LINKS

Check out Doree's podcast, Forever 35.

TRANSCRIPT

Melissa: Hello, I'm Melissa Locker. 

Courtney: And I'm Courtney E. Smith. 

Melissa: And you are listening to Songs My Ex Ruined, the show where we talk about songs that have been ruined by our exes. 

Courtney: This week, we're delighted with a D to have Doree Shafirir on the podcast. And some of you may know her as the co-host of Forever 35. Some of you may know her from ye olde internet. Thank you so much for joining us this week. We're really excited to have you. Please, tell us about a song that an ex ruined for you? 

Doree: Okay, I need to like caveat this by saying that this person would not consider me an ex, nor would I really consider them an ex. It's just a guy I had relations with a few times.

Melissa: A situationship? 

Doree: It was a situationship, yeah. I was very obsessed with him, but we were not together. But I felt like it counted for the purposes of this show. 

Courtney: You're describing so much of my 20s dating history. So yes, I agree. It definitely counts. Not just for the purposes of this show. It just counts. If you count it,  it counts.

Doree: Great, okay.

Melissa: I just really wish situationship had existed as a term when I was younger because it is so useful for defining what these dumb relationships are, where you're like just hanging.

Doree: Can I also say I was thinking about this morning that another word that I wish had existed like in this time was fuckboi.

Melissa/Courtney: Yes.

Doree: Because this particular person and is was a fuckboi but I did not have the vocabulary for that at the time.

Melissa: We call them drifty motherfuckers. 

Courtney: Oh, that's good. 

Melissa: Yeah, DMF for short. 

Courtney: I love that. 

Melissa: Yeah, I feel like it applies to a lot of men floating in the ether out there.

Courtney: Also, I would just like to note before you reveal the song, while we're on this topic, I think we talked about this before and blamed it on the lack of vocabulary. It is not necessarily a linguistics problem. This is just the patriarchy. Like, our problem was the patriarchy and it still is. Alright, sorry. Go on!

Doree: Amen. Amen. Okay, so the song is “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry. 

Courtney: Oh, hello. 

Melissa:  Okay. 

Courtney: Unexpected. Whoa.

Doree: Out of left field.

Doree: Okay, so, I want you to just picture it. It's 2010. I am recently out of a long-term relationship where I'd been like living with my boyfriend. We'd been together for three and a half years. And I was having a real like rumspringa of a summer and just staying out till the bars closed, getting really drunk. And I, like, I wasn't 25. I was actually 33. So like, you know, a little old to be doing this, but I was really just possibly having a manic episode. Not sure, but I was just out there and meeting people and hooking up with them. And I had met this guy who was a friend of a friend. And he was so hot, one of the hottest guys I'd ever seen. This guy is like fully out of my league. There's no way this Adonis would ever be interested in little me. But I think because I had this like newfound, just broken up with my boyfriend sort of confidence, I just went for it. Now, you might be asking, where does Katy Perry's “Teenage Dream” come into all of this? 

Courtney: Yes, I am! 

Doree: He really liked that song. 

Courtney: What? 

Doree: Yes. 

Melissa: Interesting. I mean, it’s a good song. 

Courtney: It is a good song. 

Doree: It's a really good pop song. It's a really great song. 

Courtney: Such an earworm. 

Doree: Exactly, it’s such an earworm. Like ever since I decided that this is what I was going to talk about on this episode, like I have not been able to get it out of my head. He loved that song. And then I was like, it's a really good song, yeah. I'm going to put it on like my running playlist. So, that was the other thing that summer, I got really into running, which was like something I'd never been into before. 

Melissa: A running rumspringa? Interesting, sounds very healthy.

Doree: Yeah, it was great. It was really great. So I was listening to it a lot, and when I listened to it, I just thought of this guy. So that's like the backstory of how I got into the song. 

Courtney: So there are men that have good taste in music, and there are men that are hot. And there's not really a Venn diagram. I've dated guys that have really good taste in music and I've not really dated guys that are hot. Sorry, ex boyfriends. 

Doree: It's interesting because he was mostly into punk. And also I don't think Katy Perry is bad. I don't think she is quote unquote bad music, like I don't think it's fair to say you have bad taste in music if you like “Teenage Dream,” but also this guy's like particular focus of music was not typically Katy Perry. So it almost made it cooler in a way? Tt didn't even seem ironic either, but I guess is what I'm saying.

