405: Gettin’ Real Real

How do you plan for the year ahead? Where is John going on tour? Why do my hands clap louder when freshly lotioned? How do I deal with getting a bad grade? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected]. Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01John Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly podcast.

• 0:09Hank Green?

  Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

• 0:12John Green?

  Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.

• 0:15Hank Green?

  It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I, for Christmas, got a brand new monitor. This is a true story.

• 0:27John Green?

  Oh, cool.

• 0:27Hank Green?

  So you know what my New Year's resolution is?

• 0:31John Green?

  1080p?

• 0:32Hank Green?

  4K, baby!

• 0:33John Green?

  Oh, congratulations. You're really living the dream. I'm gonna take off my ski jacket.

• 0:39Hank Green?

  It's very loud. I'm glad you're doing that.

• 0:40John Green?

  It's real cold outside, and there's also eight inches of snow. So I've been engaging in a uniquely Midwestern tradition called golf cart sledding with my children, where I drag them around behind a golf cart.

• 0:56Hank Green?

  That's great. I went regular sledding, and a uniquely Montanan tradition occurred where everyone kept saying how warm it was.

• 1:05John Green?

  Oh, I love that. No, it's not warm here. It's like 20 degrees. It's plenty cold.

• 1:10Hank Green?

  Yeah, it was like 34, and everyone was like, "God, it's so warm."

• 1:15John Green?

  Yeah, not our problem. And plus, with the wind whipping through your face when you're golf carting, it really cools the core.

• 1:24Hank Green?

  I bet. It's been a very weird winter here. We just got our first big snow. It had snowed like less than a quarter inch until January, but it is now time to shovel, and I've been shoveling, and my back hurts, also because I went sledding, and that also hurt my back. There's a year at which you stop sledding, but I'm not there yet.

• 1:48John Green?

  You're close, though, because I'm there. I'm there. It's right around the corner. It's like when you start to need bifocals. It's the same age.

• 1:56Hank Green?

  I don't know. There was a bunch of guys older than me sledding, but they also look like the kind of guys who do other things besides sledding.

• 2:03John Green?

  Right. Yeah, they're into CrossFit.

• 2:06Hank Green?

  Yeah, they might CrossFit. They definitely cross-country things, whether that's skiing or running or mandolin playing. They look like they could play a mandolin.

• 2:18John Green?

  Yeah. No, I hear you. I can imagine Montana people who look like they they can play a mandolin and like to sled. Very different from the Indiana golf cart sledding crowd.

• 2:26Hank Green?

  Very different. Yeah. I think there are foods that I I have eaten in the last day that they have not eaten in the last 10 years.

• 2:35John Green?

  Sure.

• 2:36Hank Green?

  And probably vice versa.

• 2:37John Green?

  Should we do the McElroy Brothers thing where we give the year a special name? Or should we leave that to our esteemed colleagues?

• 2:42Hank Green?

  It's so good. It's my favorite. It's my favorite episode of the year.

• 2:46John Green?

  I just listened. The new one just came out.

• 2:49Hank Green?

  I haven't. I haven't heard it yet.

• 2:50John Green?

  It's great. I think we should go with 2020 Vibes.

• 2:55Hank Green?

  We're just gonna steal like their second one down?

• 2:58John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of their most obvious ones. One of the ones that they dismiss immediately. Yeah.

• 3:03Hank Green?

  Because they have to get to Fungalore, who I do love. And I like, I wanna, I want there to be a whole series of Fungalore graphic novels, but I guess we're beyond Fungalore now.

• 3:15John Green?

  2020 Knives is another interesting one.

• 3:18Hank Green?

  They discarded?

• 3:19John Green?

  To to consider.

• 3:21Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 3:21John Green?

  2020 Vibes, though.

• 3:23Hank Green?

  What about just 2020 Knife?

• 3:26John Green?

  What I what I like about 2020 Vibes is that it's evoking the vibes of 2020, the best year ever.

• 3:38Hank Green?

  Right. 2020 Vibes sounds like, ah, we're gonna vibe. And then you listen to it a little more closely and you're like, oh, no.

• 3:46John Green?

  We're gonna vibe.

• 3:47Hank Green?

  Oh, I don't want the 2020 Vibes.

• 3:50John Green?

  No.

• 3:51Hank Green?

  Those are some of the worst vibes.

• 3:53John Green?

  Do you have any New Year's resolutions? This is our first question. It's from Ed.

• 3:57Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 3:58John Green?

  And and Ed, Ed, by the way, writes in all capital letters. He not with anything else, but just with his name. So I guess his name is Ed.

• 4:09John Green?

  Dear John and Hank, time is a funny construct.

• 4:11Hank Green?

  No, no, no, no, no. You have to read it the way Ed wrote it. Dear John and Hank.

• 4:16John Green?

  No, he didn't. Nothing else is in capital letters. Just Ed.

• 4:20Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 4:21John Green?

  Dear John and Hank, time is a funny construct. As we wrap up another year, I'm curious what steps you're taking heading into a new one. How do you organize or plan for the many things you want to do in the coming year? I always feel like I have more interest in time to pursue them. You two seem similar, except much better at executing your pursuits. Resolution Revolution, Ed.

• 4:38Hank Green?

  Maybe his name is just erectile dysfunction and he shortened it.

• 4:42John Green?

  Maybe, maybe. Or it could be Eric Dyson.

• 4:46Hank Green?

  Eric Dyson, the famous son of Freeman Dyson.

• 4:51John Green?

  No, I think Eric Dyson is a, uh, Michael Eric Dyson is.

• 4:55Hank Green?

  Ah, the vacuum guy. Oh, okay.

• 4:57John Green?

  No, not a vac- he's not the vacuum guy. He's a completely different person. He's a Baptist minister and radio host and professor at Vanderbilt.

• 5:05Hank Green?

  That's a lot of things. He also has many interests. I bet he also plays the [BLEEP] mandolin and eats good for you food.

• 5:14John Green?

  First off, don't curse. You gotta come up with something else.

• 5:17Hank Green?

  And I bet he's in great shape.

• 5:19John Green?

  Yeah, he seems like he's in reasonable good shape.

• 5:21Hank Green?

  Saxophone. I wanna play the saxophone. I wanna play the saxophone. I wanna play the drums. I want, there's so many things that I wanna do, but none of those are my New Year's resolution. My New Year's resolution is 4K. No.

• 5:33John Green?

  4K? What's that mean?

• 5:35Hank Green?

