Life can be hectic, and managing your mental health is more important today than ever before. That's why mindful therapy group's mission is to take the pain out of finding a therapist. Whether you need talk therapy, psychological testing, even medication management, mindful has you covered. Our mental health providers are here for you, with both in-person and telehealth options to get you seen in as little as 48 hours. Mindful therapy group also accepts insurance. Join us to start your journey to a healthier and happier you. Visit mindfultherapygroup.com to get started today. This episode of Other People is brought to you by Men Undressed. Women writers and the male sexual experience, a new short fiction collection from O.V. Books, edited by Stacey Beerlein, Gina Frangelo, Chris Matsa, and Cat Meeds, with a foreword by the great Steve Almond. Says Mr. Almond in the foreword, "The stories in this collection are written by women struggling to understand men, what sex feels like for them, how it functions in their lives. We are sorely in need of that understanding." End quote. In this book, you've got stories by writers like Amy Bender, Am Holmes, and Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan. These are stories by women about sex through the eyes of men. So if you're a woman, you can find out what these women think of or think about sex. It's about sex and it's about sex by men, written by women. Do you understand what I'm saying here, people? It's called Men Undressed. It's available now. Go and get it. It's a book. Oh my god. "You are not alone. You have found other people." "You and I have a friend in common." "Every stupid thing that a writer could do, I've done." "That could get really beautiful." "Jig did it west, struggle, you know?" "It was incredible. It was like your head exploded seeing what was really there." "And now here's your host, Brad Listi." "Just one person, just one time." All right, folks. Here we go again. This is it. This is other people. I'm your host, Brad Listi. Right now, as I sit here talking into the microphone, it's late afternoon in Los Angeles, California. The sun is sinking toward the Pacific Ocean. Some standard orders of business here at the outset. First of all, you can subscribe to this podcast for free at iTunes, free of charge. Subscribe. It'll automatically download to your iTunes. You can then put it on your phone, your iPod, your iPad, whatever. You can listen to it for free. If you like it, give us a good rating, as that will help other people find out about it. And then maybe they too will subscribe. The show has an official website, www.otherpeoplepod.com. We've got a Facebook page and you can follow us on Twitter @otherpeoplepod. Please do that. If you want to email me for whatever reason, the address is letters@otherpeoplepod.com. Tell me what you think of the show. Tell me about your life, that kind of thing. As for my life, I'm about to go mall walking here in a little bit. That's right. I'm going to go mall walking. I'm going to walk around a shopping mall. The reason I'm going to do this, and it's something that I do with a fair degree of frequency, it's because I have a daughter. I have a one-year-old. And what I've found is that when you have a one-year-old, and you're the father, and it's your turn to take care of her, take her out, entertain her, you live in a city. One of the things you can do is go mall walking. You put her in a stroller, you walk around a shopping mall, there's visual stimulation, there's stuff happening, you're moving, she's entertained. There aren't any meltdowns, or there aren't as many meltdowns. So I go mall walking. Friends of mine here in Los Angeles will on occasion receive an invitation for me to accompany me mall walking. So the other day I was mall walking, and when I go mall walking, I often wind up at the bookstore, and it's usually Barnes and Noble, because Barnes and Noble is the kind of bookstore that lives in a big shopping mall. And so the other day, I go into Barnes and Noble, I'm stroller-ing my daughter, I'm under the fluorescent lights, and I approach the self-improvement section. And I look at it, and I think to myself, maybe I should stop there, maybe I should go into the self-improvement section, maybe there's a book waiting in the self-improvement section containing within its pages wisdom that I am currently lacking, wisdom that I could benefit from right now in a major way. And as these thoughts went through my head, I paused briefly, and then I kept walking, and I passed it right up. I did not stop, I didn't have the courage, I realized then and there that I don't have the courage. I was aware of the fact that this is a somewhat common experience for me in bookstores where I will see the self-improvement section, I will contemplate whether or not I would like to peruse that particular aisle, and I will never do it. I don't do it. I don't have what it takes. I can't bring myself to stand there and advertise the fact that I have a giant hole to fill, that I have issues, that I want to improve. I don't know what it is. It's a weird ego thing. I think at the time that I was in Barnes & Noble and I was having all these deliberations, there was maybe one person standing there doing that, thumbing through a book with a giant placard above their head that said self-improvement. That takes a kind of courage that I guess I just couldn't muster. And then I started thinking, "Well, this has got to be pretty common. I can't be the only person who goes through this." And then I started thinking, "Well, you know, self-help books, really, they sell copies. People like these things. They buy them." And I wonder how many of them actually sell from physical bookstores. I have to believe that the self-improvement section is the least visited section in a physical bookstore. Am I wrong on this? I could be totally wrong. Maybe people have much greater courage than I do, but I have it in my head that most of these books are selling online where there's anonymity, where you can buy them without the general public witnessing you standing there with the sign above you that says self-improvement. Am I right? Am I wrong? Does anybody know the answer to this? Anyway, I kept going. I walked over to the music section to cleanse my palate, to let people know that I like music or something like that. It was sort of weird. It was an interesting experience. It occurred during my mall walking adventure. What else? Today's show? Our guest, Melissa Phiebose. My guest, Melissa Phiebose. A very talented writer. She wrote a memoir called WIP Smart. It's about the time she spent working as a dominatrix and living as a heroin addict while she was attending college. This is a sophisticated girl. She was living in New York. She was living this pretty extreme lifestyle, and she wrote a beautiful book about it. What I find interesting is that I went into this thinking, "Okay, this is going to be heavy. This girl is going to be dark. She's going to be edgy. I had gleaned this information off of my computer screen. I had seen her social media feed and her website. She's a contributor at the nervous breakdown, my online culture magazine and literary community. I've always been impressed with her stuff, and I was a little intimidated. I was thinking, "I'm going to talk to her, and it's going to be dark." It wasn't. She was an absolute delight. She defied my expectations. I'm not saying she's like June Cleaver or anything. I don't want to reduce her that way. I'm just saying that sometimes we have these thoughts about people that we know digitally, and it turns out that we're wrong. It's interesting. I guess this is how we live now. We know people, and I put no in quotes via who we think they are, by how they present themselves online, or what they've written, or whatever it is. Melissa could not be a nicer person, and she's really candid and entertaining, and I think you're going to like the show. I'm really embarrassed to say that I have not read any of your work. You're not missing much. But I'm fan of other reasons. Don't be bashful. I'm sure it's great. I'm very