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  • Nobody Here Knows Me ft. Annie Elmendorf

    Nobody Here Knows Me ft. Annie Elmendorf
    2026/08/27

    What happens when the story you've been telling yourself for ten years unravels over a single glass of wine on the other side of the world?

    Annie Elmendorf is a mother of two, a cyclist, an athlete, and a sister. She's also — as she'll tell you herself — someone who has spent most of her life trying to feel at home in her own body. This is a solo episode with Emily; Courtney couldn't make it. And the story Annie tells is one Annie has never told publicly before.

    It starts on a Tuesday morning in March, on a Wi-Fi scale that has sixteen years of her data on it, in the middle of a separation, at the end of a couple of dark months. Fifteen pounds gone. All muscle. And a voice on NPR that morning talking about becoming a bodybuilder — Elizabeth Smart, of all people.

    To understand how Annie got to that scale, we have to go back. Way back. To a childhood spent gaining and losing more than two hundred pounds. To a gastric bypass in 2010 that changed her life, and then — a year later — introduced her to the specific way alcohol hits a body that no longer has a stomach. "It's like shooting alcohol into your vein," she says. Most people hate that feeling. Annie loved it.

    We walk through ten years of sobriety built on fear. The MS bike ride. The triathlons. The Iron Mans. The 200-mile weeks. The Rafa 500. And a single glass of Rioja at a paella dinner in the Canary Islands where — as Annie put it — nobody there knew her. Two weeks later, on a movie theater bathroom floor with her fifteen-year-old son in the theater, her intestine twisted. Three weeks after that, a piece of her small intestine died inside her body. Two weeks in the hospital. And four months later, on blood thinners, she rode across the Pyrenees. On the flight to Barcelona, she ordered a glass of white wine.

    Her mother died in June 2023. Annie went to the grocery store that day and bought a twelve-pack of ranch water. What followed was a year and a half of nightly drinking, "controlled" in the way addicts mean when they say the word. Then, in December 2023, a morning she can only describe as divine intervention. Thirty days of treatment in January 2024. Ninety meetings in ninety days. Now — three to five meetings a week, a bodybuilding coach in California, and the possibility of competing in the over-fifty division next fall.

    This is an episode about the still quiet voice you spend decades ignoring, about what it costs to finally stop performing wellness, and about the difference between fear-quitting and actually doing the work. Also: why post-gastric-bypass alcohol nearly killed her, why "transfer addiction" is a phrase she can now name out loud, and a stranger in a Texas pickup truck who reminded her that people are also good.

    Resources mentioned:
    🩷 If you or someone you love is struggling with alcohol — AA has a meeting near you: aa.org

    Follow the show:
    📧 thatwasnttheplanpod@gmail.com
    🌐 https://thatwasnttheplan.com
    🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5RNnSi4FzNM3HbTpFErYgP
    🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/that-wasnt-the-plan/id1868758889
    ▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@That_Wasnt_The_Plan
    📱 Instagram: @thatwasnttheplan_podcast
    🎵 TikTok: @that_wasnt_the_plan

    If today's episode moved you, please rate, review, and share. It's the single biggest thing that helps us grow.

    #ThatWasntThePlan #TWTPPodcast #Recovery #Sobriety #Alcoholism #GastricBypass #WomensHealth #Midlife #Perimenopause #Menopause #Bodybuilding #WomensBodybuilding #ElizabethSmart #EnduranceAthlete #Cycling #IronMan #AAmeetings #TransferAddiction #StoryDrivenPodcast

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    1 時間 3 分
  • Knowledge Artist ft. Dr. Patty Brennan

    Knowledge Artist ft. Dr. Patty Brennan
    2026/08/20

    "Send me all the genitals" ft. Dr. Patty Brennan

    What do you do when the wildest sentence of your career is "I was sure it was a worm"?

    Dr. Patty Brennan is a Colombian-born, Cornell-trained evolutionary biologist, a full Professor of Biological Sciences at Mount Holyoke College, and the world's leading expert on vertebrate genital coevolution. She's been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, Scientific American, The Guardian, Slate, and NPR — and she's a featured scientist in the upcoming documentary Second Nature, narrated by Elliot Page. Before all of that, she was one of five sisters in Bogotá who became a biologist because she figured out she could scare her sisters off with bugs.

    Patty wrote us a line before we ever spoke that could be the tagline of this entire podcast: "The title of your podcast could be the byline for my scientific career." And she wasn't kidding.

