Different, Not Broken

I woke up in the middle of the night, checked my phone, and read that Lindsey Graham died. My brain, naturally, read it as Mitch McConnell — because who among us can tell them apart — and from there the whole weekend was just political whiplash.
This one is a tour of the chaos of this timeline. A senator had been missing for almost a month. They said he was "working remotely," and I said, yeah, me too, the only difference is I'm just dead inside. His wife left the country. Contractors were redoing his floors. And I had a lot of questions that nobody was interested in answering, so I did what I do: I made it funny.
Somewhere in there I decided "The Dead Senators" would make an excellent throwback band name (the genre, obviously, is French Regency punk with banjos — a punk rock minuet), I invited everyone to come fight me in our Quirky community, where the Daily Fights have already established that the only acceptable pen is a Pilot V10 in purple and the jury is still out on whether a hot dog is a taco.
And then the part that matters most. A Small Talk from Kristen in North Carolina: "I'm a 38-year-old woman with ADHD, and I look fine. From the inside, I'm running 40 browser tabs, three of which are on fire, and I haven't replied to a text from my sister in 11 days. I want someone to say out loud that looking fine and being fine are not the same thing."
So here it is, out loud: they are not the same thing, and you are allowed to be a put-together human on the outside and a hot mess on the inside. Nobody has it together. Nobody knows what they're doing. We are all raw-dogging life with no guidebook — least of all a guidebook for this exact timeline — and the sooner we stop pretending otherwise, the better.
🎧 Different, Not Broken — honest, funny conversations about neurodivergence, mental health, burnout, and being human.
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Contains strong language and political commentary.
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I keep getting thanked by restaurant staff. Not for tipping well. For not screaming at them.
Hi, I'm Lauren Howard (you can call me L2) and this is my podcast Different, Not Broken - which is about exactly that.
This one covers a lot of ground: why service staff now brace for impact over an overcooked salmon, why I tipped extra for honesty, and — since the outrage economy makes no sense to me — why Taylor Swift's wedding has the internet in a chokehold while Donald Trump has made $2 billion he can hold in his disgusting sweaty fat hands and nobody seems to care.
What starts with an inedible salmon at Chili's, and a misplaced pizza descends into the Taylor Swift wedding outrage — the double standard around wealthy women being self-indulgent, and where I think our collective anger would be far better spent.
Plus, in Small Talk: Priya from Oregon has been the planner friend her whole life.
📞 Leave me a voicemail: https://differentnotbrokenpodcast.com/voicemail
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This is what happens when your brain runs out of RAM.
Hi, I'm Lauren Howard (you can call me L2) and this is my podcast Different, Not Broken - which is about exactly that.
My mom is in the hospital. Again.
My kids are at camp for the first time ever.
My co-worker Vanessa's grandmother fell.
Kyle's eye is still a thing.
And I have exactly zero bandwidth left for anything — including, apparently, remembering that not everyone knows my mom's transplanted kidney's nickname.
The nephrologist found out the hard way. He's fine. Kidney Poitier is fine. I am questionable.
In this episode, I tell you about the nurse who pretended she needed help from my mom — a former phlebotomist — just to get her brain working and make her feel useful in that hospital bed.
I ugly-cried a little on the inside.
Then I talk about the moment my filter completely abandoned me mid-conversation with a medical professional.
And then Alison brings us a Small Talk question from Opal in Georgia, who's been close with her best friend for 26 years and is starting to feel like she gives more than she gets.
Brain full. Filter gone. Heart kind of full, too. Let's get into it.
New episodes every Wednesday. Find them all at differentnobrokenpodcast.com.

My oldest turns 10 this week, which is rude and kind of bullshit, and I will accept no part of it. She did not ask my permission.
Hi, I'm Lauren Howard. Some people call me L2. You can too if you want. This is my podcast "Different, Not Broken" which is about exactly that.
In this episode, I take you back to exactly 10 years ago — the Thursday night when a weird feeling turned into a labor story I was absolutely not ready for, including the shower incident. (You’ll know when you get there.)
Then we get into what I’m calling Furniture Fuckery: the story of why my home office carpet smelled like funky ass dog for a decade, how it took me 10 years to buy a desk I first saw when we bought this house, and how Manny — a furniture store salesperson on his very first day — accidentally became the emotional highlight of my weekend.
Alison joins for this week’s Small Talk to answer Kevin from Rhode Island, who is already spiraling about his upcoming high school reunion. We talk comparison culture, social media highlight reels, and why nobody — and I mean nobody — has their shit together. Not even the people who look like they do.
I have lots of excellent things available for you to buy in my Stan Store so you should probably go do that at https://stan.store/elletwo
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Want to leave a voicemail with a Small Talk question or even just to let us know you're enjoying a Fountain coke? Do that here - https://differentnotbrokenpodcast.com/voicemail

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I am not generally a catastrophizer.I can see worst-case scenarios in almost any situation — and I'm usually right. But I'm always happy to be wrong. I just... don't get the opportunity that often.
This week's episode is exactly the kind of chaos that makes me me.
It starts with the NY Knicks winning the NBA Championship (for which I personally deserve significant credit, having been invested in their success for approximately 46 milliseconds).
Five minutes later, something happened to my house that I was absolutely certain was the beginning of global nuclear war.
Then I tell you about Stephen Colbert's series finale, Paul McCartney walking out onto the Ed Sullivan stage, and the exact moment I became a puddle of tears on the floor — because some feelings are genetic, and the Beatles are one of mine.
And in Small Talk, Alison answers a question from Brianna in Tennessee, who's spent years being told she's "too much." Too direct. Too blunt. Too honest.