Meeting Ira Glass

Ira Glass came to the Ann Arbor Borders today to promote the This American Life DVD (in stores now!). I, of course, was beyond excited; meeting Ira Glass is the equivalent of that "Leave Britney ALONE!" kid from YouTube meeting the lovely (but deeply troubled) Miss Spears. After all, I had recently listened to a years' worth of This American Life on long journey to Pakistan and felt that in that short span of time I knew Ira.

He always seemed so genuinely interested in people's stories; there wasn't this objective distance that many journalists convey when dealing with their subjects. On the show, he also seemed so perceptive - finding a universal meaning in the most mundane, yet entertaining, of events. Now, of course, there is always that element of distrust wherein public figures rarely match their on-screen persona. For instance, the perky Rachel Ray from 30 Minute Meals seems as if she's a chirpy girl-next-door, but she was recently caught in an alleged diva moment when she demanded Starbucks coffee on the set of her Dunkin' Donuts commercial.

He did an hour-long Q&A session, in which I learned that Ira Glass was even wittier and nicer than on the radio. When he talked about work with a creative element, I was thisclose to dropping out of medical school and pitching idiosyncratic stories to This American Life for the rest of my working career. And so, Abby, Farrah, Sophie and I excitedly stood in line to get our DVDs signed. Weirdly, we were given a post-it note and told that we could have an inscription of our choice. Farrah and Abby had cute, witty ideas, and I literally suffered from a case of performance anxiety. Finally, I settled on, "Mariam, love the blog! Ira Glass."

The blog comment proved to be a very worthy segueway when Ira Glass asked me the address to our worthy website and told me to write it down for him. This was probably the highlight of everyone's evening. I then told him: "Wow you're even better in real life than on the radio," which I'm sure had this creepy element to it since it's not everyday that short, brown girls in medical school give Ira Glass comments that linger on borderline harassment.

Nevertheless, Ira Glass, if you are reading this, we love your show, and you are not a diva in the manner of Rachel Ray at all. And I literally talk about the show everyday with Farrah and Abby (in fact, in the past month, I think it's been the only topic of conversation). And below are links of our favorite blogs (if you feel that there is a story idea for This American Life within the depths of our humble blog):

Mariam:
Foreign Parents
It's Never Over: Ira Glass and Me
The Dark Side of the Gym
Studying is Serious Business

Farrah:
My Torrid Affair with Haute Couture
Hallway Etiquette
The 3-Hole Punch is the Water Cooler of Medical School
Oh, that Kayak, It's just something I built last weekend with my bare hands

Mariam and Farrah joint venture:
How to be Girly: Lesson 3: Anatomy of a Facebook Profile

--By Mariam, who is overly excited by this whole Ira Glass encounter and will probably relay this to individuals who a) don't care and b) don't even know what station NPR is on with a zealous animation that will make it seem as if she was Plaxico Buress or Eli Manning last Sunday.