Such a delight to kick off the second season with the wonderful Bree Bridges!
As usual, this transcript reflects the content and tone of our chat, as faithfully as possible, with some thoughtful editing to make sure things read smoothly. Just imagine, too, the smiles in our voices throughout.
Show notes are included below this transcript. This episode is hosted on The Incomparable.
TRANSCRIPT:
[jazzy jumpin’ music]
Sandra Wong:
Hello and welcome. This is We Contain Multitudes, the casual interview show with our favourite people, famous and accomplished guests who share the geek-outs, hobbies, and interests which they might not necessarily be known for. C’est moi, your host, Sandro Wong. And today I am so thrilled that I am being joined by Bree Bridges. Hi, Bree.
Bree Bridges: Hi.
SW: [laughs]
Okay, so let me see now… I did write a little thing because I wanted to explain, it’s sort of a chicken-or-the-egg question for me, because I can’t remember if I found you, Bree, on Twitter. And this was during the Golden Age of Twitter, for the record. I don’t remember if I found you because I’d just finished reading my first Kit—
Oh my gosh, I forgot to ask you, how do you say, how do you pronounce that last name?
BB: Kit Row-sha is how we say it.
SW: It is how, yes!
BB:
When I was picking the name, I was like, okay, I’m going to get something that’s super simple and super easy to Google and nobody else has it. And so we went through a bunch of stuff and I landed on Rocha and I was like, yes. And then I found out…that lots of people think it’s lots of different things. So if you Google “Kit Rocca” with two c’s or k’s, you’ll get us. If you do Rocha r-o-s-h-a, you’ll also get us. [Sandra laughing] But it has been, it’s a big mystery. But there’s actually, like, several different ways to say it. So there’s no really wrong way. We just say “Row-sha.”
SW:
Yeah. See? Okay. I feel so vindicated, people, because [laughs] in my mind, it has been Kit “Row-sha” all along. Okay. And so I have been a fan for at least ten years. And, as I was saying, I don’t remember if I looked for Bree on Twitter. Bree and Donna, Bree’s coauthor. Together they are Kit Rocha. So I don’t remember if I found Bree and Donna after I read the first Beyond series novel or…the other way around, if I found you on Twitter, probably through, like, a trail of Romancelandia accounts [laughing] and other romance authors, and then I started reading. The only thing I remember is I read that entire first novel on my, on my phone, because [Bree laughs] I did not have an ereader at that time. [laughing] And okay, folks, that’s really a milestone because that’s the only book I’ve ever read on my phone because I just don’t read books on my phone.
BB: Well, I feel honored. [chuckles]
SW: Are you? Awww.
BB: Yes.
SW:
You’re so, you’re so kind. Okay, so anyway as I was saying. Bree is one half of the dynamic duo that is author Kit Rocha, and she’s also one of the incredible masterminds behind Romancing the Vote, which has raised to-date over $1 million for voting rights organizations in the United States of America. So this is what I have to say about that: All hail the magic power of spreadsheets and women who get ish done. Yes.
BB: So many spreadsheets [chuckling]
SW: Take a moment to cheer, a moment to cheer. Yes.
BB: It is. It’s entirely run by spreadsheets. We have a spreadsheet. We call it the “doom spreadsheet”
SW: Oh
BB: and it is the spreadsheet. [laughs]
SW: Wowwww.
BB: So.
SW:
I’m like a spreadsheet, I wouldn’t say novice. Somewhere between like, novice—I’ve used it for many years, but only the most basic functions—and, like, journeyperson. [laughs]
BB:
I’m pretty good. But during our second auction, I believe, this amazing part of the community, a reader, Lee-Sien. She emailed me and she was being so respectful. She’s like, hey, I think I have some solutions to some of your problems. And I put her in a headlock [Sandra laughs] and I did not let her go. And so she helped manage—we actually renamed the “doom spreadsheet” the Doom Joy Spreadsheet last year because she leveled it up so hard and she is currently getting ready for round four. And I am so excited. And yeah, [laughs] don’t mess with a woman who knows how to handle a spreadsheet.
SW: And logistics.
BB: Yes-s-s.
SW:
Okay, so Bree and Donna also host an amazing and sprawling Discord server. I am regularly so overwhelmed whenever I pop in. [Bree chuckles] I’m just a lurker on there, but I’m so thrilled to be there because it’s such a great community. So really, to me, Bree is a joyful light and a powerhouse community organizer who uplifts people every single day in one way or another. And I am so thrilled I get to talk to you, Bree, for nothing today but the purpose of joy. How about that?
BB: One of my favorite things, honestly.
SW:
Okay, so now I’m going to put you on the hot seat, apparently, and ask you what, what do you want to talk to us—talk with us about? What do you want to share?
BB:
I mean, honestly, like, I’ve been thinking about this, I mean, since you asked me and you asked me when you were starting the podcast, and just things kept cascading and cascading, and I finally got to do this, and I’m just thinking I’ve had, like, nine obsessive special interests [both laugh] since you originally asked me.
SW: Yeah
BB:
Because that is, I think, the thing that…my multitudes contain multitudes. Like, I, I turn everything I do into just being so excited about it. And that might be my special interest, just being excited about things.
SW:
Right [laughs] I know. So recently, I saw your posts about turning part of your yard into a real viable garden. So, I mean, that’s something we could talk about if you want, or…
BB:
I will say that I think the 3D printer might be the thing that turns me into…that funds and, like, enables all of my other special interests. Because I’ve been 3D printing garden stuff.
SW: [laughs] Oh..?
BB:
Yeah, you can do anything with the 3D printer. And I have several of them running in the background, and they might sing their little songs at some point during the podcast.
SW: We love it. Let’s do it. Let’s do 3D printing
BB: Okay.
SW: with Bree Bridges.
BB: Yes
SW: [chuckles] That could be, that sounds like your YouTube channel. [both laugh]
BB: Honestly, I, I probably should have a YouTube channel. I have made so many people buy 3D printers.
SW: Yeah.
BB: And I mean, I think hundreds, literally hundreds I know about and who knows what the…
SW: Wowww
BB:
You know, within a couple months of me getting that 3D printer, I was posting about it soooo chaotically that, like [both laugh] somebody came and they’re like, they’re talking about you on Pop Culture Happy Hour and your 3D printer. And I was like, yep, I am, I am really excited about this thing. I’m going to make sure everybody knows it. [laughs]
SW:
Yeah. Okay. So let’s start at the beginning. What got you started? Like, how did you decide, okay, I want to try this thing called 3D printing.
BB:
Anybody who has read our books, especially Beyond and then, like, most particularly Mercenary Librarians, has probably noticed that 3D printing has been around in the background since the beginning.
SW: Okay.
BB:
Part of our worldbuilding in this futuristic, dystopian society was predicated on our idea that, you know, by the 2040s, when our world ends. For anybody who isn’t familiar with our series, it’s a futuristic post-apocalyptic. And we started this in 2012, and 2040 seemed so far away. And now it’s 2026 and I’m getting nervous.
SW: [laughs] Uh-huh
BB:
But one of the things that we thought that we would have evolved is really superior recycling abilities that let you break down things into their components, and then 3D print things from them. And 3D printing, if anybody isn’t super familiar, is like, the most basic version of it, you, you know, you take these spools of plastic and you can turn them into pretty much anything. And it’s not, you know, it’s not like mass manufacturing, but it can be extremely flexible and you can do wild things with it. Like, one of the things I did is my community organizer chaos, this year. In December, people in Chicago needed whistles.
