John: You say, "Good morning-" So you say "Good morning Hank, it's Tuesday-"

Ashley: Okay.

John: And then I wheel in, and I say "It's Question Tuesday, the day that we answer real questions from real Nerdfighers only this time I'm joined by best-selling memoirist Ashley C. Ford."

Ashley: (laughs) It's not even best-selling yet.   

John: Not yet! 

Ashley: (laughs) Okay, I'll start, okay. 

John: Alright, here we go.

Ashley: Alright. Good morning Hank, it's Tuesday. 

John: It's Question Tuesday, the day that we answer real questions from real Nerdfighers. And I say "we" because I'm joined by Ashley C. Ford, best-selling memoirist and my friend.

Ashley: It's not best-selling yet.

John: I mean, I- I'm looking into the future. I believe- I believe it will be. I'm manifesting it.

Ashley: Thank you for believing in me.

John: I'm secreting our way to a best-selling memoir. It's called Somebody's Daughter, it's out now. It's so great. 

Ashley: You're a good friend, John. 

John: I mean it. I wouldn't- believe me, I wouldn't have you here in my house if two things weren't true: we're both fully vaccinated and your book is really good.

Ashley: Yes. Yes. 

John: Okay. Alright. Okay, I have a bunch of questions. We're just going to go through these questions. 

Ashley: Let's do it. 

John: Some of them are good, some of them are not good. We're not gonna- we're not gonna tell people if they have a bad question, we're just gonna- we're just gonna roll with it, and we can cut anything we don't like.

Ashley: There are no bad questions. 

John: There are some bad questions.

Ashley: Just questions we won't answer. 

John: Some questions we won't answer. I've got to find the Google Doc. There we go, okay. Uh, so first I wanted to ask you the question that Hank asked in his last video, "Is Twitter redeemable?" 

Ashley: (groans) You know I like to live in reality.

John: Yeah.

Ashley: And because of that I think Twitter is just gonna be what it's going to be and only as redeemable as we are. Um, and I think some people are redeemable.

John: Yeah.

Ashley: So there is a shot. 

John: So you're saying there's a chance.

Ashley: (laughs) There's a chance.

John: What is your opinion on seagulls?

Ashley: Oh, I am not a fan-

John: Me neither.

Ashley: -of seagulls-

John: No.

Ashley: I do enjoy the beach and I recognize that they belong there more than I do. So I would never try to take that away from them.

John: Yeah.

Ashley: But I do want to be honest about the beef we seem to have. They annoy me, they have screamed at me.

John: Yeah.

Ashley: One of them has chased my husband down a beach.

John: Yup. He is handsome.

Ashley: He is veeery handsome.

John: So I don't blame 'em!

Ashley: And they were like "Ayeee! Skeee! Skeee!"

Both: (laughing)

John: One time we were-

Ashley: Was still disrespectful though.

Both: (laughing)

John: Sorry, say that again I cut you off.

Ashley: No, I was saying- It was still disrespectful though.

John: Yeah for sure. It's not- it's not right. Especially when he's with you, you know? (laughing)

Ashley: You know what, I'm right here, seagulls. I am right here.

John: One time we were at Disney World, and I was eating a soft pretzel, and I literally had it in my mouth, and a seagull stole it from me. 

Ashley: (chuckling) The audacity!

John: It was shocking. 

Ashley: That is- that's just so bold. 

John: It's so- it's also, like, as it carried it away, I was like "Are you an ant? You're carrying something that's like seven times your weight and you're flying with it. Are you an eagle?"

Ashley: (laughing) And cackling.

John: Ugh, God.

Ashley: And cackling in the back of their- that "Euhuhuhuhuh."

John: That joyful "YEEEEAAA!" 

Ashley: "Yeah we got it, we got it!" (laughing) 

John: We don't need to do any other questions, those two were gold.

Ashley: (laughing) It was fun. 

John: How does it feel to have Oprah love your book?

