Heartbreak Glitch Loop with Brandy Jensen

Our editor Brandy Jensen joins us for a good old fashioned neighborly feud. Read Brandy's essay, which she wrote for the Yale Review, called the Polycrisis here https://yalereview.org/article/brandy-jensen-polycrisis. Get your tickets for the Normal Gossip Live tour here https://www.normalgossiplive.com/! Subscribe to our newsletter for writing from Rachelle, Se'era, Jae, Alex, and Kelsey, plus blog recommendations and secrets! https://defector.com/normal-gossip-podcast You can support Normal Gossip directly by buyingmerch https://defectorstore.com/collections/normal-gossip or becoming a Friend or a Friend-of-Friend atsupportnormalgossip.com https://defector.com/products/normalgossip. Our merch shop is run by Dan McQuade. You can also find all kinds of info about us and how to submit gossip on our Komi page:https://normalgossip.komi.io/ Episode transcript here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eB2WVrl4Y70cNdiPifhb23oluGIpgi-y5fBXY_qaHJo/edit?usp=sharing. Order Kelsey's book, You Didn’t Hear This From Me, here! https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kelsey-mckinney/you-didnt-hear-this-from-me/9781538757406/?lens=grand-central-publishing Follow the show on Instagram@normalgossip https://www.instagram.com/normalgossip/, and if you have gossip, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 26-79-GOSSIP. Normal Gossip is hosted by Rachelle Hampton (@heyydnae https://www.instagram.com/heyydnae/?hl=en) and produced by Se'era Spragley Ricks (@seera_sharae https://www.instagram.com/seera_sharae/?hl=en) and Jae Towle Vieira (@jaetowlevieira https://instagram.com/jaetowlevieira?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==). Alex Sujong Laughlin (@alexlaughs https://www.instagram.com/alexlaughs/) is our Supervising Producer. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Show art by Tara Jacoby. Normal Gossip is a proud member ofRadiotopia https://www.radiotopia.fm/. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

• 0:07Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome to Normal Gossip. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton. And in each episode of this podcast, we're gonna bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world, y'all. Somehow, we only have one more episode of season eight after this week. I don't know how this happened. I do know how this happened. I'm very tired. However, I can't believe how fast this has gone. I know that strikes fear into the hearts of so many of you. But don't worry. If you've been listening to the past few episodes or following us on Instagram, then you know there is a way for you to get more normal gossip in your life.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  Because this September, Ciara and I are bringing normal gossip to nine different cities. We are stopping in New York, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, Denver, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, and Minneapolis. Tickets went on sale to the public on Friday, May 9th. So that means if you are listening right now, in this moment, and live in any of those cities, or near them, I don't know, maybe you want to do a road trip. Decide. But first, buy a ticket immediately at normalgossiplive.com. Every show has exclusive VIP tickets, including meet and greet with Ciara and I. So I hope you're all workshopping what delicious little bits of gossip are gonna bring us.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  I know we're like four months out, which is very early. But I have heard a little rumor through the grapevine that Minneapolis, Boston, and Portland are selling particularly fast. So if you've been thinking about buying a ticket in any of those cities, I would do it soon. Also, for those of y'all who are not living in those cities and still want more gossip, there will be bonus episodes between the seasons that have some delectable morsels of gossip for you to non. So have no fear. We are benevolent queens here at this show.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  That is all the housekeeping for today. Now, on to the gossip. Today, I'm so excited to be joined by none other than the one, the only, Brandy Jensen. Brandy is a culture editor at Defector, and for the past few months, she's been filling in for our beloved Justin Ellis while he is out on parental leave, which means Brandy has had a behind the scenes look at how the gossip gets made. But before she came to Defector, Brandy has worked at literally every single cool publication that has ever existed, including The Outline, rest in peace, Gawker 2.0, rest in peace as well, and Jezebel. I think that one's still

• 2:58Speaker 00

  going technically. I'm gonna say rest in peace, just in case. Brandy was also recently nominated for an American Society Magazine editors award for an essay she wrote for the Yale Review called "The Polycrisis," which we will link in the show notes. It's such a good essay. All to say, Brandy's pretty fucking cool, and I know y'all are gonna love her. Brandy, hello. Thank you so much for joining me.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm so excited to be here. Fun, fun little story. So, years and years ago, when Kelsey first got the idea for this podcast, I thought it was great, and I told her, "I would love to be a guest sometime," and she was like, "Oh, my God, yes, we would love to have you on." Guess who never got invited all seven seasons?

• 3:45Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. I think this is the first episode that started with a call out.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yes, thank you. That's, yeah, we're coming in hot today, Kelsey.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Well, I am honored to have you here. My first question is gonna be, what's your relationship to gossip? But my second one was gonna be, do you feel like working on normal gossip as an editor has changed that relationship at all?

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Yes, I have come to realize that it is immoral, it is unethical, it is you imperil your very soul by taking part in... No, no, I'm kidding.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  You're like, this is the devil's juice.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  This is, I'm telling you, I'm, I'm out here having to do like, good works to make up for the fact that I've come in and been involved in this show. It's a heathen endeavor.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I'm kidding, of course. I've always thought gossip is fun. Now I do sort of think that gossip is work, but it's still fun. As an adult, I am able to, you know, exercise judgment and discernment about when gossip is fun and harmless and when I might be edging into territory that I or others are gonna feel bad about. So, yeah, I think it's, it's good to do and be a grown up about. I also just think that we end up hollowing out some of what makes pleasurable things pleasurable by insisting that they are also good for us, right? Sometimes I like doing something because I know it's a little bit bad for me.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Yes. I want to jump out the plane because I think I might die, not because I know I'm gonna land safely.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Wait, you want, are you a skydiver?

• 5:29Speaker 00

  Oh, my dream for my next birthday, I think I'm gonna go skydiving for the first time. I've wanted to jump out of a plane since I was like 11. And saying that out loud makes me concerned about myself. But yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no skydiving for me. Cigarettes, yes. Occasional recreational drug use, yes. Jumping out of a plane, less so. Although I guess I probably, yeah, I would do it. That's, if you invited me to your skydiving birthday, I'd be like, alright, I'll jump out of a plane for Rachel.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Well, now I know who I'm inviting because most of my friends are like, I will wait for you on the ground, I will wave, but I'm not getting up there. So now I know that you're a true friend.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Always. I will put, I will put my very body on the line.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  So now I know you're a true friend. And like all true friends, you've brought me gossip. A little birdie told me that you've got a story for me.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  I do. This is something that happened to a friend of mine. Let's call him James. A few years ago, uh, James loves to host a party. He's one of those people that has many disparate sort of friend groups. He's always like joining a class, doing something new, meeting new people. So he had a like milestone birthday a few years ago, and he decides that he is going to use this as an excuse to bring all of his friend groups together, introduce, you know, his grad school friends, his work friends, um, his one hometown friend, because James grew up a little gay boy in that small town in the South.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  So he doesn't have a lot of hometown friends. He's got one hometown friend, uh, a lovely woman who unfortunately is saddled with a boyfriend who sucks.

