Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Chasing Cozy： The Birthday Episode With Jane Green

00:00:00.000 hey all joe here and you are listening to under the influence i am in marrakech morocco with my

00:00:11.780 good friend jane green hello welcome mahabar as we say here on my birthday yeah and your anniversary

00:00:20.940 and my anniversary double triple celebration triple celebration i'm here with jane it is my

00:00:25.840 birthday it is my 11th anniversary and in celebration my birthday i like to do a podcast

00:00:31.080 episode talking about things that i've learned over 46 years oh of my life and i would also like

00:00:40.020 to hear some things that you'd learn so i thought that we could trade pieces of advice for the first

00:00:45.540 half of half of this episode and then we're going to talk about your glorious new novel that is

00:00:50.840 hitting the states this week thank you my darling i can't wait to hear what you've learned oh my

00:00:56.880 gosh all right so i'll go first then you go okay it's like rapid fire i have learned that no one

00:01:03.560 is paying as much attention to you as you think they are everyone is only paying attention to

00:01:09.380 themselves that's a good one right do we ask follow-up questions of course yeah um um i think

00:01:16.320 that's very true actually and that's sort of a theme of of my life as well is sort of I have

00:01:23.340 learned um I have learned to only choose the people that choose you oh oh that's good thank

00:01:35.180 you that is good I will say Nick Astor is in the pool right now yes and I do believe

00:01:41.180 that Nick Astor chose me before I chose Nick Astor.

00:01:46.360 But it's a mutual choice, right?

00:01:48.200 It's a mutual choice.

00:01:49.060 It is. 1.00

00:01:49.700 But I think so often women are programmed to want to be chosen. 0.75

00:01:55.620 We're grateful to have been chosen by somebody of worth,

00:01:59.780 friends, lovers, whoever, husbands, whoever it is.

00:02:02.600 And actually, it's recognizing that we get to choose,

00:02:09.200 but only those who equally choose.

00:02:12.240 Who equally choose.

00:02:13.180 Yes.

00:02:13.580 Exactly.

00:02:13.980 Yes.

00:02:14.520 Because I think you need to be,

00:02:18.840 you can only be with somebody 0.83

00:02:20.660 who feels really fucking lucky to have you. 0.94

00:02:26.240 Gloria said, don't you feel lucky to have Nick? 0.97

00:02:28.700 100%.

00:02:29.100 Yeah, 100%.

00:02:29.740 Do you feel lucky to have me?

00:02:31.740 He's giving a thumbs up.

00:02:32.920 Double show right now.

00:02:34.060 We've been talking about this on this trip,

00:02:36.040 this whole trip.

00:02:37.620 Actually, can I say something?

00:02:38.840 having spent the evening with you we went to flowers which was so delicious flowers to dinner

00:02:43.140 which is right now the best food actually in marrakech i think it is i think that's the best

00:02:47.940 meal that we've had yeah yeah it's unquestionable it's a finnish chef and it's really interesting

00:02:53.680 food and and really delicious and much as much as we all love tagines there are only ever so

00:02:59.760 many tagines one can eat in one lifetime i'm curious what your like weekly slash monthly

00:03:06.160 tagine limit is because I had four and then I was finished with tagine yeah yeah I'll tell you but

00:03:11.120 I first want to say that um being in the presence of you and Nick and especially knowing that you

00:03:17.960 are now celebrating your 11th anniversary you are very lovely together and what you have I'm

00:03:24.740 I'm getting a bit I'm gonna cry I was so struck by the mutual appreciation you each have for the

00:03:33.400 other and that's quite a rarity i don't see that very often but sitting with you the two of you

00:03:40.000 just so appreciate it is palpable how much you love and value each other so it was a very lovely

00:03:47.480 thing now i'm gonna cry i think nick like his eyes are gonna be a little glassy and also i found it

00:03:54.780 quite inspiring as somebody who is single and and you know going through the hell of the dating apps

00:04:00.020 and having sort of terrible situationships with damaged men it gives me hope so thank you

00:04:08.020 um as to how many tagines one can have what was it my monthly limit yeah i mean i i just i had

00:04:14.740 four wonderful ones we took a tagine cooking class i love them we may have one tonight but i really

00:04:22.140 did hit my limit yeah i my i think i hit my language about a year and a half ago yeah they're

00:04:27.140 delicious they are they are absolutely delicious um but after a while i mean the food in morocco

00:04:36.600 is completely wonderful it really is the dishes are quite limited there aren't that many dishes

00:04:42.920 and so so it's just the same things on rotation but there are also things that tourists often

00:04:48.980 wouldn't eat so there's something called refiza oh which is my what is refiza refiza is they also