Ashley: It feels like when you've been outside all day, and it's been really, really cold, right? And for some reason, you've been outside cause maybe you're doing yard work, maybe you had to shovel, maybe all that stuff is going on. And you feel iced out in your bones.

John: Mhmm.

Ashley: Then you come inside and you take off all of your wet soggy clothes, and you get into the perfect hot shower. And you can stay in as long as you want and no one interrupts you. That's what it feels like.

John: I think I'm going to have the picture of Oprah reading your book in, like, a big open field play across that whole answer. 

Ashley: Wasn't it amazing?

John: Yes.

Ashley: Even though there were a lot of people who were, like, in the comments like, "Hey Oprah, where'd you get that quilt?"

Both: (laughing)

John: I liked the people who were in the comments like, "Hey Oprah, why are you only on page 27?"

Both: (laughing)

Ashley: Oh, oh, also a really good one are the people who saw me retweet the photo of Oprah with my book and she has a dog with her, and I said something about how it was going to make me cry. And so a lot of people were like "Oh no, Oprah's dog died."

John: (laughing) No, no. I'm just excited about Oprah reading my book and loving it.

Ashley: Just excited about the book.

John: When is your event with Oprah?

Ashley: Wednesday.

John: Okay, so tomorrow, as this is uploaded, you can see Ashley C. Ford in conversation with Oprah Winfrey live in person (on Zoom), link in the dooblydoo. 

Both: (laughing) 

Ashley: And it's with Charis Books which is the oldest feminist bookstore. It's fantastic.

John: Yeah, it's really exciting. I'll be there. 

Ashley: You've been to all of them. (laughing)

John: I have been to all of them. My par- yeah, I have been to all of your book events. Because, well they're- each one's different. 

Ashley: Each one is different.

John: And I need a bunch of copies of the book to give away so it's not a problem. I like it. 

Ashley: Wow, strategy.

John: We've- we're five minutes thirty seconds in, it's all gold, but we've gotta cut it to four minutes.

Ashley: Oh no!

John: So we gotta-, we gotta- I'm going to ask you some quick questions and then you give quick answers and those will be good, like, interstitials. 

Ashley: Great.

John: Waffles or pancakes?

Ashley: Waffles.

John: Favourite ice cream?

Ashley: Rocky road, but!

John: Ugh, that's so disappointing.

Ashley: But with almonds- but with almonds-

John: No, no-

Ashley: Not with walnuts. 

John: No! 

Ashley: It's so good.

John: No.

Ashley: The marshmallows and the chocolates!

John: Oh, God. When I worked in an ice cream store in Moose Pass, Alaska, and people would come in and order rocky road, I would judge them! 

Ashley: Awwww.

Ashley: Yes.

John: Like you understand their humanity the whole time, which is part of what makes it so deeply upsetting and moving- as you wrote the book, did your understanding of any of the people in the book change as a result of writing?

Ashley: Yeah, mostly me! (laughs)

John: Mm, yeah!

Ashley: Mostly me, absolutely, because as you're sifting through the memories, deciding what to write, deciding how to put these characters together, you also are reconciling- or at least for me- how you feel about them. 

John: Mhmm.

Ashley: And how you see them.

John: Right.

Ashley: Which means you kinda have to interrogate yourself enough to be like "Did I see this correctly? Do I remember this correctly?"

John: Mhmm, mhmm.

Ashley: "The context that I put around it in my brain, is that the correct context?" Like it's really- (sighs) I don't think you could write a book like this, I don't think you could write a memoir, honestly, and walk away not having learned something about yourself. I mean maybe if you try really, really hard, um, but I didn't. (laughs)

John: Yeah. Yeah, and you can feel that too, like, I think that writing, like writing personal nonfiction for me is much more of an introduction to myself than it is to other people. 

Ashley: Absolutely. And I- writing this book is kind of how I figured out that, you know, I was really good at self-protecting but I wasn't great at self-loving. And that was a place that I was, you know, lacking. I needed to work on it a little bit in order to live in reality, to see myself as I am and not try to define myself by everybody else's reaction to me. 

