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Hey!

Today’s episode is inspired by how earnestly I cried at the end of the second season of Couples Therapy last week (which just dropped on Showtime). If you’re not familiar, Couples Therapy follows actual couples as they go through a series of sessions with a genius therapist named Orna, who also sees a therapist throughout the show. It’s eerily intimate, occasionally tense, and surprisingly hopeful. Today I have two guests! A couples sex therapist name Ciara who also binge-watched and cried after Couples Therapy, and my friend and writer Meghan Nesmith, who loves going to couples therapy with her husband and has written about it before.

This ep is for anyone! Whether you’ve seen the show or not. We do talk about the show a little (no spoilers) but not so much that you couldn’t follow along. Mostly we talk about other stuff: what’s difficult about couples therapy, what’s been happening with couples in the pandemic, how to de-escalate a fight, how to deal with a “desire discrepancy,” who could benefit from couples therapy, etc!

Hope you enjoy,Haley

This month a portion of subscriber proceeds will be redistributed to Transgender Law Center, a trans-led organization grounded in legal expertise focused on community-driven strategies to liberate transgender and gender-noncomforing people.

You’re receiving my Tuesday podcast because you’re a paying subscriber of Maybe Baby. Thank you! To listen in your preferred app, click “Listen in podcast app.” Then it should automatically populate there every week.

Hey!

My friend Danny is back for another round of Dear Danny, the darker-but-more-fun counterpart to Dear Baby, wherein the two of us review the questions and answers in my last advice column and go deeper/wider/weirder. Today we discuss feeling uncool in New York, wanting to flee your life, aging, and the experimental CBD trial Danny is currently participating in/high on. And also a bunch of other things! Here’s Danny posing on my roof right after we finished recording (for context):

Thanks for listening!Haley

This month a portion of subscriber proceeds will be redistributed to Covenant House, New York City’s largest provider serving homeless youths.

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You’re receiving my Tuesday podcast because you’re a paying subscriber of Maybe Baby. Thank you! To listen in your preferred app, click “Listen in podcast app.” Then it should automatically populate there every week.

Hi!

This week’s episode is about getting married and having kids, or choosing to do neither. I invited on my former editor and deadpan friend Leslie Price, who is both married and a parent and has never been afraid to talk about the downsides. Leslie is a media veteran (Time, Curbed, Racked, Man Repeller, InStyle) and recently launched a newsletter called Gloria, for women embarking on midlife. You may have read an excerpt of this conversation on Sunday. Everyone is always talking about Leslie’s hair:

Links to things we mention:“What You Lose When You Gain a Spouse,” by Wendy Len Catron for The AtlanticMy interview with a woman experience postpartum depression“The Things We Don’t Discuss,” by Jill Filipovic about the taboo of parental regretClaire and Erica’s “A Thing or Two” podcast episode about being child-free”Lately Kids Have Had a Serious PR Problem,” by Emma Rosenblum

Thanks for listening!Haley

This month a portion of subscriber proceeds will be redistributed to Covenant House, New York City’s largest provider serving homeless youths.

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You’re receiving my Tuesday podcast because you’re a paying subscriber of Maybe Baby. Thank you! To listen in your preferred app, click “Listen in podcast app.” Then it should automatically populate there every week.

Hey!

This week I brought on my friend Connie Wang, executive editor of Refinery29, to talk about consumerism and the pathologies we develop around what we buy. Connie is a cultural commentator who has written about style for years, and I happen to love her taste, so I was curious to get her perspective this week (after my last newsletter #50 on beautiful dining chairs). We confront questions like: What’s the difference between having good taste and being on trend? Is it okay to feel defined by your things? Is it possible to vote with your wallet? What does it actually mean to take care of yourself? Et cetera. Here’s Connie picking up my call:

I’ve always been a nester and feel deeply impacted by my physical surroundings (whether in the form of my home or my clothes), and I know many of you probably feel the same. This discussion isn’t meant to undermine the validity of that, but rather unpack how we metabolize and express those needs in the modern world, and when they get overshadowed by other forces.