00:04:56.140 call it in marrakesh they call it chicken treed and it's chicken and lentils with them do you know

00:05:01.360 the mesemen which is like that indian roti that flaky bread i love that yeah yeah that's in the

00:05:06.800 dish so it's they cut it into strips so it's flaky bread and lentils and chicken and caramelized

00:05:12.640 onions and that is very delicious okay um but yes tagines tangier there are after couscous and

00:05:21.740 couscous is only served on fridays yes couscous fridays we had couscous last night yes and yeah

00:05:29.200 yes friday indeed it was friday yeah we went to nomad you're not you're generally not offered

00:05:34.080 oh now that's interesting because um nomad the usual views of the city in the medina no alcohol

00:05:40.180 license no alcohol license which was fine because we had a busy night the night before and so like

00:05:45.120 We were taking a break anyway, and we had a very, very cooling mint green tea that was foamy like a beer, and I was very satisfied with it.

00:05:54.720 Yes, and what's really interesting is apparently…

00:05:56.600 They served it like a beer, too.

00:05:57.820 I mean, it looked kind of like a beer.

00:05:59.900 Yeah.

00:06:00.340 Yeah.

00:06:01.960 Apparently, they're making money hand over fist because when you have no alcohol, people are in and out quickly.

00:06:07.400 So, they're turning tables.

00:06:08.480 Yeah, they are.

00:06:08.820 Like, every hour and a half.

00:06:10.360 there's something like we think rather stupidly oh but they don't have an alcohol license nobody

00:06:16.080 is they're not gonna work they're working better than anywhere else it was packed because people

00:06:20.940 were not although i mean the margins on alcohol are usually pretty good yeah but uh it was packed

00:06:26.020 and i think they also own cafe to spice so they own so it's it's kamal who is um a local marachi

00:06:34.780 and he owns a lot of the rest.

00:06:37.020 He's got Dada in Jamal Thna.

00:06:39.700 He's got Patanque Social Club in Galize.

00:06:42.500 I was just looking at Patanque Social Club.

00:06:44.320 How is that?

00:06:45.480 It's fun.

00:06:46.880 It's really fun.

00:06:47.860 Yeah.

00:06:48.180 You know, the thing that often happens

00:06:50.720 with the restaurants in Marrakesh

00:06:52.320 is they open.

00:06:54.320 They're very, very hot.

00:06:56.240 A lot of the locals go.

00:06:57.700 And there's something rather lovely

00:06:59.080 about the locals and the tourists

00:07:00.840 mixing together.

00:07:01.860 It brings a different flavor.

00:07:03.480 Oh, it totally does.

00:07:03.960 i think it makes it better yeah it does make it better yeah but after a while sometimes that the

00:07:09.420 balance shifts and then it becomes a little bit more tourist nomad was all tourists and petanque

00:07:14.640 i think is a little more touristy now okay um so i loved petanque when it opened i still think it's

00:07:20.800 fantastic it looks outside of the medina right oh it's in galiz which is the new city okay um and

00:07:27.940 it's just the most beautiful garden it's super cool beautiful bar under this massive rubber tree

00:07:34.840 that that and and all lit by sort of lanterns and cool cool little lights it's really beautiful it

00:07:42.160 looks great my um my editor mayaziv who i love so much her husband owns a tank club oh in brooklyn

00:07:48.780 oh that's cool i know it's very cool yeah we haven't been yet i don't think that i don't think

00:07:52.760 it's very child friendly and every time that we're in the city we have the babies so also no one wants

00:07:57.460 our kids with the tug balls it's dangerous yeah yeah yeah they've lost many about you gosh well

00:08:03.940 now i'm thinking about parenting and i i have learned i learned because my kids are now grown

00:08:09.800 and flown but i think what i feel very strongly is that parenting is a job and i and i think so

00:08:17.320 often we don't think about the what the job entails and what the job actually entails is

00:08:23.420 raising young adults who can go off into the world and and have qualities like self-sufficiency and

00:08:33.220 independence and resilience and so i this is where i go a little bit it's weird because i'm i'm not

00:08:40.180 right-wing at all but i feel like i feel i but i feel like this sounds a little right-wing but i

00:08:45.960 do think it's really important to give your children responsibility from a young age give

00:08:50.360 them chores um like i you know i'm the advice columnist dear jane daily mail oh stop i love

00:08:57.520 daily mail um so they don't love it are lying it's like people who are like i don't read page

00:09:03.420 six and i'm like yes you do yes anyway look i answer people's problem problem letters and i

00:09:08.840 had a woman i had a really funny letter this week which was a woman who said she just discovered