John: Good. Alright, I'm making sure we're in focus again. 

Ashley: Focussssed. 

John: Nope, no, that's the exact wrong thing. That's better, I think. 

Ashley: Do you think it's having issues because we're such different colors?

John: I don't think that's the problem but it's always a possibility, the cameras are super racist.

Ashley: They are super racist!

John: It's a known, it's a known thing. 

Ashley: It is!

John. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. 

Ashley: It is, my friend Serena McFadden wrote a beautiful article about it one time about how um, the plates that were used to define coloring inside of the camera were all white women. 

John: Yeah, I think I read that, it was really powerful and disturbing. 

Ashley: (laughs) 

John: Um, when does the worry about releasing a book end and the relief set in?

Ashley: You tell me!

Both: (laughing)

Ashley: Sir!

John: I mean, I don't know, uh, The Fault in Our Stars came out like nine and a half years ago and I'm starting to feel a little relieved-

Ashley: (laughing) Oh my god! Oh my gosh.

John: Starting to worry a little bit less about that book. 

Ashley: I think it's gonna be okay. 

Both: (laughing)

John: Well, I don't know! Jury's still out. 

Ashley: (laughing) You know what? I'm gonna wrap this up and let you know you're good. 

John: Okay, all right. 

Ashley: You're fantastic. 

John: Okay, good, that's a great relief. Yeah, but it takes a while is the answer. 

Ashley: Yeah, it'll take a minute to let it settle. 

John: Yeah. 

Ashley: I- I'm terrified that uh, I don't know, like things are going so well right now- 

John: Yeah, yeah. 

Ashley: That I think part of me is just really terrified and it's like, there's no way this can last. What about balance, in the universe? 

John: Yeah, I always feel that way too, like I feel this- it's almost like the more good things happen the more nervous I get because sometimes- because sometimes, a lot of good things happen and then a really bad thing does happen. 

Ashley: Yeah!

John: And so yeah, it's hard not to like, be conscious of the fact that that does sometimes happen. Like when things become popular there is often a big backlash to them and so you can't help but worry about- you know, I can't anyway help but worry that like "Oh gosh, people really like the book, that means people are about to hate the book."

Ashley: Or me!

John: Yeah!

Ashley: Or just me!

John: I mean in the case of a memoir especially, you know, like it's so- and I felt this to a much lesser extent with The Anthropocene Reviewed, but, like, I feel like myself is in it in a deep way and that's scary.

Ashley: Yeah, well, you know, you know a lot about science but you don't know a lot about people. 

Both: (laughing)

John: We were talking, we were talking last night about a goodreads review of The Anthropocene Reviewed that begins "Hank Green obviously knows his science, but he doesn't know anything about people." (chuckling) Why do I read my goodreads reviews? Why did I subject myself to that? 

Ashley: I don't. 

John: Good!

Ashley: I do not. 

John: Good, that's like- you're enlightened. 

Ashley: (laughs)

John: Alright, a couple questions, a couple quick ones. 

Ashley: Yes. 

John: What's your least favorite sharpie color? 

Ashley: Purple. 

John: Orange for me, I actually like purple. I made a whole video about it. 

Ashley: I know, I know. 

John: (laughs)

Ashley: And I thought to myself, this is- this is the moment.

John: (laughing) Where things are diverging! Our friendship is being really challenged!

Ashley: Between purple sharpies and rocky road ice cream, you might not make it to the end of this video. 

John: Alright, what else we got? Um, what importance do you think writing has in 2021?

Ashley: It's extremely important. It's a form of communication, it's a form of recording, it's an artform, and it is also, for a lot of people, their best possible way to express themselves emotionally. Um, so yeah, like, writing is always important but right now definitely be writing. If you have a journal and you've been keeping it during the pandemic, that thing is going to be really important to your family way, way, way down the line. 

John: Yeah. 

Ashley: Hold on to that forever, because when you're gone and can't be embarassed by what's in there anymore, your great-great-great grandchildren or somebody else, a researcher in a library, will be reading your journal to try to figure out what was happening in people's heads during this time. And I think that's really cool.

