Episode 6:
We’re Not Okay (We Promise)
Audio Transcript
SPEAKERS – Hayley Smith-Rose and Becca Howard
Becca 00:04
Welcome to Fever Dream Diaries. If you’ve been listening this long you probably have all the information you need to steal our identities. My name is Becca, this is Hayley and we are on Episode Six.
Hayley 00:16
Since we last spoke, we have made an outrageous purchase. Becca, tell em where we’re going
Becca
We’re going to Vegas, baby!
Hayley 00:22
We’re going to a festival.
Becca
Are you ready?
Hayley 00:33
I’m so excited for When We Were Young festival – is that what we’re calling it?
Becca 00:37
when we were young 2023. Yo get your frickin feet ready to dance to some emo music
Hayley 00:46
I’m pulling my vans out of my motherfucking closet. so give me a taste of some of this lineup
Becca 00:52
Alright, we’ve got green day, we’ve got blink182, we’ve got Good Charlotte, which, okay. Then we’ve got Michelle motherfucking Branch! oh my god this is like the most exciting thing.
Hayley 01:12
We are so psyched to see Michelle Branch and she’s not even very high on the list
Becca 01:15
I was like going down the list and I was like we gotta get to the good stuff. We’ve got gym class heroes. We’ve got Five Seconds of Summer a little bit out of that.
Hayley 01:26
I don’t see how that really applies but okay, I rock with it. It’s fine.
Becca 01:29
We’ve got simple plan. I thought it said John Mayer, it doesn’t. it says Joyce Manor. don’t know who that is.
Hayley
Rock on, Joyce.
Becca
We’ve got 30 Seconds to Mars all time low. That’s about the ones that I recognized.
Hayley 01:44
That alone is amazing. And I think what’s really special is our first concert was gym class heroes, All American Rejects, and was it the starting line?
Becca 01:58
It was the starting line.
Hayley and Becca singing
I’m gonna take your ass up like we just got married and you’re all mine now.
Becca 02:08
Oh my gosh,
Hayley 02:09
we can safely assume they will be there. So any who, did we drop a few hundred? Which might turn to much much more because it’s in Vegas for this festival in a year from now? This year was the first year that this festival happened and I got a little scared Becca, because day one they had to cancel. Apparently the winds were just wild in Las Vegas.
Becca 02:31
I heard that. And then I was doing some research and I was like, Is this a real thing?
Hayley 02:36
You know, I’ve never been to Vegas, so I don’t know what the winds are like, but apparently they’re howling.
Becca 02:40
I’ve only been to Vegas once with my dad. Oh, that’s a normal thing. It was really fun. I was sober and with my father and I still had a great time. I ran away from him when he was taking a nap and I just went on my little way
Hayley
that sounds so you
Becca
It is. I was in my early 20s and wanted to go just like see the city. Yeah, I ended up like walking around. There are all these free pools. Yeah, just like walk in and go to their beautiful pool. And so I ended up just like pool hopping all day.
Hayley 03:14
That’s very fun
Becca 03:17
So we’re gonna have to do that. If it’s not a sense of windstorm.
Hayley 03:21
It’s only one day. I don’t know how they’re gonna fit all these artists into one day, but it was moved. And it looks like it went very successfully after that, but I’m sure it still kind of messed with a lot of people
Becca 03:36
I feel for them.
Hayley 03:37
I know. But regardless, we’re very excited.
Becca 03:41
We are excited.
Hayley 03:42
Our first concert was so special. We went to many after that, but all American Rejects. I’m sad because they were at this year’s festival. They won’t be at next year’s but one day we’ll meet them again.
Becca 03:54
We saw them before they really blew up the way that they did after dirty little secret.
Hayley 04:00
This was before all that. This was just the first album.
Becca 04:04
we were like in a mosh pit.
Hayley 04:07
I didn’t love that. I still don’t love mosh pits to this day for myself. But we did get involved in that. It was not just you and I, was Jane there?
