Stephanie Roy: Chemotherapy, Tequila, and Fireworks | What’s Kraken

Jo: Hey, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you is. Today on What’s Kraken, we’ve got Stephanie Roy. Full disclosure — we might know each other. We just might. So first of all, thank you very much, Stephanie, for making the time and being here. I’ve been trying to get you on the podcast for a while.

Stephanie: Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Jo: We’re going to talk about a lot of things. We’ll talk about your book — and I’m not going to get the title wrong — it’s Chemotherapy and Tequila. First I thought you said we should do that, and I’m like, I don’t know if I want to do both. I don’t drink anymore, and I don’t want the chemo either. But that’s the title of your book: The Last Road Trip. We’ll get into all that. We’re going to get into new projects, old projects, all the projects. But I want to go all the way back. I don’t even know what year it would be — 2013, 2014? At the little Atwater Mall.

Stephanie: Yes, that’s where we met.

Jo: We met at the mall. How weird is that? As ghost hunt adventurers.

Stephanie: Ghost hunters, yes.

Jo: That was so long ago, with Taylor. And then the extremely fake psychic — I forgot that person’s name. Probably best to forget that one. We did ghost hunting for like a year or two, right?

Stephanie: I know, but I think mostly we were there to weed out the weirdos.

Jo: We were. Full disclosure, I was like, is this a honeypot? Is that dude trying to honeypot me? I saw it between you and Taylor and I’m like, what the s***, dude? But it worked out. And we did weed out a lot of the weirdos.

Stephanie: Yes, we did. It was too much fun.

Jo: And the weird thing is — for those of you who have no idea what the f*** we’re talking about, welcome to my world — there was this thing before the pandemic called Meetup. I think it might still exist, meetup.com. If you’re new to a city, you like this, you like that, you’re just trying to meet people. I signed up for three or four different groups that turned out to be the same f***ing group.

Stephanie: The writing group. Oh my gosh. Like — you again?

Jo: Exactly. Like, how many groups are the same? And it wasn’t really Atwater Mall — it was by Westmount, right? Westmount Mall, the tunnel.

Stephanie: Yeah, Westmount Mall or something. I don’t know what they call that.

Jo: The weird-a** tunnel where one way goes to the quick care and the other goes to basically s***. I parked at Atwater once by mistake and was like, holy s***, this is the place we used to go. So it was meetup after meetup after meetup. And just by being the semi-sane ones, we started clicking.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s true.

Jo: That’s kind of it. And from there — I don’t remember our first non-ghost outing. What was that? Do you remember?

Stephanie: Yeah, it was Mad Hatter’s, wasn’t it?

Jo: Oh, s***. That’s the one I don’t remember — because it was Hatters. I have to apologize for the vomit on Hatter’s front step. I think I made it to the front step.

Stephanie: I’m sure they’re used to it. It’s a regular thing.

Jo: Hatters, man. And then we started doing Raindance — not an actual rain dance, the movie thing — but just randomly. I didn’t know you were in that one.

Stephanie: I know — surprise. Oh, you again.

Jo: That was kind of nice, man. So, full disclosure, we know each other. And I knew you as you were writing that book, Chemotherapy and Tequila: The Last Road Trip. Were you workshopping it at one of the writers groups? I can’t remember.

Stephanie: I was actually looking for a publisher at the time — that’s why I was there, that’s the only reason I was there. And then I found all these other people who were writers too, because this was a totally new world for me, writing. And I don’t write like normal people, on a computer. I write longhand, in a book. That’s where I was writing everything for my book at the time. And then I wrote the book.

Jo: You glanced over it, so I’m going to go back to it. You say you don’t write like normal people on a computer — you write in a book. I admire the s*** out of that. I think that’s a lost art, and that you did it that way still amazes me. Because what people don’t know is, if you’re writing longhand, you then have to type the s*** out. Someone has to type it out or transpose it somehow. Why did you decide that? Is that just always your style, or did you decide you wanted to write in a notebook?

