MrBallen

Yeah, that degree is gnarly.

But so did you, you have this cemetery internship, you go viral with this really unique idea, like basically posting about these spritz cookies from Naomi.

How do you go from, well, what I'm doing is I'm getting my library sciences degree on a course to be one of the most like introverted, like quiet students.

private lives, being a librarian, to now you have this amazing new book called To Die For, a cookbook of gravestone recipes.

This is incredible.

Is this all the recipes that you've done?

Yeah.

So how have you responded to this new life path or do you feel like you're still sort of like what's going on?

That's me.

What has this experience of becoming the go-to person to, you know, talk to these families and make these recipes and sort of connect with the dead, in a sense, what has that done for, I guess, your relationship with mortality?

I saw a reference to that in one of your interviews.

Oh, no way.

I'll tell you a quick story about my own feelings around mortality.

So I was in the military before I started telling spooky stories on the Internet.

Hell yeah.

Yeah, you know, it is.

It is.

And when I was overseas in Afghanistan, we effectively were ambushed and a grenade actually detonated quite literally next to me.

Yeah.

And in fact, when the grenade came over the wall, it's nighttime.