• 7:16Speaker 00

  Oh, no. Many such cases.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  This boyfriend sucks in a particular way, uh, has never seemed particularly comfortable around James and all of James's other gay friends. Uh,

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Boring.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  He's boring. He seems, you know, very uptight. He kind of, you know, doesn't really participate. He never does karaoke. Um, he's never, he's never, you know, like joining in the fun. He's a real stick in the mud and, you know, we're, we're questioning his politics. But whatever, that's fine. The boyfriend can come. Everyone's invited, including one of James's newer friends, who is a guy that he had been out on a few dates with, but they decided they were better as friends. This guy, opposite of the boyfriend who sucks, life of the party. Everybody loves him. Just brightens up every single room he enters. So James is like, great, great group of people. You know, I don't have to be on the

• 8:11Speaker 01

  whole time because I've got other friends who can sort of carry the day. So night of the party, you know, vibes are pretty good. Hometown friend is having a good time. Boyfriend who sucks predictably sucks. He's in the corner. He's like sulking. He's sullen. He's not really engaged with anybody.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  That's such a crazy vibe to bring to a party.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  To a party, I know.

• 8:35Speaker 00

  Fake it.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Or just stay home, man. Don't ruin it for the rest of us, right? I don't want your like, you know, you got like a little like stink cloud of energy coming off.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Exactly. The bad vibes are just radiating off of you. No, I don't like that.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, so but that that was expected. What we did not expect is for new friend, life of the party friend, to not be the life of the party at all. He's acting very strange, very quiet, not really engaging. James is like, huh, maybe I shouldn't have invited him to like my milestone birthday. We're still sort of new friends, like maybe, maybe he's worried that I, I actually do want a romantic relationship. That I've like, you know, taken this a step too far. I don't know. Uh, he leaves early the next day. James is like, I just wanted to check in, make sure everything's okay. And he's like, yeah, it's fine. I just wasn't feeling that well, you know, sorry.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Things go back to normal the next Sunday, hang out. It's like, all right, I guess I was just a blip. Cut to a few months later and James is like, oh, my God, gossip, drama. You'll never believe it. My hometown friend finally dumped her shitty boyfriend. Hooray. And life of the party friend is like, oh, my fucking God. Thank God I can finally tell you why I was being so weird at your party. It's because I recognized that guy from hooking up with him on Grindr last night.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  The night before the party?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  The very prior evening, the night before the party, to which James is like, well, okay, shocking, but also less shocking, given that I found out they broke up because she walked in on him with some dude.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. Brandy, that is the layer.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  I do also have a postscript. I have a postscript, which is that hometown friend got a different, much better, much more fun, possibly bisexual, the way to go, boyfriend.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  And the other guy is still in a small town in the South.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  Where he belongs.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Married to a woman, go, go, go to church, you know, sort of wearing his like pastel polo shirts, like you know, the type, the.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  I can see this man so clearly. I'm picturing specifically Reverend Newlin from True Blood.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, Brandy. Wow. I mean, I was gonna say, I'm sad that your friend got his party kind of ruined, but this is a perfect into a party.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Listen, this is always my take whenever anything like vaguely disastrous happens to me is that I'm always so grateful that I get a story out of it because, man, I like, I eat out on the stories of like the weird shit that has happened to me in my life, even at this point, at this point, while it's happening, you know, I'm like, I'm like getting dumped by the married polyamorous philosophy professor who I thought like was my one true love. And in my head, I'm like, okay, this is at least a fun story.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Unfortunately, from married polyamorous philosophy professor.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  I really, I really thought, I really thought that that was it for me. Like that was, man, this was meant to be.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  You deserve a philosophy professor who can be in game for you.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Uh, listen, you deserve a philosophy professor derogatory.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Something I would say to somebody I don't really care for.

• 12:30Speaker 00

  I would never say it like that.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  I only want the best philosophy for you.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  That was great gossip and now I have some for you.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  I cannot wait. I'm locked in.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  We've been cooking up a fun special holiday project for y'all over here at Normal Gossip. And usually when work gets crazy, I kind of just try to continue my life like nothing's happening. But recently, thanks to therapy, this time around, I was like, what if I did not try to pour from an empty cup? And that is what growing feels like. If you've been thinking about starting therapy, then I think you should check out today's sponsor, Growth Therapy. Growth Therapy is built for therapy that actually feels like care. You can find therapy based on what matters most to you, like insurance taken, mental health specialties, identity, or night and weekend availability if you're working a lot.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  Book your first session in minutes and you can start in as little as two days. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on your insurance plan. Prepare for holiday glimmers instead of holiday stress. Visit growtherapy.com/gossip to get started today. That is growtherapy.com/gossip. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  I'm going to admit something embarrassing. I know, shocker. I have not had a bedside lamp for an undisclosed amount of months, long enough that I basically haven't read before bed for a really long time. And I only realized this because I'm hosting a friend and I was like, wow. They deserve to have a light by their bed at night. I don't. But this finally inspired me to find the perfect bedside lamp. And I had a vision in mind, Wayfair. They had exactly what I need, which is one of those library style lights with like the green lampshade and little pull cord. I have been having this image in my mind of having one. And now I have one because of course Wayfair had it.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high quality, customer trusted products for your home. So you can host and celebrate without distress. When refreshing your home this holiday season, Wayfair delivers exactly what you need. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O D O O dot com. That's O D O O dot com.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  Today, our story takes place in the Outer Banks of North Carolina in a small and incredibly wealthy seaside village.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  White Lotus, love it.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  Exactly. For the purposes of this story, we're going to be calling it Sand Dollar Cove.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  Which is also the name of a 2021 Hallmark movie starring Chad Michael Murray. Cause I appreciate art. Anyway, I could talk about this forever.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  For a long time, Sand Dollar Cove was just like a place for well off retirees. But things started to change in the late 90s. And eventually it would become something closer to like West Palm Beach or the Hamptons.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  But our story takes place in the early aughts. So that change isn't quite complete, but it is definitely happening.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Okay, so we've got like, like an old guard, new money, maybe sort of tension happening?

• 16:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  All right, love it.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  Have you ever lived in a place like this? Like a place that was in the middle of a big demographic change?

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Um, no, I like to swoop in after that's already happened. So I don't have to feel guilty about it. I don't want to, I don't want to be part of the problem. I just want to benefit from living in a neighborhood with a fancy snack place.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  That is so understandable and I think ethical. I think you're doing it correctly.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Thank you. I try.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  Today, our friend of a friend is named Tony and Tony is in his mid 40s. Tony doesn't live in Sand Dollar Cove, even when it was for retirees. It was like a little too bougie for him. He lives like an hour away and Tony's the kind of guy who tells everyone to call him Uncle Tony.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Ew, I'm not sure I like that. I don't.

• 17:22Speaker 00

  It's not in like a mobster way.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm cautious about Uncle Tony, but continue, continue.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  But Uncle Tony just never had kids, so he tries to make up for it by being everyone's uncle.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  This is not helping to ease my

• 17:41Speaker 01

  concerns about Uncle Tony and yet, go on.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  Well, Uncle Tony doesn't have a ton of family, but he has like so, so many friends, including one named Tammy.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Okay, is, is she Auntie Tammy?

• 18:02Speaker 00

  Well, Tammy and Tony go way back. They had met in the mid 70s in a roller rink in Raleigh and they have been tight ever since. So Tammy's kids actually think Uncle Tony is their uncle.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Okay, alright.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Do you have any friends like this whose kids know you or like will know you as Aunt Brandy?