  Are you [BLEEP] joking right now?

• 5:36John Green?

  Oh, I'm sorry. I, I'm sorry. Stop cursing.

• 5:42Hank Green?

  We're gonna, we're gonna bleep that one.

• 5:44John Green?

  It's a family-friendly podcast. I don't, it's not hard to not curse.

• 5:48Hank Green?

  It's not even gonna have any noise on the either end.

• 5:52John Green?

  Okay. All right. Good.

• 5:54Hank Green?

  Yeah, I agree, and I will work hard to not. Uh, John.

• 5:59John Green?

  That's Ed. Hank's first New Year's resolution is to curse less on the podcast, so we don't have to make tuna bleep stuff.

• 6:05Hank Green?

  Have effed up. Orin says effed sometimes, and I'm like, that's also not allowed.

• 6:11John Green?

  Yeah, it's right on the line.

• 6:12Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:13John Green?

  Like, I don't mind if my 14-year-old son says it, but I mind it if Orin says it.

• 6:17Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah, he's not. You can't like bust that out in the classroom.

• 6:22John Green?

  I'll tell you, speaking of busting it out, when Alice went to the Olivia Rodrigo concert with me, Olivia Rodrigo has some bad words, or I shouldn't say bad words, naughty words in her, um, in her music, of course.

• 6:36Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 6:37John Green?

  And Alice belted it, belted it fearlessly.

• 6:40Hank Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:43John Green?

  It was beautiful to see.

• 6:44Hank Green?

  Yeah, that's the, that's totally appropriate, I think.

• 6:48John Green?

  Hank and I are not nearly as good at doing all the things that we do as we seem like we are. Uh, we do not have things nearly under the level of control that we appear to have things under. We are in a constant, we are in a constant battle to keep our heads above water and we are really stressed out all the time. And I feel like it's a disservice to our community to pretend otherwise.

• 7:15Hank Green?

  I agree, and I, but I don't really know how to do it. Like, part of me wants to, like, ju- like, even for the teams, like, for the people who work with us, I feel like that, like, I want to keep up the illusion.

• 7:27John Green?

  Right.

• 7:28Hank Green?

  Uh, but I, I, you know, I, well, we're, let's get real, maybe 20, maybe our first, maybe it's 2020.

• 7:39John Green?

  Less.

• 7:41Hank Green?

  Oh, and this is actually the title of his, of a script I've written. Um, uh, it's called How to Do Less with Less. Um, and I, I will probably finish that and bust that out sometime soon. But maybe our, our first episode of the year is the one where we get real, real. So here's my real, real situation, if it's okay for me to get real, real, which is that I am

• 8:02John Green?

  Get real.

• 8:03Hank Green?

  Uh, I'm now in basically the peak season for relapse, if I'm going to relapse, which is not like a calm thing. I remember when I first Finished treatment. I was really worried that I still had cancer and, and I like talked about that with my doctor and he was like, oh, if you relapse, it's not going to be now. It's going to be in like a year and a half. And, and so you're going to be really worried right now because you've just gone through it and you like experience, like you're very close to the trauma and, and all, he's a great doctor. But like a year and a half from now is when you like, I need to see you, you need to be taking care of yourself. Like that's, and like, part of that is because it takes a little while for the cells to, you know,

• 8:45Hank Green?

  duplicate to the point where they're detectable. The part of it is just that like, uh, it's like, little things go wrong over time. And so if the, if like little things go wrong, then any microscopic cancer that might've been there can have some chances to come back. And he was also, one of the things he said was, tried to not be too stressed out because that's one of the chief risk factors for relapse. And like-

• 9:13John Green?

  I love it when people tell me not to stress out and then tell me, hey, in 18 months, you might get cancer. But don't worry about it because that would make it more likely that you're going to get cancer again. But do, do know that you, if you're going to get it, you're going to get it, you're going to get it.

• 9:29Hank Green?

  But I was a lot better at controlling my stress right afterward because like, one, I looked really sick, so no one bothered me about anything. I felt like I was, you know, I started to already take, I, I had taken care of like the big worry in my life.

• 9:44John Green?

  Yeah.

• 9:44Hank Green?

  And, uh, and so like, that was the big worry in my life and all of the other, you know, all the other contexts that I exist inside of that contain worries were minimized and not, were not very present in my mind. And now, a year and a half later, as I have like, and like, you know, from, from here, it doesn't like disappear after a year and a half. It just sort of slowly tapers off until at five years, you're at roughly the background rate or like, actually like 10 times the background rate, but low enough that they call you, uh, call you cured. And, and so like, I'm like, sitting in bed, being stressed out about work, but then being stressed out that I'm stressed out because

• 10:27Hank Green?

  I, I'm worried that I'm like increasing my chances of relapse at the moment when my chances of relapse are highest. And I'm like, oh, like last night, I had this moment where I was like standing, sitting in bed and I felt a lot better when I had the thought, you know what's more important? And like, everybody agrees is that you take, is that like you survive, is that you don't have to do more cancer treatment? Like, I probably would survive more like, I probably would, even if I relapsed, it probably would be able to cure me. But I would have lifelong disability from the treatment. I'd have to get a bone marrow transplant. And that's just like lifelong, like you'd never recover all the way from a bone marrow transplant. And so like, I just really don't want that. And I like, really like myself. And I think that I should like,

• 11:12Hank Green?

  be around to help with stuff. And I'm like, and if I can just like, stay in the mindset where I'm like, okay, like, I have to take care of me right now. And I will do all the stuff I'm good at. But like, I can't be scared and worried all the time.

• 11:32John Green?

  Right.

• 11:33Hank Green?

  Yeah. And so like, I just have to, there's like a letting go almost. That's, that's, it's not just like letting go of the work, it's letting go of the, like, my feeling that if something breaks, that that's my responsibility. And if something breaks irreparably, that that's the end of the world.

• 11:56John Green?

  Right.

• 11:57Hank Green?

  Because what's the end of the world is like, you know, I don't want to be disabled by a bone marrow transplant. I don't want to die of cancer. Like, those are sort of like, bigger deals to my like, ability to have, I mean, no one, I don't need to convince anybody. But I like, do need to convince myself.

• 12:16John Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:16Hank Green?

  And that's the hard part.

• 12:18John Green?

  I don't want you to just not die of cancer, interestingly. I want you to not die of any cause. And

• 12:26Hank Green?

  It's true.

• 12:27John Green?