SW: Yeah
BB:
They were using those whistles to, you know, alert each other to ICE. And so I found someone who said, hey, we can’t source them anymore. They’re getting so expensive to buy them because we’ve literally bought out the whistles. And so I started 3D printing them and sent them to Chicago. And, you know, I got Courtney Milan, who I also convinced to buy a 3D printer [both laugh] and she wanted to 3D print them too. And within a few weeks we had put together a Signal group that was 3D printing whistles at such capacity that we have sent out, I think, 1.75 million whistles across the country at this point.
SW: Wow.
BB:
And it’s not because we have some massive manufacturing thing. It’s because 150 people said, okay, I’m going to make 50 whistles every 12 hours in my little house and I’m going to mail them out. And so…when I imagined a future that’s flexible, that sort of capacity to just spin up and see a need and say, okay, well, somebody needs this, so we’re going to immediately start printing that. And then people in the group would take other people’s whistle designs and adapt them. They would try to figure out how to print them faster with better materials.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
We actually really were fond of this design, whistle design that somebody in Italy had made. And he found out what we were doing, and he was like, man, I hate fascists. [chuckling] I’m going to design you a better whistle that you can print faster with all the adaptations.
SW: Wowww
BB: And so it’s this, like, amazing, adaptable thing.
SW: Yeah.
BB: And so, like, sometimes I’m printing garden stuff, sometimes I’m printing whistles, you know.
SW: Right. [laughs]
BB: But you can do anything. And that’s what made me so excited. [laughs]
SW:
Yeah. Well, you know, it really strikes me—so when I first discovered the Beyond series, which I love your [laughs] I love your description of the, the characters in there as “the bisexual love army.”
BB: Yep
SW:
Yes. All hail. So one of the things I remember…reading those first, for me, first Beyond books as ebooks was, I was just, and then of course, reading all of your posts about self-publishing at that time, I was just like, wow, Bree knows all this tech stuff. [Bree laughs] Like, really. But I get the sense that 3D printing is not really, you don’t need to be techie, right?
BB:
No. There was a time and the reason I didn’t have a 3D printer, like in 2012, 2015 when I was doing all these things, is that they were something that you had to be fairly technical.
SW: Oh? Okay.
BB:
You know, they didn’t have a lot of super user-friendly gateway printers right at that point. You know, you have to be adjusting things. You want to have to be able to get into the mechanics and, like, leveling your beds and like, switching out parts and, you know, then using software that wasn’t always the friendliest. And so I kept thinking, I have such ADHD. If I have to [Sandra laughs] patiently level my printer and go through all these hoops, I will get so bored and it will just become a paperweight. And most ADHD people have the experience of at least one paperweight they were so excited about, and then it turned—the Cricut was mine. [laughs]
SW: The Cricut.
BB: [laughing] I did not click with the Cricut.
SW: Yeah. I’m sorry. [chuckles]
BB: It became a paperweight.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
So… But! Like, I think it was the last auction. One of our volunteers who was also just like this amazing romance reader who does 3D printing, she had really gotten into it, and she started 3D printing, like, dragons and like, little custom earrings of like, dragons sitting on books and things
SW: Yes-s-s.
BB:
she was designing and I was obsessed with it. And so I just kept like, you know, first I was like, hey, will you print me some dragons for my dragon book release? And then I saw what she was doing, and I was like, okay, so what kind of printer do you have?
SW: Right.
BB:
And it just slowly, and then what did it is, I found a video on YouTube and it was one of those, you know, clickbait [Sandra laughs] thumbnails.
SW: Yeah, yeah.
BB: And it said, this printer’s not for you.
SW: Oh well.
BB:
And so I clicked on it because I was like, wait, I think I know what’s going on here. And it was someone addressing the fact that all of the techies were roasting the Bambu A1 Mini. They were talking about how it was simple, it wasn’t like high tech, it was limited in what it could do. And the guy’s video was basically, hey, you can set this thing up in ten minutes and start printing by clicking buttons on your phone. You don’t have to know anything else. Let people have a gateway printer. And I ordered that thing 24 hours later [both laugh] because I was like, yes, let people have a gateway printer. I have a computer science degree. That doesn’t mean I want to always have to jump through a lot of hoops.
SW: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I think I know who you’re speaking of. I think you’re speaking about Alyssa.
BB: Alyssa. Yes. From Measured and Slow
SW: Yes.
BB: her store. And she does amazing—she does crochet, she does like
SW: Yes.
BB:
all this different kind of stuff. But she’s so brilliant with the 3D printing. And she got me so obsessed. And so, you know, yeah, she definitely dragged me down that hole. [Sandra laughs] And I had one printer, Labor Day 2024…
SW: Uh-huh…
BB: There are six printers behind me right now. [laughs]
SW: There are. There are, dear listeners [laughs]
BB: Yep.
SW: I can see-e-e, well, two of them were working.
BB: You can see the two big ones.
SW: And I think they stopped…oh no, they’re still working.
BB: And then I have, like, three little ones on the bottom, so yeah.
SW: Oh. Yeah, yeah.
BB:
So I have like, three of the little minis and I have stuck with the A line, A1 line. A lot of techies and like, experienced 3D printers kind of give them shit. You know, they, they [Sandra laughs] are a little bit—it’s one of those things where like, you know, you’ve got a little bit of a closed ecosystem. So people are like, it’s not open source enough, it’s not this, it’s not that. And I’m like, yeah, but! But someone…you could give a 13-year-old this printer and they could start printing things. And
SW: Yea-a-h
BB:
being excited about it, being joyful, getting to press a button and see something happen is the best way to get someone excited enough to learn all the techie stuff you want them to know.
SW: Yeah.
BB: Right? They’ll push through if they’re having fun.
SW:
That’s right. So then it sounds like—because I do not have a 3D printer, and I honestly, for the longest time when I first started hearing about them, I was like, is this real? Is this real? Because, you know, I grew up on Star Trek and, you know… I mean, they didn’t 3D print anything. Clearly not. They were in the 24th century, hello. But I—like, people talk about patterns and stuff. So what does that, how does that mesh? What’s the pattern? What do you do? Do you just find them, like, online? People just post them for free or do you have to buy them or like, what is all this?
BB:
It’s a whole, like, it’s a whole ecosystem once you get into it. And one of the smart things I think Bambu did, which is the the company that makes my printers, is they have a website called Maker World, and they incentivize people designing cool things and uploading them for other people to print for free.
SW: Ah-h-h.
BB:
For noncommercial purposes. And so you get points, like if people—if you upload stuff and if people download it a lot, you get points. If they give you little boosts, which is like the more you browse the site, you get these little, like, boosts where you get to boost someone else and that person gets points.
SW: [laughs] Yeah
BB:
And I have gotten enough points that I’ve gotten, I don’t know, four or $500 worth of gift cards because like, you can turn those points in for gift cards and other things if you want. So, you know, I think that that was brilliant because what it does is it gets people who can design stuff and they design in, like, CAD software.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
Or there’s like, you know, easier things. Like there’s something called Tinkercad that I really like where you just kind of take shapes and you push them together
SW: Yeah
BB:
and you can, you know. And then whatever you design, you can print. And so they get people who were really good at that to upload these designs. And then you can just click a button, it will open it up in what we call “the slicer,” which is the software where it sort of lays it out and you decide your colors, you decide your settings, and then it slices it. And what the slicing is, is that the software is so smart, it basically goes through here and says, okay, I’m going to make kind of like a knitting pattern
SW: Okay
BB:
for this thing where it says, okay, on the first layer, you need to put this color here, this color here, and then the second layer, and it just puts down layer after layer after layer. And it does seem like magic. It seems like some Star Trek replicator stuff [Sandra laughs] because you can just start with nothing. And then it just slowly puts down and like, you know, I’ve got so many things that
SW: Yeah
BB: that look impossible because you can print stuff—the detail is so careful, you can print like, articulated things
SW: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
BB: so that there’s little gaps and then they move together and you can, you know… It’s just, it’s stunning and exciting and fun.
