[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Hot or Iced. I'm Laura Beth Buckleiter.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: And I'm Alison Brininger. Here on Hot or Iced, we get together in local coffee shops to have conversations with fascinating people looking to make an impact, big or small, on the world and the people around them.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: We do that in three segments. First, we will brew it up. This is our chance to promote independent coffee shops and introduce the wonderful people who work in them. We get to meet our guests and catch up on the latest and greatest of, well, whatever.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Next, we serve it up as we dive into the stories and lives of our guests, learning more about their lives and passions.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Finally, we savor it, letting the aroma of the coffee settle as we contemplate some deeper thoughts of life.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: However or wherever you found us, we're glad you did. Now grab yourself a cup and pull up a chair.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: I.
I read something this morning that I've been dying to bring up.
It was a meme, actually, that I saw and it was this. This man laying in bed surrounded by stuffed animals. And he's quoted something that is his son had asked him.
He said, is Bingo B I n G o the name of the dog or the farmer?
That's a good. Never thought about that.
[00:01:37] Speaker C: That'll get you thinking.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, that was like almost how I woke up this morning and I'm like, that's. Yeah, it's been almost as it doesn't tell you.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: I think it's for dog. But you're right, it could be.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: I mean, that's conventional. Conventional wisdom says the dog.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Why do you assume that the farmer's a man?
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Love it.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Wow.
We are not 30 seconds into this podcast.
[00:02:07] Speaker C: I just love that you transitioned from saying, I read something this morning to actually, it was a meme.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Fair. I mean, I did read it. I mean, it was words.
[00:02:17] Speaker C: True, True, not inaccurate.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't listen to it.
Yeah. Okay. Well, we are. And we. We shook things up a little bit because our guest, Abby Van Meter, who we're going to introduce more in a little minute. In a minute. Minute.
Minute.
Requested this place and we're at t speed.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Which is not far from my house. Yeah. Which is kind of nice. I mean, I could have walked here. I did not. Because it's still like 35 degrees outside. But yeah.
Great. So, Allison, tell us a little bit more about where we are.
[00:03:03] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: So see has a very wonderful local Indiana connection. It is owned by Tamika Catchings, who played for the Fever for a long time and is a four time Olympian as well.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: For those. For those who don't know. The Fever is our women's WNBA basketball team.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yes.
So she purchased the cafe in 2017.
And the cafe not only serves the community food and beverages, but they also provide programming events, which is really awesome. So Teaspoons has additional locations. There's one at the Butler Tarkington Park. It's like in the.
There's like a little, I don't know, center, like an in structure next to the park, and they're in there. Have you been to that one?
[00:03:58] Speaker C: Yeah, I have.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Is it open year round?
[00:04:01] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Okay.
And then I think they have a third location at University of Indianapolis.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yes.
So, yeah, this is actually my first time here as well.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Good. Well, I. It would have been mine, except that I came on purpose earlier this week.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Oh, that's right.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Okay.
Yeah.
So made the effort. So it's tea, it's not coffee.
But our questions still apply. So we know. We know. Allison and I stand. I stuck with my hot.
And it's.
But there's different options, of course, now. So we have. This is a black tea with a little bit of almond and some. Just some light sugar. And if I'd have been thinking when I ordered it, I would have gone with some agave instead of sugar, but.
But it's just sugar, so.
And of course, Allison, you went ice.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: I went ice. I did the vanilla Rubios. Rubios. Rooibos. Thank you. Rooibos latte. And I did honey as my sweetener.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: It's delicious.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Excellent.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Abby, what'd you do?
[00:05:21] Speaker A: Abby, what's your answer?
[00:05:24] Speaker C: Well, I'm a frequenter of this cafe, and I appreciate you letting us do this on a technicality that the question still applies, even though it's not coffee. I have a green tea that's a Japanese cherry with a little bit of sugar, which is one of my favorites here.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Okay. So many questions, like, really important, life changing questions. Always green tea or ever black tea.
[00:05:47] Speaker C: No, I do also love a black tea. My other go to here is a vanilla black tea.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:05:54] Speaker C: We'll be getting a bag of loose leaf to go when we finish recording.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: Excellent. Okay. And always hot or every time I've.
[00:06:04] Speaker C: Come here, it's hot. And this since I've started coming here maybe in the past year, has really been my foray into tea. So when I make it at home, hot. When I come here, hot. So I don't know, in the summer months, I might dip my toe into ice drinks, though.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: So when you do drink coffee, you said you're not much of a coffee person. And we love you anyway.
Thanks. Yeah, you're welcome.
Do you die hot or iced coffee? I mean, is it.
[00:06:36] Speaker C: I think I probably actually favor iced coffee. When I do a coffee drink. I love the smell of coffee, but just the taste. I'm ashamed to say I'm one of those people that wants a lot of other things in there, so it makes this little.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: There is zero, zero shame in that, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I find that a lot of people who aren't coffee drinkers, iced coffee is a little more palatable to them. So that's. That's perfectly reasonable. We were talking a little bit before we started recording.
You grew up up here in Indianapolis area to the north suburbs, but your. Your family has roots in the South.
And so, of course, the south has their own idea of what t. It's all about. And so iced tea in general.
Do you. Did you. Is that what you did? Tell me, is that what you grew up with or is that. I mean, just say it again, because you said it better than I could.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: So big fan of iced sweet tea, but I exclusively drink it when I visit. Yeah. My mom's side of the family who lives in Georgia, so it's like a special treat. But it's one of those things that I could certainly access here or even try to make myself with all the loose leaf tea I have at home. But I've just never, never thought to do that because it's a special little treat for family time in Georgia.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: It's fascinating how certain things just kind of become in that. That space. Yeah, I. I mean, I like, I'd love. My grandmother used to make sun tea, like in a big jar out on the porch out in New Mexico.