  Yeah. The way you have lived your life is

• 12:31Hank Green?

  Somewhat frenetically.

• 12:32John Green?

  Somewhat frenetically. And you have sought

• 12:36John Green?

  Stress in many ways. Now you've sought stress for, there's two things going on, right? Which is that you, you used to not feel stressed the way that you feel it now. Before cancer, you felt stressed differently. I can tell that from a distance.

• 12:51Hank Green?

  Yeah, I have had bad moments and hard stressful moments, but I have not had any that have felt the way that it has felt since

• 13:00John Green?

  Right.

• 13:01Hank Green?

  Recovery.

• 13:02John Green?

  Yeah. And it's felt that way like pretty often since recovery.

• 13:07Hank Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:07John Green?

  That's the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is that you're not as young as you used to be. You're 45 years old. Like you're,

• 13:17Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:17John Green?

  You know, 10 years from a reasonable time at which reasonable people retire if they're lucky.

• 13:23Hank Green?

  Yeah, I guess. People retire at 55. Do they do that? Why would they do that?

• 13:30John Green?

  I'm gonna do it. So just so you're prepared, just so you're prepared that this podcast is gonna be called Dear John and Hank for like three years, and then it's gonna be called Dear Hank.

• 13:45Hank Green?

  Hello, and welcome to Me and Me.

• 13:48John Green?

  Today we're gonna talk about I'm gonna talk about my feelings.

• 13:53Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's January 1st. John's gonna join us for the special episode where we talk about our feelings.

• 13:58John Green?

  I think both those things are happening at the same time. I also think that like work as we understand it is very big. I mean, we're talking about not just like the work of, of, you know, trying to support these, these two different businesses that have a total of 120 or 130 employees. We're also talking about work in the sense of trying to support Nerd Fighteria, the community that actually matters the most to us, probably out of everything that we do and that enables so much of what we do. And we're talking about the work of making podcasts and video blogs and, you know, writing books and doing the things that we do, you know, to, to support our families. And we're talking about, when we, when we talk about work,

• 14:43John Green?

  we're also talking about like a lot of how we live our lives because that's just not that separate from work.

• 14:49Hank Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:50John Green?

  Like when people ask me, how many hours a week do you work? I'm like, I don't even know how to answer that question because I don't know where the line is.

• 14:56Hank Green?

  Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Like I, I like, well, I also really enjoy a lot of it. Like, yeah, of course, like I work. Doing research on how viruses first evolved. Does that work or is that just, is that just my interests?

• 15:11John Green?

  Doing that anyway.

• 15:12Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:12John Green?

  I'm interested in that regardless. I do think it's interesting, by the way, that DNA viruses evolved separately from RNA viruses. And the DNA viruses, if I'm not mistaken, from what I read that you wrote, the DNA viruses chose to become less complex. They chose to abandon life as we know it and become viruses. Now, I know you're going to say they didn't choose it, John. It just happened because of evolutionary imperatives, John. But they chose it. They were like, I don't like the complexity of my bacteriological life. I will become a virus.

• 15:45Hank Green?

  Yeah. You know, I, I had the thought this morning and I, there's.

• 15:48John Green?

  I will become literally less alive.

• 15:51Hank Green?

  This is just a hypothesis that I don't know if anyone has had. Um, and there isn't, uh, any research on it. Whether or not a DNA virus might be descended from a contagious cancer. Because of course I'm reading this cancer book and so I'm thinking a lot about cancer in every single frame that every time anything comes up, I'm like.

• 16:11John Green?

  Everything is cancer.

• 16:13Hank Green?

  Could it have started out, could have, could a virus have started out as a contagious cancer and then sort of like slowly, well, probably not, by the way. I don't think that this, this is not, there are several hypotheses of how viruses first evolved. And one of them is that they, they were like an early form of life that is just like a different piece on the tree of life. And our, like, you can argue about whether viruses are alive or not. And, uh, but, but the leading theory, I think, is that it's just sort of a piece of our genomes or our DNA or RNA that sort of like got out and figured out how to replicate itself. But the thing about contagious cancers is that they start out with the genome of the organism

• 16:58Hank Green?

  organism that they first arose in and then they slowly shed a tremendous amount of because they don't need, you know, for like it evolves from a dog. It doesn't need to like have like fur genes. It just needs to have like replicate genes and survive genes and like recruit uh blood vessel genes. But it um so probably that but like I mean, that's the stuff I will I will always do that work and I'm so happy to do it.

• 17:27John Green?

  Right. Well, and maybe this is what it's about in the end, Hank, is that like we've set up a lot of complicated systems and processes that enable not just us to do that work, but lots of other people to also do similar.

• 17:39Hank Green?

  Right. And to have much bigger impact than we can have alone.

• 17:43John Green?

  Absolutely. Right. Like Good Store has raised more money for Partners in Health than we could ever raise alone. Complexly and Crash Course have done much more for education than we could ever do alone. Like, all of that stuff is is true. At the same time, um, all that stuff is adding to your stress and I'm I'm concerned about it. And so I think that I I think that 2025 should be the year of of 2020 less.

• 18:10Hank Green?

  2020 alive.

• 18:13John Green?

  2020 alive.

• 18:16John Green?

  2020.

• 18:20John Green?

  Tithes?

• 18:21Hank Green?

  2020 tithes.

• 18:22John Green?

  All your wealth, 20% of all your wealth to to charity?

• 18:26Hank Green?

  I mean, I'm probably gonna hit that. Yeah.

• 18:28John Green?

  Okay.

• 18:28Hank Green?

  10%.

• 18:29John Green?

  2020 2020 tithes.

• 18:30Hank Green?

  2025. All right.

• 18:32John Green?

  2020 less, 2020 tithes. Uh, those are that's it. Those are our goals, Ed. Ed.

• 18:36Hank Green?

  Oh, oh, oh, 2020 lives. It's the year where we

• 18:42Hank Green?

  get that shape.

• 18:44John Green?

  It is the year where I'm going to be in front of more people than I've been in front of in many, many, many years because I will be traveling nonstop. I have over 100 days of travel this year, Hank. In fact, when this podcast comes out, I will have announced my tour for Everything is Tuberculosis, which is taking me all over, all over the United States.

• 19:03Hank Green?

  You don't say that you will have. You can do it now.

• 19:06John Green?

  All right, hold on, hold on.

• 19:08Hank Green?

  This question comes from Hank. John, where are you gonna go on tour during your Everything is Tuberculosis tour that you were doing, unfortunately without me, because I got an amazing opportunity that I cannot yet talk about?

