blankest year

Whenever I wear my new iPod shuffle--whether it is on trips to town to buy groceries or on jaunts from one end of campus to the other--I cannot help thinking I sold out. On so many levels. Some fuckin' socialist I am.

First, I had always criticized people who are equally glued to their portable music machines as they are to their mobile phones. (In the UK, there must be the quickest typists around; everyone is always texting away, and the sound annoys me like you would not believe. But I'm digressing.) It is very desensitizing and dehumanizing this Digital age we are living in. Before, I would comment that I am one of the few people on my university campus back home that could be seen walking to and from class without speaker buds in my ears, a cell glued to my ear, or even in some cases without a body walking in tandem with me. I went it alone. People are much more unapproachable when they're investing so much of their present, aural attention in something that keeps them from seeing what is round them.

Second, being on the other side of it now (owning and using the mp3 player in much the same way most do), I recognize I was right. I can't say whether or not it has made me feel even lonelier because I have always been lonely. But I think that if I continue to use it in these ways, it will only further hinder my socialization, which is already delayed as I am almost 21 years old. It doesn't help either that I use the device to block out the awkward stares I feel are being lasered in my direction as I walk to class. I am paranoid and ultra-sensitive. We've been through this before.

I will say that this brooch of just another branded commodity is in fact useful for when I want to shut out noisy neighbors at night. I lie awake in my bed, staring up at the ceiling, with my pink headphones (they're more comfortable than the ear buds that do not fit), lip-synching anthems. Like I would ever do that on my way to class.