self-conscious about the book. I think some of the stuff that I've written online, I can tolerate the most recently, but I'm one of those people who I have a 24-hour window where I like it. Me too. Me too. I like what I write for 24 hours, and then after that, it's just a horrifying embarrassment. Yeah, I don't just like it for 24 hours. I think that it's the best thing I've ever written in my life for about 24 hours, and then immediately it switches to the other pole. Yeah, that's how you have that glow. That's the worst thing, and I never want to look at it again. Well, I should stop and mention that I'm talking to Melissa Phiebo's author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart, and that's St. Martin's Thomas Dunn. Am I getting that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thomas Dunn of St. Martin. Tom, okay, I get it all confused, but Thomas Dunn of St. Martin's published, and the paperback version available as of July 19th, 2011, so that's coming out, and you probably got a little bit of a push going on with that. You've got to get out there and do some more publicity, is that correct? Yeah, get out there, meaning get back behind my computer and send some more fucking email. Yep, get out there and do it. What is that? I mean, this is the thing, though, because I run this micro press now with the nervous breakdown, and I'm talking to authors that we're publishing, and so much of it is just trying to solicit interviews and trying to get into conversations with the various literary magazines that are online. I mean, is that what you're doing, or are there other things that I don't know about? Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm doing. I mean, I don't know, I'm not doing, I really sort of went all out with the hard cover, because I was so afraid of being swallowed into a black hole of silence to never emerge again. And, you know, as I think most of us are, and I also had a lot of energy, was super excited, and like sent a million emails, and like actually had a really good public system. They didn't put any money behind it, but they did put energy behind it. You're talking in-house publicists at the publisher? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I did all that stuff that I was so burned out after doing all of that, that now it's only been about a year, like I feel like I just stopped doing publicity for the hard cover like a few months ago. And that's true. And now it begins again, and now it happens again. And now they're like, why don't you refill out your author questionnaire? And like, I cannot think of anything that makes me want to just like stick a pencil in my ear more than filling out another author questionnaire. And I actually like, like, I'm kind of into networking and talking to people and making connections and answering questions and talking about myself. Like, I could get really into that stuff, but oh my god, enough is enough. But yeah, I am now, I mean, mostly what I also figured out the first time around is that, you know, I love doing events sort of, but they don't actually sell any books and sort of publishing stuff, sell books, like just publishing related articles, sell books. So I've got a couple of like playlists coming out for different websites, but I think people actually read a little bit. What do you mean, like musical playlists, like your favorite songs? Yeah, for some reason, they would keep coming my way, which I'm not complaining about at all, because I've been obsessed with making mixes forever and getting to combine that with writing is so fun. And I always listen to music when I write too, so it makes sense. But yeah, like little, little essays where I like create a mix and do a little paragraph on every song. And I'm doing a couple of those. And what else am I doing? I don't know, I'm trying to get there. I had a ton of radio interviews the first time around. I'm trying to get people to rerun those. Or do you do new ones? Well, it's not, I mean, it's a kind of book that lends itself well to a media tour and like getting in people to talk to you about. I mean, it's like, you've had a kind of a really crazy, interesting life, you know, at least compared to mine. Yeah, people are very curious. People are very curious. And I think I was sort of just tremendously lucky, I think, to sort of have that on my side because I didn't, I don't know, I didn't do any of the experiences that I wrote about in order to write about them. It just happened to then present itself to me as really the best story I had to tell, you know. And I went through sort of the biggest personal change of my life in conjunction with like, you know, dressing up in fishnets and shoving fruit up people's asses. So it's like this interesting combination of like very titillating and curious subject with like really earnest, like personal, kind of pretty traditional like transformation trajectory in a story, you know. Well, it's fascinating because like, you know, pretty lucky about that. Well, but knowing what I know about you, which is like, isn't a ton, but it's what I've seen on the web, you know, and it's like this book in your years as a dominatrix and this amazing story, these years that you went through right out of college and and then the photos, you're like this really striking looking woman with the tattoos and then I talked to you on the phone and you sat and just like, I kind of was expecting like darker, like you would be like, you know, I don't know. I know, I think people are often expecting that I'm actually not really dark at all. I probably laugh more than anyone I hang out with and people hang out with laugh a lot and I crack a lot of jokes and I just like ridiculous shit, you know, like I'd love ridiculous, funny shit and maybe it's because I get all the dark stuff out in my writing, you know. Well, that's a good point. That's a good point. Or maybe I'm like dark inside and that's why I need to like be lighter in my life. But like, I love people and I'm a total people pleaser. I want everybody to like me. Like, you know, people are usually surprised that my students, for instance, are always really surprised. Well, yeah, you have students and then, you know, I'm curious to know, because like this book comes out, I'm always fascinated by how people react, especially how men react. Like, do you, did you notice like a certain set of behaviors that were pretty common or was it all over the map or what happened when, you know, you come out and you tell me how like men that I knew previous and then published the book, like, did their, did our dynamic change or just in general, do you mean like at readings or like, I guess, or whatever. I'm thinking more of like readings in the street because, you know, obviously you're talking pretty frankly about sexual stuff and it's this dominatrix stuff and, you know, for a lot of people, it's out of their wheelhouse or it's something that if it's in their wheelhouse, they might not be comfortable talking about and, you know, it's a sexual subject matter. How do people respond, you know. You know, people respond much more bashfully, I think, than I anticipated. I was totally prepared for people to, people in general to have, I was just, to be more vocal about their adverse reactions to it or creepier and like all of that negative shit. I just expected a lot more of it than I actually got and what I did get came from completely unexpected directions but in terms of men, you know, like, I definitely have had some, some readings where there's like some not to stereotype but some guy who doesn't look particularly literary who like, hurts me on NPR and like has a nice suit and totally shady eyes, you know, like, like, those guys show up but, but you know, nobody really threatening and nobody inappropriate or trying to like, I don't know. Nothing perfect. Nothing like the super perfect. No, like, nothing really perfect. No, you know, really much more often I'll get guys who are clearly submissions and so they're not pervy actually at all. They're totally from this, you know, so they'll just be, they'll like, ask a lot of questions