We’re back with more answers to more questions! Last week, we published a free episode with our responses to some of the wonderful questions you all sent us about work and work-adjacent topics. Today, in our usual subscribers-only episode, we’re answering some of the more personal and personal-adjacent questions.

How do you make friends in your thirties? How do you stay friends when some of you are having kids, and some of you aren’t? What does feminist parenting look like when you have a son? How did we know our partners were “the ones”? And honestly, how can we continue to wear pants and feel stylish as 30-somethings? We discuss all this and more.

Thank you all so much for asking us so many delightful questions! We hope to do this again sometime. As we continue to figure out what this newsletter/podcast is and should be, we’re always trying to figure out the best mix of TV/movie coverage, cultural trend discussions, and personal conversations about our lifestyles, so let us know in the comments or our inbox what you’d like to see more frequently.

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We’ve been reading…

Still working on “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” because I read at a snail’s pace when I’m not on vacation. Too much TV to consume for the pods! -Emma

“I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,” the 1964 Joanne Greenberg novel I mentioned previously, which I finished over the last week. It fulfilled all the promises of Esmé Weijun Wang’s glowing foreword; I found myself constantly wanting to underline and annotate it because its observations about human experience are so sharp and well-formulated. The book follows a teenage girl battling schizophrenia through years of grueling treatments and psychoanalysis at a mental institution, emerging to a hard-fought recovery toward the end, and it is a deeply specific, revelatory book about those experiences. And like any very good, deeply specific book about a certain experience, it captures certain universal feelings all the more vividly. I highly recommend it. -Claire

We’ve been watching…

The new season of “Sister Wives,” after our fave Aubrey Gordon recommended it. True to her review, this season, which shows the slow dissolution of the polygamist Brown family, is a fascinating anthropological document, which explores relationship power dynamics, patriarchy, collective parenting and divorce. -Emma

In addition to the new season of “Sister Wives” (during which I have been reveling in everyone finally turning on Kody), “Reboot,” Hulu’s charming new show about a popular early aughts multi-camera sitcom that gets rebooted by an up-and-coming, edgy filmmaker (Rachel Bloom), who turns out to be harboring a very personal reason to reimagine the comfort-food TV staple as a more complex, daring show. The cast is exceptional (Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer, the list goes on), and I’m honestly just glad that we’re finally reckoning with Hollywood’s reboot addiction through the most vital medium of our time: streaming TV comedy. -Claire

We’ve been listening to…

The new season of Gimlet’s Heavyweight podcast. Host Jonathan Goldstein is just so smart and thoughtful, and manages to find the most beautiful and intimate stories to tell. Also, his voice is soothing AF. -Emma

Good Cult, a podcast about the personal development cult Lifespring (not yet mentioned in the podcast but an unfun fact: Ginni Thomas was in the group as a young woman and became an anti-cult activist after leaving… until, you know, she got into QAnon). Reported and hosted by River Donaghey, a journalist who grew up in a sort of unlicensed branch of Lifespring. His parents met in an offbrand version of the famous Lifespring organization called Wings and raised him attending its seminars — the podcast touches on his own family’s experiences and delves into the backstory of Lifespring, its leader, and the string of deaths and other disturbing outcomes linked to the intense, confrontational seminars the group offered. Need I say more? -Claire

We’ve been buying…

The most perfect slouchy trousers from Reformation. (I sized up for extra slouchiness, and got the pants in Stone Stripe, but they come in a bunch of colors and petites!) These are the pants that can do it all: go to the office, out for a nice dinner, or paired with chunky sneakers for a daytime fall stroll. -Emma

My Hill House fall order finally arrived, and I’m loving the botanical green crepe Ellie for fall — I do find it hard to layer cotton dresses for the colder months because of how the skirts cling to my tights. (Wait, is this why people wear slips? I’m going to look into this.) Also the Grandpa cardigan in navy. I know it’s pretty boxy for some people, but somehow I find it to be slouchy perfection, and I vastly prefer the pearl buttons to the usual gem-encrusted buttons they use. -Claire

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