Finding the Rarest Flower

[Upbeat Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: A while back I had the privilege of speaking with our guest today, K. J. Aiello, about mental illness and the stigma around that term. K. J. is one of my favorite people. She's a Toronto based mentally ill writer whose work includes essays, op-eds, and recently and recently.

Mike: Released a nonfiction book titled The Monster and The Mirror, which explores the intersection of speculative fiction and mental illness. I'm gonna mention this, even though we talked about the last time, she also authored a brilliant article, just brilliant that was available and I'll put a link to it in the independent publication.

Mike: The walrus titled, who Gets To Be Mentally Ill? Well, since May is Mental Health Awareness Month here in the States, we thought it would be a great time to talk to K. J. again to celebrate the rollout of her book and to chat about the state of our mental health.

Mike: Welcome back, K. J..

K. J.: Thank you for having me again.

Mike: God. Well, it's so fun. You are one of my favorite people.

K. J.: Thank you.

Mike: Since we last talked, and I know I talked about this to you a couple of years ago, and then again last year your book came out.

K. J.: It did.

Mike: So I want, I, since I haven't had that experience, I wanna talk about what's the reception been like?

Mike: Are you doing appearances? Talk about that stuff.

K. J.: Yeah, it's been wild. Well. So a little bit of context here. My book came out and I think it was about four or five days previously, I, my cat passed away, and I know, you know, as a state of the world, oh, cat passing away, but...

Mike: Oh, no, no, no.

K. J.: It really, yeah, she was my, my little companion.

K. J.: So, and then three days after that, I started an MFA program. So it was a whirlwind and I don't think I've been able to catch my breath since. And it's, it's been, I am grateful for all of the, the warm reception that the book has received, as well as, you know the Can Lit or Canadian Literary community here, as well as some, you know, literary communities in the US embracing me and embracing my work and my thoughts and opinions, which is kind of wild to me.

K. J.: But I'm also, I'm feeling very exhausted.

Mike: I bet.

K. J.: Yeah, it's taken a toll on my mental health. But yeah, I think it's the people who are reading the book. I think it's, it's hitting them in ways I did not really expect. I think it's helping people to feel seen, to find nuanced layers to our conversations around mental health and mental illness.

K. J.: As well as folks who just, you know, feel othered or, or they want, they want to learn more about how these mental health conversations and mental illness and othering it's placed in our political discourse. So. It's not just about dragons. (laughs)

Mike: No. No. In fact, well, there's a million questions come up right away.

Mike: Let me start with your cat, sorry. Because your cat played a role in your growing up too, so. That's not easy. I'm sorry about that.

K. J.: Yeah, it's, it's a different kitty. She was the one who I adopted after some pretty traumatic experiences and I thought, I need something in my life.

K. J.: And it was this little creature and it felt kind of full circle. She lived 15 years.

Mike: Wow.

K. J.: 15 good years and. It was almost like, you know, the universe said, okay, she's done her part. And I know she's just a cat, but she was my baby. So it felt strange and full circle and wholesome and yet heartbreaking.

Mike: You know, K. J., I, I work with a, a lot of adolescents all the time. That's what I was doing yesterday. And your book. I, the, I work with tons of kids who your book is perfect for, not that it's an adolescent book, but they, they will be seen in that 'cause I can just see them. But when I ask them, who's the best listener in your life?

Mike: Who listens to you, animals come up.

K. J.: Mm-hmm.

Mike: Number one, grandma all the time. So it's not just a, a cat, it's your, some, many times it's for a lot of kids, especially in dysfunctional families, it's their best friend.

K. J.: Yeah, she was, and she also kind of gave me this she helped to teach me what unconditional love is.

K. J.: I mean animals will love you unconditionally, but also. I found a way to look after another living creature in a way that I'd never, I'd never really felt in my own life at that point but that I was capable and competent to do it and worthy enough to have this, this little critter in my, she was so cute.

K. J.: Oh yeah. She was just the cutest. (laughs)

K. J.: (laughs) That's great.

Mike: Well, you know, you've talked a a lot in, when our conversations about going through, you went through a lot, and I like that you describe yourself as a mentally ill writer. Like let's take the stigma out of it right away. But we've had a guest or two on in the last few months who have talked about different therapies, everything from like ketamine therapy and EMDR and other things.

Mike: What sorts of things have you tried over the years that helped you?

