Confronting the Truth

“I don’t believe in the concept of hell, but if I did I would think of it as filled with people who were cruel to animals.” -Gary Larson

This week's Podclub podcast (Here if you missed it) was only one episode of many I listened to this week from Our Hen House. This is definitely a new favorite for me as a Vegan and lover of animals.  I feel like I have so much to learn and what better way to find out the truth than by listening to the witty banter and in depth interviews conducted by the lovely duo of Jasmine Singer and Mariann Sullivan. I feel like I know them after listening to them chat about their wedding day in New York. In this episode they interviewed Dylan Powell, an animal activist who is working hard to end the animal cruelty taking place at Marineland in Niagara.  

It's easier not to think about what's going on. It really is. It's easier to pay the entrance fee to the zoo or aquarium and enjoy your day looking at the animals without worrying about how they got there, where they are going or how they're being treated. I found myself in this position a few months ago. I had an L.A. Zoo pass and I knew how to use it! It only took one day to change my view entirely. 

We had ridden our bikes to the zoo with the intention of finding a nice bench and relaxing in front of one of our favorite exhibits before riding home. On that day, the elephants were finally within viewing range and we were so thrilled. The male elephant was hanging out by himself over in a corner near some chairs so we sat down to enjoy the view. What a magnificent animal! We sat there for at least a half hour wondering why he was taking a few steps forward and then a few steps back. He'd stop only to bob his head up and down repeatedly. I even joked that he was dancing for us. When we got back home I checked the Google to see why elephants bob their heads.  

Billy The Elephant
Help Billy.Org

The second my search results popped up, I knew I had two choices. I could close that window and retain my ignorance or I could dig in and start reading. I dug in. By the end of the evening I knew head bobbing is not normal and how Billy the elephant has a whole slew of people trying to get him transported to an animal sanctuary. Billy isn't the only one either. I continued reading about mistreatment of animals, elderly animals being "retired" in very inhumane ways, how no exhibit in a zoo can come close to allowing an animal to live as it would in the wild and even though we are keeping some species going, they could never survive in their natural habitat if taken there and released.

I never went back to the zoo.

This is the path I've chosen. I want to know what's happening no matter how painful. I'm aware that learning the truth means I have to make decisions I don't want to make. I have to give up things I don't want to give up. The same thing happened when I started learning about the food I was eating or the products I was using on my body. Once I knew they had a hand in harming animals or that they contained toxins that were bad for me, I had to replace them with something else.  

I'm so thankful for resources like Our Hen House and I hope you listen and learn a few things too.

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That was a very mind expanding podcast for this week's Podclub meetup. Podclub is a weekly meeting of adorable ears and the smart brains between those ears. Just Jill and Soft Spiral have a lot of amazing words for you to read about this podcast as well. You should visit their blogs now and on other days too. 

I Love Animals

I love animals. I know, you're thinking "Hey, so do I!  Doesn't everybody?". I haven't always cared as much about the animal kingdom as I do now. We always had dogs and cats in our home when I was growing up, but I haven't had a pet as an adult and I don't really want one.  So far that has led people to think I don't really love animals but it's quite the opposite! I only want a pet if I have adequate attention and space for it to play outside every single day and let me tell you, "dog parks" are nothing compared to the countryside our pets roamed near my childhood home. 

Our Hen House is a podcast that caught my attention recently. I gave it a listen and loved it. I'm only surprised that I haven't been listening to this weekly show for the last three years! This week Jill is trusting me with the choice of the newest episode for our Pod Club pick. Please listen with an open mind and be entertained and informed!!

EPISODE 161: “I DON’T BELIEVE IN THE CONCEPT OF HELL, BUT IF I DID, I WOULD THINK OF IT AS FILLED WITH PEOPLE WHO WERE CRUEL TO ANIMALS.”

Pod Club is weekly meeting of ears and the brains between those ears. Just Jill and I pick an episode every(ish) Monday and post our thoughts every(ish) Friday.  So far we've had Leah join in the conversation and a few others that refuse to publicly comment. You know who you are! I would love it if we had a few more ears join in the fun. It's free and we always come away having learned something about ourselves and the world.