but they'll totally like, not even really make eye contact and do really sweet and like, they're like the most benign of my clients. Like, I see more of those guys but, but overall there aren't that many. Actually, the kind of guys that bothered me more are the guys that are literary guys who who want to ask a million questions about writing but actually emit this totally creepy vibe, you know, like a front, like, like those creepy yoga guys, you know, who works what pants and no underwear and wah-hugs, like, like a literary version of that. They sustain eye contact for an uncomfortable amount of time and, you know, yeah. So now, you know, this is a world that's fascinating to me. It's like totally outside of my, my realm, like, I think I'm just like a square, you know, I just don't have any experience with it. I feel like, I read this stuff, I read about this stuff and I start to like self-criticize. I'm like, I'm so boring, I'm a traditionalist, I have no imagination, I'm terrible in bed, whatever it is, like, like people who want fruit, you know, jammed into their anal cavity, like, this kind of stuff just never occurs to me and so I'm curious. It didn't occur to me, it had to be suggested. It had to be okay, okay. So, like, give me the breakdown, like, there's submissives, you, I kind of get that, you get guys who want to be whipped. That's something, right? Yeah, yeah, totally. Well, there's a difference between, you know, I have a lot of clients and some of them are genuine submissives, which mean that they really get off, like, in an erotic way and in a psychological way and maybe, I mean, definitely, they would say in a spiritual way on just being told what to do and being of service to whoever their dominant is, you know, and then there's, you know, at least half of the people I saw as a dominator, there are people who just have a fantasy in which they play a submissive role, which means that they don't just get off and do it whatever you want, like, they want you to wear the very important embroidered knickers and corset and you know that paddle and please, that rope chase and they can be really annoying. So where does this come from? Like, where does this specificity of fantasy come from? Like, this is what I want to know. Where, what's the origin? Do you have any sense of that? Having been with a lot of these? That's what everybody wants to know. And it's not, I mean, unfortunately, like most human behaviors, it's, I don't think it's easily reduced to any sort of origin, or any one origin. I think that, I think that it almost always goes back if you can really sort of factor it down to something simplistic, it gets that in some formative time in a person's life, they had a profound experience of being either disempowered or empowered to a really extreme degree. And so then, like, that experience or the opposite of that experience gets sort of fixated on, you know? And then I think, you know, just, you know, our culture and maybe even our species tend to erotify the things that we fixate on a lot. And so that's sort of how it happens, you know? That's a good answer. But I do a lot of reenact, thank you. I've had some practice. I was going to say that might have been the best. That might have been the best of boiling it down now. But I, it's, I had a little break in answering that question. But, but I did a lot of reenactment of child abuse and trauma and bullying and, you know, invasive medical procedures. Christ, you know, do people get, do people get like real transcendence out of this? Do you feel like there was ever, ever like an actual? Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. So it's- They completely do. They completely do. Like I, I will, I, and I even have this experience. And I think it's like somewhat vicariously through them. And somewhat, it's also like, at the time, I sort of got off on putting myself in incredibly extreme experiences and being like, oh my, okay, this is like the craziest possible thing. If you can walk through this and do this and come out the other side of it, like, and have maintained your composure, like that was a total high for me. It's like no. It was different for them. Yeah. Like I was pretty dissociated from it in an emotional way for, for a lot of the experience. I mean, I was also a heroin addict, but, but not for all of it. And, but the clients, yeah, like they, some of them would, would finish their session and we will have spent like two hours, like with me torturing them or pretending to be their mom and screaming at them or just, you know, rapping them in saran wrap and locking them in a box or whatever. And at the end of it, like, they would be glowing like they had been to the spa and, or had like a really, really productive therapy session and just, you know, give you the most earnest thanks afterwards. Like it was really cathartic for them. Although then, of course, those guys would be back the next week, you know, so I don't really know how progressive the, of a therapy it was. Well, yeah. And you satisfy customer, I guess, right? I mean, they're coming back and they probably want to relive it. But, uh, so like, you know, this is, you're going to have to indulge my, my curiosity here. And I, you know, I'm kind of a guy and I have sort of an adolescent sense of humor, but like somebody comes in and they want fruit into their ass. This is a, we're talking like, can you give me a kind of fruit? Like, we're talking like a papaya or like, totally, totally. Oh my God. All right. You, with your preface, that's hilarious. Do you know how often I last in the dungeon? I last all the time. It's totally hilarious. I'll make it here. Because a lot of the time, it's like, well, they want to be laughed at. It's not called humiliation for nothing. But then there would also be these sessions that were like deadly serious where the man wants the fruit ceremoniously shoved up his anus. And then like, this is always a case. If another woman I worked with came in, which would frequently be the case, she would visit the session or it would be a like double session. And I would just laugh through the whole thing. Because it's one of those things, you know, when you're, it's like, if you're alone in something absurd and disgusting happens, it's just kind of tragic. But if someone else is there, it becomes immediately comedic. And so that was sort of true for basically everything I did at the dungeon. But all right, back to the fruit. So, well, when I said that I was thinking of this very specific session where I had this guy who was like, like, probably like Wall Street type guy, but like really, really worked out like, like, like, super full bulging muffle, like, drink 1,000 calorie protein shake type of guy. And he wanted to, he liked to be a dog. So, he would like, run around really energetically on the foot. It looked very much like sort of an American bulldog version of a man. And he would wear a collar. And we would call him by a dog's name that I can't recall. And we would like throw dildos and make him fetch them and bring them back. And this was all pretty like, de-rigger. This was like, really normal stuff. This is a day at the office. But then, it totally was. Like, anything involving like, you know, fetching and laughing and humiliating and peeing was like serving coffee in a diner. And, but this guy, you know, you have to be in the room for an hour. It gets really boring, not for them, because it's their fixation. So they just want to do it over and over again. But you have to get pretty creative with humiliation to not be bored out of your mind yourself. And so this guy, I don't think it was actually his fetish, the fruit thing, although I have seen that. But with him, I think we were just getting creative and, and we're punchy and giggling. And we cut up a granny Smith apple into like, neat little slices. And then we lubed them and shoved them up his ass. And then we made him ship them out into a dish and eat them. Wow. Oh, my God. And, and here's the good part. We lost one on that particular day. I remember because I was laughing so hard that I thought I was