Don't Think Twice

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

We cannot pursue radical ideas of friendship, co-living, and community without talking about HOUSING. It's been the unspoken elephant in the room in some of our past episodes on group living, platonic life partnerships, aging, and queer chosen family. You might have listened to those episodes thinking, okay, this is great. But literally HOW? The logistics of making a life are difficult right now. Housing is a mess even doing things the "conventional" way...much less trying NEW ways to build a chosen family, maintaining proximity to your friends, and keeping loneliness at bay. Our guest Michael Freedman-Schnapp is a housing policy expert who walks us through the social trends and policy changes that got us here, and some of the possible solutions to a very complex set of problems. More episode notes and reference links to the studies and books mentioned in this conversation at: https://emergencycontacts.substack.com/p/we-solved-the-housing-crisis  

Our special guest, writer and activist Sarah Schulman, joins us to discuss the practical realities of building community from her perspective as an activist, community organizer, and artistic mentor! This season, we have explored the ways we can forge friendship and chosen family. One angle we haven't yet examined is the the power of rallying around a shared cause. This, too, is a form of community, and of family. We were honored to speak with Sarah about so many things -- her writing, her time in Act Up, her opinions on group unity and successful advocacy, and her thoughts on today's political climate. We also discuss her artistic achievements: building spaces for queer experimental filmmakers; being a generalist; and the legacy of mentoring younger generations of writers. ----- Follow Amrita & Andrew at emergencycontacts.substack.com ----- The books by Sarah Schulman that we mention in this episode include: Let The Record Show: A Political History of Act Up Conflict is Not Abuse After Delores

Today, a topic that many of us would rather avoid: old age. We discuss what it looks like to grow old in today's increasingly lonely world, where people have fewer children, divorce is more common, and the reality of nuclear family and housing norms means that elders often end up isolated. First, we speak with Jasmine McFarlane, who works with older adults at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, one of the oldest settlement houses in the country). Next, we welcome Christina DaCosta  of SAGE, an advocacy group for LGBTQ+ elders. We talk about what our seniors need to thrive today, the greatest challenges they face, and how their orgs are attempting to meet those needs. With it, the reality that --with any luck-- we too will grow old.  Here's a fun fact: friendship is actually shown to be more beneficial for older people than marriage, reducing the health burdens of loneliness and acting as a greater predictor of lifespan. What foundations are you laying now for the future you -- in relationships, family, and community? How are you caring for folks in older generations, and how do you wish to be cared for in turn as you age? This episode tapped into our empathy and curiosity about aging -- we hope it'll do the same for you. -- Follow Amrita & Andrew at their weekly newsletter, Emergency Contacts (emergencycontacts[dot]substack[dot]com) Find out more about getting involved at SAGE , or volunteering at Lenox Hill. Follow these orgs on Instagram @sageusa and @lenoxhillneighborhoodhouse Check out our most recent two episodes, which relate closely to many of the topics we cover today. We talk about Group Living with Lola Milholland, and about centering your life around friendship, with Rhaina Cohen.  

This season, Andrew and Amrita continue to explore new ways to connect, build family, and live together. Today we speak with writer (and food entrepreneur) Lola Milholland, who has a new book out called "Group Living and Other Recipes" -- a hilarious and profound memoir on communal living experiments. How can we make our home lives more expansive and imaginative? Can our living setups support deeper connection with our friends and our communities? If you've ever fantasized about a "Golden Girls" style setup with your BFFs...this is required listening. [And if you've never thought it could be done IRL, then that goes double!]   p.s. Lola was an early guest in "Season Zero" of the pod back in 2018 - here's that episode

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?

This is a podcast on intimate friendship, and on today's episode, we strip that down to the basics. A breezy summer confection of just us two, dishing as we love to do: ...debating where to stand at a concert; yearning for a Gen Z selfie consultant; reveling in the pleasure of being RIGHT (dammit); and giving heartfelt advice to our younger selves. Soon, we'll be opening up the season to talk about chosen family and community building, featuring some GREAT interviews with authors, experts, and icons (from radical friendship idioms to senior centers, to communal living, to nightlife). But before we head out to explore all that, we get back to basics: just two friends...being friends.