My Brain and Bees

My brain is a funny place. It wants to learn things which is why I asked Jill if this week's Podclub pick could be "learny". My brain likes to invent words when an appropriate one can't be found. I do have a habit of misplacing my words.  Jill agreed that this would be a good time to learn something. A new episode by the guys at Stuff You Should Know entitled "How Bees Work" seemed harmless enough.  

My brain likes to pretend it's listening. It's like "oh wow, uh huh, amazing, really?" when it's actually hard at work thinking about completely unrelated things like if I should unravel my current crochet invention because it's clearly going to be a tangled mess or wondering what I'd like to make for my afternoon green juice. 

So what I actually learned from this podcast was minimal. I did manage to absorb that the females rule and that bees make nectar into honey because it takes up less space. How they go about doing it is rather disgusting and makes me a teensy bit glad I'm vegan and don't eat honey anymore. It's amazing that it has antibacterial qualities but the fact that it's because it's basically hydrogen peroxide isn't very appetizing. 

The thing that caught my attention completely and made me stop all the other sneaky side thoughts was that bees dance to communicate. That's right they DANCE! Watch and be amazed. 

The Waggle Dance

I used to be a dancer and I'm fairly certain this is about what I looked like when I tried to do a complicated turning combination across the floor that required doing pique turns in a square and then traveling forward a bit and then doing them in a square again. I mostly tried to move my body in the general direction everyone else was going. I was waggling obviously, all the cool bees were doing it.

Podclub is a weekly meeting of ears and the brains between those ears. Just Jill and I pick an episode on Monday to report on by Friday(ish). We have the lovely Leah join in once in a while and would welcome anyone else who feels the urge. Be brave! It's fun and it's free and it's faster than reading a whole book. In fact, your eyes get to take a break for the whole thing. (Well, technically if you are walking or doing anything other than laying down your eyes don't get an actual break but they aren't required to read anything) (Well, technically if you are out walking or doing anything and you see a word or a combination of words your brain will read them whether you like it or not). 

Bees Knees

How do Bees work? And do they have knees? Let's find out this week with our Podclub pick from...

Stuff You Should Know.

How Bees Work

Check back on friday to see what we thought and hopefully a few things we learned.

High Rise Stories

I love hearing stories. This American Life was the hook that grabbed me out of regular life and into the world of storytelling a few years ago. I don't know what I did before that.  Oh ya, I watched movies and read books (which I still do but now with a heavy dose of podcasts in that rotation). Not all who tell their stories are good at it. Some are flat our boring while others have lifted it to an art form all it's own. David Sedaris is clearly the Picasso of storytelling... or do you prefer Monet? Rembrant? Turner? Degas? Cassatt? Whichever you prefer, there are people out there who could sell ice to an Eskimo with the way they know how to turn a phrase. 

What came to mind as I listened to these specific stories about how we deceive ourselves and others was how easy it is. We concoct the most elaborate stories about things. It can start small but we know how to build and build on top of that first teensy deception until what we have is a sky high rise of a tale. And we take tours of the elaborate towers built by others. We gasp at the beauty and the magnificent architecture without realizing it's all smoke and mirrors.

Be deliberate with your words and know that the people within earshot might be taking what you say as truth. Be deliberate with your hearing and know that what you hear may not be factual. It may be a story beautifully told and you should fully appreciate it as such, but always find out for yourself.

I have no doubt you'll love what Jill has to say about this week's Podcast pick.  It feels good to be back into our regular weekly sharing of podcasts. If you'd like to join in it's pretty easy! Listen along and comment if you'd like to. 

If you want to listen to the podcast we chose this week, you can find it HERE.

Three Kinds of Deception

It's been a few weeks since we've had our Podclub fun. After busy holidays and wrangling the new year into submission, we can now continue with the little things that bring us more joy than should be allowed for free.  Just Jill and I have been missing our official weekly meeting of the ears.

What better way to start off than with my favorite Podcast: This American Life?! The answer is, there is no better way. So here it is....Listen now and report back this Friday!  

