Sounds Fake But Okay
Sounds Fake But Okay
Ep 344: Portalmania by Debbie Urbanski
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Hey what's up hello! This week we're joined by Debbie Urbanski to talk about her excellent collection of short stories, Portalmania. Portalmania dives bravely into the shadowy depths of betrayal, parenthood, revenge, murder, coercive sex, open marriages, asexuality, neurodiversity, and second chances.
Episode Transcript: www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/portalmania-by-debbie-urbanski
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SARAH: Hey, what's up? Hello! Welcome to Sounds Fake but Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl (I'm Sarah, that's me.)
KAYLA: And a bi demisexual girl (that's me Kayla.)
DEBBIE: And a writer who writes stories about asexuality, that's me Debbie.
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode, ‘Portalmania.’
ALL: Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod.
KAYLA: Hello.
SARAH: This week I think we're going to jump straight in because we have a guest, it's very exciting, Kayla kind of previewed it in last week's episode in her juice.
KAYLA: I did, I did. My juice last week was your book because I was reading it and I was… I was in the middle of it and I was very excited, so.
SARAH: So, let's dive in.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: We are joined today by Debbie Urbanski, is that how you pronounce it?
DEBBIE: That's it.
SARAH: Perfect.
KAYLA: I was trying to add an O-W in there, so, I'm glad you have said it.
SARAH: Like ‘Urbanowski?’
KAYLA: Yeah, and that's… literally none of those letters are in there, so. Just trying to make it more Polish, I guess, I don't know.
SARAH: Yeah, you're too Polish for that. Um, but yeah, we are joined today by Debbie Urbanski whose book ‘Portalmania’ is coming out on the 13th of May?
DEBBIE: Yep.
KAYLA: That's Friday the 13th too, isn't it? No, no, wait that's in June.
DEBBIE: It should be Tuesday.
SARAH: It should be a Tuesday.
KAYLA: I think it's maybe June is Friday the 13th. Dang, that would have been so good though. Sorry. I’m sorry everyone.
SARAH: Very spooky. Um, but yeah, we are here to talk about your book. I guess, do you want… you gave a little bit of an introduction to yourself before but what should the people know about you and who you are and all that jazz?
DEBBIE: Sure. Well, I'm a writer, I love writing short stories, I’ve been writing them for a while. I like writing speculative fiction so that's like fantasy, sci-fi, horror and in like the mid-2010s I started writing stories about asexuality, I was kind of figuring out language about how to identify myself and I found fiction to be a really useful place to kind of explore what I was feeling and the collisions I was having in my life and in the world. So, I wrote a series of stories maybe for about eight years, sometimes they have portals in them, sometimes they're just about asexual characters. I think I finally reached the end of that project and I'm hoping I now could write about asexual characters being happy. A lot of my, you know, the stories in ‘Portalmania’ are… they're struggling, my characters in life.
SARAH: Yeah, some of them are hard to read but they're very well done and I think a lot of aspec listeners who may be reading this book, and they should…
KAYLA: And they will
SARAH: And they will, this is a threat, um, no, but when they read these stories, I think many of them will see themselves in it and it might be a little difficult but I think it's good to have their representation in fiction
DEBBIE: That's great to hear and also it's kind of disappointing in a way, I keep hoping like the next… you know, I probably figured out I was asexual in like the early 2000s and I keep hoping the next generation is gonna have it… well, I hope it's easier but I want them to have it like good
SARAH: Yeah, hoping that they won't relate at all and it's just like, “what is this!?”
DEBBIE: Yes, yes, and be like, “this is so old school, I'm so glad I didn't live in the… I didn't grow up in the…”
SARAH: Yeah, it's a slow climb
KAYLA: I think it's a really good reminder though to people that… especially for people that are struggling that it's not always going to be like happy and rainbows, I know something that we… at least I really try to balance with, this show and when we were writing our book several years ago is that like you can… I feel like obviously get to a point with your asexuality where you're feeling like good and really sure of yourself but for someone who is in that struggle that can be really tough to see of like other people being like really happy and sure of themselves and you're like, “well, I can't relate to that at all.” Like it feels unfair to see that almost. So, I think it's important for a lot of reasons to explore the struggle just to show like outside people, like, hey this is what we're going through and also to really relate like it's hard, it is.
DEBBIE: That's a great point, I think one of the reasons I started writing the stories that I did is… especially in the mid-2010s it felt like asexuality was just starting to come out of like the Avon website, you know? And so, it was super positive. Like there was… every… all the portrayals or the people talking about it or the YouTube songs were all like, “it's so great.” You know, and it is except when it's not, right? When your personal experience is from…
KAYLA: Yeah. I forget which of the stories it was but there was, one of your stories kind of deals with an asexual person coming into their sexuality later in life and kind of looking at younger generations and feeling that dissonance and I thought that was especially interesting too because like obviously yes we hope that for younger generations it's easier but then you forget that there are people who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s who are also just coming to it at the very same time and it's just going to be a very different experience
DEBBIE: Sure, yeah, yeah, yes, to find like middle-aged asexual representation, to find asexual representation at all could be difficult but especially middle-aged. And I feel like when you come to it later in life or once your life is more solidified, you know, you might have to make more compromises in your life or you might already be married, you might already have kids and so you have to decide different decisions, I guess, you're making
KAYLA: Yeah, definitely
SARAH: Yeah, and of course it's also something that the people around you are having to grapple with because their understanding of you has changed and it's different when you're 45 years old and you tell people, “Hey, I actually think that I identify this way,” than when you're like 17 and you say that. Like, it's just a very different experience
DEBBIE: Sure
SARAH: And it's good to see that on the page because like all of the people in your stories who are kind of grappling with this are, for lack of a better word, grown, like they're not kids and I feel like so much so often you hear stories about asexuality and aspec identities more broadly, it's viewed as like a young people thing and the stories are about young people coming to terms with it, which is great and important but it's also good to have this other perspective on it
DEBBIE: Sure, yeah, thank you. Yeah, I was reading some studies, I think it's like 10%, is it 10%? For the Trevor Institute, 10% of LGBTQ youth identify as asexual which is really cool. I mean, that means they know about the orientation, right?
