On this week's episode of "The Smoke Break", we hung out with the delightful artist and dinosaur super fan Eliah Edelson.

We began with the joy and terror of trying to learn or experience new things. Why is that such a universally amazing and awful thing to do?!

Then we talked about creative burnout—what do you do when you get stuck, how do you find whimsy and lightness in it again, what if it's also tied to your income or identity?

And we wrapped things up with tending to our inner child—what would the kid version of ourselves be most surprised by about our current lives? How do we make sure we're doing right by that tiny version of ourselves? How do we treat ourselves tenderly?

Episodes drop weekly when our own mental health lets us. Thanks for listening.

On this week's episode of "The Smoke Break", we hung out with community activist, burlesque and drag performer Karla Marx.

We began with how we establish trust, how fragile trust can be when we're mistreated, and unshakeable trust can be when you really find your people.

Then we talked about hate—how strange this current timeline is, how effective hate is as a way to divide people if you want to wield it against folks, and connection and humanizing each other can sometimes help fix it.

And we ended with hope—because good god, what else is there if we don't have some hope. We dug deep to find what makes us hopeful when it doesn't feel easy—can you try and do the same? This conversation felt extra important. Thanks, Karla.

Episodes drop weekly when our own mental health lets us. Thanks for listening.

On this week's episode of "The Smoke Break", we hung out with local comedian Will Ness.

We started by talking about identity, and how different parts of ourselves are better suited for certain tasks—like our creative side shouldn't be in charge of business decisions and our business side probably shouldn't be telling us what art is worth making or not. (Shut up, capitalism.)

Then we talked about long term relationships…. What makes them work, what makes them hard, and what makes them totally worth it.

Lastly, we tackled a classic fight—we all got into this because we wanted to create something, to perform—but now we're also expected to be social media managers and content creators and event producers and understand algorithms and hey man, that's not what we signed up for! Stop making us do other things too! Oh, that's not an option? Well…. Okay. I guess we'll just do it all?

Episodes drop weekly when our own mental health lets us. Thanks for listening.