Not sweet. Because if God had intended tea to be sweet, God would have put sugar in the leaves.
[00:08:30] Speaker C: That's a story to unpack.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: That's what I grew up with. And we're saying when I moved to the south as a young adult, I had more guilt ordering sweets. Tea. Not ordering, drinking sweet tea, because you don't have enough most places. I mean.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. I had more guilt drinking sweet tea than I did drinking a beer or ordering a cocktail or something as a. As a young Christian human.
But yeah, it's the things we. The things we are embedded with. Yeah.
[00:09:07] Speaker C: My. You're making me think that my other tea story is that my grandma, who does live here, always has peach snapple.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
[00:09:17] Speaker C: And that is. I am not a fan of peach flavored things, but that's one of those Things that's like, from my childhood. And so every time I go see her reliably, it's in the fridge and I want to have one, but again, only at my grandma's house.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: I also just noticed that we all have lids so that we're not gonna spill the tea.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: I see what you did there.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: Okay, thanks.
It just came to me. I promise I haven't been playing.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: That's premeditated.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: It is not. I wish I. Yeah.
Anything that was premeditated today has long since gone out, though.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: We've all had a morning.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: But it was a morning. You know what. But sometimes it's a morning that makes for a great day.
I might edit that out later, but probably not.
Listen, it's a morning. Sometimes it takes a morning to have a day before you can have a night. That's like.
[00:10:28] Speaker C: I like the first one better.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: The intense, obvious, profound.
[00:10:37] Speaker C: Anyway, well, we listen. I think that we're already proving that true, that we're already off to a great start in our conversation, but we. I was late because I got stuck behind a train and then I forgot my computer and then Allison was late and then WI fi and here we are still.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: We're. We're rolling.
[00:10:54] Speaker C: Making it happen.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: And just for the record, um, if you are around and coming to tease me on the first Saturday of a month, they open an hour late because they have staff meeting.
And that is the beauty of independent local neighborhood coffee and tea shops is that they could do that and the locals know and that's just the way it works. And so it caught me off guard, but it not mad about it. It wasn't frustrating or anything. And we weren't planning on starting till 10 and like 0 of us were ready anyway, so, you know, it all worked out just fine. Yep. And here we are. So.
[00:11:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: So we're going to have some great conversations with Abby.
Abby does some work around interpersonal communication. We're going to hear a lot more about that in the institute that she works with and how she came into that through her college work and whatever else she wants to tell us about that. I know. Abby. Can I tell this?
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:12:01] Speaker C: Please.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Yeah. I worked with Abby's mom for a little while at a church we were both on staff with. And she has just become a great friend and just encourage her and support in my life and so have been hearing about Abby's work and just found a connection to what she does just as far as connection to what I do as a communicator. And it's been exciting so I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time.
But before we get into that, we need a snack.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: We do need a snack.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: All right. So this one, I don't know if it's, like, brand new. I feel like they had a release of it last year or a couple years ago, and I think it might be a thing overseas.
Europe, maybe. I don't know.
So today we have lays. All dressed savory, tangy, and sweet. Have you guys had these before?
[00:13:06] Speaker C: I know that. I know that all dressed is a thing. And. Yeah, a lot of European countries. Yeah. Maybe like the UK I feel like, especially.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Yes.
So it says savory, like lay, sour cream and onion. Tangy like salt and vinegar, and sweet like lay's barbecue.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: What a combo.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:26] Speaker C: I know.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Seriously, I can't get over the fact that I. I just am now thinking that every chip I've ever eaten before this was naked.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: You're spoiled jokes today.
All right. Do you think you're gonna like these?
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Are you?
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Well, I wanted to know what you would might think before you tried it, but I got it to you too late.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Well, that was the honest answer. And, yeah, I mean, there's none of those flavors that I don't like. Same. Same. Yeah. And they all feel like they would come together. Well.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: I feel like my first note is the salt and vinegar.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: That's definitely going to cut through the strongest.
[00:14:20] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a pretty strong one. I can't imagine.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Then the sour cream and onion.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. I think barbecue for me. Mm.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: So the barbecue, to me is the more like, subtle. Like, not subtle, but I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but it's like the undertone.
So it's like the one that's gonna just carry through. Yeah. When everything. When all the shock of everything else is done, that's the one that has the staying power.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Okay. Would you buy them again?
[00:15:08] Speaker A: I would say yeah. Trying to. What we're going to rate these on.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: How does it compare to the other snacks you've had?
[00:15:21] Speaker B: We've done a lot of candy, I feel like. And then we did goldfish last time, which I had another regular goldfish. No, they were cinnamon roll. Oh, they're grams.
[00:15:32] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: They're goldfish.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's say out of how many dips, I'm going to say I give this eight out of 10 dips.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Eight out 10 dips?
Yeah. I think I would do seven or eight.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: I don't.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: I mean, I like them. I would Prefer if they were kettle cunning.
[00:15:57] Speaker C: I love a kettle tip.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Right. Needs to be a little bit.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: I'm with you. I'm with you on that. They're a little thin, but I like the soles, though. Yeah, it is soles. Yeah. Yeah, you're right about that. So where you find.
[00:16:09] Speaker C: Where'd you find these?
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Those I just found at the gas station, but I think the major retailers, too.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: All right.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: I don't know. Sometimes that stuff's tricky to find. We did Golden Sriracha, Doritos.
Not on the podcast, I guess, but those were good.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: We didn't. But we really talked about it every time because they made such an impression. We had an episode. I think I was watching the Super. Not watching. Was it a Super bowl playoff game?
[00:16:35] Speaker C: I think.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, Gap. But they.
Yeah, somehow those really made a strong impression on us.