John: Yeah, me too. I also think that this has been, at least for me, a really lonely time and reading- both reading and writing really- make me feel less alone. 

Ashley: Yeah.

John: They make me feel less stuck inside of myself and less separate from everything else and that's- it's been a real gift for me. 

Ashley: It also makes me feel like I can trust myself more. 

John: Mm, yeah!

Ashley: When I write things down and I can see that I have the ability to express a want, a need, a desire, a thought, whatever, um, it's like wow, you can do that! Like you can, even if you don't get what you want, even if you don't get what you need, whatever it is, you can communicate what you want, what you need, and you can stand behind that.

John: Yeah. 

Ashley: And that hasn't always been true for me. 

John: Yeah. 

Ashley: So that feels really, really comforting. 

John: Yeah, almost like a way of, um, understanding. It's a different way of understanding yourself because it requires like a level of contemplativeness and focus and attention that, you know, like, thinking doesn't require. 

Both: Yeah.

Ashley: Yeah, absolutely!

John: Yeah, cause I can-

Ashley: Super tired of thinking. 

John: Oh, me too. God, I'm so over thinking. It's so overrated.

Ashey: It is!

John: I mean, thought is great, like it's a great thing to have, I'm glad that I'm capable of conciousness and everything, but God, I think way too much. 

Ashley: The tradeoffs are sometimes really, uh, really tough. 

John: Yes, yes.

Ashley: Yeah, sometimes I really wanna go into smooth brain mode. 

Both: (laughing)

John: It's hard, it's real hard for me to get there. Um, is there a book that helped you a lot when you were young?

Ashley: Yes, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech is one of my most favorite books in the whole world. I think I re-read it every single year. It's one of the most beautiful stories about girlhood and childhood and grief and confusion with being young and, you know, multi-generational interactions and how we talk to each other, how we treat each other, what we say, what we don't say, how long it takes us to tell the truth or to talk about our hurt. Like, it was just a fascinating book to me as a kid and Salmanca Tree Hiddle is still a hero, for me.

John: Aw, that's great. Sharon Creech is really cool too. 

Ashley: You know what, one time she- I tweeted something about the book and she tweeted me back and it freaked me out so much that, um, I just had to close my computer and leave the room for a little bit. Cause it was one of those moments where I was like "Oh no!" Like, great, but also I'm really scared of the veil being lifted. 

John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. Especially with the books that you read when you're a kid, I think-

Ashley: Yeah!

John: Like, it's almost troubling that they have authors. Like, I don't know anything about Winston Rawls, the guy who wrote Where the Red Fern Grows, and I don't wanna know anything about him. Like, I just don't, I don't wanna know. 

Ashley: Nope.

John: I don't, I just want the book to be a book.

Ashley: Yep, Little Ann and Old Dan forever. 

John: Oh God, oh, I'm gonna start crying. 

Ashley: I'm sorry, but I love it!

John: This is- so we got a lot of, like, tough questions because your book is about tough subjects and people connect to it so deeply. I know that I felt like it was a place where I could kind of co-mingle my own deep fears and difficult experiences even though obviously we had very different childhoods and lives. And one of the questions was "What would you say to a young person living with trauma, or what do you wish someone had said to you?"

Ashley: Mm. I wish someone had said to me that there is no such thing as a bad feeling. That my anger, sadness, frustration, my confusion, all of those things were not- I wasn't having those as bad experiences. That I wasn't being punished when I was having that kind of feeling and I also wasn't doing anything wrong by just being mad and feeling mad. And I grew up in a home where I was not allowed to own my feelings and I think a lot of trauma comes from, you know- or the, I would say, the continued suffering in trauma often comes from being stuck in the middle of an emotion that you either haven't been allowed to process or just don't know how to process yet. But they aren't bad. They're just information, they're just telling you how you feel about something. And other people's reactions to your feelings are about their feelings.

John: Yeah.

Ashley: And the feelings that they deny. It's not about you, it's not cause you're doing something wrong. 

