Why hello, old friend

As someone who loves music as much as I do, I have weird habits when it comes to having music in my car. I hardly ever put CDs in it which is just laziness on my part, I guess. And on the rare occasion when I will have a CD in it, it'll repeat and repeat over and over because I'm just too lazy to switch it up. I rarely mess with having my Ipod in the car either, because I don't like fussing with it while I'm driving. And I can't stand listening to music radio stations. I'm not a top 40 fan nor am I a fan of solid rock nor am I a fan of commercial "alternative" rock.

So where does that leave me? A lot of times I don't listen to anything, but that gets really boring really quick. I will sometimes listen to a classical station, but that bothers me too eventually because it gets a bit boring too. From Thanksgiving to Christmas my car tunes were delightful because two local stations played Christmas music all the time. But then Christmas ended and it was back to silence interspersed with Beethoven.

Monday evening on my way home from work I decided I needed to remedy the situation. I put my radio dial to seek and on the first station it landed on, I heard the voice of an old friend. His name is Kai Ryssdal and he's the host of Marketplace on NPR.

NPR! Of course, NPR! All Things Considered! Kai's voice! How could I have forgotten NPR! I loooooooved me some NPR back in the day, about five years ago when I was traveling 35 minutes in my car each way to work. I had NPR locked into my radio and that's all I would listen to. It made my drive much more bearable. For some reason I had stopped listening to it and had forgotten about it. I guess when I switched jobs I figured NPR wasn't needed because of my shortened drive or something? I don't know.

But I've brought NPR back into my life and I tell you, I'm loving it. Give me some All Things Considered on my drive home and I'm a happy girl. A bonus treat would be Ira Glass' This American Life program, but I have yet to catch it on the radio. I've said before and I'll say it again, I wish that Ira Glass' voice was inside my head, running a commentary on my life and reading my books to me. I dig his voice. (and yes I still think he's cute) The same goes for Kai. I could listen to those two gentlemen talk all.day.long. And it's not just their voices, I truly enjoy the news stories on NPR. I feel smarter and I feel more connected with the world. (major dork, yes, 'tis I) If I were to start my college career over, I would choose broadcast journalism as my major instead of print journalism and I'd be a reporter on NPR right now instead of working my PR gig. For sure.

Go NPR!