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HONGRONG

Homemade Radio

Out of all the holidays associated with the phrase the holidays,

capital T, capital H,

I would argue that none is more associated with family drama than Thanksgiving.

This year my mom and my girlfriend's mom are going to meet

for the first time at Thanksgiving.

And believe it or not, I'm not nervous about it because I know both of these women pretty well.

And they're both the type of people who go into this sort of interaction looking for it to go well.

You know what I mean?

They're not wary evaluators of the opposition or whatever the worst fear version of mom's meeting at Thanksgiving for the first time would be.

I love them both very much and if it goes sideways, I'll tell you about it on a future episode.

But I don't think that's going to happen.

But what I have been thinking about in advance of the great meeting is how much I've learned over the course of doing this podcast

and just getting older as a human that our unique relationships with our parents are just that.

And the tendency and temptation to compare our narratives with the narratives of other friends and people in our lives or worse people from movies and TV shows is so toxic and destructive

because it can blind you to what's special about the connection that you do have.

And for that reason, in advance of the holiday, today on the show I wanted to feature two stories

that are not Thanksgiving stories, but they are stories about moms and the realization that the maternal relationship can only be defined by the idiosyncrasies of the two people that form that relationship, regardless of external circumstances.

Telling these stories for you on this episode will be two of my very favorite performers here in New York City, both of whom I had the pleasure of welcoming at Family Ghosts live shows a few years ago.

First, Bradford Jordan.

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