Melissa: So, do you think he liked this song? It is a genuinely good song. We can just we'll just make sure that is the baseline for this conversation. But do you think it could also be one of those songs where he's I'm all into this very obscure cool punk but also Katy Perry because I'm relatable and cool and quirky and multifaceted personality.

Doree: Yes. 

Courtney: Do hot guys have to have a try that hard?

Melissa: Yeah, I think they do. I think they want to be quirky. They want to be cool. They want to be their internalized manic pixie dream girl in themselves. 

Courtney: Aw, that’s so sad.

Melissa: They want to be like more interesting or they want to appear more interesting than they might actually be.

Doree: Melissa, I think that is accurate. Also, let's not forget, it was 2010. It was a different time, which to me, I'm like, that wasn't that long ago. But then when I actually start to think about what was actually happening in 2010, the way that we interacted with each other, what was out there in pop culture, it was a different time.

Melissa: I think it's Michael Tedder who put out the book about MySpace recently. 

Doree: I haven’t read it.

Courtney: Yes, by the way, great book. So good. 

Doree:  Ok, okay good to know.

Melissa:  Yeah, but I was thinking about like the songs that you could put in your MySpace and how you could be quirky about them. And I was just like, yeah, I feel like you could put something like funny there and it would be like a conversation starter. Or it's like what songs people put in like their app dating profiles. Like the one of my friends is like the only song people like the biggest like beige flag for somebody is when they put the Talking Heads “This Must Be the Place.”

Melissa: That song has become just like, I am cool, but not too cool. But also when you see it on every single profile, you start to get a little suspicious. You're like, something's happening here. 

Doree: Totally, totally. 

Courtney: I, a single woman in her 40s, recently left all dating apps, but my song on the dating apps this summer was “Satanist” by boygenius because I live in Texas and I need to filter some people out.

Melissa: Ahhh, that is boyggenius of you. Well done. 

Doree: That's really smart. You don't even need to say anything else. 

Courtney: Yeah, just no bio. Just “Satanist.” 

Doree: This is who I am. 

Melissa: I was just curious, like, did the song come up in your relationship in any way? Was it on a makeout playlist? Or did it just like randomly show up in conversation? You're like, you know what, it's a good song. 

Doree: It's possible that it showed up on Twitter. Because again, 2010 — a different time also on Twitter. Like the height of like people flirting on Twitter, people being funny on Twitter. It was just a different vibe on Twitter, and I feel like he posted about this song on Twitter. So, it was a very like public, almost performative statement, right? To be like, I, a very hot guy who is into punk, I'm also listening to Katy Perry's “Teenage Dream.” 

Courtney: Oh, yeah, that is. That is a big statement. That's interesting. That's also hot. Like that, I get why that makes this guy… 

Doree: Courtney, he was very hot. 

Courtney: I get why that, but the Katy Perry thing — I get why that makes him hotter. That's… 

Doree: See? Quirky. 

Courtney: Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. I want to circle back to something you said about the confidence of someone who'd been through a breakup recently because that really resonates with me. I don't think that I would describe it as confidence. I think it's more like kamikaze. Like you're really just shooting yourself out into the world. I went through it this year. Okay, I'm going to make a confession on this podcast now…

Doree: Love that.

Courtney: ...that only my close girlfriends knew about, but after I was broken up with at the end of last year, I made a New Year's resolution at New Year's Eve dinner with some friends that we were all going to try to have sex with one new person every month this year. That is really difficult, by the way. It requires a lot of effort to find acceptable people. And I did pretty well.

Melissa: I don't think I like that many people. Like at all. 

Courtney: You don't have to see them again is the good part. You just have to like them enough for one evening. 

Melissa: True. 

Courtney: For maybe just a couple of hours, frankly. And I did pretty well until July, when I got bored of it. But there's something about that sort of the kind of swagger that you can bring to not giving any fucks at all, because you feel like you have nothing to lose. It's just so inconsequential. And you're putting yourself out in this way that is maybe unhealthy — definitely unhealthy — but also what you need at that time in that place.

Doree: Yeah, yes, a thousand percent. I know nothing about your previous relationship. I can tell you that I feel like the relationship I was getting out of had just been like sputtering along for a while. It was like roommate vibes and it was hard to feel both sexually desirable and desirous of sex. And to get out of that and to be like, Wooh!  And it was summer and it was just like, I'm out here.

Courtney: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Doree: You know? 

Courtney: Absolutely. 

