Cathy Ladman: I was 41 when I got married. I was 48 when I became a mom. That's a lot of life without someone depending on you, so it was hard for me. I still find it a real tough balancing act. I want to just do what I want to do. I'm not proud of that. I don't think it's one of my best qualities.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the MILF Podcast. This is the show where we talk about motherhood and sexuality with amazing women with fascinating stories to share on the joys of being a MILF. Now here's your host, the milfiest MILF I know, Jennifer Tracy.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, welcome back to the show. This is MILF Podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, entrepreneurship, and sexuality, and a few other things in between. I'm Jennifer Tracy, your host. I'm so excited about today's episode, and this month, again, is just whizzing by. I feel like I say this almost every week but it really is, and welcome to summer, summer, (singing).
Jennifer Tracy: I'm really feeling goofy this morning. What better time to record my intro to episode 52? Just a quick reminder, my give for this month is familiesbelongtogether.org. You can check them out through the link on my website at milfpodcast.com in the giving page. You can donate to them directly or you can write an iTunes review for MILF Podcast, in which case I will donate $25 to them.
Jennifer Tracy: Our live event is coming up Wednesday July 24th at the Dynasty Typewriter Theatre. There is a link on my website, on the events page. You can also go directly to dynastytypewriter.com and buy tickets. I strongly, strongly recommend buying tickets ahead of time. In fact, as of the air date of this show I don't even know how many are left. So, if you want to come, and I really hope you come if you live in LA or if you're flying in. I actually have a couple people flying in just for the show, which is ... I'm so honored and I promise to deliver an incredible evening of performance. Please come out for that. I'm going to have four amazing moms on the stage with me talking about sex after kids. And also, by the way, you don't have to be a woman or a mom to come to the show. That's definitely not a requirement and we have a lot of listeners who are neither. It's not about that. It's just we're going to be talking about some of those things surrounding motherhood but mainly we're going to be talking about sex.
Jennifer Tracy: Let's see, what else? Just one other thing quickly is that I don't know if you guys know this because I do talk about it but I don't talk about it that much. I am also a writing coach. I love working with writers. I'm very passionate about helping people tell their stories, particularly women, tell their stories, and if you do want to work with me you can check out all the various ways to work with me on jennifertracy.com. So, there's that information.
Jennifer Tracy: Today on the show we have comedian, writer, and actress Cathy Ladman. Now, Cathy came to me through Joanne Astrow who was on the show, gosh, I want to say back in January. Joanne was ... She's the one who shared about her amazing pre Roe V Wade experience in New York City in the '60s. She referred Cathy to me and I went to Cathy's home and had this interview with her and I just absolutely fell in love with her. She's brilliant, she's an amazing mom, and I just know you're going to love this interview. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Enjoy. Hi Cathy.
Cathy Ladman: Hello, I just cleared my throat.
Jennifer Tracy: That's okay. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Cathy Ladman: Oh, I'm so happy to do this.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm so excited to be here.
Cathy Ladman: I loved listening to Claudia and Joanne when they were interviewed. You're a great interviewer.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you, well I had amazing subjects. I just want to start a little bit from the beginning and find out, I know you're from New York originally.
Cathy Ladman: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Born and raised, okay, and what was that like growing up in New York, in New York City, in the city?
Cathy Ladman: Well, I grew up in Queens so it wasn't in ... It's technically in the city but it's one of the burros, so it was a suburb.
Jennifer Tracy: And big family?
Cathy Ladman: Three kids, very common Jewish number, in the '50s anyway.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cathy Ladman: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jennifer Tracy: Did you grow up surrounded by theater? Did you aspire to-
Cathy Ladman: Well, my parents used to go to the theater a lot and they were in the community temple plays. So I was surrounded by it in that way, and they had comedy albums and I started to listen to them when I was really young, when I was eight, about, and one of them I really, really hooked into was Nichols and May Examine Doctors and I just fell in love with it. It just became my thing. I can't explain it. It was very sophisticated for an eight year old to enjoy Nichols and May but I just loved it. I memorized the whole album. I still have the album here. It's autographed by Mike Nichols. I've yet to get Elaine Mays autograph on it.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Good thing you got Mike Nichols.
Cathy Ladman: I know, and I worked with him twice also, which was amazing.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Cathy Ladman: I memorized the entire album, and when I went to sleep at night my mom would come into my room and she'd sit on the edge of the bed and I'd say my prayers, which sounds so queer, and I mean queer in the sense of the word that it used to be used, not queer gay. The word's been usurped I believe.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cathy Ladman: You know, it's been repurposed, and so I said my prayers, and I would do a selection off the album for her, and she didn't understand what I was doing.
Jennifer Tracy: What would she say? What was her reaction?
Cathy Ladman: Oh nothing, just like, "Oh, okay," you know, it was something very anemic. I don't recall being encouraged in any way and I wasn't encouraged in my family.
Jennifer Tracy: Even when you got older?
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, I wasn't encouraged.
Jennifer Tracy: So when you grew up and graduated high school, what was your next step?
Cathy Ladman: Well I went to college but I really wanted to be a comedian. I mean, I decided when I was 13 I wanted to be a comedian. So I went to college but as it approached in my life I got more and more nervous because it was getting time for me to actually do it. I had no encouragement around me. I had, if anything, discouragement. You know, my mother's telling me to ... I was majoring in not theater but cinema, and I did an interdisciplinary major of communications, and she said, "I think you should get a teaching degree just to fall back on," so I did that immediately. I was scared, I was really scared. It took me a while, it took me until I was almost 26 to start doing stand up.
Jennifer Tracy: To get on the stage?
