w 00. 0 0W 0W Wensdv Fbuay13 01 / h7Saemn B Confessions of an NPR addict by Jesse Klein ann arbor affairs: courting a cam In the final vignette of the film any butterflies. I didn't leave with "Paris Je T'aime," an American a deep longing to return again. woman travels to Paris alone, eyes There were no sparks, no fire- wide with awe and bewilderment works and certainly no bouquets as she wanders aimlessly through of red roses. the City of Lights. When I returned to Columbus, Ohio during winter break of my C' freshman year, I wanted noth- ing more to do with Ann Arbor. I glanced at the University's pam- phlet sitting upon my old child- hood desk, the beaming faces taunting me as if to say, "Look how much fun you should be hav- ing!" PUS by bethany biron I was flattered enough to stick around. Our relationship endured, and the summer after sophomore year I found myself living in Ann Arbor completely alone for the first time in my life. My room- mate left for her summer job as a camp counselor in northern Michigan, and our apartment for two suddenly dwindled into an apartment for one. I decided to take the extra alone time to get to know Ann Arbor a bit more intimately - since we had made it this far, after all. I went on bike rides through the suburbs, spent hours thumbing through novels at Dawn Treader and traversed the Ann Arbor Farmers Market in search of the perfect tomato. Sometimes I ana- lyzed art for entire afternoons at UMMA and then licked frosting off my fingers at The Cupcake Station after hiking in the Arb. Could it be that I was developing feelings? One day in June, exhausted after cramming for an economics final, I walked out into the Law Quad and sat on that bench. A smile started to stretch across my face as I realized this town had won my heart. It had given me so many things to love. And, for the first time, I loved it back. ' It*1 Y v y I IMrM 4 rlw Her French is abysmal, and she hasn't fully grasped what she is doing there - all she knows is somewhere, hidden among -the pastel-colored macaroons and the Arc de Triomphe, there's some- thing she has yet to find. Sitting upon a park bench on the last day of her trip, the after- noon sun dancing whimsically across her face, she finally finds it. Her eyes begin to well with tears as she stares dreamily across the Parisian skyline, overcome with the realization that she is experi- encing true love for the first time. This particular scene resonates for me because I've been there. Not to Paris - to a similar look- ing bench in the Law Quad, upon which I too felt the unexpected warmth of adoration washing over me. This wasn't the roman- tic type of love - with its inter- twined hands, sweet nothings and coquettish grins - but the deep affection for a place, a landscape. However, my relationship with Ann Arbor wasn't love at first sight, as is the case with many great loves; it took time. Our first date didn't quite start off on the right foot. I didn't feel ILLUSTRATION BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND it Dissatisfied and disheartened, I began searching for other pros- pects, scouring the Internet for a better match, allured by the effer- vescent sunshine of University of California, Berkeley, the comfort and ease of Ohio State University. Never mind what their transfer rates. were, I was hell-bent on finding my academic soul mate. I returned to Ann Arbor in January and reluctantly agreed to let the city drag me on a sec- ond date. The second shot wasn't much better than the first, but this time I felt the faint glim- mer of belonging - of an insti- tution dedicated to reinstating my diminished sense of purpose and drive. I slowly started to feel inspired again. I started writing. I made friends. Ann Arbor hadn't knocked me head-over-heels, but f you asked my roommates what's the hardest part about living with me, they would probably say it's the fact that I listen to talk radio while I sleep. Apparently when the headphones fall out of my ears, it's super annoying to hear Carl Kasell's voice at two in the morning. I wouldn't know; I love him. . I don't listen to just any talk radio; this is NPR. National Public Radio. 88.5 FM is the station in my hometown. Characterized by economic, political and cultural programs with jazz interludes and possibly (read: prob- ably) the same voices from 40 years ago. I fall into three of the four characteristics for their demographic: early 50s, white, middle income with a liberal bias. And of course there's the annual pledge drive, which, to me, is the sound of my childhood. I have been listeningto NPR since I was six years old. My mom would drive my brother and me to Freemont, Calif. for our respective guitar and dance lessons. The soundtrack for the two-hour round trip was "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me," where I learned about all the different ways a criminal could steal sau- sages by stuffing-them into their pants. And on the way back, "This American Life" with Ira Glass's breathy monologues and amazing stories of the strange, the mundane and the almost impossible. And if we were lucky, and traffic was a little slow on the way back, we would catch the beginning of "Car Talk." On other nights, I remember staying up late with my family listening to the annual "Pretty Good Joke Show" and laughing at jokes I was too young to really understand. And I haven't even gotten to "A Prairie Home Companion," - which to this day I still don't understand all the time, but that doesn't stop me from listening. The sto- ries of Garrison Keillor (Private I) in Lake Wobegon makes me feel like I'm sitting near a crackling fire after having heard one of President Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats. After TV came along, radio was just music, news and sports. But on NPR, they're keeping the vintage style of radio alive, play- ing radio shows with episodes and characters and story lines, even though it's possible I'm the only one who's listening. Honestly, I'm not even sure when my fas- cination with NPR became a necessity; all I know is now I can't sleep unless "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me" is playing. When my 'mind won't turn off and all I want to do is calm down but instead I'm freaking out about an orgo exam, Peter Sagal is the only man I want in my bed. And when I don't want to leave the house because it's snowing and two degrees, the only thing that can distract me from the cold are the stories by Mike Birbiglia and David Sedaris. This summer, when the only song on the radio was Goyte's "Somebody That I Used To Know," I filled my ears with "Morning Edition." Part of my packing rou- tine for my frequent flights home is to upload my iPod with the most recent "Freakonom- ics" episodes - otherwise the six-hour flight feels like 20.And if I'm too lazy to uploadnew episodes, I'll listen to the same ones until I've memorized the 40-minute show. My friends tease me about it. My room- mates don't understand. I was once morti- fied in front of a sophomore history class for having more in common with my 70-year-old teacher than my classmates. I used my love of NPR in a college essay; it's a great source for dinner conversation and English assignments and even better for drowning out my dad's snoring on family vacations. I may be obsessed - addicted even. The medical definition of addiction reads: "A com- pulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance." Compulsive sounds like the right word to me. Neurotic, irresistible, habit-form- ing. The more I listen, the more I want new episodes of the shows and when there isn't, I settle for bottom of the barrel: NPR's "All Things Considered." I try pretty hard to keep my addiction hid- den in my headphones. Experience has taught me that drunk people get pretty brutal if you plug your iPod into the party speakers and instead of "Call Me Maybe" you accidentally get Glass's slightly creepy voice blaring out of the speakers. So yes, NPR could be my crutch. When- ever life's hard or too overwhelming I know I can escape into the dulcet tones of Kai Risdall. I block out the world by listening to experts discuss the biggest and most wide- spread issues. To most people this would probably make them more anxious. But my problems seem so small and silly in compari- son, and that's a relief. No matter how awful my test went or how shitty someone treated me, we're all screwed in the longrun anyway - including that asshole who cut me off this morning. JesseKlein is an LSA sophomore.