• 19:20John Green?

  I'm gonna be in Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm gonna be in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in New York, New York, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in Washington, District of Columbia, in Atlanta, Georgia, in Iowa City, Iowa, in St. Louis, Missouri, in lovely Dallas, Texas, Houston, Texas, Boulder, Colorado, San Mateo, California, and Seattle, Washington State.

• 19:39Hank Green?

  And then you're not doing anything in California? Brave.

• 19:43John Green?

  I, I said San Mateo, California.

• 19:45Hank Green?

  Oh, you did. That doesn't count.

• 19:48John Green?

  I'm not doing anything in Los Angeles. They don't care about TV there.

• 19:52Hank Green?

  They don't care. I thought you said TV, and I was like, they care very much about TV.

• 19:56John Green?

  They care a lot about TV. No, I don't know why I'm not going to LA this tour, except that that is plenty. That is so many stops.

• 20:03Hank Green?

  Yeah, LA is far away, and they got a lot of me in the last couple of years, so.

• 20:07John Green?

  Yeah, that's true. I am going, I will be doing many more events than just these events, in fact. I will be doing, I will, I will be visiting Harvard, I will be visiting lots of Colby College in Maine. I'm going all over the place, Hank. It's a, it's a, it's a nonstop adventure.

• 20:26Hank Green?

  Hi. So 2020 Live for John?

• 20:29John Green?

  2020 Live, baby.

• 20:31Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 20:31John Green?

  2020 in person.

• 20:33Hank Green?

  2020 Live in person.

• 20:36John Green?

  Yeah, I'm pretty nervous about all this travel. Speaking of my resolutions and my anxieties, not as intense as your anxieties. I mean, but I haven't been very well. Ed, the truth is, we're not doing great.

• 20:53Hank Green?

  I don't, it's very hard for me to not laugh because I just am trying to shed it, but it is true.

• 20:59John Green?

  It's true and it's funny. It can be both. It's allowed to be both. When I tell, when I tell Ed, I'm not doing great. It's allowed to be both.

• 21:06Hank Green?

  Yeah, okay.

• 21:08John Green?

  Oh, Ed, I don't know how to, I don't know how to do more while also retaining one sanity, Ed. I'll be honest with you.

• 21:15Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, here's what I'll say also is that I, this is my resolution, which I talked about in my Vokbrother video, is that I want to spend more time with people who I have deeper relationships with and less time with people who I have weird sort of internet mediated,

• 21:35Hank Green?

  two-way, but, you know, through screen relationships with.

• 21:41John Green?

  Sure.

• 21:41Hank Green?

  Not that I don't like, sort of like the, those relationships and find them valuable, but I, there's just a lot of people who I like, actually, who I really like, who really like me, who I think, trust, that, like, who like get me in a different way. It's not about my work.

• 22:03John Green?

  Yeah. No, I mean, Hank, I think I had to grapple with this. You're becoming the green brother to bait, right? Like Mark Cuban just baited you on Blue Sky, which is an achievement for anybody.

• 22:14Hank Green?

  Mildly, mildly.

• 22:15John Green?

  Mild baiting, but like he went, he went out of his way to type your username into Blue Sky.

• 22:20Hank Green?

  It's weird. He doesn't even follow me.

• 22:22John Green?

  No, but he thinks about you.

• 22:24Hank Green?

  Apparently.

• 22:25John Green?

  And that's who you're becoming, right? Like you're becoming, and I was that, I know what that's like because I was that brother. And I got baited and I, you know, had to use the social internet with a, a certain amount of armor on. And it's exhausting. And I feel like that, like, to a lesser extent so far, and hopefully it'll stay that way, but like, you're becoming that, like, you're becoming, you know, somebody that people both like look up to and admire. And when lots of people look up to you and admire you, you also become sort of a punching bag for another group of people. And that's exhausting. It's exhausting both to be like wrongly imagined as more than

• 23:08John Green?

  human, as like some great, you know, 10 out of 10 human being. And it's exhausting to be treated and imagined as trash. Like, they're both exhausting. And so I think it's a great idea to spend more time with people who know you in real life and know you as who you are, and spend less time.

• 23:29Hank Green?

  Right. Which is why me and my buddy Mark Cuban are gonna go to basketball games together.

• 23:33John Green?

  I think that'd be great. I think that'd be great. I'm going to Dallas, so hopefully Mark Cuban will be there in the audience for Everything is Tuberculosis. I'd love to get him.

• 23:41Hank Green?

  I don't see why not. He's showing up in my mentions.

• 23:45John Green?

  I'd love to get you an advanced reader's copy of Everything is Tuberculosis. I think it'll really open your eyes. I do.

• 23:50Hank Green?

  I have his email address. But so does everyone.

• 23:54John Green?

  Yeah, I'm not gonna email him. That's a, that's not a good use of my one wild and precious life.

• 23:59Hank Green?

  Yeah, no, I agree. But if he would like to do tuberculosis advocacy work, we can point him in many of the right directions.

• 24:07John Green?

  We can. We can.

• 24:08Hank Green?

  I just met, while I was sledding, I met a couple of people who just arrived back in America from working in Lesotho on tuberculosis stuff. And I was like, my brother tells me all about Lesotho all the time.

• 24:20John Green?

  Yeah. It's the world capital of tuberculosis, unfortunately. I will say, it's also one of the world capitals of innovation around tuberculosis. Like, the head of PAH Lesotho has launched this incredible app that is like, is tracking software, and also like, that is able to, you know, every case of TB that's identified, it's able to keep track of that person. And like, I mean, not like literally, like with geolocators, but like, make sure that they're able to, you know, take their medicine and like, have the support that they need, that their close contacts were offered preventative care, all that stuff. And it's incredible. And now with AI chest x-rays that are reviewed by a radiologist, that are, you

• 25:02John Green?

  know, pretty reliable, it's really changing what's possible in TB diagnosis. And so I don't know. It's, yes, it's the center of tuberculosis suffering in the world, but it's also this, one of the centers of innovation around TB, which is often the case. And I think that part of the story sometimes gets ignored.

• 25:21Hank Green?

  That's really, uh, putting it on its head for me. Thank you.

• 25:28Hank Green?

  20 simplified.

• 25:31John Green?

  20 simplified.

• 25:33Hank Green?

  20 simplified.

• 25:35John Green?

  20 simplified.