K. J.: So I have not done any of the. I don't know how to term those other therapies. You know, the non-traditional therapies, I guess is what we, well, non-Western medicine traditional. I do know that there are other cultures and traditions that do use some of these other like ketamine or CBD, marijuana.

K. J.: I have not, I, you know, I. I don't know how to say it, but I have partaken in the past. (laughs) And it was not, it was not great. I do not deal well with those sorts of things. But I also, I have found, I. When I met my husband, I kind of found this soft place to land and to fall apart and to really kind of, you know, you can't organize a closet unless you empty it out first.

K. J.: And that was the process. Over a couple years I just emptied out and then I sort of started to build things back up again and I found that that was one of the best therapies that, you know, in my medication. And, you know, traditional therapy as well, talk therapy. So for me, that has. That has worked. And I also, I feel really, really grateful that I actually don't have to work a full-time job.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

K. J.: I can look after my mental health and I understand the privilege, the, you know. That I have to be able to do that. There are a lot of disabled folks who, you know, they're living under the, what it is, it the, the baseline living conditions. What do they call that again? Words. Words. Mike, you know, they're, under the poverty line.

K. J.: Yeah, yeah. You get, you get the point. So. For me, those, you know, non, non-Western traditional therapies, I don't really want to try. I don't think that they would work for me. I, and they don't work for everybody. But the people who they do work for, you know what? I am happy for them. (laughs)

Mike: You know, your, your book, since you brought it up, your book, I really like the way you dealt with what you just brought up in your book. You don't go into war stories or great detail, but you touch on stuff and you let the reader know. Yeah. You dabbled in things that, that weren't helpful, right?

K. J.: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mike: Without elaborating, making whole chapters about the one nighters or you know, what you took or anything else.

K. J.: Mm-hmm.

Mike: You know, it's, it's hard you, when you're struggling to find yourself and if you're feeling invisible, to feel visible even for a day.

K. J.: Yeah, that's, yeah, that was kind of what I did. It was also, I think this sort of subliminal way to hurt myself.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

K. J.: I had, you know, zero self-respect zero. I, I also, I wasn't suicidal, but I also would not be sad if a bus hit me, you know?

Mike: Mm-hmm.

K. J.: Like, it wouldn't be a bad thing for me. So I think all of those behaviors was because I did not feel worthy. I did not even really feel human and all I'd really known of love, particularly love from, you know, romantic love or sexual attraction or anything like that. It was very toxic.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

K. J.: What I had learned, I think a lot of women have had similar experiences to, to varying degrees and it's very hard to find your. Your self-respect, your self-worth, and you know, fight for your place in this world when really by a lot of men and boys, you've been treated like garbage, and then you have that additional layer of, you know, I do live with childhood trauma. I was living with mental illness, you know, it was just a perfect storm of, you know, treating myself like a trash bin. Really? (laughs)

Mike: Yeah. Well your book caught me. Well, and I think it would catch anybody, like right away it just hammers you right into the book.

Mike: And, and I don't mean that in a negative way. I'm like, oh my gosh. Turn the page. Turn the page. There's no slow buildup. You saw yourself, sort of as a monster, but did you see yourself that way or do you think you viewed yourself that way because others viewed the behavior monstrously?

K. J.: I think it was a bit of both. I always felt there was something a little weird, a little different about me, even from the time I was little. I mean, I had a very active imagination. I think a lot of kids do, and I think that should definitely be encouraged. But I also feel like, and also the messages that I got from my mother.

K. J.: Growing up was, the world is evil. The world is gonna hurt you, only I can take care of you. Which I'm sure she meant well by it, but it was a very harmful, toxic message for a little girl to get, particularly a little girl. But I did feel like there was something weird about me that I was not right.

K. J.: I always felt like I was. Sort of just stepped outside my body all the time. It was like this, you know, tracing paper over an original I was the tracing paper, just sort of a little bit skewed over top of the original that I was supposed to be or what people saw me as. And that, you know. Only became more inculcated into my, into my self view and like who I was.

K. J.: My base personality as I grew older because yeah, I lashed out when I was a kid a lot. And the only way I knew how to, to fight back or to be heard was to be violent, you know, and I don't blame myself for doing that really. I don't blame that little girl.

Mike: Well, some of the violence you know, when, when you're being bullied.

Mike: You know, they made movies about some of it, it, some of your behavior, especially with the little boy in the fence, it seemed, seemed justified and almost heroic. But then you're the one punished for it.

