Don’t Think Twice

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.