college from Green Bay.
Helen Jane: I have this whole thing around like, hey, yo, you can't get abortions in Wisconsin. And I'm not sure if I want you in a college environment where getting pregnant against your will is a possibility.
Magda: And you guys aren't close to either Michigan where you're always going to be able to get an abortion or Minnesota where you're always going to be able to get an abortion, either.
Helen Jane: Or Chicago. So it is a like, hey, guys. Let your friends' parents know or like let your friends know if they need that, I'll drive them. But also like I also don't want my kids to go to college in state until that's sorted or until those things are locked in.
Magda: But it's still easier for them to get into any college, like not even there. I mean, I was diversity when I went to college in 1990, right? Because I came from Toledo, Ohio. Nobody goes outside of Toledo to go to college. So, you know.
Helen Jane: No, and it has been cracking me up. I had mentioned to Doug, like, I have my oldest daughter had decided to go to a rural high school. We are on a very little peninsula. And it's all dairy farms, beautiful dairy farms, cherry farms. They even have Take Your Tractor To School Day during Homecoming, like every year that like...
Magda: Do they decorate their tractors?
Helen Jane: Oh yeah, it's a whole thing.
Magda: Wow.
Helen Jane: So she wants to be an architect and here they have like all of these programs around contracting, landscaping, drafting. They're built to get kids into trades. And what I'm seeing with how it works, they would have both graduated from a California high school with a whole lot of feelings about English and theater that might not help them have a trade, that might not have helped them build something like that. And so I'm really appreciative of the skill sets that the high schools here are teaching as opposed to some of the other skill sets I've seen in other places.
Magda: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, if she has this building trades, she can get into any architecture program in the country having had that practical experience.
Helen Jane: She built us each side tables as her woodshop.
Magda: Wow.
Helen Jane: But she had to deal in a class where it was she was the only girl and everyone else only talked about hunting and fishing and the Packers, the entire class. And so there is a, there's a cultural trade-off there when you're talking about that stuff. It's hard to be like, yes, you go take woodshop and no, you don't have to care for your grandparents. But yes, I want you to be everything you can be.
Magda: We haven't had to deal with this because all four of our parents are still alive and have some issues, but we aren't caring for them actively. I think it's always easier with boys, even though boys can't wear any color they want to wear and girls can wear any color they want to wear. Still, at the end of the day, it doesn't cause as much inner turmoil for boys to be straddling different worlds. Like, you know, we have a kid who's into musical theater and improv comedy and stuff like that, and he doesn't feel conflicted about it.
Doug: But he's also into car repair.
Magda: Right, exactly.
Doug: He just went in and got his brakes fixed and was in there saying like, so what are you doing there? You know, talking shop with the mechanic about his brake pads.
Magda: But also it was because it wasn't like it was all girls and him.
Helen Jane: It's also that like, hey, you want to be an architect, how do we prepare you for a life in a male-dominated space? Yeah. And so that means you have to have a strong-
Doug: You move from the Green Bay.
Helen Jane: Right? It's like you have to have a strong sense of self. Like I have one kid who's totally on this athlete bit and one who's on this architect bit and oh, who knows? It'll all change. It'll all be different as it goes. You see those things that motivate them and what doesn't and to try to bridge that when you're looking at a career. But it has been very interesting to be going from an incredibly creative and like network space where it was all about your friends and your celebrations to this place that's very seasonally-driven. Again, it's bringing meals to grandparents and taking out their trash. It's winter for a very long time. It is a lot of those things. And so how do you keep that joy running?
Magda: And it's not the active pandemic anymore either. I mean, part of it was like you guys moved in the middle of a pandemic.
Doug: I think of all the lack of traffic, though, when you drove.
Helen Jane: It was a very strong face diaper community. So to keep people safe, even though everyone was older, it was a very interesting Fox News environment that we had dropped into that was like, you know, I would go in to do restaurant pickup with a mask on and I would be called like “a fucking face diaper” when I walked in, from the other patrons of the place. So I moved my very liberal Northern California space to a very conservative area.