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Um, I have friends with kids. I don't know that I've necessarily achieved Aunt Brandy level with any of them, um, outside of my two actual legal nephews.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, those definitely count. Tammy had actually moved really far away, like a few years before our story starts, but despite like the thousands of miles between them, Tammy and Tony have remained super tight. So when Tammy calls Tony one day to ask him for a favor, Tony knows he's gonna say yes before she even tells him what the favor is.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Love that. Love having a friend like that.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, Tony's a good guy, even if he does make everyone call him Uncle Tony.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Okay, alright. I'm, I'm being, I'm warming up to Uncle Tony.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  I still, I still don't know that I would call him that. I think I would, I would go the other direction and just refer to him as Anthony, always.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  I think Uncle Tony would really like that. I think he'd be charmed by that.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  Tammy's grandmother had recently passed and she willed to Tammy a rental property in Sand Dollar Cove. There's already a tenant on the property who has lived there since the early 90s and Tammy has no desire to do like a big renovation or even try to find a new tenant. She just needs someone to look at the property and figure out what kind of state it's in. And she's like, could Tony do that? And Tony's like, yeah, of course. Tammy's like, thank you so much. You're the best. And she tells him, I'll email you all the information I have about the tenant. Tammy tells Tony that the tenant's name is Foxy.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Amazing. Ideal tenant already. Who doesn't want to get a rent check every month from somebody named Foxy?

• 20:06Speaker 00

  Uh, it would brighten my day.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  Foxy has lived in Tammy's grandmother's house for 15 years now. Foxy is a retired nurse and this is all the information Uncle Tony has about her.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  What more do you need? Foxy, the retired nurse, love, icon, queen.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Do you have any concerns so far?

• 20:25Speaker 01

  I'm concerned that, uh, he's still going by Uncle Tony, but other than that, no. I'm all in.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Unfortunately, that concern will continue for the rest of the story.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll, I'll set it aside. I'll just put a pin in that for now. I've, I've done the work. Yeah. I've taken some three reflective breaths and I have come to accept that this is just his name. Okay.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. So the next day, Uncle Tony drives to Sand Dollar Cove, which has that, you know, weird look that cities that are in the middle of gentrification have where you have like rundown houses that are full of character right next to soulless gray glass boxes.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yes, I am familiar.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  The property that Tammy inherited still has character. It is a very standard North Carolina beach house. It's got a big deck, it's got white trim, but even before Uncle Tony gets out of the truck, he can tell that the house has not exactly been well maintained.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Well, Foxy's got a life to live, you know?

• 21:28Speaker 00

  Exactly. That's not her property.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not, I'm not doing maintenance on a rental.

• 21:34Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 21:37Speaker 00

  Um, like a few of the storm shutters are hanging off their hinges. The deck's got a hole in it and the fence is absolutely covered in kudzu.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  The house closest to Tammy's is one of the soulless gray glass boxes.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Oh, so they're, they're gonna hate living next to something that they consider an eyesore because they're terrible people. I can tell already. Anybody who wants to, when you, when you move to a, a place with personality and you live in a giant white box, uh, you are not somebody that I'm gonna get along with.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  Well, it's also got a hot tub on the deck. That changes your opinion and a red Ferrari in the driveway.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. All right.

• 22:20Speaker 00

  I'm assuming none of that makes you feel any better about the neighbor?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Uh, no, no. We got some like, somebody who watches Wolf of Wall Street and thinks like, that should be me.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  Oh, and this is back when you could get Quaaludes.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  If you were to like, take a guess at what kind of woman Foxy is, what would you guess?

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Oh, retired nurse who moved to the beach named Foxy. I'm guessing she is wonderful. She's a little kooky. Um, I'm thinking she makes a mean margarita.

• 22:54Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I see it. Foxy's front porch is covered in like wind chimes and sun catchers.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  When she opens the door, she's got on this billowing linen caftan and no shoes.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Well, why would she be wearing shoes in her own house?

• 23:11Speaker 00

  She shouldn't.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  She looks to be in her mid to late 50s. She's got long, dark hair and a gray streak at her temple. Like it's giving Stacy London, which is exactly how I wanna go gray.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Iconic. I wish if I had one of those, I would take advantage of it. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened for me yet, but.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  There's still time.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's nothing but time, actually.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Longer I wait, the, the higher the chances. Although I don't think it would come in as, as just a streak at this point. I think it would more be like a sort of, I stopped dying my hair and see what happens.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  I love that look too.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  Foxy immediately offers Uncle Tony a glass of sweet tea. And Uncle Tony is the kind of guy to never turn down a glass of sweet tea. So he follows her inside and watches as she goes through an extremely elaborate tea-serving ritual. Like first Foxy decants the sweet tea into a crystal jug. She tells Tony that tea, like most things, needs room to breathe.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  You know what? Listen, when Uncle Tony visits the house, you know, you bring out the formal stuff, right?

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Bring out the good crystal for Uncle Tony.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. After the tea is decanted, she pours it into two glasses with ice, but she pours it from like really high up. Like, you remember that guy who went viral for sprinkling salt, like from really high?

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Salt Bay? How could I forget Salt Bay? With his like weird little, did he have weird little glasses?

• 24:52Speaker 00

  Yes, I had a lot of questions. But that's kind of what this is giving. And Foxy explains that this maneuver encourages the drinker of the sweet tea to embody their highest self.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  How would you react to this?

• 25:06Speaker 01

  I'm drinking the tea and I'm going with the flow. I'm listening to the wind chimes. I've kicked my shoes off already. Uh, and I am starting to talk shit about the guy next door with the stupid Ferrari. That's what I'm doing.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  You and Uncle Tony are actually on the exact same wavelength.

• 25:29Speaker 00

  One thing I forgot to mention about him is that our man is a huge gossip. He lives for the drama.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Okay, love him.

• 25:36Speaker 00

  And because he's so friendly, people kind of just tend to open up to him. And if there's anything Uncle Tony knows, it's that eccentric women in their 50s are the best sources of both drama and gossip. So he's kind of just along for the ride.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, all right. Tony, Tony can hang.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Okay, are you calling him Uncle Tony?

• 25:57Speaker 01

  But you know, maybe, maybe.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  Maybe by the end of the story. Also, Uncle Tony can tell that Foxy has done a really good job with taking care of Tammy's grandmother's place. Like, it needs a coat of paint, but it's very clean and well decorated. And when Foxy gives Uncle Tony a download on the property, the issues that she mentions are all very much not her fault. She's like, the toilet bowl takes forever to fill, the gutters haven't been cleaned in years, there's a leak in the attic, the screen on the back door needs to be replaced. But she's like, in all the important ways, this house is still a great place to live. And then Foxy's like, the neighborhood, on the other hand, it's going downhill.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  Our girl's got a lot to say about the direction the neighborhood is going, and Uncle Tony's got a free afternoon. So the two gap for a bit, and at some point, they go from iced tea to Chardonnay, which Tony cannot help noticing doesn't go through the elaborate decamping ritual.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Get that Chardonnay straight out of the box in the fridge.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  As the good Lord intended.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  Finally, even though he's having a great time, Uncle Tony is like, I should do the job I came here to do. And Foxy's like, you're so right, I'll stop distracting you. And then she's like, you seem like a man of discerning taste. And from some invisible pocket in her billowing linen caftan, Foxy pulls out a business card. And the business card has her name and a link, which Foxy says goes to her blog.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  All right. See, for a second there, I was thinking she's making a play to become Aunt Foxy.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  But, but okay, now I'm wondering if it's some sort of like multi-level marketing scheme. What is going on?

• 27:47Speaker 00

  Well, do you check out the blog?

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Obviously. I'm opening my phone on the way out the door, typing in that, you know, foxythotsey.com.

• 28:02Speaker 00

  Again, you and Uncle Tony are on the same wavelength. He is dying to check out this blog, but it's the early aughts.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Oh damn.