going to unintentionally pee. You mean he basically was lost into his body. Like we lost it in his body. Oh, my God. And I think we got it out where we couldn't keep track because he had, he was like, releasing them and then eating them. And we were like, I think there was one missing. And I don't know if it ever came out. The missing wedge. Now, was this gross for you? I mean, how this is a question, like I'm imagining the scene. Are you, are you like medically detached and you're just like down there, like with a headlamp on inserting this stuff? Are you kind of looking away and blindly and, you know, what's the situation? Oh, pretty, pretty much. Well, it's, you know, you can't be totally medical because you're also playing a role. It's also like, I'm, I'm really involved in acting jobs. Yeah. It's theater. It can't just be totally attached. Like I have to play the role and pretend that I'm like an evil fattest or a sensual mistress or whatever it is that I am, you know, like, but in my own mind, yes, I'm pretty clinically detached from it. You know, and like sometimes it was funny and sometimes I would be completely disgusted. But most of the time, it was pretty clinical after I got used to it, you know, and these guys are good looking. Are they good looking or are they tolerable looking or are these? Are we talking about hairy? They're totally normal. They're totally, well, no, not all of them are totally normal at all. But like, if you had to average their attractiveness, it would be a pretty accurate sampling of the male population in New York City. And what about, what about attractive? Mostly, they're like attractive middle-aged guys, not like super handsome, but most of them are married. They like could totally get a date, but they probably couldn't get a date to Chef Apple, which is up there. That's a tougher, that's a tougher find on Craigslist. But now what about, you know, what about the profession? Were there any common denominators? You mentioned a Wall Street guy, like, you know, that makes sense to me, but was it all over? Was it like teachers and, you know, mailmen? There were a lot of like, I mean, you know, it helps to have money. And, you know, there was a pretty significant portion of our patronage where clients who, again, had those jobs where there was some imbalance of power, you know? So like, I would get like, you know, for instance, I don't remember this specifically, but the kind of thing where it's like, a postal worker who gets treated like, crabbed and wants to reenact a scene where he gets his vengeance, you know? But most of the time, it's more like a stockbroker who doesn't really care what you do, just wants you to box him around because he's like, doing out shit to people all day, you know? He needs the tables, too. So a lot of those guys, yeah, a lot of suits, but I totally have cops and bus drivers and firefighters and professors and doctors and dog breeders and like mafia-type guys. And do you ever get involved? I mean, you befriend any of these people in a real way, like outside of the office or, you know, the dungeon or whatever. No, not just once, really, just once. You know, I mean, some people did. I was pretty, you know, I had my own sort of personal experience of the job that definitely transcended, like, show up for work and leave work, but I wasn't involved in sort of the larger S&M scene in New York. I was very much a commercial dominatrix. And so I was not interested in being friends. Most of the clients were so far outside of my social realm that that's part of what made the job easy, is that like, I would never, they didn't know any of the bands I listened to. I would never run into them on the street in any kind of social situation. So it was really easy to walk in and assume an invented persona, because they weren't going to be like, "Really?" You know, because I was coming from a totally different, strange place to them. So what was the facility like? I mean, are we talking like an office? Oh, no, no, no, no. It was in an office building. But it was like the second floor of a regular office building in Midtown near Bryant Park. And you would just ride the elevator up, and it was the whole floor. So it was really big. All the windows covered, and it was actually really gorgeous. It was like very David Lynchy. Like all red painted hallways with like dim wall sconces and red rugs and really high ceilings. And it was pretty vast. Like the rooms were huge. And there were three dungeons, three medical rooms, a cross-dressing room, a kitchen, a bunch of bathrooms, a dressing room, an office, like two different supply closets. It was like really immense. And really, and you know, I was very impressed when I first walked in. It looks like some kind of cinematic opium den or something. And you know, it was only after a couple of years, I realized that everything had a, you know, undetectable coating of lubricant on it. Now what about the other? I still can't smell, I still can't smell like all disinfectant spray because it reminds me so much. It's like an old factory flashback immediately. Oh my God, I can only imagine. And they have to keep that place clean. I mean, that's part of a deal, you know, especially. So like when somebody comes in, I mean, if you don't mind me asking, like what kind of money were you making? Were you making, must have been making some pretty good money doing this, correct? I mean, was it not? I don't, I never know how it's gonna sound to Google because when I was 21 and I had been, you know, a barista or a boat scrubber or whatever I had done before that, all those other jobs, I made $75 an hour and that seemed extravagant. But $75 as a flat rate for doing everything from, you know, I mean, just anything, you know. I mean, not anything, but anything I was willing to do. You didn't get like more money for the more disgusting or rigorous sessions. And the clients paid 200 and we only got 75. Could you draw the line? Could you say to somebody, you know, I'm not doing this, I am not gonna, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So where do you draw? And I would definitely do that sometimes, but you can't do that too much. You're not gonna make any money, you know, like, if you weren't willing to pee on people, you should just go home. So you're just, you're just hydrating before work. You're getting, making sure you're ready in case. Totally. Totally. I used to have clients who could tell me like what I eat for lunch. By what? By tasting my tea. Oh my god. But I have such got, I don't even want to say diarrhea of the mouth, but I, it's so funny. I always think like, don't give the all the discuss details in the interview. Like you just got a new full-time job, but I can't. It always comes out. It always comes out. It's totally what I would be wanting to know. No, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to channel the mind of the listener and make sure that I ask all the questions that people want to know. Another thing that pops to mind is like, you know, you, I think, and maybe I'm wrong, are a little bit unorthodox in terms of how you came into this maybe or what you were doing beforehand and your childhood sounds like it was probably, you know, a little bit, you know, what's the word for it? A unique, you know, you daughter of a sea captain and a Buddhist psychotherapist, you know, that's not the stuff of middle America. But when you go into becoming a dominatrix, you had graduated from new school or you were still in new school? I was, I was still there. I was, I was like a junior or I was about to be a senior. I think it was a summer before my senior year. And yeah, I had like a totally, that's also, that's like the first question is like, why does it, why would anybody want that? And the second question is, why would you want to do that? Like basically, what did your parents do to you? And I totally had like a really happy, loving childhood. And I mean, some people would consider being raised vegetarian as child with these, but I don't. And, and, you know, I was totally employable. I, I, I got, I had gotten like every job I'd ever