SW: Yeah. So do you also design? Because I’ve seen—
BB: I do some basic design.
SW: Okay
BB: I’m not super good. Like, I don’t have a lot of 3D modeling experience.
SW: Right.
BB:
Most of my art experience is like, you know, I learned how to do cover art, right? Like, because I’m an author, I was doing promotional graphics. But I have been, like, slowly starting to learn. I’ve made, like, some planner organizers, some organizers for medication. I like to make my little fidget clickers.
SW: Yes.
BB:
And so I’ve started making some of those where, you know, you put little keyboard switches in them, and then when you tap them, they click.
SW: Is that what the clicking’s from?
BB: Ye-e-s! It’s keyboard switches!
SW:
So, listeners, friends of the podcast, Bree also has an Etsy store where she has all of these amazing little products. The fidget, is it, do we say fidget clicker? Fidget…
BB: I, that’s what I usually say. Fidget clickers, yeah.
SW:
The fidget clickers are all adorable. Anyway, I will link all that to, in the in the show notes, of course. So getting back to this. So, one does have to have experience with 3D modeling to design?
BB:
If you want to design. But there are so many people out there and like, speaking of the shop. The shop I would say only like 10% or 15% of what’s in the shop is stuff I’ve designed.
SW: Okay
BB:
There are people, and like, you know, these fabulously creative people and you can subscribe to their Patreon or to their membership, and then you get a commercial license. Like, I’ll pay $10 a month, and then I get the right to download all the stuff that they’ve designed and sell it if I print copies of it.
SW: Ah-h-h.
BB:
And so that’s also something you can do and like, most of these people will let you download a design if you don’t want to sell it? For like, a couple dollars. So like, you could get a couple dollars and then you can print this gorgeous dragon as many times as you want to give to all of your friends, you know?
SW: Oh, cool.
BB: And so it is. You don’t have to be a designer to print amazing stuff.
SW: Yeah. Okay. So then, you mentioned filament. So is that
BB: Yes.
SW: It’s all plastic. Is that right?
BB:
There are different kinds of filament. Most of it’s plastic. I am a baby printer. [Sandra laughs] And so I mostly print with something called PLA which is just very basic plastic. But it comes in like, amazing colors. Like, I love to print in gradients. And so it’s just this little spool of plastic and like, it changes, it slowly changes colors. So as you print, you get like, rainbows or like, one of my favorite ones is called Northern Lights. So it looks like the colors of the northern lights as it goes.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
And then they have things, some things called, like, tricolor, which means it’s three colors, one on each side. So when you turn something around it turns different colors depending on which direction you look at it from.
SW: Whaat? That’s just like, in the filament? It’s three different colours depending on the side.
BB:
Yep. And so it’s just like, so many cool different things that you can do. And those are another thing where you don’t need to have, you know, a fancy designer. [Sandra chuckles] You just have to like colors and you can pick your colors and make them go together. And that’s honestly one of my favorite parts. I love color. I mean, you can see I’ve got a pink office. [both laugh]
SW:
I can and I love that colour, too. So do you remember what was the very first thing you 3D printed that you genuinely loved? Okay, like, the first thing you ever did.
BB:
Okay, I know the first thing I 3D printed. It’s hilarious because what I 3D printed first was Kraken Pirate Gold that I did design myself [Sandra laughs] because I wanted it as a tie-in to one of our books.
SW: Right.
BB:
So I designed these like, pirate gold coins that had like, a little kraken in the middle of it. And the first thing I printed when I got the printer, I had forgotten to order filament and it came with like 50g. They measure it by the gram, so you’ll like, buy a kilogram, ane that’s like a big role. And it came with this like, tiny little thing of filament. And so I 3D printed a little pirate coin. [both laugh] And it was so—I was so proud of myself. [Sandra laughs] Because it really felt like magic!
SW:
Yeah, I remember your post about it. And I was like, what is, what is Bree doing? This is fascinating. [Bree laughs] What is this? Was that, was that for Daughter of Tides?
BB:
Yes, it was for Daughter of Tides. And we actually printed a ton of them. I printed them in black, and then Donna painted them gold, and we sent them to bookstores for people who preordered from, like, our certain bookstores. And I’m actually doing that again
SW: Oooooh
BB: with Prince of Storms. If you preorder it from Love’s Sweet Arrow, the Ripped Bodice, or…
Oh no. Where’s our third one?—Tropes and Trifles in Minneapolis, we have this gorgeous like, sea goddess bookmark that I have printed several hundred of.
SW: Oooh, I can’t wait to see photos of that.
BB:
Yeah. And so I love—that was part of the reason I wanted it too. I wanted to make tie-in stuff and like, merch and swag and like, things for readers. I’ve like, designed little, like, necklaces with the sigils of our little gods in the books. [Sandra laughs] And you know, it is such a geeky, enabling thing. [laughs]
SW: Which we love. All hail geeky enabling things. [laughing]
BB: Yes.
SW: Yeah. So, like harkening, harkening back to what got you interested in the first place, which was…you were writing these worlds
BB: Mm-hm
SW:
kind of near future dystopias, like Mercenary Librarians, which I’ve read the trilogy—love also. And the idea that, you know, we would have [chuckles] we’d be better at recycling by then. So the, the filament that you get now, is any of it, like, from recycled product, do you know?
BB:
You can…. I don’t have—like, my main things with my pretty beautiful colors, usually not. But there is like, a huge push in this. And actually…we have someone on our Discord who has been one of my mentors who actually, like, is super involved in this sort of thing. Like, 3D printing is her industry. She was very excited [chuckles]
SW: Ohhh, yeah, yeah.
BB:
I’m not going to out her, but she was very excited when I got the printer. [Sandra laughs] And they are trying to do things where you basically shred plastic, either like PLA that like, you know, things that people are no longer using or things that turned out messed up from printing or just other types of plastic, and melting it down and turning it into filament that you can then…
SW: Okay
BB: And so it’s not something that’s super reliable for people to do on their own yet. But there are places you can like, send your scraps and they will turn it into filament and give you points towards like, getting your own recycled filament. And I do think that that is super cool.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
I’m, like, super interested in it. And I really cannot wait until like, I think we need a few more years until I can sort of…do that thing for yourself, because that’s the dream. Being able to make your own filament and like, break things down.
SW: Yeah.
BB: And it’s definitely been my obsession for [laughs] a very long time.
SW:
Yeah. So I’m used to, I’m used to seeing you, like, showcase really adorable little…little things that you make for the store. But you mentioned that you 3D print garden stuff, so what, like, what are you doing that’s for the garden?
BB:
So one of my most successful things is I found someone who designed some bottom watering seedling trays. So they’re like little boxes that have a bottom that pushes up. So when you want to get the plant out, you push up the bottom and it pushes the dirt up and then—but it has little holes in it, so you put the whole thing in a tray and water it. And so like it takes water up from the bottom.
