Jordan (00:28):
Hi, for the love of God, hello. I’m Jordan, and this is Or, Learn Parkour. A podcast about ADHD, which is done by two people with ADHD, but in a fun little turn of events, Lex and I cannot be in the studio at the same time. So we are doing two separate halves of a podcast. We have not consulted with each other what we’re going to talk about. We have not listened to each other’s recordings. We have no idea what’s going to happen. So in that sense, it’s your average OLP episode. We have no idea what’s going on. Basically, Lex recorded a section of the podcast earlier. I’m recording mine now. We are going to do our own little mini episode with a topic and a Dopamine Trampoline. And all along the way, try and guess what the other person said, and we’ll see if we’re right. I don’t know how this is gonna go. So buckle up, my friends, and welcome to Or, Learn Parkour Solo.
(01:33):
(Jordan sings awkwardly for a few seconds)
That’s the solo theme song. Anyways, today’s mini episode by Jordan is going to be on a topic that many of you know that I love very much. That is food. (sarcastically) I do in fact have half a culinary degree. So, I’m joking. I do have half a culinary degree, but that doesn’t make me an expert. But I do eat food. So I’m gonna share with you today some of my tips and tricks to remember to eat and eat food that you like because that can be a challenge with ADHD, you can be hyper fixated on something else and forget to eat. You can be having a little executive dysfunction moment and just not have the brain power to do all of the steps of the cooking because there are many, you have to get ingredients out, you have to put them together, you have to deal with utensils, you have to do dishes.
(02:20):
It’s a lot. It’s a lot. It’s a lot. You could be, you know, like I am, and Lex is on a stimulant medication or another kind of medication that’s an appetite suppressant. And then sometimes nothing sounds good at all and you just kind of forget about food, or you actively don’t want to eat it until your Adderall wears off at 8:30 and suddenly you’re so hungry and grumpy you wanna cry and you can’t do anything but order pad Thai. I didn’t do that last week… Anyways, so, like I said, I’m not an expert on food. I do love to cook. I love to bake. And I have worked, teaching chef. I’ve been a baker and a cake decorator, but that has not always translated to being the best cook on my own. But here are some ways that I remember to feed myself and I got back into loving to cook.
(03:10):
Number one, I made friends with snack food. I’ll be completely honest with you, it’s something in, you know, our society that has kind of been frowned upon. Snack food being unhealthy, or cheap, or greasy, or whatever. And I’m not here to tell you that’s true or untrue, but your body needs fat and sugar and salt in some degree. Even if that was all that was in every snack food, which is also not true. Your body still needs that. And anything is gonna be better than not eating, anything is going to be better than not eating, anything is going to be better than not eating. So I just keep snacks that I know that I will eat. I always have one or two things, I’m gonna keep some chicken nuggets in the freezer. I’m going to keep shortbread cookies because I like them.
(03:57):
I always like baked goods, but I know that I’m not going to just devour them like I would a plate of brownies. And those are just little boosts to either be the thing that you eat today if you don’t get to anything else or the thing that you eat that gives you enough power to tackle the next thing. It’s like eating before going to the grocery store. It’s so worth it. It’s gonna save you money in the long run. If you eat a little strawberry shortcake roll now and you don’t go to the grocery store hungry and buy more food than will fit in your pantry. I’ve never done that.
(04:31):
So yeah, just buy the foods you like, keep them around, and remind yourself that if you can’t always cook for yourself, you’re not lazy. I had to spend a lot of time unlearning that. But again, as we have said before on the show, and we’ll say it again, you are not lazy. Laziness does not exist. If there’s a reason that you can’t cook, then that’s valid, don’t. There’s actually been a really cool TikTok going around lately and someone’s talking about keeping a tray of food, basically just in your fridge that you can pull out and eat when you just do not have the spoons, or the brain chemical, or the time even. Or you are just too hungry because you’ve forgotten to eat all day. That you can’t wait to prepare a meal of just keeping foods that you can eat immediately, no prep and with the things you need to eat it, get some applesauce, keep the spoons on the plate.