Three Kinds of Deception

A story of self-deception, a story about deceiving others, and a story about accidental deception. And how one type of deception can easily turn into another

Finding Your Portkey

"A Portkey is an object enchanted to instantly bring anyone touching it to a specific location. Most of the time, a Portkey is an everyday object that would not draw the attention of a Muggle. Travelling by Portkey is said to feel like having a hook "somewhere behind the navel" pulling the traveller to their location."

If you were given the task of picking one moment from your life to live in for eternity, what would it be? Can you pinpoint a moment that would be pure bliss for you to spend forever lost in?  Think about it. I'll wait....Okay did you find one? It's not easy is it. I bet some people have so many they couldn't possibly choose, while others can't think of one. 

Our Pod Club pick this week was Audio Dharma: "The Two Moons". This episode was discussing how our lives are overly busy (I'd guess never more so than the holiday season) but how we can find moments of quiet, of stillness and peace. The second moon was defined as one that is quieter and more luminous than the first moon. The speaker wanted to encourage listeners to look for ways to find that second moon more often.

How do you feel when you're busy? My symptoms are a tightness in my upper chest, shallow breathing, spinning thoughts leading to lack of perspective peppered with random aches and pains from angry body parts. How do you feel when you're calm? When I meditate I feel my entire body relax and yet maintain a focused sense of concentration. My thoughts run rampant as they will, but I feel a space between the thoughts and my true inner self. I feel the quiet.

Have you found a moment yet?  Would it encourage you to dig deeper for one if I told you it could be used as a magical device? A way to transport yourself from the overly glorified world of busy to that serene moment of wellness and life? 

(I have to make a correction of sorts to something said in this podcast. I think when the speaker used the example of the Horcrux from Harry Potter, she really meant Portkey. A Horcrux is considered dark magic and used by the evil to deposit pieces of their souls in objects in order to become immortal. A Portkey is a magical object used to transport from one place to another. I'm going with Portkey for this one.)(Stop judging me as a major Harry Potter fan. I bet you thought the same thing.)

My Portkey moment happened this year. I truly felt different after it happened and I go back to it nearly daily as a way to remind myself of what truly matters to me. It was beautiful. The whole universe opened up and my eyes were opened to the connectedness of everything and the peace that is possible for me. Happiness is an option. Letting go is okay, it's more than okay - it's vital.  

I'm not a religious person, still an atheist actually, but I could refer to this as a spiritual awakening. It's kept me searching for my own middle way to walk. Daily I'm learning to "stop the glorification of busy". I'm learning to slow down and smile more, to stop telling myself stories that lead to life dramas. 

I encourage you to find yourself a Portkey Moment. Start with what you have, even small moments of stillness will do. When you find the tightness settling in and your nerves frazzled beyond recognition, close your eyes and breathe and use your Portkey. Transport yourself to a place that is quiet, more luminous and truly peaceful. 

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Pod Club is a weekly meeting of ears and the brains between those ears. Check in on Monday when Jill and I pick an episode for the week and give it a spin yourself. All podcasts are free through their websites or iTunes.  Come back for a visit on Friday (or close to it) to see what we had to say. Leah over at Soft Spiral joins us once in a while as well.  I'd love to hear what you have to say! Comment here or join us by posting your thoughts on your own blog. 

The Two Moons : Pod Club

Audio Dharma : The Two Moons

Today I'm asking you to take a chance on a podcast that might not be something you'd listen to normally. I promise you don't have to be a Buddhist or even someone who practices meditation to get a lot of insight from these Dharma talks. When I first started listening, I was only meditating for a few minutes once in a while and I still loved listening to these insightful talks. I prefer to listen to this one on my hikes. Being out in nature with words of wisdom flowing into my ears is the highlight of my day. Give it a try won't you?

Pod Club is a weekly meeting of ears and the brains between those ears. Check in on Monday when Jill and I pick an episode for the week and give it a spin yourself. All podcasts are free through their websites or iTunes.  Come back for a visit on Friday (or close to it) to see what we had to say. Leah over at Soft Spiral joins us once in a while as well.  I'd love to hear what you have to say! Comment here or join us by posting your thoughts on your own blog. 