    This episode is the whole arc — the girl who talked her way onto a research ketch in the Galapagos to scuba dive around the world (and got no further than the Galapagos, and married the American man she was never going to marry, thirty years ago). The moment she and her crew photographed the first live sighting of a whale that had only ever been known from a skull. The pivot to Cornell for marine mammals, the switch to birds, and the day in the Costa Rican rainforest when she thought she'd found a parasite and instead discovered a career. In 2013, Fox News, Sean Hannity, and Sarah Palin came for her NSF-funded research. She hid under her desk for a week — and then wrote back. What happened next was not the plan.

    Also: why females across the animal kingdom have weapons nobody was looking at, why 3% of birds have penises and the rest don't, why the full three-dimensional structure of the human clitoris wasn't mapped until the mid-1990s, dolphins as sexual harassers, Elliot Page's production company, and the Harlequin duck — the one duck that is not, in Patty's words, a "rapist duck."

    Watch or request a screening of Second Nature:
    🎬 secondnaturedocumentary.com

    Books Patty mentioned:
    📖 Vagina Obscura by Rachel Gross
    📖 Bitch by Lucy Cooke
    📖 Poking the Squid by Perry Ireland

    Follow the show:
    📧 thatwasnttheplanpod@gmail.com
    🌐 www.thatwasnttheplan.com
    📱 Instagram: @thatwasnttheplan_podcast
    🎵 TikTok: @that_wasnt_the_plan
    ▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@That_Wasnt_The_Plan

    If today's episode made you laugh, made you think, or made you text a science-curious friend — please rate, review, and share. It's the single biggest thing that helps us grow.

    #ThatWasntThePlan #TWTPPodcast #DuckPenises #EvolutionaryBiology #WomenInSTEM #WomenInScience #MountHolyoke #Cornell #BasicScience #ScienceCommunication #SecondNatureDoc #ElliotPage #ColombianScientist #Galapagos #Genitalia #Vagina #DolphinSex #EvolutionaryBiology #StoryDrivenPodcast

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    1 時間 9 分
  • Gen X, Empty Nesters, and A Very Quiet Drive Home ft. Lucas Smith

    Gen X, Empty Nesters, and A Very Quiet Drive Home ft. Lucas Smith
    2026/08/13

    What happens when the paperwork for your son's college applications cracks open something you thought you'd buried 35 years ago?

    Lucas Smith is a Colorado-native-turned-Seattleite, a software engineer of 15+ years working at the intersection of AI and tech, a multi-instrumentalist, an avid cyclist, a master of the smoker (the grill kind), and the host of the Not Retired Yet podcast. And in about a month, he and his wife are driving their only son six hours south and dropping him off at college.

    What was supposed to be college paperwork became something else entirely. Somewhere between forms and financial aid, Lucas started losing sleep, getting angry at nothing, and couldn't figure out why. Until he traced it back to being 18 himself — the year his parents split, the family disintegrated, and a version of him was left to raise himself on his friend Dave's floor. This is an episode about handing your kid every single thing you never got. About Gen X and the eye of the hurricane between launching kids and aging parents. About unreliable memory, the sandwich generation, marriages that survive the empty nest (and the ones that don't), and Lucas's very honest admission that it was never part of the plan to live this long.

    Also: a 1984 drum machine, why our brains don't remember the diapers, and what a "pack horse" does when he finally has to plan.

    Follow Lucas & check out his podcast:
    🎧 Not Retired Yet — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/not-retired-yet/id1823048074

    Follow the show:
    📧 thatwasnttheplanpod@gmail.com
    🌐 www.thatwasnttheplan.com
    📱 Instagram: @thatwasnttheplan_podcast
    🎵 TikTok: @that_wasnt_the_plan
    ▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@That_Wasnt_The_Plan

    If today's episode moved you, made you laugh, or made you text a Gen X friend — please rate, review, and share. It's the single biggest thing that helps us grow.

    #ThatWasntThePlan #TWTPPodcast #NotRetiredYet #GenX #EmptyNest #LatchkeyKids #MidlifePivots #SandwichGeneration #FatherAndSon #CollegeDropOff #SeattlePodcast #Memory #Fatherhood #GenXParents

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    1 時間 6 分
  • Big Cat Energy ft Daisy Fulgham - Board Certified Sexologist, Sex and Relationship Coach and Wardrobe Stylist

    Big Cat Energy ft Daisy Fulgham - Board Certified Sexologist, Sex and Relationship Coach and Wardrobe Stylist
    2026/08/06

    This week Emily and Courtney sit down with Daisy Fulgham — wardrobe stylist turned sex and relationship coach, devoted wife of 34 years, mother of two, and the woman who, at 54, Googled "sex coaching programs," sat down with her husband, and signed up before she could talk herself out of it. After the first weekend she was completely hooked. After this episode, you will be too.

