November/December Q&A
Aiming to do these every month-ish. Ask stuff via IG, email, or here on Substack!
I had much fun with my October Instagram Q&A. So it’s time to do it again! Thanks for asking questions I enjoy answering 🥹
🐺 Scout questions
What’s your process for balancing work and time with your dog?
My secret: Live in a van. Work remotely. Then you’re always in the same space as your dog 😉
In all seriousness, I feel incredibly lucky that this balance is pretty easy on the road. Scout needs less “active” training and exercise time as she ages (she’s maybe approaching nine?), and she gets a lot of fulfillment from simply being with her people. Because my whole house is my office is my bedroom is my living room is etc, we naturally spend the bulk of our days together.
Favorite training resources when getting started with Scout? (So much to sift through on the internet)
Such a good question! I felt overwhelmed for years. I still do, sometimes, when I fall down the internet rabbit hole.
This article compiles what I felt were my biggest “barriers to entry” to learn more about dog training.
This one features resources we used in our play journey specifically.
This piece puts together reactivity-specific concepts that helped our early efforts.
And this one discusses what I’d do differently if I could adopt Scout all over again.
Why do you share less about Scout’s training now?
Three main things:
I’ve long professed that my main goal was to “live well” with Scout. Today we do! I used to panic about simple bathroom breaks, worrying she’d react explosively if we saw another dog… but now we can pass them without fuss. I used to focus all my energy on helping her not shut down in novel environments... but now she can pee on a bustling NYC sidewalk with minimal issue. I don’t constantly worry about her behavior and mental state. We’re both happy. So we do less “active” training. And because we do less of it, I share less of it!
Admittedly, I also used to have a lot of ego problems concerning Scout’s training. I wanted to “be impressive” with my dog. That pushed me to train, train, train more than I otherwise might have. I’m happy to feel properly past that today!
I think I share less about everything than I used to. My relationship with social media continues to shift. I once filmed most interactions I had with Scout… and today I just don’t feel the urge.
Do you regret the training you did with her earlier?
Not at all!
There are things I’d change if I could go back in time knowing what I do now. That’s the case for all of life as we grow—hindsight is 20/20, yadda yadda. But there’s very little I actively regret. (Maybe a few times where I lost my temper, but that’s not “training” anyway… that is me making mistakes as an emotional creature in my own right.)
Our earlier training—those daily sessions, consideration of reward markers and mechanics, all of it—helped set the stage for the life we enjoy now.
Do you find training is easier or harder while traveling?
If I was still set on teaching tons of new stuff—specific positions, precise behaviors, sport work—I’d probably find van life harder because we lack control over our surrounding environment. (And our van’s interior space is tiny.)
The way I think about training nowadays, though, I’d say it’s actually easier! In the natural course of a day Scout gets tons of environmental exposure. I don’t have to go out of my way to take her to a new place or test our skills in the “real” world.
🚐 Van life questions
Do you have a home base in the van?
We do not! Hermes is our only home—we don’t own property or rent a stationary place.
We do have a lot of friends and family in Wisconsin, where we both grew up, so in many ways that feels like “home”. We reliably have driveways to park in when we visit 😉
Why Florida for the winter?
Sean works remotely on the road, but his company recently purchased office space on the Space Coast. He had a big week of in-person meetings in early December and will continue to go in off and on while we’re in the state.
We used to live in the Cocoa Beach area before moving into the van. It’s familiar, and nostalgic, and rather van-life friendly (three cheers for chill beach towns!).
I joke that Scout and I went soft when we moved to Florida from Wisconsin back in 2020. We got a taste of winter driving through Colorado late this fall… but now we’re ready to be more active in the warmer weather!
I love the beach. A lot.
Florida is closer to Wisconsin than other coast options (like California). We’re attending several midwest weddings this spring/summer and hope for smooth travel back.
2024 was a full year. After visiting friends and family around Thanksgiving, we feel ready to slow down again—and Florida as a whole has been a great place for that.
Some of our favorite small businesses reside in the Sunshine State. It’s extra important we support them after last month’s election. I know we’re but a drop in the bucket, but I want to make this swath of red a little more blue if we can.
We might just be boring ol’ cliche snowbirds now.
Did I mention I love the beach?
If you could add one more thing to your van (regardless of size) what would it be?
This is tough! We have everything we need and basically everything we want. Sometimes I miss having a toaster? Or a record player? Or a second computer monitor?
I’ll go with second computer monitor.
If you had to get rid of one thing from your van build, what would it be?
We could probably sacrifice one of our floor-to-ceiling cabinets separating the “kitchen/living room” from the “bedroom” area and consolidate our pantry stuff better. (If any of the naysayers were hoping to hear me say shower… sorry not sorry to disappoint. 😉 I still love our wet bath.)