Stephanie: Well, I find it’s much more practical to write longhand. Because if you’re typing on something, you have to be at home. I don’t know how people are typing books on their computers or their phones — you’ve got to be at home. Me, I wrote wherever I was. Honestly, the best time to write for me was on a road trip. I had a boyfriend then, and he would drive on these long road trips, five or six hours, and I would write. And I’d look around — I think one of the reasons people are finding it hard to write now is they don’t have that time to be bored, when there’s nothing to do. Because if you’re at home, you’re distracted. It’s like, I want to write now, but oh, I’ve got to clean the dishes, or feed the cat, or this person’s calling and I’ve got to take care of that, or pay these bills. There’s always something, and I get distracted. But when you’re stuck in a car, that’s where you write. Or on the Metro, going to work. I always had this notebook on me, and that’s when ideas would hit me, and that’s where I’d write them down. I don’t think you can really do that sitting at home staring at your laptop. I don’t know how people are doing that.

Jo: That’s correct. I was packing up and — I sound so posh — I only have one laptop left, I gave the other one away. But this laptop’s heavy as f***. And if I’m going on a plane, my shoulder’s going out, I don’t want to bring it. I also wanted to write. So I was like, man, I need to go back to f***ing notepads — spiral-bound, all that. It frees you up for so much. Did I do that? No, of course I didn’t. I brought this son of a b**** with me, and I don’t think I wrote a f***ing thing on it. So I just had this big dead weight with me instead of notebook and paper.

Stephanie: Yeah. You just write it down. Sometimes you’re driving around or you’re on the Metro and you see something, and that gives you leeway into something else. And of course with my book — the book I wrote was all about certain memories with my sister. All of a sudden I’d see something, and — I guess that’s what’s important, you’ve got to write in the moment, when you’re there. Sometimes I had a little notepad and a big one. The little one was just for short notes, something funny. Most of the time it just went in the garbage, but it kept me writing. No idea was a bad idea, I guess.

Jo: Oh, one idea was a bad idea. That last drink at Hatters — definitely a bad idea for me. That’s all I know.

Stephanie: Hatters. Awesome bar.

Jo: We’ll get into the book itself right now, because I know this is personal. For those who don’t know, Chemotherapy and Tequila: The Last Road Trip is an absolutely personal book. It’s part memoir — for yourself and your sister.

Stephanie: Yeah. It’s written by both of us, in a way. Her actual journal is in there, from before she died of cancer. And it talks about the last road trip she took to say goodbye to everybody — to all of our friends and family, because we all had the same friends and family, by the way. I guess maybe that’s even where I got the idea, because that’s how she wrote her journal. My cousin gave her a journal and said, just write down what you feel right now. So the book itself is — everyone knows about cancer, obviously, but it’s different viewpoints. Her viewpoint, where her actual journal is in there halfway through the book, talking about her feelings and what it feels like for her to go somewhere and be made fun of because she looks like she’s wearing a wig, or because she has no hair. And the tracheotomy — she’d had a tracheotomy all her life, so she was used to that.

Jo: Which brings me to a point — is she the older one?

Stephanie: She’s two years younger than me.

Jo: Two years younger, okay. And believe it or not, I’ve seen photos from back then — I have blackmail photos of you. You look like the shy little kid back then. And you look at her photos, she looks like the daredevil.

Stephanie: Oh my God, you got that right. She was. She was a social butterfly. She had a tracheotomy since she was like three years old, but she was the one that was insane — she was never afraid to take chances. She was the first one of us to go on a roller coaster; I was terrified. It was interesting, because she was the extrovert and I was the introvert. A complete introvert, to the point where I missed out on a lot in life. And by the way, I’m sorry for anyone who says it’s cool to be an introvert — it’s not. You miss out on so much in life. I think that might be my only regret in life, if I have any: that I missed out on so much growing up because I was so scared of everything, scared of people. It would always hold me back. But I guess I looked at my sister as an inspiration. Even though she was younger than me, I really wanted to be like her in that way — where she could just walk into any room and not care whether she felt she belonged there. That was never a question with her. I belong here, I don’t care what anyone says. f*** it.