Um, I've never asked that question about where you find all these snacks, because I like, look when I go into stores and I'm like, where does Allison find these? Weird.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: So I feel like sometimes Walmart is the first to have a lot of these. Peanut butter and jelly. M and Ms. I couldn't find anywhere except Walmart.
Sometimes the grocery stores will have them quicker than like a Target or Meijer.
Gas stations surprisingly have a lot of the new candy bars or, you know, new flavors, that kind of thing.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: So I'm guessing they get a lot more turnover. Yeah, yeah. In their snack aisle and everything. So that they can get a lot. Yeah, yeah. We need to get like Mars or one of these candy.
They get interested in the podcast and so they can be sending us.
[00:17:37] Speaker C: You keep talking about those Doritos, something might happen. Yeah.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Seriously.
Great. Okay, well, I think it's done brewing.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: I think.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: So, like, we could. Ready to press on. About time to serve it up.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Let's do it.
Hotter Ice is produced by the Indy Queer Coffee Club, which you can find and follow on Facebook or Instagram. There you can learn about our in person gatherings and other ways to be part of this community. We really like coffee, but we love people and would love to meet you. For now, stick around. It's time to serve it up.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: And we are back.
I'd say better than ever, but we were pretty good before, so I don't know that we really needed to improve on much. So.
All right, so we are, like I said earlier, I'm very excited to have this conversation with Abby Van Meter. And I was also just seeing your name on our little studio. And I have forever, like, since I met your mom been putting two E's in your last name. I mean, there are two E's in your last name, so technically, I've been trying to put three E's in your last name, but.
Yeah, just. Anyway, it's not me. It's just.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: I think dad would always say when he'd say our last name. Van Meter. Van like you drive. Meter like you measure.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: That's good.
[00:19:15] Speaker C: I thought that was a really good one.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I do like that. So we would always say, so my last name is Bucklighter. So, like, if I gave you a dollar, I'd be a buck lighter.
[00:19:27] Speaker C: That's great.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah, no, we always did Brinegar, like vinegar without the R.
Not as fun as those two, but I think that's good.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I did. Yeah. It took me a while to get yours because I wanted to do a soft G instead of a heart G. I want to do Britisher.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Gotcha. Yeah, some people. Yeah, some people do.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: And I just read your last name on here, and so I'm way off.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. Abby, introduce yourself. I'm going to take a page out of your book. Abby hosts two different podcasts. One of them, I am very familiar with. One of them, I've just barely listened to one of one episode. The newer, newer podcast. But your podcast stories, Live Stories told, really focuses on the work you do with the coordinated meaning management.
[00:20:24] Speaker C: Coordinated management of meaning.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:27] Speaker C: Got all the words right.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Just coordinated management of meaning in institute.
And. Yeah, just. But you always ask your guests, introduce yourself, tell us what you want us to know about you for the sake of this conversation.
[00:20:46] Speaker C: Well, that's fun to be asked back, so thank you.
Let me think about where I want to start. I think what's important for me to share is that I love the work I do that centers around interpersonal communication. I have for a long time. It's what I studied in school and just fell in love with it immediately at Ball State University. Great comm Studies department.
And the experience that I can really name is that I remember sitting in my classes, you know, Intro to Interpersonal or different classes, about conflict styles or small group communication. And everything I was learning just felt so real and important that, like, I could walk out of the classroom and into the house that I was sharing with two roommates or, you know, when I was starting to date my partner or coming home and, you know, interacting with my family. As I'm learning all this new stuff, I could just, like, immediately apply what I was learning.
Not perfectly immediately, of course, but, you know, start trying it out or start sitting, seeing things through a new lens. So it's always felt really real for me in that way. And so that's a lot of the purpose behind my work with the podcasts I do. And all the work I do at the CMM Institute is about making it accessible for people because there are so many great theories and tools in the world of communication studies, but a lot of them are stuck in academia, but they could be out there helping the real people who do the real communicating and are in the real relationships and building the real social worlds, as the CMM theory calls it. So, yeah.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So much to unpack. There two things. Well, three things immediately came to mind. No more than that, but we'll stick with the three.
The one is the social dynamics of what you do. You talk a lot about that in your podcast and you talk a lot about that just in the theories of cmm.
The other is that that intersection of academia and the real world. And I mean, those two obviously overlap, but.
And a third that also overlaps is how much of your professional life, your work, your academic work, your passion for communication blends into everyday life. Communication is something that we do when we wake up and read a meme, apparently.
So it's hard to. You don't get away from it. I mean. Yeah. And so.
Yeah. So those are the three things that from what you just said, I put on the table. So I'm going to let you pick and choose what you'd like to pick up from that and run with.
[00:24:01] Speaker C: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that you stumbled so beautifully over the name of this theory because it is a mouthful and there's. It is a theory and it's for.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: The record, I practiced.
[00:24:19] Speaker C: All the right.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Words and I practiced wrong.
So the old adage practice makes permanent.
[00:24:27] Speaker C: Yeah, well, all of that to say that I think my work would. I kind of consider like translating what's in the theory to like practice as again, that language is important and I could break it down, coordinated management and meaning. But what's more important for me that people understand the language people have is that it's about a communication perspective that's maybe a little bit more accessible language. And so for me, that's about looking at communication instead of through it. And so just trying to draw our attention to communication as this generative force, this thing that we co create together and that in turn creates our social worlds. And so just really trying to name and provide tools and language around this thing that feels kind of abstract and intangible when people aren't oriented towards looking at it. So this leads me into the kind of third thing that you said that like the overlap, the Venn diagram, it's a circle, you know, like in terms of my work and how it shows up in my life, that it is a very embodied practice for me. And when I've, you know, looked out for other, you know, I searched early on, you know, what other communication podcasts are out there. And there's a lot that are like, learn communication skills or that's a lot of what you'll find online. People who are talking about communication, communication, communication skills, you know, make eye contact when you talk, nod, be an active listener. Your body language, your words, you use, whatever. And that feels they're important. But it feels very shallow to me if you're not pairing that with the embodied orientation of a communication perspective. That is more about how you're showing up your ways of being in the world.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought that just came to mind with that is there's a difference between learning how to manipulate people through words and spaces, having the skill to bring people around versus knowing in your heart and soul what it is that you're trying to say.
