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\u00a0them out from the library, and with 10 hours a week to devote to listening, I moved through them pretty quickly.<\/p>\n
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<\/a> episode, two hours of tomorrow’s Science Friday<\/a>, an interview with John O’Donohue from On Being<\/a>, a Kacey Musgraves Tiny Desk Concert<\/a>, and two Fresh Air sessions<\/a> about Lily Tomlin and David Foster Wallace.<\/p>\n So MUCH content! So LITTLE time! Now the only decision is what to listen to first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u00a0them out … Continue reading One Perk of Commuting<\/span>