Jo: Yeah — I belong here, and if anyone has a problem with it, you don’t belong. Not me. So did that rub off on you?

Stephanie: Oh, it totally did. Her personality did rub off, because I saw that she was getting places where I wasn’t. She had friends in school. I didn’t — because I just didn’t like people. I mean, I was so shy I actually quit high school. I was a straight-A student, but I had to drop out because I couldn’t be around people.

Jo: Social anxiety — it was that heavy? Because I see the after picture now. I only see the before picture through the actual pictures you’ve shown me and the stories you tell me. Now I see the completely open, fun, energetic — what are we doing today, let’s do twelve of them. Let’s go to Tam-Tams — which we have to do, by the way. I actually thought about doing it today, but we’re doing this instead.

Stephanie: Next week. You know it.

Jo: Absolutely. For those who don’t know Tam-Tams, it’s a drum circle that Stephanie’s been trying to get me to since like 2013. And I’m like, that sounds dumb as hell — a bunch of hippies beating a f***ing drum, oh my God, stop me now. And then I’m like, okay, maybe it’ll be fun with the right person. You’re obviously the right person for that. So now we see the opposite — we see you as this social butterfly. You always had the parties. You always have people over. Your daily life is orphan Thanksgiving — does that make sense?

Stephanie: Totally orphan Thanksgiving. Yeah, it really is.

Jo: If people don’t know what orphan Thanksgiving is — everyone’s going home to family for Thanksgiving, and you’ve got no one? That’s orphan Thanksgiving, for everyone who didn’t have anyone. You always host it, but that’s your daily life. And in the book, I see you both kind of come out this way — you’re starting to get more and more confident, things are happening. Is that part of your makeup, how you are now?

Stephanie: Yes, completely. The book, my sister passing away — that was a huge part. But actually it was starting before then. Way back. After high school — because I couldn’t be around people — I got married. It was my excuse to get out of high school and not be around people. I married a man ten years older than me. He had a three-year-old child, and I wanted to raise him. I wanted to be a mommy. I figured if I could be a mommy at home, I’d never have to worry about facing people again. My husband could make all the decisions. I was 17 years old and I knew everything.

Jo: Every time I hear this story I’m like, what are you doing?

Stephanie: I know. Even my husband was trying to talk me out of it. He was like, you’re going to change your mind when you’re older. I said, no, I know what I want. This is what I want. He said, you’re going to change. I said, no, I won’t. And I did. And I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that he wasn’t the best husband in the world. He wasn’t physically abusive — very mentally and emotionally abusive. I didn’t realize that even existed until many years later. I just lived with it, because I was very busy raising the child. And I loved him, I loved my child — I think that’s why I stayed as long as I did, was the kid. But what really changed me: during the marriage, when I was 23 years old — it turns out my sister wasn’t the only sick one in the family. It turns out I had an aortic aneurysm, out of the blue, and no one knew what the hell was going on. I got misdiagnosed — with good reason, because the problem I have isn’t my heart, it’s my connective tissue, and that wasn’t discovered then. So they misdiagnosed me. They sent me home with “stress.” They’re like, you’re 23 years old, you’re healthy, you don’t do drugs, I don’t know what to tell you — it’s probably just stress. So I went home, and it turns out my aorta was separating the whole time. I managed to survive. After a week they finally decided, whoa, something’s really wrong. And I got the surgery. I tell you — I was in a coma for three days, and I don’t know what happened, but when I woke up, I woke up literally a different person. And I don’t think it’s anything magical or mystical. I think it’s just the fact that I realized — up to that point, I thought like everybody else: you’re going to die eventually, but it doesn’t really register.

Jo: That scares the s*** out of me.

Stephanie: And they told me I was going to die. They said, call your friends before the surgery. You’re not going to make it — we’re just doing this because we have to.

