Have a little banjo with that drive (or, Why I Love Audiobooks)

I am not traveling anywhere today. Memorial Day in Eugene, the day before my thesis needs to be spot-on and uploaded to the ProQuest site, is exactly like any other Monday. Except that the gym is closed, and I don't have to go to my GTF job. So really it's more like any other weekend.

I used to lead a more interesting life, I promise. And after graduation, I will again.

In any case, driving is pretty much my favorite thing. I went to college thirteen hours from where I grew up, and that un-bending, un-rising, un-sinking stretch across ALL OF SOUTH DAKOTA was something that soothed rather than irritated me. It is also where I developed my love of audiobooks, with the fantastic Lenny Henry performance of Neil Gaiman's ANANSI BOYS. That book's all London and the Caribbean and godly dreamscapes, but for me, it's also Wall Drug and the Mitchell Corn Palace and that one awesome red barn with three windowed wedding-cake attics.

Audiobooks are good whenever, but there is something kind of phenomenal about listening to a whole performance in one unbroken go, watching the world roll back under your tires. Now I sometimes wish I had somewhere to drive just so I could listen to a good audiobook. I loved WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON, but I bet it would have been even more amazing accompanying a trip through the Columbia River Gorge and the mountain passes of eastern Oregon and northern Utah.

That said, there's a lot going for that other road trip staple: awkward musical interludes.

So, for those of you who DID spend today traveling (or those of you who, like me, are not but wish you were) and filled your time with either a fantastic audiobook or a good conversation with friends and family and therefore missed out on craaaaaazy musical antics, please enjoy Chris Traeger rocking out to un-sexy banjo music in this Parks and Rec clip:

Because I am pretty sure we all would rather be in that car than any other.