interviewed for at that point. But, but I was also, you know, a high school dropout and a heroin addict. And I had this very sort of dichotomized life and personality, you know, I was sort of already living a double life at the time of a college student. And like, I were pretty heavily addicted drug addict. And well, how did you get into that? I mean, like, what's the backstory there? You were just like experimenting? Yeah, like what, what happened? Well, honestly, I think I was just sort of like popped out of the womb at drug addicts. Like, I could get addicted to like any, right now I'm addicted to like sugar for jello and running and cupcake wars, you know, but, but it used to be heroin. And, and so I think that was sort of always in my personality. And it was just a matter of being introduced to it. But I also think that, that like a lot of my clients, I was really infatuated with sort of being in control and being, you know, doing drugs as much as it's perceived as a form of being out of control. I think that addicts impetus for doing it is a desire to control their own the affect of the world on them, you know, to control their own emotions. And I know that that was true for me. So, so yeah, you know, the usual way, way drugs, derelict boyfriends. Shooting heroin or smoking it? Both. Both. Okay. So you were just, you were all in. Whatever you can say, go. Okay. But my, my, my poison was definitely shooting speedballs. That was, that was, that was the worst. And that's what I would have done every day. If it didn't, if it wasn't about to kill me, which it was. So did you go to rehab? Anyway, so I was, no, I never did. I was too proud and it was too secret. Like I, you know, my story was always like, if I'm a real drug addict, then my life is going to fall apart like it does on TV. And I was still getting straight A's in college and pulling off my life as a double matrix and all of this stuff. I had like, you're proud of you. Internships and I, I was a multi-tasker. And, and, and, but then, you know, I mean, for me, like sort of my, you know, turning point or moment of clarity was when I realized that that wasn't going to happen, you know. And I was going to die as a straight A college student. And so how did you get that? I mean, how did you not, what was the, the rock bottom or the moment where you were like, okay, was it some sort of crazy experience or? No, you know, well, I mean, I think it's more, I had had like a great bounty of crazy experiences and near-death experiences before that that didn't make it dent in my, you know, denial. And I think that it has to do with sort of timing and maybe God, I don't know. I can't really say what the difference was, but I know that one night, and this is like a ridiculous situation that I had been in before where I was like, you know, I used in secret and I like, I had people used with, but mostly I used alone at the end and I was alone in my room and, and I used to hold the phone on my shoulder kind of like I'm doing right now. And, and I would shoot up just in case, I was about to die. Maybe I could call 911 and get them there to revive me before it was too late, you know. And I would sort of do that alone all night. And then very much have experiences where I felt like, Oh, because I was never a drug user, like get a buzz and hang out at the party. I like wanted to be at the brink of annihilation for as long as possible. So anyway, so I was having a night like that. And there was one, I just had a moment of like heart racing, like detachment from one's body that went on for much longer than it should have. And, and I was like resetting multiplication tables or something to try to ground myself. And when it passed, I was, you know, I just sort of realized that I was gonna die. That like, it wasn't that that was a reality. So, so what'd you do? Did you have to change environments? Or did you just quick cold turkey? I had to change everything. I had to change everything. But, but yeah, I did, I mean, I quit cold turkey and then I picked up again and then I quit again and then I picked up again and it took a little while, but it stuck eventually. And, but yeah, I had to change everything. I had to move. I did not change working as a dominatrix, but not for a couple years anyway, which was a surprise. Yeah, it was good. So those two activities were, those two activities, yeah, those two activities were not related strangely, like they were kind of separate. Yeah. Now, I think they serve similar functions, which actually make in terms of that, it makes sense that I actually got more into being a dominatrix after I quit the drugs. But, you know, when you stop doing the drugs, it's like, in order to not do drugs, you have to really like flack yourself in the face and really, really hard and wake up to a lot of truths. And you can't always pick what truths you wake up to. And so I woke up to a lot of things I didn't really want to see. And one of those eventually ended up being that being a dominatrix was not in my destiny. It was not in your destiny. Did you go to therapy or anything? Do you have help from somebody or was this all on your own? Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah, I am like poster girl for therapy. Yeah, I had a great progress. I was going to be totally free without therapist. I'm relieved to hear this because if you told me that you had done all this on your own and you had this like much understanding of your like interior world, that was going to be incredibly spooked. You know, I had a wonderful, wonderful therapist and a lot of a lot of other help too. But I didn't go to rehab. A fact that I now regret because what could be better than shuffling around in paper slippers and like drinking hot cocoa and talking about your feelings for a week. Yeah, do anything else. I'm sure that it's miserable. But in retrospect now that I have this like really busy, full, wonderful, demanding life, the idea of not having to do anything but not do drugs sounds awesome. Now I sometimes think about that with prison. I'm like, you know, prison, I get a lot of reading done. Right? You work out. I would write so many books because what else are you going to do? It's like, you know, the first time I went to an artist's colony, like beforehand, I was like, I was like, what is the point of that? And then I went and I was like, oh, no internet, like you get stuck and then you stare at the wall for a minute and then you go back to work. And so I know that this is like probably something I'm going to feel really embarrassed when I hear myself say it on the internet. But but I also sometimes think that prison would be like a really hard knock residency. You know, I mean, I could just read and write and like become a better person. Well, I think that's it. I think that's like, I think it really is rooted. I mean, it's it's sort of a joke, but it's also rooted in the world of distractions that we live in. And it's sort of this idealized vision of living in a place or having an existence that didn't involve, you know, flickering lights and screens and it's true. Or we've chosen this life as writers that requires that we'd be able to ignore so much of that. It requires like this vast solitude of mind, which is like such a terrible thing to choose for yourself or such a difficult thing to choose for yourself that I wish that that it would be easier sometimes. Yeah. So it might sound not too specific to fantasize about going to prison, but you know, yeah, it's not about the whole like rape and shanking thing. It's definitely more about like less options. Less options. And like reading the classics, you know, that's what it's about. Reading the classics, eating a piece of bread with some mush. Going to the gym, the perfect life. So one more question about the whole dominatrix thing. And then I want to try to get into your childhood a little bit. But, you know, when you're there, you know, I have this, you know, I'm starting to get this vision of you. I feel like I understand you better. And I can't help but think that maybe you were a bit of an anomaly in the world of dominatrixes. Is