Cathy Ladman: No, I got on the stage before that. The first time I got on the stage I think I was 21. I was a teacher. I was an eighth grade English teacher and I knew I didn't want to do that. I was outside of Philadelphia and so I went to this open mic at this place in Philly and I did it two weeks in a row. I went to California for a vacation that summer and I decided I was going to move out to Los Angeles and do it because New York was so close I think it just almost seemed like too viable so I thought, "Well, the reason I'm not doing it is because I'm not in Los Angeles, so I'll move all the way across the country."
Cathy Ladman: So I did that, and I didn't go to near a comedy club, and I lasted in LA for four months that time. Came out here, didn't go near a comedy club, not in any way near the stage, then I got into a car accident. I was fine but the car was a mess and got the car fixed and I moved back to New York and spent three to four miserable years before I found the courage to start doing stand up and that was great. Once I started there I didn't stop. I didn't turn around.
Jennifer Tracy: Was there an impetus to the moment when you got the courage or-
Cathy Ladman: Well, I was ... Okay, Jerry Seinfeld was my first boyfriend when I was 15, he was 16. We met on a tour, sort of like a teen tour but not as vapid as that. It was more of a work tour. He was my first love and we used to talk about comedy a lot. He started doing it before I did, and when I saw him on The Tonight Show the first time I called him immediately and told him how great he was. He came to New York the next week, and I made him dinner, and we went around town. He was doing sets at the different clubs and I told him that I really wanted to do this but I was scared and he said, "You'll be great," and he mentored me. He just communicated with me and kind of held my hand. I took stand-up comedy class, which really was helpful, just getting up and talking into a microphone in front of a room full of people. I started on I think it was June 28 or 29th in 1981, never looked back.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, so you got the support that you didn't have from your family-
Cathy Ladman: From Jerry.
Jennifer Tracy: From Jerry.
Cathy Ladman: Right.
Jennifer Tracy: What a source. That's an amazing source.
Cathy Ladman: Right, I know, lucky.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, and you trusted it, you trusted him-
Cathy Ladman: Yes, I did.
Jennifer Tracy: ... so you said, "Okay, well if he's saying this I'm going to go for it."
Cathy Ladman: Right.
Jennifer Tracy: That's awesome, that's so awesome.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, and I was not able to find it in myself. You know, there are people who are able ... I'm not one of those people who is able to find that strength in myself and that's something that is from my upbringing. I'm very insecure by nature.
Jennifer Tracy: That's interesting because it takes so much security and I always say it takes a lot of ovaries. It takes a lot of ovaries to get on the stage night, after night, after night and, I mean, Claudia, in her episode, shared that she had a drink thrown at her when she was on tour.
Cathy Ladman: Oh, God.
Jennifer Tracy: I know, so it's both. Yes, I believe you that you have that in you but you almost must have a deep sense of self that you just-
Cathy Ladman: I must have it some place. I mean, it has to be some place. It's a lot of struggle. Like right now I'm embarking on a solo show about my eating disorder and that has ... I've been working on and off for 18 years on this show and it's really a whole different venue for me, and a whole different approach, and it's not stand up, and it's certainly not all funny. You know, some of it's going to be funny but it's tragic stuff, and it explains a lot about me and who I am, and why I found the need to control so much because I had no autonomy when I was growing up. So that is something that I'm working on right now, which is pretty fucking scary.
Jennifer Tracy: That's awesome, congratulations.
Cathy Ladman: Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: I can't wait to come see it.
Cathy Ladman: Oh, thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: That sounds amazing.
Cathy Ladman: I hope it's good, and I hope the message is clear, and I hope it's entertaining.
Jennifer Tracy: So you did stand up for a long time, and you toured, and you were on shows, and then you were also acting at the same time, getting TV and movies, I mean, you were busy.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: You were really busy.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, and I'm still busy but not as much stand up as I used to be doing. You know, it's weird. I was at The Comedy Store the other night and I had a spot in The Original Room and I used to love that room. It used to be my favorite room to play. And now when I go there I feel such trepidation and the crowd was really young and I had an awful show the other night, and it felt terrible, and it felt like, "Maybe this is the world telling me that I should stop doing stand up." And then Saturday night I had this great show some place else and still, after 38 years, a bad show can really rip into me, you know? You'd think I would've built up a callous for that but it's still really hard, it's really hard.
Jennifer Tracy: Well, but to me that speaks to how good you are at what you do because you make yourself vulnerable on stage and you can't have it both ways. You can't make yourself vulnerable on stage, and be raw and real, and also have a wall up.
Cathy Ladman: That's true.
Jennifer Tracy: I don't think.
Cathy Ladman: No, I think that's true.
Jennifer Tracy: So I get it, it makes sense to me.
Cathy Ladman: And I think that will behoove me in my show.
Jennifer Tracy: Absolutely.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Absolutely. So somewhere on this journey motherhood came to be for you, and this is a very interesting story so I can't wait to-
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, ell, you know, I was single for a very long time and I met my husband in 1988 I think and we were friends. We became fast friends. He was married, and he had two kids, and we were friends for a few years, and then his marriage broke up, and we fell in love. I always had ... I remember talking about him in therapy and saying to my therapist, "I wish I could meet someone like Tom Frickman, he's so great. Now that I'm married I can tell you some things that aren't so great.
Jennifer Tracy: Of course, that's always the way it goes, right?
Cathy Ladman: Oh my God, yes. The other night I wanted to watch ... I taped Free Solo.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, so good.
Cathy Ladman: I'm in the middle of watching it now.
Jennifer Tracy: It's so good.
