sound/less bubbles

a not-so-random memory: 

my first boyfriend, the redhead, putting a pair of earphones in my ears and pushing play on a Smashing Pumpkins song while we just lay there. it's the best, he said. having music right in your ears while you just zone out, your brain totally wrapped up in the sounds.

it's weird now to think of what a novelty cheap earphones were in 2004. for me. him. us. what a novelty having a boyfriend was, too, then.

and what a blip mp3-players were, eh? I never actually had one, unless you count an iPod touch as an mp3 player. but those things seem too internet-enabled and multifeatured to count, I think. 

 

recently I put a bunch of actual mp3 files onto my current phone. I like having a little pocketful of Imogen Heap and Jason Mraz and Death Cab for Cutie to carry around.

 

I must confess though, music doesn't effect me the way it seems to effect others. my brain treats it like wallpaper, most of the time. sometimes rather loud, ugly wallpaper and sometimes quite lovely, attractive wallpaper... but more often just there, on the walls, in the background, drawing very little attention to itself unless the lyrics are particularly striking.

 

falling asleep to white noise of some sort is one thing, but having my brain all wrapped up in any given sound... I don't always find that very pleasant. 

 

my sensitivity to sound seems to deepen the more I think about it. even with music piped directly into my ears, I can still hear the hum of the dishwasher and/or the air conditioning and/or the PlayStation 4 (which has gotten particularly vociferous in its old age). when the neighbor's power tools and the traffic going by and dog park noise from across the way is all piling up around me, I hate this sensitivity. 

 

on the other hand, when little Hamilton is chewing on something he shouldn't be under the bed in the other room, it does come in handy to be able to hear the difference between pug teeth on a proper chew toy and pug teeth on a stolen ballpoint pen.
 

too much sound makes me edgy and irritable. so in pursuit of a world without so much irritation, I acquired a new set of fancy earphones today. they are the wireless bluetooth kind, and they come with two noise-canceling modes. I never thought I'd feel like I needed wireless earphones... but after lots of research and review-reading and consideration, these came out as the most effective and comfortable option.

will they trap me further within a bubble of my own endlessly unvoiced thoughts? I hope not entirely.

 

also I still think someone definitely needs to write about how headphones have done for music what widespread literacy and silent reading practices have done for books-- i.e. make them very private, internal experiences instead of communally shared ones. though perhaps someone somewhere already has and their article is just not on my radar yet.