Some links to things we mention:-Connie’s RIP to Opening Ceremony-Connie’s piece about Asian representation-adrienne maree brown on Pleasure Activism

Thanks for listening!Haley

This month a portion of subscriber proceeds will be redistributed to CAAV, an organization working to build grassroots community power across diverse poor and working class Asian immigrant and refugee communities in New York City.

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You’re receiving my Tuesday podcast because you’re a paying subscriber of Maybe Baby. Thank you! To listen in your preferred app, click “Listen in podcast app.” Then it should automatically populate there every week.

Hi!

Welcome back to part 2 of my convo with Verena von Pfetten. Dare I say who she is again…? Ok sure she’s the cofounder of Gossamer magazine, and a friend and mentor to me. She’s very wise and grounded and I hope you find her as comforting as I do. If you missed part 1, go back and listen! We discuss feeling like it’s too late (in an existential sense) and the worldview that is “everything happens for a reason.” Today we discuss aging, f*****g up as a good thing, and how to deal with writer’s block.

Thanks for listening!Haley

This month a portion of subscriber proceeds will be redistributed to CAAV, an organization working to build grassroots community power across diverse poor and working class Asian immigrant and refugee communities in New York City.

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You’re receiving my Tuesday podcast because you’re a paying subscriber of Maybe Baby. Thank you! To listen in your preferred app, click “Listen in podcast app.” Then it should automatically populate there every week.

Hi!

Excited to share part 1 of my conversation with Verena von Pfetten, cofounder of Gossamer magazine. Verena was my first-ever editor and has been a mentor to me over the past five years, so she seemed like the perfect person to weigh in on March’s Dear Baby questions. This episode has big existential-crisis energy, you’ve been warned. We cover these two questions:

* Can you talk about the feeling of it being “too late"? I know logistically it isn't true but the feeling is overwhelming.

* I recently received some disappointing career news. Should I tell myself everything happens for a reason? Is there another way?

Come back next week for part 2 where we cover aging, mistakes (but when they’re good), and writer’s block.

Thanks for listening!Haley

This month a portion of subscriber proceeds will be redistributed to CAAV, an organization working to build grassroots community power across diverse poor and working class Asian immigrant and refugee communities in New York City.

Give me feedback • Subscribe • Request a free subscription • Ask Dear Baby a question

You’re receiving my Tuesday podcast because you’re a paying subscriber of Maybe Baby. Thank you! To listen in your preferred app, click “Listen in podcast app.” Then it should automatically populate there every week.

Hey,

This week I invited Allison P. Davis onto the podcast to talk about horniness! It would be really wild if I chose that topic arbitrarily but I didn’t: Allison is writing a book right now about horniness (it’s called, if you can imagine, Horny) and my last newsletter was all about anticipation, which is basically existential horniness. We found some much to talk about in the liminal space between these two things. The nature of desire, the upsides and downsides of centering your life around it, etc.

You might know Allison for her popular work at New York Magazine, like The Karen Next Door or her profiles of Mariah Carey or Lena Dunham. Or maybe you know her from Twitter or IG @babymeatballs. If you don’t know her I’m glad you’re here. You should fill out her horny survey!

Some links to things we mention:Esther Perell’s Mating in Captivity“Ghost of a Good Thing” by Dashboard Confessional (obviously)Do What You Love by Miya Tokumitsu

Thanks for listening,Haley

P.S. This is a weird post-script I’m adding at 11pm on Monday but the news of another mass shooting tonight is almost beyond comprehension. A lot of my newsletter/podcast touches on how broken this country is but it’s still jarring to be faced with it in increasingly fucked up ways so often. I don’t even know what to say at this point except I hope we can manage to pull through this dark era. Anyway, I know tragedies are happening everywhere all the time, but I’m really sorry to anyone who felt at all alienated by the optimism of my pre-planned newsletter and podcast for this past week. I hope it’s served as some kind of levity for some, if nothing else. Hang in there (dumb thing to say, there’s nothing to say!). 