Cathy Ladman: It's amazing, and I told him, I said, "I taped Free Solo so we can watch it tonight," this was Saturday. We came back and the opening shot is of-
Jennifer Tracy: I forget his name too but yeah.
Cathy Ladman: I can't remember but of him climbing on a sheer wall, Tom said, "I can't watch this," I said, "Why? Is it too upsetting for you?" He says, "No, because he's stupid and I can't watch it," I said, "What?" He said, "Yeah, he's stupid. Anybody who does that is just stupid and I just have no desire to watch it," and I was like, "My God, aren't you curious about something that's such a phenomenal feat?" "No, just stupid." And I said to him, I said, "Well, I guess you and I aren't going to be taking a trip to space anytime soon." I said, "There are so many things that I'm going to be doing in my life that we're not going to be doing together." That really, I hate that.
Jennifer Tracy: What did you end up watching instead?
Cathy Ladman: Oh, what did we watch? We watched Bill Maher from Friday night, which was a good show and he had a great piece about Trump's CPAC speech that was like two hours, two and a half hours, something like that. They did a bit about selling a video, a set of DVDs of him and they showed the highlights of it. It was really funny. It was any ad you would see for a DVD set and it was done so well we laughed out loud. So then I started watching Free Solo last night by myself.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh good, good. Now is your husband a stand up also?
Cathy Ladman: He was a stand up. That's how we met. We met doing stand up in Minneapolis. He was the feature act and I was the headliner and we became fast friends. He was just great, smart, funny, political, which I wasn't really, and he really awakened me. I mean, I wasn't apolitical but I just wasn't so involved, and I'm so much more involved. I think everybody's more involved now.
Jennifer Tracy: Right now, oh, for sure.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, but I mean since I've been with Tom [inaudible 00:16:05].
Jennifer Tracy: How long have you guys been together?
Cathy Ladman: We've been friends since '88, '88 or '89, and then we've been together since '93.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Did you guys get married?
Cathy Ladman: We got married in '96.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Cathy Ladman: I didn't think I was going to have kids. He has two kids, and I thought, "Okay, I'll have stepkids." They grew up in Minnesota and they would come here to visit, and they're great kids, and we get along really well. But then I was in my mid '40s, and I had great health insurance. I had all three unions, I had AFTRA, SAG, and Writes Guild, and I thought, "Hmm, they have insurance for fertility treatments and I think I want to try this." So we talked about it and we embarked on this. Now, while I was doing this somebody, actually a therapist of mine at the time, hipped me to Families with Children from China. They were having this Chines New Year's banquet at a church in Chinatown. It was small, it was really small, and we went there and they actually had Panda Express food. It was awful.
Jennifer Tracy: That's so terrible, oh my God.
Cathy Ladman: I know it was terrible, but it was so amazing to look at all these little girls in their silks, and at the end of the banquet they rolled that bubble wrap on the floor and they jumped up and down on bubble wrap and it sounded like the firecrackers. It was so cute and we spoke to some families there. When we were walking back to our car I said to him, I said, "You know, I really hope that I don't get pregnant. I like this." I didn't produce enough follicles. I only produced four follicles with all the shots, and he had a vasectomy and they were going to have to aspirate sperm from him, so it was just not worth it. So we used some donor sperm that we had gotten as back up, and I tried that for a few months and it didn't take, and in the mean time we started the process.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, and how long did it take, the adoption process?
Cathy Ladman: It took a little longer because I have depression and-
Jennifer Tracy: Me too.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, I've had it for pretty much my whole adult life since college.
Jennifer Tracy: Me too.
Cathy Ladman: So I was managing that and it was recommended that I didn't ... I stop the process. So we stopped the process and then we couldn't-
Jennifer Tracy: I'm sorry to interrupt you, because of the hormones might cause more depression and make it worse? Was that-
Cathy Ladman: You know, maybe that was it, I didn't even think of that. I think it was after I was finished ... Well, who knows what was still in my system but for whatever reason my depression really ramped up. My work was changing dramatically at that time. It really went off the edge. I was working, working, working, working, and all of a sudden there was no work.
Jennifer Tracy: Do you think that had to do with your age as a woman?
Cathy Ladman: I think it had to do with ... I mean, there were a lot of variables. It had to do with how long I was in the business, it had to do with the road fell of a little bit. It was like there was a big comedy boom when I started and it fell off in the early to mid '90s. So I got really depressed and they suggested that I stop the process for now, which I did, and then we picked it back up in a couple of years, but then we had to redo some stuff. So it took us way longer than ... Normally it should've taken about a year and a half but for us it took about four and a half years just because of the time that I was doing writing jobs on a couple of TV shows at the time so that helped.
Jennifer Tracy: Were you getting treatment, like medical help for the depression?
Cathy Ladman: Oh yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Cathy Ladman: Oh yeah, yes, I was, but you know, with depression it's not ... I remember my psychiatrist saying to me, "It's not an exact science," I said, "But it's science."
Jennifer Tracy: I know. I'm hoping some day they'll be able to take some of your blood and then go, "Oh, you need 20 milligrams," but they just can't. They have to just feed you these things and see how you feel.
Cathy Ladman: It really is like pin the tail on donkey. You'd think it would be a little bit more exact. I guess that's the kind of faith I have in science.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, so four years.
Cathy Ladman: So yeah, it took about four and a half years and we started in the late '90s. We started in the late '90s and we ended up going there in-
Cathy Ladman: Going to China?
Jennifer Tracy: Going to China in 2004.
Cathy Ladman: What was that experience like? Start with the ... You'd gone through the adoption process, then you get the call. I'm sure there were many calls and letters.