• 25:36Hank Green?

  20 simplified.

• 25:39John Green?

  Yes.

• 25:41John Green?

  I was also thinking maybe like 2020 dive, a year where I try to go to more dive bars.

• 25:47Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:48John Green?

  Like real life interactions when drinking instead of just drinking and looking at the internet. Does that sound healthy? Not according to the surgeon general. This question comes from Missy who writes, Dear John and Hank. Why are my hands clappier when they're freshly lotioned than when they're dry? That is to say, the clap is louder and crisper than drier hands would produce. Hank, I wanted to read this question because I knew that we were going to forget to clap at the beginning of the podcast so they can sync the audio.

• 26:15John Green?

  So we got to clap now.

• 26:18Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 26:19John Green?

  And you'll notice that dry hand clap.

• 26:21Hank Green?

  Oh, terrible.

• 26:23John Green?

  It did lack a certain, let's do it again. No.

• 26:27Hank Green?

  No.

• 26:27John Green?

  It's okay.

• 26:28Hank Green?

  They're dry. They're real dry right now. I gotta put some chapstick on them.

• 26:32John Green?

  One of the reasons mine sounded okay was because my hands are sweaty, because my palms are sweaty, because we've been talking real talk and that always makes me anxious.

• 26:41Hank Green?

  Nervous, yeah.

• 26:42John Green?

  What about 2020 end dives?

• 26:45Hank Green?

  20, 20, 20.

• 26:49Hank Green?

  20 and dive?

• 26:51John Green?

  End dive. You know, the food.

• 26:55Hank Green?

  20 jump jive and whale ska and swing is back.

• 26:59John Green?

  I like it. I like, you've been predicting a resurgence of ska over and over again in the last few weeks. You've mentioned this to me like.

• 27:07Hank Green?

  I predicted a resurgence in ska in 2016. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't go with my thoughts on this.

• 27:16John Green?

  It's like how I've predicted a recession every year for the last 14 consecutive years.

• 27:20Hank Green?

  I mean, that's, that's, it's gotta happen eventually, right?

• 27:24John Green?

  No, I mean, it apparently not. I'm going to stop predicting a recession as of right now. 2020, John no longer predicts a recession.

• 27:31Hank Green?

  Oh, that's going to go great.

• 27:33John Green?

  It's going to go great.

• 27:35Hank Green?

  We have such a great track record of predicting large geopolitical events accurately on this podcast.

• 27:41John Green?

  I know, I know. Like when we said that out of all the future outcomes in the history of the world, there were only two in which Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee for president.

• 27:51Hank Green?

  Yeah, no, it's embarrassing.

• 27:54John Green?

  That was embarrassing.

• 27:54Hank Green?

  But really for America rather than for us.

• 27:57John Green?

  I think it's embarrassing the one time when like in February of 2020, and this wasn't on the regular podcast, I think this was on this week and stuff. I said that my biggest concern at the moment was that this whole coronavirus thing might affect Liverpool's ability to win the title.

• 28:11Hank Green?

  Oh, my God. I do, yeah.

• 28:14John Green?

  That was, that turns out to have been a little off tone.

• 28:16Hank Green?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah.

• 28:18John Green?

  I was underestimating the size of the catastrophe. Hank, why are hands clappier when they're freshly lotioned?

• 28:26Hank Green?

  Uh, there's gotta be, I think, I don't, well, here's the situation. I don't actually know why when you bring your hands together and quickly they make a noise.

• 28:38John Green?

  Why does clapping happen?

• 28:39Hank Green?

  Why does, so we have to start there. Why does clapping happen?

• 28:43John Green?

  Cause I just brought my hands together and nothing happened.

• 28:47Hank Green?

  Faster.

• 28:52John Green?

  And then, and then it's a totally different sound if I clasp my hands, as if I'm holding my hands instead of just do prayer hands.

• 29:00Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:02John Green?

  Why is all of this happening? I assume it's because air is being quickly forced.

• 29:07Hank Green?

  Hmm.

• 29:08John Green?

  I don't know.

• 29:09Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:10John Green?

  How does clapping work?

• 29:11Hank Green?

  I don't actually know, so.

• 29:17Hank Green?

  Ow!

• 29:18John Green?

  Sounds great.

• 29:19Hank Green?

  No, they, I think all those were bad, but okay.

• 29:23John Green?

  It sounds like clapping. What I'm trying to understand is what's physically happening.

• 29:27Hank Green?

  What's physically happening?

• 29:29John Green?

  Cause well, I don't, it's, it's true if I hit my, if I hit my face too. Like this is the sound of me smacking my own face.

• 29:34Hank Green?

  Sure, sure, yeah. It, it happens when you hit anything.

• 29:37John Green?

  And it happens when you hit, it happens when you hit a table, not just when you hit skin. So it's got nothing to do with skin. What it's got to do is something with the force. It's force. It's force equalling mass times acceleration.

• 29:48Hank Green?

  Is it a friction? Was it a friction thing? It, I don't actually know why the sound wave gets produced though.

• 29:56John Green?

  Hank and I were never great at physics.

• 29:58Hank Green?

  No.

• 29:58John Green?

  It was never Hank's best science.

• 30:00Hank Green?

  Waves are not my favorite, honestly. I don't love a wave. Uh, optics and.

• 30:05John Green?

  I get stressed out by the fact that the waves are going in all directions.

• 30:11Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 30:12John Green?

  Like, that means that they're potentially trying to go through me.

• 30:16Hank Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:16John Green?

  I don't like sound waves trying to go through me. That's none of their business. What's going on inside of me?

• 30:21Hank Green?

  Well, they're bouncing off and they do a little bit of.

• 30:24John Green?

  A little bit of them is getting a little bit inside of me.

• 30:27Hank Green?

  Yeah, you could absorb a bit of a sound wave.

• 30:30John Green?

  Don't like.

• 30:30Hank Green?

  Especially in your ears. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to do all the listening.

• 30:35John Green?

  I guess I don't mind that part. What I don't like is the idea that it's getting into my internal organs. I don't like anything that gets into my torso, my belly region. That's what stresses me out.

• 30:45Hank Green?

  Just imagine it like.

• 30:46John Green?

  Above my hips, but below my ribs. That part feels very vulnerable.

• 30:50Hank Green?

  It is.

• 30:51John Green?

  To sound waves and other.

• 30:53Hank Green?

  Yeah, imagine it just like the whatever's making the sound. So like me, maybe. Just give me a belly slaps.