(05:25):
Get some, you know, cheese and crackers. Keep ’em right there. I am a big, big fan of the forever charcuterie plate. I will just put all my cheese and stuff on a plate, leave the knives on there, no need to wash them. Why give yourself more work and it just lives in the fridge and you just go have a little bite. Yeah, that video’s been going around and I was very pleased to see it cuz it’s great advice. We’ll find the link to that and share it. And it’s also been the way of this house for a while. We are meat and cheese motherfuckers in this house. So yeah, that’s a tip. A lot of people have also said really good things about meal planning kits. And I think that there’s definitely something to that because it’s a great middle ground between eating out all the time or eating packaged food.
(06:09):
If you don’t want to do that, I’m not here to shame you if you do wanna do that. People who work at restaurants need jobs. Their job is to cook for people. My job has been to cook for people. So from somebody who worked at a restaurant, we love to cook for you. We’re not judging you. Just eat. But if that is not your speed, then people like meal kits. There are some of them, in fact, that’s sponsored podcasts. If any of you are listening and wanna get in on this train on the ground floor of Or, Learn Parkour, let us know. Right now we’re not being sponsored by anybody and we’re mentioning them anyways. So I’ve really enjoyed meal kits when I tried to cook through them, although I know that it can be difficult for folks to remember to pick their meals out, or cancel when they’re done, or what have you.
(06:59):
So your mileage may vary, I guess. I think they’ve started selling them in grocery stores though. Like you can just go get a meal kit. And that’s great and it saves a lot of time. And also for me, I know saves a lot of food because I’m the kind of person who’ll be like, oh my gosh, let me go make this delicious looking recipe, buy all the things. And then I’ve just had the same jar of pickled blueberries in the back of my fridge for two years. So, you know how good we are at object permanence. So yeah, get the snacks you like, eat out if you want to eat out or need to eat out. I know meal prep isn’t super feasible for everybody, but there’s a lot of things that you can make just in bulk that freeze really well.
(07:38):
Pasta. Pasta’s one of those things. I was trying to think of something else, but I make a lot of pasta. Pasta’s really good. So, you get some pasta, throw some fish in there if you want to. Fish cooks up really fast and it’s good protein and omega 3s are extra good for ADHD brains. So make some pasta with fish and put it in your freezer. That’s gonna be my other recommendation for you. This is a very professional and well thought out podcast from a culinary expert, but all of these suggestions at the end of the day are saying the same thing, which is just take care of yourself, which is easier said than done. You deserve to eat and there is absolutely no shame in making that easier for you because you need food, your body needs food and it will tell you what you need.
(08:31):
And I trust you to trust yourself. So yeah, ADHD snacks, we’ll get into that in a future episode where I can talk more a little bit about it. But for a snack sized episode, I thought let’s talk about snacks.
Next we’re gonna, as we normally do, bounce on over to the Dopamine Trampoline. And I am bouncing alone today, which is, in fact, as sad as it sounds. Lex, come back. I miss you. They’re in their room. We’re just trying to not be in the same room for too long right now.
What did I think Lex talked about in their Dopamine Trampoline? I’m gonna make two guesses, maybe that’s cheating. I don’t give a fuck. It’s my podcast. I think it was either the Chicago-based hit American pop punk rock band, Fall Out Boy, which is topical for reasons that they will get into if they did talk about it. Or the horse game, which is delightful.
(09:24):
Lex has found a game for their Switch, you take care of horses and you train horses and you brush horses and you name horses. And one of them is named Guildenstern, which is very dear, I’m delighted by it. I know that l is delighted by it as well. So those are my two guesses on what they did for their Dopamine Trampoline.
And what I am doing for my Dopamine Trampoline, now that I can record this by myself without the glare of shame for how much of a nerd I am about to be is the Tempest. Yes. The play by William Shakespeare. Yes, he is a dead white guy from hundreds of years ago, but it’s a beautiful play. It’s not my favorite play, sum total, but it is hands down my favorite Shakespeare play. It’s also one of my favorite plays that I have ever gotten to be a part of.