Doug: And I think that's where you're saying there were some changes from that.
Helen Jane: The political piece was a huge part for me.
Doug: Right, and there's so many unpredictables there, but in many cases, you knew you hated it, but you had some sense of what you were in for, at least you thought you did, and you had a house to buy at the tail end, which was also a big plus. But if you look at where things are now, versus where you thought they might be at this point three years ago, what is the most surprisingly different aspect of your life that you didn't see coming?
Helen Jane: I did not see how much my kids were going to love the outdoors. We have time. We have space. We get to go enjoy seasons. We get to go to lakes. We get to go hang out in the outdoors. That was not a thing in California when you had to work. And so to be able to present my kids with that opportunity and to see how important that is to their well-being, that was huge. There was so much with the wildfires that were there. I have mild asthma, barely any, and I couldn't breathe for almost three years before we moved. It was just that level of toxic crap in the air. I just couldn't get through my day.
Doug: Well, that's good. That's one less thing to deal with. I'm actually very happy that your response was something that actually was better and not something like, oh, my God. And it sounds like you've settled into something here. I mean, as you play out this trajectory a bit more, you're definitely going to see your kids through high school anyway, right? When you game this out, do you even have the bandwidth to even consider what you might be aiming for once the responsibilities you have in that area calm down?
Helen Jane: Yes, what a great question. And so much of that is around when are my parents going to die? Right? That is the jacked up part of this part of the journey that I think so many people are dealing with. My parents may live for 5 to 11 teen years. They are healthy, they are going, they are kicking, but they also need somebody to make all their food and take out their trash and help them with their incontinence and like the stuff that makes life happy. Okay, I take that all into account. I don't know. But ideally, my parents will live forever and be healthy and happy. What James and I are looking at is we want to keep our connection to nature in Wisconsin. But we also want to get back to California in the tiniest apartment we could possibly find. And so the golden moment for me is some small beachside apartment with no stuff.
Doug: Have your parents signed off on that in terms of whenever you get rid of things that they lived with for however many years, are they like, you know what, this is your house now, you do with it and its contents as you see fit? Or do they still want to weigh in?
Helen Jane: My mom told me. And this is in their tiny assisted living apartment. She will give me a giant bag every time I leave and she's like,
“Please use this." And I will say something like, it might go straight to Goodwill. And she's like, please don't tell me about that. Please pretend that you're going to use it. So that's what I do is I pretend, oh, this is wonderful. I will take this 1982 guide to biblical animals. And it's 12 books.
Magda: That is the most Wisconsin book.
Helen Jane: No, it's a series. And I will take these. And yes, mom, I will put these in the house. It is piecemeal. It is, you know, all of my siblings and I have a big cringe about when they do die and what we have to get rid of and how that process is going to work. I have a sneaking suspicion it will all come to this house, you know, and that will continue to be my responsibility. So we're just in a process.
Doug: Do you have a bunch of leave a book, take a books in your neighborhood and you can't just kind of sidle them in there? I have a bunch of them around here and I'm getting rid of books like crazy. And if the bookstore doesn't want them, I'm just kind of leaving all kinds of stuff everywhere.
Helen Jane: Well, the crazy thing is the ones that are around are very
Doug: I love that you're whispering when you say these things, like your neighbors are listening.
Helen Jane: They may be.
Doug: I think this is totally part of your learned behavior living where you are now because every time you say something that's remotely countercultural, you have to talk like this.
Helen Jane: But, like, it is where I think politically in St. Helena, in California, totally fine. All of my books would be welcome in any tiny library. And here you have to make specific decisions based on the, you know, who's around and what that's going. I have put personally, though, I am a jerk when it comes to the book Ejaculate Responsibly. That is in every single tiny library in Green Bay right now. And when I go back and check, they're always gone. They're always the first one gone.
Doug: So someone else has taken it or someone has decided to ban it?