KAYLA: Yeah. I think it has been shocking just in the… how many years have we been doing this now? Seven?
SARAH: Eight
KAYLA: Eight, ooh.
SARAH: Almost eight.
KAYLA: It has been so interesting seeing the shift with younger people because, you know, we started this podcast when we were in college, you know, we were very young adults and we were just learning about the identities and it has been so wild to see people who are like 12, 13, 14 come to us and know about the podcast and already have an understanding of asexuality that young, it's like, oh, wow, like, that must have been nice.
DEBBIE: Yes, yeah, I called my kid's school when they were doing Sex Ed just to make sure like, “do you guys talk about asexuality?” Because I sure would have loved to have heard about it
KAYLA: Yeah
DEBBIE: And they do now
KAYLA: Wow
DEBBIE: My daughter knows all the terms, orientations, yeah, it's really awesome
KAYLA: Wow
SARAH: Things are changing so rapidly and it's just so interesting to watch because on one hand is the political bullshit that's happening but on the other hand, you're able to see like how quickly things are able to change for these younger generations and that's an optimistic thing
DEBBIE: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: Speaking of politics, I was really struck by several of your short stories that deal really closely with politics and you I think even noted, you have also story notes at the end of the book which was really, really cool to read, kind of explaining your thought process or resources that you used while writing them, but in one of your short stories that was about kind of more political matters, you mentioned, I wrote this story in 2018 I think it was, but now it really made you think about January 6th and now I was even thinking like when you wrote that story note it was probably several years ago and now things have changed even more. So, I was wondering kind of how… like how you feel about those stories aging, like what your relationship with those stories specifically like has evolved through the course of working on this project
DEBBIE: Yeah
SARAH: Before you answer I want to jump in also. The third story, ‘Long May My Land Be Bright’ about the odd day president and the even day president
KAYLA: Ah, it got me
SARAH: When I was reading some of the stuff that the odd day president was doing, I was like, “did you write this from the future?” Like, did you just take Donald Trump's playbook from the past like three weeks and just somehow put… Like, I was like, “this is very prescient, you saw into the future and that is terrifying.” Anyway.
[00:10:00]
DEBBIE: I know. I'm glad that story… I mean, I'm not glad that story… I'm both glad and not glad that that story held up because I think it's still so relevant but if anything, it seems optimistic and, in a way,… Like, now I think I would have had the rifts be a lot more violent that are dividing people because I feel like it's so hard to… it's maybe even impossible to talk to people who have different political beliefs, right?
SARAH: Yeah
DEBBIE: It's really difficult
SARAH: Yeah
DEBBIE: We're in the 2016s, 2017s, 2018s, you know, you could still… I don't think there was such hatred between the two sides
SARAH: Yeah, it was… people viewed Donald Trump as an aberration and like a very specific thing that he was the problem
DEBBIE: Yes
SARAH: Whereas now it has become a lot more institutionalized and it's changing the fabric of society in truly horrible ways
DEBBIE: Yeah. And so much more is happening in a condensed amount of time too, right? So.
SARAH: Yeah. My parents and my sister-in-law are in Florida right now, my grandparents have a condo down there and they're just visiting, and they were looking for like… they were looking for a grocery store and they found one online that was like, “oh, we're farmers market-inspired, we source all of our fruits and vegetables locally,” and they were like, “okay, cool,” they walk in, there's a giant ‘Trump/Vance 2024’ sign inside the grocery store and right by the melons there's an AI-generated giant image of Donald Trump riding a cat
DEBBIE: Wow
KAYLA: How special
SARAH: And so, they were like, “we left, we left that grocery store,” but like…
KAYLA: That's so specific, so deeply specific
SARAH: Yeah. And I guess apparently out-front there was a woman wearing a t-shirt that showed Donald Trump in front of the White House that said, “daddy is home.” So, but like that would have been incomprehensible, like you wouldn't have even imagined that 10 years ago
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: Whereas now that's I guess something that happens in Naples Florida, I don't know
KAYLA: I guess, we're doing that now
DEBBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I live in Syracuse, so, we do… like, when we leave the city, even in 2016, you know, the Trump flags go up, but there's a lot more of them, it seems like people want to make it clear, you know, of who they are
SARAH: Yeah, yeah
KAYLA: So fun. I just mentioned reading through the story notes for… and finding some of that information in the story notes, what was your thought process behind including story notes in the book? I feel like I rarely see that of authors kind of explaining their thought process inside of the published work.
DEBBIE: My editor asked me to do it. So, it was his idea. I think sometimes with story collections like there's ‘The Best American Short Stories’ or science fiction or fantasy, they do ask the authors there to kind of reflect on the story. I always loved, sometimes I read those first actually, it just felt, I don't know, you get a deeper appreciation for the story or learn weird things that was on the author's mind. It was really satisfying to revisit some of the stories from 2016, just to revisit where I was when I wrote the story, the first time I used ‘asexual’ in a story, that was such a huge deal. So, yeah, that was a fun part to write
SARAH: Yeah, and as a reader it's also interesting, you know, I… Kayla said that she read each of the story notes after she read the story but I read everything and then I read the story notes and it was so interesting like thinking back, like, obviously I have my own interpretation as a reader of everything and then seeing how you may have maybe intended differently or maybe interpreted differently, it was just interesting seeing the comparison and I'm always just fascinated by that, because of course once something is out in the world, it no longer belongs to the author. So, it was interesting seeing how I participated in that…
DEBBIE: Yeah, yeah, more of a conversation kind of
SARAH: Yeah
DEBBIE: Yeah, if only you could then respond
SARAH: Right
DEBBIE: Not to me but…
SARAH: Yeah, exactly
DEBBIE: Yeah
KAYLA: What was the process like of returning to old stories? I know in the story notes you noted that some of them you did do revisions to, but were there some stories that you left completely the same from, you know, almost 10 years ago and others that you edited? How did you kind of decide what you were going to do there?
