Shiny Epi People
Shiny Epi People
Tamarra James-Todd, PhD on peer mentoring and joy riding in her dad's Mustang
Tamarra James-Todd, PhD is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She tells me about the motivations for her research interests in environmental reproductive justice, dedicating her diabetes research to her late father, the value of peer mentorship, joy riding with her dad in his Mustang in the '70s, dinner with Hannibal Lecter and Molly Ringwald, and more! Laugh along with us!
Lisa Bodnar:
Here we are finally.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Now I can't seem to get the lanyard off.
Lisa Bodnar:
Dude, don't worry. You are among-
Tamarra James-Todd:
You're having fun with me, right?
Lisa Bodnar:
Very good company with people that are very discombobulated when they start. You're not alone. Look, we're just on time. We often start at 20 after because people can't figure it out.
Hello friends. Welcome back to Shiny Epi People. I'm Lisa Bodnar. What's up? It's the New Year. I am wishing you a realistically slightly better year than last year. Be kind on yourself. And if you are a resolution type person, I'm not, make sure your resolutions are at least half made up of ones to take care of yourself. Of course, you can look for the show on your socials, Twitter, and Instagram. Feeling a little weak in the Insta follower category, so come on over. Also, if you would like to financially support the show, go to my Patreon at patreon.com/shinyepipeople. You can subscribe for as little as a dollar a month. Cancel any time. Do I sound like an infomercial? My podcast hosting site sends out these emails that are sort of like newsletters each week with a main topic, and recently the topic was how to get financial support from your listeners without seeming desperate.
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Today, I'm speaking with Tamarra James-Todd. Tamarra got her MPH in international health at Boston University and then her PhD in epidemiology from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in 2008. Tamarra is now the Mark and Catherine Winkler associate professor of environmental reproductive epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Tamarra's primary appointment is in environmental health, and she also is on faculty in epidemiology. Tamarra's research aims to improve women's reproductive and long term health. She studies the role of environmental chemicals and their disparity on adverse maternal health outcomes. And she's also interested in developing pregnancy and postpartum interventions to improve women's chronic disease risk. Tamarra and I talk about the path of her research interests, how her work on diabetes is dedicated to her father, the value of peer mentoring and more. We laugh a lot and I hope you get as much joy and insight in listening to this as I did talking with her. I hope you enjoy this chat.
Hi Tamarra.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Hi Lisa. Thank you so much for having me.
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm so grateful that you would take time out of your very busy schedule working, and parenting, and being a woman on top of all of those things, having a little bit of life to yourself. Do you get a life to yourself, Tamarra?
Tamarra James-Todd:
What's that? What does that mean? Not sure anymore.
Lisa Bodnar:
Fair. How old are your kids?
Tamarra James-Todd:
So, the 13 year old does give us life to ourselves. They don't really want to deal with us at all.
Lisa Bodnar:
I love one of those, yeah.
Tamarra James-Todd:
The eight year old is uber clingy and I love her to pieces. I'm going to miss these years, but yeah, I am spending time extracting her from my... Please, personal space, please. The 13 year old says to me, "I think her love language is touch." And I'm like, "I think you're right."
Lisa Bodnar:
That's funny that you say that because I did a little love language test with the kids, with my kids. My little one, hers was also touch, and then my other two were gifts. Which is [inaudible 00:04:38]. Just like, bring me the gifts. Bring me the gifts.
Tamarra James-Todd:
I love that.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah, bring me the gifts. And they also were quality- My middle one was quality time.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Oh yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
And that was... That stuff is really good to know. That's what she wants. She wants time with me and they want me to buy them things.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Time and buy me things. That sounds like my 13 year old. Like, please I need quality time- And words of affirmation, yes. That is another- But that's... I love it. At least you know that when you buy them something, they feel loved.
Lisa Bodnar:
What is your love language?
Tamarra James-Todd:
That's a really great question. I think over time, I've realized that quality time does indeed matter to me. And so my husband has figured this out and ensures that there's a date night that happens at least once a month. What's yours?
Lisa Bodnar:
Probably not surprisingly, is words of affirmation. I'm a words person.
Tamarra James-Todd:
So, here's my word of affirmation, that I am so excited to be here. And I'm so... I was telling... Actually, I was telling the whole family yesterday that I was like, "I'm so glad that this podcast exists." And thank you for humanizing us as a field, as a community. So I'm excited to do this.
