She’s No Fun, She Fell Right Over.

by Alexa on March 31, 2009

If you could read the rest of this with your fingers crossed, I think that would be best. And your legs—cross those too. While sitting under the sign of the cross, if at all possible. Is there salt where you are? Could you throw some of that over your left shoulder? With your right hand?

I am going to have a small piece on the radio tomorrow morning, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

My understanding is that it will air at both 6:21 and 8:21 a.m. Eastern, but local NPR stations sometimes switch things about to accommodate local stories, so to be safe, you should probably just do what I plan to, which is sit hunched over a radio from, say, 4:00 a.m. on. The piece will also be online at NPR’s website, and I will post a link tomorrow to the written and recorded versions.

I love public radio. When I was a little girl, we listened to it on every car ride and every weekend morning, and its familiar cadences soothe me. I find radio in general to be an especially evocative medium; I like to listen, you see. Many of my fondest family memories involve listening: first to bedtime stories read by my mother, and later to Firesign Theater albums, lines from which form many of our shared jokes. We listened to old broadcasts of Baby Snooks, flipped on Car Talk every Saturday despite having no knowledge of or interest in cars, and though I detest baseball, the sound of a game on the radio makes it instantly summer. Later, when spending time at my father’s house was becoming unbearable, the murmur of NPR coming from his radio all night long was a comfort. Radio stories stay with me—like the piece last year about socks, and how expensive toes are bringing American sock manufacturers to their knees—and radio is where I’ve discovered many of my favorite writers, from Ian Frazier to Sarah Vowell.
The first time I saw Ira Glass, I walked vast loops around the lobby of the theater where he was chatting with people—we’re talking maybe ten times around the lobby, looking like a lunatic—before I got up the nerve to speak to him. This American Life was the recipient of the first piece of writing I submitted as an adult. My mother met one of the producers in a bar, and told her about a project of mine. The producer was interested, we wrote back and forth, and I worked harder on that piece than I have ever worked on anything in my life. I read it to a tape recorder and played it back to edit, dozens of times. I am sure that those of you who write remember the first piece you sent off somewhere, the TORTURE of it, and when that piece was rejected I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe, and poured myself a glass of straight scotch—also my first—because it seemed like the thing to do when you’re suddenly crushed and unsure of everything and need bracing. As I recall, the part of the lengthy and very kind rejection email that smarted most was when the producer said I was “a nice writer.” Nice! Oh, the shame. Of all the adjectives she could have used to describe my prose, “nice” is the one she landed upon. Of course that was almost eight years ago, and I would hope that I am an even nicer writer, with thicker skin, now. And here I am, living the (very nerdy) dream.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into an epic love letter to radio (RADIO! YOU HAD ME AT “GOOD EVENING!”) so allow me to reiterate the important bit quickly, while you still have time to clear your morning schedules:

Wednesday! Me! Morning Edition!

I will post more tomorrow about the piece itself, and about what it was like to record it, but for now I am busy vacillating wildly between glee at the prospect of hearing my words come out of a speaker and terror at the fact that they will be delivered in my own voice.

She’s No Fun, She Fell Right Over.

I Wrote This.

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