that it? Dominate? Is that the plural? Yeah. Sorry. I just thought I left something in the oven that I didn't. It's cool. Don't worry. You know, I wasn't so much. I mean, maybe I was. I don't know. I felt like I was for sure. But I sort of felt like that everywhere in the like grandiose way of 21 year old drug addicts. But, you know, I'm going to generalize here and say that out of sex industry, fields, that commercial S&M world is highly populated with highly educated women who are often literary or, you know, artistic in some other way. And I think that partially, that's because it's an acting job. It's a pretty creative job. You have to be incredibly imaginative to be a good dominatrix. It's basically improv acting, you know. And you also don't have sex with your clients. And so I think that I'm going to generalize in another probably horrible way here and say that a lot of women or a lot of people are curious, you know, about sex work. You know, it's so romanticized and vilified. And it's just such an iconic experience in our culture. You know, like I grew up watching Pretty Woman. And so I think that a lot of women who wouldn't have sex with someone for money would try doing this, you know. And so it tends to sort of filter in a certain way. And so I wasn't as unique as you would think. That kind of makes sense. I could say, I mean, I guess when you think about it, even when you spend some time thinking about it, I can't imagine that, I mean, not to sound too crude about it, but I can't imagine that a really dumb woman would become a dominatrix, if that makes sense. Oh, no, they certainly do, but they don't, they don't do very well. You know. I mean, they, I mean, like, if you get someone, there would definitely be women who would become dominatrixes and would be willing to do more sexually than most of us. And they would get a bunch of sessions that would end really early. And then we would all bully them out, basically. Because you could just go be an escort and do that, you know. And it made it more dangerous for us too, legally. And also it just, I don't know, there were a lot of people, even though for me it was a job and I wasn't part of sort of the larger scene. Everyone there sort of took a pride in what we did. Like, we were all pretty proud dominatrixes, even if we were hiding it from the people in our lives, which I wasn't really. But yeah, it's partly also why we made less money than most other kinds of sex workers. Well, now, what about the people who ran the place? I mean, was this, you know, who were they? Who was the proprietor? Well, yeah, you never know what's true and what's not. But, but supposedly, the place I worked was owned by a woman who used to be professional dominatrix. But then it was managed by a man who was not creepy, neurotic, surely. He's very upset about his depiction in the book. Any lawsuits or anything weird like that? Any kind of lawsuits or any fear of that? Or is he just sort of pissed off and sulking? You know, I mean, well, first of all, I went through the whole book. You know, I felt totally confident that everything I said was true, or at least true to my memory. But then again, I went through it with the lawyer before it was published and changed every identifying characteristic that he could come up with. But, of course, everyone in it would recognize themselves, you know, and would recognize the other people in it probably. But also, I'm kind of lucky. I got off the hook in that I'm writing about a world that most people don't want to out themselves as being participants in, at least not in a public way, especially not people running it, you know. And so I wasn't very worried about it. I was worried about people's reactions, but I wasn't really worried about things in a legal way. And I followed all the advice of the lawyer with the Saint Martin. So I figured they would pick up the tab if anything did transpire. Well, sure. Now, what about movie stuff? Is it, I mean, this seems like this seems like something that we would see on TV or in the movies. Like, have you gotten any interest in it? As do people say, it's, yeah, it's actually an option for TV. Do you mind seeing what channel or? Well, well, it's not a test to to a channel. Yeah, it's, it's been optioned by a small production company. And we got an amazing writer to write a pilot. She co-wrote the movie, "Blue Valentine." So she's pretty amazing. Kami Dilevin. And it looks like, you know, it's moving forward slowly, but surely. And right now, I think it's in the process of basically being packaged to shop to the paid cable networks. So we'll see what happens. You know, I mean, as one friend said to me, that business is not a dream maker. It's a dream incinerator. So it's really lucky that I don't have, you know, like TV and film was never really part of my dream. So I don't feel really attached to that outcome. And I generally assume that it's probably not going to happen. But at the same time, it's exciting. And everyone who's read it seems really excited about it. So we'll see. Well, yeah. Who would you want to cast as yourself? Do you have any idea? People would ask me that. I would totally cast, oh wait, I thought if someone knew the other day, because people ask me this all the time. I swear I don't sit around thinking about it. But for a long time, I said Scarlett Johansson. And that's not, you know, an empty answer. I really did think about it. I thought that she was the right combination of sort of like, you know, innocent and not stupid seeming. But I thought of some of the other day who I really like. Oh, I like that Kristen Stewart. The girl from a new scene, Adventureland. That's one of my wife wants to kill me because I watched that movie. Everyone's always like, I love that movie. And you know, whenever I say her name, people are like, oh, from Twilight, I'm like, no, from Adventureland. Right. And from the runaway. Yes, we'll see. I love that movie evokes such a nostalgia for me. It's like it's like the days to confuse the 80s is the way I always put it. Totally. It just captures what I mean. There's so much relatable for my childhood. But I see I liked her in that. I think it's a kind of the material, you know. I thought she was great in that. I thought she was totally great in that. Yeah, I thought that that was not, yeah, not only in terms of like a period piece was that good, but I thought that that was a pretty well-written and well-acted movie too. I have a thing. I call it a fetish for teen movies. I love teen movies and I'm always on the hunt for like really good teen movies. That's my wife too. There are so few. Really? Yeah, no, she loves, she reads teen books. I mean, it's sort of troubling a little bit. I'm like, always like, you're really reading another YA novel, but she loves that stuff. And I got to say, I do love, I mean, like a sophisticated, well-written, funny, teen movie is great. I love totally great. I think his name is Greg Matola, directed Adventureland. He also did Superbad, which I thought was hilarious. I thought Superbad was pretty hilarious. Yeah, and I like the, I mean, from the 80s, like the John Hughes movies, like those movies have real soul. I know. I think that that's, they stand up and I think sometimes they get minimized because they're written for a younger audience. So that doesn't mean that they're any less sophisticated or worthy. No, totally. And I think it makes sense. At least, I can say that this is true for me. That's sort of like adolescence and the teenage years are so like the most vulnerable, transformative awakening time and like in the cliched way, but in a way that doesn't get acknowledged too, where I think that we're all sort of like forever changed and traumatized and can feel and see more than we ever can, maybe at any other point in our lives during that time, you know. And so when I was a kid, I looked forward to it. And as an adult, I definitely sort of have a thing about that period of time. I write about teenagers a lot, you know, because I'm always sort of trying to go for some kind of emotional jugular in my writing. And I feel like teenagers