Jo: The old college try.

Jo: Hey, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you is. Today on What’s Kraken, we’ve got Stephanie Roy. Full disclosure — we might know each other. We just might. So first of all, thank you very much, Stephanie, for making the time and being here. I’ve been trying to get you on the podcast for a while.

Stephanie: Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Jo: We’re going to talk about a lot of things. We’ll talk about your book — and I’m not going to get the title wrong — it’s Chemotherapy and Tequila. First I thought you said we should do that, and I’m like, I don’t know if I want to do both. I don’t drink anymore, and I don’t want the chemo either. But that’s the title of your book: The Last Road Trip. We’ll get into all that. We’re going to get into new projects, old projects, all the projects. But I want to go all the way back. I don’t even know what year it would be — 2013, 2014? At the little Atwater Mall.

Stephanie: Yes, that’s where we met.

Jo: We met at the mall. How weird is that? As ghost hunt adventurers.

Stephanie: Ghost hunters, yes.

Jo: That was so long ago, with Taylor. And then the extremely fake psychic — I forgot that person’s name. Probably best to forget that one. We did ghost hunting for like a year or two, right?

Stephanie: I know, but I think mostly we were there to weed out the weirdos.

Jo: We were. Full disclosure, I was like, is this a honeypot? Is that dude trying to honeypot me? I saw it between you and Taylor and I’m like, what the s***, dude? But it worked out. And we did weed out a lot of the weirdos.

Stephanie: Yes, we did. It was too much fun.

Jo: And the weird thing is — for those of you who have no idea what the f*** we’re talking about, welcome to my world — there was this thing before the pandemic called Meetup. I think it might still exist, meetup.com. If you’re new to a city, you like this, you like that, you’re just trying to meet people. I signed up for three or four different groups that turned out to be the same f***ing group.

Stephanie: The writing group. Oh my gosh. Like — you again?

Jo: Exactly. Like, how many groups are the same? And it wasn’t really Atwater Mall — it was by Westmount, right? Westmount Mall, the tunnel.

Stephanie: Yeah, Westmount Mall or something. I don’t know what they call that.

Jo: The weird-a** tunnel where one way goes to the quick care and the other goes to basically s***. I parked at Atwater once by mistake and was like, holy s***, this is the place we used to go. So it was meetup after meetup after meetup. And just by being the semi-sane ones, we started clicking.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s true.

Jo: That’s kind of it. And from there — I don’t remember our first non-ghost outing. What was that? Do you remember?

Stephanie: Yeah, it was Mad Hatter’s, wasn’t it?

Jo: Oh, s***. That’s the one I don’t remember — because it was Hatters. I have to apologize for the vomit on Hatter’s front step. I think I made it to the front step.

Stephanie: I’m sure they’re used to it. It’s a regular thing.

Jo: Hatters, man. And then we started doing Raindance — not an actual rain dance, the movie thing — but just randomly. I didn’t know you were in that one.

Stephanie: I know — surprise. Oh, you again.

Jo: That was kind of nice, man. So, full disclosure, we know each other. And I knew you as you were writing that book, Chemotherapy and Tequila: The Last Road Trip. Were you workshopping it at one of the writers groups? I can’t remember.

Stephanie: I was actually looking for a publisher at the time — that’s why I was there, that’s the only reason I was there. And then I found all these other people who were writers too, because this was a totally new world for me, writing. And I don’t write like normal people, on a computer. I write longhand, in a book. That’s where I was writing everything for my book at the time. And then I wrote the book.

Jo: You glanced over it, so I’m going to go back to it. You say you don’t write like normal people on a computer — you write in a book. I admire the s*** out of that. I think that’s a lost art, and that you did it that way still amazes me. Because what people don’t know is, if you’re writing longhand, you then have to type the s*** out. Someone has to type it out or transpose it somehow. Why did you decide that? Is that just always your style, or did you decide you wanted to write in a notebook?