Cathy Ladman: Well, there weren't that many calls actually. You get the referral. You get a package when ... They give you like, "Expect it around this time," so you're heightened, you're on a heightened alert. So we get the thing in the mail, and we get her pictures, "This is your baby."
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God, I just got chills everywhere.
Cathy Ladman: Then we started working on the name, and then we get the call. You get the call about two weeks prior, "This is when you're flying."
Jennifer Tracy: How old was she when you got-
Cathy Ladman: She was 11 months. What they think about her is that she was with her birth mother for a couple of months, one or two months I think. So she was probably breastfed, which is good, but she was in an orphanage for nine to 10 months. It's interesting, she's taking Chinese now in high school and she's taken to it really well, you know, she's good at it. It's amazing to think, "She heard this, she heard this all the time when she was in the orphanage."
Jennifer Tracy: When she was in the womb.
Cathy Ladman: Yes, so who knows what she has in her, what her affinity is, you know?
Jennifer Tracy: Sure.
Cathy Ladman: So yeah, we went there and it was a pretty insulated trip because we flew there with 31 other families who were either couples or had kids with them who were going to adopt, and then we split into I think it was three different groups. You go to Guangzhou, which is where a lot of the government stuff is, for the adoption, all the adoption paperwork, that kind of stuff is there. One of the groups stayed around there, another one flew some place else, I forget where, and we flew up to Nanjing. That's where we got Milan. That's where we picked her up.
Jennifer Tracy: Milan?
Cathy Ladman: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, and what was it like when you first saw her?
Cathy Ladman: Well it was weird. We were in a lot of government buildings. We didn't do a lot of touring. We were on a bus and stuff. We didn't get a real feel for ... We want to go back to China with her and really visit. So we were in a government building ... This is what happens, okay? We fly out of LA on a Sunday night. We arrive to Guangzhou on a Monday, no, we arrived on a Sunday. We stayed overnight in Guangzhou, we flew the next morning to Nanjing, like three hours later we had our kids.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh.
Cathy Ladman: I know, it was insane. We walk into this building, we're waiting, and we see there are some women who have babies with them and they're the caregivers, and there was this baby sitting on the couch and I didn't have my glasses on. I guess I need distance glasses. I mean, I do need distance glasses but I didn't think my eyes were that bad back then but bad enough to not really see features and Tom said, "There's Milan." He recognized her sitting on the couch. So we were like ... I think we were the third parents up. They did us one at a time. They called our names and we each were given our babies, and then we all waited.
Cathy Ladman: It was hot and sweaty. It was so hot, oh my God. Then we spent a week in Nanjing. We had to do a lot of paperwork there. In the mean time we went on meals together, we toured together, we did stuff together as a group. We did some interesting things. We went to some sites and did some great shopping. One of my friends from the trip is a wardrobe person in the business and she loves fabrics. So went down to the district where they have textiles.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, I bet it was gorgeous.
Cathy Ladman: We walked through, oh my God, and I bought some yarn, some cashmere yarn on a spool. I still don't know what I'm going to do with it but it's amazing. It was so cheap and the fabrics were gorgeous. Oh, it was so much fun. So, that to me was one of my favorite outings that I did actually. It was off the beaten path. So we spent a week in Nanjing, and then we went back to Guangzhou where we had to spend another week to do more bureaucracy, and then finally ... You got the medical, we got checked out by doctors, blah, blah, blah. I remember one family, they found out that their daughter was deaf. At this point you can make a decision as to whether or not you want to move forward. I know, can you believe it? And they moved forward, and it was interesting because I think one of the wife's relatives was deaf. It just all made sense in their lives to move forward with it.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Cathy Ladman: I know, pretty intense, pretty intense stuff. The food was not good.
Jennifer Tracy: Really?
Cathy Ladman: The food was terrible, at least the food we had was terrible. We were just in one part. We didn't go to Beijing, we didn't go to Shanghai, who knows? I would've really wanted to go to Shanghai. The best meal we had was a Vietnamese meal and there was a blackout in the restaurant at the time and it was so fun. They turned on fans and it was in the dark. It was fun to see Milan going through it. She was so cute. She was such a cute baby.
Jennifer Tracy: So you bring her home and you're a new mom suddenly.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, I know. I don't think I really knew what I was getting into.
Jennifer Tracy: I don't think anybody does.
Cathy Ladman: Nobody does, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: How was the transition?
Cathy Ladman: It was hard for me. It was really hard. I'm selfish, I am. Look, I was 41 when I got married. I was 48 when I became a mom. That's a lot of life without someone depending on you. So it was hard for me. You know, I still find it a real tough balancing act. I want to just do what I want to do, and I'm not proud of that. I don't think it's one of my best qualities.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm nodding and eye rolling in agreement because I struggle with that so much and I've shared this on the show is that I love my son more than life and I just ever since I've been divorced I cherish my alone time.
Cathy Ladman: Oh my God, I love being alone.
Jennifer Tracy: I need to recharge. I'm definitely ... and I just recently learned this phrase but I'm definitely an introverted extrovert.
Cathy Ladman: What is that?
Jennifer Tracy: So, you might be also too. A lot of performers are, where it's like you can go and perform and do that and you can do the social thing but you need your alone time to recharge. I have to have my time where it's just me, no partner, no friends. My dog is fine, my dog is fine.
Cathy Ladman: Oh, my dog is always fine, yes.
