The Co-Host Lore Episode

Krisserin and Kelton finally answer the question listeners keep asking: who ARE these people? This week it's just the two of them — no guest, just origin stories, childhood chaos, and big three energy. From Krisserin's desert horses and Newport Beach culture shock to Kelton's Gettysburg ghost childhood and lunch money con, they dig into how they grew up, how they became writers, and why this podcast is the friendship neither of them knew they needed. Plus astrology deep dives, a secret project update, and goal assignments for each other.

Write to us:
officialpenpalspod@gmail.com

Follow us:
Instagram: @penpalspod
TikTok: @penpalspod
YouTube: @PenPalsPod
SubStack: penpalspod.substack.com

Follow Krisserin and Kelton:
TikTok: @krisserin, @keltonwrites
Instagram: @keltonkin, @keltonwrites
Kelton's Substack: Shangrilogs
Krisserin's Substack: krisserin.substack.com

Music by Golden Hour Oasis Studios

Transcript

Kelton 0:00

Hi, Krisserin.

Krisserin 0:01

Hi Kelton.

Kelton 0:02

We're recording with a new software today. Yeah, I know that matters a lot to our listeners, but I think they should know just in case anything goes wrong.

Krisserin 0:12

We're trying something new because I got tired of, editing out all of the echoing. So I've got a new setup, which includes some fancy podcast. Actually these were$20 on phones. They're

Kelton 0:24

okay. Go

Krisserin 0:24

in my ear and my eye

Kelton 0:26

For the listeners who can't see her. Yeah, it's just like a cascading braid down her back of headphone.

Krisserin 0:34

Trying to be profesh over here. You know, I always watch the, clips of my, one of my favorite podcasts and they have those fancy, clear plastic, you know?

Kelton 0:43

Yeah.

Krisserin 0:44

Like they're commentating on the Olympics or something. So I just had to join the fray because my setup was not working. But we're investing in this podcast listeners.

Kelton 0:53

I'm Krisserin Canary. And I'm Kelton Wright. Follow our quest to publish our first novels from first drafts, to query letters through inevitable

Krisserin 1:01

rejections

Kelton 1:01

and hopefully eventual success

Krisserin 1:03

from California to

Kelton 1:04

Colorado. This is pen pals.

Krisserin 1:07

We are, we are dedicated to making this

Kelton 1:10

happen. Now that we've had a Reese's Book Club pick author on the podcast, it is time to upgrade our equipment.

Krisserin 1:17

That's right. That's right. Because we are successful by proxy.

Kelton 1:22

Yeah. Congratulations Rachel Hochhauser. That's amazing. She was just announced as the Reese's Book Club pick, which is, I mean,

Krisserin 1:30

what a

Kelton 1:30

dream. That's God tier.

Krisserin 1:31

Yeah. I can't imagine what that must feel like. I'm so happy for her. It was so cool to see

Kelton 1:36

that yesterday. Can't imagine it.

Krisserin 1:38

You can,

Kelton 1:39

I can sit in my imagination and feel real good

Krisserin 1:43

are so many book clubs now. I guess it goes Oprah and then Reese's and then

Kelton 1:48

Jenna.

Krisserin 1:48

I saw Jenna.

Kelton 1:51

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 1:52

We need our own book club. We need the pen pals Pod book club. We

Kelton 1:58

will work on the name, we'll work on it. Okay. Krisserin though, something we do not have to work on. Yeah. You're gonna like this segue. Something we do not have to work on is vibes. One thing I have been hearing about the podcast over the past year or so is that it's nice to hang out with people who are like actually friends, but our friendship was built on vibes, like some of the greatest friendships of the modern era we met at work.

Speaker 3 2:27

Mm-hmm.

Kelton 2:28

And so like when you can connect on the bullshit at work, you don't, you don't have to know anything about each other. Mm-hmm. You can have one common enemy and be like, we are aligned.

Krisserin 2:41

Me and you. You know what's really funny? I remember when I first saw you at Headspace, like I very distinctly remember when you started working there and I just really love people who seem intimidating and like they might be a little bit of a hard nut to crack. Like for me, that's a challenge because I'm a Libra. I consider myself a little charming. I can just, you know. Mm-hmm. I feel like I can figure out how people work enough so that I can make if I wanted to, almost anybody like me. So I remember Kelton, you came in and you were, you know, of course immaculately dressed and very business and very serious, but also had this, um, kind of like mischievous, murky person. Like I knew there was something there and I was like, I'm gonna make her my friend. She might think all of these other people are bullshit, but she's gonna like me.

Kelton 3:42

I mean, I did immediately like you,'cause in like the first meeting we had to someone else, you were like, that's not gonna work. And I was like, yes, thank you. No fluffing, no like beating around the bush. You were just like, that's not, that's not the right idea. Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 3:59

Sounds it. Sounds like me. Sounds like me. I know. I love nothing more than putting men in their place in the workplace. Whenever I can can it

Kelton 4:06

obvious obviously a man,

Krisserin 4:10

I don't remember the interaction that

Kelton 4:11

men listen to this.

Krisserin 4:13

Uh,

Kelton 4:13

listen,

Krisserin 4:14

not percent, 10% of our listenership

Kelton 4:17

is metal. We know all men we're married to men. In fact,

Krisserin 4:20

I know begrudgingly,

Kelton 4:23

but my point being, when you get to know someone at work, you, you skip a lot of stages.

Krisserin 4:27

It's true.

Kelton 4:28

Um, so today Krisserin and I are gonna get to know each other a little better, but also help our listeners get to know us. I mean, I think you know that Krisserin is incredibly diligent and hardworking and optimistic and realistic and that I love investing. Uh, and that's it. But there's more to us than that. Truly

Krisserin 4:53

there is. But before we get into that, we should talk about how our week of writing went. So, Kelton

Kelton 5:00

Oh, you didn't realize I was avoiding it.

Krisserin 5:02

Oh no. See we're not doing that.

Kelton 5:06

Okay. Listen. I said I was gonna work on my novel and I did a little bit. I didn't do any writing. I did some thinking about plot and structure, and I read several more books. That's great. Um, that's, I've been burning through. That's including. The possession of Alba Diaz, um, by Isabel Canas, upon your recommendation. I'm halfway through.

Krisserin 5:29

Okay.

Kelton 5:29

Um, and how

Krisserin 5:30

are you finding it?

Kelton 5:31

It's been book burning. She really does have beautiful sentences.

Krisserin 5:35

Mm-hmm.

Kelton 5:35

but right at, at where I'm at in the book, so far it's, it's very similar to Mexican Gothic.

Krisserin 5:42

Right. A little bit. Yeah.

Kelton 5:44

Yeah. Um, and I haven't read enough Gothic to just know if that's sort of the architecture of the genre.

Krisserin 5:50

Mm.

Kelton 5:51

Uh, but I mean, it at least has more gore.

Krisserin 5:56

Yeah. It's pretty gory, I feel like, and I, first of all, Isabel made me wanna read more horror period. Mm-hmm. And more gothic novels period. But I do feel like. Oh, I'm sorry. I just saw in this new software, you took a picture of yourself for your little screenshot.

Speaker 3 6:18

How did I do that? I can see it and I'm making this little, like, I'm making a little gremlin face.

