Australia & AirBnBs (from hell), + Practicing Blindness & Getting Tattoos
What if the world around you felt ancient, alive—and occasionally out to get you? Looking at you, Australia.
This one goes everywhere in the best way—and somehow it all holds together. Dom kick off with a story about a woman who won’t ever hear the podcast because she’s deaf. Which is funny on its own. And then Gabe jumps into this old camp story where a friend would just randomly close her eyes while carrying dishes or walking down the hall. Why?
She was practicing for blindness.
Then we head to Australia. Stories roll out about living there, visiting, loving the laid-back culture, and being terrified of the creatures in the sky (seriously, flying foxes are not okay). Gabe spent months there: went for pastor training school and ended up stranded in a house 40 minutes from campus with no car.
It was a mess, but also full of good memories—beaches, ferry rides, meat pies, and some of the best coffee you can find. There’s a whole bit on how McDonald's down there is weirdly amazing.
We pivot hard into tattoos next. One of the hosts talks about a tattoo he wants: a lion with a banner that says "be not afraid" over its eyes. But he hasn’t gotten it yet. Why? Because he wants to earn it. He wants to feel like he really understands what it means before wearing it forever.
That kicks off a fun riff about tattoos as badges, not reminders. And it turns into this conversation about fear, growth, and the kinds of marks we carry inside before we ever put them on our skin.
Then it gets chaotic. There's this saga about an Airbnb next door.
The kind of story you wouldn’t believe unless it happened to you. Slamming doors, late-night arrivals, no soundproofing, and a host who ghosted them completely. The guy even got blocked for asking for quiet. It spirals out into landlord drama, HOA nonsense, and multiple dead-ends until finally, after nearly a year, it gets sorted. And the house goes blissfully, wonderfully silent.
Somehow we move from noise complaints to collectibles. And it works. There's something about the joy of surrounding yourself with things that remind you who you are, or who you used to be. Things that spark connection or creativity, even if they just sit on a shelf.
From there we drift into the deep stuff—places that feel ancient, lands that call to us. Dom talks about why Ireland, even though he’s never lived there, feels like home. While Australia, for all its charm, doesn’t call him back. It's this whole idea of psychic imprints and cultural memory and feeling a place in your bones. There’s also a really cool metaphor in here about coral reefs and human civilizations being built up over time like underwater cities.
And then things turn serious. Health insurance horror stories come out. One of them was promised coverage for an $80,000 Lyme treatment. A year later? Denied for a "pre-existing condition." Another tried to get care for his newborn and got told, "a good dad would stay on hold longer."
We wrap today the way we start: laughter. Plus a sense that, yeah, life can be a mess, but you're not alone in it. Whether you’re battling noise through thin walls, trying to figure out where home is, or saving up for a tattoo that means more than words, this episode's got you. Stay weird. Stay human.
We’d say we have all the answers, but we’d be lying.