K. J.: Yeah, I mean, of course I would be, first of all, it was the eighties. (laughs) Let's be real. I mean, we didn't, yeah, we did not have conversations about bullying and I think little girls and you know, perhaps.

K. J.: Also today little girls are seen as far more compliant, far more at the diplomat softer, gentler, and they would not lash out like that. I think girls and women are given such a hard time if they do, you know, show assertion. right. Like, like a man or a boy would, you know, boys will be boys, right.

K. J.: And that little boy, he was very much, I don't blame him either, because where did he learn that behavior? Right.

Mike: Well, and that's what I was gonna ask you children, right. Get most of their emotions through the adults and are defining them. So you can, at some age, you're only as helpful or healthy as the adults are.

Mike: If the adults aren't empathetic or understanding, or themselves not functioning would allow your mom.

K. J.: Yeah. Yeah. I think you are, you're correct in that. And I do think there, there's a lot of nurturing element. You know, you have your nature versus nurture. I definitely think for me there is the nature part of me, I had you know, sort of the risk factors for mental illness. I was already a very, I was a strange child right out of the womb. I was a strange child. I think cool now, but, you know.

Mike: Yeah! It comes across as cool.

K. J.: Right, right. (laughs) But I also think, you know, that the, the nurture aspect for me. Really layered over top of the cool kid I could have been or would've been allowed to have, you know, been celebrated for all my weirdness.

K. J.: I'm glad weird and nerd is in style now because you know (laughs). S o yeah, I think that there's. If there are little kids doing things that are particularly alarming or violent or lashing out, I don't really want to blame the children for doing that because I do think that there was something learned there, some message they received, whether the parents knew, or know they're doing it or not.

K. J.: I do think it's parents' responsibility to not fix themselves first, but address your, address, your problems for your kids.

Mike: Don't, don't give them to your kids.

K. J.: Don't give them to your kids. We call that intergenerational trauma. (laughs)

Mike: I used to tell parents when I was doing therapy, please sneeze into your elbow, don't sneeze on your kid. Right?

K. J.: Oh my God, that's perfect. (laughs)

Mike: Yeah. Well, that's kind of the, I mean, it it, not all by the way, not all of them got it. But

K. J.: I love it. I love it. I'm gonna use it.

Mike: Good. You interweave so much into your book. Oh, by the way. There it is.

K. J.: Oh my goodness. You have it!

Mike: Although it's, the mirror is not, but the mirror is very interesting. And, and early on, you, you talk about Frankenstein's monster.

K. J.: Mm-hmm.

Mike: Which I think is an interesting place to see yourself.

K. J.: Yeah. I think. Frankenstein's Monster also resembled a lot of my mother. I think that, not that my mother was Frankenstein or anything, you know, monstrous like that, but I do think that there are entire aspects of her that lived in such profound grief. And it was a grief of what could never have been, or she believed at the time would never be.

K. J.: I do think there were a lot of opportunities where she could have addressed her own childhood trauma and her own loss.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

K. J.: She didn't really have a father growing up. She, she was the, the mistress's baby. She was the love child. So there was already that layer of not being accepted, of being the mistake.

K. J.: And, you know, her mother went through a lot in her life and, you know, didn't fix herself either, but you know, that was the fifties. So I do think that that grief that my mother was never able to address became something monstrous for her. And then, you know, for, for me and my brother, particularly for me, my mom definitely transferred a lot of her emotions and feelings and messages to me because I was the girl.

K. J.: I was her little girl. I was her little princess, even though I did not wanna wear dresses. Yeah, she's, she's a very, she's a very strong character that moment (laughs).

Mike: Well, and, and the character we're talking about, for those of you listening and watching is the book, the book Frankenstein Not the movie, the movie's great.

Mike: And Young Frankenstein is the best movie ever, but the book Frankenstein. The Frankenstein's monster is totally different in the book than comes across in the movie.

K. J.: Yes.

Mike: Explores their emotions and very empathetic in a lot of it.

K. J.: Mm-hmm.

Mike: You know, you had a line in your book that made me really sad, but I could see tons of people I've worked with with it.

Mike: And the line is, I know I am different and different is bad.

K. J.: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike: Why is different bad? Who defines that?

K. J.: Yeah. I mean, are we in a therapy session, Mike? (laughs)

Mike: Well, no, I, it's, well, it's kind of like a lot of people wonder that, you know, that I see it all the time.

