Minku Sharma, host of the Vegan Pedicab Podcast, joins me in Chicago to rant about our cultural obsession with romantic relationships, the stigma of being "single", and how our society gives privilege to traditional heterosexual couples. We also talk about bike culture, driving a pedicab, and why you should ignore everyone's expectations and set your own work rules. Minku mentioned a few great resources:

Laura Ahearn, Invitations to Love, on the move away from arranged marriages and the rise of romantic love in Nepal;

Eva Illouz, Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism, on the relationship industry: "Rather than being a haven from the marketplace, modern romantic love is a practice that is intimately complicit with the political economy of late capitalism."

The Chicago Teachers Union on their ongoing struggle against the privatization of our education system.

Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, on inequality, violence and other history you weren't taught in school;

Studs Terkel, Working, profiles of people and their labor: "Work is violence" when you don't control it.

The video, How to be Alone is courtesy of fiilmaker Andrea Dorfman and poet/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis: "It's fine to be alone once you're embracing it."

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