Helen Jane: I'm not sure. I don't care. Someone has it in their home and someone else might see it. That's the one book that I'm putting in as I will. And also, I'm just shocked here as how many things did not change since I was in high school. I went away for 20 years and came back and so much was the same. And I don't know if you guys had that in Michigan or like with moving back to a smaller place. Did you have that experience?
Magda: Not really. Because I think that part of the Midwest that we went back to, like, Toledo is such an immigrant city still, so there's always stuff kind of changing, but it's just like, what's the different flavor of it?
Helen Jane: I just dropped a Nextdoor bomb. I was so good about Nextdoor. So good.
Doug: How do you function on Nextdoor in your situation?
Helen Jane: I don't. I just stay away, but I put in a poop
Magda: Well, you know, I moved to Detroit and my neighborhood in Detroit was, I don't know, when I bought my house, it was, I don't know, like maybe 80% Black. Like Detroit's a Black city, right? And so I was like, oh. You know, like, very optimistic white lady, like, “I'll be able to join Nextdoor. People won't say horrible, racist things.” Well, guess what? Your Nextdoor draws from all of the suburbs that are right around you, too. And so it's like, oh, my God. Yeah.
Helen Jane: No, and that was a huge thing. I think where we lived in California, it was so expensive to live. You had to be of active working age. You had to be somewhere between 26 and 38. And so that was the makeup of the community. And that's what we got used to. Here, I would say the average is maybe … 72? And also just that there's a lot of like “Biden is keeping our borders porous.” And I'm like, “Seriously? We are in northeastern Wisconsin. How is that impacting you?” But like, you see it. I walk the dog. I see Fox News in every single living room all the way down the road. And that's tough. It is Trump signs and Republican signs and anti-CRT signs. So politically, I have had to learn. I have gone through a very big change, where when we first moved, I was fighting, I was angry, I was pushing back. And now it's sort of a like, here's how I have to work with my neighbors.
Doug: Well, when you think about how secure you are in your political viewpoints, you're also raising a couple of girls there. They’re going to vote in the next presidential election after this one. So, what do you talk about when you talk about the political surroundings and where they factor into it all?
Helen Jane: I'm not going to put this on my Facebook because it's going to get me in trouble.
Doug: Okay, you're whispering again.
Helen Jane: I'm whispering again. All right. So, I get a call from my eighth-grader's teacher, and she says, “Hey, your daughter seems really upset.” All right, let me check in. She says, “Hey, they want me to write an essay about why abortion is wrong.”
Magda: In public school?
Helen Jane: No, this is a Catholic school.
Doug: Okay.
Helen Jane: All right. So I get it. I get the environment we're in. Yes, I get it. And it was a competition and she's a very competitive kid. And so how does that all work together when you're like, your mom is totally like, pro don't have babies, seriously. Please, just you don't have to if you don't want to. And you've got this environment, which is very Catholic, very anti abortion, everybody must have their babies and love them.
Magda: Well, and it's also I know exactly what contest it is because, you know, we had a kid who graduated from Jesuit high school and there were kids who were entering that essay contest in his school.
Helen Jane: In this situation, it was she's a straight A student. She's an athlete. She did not want to. And they all have to do the contest. And so you got to do the contest and you got to do the thing. But it was a very big break for her from “here is what I know at home” and “here is what I know out in the world” and I can't quite square it. And that's rough, right? That's that work of parenting older kids is, yep, you got to decide for yourself what you're going to carry forward. But at eighth grade, that's tough. We were in public school in Northern California, tiny, tiny classes, beautiful, beautiful school, very well funded, like a great tax base. Really super. And then, you know, here we would have loved to send our kids to public school, but the public school sizes of the school were so giant. When you're in fifth and seventh grade, I'm not going to mess with that adjustment on top of a cultural adjustment. So we did smaller, but it's been fascinating just to see some of the damage that causes. I mean, my sweet daughter who is tall and has a beautiful big butt, she is called in for her skirt being too short a couple times a week. And it's because she's tall and the skirt doesn't go over the butt. There is some of that stuff we're always trying to counteract is the like, hey. Yeah. That's your body. They can't say that, but you have to deal with this for the short term.
