In Defense of the Unfaithful

Other than the fact that my youngest sister had the nerve to graduate without me being at the ceremony, nothing much happened this week. I went to Nagoya this weekend for training, and it was great to see people that I had met at orientation last month, but I was too tired from being up all night making my sister a “sorry I cant be there” video, that the training felt like a dream, mostly likely because I dozed though it. Well, not really, but I was definitlely slap-happy the entire time. when I got home yesterday I slept for 11 hours. I cant remember the last time I had done that.

Since it’s been relatively uninteresting this week, for entertainments sake I figured I would post this old entry I found halfway written never actually posted.

EDIT: To clear up some confusion, this entry was originally written in Austin after my car (actually, my sisters) got broken into last year. This did not happen in japan.

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It is my belief that Apple is the first company to successfully manufacture love. How else can I explain the deep feelings of loss that I had when my car got broken into and my ipod, which I considered my only romantic interest of the past year, was stolen from me.

For a few days I drove around in a muted purgatory. My feelings waffled between mourning the loss of something so dear to me and cursing it for not having some way to resist the thief…  but maybe it didn’t want to resist? Maybe it was tired of the songs I forced it to play, and decided to leave me for someone else? Someone more dangerous, whose talents included lurking in back alley parking lots and breaking passenger windows. Or perhaps my iPod broke the window of its own accord? Maybe it wished upon that same star as Pinocchio did so long ago, gained the gift of sentience and, fed up with its life of servitude, leapt through the passenger side window to see the world.

The answers to these questions would never be known. Whatever the reason though, one fact remained; my iPod had left me and it hurt bad. For a couple days, at least. I guess time and boredom heals all wounds. Soon my ears began looking for someone new to replace the hole in my audioheart.

Since my car lacked a CD player, I began slumming around the radio dial in hopes of finding some floozy of a station to take my mind off getting dumped. After a couple of indiscretions with a classic rock station and one of those 'we-play-anything-as-long-as-it-was-a-hit-at-one-time-or-another' stations, I found a broadcaster that picked me up on the rebound.

In the interest of privacy I wont tell you the station's full name, but its initials are k.o.o.p./k.v.r.x. A community radio during the day and The University of Texas student radio at night. It was the perfect mix. The motto, “None of the hits, all of the time.” resonated with me. Often interesting, sometimes boring, but always eclectic, the wounds that seemed so tender before now seemed less so when I listened to 91.7. But something happened last Friday night which both sparked this diatribe and gave me a sign that this signal and I may be better off as friends.

Allow me a tangent.

Living in Texas, I have come to accept the fact that I am a non-practicing footballist residing in a football-crazed mecca. While I dont think I will ever in my life care enough about the sport to track progress of any team throughout a season, I am not a hater of the sport. I went to my first college game last winter to see my sister's boyfriend play, and managed to have a great time. However, every once and a while some aspect of the game makes its way into my life in an undesirable way, and I cant help but feel a little resentful.

I accept the fact that, on the rare occasion I watch network television, a Sunday night program I might usually enjoy will not be aired because a game is being broadcast instead. Network television is big business; you air what the majority wants to watch to get those ratings that lead to ad revenue. I am ok with this. I can also accept that traveling around the UT campus and surrounding areas will be difficult sometimes because of game traffic. But my line is crossed, my strings broken, my drumsticks break, my piano gets detuned when great musical programming is interrupted on the radio to broadcast a high school football game.

I am left to wonder why. Was the local high school game sold out? Do local high school football games typically sell out? Are there fans sitting outside of the game, tailgating and listening to the radio as a sort of consolation for being denied access to a high school game? And why do it on my new favorite station.

Driving home from work that particular Friday night; I wanting nothing more than to unwind with some music I’d never heard before. Friday nights had become my favorite night to listen to KVRX because the lineup was usually the best of the weeks musical offering. However, this night I heard nothing but the play by play of a football game that was meaningless to me. I felt let down.

It’s been a few weeks now, and I still mostly listen to KVRX, but I’ve been unfaithful after that night. I listen to other stations on the side now. We are no longer exclusive in our relationship.

And some nights I just aimlessly wander the band, from 88.0 to 108.0; hoping, searching, praying that someone is nearby using the FM transmitter that left with my iPod. The transmitter, like my love, had a radius of 30 feet. I would gladly scour a 30-foot radius to find my true love again... but not much farther, I get tired easily.