Becca 04:16
Yes and Jane’s dad gave us a ride probably in like Lowell, Massachusetts. Like we were I think we were a month into freshman year. And we just decided that we wanted to go to a concert
Hayley 04:29
shout out to us, first of all, but also to all the parents who do that because now I’m an adult, I can see how annoying that must be to have to like take your kid an hour away to a concert. And when you do just wait. Did he just sit there and wait?
Becca 04:43
He definitely just like sat and slept in their car. That’s so sad.
Hayley 04:47
crazy. And both of our parents have done that on numerous occasions. And it’s just like, wow, that’s something I didn’t appreciate as much then as I do now.
Becca 04:55
Yeah, shout out to my parents even though you kind of left me at home a lot. You also drove me a lot of places. To get rid of me probably.
Hayley 05:00
But that was our experience. And as we say that I do kind of realize maybe the reason we were expected to bring Jane to Justin Timberlake a few months later is because we had invited her to All American Rejects.
Hayley 05:18
It makes it even more messed up that we did what we did
Becca 05:22
and that we don’t know if she knows. She probably doesn’t
Hayley 05:26
Yeah, no, she doesn’t know. She knows now. We’ve given enough details about Jane that she knows who. That’s why we’re releasing this after the reunion.
Becca 05:40
Should we invite her to the festival next year?
Hayley 05:42
Actually, that would be so great. And I can’t wait to see her at the reunion.
Becca 06:10
If she shows up.
Hayley 06:14
What I’m starting to think is maybe we just had different childhoods than her and that’s part of why we grew apart because she was not a latchkey kid.
Becca 06:25
No, no, her mom was like a stay at home Mama, I believe.
Hayley 06:28
Yeah. And she had older siblings. I had older siblings too. But she had older siblings who still lived at home. So they were more able to like have an eye on her life. And they were just home. She didn’t go home to an empty house like we would often
Becca 06:44
That’s true. And she lived near the school. She had her own friends in her neighborhood. I think
Hayley 06:51
we like to think so.
Becca 06:54
I never went in her house not once. Mainly her descriptions of it from like her telling us about stories about oh,
Hayley 07:03
yeah, shoot, we don’t need to get it. That’s for her podcast. We’re gonna let her tell those stories on her podcast because
Becca 07:09
a response podcast from Jane. Like her side of the story, because she has got some good ones.
Hayley 07:12
Well, my real hope and love would be for her to be at the reunion. Maybe we can get her to record some fun stories. I would love to add that would be the dream.
Becca 07:25
So when we think about like, first of our teenage years, our first naked selfie that we took this collective naked selfie.
Hayley 07:39
Like this is a gold one. Okay,
Becca 07:41
We never wrote it down in our notes. So this is like from memory.
Hayley 07:45
We did not want any evidence of this occurring.
Becca 07:48
No way.
Hayley
Becca, alright.
Becca
This is a Friday night, possibly second semester, because we were a little bit more mature by freshman year second semester, obviously. We had established ourselves. And we had been invited to some more parties outside of Hayley’s garage. So we had a larger circle of friends at this point. And there’s this older man, boy. We all met through just parties. And he had like a special affinity for Jane, but like kind of was into all of us as like a collective. And they definitely wanted some group sex. But we were very naïve.
Hayley 08:28
Yeah, I did not pick up on that.
Becca 08:32
Like inviting us all to hang out in a way that was a little grooming, a lil predatory.
Hayley 08:38
I mean, he wasn’t that much older than us. I would also like to add, he was like one grade older
Becca 08:41
And we were 14 or 15. So that’s fair. And he had a whole leg up on us with a year of high school. I mean, think about it. That’s a huge change. So we’re at Hayley’s hanging out with Jane one Friday afternoon, and this guy messages us. I’m imagining it as like a group chat, but like I feel like he must have individually called one of us out for the photo.
Hayley 09:08
I think it was Jane. I feel like he was talking to Jane like they were hanging out
Becca 09:12
Yeah, And so he kind of like suggest she send him a photo of her top like topless.
