Friday, December 01, 2006

Dialing It Down

I'm having a love-hate relationship with noise.

Generally speaking, I don't go for silence. In the past, when I'd come home from work I'd have to turn something -- anything -- on. With a little TV chatter in the background, it made me feel like there was somebody there. Now, when I come home with TinyTuna, the first thing she goes for is the Disney Channel, and I've quickly become that person that DESPISES the Disney channel with every fiber of her Oh How I Hate The Suite Life of Zack and Cody being. Raven, what happened? You were so damn cute in the Cosby Show, but now you're portraying yet another loud-mouthed, annoying, smarmy, smart-assed kid that I'd either like to slap or stuff a sock in your mouth. OK, really? Both. When the Disney Channel goes on (even in the small doses that are allowed in my house) I secretly wish for a power-outage to kill the noise.

These days I often turn to my faithful iPod. I love and adore my iPod. I have gotten much use out of the Podster, and have listened to more music (legally purchased, or things I own, thank you!) in the past six months than I have for years. This is a very good thing. But then, I start looking for more. And finding more. And the iTunes store tells me I might like this and that and dammit, I do. So I add more and more. And then "This American Life" up and goes free podcasts on me, and how can I turn THAT down? Answer: I can't. So I add more and more and ever more! Now I have so much stuff on my iPod, it doesn't tell me how many hours of music I have, it tells me how many DAYS of music I have. To be truthful, if it were really efficient, it would use Presidential Administrations and be done with it. You have enough songs to last from "Checkers" until "I did not have sex with that woman." Would you like to back up your playlists now? As much as I love my Ichapod, it might be getting out of control. I can't find songs I know I have, I can't remember names of artists, and I'm getting carpal thumbal syndrome whipping the click wheel at 265rpm trying to find that one song that I heard on shuffle a week ago Tuesday. How sad is it when I have so much music, it's turning into noise?

And then there is the Kingdom of the Internets. I have not been a particularly faithful contributing subject to Ye Olde Blogosphere for awhile, and consequently, these pages have been relatively quiet. I've managed to blame this, that and the other thing, but for whatever reason, it's been one of the few places where there hasn't been a lot of noise. And wouldn't you just know it, I miss it.

Today is opening day of Holidailies, 2006 and I, like many others have solemnly sworn to post daily for an entire month. Despite the quiet over the past several months, I am looking forward to holding up my end of the bargain for the third year running. Somewhere buried beneath the insanity that has taken over, there are some things to say and some stories to tell. Hopefully it won't be noise, it will be life.

I'm ready to find that mute button and get down to business.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I understand your battle with noise. I've gone from loving my rock music to loving my downbeat and classical. The less voices, the better.

As for Raven? Ugh! She's right up there with nails on a chalkboard. It's such a shame, but I have no love for that overly pert/flippant/cutesy version of the child that 'they' are trying to sell us.

Good luck with the writing - I'll be back :)