Do you meet a lot of other dog owners on the road? Any memorable encounters?
We do in the sense that we see tons of people and pets on a daily basis! We don’t in the sense that we rarely stop to chat or properly “meet” them (depending on your connotation with the word).
Unfortunately, most of my salient memories are not positive ones 😅 The negativity bias is real. We deal with lots of off-leash dogs approaching us (on occasion even trying to jump inside our van) but thankfully have more skills to handle those moments than ever before.
Are there any unique challenges with owning a herding breed while traveling?
Scout does show more herding instinct as time goes on—and her confidence grows—but most of our struggles still feel specific to her fearful disposition rather than any breed tendencies.
How do you manage veterinary care while constantly on the move?
We transferred all our healthcare (human and canine) to Wisconsin when we hit the road. We visit family there often, so it’s easier to fit appointments in. For Scout specifically:
She has an annual veterinary visit once a year. We see a house call vet who comes to my parents’ residence!
Every time we need to refill her anticonvulsant prescription, we email our vet, who calls it in to nearest Walgreens on our route.
When we visit a new spot, we look up emergency vets in the area so we’re prepared if something happens.
How has living on the road influenced your writing?
I like to think I have more perspective, just about life and the world in general, now that I’ve experienced more people and places and things.
Traveling full time has also forced me to develop different routines… and bounce back from many an interruption. I keep tighter focus in a broader range of situations. (On a good day, at least.)
Any plans to do an art tour of Hermes?
I’d never really thought about it because I feel we have so little “art”! But now that I think about it… going on the list ✅
🙋🏼♀️ Personal questions
How has your relationship with Sean changed after moving into a van?
Our partnership is stronger than it used to be. I don’t think this is just because of living in a van—we’ve also been together for going on seven years now, almost three officially married—but sharing a small space pushes you to face everything head on. Our recovery time is shorter than ever. Our cooperation requires fewer words and less forethought.
Spending almost all day every day side by side also means we know each other more deeply now, I think. I’d never heard Sean lead a work meeting before we moved into the van. He’d rarely watched me write a piece from start to finish. We get to see—and show—different sides of ourselves.
On the possibly-less-rosy side, we’re also more dependent on our partnership. It’s hard not to be when we’re basically never apart.
Tattoos: Why the spider?
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time inspired my jumping spider. (Her name is Portia.) It’s one of my favorite books: Rarely do I find believable biology elements in sci-fi, but oh, does this one deliver. An excellent combination of evolution and psychology and respect for non-human animals!
Bonus association: My tattoo doesn’t look exactly like the Children of Time spiders because I also wanted to allude to my childhood cat, Charlotte, who we named after Charlotte’s Web. So my Portia is a little “cuter”.
And finally: I admit having a spider on my arm just makes me feel like a badass, something I desperately want to be (and struggle to accept I already am). This tattoo is a choice I love so much but know many other people don’t actually like, and there is a strange sort of satisfaction in that—in finally trusting myself enough to choose an adornment only for me, irrespective of everyone else.
Have you done a tattoo tour? I wanna see!
I have not but now I need to! I actually told Sean back in August that I wouldn’t get more tattoos in 2024 (at that point I’d added five new pieces) buuut then I ended up going to a Friday the 13th flash event the week we arrived in Florida, bringing my total number to 13.
Most important recent life lesson you feel comfortable sharing?
Make mistakes! Make so many mistakes! Then make more!
I’ve struggled with this as long as I can remember. I used to cry in elementary school if I got an answer wrong. (Not just in front of the whole class; private homework assignments were fodder for tears, too.) While I no longer outwardly wail when I “mess up”, I still carry outsized shame about it. I’d rather freeze and curl in and do nothing than risk a faux pas even in a low-stakes situation.
I like that I care about doing things well and right. I’m happy, finally, with being a sensitive person. But discussing with Sean, reading Adam Grant’s Hidden Potential, and sending cold freelance pitches has made me realize I can’t grow—in ways I really, really want to grow—if I’m unwilling to do imperfect embarrassing sometimes-stupid things, especially in my “professional” life.
I guess “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good” sums this up. I need to throw stuff out there—an email to an editor, a query letter draft in a writing workshop—and not hinge my entire self worth on it.
How are you enjoying your first Ted Lasso watch through?
We LOVE IT so far! (We’re mid-second season.)
The only moment I didn’t thoroughly enjoy was a dog dying at the start of this season. Sean and I were aghast and confused—but the scene did eventually work into the larger plot fairly well, so I won’t hold a grudge.
Other than that? Perfection. Ted Lasso is my hero.