DEBBIE: So, part of it was working with my editor who noticed for instance I had like therapists in almost every story and he said, “no, you got to take some out,” or three of my stories ended with a snowstorm because I'm in Syracuse
KAYLA: Mm, that makes sense
SARAH: Yeah, it checks out.
DEBBIE: Or just, you know, he pressed me to go deeper, change in ending. The first story in there I felt like I needed to change the writing a bit. I went to school for poetry as a poet so I’m kind of self-taught in fiction and that story in particular I realized like, oh, I didn't quite have things down, but it did make me appreciate, hey, I got to be… you know, I'm a better writer now, I did learn something in the last 10 years. So, that one took a bit of reworking. But also, I was trying to value my younger self as a writer too because I think there is something to be said for… I don't know, a little… writers who their work is a little rougher at the time I think that can make for really interesting reading
SARAH: Yeah
DEBBIE: I found it to be really… it's also like… it's about a sad time in my life so it did bring back… it was sad. Like, you know, emotionally I'm glad that I'm in a better spot now but, yeah, that was unpleasant. Just thinking about like, wow, that was… yeah, those were some rough years. So, I'm also… yeah, I’m also… I had a lot of gratitude that I'm no longer in that space
SARAH: And now you've got a book out of it, so
DEBBIE: Yes, right, something came out of it
SARAH: Yeah, in the story notes you mentioned that you had another dedication in mind but it was a little too dark so you put it in the story notes about how you wanted to dedicate the book to all of the horrible therapists you'd had that have given you all these stories, and I was like, I feel like that's relatable to a lot of people
DEBBIE: Yeah. Especially… so, I have an individual therapist I've been seeing for… I don't know, like 10 years and she has been literally like life-saving, she's really great, she was open to when I talked about asexuality, she really wanted to hear about it. Um, she has been… yeah. So, my biggest problem is with the couples’ counselors, marriage therapists, whatever you want to call them, who we probably… my husband I probably saw for… and it just was shocking, I realized this was five… this was nine years ago, but just, not only did they not know about asexuality but they also didn't believe it was real, they thought my marriage was illegal at one point, they used bad comparisons, they just… it was… like I don't use the word trauma lately but I would say those are… it's really hard to let go of my intense hatred for marriage therapy. But on the slightly positive side, I did reach out to the American Association of Family and Marriage Therapists I think, AFMT? AMFT? And I really wanted them to read this book because I wanted them to understand what bad therapy could do, kind of how destructive it could be. And they offered to let me write an article for their magazine that goes out to like 20,000 members, I don't have it solidified yet but… that feels almost more important than having this book out in a way.
SARAH: I mean, that could have a market impact, like it's going to the people who need to read it
DEBBIE: Yeah
SARAH: And informing them about, hey, because, you know, I think so often we forget that therapists… we put them on such a pedestal of like, oh, this is a professional, this person… they're also just a person and I think that, you know, they have their own biases and their own misunderstandings of things and it's important to like maintain that balance when you're thinking about therapists and what they do and like there's also so much for them to continue to learn. So, I'm so glad that there are people like you who are willing to put the time and effort into educating these people so that fewer people can be traumatized, I guess, in the future
DEBBIE: Yeah, they do have like a video that you could buy or like a seminar that therapists could buy about asexuality and I asked how many people have bought it and she said just 19.
KAYLA: Ugh, that's sad
[00:20:00]
DEBBIE: So, it's disappointing, right? Yeah. And the American association of, it might be sex therapists, they do have a statement about asexuality which… so, I'm encouraging the marriage therapists to kind of also make a statement, who knows if it'll happen, but just kind of saying, “yes, this exists and you're gonna have to treat these couples differently than heterosexual couples.”
SARAH: Yeah. Ugh, it’s so messy. I wish everyone just understood but that would just be a whole other world, wouldn't it?
KAYLA: Wouldn't that be nice?
DEBBIE: I even brought like little sheets, right? I came in with little printouts thinking that that would do enough but…
SARAH: Yeah
DEBBIE: Books, I think these people need books to read, yeah
SARAH: Yeah. I'm gonna pivot a little bit to the portal of it all. Obviously, this book is called ‘Portalmania’ all of the stories involve portals in some way, you have a pretty broad definition of like what a portal is, and I guess I'm just curious about… I mean, do you love portals? Like what kind of brought about this theme in many of your stories?
DEBBIE: I do love portals; I really love portals. I loved portals when I was a kid and I still love portals, I love other people's portal stories. So, it was really fun for me to engage, to think like, okay, most portal stories people go through and then they generally come back and usually they're kids, right?
SARAH: Mm-hmm
DEBBIE: So, I became curious, what about the people who don't go through? Or the people who want portals, like Alice in ‘Wonderland,’ her friend or something, you can imagine, or ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ they're Lucy's friends or whoever, who feel left out because they didn't get a portal. So, that was really… that was fun for me to take this genre that I really love and think what else can this genre do and to apply it to some really darker themes, I guess. But yeah, I wrote some… I used to write for kids and I wrote portal stories for kids and I'm doing a photography series where I'm trying to find things that look like portals in real life
KAYLA: That’s so fun
DEBBIE: Yeah, it has been fun. I do think about portals a lot, are you guys into portals or is it just me?