Krisserin 6:27

Oh my God. I just saw it. It's so funny. Funny. Okay, sorry. But, um, what I was gonna say is horror and gothic, they all seem to be centered around a place, like there's a house or a cave. Mm-hmm. Or a lake, or there's something that. Is this a setting where something evil resides or something evil happened so I feel like that could be a, a portion of the DNA of the genre that feels familiar. Mm-hmm. It's also set in a very familiar setting to Mexican Gothic, which is like in the, mountainous regions of Mexico. Um mm-hmm. And

Kelton 7:00

in the mining, in the mining regions,

Krisserin 7:02

in mining regions, I think Mexican Gothic is set in like the early 20th century where this book is in the late 19th century. So there's some similarities for sure.

Kelton 7:12

Mm-hmm. But I mean, the writing is great, so I have been enjoying it and obviously, my novel is gothic in that exact element where it is centered around a place where there's essentially some kind of evil that has captured it.

Speaker 3 7:27

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kelton 7:28

So it's nice to read other people's entry ways in that and to not be so. Hard on, on the backbone, on the spine of my book.

Speaker 3 7:39

Mm-hmm.

Kelton 7:39

You know, like these books aren't like, this is how the magic works. This is why it started. This is how you can believe that it's real. They just are like the assumption of reality. Mm-hmm. And I struggle with that in my writing. Mm-hmm. Um, because like most of my writing is very tied to what is literally happening in nature. And so like trying to remove myself from that and allow it to be a little ghostly, um, can be challenging. I'm fighting, I'm, I'm swimming upstream on this. I'm swimming upstream back to my childhood to try and get a grasp on ghosts.

Krisserin 8:18

Well, so did you do any writing or you

Kelton 8:21

just No.

Krisserin 8:22

Okay.

Kelton 8:22

No, no. Girl.

Krisserin 8:23

Okay. Did you think about your book at all?

Kelton 8:26

Yeah, I thought about it a lot.

Krisserin 8:27

Okay.

Kelton 8:27

I thought about it a lot. Okay. Um, I thought about the parts that I can't have in it anymore.

Krisserin 8:33

Oh,

Kelton 8:33

no. But I thought it was great. I, you know, it's like that that work all needed to be done. I was so burnt out this week that I was having like a kind of an emotional fallout from that, and I was like, let, let's just not do anything. Just relax for a little bit. Yeah. And come back to this after reading. And that, you know, that's such a, a cure for me is just to like, sit down with a list of books and make yourself read them.

Krisserin 9:02

Do you ever feel, I always feel this really difficult push and pull between wanting to be diligent and hardworking as you described to me. And do the work. And do the work and do the work in hurry and do the work, versus knowing that it's gonna take time. And you have to be gentle with yourself and you need to not burn out and you need to have a pace that is sustainable and continues your enthusiasm for the work. I feel like those two things are always competing with each other I don't know how to reconcile them.

Kelton 9:35

Yeah, I mean, I think the only way I've ever successfully reconciled them is by putting quantified rest on my to-do list, like treating it as work, where it's just like you, you have to do that part in order to recuperate. And so sometimes I'll kind of trick myself, you know, I'll be like, read two chapters of the artist's way. And inherently in doing that, I allow myself to not do work.'cause I like start morning pages and I go on an artist date and I've reframed it. And I had this problem with cycling too. And even with running where it's like rest helps you build those muscles, like you have to build that into a physical training plan mm-hmm. Or you won't see gains. Right. And so that, that's the only way, but it doesn't mean that when I get through the end of a week like this, that I'm not, like, I wish there had been more writing. And part of it for me is always gonna be assuaged, maybe not always, but currently assuaged by the existence of the newsletter. Like, I've already written two essays this week. Mm-hmm. So like writing got done. Mm-hmm. It just wasn't writing toward future self, which I will probably be coming back to during this podcast episode.

Krisserin 10:49

Okay. Okay. You

Kelton 10:50

were gonna keep working on a secret project,

Krisserin 10:54

a not so secret, secret project. And I did, I did. I have, so far written. 7,438 words of this secret. That is amazing secret project. And you know what? Because I'm not taking it so seriously, I've been writing in fits and starts just like whenever. Mm-hmm. Um, boy on, takes the kids to school at like seven 15 and I'll just sit in bed with my laptop until eight and just plug away. Or I picked up my daughter from school yesterday and I took her to a, a restaurant to grab a snack. And I wrote like a little description of the science teacher that she has and you know, just like, nice, I'm just, any time of the day I'll just sit down and kind of like plug away at it and it's been working and that is not how I normally write. If our listeners who've been listening for any length of time, know me, they know that I usually am like a get up at five, crank out an hour and a half in the morning. And I think that that is really great for subsequent drafts. But in this first draft, like magic place where I'm just feeling out the story and having fun, that's been working. Yeah. And so I've just kind of been like, no stress, no pressure. Let's just have fun with it. Enjoying things. And so it's gotten me, this week I wrote 4,000 words.

Kelton 12:13

That's amazing.

Krisserin 12:16

Having a great time. Having fun. It feels like a really multidimensional story. Yeah. There's lots of different character interactions and, fun things that I'm thinking about. I, I have it kind of set in the workplace part of it that, Kelton and I worked in, so that's been fun. There's reuniting with old friends with, you know, when you leave a job and you still kinda wanna know what's happening there, even though you're like so relieved to not be there anymore. A little bit of that. Mm-hmm. So I'm just having fun with it and it was a good weekend.

Kelton 12:44

That's the best.

Krisserin 12:45

Yeah. And I finished, when Loretta Chase book, I tried to pick up, another book I'm actually reading. I just started reading a book that I think Kelton you would really love. It's a fantasy book called Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marlie Marley. Yeah. It looks French, M-A-R-I-L-L-I-E-R.

Kelton 13:05

I'm adding it to my cue.

Krisserin 13:07

But other than that, it was a chill week and I get to go to, Anaheim for a convention today, so I'll be doing that for the rest of the week and probably be pretty exhausted and won't get to write anything else, but it's okay. Sometimes you have those weeks. Yeah.

Kelton 13:23

You have those weeks. You gotta embrace'em.

Krisserin 13:25

Absolutely.

Kelton 13:25

Let's your mind wander.

Krisserin 13:27

Yeah. Find inspiration in the, the con, in the aisles of a expo west. See consumer packaged goods a convention.

Kelton 13:38

I mean, thrilling, thrilling,

Krisserin 13:41

thrill. Can't wait.

Kelton 13:43

Krisserin, it's time to dive in deep to our past, to our histories. Yes. To bring the listeners back.

Krisserin 13:50

That's right.

Kelton 13:51

Where did you grow up,

Krisserin 13:53

Uhhuh

Kelton 13:54

and where do you live now? Let's swing shot'em past a present.

Krisserin 13:58

Alright, so, I was born in the San Gabriel Valley in a town called West Covina, which is for those who aren't from, well I think even people who are from Southern California, they might not know where it is, but it is roughly 40 miles east of Los Angeles. It's still in Los Angeles County, but it is on the outskirts of Los Angeles County. And my family, has been in West Covena for I think, like two generations. Of course my mom was born in the Philippines and moved to the San Gabriel Valley in the like fifties. But, when I was five, I got really sick. I had strep pneumonia, my lung collapsed, almost died. It was a very scary time. I always think about that. I'm like, I don't know as a mother how my mom survived that because I would, I was in the hospital for three weeks.