Stephanie: Well, I find it’s much more practical to write longhand. Because if you’re typing on something, you have to be at home. I don’t know how people are typing books on their computers or their phones — you’ve got to be at home. Me, I wrote wherever I was. Honestly, the best time to write for me was on a road trip. I had a boyfriend then, and he would drive on these long road trips, five or six hours, and I would write. And I’d look around — I think one of the reasons people are finding it hard to write now is they don’t have that time to be bored, when there’s nothing to do. Because if you’re at home, you’re distracted. It’s like, I want to write now, but oh, I’ve got to clean the dishes, or feed the cat, or this person’s calling and I’ve got to take care of that, or pay these bills. There’s always something, and I get distracted. But when you’re stuck in a car, that’s where you write. Or on the Metro, going to work. I always had this notebook on me, and that’s when ideas would hit me, and that’s where I’d write them down. I don’t think you can really do that sitting at home staring at your laptop. I don’t know how people are doing that.

Jo: That’s correct. I was packing up and — I sound so posh — I only have one laptop left, I gave the other one away. But this laptop’s heavy as f***. And if I’m going on a plane, my shoulder’s going out, I don’t want to bring it. I also wanted to write. So I was like, man, I need to go back to f***ing notepads — spiral-bound, all that. It frees you up for so much. Did I do that? No, of course I didn’t. I brought this son of a b**** with me, and I don’t think I wrote a f***ing thing on it. So I just had this big dead weight with me instead of notebook and paper.

Stephanie: Yeah. You just write it down. Sometimes you’re driving around or you’re on the Metro and you see something, and that gives you leeway into something else. And of course with my book — the book I wrote was all about certain memories with my sister. All of a sudden I’d see something, and — I guess that’s what’s important, you’ve got to write in the moment, when you’re there. Sometimes I had a little notepad and a big one. The little one was just for short notes, something funny. Most of the time it just went in the garbage, but it kept me writing. No idea was a bad idea, I guess.

Jo: Oh, one idea was a bad idea. That last drink at Hatters — definitely a bad idea for me. That’s all I know.

Stephanie: Hatters. Awesome bar.

Jo: We’ll get into the book itself right now, because I know this is personal. For those who don’t know, Chemotherapy and Tequila: The Last Road Trip is an absolutely personal book. It’s part memoir — for yourself and your sister.

Stephanie: Yeah. It’s written by both of us, in a way. Her actual journal is in there, from before she died of cancer. And it talks about the last road trip she took to say goodbye to everybody — to all of our friends and family, because we all had the same friends and family, by the way. I guess maybe that’s even where I got the idea, because that’s how she wrote her journal. My cousin gave her a journal and said, just write down what you feel right now. So the book itself is — everyone knows about cancer, obviously, but it’s different viewpoints. Her viewpoint, where her actual journal is in there halfway through the book, talking about her feelings and what it feels like for her to go somewhere and be made fun of because she looks like she’s wearing a wig, or because she has no hair. And the tracheotomy — she’d had a tracheotomy all her life, so she was used to that.

Jo: Which brings me to a point — is she the older one?

Stephanie: She’s two years younger than me.

Jo: Two years younger, okay. And believe it or not, I’ve seen photos from back then — I have blackmail photos of you. You look like the shy little kid back then. And you look at her photos, she looks like the daredevil.

Stephanie: Oh my God, you got that right. She was. She was a social butterfly. She had a tracheotomy since she was like three years old, but she was the one that was insane — she was never afraid to take chances. She was the first one of us to go on a roller coaster; I was terrified. It was interesting, because she was the extrovert and I was the introvert. A complete introvert, to the point where I missed out on a lot in life. And by the way, I’m sorry for anyone who says it’s cool to be an introvert — it’s not. You miss out on so much in life. I think that might be my only regret in life, if I have any: that I missed out on so much growing up because I was so scared of everything, scared of people. It would always hold me back. But I guess I looked at my sister as an inspiration. Even though she was younger than me, I really wanted to be like her in that way — where she could just walk into any room and not care whether she felt she belonged there. That was never a question with her. I belong here, I don’t care what anyone says. f*** it.