Melissa: There's an old This American Life episode with Kurt Bronner doing his sexual rumspringa where it was. he and his long-time girlfriend, before they decided to get married, they wanted to take a year apart and just go for it. But they had just been in this really long-term relationship, and they just wanted to go sow some wild oats before they got married. you should listen to the episode because it's good. But I do love the idea of a sexual rumspringa because I think the whole concept, I've also read a lot of Amish literature. Amish romances are my favorite. I haven't read them in a while, but I read a lot. And when I was, oh my God, I was at a dinner in the field at Coachella and someone mentioned to me Amish romances and the existence of this entire genre that I knew nothing about. Just really, I was like that's unfair. It's the same way that Avery Truffleman told me about hockey romances years ago and I was like, what the hell? I've never even heard about these. So I had to go back and read like 20 of them called, like, He's Down to Puck.

Doree: Did you hear? Sorry, this is like a total aside. Have you heard about the big scandal in like the hockey romance world?

Melissa: Yes. I  love it so much. 

Doree: It's wild. Yeah. Anyway. Sorry. Go on. 

Melissa: Yeah. But just, you should tell people about it 

Courtney: Yeah, ‘cause now our listeners are going to be like, what the fuck?

Doree: Oh, sorry. 

Melissa: The puck? 

Doree:  Yeah, I hope I can get this right. As you say, hockey romance is like a big genre, and I think it's especially taken off on TikTok, and there are certain BookTokers who are like known for their love of hockey romance, and there's like a player on the Seattle…

Melissa: Kraken.

Doree: Kraken. 

Courtney: Really? Woooow.

Doree: Thank you. 

Courtney: Amazing.

Doree: Who, like, a few of them are very obsessed with. And Seattle was like leaning into this. Invited the Book Toker to come see a game. And then she posted about it. And then the player's wife? Melissa, correct me if I'm getting any of this wrong. 

Melissa: I just can’t remember — he's not actually like a character in the romance, but I think, I feel, I don't remember if there's fanfic about him, but there's something that he gets really roped into this.

Doree: Yes, and she was like, hey, this is starting to feel like not cool the way you guys are talking about my husband. And then, like all hell broke loose and there were a couple of BookTokers who she didn't name in her Instagram story, but then the one that she did name was a Black woman and so then it started having all of these bad racial overtones, and it just spiraled from there. Am I forgetting anything? 

Melissa: No, I think that all these women had been objectifying her husband to the point that she felt uncomfortable and decided to say something about it. And probably not a great idea.

Doree: The BookTok community did not take kindly to this suggestion, and I don't know. 

Courtney: That's fascinating.

Doree: So, apparently it became a big deal. I came to it after it had been unfolding because I don't follow these I don't follow these people, I wasn't really familiar with it, but some people who do had told me about it, and I was like, oh my god. I think Vulture wrote about it, The Cut, it was like written about, and I don't know what the status of it is now. But anyway, yes, hockey romance. 

Melissa: Hockey romances, and yeah, they're strange. 

Melissa: Circling back to Amish romances, is that rumspringa is a very important time in a person's life before they decide to settle down and join the church of their own free will, where they can go and get a cell phone and a job and take carriage rises with people of the opposite sex for fun and milk any cows they want. Amish romances are fantastic too, because the romance part is really like, “I was taking care of my father and I did not have time to milk my own cows after the death of my beloved husband who left me with six children to raise on my own and a gentle gentleman farmer down the road whose wife had also died was milking my cow and his gentle smile brought me joy.” And you're like, “Romance!” Love it. Highly recommend. They all pretty much have the exact same plot. It's amazing. 

Doree: Well, that's comforting in a way.

Melissa: Romspringa is important. And I think having a sexual romspringa, whether that's when you're 17, 18 year old or whether you're someone who just like moves to a new city or someone who gets out of a long-term relationship: go sow your wild oats. The Amish would do it. You should do it too. I don't know if rumspringa is cultural appropriation or not, but the concept of it is very appealing. 

Doree: The concept of it, yeah. And in a way it worked in the sense of after a few months I was like, I'm exhausted. This isn't that fun. 

Melissa: So you then decided to rejoin the church. Yeah, basically that's how I works for the Amish too. 

Doree: Yeah, I had to modulate. And realize that I wasn't 25, and staying out till four was very tiring for me. 

Courtney: That's a weird thing in your 30s to realize that though, especially if you still live in a big city and you're like, “Okay, what is fun? What actually do I do for fun now? Who am I?” 

Doree: Totally, totally. I was living in New York and it was easy to do that. 

Melissa: Yeah, I have never, in my entire life, I've been one of those people who likes to stay up until 4 in the morning. Ever. 