• 28:10Speaker 00

  So he has to wait until he gets home.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Man, we really used to live like that. Crazy, crazy.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  I know. We used to have to wait.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  So Tony does this little inspection and calls Tammy on the way home and he's like, the house is certainly not unlivable, but it definitely needs some work. And he runs down the list of repairs the house needs. And Tammy's like, that's what I figured. It's been at least a decade since anyone checked on it. And so she asked Uncle Tony for another favor. Tammy's grandmother hadn't just left her the house. She'd also left a little bit of money to fix the place up, but Tammy is thousands of miles away. She's like, I need someone I trust to oversee the repairs.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Tony's a contractor now? That's, that's kind of a favor, but, okay.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, she's like, I know it's a big ask, but would you mind just sort of checking in every so often to see how the repairs are going? Your friend is basically asking you to be an unofficial property manager. Do you say yes?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  I say yes, because then you get to hang out and drink Chardonnay with Foxy every once in a while, which sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon anyway. So, yeah, I would say yes. I mean, I'm very much, you know, I will do things for my friends that I won't do for myself.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. Uncle Tony doesn't have like a ton of free time. He's an electrician and he has his own company to run. But Uncle Tony's the kind of person who would do anything for a friend, especially a lifelong friend like Tammy. And Tammy had bailed him out a few years ago when he had gone on a bit of a bender after a really bad breakup.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Oh, not sad Tony. No.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Sad Uncle Tony.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  And again, you and Tony, same wavelength. Because now that Uncle Tony's met Foxy, he's like, she's not gonna cause me any issues. And also, I'm gonna at least get some sweet tea and gossip out of this. So he's like, of course, I'll do it.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Smart man. I've said from the beginning that I respect Uncle Tony, all aspects of his deal.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  No, I have no idea what you're talking about. I think I've said from the beginning that I love every decision Uncle Tony has made.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  And you're right, from the beginning.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  You supported that man, ten toes down.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  This, this, um.

• 30:41Speaker 00

  This is all important because now Uncle Tony knows for sure that he's gonna see Foxy again. So it is with this knowledge that he finally pulls up her blog, which is called The Rituals of Life.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 30:55Speaker 00

  It's all about the various rituals that Foxy claims one needs to live a harmonious and balanced life.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  I'm listening.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  Are you a person who enjoys like rituals or routines? Like, how long can you stick to a routine?

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Uh, not long. Uh, I'm not, I, I, um, I'm not a person who's really good at follow through.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  And also, here's the thing, a routine I'm okay with. I'm, calling something a ritual is gonna sort of get my back up a little bit. I'm not a particularly woo woo kind of person. And so if you tell me we're doing a ritual, I'm like, okay, have fun with that, you know?

• 31:36Speaker 00

  You're like, I won't be there, but thank you so much.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  For other people, again, would help my friends perform a ritual. I'm not, I'm not doing it myself. I'm not a, I'm not a ritual girl, thank you very much.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  Well, according to Foxy, rituals form pathways for positive energy to flow.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  They don't, but Foxy, I love that for you anyway.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  She says that routines are necessary so that the universe knows where to meet us.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. I'm, I, I'm getting her, I'm get, I get Foxy's vibe. Listen, I love that there are people out there with that vibe.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, Foxy's got so many rituals. She's got a ritual for writing, which includes spontaneous diffusions of vocal energy.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  When she walks around screaming and yelping before she writes a diary.

• 32:25Speaker 00

  Who among us doesn't scream when we write?

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Well, listen, I often, I, I weep, I howl. Yes.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Nashing my feet.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Rending of garments. There's all sorts of things happening.

• 32:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. So there's a ritual for entering spaces, which includes a bold announcement of one's presence. There are a ton of different rituals for harvesting. There's even one specifically for wheatgrass, like specifically for harvesting wheatgrass.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Okay. All right. I mean, listen, if the rituals are for her and they make her feel spiritually aligned, then who am I to begrudge her that? But, you know, don't ask me to be announcing myself every time I walk out of your bathroom. I'm like, I'm done pissing now.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  Well, now I want you to do that.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  How are you feeling so far?

• 33:22Speaker 01

  I am excited about the buddy comedy that I can imagine these two sort of now creating between them.

• 33:30Speaker 00

  I can so clearly see like a good cop, bad cop vibe.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  Between these two, except they're both good cops. They are.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  I mean, maybe, yeah, maybe they like team up to solve a murder.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  Wow. I mean, I'm sure Foxy has a ritual for that.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Commit a murder.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  That's not the kind of show we do, Brandy.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Well, the Ferrari guy probably has it coming, right?

• 33:59Speaker 00

  The next time Tony hears from Foxy is about a week later, when she calls him out of the blue. And this is back when people actually picked up unexpected phone calls, which is not something I do.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Never, never. Could not pay me.

• 34:11Speaker 00

  Nope. Foxy's like, hello, how are you? Did you get a chance to read my blog? And Uncle Tony's like, hi, Foxy, sure did. And then he's like, it was a real eye opener. Foxy's like, I so look forward to discussing it with you when you come over this weekend. And Uncle Tony's like, I hadn't planned on coming over this weekend. And Foxy's like, well, you simply have no other option. You must speak to that man in that horrible little glass box next door. She's like, he's ruining my balance. And Foxy tells Uncle Tony everything she knows about the rich guy she shares a fence with. She tells him how the guy had moved in about a year ago, but hadn't spoken to anyone in the neighborhood. So it actually took her a while to figure out his deal.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Not even introducing yourself to your new neighbors. Come on.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  But Foxy is persistent. So eventually she finds out that her neighbor's name is Roy. She's pretty sure he's in his late 50s and she had found out from the local barber that he recently split from his wife.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Oh, don't be having your midlife crisis next to my home. Roy.

• 35:18Speaker 00

  Do that somewhere else.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Please.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  Well, in the divorce, Roy had gotten the beach house in Sand Dollar Cove that he promptly tore down and replaced with the hideous cube.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Tasteless.

• 35:34Speaker 00

  Tasteless. Tasteless midlife crisis.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Yes. Oh, gosh.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Like many divorcees, Roy had discovered a new love in life, wine. Foxy tells Uncle Tony that every night for the past two months, Roy would do three things. He would start drinking his wine. He'd get in his hot tub and he would put on his favorite song. Fleetwood Mac's Silver Springs.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Okay, fuck, I love Roy.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  I've done a complete one hit. Roy, listen, you want to talk about rituals? Silver Springs in a hot tub with some wine. Now that is a ritual I can get behind.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Oh, listen, I knew, I knew when I said from the beginning that Roy was a good guy. I knew that I was right about this.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  When you said he had such great taste and that that glass box was gorgeous.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  When I said that there's something like profound in his soul. That Roy has, Roy has been wounded by life, that he is slowly healing himself. And he deserves grace as he explores that process. Yes, I knew, I knew I was right about it.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  I mean, it sounds like you know the lore behind Silver Springs.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Of course, of course I do. I'm a, I'm a woman of a certain age. How could I not?

• 36:55Speaker 00

  Well, could you tell us what the lore is and what you think it might imply about Roy's state of mind? That it's his favorite song right now?