• 31:01John Green?

  I don't like belly. I don't like any form of belly touches.

• 31:05Hank Green?

  No, it's like a it's like a good belly touch. This is like a real, like an actual touching of your belly.

• 31:15John Green?

  Missy, in our next episode, we are gonna go so deep into how clapping works, you won't even believe it, but we need to bokey to do some research for us.

• 31:24Hank Green?

  Bokey did. Look at this and said, I just don't know what to say. I'm struggling to find a good answer. I assume it's something about acoustics in water. It feels like when so.

• 31:39Hank Green?

  It feels like there's less ways to escape for the air. Your hands are more.

• 31:49Hank Green?

  Powerful. When your hands are wet or lotioned up, I think they have fewer gaps and that traps air more. But again, I don't know why clapping makes a noise at all.

• 31:59John Green?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Hank Green?

  Or why when one thing runs into another thing, it makes a noise. Like, if like a baseball bat hits a fence post, I get why that makes a noise. Because the metal or the wood is vibrating, but I don't feel like my hands are vibrating.

• 32:13John Green?

  They are, though. I can feel it when I clap.

• 32:17John Green?

  Come on, everybody, little clap.

• 32:19Hank Green?

  Come on, everybody, come give a little clap.

• 32:23Hank Green?

  You're kind of dressed like Tommy Strigley right now.

• 32:26John Green?

  Thanks. I appreciate that.

• 32:27Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 32:29John Green?

  Um, I feel like Tommy Strigley. Sometimes I like to invest a hundred thousand dollars and turn it into sixteen thousand dollars. It's one of my favorite jokes. For those of you who don't know, we're referencing a show on Dropout. And it's one of my favorite jokes of all time is a guy really confidently saying, I took that a hundred thousand dollars, I invested it and I turned it into sixteen thousand dollars. I can't even say it without laughing.

• 32:48Hank Green?

  He almost couldn't say it without laughing.

• 32:51John Green?

  It's such a perfect joke because I'm so tired of hearing people say like, all I needed was a hundred thousand dollar head start. And then I took that hundred thousand dollars, I invested it, I became a millionaire.

• 33:00Hank Green?

  You can also see the joke happen halfway through the sentence. Like he didn't know where he was going when he started.

• 33:07John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is magical. That's something that I love about improv comedy is the idea of like, you get to witness the birth of a thing.

• 33:14Hank Green?

  Yeah. You, you, you put your foot out over the cliff and hope that there's a break under there.

• 33:20John Green?

  Actually, that is my, uh, advice to Ed is just start. Like sometimes you just need to start. And I've been thinking about that because like, I've been in planning mode around everything is tuberculosis because the book's coming out and that means planning a book tour and planning all this other stuff and, um, I just want to start. I feel like sometimes you've just got to start. You've just got to go.

• 33:44Hank Green?

  Yeah. I mean, that's a lot of, a lot of stress I have is because things like when things like decisions can't get made, like everything slows down and you can't just start a thing.

• 33:56John Green?

  Right.

• 33:58Hank Green?

  That, I think that everybody struggles with that. Um, it's no fun for anybody.

• 34:04John Green?

  Yeah.

• 34:05Hank Green?

  But in my personal life, I could totally do that. Um, but I can't. I also, I personally can't start. Because when would that fit in?

• 34:16John Green?

  Yeah. You're, you're struggling right now.

• 34:19Hank Green?

  A new obligation, you know?

• 34:20John Green?

  No, not a new permanent obligation. You can maybe create a new short-term obligation.

• 34:25Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 34:26John Green?

  Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by long-term ongoing obligations, long-term ongoing obligations like this podcast.

• 34:33Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. Which I'm glad to have this one, but I, I don't need a new one. This podcast is also brought to you by Tommy Strigley. Tommy Strigley, get that protein powder, boy.

• 34:46John Green?

  If we're gonna sell so many dropout subscriptions.

• 34:50Hank Green?

  I mean, I'd be, I'm happy to.

• 34:51John Green?

  People are gonna feel so good about their choices.

• 34:53Hank Green?

  But then you can go watch my comedy special. You can watch Tommy Strickland's Very Important People, and you can watch me talk about cancer for an hour.

• 34:59John Green?

  Today's podcast is also, of course, brought to you by SoundWaves. SoundWaves, they're tickling your belly.

• 35:06Hank Green?

  I feel bad now. And this podcast is also brought to you by cancer treatment. Without it, we'd be in a different situation.

• 35:15John Green?

  We would be. We would probably not be making the pod.

• 35:20Hank Green?

  I don't know, man. I'd do it up until the end.

• 35:23John Green?

  I know you would, but I would insist upon having private conversations that we record and release later.

• 35:29Hank Green?

  Oh, wow. Posthumous podcasts.

• 35:31John Green?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:33Hank Green?

  2020 Not Alive.

• 35:35John Green?

  Hmm, don't love it.

• 35:41John Green?

  Much prefer 2020 Tithes.

• 35:42Hank Green?

  20 Post Alive.

• 35:45John Green?

  No, no. God, it's so dark in here.

• 35:51Hank Green?

  2020 Thrive.

• 35:53John Green?

  2020 Thrive, Hank. 2020 Thrive.

• 35:56Hank Green?

  Yeah. 20 Simplify.

• 35:59John Green?

  2020 Simplify is the one. 2020 Simplify is the one. All right.

• 36:04Hank Green?

  This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Quince. The things that you want in your closet are the things that when you open your closet, you think this is gonna look good and be easy. And it's gonna take care of itself, and I'm not really gonna have to worry about what pants or shoes I'm gonna wear with this. It's just gonna look good. I'm gonna look put together. And Quince specializes in finding that kind of thing to sell on their website. They focus on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, Italian leather, all timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays. Their cashmere sweaters start at $60, and everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut the middlemen out so that you can get

• 36:49Hank Green?

  luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag. And when it comes to gifting, Quince actually has a lot more than- Clothing, you've got fine jewelry, you've got leather bags, hotel-quality bedding, chef-grade cookware, and five-star luggage. Basically, plenty of ways to find something special for everybody on your list. So, give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know that it was Dear Hank A'John, because that's a good way to support the show. This episode of Dear Hank A'John is brought to you by Factor. There's so many meals that

• 37:30Hank Green?

  we have to work on and enjoy this holiday season, and that's exciting. We get to have these big, important meals. But also, there's a bunch of other meals that have to get done. In addition to them, and let's be honest, if you're me and there's no Factor meals in the fridge, some of those meals are gonna be leftover Halloween candy. There's a lot going on, and that can make it hard to eat well. So, bring Factor into your life. Factor is made with good, high-quality ingredients, and these meals are ready in two minutes, whether it's lunch between meetings or dinner after holiday shopping. There's no prep, there's no cleanup, there's also no effort. Occasionally, I'll have, like, an extra Factor meal in the fridge, and I'll realize, I can feed this to my child. It's good for him. And, like, then I don't have to cook for either of us.