Hayley 09:21
Yeah, of them titties. That’s child porn.
Becca 09:25
Literally. She was a 14 year old. So okay, he wanted her to dump em out on camera. We only had the like smallest flip phone
Hayley 09:39
And mind you, we were so innocent. We were not gonna let her show real titty.
Becca 09:44
No. Oh, Haley and I like really wanted to figure out a way to bypass the nudity. still giving him what he wanted.
Hayley 09:53
Weirdly enough. I feel like she was she was gonna go with it. I was like, Girl, not today. Not in my house.
Becca 09:59
Not in this house. so we sent her into the bathroom to get rid of her for a second. we’re like, try go practice. like we’re gonna figure this out. Tell me was it the light bulb or the knee first?
Hayley 10:19
I think we started with the light bulb because we didn’t want any skin in the photo at all.
Becca 10:26
Jane’s away and we tried to draw a nipple
Hayley 10:33
we tried to draw a nipple and areola on the light bulb as we understand now is not even the real shape that we should have been going for
Becca 10:44
I didn’t know what a tit looked like
Hayley 10:49
like but we didn’t know about naked pictures and all this. so anyways, we take a picture with the light bulb and a tit drawn on with Sharpie. We did do it in black and white and we sent that shit and a millisecond later he responds, “that’s a light bulb.” Fair enough.
Becca 11:07
“That’s a light bulb with a black dot on it.”
Hayley 11:10
again yeah, he described exactly what we had done.
Becca 11:14
So we’re really like not ready to give the real skin No. So some type of skin.
Hayley 11:20
Yeah, we compromised. so Jane comes back from the bathroom after doing God knows what.
Becca 11:28
freshening up and powdering herself. putting on her silk robe
Hayley 11:37
Oh my god dude. We can only imagine
Becca 11:44
She’s ready to go to his house.
Hayley 11:47
So anyhow, she comes in and we’re like Jane, we’re not gonna let you do this as much as you kind of are into it. We don’t want to be part of it. So we then try to take a photo of her knee with a sliced Swedish Fish as the nipple
Becca 12:05
Because we wanted to give some like height, we needed some 3dimension. Like we wanted to make this shadowy
Hayley 12:13
but no areola we do not get any. I could have grabbed a pepperoni
Becca 12:17
or just drawn like a pink circle.
Hayley 12:22
So anyhow, we send Jane’s knee with the Swedish Fish. A millisecond later he responds. “That’s a knee with a piece of swedish fish.” Yes. He even knew the candy. He knows the candy immediately
Becca 12:33
and then we walked outside and he was standing right there.
Hayley 12:37
he was at my home. After that, I think nothing happened. We eventually stopped doing that. And who knows where their conversation went after that. That’s not my business. But our involvement to my memory ended there. He’s a married man now. So anyways, I’m making him sound like a monster. He’s a man. He’s a man. Now.
Becca 13:00
He was 16
Hayley 13:01
he was 16. It was a time where this was happening. No one’s proud of it, I’m sure but this was a time where sexting was occurring.
Becca 13:10
Sexting was real. And it was an epidemic. absolute epidemic. The amount of friends I knew who just had naked photos passed around the school sucks.
Hayley 13:19
It was awful. It’s silly. I’m sure that still happens. To this day.
Becca 13:23
We have learned from Jane’s mistakes. Actually, they weren’t mistakes we actually helped her so
Hayley 13:30
I think we were spiritual guides for her. At the end of the day.
Becca 13:34
Once Jane started like dating, it felt like that was what the first move away from there was distance.
Hayley 13:43
Yeah, fair enough. As an adult I recognize you know, when you get another significant other you’re gonna spend time with them and do that and that’s okay. There’s nothing to feel shame about, just don’t alienate your freakin friends.
Becca
Yeah, that happens. That’s so real.
Hayley
That’s kind of what happened here. Maybe. Or we were just assholes. We would put up RIP Jane signs. At the end of the day is what really happened. And that’s what this whole podcast is literally just us. We’re sorry. Discovering all the mistakes we made.
