NPR Plug

I recently started listening to This American Life after a four year cessation (except for a brief stint in Paris). It feels like I am coming home. The feeling is like when a parent stays up with you when you're sick. There is something so comforting about each segment, about each story that it resonates with me long after the hour.

It's so strange to me because when I go to China or visit Texas, my former life feels like a ghost, like something I can only see and not feel or touch or taste or smell. When I go home, wherever that may be, I feel like I can only be an observer to this other life, but when I listen to This American Life, even though these stories aren't mine, I feel as if I am a part of them and vice versa. As if this life is real, even if I take a back seat. Isn't it strange that something so real feels like fiction, and something that is fiction to me feels like it is real?

I realized today that I am like an abusive boyfriend. I have a very bad and quick temper and I treat people like shit and then I realize it and try to make up for it by being really nice. By the time I am angry again, I have already forgotten the way I acted before, and it all happens again. Sometimes I wonder if I will end up in the car one day, yelling and cussing for someone to get back in the fucking car and slamming my breaks with a cigarette sticking out of my mouth, smelling like stale beer.

If you are in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago or Detroit you should check out The Moth for real stories (told without notes or reference materials).