Kelton 14:41

Oh

Krisserin 14:41

God. But we ended up moving to the desert, the high desert in a small town called Apple Valley because my great-grandmother had a plot of land there. And I needed dry, a dry environment for my lungs that had no pollution.'cause you know, LA County is pretty

Kelton 14:57

Wow.

Krisserin 14:57

The air was pretty polluted. So we moved up there and I lived there from the age of six to 12. Um, so it was very formative. We had, I had horses and chickens and turkeys and lots of dogs and lots of outdoor cats. And so I grew up kind of wild and it was a lovely childhood and I when I think about where I gained my independence streak and my sense of self and confidence, I think about growing up in the desert, but. That ended in, when I moved from Apple Valley to Newport Beach, California, which, if you've seen the OC or the Real Housewives of Orange County, you can imagine what that change was like. It was a huge culture shock. And I live there until I went to college at UCLA and now I live in Woodland Hills, which is a suburb of Los Angeles that's just on the outskirts of la. It's like right on the border of Ventura County. Really close to where Kelton used to live when she lived in la. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kelton 15:54

You're such a Cali girl.

Krisserin 15:56

I am born and raised, been here for, you know, if my family have hadn't just gotten here, they've been here for generations, so, yeah.

16:07

That's

Krisserin 16:07

amazing. I love it here. I love California. I don't think I, Southern California too. I don't think I could live in the United States anywhere else.

Kelton 16:14

Yeah. Here.

Krisserin 16:15

Yeah.

Kelton 16:16

All right, Kelton. Okay. Your turn. My turn. Okay. So I was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and our house was right next to the battlefield.

Krisserin 16:28

Whoa.

Kelton 16:29

So I do think this is like, part of my obsession with ghosts is that we lived in an old house next to the battlefield. I feel like there were just like soldiers kind of like looming in the house, you know?

Krisserin 16:40

I did not know that about you. That's wild. I've been there. You did not. I've been to Gettysburg.

Kelton 16:45

Yeah. I mean, it's a great field trip. We did not live there long. When I was two and a half, my family moved to a place called Chesterland, Ohio, outside of Cleveland, right on the border of Amish country. And I also grew up with horses. We were on five acres. I had two. Just ragtag shitty ass horses. They were, I still remember like getting one of them. The horse was like$500. And my, I would go to a barn to take, riding lessons because my mom really wanted me to be a great rider. And I rode with these girls who had like$50,000 horses that they were boarding at the barn, and I had to take care of their horses. After the lesson was over, I had to go, like, pick their hooves and groom them and stuff as like part of the trade for me getting these lessons. So I, I really felt, um, such a kinship with a lot of protagonists in books where it's like, you're surrounded by this wealth that looks down on you and you have these deep relationships with the animals instead of the people.

Krisserin 17:47

Cinderella over here. I, I know, like literally,

Kelton 17:50

yeah, I'm just mucking my stalls. Um, and I went to like a very Midwestern. High school, like all the American movies about high school were such a accurate depiction of where I grew up. Like it was so cliquey. Football was everything. And I was always trying to make friends at other schools, because I was like, I feel like I am cool. I feel like I'm cool, but these people do not agree. So where can I find some people who think that I am cool? So most of my friends, ended up being from other schools, as soon as I could drive. I left Ohio when I went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And I, when I left, I was like, I am never coming back. And that ended up being true because my parents also left. My parents met in Idaho. That's actually where my older brother was born. And after I went to college, they left Ohio and moved back to the. To the hills of Idaho. Hmm. A quick recap of what's happened between then and now. I moved to the British Virgin Islands for a little while. Then I was being chased by customs and so I had to leave and I moved to Washington, DC after Washington DC where I had the worst mental health of my life and a tumor. Then I had to move to New York. And then I moved to Boulder, Colorado, and then I moved to Santa Monica, California, where I got the job at Headspace and met Chris. And, in Santa Monica. I met Ben on a bike ride, and Ben lived in a dilapidated hunting cabin in the Santa Monica Mountains in Topanga, which is like just up the mountains from Woodland Hills where cran lives. And I moved into that moldy rat-infested shack. Out of love. And I have lived in a cabin ever since we lived there for eight years before moving to this log cabin, in southwest Colorado.

Krisserin 19:56

Yeah. And I think actually a lot of our friendship was formed because, I would give Kelton rides every once in a while too because she was on my way to work. I would drive through the canyon to go to Headspace and then through the Canyon to come home. But I love your trajectory of all of the different places you've lived because I've stayed in, within a hundred miles of where I was born.

Kelton 20:17

I like to say that I have really Goldilocks to North America. Yeah. To find like the exact setting for me. I will admit I do Miss Topanga and we do sometimes talk about moving back, but I just don't think I have the stamina to tolerate the fire risk anymore. Yeah. It's so stressful, dude. It's just too much and like to invest. In a, in a, like a place in a home there and just have like your insurance premiums be crazy. Like I just, I don't have it in me.

Krisserin 20:44

If you can even get insurance.

Kelton 20:46

Yeah,

Krisserin 20:47

yeah. Yeah.

20:47

Super

Kelton 20:47

Crystal. So,

Krisserin 20:50

well I think you told us a little bit of what you were like as a child. It's funny, with our horses we had, I got a horse because when I was in the hospital my dad was like, when you get outta the hospital, we're gonna get you a white horse. Like Rainbow Bright.'cause I was obsessed. Something

Kelton 21:05

to move Rainbow

Krisserin 21:06

Bright. Yeah. Right. Um. And my horse was an Arabian, and she hated everyone but me because I weighed like 40 pounds. And so she was like, mm-hmm. I'll deal with the, I can handle this little one and everyone else can, just so you know, f off. But I rode bareback. We had someone come to the house and do maybe two or three lessons, but I have videos if you, if you want, don't, but if you search my name on YouTube, there are videos of me riding my horses. My gosh. And like yelling at them and like training, you know, like, what's it called when you ride them in circles? Like, I was doing that with the whip and I'm like yelling at

Kelton 21:40

them. Loved em.

Krisserin 21:41

Yeah. Um, there's videos of me doing that on

Kelton 21:45

YouTube. That'ss. Amazing. Well, I feel like I have to tell like, two quintessential stories about myself to illustrate who I was as a child

Krisserin 21:52

and one, oh, well, I was one of them. When you ran away from home.

Kelton 21:55

Yes. I mean, that's the key one. I ran away from home at seven and left a note from my parents that said, I, I got it from here. Um. I was so sure of myself. But then also, uh, fourth grade, my parents got called into the principal's office, to talk about our financial difficulties. And my parents were like, what financial difficulties? We were like middle class, but we had everything we needed and more. I had horses, it was like my parents were like, we both have jobs. Things are fine. And they were like, well, we've noticed that Kelton is. Uh oh is, um, just eating the leftovers from other people's lunches and that she doesn't have a lunch or lunch money. And what I had been doing was pocketing the lunch money my parents were giving me and just eating scraps from other people because I was just like, well, this is free money. I don't need a full lunch. Nobody's eating all of this food. And I made like a hundred dollars. My parents were like, what is wrong with you?