00:09:13.640 something absolutely disgusting in her teenage son's bedroom that she had discovered that he

00:09:18.700 had been wiping he's clearly spent the last like two years wiping boogers on the bedhead

00:09:24.100 yeah it was really disgusting but and she discovered this because she was in there making

00:09:29.500 his bed getting his laundry and putting all his clothes and sneakers away and i'm like well first

00:09:34.380 of all you do need to address this and buy him like a costco supply of tissues and a waste paper

00:09:39.140 basket secondly what are you doing mama why are you doing his laundry and cleaning up his room and 0.99

00:09:45.740 He's a teenager. He needs to be doing that himself. So I feel very strongly that we often today, we've lost sight of this because so many of us grew up in kind of damaged homes. So we think that our children just need unconditional love. Of course, they need the unconditional love, but they also need boundaries. They need to be told no. You have to kind of prepare them for the realities of life. 0.97

00:10:08.840 i honestly believe you can do both yes i think i mean i think our kids have have unconditional love

00:10:14.540 but at the same time we i mean we've recently gotten so much more strict about clean the house

00:10:21.500 you can't have your friends over until you clean up your stuff yeah with charlie who's nine so

00:10:26.140 that's easier than the six and three we're like you clean your room you pick up those legos i'm

00:10:31.560 not touching your room nor is anyone that's coming to help us do anything touching your room unless

00:10:37.020 it is very clean and your clothes are put away and he does his laundry now and I think it's insane

00:10:41.700 not to make them do that I also think it's detrimental to them when they leave the nest

00:10:47.240 and go into the real world and they're like what happens next there was a there was a book a few

00:10:51.540 years ago called I think it was called blessings of a skinned knee and it's it's essentially about

00:10:56.900 giving your children the space to fail and to hurt themselves and to and to actually face the

00:11:04.360 difficulties and vicissitudes of life which is really hard right well of course as a pair we

00:11:10.000 want to go in and make everything okay but it's really important to let them feel that pain

00:11:16.600 i completely agree i was thinking about it with travel today let's take a quick break

00:11:21.700 and then i want to pick that up

00:11:22.960 for 50 years canadians have wondered what the names of ikea furniture mean

00:11:30.980 Like natopa, the guardrail for children's beds.

00:11:34.980 Natopa means giving your favorite person room to grow.

00:11:38.780 It means their safety and your peace of...

00:11:41.020 No. In Swedish, natopa means night monkey.

00:11:46.120 Mom! He's back!

00:11:49.300 IKEA. 50 years of Swedishness at home. 1.00

00:11:52.400 Look, he's wearing little pajamas. So cute.

00:11:56.220 okay we're back i wasn't gonna tell jane this because i was so embarrassed about what happened

00:12:05.240 when we first got to marrakesh but it reminded me of like my old school days of traveling when you

00:12:12.140 have no idea what's going to happen next you didn't have instagram you didn't have a smartphone

00:12:15.760 you make mistakes and i think one of the most important things about travel is making mistakes

00:12:20.620 right we knew not to just follow random people through the medina but we did end up following

00:12:27.780 a random man through the medina right out three three different random men three different random

00:12:33.080 men and how much money did they we spent no money they didn't they didn't kind of we bailed

00:12:38.880 halfway through and so they're like one day festival a tannery we're going to a tannery

00:12:44.500 and so they're leading us it's clearly away from where we were going but

00:12:47.960 you know i also love a one-day festival that's a really good line right one-day festival of the

00:12:53.580 berber tanners yeah yeah so we're following him and then all of a sudden they lead us into

00:13:00.560 the quote-unquote tannery which is where they have you know the cow and goat hides and it smells

00:13:08.280 terrific nothing has ever smelled so bad in my entire life they hand us a bundle of mint which

00:13:14.560 they're like it is a berber gas mask which one i was like now we're done now we're done yeah

00:13:20.180 uh and then of course we google it and it's it's a very common common thing but i'm kind of glad it

00:13:27.500 happened because i think you have to nick and i are i think we're good travelers right like we've

00:13:33.320 traveled around the world i'm like we still failed a little bit and like i love it yeah because you

00:13:38.460 would never have gone to the tanneries and i think you have to say yes and the thing about marrakesh

00:13:44.160 particularly although actually it's a truism of life is marrakesh teaches you the art of surrender

00:13:49.960 because it it you just you can't you can't do things the way you're used to doing them

00:13:55.420 in your real life and you just have to give in and that's a beautiful example of you giving in

00:14:01.280 and you're lucky that they didn't kind of intimidate you into paying them lots of money