SW: Yeah
BB:
And I have started like, a lot of my seeds out there and just these little things I had, I got a lot of like, when I was first trying to do the whistles, I was buying a lot of filament myself and I didn’t really know what worked.
SW: Right.
BB:
So I ended up with a bunch of stuff that wasn’t great for whistles, just hanging around, and I was like, okay, I’m going to turn this, because it doesn’t matter what color it is, just into randomly, chaotically-colored— So I have like, some purple glitter seed starters. [Sandra laughs] And those have been great. Like, I have 4 or 5 of them printed now. And I’m just like, putting basil seeds in there and everything. And then just, you know, I have some pumpkin seeds that I started a week ago in one of them that I’m—already are popped up and I might have to, like, transplant pretty soon.
SW: Yeah.
BB: So. And another thing I’ve been printing is I got a drip irrigation system.
SW: Okay. [laughs] Oh!
BB: That was one of my garden special interests. I went down a [Sandra laughs] a spiral for like, 72 hours. [laughs]
SW: Wow.
BB:
Because I was trying to figure out how am I going to water this garden, I have ADHD, I will let everything die like, by the third week when I’m bored. [laughs]
SW: Uh-huh [laughs]
BB:
And so I found, like, you know, Drip Depot is the place I ended up, and it was a very complex system. But what I liked about it was that it was very adaptable. It’s just tubes, and you cut them to the size you want and then like, have them, run them where you need them. But, the stakes that you, like, put over the tubes to hold them down into the dirt, they cost—like, you know, they weren’t expensive, but like, I needed so many of them because I was doing so many weird things and I was like, I bet I can print these. And I found like, ten different people who had designed one-quarter-inch tubing irrigation, like the most specific stuff.
SW: Yes.
BB:
Whatever you can imagine, someone has like, already designed a solution for it and [Sandra laughs] put it on the internet. And so, you know, a day later I had like, 300 little stakes so I could just go out in the garden and
SW: Wow
BB: hook all my irrigation up and pin it down and, you know.
SW: Yeah. Okay. So for like, I, I’m just going to guess maybe you may have an above average number of 3D printers..?
BB: Yes. [laughs]
SW:
Mm. So for the average [laughs] the person who may be interested in it in an average way, who may only have one—what, like, what tips do you have for getting started?
BB:
I honestly think, like, I cannot recommend the Bambu A1 line enough and the Mini is so small. Like you can see those little tiny printers behind me. The A1 mini is, I think, smaller than my desktop printer.
SW: Yeah
BB:
Like, my paper printer, and it doesn’t take up a lot of space. You can, you can even make it take up less space by, like, printing custom mounts that like, top-mounts the filament on top, you know. So it’s just a little, little thing and, you know, you can print anything up to seven, I think it’s seven, six and a half, seven inches. So seven by seven by seven in a cube.
SW: Right.
BB:
And that’s a lot. Like, some people want bigger stuff to, like, the bigger printers, to print more. But if you just want to try it and these things usually cost $200 to $250. Like, it’s, I’m not saying it’s cheap, but on the whole, like some of these printers are like, $1200, $1,500. And that’s a lot to spend if you’re not sure you’re going to love it.
SW: If you’re not— Yeah, absolutely.
BB: But this thing is little, doesn’t take up much space.
SW: Yeah. And then you mentioned that Bambu itself, the manufacturer has website resources
BB: Yes.
SW: for you to get started.
BB:
They have an app and you have to pretty much—you don’t have to use the app, but it’s much easier. And so like, they have, they call it the Bambu Handy app. I think… [Sandra laughs] If I had been in charge of the English translation, I might have gone in a different direction. [both laugh] But the Handy app is, you know, it lets you… You’re like, you can literally just from your phone, I often do it from my phone. I go into my print history, I search, you know, I need to make a planner. And so I find my previous prints of planners and I can just hit a button from my phone and start the print.
SW: Right.
BB:
And you can also, they have cameras. So like, sometimes I’m at the dentist…Like, when I went to have surgery [laughs] I was in the bed, like, watching my printers.
SW: Really? [laughing]
BB:
Yes. And sometimes because I have these printers on the lower level, my dogs like to sit under my desk. I can turn on the printer camera while I’m out and like, check on the dogs. [both laugh] I use it to spy on them.
SW: Yes. And so for anyone who’s not familiar, Bree, what are the names of your adorable dogs?
BB: My dogs are Lyra and Dell.
SW: Okay. And which one’s the larger one, the older one?
BB: Lyra is the older one, the big… She looks like a Roddy. We don’t know what she is. We found her at the Humane Society.
SW: She’s gorgeous.
BB:
She’s like, 80 pounds, but she’s like a horse, these long legs. [Sandra laughs] And then her younger sister Dell. Lyra was already 80 pounds when we got Dell, who was like a little 4-lb. chaos monster [both laugh] and she’s also 80 pounds, but she’s sort of short and stout and like a little linebacker. And they are hilarious together because Lyra is just like an elegant anxiety queen
SW: Awww
BB: and Dell is a chaos monster. [laughs]
SW: [laughs]
They are so gorgeous. Anyway, people, if you don’t already, you should find Bree on Bluesky and follow her. And occasionally—I have not seen as many photos of Dell and Lyra, but occasionally we’ll find some photos.
BB: We’re probably going to have more. They’re so happy I’m out in the garden all the time now because they get to come out and play.
SW:
Yeah. So I have a side note about your garden. So, I’m pretty sure I know what state you live in. Does that mean that you can pretty much grow anything?
BB:
Yes. If anybody doesn’t know, I’m in Alabama, I don’t mind, that’s pretty—I’m pretty loud about that. [Sandra laughs] And yeah, I have not… I’ve only grown stuff very sporadically in the past, but it’s pretty easy to grow stuff here.
SW: Okay.
BB:
My mother’s in Minnesota and she’s a gardener, and I was taking her out to get advice on stuff today on the little video phone thing. And she was like, how do you already have tomatoes growing? [laughs] It’s not even June yet. But like, I have actual, not like the plants, but like, I have tomatoes, like, you know, fruits.
SW: Whaat?
BB: Yeah, I have Roma tomatoes and lots of cherry tomatoes.
SW: Girl, okay.
BB: They’re still green, but they’re growing.
SW:
Yeah, I, okay, I’m a tiny bit jealous because I’m in Edmonton. I’m at the 53rd, latitude 53, and we were close to zero overnight last night. So we are not growing tomatoes for a long time. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. Well, thank you for telling me that. I, I have a…I have an interest in gardening. I tried to garden, I had a big garden for a while and that I could not keep that one up, so I’m always interested.
BB: Yep.
SW:
So we talked about starting with your recommendation, which is for the Bambu A1 Mini. And then, does that come with filament or do you have to go buy some to start with? And what’s the recommended amount?
BB:
You have to go buy it. And there are lots—like, Bambu does sell filament, but I controversially hate the filament. [both laugh] I love their printers, but I have not had a ton of luck with their filament and I don’t think the colors are like, super…
SW: Right.
BB:
you know, cool. My favorite filament company is called Ziro z-i-ro, and if you see me post anything that has like crazy colors and gradients and stuff, that is all them. They have—they do not miss with color. Like, they are the color people.
SW: Ooh, yeah.
BB: And I also think that the gays might be in there in charge because they have like nine different bisexual filaments. [both laugh]
SW: Ye-e-es.
BB: And so many like rainbows and like, good rainbows and stuff. So.
SW:
Go Ziro. Yeah, of course I will, I will have the links in the show notes. So, what is a good amount? Like, I have no idea. You mentioned it comes in grams.