Krisserin 23:10

Did they let you keep it or did they take it back?

Kelton 23:13

I genuinely don't remember. I was so entrepreneurial. Then, like, I think that was also the year that I started a jewelry business at school, and again, my parents had to be contacted because they were like, she can't run a business during class, and I'd made like several hundred dollars. You know? I was just kind of like, let's make money.

Krisserin 23:32

Amazing.

Kelton 23:33

Part of that is my parents were very like, money doesn't grow on trees. A dollar earned is a dollar saved. Okay. Um, and so it's like, I just, I was, I had interpreted that as a child and I don't think they meant for this to happen, but I interpreted that as a child, as that we didn't have any money. And so I was like, I gotta start making money right now. We don't have enough money. Mom wants to go on vacation. We don't have money for it. I gotta start making money. And like, that's just what my tiny little Capricorn brain heard.

Krisserin 24:00

Wow.

Kelton 24:01

You know, and I glommed on and I've been the same way ever since.

Krisserin 24:05

Man. I guess we really come out with like our really fully formed who we're gonna be. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And how we're gonna be as children. I don't know if I have like a. You know, um, a story that defines or like exhibits as well as yours does. So what kind of kid I was, I, I really only had like two friends in the desert that were neighbors. There were two boys, and we would just run around and get into all kinds of trouble and play cowboys and Indians and just walk around until the sun went down. I was very comfortable being by myself out in the desert and knew how to stay safe and, watch out for things not to step on and all of that stuff. But I, I do feel like my sense of fairness and is very fundamental to who I am as a person. But yeah, it was really hard that transition from being in the desert where everyone was poor. I mean, like we were mm-hmm. I, I didn't want for much or anything really. If I needed something, I had it. But we didn't have money. Like I, we didn't even have cable until I moved in with my grandmother and it was like my grandmother and my older brother and my uncle and my mom living in one house. And then we had cable because there was like four adults paying for it. Right. Um,

Kelton 25:26

I'm also part of the No cable club. That means that you and I get to exclude ourselves from a whole, litany of cultural references that happened as children.

Krisserin 25:36

Well, I mean, we had Saturday cartoons or whatever, right? So

Kelton 25:40

yeah,

Krisserin 25:40

I did have that, but it wasn't until I was 10 or 11 that we had cable and then I was lots of MTV in the house. I loved MTV and I also had two older brothers who were very into music, very musical family on my mom's side of the family. So my grandmother played piano, my brother plays bass, my other brother played guitar. My uncle played drums. And so my other uncle played guitar, so they'd be like in the garage, playing music and having friends over to play music. And so music was very prominent in my house, which is probably why I like to sing. But then my husband's family. It completely not musical, which breaks my heart'cause neither of my kids inherited my music gene. Anyhow, all that to say, when I moved from the high desert to Newport Beach, it was a huge culture shock because in the desert we were all the same socioeconomically, and there wasn't like really rich kids or poor kids. We all kind of grew up together and it was just what it was. So when I went to Newport and I was like the poor kid at the, at the school, it was really, um, I didn't understand the hierarchy and everyone was nice and friendly to everyone for the most part at my old school. So when I got there, within three weeks, I got severely bullied. Like to the point where I think it was like 10 kids got suspended. And this was on the way back from the Museum of Tolerance. We went to a field trip to the Holocaust Museum and on the way back they were bullying the girl sitting next to me and I stood up for her and then they all started bullying me. I had a Coke bottle thrown in my face. They were chanting my name. It was bad. I had to get up and I refused to cry. They're like, are you gonna tell on us? Are you gonna tell us? I was like, no, I'm not gonna sit. Like, I'm trying to be all strong and tough. Mm-hmm. And I refused to cry and I finally broke down and I got up and went and sat in the front with the teachers who were doing nothing the whole time. Wow. Um, and even when I got back to the school, I got off the bus and just walked home by myself, just sobbing. I didn't say anything to anybody. And the only reason people got in trouble was'cause someone, someone else who ended up, I became friends with her. I didn't have friends at this point. I didn't know anyone at the school. Yeah. I was brand new. Um, went to the principal's office and said something and then

Kelton 27:53

Wow.

Krisserin 27:53

Literally that's the only reason why people got in trouble.

Kelton 27:56

I wonder if she was also a Libra.

Krisserin 27:59

That's a good question. I remember we ended up having, having a falling out as, as friends like. A year later, or even the same year, I don't remember. It was very difficult to make friends at that school. But yeah, that was a huge awakening for me. And then so to, very similar to you, to be around a group of people and realize I will never be able to connect with these people because they look down on me. Mm-hmm.

Kelton 28:19

For

Krisserin 28:19

what I don't have. That's when I was like, wow, I didn't even know this existed. This, class system existed. And so having to be in that situation and understand that like at a young age was very,

Kelton 28:31

yeah,

Krisserin 28:31

very enlightening for me.

Kelton 28:33

Yeah. We didn't have that so much at my school, which had been really insulating and nice. My, my school felt like mostly economically the same. There were definitely, once we got to high school, you could see some differences with the cars that people drove up in. Sure. You were like, okay, alright. Mm-hmm. That's cool. And like, you know, you're like, oh, so and so has a fridge with an ice maker. As a kid, I was just like, you can get. Ice just from clicking a button. I, that's still, to me, like one of the greatest luxuries I have in my house is an ice machine. I love it so much. Pebble ice, whenever I want.

Krisserin 29:07

You mean you don't do the, the like the plastic ice molds?

Kelton 29:12

I listen, we do have plastic ice molds for drinks, but the pebble ice maker is just for me to chomp. And now my, my son does that as well. He is just like, cup of ice, please. I'm like, oh, are you as iron deficient as your mother?

Speaker 3 29:27

Oh man.

Kelton 29:28

But yeah, and then like when I went to college, that was the real shock for me. Um, you know, it was just like I lived by Amish country. It was very insular. And then college, it was just like, wow, there's all these different people and rich people remember, it's like I knew, the granddaughter of the guy who owned the Yankees, she was in my acapella group. I knew John Grisham's daughter and it was just like these people where you're like, you are living a different life.

Krisserin 29:54

Yeah. See I went to UCLA and so for me it was a relief to get lost in the crowd. Yeah. Of 65,000 students on that campus. I was like,

Kelton 30:05

that's amazing. Is it that big?

Krisserin 30:06

I think like in total with the med school and the dental school and the undergraduate school and all of that, I, maybe I'm making that up, but it's a very, very large campus obviously. Yeah. Um, and so it was just a relief to get to the dorms and be like, I can reinvent myself. I can become someone completely new and nobody knows me here except for the 11 other people who got in for sports like me.

Kelton 30:27

Oh, tell us you got in for sports.

