I spent yesterday in the car. I also spent Sunday in the car. While I was physically alone, I aurally (and maybe emotionally) spent the day with Ira Glass and the motley crew that contributes to This American Life. And while I spent the hours between 2 and 4 pm Tuesday afternoon wondering what it says about me that I have an exhaustive knowledge of This American Life and that I socialize with people who can and do exhaustively discuss This American Life, I came home to find that the crew from This American Life is actually everywhere.
Let me prove how I know they're taking over:
1. I saw David Sedaris read live Saturday night in Easton. He was staying in Bethlehem. We were practically neighbors and it made me very, oddly happy.
2. I came home to my TiVoed The Daily Show and found Sarah Vowell promoting the paperback version of The Wordy Shipmates. I have listened to that audio book more than once (ditto for The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Assassination Vacation) and was comforted to learn that someone else gets a kick out of the Puritans and the "city on a hill" references.
3. I started reading Susan Burton and Michael Agger's "Freaky Fortnight" feature on Slate. They've switched roles and jobs for two weeks and are writing about it - she's working at Slate doing his job and he's staying at home doing her job with the kids and nominally freelancing. If you click the link it's worth the read. Due to her work on the radio, I feel a strange sense of completion since most of her stories revolve around her life before her children and family.
4. Every now and again, Dan Savage is everywhere.
5. I actually understand the "thank yous" at the end of each episode.
6. I spend a good number of episodes trying to figure out what the Torey Malatia joke will be.
And the funny thing is, I'm mostly cool with all of this. But, I have to wonder if this also makes me sort of very uncool.
