A very special episode in which we go through this podcast's 2025 Wrapped in great detail!!! Shoutout to our singular listener in Brazil <3 Then we get to discussing why Lillian's climbing gym played the two-minute intro to Menswear, our experience at a Korean spa meet-up, Bella Hadid wearing her Erewhon smoothie sleeve as an arm cuff, Lillian's upcoming haircut, the appropriate level of detail to include when delivering an anecdote, and Veronika signing up for a community college Pilates class, hehe.
Somehow we are talking about politics AGAIN. 🙄 One of us wasn't even born in the US!! Anyway, Lillian made banana bread and didn't offer Veronika any, RFK wrote some bad and sad sex poems, the great having big boobs vs. being skinny debate, and some teenagers with Billie Eilish accents hit on Lillian at the gym. This ep is low key funny af, lol 🤪
An awesome title for an awesome episode, if we do say so ourselves <3 This episode is brought to you by the decision tree, a tool that we used this week when running into Robby Hoffman at El Prado (!), navigating our incessant food noise, and deciding whether to read David Szalay's Booker Prize-winning novel Flesh. And Lillian's wool sweater made her eyes itch :/
Sleepy episode because we recorded at 10am, hehe :p We also randomly talk about #politics a lot in this one, including "high calorie humans," Strava data being used in court, and the pardoning of an ultra runner, leading us to conclude that Trump is ultimately a funny old guy from New York. Also, Elizabeth Gilbert is, for better or worse, a SLAA fellow, and parasocial relationships might actually be kind of dangerous sometimes? Ugh :/
Our guest this week is Alex Moreno — poet, artist, esteemed friend/roommate/love of the pod, and author of the book Sticky Time (Sunflower Station Press), out this Saturday, 11/15!! We discuss the lies she told in her childhood journal, the definition of a Blank, how <3 sleepaway camp <3 made her the person she is today, and whether having eczema and depression is preferable to having untameably curly hair. Veronika described reading her poetry book as “an almost psychedelic experience,” so you should definitely get yourself a copy.
Purchase Sticky Time here: https://sunflowerstationpress.com/product/sticky-time/
Find Alex elsewhere on the Internet:
https://thoughtjuice.substack.com/
https://www.instagram.com/alexhere.ok/
https://alexalexherehere.com/
Veronika spends a good while crashing out because a Pilates teacher used the words “get shredded” with her. Once we’ve gotten past that, we discuss celebrities earning as much as SWEs, a performance artist who got the name of every man she’s had sex with tattooed on her, and Jared Leto’s behavior at the climbing gym. Also, Lillian subtly admits her parents are rich by revealing the fact that they’re retired. 😍
Dethroning Lillian as fastest runner on the pod and Veronika as sole girl who went to high school in the C word (C*nnecticut), our guest this week is Shelby Farrell!! Shelby is a highly decorated ultra runner who has earned podium finishes at races all around the country, and she is also very smart and funny. We asked her important questions like what exactly is wrong with people who run past the marathon distance; what her menstrual cycle, and pooping schedules are like; how she integrates 420 highs with her running highs; and how she finds self-discovery within the miles as a person who has experienced grief.
THANK YOU Shelby for coming on! You can find her elsewhere on the Internet at:
https://www.shelbzzf.com/
https://www.instagram.com/shelbzzf/?hl=en
What's this? A secret happy birthday episode about your favorite podcast host's favorite podcast host. BEHOLD: THE LIFE AND LORE OF VERONIKA!!! Happy birthday Veronika and happy October 26 to all who celebrate!
Three likes and Lillian will finally go back to school to become a sports trainer + physical therapist. 🥰 But first!!! Our friend's dog is kinda Ozempic patient zero, Veronika got her eyebrows done somewhere new, and we went to the gym together, yay. We then spend the rest of the episode analyzing a study featured in the book Lillian is reading that discusses father trauma in female athletes and essentially draws the conclusion that female athletes have a higher tendency to be gay. Uh, HELLO???
Otherwise known as The Girl Episode, because we spend the first half of it talking about our hair and the second half talking about anorexia. <3 We discuss the harrowing story of Karolina Krzyzak, which contains several threads personal to us (Eastern Europe and online pro ana communities masking as vegan/fitness ones, to name just two). If you are struggling with similar issues, there is help out there, and we encourage you to visit https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
P.S.: Palate cleanser: did you know Lillian has dimples?