BB: Yeah.
SW: And one kilo is a big…spool.
BB: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a big spool.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
And like, generally speaking, things—it really just depends on what you’re printing. Like, I have my planner organizers that I print and those take 250g. So that’s like a quarter of a spool.
SW: One.
BB: Yeah, one printer. But then there are other things I print like bookmarks will take, like, seven grams because they’re very thin.
SW: Okay.
BB:
So it really just depends on…like, some patterns, like, some people, one of the things they do as designers is optimize so that you don’t use a ton of filament.
SW: Right.
BB:
And that’s something that, like, really good designers can do. So it really just depends. I think that the best thing to do if you’re just getting started is, a lot of companies sell these bundles that are, like, four 250 gram spools, like different colors. And when I was first getting started, because what I wanted was to print in lots of different colors [Sandra chuckles] and I was like, you know, and a spool usually cost between like $14 or $15 for a kilogram at the low end, and it can go up to like $30. And, you know, my Ziro ones are usually like $20 to $22.
SW: Okay.
BB:
Something in there depending on if I get them on sale or not. And so, you know, if you want twenty colors, you know that’s, that’s going to add up fast. But getting like, little samplers and stuff until you sort of figure out…
SW: Okay. Yeah, so there are samplers.
BB: And I am going to tilt this around.
SW: Yes. [laughs]
BB: Like, that is just my— I use them regularly and I can give you a picture of that if you want.
SW: Wow. I would love that.
BB: Those are my regular shop filaments I have. What is this…1-2-3-4-5-6-7 shelves, that’s like, 12 per shelf. [laughs]
SW: Yeah.
BB: So I mean, at this point I have hundreds of spools in here all the time.
SW: Yeah.
BB: But when you’re getting started… [chuckles]
SW:
Right, right. So, samplers. I love that there are samplers. So, and then, it sounds like designers will…give you an estimate of how much filament you’ll need for their—
BB:
Well, what you can do is you can just open up in the slicer. Like, if you see something you want to print, you can open it up in the slicer and just hit Preview, and it will tell you exactly how much it’s going to take, how long it will take. You can even set how much for different filaments cost, and it will give you, like, a cost estimate of how much it would cost to print.
SW: Whaat? Oh, nice!
BB:
So, you know, and then…on the whole, most things will be cheap. Like, not super expensive. I think that somebody figured it out. A lot of us were doing about 500 whistles per kilogram and so like, At one point we were fundraising, so somebody would send us $25 to get a spool of filament, and we would turn that into 500 whistles. And those were like, people were fighting us a lot, like, this is so much more expensive than injection molding. And I was like, no, honestly [chuckles] we’re doing this very cheap, you know.
SW: Right.
BB: You know, because on the whole, it doesn’t cost a lot unless you’re, like, doing stuff that’s really huge and filament-heavy.
SW: Okay. And injection molding…that is a reference to?
BB: That’s like manufacturing. Like, honestly
SW: Yeah, okay, okay.
BB: I don’t even know a ton about injection molding. I think it’s when they have molds and they like put the plastic in it. I’m just guessing.
SW; That’s what it sounds like.
BB:
Yeah, it’s not like, yeah, it’s not one of my big things I know a ton about, but a lot of people who also don’t know [laughs] a ton about it would lecture us on Bluesky about. Because when you are a woman doing a very visible community organizing thing, men would like to tell you how you’re doing it wrong.
SW: That’s right. And also, injection molding just sounds like a fancy way to say extruding. That’s really all it is. Extruding into a mold.
BB: Yeah.
SW:
Yeah, okay. Okay. Cool. So I’m not sure that you answered this yet, so I’m just going to circle back. Circle back [both laugh] to the first thing you printed that you loved. And I don’t know if that was the Kraken coin or not.
BB: I did love it because I felt like, I was so proud of myself
SW: Yes!
BB:
because I kind of designed it, and I was not a good designer. Before we gave them away for the bookstore, I did go back and like, kind of redesign it because I didn’t know what I was doing to, to begin with. But the fact that I managed to do that while not knowing what I was doing, is like it’s own magic.
SW: It was. They looked really cool.
BB:
I think one of my favorite things that I print now, and I’ve got a bunch of them on my desk, if you’ve never seen them. I don’t know if this is going to ASMR people or horrify them.
SW: Okay, okay, shhhh, here we go.
[A sound like tiles cascading]
BB:
These little flexi-cubes, I call them flexi-cubes. They’re, they’re basically cubes that are printed out of, I think this one is like, 160-something. Like, 12 by 12, 144 little pillars that are tiny squares, but they’re like 40mm tall and they slide against each other, so they start as a square, but you could pull it into different shapes. It reminds me
SW: Yea-a-ah.
BB: I don’t know if you ever saw these as a kid, but those boards that were like the non-sharp nails and you could like
SW: Yeah, the pins.
BB: push them and they would raise up the pins.
SW: Yeah, yeah.
BB:
And so it’s kind of like that [Sandra laughs] and you can just shape them. They make fun noises. They’re very, like, fun to play with because they just twist into different shapes. And I, I have a bunch of them. I was actually printing this one. I was trying to design a size for the auction that I could have some people print. So I wanted like a size that used a specific amount of filament so that you could print for, per spool.
SW: Yeah.
BB: So yeah, I mean, just… I love them. [Sandra laughs] I love fidget toys because I’m a very fidgety person. [chuckles]
SW:
Yeah. Well I like, you know, what I’m hearing too, is I really like this idea that, yes, there are people who do the designing for the 3D objects that you can print, but also you yourself as the, as the home printer, you can kind of play around with how you want to optimize…
BB: Exactly.
SW:
the way you want to do it, and that I think there’s some people that really enjoy that, like, that kind of little bit mathematical…spatial. And that’s like, that part’s really cool too.
BB:
Yes. And like, you can focus on that, if that’s your thing. If your thing is just color, if you ever go on to any of these sites, people, one of the things they give you, they encourage you to do is post pictures of your version of it.
SW: Mm. Mm-hm.
BB:
And I love going and scrolling down and seeing how much of a difference it makes, just the colors people pick because it can make an object look just completely different. And some people are…not great at it, and [Sandra laughs] some people are just so amazing that, you know, you— And I love it when people post my designs and they post them with colors I never imagined. And I’m like, wow, that is the coolest thing I have ever seen. [laughs]
SW: Yeah.
BB:
And so it’s very collaborative to like, I don’t talk to these people, I don’t really know them, but when they post versions of the thing I designed, I get really excited. [laughs]
SW: Yeah.
BB: You know
SW: That’s so great.
BB:
and I am an author who has had tens of thousands of reviews, but like, when someone posts a little five star review of my little 3D printing design, I’m like, I am the smartest person in the world. [both laugh]
SW: I love it.
BB: I’m so cool.
SW: Okay, so for the record, you have…six printers, did you say?
BB:
Six printers. I have three of the big A1s, which are just— The A1s and the Minis are the same basic idea. It’s just one is like 9x9x9, so it can print much more. And then the other one is just smaller.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
And they use a lot of the same parts, which is useful. Like, they use the same nozzles, which is the, you can swap out and have different types of nozzles. So like, if you want to print really delicate stuff, you could do like a 0.2mm. If you want to print big stuff, you could use a 0.8. I…most stuff is 0.4. That’s kind of like the default.
SW: Yeah
BB:
So these will use a lot of the same parts. And I like that because it means I only had to learn one set of like, mechanical stuff. [both chuckle] And you do have to learn to fix stuff. Stuff will go wrong.