Alive Enough?

Breathing in, I'm aware I am breathing in. Breathing out, I'm aware I am breathing out. I'm alive, but am I alive enough? Do I live every day to the fullest? What about living authentically? Is it possible to be living this mindful, authentic, wholehearted life if I'm always giving some or all of my attention to my laptop or my smartphone?

This week for Pod Club we listened to On Being : Alive Enough. 

I've always resisted technology. I hold tightly to the old way of doing things. Holding a book and turning the pages cannot be replaced with a cold flat screen. Writing a letter with pen and paper to drop in the mailbox will always give me a satisfaction that my email can never allow.  I was the last in almost my entire circle of family and friends to get a cell phone. A few years ago, I was also one of the last to upgrade to a smartphone.  This week I finally retired my faithful iPhone 3G for the iPhone 5.  Last to join the club, but first to admit my addiction. I don't know what I'd do without being able to use my Mac and my iPhone every day.  I communicate mostly through email and texts just like the rest of the world. Clearly I love reading interesting websites and blogs that pertain to my interests and I love knowing I can find out almost anything I'm curious about. When I was a kid, back in the olden days of no internet, if we had a question about the world we had to look in books or ask other people. Do I wish things were still this way? No, not at all! I love that we can just "check the Google" on a whim. 

What we need is balance.

In this episode of On Being, Sherry Turkle quotes: "If we don't teach our children to be alone, they'll only always know how to be lonely".  We have a responsibility to the coming generation. They will learn by observing us how to put down the phone, take the earbuds out, turn the computer off and connect with each other face to face. We can't expect them to do it if we can't create boundaries with our ever growing technology.  

What we need is to disconnect in order to connect.

It's easy to be controlled by our online lives. Constantly checking our email and our social media accounts can suck so much vital time out of our day and what do we have to show for it? Real friendships or Facebook friends? Are we creating or just looking at other artist's creations? Are we thinking our own thoughts or just reading about other people's. I'm guilty of all of these. This year I signed out of Facebook and haven't missed it yet. I have to actually remember birthdays. I have to ask people what's going on in their day to day lives instead of checking their "wall".  I never have the ringer activated on my phone and if it buzzes or lights up with a text I don't pick it up if I'm doing something else. I wait, sometimes for quite a while, before picking it up to see what it says. This can drive people crazy, but it keeps my time on my terms.  I don't want to be a puppet at the mercy of my text messages and inbox. 

There's certainly a world of benefit to the technology we have at our fingertips. For example, we learn of news as it's happening from multiple sources. After a recent earthquake, I found myself frustrated to find nothing about it online right after I felt it. I think I had to wait ten or fifteen whole minutes before finding any reports of it on the internet! Twitter is opening up a world of first hand reporting all over the world by regular people. It can waste a lot of time, but it can serve an important function as well. Email is a wonderfully efficient way to communicate if we use it wisely. Watch out for those emails written in haste and sent off without a second thought. And please please don't ever hit Reply All unless you mean it!  

What we need to do, is carefully examine the benefits and drawbacks.

In closing, I'd like to give a little story about my new iPhone. Rob and I were driving yesterday from Los Angeles to Fresno and he was dying to try out Siri.  I gave in and found how to ask "her" a question. I asked what the weather was like in Fresno, she gave us the weather conditions for the next five days.  I asked if there were any vegan restaurants in Fresno, Siri said yes and listed three for me. What should I ask now? Rob thought for a second before laughingly suggesting I ask Siri "Who's your Mama".  So I did.  What happened next sums up my excitement and fear surrounding our future relationship with technology.

Me: "Who's your mama?"

Siri: "My mother?"

Me: "Yes"

Siri: "I don't need a mother. You are all the family I need"

...

Pod Club is a weekly meeting of ears and the brains between those ears. Check in on Monday when Jill and I pick an episode for the week and give it a spin yourself. All podcasts are free through their websites or iTunes.  Come back for a visit on Friday (or close to it) to see what we had to say. Leah over at Soft Spiral joins us once in a while as well.  I'd love to hear what you have to say! Comment here or join us by posting your thoughts on your own blog. 