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Uh, well, so Silver Springs is written by the incredible, the majestic, the iconic, the, uh, you know, practically supernatural talent, Stevie Nicks. Uh, she wrote it, I think, just shortly after her breakup with fellow Fleetwood Mac bandmate, Lindsey Buckingham. And, uh, it did not make it onto Rumors, their sort of album that famously was being recorded while they were all simultaneously fucking each other and breaking up with each other. But it did make it on to the later, uh, remastered re-release. And she also famously sung it on their live reunion tour to his face.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  And, uh, including lyrics like, um, "You'll never get away from the sound of the woman who wants you." Uh, "I know I could have loved you, but you would not let me."

• 37:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Listen, I have, I don't want to try to begin to count the number of times I have played that song while drinking wine in a bathtub, not a hot tub.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  Close enough. Close enough.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Uh, it is a song that, uh, means a lot to everybody who has ever had a human emotion.

• 38:16Speaker 00

  Yes, correct, correct.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Foxy is like, listen, I love Stevie Nicks as much as the next bitch.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  I mean, how could Foxy not love Stevie Nicks?

• 38:26Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Right? They're, they're witchy sisters.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  They're peas in a pod. But she's also like, Roy doesn't just play the song to start the night. That'd be okay. She's like, he plays it over and over and over again.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  All night.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Oh, is he stuck in a heartbreak glitch loop?

• 38:48Speaker 00

  Sometimes he even starts in the afternoon. Foxy's like, have you tried to do sun salutations to Fleetwood Mac?

• 38:56Speaker 01

  You can have one night where you play that on repeat.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  You can't be doing it every night. Otherwise, like, you're gonna drain the song of its power.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's true.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  If you overdo it.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  You gotta, you gotta pace yourself on that. You gotta, you gotta work in other, you know, bring in some Martha Wainwright, bloody motherfucking asshole.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  There's like a world of, of heartbreak jams out there that you can,

• 39:19Speaker 00

  So many.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  You can, you can cut the pure shit with, right?

• 39:25Speaker 00

  How many nights do you think you would have to hear Silver Springs played over and over again before committing a crime?

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Three.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Three? Three nights?

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Well, at three nights, I'm like, okay, this wasn't, uh, you know, he didn't just decide to do this twice. We're heading, we're heading down a road here.

• 39:43Speaker 00

  It's like, you gotta nip that shit in the bud.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I'm getting ahead of it right now.

• 39:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Uncle Tony's like, I don't wanna find out. So he heads out to Sand Dollar Cove the next weekend, and first he stops by Foxy's to say hi. He knocks on the door and waits, and waits, and waits some more before she finally opens it. And Uncle Tony's like, it's probably one of her rituals.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Doing a ritual?

• 40:11Speaker 00

  They chat for a bit, and then Uncle Tony heads next door to the soulless gray glass box that shares a fence with Foxy. And Tony's like, I can't lie, um, I have a certain idea in my head of what Roy is gonna look like based on the information given to me. So when Roy opens the door and looks normal, Tony's like, what the fuck?

• 40:46Speaker 00

  Roy is low-key pretty handsome.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:48Speaker 00

  He's got thick graying hair like Patrick Dempsey.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  He does have an unmistakable air of sadness about him, but

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  I'm the kind of person where that would only make Roy harder to me because that's who I am.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I can, I can heal him.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  I can fix his sad heart.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  We'll start listening to You Make Love and Fun.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Oh, that's, you know, honestly, when you go from Stevie Nicks to Christine McVie, that's when you know that you've like, you've completed the process. You're out of, you're out of the hole. Yeah.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Uncle Tony introduces himself. He's like, I'm the property manager for the house next to yours. My tenant has some noise complaints. And Roy's expression, which had been sort of like vaguely polite, completely changes. Roy's like, are you joking?

• 41:42Speaker 00

  And then he's like, that's really fucking rich coming from her.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  Did she tell you she loves to scream at all hours of the day and night? It's like living in a horror movie.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Foxy.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Foxy, I knew, I, I knew when you said something about like unprompted vocal laminations.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  Usages of vocal energy.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  That was the one. That was the one. That's a red flag right there.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony's like, uh, no, I haven't heard anything about screaming. Uh, but then he's like, how about this? I'll give you my phone number. So the next time she screams, you can give me a call.

• 42:22Speaker 00

  And Roy's like, thank God, finally someone reasonable.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Tony's just getting further and further enmeshed into this situation.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  He loves drama. He loves the gossip.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 42:32Speaker 00

  He's like, I'm getting both sides of the story.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  He's fair and balanced, Uncle Tony.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  Objective Uncle Tony.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yes. All right. We're here for the truth.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  And Roy's like, wait, did you say you're the property manager for that place next door? And that's when Roy tells Uncle Tony that the fins dividing their properties is a major eyesore. All the kudzu is so tall that it's obstructing his view of the ocean. But the fins isn't technically on Roy's side of the property line, so he can't do anything about it.

• 43:06Speaker 00

  Cutting back the kudzu was already on Uncle Tony's list. So he's like, yeah, sure. On it, boss. Do you think Uncle Tony's made any mistakes so far?

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I think if you've got a sad sack of a middle aged crisis, rich neighbor who's got to complain about your fence, you make him pony out to fix the fence. I feel like you take advantage of this situation. You also, listen, Roy needs a project. Why not give him something to focus on other than his own pain?

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would have seen that red Ferrari in the driveway and been like, you can afford to replace the fence.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Listen, let's get, you know what? Let's bring Foxy and Roy together. We'll have Foxy create a ritual. We're each kudzu that he cuts back is like some damage that his ex-wife has done to him.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  We get a new fence and a new Roy.

• 43:57Speaker 00

  Wow. Wow. What more could you want?

• 44:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, Uncle Tony is like, I think I'm handling this okay so far. Until the very first night, both Foxy and Roy call him.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Oh, this, see, this is what happens when you get yourself in the middle.

• 44:15Speaker 00

  It's a Saturday night. Uncle Tony is at home. He's watching a Duke football game when his phone rings.

• 44:22Speaker 00

  And it's Foxy without saying hi. And she's like, I cannot write under these conditions. And in the background of the call, Uncle Tony can very clearly make out Stevie Nicks singing, "Blue green colors flashing."

• 44:45Speaker 00

  So Tony's like, yep, got it. I'll call him now.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  Except before Tony can even pull out the phone book, he gets a phone call and it's Roy. And Roy's like, that woman is screaming again. And Uncle Tony's like, that's really funny. I just got a call from her about you. She said your music's really loud. And Roy's like, I only turned it up to drown out the screaming. So Tony's like, can I call you back? He hangs up with Roy, calls Foxy. He's like, Foxy, there's no delicate way to ask this. Have you been screaming? Your neighbor says that's why his music's so loud.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  Well, she said she was trying to write, and as we all know.

• 45:26Speaker 00

  We all know.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Before she could write, she needs to do a little, her little vocal ritual. So I'm gonna guess Foxy's been hollering.

• 45:36Speaker 00

  Well, Foxy's like screaming, how dare he, I'm writing.

• 45:43Speaker 00

  And she's like, my writing ritual requires spontaneous diffusions of vocal energy.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  And Uncle Tony's like, yeah, I remember reading that on your blog. Could you give me a demonstration? And Foxy's like, I knew you were a man of discerning taste. Of course I can. And she clears her throat and then releases a blood-curdling scream like it is giving Toni Collette in Hereditary.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Foxy, you gotta take care of your vocal cords, man. That's gonna, it's not good for you.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony has to like hold the phone away from his ear because the scream is so loud.

• 46:22Speaker 00

  Foxy finishes screaming and she's like, I just had the most beautiful sentence come to me.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  She screams per sentence? Oh, Lord.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  You should at least get a paragraph out of a scream like that. Come on now.