This month a portion of subscriber proceeds will be redistributed to GlobalGiving Coronavirus Relief Fund, a non-profit focused on equitable vaccine distribution and getting resources to those made especially vulnerable by the pandemic. 

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You’re receiving my Tuesday podcast because you’re a paying subscriber of Maybe Baby. Thank you! To listen in your preferred app, click “Listen in podcast app.” Then it should automatically populate there every week.

Hi!

So happy to say it’s time for another round of Dear Danny: my monthly visit with fan-favorite Daniel Nelson, where he weighs in on the questions I answered for Dear Baby. This time, for Dear Baby: Weird Edition, we also brought in a few bonus questions I didn’t originally answer. This one had me laughing a lot…we swap funny stories about New York, we talk about having body dysmorphia and losing our virginity, we even put a stake in the ground re: the evergreen human quandary of whether farts are funny or embarrassing. Much to cover much to cover. Here’s a video excerpt.

Two links to things we mention: this optimistic Atlantic article about the trajectory of covid and this article about how cats say “I love you.”

Hope you enjoy!Haley

Theme song made special by Soft Streak

This month a portion of subscriber proceeds will be redistributed to Jobs With Justice, a grassroots nonprofit leading strategic campaigns to fight for workers’ rights and build power for working people.

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My Tuesday podcast is typically for paying subscriber of Maybe Baby, but I’ve just unlocked all my 2020 episodes as an end-of-year thank you. (Ty!) To listen in your preferred app, click “Listen in podcast app” from your phone.

Hello!

Last week I aired part 1 of my conversation with my friend Catherine Saint Siena, which was about workism (shitty jobs, following dreams, living to work vs working to live, etc). This is the second part of our conversation, which is about relationship doubt. These were topics I covered in my last Dear Baby ICYMI, but they’re also relevant to my and Catherine’s friendship, since we first bonded over leaving jobs and relationships that didn’t feel right. This part of the conversation is shorter and less in depth in that we didn’t exactly prep for it (we’d already talked for 90 minutes at this point), but we couldn’t not! So it’s getting its own baby episode.

As I mentioned on Sunday this is my last podcast of 2020! And Avi’s last royalty-free cover, although I’m sure they’ll be back in 2021 thank god. Thanks so much for listening this year, it means a lot.

Haley

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You’re receiving my Tuesday podcast because you’re a paying subscriber of Maybe Baby. Thank you! To listen in your preferred app, click “Listen in podcast app.” Then it should automatically populate there every week.

Hello!

This week’s podcast is special because the guest is my friend and comedian Catherine Saint Siena, whom I was this close to starting a podcast with earlier this year before everything imploded, so I’m considering this ep a peek into a parallel universe. For the first time I’ve split this conversation into two parts. This first one is all about workism: the American zeal for work-as-identity, the unlikely impacts of that, the ways we’ve felt it, and how we want to challenge it. (In case you missed it, I answered a question about this in my last newsletter.) Part two is all about romantic relationships and the pivotal moment when you’re deciding whether to stay or go (another question I answered last week). We both have so many stories and ideas about both that we didn’t shut the f**k up for nearly two hours, hence two parts. Here is a photo Catherine took for her Instagram so she could make a joke about CEOs, but can you believe she looks like this:

Some links to things we mention: “On Self-Respect,” by Joan Didion“Workism Is Making Americans Miserable,” by Derek Thompson for The Atlantic“Is There Such a Thing as a Dream Job?” by Sarah Jaffe for Dame MagazineDo What You Love: And Other Lies About Success and Happiness by Miya Tokumitsu“Readers Discuss American Workism and Its Discontents” by The Atlantic”Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?” by Erin Griffith for The TimesThis interview with Elizabeth Anderson about how modern workplaces are run like dictatorships for Jacobin

Thanks for listening!Haley

This month a portion of subscriber proceeds will be redistributed to Palante Harlem Inc, a New York-based nonprofit working to reduce poverty, end tenant exploitation, and advocate for safe housing in Harlem.Subscribe • Request a free subscription • Ask Dear Baby a question • Gift a subscription