Magda: Well, and also, you know, they could choose a different uniform style that fit different body types.
Helen Jane: Yep. Yep, yep, yep.
Magda: But they've been using that same uniform for 30 years, and nobody has ever complained.
Helen Jane: Exactly.
Magda: And they don't know what happens to all of those tall girls with big butts that they called in and humiliated every week.
Helen Jane: Right. They're all fine.
Magda: Yes.
Helen Jane: Fine.
Doug: Again, another thing that dudes never have to deal with. They just throw their tie on sideways and traipse on in like nothing's happening.
Helen Jane: And those are those pieces that we're trying to gently… Again, I want my kids, they're both very, very straight. They are very white, straight girls. They have an enormous amount of privilege with having a family that loves them and a whole bunch of support behind them. But it is fascinating to me to see in even in that world, how much crap they're absorbing from. Here's how you have to take care of your face. Here's how your body has to look. Like, I just thought in the 90s, we got a little bit past it. But then, no, they just like pushed it back.
Magda: Racism wouldn't exist if white people were happy. You know what I mean? Like, if white people were happy just with ourselves, racism wouldn't exist.
Helen Jane: And just with a lot of the grownups that we've met around here, they have a lot of hate. And some of that hate is ignorant hate and some of that is not. In California it was that neighborhood that was very vibrant, you were running into each other at all the places, yeah you might not have wanted to, but it was important. You had social interaction every day, everyone was walking, everyone was playing bocce together every week.
Magda: Bocce!
Helen Jane: You were bumping into each other at the coffee shop. But it had this element of everyone could afford those things. Everyone could afford that free time. As I'm looking back at it, I'm looking at like, hey, no, there were a whole bunch of people in our town. They couldn't afford that. I'm looking back at some time that was considered very, very happy and wonderful and perfect. And when I square that up with us in this life that doesn't feel so perfect, it's all perfect. It's just different elements that we're fitting together.
Doug: There's just a surfeit of perspective that you get in terms of when I look back at how I grew up in New Jersey, there's a perspective that kind of brings peace in a way. I feel so much luckier now. I take nothing for granted like I used to.
Helen Jane: And I just don't understand what it is about the American condition that makes it so hard to get there. That just feels like climbing over burning tires and diaper piles to get to that other space.
Doug: Well, that's late-stage capitalism, right? This country runs on how to squeeze the most out of its constituents.
Magda: Yeah, well, it's an entire country built on people who were dissatisfied, right? They were either dissatisfied and that caused them to come here or they were brought here and tortured, right?
Helen Jane: And as a newly middle-aged foxy lady, I have been enjoying all of my foxy middle-aged new hobbies. And one of them has been going down the Ancestry rabbit hole, not the DNA one. I'm not quite there yet. And when I looked back, I never had taken it much past my great-grandparents, but when I can see that my people are tracked to 12th and 13th great-grandparents to the 1400th, there is a privilege inherent in that. We can track this all the way back. Super white, super part of things. All right, girls, here's what we're going to do with that. But by slicing what is your responsibility
Doug: Well, at this point, I'd also like to announce, as we know, acronyms do evolve, and FML used to be Fuck My Life, and now it's Foxy Middle-Aged Lady.
Helen Jane: I will take it. I will be in FML, and I will confuse and annoy my children every time I say that.
Doug: Well, that's what we're here for now, especially when they're in their teens.
Helen Jane: Oh, yeah.
Doug: I'm glad we're talking about economics. So to what extent were you involved in your parents' transition to assisted living? And what was that like to find a suitable place?
Helen Jane: So my mom had had her stroke 10 years ago. They lived in the house that we live in now. It's a five-bedroom large home. My stepdad is a contractor. He built most of the house himself. He built it as a large turducken of a house, which was a house on top of a house on top of a house. So it is very little of the house we live in is up to code. Very little of the house we live in is safe. It's safe-ish. It is, but like we've got all of our, our electrical outlets have a thing and all of the water has a thing and there's things everywhere. Fine. Great. We are lucky to be here. We are very...