Krisserin 30:30

I did get in for sports. What sports? So I very, okay. This is a good example of what kind of kid I was. After the 96 Olympics, I became obsessed with gymnastics and I was like, I'm gonna be a gymnast. And I had done gymnastics as a little kid and, and liked it. I'm naturally athletic. And so, when I moved down to Orange County, and this actually, it was a saving grace for me. I knew I wanted to do gymnastics, so I literally picked up the yellow pages that my stepdad had in his kitchen, and I looked at the gyms and I called one up and I was like, I am a gymnast and I want to come to your gym. And they were like, okay, come at this day and time. And so I told my mom, we're going to this gym. Here's the address. Written it down at this day and time. And I started doing gymnastics. And so I was a competitive gymnast starting in seventh grade until, I would say it was only like a period of two or three years. But I went from level five to level eight. In that time I went to gymnastics camp in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. and I was naturally fast, so I joined the track team as a freshman, I was actually a four letter varsity, four year varsity track team member. I ran the 100, the four by one. I did triple jump. And then I remember at the end of my freshman year, I saw a girl pole vaulting and I was like, I can do that. And so I didn't do it during the year because there was one girl and it was like her thing and I didn't wanna go and impede on her thing. Okay. You know?

Kelton 31:51

Yeah.

Krisserin 31:52

Um, but then I did break her record like literally the first year that I pole vaulted. Amazing. I, I pole vaulted. If anyone knows anything about pole vaulting, this is somewhat impressive. I, on a trainer pole, the first time I pole vaulted cleared nine feet, which is,

Kelton 32:08

it sounds impressive to me.

Krisserin 32:09

It's pretty high. When we do track meets, you start at six for like the, the beginners. And I ended up clearing 11 feet, six inches. And that was basically the coach at UCLA was like, if she can clear 11 six, she can walk onto the team and I'll get her into UCLA. And so that's how I got. To go to UCLA. I always, um, my, I'm always surprised when my friends forget that I was an athlete. I was like, you think I was smart enough to go to UCLA for academics? Thank you. I am, I am smart enough. I actually, you know, I did graduate. Um, but yeah, I, I got into UCLA because I was a walk-on, on the track team. I only survived a year. The coach was such a mean, horrible person. And the team, I was not a good fit, like socially with that team. So I ended up making two really good friends from the team and one of my best friends, um, actually also left UCLA to go pole vault at Brown. But yeah, that's how I got to go to UCLA.

Kelton 33:09

So when and where did writings like start and version in your life?

Krisserin 33:15

That's a great question. The first thing I ever wrote, I plagiarized.

Kelton 33:21

Okay. Obviously. Tell me more.

Krisserin 33:23

I, I'm totally okay. I, I did. Okay. When you're a smart kid who's lazy, which is me, you, uh, do a lot of shady shit in school because you can get away with it, you know?

Kelton 33:36

Oh, Ben can't, cannot believe how much cheating I did in school.

Krisserin 33:39

Oh my God. And

Kelton 33:40

I, my God, I was like, this is an economy. You know, it was like, if I let someone cheat off me, then when I'm desperate and like needs something to cheat off of, I've built a relationship. This is a bartering system. Like if I don't have to do it, why would I blows his mind. But my, my school was super easy. I was a school in rural Ohio.

Krisserin 34:02

I know. And I was the school, literally the school that I went to, it closed down. It doesn't exist anymore. But the last grade it had on like great schools was a three outta 10. Okay. It was, I mean, and I, my teachers were, wonderful. I have some wonderful teachers at the school that. Shaped me as a human, who I still remember fondly, but literally in first. In first grade. How old are you in first grade? Six. And I was a young first grader.'cause my birthday's in October. I, we would get awards for reading and we just had to write a book report. And I have a trophy in my living room as a reminder of me winning the reading award because I lied about how many books I read. I literally, I, I would pull, I pulled this con up until, I wanna say fifth grade, where I would just like read the back of the book and then write a report. I would just like make up what the story was about off the cuff and. Literally, it wasn't until I tried to pass off that I read Clan of the Cave Bear by Gene Hall that my teacher was like, you did not read this 500 page book. Like, there's no way that you read Clan of the Cave, because I would just look at my mom's library mm-hmm. And like, pull a book off, you know. But the first story I ever wrote I had seen like another kid writing the story and it was kind of like the, you know, the fish who got its scales or whatever and

35:20

mm-hmm.

Krisserin 35:21

So I was like, I could write that. And so I wrote like the giraffe who got its spots, but I just completely whole cloth lifted this kid's idea and just wrote it better than them.

Speaker 3 35:30

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 35:31

So I got chosen for like a, a publishing. Like they, everyone wrote a story and the top ones got printed and someone got printed. And I did that with no remorse or thinking that it was a,

Kelton 35:42

yeah.

Krisserin 35:43

Bad thing to do. But that's how I started writing. I love that. Um, it's horrible. I know, but it's, it's also like, I don't know, I don't wanna excuse the behavior, but I did, you know, start, I just always had kind of like a talent for it. Like a proficiency for it. Yeah. Like I could always sit down and make stuff up. And it wasn't until I got to college, I actually didn't, I was very like, I was like, I'm gonna be a busy con major in college. I'm gonna be a business lady.

Kelton 36:13

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 36:13

And then I took my first econ class at 7:00 AM and I was like, this is bullshit. I hate this. I just wanna get drunk and then sleep in. I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna go to an econ class at seven o'clock in the morning with 300 other people. I took so many different degree requirement courses that I had to audit every single credit my last quarter at UCLA because I needed to finish my degree, which ended up being English. Eventually I succumbeded to like, oh, I should I, this should be my major, but anyway, what about you? When were you, when did you start, when did your you believe that you were meant to be a writer?

Kelton 36:48

Well, I mean, I loved telling stories. I think, for me, the stage was first I loved acting. I loved performing, I loved holding a captive audience. And it wasn't until high school that, I was, did you have power of the pen?

Krisserin 37:05

No.

Kelton 37:05

It was a, I don't know if it was regional or if it was like a state competition, but it was a competition for writing and I made it to states in high school. And I remember I lost, like I got like a, I got like some award, but, not the top honor. And this kid that my fucking nemesis in my high school did get the top honor. We're talking about John, the one who,

Krisserin 37:28

oh, we talked about him before.

Kelton 37:29

We have talked about John before. He is the one who told me he told you to be Lily.

Krisserin 37:32

If you

Kelton 37:33

didn't, I can really make something of myself, right? If I focused less on my social life, fuck John.

Krisserin 37:38

Yeah.

Kelton 37:39

I, I, your canon for me, and I hate that for you, but I, I wrote this, this piece I still think about, about this man who'd been in prison, guilty for 50 years and I was describing his first day leaving. And like some of the things that he had not. Ever experienced prior to being in PRI prison. And I was thinking specifically about this pen that he was like clicking and he'd never had a pen that clicked, and he was just like so enamored with this like, smallest token of technology that it wasn't like spilling ink in his pocket. But anyways, I lost, and I, I was so fucking mad about it. But at the same time I was writing on blog spot and Zenga, I can't remember which one was first, which started just like an illustrious career of essay writing. I was writing about my life and my adventures from 15.

Krisserin 38:34

Wow.

Kelton 38:34

14 maybe on. And I carried that through high school. I tried a bunch of different blogs every time. It was like always about my dating life and everyone in my life always read them. And it was always kind of, I was gonna ask,

Krisserin 38:45

did people read them? Did you like

Kelton 38:46

high school classes? Yeah. People read them. Even in college, people would be like, are you gonna write about me in your blog?

Krisserin 38:51

You

Kelton 38:51

know? And I was just like, well, that's the number one way for me to write something bad.

Krisserin 38:55

Yeah, right.