SW: A-a-ah.
BB:
And you know, I have gotten pretty good at these. The, the Bambu website, I have got to give them props. Like, I will say, I do not think that the Chinese to English translation always goes perfectly [Sandra laughs] but they have videos and pictures of every step and it is so laid out I—and I’m not mechanical. I’m a computer science person, but I’m a software girl [laughs]
SW: Right, right.
BB: I’m not really a hardware girl. And so I was a little nervous. But yeah, they make it like super easy and they have great support and they will—
SW: Right.
BB:
If something breaks, and you’ve only had the printer for a year or two, they will just send you new parts. I have one printer that we call the Printer of Theseus because it’s [both laugh] I’ve basically replaced 80% of it at this point, and they just keep sending me new parts if something breaks. So…yeah.
SW:
Yeah. So I have, like, this may be a really silly question but I’m gonna ask it because that’s what this podcast is for, which is, does your printer get really hot? Like—
BB: Oh. Yeah.
SW: is that an issue?
BB:
So the nozzle, like, there’s basically two parts that heat up and one is the plate. And the plate will heat to like…60, 70 Celsius. You’re going to have to get used to metric, I’m sorry. Everything’s in metric.
SW: Tee hee hee, says the Canadian.
BB:
So, that’s like, fairly warm. Not like, it’s not going to burn you terribly or anything, but it’s, you know, when you grab the plates off of there. And part of that is because the heat lets the first layer melt and sort of stick to the plate, and as it cools down, it will like, you know, slowly release.
SW: Right.
BB:
And then the other thing is the nozzle. Because it, the, the PLA, the filament feeds into the nozzle which has to melt it. And the nozzles are like, 190 to 220, 240 Celsius. So I mean, they are
SW: Wow…yeah.
BB:
they’re hot. And you, generally speaking, don’t have to be messing around with it. But there are times if it gets clogged, if you have a blob, is what they call it when, like, the filament sort of goes out of control and starts like—and there can be crazy blobs. I may have to find you a blob picture too…
SW: Yes, I love it.
BB: because it will just, like, the filament will just keep sort of extruding and turn into this blob that grows around the thing.
SW: Metastasizing.
BB:
Yeah, and I swear to God, I had one that looked like it came off the monster dildo site. [Sandra cracks up] Like, it was stripey purple and it, like, ribbed. And it just kept going out, like straight out from the… I don’t even know how it did it. [laughs]
SW: Wow.
BB:
So I just, I came in in the morning, I, you know, letting them run overnight, like, you have to be careful. But I came in in the morning and it had gone nuts. And it just had this giant purple [Sandra cracks up] gradient thing sticking out from it. And I was like, Dear God. [both cracking up] So the problem is, when you have cooled a bunch of plastic and it’s stuck to everything, you have to heat it up to get it off.
SW: Ah, yeah.
BB:
And so I have burned my fingertips a few times because I’m poking around in there and like, the 220º nozzle. And, you know, I haven’t hurt myself too bad, but I definitely have, you know…
SW: Yeah.
BB: got my… I could probably do crime. [both crack up] I may have burned off some of my finger prints at this point.
SW: Oh goodness. But I mean, on the other hand, you have this great story of the hot dildo, so…
BB: Yes.
SW: There we go.
BB:
Yeah it is, it was a wild adventure. But yeah. So like, crazy things can happen. I have had times where the filament, and I posted this one on Bluesky, the filament somehow, like, the print that was happening, just kind of got knocked off.
SW: Yeah
BB:
So it kept printing and it thought it was printing, but it was just sort of putting this tiny little spirals of like, we call it spaghetti because it kind of looks like spaghetti. It’s just this—tangles of tiny little thin plastic. And it kept going and going and going because this was another overnight disaster. [Sandra laughs] And so I went out there and I just had this giant, giant ball of, like, purple and pink spaghetti. And someone was like, put it on your head. So I put it on my head, and I looked like I was a Bridgerton queen wig situation. [both laugh]
SW: Great.
BB:
So, like, things can go wild. We had…while we were, the whistle chat had some amazing whistle fails. And actually, if anybody lives in Minneapolis, one of the things we started doing when, like, whistles went crazy, when they stuck together, when they wouldn’t blow…is people started collecting them in boxes and then mailing them to my mother, who is an artist in Minneapolis, because she wanted to do a sculpture out of, like, the whistle fails to, like, sort of commemorate, like, what happened in Minneapolis.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
And so she has that as an ongoing project that is being built up, and she will be displaying it in Minneapolis. And I kind of love that. Instead of like wasting this plastic, we had sent it to become art to mark this moment. And because my family lives in Minneapolis, that’s when I kicked into overdrive with the whistle stuff, because it was just, you know, people were being shot a mile from where my mother lived. It was…
SW: Wow.
BB: horrifying. I connected with some people in Minneapolis. The Chicago people, like, kind of joined with me, and we all started sending aid to Minneapolis and trying to organize. And honestly, the [laughs] the way that whistle thing really blew up was that Megyn Kelly tweeted that the whistles were terrorism. [chuckles]
SW: Yes. [laughs]
BB: And that we had this thing called the Megyn Kelly Incident [Sandra cracks up] where our inbox just exploded.
SW: Oh, wow. Because everyone wanted to help.
BB:
Everybody wanted whistles once Megyn Kelly made them cool. [laughs] And I’ve gotta say, like, of all the things I’ve done with the 3D printing, that is the most emotional because I was one of the people who was, like, taking in the messages from the inbox and, you know, like, there was at one point where some teenager emailed us and said, I would just like whistles to protect my family. And I just like, I cried and I went out to the garage and I got like, a bunch of dragons and toys and shit, and I shoved it all in the box with the whistles because I was just like, I hate everybody who’s making this teenager ask me this. I love this teenager for wanting to ask this.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
But it was, you know, and so it… I think that I stayed somewhat sane during January and February because I had these 3D printers and I just kept saying, I am going to spend all of my time [chuckles]
SW: Yeah, yeah.
BB:
doing something that fills a need that people have. And that, you know, I loved that I could pivot to doing that. And there may be other needs. There are some people in our group who have moved on to trying to work on putting together fidget collections for teachers who are in impacted areas, who, like, have a bunch of kids who have just, like, been going through shit and like, you know, deserve something fun and cute to play with.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
And people who are working on making, like, medication organizers for trans people who are dealing with constantattacks. And it is nice to have something that just makes you be able to be this magical fairy that can just find a way to make things that people need.
SW:
Yeah. Well, it’s just so fitting that we’ve, I would say, that we’ve returned to the beginning when we were talking about how you got into 3D printing and you talked about writing a world of near-future dystopia, and you talked about—right? You talked about the ability to just provide something for the community. So community is, is a thread that I—is a filament, ahem—[Bree cracks up] that I have, that I have tracked throughout everything that you’ve been talking about. And it sounds like it’s, that’s really important to you.
BB:
It is. It is the heart of all of the stuff we write, you know. I mean, we write romance and we write murder books [Sandra laugh] but we write books about people who, you know, romance isn’t enough. You need to find your people. You need to find your family. You need a community that helps you feel safe and secure.
SW: Yeah.
BB: You know, maybe your community is doing like, murders, you know, as long as they’re righteous ones. [both crack up]
SW: We’re talking fictionally for anyone—
BB: Fictionally murders, for NSA Brad. Please be chill.
SW: Yep.
