I spent nine years doing a long commute back and forth to my middle school. Two hours in the car each day. I didn’t mind too much: I loved the job and I had discovered what, in those days, were literally books on tape. (CDs arrived sometime during those years as well.) I checked them out from the library, and with 10 hours a week to devote to listening, I moved through them pretty quickly.

Now, I work from home. I don’t miss commuting, but I do miss those two hours a day devoted to listening. I will still cue up a podcast or two at home, but it’s not the same as I’m usually doing something else while I’m listening so don’t always get the full story. So, I sort of look forward to days like today: I’m heading to Fredericksburg for a meeting. I’ll have three hours in the car. I’ve downloaded more than that many hours of podcasts. There’s a Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me episode, two hours of tomorrow’s Science Friday, an interview with John O’Donohue from On Being, a Kacey Musgraves Tiny Desk Concert, and two Fresh Air sessions about Lily Tomlin and David Foster Wallace.

So MUCH content! So LITTLE time! Now the only decision is what to listen to first.