Kelton 38:56

Um, and then it wasn't until 2010 that I had a blog idea that took off that was state by numbers. But like you, I went to college thinking I was gonna be an investment banker. I had decided on investment banker in seventh grade because I still was coming from that mentality where I was like, we don't have enough money and the only way to have enough money is to be an investment banker because then you'll have more money than anyone, which means you have enough. And so I went to the business school at Chapel Hill. And I was in the business major for two years before there was one class where we had to grade each other's presentations. And the girl next to me was giving whoever was giving their presentation a C. And I was like, why? That was good? Mm-hmm. And she was like, yeah, but if I give them an A and they don't give me an A, then my grade point average will go down or however they fucking weighted. Ew. It was like one of those like bell curve classes for grades. I hate

Krisserin 39:54

her.

Kelton 39:54

And I was like, if we all give each other a's even worse case scenario, we all end up with B'S because the teacher waits it. Funny. Yeah. And I was like, this is so vindictive and cruel. And I talked to a couple classmates about it after and they all agreed with her and I was like, I. I'm in the wrong nature and I switched that week to the journalism school. The irony is that you can just go to the UNC journalism school, but at the time it was number one in the country, whereas the business school was number three. And I was like, well, what am I doing? And so I majored in journalism with a focus in advertising and a minor in business. And I, I didn't like, have any intentions of being a journalist. I went for advertising. I loved where art and law and behavioral psychology intersected around ads. I thought it was so cool, what you could do with that. And eventually in my life I developed ethics and values and so I left advertising. But yeah, it was in 20 10, 2 years after college, when I started day by numbers and became. A writer and started pitching places and having my writing be seen places and identifying as a writer, 2015, I think was the first time that I put writer on my passport.

Krisserin 41:10

Hmm.

Kelton 41:10

Um, and you know, obviously we still have stayed pretty business, like

Krisserin 41:15

Yeah.

Kelton 41:16

You know, you're in marketing and I do content brand work. I, I do have a business mind, but you know, art was not encouraged in my house. My parents aren't artists. They don't have that, that interest in it. And so it's not, you know, they were sort of like, art is a really stupid way to try to make money, so try not to do that. And I was just like. It's a bad way to make money. That was all I heard, you know? Yeah. And I was like, I wanna be in a good way to make money.

Krisserin 41:43

Yeah. So, yeah.

Kelton 41:43

You know, the psychology runs deep, but I do identify as a writer now, and I'm happy, happy to have evolved out of advertising for Triscuit and Gillette.

Krisserin 41:56

Yeah. I mean, when I graduated from college, I thought I was gonna move to New York and be Kerry Bradshaw and work at a magazine. But I met my husband and we stayed in la and then my first real job that was, I had an internship at Harper Collins, but then I got a full-time job at a company that was a B2B publication that covered marketing campaigns for businesses. It was a trade publication that talked about marketing campaigns. Yeah. And so, um, that's kind of how I got my start. There was really no content jobs in LA that weren't for either like a web publisher or some other business related, venture. So I fell into business just by being around that type of, you know, industry. But, I always wanted to be a writer. I finished my first full length book in 2008, two years after I graduated.

Kelton 42:44

Yeah.

Krisserin 42:44

And tried to query it, I like what Mark Sarva said about your first book is you proving to yourself that you can do it. Because I did work on that book for a very long time. I wrote the shit out of it and it just was a good way to learn how to do it. And I just now on my fifth book now, still not published, but That's okay.

Kelton 43:05

Yeah. I mean, I forget sometimes that I have a book with my name on it, on the shelf.

Krisserin 43:10

You do do that, but then you're like, wait, I am an author.

Kelton 43:12

I am an author. I do have a book. I just wrote it when I was a child, so

Krisserin 43:17

yeah,

Kelton 43:17

let's not refer to it.

Krisserin 43:21

Well, you kind of mentioned this, but what's your, what are your big three?

Kelton 43:25

Okay, so I am a Capricorn sun, which means that for most of my life, I thought astrology was nonsense and, only bred my horoscope in private. I'm a Virgo moon, so I'm a double earth whammy. And then I am a Gemini rising, which is like where a lot of my writing comes from. And any time you look up anything about my whole chart, it is fucking accurate. I have a hard time, like really, like if someone with gun to my head was like, do you think astrology is real? I think I would say no. But looking at everything it has ever said about me, I'm like, Ooh. And then I do go outta my way. I'm like, okay, I'll, I've gone in and put other dates and places and birthdays in to be like, how would you describe this person? Mm-hmm. Because a lot of people are like, horoscopes are just like a universal application of like garbage to everybody. But when it describes a Pisces or Aries or even a Libra, I'm like, I do not identify with this in the slightest. There's nothing about this. This sounds like me. Um, and like, you know, when I was young, my birthday is in late December, so I'm close to Sagittarius and I was always like, I feel like there's a lot of sag in me. And I was like, that's weird. Like maybe it's just'cause my birthday's close and as an adult it's no, I have a Sagittarius Stellium, I have five planets in Sagittarius.

Krisserin 44:48

Mm.

Kelton 44:48

And so it's like, yeah, of course. If it's real, that influences me. And like one of the questions we have written here for us is what do you least identify with is your star sign? And it's like. Nothing. Like nothing. You can just go read my big three and be like, yeah, that sounds like her. It's weird.

Krisserin 45:06

It's interesting.

Kelton 45:07

It's really weird. It makes me feel like a silly goose. And then I remember that being a silly goose is actually like a really important part of being alive.

Krisserin 45:16

Absolutely.

Kelton 45:16

So,

Krisserin 45:17

I had to double check my birth certificate because I felt offended, like a little offended by this. But I am a Libra Sun. A Pisces Moon.

Kelton 45:28

Interesting.

Krisserin 45:28

And a Taurus rising.

Kelton 45:30

Yeah. Yeah. I dunno why.

Krisserin 45:33

Yeah, yeah,

Kelton 45:34

yeah. Listen, part of it is like TAUs. Fucking reliable gets shit done, bullish in their determinism, but also just like a really reliable friend, very loyal like Libra, incredibly justice driven, you know? Mm-hmm. Focusing on the scales, a perseverance to the right way. And Pisces kind of explains why you wore a pleather suit to a meta convention. It speaks to those like fantastical elements. Your obsession with Robin Hobb books, you know, it's like the Pisces, is that like. There's this other world that you can have access to in your head and your heart and like, you know, it kind of like liquefies some of the experience of being both a Libra and a Taurus.

Krisserin 46:23

Yeah. I guess it's the Pisces part that I, I struggle with because I'd done this before, but I think I had the wrong birth time and I need to ask my mom to confirm, because I don't know if they are super accurate on your birth certificate with your time of birth or they're just kinda like, eh, it was around this time because I thought originally it was around like six 30, but on my, birth certificates at eight 20 at night and my experience with people who are Pisces Sun are that they're a little bit more I find them a little bit impractical. A little bit. Yes,

Kelton 46:54

yes, for sure. For sure. But that's a Pisces

Krisserin 46:56

Sun, a little bit changeable.

Kelton 46:58

Yeah, they are kind of malleable. You can influence'em. Yeah. Yeah. But that is when it's like their core dynamic. Like I think that's the point of like, when people ask about your big three, it's that those three are influencing each other very heavily. Mm-hmm. And your moon has a different role than your son. Mm-hmm.