• 38:14Hank Green?

  Factor has heart-smart options, like the Green Goddess Barimundi with tomato, rice, peas, kale, and green beans, or the enchilada-style chicken and sweet potatoes. They're crafted with lean proteins, fiber-packed fruits and veggies, and healthy fats. You can try them out, your heart and your taste buds will be happy with you. 97% of Factor users agree that Factor meals help them live a more nutritious life. So, yeah, Factor supports your everyday health and your long-term health. Let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com/dearthank50off and use the code DEARHANK50OFF to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until December 31st, 2026. That's code DEARHANK50OFF at factormeals.com. Dear Hank, five-zero-off

• 38:57Hank Green?

  at factormeals.com. See the website for more details.

• 39:02John Green?

  Dear Hank and John is brought to you by NOCD. So you may know that I've had obsessive compulsive disorder since I was a kid, but I was only diagnosed as an adult. I lived with intrusive thoughts and the compulsive behaviors I used to manage those intrusive thoughts for many years without treatment. OCD is not just anxiety. If you have those what-if intrusive thoughts and you cannot close the loop on them and you find yourself in thought spirals, you might have OCD. And it's not the organizing stereotype you've heard. It's a persistent unwanted series of intrusive thoughts that feel totally out of character along with mental or physical behaviors that you feel driven to to get relief, even when that relief never actually comes.

• 39:44John Green?

  The good news is that OCD is highly treatable with the right kind of specialized therapy. It needs ERP, Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy, which has proven to be the most effective treatment and it has transformed my life. NOCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment, covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans. There are licensed therapists who specialize in ERP therapy, who meet you in live face-to-face virtual sessions with support between sessions, so you're never facing OCD alone. So if you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15-minute call to get started at nocd.com. That's nocd.com.

• 40:28John Green?

  Before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, Hank, we need to read this email from Alex, who writes, Dear John and Hank, curiosity science team collaborator here. Hank, we always have to remember that people from NASA do listen to this podcast.

• 40:39Hank Green?

  I know.

• 40:40John Green?

  And I have to remember that people from AFC Wimbledon also listen to this podcast and they listen to it differently from how most people listen to it. You know, like they're waiting for the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. And then sometimes they get their feelings hurt. This person, Alex, didn't, but sometimes like somebody will reach out to me from AFC Wimbledon and be like, listen, okay? We make substitutions when we think it's the right time to make substitutions. We're doing our best.

• 41:05Hank Green?

  Oh, God, I just like, I wish we could all remember that that no one is actually trying to talk to people. When they talk to people, you know, like oftentimes I get, I see like, see something on the internet about me and I'm like, they're not, they don't want me to see that. That's not what they're trying to do. They are, they are not inviting me into this space.

• 41:26John Green?

  But the weird thing is they tag you and then when you reply, they're like, what? You weren't invited. And I was like, well, then don't tag me.

• 41:37John Green?

  Curious, this person is lovely. This is, this has nothing to do with getting baited on the internet. It is always very exciting when you mention something that curiosity has done in the, in Mars news, because one curiosity sometimes feels like the forgotten child and two, it's fun to be more like, oh, I remember when we did that observation. So to clarify, Hank, it was curiosity that's been finding all the elemental sulfur, including that time when we drove over that rock, as well as other sulfate minerals. I should mention now that I'm not a geologist, I'm on the environmental science team. I don't actually know as much about what Percy is up to with regard to mineralogy. But that is, was a curiosity mission. I'd also like to fulfill the email contract and request some dubious advice. I'm in the latter half of my PhD and I had to take a course for the first time since basically 2019.

• 42:20John Green?

  And in the course, I discovered that I'm still, I feel absolutely terrible about myself when I get a bad grade. I know there are things I'm good at, and I know the whole concept of tests and grades is stupid, but I still somehow, in the year of our Lord 2024, feel worthless when I fail a midterm, which is a very undergrad feeling. How long am I going to have to deal with this? Forever, Alex. Forever. There will be things that you can't even get a grade on, that you will give yourself a bad grade on.

• 42:44Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 42:46John Green?

  I don't know why.

• 42:46Hank Green?

  I, I, I mean, I hope that you find a different, a different path than that.

• 42:51John Green?

  I do too, but I haven't. Have you?

• 42:53Hank Green?

  Oh, no.

• 42:54John Green?

  Oh, no. I give myself grades all the time and I fail. I get Ds constantly.

• 42:59Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 43:00John Green?

  I'm a worse student, way, I was a bad student in, in high school and college. I am a much worse student in adulthood.

• 43:06Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're, there's, yeah, I, you're, I don't think you are, but I'm thinking about myself and like, I oftentimes I'm like, boy.

• 43:22Hank Green?

  There had to have been a better way to do that.

• 43:24John Green?

  I think, cause I think of you as a straight A student and in, in adulthood and like, I'm always like, I'm always talking to my therapist about how I'm a low functioning person and I just have to accept that and accept that I can't do everything my brother can do.

• 43:41Hank Green?

  All right.

• 43:42John Green?

  Unless you think that it's only Ed who thinks that you're an overachiever.

• 43:50Hank Green?

  Oh, God, I.

• 43:52John Green?

  You even speed ran cancer.

• 43:55Hank Green?

  I did do it pretty quick. Yeah, I got lucky.

• 43:59John Green?

  Not quick enough.

• 44:01Hank Green?

  No, I think that I think that it was it's about as it's about as quick as chemo can go, though.

• 44:08John Green?

  Yeah.

• 44:08Hank Green?

  So that's great.

• 44:12John Green?

  All right, Hank, what's the news from Mars? Make it about curiosity for Alex's sake.

• 44:18Hank Green?

  I I can't quite. I wasn't ready for that. Maybe next time. This perseverance.

• 44:27John Green?

  Oh, boy. Oh, Alex, I'm sorry.

• 44:29Hank Green?