BB: So. [laughs]
SW: [cracks up]
Yeah. Yeah, that’s really wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing your geek-out. I did not expect 3D printing. I should have, I really should have. So this has been really fun.
BB:
I mean, there were so many options. [Sandra laughs] There was a garden. There was the, the freeze dryer, which is like a whole [laughs]… Maybe I will tell Donna to come on and talk about the freeze dryer.
SW:
Ye-e-es! If you can convince her. So, I did, friends of the podcast, I’ve already told Bree this too, and I mean, Donna knows. I was hounding her very gently to also come on, like, separately, you know, because I know they’re two different people, even though they’re like, besties forever. And yeah, if there’s a chance, I also—
BB: I do think, I think that we just, like, I think the emails kept falling through the cracks
SW: Oh, yeah, yeah.
BB: because everything has just been nuts for us, so.
SW: Absolutely.
BB:
I think she’s interested, though she may go in a weird direction and be like, she’s really into music videos, like watching music videos recently that have
SW: Oooh
BB:
like, the cool history, like, you know, and stuff. So she has so many interests that are completely different than mine. That’s part of why our books are fun.
SW:
Yes. And I love your books. In case it’s not clear, I’m a massive fan of Kit Rocha and I’ve also read some of the— Okay, so I asked my husband this. He is originally American from the Midwest and he pronounces this name Moy-ra. But because I’m Canadian, I say Mwah-ra. So which one is it? Mwah-ra Rogers or Moy-ra Rogers?
BB:
Why we say Maura, Moy-ra Rogers. But I think it’s, again, it’s one of those things where there are different ways to say it. [Sandra laughs] So nobody is wrong.
SW: Nobody’s wrong.
BB: But that was our original, that was actually our original pen name, which a lot of people don’t know.
SW: [with keener energy] I knew. I knew. Hello.
BB:
We didn’t try to kill it. What happened was we wrote Kit Rocha. When we first wrote the first Beyond book, we were like, we’re going to write the…stupidest thing that is full of every single thing that everybody told us nobody wants to buy [Sandra cracks up] and we’re just going to write it because we’re mad and we love this stuff.
SW: Ye-e-es.
BB:
And we were like, we’re going to write a novella and then it just kept getting longer. We’re like, okay, fine, it’s going to be a novel. We’re just going to put it out under this new name and it will probably do nothing. And then it just blew up. [laughs]
SW: Yeah. And rightfully so.
BB: [laughing] So always write your rage books, guys, okay.
SW:
That’s right. And rightfully so. Because these books have heart. They have hope and they have love. Okay, that was my big [laughs] that was my thing.
BB: Oh, thank you.
SW:
Okay. And I’m a massive fan. So I’m so glad that we got to talk about your geek-out. I’m going to just, like, gently move us into the Small Joys segment. So I know all of these things… You have a lot of things that bring you joy because you are such a joyful person, even amidst the most awful stuff. But I think that, you know…that’s what we need. So I’m going to ask you, what is something that you have or that you do that lifts your spirits when you need it?
BB:
Well, first I just want to like co-opt this a little bit and say one of the things that we instituted on the Discord when it was clear that politics was going to be rough again…
SW: Yeah
BB:
was that we—we have a politics channel, but we lock it at night. We need, we think—and we lock it all weekend—we think people need time off from doomscrolling.
SW: Yeah
BB: But when we unlock it, one of the things we encourage people to do is to have a joy and a spite every day.
SW: Right.
BB:
And so you can do something because people have made you mad. And sometimes you can take joy in, like, spitefully calling your representatives or whatever. [Sandra laughs] But we think that you need some joy every day. Like, I think it’s so important, especially now. Like…you have to do something that makes you happy every day because this is not a sprint. We are
SW: Yeah
BB:
in this for the long haul and you have got to be sustainable. And honestly, right now my joy is the garden. Like, I, I like going out there in the morning and being like, how did this stuff grow overnight? [Sandra laughs] And then I go out in the afternoon and I say, how did this grow since this morning? And it makes me so happy. We picked a bunch of lemon balm. This is the first thing we’ve actually, like, picked from the garden.
SW: Right.
BB: And my husband like, infused it into a simple sirup and made me lemonade with it. And it was so good
SW: Awww, delightful!
BB: And so that, like, was just the purest little joy.
SW: Yeah.
BB: And I think right now growing things is…and I know. Like, the long run, I hope I’m going to have produce that I can freeze-dry, that I can share with neighbors, you know. Donna’s got chickens and I’ve got the garden. {Sandra laughs] We’re planning to, like, do our little commune here.
SW: [laughing] That’s right.
BB: [laughing] But for the moment, it really is just… I love seeing those little green things pop up, you know.
SW: I love that.
BB: They just keep growing, and that’s making me so happy.
SW: Yeah, I am, well, I’m very glad that there are so many things that make you happy.
BB:
Literally, I think that my survival, like the reason that I…function so well, is that so many things do make me happy. I am…earnestly—I wonder sometimes if people following me think that this is a bit. But no, I am just earnestly overjoyed and excited by so many things and so many tiny things. I made garlic butter the other day, like from scratch. I, like, made my own butter and put garlic in it and I was like, this is the most amazing thing that has ever happened on planet Earth. [Sandra laughs] And I’ve got big ADHD emotions and sometimes that’s not great, but sometimes I think I just enjoy things so much.
SW:
Yeah, I’m with you, sister, I am. Aww, thank you for sharing that. I could just hear the joy in your voice. And I hope everyone out there in podcast-land can, too. So now we’re going to just gently end the show with my world famous Speed Round, Bree. So I ask you, I ask you silly questions. You give me whatever comes to mind. No judgment, no stakes. All fun. Are you ready? [cracks up]
BB: I’m ready. Let’s go.
SW:
Okay, so this season, Season Two, I’m going to go…The category is favorites. So let me know what is either your favorite or a favorite. Because I know it can be hard sometimes to just pick one thing, okay? So favorite way or ways to eat potatoes.
BB:
Ooh that’s a good one. Okay. So, not to circle back into my special interest, but I figured out that you can shred potatoes and freeze-dry them.
SW: Yep.
BB:
So you just basically have like dried potatoes. And so I shredded a bunch of potatoes and freeze dried them. And everyone was like, now make hash browns. [Sandra laughs] And I can’t really make it stick together. But it doesn’t matter. I can just take this handful of, like, potatoes from the counter and throw it in a skillet with like, melted butter. And it is so good.
SW: Love it. That’s great.
BB: So that is my favorite right now.
SW: Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Favorite pizza toppings?
BB:
I am a weirdo. I like…cheeseburger pizza. [Sandra laughs] We have it once a week. I have cheeseburger pizza kits in the freezer, and it’s homemade sauce that I made out of, like, tomatoes and stuff. And then ground beef that I browned and cheddar cheese and a little mozzarella cheese. And that’s all it is. And I eat one of them once a week because I am a grown up [cracks up] and I want cheeseburger pizza.
SW: I love it. What makes you a grown up is that you made all that yourself, see?
BB: Yes, I did.
SW: Okay. Favourite comfy outfit when you’re schlepping around at home?
BB:
I have like 19 of these, like, little dresses that are basically just like strappy sun dresses that, like, tie at the shoulder. And I have, I swear to God, that’s all I wear. [Sandra laughs] If I go out sometimes, I’ll even wear those, but I’ll, like, put something over it on the top.
SW: Yeah. [laughing]
BB:
That’s all. I wear just flouncy sundresses and I love them. They are soooooo comfy and I have shorter ones that I wear as pajamas to bed. That’s like—I live in them.