Jennifer Tracy: But I need to read, I need to watch a documentary that I want to watch, it's just me and I have to have that, otherwise I start to unravel, and for me that's where the depression can kick in, overwhelm, depression, and then I feel like I'm drowning. And with a small child there's just no option unless you're very fortunate and you have a big family and they can take care of you but-
Cathy Ladman: We had no support system here, you know, like you had no ... We had no relatives. You know, I talk to friends who have grandparents and even if we were near them my parents were so old by that time. They weren't about to step in, and very different bringing up a kid without a family support system, very different. You know, we never went out.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, did you have a little bit of postpartum?
Cathy Ladman: I don't know, was it that?
Jennifer Tracy: I don't know, I'm not a doctor but to me, and there's been research done about this, that just that being a new mom, and having that stress, and taking care of a small baby, whether or not you gave birth, whether or not you're breastfeeding you can definitely experience that postpartum because it is about that crash of, "Who the fuck am I? I love this little baby but oh my God, the responsibility's crushing."
Jennifer Tracy: I remember one time I was holding my son, I still shudder when I think about this, he was maybe four months old, and I was holding him in the kitchen and there was a fly in the kitchen and I was like, "I'm going to get that fly." I was holding him in one arm and he was little. He couldn't ... He was little. He wasn't able to hold onto me yet or whatever, you know, and I took a towel, a dish towel, and I was swatting at the fly, swatting at the fly, and I remember his head ... He started leaning back. I had his legs but his head started leaning back and the countertop was right behind him and I caught him just in time. I still remember that moment and thinking, "My God, he could've died," like smacking the back of his head on the countertop?
Cathy Ladman: Oh God, you know what I did one time? Our dog Preston, our first dog, ran out. Somebody left the front gate open where we were and he ran out and I was freaked, and I was home. I had just come home from Trader Joe's so unpacking groceries. So I grab Milan, and I'm running in my clogs, and I tripped and I fell on her and the pavement was ... I know, terrible. I'll tell you my favorite thing is for a couple years I didn't feel like going back to Minneapolis for Christmas. I just wanted some down time. So Tom and Milan went and I stayed home with [inaudible 00:30:17].
Jennifer Tracy: Heaven, heaven.
Cathy Ladman: Watched Screeners.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, that's my favorite.
Cathy Ladman: Went to the movies on my WGA card. It was so great.
Jennifer Tracy: That's what I mean, like that restorative time is so-
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, I wonder if that's why I love that time of year because it just reminds me of ... Everything's shut down, you can't do anything.
Jennifer Tracy: Half the population of LA is gone so you can actually drive.
Cathy Ladman: Right, right, right.
Jennifer Tracy: It's true, it's true.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah. So anyway, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I want to ask you how it was ... is the term, and educate me here because I don't know, is it adoptive parent or would it be-
Cathy Ladman: I guess it's, yeah, it's an adoptive parent, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: How was that for you with family and friends? Were they like ... It was no big deal?
Cathy Ladman: It was no big deal. My sister has two adopted kids but domestic adoptions, not international. It was no big deal. It was really no big deal at all.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, because it's so common and also we live in an urban city where it's like people are-
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, I think the biggest challenge for me was that I was so much older than most of the parents that I was meeting.
Jennifer Tracy: Right, like a preschool, or a baby class, or whatever, yeah.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah. We were mistaken for Milan's grandparents and you know, we could be, if you do the math we could be.
Jennifer Tracy: Right, right, but then everything else just went along. She went into preschool and you were part of the ... It was like-
Cathy Ladman: Yeah. It was fun, it was fun, and she's an amazing kid. She's an amazing kid.
Jennifer Tracy: What is she into?
Cathy Ladman: She loves music. She loves music, and she loves softball, although she's liking softball a little bit less but she really loves her music so much.
Jennifer Tracy: Like she plays instruments or-
Cathy Ladman: She plays viola and she plays percussion, which she's really enjoying more than viola. Viola's her first instrument but she loves percussion.
Jennifer Tracy: That's impressive.
Cathy Ladman: She's very talented.
Jennifer Tracy: And she's 15?
Cathy Ladman: She's 15. She'll be 16 in August.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
Cathy Ladman: I know, and she's not driving. She doesn't have her permit yet. I don't think she's in a hurry.
Jennifer Tracy: You know what though? Kids now don't, and they have Uber, and Lyft, and all this, and I think it's ... I wouldn't want to either anyway.
Cathy Ladman: No, we let her drive down the block sometimes, like in a parking lot or something like that, just to give her a feel of it. It's fine with me. I'm in no hurry. It's just that sometimes you have to pick me up, you got to take me ... Like this afternoon I have to take her all over the place, and it's still-
Jennifer Tracy: A chauffeur.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, it's still a lot of my time is taken up by that, and you know, my husband's the one with the full-time job now. He didn't have a full-time job when we first adopted Milan so we were really more evenly co-parenting. Since he's the one with the full-time job-
Jennifer Tracy: What does he do now?
Cathy Ladman: He's a builder.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Cathy Ladman: He is not a stand up comic anymore. He was a writer for a while, and now he's in construction and he does these high-end residential renovations. Yeah, right now he's working a project in the Wilshire Corridor.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh yeah.
Cathy Ladman: You know? Penthouse, 6700 square feet, that's 6700 square feet.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Cathy Ladman: I know.
Jennifer Tracy: Is it the entire top floor?
Cathy Ladman: It's two floors actually. They're in their '80s, these people, so I don't think they're going to be using the second floor.
Jennifer Tracy: Whenever I hear that kind of square footage I think, "Oh, that's so much to clean."
Cathy Ladman: I know, I don't even clean this place.
Jennifer Tracy: That's so much to vacuum and mop.
Cathy Ladman: Oh my God, I think when you have that-
Jennifer Tracy: You have a person.
Cathy Ladman: You have somebody coming in-
Jennifer Tracy: Right, of course, of course.