Becca
We are sorry.
Hayley
But at the end of the day, we were all kids in all these stories. We were all kids even the person who asked for the picture so no one can be truly blamed. It’s just life.
Becca 14:28
I feel like to really understand how much have kids we were at the same time in our life. Like we were also going to Cheetah Girls Live.
Hayley 14:36
That’s the thing. Like we were obsessed with High School Musical. Definitely Cheetah Girls, which they didn’t even have Raven right?
Becca 14:44
After the second movie they ditched her fully. Why
Hayley 14:49
was she on tour?
Becca 14:50
There was a lot of drama there. Oh, there’s a lot of drama.
Hayley 14:55
Okay, I’m curious. I don’t know the Cheetah Girls drama.
Becca 14:59
So Raven was like severely bullied by the other girls and she was ostracized and like felt to not be part of the group. And yeah, it’s really sad.
Hayley 15:10
you can’t hear my shock expression but my jaw has dropped
Becca 15:15
Yeah it’s been a long couple of years since you know the pandemic started and I’ve had a lot of time to deep dive on YouTube.
Hayley
Yes, as we do.
Becca
And I definitely have done several deep dives on the cheetah girl saga like pretty much everyone in that whole group was done dirty by different people
Hayley 15:35
interesting I’m not surprised to hear that. that’s natural.
Becca 15:40
I love Adrienne. she had nude photos leaked of her and she was like made as a pariah online to be like this slut, but that was after she was already bullying Raven so like there’s layers there
Hayley 15:58
I need to know the answers. My dream is maybe if we do another season of this podcast. Can we get any of them on? What’s Kiely doing? What’s she doing?
Becca 16:13
I don’t want Kieley. she seems like the biggest pot stir. I’m just saying
Hayley 16:17
that’s why I do, like how funny would that be?
Becca 16:21
I know, I know. But do you remember the video Kieley made in the 2010 era?
Hayley
No.
Becca singing
Last night all I remember I was ass up, face down. He could get it again if he wants it, cause the sex was spectacular.
Hayley 16:43
Can you add this to the playlist on Spotify?
Becca 16:49
Yes. I can’t play it for you because my frickin sound is broken but the song is called spectacular by Kieley
Hayley 16:56
What’s her last name? Williams?
Becca
Kiely. Just Kiely. Yes. So everyone listening go on YouTube. Look up spectacular. You will not regret it
Hayley 17:06
go to our playlists better yet because we have a whole plethora of music for you to enjoy from our eras. What year did this come out?
Becca
2010
Hayley
That explains so much, yes.
Becca 17:14
similar to other singers who have gone through like transformations. Like I was very angry at this music video similar to how I was angry at Britney in the 2007 MTV and really, that was my, like, uninformed young, impressionable opinion.
Hayley
I got you. Yeah.
Becca
The woman who was like trying to do something different. When Hannah Montana Miley Cyrus did her whole like, I’m going to be an adult thing. Like I just sure I see. I get angry at the woman or I used to now I’m like, do whatever the fuck you want.
Hayley
Yeah, absolutely.
Becca
But at that time, because I wasn’t really being true to myself. I feel like it’s hard to like be excited for women who are like going out there and changing.
Hayley 18:02
See for me, I get that I was kind of when Christina Aguilera went from Genie in a Bottle to dirty I was like, put on.
Becca
like, we were young.
Hayley
We were young, but at the same time, I loved a sexy woman.
Becca
We still do love us a sexy woman
Hayley
oh I definitely still do, but I remember and this is off the topic of music. But I remember my mom bringing me to see Rent the Broadway musical as a kid and Mimi just being my spirit guide. she was going out tonight. she was a stripper at the cat scratch club and she I won’t say was living her best life, but I believed she was because I didn’t fully understand the whole aids part of Rent at that time.
Becca
You were young
Hayley
I was young. I should not have been taken to Rent. I didn’t know what AIDS was. that’s how young I was. I literally remember this is gonna sound disgusting. I was probably like six or seven
Becca 18:59
It’s not disgusting. Hopefully it went over your head.