  Oh, God. Well, it isn't. So it's not really perseverance news, but they the the goal, there was a goal that perseverance would bottle up all of these samples and then we'd send a sample return mission to pick them up and bring them back home. So that we could have some pieces of Mars here on Earth that had never passed through the atmosphere as a meteorite. So we do have pieces of Mars here on Earth, but they've all gone through the atmosphere at various times and burned up a little bit. And that makes them less useful for doing science, too. And we so we'd love to bring these back in a sample return mission.

• 45:07Hank Green?

  And Mars had planned the sample return mission to cost like $3 billion, which is sort of an acceptably large number. Large, but, you know, something we could do. But then we hit a rough spot when some other reports found that the project was more complicated than we thought. It was going to cost like $11 billion, which, as you might know, is a lot more than $3 billion.

• 45:33John Green?

  Sure, $8 billion more.

• 45:35Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's like it's more than three times, almost four times as much money.

• 45:39John Green?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Hank Green?

  And then one report said that even if we did do it, it would be like 2040 until the samples were back on Earth. And that is also a long time from now. So since those reports, people have been wondering what we're going to do about that. And there is tomorrow as we're recording this, but it will already have happened when when the podcast comes out. There will be a press conference where we'll try and hopefully resolve this. And they're going to talk about how like they're going to update basically their sample return project and figure out what it might look like and how they might do it. Meanwhile, China is planning to launch its own sample return mission in 2028 with the goal to return samples in 2031. So that would be embarrassing.

• 46:22John Green?

  Well, can't they just pick up our samples? I mean, is there some

• 46:26Hank Green?

  I don't know.

• 46:27John Green?

  reason other than geopolitics?

• 46:28Hank Green?

  Yeah, probably. Yeah, they're Ah, probably.

• 46:33John Green?

  I mean, not to dismiss geopolitics out of hand. I understand that that's real, but

• 46:38Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, so perseverance has left the vials all like sort of in a line over a long stretch of land. And I don't actually know this, but my guess is that the the sample return mission that China is planning just sort of grabs them from one place and takes back off.

• 46:54John Green?

  Hmm.

• 46:55Hank Green?

  Quite. I mean, it would definitely be a land and take off immediately if it was that fast.

• 47:00John Green?

  Okay.

• 47:01Hank Green?

  But it's it's also like very strange because they sort of planned this perseverance dropping tubes thing without having planned how they're actually going to pick them up and get them home. And there's got to be a way. But hopefully, when you're listening to this, you can Google it and see what NASA said.

• 47:21John Green?

  All right. Well, the news from AFC Wimbledon is really good. AFC Wimbledon had their festive holiday fixtures, which is where you play like three games in about seven or eight days. And they tied one game and won both of the other ones, putting them up briefly into second place in the League Two table, which is an automatic promotion spot. But then their last game of the festive fixture period was supposed to be yesterday, January 5. But unfortunately, our old friend Frozen Pitch came to town.

• 48:00John Green?

  That's right, Hank. Just as waterlogged pitch has been AFC Wimbledon's constant nemesis since earlier in the year when there was a flooding at Plough Lane, frozen pitch came home to roost in the form of Fleetwood FC's pitch becoming frozen, thereby making it impossible to play the game. So now we are in fifth place, but only because we've played one fewer game than all of our competitors. So AFC Wimbledon look like they might have a special season, and I'm pretty excited about that. And I think next week or the week after, I'll get to make another exciting announcement about the rest of AFC Wimbledon's season, but we're

• 48:41John Green?

  not quite there yet. I will remind you, however, that the January transfer window is open, which means new players can sign for AFC Wimbledon only during this month of January.

• 48:52Hank Green?

  But usually that's bad, right?

• 48:54John Green?

  Usually it means we lose all our best players.

• 48:56Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 48:57John Green?

  But this year-

• 48:58Hank Green?

  But you're telling me that might not be the case?

• 49:00John Green?

  What if we didn't lose all of our best players?

• 49:02Hank Green?

  How would that, how would that be?

• 49:04John Green?

  It might be fun. It might mean that in the second half of the year, we're not bad.

• 49:09Hank Green?

  But, but, but, but don't, don't all the other clubs want to recruit all your good players?

• 49:15John Green?

  Well.

• 49:18Hank Green?

  Certainly, they must.

• 49:20John Green?

  But we have good, solid contracts. We've got a great group of guys.

• 49:24Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 49:25John Green?

  Um.

• 49:26Hank Green?

  And you're doing well, so maybe they just want to be on a team that's doing well.

• 49:29John Green?

  Maybe instead of signing for a third-tier English soccer team, you can just become a third-tier English soccer team.

• 49:35Hank Green?

  Oh, so, so they're, those players are thinking, instead of, instead of moving up by, by changing teams, I just move up with this team.

• 49:46John Green?

  We'll just move up by being good.

• 49:47Hank Green?

  Oh, wow. That's a different vibe.

• 49:50John Green?

  Different vibe, different vibe.

• 49:52Hank Green?

  That's very exciting.

• 49:53John Green?

  Well, it's, it's been an exciting season so far, and we wait to see what happens in the second half.

• 49:59Hank Green?

  That's what we'll do.

• 50:01John Green?

  Hank, it's a pleasure to pod with you. Thank you for making the time. I know it's not easy.

• 50:07Hank Green?

  Well, it's my favorite. I love it. And I'm glad to be friends with you.

• 50:11John Green?

  Same. I mean, I don't really think of us as friends, but same.

• 50:13Hank Green?

  Well, I was thinking about wanting to spend more time with my friends.

• 50:16John Green?

  Oh, okay. Yeah, then I'll take it. Then I'll take it. I once said to Alice that we were friends, and she said, we're not friends. Father and daughter. It's a completely different relationship.

• 50:26Hank Green?

  Oh, man. Orin and I are friends, to the point where like, we need to maybe be a little less each other's only friends.

• 50:34John Green?

  Yeah, he used to be friends with Alice, but you know, she's moved on.

• 50:38Hank Green?

  I would never go to an Olivia Rodrigo concert with someone I'm not friends with. I'm sorry.

• 50:42John Green?

  Oh, no, that's that. I feel the same way. And I really enjoyed the Olivia Rodrigo concert. It was super fun.

• 50:48Hank Green?

  John, this podcast is edited by Linus Obenhouse. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna-Medich. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosie Anna Hals Rojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunarola. And as they say in our hometown.

• 51:07John Green?

  Don't forget to be awesome.