• 46:39Speaker 00

  A paragraph per scream.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  This is unsustainable, Foxy. You are gonna, you're gonna blow out your own voice before you finish a chapter.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony's like, that's great, Foxy. How long have you been doing this? And Foxy's like, since before I even moved in here, all my other neighbors have gotten used to it.

• 46:59Speaker 00

  Brandy, as an editor, do you support this kind of writing technique?

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Listen, I, what, what writers need to do to get a draft, to me, frankly, not my concern. Whatever rituals you want, as long as I don't live next door.

• 47:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  That's fine. I, I do have concerns, like I said, that this needs to happen for, for the, the output of one sentence. That seems to me a pretty unsustainable pace at which to go like screaming and typing your way to a draft of whatever.

• 47:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I'm just remembering that scene. Have you seen Something's Gotta Give?

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Yes. When she's crying and she's typing, she's crying and she's typing. It's so good.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  I think about that all the time.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you see the pace with which she's typing. She's really getting it down, you know? She's using it in like an efficient manner.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're right. Diane Keaton and Foxy, take a note.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  How would you handle the situation if you were Uncle Tony?

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Oh, good Lord. Well, like now you're in the middle of it and.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Oh, that's tough. Um, I feel like I would try to, try to broker some sort of peace agreement between the two of them. I would maybe figure out, you know, can you, are there certain hours of the day when Roy isn't going to be home? And can those be your writing hours?

• 48:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Foxy, can we dedicate, you know, sort of you journal between three and five when Roy is out at therapy? Whatever he's doing.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, because he's definitely.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Pucked outside his ex's house in his new Ferrari between three and five every afternoon. Could you get your screaming in then, please?

• 48:40Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony was like, I'm done playing telephone tag at this point. So he's like, I'm going to come by next weekend and sort this out. And he asked Foxy if she'll like hold off on writing until then.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  She's just writing her blog, right?

• 48:52Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  She's not writing like a novel.

• 48:53Speaker 00

  No, it's just her blog.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Okay, so we can, we can put a pin in that for the moment until we, Uncle Tony comes, uh, to, to do some diplomacy.

• 49:03Speaker 00

  Yes. Well, Foxy's like, inspiration doesn't abide by our manmade rules, but I'll try to keep her at bay.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  And Uncle Tony is like, thank you so much, benevolent queen.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  He calls Roy back and is like, she won't scream until next weekend. Can you keep your music down until then? And Roy's like, I'll keep it down as long as she doesn't scream. Do you trust these two to keep their word?

• 49:27Speaker 01

  No, of course not.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Would we be having this conversation on the Normal Gossip Podcast?

• 49:35Speaker 01

  If that solved it and there was nothing more?

• 49:38Speaker 00

  End of story, bye.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Well, for about a week, it's not really Uncle Tony's problem because Uncle Tony is going on vacation. He's got a boys' trip planned to Biloxi.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  I have, I've spent time in Biloxi. I've been to the Margaritaville in Biloxi.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  And I have seen the Biloxi minor league baseball team, the Biloxi Shuckers. Their mascot is an oyster who, who holds a baseball bat. It's tremendous.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  I love a minor league baseball team. The Coney Island Cyclones.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  I love a minor league baseball team. The prices are good. They have like fun in-between innings stuff.

• 50:22Speaker 00

  Yes, it's a good time. So Uncle Tony's on his way to Biloxi. Maybe he'll catch a game. But he's like, I'm not getting paid for any of this. So the house in Sand Dollar Cove can hold tight for a week. Tony gets back from his little boys' trip on Saturday, which happens to be the same day that a landscaping company is coming to check out like the fence between Foxy and Roy's properties. So Uncle Tony only has time to go home and change his clothes before heading back out to Sand Dollar Cove. He doesn't even have time to like, listen to his voicemail. So he doesn't see that both Foxy and Roy have called him several times.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  Of course they have.

• 50:55Speaker 00

  It's not until Uncle Tony pulls up to Foxy's house that he sees the damage. All the kudzu has been removed from both sides of the fence. And at first Uncle Tony's like, great, I guess Roy decided to take care of himself. One more thing off my plate. But then he gets closer and he sees what the kudzu had been hiding. The fence is full of holes from like decayed or broken slats. Like if the kudzu was an eyesore, the fucked up fence is an even bigger one.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Okay, all right. We've solved one problem only to reveal a deeper one.

• 51:27Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm familiar with these narrative beats, having watched many, many seasons of Supernatural where they're like, we averted the apocalypse by creating a larger apocalypse.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  By having super gods.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  How do you think Fox is gonna react to this narrative beat?

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Oh, Foxy, Foxy is pissed. The holes in the fence are messing with her ritual somehow. It's like, the wind is coming through at the wrong angle.

• 51:55Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  And this is a real problem for her.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  Correct. Foxy runs out of the house as soon as she sees Uncle Tony's truck. She's like, where have you been? I have called you so many times. Tammy said you were on vacation? How could you take a vacation at a time like this? Again, Uncle Tony's not getting paid for any of this.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, Foxy, okay.

• 52:17Speaker 00

  Which he does not have a chance to remind Foxy up because she immediately follows up with, "Do you see what that asshole has done? The energy is entirely ruined." "And he's trying to suppress my First Amendment rights."

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Her First Amendment rights to scream?

• 52:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, Uncle Tony's like, "What are you talking about?" And Foxy's like, "Go ask him about it." So, once again, Uncle Tony heads over to the soulless glass box. Except before he even reaches the front step, Roy comes running out. He's like, "That woman is a menace." And Uncle Tony's like, "Hi, Roy. I see you decided to get the kudzu removed without telling anybody." And Roy's like, "It was obstructing my view of the ocean. I told you."

• 52:58Speaker 00

  And Uncle Tony expects Roy to start ranting about how bad the fucked up fence is, but instead Roy's like, "You simply have to control your tenant." And Tony's like, "What are you talking about?" And that's when Roy points toward the fence separating his property from Foxy's. And this is the first time Tony has seen the fence from this vantage point. And without the kudzu, it is extremely easy to see into Foxy's yard, where she is currently walking around stark naked.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Uh, listen, as is her right. Foxy stripped down quickly.

• 53:35Speaker 00

  Well, I think that's what the linen cap tans are for.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Smart, smart.

• 53:42Speaker 00

  Right, right. How do you feel about nudism? Like, are you like a never nude? Are you like a when the spirit moves me?

• 53:49Speaker 01

  I'm a, I'm, listen, I've got really great tits and

• 53:58Speaker 01

  you know, sometimes it's nice to just let them out there.

• 54:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Probably, I'm not somebody who's going to be like, you know, doing a two week vacation at a nudist camp. That's not for me.

• 54:10Speaker 00

  No.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  But I don't, I'm not a prude about it. You know, the human body is a beautiful thing and it should sometimes be free.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  Foxy agrees. Foxy is a dedicated nudist, which Uncle Tony is starting to think actually makes a lot of sense. Like, a lot of the rituals on her website had mentioned that nudity actually helps the flow of energy because it's not hampered by clothes.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  And again, he's literally only ever seen her in billowing linen kaftans. And she always takes forever to open the door.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  Roy is like, you have to do something. This is obscene. Now, Uncle Tony is a smart man. He knows this is Roy's fault. Roy had not gotten anyone's consent to cut back the kudzu and the fence isn't even on his property. So what he did was actually illegal. But Uncle Tony also knows that eventually the fence is going to need to be repaired. And fences are expensive. And he has a feeling Tammy's grandmother had not left enough money for that. So Uncle Tony's like, let's make a deal. He's like, if you pay for the materials, I'll get the fence fixed.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Genius, genius.