John: Yeah, there was so much of my life where I felt like being afraid was a form of weakness and I felt like being sad was a form of badness, like a form of failure. And understanding, through therapy, that that's not the case- that being scared isn't being weak it's being human, and being sad isn't being a failure, it's also being human- has been really important to me. 

Ashley: It's absolutely true, and nobody gets away with not feeling their emotions. Just because somebody tells you "Oh, I don't get that way," or "I don't feel that way," that doesn't necessarily mean it's true. And that also doesn't necessarily mean that that's healthy. We all have access to our emotions, we all do. We might express them differently, we might talk about them differently, but we're human beings and you don't get any emotions that I don't get. 

John: Right. 

Ashley: And it's part of the thing that connects us.

John: Yeah. 

Ashley: And I love humanity, so.

John: Me too, I mean, in the way that you love every person, which is like "I love you and you're deeply flawed."

Ashley: Yes!  Yes, so I can love myself that way, too.

John: Mhmm, yeah.

Ashley: Yeah, it makes me happy. 

John: That's beautiful. I guess the other- this is probably not for the video, either- but the other thing I would say is, um, part of what makes trauma often so difficult is not knowing when or how it will end and not seeing a way out of it. And just because you cannot see when or how something will end doesn't mean it won't end. It will end.

Ashley: Yes.

John: And that's a really hard thing to know in the middle of it, because you can't see how it will end, but it can and it- it almost always will. 

Ashley: Yeah. I had somebody explain emotions to me one time as like, little tunnels. Like these very small tunnels that you walk into and they curve, and so, because of the curve you can't see the light, necessarily, for a long time when you're walking into that tunnel. But eventually, as you follow that curve, you see the light and you can walk toward it. But a lot of people have been either taught or shown by example to stop in the middle of that tunnel and either try to fight their way out or ignore that they are in the tunnel. And that's just not gonna work for processing emotions, you gotta go through it but there's always a way out. Always. 

John: Yeah, that's good. I like that a lot. And maybe it is for the video after all. 

Both: (laughing)

John: What- give me a one word answer to this so I can have a cut- what's it been like coming home to Indiana after so much time in New York?

Ashley: Perfect.

John: Aww. All cause of me!

Ashley: Mostly.

Both: (laughing)

John: What is powerful about memoir as a means of expression?

Ashley: Memoir, in and of itself, asserts that every single person, every human life, also has a story. And that that story is worth telling. Now, not everybody's gonna publish it, necessarily-

John: (chuckling) Right, right.

Ashley: But! It's worth telling, it's worth writing down, it's worth crafting into a narrative. 

John: Yeah. I love that. What's something underappreciated that we should be celebrating right now? 

Ashley: Something that's underappreciated that we should be celebrating right now... man, I don't know. Oh! You know what? So many flowers have returned. 

John: Yeah!

Ashley: There's sooo many flowers everywhere. And I know people, you know, like I know the "stop and smell the flowers," whatever, don't necessarily do that, you don't know what's in there. Like-

John: Right, there could be a-

Both: Bee!

Ashley: There could be a bee!

John: There could be a bee!

Ashley: (laughing) So don't do that! But-

John: Yeah, but stop and look at the flowers.

Ashley: But stop and look at the flowers. And notice those colors that nature has made specifically for this Earth, for this world! It's wild! If you can really stop and think about how things come up and grow and then show off and perform for us a little bit.

John: Yeah!

Ashley:  I- I love it. I love flowers, and so it's been really lovely being able to see them more often.

John: I had never thought about that, that flowers designed themselves for animal eyes like mine.

Ashley: Yes! They do, they perform for us, it's a little dance and it's lovely. 

John: That is great. That- now, that radically reshapes the way I think of flowers. 

Ashley: (laughing)

John: They made themselves to entertain bees, but like, I am a side effect, you know? (laughing)

Ashley: You're a side effect. 

John: A really welcome side effect.

Ashley: Yes!

John: Okay, just a few more questions. 

Ashley: Okay. 