epitomize that. Always in that, you know. They're totally magical and hilarious and like in so much pain. Yeah. And kind of just, you know, wearing their hearts on their sleeves and stuff. But you say that you're writing about, you know, young people, does this mean you're working on some sort of YA novel or another memoir about your youth? Definitely not. No. I don't have another memoir in me for a little while. I don't think I'm really done talking about myself. But I am, and it's not a YA novel, but it does have teenagers in it. It's, you know, it's an adult novel, but it's about these sort of two friends who, and follows them through three stages of their lives and the first stage is adolescence and the second stage is sort of their late teens and then it goes into their 20s. But yeah. I mean, I basically, you know, I had all these sort of like high-concept, clever-ish, I thought, ideas about what kind of novel I was going to write. And then I scrapped them all. And because I sort of just ended up asking myself the question of like, what was the book I want to read? You know, what's the book I want to read? And maybe also, what's the book that I would have wanted to read when I was younger and couldn't really find, you know, which is maybe also the question of like, what part of the human experience that I've known have I never seen translated into story form, written story form. And so it turns out I'm writing a pretty conventional story. I mean, you know, it has a lot of like mental illness and rock and roll and art and stuff like that in it, but it's not very experimental. How far along are you on it? I would say that I'm probably about halfway. These kinds of questions, these kinds of questions suck. I hate me to ask this stuff. Like, what's your book about? You know, and I'm here I am asking you. Well, what's your book about is always like, I feel like there should just be like a sound check sound that happens while I'm answering that question because I never know what to say. I mean, I do, you know, but it's always like, see more plot or like, I had the elevator pitches, not my forte. No, I have a good answer for you. Like, this is what I used to do is that people would ask me like, what's your book about? And I just came up, I finally got exasperated by it. And so I started just answering with like, these really dark one liners. Like, I just look at people dead panicking. It's about the death of hope, you know, or just something stupid like that. I'd make them believe me for a second and then tell them that I couldn't explain it. That tends to work well. That's totally good. I should totally do that. It's like when people ask me about my tattoos and they're like, does that hurt? And for a long time, I said, yes. Well, sure. Or constantly. Always. Never stops hurting. Someone slept in five years. How many tattoos do you have? It's kind of hard to differentiate them at this point because they've all sort of connected to each other. Not me, not all of them, but my arms at least. But I've been tattooed. I think I counted recently. It was like 17 or 18 times. Okay. So I have a question for you. I have a, this is another part of the, this is another part of the human experience that alludes me. And I am totally open to getting a tattoo. Don't, I think like, based on who I am and my whole personality and whatever aesthetic I project into the world physically, like I think most people who know me would hear that laugh. Just like the concept of me getting a tattoo is somehow laughable. But my problem is that psychologically or emotionally, I can't decide what to get. Like, I wouldn't know. I know. How do you make that leap? Well, I, I hate to break this to you, but first of all, that's everybody's problem because it's going to be there forever. It's going to be there in your grave to be buried. And I felt the same way, you know, when I was drunk in Montreal at the age of 14 and standing in the tattoo shop, like it's going to be there forever. And then I got it. And then afterwards suddenly that concern like held absolutely no water anymore. And I can't really explain why, but you know, it's like once I did it, I was like, oh yeah, it's going to be there forever. Like big fucking deal. So are all of the scars from a million times I've skinned my knees. Like, so is my chicken pox scar? Like, so is that an emotional wound? And then also you get such, well, maybe you won't because you don't sound like an addict, but you get this really intense adrenaline, endorphin rush afterwards. And so you immediately want to get another one. But I'm telling you, don't do it unless you're prepared to get more because you don't know what's going to happen once you break the feel. Once you break the feel, suddenly you're open to things you didn't know. Yeah, whatever. And that's true of most things in my work. Well, it's like, you know, you don't know many people who have just one tattoo. It's like, once you get one, it typically escalates. I know. Well, what did you get when you were 14? What was your, I mean, it had to have been a bad tattoo. You didn't have good taste back then, did you? Wait a minute, you were breaking up. You're breaking up. Can you hear me now? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Okay. I actually remember thinking to myself very distinctly, what are you not going to hate when you're 21, which was about as old as I could ever imagine myself being? And I take this like, pretty abstract, sort of looks like an angel, but it's just like this black symbol. And I was into symmetry even then. So I also got it sort of on my spine, on my lower back. So I could never really see it anyway. I just knew it was there. That's actually, yeah, that was my first one. That's a pretty, that strikes me as like a pretty well adjusted rational decision making process compared to what I hear with, you know, first tattoo stories, especially, I mean, 14 Christ, you know, yeah, yeah. I have, I, it's a good, I think I've spent a lot of my life sort of very clear-headedly making really ill-advised decision. It's a good way of putting it. So, you know, I want to get in a little bit to, you know, just your childhood, where you come from, you know, this daughter of a sea captain and a Buddhist psychotherapist, you were raised on Cape Cod, is that right? That's right. That's right. I was raised on Cape Cod, which is really, which is a really beautiful, magical place that I wholly didn't appreciate until I left it and then came back to visit us as an adult. But yeah, I, I don't know, what do you want to know? I swam a lot. I grew up serving the wood on a pond. And I, like, I don't know, I just remember my childhood being, I mean, it was kind of sad because my dad was a sea captain, so he was leaving a lot. But my parents were both really great. And I sort of learned to read on, like, therapy books, you know. So I had this, it's like immense emotional vocabulary at the age of 10, you know. I was forever asking my friends to stop being passive aggressive and informing them exactly how they felt, not how I felt, which always went over really well, as you can imagine. On the playground. Yeah, yeah. And, but you know, I was always, I never, ever, I've never wanted to be anything but a writer. And so I was an obsessive, obsessive reader as a kid. I've said a lot of times that my first drug of choice was books because I would just, like, my mom would drop me off at a library because I read so fast that she wouldn't, she didn't want to buy me books because they were like disposable. So she dropped me off to the library and I would just get a stack and I would lock myself in my room and just like one after the other, one after the other. And I played all these weird, like, story games where I would, like, go out into the woods and, like, lie down in the grass and close my eyes and think of a story. Like, I fell out of the sky from another planet and then I would open my eyes and pretend that I had just, like, woken up in this totally strange place and then just walk around by myself, like, pretending I'd never seen a fern. And what was that? And, like, oh, my