Hayley 19:01
No, it did. What stuck with me was Mimi and how she was just wearing this animal print like sexy ass shit. And I loved her songs. And I just wanted that
Becca 19:14
yes, and you are still wearing your cheetah print
Hayley 19:18
Mimi influenced me in ways I notice every year.
Becca 19:22
Well, you influenced me to love Rent. I will say I remember we watched the movie.
Hayley 19:27
I was so excited when the movie came out because I had already been seeing the musical clearly. Lord the movie literally came out like five – Excuse me – 10 years after I probably saw the musical
Becca 19:40
makes sense because I think it was like 2006 we would have seen it
Hayley 19:43
so we saw the movie. Obviously fell in love with it. I thought Rosario Dawson was an amazing Mimi
Becca 19:49
Oh amazing.
Becca 20:01
must truly come true. Me and her.
Hayley 20:04
I need to apologize to everyone else in that theater that we were in because screaming we’re not behaving the way I think we were supposed to. But we were just being us. We were thrilled. We were so excited. We did have a few drinks before. But it was mostly the nerves. Absolutely. We got in there. We literally held hands the whole time. And we were just free. We’re singing everywhere.
Becca 20:29
I’m losing my mind
Hayley 20:31
wheezing with just excitement.
Becca 20:34
you wore your cheetah jumpsuit. we were looking good that day.
Hayley 20:39
we were living. I remember we even waited outside after to try to meet them. We did see Joanne
Becca 20:49
We yelled to Joanne. And we were like We love you. I think yeah, behind down that alleyway. And you know, we didn’t go down the creepy alley, we
Hayley 20:59
didn’t look scary at all.
Becca 21:01
So this year, I went to see Hamilton with Tyler sorry, to humblebrag but he kind of wanted to do the same thing where we were like, Let’s go meet the cast. And I kind of learned from our experience, right? We were like kind of like late like slow to get over and this time at Hamilton. We just walked over the door and they all just come out and autographs and ya know, we’re gonna have to go see it again. Now rent and like try to find the cast and get photos. I feel like
Hayley 21:29
we need to manifest this on the podcast because we’ve talked about something so many times in our lives that originally it started out as a joke kind of I feel but the more we talk about it, the more real it becomes and that is back ANYSTREAM to produce our very own Broadway show of rent well I guess not Broadway, we probably can’t
Becca 21:53
have an Off Broadway production.
Hayley 21:56
I guess we’re not probably qualified for Broadway production do an
Becca 22:00
Off Broadway traveling production of rent that’s our dream I also had an idea that we could like have a house for the cast if we did it in like Portland or Boston and then we could just like do it in one city at a time and then like have all the castle up together and then also film a reality show. Reality Show is definitely part of obviously there’s no question no know all the words to all of Joanne’s parts just so that I can play that role we
Hayley 22:30
safely assumed and you know what if it’s our production we can do whatever we want that Becca would be Joanne and I will be Maureen
Becca 22:37
Do you want to be me me though? I would be Roger.
Hayley 22:40
I want to be Mimi, but I don’t know if I’m qualified.
Becca 22:45
You are. You are Mimi. I can channel Maureen.
Hayley 22:50
Okay, that may be the direction we go. So we have to be in it.
Becca
Yes, that’s a requirement.
Hayley
And we have been talking about this for many years.
Becca 22:59
We’ve talked about it to other people. They look at us like we’re absolutely insane. And that fuels the fire more for us to actually do this. Like when things go badly or go well like our keyword and we’re doing rent or we’re not doing that’s how we get away with not telling people what is going on in our lives.
Hayley 23:16
Why doesn’t anyone believe in us?
