Random: Dream, Headphones, Puppet

 Had another dream that left me upset yesterday.  Bob and I were still working on campus, but my mother was apparently living in a campus facility as well.  I got off work and was driving home, and suddenly wondered why did I do that?  Just get in the car and go home alone?  Why didn't I go visit my mother - and then Bob could have walked over after work and we could have gone home together.

That one didn't take much interpretation. For the past few days, while I nursed the toothache, Bob or my mother would have said "oh, poor baby" and brought me ice cream or soup and taken care of things for me.  Instead, I came home alone.  Sigh.

I got headphones yesterday.  I listen to music a lot - while I'm doing dishes or folding laundry or working in the cottage.  It keeps me company.  Also, I have tinnitus, which is annoying as hell and listening to music helps drown it out a bit (I do miss silence so much - I would love to sit outside on a quiet evening with no distractions, but all I would be able to hear would be that damned screeching sound . . so, music.)

So sometimes I use the TV soundbar, often the portal in the kitchen, the old-fashioned CD players in the cottage.  Other times I just use my phone, with or without a bluetooth speaker.

But sometimes I *really* listen to music.  I pay attention to the harmonies, the arrangements, the subtleties.  And I hear other people saying things like "man - it's so cool when it sounds like it's going behind your head" or "what is that deep thrum in the background" and this is stuff that I'm just not hearing.  Hence, the headphones.  I'm not the type to wear them a lot (I've seen people in the grocery store wearing their headphones, fer cryin' out loud) because I like hearing the ambient sounds around me, but for really listening, they're great.

"Blink" - one of the best Dr. Who episodes ever - was first aired 16 years ago.  What does that have to do with my headphones?  I'm thinking about the scene where the geek guy is talking about how "he and the guys" are finding what's called Easter Eggs - hidden messages - in DVDs.   The girl gives a condescending smile and says "when you say 'the guys' you're talking about the internet, aren't you?"

And when I say people discussing the nuances of music - I'm talking about the internet.  Reading comments made on music videos.  Or listening to what are called "reactions" - people recording themselves listening and reacting to music.  Most of them are pretty banal "Oh, Wow That Sounds Really Good" but there are a few done by vocal coaches or musicians who really analyze it, and I learn a lot from them.  But yeah - if I want to listen to music with someone, I turn to the internet.

I often remember Bob, listening to a particular riff in "If You Could Read My Mind" and playing along on his fingers.  Sometimes asking me to shush if a song that he especially liked came on the radio while we were driving.

I do try.  There have only been a few times in the last three years where I've been in a position to try to share some music with someone, to share my pleasure in an arrangement, an interpretation, or a harmony.  And what happens is that about a minute into the song, whoever I'm trying to get to listen says "yeah, it's nice" and goes back to chatting - or back to looking at their phone.

So - the internet.  It's one sided, but you take what you can get.  
Hey - 2024 self, when you read this (because I do go back sometimes to read my posts) - slap on those headphones and revisit this one.  A cover of "The Sound of Silence."  It's a little hit-or-miss - he sort of wanders off the track at times, but I frickin' love when he gets to the part of 

People writing songs

that voices never share

And there are some lush harmonies leading up to that, but when it gets to "voices never share" they all drop off and it's just the solo wistful voice, alone.  Gets me in the feels, every time.

On to the puppet.  Not a lot of progress.  I still needed to make several sheets of felt for the body, which is fairly easy:  Layer wool on a sheet of bubble wrap, get it wet, roll it up around a pool noodle, and roll it vigorously to mat the fibers together.  It was the "vigorous" part that just wasn't going to happen for those days that my tooth was throbbing.

I was feeling better by yesterday, but I was having one of those days where I couldn't goad myself into doing anything.  Maybe because of that dream, or the fact that I didn't sleep well because my jaw still hurt and it was a bit stuffy last night.  I just didn't feel like doing stuff that should be done (i.e. chores).  I did at least go out in the late afternoon and made one sheet of felt and got the tail made.

Today I felt better - and ended up doing catch-up work.  Cleaned animal cages and did two loads of laundry (clothes and sheets) and cooked a big pot of quinoa to eat during the week, handwashed my linen blouse (not risking that handkerchief linen in the machine), got the trash together and taken to the dump, made bread, made a large batch of caramelized onions (I was given a 10-pound bag of onions), cleaned the two bathrooms.  I did, once again, go work on the puppet in the late afternoon and have the felt sewn onto the body.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll get my backside in gear and churn out some work on it - the Comic Con is in two weeks and there's a lot of work still to be done.

It will happen.  Adrianne was asking if I thought I would be done, and I told her it's my usual modus operandi so sort of putz along at something until I'm almost late and then doing a mad dash.  But I was literally born that way.  I've always liked the story of my nativity.  I was three weeks overdue.  Mom, on a dark and stormy night, announced to Dad that I would be appearing that night, and insisted on going to the hospital.  They checked her - no signs of labor at all, but I was quite overdue so they checked her in with the plans of inducing labor the next day.  In the middle of the night she had her first labor pain and checked the time.  I was out 17 minutes later.  And I've been that way ever since.