Mike: I'm different. Different is bad. Why isn't different? Great. I like different.

K. J.: Yeah. Well I think that's also because you're a very well adjusted person (laughs) with a lot of self-reflection and being able to observe the world from, you know, both that eagle eye view, but being able to go deeper into the human condition and human psychology and I think different for a lot of people brings fear.

Mike: Yep.

K. J.: Right. Because I think particularly right now, we have a lot of fear in our world right now. And I think those who are, who do not recognize that fear being transferred onto difference are the people who are in power right now. I'm not gonna, you know, but I think that difference challenges us in a way that is extremely uncomfortable in a way that perhaps makes us feel like we are losing control. Like take, colonialism for starters. And up here in Canada, I don't know if you have it in the U. S. there's this movement called land back and it means giving the land back to the indigenous people. Now it doesn't, for, in some cases it does mean actually giving physical land back, but what it also means is returning, self-agency and sovereignty and governance over themselves. We still are indigenous communities are, you know, they're, they're far more policed and governed than, you know, white folks are, you know, immigrants and most of us are immigrants or first, second generation. So I think that when somebody who is, you know, a colonizer and, you know, white folks or whatever, hear that term, land back, they think something that, something threatening that they're going to lose out.

K. J.: That their way of life is being threatened and it's not. It's not. The pie is infinite, right? We all have a, a right to live, a right to be in our space. But I think that's the difference that people are really afraid of. And that's obviously a bigger, more political socio. Sociological kind of take on that.

K. J.: But when you apply to mental illness and you see a very specific difference, like somebody living with schizophrenia, that can be frightening. Even though you know, we do now, thank God, have this message that people with mental illness are not exactly violent people. (laughs) We are far more likely to be victims of violence than a mentally healthy person, than to actually perpetrate it ourselves.

K. J.: So I think any kind of difference it, it threatens people.

Mike: I think, I think fear is it, I think you quote Amanda LeDuc, right? In your book.

K. J.: Mm-hmm.

Mike: Who talks about you know, the speculative fiction and, and fantasy and how the protagonists are always different, set a set apart, and that, and then in a lot of it there feared by the.

Mike: As they would say in AA, normies. Right?

K. J.: The Normies, yeah. Yeah.

K. J.: Well, she writes very specifically in her book Disfigured is the one that you're referencing and I recommend everybody to read it. There is an aspect she talks about with mental illness, but it is about how disability, both, you know, physical, invisible and you know, mental illness, how they are framed in fairytales and the sum it up.

K. J.: Her thesis is that. The disability is either a punishment, a lesson, right? She, she often refers to I think it's Hans, my Hedge Hedgehog, or one of the Grimm's fairytales, but the main character is punished through difference through a disfigurement. So it's almost like, you know, any kind of difference is a punishment.

K. J.: We are not normal, aka able bodied, able minded, white, cis, male, hetero. You know what I mean? Like yeah. So the way she framed it just I feel like can be applied to a lot of ways we tell stories in our Western culture. Right.

Mike: Yeah. And you use just a a from Frankenstein, to Game of Thrones, to Harry Potter, to Lord of the Rings.

Mike: You identify, or at least in the book with quite a few characters weaving in and out. I think we talked about Game of Thrones the last time you were on, right?

K. J.: Yeah. Denarius. Yeah, I think. I mean, I can definitely relate to a lot of those characters in some way. But I also think that there's some ways that the authors or creators, like, you know, Game of Thrones, what they did to Denarius.

K. J.: I'm still salty about that! (laughs)

Mike: okay. Every, every, everyone is, everyone is, they just wanna take the last season and just start over. Right.

K. J.: Oh my God. (laughs)

Mike: Have you seen the YouTube clip of the yeah. Oh, you know where I'm going? Right Of the cast reading it and the cast is all super ticked off.

K. J.: Oh my god, they're so angry. Justifiably, I, I can't remember the character, the actor who played Lord Ferris, but. Just teach. I think he just tossed this way. He's like, no, I'm out. (laughs)

Mike: And then so he puts their arm around, you know, like.

K. J.: Oh, talk about [inaudible].

Mike: Well, because the characters lived it, right? That's the point.

Mike: That's part of the point. You're making characters live it. They know the actors lived their character, they know where their character would go. And then somebody else writes the like, what did you see for seven seasons? That you write this?