John: What's your- what's your favorite thing about the midwest?

Ashley: My favorite thing about the midwest, honestly, is driving on back roads, past corn fields, way too fast, listening to yacht rock like Christopher Cross. Ride like the wind! That's got Michael McDonald in the background.

John: Oh, God, I mean- I think it's- I think it's great that you and Kelly love the music that you love. I think it's great. I don't-

Ashley: You wanna listen to some?

John: (laughing) I don't love it!

Ashley: You want me to make you a playlist? 

John: (laughing) I don't, I don't-

Ashley: Do you want me to make you a playlist?

John: I dislike it so much- I can get into the Kenny Loggins-

Ashley: Cause he's fantastic.

John: Now that I know he's not Kenny Rogers, I can get into the Kenny Loggins, but, gosh, I just, I can't get into the Michael McDonald.

Ashley: That's okay. 

John: And I feel bad- 

Ashley: Do you wanna hear my Michael McDonald impression?

John: Yes!

Ashley: Okay, let's go, okay, hold on. (clears throat) "I keep forgetting we're not in love anymore-"

John: (laughing) WOW! What the hell just happened!?

Ashley: (laughing)

John: Wow! I mean, that-

Ashley: "Every time you're near-" that's my shit. Okay, well the thing about Michael McDonald- and I'm gonna give everybody the secret really quick.

John: 'kay. 

Ashley: If you wanna do a Michael McDonald impression for anybody-

John: Yep.

Ashley: All you have to do is yawn and sing at the same time. 

John: Oh! I wonder if that's how he does it, if he's like, "Okay, it's three in the morning. Time to get to work!"

Ashley: "Time to hit the studio!"

Both: (laughing)

Ashley: He'll meet the Doobies there, it's great, it's great.  

John: And lastly, Ashley-

Ashley: Yes.

John: I get to ask you the question that every writer loves the most.

Ashley: (groans)

John: Are you gonna write another book?

Ashley: Yes!

John: Are you, for sure?

Ashley: I am for sure going to write another book. Who's gonna publish it, if it's gonna be published, I don't- I don't know. But I am pretty far into, um, a new thing. And I'm gonna keep writing and we're gonna see what happens. 

John: I love that confidence level. I have no idea if I'll write another book, but I guess you're pretty far into it, so that's always a good sign.

Ashley: I am, I am! You know, I got really good advice. Um, somebody told me if you don't wanna freak out when your book comes out, have something else that you've already been working on. Whether or not you want to publish it, whether or not you want it to go anywhere, just have something else that you've been working on so that you don't feel like this is the last one.

John: Mhmm, mhmm. 

Ashley: And I took that advice, my friend Jami Attenberg is doing 1,000 Days of Summer right now, where we write a thousand words every day-

John: Mhmm, mhmm.

Ashley: And that's how I started really getting into this project even though I had pieces before, and so, you know-

John: That's exciting.

Ashley: Maybe at some point it'll be a second book!

John: That's exciting.

Ashley: Hard to think about right now, though. (laughing)

John: It is really good advice though. Like, somebody gave me that advice as well and I was mostly done with my second novel when my first novel came out and it made a huge difference because otherwise I would have been completely flat-footed and overwhelmed and freaked out. I mean, I was still pretty freaked out, but it made it a lot more manageable.

Ashley: Hard agree, hard agree.

John: Okay, I'm gonna do the outro now!

Ashley: Okay!

John: Ashley's book, Somebody's Daughter, is available wherever books are sold. You can get- Ashley's book, Somebody's Daughter, is available wherever books are sold. It is such a special, extraordinary book. Link in the dooblydoo. Also, you're gonna be on tour this week with Oprah-

Ashley: I am, I am.

John: And other people. Also link to that in the dooblydoo. Ashley, thank you for being here, and also for being the first guest in our house in fifteen months. (laughing)

Ashley: Thank you for having me!

John: Hank, I- we will- uh, let's say it together.

Ashley: Okay. 

Both: Hank, we will see you on Friday.