SARAH: I mean, I didn't have strong thoughts on it going in but now I'm like, “wait, I don't know”
KAYLA: Yeah, I don't think… I never thought of it as like what you're talking about like portal stories as like Alice in ‘Wonderland’ or ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ like obviously now that I think about it, I'm like, “yeah, portal story” like you're going, like, “duh.” But I never… no, I never like made that connection before. But, no, I think there is something so fascinating about… I feel like obviously lots of people love stories about other worlds like my… I grew up on sci-fi and fantasy that is almost exclusively what I read at this point but there is something so specific about the door to that other world being like right there and so like achievable yet far away
SARAH: Yeah
DEBBIE: And would you go through? I always find that question…
KAYLA: Yeah
DEBBIE: And maybe it's a different answer depending on the day or the time of your life or…
SARAH: Yeah. And the different stories, the different POVs that they're from, some of them are people who love portals and really, really want portals and others are people who want nothing to do with them but they also kind of then grapple with, okay, if everyone around you is getting in their little portal and they're jumping in, it kind of grapples with the loneliness of like, okay, what if you're the only one left? And that sort of thing and I thought it was really interesting the way that you kind of brought in these many different themes and weaved them in and you might think like, how many different stories about portals… like, how many different things can you hit? A lot, you can hit on a lot of things actually as it turns out from this book
DEBBIE: Yeah, it seems like portals are about like feeling out of place, I guess, which was a really… I think that describes how I felt in the 2000s and 2010s. I mean, I think maybe a lot of aspec people feel that way
SARAH: Yeah, I think a lot of aspec people will definitely relate to that
DEBBIE: Yeah. So, you start thinking like what kind of world would I feel at home in
SARAH: Yeah
DEBBIE: And there's a sadness there if it can't be this world, right?
SARAH: Right. Or like the thought about, will you be able to come back? I don't know. Like what will you be leaving behind if you do go?
DEBBIE: Yeah
SARAH: And I think it's just…. I think it's a very human thing to wonder about that sort of thing. And so, it's just an interesting forum to kind of talk about that and the human like love and the human experience and loneliness and all of that fun stuff
DEBBIE: Yes, and portals
SARAH: Exactly
DEBBIE: Yeah
SARAH: I also thought it was interesting how there are lots of different types of portals that they manifest themselves differently in different stories but one thing that kind of stayed consistent through all of them was the idea that a portal only appears for one person. Like, it appears for a specific person and in some of your stories you might be able to bring other people with you through the portal and other stories only that person can go through, is that… I mean, I'm not well versed on the lore of portals, like, is that kind of standard or like is that something the way that you…. I guess, why? I know that's a big question, but…
DEBBIE: That's a really good question, I made up a lot of rules about portals myself, some of it was for storytelling reasons and it worked better in the stories if you can go through somebody else's portal, you know?
SARAH: Yeah
DEBBIE: Though I'd be curious, what if you tried forcing yourself through, like whether you'd end up in the wrong spot again. So, yeah, I don't know, I don't know if again using Alice in ‘Wonderland’ if somebody else could have gone through the rabbit hole, they don't really talk about that, so, that's a good question. That's the fun thing, I really did have a good time even though the stories are dark, interacting with this already existing genre because you could take what you know about it and then kind of do whatever you… make up the rules
SARAH: Yeah, and I think it reflects too on, I would say not to bring it back to asexuality but that's what this podcast is, so, yes, we will be bringing it back to asexuality
KAYLA: I wish we would
SARAH: In fact, we will. Um, but this idea that the way you feel about yourself and your situation, like, that is very specific to you and if you see, you know, not like an out but like a… if you're trying to reach for like a different life, that is going to be very specific to you and the way that people find fulfillment and find pleasure in their lives is very different for everyone. And so, another person's portal is not going to necessarily work for you in sort of that like metaphorical way, that's still tumbling around in my head, so.
DEBBIE: That's a great read on it, no, that's really interesting. I think it does say something about like, kind of like, you know, asexual person won't fit perfectly into the fairy tale, heterosexual, allosexual like that idea of marriage maybe that was instilled at least in the 80s when I grew up, so, it's the same thing with portals, but you kind of have to figure out what your ideal world would look like and then try and make it here, I guess, or ideal family or like ideal whatever, right?
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Yeah, I was gonna say it felt very, I don't know if allegory is the right word or if I'm like completely shoving that in where it doesn't belong or like a metaphor the portals for asexuality where it's that idea of, you know, asexuality doesn't fit in great with what society tells us your life is supposed to be, right? We're supposed to date, get married, have babies, be a mother and that's it, that's your life. And so, you really do have to leave that world almost, like that world of your life behind if you want, if you're able to do that and there is something about who you're leaving behind in that scenario, right? Like you are losing certain privileges, you are losing a different opportunity, a different life when you choose to go on the other path and it might be obviously a much better path for you but there is something always that you're giving up when you make a choice, you know?
DEBBIE: Yeah, you guys have such… this is great.
KAYLA: I feel like we're at book club, I'm having so much fun.
DEBBIE: Yeah
SARAH: I'm glad you think so, because I'm just like, “did anything I say just make sense? I’m not sure.”
DEBBIE: No, it's beautiful. Yeah, I haven't gotten a chance really to talk to other asexual readers, to be honest. So, this is really cool. Often, it's me like trying to explain in a sentence or two what…
SARAH: Yeah, like trying to TED talk a group of people who are just like, “Huh?”
DEBBIE: Yeah
SARAH: Do you find that people who are not as familiar with asexuality in the community, like, how do they respond to your stories? I know this book itself hasn't come out yet, but, you know, these stories have been published in various places before, what's the response from allos? I guess
[00:30:00]
DEBBIE: I've heard it's… actually what has been cool is it's… I've heard people say it has made them think of their own relationships differently even if they are allo. So, like, I'm hoping it'll encourage people to think of like all the different ways they could show and express love and intimacy and, you know, it's not just… or just having connections with other people, it's not just your spouse, right?
SARAH: Yeah
DEBBIE: So, that was really nice feedback to get, that they looked at their relationship differently and, you know, that they were disturbed, because I feel like heteronormativity and… like this is what it feels like to live in a society where sex is really presented as a requirement I think in a lot of circles still, you know, for marriage, love, whatever, so.
