Episode 30: "Nobody can want what you want them to want."

This episode is an experiment. Our primary goal for this podcast is and always will be to learn more about our mid-lives, helped by the expertise and experiences our guests offer up. And we’ve got lots of chat partners lined up over the next several weeks to do that.

Sometimes, though, we learn by doing what we’ve done best since we met in 1996: killing a cold afternoon with hot coffee, talking about anything and everything until one of us notices it’s gotten dark outside.

We had all the chat time in the world over the weekend, since Magda was back in Michigan and the thermometer read -6°. We rejoiced that Northern Exposure reruns have finally emerged from the morass of licensing disputes and decided the vivid backstories of the older characters are much more interesting than those whiny 20-somethings. We realized that the 25th anniversary of the day we got married is coming up in April. And there were interesting revelations about frostbite, Jesus, kombucha, the unpredictable human heart, and when perimenopause give you “brain zaps.”

Thanks for playing along with us and listening to this thing. When the Flames Go Up is all about the surprises of our 50s, and one of the great surprises of our 50s is that, after we split, we could ever reclaim the friendship we found back in the 1900s and just sit and chat like we used to.

Links:

• Homeland Security consulted science fiction writers about potential future threats

• Internet Brands wants you to please return to in-person work, or else (video here)