(10:13):
And it’s really special. I think the plot of it is really moving and really relevant, as much as I hate to be the person who’s saying that about Shakespeare, but it’s different from any of his other works for a couple of reasons. I’ll start with a quick little plot summary. So Tempest starts out on an island. There are two humans on this island. There’s Prospero who is an old magician, in the literal sense he does actual magic, not tricks. He can control weather like storms, also called tempests. And he is there with his daughter Miranda. And the reason that they’re on this island is because a little under 15 years ago, forgive me, I have not actually read this play in a few years, Prospero was the Duke of Milan. But he was ousted from this position by his brother who schemed to get power.
(11:07):
And it was only through the kindness of one of his lords who was still loyal to him, who put together a boat with all of his favorite books and some clothes for Prospero and Miranda to escape. And they landed on this island that is in and of itself full of magic. That’s another thing that I really love about The Tempest. It is textually the Shakespeare play with the most music out of anything that’s attributed to him. And that’s really neat because of the atmosphere that creates like, there’s so much room in it to play and explore and express yourself in production that there just isn’t in text. The text of Shakespeare is musical in and of itself. It’s rhythmic, but not in the same way that music is, so it’s so expressive and it creates this beautiful atmosphere for magic and for withholding your belief and being in this place where anything can happen.
(12:04):
They’re on this island. They have fled, they have been living here. Miranda, you know, was two or three when they left. So she has never met another human being. And Prospero shares one of the kind of fairy spirits of the island who is under his control, that he has conjured a storm, a tempest to crash the ship of the king of Naples on their shore for what seems like revenge on him and his brother who took him out of power. And all of these people who have wronged him and the ship crashes, but miraculously none of them are harmed. They come onto the island and they wander. And there’s a couple separate things that happen. One, there’s kind of the comic relief of the play that is Trinculo and Stefano who are these drunkards who go off and interact with the spirits of the island.
(13:01):
There is Prospero seeing his brother and the people who have conspired to hurt him, that he has just been carrying the hurt from, you know, 12 or 13 years later. But also the man who saved his life, Gonzalo, is there. And so he gets to see these people and grow through his hurt. And there’s also, what is very dear to me, Miranda meets Ferdinand, who is the king of Naples’ son. It’s, you know, not a tragedy. So someone does get married in the end and they fall in love and hey, I think Miranda’s just a brilliant, beautiful character, fun to get to be that reckless and full of hope. We don’t get to see that in as many of Shakespeare’s characters because they’re so constrained by the world around them. But I think it’s Miranda’s hope that kind of is the agent of change.
(13:51):
People say that Prospero is the main character, but he’s orchestrated this whole thing to exact revenge. But it’s Miranda’s ability to say, “I have never met another human being in my life, but I am so sure of you Ferdinand, and I am so sure of myself, and I am so willing to be optimistic and open my heart to these people, even though I know who they are. I know what happened to me and my dad, but I am going to lean into this incredibly radical empathy and curiosity about the world and confidence in myself” that her and Ferdinand fall in love. And it is their connection that really kind of paves the way for Prospero to forgive the people who have wronged him and swear off magic that he’s been using to hurt people and have a future that is not alone because Miranda has made this connection.
(14:48):
And those two are together. And I just think that’s neat. I have a lot of feelings about this play. This has definitely been longer than the snack section though. I will wrap it up shortly. But the other thing that I wanted to say about the Tempest is it’s about this man, Prospero, who has been weaving this magic for so long and been building these stories and trying to do right by his family, but also wanting some control over his narrative. At the end of the show, he has this monologue where he swears it off and he breaks his magic stick and he says, I’m done. This was the last time. And when you think about that and the context of the history of this play, The Tempest is the last play that we know for sure that Shakespeare wrote.
(15:36):
So I think that you can put together whatever narrative you want out of that, but whatever narrative you put together, then with the addition of that Ferdinand and Miranda, we are handing it to the next generation and their curiosity is what makes the world continue to turn. That’s what I take away from that play. And that’s really special to me and that’s why it’s my favorite show. There is also worth mentioning, I promise I am almost done. If you have listened this long to me talk about Shakespeare, God bless you, angel. I’m almost done. I’m so sorry. And this next play is not by Shakespeare, but there’s a wonderful play by Lauren Gunderson that’s called The Book of Will. And it is about Shakespeare’s friends after his death trying to collect all of Shakespeare’s plays into one official collection.