Magda: This is so Wisconsin, though. It is.
Helen Jane: It's very DIY.
Magda: I feel like the Wisconsin State Flower should be a roll of duct tape.
Helen Jane: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So they had done a great job of filling up the turducken of a house. He lived here for 20 years before that. So they filled it all up with all kinds of wonderful things, art and religious books, and more art, more religious books. And so some like kitchens, appliances, there's a lot of those, too. Anyway, that was very intense, like a lot of stuff. And so they made the decision to go into assisted living about 10 years ago. It was like, hey, we're going to downsize. We're going to do this. And the brunt of that fell on my brother. My brother John helped them downsize their whole house. He ended up in that process having a mental health crisis and needed to retire early. That is how stressful that process of helping them get into their apartment was. And so they got into their apartment. Again, I was living in California happily this whole time. I flew back to look at my old art projects and decide to put them in the dumpster. I had very little to do with that. However, parents of their generation move into their assisted living place. They are logged as independent living. Independent living don't have medical staff that come in and check on them. That's basically like an apartment within an assisted living space. They refuse to go to assisted living and I don't blame them. So what we have done is found additional caregivers from different spaces that come in and supplement their care. But we are now at a crux where they need more care. And between the like supplemental care and me, we got to figure something else out. But also, as you know about people from Wisconsin, are incredibly tight-fisted. So they're not going to spend an extra dollar they don't have to. So it's how do you work within that cultural piece to help them have good care and help them have a successful end-of-life time. It's stressful, man.
Doug: And are you the sole counter-negotiator in this whole experience or are your brothers helping out with that? Because they can do that at least from Florida.
Helen Jane: Yes. And again, they help on some level. My brother from Florida is coming to help her go through her extra storage unit this season. They've got a thing. It's all set up. And I appreciate that help. But it is not the, “Hey, your stepdad has a bloody nose that's not ending. You need to take him to urgent care right now.” And those things are happening more and more frequently where I have a job, man. It's just very stressful about like, hey, who's going to do this when I also have to take my 15-year-old on driving lessons and I've also got to get my 14-year-old to soccer practice. How do you fit that all in? My mom gave me an article yesterday when I went over there and she said, here, this is all about time management and like how you can better manage your time. Here, this is a Q&A and it was a, “Hi, I'm in my mid forties and I have elderly parents and I have teenage kids and I can't find any way to like, I am losing my mind.” And the, the fucking person said back. I'm whispering again, Doug. The fucking person said back: “You need to schedule yourself some more time. You need to prioritize yourself. You need to make sure you get to the gym. You need to make sure you see your friends.” And that is all awesome advice, but, like, fuck when.
Magda: Who would say that? Who would publish that?
Helen Jane: It was in USA Today.
Magda: Was it Marilyn Vos Savant? Because, you know, she's the most intelligent woman in the world, you know. Is Parade Magazine still around?
Helen Jane: That's that media that my parents are consuming. It is of that level. As that USA Today and as that local news has gone right and right and right and right and far and right, you have to counteract that other stuff. Hey, Helen Jane, just go to the gym before the kids wake up, and then you can make them breakfast, and then you can take them to work, and then you can do it because you prioritized yourself at the beginning of the day.
Magda: Right. Go into your magic tote bag and pull out some extra hours.
Helen Jane: And pull out some time.
Doug: Mary Poppins pulls the lamp out of her carpet bag. Totally.
Helen Jane: And so that was basically the advice. And it was like, at what point do I prioritize myself over this elderly woman that needs help, over this 14-year-old who's going through a breakup, over this 16-year-old that needs to learn to drive, over this husband who is laid off and needs some emotional support? Because what I have noticed, it comes after I get very ill. It comes after I get COVID. It comes after I am down with a sprained ankle. My body tries to tell me, like, hey, this is too much. And then I have an excuse. But I am not seeing on the wide horizon of advice, for Gen X women who are handling both sides, any useful information. I'm not finding a bit.
