It's the end of a season, and it's the end of a year. A+A get cozy and reflect on haunted calendars, open-door pooping, being more woo-woo, the true meaning of christmas morning, and what happens when people assume we're regular straight marrieds. All along the way it becomes clear how much our guest interviews this season keep resonating in our day-to-day lives. All that plus some lengthy and revealing updates on "dating while platonically partnered". If you have your own reflections on season 2 (and what you want to hear more of in S3), we'd love to hear them! Keep up with us (and get in touch) at EmergencyContacts[dot]substack[dot]com
In this episode, we welcome Rhaina Cohen, who literally wrote the BOOK on intimate friendships. "The Other Significant Others" profiles several friends whose relationships challenge us to rethink the default choices around sex, romance, intimacy, and family. How can these friendships help us escape the metaphorical escalator that pulls us to the choices we're "supposed" to make, instead of the ones that we really want?
Amrita and Andrew invite six friends around the dinner table to discuss friendship and intimacy: our co-host Marina, plus college friends, an ex-boyfriend, a neighbor...all with different perspectives on romance and family. We talk about what makes people get close, the difference between friend-intimacy and romance-intimacy -- plus, some personal tea spillage...just between us buds. Pull up a chair!
One of people's first questions is "how do your families feel about all this?" --so we decided to ask them ourselves. Andrew and Amrita had one-on-one phone conversations with our parents and siblings to talk family dynamics, and then sat down with Marina to hash it all out. Our families have plenty of feelings about being joined together by the appearance of our son Aadi a year ago. We get into it ALL, no holds barred. -- Don't Think Twice is a podcast on intimate friendship. Amrita and Andrew are writers and creative collaborators, platonic life-partners, and parents to a 1 year old son. Our friend Marina Weiss, poet, and clinical psychologist, hosts these conversations. Keep in touch at emergencycontacts.substack.com
We've come full circle in our tale of preparing for co-parenting: FAMILY. Andrew and Amrita's biological families will be fused together by this new baby -- what will that look like for a platonic couple? How will our very different religious and cultural upbringings come into play for our new family unit? Host Marina Weiss helps bring this series home. Want more updates from our nontraditional family? Let us know what you'd like to see from future episodes!
We're nearing the end of our Baby Episodes! But we can't leave without confronting how sex and dating will work in Amrita and Andrew's new roles as friends raising a child together. Host Marina Weiss does a little after-hours therapy and guides us in an open and vulnerable conversation about our ideal romantic partners, and how they might fit into our unconventional family. We all learn a lot.
In this week's exploration of nontraditional family, we look at a male perspective on parenthood. Andrew sits down with our friend JR Andre - an educator and school administrator who is on the pathway to parenthood along with his husband. We talk gay fatherhood, navigating relationships with the women involved in the process, and the importance of queer community and queer legacies.
On our journey to explore nontraditional family, we're taking a couple episodes to explore the gendered issues around the decision to have children (or not). This week, an episode very close to Amrita's heart. Special guest Ciara Pressler is an accomplished author and entrepreneur, and also confidently child-free. We talk cultural taboos, feminism, the wildly shallow dating pool, and the double-edged swords that affect moms and childfree women alike. Next week: Andrew's turn!
We've gotten a lot of questions about the legal aspects of our platonic coparenting situation, and there's plenty to discuss! We get into the finer points of tax policy for self-employed parents -- plus, our experience with the fabulous Chosen Family Law Center, who are helping us iron out a co-parenting agreement for unpartnered parents. (Which tbh, all sorts of parents could probably benefit from). Our host Marina Weiss gamely braves this jaunt into the practical realities of chosen family.
Things are chugging along. Now that the baby's cooking, how has it been? BFFs Amrita and Andrew steer through the pregnancy as friends, finding new ways to care for one another, and maintain boundaries. We also have several notes about the raggedy-ass American health care system....especially as uninsured freelancers. Yikes. Host Marina Weiss asks all the right questions and comments as we go.
All right people, time for this baby to get made (And we know you're curious, just admit it). In this week's installment, best buds Amrita and Andrew answer pressing questions such as: Why now? How did we, you know....do it? What's the "new" old-fashioned way? Why is it all so UNscientific? Plus, the shockingly apropos timing of the actual moment of conception (!). Host and clinical psychologist Marina Weiss steers us through it all. [nb: we will discuss miscarriage in this episode. Nothing too gnarly, just be aware.]
Platonic life-partners Andrew and Amrita initially started their fertility journey by freezing embryos. In this episode, we take you through all the gritty details of cooking up frozen egg babies, as a nontraditional couple: from psychological fitness, to baton-twirling vaginal ultrasounds, to sperm embargoes...and the pornography that earned Andrew a personal apology from the clinic director. Marina Weiss hosts this special run of episodes chronicling 2 friends making a nontraditional family together.
In this special run of episodes, hosted by Marina Weiss, platonic life-partners Amrita and Andrew explore the decision to make a baby together. In this installment: how has a lifetime of unconventional choices – professionally, personally, creatively – led to the decision to make a family in an unconventional way? How does our identity as artists play into all of this?
Amrita and Andrew are friends, business partners, creative collaborators, and now…they have a baby on the way. In this podcast, we have always advised "Don't Think Twice!" when it comes to making off-the-beaten-path career & creative choices. In this special run of episodes, we will be exploring a different kind of unconventional choice: becoming platonic co-parents, and creating a "chosen family" together as friends. Poet, clinical psychologist, and near and dear member of our inner circle Marina Weiss hosts these episodes. We begin by setting the scene and what it means for friends to become family.
To be honest, sweeties, we bushwhack some thorny issues in our Feb '20 episode. We support and confront each other about seasonal depression, performance anxiety, improvisational skills, how to be present in a pitch meeting, and how to be better creative partners to one other. What are the roles we play -- to ourselves and to others? How can you tell if you've been "productive" when you no longer have a day job? And, what dirt does your Amazon search history reveal? Come hang!
What don't we cover in our January installment? Eclipses, pyramid schemes, questionable electoral tactics, fro-yo closets, "Real-ID" nightmares, and what to do when people hate you at work. It's all here.
Andrew reviews Amrita's latest purchases with a jaundiced eye, our homes are completely falling apart, Andrew makes new friends in rural Minnesota/Canada, and we contemplate the existential dread of (A) "Friends" nostalgia, and (B) dating someone with your own name.
We discuss how to avoid succumbing to the "cult of busyness" -- even when your to-do list grows truly infinite ...but first, we break down Amrita's recent pilgrimage to the mecca of all things Dolly Parton!
In this late-spring minisode 2, Amrita makes a shocking mom-retail choice, Andrew explores new email signoffs for professional correspondence, plus we discuss syndicated radio queen Delilah, high school thrifting, the perils of living alone, and being 100% baffled by low-flow toilets.
In which: our company turned one year old (!), we do a photo shoot, Andrew tries to change his mean resting face, Amrita tries rich-lady pilates, and we embark on full fashion makeovers.