(16:21):
Because, long story short, plays did not exist in the very simple, straightforward, all contained books that we have now. They had to, you know, collect scraps of paper. There weren’t publishing and copyright laws in the same way that we understand them, but they wanted to protect their friend’s legacy so much that they go on this journey. And it is a stunning show. To be honest, I’ve not seen it in years, but I saw a workshop version of it in Denver in 2017, I wanna say. And the end of the play just, I cried so much, y’all because it’s them, it’s Shakespeare’s friends who have finally put this, this is historically a thing that actually happened in the document that they put together is what we now call the First Folio. They take the First Folio to Anne Hathaway and Susanna Shakespeare, who is Shakespeare’s daughter Anne Hathaway.
(17:10):
Not that Anne Hathaway, although maybe she does not seem to age, so maybe they are the same person? I would believe it. But anyways, Shakespeare’s wife was also named Anne Hathaway. They take this to them and they say, we wanted you to see this first and do you wanna read it? And Susanna, his daughter is like, no, I do not. I absolutely do not want this in my house. This is the reason my dad was never home. This is what he put all of his love into, not me, get it out of here. And his friends say, no, no, no, no. His love for you is right here. Maybe not in the best way, but they open it up to The Tempest. This play of him giving up his magic and saying, I trust in you, young ones, I believe in you.
(17:53):
I think the way that it honors and explores those relationships is really special. And I’m a theater nerd, if none of you realize that by now. So that’s why I love The Tempest. That’s also why I love Book of Will. Please go read it. We love living playwrights, we love female playwrights. Check it out. All of our work is stunning, Lauren Gunderson. But, yeah, if you’ve listened to this entire thing, I cannot thank you enough. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll see what Lex thought I said for my Dopamine Trampoline cause they probably did not guess it was gonna be this much. I’m gonna stop recording now. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. All of the things that you know and love will be in the episode description like they normally are. Bye.
Lex:
Hi. So this is the part where Jordan says, hi, I’m Jordan, and then I say I’m Lex and this is Or, Learn Parkour, a podcast about ADHD done normally by two people who have ADHD.
(18:50):
And I guess this episode is still technically done by two people. However, I have, finally three years in, have Covid and because we record in a tiny little closet and we’re trying real hard to not also, you know, I don’t know, we’re trying not to get Jordan sick too. So we’re recording separately, which is a super fun and normal thing to do, just talking by yourself in a closet. Very fun, very casual. I’m definitely very excited about this. So hi, dear audience. It’s me, Lex, I am very sick. I’m sure you can hear my voice being less than ideal right now, but you know, I’m getting through it and I’m fine. So don’t worry about me, but thanks to the friends and family who have sent well wishes over the past week or so. But so let’s just get right into it.
(19:38):
I figure if I have to talk about ADHD by myself, you know, am I gonna do a bunch of research and look into lots of cool things? No. Instead I’m gonna make up fun facts about ADHD that are definitely true and absolutely you can’t prove me wrong. So, let’s see. Did you know that if you have ADHD you actually are capable of farting at a decibel of sound that only dogs can hear? I know, right? Science is magical. Yay neurodiversity. Let’s see. Another fun fact about ADHD is that, oh no, see, okay, this is the part where I forget what I’m saying and then Jordan will jump in and start saying something else or ask me if I’m doing okay, bud, or have you seen God in the abyss that you’re staring into or like, what’s happening, right?
(20:31):
So I’m really just swinging for the fences. But let’s see, so far I’ve got ADHD farts on my list and that’s definitely factual, definitely scientifically provable and you can’t tell me I’m wrong. Let’s see, what else? I guess I could explain the logic behind that, right? So when you have ADHD, your farts are different. See, easy 1, 2, 3. You could explain that to a kid. One thing Jordan and I talked about was talking about something with ADHD and then guessing what the other one is gonna talk about in this weird little like one v one episode format. So obviously, Jordan’s probably gonna guess that I am talking about farts or something, but I’m gonna just take a wild stab and say that Jordan is talking about what it’s like to be friends with someone with ADHD or maybe about how drinking tea can affect how your ADHD, Jordan’s been drinking a lot of tea lately.