00:14:05.640 because sometimes that happens they can be quite brutal but actually what a gorgeous story you got

00:14:10.480 see the the tanneries and you never have to go back oh no we don't we don't no no because we

00:14:15.720 knew at that point that i'm like oh this is what a tannery smells like because it is literally the

00:14:20.840 corpses and they use the pigeon poo to cure them sometimes as the ammonia and when we're walking

00:14:26.980 through the soup i'll walk by one chop and i'm like tannery smell tannery smell all right your

00:14:32.600 turn for advice oh um i have learned whoa oh hold on hold on i have learned that life is long but

00:14:47.260 it's also short and that we are allowed as women to architect the lives we want for ourselves

00:14:57.440 wolves. Yes, we are. Yes, we are. And I love that. And I will actually expand it because I am a woman

00:15:05.000 who does love men. I love good men. I think everyone needs to learn that. I will say that

00:15:10.740 men have been taught they can for a long time, but also maybe sometimes only a certain type of man

00:15:15.300 has been told he could architect the life he wants for himself. I think it, you know,

00:15:22.200 applies to everyone i think about my kids and how it was very assumed i'd be going to college right

00:15:30.640 um and like i'd had a path and i'm like what if we don't assume anything about you what if we

00:15:36.740 assume nothing and what if you know the options too because i knew no option when i was 18 other

00:15:42.320 than college right but what if you knew you could go work at a ski resort in the andes so my kids

00:15:48.860 I mean my son who went to Harvard and when he got into Harvard I had all of the mothers in my town

00:15:56.160 ringing me and saying oh my god what did you do what APs did he do how did you do it what tutor

00:16:01.860 did you and I was like I didn't use tutor you didn't do any APs I don't know actually because

00:16:08.440 this is not my journey this was him but meanwhile he's got the dream job that you want your kid to

00:16:13.620 have and he phoned me two months ago he said mom I'm leaving I know what I want to do I'm going to

00:16:18.340 culinary school in paris he's following his passion yeah and and my daughter works in a

00:16:23.320 ski resort she worked she's a ski instructor in jackson hall and i love the our kids the world

00:16:30.780 is very different and i see so many parents living vicariously through their children and

00:16:37.940 you can't your children have their own path and their paths are very different to ours and what

00:16:43.140 you what you have to want for your children is that they are happy and fulfilled in whatever

00:16:48.360 in whatever way makes them happy and fulfilled 100 and i think that we're showing them that a

00:16:56.700 lot more i mean nick and i travel with the kids a lot right and the fact that we're gone right now 0.98

00:17:02.060 a lot of people i don't quite get so much judgment because we don't we've gotten rid of the assholes 0.80

00:17:06.340 in our social circle right we don't we don't tolerate i mean that's my other piece of advice 0.98

00:17:10.520 that yeah yeah let let no no no i'll go on to that no more assholes i'm done i'm done with them 0.80

00:17:15.760 uh but we do they're like how do you travel so much we have a lot of help my mom is there 0.95

00:17:20.420 we have a lot of like trusted amazing babysitters and family and friends and we live in philadelphia

00:17:24.900 with our village uh i love to see our kids seeing us go away without them and knowing that we have

00:17:34.180 a life outside of them that it's not like adulthood is just parent parenting and job

00:17:39.880 and that's it yeah oh it's so much more it's funny i do think one of the things that

00:17:45.900 is a truism of the states is that americans live to work whereas so much of the rest of

00:17:53.760 the world work to live and i think there's there's actually something glorious about

00:17:57.980 really embracing life and all that it it has to offer now can we talk about getting rid

00:18:02.740 of the arsehole oh please do yes yes i have learned the art of discernment oh yes and which

00:18:08.580 i think it takes too many of us too long oh it took me it took me 55 years i'm now 58 and i

00:18:14.580 didn't learn the art of discernment until i was 55 because if somebody of worth wanted me and

00:18:21.120 wanted to be friends with me i felt like i had to say yes and i was forever falling into the wrong

00:18:25.360 friendships the wrong relationships the wrong work situations the wrong agents yes yes oh my god

00:18:31.580 There were so many wrong agents because I was so flashed that this very important agent wanted me.

00:18:36.660 And I felt even though my gut always told me, no, this is not the right thing.

00:18:41.180 And and I have learned to trust my gut and I've learned to be discerning.

00:18:46.940 Yes. One of my good friends wrote a whole book on trusting her gut.

00:18:50.920 I'm going to have her send it to you. Elizabeth Greenwood.

00:18:54.140 It's so good. And she actually looked at the science of trusting our gut.

