My mp3 player saves me

Riding on the bus (and generally being car-less and license-less in this town) requires a certain degree of letting go and allowing what will happen to happen. This is fine for me. I can sit there and watch people on the bus or in nearby cars, and I'm fine being alone in the crowd with my thoughts.

Unless I'm late.

All those annoyances I mentioned in last Tuesday's entry are ten times greater to me, and I start losing my mind at every little delay. Normally when I get to feeling this way, I end up being a jerk to my family until I realize that I'm being a jerk, at which point I try to shut up and take control of my emotions. In this case, I've only got total strangers around me, and I can't be a jerk to them, no matter how much they bother me with their unreasonable desire to get off at the stop most convenient for them. Therefore, I never impose it upon myself to not be so bothered. As a result, in the past I've gone silently nuts and then felt like hell upon disembarking.

Then sometime during the summer when I was going to be late again, I remembered my mp3 player in my backpack, and quickly got it out and put it to a song that I've found to be invigorating ("Aphelion" by Fridge. I've linked to their myspace page, where you can listen to it. Be warned: it's a ten-minute instrumental). Lo and behold, my mind relaxed its strangling grip on everything I'd have perceived moments earlier to be a slowdown, and I just listened to music and looked at people and let my mind wander again.

Because I tend to know I'm going to be late before I get on it, the last bus I ride is a pot in which I can potentially stew for at least twenty-five minutes. Once I realize my brain has begun its spiral of annoyance and impatience and frustration, I pop in my earphones and let it stretch out. I'm no less late than I was going to be, but at least I'm thinking straight when I get there.