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 babies. 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 made it to our baby's first birthday (!) and we're celebrating with a new season of Don't Think Twice.  How has the past year been? What are the expectations versus reality of parenting as friends? Did things shake out as we imagined in last year's Season 1 episodes? Join us and find out! Amrita and Andrew are creative collaborators, platonic life-partners, and co-parents to a very good baby. You can keep up with them at emergencycontacts.substack.com Poet and clinical psychologist Marina Weiss joins us again as moderator and host.  

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.   

This month, your faithful freelancers talk falsehoods: Amrita's most egregious white lies; candles that secretly smell like farts; Andrew's explainer on why suburbs are a massive Ponzi scheme; and our conclusion that sex apps are the only truthful way to meet non-liars online.

This month, Amrita and Andrew get back into a freelance work rhythm, avoid ancient knitting curses, get hooked on mnemonics, sweat (only) the small stuff, and take a deep dive on "nostalgia experiences" and their implication on artistic culture. We also research opossums, pull someone's legs out of the trash, and Andrew is initiated into his "daddy" phase by....his CVS clerk?

Having concluded our year of writerly uprootedness, 2022 finds us settling back home in Brooklyn. An exchange about art, taste, and value leads us to a surprising Ruling Principle of Style, and approaching Andrew's first-time drawing class with a beginner's mind leads to a valuable reminder about curbing self-criticism in all our work. In between these revelations, it's: winter survival strategies, live opera during omicron, Jesus's astrology, a spam email treasure, and subway chance encounters.

Recorded on our final day in New Orleans, we opine on crucial topics: garbage strikes, fecal transplants, gimp masks on company calls, Andrew's crooked face, breaking bad habits, why Presidents make terrible dinner guests, our scathing indictments on the state of modern musical theatre, and more. We speculate about our move back to Brooklyn....more on how that turned out, next time.

Taking refuge from Ida's wrath, we talk New Orleans evacuation, gator attacks, the importance of resource-sharing, and how to ask for help getting a manager. We get comfortable having no life plans, decide whether we ought to feel bad for CEOs right now, and ponder death (and Tulsa). 

This is the beach-read of podcast episodes: Andrew nervously dabbles in nude sleeping, we go on a New Orleans ghost tour (and maybe became witches??), Amrita's body is a highly evolved machine for anxiety and digesting spoiled dairy, we take a magical trip to a suburban mall, and we consider the plus sides of discomfort in our re-emerging work life. 

This month, we enter the affordable housing lottery (a program all creatives should know about!); admit our worst job rejections; dispense dubious advice for applying to "day jobs"; and deliver some harsh reviews for 90s sitcom pilots. Oh, and find out Amrita's new favorite thing about white people!

Amrita and Andrew grill each other about the meaning of creativity, work, and artmaking at the brink of the world reopening. How has the pandie changed how our we define fulfillment? What does a return to "normal" entail for freelancers/creatives? How have our relationships changed: to writing, profit, routine, self-promotion...and to each other? We promise to be honest, confessional, and not to spend more than 3 minutes talking about cryptocurrency.

We update you on our forays into self-producing original short films, volunteering at New Orleans vaccination sites, Lent resolutions, principles of dominance and submission, neighborhood hoarders, and bayou tales. Stick with us to the end for evidence of our faux "theatrical" monologues, neither of which can hold a candle to the high-stakes drama of Amrita vs. the dead roach.

Amidst one of NOLA's strangest Carnival seasons, we hit bigtime pandemic fatigue with our writing, and decide to take artistic action! We also recap our Mardi Gras day, make the case for dictionaries, and discuss covid dating, sleep sweat, and Andrew's wish for a prescription-strength lifehack. 

Peripatetic, poetic, and chic, your beloved untethered freelancers have landed in New Orleans for the winter - to script, pitch, and seek adventure. We talk all about our first impressions of NOLA culture; plus: murderous rental cars, roller-skate trends, and how on earth do we approach goalsetting for the strange year we're in, after the strange year we survived?

We wrapped up 2020 living inside a Hallmark Christmas movie, with 2 months of misty ideation in Cape Cod. Don cozy socks and sip bourbon with us as we chew on: our befuddlement with the suburbs, our essential creature comforts for itinerant living, the ebbs and flows of creative work during the pandemic, and the evergreen cultural excellence of The Real World and MTV Spring Break (!). Plus, find out where we're off to write next.