    Daisy is warm, funny, disarmingly wise, and absolutely not here to talk about what you think she's here to talk about. Because this isn't really about sex. It's about intimacy. And intimacy, she'll tell you, is just deeply knowing yourself — all of it, the bright parts and the dark parts, the wounds and the triggers and the beautiful, complicated mess of being human — and meeting all of it with curiosity instead of judgment.

    "Shame can't really grow with a bunch of light on it." — Daisy Fulgham

    What you'll hear:

    • The difference between therapy and sex coaching — and why Daisy's favorite clients are the ones who already have a therapist, because they're ready to stop just talking about things and start practicing them
    • What most people are actually coming to her for when they book a session (spoiler: it's not what you think — it's _____________)
    • Old narratives: the stories we were handed about who we're supposed to be as men and women, and why none of them are paying off for anyone
    • Self-improvement vs. self-love — why we've been sold one when we desperately need the other, and what the difference actually looks like in practice
    • The shame share: a simple, structured exercise for letting something you've never told anyone out into the light — and why shame physically loses its grip when someone witnesses you without judgment
    • Pleasure as a radical act — "whether it's your kickball team, your knitting group, or sex in a ten-person orgy, you are just loving yourself so much more" — and why the patriarchy needs us to believe we haven't earned it yet
    • What intimacy actually means — and why it's been quietly swapped out for the word "sex" by everyone who doesn't want to say sex
    • Big Cat Energy — Daisy's concept of staying connected to that inner flow of energy that makes you more alive, more engaged, more sparkly — and how fashion and clothing can be a doorway into it
    • Courtney's lingerie shower story: her mom, a Catholic schoolgirl costume, her brother, a grass skirt, two coconuts, and some genuinely excellent chaos
    • Emily on pleasure post-cancer: huffing Lady Chunk the cat for five seconds and not caring what anyone thinks
    • The embodiment breathing exercise anyone can do before they leave the house — and why Daisy is always surprised at how much it changes every interaction that comes after
    • And a promise of an ethical porn list, available by email, no questions asked, anonymous welcome. Below is info for Ethical Porn! Email us.

    Daisy is accepting new clients. This is your sign.

    📎 Find Daisy:

    • 🌸 Website: daisyfulgham.com
    • 📲 Instagram: @Daisy.Fulgham.coaching
    • 📩 Want the ethical porn resource list? Email us at thatwasnttheplanpod@gmail.com — no explanation needed, no judgment, we promise

    💌 Have a question for Daisy — or a story you've been carrying? Email us at thatwasnttheplanpod@gmail.com or visit thatwasnttheplan.com

    📲 Find us on Instagram | TikTok | YouTube — search @thatwasnttheplan_podcast

    🎧 If this one hit you somewhere soft — subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs permission to take up space.

    That wasn't the plan, and we will talk to you next week. K bye. 🥂

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    1 時間 13 分
  • Oh Canada, We See You (And We Love You)