KAYLA: Yeah, one of the like lines in your book that has like stuck in my mind the most, that has just been like rolling around the most is in, I forget the title of which one it was, oh, the dirty… I think it was ‘The Dirty Golden Yellow House,’ I think it was in that story, which is like slightly more in the horror genre, which like I'm such a scaredy cat, so, I was like, “ah,” it was so good. But you talk about the… kind of in a meta way like the genre of horror and what is scary to different people and you said to you or the narrator, you know, whoever is kind of the narrator of that story that what was scary to you was domestic realism and I was like, “oh, my God.” Like that phrase of domestic realism just really stuck with me, because I was like, “that is what this book is.” You know, it's obviously… it's fantasy, it's science fiction, it's horror but so much of this is so unfortunately very real and very true and what happens specifically to wives and mothers, most of your characters, it's focusing on the experience of a wife and a mother. And I was like, “that is truly a very horrifying role to have in a lot of ways,” especially if you don't want that and it was kind of forced upon you or it didn't end up being what you thought it was going to be. Like, it's a very different way of thinking about horror and what can be scary. You know, it's not like a vampire or a monster but like it kind of, you know, it is in a different way and I was like, “damn,” it really got me.
DEBBIE: Yeah, yeah. I'm fascinated, I do… I can't watch horror movies, I only watch horror trailers but I do like…
KAYLA: That’s what I…
DEBBIE: Yeah, I can't, I do get really scared. But I'm really interested in what scares people and what scares me. So, yeah, what scares the character too, right? And I feel like being in that particular story like the narrator is being shoved into the space she doesn't fit and that… it's like a horror… like, if you feel stuck and… yeah, you're living a life that, you know, you don't want and you have to perform in ways that you don't want to, it is a type of horror.
KAYLA: I do think the book did such a good job of kind of like through that horror genre of making it very clear about what it feels like inside to feel like out of place as an aspec person or to be asked to do things that you want to do, I think it's very hard to explain to allo people how visceral that can feel. And like, it's just hard… I mean we all… like, it's hard to explain asexuality, it's hard to get that across to people. And I think that what was really interesting about you using speculative fiction and horror is that, you know, it was able to kind of come out of the body a little bit and through metaphor you could be like, “okay, yeah, it's easier to understand how other people are feeling through that mode.” So, I really, really hope a lot of allo people read this book, I hope a lot of people read this book in general because it's really good, but I think it could really help allo people kind of get more of an understanding of like how it really feels
DEBBIE: That's a great framework for it, yeah. I mean, yeah, I really liked the idea of like monsters, you know, in the walls or in the heating vents of a relationship which is how sometimes it feels when you're in like a mixed orientation relationship and you're… you know, there's a lot of stuff you have to figure out and it's… like, it is scary. Or this idea that there's a… whoever you're in a relationship would prefer you to be a different, to be like yourself but different, you know, like yourself but…
SARAH: Or the self that you previously conveyed was your true self but you have come to realize, maybe, is it?
DEBBIE: Yeah, yeah. And I always think… there has been some stuff on Instagram where there's a couple… not a couple, but like there's a woman and a man, the man realizes he's a trans woman, I'm sorry if I'm not using these terms right. But then they stay together and they have another like commitment ceremony and I find that to be super beautiful because to me that means that what they loved in each other was like something unchanging, like, the true self, you know?
SARAH: Mm-hmm
DEBBIE: And I think… that's what I'm kind of asking in these stories and I think that's what the husband and wife are struggling with, like, what did you love about me? You know, did you love something that wasn't true? And can you love who I actually am?
SARAH: Yeah, and so many of your narrators too are insistent that there is still love here, it's just that the husband and the wife don't necessarily interpret that the same way. And it's interesting to just kind of see that conveyed in the way different people are grappling with what marriage means and what love means and, you know, people so often… I mean, in these fairy tales, right? It's they get married; they live happily ever after. But most of your life is in that ‘happily ever after,’ it's not that simple and so it's just interesting to see the way that your characters kind of grapple with that, whether it's in these more… whether it's based more in realism or whether it is more speculative and fantastical in different stories.
DEBBIE: I think what was hard for me in real life was it felt like the definition of what a mother looked like and what love looked like and what being a wife looked like was so narrow that it didn't… it felt really confining. So, the idea that love is a lot more complicated than I ever thought and I think a lot of people think, you know, my husband and I have a very complicated relationship and we love each other a whole lot, you know, and our relationship doesn't look like a lot of other people's but it's still love as I say often in the book, you know?
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: It was funny, I was like writing notes as I was reading the book, you know, things I wanted to ask about and just things that stuck out to me, and in one of my notes I was like, “why do these husbands suck so bad? I hate these husbands, I feel bad for these wives,” and I caught myself thinking like why are these people still together and it was funny because like the next story I read you kind of explained, like, no, I'm doing this on purpose, like, I want you to see that relationships look different, like, there's a lot of different ways love can look, and I was like, “oh, damn she caught me.” But it was great.
DEBBIE: Thank you for sharing that
KAYLA: It's really important though because through my… I think one of the biggest things I've learned in my life that has made me feel like a grown-up was realizing like what real relationships look like, of they're not all perfect, they're not all these like beautiful love stories, and that like… when I first started learning that in college that really made me be like, “ah, I'm not…” like, I can't live like, you know, kind of like a child anymore and like believe those things. And so, it was just a really good reminder of like, yeah, things aren't gonna… they're not always gonna look how you think they are, how you want them to, how the TV and movies make it seem like. So, it was very gratifying to kind of think those thoughts and then immediately be broken out of it and being like, “no, no, no, let's open our minds, let's think about it.” I was like, “oh, thank you, thank you, that's nice.”
DEBBIE: I think our books too, so TV, movies and books too like I'm… I hope that you don't have to be like an ace writer to explore different ways of love and intimacy and relationships and I saw on Spotify you guys have a whole playlist of songs that don't have any romance or sex, so, I want to see that in like… it's really hard to find books and movies and TV…
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Yeah. And like for me as someone who is a writer supposedly by trade, it's not what I get paid to do right now, but it's what I hope to do for money long term as a career. Like, it's interesting because sometimes people are like, “oh, you should tell asexual stories,” and it's like, well, I don't want to tell stories that are just about aromanticism or asexuality but I'm going to put those in all of my stories because that's my lived experience. And so, I'm not gonna make this story about asexuality because those… I mean, a lot of those stories exist and they're very good, you know? Like, go ahead and read those.