(21:27):
So we’re actually hosting a tea party, eventually, once I’m no longer, you know, plagued. So that’s my guess. We’ll see if I’m right. As for me in my podcast, we serve the farts. So let’s see, this is wild, my friends. I could pitch a film. I’ve done that before but, you know. Actually, no cuz I would like to sit back and hold that for when it counts. Unless someone from Netflix is listening, in which case I guess then this would be the time where it counts. But okay, basic elevator pitch. It’s a buddy cop style film except it’s not cops, it’s a forest ranger and the buddy is not another forest ranger but Sasquatch. I’ve written scenes for this movie. It is in progress. It is going to be my magnum opus and I can’t wait till somebody picks it up at some point.
(22:14):
Let’s see. Okay, I got Sasquatch, I got farts, I got my guess on what Jordan’s talking about. Oh, oh, I’m also supposed to guess what Jordan’s Dopamine Trampoline is and I’m gonna guess that it’s some weird international television show that I’ve never heard of, but that is very twee and cute or maybe it’s the book about growing your own herbs for tea specifically that I did just get Jordan for Christmas this past year. Those are my two guesses. I guess two guesses is not fair, but life’s not fair. So neither is this podcast, motherfuckers. Wow, I really have just been talking for five and a half minutes and I’m still going, Jordan’s not here. I’m just supplying this fuel all on my own. Oh hey, you know fuel creates farts in our body, all comes full circle.
(23:02):
So my Dopamine Trampoline, I’m sorry, everybody. I have Covid. I’ve been working from home the past week, but working from home is really putting it generously because there was a lot of sleeping involved in that and I just cleaned a lot of my room today for the first time in three months. So that’s great. But I will admit my podcast preparation has fallen quite short. So with that, I’m gonna get to the meat of my episode, which is of course my Dopamine Trampoline. Now Dopamine Trampoline is my favorite part of the podcast, which I think I’ve been vocal about before, but now that it’s just me, I can say it. I like the Dopamine Trampoline better than our educational bits normally because as hard as Jordan tries to make it fun and as fun as Jordan is, sometimes material is just very dry and I get very bored and sometimes, you know, we’ll be doing an episode and I’ll be really bored and finished and feel like I can’t do any other goofs or bits.
(24:03):
And then we just sort of stop cuz I’m like a little bratty toddler in that way. Excuse me, I just burped. So can throw that in with the farts. ADHD farts can also cure cancer. I’ll throw that one in. Let’s see. Oh right. So my Dopamine Trampoline, which is my favorite segment of the show. Dopamine Trampoline, it’s when we talk about things that are giving us dopamine, making us feel happy, getting us through the day, whatever way you wanna put it. Sometimes it’s a hyper fixation, sometimes it’s just a passing fancy. This week I will admit that it is probably a combo of passing fancy and hyper fixation from childhood because my Dopamine Trampoline is about Palomino horses. You may be wondering, hey Lex, we know you’re a horse girl. Do you really have to put us through this? Do you really have to go the distance?
(24:53):
And the answer is yes because Palomino horses are my favorite kind of horses and they’re real cute and really pretty. And one of those famous old westerns that probably hasn’t aged well at all, I haven’t watched it since I was a small child, but there was a western where the cowboy’s horse was named Trigger, which we’re gonna look past that as well. But the horse was played by a Palomino in real life. So a Palomino is not necessarily a breed because it’s specifically the coloring of a horse. So there are different breeds of horses that can be palomino, but a Palomino is a genetic color in horses consisting of a gold coat and white mane and tail. So basically they’re like the blonde horses. And the way that it happens is actually really interesting cuz there’s a single allele of a diluted gene called the cream gene working on a chestnut based coat, like a red coat.
(25:51):
And by coat I mean fur, you know, like the horses have coats like animals do. So palominos are only created by a genetic mechanism of incomplete dominance. So it’s not considered true breeding, right? Because you can’t guarantee it. So all that said, a Palomino horse could have a baby foal, you know, a little colt or filly that is not palomino. And though their mom is a Palomino and maybe their dad’s also a Palomino, that baby horse is not a Palomino if it’s not that color coating, right? That’s the only way that they’re classified as a Palomino. They might carry the allele and it could pass on to a next generation, which is probably good to know for people who are trying to breed for the palomino color. But all that said, these horses are super pretty, they’re the blonde horses. And when I was a little kid I always wanted to have blonde hair, which actually as an adult I’ve always wanted to have blonde hair and I have black hair, dark brown raven hair that is just so dark.