00:18:58.420 and it's very very real but same thing for a long time I was like you're a fancy agent you're a

00:19:05.240 fancier writer than me so yeah of course I should work with you and do this and say yes and no my

00:19:12.000 gut now tells me to people that I want to be with and spend time with which is how I ended up at

00:19:16.880 your pool on 110 degrees 110 degrees I'm so happy you're here Nick is in the pool I wish I could

00:19:24.440 give you the visual because he's got like you know can i just say i just want to give a little

00:19:29.160 a little bit of gratitude for my life here it's wonderful you're lucky i'm so lucky well here's

00:19:36.580 the thing though you worked for it i did i did work you work you work worked but then you also

00:19:41.880 did the emotional work which is also so much right i worked i worked it's funny i think people often

00:19:48.280 think that the life as a writer is is sort of oh it's our muse and we just oh it's a bit of writing

00:19:54.640 and and actually the truth is it did you when i started it was like that because i started 30

00:20:00.080 years ago my only job was to write the best book i could and then go out on the road and promotion

00:20:05.220 now as you well know we're our own ceos we're our chief um publicity directors our marketing

00:20:13.180 officers i mean we do everything event we're running many business we are running so many

00:20:17.300 businesses and it's just so tiring and i'm definitely at 58 i'm definitely slowing down i

00:20:23.520 don't have i don't have the hunger that i had and i also oh there's a lizard up there oh can you see

00:20:33.260 oh my gosh yeah oh what it's some kind of gecko he's very pale he's very yeah he's pale he matches

00:20:41.460 the house yeah thank you thank you for matching my my fabric um i also it's really interesting

00:20:49.720 as well because i i've been a novelist for 30 years and then i wrote this memoir rewilding

00:20:54.720 but now i can sort of feel that i feel quite mission driven and it's not about writing although

00:21:03.760 i'm sure i'll always write something yeah but it's connecting with women and it's helping women

00:21:08.660 And having gone through this huge shift in my life and leaving a marriage that in many ways was very good and in many ways was very wrong for me and who I grew into, helping women who feel lost and untapped.

00:21:26.080 Which I think is a lot of women right now. 0.96

00:21:27.880 Yeah, there are so many of us. 1.00

00:21:31.300 All right, let's take one more break and then I want to talk about how to rewild yourself.

00:21:38.660 For 50 years, Canadians have wondered what the names of IKEA furniture mean.

00:21:44.200 Like Natopa, the guardrail for children's beds.

00:21:47.720 Natopa means giving your favorite person room to grow.

00:21:51.540 It means their safety and your peace of...

00:21:53.760 No. In Swedish, Natopa means night monkey.

00:21:58.820 Mom! He's back!

00:22:02.040 IKEA. 50 years of Swedishness at home. 1.00

00:22:04.920 Look, he's wearing little pajamas. So cute.

00:22:12.980 Okay, here we are on my birthday, my anniversary.

00:22:16.140 We're having some champagne with Jane Green, who wrote a wonderful memoir.

00:22:20.060 I mean, I'm picky about memoirs.

00:22:22.140 And even just your life in the past five years is fascinating to read

00:22:26.060 because I think it has so much to teach other women

00:22:30.500 about how we can be in the world

00:22:33.300 and breaking the stereotypes

00:22:35.040 that we thought we had to live within.

00:22:37.880 It reminds me so much,

00:22:38.780 and you were telling me

00:22:39.580 that you were reading my friend

00:22:40.900 Glynis McNichols' book today.

00:22:42.720 Yep.

00:22:43.360 And loving it.

00:22:44.060 It's so good.

00:22:44.780 It makes me want to go to Paris immediately.

00:22:46.920 Well, I mean, I think you'd just come with us.

00:22:48.500 Okay, we'll leave tomorrow.

00:22:49.240 I might.

00:22:50.720 We will not say no.

00:22:52.780 And those are the kinds of books that I love

00:22:55.860 that make women have a seismic shift in their life.

00:22:58.280 we've had you on the podcast before to talk about rewilding but what made you want to write that

00:23:04.360 book in particular I mean the truth is I didn't want to write it I never thought I had a memoir

00:23:09.620 in me but as I you know I left my marriage and it was I reached a point where I had so

00:23:18.320 lost myself I had abandoned myself it was actually my marriage it wasn't even the story is not that

00:23:24.860 i was married to a terrible man i wasn't married to a terrible man strangers this is not bell

00:23:29.300 but i i i haven't understood that what happens in menopause is that all of your childhood wounds 0.98

00:23:39.560 all of the constructs and rules that you have stepped into to kind of brush all that old shit

00:23:45.600 under under the rug so you don't have to deal with it it all cracks open in menopause and you 0.93