Lisa Bodnar:
Thank you. Thank you for your words of affirmation. They make me feel very loved Tamarra. That's what I need.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Who knew that we would take this?
Lisa Bodnar:
Who knew? Who knew? This isn't even on my list of things to talk about. I just figured with you, we were going to just see where we went.
Tamarra James-Todd:
It's so true.
Lisa Bodnar:
I've talked to this woman for like 30 minutes of my life, but I have a feeling we're just going to kind of wing it, a lot of this. I'm super happy you're here. Where did you grow up, Tamarra?
Tamarra James-Todd:
So I am happily from the Midwest. I am from Kansas city Missouri. Home of barbecue, jazz and love being from there.
Lisa Bodnar:
What was it like growing up?
Tamarra James-Todd:
One of the things that... Sometimes you do these comparisons, right? So the thing that I noticed that's most different is that people are kind there. So in a way that I think on a regular basis, there's greater acknowledgement of someone's humanity. And so whether that's when you're just walking down the street, eye contact is made and you say, hello. I'll never forget, after having spent two years here in Boston, I went back home. But then the first week of being there, I had gone to do a job interview at the University of Kansas. And I'm walking down the hallway and I don't notice this person. And this person stops me squarely in the hallway and says, "I don't know where you're from-" which I literally grew up like 20, 30 minutes away from this place. "But here we speak to someone when we see them."
Lisa Bodnar:
You were called out.
Tamarra James-Todd:
I was called out. I adopted the Bostonian ways of just keep walking. You don't stop and talk to people because then you're odd, there's something wrong.
Lisa Bodnar:
Tamarra, you're most interested in environmental reproductive justice. What does that mean?
Tamarra James-Todd:
So Lisa, we start our careers off and there's something that kind of sticks, something that brought us into this, right? And that moment happened for me back when I was a masters student at Boston university and I was taking the class I didn't want to take. You know how we have to do all those intro classes? And I was least looking forward to the 7:00 PM environmental health class. I was like, that is not what I think is interesting. Maybe I shouldn't say that. My environmental epidemiology colleagues are going to be like, "What?"
Lisa Bodnar:
But now you're studying it. It seems okay. There's a good ending.
Tamarra James-Todd:
There's a good ending. There's a happy ending there. And Nancy Maxwell who at the time was at Silent Spring Institute was the faculty member teaching that class. And she put up this slide that I still remember to this day. I now include it in many of my presentations, that was about targeted magazine advertisement. So it's an ecologic study, which of course as epidemiologists we were like, "Eh." But it was a really good ecologic study because it got at the crux of a question that is kind of my underlying theme question of all of my work, which is the question of why? Why do we see risk adversely affecting certain communities more so than other communities? And is there something that is really driving those differences? And so I ended up in this space of thinking about hair products because of Nancy. This slide that she showed and a case series, basically showing young African American girls as young as four months old, as old as four years old. So little kids with breast and pubic hair.
And the question was, why? And this pediatric endocrinologist was really intrigued by this, that all sorts of family history studies, and so on finally was like, "What are you doing at home?" They were all using hair products, which was not foreign to me. It occurred to me that people didn't know what I was talking about when I was talking about hair products. I was like, "I'm not really talking about things that shampoo, conditioner that readily rinses out. I'm talking about hair oils, lotion." So these kind of like pomades that moisturize hair. Leave in conditioners by definition, leave in. So these are leave in maintenance products that are necessary for people with kind of curlier, kinkier hair to keep their hair kind of moisturized and manageable. And the previous work that had been done was almost exclusively done in hair relaxers and what was happening kind of even now, you see this really striking decrease in hair relaxer or straightener use, particularly among the black community.
And what has been less discussed, are these hair maintenance products you're using oftentimes daily, if not weekly. So these are repeated exposures that really weren't being studied. And I'm so glad that I see more and more researchers kind of picking up this and running with it. But yeah, that's what we're talking about. What we ended up finding was that there were disparities in sources of exposure to chemicals that are known to be reproductive toxicants. And that those disparities and exposure were linked to hair product use. And that young black girls were using these products more, their families were using these products. And to be honest, we live in cold places, we have to use something. But when we shared some of this work with Silent Spring Institute and when that was published, every single last one of these products that were commonly used from, based on our study, which was called The Greater New York Hair Product Study, had multiple forms of these endocrine disrupting chemicals.