Cathy Ladman: ... or a team, but I often think that too, it's like, "How do you keep you with that?" My sister lives in a big house on Long Island, somebody comes to clean her place three times a week, but she doesn't clean the whole place-
Jennifer Tracy: No, little bits at a time.
Cathy Ladman: Little bits at a time, but three times a week she has somebody coming. How luxurious is that?
Jennifer Tracy: That sounds luxurious but, again, with the introvert thing that I've just learned, I never would've thought of myself as this way but someone explained it to me, so I'm like, "I don't want someone in my space that often."
Cathy Ladman: I know, no, I know. When my housekeeper comes it's like I have to hide.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, or leave-
Cathy Ladman: I have to go into a-
Jennifer Tracy: I don't want to be here because my place is small and-
Cathy Ladman: I know.
Jennifer Tracy: It's funny.
Cathy Ladman: It's funny.
Jennifer Tracy: It's such a quality problem, my God. Did you always just tell Milan about her adoption?
Cathy Ladman: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: How did that work?
Cathy Ladman: Oh yeah, we were always very open about it. There was never a time where we sat down and had a talk, you know? It was just something that was part of our conversation always, you know, when you were a baby in China blah, blah, blah. I can't even remember what we said but we were always very honest with her.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, that's so great.
Cathy Ladman: No announcements.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, I think for me that's how I parent with all things, you know?
Cathy Ladman: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Because I just think it's so much easier than having some big, "Surprise."
Cathy Ladman: I know, and I personally have talked about pot with her for a while now and have asked her if she's tried it, and she says, "No," and I believe her. She says most of her friends smoke pot, and I said, "Just do me a favor, if you're going to, come to us first," because the last thing I want is for her to smoke pot with a stranger. It's such strong pot now that I just don't want her having a shitty experience with that.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, or being in an unsafe environment.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, yeah, so we talk ... She says she's seen people shoot heroin in her school.
Jennifer Tracy: What? I shouldn't be shocked by that but I just ... wow. And what about sex and boys or if she's ... Is she into-
Cathy Ladman: Nothing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cathy Ladman: Nothing. She's not there yet.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. I wasn't either at that age, I really wasn't. I remember having all these girlfriends who were just boy crazy, and all they did was talk about ... I would do it to fit in but I just was like, "I'm more interested in being in the play and the acapella jazz group I'm in," or, I don't know. I just wasn't ... Even in college I wasn't, I don't know. I thought something was wrong with me.
Cathy Ladman: I wasn't either. Oh, really?
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, I really did, I really, yeah.
Cathy Ladman: I wasn't either. In college is where I started my sexual life but in high school I was just ... Well, I was miserable. I hated living at home and I did whatever I could to get out. I accelerated through school, and I graduated when I was 16, and I went straight to college two days later.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, I graduated in the middle of the year.
Jennifer Tracy: You were done.
Cathy Ladman: I was so done, I was so done, yep.
Jennifer Tracy: Where'd you go to college?
Cathy Ladman: Albany, New York State University, New York.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, beautiful.
Cathy Ladman: It was nice, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: That's a great place to go to school.
Cathy Ladman: I had a great college experience. I loved it.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, I loved college, too.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I went to Boston, to BU, and it was fun. In fact, when my baby was three months old my husband, my ex husband now but then husband was on a show in Boston and we went. It was October, it was beautiful, and I walked around, and it was so interesting being in the place where I had my formative years with my little tiny baby and walking around the commons, and yeah, it's just amazing.
Cathy Ladman: There's a lot of history there. I love the Northeast.
Jennifer Tracy: Me too.
Cathy Ladman: I really do.
Jennifer Tracy: Me too.
Cathy Ladman: I was saying that I really loved college, although that's where my eating disorder began. I had a trauma that really set me off.
Jennifer Tracy: Can I ask what it was?
Cathy Ladman: Oh sure, it was a best friend I had who all of a sudden decided she didn't want to be my friend anymore and I just couldn't bear it. We were on diets already because I weighed too much, and she wanted to lose weight, and then we went to this quack diet doctor, and got these pills, and were taking the pills. Then that happened and she dumped me and I really decided, "I'm going to be the skinniest person, that's what I want to do. I want to lose weight and be the skinniest person." I wanted to take some control of my life, you know? That was something that nobody was ever going to do that to me again. Nobody was ever going to pull the rug out from under me again. I was going to be in control. So I took complete control of that.
Jennifer Tracy: Did you still use the pills or were you just very restrictive?
Cathy Ladman: I was using these pills. They were non-amphetamines but you know what they were? I was looking them up. They're called Ionamin and they're fen-phen.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh.
Cathy Ladman: I was taking those in the '70s.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah. I took them in very measured amounts. I didn't take them every day. I really wanted to make them last so I took them maybe every other day, and then I was restrictive, and over a period of ... A lot of this is in my show. Over a period of, let me see, this was '75, so over a period of about two years I lost close to 40 pounds.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: And you were 18?
Cathy Ladman: No, at that time I was like 19 to 21, this period.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, I went from 127 to under 85 pounds, well maybe I wasn't under. I was about under 90 pounds at that point, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: And you were able to function, and go to class, and pass your classes?
Cathy Ladman: Oh yeah, I was able to do that, and then I was a teacher, I was a teacher.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, that's right because you were already graduated because you went to college at 16.
Cathy Ladman: Right.
Jennifer Tracy: Did your family chime in and say-
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, anorexia was not really part of the vernacular back then, and there wasn't as much known about it publicly certainly, and it was just being studied, and so my mother would say things to me but anything my mother said to me was like poison.