Jo: Yeah — I belong here, and if anyone has a problem with it, you don’t belong. Not me. So did that rub off on you?

Stephanie: Oh, it totally did. Her personality did rub off, because I saw that she was getting places where I wasn’t. She had friends in school. I didn’t — because I just didn’t like people. I mean, I was so shy I actually quit high school. I was a straight-A student, but I had to drop out because I couldn’t be around people.

Jo: Social anxiety — it was that heavy? Because I see the after picture now. I only see the before picture through the actual pictures you’ve shown me and the stories you tell me. Now I see the completely open, fun, energetic — what are we doing today, let’s do twelve of them. Let’s go to Tam-Tams — which we have to do, by the way. I actually thought about doing it today, but we’re doing this instead.

Stephanie: Next week. You know it.

Jo: Absolutely. For those who don’t know Tam-Tams, it’s a drum circle that Stephanie’s been trying to get me to since like 2013. And I’m like, that sounds dumb as hell — a bunch of hippies beating a f***ing drum, oh my God, stop me now. And then I’m like, okay, maybe it’ll be fun with the right person. You’re obviously the right person for that. So now we see the opposite — we see you as this social butterfly. You always had the parties. You always have people over. Your daily life is orphan Thanksgiving — does that make sense?

Stephanie: Totally orphan Thanksgiving. Yeah, it really is.

Jo: If people don’t know what orphan Thanksgiving is — everyone’s going home to family for Thanksgiving, and you’ve got no one? That’s orphan Thanksgiving, for everyone who didn’t have anyone. You always host it, but that’s your daily life. And in the book, I see you both kind of come out this way — you’re starting to get more and more confident, things are happening. Is that part of your makeup, how you are now?

Stephanie: Yes, completely. The book, my sister passing away — that was a huge part. But actually it was starting before then. Way back. After high school — because I couldn’t be around people — I got married. It was my excuse to get out of high school and not be around people. I married a man ten years older than me. He had a three-year-old child, and I wanted to raise him. I wanted to be a mommy. I figured if I could be a mommy at home, I’d never have to worry about facing people again. My husband could make all the decisions. I was 17 years old and I knew everything.

Jo: Every time I hear this story I’m like, what are you doing?

Stephanie: I know. Even my husband was trying to talk me out of it. He was like, you’re going to change your mind when you’re older. I said, no, I know what I want. This is what I want. He said, you’re going to change. I said, no, I won’t. And I did. And I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that he wasn’t the best husband in the world. He wasn’t physically abusive — very mentally and emotionally abusive. I didn’t realize that even existed until many years later. I just lived with it, because I was very busy raising the child. And I loved him, I loved my child — I think that’s why I stayed as long as I did, was the kid. But what really changed me: during the marriage, when I was 23 years old — it turns out my sister wasn’t the only sick one in the family. It turns out I had an aortic aneurysm, out of the blue, and no one knew what the hell was going on. I got misdiagnosed — with good reason, because the problem I have isn’t my heart, it’s my connective tissue, and that wasn’t discovered then. So they misdiagnosed me. They sent me home with “stress.” They’re like, you’re 23 years old, you’re healthy, you don’t do drugs, I don’t know what to tell you — it’s probably just stress. So I went home, and it turns out my aorta was separating the whole time. I managed to survive. After a week they finally decided, whoa, something’s really wrong. And I got the surgery. I tell you — I was in a coma for three days, and I don’t know what happened, but when I woke up, I woke up literally a different person. And I don’t think it’s anything magical or mystical. I think it’s just the fact that I realized — up to that point, I thought like everybody else: you’re going to die eventually, but it doesn’t really register.

Jo: That scares the s*** out of me.

Stephanie: And they told me I was going to die. They said, call your friends before the surgery. You’re not going to make it — we’re just doing this because we have to.

Jo: The old college try.