Lisa Bodnar:
Wow.
Tamarra James-Todd:
And ended up in a space where it was really asking the question, not just of why, but then what can we do about it? And I think that's at the crux of the justice question. We can't continue to document difference. At some point we have to use the data we're generating to help affect change. I feel like my charge is not only to provide the data and I can't just let it sit there in the journals or wherever and I hope that policy makers pick it up. I actually have to do something about it.
Lisa Bodnar:
So you also studied diabetes. How does diabetes layer on top of this? Or is it something that's kind of adjacent?
Tamarra James-Todd:
At the time, the cancer epidemiology world wasn't quite ready to have these conversations around these chemicals in consumer products. That has changed widely over time. And I had just started a postdoc, was intrigued by the fact, this is spoken a true epidemiologist I suppose, that I went over... Because I was diagnosed with type one to diabetes while I was in grad school. And I went over to the Joslin Diabetes Center and I was intrigued by the amount of data they were collecting of which I learned down the line, they were collecting data that is particularly in pregnancy data and other data that was being underutilized in the pregnancy space. And I was working with Janet Rich-Edwards, who of course is a reproductive epidemiologist. And I was like, "You're collecting all of this data. There's so much to do."
And of course the convergence of that with I'm studying endocrine disrupting chemicals. Well, voila, that sounds like a great opportunity. I was excited to learn more about pathophysiology of diabetes and of course, knew a lot having had it for at that time, maybe like five or so years. And my dad had passed away from complications of diabetes. And so I was really passionate about it, but knew enough that I needed to kind of stay away from type one. Because it was a little too personal, but was really interested in kind of bringing together the reproductive side. So deciding to kind of land in the gestational diabetes space and kind of thinking about blood glucose levels in the context of that and bringing that into the picture of also looking at environmental factors that could contribute to gestational diabetes. That line of work is very much dedicated to my dad. Who's like... It's important to me that I make a contribution to decrease that in our world, because it seems to be an ever growing issue.
Lisa Bodnar:
Can you tell me a little about your dad?
Tamarra James-Todd:
Well, I lost him early on, so... It's funny, I feel like- I don't know if you've ever experienced this where your memories of a person are the things that people tell you. So I was four, but my dad was an architect and we were actually headed to Alaska. I was going to grow up in Alaska, not Missouri, because he was working on some projects up there. And so... And just, he'd had type one for a long time.
Lisa Bodnar:
Would you share any stories that you've been told about him or things that... Ways in which people have told you that you are similar to him?
Tamarra James-Todd:
Yeah, yeah. So it's funny that you asked that because one of the stories... So there's two. One is that apparently I used to... He had this sports car Mustang thing that I used to apparently... Okay, this is in the seventies, late seventies, early eighties-
Lisa Bodnar:
Car seats were not a thing.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Full exposure.
Lisa Bodnar:
Seat belts? Nope, nope.
Tamarra James-Todd:
None of that.
Lisa Bodnar:
No.
Tamarra James-Todd:
So this is a sports car. It has a little hump thing that you sit in. So, apparently I would sit on this hump thing, no seatbelt obviously, sunroof down, hands up in the air, go down the hill on the way to this place that was called Der Weinerschnitzel, which was a hot dog stand that we would go to after... My mom, she was like, "I would come back home and find you two with your wrappers from the hot dog stand."
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Just taking a nap together.
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh, love that.
Tamarra James-Todd:
So I'm like that... Stories like that. Or we had an Alaska Malamute named Buddha. And so-
Lisa Bodnar:
You had a what? Alaska what?
Tamarra James-Todd:
Alaskan Malamute, which looks like a Siberian Husky, but it's black and white. Huge dog, but apparently was my guardian. So, when I was born, the dog would just... Wherever I was, the dog kind of sat and made sure that people could not come near me. This was my dad's dog. My dad trained this dog. So unfortunately when my dad passed, I guess the dog thought I was their owner instead of my mom. So if I were to get in trouble, the dog would guard her from coming anywhere near me. So she unfortunately had to give the dog away, because she was like, "The dog would only listen to the four year old."
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. That doesn't work.
Tamarra James-Todd:
It doesn't work.
Lisa Bodnar:
It doesn't work. When you're throwing a temper tantrum and the dog is like, "She's right. She is right."