We are officially 2020 pandemic nomads! In this heartfelt, tipsy, political dispatch from Detroit, we dive into rust-belt renewal, being full-time writers, future relationships, sex, the inevitable death of capitalism, and a dash of thicc thigh appreciation. The freelance life has never been freer and weirder. 

We took a midsummer writers retreat to the hills of North Carolina, where we made some big decisions about our writing careers, professional lives, contemplated big life changes, and a decision we never thought possible: taking a break from NYC. (the horror!). We take you through all of this, plus some bizarre odds and ends as we struggle to design a flag for our (hypothetical) vacation home, and let you in on a million dollar mailbox idea.

Our June interview is a must-listen for anyone --especially New Yorkers-- eager for police reform. From a budget standpoint, what does it actually MEAN to #defundthepolice? What are they spending all that money on, anyway? What does pragmatic change look like? Our darling friend and DC budget nerd Janani Ramachandran Yates takes us through her detailed analysis of the NYPD budget and it is FASCINATING, y'all. But first: we talk protests; we consider fleeing New York City (!); plus, all these fireworks inspire Andrew to take us down the country roads of his childhood memory.

Our May 2020 episode comes out in June, because it's quarantine and there are no rules (including calendars)! Things have gotten way awfuller in our city and world since we recorded this...but if you feel you'd like to spend a comforting hour chatting with friends, come sit with us. We grow increasingly intoxicated as we talk about: Amrita's choice to quit her job during a global pandemic, nihilism, foot peels, NPR, and flavored anesthesia. We get it if you're not feeling levity at this moment, though -- do what you need to do bbs; we'll always be here for you later.

In the second half of our April 2020 episode, we continue our conversation with our friend and artistic collaborator Veronica Viper. Our wine-fueled chatter plunges us deep into thought-provoking territories of burlesque, drag, misogyny, queer identity, and making art that speaks to our times. But first, Amrita and Andrew talk nude events, petty workplace politics, and catastrophes in and around your pants.  

We skipped releasing a March episode due to pandemic reasons... so we're bringing you TWO episodes in April. We are so excited to speak with our friend and creative collaborator Veronica Viper. She is a burlesque performer, a producer, a working artist, and an all around stand-up gal. We have a wide-ranging chat, covering art, identity, burlesque (of course!), and how New York just ain't what it used to be. But first, Amrita and Andrew discuss the benefits of tall boys, our apartment woes, and being hoarders...of secrets. Pour up that quarantine wine and settle in with us.

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.

Back in the saddle! We catch you up on our 2018 of TOO many jobs (fashion! opera! jetsetting!), and bring you a whole cornucopia of New Year's odds and ends: leaning into the wintry misery of MLK weekend, bizarre visualizations for the gym, and super disturbing 2019 trends in AI, wellness, and local lawmaking.

This week we welcome Andrew's mother Rhonda -- business owner, accounting guru, & social media liberal firebrand. Rhonda talks money matters for freelancers, career advice, tips on social justice for troubled times, and lifting up women's voices. Plus: burn your ballet flats! But definitely don't burn your topsheets.

We're back, and summer's on! We talk about Resting Commute Face, the anthropology of metal shows, and force a very good natured audio engineer to answer our basic-ass audiophile questions, and find out how he makes the hustle work for him [excellent musician, technician, and human Jim Bertini]

Come along on our deep dive into riveting noodle politics with Umi Organic founder, Lola Milholland. We also cover the nightmare of "audience participation", and Andrew's figure skating dreams.

It's 2018: so far, Andrew is unemployed and Amrita is hangry...but we're definitely going places! We bring you our conversation with wonderful TV writer/producer Vanessa King about all things television and writing, and the fascinating zigs and zags that brought her to her career today. 

In this special wintery episode, we reveal our sloppiest office holiday party hijinks, how to compose killer playlists, and the *big secret* behind Shen Yun. 

Tinikling, asparagus pee, tips for better living, and a contentious desert-island-jukebox debate about Madonna. Plus, we talk NYC and JewISH-stuff in part 2 of our interview with Nickey Frankel.