    Oh Canada, We See You (And We Love You)
    2026/07/30
    Turns out That Wasn't The Plan is basically a Canadian podcast at this point. Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton — you all showed up before anyone south of the border figured out what was happening. So Emily and Courtney decided to do the only reasonable thing: dedicate an entire episode to the Great White North.Courtney, for the record, is a dual citizen. Born in Newfoundland on a military base. Canada was apparently on the edge of their seat waiting to find out whether she'd claim it. Life happened. She forgot. She found out at the Social Security office in Los Angeles while in her twenties and spent the rest of the day walking around going "dual citizen." She has still never been back. She and Jonathan are planning their honeymoon there. One bathroom on a houseboat is where she draws the line.Emily, meanwhile, is accepting suitors. Canadian ones specifically. Three hours south of the border. Funny is non-negotiable. You know where to find us.What you'll learn about Canada in this episode:🩺 Insulin — invented at the University of Toronto in 1921. Probably saved more lives than anything else on this list🍕 Hawaiian pizza — invented by a Greek-Canadian man in Chatham, Ontario in 1962. The world's most divisive pizza is Canada's fault and we respect it🎲 Trivial Pursuit — dreamed up by two Montrealers over beers. Courtney's strategy: say "that's what I was gonna say" every single time❤️ The pacemaker and IMAX — both Canadian. We'll just let that sit there🍟 Poutine — rural Quebec, 1950s, several restaurants currently in a very polite dispute about who invented it🍁 Maple taffy on snow — hot maple syrup poured over clean snow, rolled onto a stick. Canadians looked at a blizzard and made dessert💰 The Great Maple Syrup Heist — thieves robbed Quebec's strategic maple syrup reserve for roughly $18 million Canadian dollars in 2011-2012. Yes, there is a strategic maple syrup reserve. Yes, this is real🍟 Ketchup chips, all-dress chips, Tim Hortons, and the Double Double — Emily has never had any of these and is prepared to drive to Vancouver to fix that🎭 The absolutely staggering list of Canadian comedians and entertainers: Mike Myers, Jim Carrey, Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, Rick Moranis, Leslie Nielsen, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Ryan Reynolds, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Drake, Celine Dion, Shania Twain — we could go on🏃 Terry Fox — who ran a marathon a day across Canada on one leg to raise money for cancer research before dying from it. Look him up📺 Schitt's Creek and Anne of Green Gables — both beloved, both Canadian, Courtney watches Schitt's Creek with her whole family🐋 The orcas of the Salish Sea — shared between Seattle and Vancouver Island, and Emily's personal neighbors🐻 Polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba — self-declared polar bear capital of the world, where you can ride Tundra buggies out to see them up close🦦 Beavers as ecological engineers — and why reintroducing them wherever possible might actually help save the planet🚀 CanadaArm — the robotic arm that's been deploying satellites and supporting the International Space Station since the shuttle era👻 The Old Hag of Newfoundland — centuries of folklore around waking up unable to move with a figure sitting on your chest, which we now call sleep paralysis. The cures included saying your name backwards, which Emily and Courtney attempt with very mixed results. Yentruoc Dnalloh is flawless. Ylime Etihw is a work in progress🦕 Sasquatch Country — Harrison Hot Springs, BC, where local lore claims Sasquatches gather for reunions near the lake🐉 Cadborosaurus — BC's own sea serpent, affectionately called Caddy, with a horse-or-camel-like head and an impressive number of alleged sightings📩 Canada — write in and tell us where you're from. And Australians — you're next. Courtney's already planning your episode.💌 Write in and tell us where you're listening from! thatwasnttheplanpod@gmail.com or visit thatwasnttheplan.com📲 Find us on Instagram | TikTok | YouTube — search @thatwasnttheplan_podcast🎧 If this made you laugh — or if you're Canadian and just feel deeply seen right now — subscribe, leave a review, and tell a friend. Especially a Canadian one.That wasn't the plan, and we will talk to you next week. K bye. 🍁Support the show
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    48 分
  • She Grabbed the Shark's Snout

    She Grabbed the Shark's Snout
    2026/07/23

    Welcome back. Season 2. We opened with a tiger shark. Seemed right.

    That Wasn't The Plan is back for Season 2 — and we are not easing anyone in gently. Our first guest is Kinga Philipps: journalist, explorer, Shark Week host, Explorers Club Fellow, and one of the coolest humans on the planet. If you don't know Kinga yet, you're about to.

    We start where you'd expect — with a flight cancellation. Emily spent the night on the floor of LAX, made it to Australia, made it back, and showed up for this recording slightly jet-lagged and fully feral.

    What follows is one of the most genuinely fun, unexpectedly educational, and thoroughly unhinged conversations we've had on this show. And we've had some unhinged ones.

    What you'll hear:

    • Kinga watched Jaws at a friend's house as a kid — wasn't allowed to — and was so terrified she couldn't go in a swimming pool for years. The little journalist brain in her eventually asked why she was scared, and that question changed the entire trajectory of her life
    • Emily's own shark encounter in the Galapagos — six feet, two feet behind her, just curious — and what it actually feels like when the predator energy shifts
    • What to do if a shark comes at you in the water — and why the Instagram influencer advice will absolutely get you killed
    • The scariest moment of Kinga's career.
    • 73 million sharks are killed every year for shark fin soup. What Shark Allies is doing about it, why it's working, and how you can help
    • Kinga's new Shark Week show: What Shark Attacked? — forensic shark species identification using GoPro footage, bite mark analysis, and actual science. Airs July 30th
    • And a tease for next time: ayahuasca. Kinga has an article. Courtney has questions. We're going back in.