Tamarra James-Todd:
Exactly. Just a really kind, fun person. And I think I aspire to be... I'm definitely kind, I think, but yeah, fun. I'm still trying to... I can't put the kids on the little seat of the car like that [inaudible 00:17:30].
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm glad, because if you said it, people are going to come after you.
Tamarra James-Todd:
I know.
Lisa Bodnar:
They're going to take your kids away.
Tamarra James-Todd:
The eight year old of course, glares at me and says, "Why do you have to be so strict? You need to be more fun." And I was like...
Lisa Bodnar:
That's my label too. I am the one that's not fun.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
As the mother, it's hard to just be the fun one.
Tamarra James-Todd:
That's right. I can't, that's not my job. Honestly, I was like, "Your friends are fun. I am not."
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes. I love that. Oh my God. I'm going to use that.
Tamarra James-Todd:
I'm like, that's why we have friends, right? I get to be the one who's like, "No, you can't do that. How about we go get a pizza?" I mean, doesn't that seem like fun? I don't know.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes, totally.
You have some experience where you wanted to talk about peer mentorship. Which to me is such a wonderful, under discussed form of mentorship.
Tamarra James-Todd:
So this is right at the point where I am finishing up a postdoc maybe early on in my first faculty appointment at Harvard Medical School. And I'm realizing that the journey that my senior mentors went on 10, 15, 20 years ago is really a different experience. That is not what the world looks like anymore. Trying to get a K-grant, trying to do all of these things. It's a different world with respect to pay lines and all of that. And not really feeling like I had a sense of what is the path forward? How do I do this? And kind of enter stage left, Monique Hedderson, who was-
Lisa Bodnar:
I know Monique.
Tamarra James-Todd:
You know Monique.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah.
Tamarra James-Todd:
She was phenomenal. And this is where SER, amazing love it. So we're at SER here in Boston. This is years ago. And she says to me, while we're in an elevator, "How's it going?" And I'm like, "I put this K in maybe two or three times now, I don't know. And I'm kind of falling apart because it's just, every time it goes in, it's like, is the score getting lower or staying the same? Nothing's happening and this is what my mentors are telling me to do." And she was like, "Why don't you just stop submitting that? Just don't submit that anymore. That sounds like a bad idea." She's basically telling me like it is because that's what a good friend will do for you. And it wasn't like we were besties or anything, but I was so great for that because the next statement that she made was, "Submit it as an R01. Stop submitting Ks. Just turn that into an RO1 one and be done with it." And so I did that and it was the R01 that got funded.
Lisa Bodnar:
Ah, amazing.
Tamarra James-Todd:
It was a shift in my awareness of the importance of the person who's one step ahead of you. Because her journey looked really different than her mentor's journey. Having the experience of being kind of at least just one step, a year or two ahead of me, she had the awareness of, this is how much things have changed. It's now, at this moment in time, easier to get an R than it is to get a K level grant. And so stop doing that, because that's a futile exercise and change. And it's very different than the senior faculty approach. Not that you don't need a senior mentor- Instead of senior mentors, but I'm a huge proponent of group mentorship and the value and importance of peer mentors. And they're also just more accessible because they're us. So we can get to us a little more easily. So it's been a phenomenal experience.
Lisa Bodnar:
I think that peer mentorship is so important. It has helped me so tremendously. One of the real benefits is my comfort level and being vulnerable with people who are peers and admitting things like things I don't know and just getting real. I just feel like you can get real with your peers
Tamarra James-Todd:
Then that's exactly it. There's this element of I can be vulnerable because we're going through... All of us are kind of going through parts of this together. And so I can be my most authentic self when I'm meeting with someone else who is my same age or similar stage in their career and they get it. I don't feel like I'm going to be judged.
Lisa Bodnar:
Something that I've also found to be valuable is mentorship from people who are more junior to me. A close friend of mine is an assistant professor. He and I mentor each other and I just... He has a different style of work. And so I'm like, "Tell me about that." Or we go back and forth with collaborator issues and sharing stuff with one another. And I think maybe what all of this kind of centers on is that, everyone has something to offer.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Yeah. One of the things that... I mean, you bring up such an important point. So many of us, epidemiologist, have type A personalities, right? We're, go-getters, we're mover and shakers and we want to get things done and be our best, but we also can very intensely get into this culture of comparison, right? And one of the things that I think is really hard to kind of come to grips with... I don't know if you ever did this, I did. I hate admit that I did this, but…
Lisa Bodnar:
I think I know what you're going to say. Go ahead and say it and I'm going to admit if I've done it. Go ahead.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Have you ever actually gone [inaudible 00:23:20] that or whatever, and looked up some old classmate of yours and say, "How many publications do they have?" And then in my case, because you know, I feel awful because I only have X number of publications, this person has whatever. I don't know if you've ever done that.