God, it's my dollop of this crazy creature I've never seen before. Sounds like when I took mushrooms in college. It probably was. It probably was. It probably was. Yeah, so I was always big fantasy. Did you have any siblings? I did. I have a little brother. He's actually here right now eating fruit and pizza in my kitchen. Yeah, I have a little brother who I'm really close to and I've always been really close to. He's, he's an artist who, like, um, he's into building things out of recycled materials and ecological stuff and he's, he's very cool. And, you know, I was just thinking today about how, like, he and I were both these, like, very specific kids. Like, he would go in his room with a roll of duct tape and some broken down cardboard boxes and come out, like, five hours later with this, like, a really intense structure that he had built. Um, and I would be in my room, like, writing a novel and, like, reading books. And we are totally, they've grown up versions of our child selves, despite all of the, like, totally crazy things that have happened in between. It's really comforting, actually. Now, are you a Buddhist? I mean, do you mean your mother was, I mean, your mother sounds like she was a practicing Buddhist, correct? She, she was a practicing Buddhist. Like, we used to go play in the yard when she went to her, like, Dharma study group and I saw her take her bodhisattvas and that stuff. But, um, no, I can't say that I'm a Buddhist. Like, I, I'm too lazy of a spiritual practitioner to really say that. But I meditate and I've read a lot of Buddhist books and I believe in most of it. So, kind of. Who do you read? Who do you like to read in that, in that area? Oh, I've read a lot of, you know, pemma children who everybody loves and, and I can't pronounce it. Trungpa, her, her teacher guy. Rinpoche, or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, take not Han and the usual character. All the usual suspects. I read a lot of that stuff too. Yeah, I, I, I read a ton of it when I was in college and then I've gone back to it periodically. Although now it's taken on this very, I was, like, very wanted to be, like, an ascetic Zen nun or whatever when I was in college because I was, you know, extreme and unrealistic about what I could do. And, and now it's, like, got this much more self-help vibe, you know, like, one of my favorite books of late is called Radical Acceptance. And it's, it's, like, a self-help Buddhist therapy. It's like a Buddhist therapist wrote it, you know, practicing Buddhist therapist. Sure. Is that John Cabot's in? Is that John Cabot's in? Who wrote it or no? Is that a different person? No, no, no. But I, you know, I've actually never read John Cabot's in because he lives on Cape Cod. And so I was friends with his daughter when I was a kid. So it was just too weird. Like, I don't think I could take him seriously because he would be, like, her dad in the kitchen, you know. Right, of course. Yeah. Fascinating. Well, what's next? I mean, you're working on this novel. You're living, uh, where? I mean, you live, you live in Brooklyn. You're a New Yorker, but you, I think you're out in the boonies now, right? Or something? Around the boonies now, I still have a place in, in Brooklyn. My girlfriend and I have a, have a room and a share and press like heights that we use periodically. But mostly I'm upstate, like, way upstate, about five hours north of the city in a little village called Clinton, which is extremely cute. Um, isn't that where Chelsea Clinton didn't get married in Clinton? That would be weird. I don't think so. Yeah. Okay. I don't think that she would probably avoid getting married in Clinton because she's classy lady. That would be khaki, right? I would do it, thanks. But it is a cute place. It's a cute place. It wouldn't be a bad place to get married. Um, but yeah, I'm working on this novel and I'm also working on a collection of essays, although maybe that's a pipe dream because who publishes collections of essays? I don't know. My fantasy is that the novel will be so good that whoever decides to publish it will have to also buy my book of essays. What are the essays about just like a wide range of? Yeah, yeah. Like some of them, some of the things, some of them are, uh, I are, sorry, I forgot how to talk to them. Um, or I've published on the Nervous Breakdown. Oh, okay. That style stuff, which is much more like, you know, sort of like intense, but also funny and embarrassing. Well, see, I eat that stuff up. I love reading stuff like that. I mean, obviously, obviously, but I can, I can read essay collections all day long, you know, especially if the person's really, yeah, I do too. I do too, but my agent like makes a sad face whenever I, I know that face or just that, like that pause on the phone. I was like, okay, you know, that's nice for you. I always get that pause all the time. I have never gotten a resounding awesome that is going to sell like hot cakes. It's always like, yeah, Native Americans aren't really doing that anymore. You know, Zen Buddhist dominatrix, you know, it's a whole question of, like, is it sort of like Jodie Pico with heroin? No, it's depressing, but it's, uh, it's also funny, you know. It's true. Well, it's, it's been great to talk to you. Uh, it's, you know, especially after reading you, uh, on T and B all this, you know, all this time, it's always fun to put, uh, at least a voice, uh, with a person and it's just been, uh, you know, enlightening and great to talk to you. I hope that we get a chance to cross paths at some point and I hope that, uh, you know, later on down the road, uh, you know, you'll come back on and we can talk some more. I would love that. I would love that. This is totally fun and you're in LA, right? I'm in LA. I am in LA right now. Uh, I guess that could change. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be in LA in, in August. I'm doing an event at Book Soup on the 5th and something else at Stories in Echo Park. So, you know, it'll be on the 5th. Well, yeah, let me know. Um, you know, because, uh, we're gonna do, like, T and B turns 5 on July 5th and we're trying to schedule events. So, if there's any cross, you know, if it, if we, uh, your time in LA crosses over with that, maybe we could have you read it our, like, 5-year-old birthday party. I think we're gonna have cake and cone hats and the whole thing. That's so sweet. That would be so nice. Okay. Well, listen, good luck with the paperback. Uh, have fun, have a fun summer upstate in Clinton and, uh, we will talk to you again, uh, on the show. Wait, hopefully before too long. Okay. Thank you so much, Brad. Yep. Take care. Bye-bye. All right, folks. There you have it. That's Melissa Phiebose, author of Whipsmart. What a delightful girl. What a delightful, I don't mean to reduce her by calling her a girl. What a delightful young woman. Melissa Phiebose, array of sunshine. Very nice person, very candid person, very open conversation. Hopefully it was a good listen. Hopefully it was a bit illuminating. Uh, she had some very interesting things to say. I thought about writing and whatnot. Obviously, the show itself, the interview itself was recorded a little while ago while I have, uh, been fighting through the technological morass on my way to getting this show live. So, uh, still relevant though. Great conversation. Great to have her on the show. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to check out the nervous breakdown.com. Check out our new book. My dead pets are interesting. A humor collection by the hilarious Lenore Zion. Uh, this is published on TNB books, the official, uh, imprint, the official independent press of the nervous breakdown. Go and get it available where books are sold online while you're at it. Check out our other two titles that are currently out. Subversia by D. R. Haney and paper doll orgy. A cartoon collection by Ted McCag. Uh, okay. Uh, I think that's it. I don't know what else to say after a conversation like that. Hopefully, this is enjoyable. I'm going to go walk around a shopping mall. 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