Becca 23:20
I feel like I would say my boyfriend as well. Depends on the day. Yeah,
Hayley 23:24
that is not Zach loves us. But he does not believe we’re actually skeptical as hell. It’s hurtful and disgusting. Just give it
Becca 23:34
I actually feel like I’m doing this to prove them wrong. Yeah,
Hayley 23:37
so anywho look for a listing. If you see us coming to a city near you, please come out and support our own version of Rent
Becca 23:48
Maybe we can give our listeners who haven’t had the gracious opportunity to watch Rent. Let’s like give them a little bit of a backstory on what it is.
Hayley 23:56
Yeah, go for it. Becca
Becca 23:58
So the year is 1989. The city is New York City. We’re poor. We’re destitute. We have aids. We’re heroin addicts. And we are the cast of friends, seven main characters. We have six who are like the protagonist and then one who’s like the antagonist trying to steal their apartment building right. So Maureen, is this really bold, politically outspoken lesbian? Right? And that was the first lesbian I had ever seen in a movie. I’m gonna be honest with you. she’s the first person I like identify as strong independent lesbian characters other than maybe Ellen. that was the only other lesbian I had seen.
Hayley
Yeah, fair
Becca
Joanne is her girlfriend. Joanne is the lawyer she’s very straight laced, and Joanne is kind of like one of my alter egos and then I feel like Maureen is my other alter ego so it’s like two sides of My personality
Hayley 25:01
Yeah, so you can play both characters. I’ll play Mimi
Becca 25:06
And I’ll be Roger
Hayley 25:08
So I guess I might as well play Mimi. no other actors. we’re creating a lot of work for ourselves.
Becca 25:19
You can be Mimi while I’m Roger and you can be Angel. Oh my god wait there’s eight main characters
Hayley 25:30
Alright, we’re getting way too into the script. you know, if you want to know what happens go watch Rent, because you will love it and or you won’t and I don’t give a shit
Becca 25:40
But we’re gonna make Rent. We’re going to make this month’s rent, and then we’re going to make the show Rent. Maybe
Hayley 25:50
No it’s happening. We have had so many just wild experiences from seeing rent together multiple times. Too many concerts and they keep growing and I feel like oh, yeah, one day we’re gonna look at this podcast as an experience like that. And that’s a beautiful thing.
Becca 26:05
yeah, this is fun. This feels like just hanging out.
Hayley 26:09
This is natural.
Becca 26:10
Other people agree. And you know what? We’re just doing our best
Hayley 26:19
We’re doing our best trying to save people from sexting incidents, trying to just make friends at Leda lanes, and the list goes on and on.
Becca
truly
Hayley
I think we should save some more treats for next time. we’re getting closer and closer to the reunion every single day, so I think maybe next time we get together we should create a game plan for that and talk about what we need to do because I’m not fully prepared mentally
Becca 26:51
I’m not either. this is not okay.
Hayley 26:53
I’m not okay, I promise, and on that note until we meet again
Becca 26:59
until next time
Hayley 27:00
if you like what you hear make sure you follow us on all social media. Becca tell them where they can find us.
Becca 27:07
our Instagram handle is @feverdreamdiaries, Tik Tok is @feverdreamdiariespod and if you want to email us, you can always send us a message at feverdreamdiaries@gmail.com
Hayley 27:19
Send us all your deepest darkest secrets. We would love to read them we would love to connect with you on that spiritual level and also on our social media. We’re going to be posting all sorts of content relating to the episode see you all embarrassing photos of us see relics from the past that will bring you back to a simpler time
Becca 27:40
right? Before Tik Tok, a time before Instagram. actually when MySpace ruled the world
Hayley 27:46
oh my god, a time we all yearn for so be sure to follow us and if you’ve really liked what you hear yes a freaking review somewhere would you? Oh yeah, and if you think that someone else in this world would like this podcast you show us some love so it can get spread to them Apple Music, Spotify wherever you’re listening to podcast leave us a five star review. We won’t be able to sleep well tonight. Otherwise, please. We need this
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Becca, Jane, day, friends, Rent, real, light bulb, reunion, wanted, podcast, fever dream, year, cheetah, love, gym class heroes, Hayley, photo, ready, All-American Rejects
Fever Dream Diaries 