K. J.: Exactly. Yeah. And I think like particularly for Denarius, you know, I, I think that the writers took the easy, it, it was a cop out what they did because I think that they were, their brains were somewhere else or they were running out of money.

K. J.: I don't know! The showrunners were like, no, too expensive! Let's end it! So I think that they took the easy way out and a lot of times the easy way out is to villainize somebody through difference, through othering. And that's exactly what happened to  Denarius. There are some people who do defend it saying, you know, she was showing, you know, signs of being crazy all this time.

K. J.: And it's like, well... or... maybe she was living in a very patriarchal, dramatizing fantasy world, and the way she was, you know, responding to that was quite normal. You know, like she lived in fear most of her life because she was actually being hunted down and sold like a brood mare. Yeah. So, and I think like for a lot of the Game of Thrones, and I'm talking about the TV show 'cause I've tried to read the books and they're like bricks, they're so thick.

K. J.: I think a lot of the female characters in Game of Thrones, like you look at Songs of Stark also, these women are, their story is pushed forward. Their plot is pushed forward through the actions, the behaviors of bad men. So you look at Sansa in the last season when they're all in winter fell, they've won the, the spoiler alert if you haven't watched it yet.

K. J.: I feel like that's on you at this point though.

Mike: Yeah.

K. J.: And she meets up again with the hound and he says, you're not that little bird anymore. And she said, if it wasn't for, you know, all of these awful men. You know, using her, abusing her and selling her off and just, she says, I would've remained that little bird this entire time, and there's a part of me that died when she said that.

Mike: Yeah.

K. J.: You know, that is not our story.

Mike: No. But because what happens when you're abused that much we all know is not the, you don't end up on the throne, right?

K. J.: Mm-hmm.

Mike: And you end up in a really bad place.

K. J.: Mm-hmm.

Mike: But you know, it's, it, you talk also about gaming and other places that people find themselves.

Mike: Right? I think, was it your friend Nari that said, in fiction you can create a better world, you can find a better you.

K. J.: Nari yeah, Nari's fabulous. If you're on Twitch, check out Nari by Nature, she's created such a wonderful, welcoming, safe space for gamers. And so I interviewed her. It was, it's near, it's the end of the book actually, and it's sort of like, how was I going to you know, take this story that I've told over the past, you know, 200 some odd pages, and how am I gonna move forward? How am I going to inject some hope, find, you know, possibilities for our future as people who are different, particularly mentally ill people? And Nari just summed it up so well, and she first of all had said something like.

K. J.: Why are people, why do they feel freer in a simulation than they do in real life? And she says, what are we afraid of? And again, we're going back to the fear thing, and she said, in fiction, I feel like you can create a better world. Because if we make those attempts in our world here, we are afraid of, you know, failing.

K. J.: We are afraid of ostracization. We are afraid of, you know, the, the boogeyman in the closet. You know what? Bad things are gonna happen to destroy our souls or literally actually just destroy us. So I think Nari has a very hopeful view and she actually taught me a lot about, you know, what we can do with these, these incredible worlds we can create in fantasy.

K. J.: Literally we can do anything in fantasy. Why don't we do something great? You know.

Mike: Well, it blends. Do you also share that optimism. Because you communicate it, you embody it.

K. J.: Yeah. I mean, right now (laughs) with the world, it's a little hard. But I do try and find. You know, hope in the world and ways that we can move forward together.

K. J.: And actually, I just finished reading and I'm looking at my books here. I'm gonna show it to you. I know people can't see, but it's, she's American Saving Five, Amanda Nguyen. She is a Vietnamese American who she. She yesterday just went to space. She was the first Vietnamese to go to space, and this had been, her becoming an astronaut had been her dream, but she, when she was at, I think it was Harvard, her first year she was sexually assaulted.

K. J.: And her story of when she. She didn't want to press charges because if she was going to go to NASA or CIA, she also interviewed with the CIA. She could not have an open court case, so she, the statute of limitations in the state that she was in was 15 years, but her rape kit would only be kept for six months and then it would be destroyed unless she had started.

K. J.: She, she. Press charges. So every six months she was retraumatized, trying to get her rape kit saved, and she said, of course she did. She's like, you know what, I'm gonna change the law. (laughs) And she did it at a federal level. She went to Washington and she changed the law and then obviously wrote this beautiful memoir.