Pod Club : It's Alive!

Just Jill and I will be listening to On Being : Alive Enough for our Pod Club this week. It's an extremely relevant topic for everyone in this technological playground we live in.  I have lots to say about the whole issue of living inside electronic devices...but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll save that for my Friday Pod Club report. 

P.S.
If you live near a Trader Joes, please do yourself a favor and get some of their Candy Cane Green Tea. It's decaf so you can drink it all day long like I have been for the last few days. It's so good. 

Pod Club: Dreaming of Extra Credit

I'm typing this as I listen to this week's Pod Club pick from the show Risk. It's not holding my attention as much as usual because I have too much going on inside my brain. The stories are comical personal experiences which can only be background entertainment for me today.  It doesn't help that two days ago I asked Jill if she felt like doing a little Pod Club "Extra Credit" with me by listening to another podcast from On Being. 

Okay, you know what? I just stopped the Risk episode with 20 minutes left to go. My head is not in the frame of mind to appreciate any more stories that involve bathrooms. Sorry Risk!

Wednesday morning I realized Brene Brown was a guest on one of my favorite podcasts, On Being.  I've watched her TED talks on vulnerability and shame before so I was excited to hear a longer conversation with her.  As the conversation unfolded, I found myself mentally highlighting every word out of her mouth to remember later.  Please take an hour to change your life by listening to this episode. I can't even begin to explain how insightful and brilliant Brene is. 

On Being : Brene Brown on Vulnerability

I've wasted so much of my life feeling as though I don't deserve to be happy. Ms. Brown defines this feeling that we aren't worthy of love and belonging as shame. In the last few months I've already started to see that my behavior, my productivity, my failures and accomplishments do not define who I am. While listening, I could feel some of the loose feelings and ideas in the back of my mind start to click into place with the glue of her words.   I don't want to give it all away, and I don't think I can properly explain what I feel so I'll give you a few of the things that really jumped out as applicable to my life and let you discover as you listen in your own time.

~ Shame is the feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging.

~ Love and belonging should be non-negotiable regardless of failures.

~ We tend to focus on the behavior rather than who we are.

~ Productivity does not equal self worth.

~ The shame trigger for creativity is comparison.

~ Wholehearted people show up in their lives every day without any guarantees.

~ Uncertainty, risk and fear of exposure lead to vulnerability.
~ Vulnerability leads to the courage to show up and be seen in our lives.

~ Our willingness to be brokenhearted is equal to our ability to be wholehearted beings.

~ Courage is born completely from vulnerability.

~ Hope is a function of struggle.

Pod Club is a weekly meeting of ears and the brains between those ears. Join Jill and myself every monday as we pick an episode for the week and meet back at the end of the week to post our thoughts. The lovely Leah at Soft Spiral always has beautiful things to say too. Join us by listening and thinking and possibly commenting on our blogs or posting on your own! 

Pod Club : Risk

Risk : Dreams

Don't look now, but it's Monday again. Yes it sort of snuck up on me too. This week's Pod Club choice is from the podcast Risk. We're going with an older episode titled "Dreams".   Join us won't you?  Take a chance on something new and different with Just Jill and me.

Pod Club : Creation Theory

(This week's Pod Club pick can be found HERE)

I've always considered myself creative, and yet never wondered if it could be measured. When I meet other people that I consider extra creative it can be tempting to try to measure my aptitude to theirs but it's impossible. First of all, I think every single human is a creative being. I believe that each one of us has a need to create.  Don't you feel sometimes like a day is lacking of realness if you haven't created something? It could be something big like writing a song, choreographing a dance or painting a picture, but lots of people don't even realize they are fulfilling the human need to create by simply thinking up a new recipe or accessorizing an outfit in a new way.  

I just don't think that creativity can be measured. Not only do I think it can't be measured, I don't think it should be. Creativity is magical. Measuring it would only put it in a box and creativity begins by thinking outside the box (or throwing the box out the window altogether).  

