Yeardley:  Hey, Small Town, Super Fam, how are you? How was New Year’s Eve? Did you celebrate? Were you like me and you went to bed at 9? I have no shame anymore. I’m fine with it. I feel like I welcome the new year, but I also don’t need to stay up until 12:30 just to say, “Hey, welcome. I’m glad you’re here.” Because when I wake up on January the 1st, guess what? I can say it then and it will still be January 1st. [laughs] I’m lucky because I have with me Detective Dan.

Dan:  Hello there. Happy New Year.

Yeardley:  Happy New Year. I have Detective Dave.

Dave:  Happy New Year.

Yeardley:  Happy New Year. I also have a thing about. Okay, by January 5th, you can stop saying that because honestly, sometimes it goes on till March. You’re like, “We’re good. It’s all right. We’re in. We’re in. We’re in” But we’ve done a New Year’s resolution bonus episode in the past, and so it’s a tradition that our fans seem to enjoy. I thought we would revisit it. Dan, why don’t you go first? Any New Year’s resolutions?

Dan:  I just want to keep practicing my parkour.

Yeardley:  [laughs] Running up the wall.

Dan:  I don’t parkour. Parkour. I think for me, we’ve been building this house for a couple years now, and it’s been a long process. I’ve kind of stopped exercising because we were just doing so much on the house. And so, I want to get back to where I was around our wedding. I got some work to do, full body wellness.

Yeardley:  That I think is sort of the mandate. Full body wellness, That’s a good one. It’s also a fulltime job.

Dan:  Certainly is.

Yeardley:  What about you, Dav?

Dave:  I think last year one of my resolutions was to stop interrupting people so much.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Dave:  In retrospect, I think mixed results,-

[laughter]

Dave:  -certainly, went in waves. I know I’ve been a handful for a few years. I’m aware of that. But I’m working on that part. I think this year it’s just to be a little bit more measured. I really feel like I’ve been a hothead and so I want to be more mindful about my response to things that I disagree with. And that’s a weakness that I’ve had for a long time. But it’s time to start working on it. So, I already started the workout thing. I’m good there. But I’ve had a couple of negative interactions with people over the last year. I don’t know if it’s mixed communication or what, it’s not even people that I’m really close to.

 It’s just odd interactions where I think we just got to leave some of the toxicity behind. That’s where I need to be for my own sanity. But yeah, just being more mindful about how I interact with people, I think that’s something I could use some work on.

Yeardley:  Cool. It’s funny because you guys always say that good police work is a sales job. It’s a public relations job where as much as you investigate, it’s important to continue to maintain the trust of your community. And I feel like you’re already so good at that. But I’m not in your head, so I get it

Dave:  [laughs] I think that’s part of the problem. I’m in my own head.

Yeardley:  Oh, sure, that’s a bad neighborhood. Listen, I know for myself.

Dave:  I’m not trying to take it to Negative Town. I’m like, this is something that I could work on and probably make a difference in my own life and some others. That’s what I want to do.

Yeardley:  Yeah, I get that.

Dave:  What about you, Yeardley?

Yeardley:  I sort of long stopped making actual resolutions where I feel like this is a box I want to check. I do have a couple of things that are coming down the pipeline professionally this year that because it’s how I’m wired, I’ll give my all to and that I hope will be really successful, but the PS is a little asterisk to that comment is I hope that I’m able to be flexible about my interpretation of success, so I’m launching a new podcast. We won’t go into more detail than that at the moment, but if I have a preconceived notion of what the success of that podcast looks like, but it ends up looking differently or doesn’t take off as quickly or it turns out like, “You know what, this isn’t actually the thing I want to do and I stop doing it that I don’t consider the whole journey a failure.”

 I’m pretty good at not doing that now. Back in my younger years, I was not good at that. Everything had to be this massive win and there was no gradient scale of what success meant. It was all or nothing. And that’s just no way to live. It’s a zero-sum game. It’s a recipe for heartache and disappointment. So, I look forward to the journey. I’m more interested in the destination person. Didn’t really give a fuck about the journey so much. I’m trying to embrace the journey a little more [laughs] in the second half of my life. I hope I continue to make time for painting. I’ve started painting. I really love it. Who knew?

Dave:  I love them. They’re pretty good.

Yeardley:  Dan and I did get some of them framed and I actually am working one now. I’ve learned a lot from it that I think can be a template for the painting I’ll do for you, Dav.

Dave:  Well, I appreciate it.

Yeardley:  Yeah, I’ve done a smaller version and I think, like, “Okay, okay this could be good.”

Dave:  I’m pretty good at coloring inside the lines in the coloring books, but that’s where my artistic prowess ends. It’s over with after that.

Yeardley:  [laughs] I don’t believe that’s true, but I have a real affinity for detail. I love detail. It’s why I’m the last pass on the edits of our podcast. It’s why I like intricate patterns in knitting. Not too intricate because if you fuck up, [Dave laughs] it’s impossible to peel it back and then start. Ugh, that can be a real drag. And with the painting, I don’t do abstract things. I do things that like, “Oh, that is a lemon.” Not “What is that thing?” That’s just not my style. So, I like how it occupies my brain that way.

Dave:  It’s working out for you.

Yeardley:  Thanks. Well, I think that’s great. Maybe we’ll do a check in July to see how our resolutions are going. That could be fun. I don’t think we’ve ever done a real follow up.

Dave:  I’m going to look like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers.

[laughter]

Yeardley:  I’m going to love you.

Dan:  I want you, baby, I’m going to eat you. [Yeardley laughs]

Dave:  So, Rob Lowe was on the Rich Eisen Show.

Yeardley:  Oh, yeah.

Dave:  And he was talking about Michael Myers during that scene that the baby back ribs, that that was all improvised.

Yeardley:  I believe it. Those guys who come from improv, there’s a level of excellence and craft that if you don’t come from that, I don’t think you can you’ll ever replicate it quite as easily and well.

Dave:  I love bloopers when there’s gaffes and actors keep breaking.

Yeardley:  Yeah.

Dave:  I love that because I’m like, “If you don’t break, that’s why you get paid big bucks.” How do you not laugh at some of this shit?

Yeardley:  I totally agree. And it is funny. I think just we will wrap this up, but great to see people who are doing this thing, especially in our culture, as celebrity, as we exalt it so much. So, you see these people doing this. “Oh my God, this dream job.” And there are so many guardrails in order to make a film or a television show or a play or anything as professional as you would expect it to be, there are a lot of boundaries you have to stay within. So, when actors break from that, you feel like, “Oh, they are actually a little bit like us.”

Dave:  They’re normal.

Yeardley:  A little bit normal, yeah. [laughs] Small Town Super Fam, you guys are awesome. We would be so curious to hear if you had any New Year’s resolutions yourselves. If you’re willing to share. We always love hearing from you. Guess what? We’ll see you next time.

[music]

Yeardley  Small Town Dick’s premium content is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith and coproduced by Detectives Dan and Dave.

 Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editors are Christina Bracamontes and Erin Phelps. Gary Scott is our executive producer, and our production manager is Logan Heftel. Logan also composed our theme music.

 Our social media maven is Monika Scott. The Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor are our associate producers and last but not least, our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 production. Small Town Super Fam, our team is forever grateful for your support.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]