Cocaine and private jets and sex with a royal, oh my — such is a day in the life of a student at Le Rosey, the most expensive boarding school in the world (!), of which Veronika’s dear friend Fos is a graduate. We grilled her on which designer bag she carried to school, the subtle nuances between American new money and European old money, how much Le Rosey prepared her for the real world, and, importantly, whether she’d ever consider sending her own kids to such an institution. For two gals as fascinated by wealth and class as we are, this episode was a JOY to record, and we hope to have Fos back on soon.
The one where I fat shame Lillian's water bottle for science (hehe, now you know which one of us is writing this description). Also in this episode: Luigi Mangione losing his touch; Pilates classes in maximum-security prisons; why men continue to follow up years later; Lillian's new bike from a polyamorous Burning Man attendee; how much I'd have to pay Lillian to smoke a cigarette; and, finally and profoundly, the lines between obsession, addiction, and religion.
Did you guys know there's a NASA study from 2008 that shows the impact of smoking on VO2max? Us either, but click below to read it. We also debrief the fourth installment of Dear Diary (thank you for coming, if you did!!), the jeans Lillian lost earlier this year at Bathhouse being a size [REDACTED], having the face of a maternal dumpling vs. a Slav, being from a part of the world that's famous for manufacturing hot people, and our thoughts on the stereotype that Eastern European women are #cold.
The aforementioned study: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20080014280
The Eastern European YouTuber we mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJnQEXcVzzc
Welcome to our episode with writer, teacher, critic, and esteemed friend of the pod Olivia Crandall, who you may know from her smart and funny writing on reality TV at Vulture. We talk about the cultural touchstone that was lookbook.nu, turning input into output, cold pitching a piece to Man Repeller about the smell of her sweat, Internet celebrities of the 2010s, the personality types of people who seek out roles on reality television, and Olivia's middle school jump roping team. THANK YOU Olivia for coming on <3
Check out Olivia on IG and Substack:
Otherwise known as the episode in which Lillian uses Patti Smith and Nora Ephron in the same sentence. ❤️ The first half of this episode is something of a Swiftie Q&A, with Lillian giving Veronika a crash course in some basic Taylor tea (yes, this was recorded the day after she announced her engagement). If that's not for you, maybe you'll tune in to hear about Veronika's experience watching an Instagram video of her two plastic surgeons high fiving in the OR while she slept, vulnerable and anesthetized, next to them.
An inbred cat, a missing AirPod, and a plumber all walk into a bar. Which of them loses their virginity in the back of a Waymo first? Listen to this episode to find out, ORRRR come and listen to us read at Stories in Echo Park at 6:30pm on Sunday, September 7. :) Also in this ep: Lillian thinking she's chronically ill any time she needs a nap, Veronika feeling earnestly held by her ancestors, our first Adidas brand trip, and being a multi-hyphenate artist and athlete e.g. Cody Simpson (yup).
This episode isn't that funny but it is emotional, profound, and touching, and if you are an immigrant or child of immigrants, and in particular of the Eastern European diaspora, you will probably enjoy it and find it relatable. We talk about Eastern European beauty standards, Pilates classes in Budapest, Jehovah's Witnesses pulling up on Lillian, snakes vs. rats, the pervasiveness of the Hungarian vizsla, Taylor Swift's podcast debut, and Lufthansa's caviar expenditure.
We finally acknowledge the elephant in the room, the elephant being that Lillian's $10 Amazon Basics mic actually produces higher quality audio than Veronika's $400 Yeti mic (Jeff Bezos- 1 Yeti- 0). Also in this episode: Veronika's off-brand iPod (the Zune), brainless LinkedIn messages, getting hate messages from Beyoncé stans, the knowing glance exchanged between two Vibram Five Fingers wearers, and Lillian's walk with the Haim sisters.
This episode is accidentally short — YOU'RE WELCOME. Recently carless Lillian regales us with the tale of how she lost her Waymo virginity, YAY. We also talk about having names that never appear on souvenir keychains (☹️), Veronika's foray into Tankair tank tops (!!!), misplacing nude drawings of oneself, and the infamous quagmire of what to do on the flight between New York and Los Angeles.
In a bid to officially become the next emo nostalgia podcast, we discuss Max Bemis Song Shop AND Eliza Bleu/Gerard Way, before moving on to Lillian’s growing fascination with adultery (fueled by Astronomer CEO etc). Then, Veronika joyously gives Lillian the shock of her life by revealing that she has finally defeated her eating disorder… in the most unconventional of ways.