Let's let creativity and imagination be the broad wondrous things they are. We should be encouraging children to hold onto their imaginary friends, their inquisitive nature and their fearlessness to try new things. Who cares which of us are predisposed to being "better" at it? What matters is that we continue creating in our day to day lives in any way that makes us happy and adds beauty to the world.  

Pod Club is a weekly meeting of ears and the brains between those ears. Check in on Monday for our weekly episode choice and listen for yourself! Join in the conversation or just check out what we had to say.  Just Jill and Slow Spiral always have great insights so check them out too!

Pod Club : Studio 360

Studio 360 : So You Think You're Creative

"We're always talking about creativity, but what do we mean? Can we find creativity, can we measure it, can we encourage it? Kurt talks with professor and author Gary Marcus (Guitar Zero) about what science tells us about creativity. A researcher shoves jazz musicians into an fMRI machines and has them improvise; an intrepid reporter gets her creativity tested and scored; and a little girl introduces us to her imaginary friends (all of them)."

Pod Club pick of the week is about creativity! I recently found this podcast and so far am always thoroughly entertained. If you like this one, you can go back and listen to some of the older episodes like the one about The Wizard of Oz (so good). Pod Club will reconvene on Friday to share our thoughts. Join Just Jill and myself in our adventures into podcast land! We love having people join in the fun, check out Slow Spiral's take on last weeks podcast from Snap Judgement.

Pod Cast : A Wish is a Dream

I wish I had a million dollars. But what if I did? Would I want all the trouble that comes along with it? Maybe I'd wonder if my friends were truly my friends or using me for the perks? I might have a hard time managing the money and mentally berating myself for misspending portions of it. I can tell you right now that I would first help out my friends and my family that are in need but what would happen to those relationships? Would it cause more harm then good?

Screw it, I'm taking my million dollars and taking you and you and you (no, not you) to a hidden cottage on the outskirts of a beautiful old city to spend the rest of our days reading and singing and dancing around with no worries and no extravagance. And no forwarding address.

This week's Pod Club pick can be found HERE. It's title : "Be Careful What You Wish For".

Snap Judgement is a fun podcast. I hadn't listened before and I felt good sitting here in my Dallas hotel room listening to stories from a crazy variety of sources. I especially loved the story about the young missionary in Africa with delusions of really teaching poor children there but waking up to the fact that you can't really teach someone who's starving. Once again, a young do-gooder was taught the ultimate life lesson and left with a changed soul. It's too bad it takes seeing children fight over the flour provided to make paste because they know they can eat it.

So what do you wish for? The power of our dreams is real. Dream big but make sure it's what you really want in case all your wildest dreams come true.

Check out Just Jill to see what her wonderful brain had to think about this week's pick and peek over at Slow Spiral in case she had a few opinions too! We would love to have more Pod Club members so let us know if you listened!

This has been the Thanksgiving installment of Pod Club. We'll be back on Monday with a fresh podcast episode to tickle your eardrums.

Pod Club : Snap Judgement

Snap Judgment : Careful What You Wish For

Monday means it's Pod Club time! Snap Judgment is a new one to me, but Jill took a risk and suggested we give it a try. I told her that if it sucks, she singlehandedly ruins Thanksgiving. 

Pod Club is a weekly meeting of ears and the brains between those ears. We pick something delightful on Monday and report back by (about) Friday.  Just Jill and I cooked up this scheme and are slowly but surely bringing other ears on board...and what cute ears they are! So listen with us won't you? It's free and it's fun which is hard to find these days. All podcasts can be found on the linked websites or via iTunes. 

Pod Club : Homeless

I went on a quick walk to take a few pictures of what I see every day.

Hearing Voices : Homeless

This weeks podcast felt empty to me. It's hard to explain, but hearing these voices talk about homelessness and struggle were nothing compared to what I see every single day.  

Los Angeles has the highest rate of homelessness in America. This does not surprise me one bit. I have only to walk a block or two to encounter more than one person who clearly has no home and no hope. I don't even have to leave my apartment. If I just watch the sidewalk for a while I will undoubtedly see a slow moving brown and gray mass inch by. Looking closely, I can make out a shopping cart and a human form. It's so common here that I no longer even know how to feel about it. I can't save them all. I can't even save one of them. Once in a while I hand over change but do I believe it helps? Not really.  