Krisserin 47:14

Mm-hmm.

Kelton 47:14

Um, and so it's, yeah. It's, it's interesting.

Krisserin 47:18

Yeah. And I would say I, I very much identify with my Libra self. I've always had this sense of being really frustrated at injustice. Even now, if I watch shows or read things and there's injustice and it, like my hands physically ache. Mm-hmm. It's a weird thing. It makes my hands hurt. But I think that the more I would say superficial. Stereotypes of a Libra, I don't identify with. I do love beautiful things. I love aesthetics, I love clothes. It was funny, I was reading my, um, my Libra description on CoStar and the last thing is is often well dressed and I'm like, check. Absolutely. Um, but like the vapid ness, I, I don't know if I was gonna say, I dunno if I would describe myself as indecisive, but I, I can be, but then once I make a decision, I'm in it.

Kelton 48:12

Yeah.

Krisserin 48:12

You know, I'm, I'm,

Kelton 48:13

yeah.

Krisserin 48:13

I usually like really think through things and how I feel about them. Um, but I do, I would say that that's kind of the one part that I would, you know,

Kelton 48:23

s against a little bit. Yeah. I think there's like some commercialization of it. Like sometimes when I see memes of Capricorn, it's very like Anne Taylor Lululemon, have your like giant water cup. Um, and you know, not only do I have that Stellium Sagittarius, but I have one in Scorpio too. And like that, those elements, excuse me, and the Gemini, make me just like way more individualistic and expressive than that part of a Capricorn. So like I see those memes sometimes where, I'm like, that's not me. But then you'll see the ones where it's like the two sides of the Capricorn, and it's one if side of the image is just cash and the other side is just trees. And I'm like, what is

Speaker 3 49:01

me?

Kelton 49:02

Yes, that's me.

Krisserin 49:05

I also have a still in Scorpio.

Kelton 49:08

Oh, no, I

Krisserin 49:08

don't know what that, I don't know what that means.

Kelton 49:10

I mean, listen, Scorpios are like the dark excavators of the, of the galaxy. Like it's the person who's willing to go dark, touch on taboo. And it like prefers like a mysterious element wants to be perceived as, like other in a, in a way, like, uh, powerful. Um, you know, I'm obvi, I'm not an astrologer. This is just like what I've,

Krisserin 49:35

sounds like you are like, you know so much

Kelton 49:37

about some research. I know. The more we talk about this, I'm like, oh no, I have learned way too much about this.

Krisserin 49:42

I don't know anything. I'm like, tell me about myself.

Kelton 49:44

Oh no. Oh no. I have fallen into the, well,

Krisserin 49:49

that does sound like me though. I, I, the reason I like to shop vintage clothes or do go against what's popular is I do want to be perceived as unique and different and an individual. Mm-hmm. And that is why I try and like, define my visual identity, first impression of me in a very specific way, which is why I wore a. Teal pleather suits on that, you

Kelton 50:11

know? And I think there's something like Scorpios about being impenetrable, and I think that you and I, both to a degree, especially at work, have that dynamic where we are powerful. We want to be perceived that way. It does not matter to us to be seen as agreeable. Um, you know, I'm sort of like, try to pierce my armor. I dare you to see what happens if you try to pierce it.

Krisserin 50:38

Have you seen that meme where it's like. Looks like a cinnamon roll could kill you. Yes. Mm-hmm. Okay. I think, I think that I'm like, looks like they could kill you, is a cinnamon roll and I think that you are, looks like they could kill you. Would kill you. Yeah,

Kelton 50:53

a hundred percent. How I identify a hundred percent

Krisserin 50:57

because I find that, so people would tell me after they gotten to know me, like when I first met you, I was so intimidated by you. But then I got to know you and you're so nice and I'm like, I am so nice. I, I find it very interesting that that is the first impression that people get of me because I, I think that's the Taurus rising in me. I'm very. You know, in the workplace, direct and problem solving and like, let's get moving and let's get going. And I learned a lot of that from my stepdad. My stepdad's like, figure it out. Let's do it. Let's move, we gotta go. And so I've learned to problem solve that way. And it served me really well. But some people they don't like that. It's just,

Kelton 51:36

yeah, I mean, I've had that conversation a lot where once people get to know me, they don't say I'm nice. Um, but they do say, you're like, you're like fun and funny. And I'm like, yeah, but there's no point in being fun and funny at work. I'm trying to do the work and leave.

Krisserin 51:52

Yeah. I wanna go be fun and funny at home with my real friends.

Kelton 51:56

Exactly.

Krisserin 51:58

Okay. Um, where this is, this is gonna be a long episode. I don't think we're gonna get to all these questions, but we are gonna actually type these out and put them on our substack so that you guys can read through everything.'cause we have 15 different questions Yeah. In here. Why don't you pick the next. One on this.

Kelton 52:15

Okay. We've already, there's one question that says, how would you describe your cohost, but I feel like we've been doing that this entire time. So I would like to know what part of the podcast do you like the most? I think I know

Krisserin 52:30

what part I like the most.

Kelton 52:32

I think I know like in the broader sense of doing this podcast, not just in the recordings, but

Krisserin 52:38

Okay.

Kelton 52:39

I, I think in that way I do know that,

Krisserin 52:41

how about you tell me what you think I'm gonna say and I'll tell you what I think you're gonna say.

Kelton 52:45

Oh God. I think that you're gonna say, building community and connecting with people and like having people write in and say that we helped them shepherd these ideas out into the world, that they felt less alone. That they had companions. Like that to me, I think is your favorite part.

Krisserin 53:03

I do love that. I'm, I don't know what part of my, uh, chart. Right. It talks about how I like to, um, like, I like validation, but I also feel like it's important to do something that does like something for everybody. Giving back to the world. Part of it is really important to me, otherwise, what are we doing? You know? Um, but I, I would say that in terms of just the structure of our podcast and the day-to-day and how we catch up, it is the, I really like hearing from you and telling you, just even talking through, it's kinda like therapy, the things that I'm trying to struggle through and hearing your take on what I am struggling with, because I feel like you give really good advice around, you're like a little, you know, the first episode of this podcast was be my disappointed dad. And I told you I wasn't gonna do that for you. I, I like listening to the other like two weeks ago, you are your own disappointed dad, but I feel like you do give me really good advice and build me up in a way that I can't do for myself. So I really appreciate that part of the podcast.

Kelton 54:12

Yeah. Well that's nice.

Krisserin 54:13

I think what you're going to say, maybe I'm wrong, but what I think you're gonna say about what you like about the podcast is the fact that I do challenge you on certain things. And because I've noticed that I will say something to you and in the moment you'll be like, I don't, you don't wanna hear it, but then we'll come back like a week later and be like, I really thought about what you said. Yeah. And it seems like you will hear me and listen to me and, even if you don't agree with it, like consider it. And I think that like, that challenging of your ideas, even if you don't agree with them, is something that you like out of this podcast.'cause it makes you see something a little bit differently.

Kelton 54:52

I think that's true. And it's sort of like a sub point of my favorite thing about this podcast was just like having a friend I talk to every week who fully gets me and I can be myself with like, I am not good at staying in touch with people. I had a friend from la she was in town this past week. She wasn't visiting me, she was just in town and was like, let's hang out. And after we hung out, she was like, let's like stay in touch, let's talk. And I was like, I gotta be honest with you, like I am probably not gonna talk to you any more than I have over the last five years. But every time. We are in the same place. You are still gonna be a person I consider one of my closest friends.