SW: Perfect. Okay. Favourite holiday?
BB:
I’m going to have to say…my husband’s Super Bowl is our Friendsgiving. [Sandra laughs, delighted] We have been hosting it since, you know, we were in our 20s. We got married when we were 24.
SW: Wow.
BB: So we were kind of young. We were like, 23 when we moved in together.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
And so we have been hosting like—originally we called it Orphan Thanksgiving because, you know, we were having…we both come from complicated family situations. But I have grown and I have like, a better family situation, but I still am not near any of my family and neither is he. And so we hosted the Thanksgiving for everybody who had complicated situations. And that has sort of morphed into the Friday of Thanksgiving. He is a cook. He is a foodie. He goes hard. [both chuckle] He spends three days prepping everything, and I just mostly get to eat it and hang out with friends. And so that’s why it’s my favorite. [laughs]
SW: I love it. Yeah.
BB: I have started participating with bread, I will say.
SW:
Yes, that is— Okay, The Bread Cult. That’s all I’m going to say. [Bree laughs] So also for those friends of the podcast who don’t know just how much of a foodie and a gourmet Bree’s husband is, you need to find photos of their spice wall.
BB: Paprikagate!
SW: Yeah, yeah.
BB:
If you search Paprikagate on Bluesky, you will find out. [Sandra laughs] I asked Bluesky how many types of paprika does one man need? And Bluesky got real mad at me [both crack up] because apparently the answer is infinity paprikas. And I know all of them now, so I will never ask this again.
SW:
There you go and I will see if I can link that, Paprikagate, for everyone. Okay, we’re going to continue with the Speed Round. Favorite tree or flower or both.
BB:
Good question I…I don’t know, I feel like— I’m about to start growing marigolds because the chickens apparently like to eat them. And also I’ve heard they’re pretty. So that may become my favorite, but I don’t think I have a favorite. Like, I mean, I guess lemon trees are probably my favorite imaginary because I just really love lemons, so I’m glad that they give us lemons.
SW: Yeah.
BB: Tessa Dare has a lemon tree and I’m so jealous of her.
SW: [cracks up] Well, another tip, too, is marigolds help keep slugs away.
BB:
Yes, that is what I heard. So I have, like, 20 trays of, like, little marigolds I’m growing and I’m just going to, like, put them everywhere in the garden, and then the chickens can eat them later.
SW:
Fab. [laughs] Okay, here we go. Here we go. We’re going to continue. Favorite kind of movie or TV—or both or either—to wind down with. You can pick a specific one or just a genre.
BB:
Honestly, I love bonkers TV, like. [Sandra laughs] Mo Ryan, the TV critic and I, like, bonded so hard. Like, we became best friends because of My Lady Jane.
SW: Yes.
BB: Which was, as I would, was calling it on Bluesky, The Tudor Horseman show.
SW: Yes [laughing]
BB: It was reimagining Jane Grey in the Tudor scenario, if instead of Catholics versus Protestants, it was humans versus shapeshifters.
SW: Right.
BB:
And Dudley, she, Jane Grey, marries a guy who turns into a horse. [both laugh] It was unhinged. It was hilarious. It was in the vein of, like, Reign, which was also just a ridiculously bonkers period piece, quote unquote. I love bonkers shows. I love bonkers TV.
SW: Yeah
BB:
I just want to have fun. I don’t need it to always be serious, and I don’t need to call it guilty or bad, because I think these shows know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re doing them great.
SW: That’s right.
BB: And sometimes what they’re doing is giving you unhinged joy. Also, Doctor Odyssey in the same…the sexy boat doctor show.
SW: [laughing] The sexy boat doctor show.
BB: [laughing]
I have messed up algorithms so badly that if you google “sexy boat doctor show,” Google knows what it is because I just, I give shows weird names and then they stick. [laughs]
SW: Yeah. And you were the reason I watched that show and I’m so sad they cancelled it, but.
BB: It was unhinged. [laughing]
SW: It was. It was very unhinged. And also, anyone who’s not familiar, the show Reign is spelled r-e-i-g-n. In case you didn’t know.
BB:
Yes. It is supposedly the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, but like, at one point, dukes are, like, cage fighting with wolverine claws. [both laugh] There’s a subplot where Catherine de Medici almost dies because she’s fucking her ghost husband in a blizzard. [Sandra cracks up] Like, just, it’s, it’s insane, I loved it.
SW:
Oh my goodness. Okay, there you go, friends. That’s what Bree is all about for comfort watching: bonkers TV shows. We have two more favourites, so these are easy. I know they are. Favourite kind of chocolate.
BB: I love peanut butter cups.
SW: Mmm, really?
BB:
I am a peanut butter and chocolate girl, yeah. I have these, Aldi has these peanut butter cups. They’re like brand. And I literally have a bag of them on my desk, because these are the most delicious things. I can’t eat more than, like, two at a time because they’re so rich. But, like, I don’t know why Aldi’s has such good chocolate, but it really does.
SW: [cracking up] That’s awesome.
BB: So, go to Aldi’s, get some chocolate, guys.
SW: Chocolate! Okay, and the last, last one is a favorite word. A favorite word. I know you can’t just have one. I don’t know any writer—
BB: Escalating.
SW: What? What was that?
BB:
Escalating [both crack up] Because it is sort of my brand. Like, I’m always coming on to Bluesky saying, oh, that escalated. I’ve got a thread running right now of my, my seedling situation and it just keeps escalating.
SW: Yeah.
BB:
And so somebody was like, what, Bree do something that escalates? Never. So I searched my Bluesky for “escalated.” And ooh—a lot of things in my life escalate. [laughs]
SW: [laughing] That is fabulous. Awww, thank you so much, Bree, for just creating joy with me today.
BB: Of course.
SW:
Yeah. So I am definitely going to have a whole bunch of links [laughs] in the show notes. And I think it’s just kit rocha dot com, right? That’s your…
BB: Yes, kit rocha dot com.
SW: Yeah. Awesome.
BB: And it’s spelled r-o-c-h-a because apparently we really messed up. [both crack up]
SW:
It is awesome. No, we’re going to have lots of fun things in the show notes for everyone. Also, in case anyone is interested, I do do a properly edited transcript of each episode. I know you can get automated transcripts from, like, Apple Podcasts, which the show is on, but I do edited ones so that I get everyone’s names right. And, and it’s just important to me so that people who need transcripts have real ones and not crappy ones. There. That’s my thing. And that will also be linked in the show notes. So thank you everyone for joining us for this episode. And we will meet up again soon. But in the meantime, create joy for yourself and others, however works for you.
BB: Of course.
SW: Because we contain multitudes.
BB: [simultaneously] I love containing multitudes.
SW: Also, I forgot to say thank you so much, Bree. Oh…[laughs delightedly]
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SW: We Contain Multitudes is on The Incomparable network of smart and funny pop culture podcasts where members can access exclusive podcasts and a wonderful community. Find out more at theincomparable.com.
Special thanks, as always, to Erika Ensign, our editrix extraordinaire of Castria Communications. Award-winning excellence in podcast production and media solutions. Check them out at wearecastria.com.
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[digital blip sound]
SHOW NOTES:
Kit Rocha website
Enter the world of Bambu 3D printers
Bambu Maker World
Tinkercad
Ziro filament
Bree’s Etsy shop
Romancing The Vote
Alyssa Long aka Measured and Slow
Visible only on Bluesky: Paprikagate
Tessa Dare
Mo Ryan