Jennifer Tracy: Of course, right.
Cathy Ladman: So I just ignored her, and then my sister would occasionally say something to me and I reassured her that nothing was wrong, and I really thought that I was ... I wanted to believe that nothing was wrong. I was lying, I was lying, but I think I was lying to myself as well.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, and how long was it before you got better or had an event or something that-
Cathy Ladman: Well we went to family therapy in 1978 and that started me on a good path, and then I started doing stand up, which really helped me in my recovery because I was doing what I wanted to do with my life. That made a big difference. Before I was working jobs that I didn't want to work, I mean some shitty jobs in New York, and living with my parents, and really those years in New York from age 22 to 24-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, you referenced them earlier, you said, "Miserable years."
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, they were awful years, really awful years. I can't even believe I survived those years. They were terrible, oh my God, and I had to take the express bus into the city which nauseated me, start again, stop again, start again, stop again, you know, that bus kind of stuff?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, yes.
Cathy Ladman: But then I started recovering, and then when I came out to LA in 1985 ... I was gaining a little bit of weight in New York, very little and slowly. When I came out here I was turned on to Overeaters Anonymous and that really helped me. That really helped me a lot. Yeah, I'm lucky. I'm one of the lucky ones because it's a killer disease.
Jennifer Tracy: It really is, it really is, and I can't wait to see your show. It's going to be amazing.
Cathy Ladman: Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cathy Ladman: It's called Does This Show Make Me Look Fat?
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, that's such a good title.
Cathy Ladman: It's a good title and I hope the show's as funny as the title.
Jennifer Tracy: It will be, it will be, it already is. I'll be there, I'll be front row.
Cathy Ladman: Oh, thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: So Cathy, we've come to the time in the interview where-
Cathy Ladman: We have? Already?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cathy Ladman: Oh my God.
Jennifer Tracy: I know, it flies, right? So I ask every guest the same three questions and then I go into a lightning round of questions. You may remember this from [crosstalk 00:42:59] episodes.
Cathy Ladman: I do but I forget what they are now because I'm ancient, yes.
Jennifer Tracy: What do you think about, Cathy, when you hear the word MILF?
Cathy Ladman: Well, mother I'd love to fuck, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I love that you said, "Mother I'd love." I think it's mom-
Cathy Ladman: Oh, [crosstalk 00:43:16]?
Jennifer Tracy: I think it's mom I'd like to.
Cathy Ladman: Oh, oh, okay. Well I like mine better.
Jennifer Tracy: The way you said it is much better.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, it's nicer.
Jennifer Tracy: And you said it, "Mother I love to fuck," so it's like present tense.
Cathy Ladman: No, I think I said, "I'd."
Jennifer Tracy: Oh okay, okay.
Cathy Ladman: I did say, "I'd." I don't want to own that incorrectly.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, okay, mother I'd love to ... That's just so much more respectful.
Cathy Ladman: It is more respectful. It's less ogling and more amorousness there.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, yes, I like that. What is something you've changed your mind about recently?
Cathy Ladman: Boy, oh, that's tough, that's really tough. Something I've changed my mind about recently.
Jennifer Tracy: It can be something small. It doesn't have to be-
Cathy Ladman: I think I've changed my mind, although it's more of a continuum. I'm not completely flipped on it but I've made the decision to not expect myself to be perfect. It's a tough one. I have a roll on my stomach now, which I don't like but I'm 63 years old, I'm in pretty good shape-
Jennifer Tracy: You're in phenomenal shape, yeah.
Cathy Ladman: ... and I'm not going to look like I did in my '30s, and I think I'd like to let that go of needing to look like I'm 35.
Jennifer Tracy: Well, yeah, and it's something that I think the messaging that we get ... I was at lunch yesterday at the Beverly Hills Hotel and I came around the corner, and this happens frequently in LA, and I came around the corner and there was a woman sitting on the couch, and she had this long, long striking reddish brown hair and she turned to look at me. I don't know how old this woman was. I could never know how old this woman was. She had so many injectables in her face, so much makeup on, but I could tell underneath all of that that she was pretty or that she once was pretty. She had pretty features, a pretty nose, pretty eye shape, and she just looked up at me and I just thought, "Oh my God, why?"
Cathy Ladman: That's so sad.
Jennifer Tracy: It makes you look worse. It'd be better ... I mean, easier said than done and I do all the things. I buy all the creams, I do the ... I haven't gotten Botox in a while because I hit my head and I had a lump on my head so I'm behind on my Botox, but I get a little Botox here and there but there's something, I don't know what it is, if you get over zealous with that stuff, but it's like it becomes ... it makes the women look older.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, it does, because you look at somebody like that and you know they're older, you know they're older, and they look weird.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, I mean, look, I'm really falling here on the sides of my-
Jennifer Tracy: I'm starting to get the thing under my chin.
Cathy Ladman: ... and the neck thing, and I don't want to go down that slippery slope, I really don't. I do get my eyebrows done and that to me is everything.
Jennifer Tracy: You get them waxed?
Cathy Ladman: No, I get microblading.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh.
Cathy Ladman: I get them filled in because they really got thin.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, nice. They look great.
Cathy Ladman: In fact, I just did them so they have a little bit of ointment on them so they're a little shiny maybe.
Jennifer Tracy: They look so good. I was actually admiring them earlier.
Cathy Ladman: Oh, thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: I was like, God, the shape of her eyebrows is great, and the thickness, yeah.
Cathy Ladman: Well, it makes a big difference in the shape of one's face, and that is something that I'm really happy that I've done, but a facelift is not something I will do.
Jennifer Tracy: And you can't know.