[00:40:00]
SARAH: But I think for me it's just about like telling stories that hopefully people want to hear that have asexuality in them and not having to defend why there are aro and/or ace characters in it, you know, without, you know… just because I work in TV development and so sometimes, I hear people being like, “well, why is this character… why did you make them this identity? Why are they this?” It's like, does there need to be a reason? You know, they are that because those people exist. And so, I think for me it's so important to just put those things naturally into stories so that they are there.
DEBBIE: Yes, yeah, and it opens up so much opportunity for I think more complex interactions rather than just defaulting to like a sex scene when you need to show love, right? Or…
KAYLA: I think it's such lazy writing, something I was just talking to a friend about is like, when you have a big blockbuster movie and part of the plot is the two characters fall in love and then they ultimately of course make a sequel and they break up the characters in between the movies just so they can redo it all again, they can like have them have a romance subplot in the sequel too and I'm like, “that's just lazy writing.” You were afraid that your movie wasn't going to be as interesting because you didn't have a romance subplot. So, instead of choosing to be like, okay, what would it look like if these people were like in a long-term relationship? Or it didn't work out but they have to keep working together? Like, why in ‘National Treasure’ did they break up? Tell me. Oops, my cats are fighting in the background, they're pissed about it too.
DEBBIE: I love the idea about… I mean, it sounds so much more interesting if someone breaks up and then has to still like work together
KAYLA: Yeah, like what if they broke up in ‘National Treasure’ and then they had to still go in the tombs together? Broken up and they never got back together, then what Nicolas Cage?
DEBBIE: Yeah
KAYLA: Anyway
SARAH: I see you have strong feelings about this
KAYLA: I do. I love ‘National Treasure’ they're such silly movies, but I'm also like, “what are we doing!?” Anyway.
SARAH: Yeah, and there are so often when these like subplots are just added for the purpose of there being such a subplot. I know many years ago I went off on my hatred of the Bruce Banner-Natasha Romanoff subplot in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron,’ I think it's stupid and I hate it. But I think there are so many times where it's like, it's just shoved in and it's like, no, make it work, I want it… like as an aro-ace person, I can absolutely get invested in romance and romance stories but it has to be done well.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: And if it's not done well, I'm not gonna buy in, and people are like, “oh, well that's just because you're aro-ace,” and it's like, “no, it's because it's not well done.”
DEBBIE: Yeah, it's just like a copy and paste it feels like sometimes
SARAH: Like, I love the 2005 ‘Pride and Prejudice’ it's so good
DEBBIE: I was gonna ask you for an example of what you thought that was well done, so, that's ‘Pride and Prejudice.’
SARAH: Listen, in this house we love an ‘enemies to lovers,’ but it has to be done right
KAYLA: Yeah, but it has to be good. I just saw the 20th anniversary of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ in theaters, it holds up, everyone in the theater was having a great time, everyone was giggling, it was great.
SARAH: It's great
DEBBIE: Yeah, go Jane Austen
KAYLA: I know
SARAH: Truly
KAYLA: She did it. Everyone else should have just given up on romance after that
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: She did enough…
SARAH: That was the last one
DEBBIE: No room for others, that’s enough, we all got our fill.
KAYLA: There's other things, you know
SARAH: Exactly. Well, I mean the other like rom-com romantic movie that I really like is ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ which is based on Shakespeare, it's like, yeah, it has already been done, we don't need… like…
KAYLA: And now they're making it into a musical, did you know that?
SARAH: I did know that
KAYLA: Carly Rae Jepsen is doing the music
SARAH: But also, I feel conflicted about the team behind that, anyway, not the point.
DEBBIE: Have you heard of ‘Slow’ the Lithuanian film?
KAYLA: I don't think so
DEBBIE: It's an ace-allo relationship. I thought it was beautiful, they entered… Lithuania entered it into the Oscars, like, the foreign Oscars, they didn't win but… that one, there's this great scene where they hold hands for maybe like a whole minute and it just is… I can't remember the last time that some movie person allowed that to happen
SARAH: Yeah, like showing a different type of intimacy other than just sex
DEBBIE: Yeah, yes, I love that scene, yeah
SARAH: Yeah, that's great. I mean, I feel like there are so many more things we talk to you about, I feel like your stories hit on neurodiversity, they touch on coercive sex inside marriages and all sorts of fun things, not that that's a fun thing
KAYLA: Fun? No, no, no.
SARAH: Mm, not like that. Um, but, you know, you've touched on so many different things in in these stories that we could probably talk about them for ages. But, Kayla, do we have anything else we want to hit on before we take our leave?
KAYLA: Let me check my notes. I mean, that's the thing, I do feel like I could talk about this book just forever, I don't know, is there anything that you really wanted to talk about, Debbie, or say to the people before we go?
DEBBIE: This has been such a great discussion, it's like a… yeah, no, thank you, I mean that's all, thank you.
SARAH: Thank you.
DEBBIE: I really enjoyed it
KAYLA: I really encourage all of our listeners to read this book. And then, I'm really interested to hear what other ace people think. I mean, I always just… I know Sarah and I every time we have an ace guest on the podcast it's just so fulfilling to like talk to other ace people, obviously, I talk to Sarah like every day but I know literally everything about her aceness at this point so I'm like, “whatever.” But it's just so…
SARAH: Boring
KAYLA: Boring. It's just so interesting to hear other ace perspectives and it just feels like there's this like click with other ace people that I'm always like, “oh, we get it, we're seeing things in the same way.” So, yeah, I'm really interested to hear what people think after reading this and if they relate or what they learn from it.
SARAH: Absolutely, all right. Well, on that note, Kayla, what's our poll for this week? Have you pre-ordered Portalmania by Debbie Urbanski?
KAYLA: Have you pre-ordered?
SARAH: If not, why not?
KAYLA: Why not? I'm gonna put…
SARAH: Have you requested it at your local library?
KAYLA: At the library, true. And I'm going to put a link in the description of this episode where you can pre-order it or if you're listening in the future, like a week in the future, it'll be ordering time. Wait, I also think a good poll would be, what would your portal look like? Your individual portal…
SARAH: Mm. Kayla, what would your portal look like?
