It isn’t easy. I resigned from my job at 41 – medical reasons and all that – which means for the last 17 years I literally had nothing I have to do. Oh sure, there’s an appointment here and lunch with a friend there, but filling my days is a bit of a challenge. For the first couple of years, I watched tv and chain-smoked. I didn’t even bother with my daily ablutions. My only interaction with people was with my caregivers, the men and women I pay to take care of me. Why would I get all dolled up for them? – they’re being paid to put up with me!
I saw all 456 episodes of Law & Order (the original 20 season run before the 2022 revival) and spent a lot of time on the Internet. It’s not all porn! I’ll grant you there’s a lot of that, and I’m not so precious that I haven’t looked at some of it. But my main interest used to be “chat rooms,” places where people of like mind gathered; there wasn’t much point to it, other than a kind of virtual camaraderie. I made a few friends, two of whom I met IRL (IRL is chatspeak for a face-to-face encounter away from computers and screens “in real life”).
I stopped watching tv (and now, streaming) during the day when I was enjoying a cup of coffee and a cigarette one morning and found myself wondering what the ladies on The View were going to be discussing and really looking forward to it. That was a real moment of clarity for me. And I stopped smoking (to which I had dedicated every waking moment of my adult life up to that point) when blood clots known as pulmonary emboli lodged in both my lungs making it impossible to breath without mechanical assistance. I am really into breathing!
Over the last decade, chat rooms have become virtually non-existent (no pun intended!), but I still spend a fair amount of my day on the Internet, researching things I’m interested in and/or writing about in my online journal – taxpoodle.net. Taking inspiration from the 19th century philosopher and dog lover Arthur Schopenhauer, many of whose views about life, ethics, aesthetics, and the nature of reality I happen to agree with, I have divided the day into set periods of occupation with productive activities such as reading, writing, and gardening, and included time for leisure and entertainment in the evening. It is for your entertainment that I want to share with you something on the Internet I recently stumbled upon.
I love music. Pretty much all kinds. Well, except country. I’m even coming around to Rap by way of Hip Hop! I try to stay open to it all. Except the country – I really don’t want to hear about your truck, or your girl, or your gun, or your beer and whiskey soaked dreams; I’d rather give myself a paper cut.
I have an extensive iTunes library. I tend to buy a song here or there if it pops into my head or gets used in something I’m streaming or on a commercial (who would have ever thought Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” would end up as the soundtrack for a financial planning service?). I’ve got everything from Joni Mitchell to Charli XCX, and NO COUNTRY! I love putting iTunes on ‘shuffle,’ then closing my eyes and reclining in my chair. The songs take me on a journey through my life; they transport me to the times and places I first heard them, they stir in me the emotions I felt then, and the juxtaposition with the now brings into rather stark relief just how amazing, scenic, precarious, fulfilling my road has been, and how unlikely. The whole experience is a form of visceral meditation where I can turn off my “monkey mind” for awhile.
I love the randomness of my iTunes shuffle; when I start, I don’t know where I’m going, how I’m going to get there, or where I’ll end up. There’s just one catch. It’s random, yes, but it’s randomly selecting music I’ve already purchased at some point, so the pool of randomness is already full of water I’ve filled it with. Which is why I appreciate the ducks.
At Duck Radio, real ducks choose what the station plays. There are six ducks in someone’s yard somewhere that change the radio station whenever they want by pecking at a sensor. The site tells you when the ducks changed the station last. There’s a little animated dancing duck at the top of the screen to focus on, or, like me, you can just close your eyes and go with it.
This is truly random. I love it. I really have to ‘let go’ and let the ducks take me for a ride, because there’s no way of knowing when they will change the station, or what will come on next. For example, right now I’m listening to some Melissa Etheridge on public radio, but this morning, while having my coffee, it was a song called “When life gives you stones, build an altar” on Joy FM Real Music, which I figured to be a Christian music station which was confirmed when I heard a commercial for Gullion’s Christian Supply and Homeschool Headquarters in North Carolina. It’s not always music; yesterday, I spent 8 minutes listening to a discussion of bereavement on some news/talk station in the midwest. When I looked up the names of the towns mentioned, it was Kansas.
The idea behind this site is just so novel and so much fun, and it’s got me to listen to lots of stuff I wouldn’t normally ever have heard. I’ve really committed to the randomness of it. As far as I’m concerned, the ducks are in control. But Christian supplies and homeschools? !!! That was a tough listen.
It’s still preferable to country though.