Shapeshifters (encore and personal update)

Your Brain on Facts

From Irish selkies to Japanese kitsune, from Navajo skin-walkers to Ethiopian werehyenas, there doesn't seem to be a culture in the world that doesn't have at least one shape-shifter in its folklore or mythology.

Personal update:

Hey, so can we talk for a minute? Come sit by the fire while I dump out my purse. You might have noticed (you really couldn't have missed it), there hasn't been a lot of YBOF happening lately. The reason for that, as some of my longtime listeners know –I can't believe people have been listening this long– I have a chronic, idiopathic pulmonary condition. Idiopathic means we don't know what the hell it is. We being myself, three pulmonologists, two cardiologists, endocrinology, a full GI workup, even saw a Johns Hopkins doctor who had no idea what I was dealing with and stumping a Johns Hopkins doctor isn't as cool as it sounds. So it's kicked up again. It does this. It could last for an hour, a day, a week, or 6 weeks, like now. The trouble is, I do voice-overs for a living. The irony is not lost on me. And I got into voiceover after the onset of this mystery condition because it's what I want to do. And when covid hit it was goddamn jolly well time to get out of retail. So doing voiceover requires my lungs and then there's no lungs leftover for the podcast, and VO pays the bills.

For those who like things quantified, as I dom for the past week, for example, I've been able to record for about 2 minutes andt hen I need to stop for 5. I can repeat that cycle for up to 30 minutes, but then I have to lie down for 30 minutes at least. So work gets done really, really, really slowly. It's especially complicating because I just took on the largest job by word count that I've ever done. I'm not saying this to pity whore, get sympathy, get attention, fish for compliments or anything like that –I always feel so awkward when that reaction comes in. I just wanted you to know what's going on with the show, which means what's going on with my lungs. Because what's going on with my lungs is what's going on with the show.

What's the bottom line here for the podcast going forward?I'm not giving up on it – 160+ episodes in, I'm not going to bail now. I just can't always do it. I've also become increasingly reluctant to rerun the old episodes because I go back and listen,and I just can't stand the way they sound. It's probably much worse for me than normal people because my ears have become increasingly attuned to vocal and sound qualities.

So I will do my utmost to get new episodes made, but if there isn't one that week, it's not because I didn't want to. And I appreciate everyone sticking with me through this inconsistent schedule. I know it's not good for the algorithms and stuff like that, but I don't care about algorithms. I care about you enjoying the show. I am doing my best to take care of myself, but it's hard when you have these mercurial changing shifting symptoms and no continuity of care. I don't even know who to see at this point. So please be patient, stick with me spread the word on social media, whether you see me post or not. And hey, if you know a good diagnostician within say 3 hour drive of Richmond, Virginia to shoot me their number. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program already in progress.

Special guests: Worst Foot Forward

Pink river dolphins

Linfamy

Need some light reading in a heavy world? Good thing there's the YBOF book!

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