• 55:20Speaker 00

  Roy has very clearly been traumatized by whatever rituals of Foxy's he has been privy to. So he is very quickly like, done.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Okay, Roy, you simply cannot just have a tantrum when you see a titty. Like, come on, Roy, this can't be how you live your life. This might be why your wife left you. I mean.

• 55:42Speaker 00

  We don't know why, but that's a good guess.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Roy, you've just got to relax.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  Well, Roy offers a condition. He's like, she has to keep her clothes on until the fences are repaired. Do you think this is a fair condition?

• 55:55Speaker 01

  I mean, it's fair, but also Foxy's not gonna be into that.

• 56:00Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony's like, homie, it's a free country. If she wants to be nude on her property, she has the right, and we're not near any schools. But Uncle Tony, again, a smart man. So he's like, here's another deal. I'll tell her that you promise to keep your music down if she promises to confine her nudity to her home. And Roy's like, deal.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  All right, all right, we're getting, we're getting concessions.

• 56:26Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony goes back to Foxy's and he tells her about the fence. He even tells her Roy's gonna pay for it as a sort of olive branch. And then he tells her Roy promised to keep his music down as long as Foxy committed to wearing clothes outdoors until the fence is fixed. Do you see any problem with this mutually assured destruction?

• 56:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I feel like Foxy's gonna, she's, she's gonna venture out onto the porch and be like, it's not the yard.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  My feet aren't touching grass.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. She's gonna do like an I'm not touching you sort of thing.

• 56:58Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  But also, she's a, she's a woman who, you know, is moved by her own spirit and, and who can, who can, who can put a bunch of terms and conditions on that.

• 57:08Speaker 00

  You can't litigate the spirit.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  You can't keep Foxy down using bylaws, sub clauses. Who are we kidding here? Um, and I also feel like, you know, Roy is probably gonna turn that music, maybe not quite the volume it was before, but he's gotta, he's gotta crank his, you know, sad song. Yeah.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  He's still working through some stuff.

• 57:34Speaker 00

  He certainly is. Well, for a little while, things are actually quiet. Like Uncle Tony manages to find someone to repair the fence for cheap. Unfortunately, that means the work is not getting done very quickly. So it is during this time, while the fence is very slowly being repaired, that yet another problem is added to Uncle Tony's list. You see, Roy has a cat named Stevie, after Stevie Nicks, of course.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Roy is a man of such fascinating contradictions. The, you know, the, the glass box, yet the cat named Stevie.

• 58:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  I, people, people are just endlessly, endlessly interesting to me.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  Well, Stevie keeps sneaking into Foxy's garden through the open fence. And weirdly, it is actually Roy who calls Uncle Tony about this first. Roy is like, that woman is feeding Stevie some kind of hippie garbage. Every time Stevie comes back from her garden, he throws up something green.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  She's doing wheatgrass rituals with the cats.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  Do you think this is Uncle Tony's problem?

• 58:36Speaker 01

  No, no, listen, Uncle Tony has, you know, he's now doing unpaid labor as a property manager, as a contractor, as a couples therapist, as a mediator.

• 58:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  Guerrilla diplomacy. Uncle Tony has spread too thin.

• 58:57Speaker 00

  You've got to update his resume.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Yes. He needs, a trip to Biloxi is not enough to reset.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  He needs to go to Monte Carlo.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 59:09Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony doesn't really think it's his problem either, but he's got some free time that afternoon. So he calls Foxy later and he asks her how the fence repairs are going. And then he's like, have you seen a cat around? And then she's like, which one? The neighborhood cats all love my heirloom wheatgrass.

• 59:25Speaker 00

  I didn't know this before this story, but apparently cats go ape shit for wheatgrass, like the shit that's in the $10 shots. And the first time they eat it, they can go a little too hard and end up vomiting, which is apparently what happened to Stevie.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Like me, the first time I had a wine cooler at 14.

• 59:42Speaker 00

  Me the first time I got a little too high. Yes.

• 59:47Speaker 00

  This is Stevie's play. We salute you, Stevie.

• 59:52Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony releases information to Roy and for the first time, Tony hears something like respect in Roy's voice. Roy is like, heirloom wheatgrass.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony is a little too salt of the earth to know anything about this bougie shit, but he's like, how can I use this unexpected connection to my advantage? Do you have any ideas?

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, you gotta tell Foxy that Uncle Roy is really into making, you know, green smoothies and that the two of them should bond over treating their bodies as temples or some bullshit.

• 1:00:27Speaker 00

  Exactly. The next time Uncle Tony sees Foxy is about a week later when he goes to check out the progress on the fence, which is like halfway done and Foxy starts complaining about how the efficacy of her rituals is suffering from lack of fresh air. And Uncle Tony can tell she's about to start in on Roy. So before she can, he's like, you know, your neighbor is real impressed with your fancy grass. And Foxy's like, my weed? That's surprising. He seemed like a tight one. And this raises a lot of questions for Tony, but our man's on a peace mission. He doesn't have time to get into that. So he's like, no, not that. I mean, the fancy grass cats love.

• 1:01:08Speaker 00

  And there's like real pride in Foxy's voice when she's like, I ask my wheatgrass. She tells Tony that the seed for the wheatgrass has been passed down in her family for generations.

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  Do you think it's ever a good idea to lie for the greater good?

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Uh, yes, of course. It's often a good idea.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Society is held together by, uh, people telling, you know, productive lies.

• 1:01:34Speaker 00

  Correct. Uncle Tony decides to tell like a little white lie, like the littlest white lie. Uncle Tony's like, Foxy, you seem like a smart lady.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Was that the lie?

• 1:01:51Speaker 00

  Cannot confirm nor deny that one.

• 1:01:56Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony's like, do you think any man in his right mind will be playing Silver Springs on repeat for weeks on end? And that's when Uncle Tony tells Foxy that in their last call, Roy had actually confessed to still being pretty busted up over his divorce. And Tony's like, yeah, he said he wants to take better care of himself, but he doesn't know where to start.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  And it might be no surprise to you to learn that Foxy is a real softie. Like, yes, she loves to scream, but she also cares very deeply. Foxy's like, oh, poor thing. He's probably got so much inflammation from his broken heart.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  That wheatgrass would help with that.

• 1:02:31Speaker 00

  She's like, I have just the thing. I just made it this morning.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  And this is when Uncle Tony learns about Foxy's Witch's Brew. Like, she calls it this herself, to be clear.

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:02:43Speaker 00

  She won't tell anyone what is in it. Though, from the violet-green color, wheatgrass is definitely the main ingredient. Foxy's Witch's Brew is famous in the neighborhood for curing everything from heartbreak to the flu.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Sure. Because it gives you something worse that you can focus on?

• 1:03:05Speaker 00

  Foxy instructs Tony to give Roy the richest brew, but she says it's only because she thinks Stevie the Cat is adorable. And Foxy's like, Stevie deserves a more stable spiritual environment.

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  Well, you know, who can argue with that? It's true.

• 1:03:18Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony's like, a win is a win.

• 1:03:21Speaker 00

  He goes to see Roy and tells him that Foxy says Stevie the Cat is adorable, which is more a lie of omission than anything else, I would say. And then he delivers the wheatgrass concoction, and he says that Foxy sends it along as a gift because she knows she's not the easiest neighbor.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Oh, listen, he is sneaky in such a productive way. I want this man on my side.