00:23:50.760 are left with all your childhood wounds and i realized that i didn't know how to do anything

00:23:57.740 i found in myself and that means not being at its whole boundaries so i ended up this shivering

00:24:05.120 mountain of resentment you have you have indeed which no i never plan to work but i i did end up

00:24:12.200 leaving my marriage and and look and i was at a stage where i was willing to do the work you can't

00:24:17.680 be the only one no no no and so i understood but then as i started writing about industry i also

00:24:24.520 felt there were a lot of stories falling in one area i think anyone watching my social media

00:24:31.780 would have thought that i had this extraordinary life that we had tons of money that we were

00:24:37.100 really and none of it was true and i felt completely committed to authenticity actually

00:24:41.980 after i left i just thought i'm fed up with telling the lies i don't care i don't have any

00:24:45.880 bloody money it's all gone um and do you know what if people are going to judge me or leave me

00:24:51.480 or walk away from friendships with me because of that then they were never my people in the first

00:24:56.700 business by the way i think i've lost 90 90 of the people i thought were my friends in westport

00:25:03.780 connecticut have totally disappeared and that's okay outside of westport connecticut but i mean

00:25:10.440 i have amazing friends right and i have friends that i've had in my life for 40 years um i have

00:25:17.580 weirdly they were a lot of more in the surrounding towns but the friends i haven't left the states

00:25:23.460 with a lot of very good friends but the ones that i have the very the core group and that's probably

00:25:29.700 five people maybe you don't mean more than five no and they are and none of them were in westport

00:25:36.880 But it shocked me because I thought there were people that I really thought had my back and

00:25:41.380 were my friends and they were not my friends. And that's okay. That is absolutely fine. Thank

00:25:48.260 you for showing me who you are. Yeah. Wish you well. And we all move on. And we all move on.

00:25:54.180 And also I will say, this is something else I've learned. Those friends may not have been the right

00:25:59.360 friends at all. But I also think that friends can have seasons in your life. I think that's true.

00:26:05.740 But I think there's something else as well, which is that I didn't know myself.

00:26:10.360 I did.

00:26:10.640 That was the whole thing.

00:26:11.480 You didn't know enough to be the right friend.

00:26:13.840 Exactly.

00:26:14.540 I was lost and I was grateful for the friends that wanted it.

00:26:18.320 And actually, when you really start to do the work in healing, and it's healing from, it's often healing from a difficult childhood.

00:26:28.280 It's healing from all the wounds that we've carried.

00:26:30.540 But it's things like learning to stop people pleasing, learning to say no, learning to set boundaries, becoming comfortable with being disliked.

00:26:40.860 When you start really doing that work and trusting your intuition and trusting your gut, you start to attract the right people.

00:26:51.420 All of the wrong people will drop off and you will start to attract the right people.

00:26:55.980 100%.

00:26:56.460 And I also think that you'll start doing the kind of work that you want to do.

00:27:00.140 You didn't set out to write a memoir, but rewilding is wonderful.

00:27:03.780 I think it's already helping so many women and you're doing rewilding retreats now, but

00:27:09.340 also Missy Cook. 0.89

00:27:11.100 Missy Cook. 1.00

00:27:11.900 Missy Cook. 1.00

00:27:12.540 Yeah.

00:27:13.420 I love this novel.

00:27:14.780 I've read all of your books.

00:27:15.680 I think that this is your best one yet, not even in terms of story, but just in writing

00:27:21.600 and it sounds like you and it's technically wonderful.

00:27:24.460 I also found Missy very relatable to the world today tell us a little bit about this gorgeous

00:27:32.040 book so um the many private lives of Missy Cook is actually a book that I wrote about seven years

00:27:38.700 ago and um it I didn't do anything with it but I I put more of my I put more work into this book

00:27:49.320 than than in any other novel i've ever written and it shows i mean technically i am so enormously

00:27:55.680 proud of this book and it was all inspired by a memoir i read um by steve jobs's doctor so i've

00:28:05.400 read this book small fry by lisa brennan jobs and it is such a beautiful book but i was also struck

00:28:14.320 by how despite Steve Jobs being in so many ways the most terrible father she kind of deified him

00:28:23.960 and and it really got me thinking about what that must be like to be the daughter of someone like

00:28:32.300 that who is so deficient as a parent in so many ways and yet you still love them and and so and

00:28:40.340 the world lionizes them and completely completely and who they are in public and who they are in

00:28:45.920 private and and and who how you as a as a daughter just want to be loved you just want to be loved

00:28:54.800 and accepted by daddy um so it was a very different book for me to write um and i i loved i loved it