KAYLA: What would it look like or where would it go?
SARAH: What would your portal be? I have no idea what mine would be. Debbie, do you know what yours would be? I mean, you've thought about portals a lot.
DEBBIE: Yeah, I was thinking about portals made out of light and portals made out of dark recently and kind of the difference between the two and if I would go into one versus the other, the dark… uh, I might be a more portal light person, you know, like I just think that looks a little safer
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Yeah, the dark seems a little ominous
SARAH: Yeah, I don't know that I would go into a portal regardless, if I didn't know what was on the other side or more importantly if I could come back
DEBBIE: Yeah
SARAH: But I would be more inclined to if it were like not a void of darkness
KAYLA: Like Sarah how would you know what food they have over there?
SARAH: What if they don't have…
KAYLA: Chicken
SARAH: Noodles…
KAYLA: What if they don't have a plain plate of noodles with a little bit of butter, what are we gonna do?
SARAH: What am I gonna do?
KAYLA: If there's no pork chops, what are we gonna do?
DEBBIE: That's like a fun portal story, actually, to have you go over there and then… yeah
SARAH: Yeah. Just be like, “it's all just foods that I cannot tolerate, no, take me back.”
KAYLA: Only chocolate and peanuts
SARAH: “Nooooo”
KAYLA: That's it
SARAH: “Nooooo”
KAYLA: She can't
SARAH: I can't do it. Oh, also, things mixed together
KAYLA: No, everything must be separated
SARAH: Ah, anyway, speaking of neurodiversity. Kayla, what is your beef and your juice for this week?
KAYLA: My current beef, I don't know if you can hear it in the background, one of my cats is just screaming
SARAH: Oh, God
KAYLA: Just screaming, probably at the door, something I did recently, I live in an apartment building and one of my cats really likes to explore. So, I started letting her out our front door into like the foyer area because she just really likes to explore and I was like, “that's nice of me, she's getting enrichment.” And it was nice until in the middle of the night she started sitting by the door screaming because she wanted to go out and do that. So, she's grounded now, she's not allowed outside anymore and I guarantee that's where she's sitting screaming.
SARAH: She would absolutely walk into a portal
KAYLA: Yes, she loves strangers, she loves strangers better than anyone she has known for years, she's the most social cat of all time, it's crazy
SARAH: I mean, my cat would like… I've been like, oh, like she would probably like going out onto my balcony, and then the other day on my balcony I saw a giant hawk and I said, “mm, maybe not.”
KAYLA: No, perhaps not. Also, after today's incident of her setting her tail on fire I'm not sure how trustworthy she is
SARAH: You just spoiled my beef
KAYLA: Nooooo. Okay, wait, I'll do my juice really quick and then we can get to your beef
SARAH: Your juice
KAYLA: My juice is, today, I went to this craft store near me called ‘Make & Mend’ and it's all second-hand craft supplies, people just bring old craft supplies that they're not going to use anymore, like, fabric
SARAH: So, like, when they find a new hyperfixation?
[00:50:00]
KAYLA: Yes, yes, exactly or they like finish their sewing project and they have fabric left over. But I'm having a princess party on Friday, when you're listening to this, it's been my birthday, happy birthday me, and I'm having a princess party, we're gonna make those big cone hats, like, Chappell Roan wore at the Grammys
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: And so, I was getting like paper and ribbons and stuff and it was all so affordable and it was all like pre-used stuff and that was very lovely. So, if you live in the Boston area which I know a lot of you actually do, if you go to ‘Make & Mend’ in Somerville, it's great
SARAH: Nice
KAYLA: Now tell us about your cat getting lit on fire
SARAH: My beef is that right at the beginning of this Zoom when Debbie was already on
KAYLA: Like, Debbie had just joined
SARAH: She had just arrived
KAYLA: Our first impression to Debbie
SARAH: My child, I have a candle lit here for vibes and smells, and my child just stuck her tail in it and didn't notice and burned her tail and it has now been almost an hour and my room finally smells less like burnt fur
KAYLA: She's fine by the way
SARAH: I went to like see if I could just like snip the hair off that burnt and then I realized there was too much hair that burnt
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Like, she burnt her tail. It's just the hair, she's fine.
KAYLA: She's fine, she's fine, she has a lot of hair, very little like flesh part of that tail
SARAH: Yeah, she's very floofy, but she burnt her whole ass tail at the beginning of this…
KAYLA: Maybe that's your new… she doesn't like getting like trimmed, maybe you just start burning her excess hair, Sarah, she doesn't like, you know, she doesn't like the scissors, maybe we just do…
SARAH: Mm
KAYLA: No? Bad idea? That's weird, what's the problem with that? I don’t understand.
SARAH: Mm
KAYLA: We'll workshop that
SARAH: Okay, we'll workshop it. My juice is… oh, I don't know. Kayla, what's my juice?
KAYLA: Looks around room, probably Portalmania stories by Debbie Urbanski
SARAH: That’s true
KAYLA: Probably
SARAH: You did it, good job
KAYLA: I did, I said it right
SARAH: You almost… you stumbled a bit
KAYLA: I got really scared
SARAH: Um, yeah, no, I would say so, everybody, I hope you read the book
KAYLA: Also, we didn't say, but the cover is fantastic. I don’t know why I'm holding it up, you've all seen it. The cover is amazing, it's so… I love looking at the cover, the artwork is amazing
SARAH: Before you came on, Debbie, Kayla was like, “wait, the back cover of the actual book…” like not the advance that we have but like the one that's on sale
KAYLA: I was like, “it's so cool,” and ours doesn’t have that because we’re special and got an advance copy
SARAH: She was like, “it’s so cool.”
KAYLA: Is it shiny too? Is it like the…
DEBBIE: Yeah, a little shiny
KAYLA: I'm gonna have to get another copy, what am I gonna do?
SARAH: How dare you support Debbie's book?
KAYLA: I know, how dare I be special and get an advanced copy? I’m just so famous
SARAH: It’s so cool. Yeah, that's my juice. Debbi, what's your beef and your juice for this week?