Magda: Because there's no useful information to give. The useful information is Change The Fucking System. Get us some help. Change things structurally. There's not a single thing one person can do. You're just as likely to be able to pull three extra hours out of a tote bag as you are to somehow fit things in so that nothing gets screwed over in the process. It's impossible.
Helen Jane: I would really like to use those three hours out of my tote bag to watch some trashy Netflix.
Magda: Yeah.
Helen Jane: And instead, it is constant meal preparation, caring, considering, coordinating. Self-care is not bathing for me. Bathing is something I have to do. Putting on makeup is a thing I have to do. I take no joy in it, and it's another tax because I'm a woman on my time. And so that's the kind of stuff that it is very challenging to be in the middle of that with teen girls. I don't know how to untangle it.
Doug: And you're not as socially embedded as you might like to be, either. I mean, you can't schedule a night out with a bunch of women who feel the same way and blow off some steam. You have to appear on podcasts for that. And by the way, if you'd like to be a recurring guest on this show, you have an open invitation.
Helen Jane: I would love that.
Doug: Let's Mister Rogers this. What do you do with the mad that you feel? How do you become, you know what I mean?
Helen Jane: Oh, the best question ever.
Magda: What do you do with the mad you feel? You can stomp, stomp, stomp.
Helen Jane: Well, one of the things I did in St. Helena was that I taught art at the Community Arts Center. And I did sip-and-paints, which doesn't necessarily seem like teaching art, but it was. It was getting grownups comfortable with their creative.
Magda: Yeah, because even people like me, I mean, I'm convinced I can't draw or paint or do anything like that, but I'll come to a sip-and-paint.
Helen Jane: Right, exactly. You kind of get coached through it a piece. And so that was a way that I was able to kind of feel this, like, I am a human. People appreciate my skills. It is not just like running you down to the nub. I'm going to take, take, take. It was this like, hey, you have something to offer. I appreciate that. And I don't have that in a lot of other places where folks are like that. But recently did a paint night with a bunch of middle schoolers and it was a blast. And it was as close to burning off steam. I recently met a woman at a New Year's party who has a book club that I'm excited to join. I was so excited to join it. I read the book. I promoted it. I was all about it. And I put it in my calendar for the day after the book club.
Magda: Oh, no.
Helen Jane: And I was like, I have not had literary friends for three years. I was so looking forward to it. And I missed it.
Magda: What was the book?
Helen Jane: It was the octopus one.
Magda: Oh, I loved that book.
Doug: What is it called?
Magda: Remarkably Bright Creatures.
Doug: Really Smart Animals or something?
Magda: Yeah.
Helen Jane: So like, what a great book, right?
Magda: I joined an in-person book club here where I'm feeling like a fish out of water. And we talked about that book.
Helen Jane: And I got the middle-aged brain where my mom got all the good stuff, my kids got the next set of good stuff, my husband got the next set of good stuff, and me getting to go to this book club I was really looking forward to, and I didn't get the good stuff. It was just one of those beautiful encapsulations of what needs to change. Because I was so ready to talk about that book, you and I.
Doug: Well, it's clear. You've got some guest rooms. You've got five bedrooms in your house. So I'm going to drive up over the bridge, pick up your brother, make our way to Wisconsin, and we're going to do like a week, a full week of extra horsepower to move things around, throw things out, make meatballs, whatever you need.
Helen Jane: One of the things that we were just laughing about is that my husband and I have no idea how to use a chainsaw.
Magda: Oh, Doug does. I bought a chainsaw at Aldi and Doug came and used my chainsaw for me.
Helen Jane: It seems so cool and it seems like something that like every human should know how to use but like we moved here after a lifetime of renting and just have no, like. That is the level that we're at. And so it is a challenge to also feel real stupid a lot of the time in a place where everyone's incredibly home handy and natural. They know about nature and they know about this. They've grown up here. They have many generations of folks that have been here with them.
Doug: Well, you know, when you're super stressed, the answer is often enormous power tools.
Helen Jane: I feel like I could be real good with a chainsaw.