Doree: Melissa, I was not one of those people either! 

Courtney: I was 100 percent one of those people. 

Doree: It was like I was having an out-of-body experience. It was like, I don't know, it was very strange.

Courtney: Okay, something we frequently ask people, and I want to ask in this case because this is such a particular time of life, also a very particular time in music: what do you feel? Like what comes up for you when you listen to that song now?

Doree: It does catapult me back to that time. In particular, I think about going on runs in Fort Greene Park. There was like a little path that went all the way around the park that I think was like a third of a mile or something. Like it wasn't that long, but I would run around it many times listening to this one running playlist that I had made on my little like iPod Shuffle. So I like think about that and then I think about this guy. Oh yeah, and he didn't eat carbs. He only ate a lot of meat. 

Melissa: Oh, one of those people. 

Doree: He was one of those people. And so then I think about that and just how into him I was and how ambivalent he was about me. And I'm like, ugh. And there's something about the poppiness and the way that song feels happy in a way that I just wasn't that summer, so the vibes are very at odds with each other. 

Melissa: And you would listen to it while you were running? Like you were training to run away. 

Courtney: Oh, shadow work happening right now.

Doree: It’s true tho.

Melissa: Everyone who’s running, it's because they need to escape something at some point. 

Doree: I was definitely trying to escape something for sure. And running in circles, also probably symbolic. 

Melissa: Deeply.  Jogging is truly the most symbolic act. And if you're on a treadmill? Don't even get me started. 

Courtney: If only they'd had jogging in Freud's time. I have a theory that people put all of their guilty pleasure songs on their workout playlists. Like all the stuff that they know they probably shouldn't be listening to, and they shouldn't be like clouding up their algorithm with. 

Doree: Oh, interesting. 

Courtney: They throw it on their workout playlist so they can listen to it when they have to do something. Maybe I do that, and I'm just projecting onto everyone else, but that's where I listen to Kylie Minogie’s “Padam Padam.”

Melissa: So does Obama though, so you good.

Doree: I guess if you don't generally listen to a lot of uptempo pop music, your workout playlist is the logical place where that would live, right? If everything else you're listening to sounds like, I don't know, The National, it doesn't make sense for a “Teenage Dream” to be like that. On the same playlist, but I try not to think about anything in pop culture as like a guilty pleasure. It's just, we contain multitudes. Like we can like many different kinds of music and they can live on whatever playlist we want them to. 

Courtney: I think  that's a beautiful sentiment. I definitely don't share it. Some shit is shit and I know better than to consume it, but I like it anyway. And I will listen to it.

Melissa: I only work out to Gregorian chants.

Doree: That doesn't seem that motivating. 

Courtney: I believe that. I, I believe that. It's something about the harmonies. 

Melissa: Yeah. And I'm not having fun. So why pretend?

Courtney: Melissa and I were/are, who knows if it's still happening, in this playlist club together with some other ladies and the whole thing fell apart this summer when somebody asked for workout playlists. I was like, I decline to participate.

Doree: Oh no. How does a playlist group work? 

Courtney: It rotates and somebody's in charge every month and picks a theme.

Doree: Oh, wow. 

Courtney: Theoretically every month. It usually takes us like two months to all get our shit together. And then everyone else makes a playlist and there are certain rules that are flexible. Like, it's usually no more than 14 tracks, but closer to 10. No repeated artists. You can't repeat other people's songs. So, if they get their playlist in before you, you cannot use their songs. And you have to meet the due dates. That's pretty much it.

Melissa: Yeah, it's super fun. We should bring it back. But also, if we don't bring it back, I would just like to point out that I won the last one.

Courtney: That's true. 

Melissa: So really, if we go out, I can just claim this forever. if it comes back, I no longer can. 

Courtney: How does one win the workout playlist judging is my question. Like when that theme went around, I was like, how do I have to work out to all eight of these playlists and decide which one was the most effective? No, bad theme. 

Melissa: Yeah, I do like the theory that workout playlists are just upbeat pop songs and or Gregorian chants. But yeah, if you have to motivate yourself that much to get doing something, but then also it doesn't seem you should be doing it, in my opinion. I'm also not an avid exerciser. I do not exercise by choice. I do the bare minimum to stay alive and put off the inevitable death as long as humanly possible. 

Doree: Look, that's fine. 

Melissa: But I do like it a good workout playlist. It's fun to see like what other people might be listening to.

Melissa: I want to talk about Forever 35. 