00:29:04.920 I loved it and it moves all over the world initially it was in Morocco and then I changed

00:29:10.740 it to India um but it it I I have characters that I adore there's real life in this novel um

00:29:18.800 and and relationship and friendships the one of the real themes of this book is uh is female

00:29:26.300 friendship which you know I love and it's the great it's actually the greatest theme of my

00:29:32.440 life is female friendship it brought me the greatest joy and the most pain and it's probably

00:29:39.100 the thing that i think about most in the world 100 i mean i get asked all the time people are

00:29:44.600 like your books are also different from each other and i'm like oh no they all contain complicated

00:29:51.380 female friendship yeah but the same the current runs through all of them it runs through all of

00:29:55.360 your books too i love missy i mean it just feels so also important right now oh can i say something

00:30:01.160 else yes please do the other thing i had huge fun with was i so there was the the lisa brennan jobs

00:30:07.040 memoir small fry and the other thing that was a huge influence through this book that i kept

00:30:13.080 thinking about was a movie that i loved i think it was probably from the 80s working girl oh my

00:30:20.000 gosh shut up i love working girl it's my top five okay so working girl i feel like i wrote this book

00:30:26.900 with that movie Working Girl playing in my head the entire time and when you read it you will 0.96

00:30:33.180 understand there is there is so much don't you want to be both of them in Working Girl that's

00:30:38.340 the thing do you mean Catherine and the yeah probably I do I do well but I did not think that

00:30:44.640 growing up but now I watch the movie and I'm like oh I love you both do you know who I really wanted

00:30:50.100 to be who I always felt I was actually more than either of them Melanie Griffith or Diane Keaton

00:30:56.220 in baby boom oh well that that's gold i know it was always gold why do you think i moved to new

00:31:04.560 england why do you think i moved to america i all i wanted was a new england farmhouse and a sexy vet

00:31:10.340 and a leaking roof with bucket catching the rain and make an applesauce but i also i always thought

00:31:16.940 i was joan cusack from oh from yes yeah i kind of want to be joan cusack in every movie that she 1.00

00:31:24.060 She is absolute perfection in everything she looks like Joan Cooley.

00:31:28.820 And look, you actually do.

00:31:30.280 You've heard of more than Melanie Griffith and more than Sigourney Weaver.

00:31:33.560 You know, I've actually gotten Sigourney Weaver before when people have told me who I look like.

00:31:39.660 Isn't that interesting?

00:31:41.120 I don't see it.

00:31:41.960 I've gotten that one before.

00:31:43.740 Who else have you got?

00:31:44.820 I'm trying to think.

00:31:45.380 I'm trying to remember.

00:31:46.080 I'm trying to remember.

00:31:47.340 When I was pregnant, someone said Paula Poundstone, which was hard.

00:31:52.260 I don't really know what she looked like.

00:31:54.060 um who else would so great weaver have gotten more than one i can sort of see that and i think

00:32:02.060 that's a really that's a terrible one gorge do you want to hear mom

00:32:06.180 my most the one i get more than anything is celine dion oh yeah i know i see that i see that but i

00:32:16.800 think that's coming she's beautiful she's she's beautiful but i do see that i do see i do i mean

00:32:23.600 i've actually been stopped and asked for like like yeah are you and can i have yours you know

00:32:29.480 she is in paris this week and we may go see her not tomorrow night but on monday night i think

00:32:34.780 i think you must i don't have to go and see i know i know have you seen titanic i have not seen

00:32:40.600 titanic oh you have to go and see titanic it's really funny yeah yeah my friend my friend rachel

00:32:45.700 has been pushing us to go titanic titanic titanic do you know who i saw titanic with who um amongst

00:32:52.780 i saw titanic with a group of women including eugene carol bow down in awe bow down bow down

00:33:01.220 yeah it gets chip gains all the time from chip and joanna again 100 yeah yeah yeah yeah on the

00:33:09.020 street yeah yes i have another question who would you like to look like winona rider in reality

00:33:15.240 Bates oh Winona Ryder now yeah Winona Ryder just anytime anytime anytime um I love a Lizzie Kaplan

00:33:24.840 I don't like the actresses that now you can't tell if they're 30 or 60 I don't look I was just

00:33:30.880 watching the trailer for Practical Magic I don't like the fact that Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman

00:33:35.400 look younger now than they did in the original movie I don't love it I like real faces and

00:33:39.740 there's another thing as well that I'm realizing because Instagram obviously can see into my mind

00:33:44.500 and those i mean i don't think i'm going to do it like i'm not plastics like big plastic surgery i

00:33:49.680 don't think is my thing um however it's throwing up lots and lots of videos about facelifts right