Having the means to connect with individuals based on their heart and souls. And in the space and the tools around you, there's a.
You manage the meaning of everything that is happening between you all. And there is. There are so many variables and so many dynamics that come in to play with that. And it's not just a matter of manipulating things to get your way.
It is a matter of relating to the world around you. So I think I resonated. The reason I've resonated with it since I first started reading about it and listening to your podcasts was in my work as a pastor, you know, as a. As a preacher, as a writer, and as a theologian. This is what we do. You know, we're trying to connect with people in a relational way about things that are highly unrelational in many ways. And so. And have a strong history of being so manipulative.
And so we. There's so much to back off of, so much counter narrative that we need to bring in to that space in order to really cut through the crap in those worlds.
[00:27:58] Speaker C: So I know it's not my podcast, I'm not the host. It's just hard to shake this. Can I ask you a question of what was it about something you heard or something you read in my podcast or any of the resources, the cmm instead, what grabbed you about the theory.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: That resonated with you so much communication is broken down into hearer, messenger, listener.
[00:28:22] Speaker C: We call that the transmission model.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:28:25] Speaker C: And how I see communication.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's so systematic, formulaic, and communication is so much more complex than that. And so I've appreciated hearing other models and hearing other paradigms for how messages get through to people. And it just makes so much more sense that there isn't a one size fits all.
Is that.
[00:28:52] Speaker C: Yeah. No. Thank you for letting me put you on the spot. I just like to ask, because that was my experience and I feel a lot of other people's, that the theory, the language it offers was. Is like, so immediately recognizable of like. Oh, yeah, I have experienced that, but I just didn't have this language for it yet. And so I'm just.
Yeah. Always curious what kind of reaches people first about the theory that is admittedly very complex and has a lot of moving parts, like what speaks to people. You know, I think says a lot about what your own experience is or what your orientation kind of already is towards communication.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
So what was your like before you got into cmm? Like you had gotten into studying interpersonal communication. What was your background in communication before that? What brought you to studying that in the first place?
Go back to younger Abby and I.
[00:29:56] Speaker C: Can put myself back into my senior year of high school. People started asking, what are you going to study? And I said, I think I want to study communication. And then I'd get people going like, oh, so like social media. I was like, oh, no.
Oh, so like hr, pr. Like, am I wrong about what? Communication. Like, at a certain point I was like, I must be wrong. And so I actually didn't start as a communication major because I was so convinced that I. What I thought communication was, was not out there. Thankfully, I ended up at Ball State still.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: I study communications.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Which is all of those things.
[00:30:32] Speaker C: And I'm talking about interpersonal communication.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:30:36] Speaker C: And I didn't know that distinction at that time. So thankfully I ended up at a school that had that program anyway because it started as political science. And then I think what that was missing for me was just the relational piece. And thankfully I was already.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Still is.
[00:30:50] Speaker C: Yeah, very much thankfully. I was already on the speech team at Ball State, so the coaches for that were a lot of the communication professors. And through that is how I was able to learn. Oh, that's what I've been talking about this whole time. And it's kind of telling that people didn't know that that was there when I said I'm studying communication. That is a testament to how little we think about our interpersonal communication.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And for something that happens, like I said before, literally all the time.
[00:31:22] Speaker C: Yeah. It's just taken for granted.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: It is int.
Again, to my other point about it just being so much in your life, does it get exhausting ever to.
Do your friends ever get tired of you over analyzing every conversation or every. I mean, you know, social workers and therapists kind of. I, you know, I went to seminary with a bunch of seminarians. There was the most obvious statement. Not even the most obvious statement. I made the whole podcast. But yeah. And a bunch of, you know, therapy students and stuff. So, I mean, it's like we were constantly analyzing each other. Yeah. Think. Yeah, yeah. Still are. God bless them.
But yeah. Do you just like, are you sitting here in your academic brain right now thinking about this conversation? And I mean, does it get to a point where communication is a constant awareness for you, or is it a. Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: I think that's what I mean when I talk about it being like an embodied practice.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: Yeah. It was a long way to ask a short question.
[00:32:42] Speaker C: I think it comes with time for me that, you know, you ask, is it exhausting? And I think that can feel like a barrier to people because it's great that there's a lot of great tools and language, but if you're unfamiliar to them, it is just kind of like labor of love to try to, like, really learn them and integrate them into your practice. And so I think it takes a long time to come to a point where it becomes second nature, but it can. And that's why so much of the CMM institutes work. Like, we have resources that are for kids and. And so trying to bring this communication perspective in younger so that as they grow, they have the tools to navigate their relationships in a much better way and ideally turn into adults that do that when they are become the politicians or the neighbors or the teachers or the leaders of members of whatever community.
So that's kind of what comes to mind as you ask that question. But yeah, I think the thing that I very recently has been the front of my mind that's a part of the CMM theory is, you know, I said our communication creates our social worlds and the kind of cmmish question behind that, or not question, but statement is you get what you make. And so this question has been at the forefront of my mind of, like, what are we making in our communication?