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  This man that you were a fan of from the very beginning?

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. This man that I have not once said a word against.

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  Never once questioned?

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  No, never. There's one thing I've never done in my life. It is besmirch the very good name of Uncle Tony.

• 1:04:03Speaker 00

  Well, Uncle Tony is pretty proud of himself. From this point on, the voicemails that Roy and Foxy leave him start to, like, change in tone. They go from raging to complaining to, like, kind of, sort of complaining.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:20Speaker 00

  It's less like, you need to get over here immediately, and more like, if you have time, when you have time? Not an emergency.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Love that. Love that for him.

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  Until one morning, a few weeks after, the wheatgrass accords.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  The wheatgrass accords is very good.

• 1:04:38Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony wakes up to a series of increasingly panicked voicemails from Roy and Foxy. The first is from Roy, who is very clearly on the verge of tears. Roy's like, I can't find Stevie anywhere and Foxy won't let me check her backyard if she's hiding him. I'm calling the police.

• 1:04:57Speaker 00

  The next voicemail is from Foxy, who's like, I have no idea where the cat is. Roy is so irresponsible. And then another from Foxy, who's like, I let the tightwad check my backyard, but we still can't find Stevie. You have to do something, Tony.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Why is this Tony's problem? These are grown adults. Come on.

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  And then finally one from Roy, who is fully sobbing, like Stevie's missing. Please help. Foxy keeps trying to do a location ritual and I don't want to do a blood sacrifice.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Roy's been through too much. Roy just does not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with a missing cat right now. We can't, we can't take it.

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  Have you ever lost a pet?

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  I have. Yeah. Terrifying.

• 1:05:39Speaker 00

  It seems extremely scary.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  It was extremely scary. Well, so I thought that my cat had gotten out of the yard and I spent, you know, the better part of two hours looking for him. Turns out he just was hiding under the house.

• 1:05:54Speaker 00

  Peak cat behavior.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. But yeah, very, very scary. Not, not something I would, I would wish on anybody, especially somebody who's also, you know, listening to Silver Springs that much.

• 1:06:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uncle Tony listens to all of this with a pit and a stomach. Like on one hand, he's like, this is nowhere near my job, which once again, I'm not being paid for. He's like, I'm a handyman, not a veterinarian, certainly not an animal hunter. But Uncle Tony's also a huge softie. So even though he planned on going over to San Dollar Cove that weekend, he heads over as soon as he finishes eating breakfast. First he goes to Foxy's, he knocks on her door and waits and waits and waits.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  Put her clothes on. It takes a minute.

• 1:06:41Speaker 00

  But she never answered.

• 1:06:44Speaker 00

  So then Uncle Tony heads over to the soulless gray glass box next door.

• 1:06:49Speaker 00

  He walks up the driveway to Roy's house, rings the doorbell and waits and waits. He rings it again and he's starting to get a little nervous because Roy doesn't usually take that long to answer his door.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  What are the two of them up to?

• 1:07:04Speaker 00

  But then the door finally opens and behind it is none other than Foxy.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yay!

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  You're like kicking your feet and giggling.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  I absolutely am.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm being comp about this. What, what does she do? Was she just over there helping to find the cat?

• 1:07:27Speaker 00

  Well, before Uncle Tony can even say, "What the fuck?", Foxy's like, "We had a night last night." Uncle Tony cannot believe his eyes or ears and he is trying to find a delicate way of asking, "Did y'all fuck?", when Roy joins Foxy at the door and in his arms is the smallest kitten Uncle Tony has ever seen.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Stevie pregnant? Stevie unwed mother?

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  Oh no!

• 1:07:58Speaker 00

  From here, the entire story comes out. Once Foxy and Roy had like determined that neither one of them was harboring the cat, they had gone searching together and eventually found Stevie the cat holed up in a tool shed about to give birth. And this was surprising for many reasons, the most important of which is that up until this point, Roy had been referring to Stevie as a boy.

• 1:08:22Speaker 00

  Foxy had helped the panicking Roy assist Stevie through labor and it's at this point that Foxy looks at Uncle Tony and is like, "In another life, I was a cat doula."

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Of course she was.

• 1:08:33Speaker 00

  Uncle Tony's like, "I'm sure you were."

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:08:37Speaker 00

  Who's your favorite?

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  I mean, as I've said from the beginning,

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  I love all of them in their own way. I love that. I love that each one is a softie. I love that they are all moved by their own feelings.

• 1:08:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  These are my sort of people. I love, I like all of them, but Stevie's the best one, obviously.

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  Obviously. Um, my final updates are that the night Foxy and Roy spent as co-midwives to Stevie officially ended the war between them.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  Wait, did they fuck though? Come on, I need to know.

• 1:09:16Speaker 00

  Let me get to that.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm jumping ahead.

• 1:09:21Speaker 00

  The détente was helped by the fact that the fence was fully repaired two weeks after that, but Foxy even helps Roy find homes for all of the kittens and she keeps one herself. And because Stevie obviously cannot be separated from her child, Foxy and Roy cut like a small little hole into the newly repaired fence so that Stevie and her child can come and go as pleased.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  Oh, not a pussy hole.

• 1:09:46Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  Yes, well.

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  The rest of the repairs on the house are finished within a month or so, but Uncle Tony still drives down to Sand Dollar Cove every so often, ostensibly to check out the property for Tammy, but mostly to get sweet tea and gossip from Foxy. But Foxy never tells Tony if she and Roy ever hooked up. Whenever he asks, she's just like, the universe has her secrets.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  Okay, well, I'm sorry. I believe in love. I believe, uh, in romance and I believe that the two of them, they, they got up to things that even Stevie Nixon, Lindsay Buckingham did not have the passion to undertake.

• 1:10:34Speaker 00

  I mean, they have access to weed. They have a hot tub over between the ocean. They're retired. What else are they gonna do?

• 1:10:44Speaker 00

  That's our story, Brandy. Thank you so much for joining me.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  Thank you. It was a delight. It was a pleasure. Uh, I, I, I believe in love.

• 1:10:57Speaker 00

  Do you believe in life after love?

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  I do. I still don't believe in rituals, but.

• 1:11:10Speaker 00

  Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at [email protected], or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679 Gossip. If you love this podcast and want to support us, become a friend or a friend of a friend at supportnormalgossip.com. You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Normal Gossip. You can follow me on all social media at HeyDnA, H-E-Y-Y-D-N-A-E. This podcast was produced by Sarah Spragley-Ricks and Jay Tolviera. Thank you to Samantha Gatzik, our audio engineer, and thank you to Danielle Hewitt for your additional production help this season. The co-creators and Dowager Queens Normal Gossip are Alex SuJong Laughlin

• 1:11:54Speaker 00

  and Kelsey McKinney. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Jasper Wang and Sean Kuhn are Defector's business guys. Alex SuJong Laughlin is Defector's supervising producer. Tom Lay is our editor in chief. Dan McQuade runs our merch store, which you can find at normalgossip.store. Tara Jacoby designed our show art. Thank you to Catherine Chu, Brandi Chinson, Louise Paez-Pumar, Chris Thompson, Jasper Wang, Sabrina Imbler, Dave McKenna, Patrick Redford, and Ray Rado for all your help on this season. Thank you to the rest of the Defector staff. Defector Media is a collectively owned subscriber-based media company. Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton, and remember, you didn't hear this from me.