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh, I've never, ever in my entire career. I would never consider doing such a natural thing. When in our world we are counting publications as currency. I've never done that. Never. And also I will say on the flip side, which is fucking obnoxious as I say it, but I used to be like, "Oh, look at how much better I am than this person, because I have three more papers." I'm just like, "What? How ridiculous."
Tamarra James-Todd:
Haven't we all?
Lisa Bodnar:
How ridiculous?
Tamarra James-Todd:
It's just the most absurd thing. And yet, we live in a culture of failure to miss out. And we're concerned about whether or not... How do we add up to other people and all that. So this idea that comparison is healthy. And I think, yes, there's some healthy aspects to doing that. But at the end of the day, I think comparison's a killer. And this gets back to your point about the importance of valuing what different people can bring to the table for you and so on. So for me, what I realized in that kind of peer mentorship space, when I was able to kind of see beyond the like, "Oh, how many publications do you have?" Or, "How many grants do you have?"
Once I can move my kind of psyche beyond that. And be like, "Wait, this person's really amazing at X. And what if this person sat on my team and we could do this together?" Together again, the synergy right? So thinking about more... What's value added and being able to do that. So I would say the majority of my RO1s now are in PI grants where-
Lisa Bodnar:
Same, same.
Tamarra James-Todd:
And I think the challenge has been, I think traditional academia doesn't value that as much because they think no, or who's the sole PI or are you the sole PI? Do you understand that the idea is that much better when I work with my peer and together we can do this. And it also embeds a bit of peer mentorship in it. And all of that, there's all sorts of things that are built into that that make us better together. So moving out of the space where we compare and into a space where we value each other, I think that that's helpful.
Lisa Bodnar:
I love that.
Tamarra James-Todd:
We're intentional... I don't remember when, maybe even at the beginning of the pandemic, of actually removing the television from our home. So we don't have TV in our home anymore.
Lisa Bodnar:
What? Why would you do that to yourselves? As if the pandemic is not bad enough, you're going to remove the TV.
Tamarra James-Todd:
We removed the TV. So, I mean, this is the beauty of devices, right? But the eight year old was devastated.
Lisa Bodnar:
Right? How is she going to watch the great PBS stuff or Wild Kratts. Does anyone watch Wild Kratts anymore?
Tamarra James-Todd:
I don't know.
Lisa Bodnar:
Wild Kratts-
Tamarra James-Todd:
It was a great show though.
Lisa Bodnar:
It was.
Tamarra James-Todd:
I'm not sure it's on anymore.
Lisa Bodnar:
But it could be.
Tamarra James-Todd:
It could be.
Lisa Bodnar:
Someone let us know, please.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
Also Word Girl. Does anyone watch World Girl>
Tamarra James-Todd:
Word Girl. I remember Word Girl.
Lisa Bodnar:
Word Girl. We loved World Girl.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
One time my... So word girl is, like five-, six-, seven-year-olds, eight-year-olds. I don't know. And I put her to bed and I was like, "What's wrong? You don't seem okay." And she's like, "I'm crestfallen. That's the Word Girl word."
Tamarra James-Todd:
That is phenomenal. So for the creators or Word Girl, just know that you made a significant impact on the vocabulary of all young children.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. I will tell you that recently I was like, "You said this to me." And she's like, "What does crestfallen mean?" Tamarra, what's a text that if you got from your husband or your best friend that you'd know it was them without even seeing who texted you?
Tamarra James-Todd:
The first thing that comes to mind is something that my husband writes in most texts.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah?
Tamarra James-Todd:
Which also I'm a little embarrassed to admit. He always writes "Hello, most beautiful woman in the world."
Lisa Bodnar:
Aww. Oh don't be embarrassed.
Tamarra James-Todd:
So it's very sweet. And I of course, I don't need to know the name on it.
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm going to text you that later. Just saying.
Tamarra James-Todd:
I'll be like, "Wait, wait." Confused.