And so that I just feel very aware of, like, the turns that each of Us are taking. Like we, as we alluded to earlier, had a little bit of a chaotic start to our morning. And we really could have created something that maybe made all of us feel more panicked about that, feel shame about, oh, my God, I forgot my computer. Oh, my God, I showed up late. Or this thing was outside of my control. But, you know, we could have created something very different in the way that we showed up to each other, but we created something that was. Yeah. That happened and that was, you know, not an accident that we. We created that by how we all chose to show up and the meaning we chose to make out of the moments we've had.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Well said. Great. I just had a flashback, way flashback to a girl I was dating in high school, and we were in an argument and she had said something that hurt me, and I named it and put it out on the table and. And she just looked me dead in the eye and she's like, oh, you expect me to think about everything? I say we broke up right there.
Yeah. Yeah, I kind of do.
But I think there is just this.
When you start talking about communication and something like that, it is so embedded, but not embodied.
[00:35:26] Speaker C: Right. Exactly.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: In who we are. It can be intimidating to take that off as something that we do. So being so much of who you are and what you do, communication being so much of who you are and what you do, where do you find yourself being most critical of yourself?
[00:35:51] Speaker C: That's a great question.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: And not one I prepped her for, by the way. So you can pause and read and. Well, yeah.
Or do you. I mean, it's not. It wasn't. There's not a foregone conclusion that.
[00:36:06] Speaker C: That you're right.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: You might have a different approach to that. That. I think I was asking that question knowing how my brain would work, but.
[00:36:13] Speaker C: Right. I. I think that I have been very critical of myself, but.
And you can hear me talk about this on a couple other podcasts I've been on. One is called Labors of Love, another is called Scratch that. This kind of thing I have going on in my life that I called acting like I know what I know. And so that's giving myself the space to, like, maybe I go have an experience and I'm like, oh, okay, I didn't like how that felt.
I'm gonna pay attention to that. My knowing of what an experience feels like to me. And then I wanna. I gotta let myself know that I know it. And so maybe have a couple more experiences. And maybe I didn't act like I Knew what I knew. I've gotta come up with, like, a good example to illustrate this because I may be getting lost in the weeds of the words, but acting like I know what I know as a lens has helped me to be a lot more generous towards myself in terms of if I don't act like I know what I know. I got myself into a situation like, oh, I didn't. I said yes to coming out when I know that I am so much more of a homebody. And I really enjoy hanging out with, like, my two or three friends at a time. And now I'm in this big party, this room full of people I don't even know, which is okay every once in a while. But, you know, I kind of knew that this is. Maybe I didn't have the energy for this tonight, but I didn't act like I knew what I knew. And I'm here now, and I kind of file it away for later. It's like, let me try to make a different choice next time. And so that's allowed me to not be so critical of myself. But I do think there's maybe, like, a standard that I hold myself to and hope for other people as well, because it is just a lens. Like, you know, other examples of you get what you make is like, last night, I went out with friends and did karaoke. And that's.
We're having fun. We're out, and my friend gets up to start off the karaoke. Very bravely, I thought she starts singing a song or the song starts playing. She hadn't even started singing yet. And some guy at the table next to us goes, too slow. I'm like, really? That's what you want to make here? Another moment later in the night is that somebody requested a song. The track came on, and it was like, a different version than they knew. The words were, like, going really fast. They just, like, could not get into the rhythm there. Again, very bravely, I think, up there in front of all of us, trying to sing this song and just, like, cannot get it. The song is offered. They're a different version. I don't know. And we all out there. You can feel it, but we're all out there, like, whoo. Yeah, you know? Sure. Oh, she comes and sits down. It's kind of like middle of song. She's like, gave up. We're like, yeah, that was so weird. We could have brought a very different energy. We could have made something very different, like, you know, boo, boo. And made it not a safe space to take a Risk and have something unexpected happen where it's just like, yep, that totally happens. So those are just, you know, again, I'm just out living my life on a Friday night, but I still have this communication lens on very much.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Yeah. So one thing I just heard, and correct me if I'm. I'm just going to say this back in a different words.
I asked the question, were you most critical of yourself? And I owned the fact that that was the way my brain works. The way you answered the question was more, where is your awareness of communication constantly keeping you on a learning edge and constantly keeping you in a place of growing and keeping doors open for that. Is that inaccurate?
I think you spun the question around in a really beautiful way.
[00:39:57] Speaker C: Yeah. That I know that those are moments where you could make something that's very critical of yourself. You could create that pattern for yourself where you beat yourself up over small moments, or you could create a kind of resilience toward the very vulnerable act of being new at something and learning.
[00:40:19] Speaker B: You're pointing at me.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: I did it again. Yeah. And I try and do that subtly to see if she wants to pipe in because.
[00:40:28] Speaker C: Well, I'm curious, like, what your experience with this is as a social worker.
[00:40:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: I feel like there's a lot of overlap, for sure. And the one thing that sticks out to me is, so I specifically work with individuals with disabilities, and I train their staff and their family to interact when there's behaviors or that kind of thing. And so we always tell our staff and our families that all behavior is a form of communication. We have a handful of clients who are non verbal, and so sometimes we don't know why they're acting the way they're acting. But just because we can't figure it out doesn't mean there's not a purpose behind it. You know, they're trying to communicate something. They just don't have the. The verbal words to say it. So I guess I would love to hear more about that, if that resonates at all.
[00:41:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, it does. And it's.
Yeah. I'm trying to think about where I want to start. I got to have a conversation on my podcast two years ago, maybe now, with a woman named Rebecca Taussig. She has an Instagram account, written a book called Sitting Pretty, and it's about navigating her life as someone who's in a wheelchair. And she writes and studies and talks about disability and our ability to. She uses this great language of collaborative reimagination, and that fits kind of nicely into the language of CMM in terms of stories and our meaning being socially constructed. And so there are stories around what we feel like it means for someone to have a disability.