The problem is so big I have a hard time seeing any solution. I know it stems from a multitude of root problems such as the deinstitutionalization back in the 60's. Mental illness, disability, lack of education, substance abuse...just a few of the problems running rampant in our country. So what do we do? 

Really, I'm asking! What do we do?? Maybe this city has worn me down. 

I'm hoping my co Pod Clubbers, Just Jill and Soft Spiral , have some inspiration for me. 

Pod Club is a weekly meeting of ears and the brains between those ears. We choose one on Monday and say one or two things about it on Friday on our blogs. Love to hear what you might think! One of these days I'll get a comment out of you anonymous readers out there. 

Pod Club: Hearing Voices

Hearing Voices : Homeless

Pod Club this week is an episode about homelessness from the podcast "Hearing Voices". Take an hour this week for yourself. Put on those earbuds, go for a walk or get cozy in a big chair for an hour of listening pleasure. On Friday I'll post my thoughts as will Just Jill and Soft Spiral. We'd love to have more ears and voices in this weekly adventure. Maybe this is the week you feel like joining in? 

Pod Club : I'm Insane and so are You

Picture a windowless room. Open the single door and take a look inside.  Inside this room are things you wouldn't show anyone else, your secrets. A bottle full of habits sits in the corner. Nearby you'll find a small closed box with a rusty hinged top. Open it and you'll find bits and pieces of thoughts, the kind you never whisper to a soul. This room is one you only enter alone. You go there not because you want to, you need to. A hard day finds you sitting with the bottle or sifting through your box of thoughts. Oh, I forgot to mention the shelf. One single shelf, maybe two feet long and not very wide holds a book and a knife. The book is blank. There is no pen, but the knife works nicely. Once in a while you go into the room just to check that all these things are still there. Nobody knows about the room so it's unlikely anything would be missing, but you still wake at four a.m. and have to check again to be certain. You'll slowly unlock the door and turn on the small lamp, finger the knife and the flip through your book. Peek under the lid of your box and maybe take just a small sip from your bottle. Turning to leave you have a brief moment of terror...where is the key? Sigh as you find it deep in your pocket. Turn the light off, shut the door silently aside from the click of the lock. You'll never tell a soul. Surely they would think you were insane.

This week's Pod Club was an episode of Love + Radio called "Insane vs. Unsane".  What a fine piece of work it was! The stories perfectly intertwined. I was transported to the living room of a man in his mid 40's as I listened to him recount his current life situation and acknowledge flat out that he is insane, but "so are you". I walked the echoing halls of an empty insane asylum with a man who'd witnessed demon possession and cutting. Fascinated as I learned of a college boy stalked by a girl clearly in a world of her own creation. All of this led me to the same conclusion as our first narrator..I'm insane and so are you. All of us somewhere on the crazy scale. Maybe a ten, blatantly walking the street carrying on a three way conversation with yourself and yourself. Or you could be lower, a less obvious seven sitting in the waiting room tapping your toe exactly ten times before you turn the page of your magazine. Some folks aren't even aware of their insanity, twos or threes interacting with the world smoothly and "normally" only to go home at night to drink until they aren't scared anymore or distract themselves obsessively surfing the internet.  Once in a while you're a one. Then you get bored and start climbing the scale again...

Next week we'll choose another podcast for Pod Club and would love anyone with ears to join us! We post on Monday and report on Friday. Please comment on our blogs or post on your own. If you don't have a blog yet (ahem Stephanie) maybe this will give you a good reason to start. We'd love to have you join in the fun. 

My co-host of the Pod Club : Just Jill  (recently started xmas early)

Pod-Club member: Soft Spiral (recently had her blog taken over by a cat)

Pod Club : Love + Radio

This week our Pod Club pick comes from a podcast called Love + Radio. 

Insane vs. Unsane

"Meditations on insanity and unsanity. Aliens, the criminally insane and break-ups."

As always, this podcast is available for free on itunes as well as via the link above. Have fun and report back here or here or here at the end of the week to read our thoughts and share yours!