Lisa Bodnar:
What's a talent that you possess that maybe not a lot of people know about?
Tamarra James-Todd:
So when I went to college, I went to college for molecular biology and viola performance. So I play the viola.
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh cool.
Tamarra James-Todd:
And yeah, that continues to be fun. I, of course, don't do any professional playing or anything. But I can also continue to... Right now, my 13-year-old's learning how to play the cello. So it's kind of fun because we get to kind of do little duets together or whatever, so.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Favorite salty snack?
Tamarra James-Todd:
I mean, does hummus count? Because I feel like hummus can be salty.
Lisa Bodnar:
What do you eat with it though? If you eat it with a carrot, doesn't count.
Tamarra James-Todd:
You weren't going to like my answer.
Lisa Bodnar:
No, I was ready for it. I was like, reject. Reject.
Tamarra James-Todd:
It's like nope, cut that out.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. Which of the seven dwarfs do you most identify with? As a reminder, here are the seven dwarfs. Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Dopey, Grumpy, and Doc.
Tamarra James-Todd:
I'm probably... I think the people around me would say, "You're Doc, because you're a little bossy."
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah, yeah.
Tamarra James-Todd:
So-
Lisa Bodnar:
I would imagine a lot of epidemiologists are Doc.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Yeah. I think so.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Oh no.
Lisa Bodnar:
I am obviously Bashful. Clearly.
Tamarra James-Todd:
I was going to go with Sleepy on my end. I was like, "Maybe I should say Sleepy or Sneezy sometimes, so. No, no.
Lisa Bodnar:
Tamarra, if you had to have dinner with one of these three groups of fictional movie characters, who would you choose to have dinner with?
Tamarra James-Todd:
Oh dear.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. Are you ready?
Tamarra James-Todd:
Okay, ready.
Lisa Bodnar:
Here's the first group of three. Hannibal Lecter.
Tamarra James-Todd:
This is great. This is great.
Lisa Bodnar:
Do you know? I don't know her name, but Molly Ringwald's character in the Breakfast Club.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Oh, I don't know her name and yet we've watched this-
Lisa Bodnar:
But you know who she is, right? That totally whiny-
Tamarra James-Todd:
Yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
Rich. Yeah, and the velociraptor from Jurassic Park. That's your first group of three.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Oh wow.
Lisa Bodnar:
The second group of three is the Terminator. I like that you're taking notes.
Tamarra James-Todd:
I am. I have to write this down. I can't-
Lisa Bodnar:
Scar from the Lion King, and Regina George from Mean Girls.
Tamarra James-Todd:
I love it. I think you may have learned a lot about me so far because I think you'll know that I'll probably do the first option of Hannibal, Molly and the Velociraptor.
Lisa Bodnar:
Wait, what brought you over to that group? I didn't think that group was going to happen, but maybe it was Molly Ringwald. Maybe she did it.
Tamarra James-Todd:
It totally was Molly- I would love to see that interplay between Hannibal and Molly. The velociraptor just adds to the fun. May eat everyone, but hey.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah, okay. Tamarra, this has just been a joy to meet and talk with you.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Thank you so much, Lisa. This was so much fun. And so, thank you for the invitation and please, let's stay in touch and-
Lisa Bodnar:
Well I'm going to text you like, "Hello, the most beautiful lady in the world." And then-
Tamarra James-Todd:
And when I get that, I'm going to double take now.
Lisa Bodnar:
And okay, listeners, if you text with Tamarra or you email her, please show her that you listen to her episode by telling her she is the most beautiful woman in the world.
Tamarra James-Todd:
Likewise, Lisa. You're going to get that too. Because we need words of affirmation.
Lisa Bodnar:
That's right.
I was taking this environmental health class and this old guy was teaching it. And he was talking about water sanitation plants and talked about how tampons get into that system and- Whatever this was 20 some years ago. So, who knows if this is appropriate now. He was saying what a problem this was and he kept talking about it. But instead of calling them tampons, he called them tampins. And-
Tamarra James-Todd:
Did you all know what he was talking about at the time?
Lisa Bodnar:
It took a little while to be like, "Tampin, I don't know what that is." He ruined environmental health for me. Anytime anyone says the word environmental health, all I can think of is a shlubby dude standing behind a podium and saying, "Tampins."
Tamarra James-Todd:
Tampins.
Lisa Bodnar:
Tampins. Stop it.