00:33:55.420 now and and i watch them all which is why they're throwing so many up because i watch them all all 0.99

00:34:00.840 these women are they're either spending fortunes in new york or they're going to turkey or south

00:34:05.820 korea i'm getting all the turkey and south korea one um but the thing is that that instagram hasn't 0.63

00:34:13.260 realize is that i look at all these women and they're all going in for a facelift but they're

00:34:17.100 not just doing the facelift they're doing the blepharoplasty they're doing nose drop they're 0.54

00:34:20.840 doing everything magic and the thing that strikes me is that they all look exactly the same the same

00:34:27.900 then and i don't really understand that no because i do think that i mean not plastic surgery in the

00:34:35.180 80s and 90s was so much better but i do think you remember you still look like yourself yes

00:34:40.840 and now everyone looks like chris kardashian well they're starting younger and younger so yes

00:34:45.760 you're right so they've all got little ski jump noses and these great big curvy cheekbones and

00:34:50.520 these great big lips and it's not that they don't look beautiful i do think they look beautiful

00:34:55.540 but there's nothing individual about and they could they you just you can't tell them apart

00:35:00.620 we've um we watch a lot of movies from like the 80s 90s and early 2000s with the kids

00:35:06.600 probably some that are very inappropriate uh but just looking at real women's faces who are 0.94

00:35:11.860 beautiful actresses right like the mom and et i want women's faces to look like women's face i

00:35:18.740 know me too again um i love a phoebe waller bridge oh i mean oh fleabag fleabag season two it's the

00:35:28.420 perfect season of television i've ever seen in my entire i've watched it so many times just that

00:35:34.260 that achingly painful sweet yes and just how love can be so real and so raw and so painful

00:35:42.700 and so destined for something also so funny yeah oh god so good it's so good Jane this is the best

00:35:50.160 episode I've ever done by the poor on my birthday do you know what you can come back anytime I will

00:35:54.140 the problem is we will well all right now now it's that we live here I actually I one of the

00:35:59.340 things that i one of the lessons of this summer has been learning to say no because i'm i'm really

00:36:04.640 bad at saying no and so i go to london in the summer for three months because it's just too

00:36:10.480 right i was gonna say it's like 48 degrees it's 40 degrees here today but somehow that doesn't

00:36:15.720 feel quite so bad terrible i'm in 110 yeah 110 but um it gets to 125 130 and i i can't do that

00:36:25.240 so i go to london but then i have to find people to come and look after my cats and so i had a

00:36:31.780 bunch of people i had them in so like i had one woman for six weeks then i had somebody else then

00:36:37.080 i had other people and then also i get friends saying my college roommates kids are coming in

00:36:42.720 can they stay and i say yes and um there's a look at that yeah i realized when i got back

00:36:51.620 it was really interesting first of all my entire bar has been drained and i know it has to be kids

00:36:57.660 because everything was put back empty which i don't think an adult would do right and it's not

00:37:02.080 might drain it you would throw away the empty bottles but kids hide them and so so all of the

00:37:11.740 empty bottles were hidden i literally have 10 empty everything's gone everything yeah the tequila

00:37:17.900 the gin the vodka the muskly and also it's not easy to get baileys campari like weird things

00:37:25.660 but anyway anything so i'm i have to replenish um but also the energy felt um the energy felt

00:37:31.500 very funky in this house i could feel that people were in this house that didn't bring the right

00:37:36.620 energy so i had to do a whole smudgy yeah and now the hustle's it but i am going to say to you and

00:37:44.540 Nick, and this is genuine, that you really can come back any time you want.

00:37:49.580 I love it.

00:37:50.040 I told you, I'm like a cat.

00:37:51.000 I immediately sprawled.

00:37:52.160 Yeah.

00:37:52.400 I don't always sprawl.

00:37:53.520 But that's what I love.

00:37:55.340 I love people sprawling.

00:37:57.140 Yeah.

00:37:57.620 Yeah.

00:37:57.940 I want my life to feel like people can walk in and be like, I would like to sprawl with you.

00:38:01.360 Chasing Cozy.

00:38:02.680 My whole life is spent chasing Cozy.

00:38:04.660 Chasing Cozy.

00:38:05.440 Chasing Cozy.

00:38:06.020 I think that's going to be the title of this episode.

00:38:08.240 Yeah.

00:38:08.820 Chasing Cozy.

00:38:10.060 The birthday episode.

00:38:11.480 Jane, thank you so much for being here.

00:38:12.640 gorgeous to see you always

00:38:42.640 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - September 22, 2026

Chasing Cozy： The Birthday Episode With Jane Green

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