K. J.: I recommend absolutely everybody read it. I, I read it in a day one sitting, Amanda, if you're listening, I had to pee for like the past hundred pages. But, oh no.

Mike: Well, you can get up and walk and carry it with you.

K. J.: Yeah. Carry it to the, no, I'm still traumatized also by that one. Is that a Seinfeld episode? (laughs)

Mike: Yeah. Alright, got it. Got it. Yeah.

K. J.: [inaudible] to the one. No, no, no, we're not doing that. Only our cell phones. And just, you know, and after all of that, she finally got hired at NASA and yesterday.

Mike: Wow.

K. J.: She went to space.

Mike: That's awesome.

K. J.: And oh, oh my God! So hope. You know, like there's, there are people out there who are fighting and they're fighting for those who are too tired, who do not have the power, who do not have the resources.

K. J.: So amongst all of the garbage that we're getting right now, and I do feel like a lot of Americans, are just, they're afraid and they're under so much garbage right now of what's happening.

Mike: Well, and you don't know how you guys are gonna turn out either, right?

K. J.: Don't even, yeah, we have an election, I think it's at the end of the month.

Mike: Right.

K. J.: A federal election. And the two candidates, one of the candidates is she's kind, he, sorry. He is kind of like the, the Canadian Donald Trump.

Mike: Yeah.

K. J.: He's, he's a little only, he's a little smarter, which is scarier. So we'll see how it goes. But even if he is elected, fingers crossed he is not. I, I have to believe that there will always be those people who do have the resources, who do have the energy, the, the mental and emotional capacity to be able to fight when those of us cannot.

Mike: Well, and I wanna end it with you, with that sort of like that you, you mentioned in the book that your father coped with his stuff. He'd go and talk to trees. Right.

K. J.: Yeah.

Mike: And you mentioned leprechauns and being Irish, I'm familiar with them. And the space you talked about with the lady's book, who you just read, there's a space, our brain, we don't understand our brain yet.

K. J.: Mm-hmm.

Mike: What's wrong with talking to trees and believing in leprechauns?

K. J.: Yeah, so my dad didn't actually really talk to trees. It was sort of like a, a metaphorical, he had this sort of respect, almost like this druidic respect and understanding with nature. He was only really himself when...

Mike: Well, yeah. Your, your mom said he talks the trees. Yeah. But he really just observed, right?

K. J.: Yeah. And it was kind of eerie that he would be able to find a fox's den, like. Just snap of the fingers. He found a hawk's nest. He waited there and saw the chicks, the hawk chicks. He climbed up the tree. He would see stags.

K. J.: He would find stags like in in the autumn, you know, when their antlers are in, I call it full bloom. I don't know how else to call it, but just absolutely stunning what he could find. And he would also find the rarest flower. We went to Flower Pot Island, which is an island. It's about, I don't know, three hour, three, four hours north of Toronto because he wanted to see, to find this one rare orchid called a Calypso orchid.

K. J.: And he spent all day and he finally found one. And it's just like he was, I don't know. He had this sort of sixth sense to be able to, to find the magic. Even though he was in the real world, the real person, he kind of just sort of smooshed it all down. He, he put it away for some reason and not for some reason.

K. J.: I know why he did, but, and it was incredible and I will always, even though. My father and I do not speak, and very complicated feelings there. I will always be grateful for those memories that I had with him. They were beautiful.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

K. J.: Yeah. Yeah.

Mike: Well, he might've been looking for it, but when you were with him, he was walking alongside a pretty rare flower.

K. J.: Well, thank, oh! I'm gonna take that all week with me. (laughs)

Mike: Well, it's, your book is just, I, you know, I told you this before we started. Your book is terrific. The conversations have been terrific.

K. J.: Thank you.

Mike: And, and I'm gonna find any excuse to have you back. But for those of you listening, you know how this goes.

Mike: There's links to K. J.'s work and her wonderful website and the pictures are, are delightful.

K. J.: Thank you.

Mike: I love, I love anybody that doesn't take the author picture. (places hand on chin)

K. J.: Yeah, the author picture. (laughs)

Mike: And, and yours are just full of life, which is great.

K. J.: Thank you.

Mike: For those of you listening, watching I hope you find hope, courage, support, wherever you are.

Mike: Thanks for listening. Be safe. Keep going. And who's to say that there are no leprechauns?