    "You're safe in the water, ladies." — Kinga Philipps, probably not talking about all the other stuff we discussed

    📎 Find Kinga & Resources Mentioned:

    • 📲 Instagram: @kingaphilipps
    • 🦈 Shark Allies: sharkallies.org (board member — shark conservation, fin trade legislation)
    • 💧 Waves for Water: wavesforwater.org (clean water solutions globally)
    • 📺 Shark Week 2025 — What Shark Attacked? airs July 30th on Discovery
    • 📖 The Devil's Teeth by Susan Casey — go read it

    💌 Have a question for Kinga you want us to put in front of her for round two? Email us at thatwasnttheplanpod@gmail.com or visit thatwasnttheplan.com

    📲 Find us on Instagram | TikTok | YouTube — search @thatwasnttheplan_podcast. Kinga is on Instagram at @kingaphilipps

    🎧 Season 2 is here. If you're glad we're back — subscribe, leave a review, and share us with someone who needs a shark story in their life.

    That wasn't the plan, and we will talk to you next week. K bye. 🥂

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    1 時間 4 分
  • Season One Finale: 25 Episodes, A Cliffhanger, and a Flying Tooth

    Season One Finale: 25 Episodes, A Cliffhanger, and a Flying Tooth
    2026/06/19

    Happy 25th episode, everybody — and welcome to the Season One Finale of That Wasn't The Plan.

    Emily and Courtney sit down to close out Season 1 the only way they know how: completely unscripted, slightly unhinged, and somehow still kind of profound. Courtney opens with a literal cliffhanger, lands the plane on a calm, clear decision about her own health at 46, and then the two of them spend the rest of the episode doing what they do best — laughing, oversharing, and somehow turning a discussion about late-night jelly bean habits into something genuinely sweet.

    This one's a love letter to Season 1. They recap their favorite guest moments, reflect on what the show has become, and set up what's coming in Season 2 — launching July 23rd.

    Thank you for 25 episodes of listening, laughing, and showing up for this show. Season 2 is going to be even better. Go back and revisit your favorite episodes from Season 1 while we're away — and tell us which ones you want more of.

    📎 Mentioned in this episode:

    • Lindsay Brockman's tooth-flying moment: watch around the 45-minute mark of the Lindsay Brockman grief episode on YouTube or Spotify

    💌 Have a story, a question, or feedback on Season 1? We want to hear it. Email us at thatwasnttheplanpod@gmail.com or visit thatwasnttheplan.com

    📲 Find us on Instagram | TikTok | YouTube — search @thatwasnttheplan. All episodes are also up on Spotify and YouTube if you want to see our faces (filters and all — full transparency).

    🎧 Season 2 launches July 23rd. Until then — please subscribe, leave a review, share us with a friend. It genuinely helps more than you know.

    That wasn't the plan, and we will see you in Season 2. K bye. 🥂

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    25 分
  • I Want a Shit Ton of Kids ft. Jonathan Fitzgerald

    I Want a Shit Ton of Kids ft. Jonathan Fitzgerald
    2026/06/10

    This week's guest, Jonathan Fitzgerald, showed up with a life story that none of us were fully prepared for.

    Jonathan grew up the middle child of ten in Sarasota, Florida, in a family that could only be described as a force of nature. His parents — both only children, for the record — moved to Virginia to help found a Bible college and wound up with 48 grandchildren. His father delivered seven of the ten kids at home after reading nine books on childbirth, built a prototype birthing chair in his garage, and tried to patent it. Nobody roasted him at his 50th birthday party because everyone was too busy crying about how much they love him.

    Jonathan's life goal since his teenage years was simple: be an amazing husband, be an amazing father, have as many children as possible. He did all of that. And then the 2008 housing crash wiped out his painting business, his marriage unraveled under the weight of financial stress and lost communication, and he found himself — sober, broke, and completely on his own — raising five kids between the ages of two and sixteen while working 7 to 5 for someone else and coaching two of them in football.

    He never missed a practice.

    "I've got way more content." — Jonathan Fitzgerald. He's coming back.

    💌 Got a story you want to share? We'd love to hear it. Reach us at thatwasnttheplanpod@gmail.com or visit thatwasnttheplan.com

    📲 Find us on Instagram | TikTok | YouTube — search @thatwasnttheplan podcast

    🎧 If this one made you laugh, cry, or call your dad — subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs it.

    That wasn't the plan, and we will talk to you next week. K bye. 🥂

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    1 時間 14 分