Courtney: Tell us all your secrets first. No, I'm just kidding.

Melissa: Yeah, I think everyone should know your skin is glowing. 

Doree: Oh, thank you so much. 

Melissa: I remember when you guys first launched this. And you just seem to have built this incredible community of people who are just adamantly interested, not only in what you're doing, but just in talking to each other and helping each other. Could you give just a two-line summary of what it is for people who may not know? 

Doree: So Forever 35 is, we call it a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. And so it started as like a, we're two smart ladies who like to talk about beauty stuff and we would get deep into skincare. And then it expanded into self-care more broadly defined. I think that we do try to take a kind of critical view of a lot of quote unquote wellness trends. And we have guests on now a couple of times a month. And if we wanted to, we could interview a sort of like a wellness quack, I guess you could say, we could interview hundreds of them. And we have very much tried to like avoid that whole world. So, we've been doing it for, it'll be six years in January, which is just a lot of time and a lot of episodes, a lot of talking, a lot of me talking. 

Melissa: Have you gotten used to the sound of your own voice yet? 

Doree: I, before I started doing podcasting and I was working more regularly as a journalist and I would listen back to my interviews and transcribe them and it was so painful to listen to my own voice. Everything I said, I was like, oh god, oh, cringe. I can't believe I said that way. Oh my gosh. I use so many objections or I didn't let the person finish talking or I was very critical of my voice and of my interview style and everything. And podcasting has just like completely gotten rid of that because I think because I'm doing so much talking that if I got hung up on every little thing I said, it would just be sort of debilitating. So no, I don't hate the sound of my own voice anymore. 

Melissa: It's great. I'm still working on it. I'm still in the, listening to my early days. 

Doree:  It was basically like exposure therapy. 

Melissa: So I know you guys try and generally avoid wellness quacks, but if Gwyneth Paltrow came to you and was like, I need to be on the podcast. What do you do with that?

Doree: I mean, I think we’d have her on. And we ask her about some of her more outlandish claims.

Courtney: You would be the first people to do that, I think.

Doree: Yeah, I think we, we would absolutely have to have her on if she were pitched to us, yeah.

Melissa: Would you feel like you'd need to try many of her products beforehand?

Doree: I can't afford to try many of her products.

Melissa:  Fair, very fair.

Courtney: I'd like to put it out there that if Katy Perry wants to be on this podcast, we will of course have you on. I'm going to have some serious questions about a lot of things.

Doree: I mean, I bet she would have a lot to say on this particular topic. 

Courtney: Oh, I know she's had songs ruined by an ex, for sure, for sure. 

Melissa: And then, Dory, just as a fan of your books, do you have another book that you're working on? Because you've written two so far, Startup and Thank You for Waiting. 

Doree: Thanks for Waiting, which is a memoir about being a late bloomer. And yes, I've been working on a, on another novel, very slow, really, really taking my time with this one. In a way that I think is driving my agent crazy. But that's the season of life I'm in right now. This shit is taking a long time, but yes, I'm slowly working on something new.

Melissa: Which is good to hear, but I feel like you have so much going on. Your agent can just get in line. 

Doree: Yeah, exactly. 

Courtney: That's what they love to be told.

Doree:  They're like, wait a second, wait, no, I'm trying to like make money for you. 

Courtney: I work on commission. I gonna need you to hurry up. 

Doree: Exactly. 

Courtney: I just love that your song is Katy Perry. That song also takes me back to a specific time and place of nothing romantic, just like where I was. It's so vivid because that song was so huge.

Doree: It was everywhere. Yes, it was everywhere. It came on the radio. It was like when you have, when you smell something and it like transports you back. I was like, gasp because I hadn't heard it in like years. Or maybe I in a store? And I heard it like, whatever, somewhere where I had not selected it to be heard. And I was just like, ugh! I just had such a like immediate visceral reaction to it. 

Courtney: And  this is such a strong time for pop music, like 2008 to 2012, just full of classics and bangers and Gaga and Beyonce and Katy. And it was so interesting how much I was hearing the voices of women after not for a long time. That was nice, actually. 

Melissa: But Katy Perry's good at that too. I was just thinking back when “Firework” came on in the car, I've been really into listening to the radio lately and just letting the universe tell me what I'm going to be listening to. And it could be some mild decision fatigue coming into play where I like cannot possibly choose what to listen to so the radio can just do it for me. But that song is so evocative of a wedding that I went to. And just looking up and everyone was on the dance floor and it was just this funny like intergenerational moment with the lights and the sounds and just transported me back so quickly. And it's funny because I feel like you don't necessarily think about lighthearted pop music as being that powerful, but it really can be.