Magda: And I was standing there and there was a chainsaw and I was like, I really need to have some stuff chainsawed in my yard. I am terrified to use this. And I was like, oh, I'll just get Doug to come over and chainsaw. And he did!
Helen Jane: I love that you're using chainsaw as a verb as well. That you're like, “we're going to chainsaw this thing.”
Magda: What else are you going to say with it?
Helen Jane: That's how I use it. I'm like, I've got that tree fell down. We need to chainsaw it. And we don't know how.
Magda: And well, otherwise, people might think you're talking about hacksawing it or whatever other kind of saws there are.
Helen Jane: Or table sawing it. Yeah, they don't know. We don't know.
Doug: You catch yourself. Ope, I forgot to take the safety off.
Helen Jane: Ope, I'm missing my the right hand.
Doug: This podcast, that's its main goal, is to just reconnect with people and kind of keep the conversation alive. I just love the idea that we have these conversations with people even at conferences. How often do you get a one-on-one with someone like this?
Helen Jane: There is a friend of ours or two friends of ours that are from that time and the blogging time and it was Margit Detweiler, you know her at all?
Doug: Tuesday Night, yep.
Helen Jane: Yep, TuesNight and we've got Laurie Smithwick, right? Two great people. So I was at Alt Summit a couple years ago and I was in a back room and Margit and I were talking about our parents, how we are just trying to get through it. And she said, “You're going to miss that. So I just want you to appreciate those things about them before they're gone.” And it was such a, I have not had a grownup tell me something like that in a very serious tone of voice. And so that when you're talking about conferences and you're talking about that kind of thing, it was so good to have that memory of somebody saying, hey, “you're going to appreciate these annoying things about them when they're gone. Don't get too shitty about it.”
Doug: Yeah, just the idea of empty nesting, it goes both ways.
Helen Jane: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Doug: And you won't get any more USA Today clippings about conjuring more time in your calendar.
Magda: Yeah, but the problem is it's going to be sad that Helen Jane's mother died instead of the columnist who wrote that.
Doug: Well, you know, I find it's a good time to stop whenever we start plotting murder.
Helen Jane: That tracks. I have to go get some food on the table for my teenagers, and so I appreciate your time. Thank you guys for letting me talk.
Doug: Before we go, I really wanted to ask you, well, first of all, I wanted to say thank you very much for coming on to talk about this. And when we think about where else you express yourself online, I know you're working a lot, but I still see you on Instagram and so forth, periodically. Where can we find you online to hear more about what Helen Jane Hearn is planning, party-wise or otherwise?
Helen Jane: You can always find me on Instagram at M-L-L-E Helen Jane.
Doug: “Mademoiselle,” yes.
Helen Jane: What I post there is mostly my weekly meal plans. I've been doing it for 20 years. And it's because I feel like meal planning is a huge part of keeping a busy life in order. And so that's a big part of where I find my joy.
Doug: And don't think we haven't noticed more “helpie selfies.”
Helen Jane: There have been a lot more helpie selfies.
Doug: Which is what should be, absolutely.
Helen Jane: Yes, totally. And then you can also find me on, you know, I'm on the Pinterest. I'm on Facebook. You can find me at Helen Jane Hearn on all of those things. But for the most part, I'm on Instagram. And again, I'm not an influencer. I am just a lady making it work. If that appeals to you, I'm your gal.
Doug: For all your FML needs.
Helen Jane: I can't wait to talk to you more. And thank you, Doug, for being wonderful. You guys are great.
Doug: Thank you. Great to talk to you. And listeners, thank you for listening to Episode 35 of the When the Flames Go Up podcast with Magda Pecsenye Zarin and me, Doug French. Our guest has been Helen Jane Hearn, a dynamo in any circumstance. When the Flames Go Up is a production of Halfway Noodles LLC and is available at all usual platforms and at whentheflamesgoup.substack.com. Please subscribe there for our weekly episode, which drops every Wednesday, and our Friday Flames newsletter, which comes out on Fridays. If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, please leave us a review. Thanks again for listening. We'll be back next week with Episode 36. Until then, bye-bye.