(26:48):
It just absorbs all the light around it. And I really, as a child, just wanted to have the blonde Farrah Faucet locks of my dreams and I finally bleached my hair in college and I lived that blonde life for a while. It was fine. But, you know, if you’ve bleached your hair, you know that it’s rough. So I like being blonde and I think that probably translates to my love of horses and liking the blonde horses, right? So, I mentioned Trigger, he was a Palomino who’s arguably the most famous Palomino in culture, but Palominos, because of their color, are very striking and very pretty and so they’re often sought for parades and things like that. They’re used in a lot of show jumping and dressage, they’re really sought after cuz they really stand out and they just look great, right?
(27:37):
They’re real cute and they’ve got usually pink little noses cuz they’ve got the cream white gene undertones. And I haven’t ever met a Palomino that I didn’t think was the cutest little horse in the world. Oh yeah. I’m looking up some fun facts, right? Because what’s a Dopamine Trampoline without fun facts about whatever’s bringing me dopamine. And the cowboy who rode Trigger, his name was Roy Rogers, which I feel like that’s probably a bigger touchstone for most people, but I had to look up what the cowboy’s name was cuz I don’t know, I just remember the horse, you know, priorities. Another one, probably at least a familiar name is Mr. Ed. He had his own TV show in the 1960s. And yes, Mr. Ed is a horse and he was palomino. And then the only other thing that Wikipedia’s telling me is that in Xena Warrior Princess, the TV show from 95 to 2001, Zena’s Horse, Argo, was also a Palomino.
(28:35):
So yeah, I love blonde horses. Oh yeah. If you’re wondering where the word palomino comes from, it’s a Spanish word, meaning baby pigeon. So it’s like the diminutive of paloma, a pigeon. And it’s because it refers to the color of a creamy colored pigeon. I’m sure Jordan will share, we’ll share pictures of Palomino horses that I send her, which would be fun, but also, I am sorry for talking about horses on our podcast, Jordan. Let’s see. Oh right. The other thing that I was gonna explain is, if you’re like, hey, Lex, this is cool and all, but why are you talking about horses again? And that’s cuz I’ve been playing this one video game. It’s really bad. Well, okay, that’s not fair to say as a blanket statement. It’s got a lot of glitches that they need to work through.
(29:22):
But as a horse aficionado, if I may call myself that, it has been a delight to play this game called Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch. It has brought me back to my Barbie horse racing dreams of yesteryear. And it is also really in depth. It’s like an open world horse game, where you move to this peninsula that your aunt left you, her estate on the peninsula and apparently she used to have horses. And then you get there and you find out that she’s not even there and she’s left the estate to fall into ruin and disrepair and there’s no horses. And so you have to build everything back up yourself and then you have to catch your own wild horses and then you can start breeding your horses. And the reason that I got really fixated on palominos is because in this video game it is so hard.
(30:13):
You have to breed palominos. You have to continuously try to mix chestnut and cremello horses in this game. And hopefully just pray and hope to the sweet Lord above that one allele will come through in the pool. And I have been spending probably the past three days just trying to get a fucking Palomino horse in this game. And I know it’s possible because I’ve done it on a pass save file. And yes, I have had multiple save files on this game. I told you it’s glitchy, but I thought about it and I was like, I’ve been putting so much real world time and effort into this video game trying to get myself a Palomino horse. Why do I like these stupid little blonde horses so much? And then I remembered, oh yeah, it’s cuz I’ve always been like this and I’ve always liked the stupid little blonde horses.
(31:06):
So this one’s for you, Palominos. I love you so fucking much. Yeah, well I’m so sorry that I just came on here to slander our podcast and then talk about farts and horses, but in my defense, that’s all pretty on brand. So it’s been great chatting with you, OLP team and I hope that y’all return for our next episode when we’re back together again and hopefully things are a little bit more fun and chaotic and not, you know, just getting ranted at about ADHD farts and their superpowers. So with that, bye.