Krisserin 55:32

Mm-hmm.

Kelton 55:32

And like it's very easy for me to stay in my cabin and to be in the woods and to be a hundred percent by my myself and feel almost completely fulfilled by that. But this scheduled moment with a person who can push on me, can tease me, really knows me, knows my background, to like just have a friend that I'm constantly growing and evolving with. That's not like, when should we schedule a FaceTime? You know? It's so nice.'cause I fucking hate getting updates that are like, so where's your husband work now? Like, yeah. What did your kids do for summer camp? It's like, get out of my way. Talk to me about how we are feeling about life.

Krisserin 56:15

Yeah.

Kelton 56:16

Um, and we get to do that every week and it is so good for my psyche.

Krisserin 56:22

I love that. I It is true. I'm the same way. Like I have friends that. Don't live that far away. I have friends that live really far away. I had a friend came in from New York and I made time to go and drive down to Orange County and we all got together and then the life updates we got, I was like, I had no idea all the shit was going on in your life. Mm-hmm. It's even with people that you consider best friends that like I went to college with, I went to your wedding, I officiated your wedding. Not your, not literally your wedding. Yes. But I officiated their wedding, you know, and it's like we don't talk to each other about the tough stuff. We just like

Kelton 56:56

something. Yeah. I loved that. One of Ben's friends did the other week, one of his best friends of all time. They rarely talk, they have very different lives, but he texted Ben just a wall of text of updates and he was like, I don't have time to talk right now. But I just wanted to give you like a quick update on all the things that have materially changed in my life so that the next time we can talk you are fully briefed and we don't have to talk about it.

Krisserin 57:21

I do

Kelton 57:21

like that. And I was like, this man, I mean, he's a scientist, so I think it speaks to the way that that man communicates. But I was like, oh, si just like drip me in that. Yeah. I love it.

Krisserin 57:32

I love that. And I feel like we need to, as human beings in this fake connected world, that social media makes us think that we're in, be more vulnerable with each other and just like do that with each other more often. Mm-hmm. And I do think that you and I especially connecting around writing, which is so hard to do because literally even with my friends that I love what's going on with your book? Oh God, when can I read it? God? And I'm like, that's a great question. I have no

Kelton 57:58

good. What a good question. Why don't you, why don't you go ask Chat GPT because their answer's gonna be just as vague as mine.

Krisserin 58:07

Yeah, pretty much. So I, I think that is a really special part of the podcast. And when we do get some people writing into us, they do mention how much they enjoy that. So. It, it feeds both of our favorite things.

Kelton 58:23

Okay. I think that we should round this up by suggesting goals for each other.

Krisserin 58:29

Okay.

Kelton 58:32

I, I'm like, personally I'm saying that because I want you to tell me my goals, but then me realizing I have to tell you your goals. I'm like, what do I want Krisserin to do?

Krisserin 58:44

What do I want Melton to do?

Kelton 58:46

I guess one thing I'm curious about, you had tabled your short story since I read it.

Krisserin 58:50

Yeah.

Kelton 58:51

Have you thought about that ending at all? I only ask'cause it seems like it is so close. I do also have an additional piece of feedback, um, that I think could influence an ending, but I, I just like, kinda wanna see you submit it'cause the writing's so good.

Krisserin 59:08

Oh, thank you. Um, yeah, actually we didn't talk about it that much when I sent it to you. Besides you saying I loved it. I want more. I want more. Uh, I'm sorry. It

Kelton 59:20

was great.

Krisserin 59:21

I don't know how to end it. I don't and I am, the way that I was kind of, first of all, I was like, I should email Leslie Bannatyne and be like, how do I end this story?

Kelton 59:32

You honestly should, you know, Leslie was like so dope and wanted to keep in touch. I know

Krisserin 59:37

I love her,

Kelton 59:38

her, and like, you gotta keep in touch with people when they tell you to.

Krisserin 59:41

I know. I know.

Kelton 59:42

Unless you're me and then you tell them you won't.

Krisserin 59:46

At least you're honest. That's very Capricorn of you. My other really good friend who's a Capricorn, she lives in St. Louis, and I literally have never met her children. And I never hear from her. Like her husband will be like, have you talked to Jenea? Like, talk to her, reach out to her. But literally it's the same. Like, I'll never hear from her, but she's one of my best friends in life. Mm-hmm. Very Capricorn. Yeah, I, if you have any suggestions for how I should consider ending that story, they're very welcome because I, I, it feels like it's just waiting in the back of my, my brain and I don't know what to do about it.

Kelton 1:00:24

Okay. I, um, I'm gonna toss you a suggestion after the recording. Okay. Um, so we don't give away your, your secrets. Okay. Um, but I would like you to spend two scheduled writing segments dicking around with that story.

Krisserin 1:00:40

Okay. I can do that.

Kelton 1:00:42

Yeah. And so I'm not saying like, get an ending, but like have two scheduled sessions that are for that story.

Krisserin 1:00:48

Okay.

Kelton 1:00:50

Done. Okay. Alright. What am I doing?

Krisserin 1:00:52

My goal for you is I want to suggest that you try what I've been doing with my writing.

Kelton 1:00:57

Okay.

Krisserin 1:00:57

Which is, literally just picking up the computer every once in a while during your day. Not the dedicated time that you have to sit down in front of the computer. But you know how you mentioned you'll have a book open

Kelton 1:01:10

Yeah.

Krisserin 1:01:10

On the counter, and you'll just pick it up and read a little bit. I want you to try doing that with your novel. Okay. And not try and make it like I need to finish the scene or whatever, but just pick it up and maybe write a sentence here and there. Yeah. And just ideas. It can just, it doesn't even have to be part of the story. It can just be ideas for the story, things that you're thinking about, but just commit them to a file and try and try and do that like two or three times.

Kelton 1:01:33

Okay. I can do that. That sounds achievable.

Krisserin 1:01:36

Okay, cool.

Kelton 1:01:37

Okay, cool.

Krisserin 1:01:38

All right.

Kelton 1:01:39

Oh, I gotta write these down

Krisserin 1:01:41

or we'll forget them.

Kelton 1:01:43

If you're a real astrologer. I would like you to come on the podcast and read me and Krisserin for filth.

Krisserin 1:01:53

I would love that too. I would absolutely enjoy that. My favorite topic is learning more about myself. Hell

Kelton 1:02:04

yeah.

Krisserin 1:02:04

Alright, well, you can email us at official pen pals pod@gmail.com. Follow us at pen pals pod on all of the social networks. You can follow Kelton on Instagram at Kelton Kin, and you can follow her on TikTok at Kelton Wrights. You can follow me in TikTok at cerin and Kelton writes@shinglogs.substack.com. And I write at crin do sub stack.com.

Kelton 1:02:27

And I know this is usually when I'm not listening to the podcast anymore, but if you like this podcast, share it. That's like the only way it succeeds in the only way that we can keep, shoving this into calendars with other demands. So please tell people to listen to it and rate it four or five stars. And happy writing.

Krisserin 1:02:49

Happy writing everyone