And we have the possibility to kind of change narratives and change the meaning. And so she talked about the medical model and the social model and different. Just again, testament to like, meaning is socially constructed and we are the active participants in creating that meaning. And so I would see your work as like, helping people to act differently into their patterns and tell a new story through whatever communicating they're doing, whether it's verbal or not, that you are creating something different in your communication.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, yeah, that's great.
And so I know Laura Beth is more familiar, but can you tell us a little bit more about the CMM theory or is it also an institute or.
[00:42:51] Speaker C: Yes. So I work with the CMM Institute and we are all about teaching people about the CMM theory.
Like I said, a lot of moving parts. I've touched on a lot of the very important language.
But I'll go a little more language heavy on you for a second. Talking about the theory of cmm. The main kind of claim of the theory is persons in conversation co construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they create.
The whole three is really about, which I said is very different than the transmission model. You talked about manipulation in communication. And that, I think, has really clouded people's understanding of communication that the study really came from, like persuasion, which is different than just communicating. You know, there's different reasons behind how you would communicate in different moments if you're trying to persuade or manipulate or do something else, inform, connect, whatever.
So this perspective on communication that CMM offers is different than other theories of community. There's, you know, plenty like it. We'd call it a social constructionist theory or relational construction that again, we're creating our social worlds and we are those persons in conversation, all of us, because we have to coordinate. We have to collaborate with each other in our managing and making of the meaning. So that, you know, title is pretty literal coordinated management and meeting. We coordinate and manage meaning. And that's kind of what communicating is. And it's. It's storytelling. And there's a lot of great models within CMM.1, which is where the name of my podcast comes from, is the loop model. And it's L, bunch of U's and then two T's, The L being lived stories, the T on the end being told stories. So stories live, stories told, and then all the other. You's in between are like unheard stories, untellable stories, undigested stories, untold stories, and there's five. But the list, you know, really could go on and on just to say, like, could, could you name, like, maybe I'm showing up to you in a moment and we're kind of meeting in this way and I'm.
There might be an untold story that I don't know about you that's something you're bringing into the conversation. And so it's affecting how you're making meaning or how you're interacting. But I might not know it, but even having an awareness that, okay, I don't know all your stories that you're coming into this interaction with is like a helpful place to start to just acknowledge the plurality of stories and the way that we, you know, carry them with us whether they're told or untold.
And kind of that space between the lived stories and the told stories being meaning making. Because we're all living the story of recording this podcast right now. But we'll all go home and tell a different story about it, have made different meaning about it.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Mine will be spectacular, by the way.
There will be capes and heroes.
You can drop a website. I mean, what's. I will put it in the show notes, but what is the website?
[00:45:57] Speaker C: Yeah, so we have a bunch of websites. The cmminstitute.org is like our main website, but we also have a substack. And that's where like the podcast and a bunch of resources are. And then the other podcast you mentioned that I do is called cosmoparenting. And it's about all of these resources and perspectives from CMM being applied to parenting. And that's a part of our Cosmo activities, which includes those activities for kids, tweens, and teens. So that's cosmoactivities.com. so I'll just send you all the links and you can include it for people to search.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: Excellent. You already did. So I will get them in there. So perfect.
So as is my habit, as was taught to me, anything that you would have liked us to have asked as you thought about coming here today and having this conversation and as you were sitting there behind the train for five minutes thinking, man, I can't wait to talk about blank that we didn't talk about today.
[00:47:05] Speaker C: Can I answer a question with a question?
[00:47:08] Speaker A: I would be disappointed if you didn't based on our last several conversations. So, yeah.
[00:47:12] Speaker C: Yes.
So what I do on my podcast that I stand very firmly behind is that, you know, the People coming on my podcast are not necessarily people who are in the field of communication or even know what CMM is. And so the point is, this modeling of you can apply communication perspective to anything, and that's going to show you something you wouldn't have seen before if you weren't oriented towards looking at communication instead of through it, like I said. So I think what I'm curious about that I'd love the opportunity to maybe speak a little more specifically to, is to know from you, like, what it is that you're hoping to offer your listeners or who's listening or what's the purpose of this podcast for you, and that might give me some more insight into what I might want to say about a communication perspective in this specific context.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: Yeah, let's both answer that a little bit, and then we'll take a break and we'll come back and talk, have our question and get into your response to that, because I think that'll probably all tie in to the next conversation. So, you know, we are a byproduct of the Indie Queer Coffee Club, and so really the focus of the podcast is community.
And so our goal is to create conversation that people can gather around and that people can have some connection to, whether they are people that are going to come out to the coffee club or are just connecting with us through listening to this space. And so, yeah, the communication to create community, I think, is probably the most simple answer I would give to that. Do you have any?
[00:49:11] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I agree. I think all of that is true. I also think with our guest host, bringing in knowledge and a new perspective, maybe something. Again, this is not something I've ever specifically learned or had a conversation with someone about. So it's, you know, super intriguing for me to be able to learn more from our guests. And so, yes, community education, trying to open people's minds, if you will, you know, to different perspectives, different things.
Yeah.
[00:49:51] Speaker A: Does that answer your question?
[00:49:52] Speaker C: Yeah, it does.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: Okay. All right, let's take a break, because that was an amazing conversation. Longer than we usually go, but I'm not sad about that and the least. So we'll take a break and we'll be right back.
We want to invite you to be part of our community, even if gathering in person isn't really your thing. Hot or Iced and the indycore Coffee Club are partnering with the Indianapolis Recovery Cafe to provide coffee mugs for their new space. A gift of $20 buys a pair of mugs and supports their other coffee resources because recovery, like coffee, is best when you have someone join you, Find a link in the show notes or comments, or visit my
[email protected] bethany.com. that's L A U R A hyphen. B E T H A N Y dot com. Now take a sip of whatever you're sipping, take a deep breath, and get ready to savor the moment.