DEBBIE: Well, my beef… so, I have ridiculously wide feet, I'm not really sure what happened, they weren't always that wide, but they just keep getting wider. Um, but I also love hiking and taking walks and Brooks discontinued the shoe that I really loved.
KAYLA: Oh, no
DEBBIE: So, I'm trying to find a new shoe and they just… none of them are comfortable, I need my old shoe that is no longer made.
KAYLA: That’s so sad.
DEBBIE: So, I'm just trying on like boxes of shoes hoping that one is gonna work
SARAH: That's tough
DEBBIE: Yeah
SARAH: I have wide-ish feet but I don't… I'm not quite at that point where I'm cursing out Brooks, maybe one day it’ll happen
DEBBIE: I'm like an immense extra, extra, extra wide somehow, so. I think something happened to my feet where they just gave up and they're just spreading
SARAH: Well, I mean, like my mom her shoe size changed after she had me and my sister. So, like…
DEBBIE: Yes
SARAH: Like that kind of stuff can happen
DEBBIE: Yeah, yeah.
SARAH: So
KAYLA: Is it like your ears? How your feet keep growing? Isn't it like your ears and your nose keep growing as you age? Isn't that true?
SARAH: Yeah, they're supposed to grow
KAYLA: I've heard that, it could be completely false, but maybe feet is the same
DEBBIE: That would be bad
KAYLA: Yeah, I hope…
DEBBIE: I don't think mine can get any wider or else I'm gonna have to start strapping like wood to my feet
KAYLA: Noooo. Well, if anyone finds the discontinued Brooks’ shoes, let us know and we'll get them to Debbie
SARAH: Yes
KAYLA: Start stockpiling them
DEBBIE: Ghost Max, the Ghost Max one. And actually, it looked kind of nice. Usually, wide men's shoes are not super cute but the old one was
KAYLA: Tragic
DEBBIE: For my juice, I started reading, I like sci-fi and fantasy but I haven't read ships in space going to other planets sort of sci-fi, that's just not my thing. But, I've read some really, really wonderful ones recently, ‘Solaris’ by… the guy's last name is Lem. It was just a gorgeous book and I just read ‘The Employees’ which is a Dutch book, I think. Also, about a ship in space. So, it's just getting me excited, like, I have to figure out what my next novel is going to be. So, I'm wondering if it should be something about space and ships, but…
SARAH: Portal and space, ship go through portal
KAYLA: I've heard very good things about ‘Project Hail Mary’ by Andy Weir.
DEBBIE: Yeah, I’ve read ‘The Martian’
KAYLA: Yeah, I've read ‘The Martian’ and I really liked it. But, all of my friends are telling me that… like, ‘The Martian’ I think is amazing but they're saying ‘Project Hail Mary’ is like the… it's his best book and I think the person is on the ship for like the whole book, so.
DEBBIE: Great, okay, thank you.
KAYLA: I haven't read it though, so if it's bad, blame my friends, I don't know.
SARAH: Blame Kayla’s friends
KAYLA: Yeah, it's not me, I do want to read it though, so. That's my uneducated recommendation.
DEBBIE: Thanks.
SARAH: Excellent. All right, well, if you would like to tell us about your beef, your juice, your favorite short story in ‘Portalmania’ by Debbie Urbanski, you can do so on our social media @soundsfakepod. We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod if you'd like to support us there. Sarah from the future is going to read the patrons to you. Hello, it's me Sarah from the future on a shitty voice note. I'm looking at my kitten and she is very cute and sleepy, that's not related to anything. Anyway, our $5 patrons who we're promoting this week are Phoenix Eliot, Rachel, Rebekah Monnin, and SammyO. And we also have a new $5 patron, actually a $7.50 patron but unfortunately, we don't have a specific $7.50 category, it's Danielle Fry, thank you so much Danielle for joining the party, we are so glad to have you. Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are Derick & Carissa who would like to promote supporting each other through the transitions we face, Elle Bitter who would like to promote normalizing the use of tone indicators/srs. Eric who would like to promote queer ASL. My aunt Jeannie who would like to promote Christopher’s Haven and our new $10 patron, Johanna, thank you so much Johanna for joining the party. Um, they told us that they're still thinking about what they want to promote but I'm going to promote them… you, thank you. Yay. Our other $10 patrons are Kayla's dad, Maff, Martin Chiesl, Purple Hayes, Barefoot Backpacker, SongOStorm, Val, Alastor, Ani, Arcnes, Benjamin Ybarra, and Clare Olsen. Our $15 patrons are Ace, who would like to promote the writer Crystal Scherer, Nathaniel White who would like to promote NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, Kayla’s Aunt Nina who would like to promote katemaggartart.com and Schnell who would like to promote accepting that everyone is different and that's awesome. Our $20 patrons are Dragonfly, Dr. Jacki, my mom and River who would like to promote sleepy kittens. All right, back to Sarah from the past. Thanks Sarah from the future, there was a portal… going through a portal joke in there but I wasn't… it didn't fully form.
KAYLA: Portal to the future?
SARAH: Yeah, it didn't… don't worry about it.
KAYLA: Maybe future Sarah will have it.
SARAH: Future Sarah might figure it out. Thanks for listening, thank you so much Debbie for joining us, for writing these stories, for publishing this lovely collection of stories. Where can the people of the internet find you?
DEBBIE: I am on Instagram, you could see some portal photos, as well as a lot of pictures of large insects @debbieurbanski and, see, I'm on Substack, the ‘Digital Human Archive Project’ it's called as well
SARAH: Nice, the two genders, portals and big bugs
KAYLA: Big bugs
DEBBIE: Of plants, I mean, often they're plants, big bugs or small bugs, whatever size bugs
SARAH: Bugs can be any size
KAYLA: Any bugs will do. That's that makes sense, they're so little, most of the time. I'll put all of the links in our description so you can find those
SARAH: Yes
KAYLA: And also, a link to get the book, obviously
SARAH: Obviously. It is wherever fine books are sold and not fine books but this one is a fine book
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: So, jot that down
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Thank you again so much for joining us, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