Melissa: Related to your book about late bloomers. How long do people generally have to wait to bloom? Because I feel like I'm still in my early bloom. Not quite there yet.

Doree: Yeah, so that book came out two years ago and I feel like since that book came out I have not regressed but I have been like, I wrote this book prematurely. So, maybe you're not meant to write a book like that until you're like 80. 

Melissa: Oh, interesting. 

Doree:  I don't know. The answer is I don't have a great answer for you. I think it's a state of mind. But, as I talk about in the book, the idea of reaching certain milestones, quote unquote, had been so ingrained in me that I think that I thought that once I had gotten married and had a kid and had a successful podcast, I was like, check, check, check, okay, I'm good. And now, two years later, I'm like… 

Melissa: Maybe blooming is just an ongoing process. 

Doree: I think, I think it's also like, you bloom, your petals fall off. You regenerate, you…it's not a total upward trajectory, right? 

Courtney: I like that idea of the petals falling off. That's a nice metaphor.

Doree: Just to continue with the blooming metaphor, maybe after I write my novel, I'll write a book about how I was wrong about late blooming. I'm like, I'm in my petal falling off era, but...

Courtney: It's called perimenopause. Look it up. 

Melissa: Yeah. It's interesting. I was, I was on the phone yesterday with this woman named Trixie Markin, who you can Google her. She is absolutely amazing. She's 80 something years old, lived this incredibly fantastic life. Just you can't even imagine everything that she has been through and everything that she has done. And I was on the phone because I was trying to convince her to let me do a podcast episode about her, because she really has like the most fascinating musical history. Been in Rolling Stone, met every single musician you can think of, just fantastic life. And she's just, I, you know, I really like what you're doing. I really enjoy what you've said. I like the purpose, but I just, I don't want to. I'm comfortable being out of the spotlight. I don't want to be in the spotlight anymore and I'm done. And she's like, I know another great person you can interview. Go talk to her instead. I'm going to shine the light on this woman. 

Doree: I love that.

Melissa: I know. It was just so great where she's so comfortable, like she's in full bloom. She's so comfortable with who she is and everything that she has done and she doesn't need to talk about it anymore.

 

Courtney: I love that. Where's my self-actualization like that at? 

Doree:  Right? 

Courtney: Goddamn, what is all this therapy for?

Melissa: I know, I'm like, Trixie, go write a book. Tell us how to achieve this because it's amazing. 

Courtney: She doesn't want to, although I think this advice might be lost on a bunch of people that, that are writing and trying to get the most maximum number of people to read their writing in the world. It's a little unbelievable.

Melissa: Oh no,I only write on very obscure topics that no one would ever read.

Courtney: You only write when you have to go into the Scandinavian forest with a tape player on to write about it. 

Melissa: That is true. None of us want to read anything. The other one has written whatsoever. 

Doree: That's amazing. 

Courtney: I do want that sea shanties paper though, please, it sounds very interesting.

Melissa: I assure you it probably wasn't. But yeah, it's just funny how you can develop these little niches that literally you're going to find your audience. 

Doree: Yes. 

Courtney: Thank you for joining our roundtable and playing the role of Dorothy Parker today, Doree.

Doree: Thank you for having me. I feel like I do now have enough distance on that situation to talk about it and think about it in a way that, that doesn't make me like cringe at my past self. You know, like I more have like empathy for that person.

Courtney: That's great. That's good. 

Doree: Yeah, but that took me a while. Like, probably till 9 a.m. this morning. No, I'm just kidding.

Melissa: And where can people find you on the internet? 

Doree: They can find Forever 35 wherever they get their podcasts. I am @Doree on Twitter, where I'm not posting very often, but I'm there. And on Instagram, and then my website is Doree-Shafrir.com. I lost my actual name in an unfortunate GoDaddy incident several years ago.

Melissa: Oh, it's like me and my Gmail address. I lost my actual name at Gmail and then, cause then my backup address for it was like lost in a password situation. I've never gotten it back. And I'm just like, someone out there is getting all my emails. 

Doree: It just is what it is. I could buy it back for $3,000 and I'm like, you know what? Not worth it. 

Melissa: The dash lives. 

Doree: The dash lives on. The dash lives on. 

Melissa: But thank you so much for coming on our show and we will, of course, be listening to Forever 35. 

Courtney:  Of course.