[00:51:07] Speaker B: All right, welcome back. We are serving it out, savoring it.
[00:51:17] Speaker A: Been brewed and served.
[00:51:18] Speaker B: Brewed, Served. Savor. All right. Thank you, Abby, for enlightening us with your knowledge of communication, interpersonal communication, and what that looks like.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: She's not done.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: No, I know.
I know she's not. But Laura Beth also requires that we all answer a question each week.
[00:51:45] Speaker A: I crack the whip.
[00:51:47] Speaker B: You do.
And so I guess we should. We should let Abby finish and then we can talk about the question of.
[00:51:54] Speaker A: No, they kind of go into words. They kind of. We're gonna blend them all together. I think they all kind of. Kind of come together because the question is, and this was not. This was no accident.
[00:52:03] Speaker B: Right?
[00:52:05] Speaker A: But the question is, what do words mean to you? And so, yeah, in the context of meaning and management of meaning, you know, there's the whole.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. It's a. We've all accepted. I feel like, long since accepted. That's a myth.
But if that is a myth and if words can hurt us, why, you know, what is the power that we give words in our lives? What is the meaning that we give to words? And where does that hit? Where does that land? Where is the. What is the root of that power? And so, you know, we ended the last segment with you asking us what the intent of this space was. And, you know, we both just agreed it's. It's. Or we both contributed to that with the notion that this building community, it is expanding our knowledge base of what community is and how we inform ourselves and each other around it.
So I'm going to put you on the spot, Allison, to answer the question, and then I want to throw it back to Abby to kind of finish her thoughts and bring us back to that. That notion. But what do. What do words mean? Where is. What is the power of the word?
[00:53:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think my first thought is words mean everything.
And they can, I feel like, completely alter, kind of as you were speaking to before, they can completely alter a situation or a conversation or.
I will share a personal example of. When I first came out to my family, my dad was not super supportive, and I feel like he Is now. He's amazing now.
[00:54:06] Speaker A: So I concur.
[00:54:08] Speaker B: Yeah. But initially he had a hard time and I always think. And so because of that, I have always had kind of an extreme form of fear of other people judging me for being gay.
And I always think had he not said those words to me, it would probably be a completely different experience. I would probably still fear judgment a little bit, but not to the extent that I do. And again, I think about my mom's, you know, embracing words that were so wonderful and amazing. And so I do. I think words mean everything.
I think it's complicated though.
[00:54:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, you brought up the whole like your non verbal clients and you know, there's still, there's still power in the communication. There's still words that are happening and there's still things that are going on even though they're not verbal.
And in, in that space.
Yeah. Abby, enlighten us. Continue to enlighten us. I mean, what is.
I'd love. I really appreciate you putting in the context of the whole coming out process and the whole power of words in a vulnerable moment.
And we could have a whole other podcast and maybe we will at some point we can bring some folks in and might invite you back as a guest host to talk about the connection of words and trauma.
And there is a major overlap and I think we're only going to see more of that coming out of the political and social culture that we're emerged in right now, you know, but it, but it is lasting.
No matter where your dad has come and I've witnessed how accepting and how wonderful he is. But the words mattered and they had a lasting impact. So what's your thoughts?
[00:56:05] Speaker C: So many thoughts.
First, I'm thinking that that story is a really great example of what I was talking about earlier of you get what you make. And I think that is a helpful lens for people to appreciate the weight of words. And it's important to me to note that, you know, when I'm talking about communicating, I'm not just talking about words. Everything we do communicates something. But words are one way that we do coordinate with each other. And it is a great question to ask because yeah, if we understand our communicating and one facet of that communicating to be the words we use as generative or constitutive is the other big word we use. But having creative force basically, then not only are you asking that question of, well, what are we making, but in a forward thinking moment you can say, well, what do I want to create?
And so for example, if your dad had that language, then in that moment he might have been able to pause, acknowledge, wow, I have some of my own fear around this. I don't know how to navigate this, but what do I want to create with my daughter? Which sounds like he's supportive now. He's gotten there. But in that moment, if he had a tool like this, then there might have been a greater possibility for like, what might I say instead? That would create what I want to create. And so it's a great tool for reflection, what are we making? But it's also a great tool for to be active in as you're creating, what do I want to make? And make choices from there. And so thinking about words and the meaning they have, I think you have to see meaning as being socially or relationally constructed. And once you can move away from the assumption that words mean the same thing to all of us, then you can be more curious. I think another great question I love is, what does that mean to you? Like, we go through our lives, you know, assuming we're making the same meaning out of something. I think that's where so much miscommunication happens. But it doesn't have to be guesswork, you know, what does that mean? We're experiencing the same moment, but what does it mean to you? Try to articulate that and that, you know, just like having words. I've said before, like, beyond words, but language, you know, Laura Beth, I know that that'd be a lens for you thinking about linguistics, but like language, if you don't have the language to talk about what you experience, then you don't talk about what you experience. That's why, like, consciousness raising groups were so important.
It's not where you end, because action matters a lot too. But I think a first step is language. And having the words that feel right to you, that's that kind of like recognition I talked about earlier of like, oh, yes, I've had this experience. The language does not predicate the experience. I've already had the experience and now I have language to describe it. So now I get to talk about it. Different dynamics that are going on, my family or my interpersonal relationships, and different ways of making meaning around them. Now I have language, and that opens up a whole world of possibilities.
So as I think about words and that version of communicating, I'm also thinking about storytelling. And specifically in the context that you all are in as the Indy Queer Coffee Club. I think one of the functions of stories is that they expand our imagination. And I Think it's so important that we share our stories and create spaces where others feel like they can share their stories, whether or not there's a similarity between our stories. Because I think, especially in a queer space, I can imagine the power of stories. Like, even you just being able to share. Alison, this is what it was like for me coming out to my family and be able to name. It was hard, and it's better now. Like, I can imagine the power that that has for someone else.
