What People Do

Veterinarian and veterinary faculty member Dr. Ryane Englar still considers herself a “baby dancer,” although her teacher and dance partner, Lowell, saw her potential and gently encouraged her over their years of practice to dive into competition with him. We start off the podcast with a fascinating consideration of how two dancers work together, one leading and one following, to maintain strict p...

Journalists want to help. Journalists want to get to the truth. Journalists don’t want to make mistakes. Mix in all three of those, and you’ve got a recipe for well-intentioned, purposeful perfectionism of a sort. “I don’t think you have to be a journalist because you’re a worrier,” Portia says, “but I think it’s a driver.” It’s the hunt for the second set of eyes on a piece, the second look, the...

Star Trek debuted on CBS in 1966, the brainchild of creator Gene Roddenberry. Mindy, though, caught it first in afternoon reruns after she’d get home from school. She thinks that original series is good, but she really thinks everyone should be a Star Trek: The Next Generation Trekkie.  “Roddenberry gave us hope for the future,” she says. The new direction in the latest two shows, she feels, is mo...

I could have called her a midwife, but isn’t the word midwifery (pronounced MID-wiff-ree) cool?  Midwives act as emotional support, an educational resource and healthcare advocates for pregnant women. Roughly 97% of Cheryl’s mothers want a home birth. And 85% of them will have a home birth, with 15% going to a hospital instead. This is a hands-on relationship, with long, regularly scheduled appoin...

I worked with Marnette, and I always liked the fact that her wardrobe in middle management and then upper management was cut from a different cloth than the standard executive. Layered, frilly, colorful tops under antique-looking jackets (“I put on a jacket, it’s just not a jacket anyone else wears,” she says). They top multilayered skirts, concealing just the tops of well-worn, well-loved cowboy...

Yeah, who’s the guy who cut off his guest at the start of the podcast recording? That would be me. His name is Peter, and he’s an environmental engineer for a steel company. He started as a mechanic out of high school, headed for physics in college to become a professor, but then found a love for geology and graduated with a degree in that. He does a lot of paperwork, but he also does a lot of sit...

Jennifer likes to draw dragons . Fantasy monsters and people, elves, things out of fantasy books. Animals. (Her sketch of Batgirl was my smartphone wallpaper for weeks.) "I get ideas in my head of something that would look cool of a scene or an animal, and I like sharing that idea," Jennifer says. Like many artists who don't do it for a living, she usually doesn't need to hit deadlines that aren't...

Note: There are a few four-letter words sprinkled throughout these 45 minutes. Instead of “feces,” we, umm, say, y’know. That S-word. Skip this podcast if that bothers you.  As we all sit through this COVID-19 crisis, packed under "stay at home” orders in most states, it’s a good time to remember, yes, the toilet paper you’re having trouble finding, but also that wonderful sewage system that keeps...