Hey, it's Anna. Before we get to the new episode, I want to remind you that we have a special series that starts next week about estrangement.

You, our listeners, shared your stories of strain that led to ruptures and relationships with communities, even with a set of your former values.

And then you told us what happened next.

Another thing we heard in your stories about estrangement

is that the holiday season, which we are now officially and can be rough.

I've been struggling to be estranged from my mom since Christmas.

After a particularly distressing holiday episode.

Thanksgiving, she's getting angrier and angrier basically because I said that I needed a break.

My dad texted at the last minute when we were going to come down on Christmas Eve day

and said, you know what?

It turns out your coming down doesn't work for us.

We would have family gatherings and it was the weirdest thing.

It was just play acting, but some people were pretending that others were ghosts.

It is how it felt.

If you are looking ahead to a Thanksgiving weekend and thinking about any difficult or even estranged relationships in your life,

know that you've got some company among your fellow listeners.

And we hope this series on Estrangement,

which starts next week, will be helpful to all of you.

In the meantime, here is a fun conversation I taped on stage in Berkeley, California, with writer and humorist Fran Leibowitz.

It'll keep you laughing while you cook, or at the very least, help you focus on something else for half an hour.

I hope you enjoy it.

You know, luck is the single most important thing of life. And it's the thing people, for

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