You know, for a number of people, one person could say that was my experience too. And that feels really good to hear a same story. Someone else, maybe someone who's not had to come out, could hear a story and be like, wow, that's really helpful for me to understand. Maybe I've had a moment where I haven't been accepted and I can empathize with that and use my imagination and have more empathy. And I just think stories have.
Stories play this very important role in terms of what we're creating with each other. And I just think they're the most powerful thing. If we can kind of own our stories a little more unapologetically, because there's some systems we live in, I think, that tell us, here's the story, what it should be. And so we feel like we can't share our stories. But if, again, we get what we make, we are the active participants. So I just. I believe very strongly that we can, especially in places like the community you're creating here, you can create through your communication a different kind of space that allows for those stories to be told. You know, it's not always the goal, but because it's okay to have untold stories as long as you're aware of them. But, like, maybe that's some helpful language. Something you do in this space is helping. Helping people turn their untold stories into told stories.
[01:01:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And recognizing that their untold stories are their power. I mean, that might be something that they're holding close to their hearts.
Words is building blocks. Words is construction tools. I love the way you're talking about. Communication is making the space and how we create around it. And, you know, I think that's part of why Alison and I were comfortable even launching a podcast together, because we. We do create good space together, and we've. We've had that. We've. We've felt that connection and are able to do that.
I think there you talk about different words, words having different meaning to different people. And I think another thing that we have such pride in our culture that stopping to question whether we understand is not something that has been normalized.
So, you know, if I were to say, that's not my favorite tea, rather than saying, oh, did you not like the tea? It's like, no, I loved this tea, but there's another tea that is my favorite tea, you know, so it's not that I don't like context. Context. Yeah. I mean, so there's so many different meanings that. That could take on the.
The freedom to stop and clarify rather than assume meaning.
The freedom to understand that words don't have a face value, that words, as they come out of our mouths, are subject to everything that they're falling into in the world around us. And the misconceptions, the miscommunication, the misunderstandings. Every miss that you want to put on top of that. I was thinking about the U words that you had. I thought all the M words that could come.
For every U word, there's an M word. I think that probably follows along with that. But the.
I just don't think that normalized is the word that kept coming to mind there. And my mind is going in a lot of different directions. I'm going to stop and acknowledge that for a second.
Yeah. Words have such a lasting impact, as Alison pointed out, and a plethora of meaning with any given moment that we should have the freedom and we should feel the freedom, and we need to normalize the process of clarification.
So I think in asking the question, in putting the question out there and in the context of what Abby and I have talked about before and what I knew. Talked about today and contemplating the meaning of words is looking at them as tools of that making and that construction.
Well, this has been fantastic. Yeah.
I tried to end the last segment by giving you the last word, and you flipped the narrative on me.
[01:05:19] Speaker C: Sorry.
[01:05:20] Speaker A: So I'm gonna try again.
Yeah. Anything else that has just come to mind that you feel like that you would walk out the door and you say, oh, my gosh, we didn't.
[01:05:34] Speaker C: Mm.
I think what feels important to me because I maybe can get ahead of myself sometimes in a conversation like this, because I wear this communication perspective so much. You know, 100% of the time, I feel very deeply enmeshed with it. And so to maybe backtrack a little bit, I just want to acknowledge that a lot of what I've shared today takes for granted that you really do see yourself as someone with choice and power to whatever extent you feel you have. There's a lot of things that are outside of your control. CMM would call that mystery. We talk about coherence, coordination, and mystery. And so there's an acknowledgement that there's things outside of our control we lean into. Emergence is very important. And at the same time, you get to make choices about how you act into the patterns you find yourself in and what you create in your communication. And so I think if this is, you know, brand new to people, I'd offer that as kind of a place to start.
What if you went through your life starting to look for the taken for granted patterns of your communicating and started looking for places where you could act into it differently by asking yourself that question of, well, what do I want to make in my communicating and what are we making in our communicating? And I is actually not the right word. Like, we like it is relational. So what are we making together? And so I just would encourage people to try that on for themselves.
What if you saw yourself as an active participant in creating your social world through communication?
[01:07:28] Speaker A: I love that. And I think that's a great note to end this episode.
[01:07:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:32] Speaker C: Probably ending with what I should have started with.
[01:07:35] Speaker A: Not at all. No, I think that's.
No, that's a powerful statement and I think it's a lot to chew on and a lot to. And some powerful things, some beautiful things to move forward with. So thank you for all your time and all your thoughts and all your.
[01:07:53] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[01:07:54] Speaker B: Continue to do.
[01:07:55] Speaker A: Encourage everybody to go find both the podcasts, stories Live stories told and Cosmo Parenting and wherever you listen to podcasts.
[01:08:04] Speaker C: Yep, it's everywhere.
[01:08:05] Speaker A: All right, good. And we will see you again in a couple weeks for some more fun stuff.
[01:08:12] Speaker B: We will.
[01:08:13] Speaker A: All right.
[01:08:19] Speaker B: Well, the conversation may be over, but the coffee's still brewing. We hope you enjoyed the time as much as we always do.
[01:08:25] Speaker A: Be sure to like and follow us on Facebook or Instagram. And if you really enjoyed this episode, be sure to pass it along to a friend.
[01:09:07] Speaker B: If you or someone you know has a story you want to share, drop us a DM on one of our social sites. We are constantly on the lookout for our next conversation.
[01:09:16] Speaker A: And let us hear about your favorite coffee shop here in Indiana. We are also always looking for another great cup. Until next time, keep it hot or iced.