Cathy Ladman: And even this eye is falling here. I mean, unless it starts to impair my vision I'm not going to do anything about it. I know I notice it way more than anybody else.
Jennifer Tracy: I never would've possibly, yeah.
Cathy Ladman: No, I know, but I don't want to be one of those people. I love my gray hair, I want to be who I am.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, well, and you've worked hard to overcome all these things that you've just told us about, the really wanting to be a stand up comedian, and then finally doing it, and then having the eating disorder and struggling with that, and then finally getting well from it. So it's like to then deny who that person is, so I applaud that. It's hard.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, but I still want to lose five pounds, you know? There's still a part of me that says, "Five pounds will change everything."
Jennifer Tracy: Of course, well, and it's balance, and old habits die hard.
Cathy Ladman: Yes, yes.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm right there with you. How do you define success?
Cathy Ladman: I think doing what one loves and being able to live a decent lifestyle. I don't think one has to be a millionaire or rich but just be able to afford to live a nice life, not agonize over your bills, just to be able to smoothly go along, pay what you need to pay, and do what you love. That to me is successful.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay, lightning round.
Cathy Ladman: Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: Ocean or desert?
Cathy Ladman: Ocean.
Jennifer Tracy: Favorite junk food?
Cathy Ladman: I don't eat a lot of junk food but I would say potato chips.
Jennifer Tracy: Any particular kind?
Cathy Ladman: No, I mean-
Jennifer Tracy: Just the good potato chips?
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, and it really ... I don't let myself eat them very often but I love them.
Jennifer Tracy: Movies or Broadway show?
Cathy Ladman: Oh God, oh man.
Jennifer Tracy: It's like Sophie's Choice?
Cathy Ladman: Well I love the movies and they're so much more accessible to me but Broadway shows are so special to me. I just saw one when I was in New York.
Jennifer Tracy: What did you see?
Cathy Ladman: I saw The Ferryman.
Jennifer Tracy: Ooh, how was it?
Cathy Ladman: It was really good, it was really good, great theater, great theater.
Jennifer Tracy: I miss that.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, I miss that a lot, a lot. So yeah, a Broadway show is just very special.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, daytime sex or nighttime sex?
Cathy Ladman: It doesn't really matter to me what time of day it is. Daytime is kind of fun I guess, and then you get dressed, and you move on.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. I already know this but cat person or dog person?
Cathy Ladman: Oh God, dog person.
Jennifer Tracy: Have you ever worn a unitard?
Cathy Ladman: Yes, I have.
Jennifer Tracy: What color was it?
Cathy Ladman: It was black, of course.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cathy Ladman: We called it a cat suit.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, yes.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cathy Ladman: It was the style in the '80s.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh yeah, it's come back.
Cathy Ladman: Yeah, oh it has? Well I won't be wearing one.
Jennifer Tracy: Me neither. Shower or bath tub?
Cathy Ladman: Shower.
Jennifer Tracy: Ice cream or chocolate?
Cathy Ladman: Chocolate.
Jennifer Tracy: On a scale of one to 10 how good are you at ping pong?
Cathy Ladman: Eight.
Jennifer Tracy: Nice. What is your biggest pet peeve?
Cathy Ladman: People who don't say thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: If you could push a button and have perfect skin for the rest of your life but it would also give you incurable halitosis for the rest of your life would you push it?
Cathy Ladman: No.
Jennifer Tracy: Your face.
Cathy Ladman: No.
Jennifer Tracy: She was horrified when I said incurable halitosis. Super power choice, invisibility, ability to fly, or super strength?
Cathy Ladman: I think ability to fly. That would be great.
Jennifer Tracy: That'd be pretty awesome.
Cathy Ladman: It would beat the traffic. Oh, that would be great, and I could go to New York whenever I wanted. Oh yeah, ability to fly.
Jennifer Tracy: Would you rather have, this is the one weird question, six fingers on both hands or a bellybutton that looks like foreskin?
Cathy Ladman: Wow.
Jennifer Tracy: She's repulsed.
Cathy Ladman: A bellybutton that looks like foreskin? Well, I'm kind of cheating here but I would say the bellybutton that looks like foreskin because then I know I could have that surgically removed.
Jennifer Tracy: That's right, that's right, that's right. What was the name of your first pet?
Cathy Ladman: Honey Bun.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of the street you grew up on?
Cathy Ladman: Morancy, Morancy Lane.
Jennifer Tracy: Your porn name is Honey Bun Morancy.
Cathy Ladman: Oh wow.
Jennifer Tracy: She is upscale.
Cathy Ladman: That's good.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cathy Ladman: Honey Bun Morancy.
Jennifer Tracy: She's fun. She was a showgirl I think.
Cathy Ladman: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, I think she was a showgirl. Oh my God, your dog is so cute.
Cathy Ladman: I know, he is so cute. Honey Bun Morancy, what do you think of that Chappy?
Jennifer Tracy: He's so precious.
Cathy Ladman: Oh, my baby, oh, my baby.
Jennifer Tracy: He's so precious. Cathy, you're miraculous. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Cathy Ladman: Oh, you're so nice.
Jennifer Tracy: This was wonderful.
Cathy Ladman: Oh, I had a great time. Thank you, you're great. I can't believe how the time flew.
Jennifer Tracy: I know, it goes so fast.
Cathy Ladman: All right, now let's go on to the next thing.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you so much.
Cathy Ladman: Bye.
Jennifer Tracy: Thanks so much for listening guys. I really hope you enjoyed my conversation with Cathy. Tune in next week for a fresh episode of MILF Podcast, Moms I'd Like to Follow, anytime, anywhere. I love you, keep going.